Hello fellow elder scrolls fans! I was looking around the official elder scrolls online forums when I ran across concept art for a place called "elden wood". At first I was concerned that this town was an altmer settlement, which would have dissapointed me as it seemed too generic to fit with the bizzare, alien culture of elves TES lore (Really: read up on it, they're awesomely weird). Upon further research, however, I discovered that the truth was far, far worse.

It's a bosmer town.

First, take a look at the picture: http://elderscrollsonline.com/en/media/concept-art/309

Notice anything off? How about the wooden buildings? The most unique thing about the bosmer is their reverse-veganism. They can't eat or use plant matter. They smoke grubs out of bone pipes, they eat their dead, they refuse to cut down any of their own wood. They drink fermented pig's milk instead of beer for goodness sake! It's why their society is so awesomely primitive in a lot of ways, and why they rely on stronger empires for resources and protection.

Did Zenimax just forget this?

It says that this city was the capitol of Valenwood under the aldmeri dominion. Did the altmer just donate their own wood? Why even do that if the bosmer already have architectural methods of their own? Maybe there is a way to rationalize it, but do you guys think this a sign of zenimax not paying attention to lore? Or is this just an INTENDED exception and valenwood at large will stay true to the lore?

It is a lore fact that Bosmer cannot use wood from Valenwood. There are several accounts of them importing wood for use in building materials and bows and arrows though. So if there are wooden houses, they were likely imported.

There is nothing inherently wrong with wooden buildings in Valenwood. I suggest brushing up on your Bosmer lore.

God Op, such panic. Elden Root is far from Bosmer town during TESO. " Elden Root is a city in eastern-central Valenwood, located north of Southpoint. Elden Root was made capital of Valenwood during the first rule of the Aldmeri Dominion by the Thalmor"

Here's the concept of Valenwood (and of a bosmer city:)

http://static.elderscrollsonline.com/assets/img/cms/media/concept-art/15b8492304bb08d633.jpg

I'd be more worried of "Daedric Titan Monsters".

Geez no need to be rude. I know they could import wood but it seemd strange to have an entire town with conventional buildings when they have methods of their own that are arguably more intetesting. I dont need to "brush up on my bosmer lore". If I came off as "over reacting" I apologize but that's just the way I talk and I was just wondering what people thought about the situation. It was just something I found interesting / surprising is all.

Sorry I don't know everything about everything in this game.

Calm down, its a known fact that Bosmer are buying wood for their structures. So its very probably imported.

I'm cool with this if it's a wealthy Bosmer settlement who can import stuff from Summerset (or even Elsweyr) - there's stuff in the PGE about Bosmer taking home wooden bits and bobs as souvenirs from travels in Cyrodiil (though that is probably a slight exaggeration, as they won't quite be the savages that Imperials want to think they are). So plants are sacred, but wood is exotic and different. You probably wouldn't cut me open just to get at my bones, but there's something interesting about bone crafts.

That said, I believe the majority of Bosmer towns should be almost entirely natural tree-villages, or dugouts, or made from animal skins, or so on.

Gee no need to react that harshly to it. And in fact, I knew jack[censored] about bosmer's Elden Root, although it wasn't hard to google up. And if I seemed rude, I apologize, when I indeed, wasn't intentionally so.

OP, it was a suggestion. I never implied a need. Nice name btw.

And in http://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en/game-guide/alliances/aldmeri-dominion, it mentions that Elden Root is the actual capitol of the Dominion. Makes sense as it's more centrally located than Alinor and helps keep all those grubby foreigners out of the Summerset Isles. So there might also be a bit more of an Altmer influence to the architecture there.