Are there any in-game examples of babies/toddlers or interracial breeding in the Elder Scrolls universe?

Question

Edit: I removed the somewhat "silly" parts that I originally included in the question for fun, since it appears some people didn't appreciate it.

In the Elder Scrolls games I played previous to Skyrim, there were only adults. Now, Skyrim has clearly shown that there are, without any doubt, children in the Elder Scrolls universe. However, we still don't see any infants/toddlers or any adolescents apart from young adults (even worse, there are no elvish, orcish or beast (argonian, khajiit) children/cubs that I'm aware of). Further adding to the mystery is the fact that we don't see any pregnant women. While I'm sure the reasons game design related (and ethical, considering the hardships that plague the inhabitants of Tamriel), I wonder if there are any in-game mentions of younger children.

Also, when you think about it, we have a lot of different races in Tamriel, and interracial couples aren't uncommon. However, we never (as far as I know) see any evidence of mixed-race offspring. This would suggest one of the following things:

• A couple of different races cannot produce offspring
• The race of the offspring is always the same as one of the parents
• It's easier for the developers to just have everything as one of the race presets (practical answer, I'm looking for in-universe answers or examples if possible)

Now, this could definitely become very speculative, something I'm sure we want to keep at a minimum. So I'm looking for official sources (primarily in-game, but dev/writer statements are also interesting). I'm not looking for answers like "it's hard to program" or "having infants would mean complicated ethical issues if you could kill their only parent, or maybe even them", as I am very aware of these issues.

Are there any examples of there being small babies or toddlers in the Elder Scrolls universe? Is there any mention or case of interracial couples having children? Is there any mention of elvish, orcish or beast race children?

Answer 1

Let's get the sillier part of the question out of the way — are there babies? Yes, there are.

There is at least one pregnant woman in the game; Seren, a blacksmith in Skyrim mentions she is pregnant.

"We discovered recently that I am with child. I'll need to stop working next season."

Babies, while never actually appearing, are also mentioned. Specifically, in Oblivion, Jauffre talks about how he took Martin away from the Imperial Palace when he was an infant.

The book Poison Song also mentions babies.

The baby in the girl's arms woke and began to scream.

This refers to both a child small and young enough to be held in a girl's arms, and shows the use of "baby" in common parlance.

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Interbreeding is a more interesting issue, but the answer is also yes.

The book Notes on Racial Phylogeny states that Humans are capable of breeding with Elves and that children of such unions mostly take after their mother, with some traits from their father. It also discusses rumours of Humans or Elves breeding with Orcs, Khajiit, or Argonians but mentions there are no well documented offspring.

Agronak gro-Malog is a proven case of interbreeding, as his mother was an Orc and his father, Lord Lovidicus, was an Imperial vampire.

Answer 2

Mixed-race children like Jagar Tharn exist, but are exceedingly rare

The prototypical example of a mixed-race individual is Jagar Tharn, villain of the first game: Arena.

While there was a lot of in-universe debate over what he was, it was clear that he was an Elf mix, but didn't have human lineage (i.e. Imperial, Nord, Breton, or Redguard).

"I just don't trust that mongrel Elf. Part Dark Elf [Dunmer], part High Elf [Altmer], and part the gods only know what. All the worst qualities of all his combined bloods, I'll warrant." He snorted. "No one knows much about him. Claims he was born in southern Valenwood, of a Wood Elven [Bosmer] mother. […] Human blood seems to be the one missing component in Tharn's ancestry."

_{–The Real Barenziah, Vol 4}

The Imperial Library article on Jagar Tharn also weighs in:

He is said to be part Bosmer and part Dunmer.

I think this assessment is plausible, given that he has the skin tone of a Bosmer, but the eyes and height of a Dunmer.

To my knowledge, there are no other mixed-race individuals in the games.

Among species that can interbreed, children match the race of their mother

The in-game book Notes on Racial Phylogeny states the following:

• Elves and humans can mate and produce fertile offspring
• Offspring of such unions match the race of the mother, but "traces of the father's race may also be present"
• Argonians and Khajiit are believed to be infertile with humans and elves
• Insufficient evidence exists to determine if Orcs are infertile with humans or elves

Regarding Orcs, Oblivion has a sidequest involving Agronak gro-Malog discovering that he is the son of a vampiric Imperial, so interbreeding between Orcs and Humans, even vampiric ones, must be possible.

Note that this report, especially with phrases like "traces of the father's race" does not match Jagar Tharn's situation, lending further evidence to mixed-race children being very atypical.

Answer 3

If you consider the spin-off mobile game The Elder Scrolls: Castles (2024) to be in the ES universe, then yes. There are plenty of babies and toddlers, and interracial (and even same-sex) breeding is perfectly normal.

For example, as seen in Azura’s video: I played The Elder Scrolls: Castles so you don't have to, even a female Khajiit and a female Argonian can have offspring together:

(image taken @11:00 in the video)

Unfortunately, there is no biological explanation of how this works.

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NB: There are some good reasons (several mentioned in the video) to not consider Castles as canon with the rest of the Elder Scrolls series.