Why do Bosmer get Alchemy?

[tatortodd22]

Bosmer get a natural bonus to Alchemy as one of their racial skills. This doesn't make much sense to me. If the race is restricted by the Green Pact from using any vegetation from Valenwood, what makes them better alchemists as a race? They consume only meat. This could possibly open up to potions made only of animal parts (bone meal, butterfly wings, fat, etc.) and the wiki says they are infamous brewers, getting creative with fermented meats and milks, but still, alchemy focuses on mixing plant ingredients.

Any thoughts? I can't decide whether or not my Bosmer should be allowed to drink potions.

[Mekorosi]

They probably use herbs and the like from other regions. Just how the bows they use are made from wood taken from trees outside Valenwood, perhaps the ingredients used to make potions and poisons are from outside sources.

[Avron the S'wit]

You have to allow some wiggle room between game mechanics and lore. You could probably say a potion made with ingredients outside of Valenwood might be safe with a Bosmer; or perhaps their study and respect of the flora is what makes them such good alchemists, since they are so attuned to that realm of the world. In reality it's perhaps not entirely impossible to create a system that disallows things like that (blocking a Bosmer from drinking said potions in game), but it's not really applicable or reasonable at the game mechanics level, and since TES is a sandbox you can allot as strict or free an attention to the lore as you wish. That's the beauty of it!

[Yaije]

/shrug

I make potions from insect and animal parts. Poisons too if I an procure the parts. I never particularly thought of alchemy as exclusive or even primarily about combining plant material, though with skyrim it's a bit hard to not find plant material for any potion.

[Mod-Loving Wood Elf]

/shrug

I make potions from insect and animal parts. Poisons too if I an procure the parts. I never particularly thought of alchemy as exclusive or even primarily about combining plant material, though with skyrim it's a bit hard to not find plant material for any potion.

Correct. Not all alchemy has to involve plant matter. Bosmer could alchemically be skilled with bones and fats and antlers and human hearts and whatever, right?

[tatortodd22]

/shrug

I make potions from insect and animal parts. Poisons too if I an procure the parts. I never particularly thought of alchemy as exclusive or even primarily about combining plant material, though with skyrim it's a bit hard to not find plant material for any potion.

Correct. Not all alchemy has to involve plant matter. Bosmer could alchemically be skilled with bones and fats and antlers and human hearts and whatever, right?

I mentioned that, and yeah I agree. But it's still shaky for me. Maybe I'll use potions I find and only mix potions out of animal bits. Even if they imported their ingredients, though, I'd feel that their skills wouldn't be that adept, exactly because they have to import their ingredients. I could just be getting picky.

[Yaije]

Why would they be less adept at mixing simply because they have to get the materials from elsewhere? The art of alchemy isn't about where/how you get teh raw goods, but how you manipulate them to coax out specific properties.

[Travalanche]

Probably because poison works great with archery.

[Theificka]

Alchemy is all about combining ingredients with hidden magical properties in order to achieve a resulting magical brew, this can come from ANY source, even humans have these hidden properties within them.

It makes sense to do it anyway because they can use plant ingredients outside of Valenwood.

[Finn Wolfshorn]

There's also mushrooms, which aren't plants and therefore shouldn't be covered by the Green Pact. Combine various animal body parts, shrooms and substances you can loot from the corpses of undead, ice-wraiths, wispmothers e tutti quanti, and there's a lot of brewing you can do without resorting to plant material (even if you don't play on PC; for those who do, there's Real Wildlife Skyrim, which adds a load of animal ingredients).

Anyway, thanks for rubbing my nose into this question; I also have a religious Bosmer among my characters but hadn't thought of this yet, although it should have been rather obvious. I've decided it's ok to use plants found as loot (better use it than letting it rot), but will refrain from picking them myself or buying them from merchants in the future.

The next question is, of course, why do Bosmer get Archery? And how do I make my own arrows without chopping wood? (Which also means I can forget about Hearthfire for this character; but that's ok, he's more of a camper anyway.)

[Mehra Milo]

The next question is, of course, why do Bosmer get Archery? And how do I make my own arrows without chopping wood? (Which also means I can forget about Hearthfire for this character; but that's ok, he's more of a camper anyway.)

You could make arrows out of bones

[Finn Wolfshorn]

^...and bows from horns or antlers, I know. What I'll probably end up doing (bar a Bosmeri Orthodoxy mod) is chop firewood and pretend it's bones.

[tatortodd22]

There's also mushrooms, which aren't plants and therefore shouldn't be covered by the Green Pact. Combine various animal body parts, shrooms and substances you can loot from the corpses of undead, ice-wraiths, wispmothers e tutti quanti, and there's a lot of brewing you can do without resorting to plant material (even if you don't play on PC; for those who do, there's Real Wildlife Skyrim, which adds a load of animal ingredients).

Anyway, thanks for rubbing my nose into this question; I also have a religious Bosmer among my characters but hadn't thought of this yet, although it should have been rather obvious. I've decided it's ok to use plants found as loot (better use it than letting it rot), but will refrain from picking them myself or buying them from merchants in the future.

The next question is, of course, why do Bosmer get Archery? And how do I make my own arrows without chopping wood? (Which also means I can forget about Hearthfire for this character; but that's ok, he's more of a camper anyway.)

Well it depends on what came first: was their culture formed by the bow, or was the bow formed by the culture? They are nimble, quick, sneaky people that live in dense forests and are very passive/defensive as a people. These defensive tendencies could draw them to the bow, as well as a small physique. A weaker person doesn't need much strength to hammer an arrow into an enemys heart. It just fits their cultural personality well

[Gideon Dragontongue]

The next question is, of course, why do Bosmer get Archery?

That's like asking why Dunmer get a bonus to Destruction, or Nords get a bonus to Two-Handed. It's an intrinsic part of their culture, and the one area in which no other race can so easily excel. As woodsmen, in terrain that makes guerrilla warfare the only feasible option, bows would naturally be the best suited weapon to the environment.

[Finn Wolfshorn]

Sure, and my question wasn't really dead serious; but I'd still think that for a people with a religious taboo against using wood, the bow isn't exactly the most intuitive of inventions. They could, of course, have imported the idea from another culture and replicated it in bone and horn; and there's the question of the chicken and the egg, meaning their use of the bow could actually predate the Green Pact - which would probably be the easiest explanation.

Anyway, didn't mean to turn this into an archery thread.

[CBR JGWRR]

Don't they allow using stuff from outside Valenwood? So wooden houses, bows, firewood, plant based potions etc would all be allowable because they are in Skyrim, not Valenwood?

I can't remember for certain...

[Avron the S'wit]

The first post in this thread should answer that for you, CBR.

[CBR JGWRR]

The first post in this thread should answer that for you, CBR.

opps... *facepalm*

Unslaad krosis...

[tatortodd22]

Sure, and my question wasn't really dead serious; but I'd still think that for a people with a religious taboo against using wood, the bow isn't exactly the most intuitive of inventions. They could, of course, have imported the idea from another culture and replicated it in bone and horn; and there's the question of the chicken and the egg, meaning their use of the bow could actually predate the Green Pact - which would probably be the easiest explanation.

Anyway, didn't mean to turn this into an archery thread.

Yeah I suspect that the bow came before their pact, and they adapted it into bone materials and the like afterward.