Snow Elves and Dwemer, probably. Though one of those races has been turned into the skin of a giant metaphysical brass golem, and the other have devolved to Lord Voldemort with mer ears, so they can't exactly lay claim to the land.

Reachmen are the product of thousands of years of racial intermingling between Nords, proto-Bretons, Direnni aldmeri, ayleid refugees, redguards, colovians, and orcs, essentially every major influence in eastern High Rock and western Skyrim; the Reach.

I won't go into a lot of the racial/policial aspects of the Forsworn, but my character is a Breton and gets attacked by the forsworn every chance they get so....... To make a long story short I kill any I come across.

[SPOILER] well, i read in one of the books that the forsworn sign a deal with a witch that gave them more power to defeat an army, that's why the briarhearts are stronger and have a briar heart, also that's why you always see them with hagravens.

I've always thought they were more specifically Bretons, Nords, and native Orcs. With their attitude, it seems as though they would just slaughter anybody else.

Need to close that spoiler tag there brother.

Well, here's the thing. The Forsworn probably pushed somebody out of that land too. Some ancient group of elves, somebody. Not many people on either Nirn or Earth can say they're the first people to live on that stretch of land, and not many people can be said to be the second people living there either, after having pushed out the first. I wonder if some people are mentally comparing the Forsworn to American Indians, with Nords being equivalent to the European settlers - hence the "white guilt" reference I made in another thread about this thread.

But the only way you can look at the history of North American colonization in that way is if you lump together American Indians as one group, so that the story is "American Indians came across a land bridge and lived peacefully until white people showed up and booted them off their land". That doesn't at all make sense given that the ancestors of Native Americans came from Asia over a very long period of time, with later groups certainly displacing earlier ones - so it certainly makes it illogical to adopt the "American Indians = original people, European Settlers = displacing latecomers" division. If a given group of American Indians were descended from people who came over in, for example, a third or fourth wave of migration, how are they "invadees" while European settlers are "invaders", given that the proto-Amerindians of the fourth wave certainly invaded those of the third wave, who displaced those of the second wave, who pushed out those from the first wave, who were the only people who could claim to have found a truly unoccupied land?

Similarly, in Tamriel, yeah, maybe the Nords simply showed up and pushed out the Reachmen. That might well be, although I don't think that there's much to be justly done about it given that it probably happened a thousand years ago. But even still, the Forsworn can't claim any sort of superiority, because unless they're descended from the very first settlers of the area who settled a totally unoccupied land then they obviously pushed out whoever was there before them too.

So anybody defending the Forsworn in their fight against the Nords is just not thinking the history through completely. That's even before we get into the question of their using human sacrifice as part of their religion. Cortez was probably a bit of a dirty SOB, but at least he wasn't ripping out the still-beating hearts of thousands of war-captives, you know?

Reading the http://uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Breton, I wouldn't be surprised if all Bretons hated each other, since they're so divided. They probably don't have an official stance on them as a whole.

Umm no High Rock is supposed to be like medieval france, Bretons even have french sounding names. A native Breton of High Rock would probably look down on the forsworn more then the Nords.

^This
Bretons are far too busy killing each other to give a [censored] about some barbarians who refuse to accept civilization anyway.

The Forsworn are barbarians. The reason you can't join them is because they are Xenophobic. They will not trust anyone who is not Forsworn (or Hagraven, the objects of their worship). If there was an option to start as a Forsworn or former Forsworn, NO ONE IN THE GAME WOULD TRUST YOU! The Forsworn would kill you for being a traitor, and everyone else would see you as a threat.

Bretons are loosely based off Medieval France and Medieval Britain. Possibly some small Germanic Influence, but Nords have more of that than them.

See, I guess I'm thinking of the Bretons as being more akin to the older Celtic groups, like the Britons of the pre-Roman and Roman days - the pre-Anglo-Saxon times, basically - rather than later medieval French and English.

Oh no, I know their not justified. Nords are just boring and therefore, in my player character eyes, should be fought against as much as possible.

Also, like I said, I look at the Reachmen as Bretons minus Aldmeri influence, in other words, pre-Roman pre-Saxon Celts.

well, to be more specific, the red eagle book could explain it better than i did.

Exactly. That's what makes them so great. They are BAT [censored] [censored] CRAZY! AND I LURV IT!

But...but they're Vikings! How can you not like Vikings??!


Yeah, I can see that.


True, I guess I I'm just a little bit paranoid about threads being moved to the spoiler forum where nobody pays attention to them.

Gah. Can't deal with human-sacrificing savages.

I can!

And about the vikings thing, I'm pretty sure that was humor, but I went through this faze where I listened to nothing but black metal and was all into my Scandanavian heritage, so vikings just bore me to death at this point. Besides, I'm more thickly Scots-Irish than Danish.

EDIT: We should probably move this to the lore forum. The discussion will be both more fluid and last longer over there.

Then there is that intense devotion to their cause. See, I find it interesting how they approach the situation. In Madanach's own words...

"Some of us refused to bow. We knew the old ways would lead us back to having a kingdom of our own. That is who we are. Criminals in our own lands. And we will cut a bloody hole in http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/The_Reach until we are free."

Their general philosophy is: Decimate everybody and everything until we are in power again, then just do our thing unless we are threatened. They feel all this blood shed is necessary. They are reaching their own Heaven through violence.

They are even more devoted to their cause than those bloody Stormcloaks. Funny, that I regard them as cudgel wielding barbarians while revering The Forsworn as the greatest thing ever. Why? Nords. Are. Boring.

Ah. Yeah, I can see how inundating yourself with black metal might get you sick at the mention of Viking warriors and Odin and such.

Yeah, I can't even watch The 13th Warrior anymore without getting a sharp pain in my skull.

Ouch. That's too bad. Excellent movie, but yeah, I can't do the black metal thing myself. I can deal with a bit of old-school Black Sabbath and the occasional Metallica tune, but beyond that I'm no metal-head. Loud rock and roll, like Guns'n'Roses, Velvet Revolver, The Rolling Stones, The six Pistols, AC/DC - that's the stuff for me. Basically a lot of stuff that music stores used to mis-classify as metal but isn't metal.

Quickly, before the mods realize we have strayed off topic!

Uhm, Forsworn, yeah, how bout' them.

You wouldn't happen to know how to request a thread be moved, because there would be more than two of us in this discussion if we could get it to the lore forum.

Really? I didn't know people bothered with more than the General Discussion forum and maybe the technical forums for bugs. I'd have to bookmark the thread if it moves anywhere, because I tend to almost exclusively post in the Skyrim General Discussion forum.

I thought they were former Arkansas meth addicts from an Ozarks trailer park who suddenly found themselves transported to a magical land... and they're really pissed off about it.

There are far fewer people in the lore forums (about 20 or so regulars), but they are also far, far more dedicated and interested in discussion/theories/speculation. You'll get a lot more depth out of discussion there than here. Sides', this thread just fits better there.

Well, suggest away to the mods then. If it fits better in the Lore forum then so be it.