Everybody knows that Skyrim had nords on everything - it's lore, the promo videos, etc... which somewhat made me think twice before making any non-nord character, yet still I made my dunmer mage.

Then you see that every nord in this game hates magic(even though many of their ancestors were great mages/battlemages) and so Dragonborn came out, and Miraak himself is a nord, which made me even more sad to be a non-nord dragonborn. I like the fact that the story goes on Solstheim and has plenty of dunmers, yet, it's clearly focused mostly on the Skaal, who are nords!

I'm the OCD type of player and I believe that everything must match perfectly with the lore, and being a non-nord character as well as a mage makes me tic, specially now with the Dragonborn DLC.

Does anybody here feels the same way?

I have over 1200 hours in Skyrim I can only play Nords. This game feels like it was designed specifically for Nords wielding 2 handers and to a lesser extent archery characters they also mix well. The shouts complement 2 handed wielders. You can use shouts and magic with them and transition back smoothly. Dual wield is plagued with requipping issues, board and sword has trouble requipping the shield. A pure magic character using shouts just feels unnatural to me and I've used dozens of fun magic mods. I tried multiple magic characters with over a dozen mods specifically for magic characters and it still doesn't feel right. It's not like I haven't tried to give other races a try. There are some fantastic mods that redo Elven races and orcs and still I struggle to get a non two weilding non Nord character past 20.


I hope Bethesda never repeats this in the future because I used more races in Morrowind and Oblivion.. I'd also like to see different starts also because prisoner start in every game is boring. ( I know there is mods for alternate starts but they are very generic starts)

There are people who feel this way, that's why most players chose Nord as their first character. To me it doesn't matter and I noticed that roleplayers usually don't have a problem with creating a non-Nord Dragonborn - you're the one who invents the story, after all. My own 'canon' Dovahkiin is a female Imperial, her story is very consistent and makes sense within the universe.

You should remember that there's no such thing as a canon Dovahkiin. Bethesda never reveals the race, gender or profession of the protagonist (with the exception of the Nerevarine, but even then it's debatable) - who you are doesn't matter, what you do is important. You can be absolutely anyone and it won't contradict the lore or non-existent canon. The posterboy is just marketing, it would be difficult to showcase the Dragonborn as a genderless, raceless person Could be done if everything was showed in first person view, but that may not be the best marekting strategy.

As for magic, well, it's not so simple. It's not that Nords are incapable of magic, they just distrust it - but some of the greatest mages in Tamriel were Nords, just look at Shalidor. A Nordic youngster is much more likely to become a warrior than a mage, but is it so incommon in the real world to choose a different path than your parents envisioned for you? It takes courage and an open mind to become interested in magic after being brought up in a non-magical environment, but someone had to build the College of Winterhold, right?

For the record, I've never played as a Nord in Skyrim (or in any TES game, for that matter). Never saw a problem with it.