Even D&D is inspired by tolkien.

Am I the only one who sees the obvious connection between Skyrim and Alien: The Eight Passenger?

Game of Thrones camed after Elder's:Scrolls.On a cold region obvilious a city would had that kind of apperance.

I was thinking this the other day. Whiterun is a bit of a copy of Rohan.

Ayup. Anything in this vein has its basis in Nordic lore, so of course, the houses are similar, the blocky looking clothing is similar, and each world creator that follows along puts their own stamp on it. Not truly surprising at all....

The artistic similarities between Skyrim and the LOTR movies are based in the fact that the Nordic imagery and the general theme of Rohan (in the movies) come from the same real world referances.

Some of the cities, like Whiterun and Windhelm bear passing resemblances cities in LOTR, and i think its impossible to seperate 'new' ideas from the archetypes established by Lord of the Rings, but that doesn't mean theres a direct corelation. Again, you can find Tolkien's fingerprints on almost every fantasy world created in the last 50 years.

Game of Thrones was released in 1996, Elder Scrolls: Arena came out in 1994. Arena lacks lore detail unlike Game of Thrones.
This the developers have already admitted themselves before. And no, a cold region developed city does not usually resemble The Eyrie or King's Landing.
By that I mean, they are not based upon massive cliffsides. Hell, now that I think about it: Solitude looks like Minas Tirith from Lord of the Rings as well.

And if not Tolkien's, then R.E.Howard's, who seems to have left some pretty big fingerprints on Skyrim as well.

It s not like Tolkien invented any of that bessides hobbits and ents. He was a professor of old languages, and as such verry familiar with old legends of europe. Norse, Irish, etc... you name it, he knew them all.

Now saying dragons look like nazgul is plain silly. nazgul mounts in the movies were done as wyvern, as for the nazgul new look in the movie, it was inspired from paintings by Angus Mc Bride, during his work for the midlle earth roleplaying game (pen & paper). This itself was inspired in part, obviously by the Ral Partha miniature figurine lines. Everything influenced everything else. And many Ral Partha figurines were an attempt to represent Warhammer chaos forces, as well as D&D anti palladins.

So Dragon priest looking like Nazgul ... you got it all wrong. Besside all this is really inspired by antiquities popular facemasks, and weird armors from all over the world. Not like Tolien or anyone invented the medieval era

Now the lonhouses and all that, The Lord of The Ring movie once again was inspired by Angus Mc Bride vision, which somehow drew a parallel between northmen and norse, even thought there is no such clear indications in the book. In fact it s impossible for rohirim to descend from a norse like culture due to the lack of access to water in the grey mountain valley they came from. no drakar there.

In the case of skyrim the filiation to norse culture is a lot more natuaral since their ancestors are navigators. And also in Morrowind expansion bloodmoon the skaal was already showing norse influence. so no surprise there.

(This does partly annoy me about the newer TES games. No imagination even on influence. IMO all the devs did for Skyrim was go out and research Norse legend and mythology and stick it in the game.)

Lol ! That s lazy, they should have done colored plate armor like in runescape, show some imagination !

Seriously, artists always draw inspiration from the world. I actually applaude the effort at studying and replicating cultures correctly this time arround. They did show creativity in the specific of the armors, and the uniqueness of each region, layout of cities, and of course the whole dwemer lore. While the cities are not as large as promised, the layout are amazing. Markath and Solitude are quite a sight. Windhelm is the only one rather lacking. Big stones were a great idea, but it was not harnessed correctly, it would need to be larger to feel massive

Solitude isn't just a city on a "cliffside" it's built on a massive natural stone arch.

It's pretty original IMO.

Hit that nail on the head! Daroska's view on the Dwemer



And to the person who said FALSE about Tolkien's influence in fatasy, and then turned around and used a D&D story as an example.. Tolkien has been writing since WWI.. I think D&D came out quite a bit after that (70's? 80's?).

Where do you think D&D got their idea for Orcs? Im not sure if orcs existed UNTILL tolkien wrote them.. Elder Scrolls Orcs ARE very simular to Tolkiens as well (corrupt elves). Other than that, European legends and folklore influenced the rest.

How about we just give credit to ACTUAL Myths and legends since Tolkiens work isn't actually 100% original, much of the guys work derives from real world Myths, he didnt make Dwarves or elves or anything to the extent. so what it D&D gets much of its work from Tolkien and TES from D&D that doesn't mean Skyrim is any kind of Deriviation from it. If Tolkien is the first thing that comes to mind, then one really isn't familiar with the Myths of the World.

And Dwemer have NOTHING, to do with Dwarves of Any culture/myth