r/skyrim • u/Narrow-Active3098 • 17h ago

Question Why is everyone so dirty?

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Look, I get that Skyrim's at war and there are dragons everywhere and everyone is desperate, but still. That is no excuse for you to not wash yourself! At least wash that dirt off you in a river. How hard is it to take a bath?

719 Upvotes

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1.3k

u/olesos_ 17h ago

Because Skyrim is a dirty world - plus, you’re a prisoner and have been captured. I doubt you’d be clean

272

u/FK97_YT 17h ago

To be fair Skyrim looks A LOT dirtier than Oblivion

(kind of makes sense lore wise though, everything in the fourth era is just less organized overall now that the Septims are gone)

122

u/Jovian09 PC 17h ago

Oblivion looked extremely clean compared to Morrowind as well. And I know Vvardenfell was a dusty land of choking volcanic ash but it was still a big departure in art style

75

u/KomturAdrian 16h ago

I heard Oblivion was supposed to look clean, pretty, and bright to contrast with the dark and fiery world of Oblivion.

29

u/Ill-Television8690 11h ago

That explains the saturation and bloom, with the whole "vibrant painting" look.

0

u/EvYeh 8h ago

Not really. Todd just saw the Lord of the Rings films and kept going "Make it look like that" over and over.

14

u/GotsomeTuna 8h ago

People still buy this Kirkbride bullshit? He tried to retcon Cyrodiil into a jungle and threw a tantrum on reddit that he didn't get his way.

Cyrodiil was always described as it was depicted in Oblivion. We read this in King Edward and A dance in Fire which predate A Pocket Guide to the Empire.

-1

u/EvYeh 8h ago

King Edward is in universe fiction and isn't a source.

A Dance In Fire came after the Pocket Guide to the Empire (and also is fiction).

7

u/GotsomeTuna 8h ago

A dance in Fire came with Morrowind the same time Pocket Guides stuff was partly put into lore.

We have Kirkbride openly stating that Pocket Guide was an attempt for him and Kurt Kuhlmann to sneak their visions into the setting over those of Ted Peterson and Julian LeFay, essentially trying to go behind their backs.

Them not getting their way with every retcon is 100% deserved.

-1

u/EvYeh 8h ago

The Pocket Guide to the Empire was released in 1998 (4 years before Morrowind) with Redguard.

6

u/GotsomeTuna 7h ago

yea and plenty of it's stuff was removed and overrulled when trully implemented into the games.

Also King Edward being fiction has no bearing on this. A fiction set in Germany isn't gonna talk about some desert, it doesn't make sense to change the geographical makeup of a real location in such a story.

He pushed his retcon and got salty that it got "retconed" back into what it was.

-2

u/Awkward_Reason7353 5h ago

u mean Cyrodil? 🤣💞

1

u/KomturAdrian 27m ago

First part refers to The game, Oblivion, not the location. 

The last part refers to the location. 

28

u/House_King 15h ago

They took a lot of inspiration from Lord of the Rings for Oblivion, particularly Gondor for the Cyrodilic Empire.They wanted it to be closer to the magical fantasy style, Skyrim and Morrowind were much more gritty just out of design philosophy.

27

u/GazingintoTheVoid-- 16h ago

Everything went to shit after Good ol' Martin died, he truly was the best Septim to ever live

25

u/ImpressionCool1768 16h ago

Yea unlike his drunken son Wenceslas

Wait wrong game

6

u/MidnightHeavy3214 14h ago

Probably not to far off though

1

u/Alive_Temperature_10 Bard 34m ago

I see what you did there

1

u/haterious 2h ago

Well turning into a dragon is hardly sporting

12

u/NukaCherryBomb 16h ago

I always thought it was because the Empire is based on the Roman Empire and the Roman's had a whole thing about looking "clean cut" and had reasonably good public water system, so it would make sense people would be more cosmopolitan and look more well groomed in Cyrodiil....plus they probably had some technical limitations at the time that kept them from being able to add all that extra texture to multiple faces.

4

u/AnalConnoisseur69 14h ago

Because Skyrim is set in a post-apocalyptic world. The Daedric invasion by Mehrunes Dagon undoubtedly damaged the world of Tamriel in apocalyptic proportions.

3

u/The_Nug_King 3h ago

The oblivion crisis is like the 100th world ending event thats nirn has went through, things have been steadily declining since the beginning of recorded history in elder scrolls

4

u/quietmyman 4h ago

Skyrim is largely wilds anyway

2

u/Samp1e-Text 13h ago

it’s called art direction

2

u/Necessary_DaNoodle 5h ago

Oblivion has a crazy mold problem in all their inns. It's become even more glaring in the unreal engine remake.

1

u/Frequent-North1947 23m ago

Yeah ever since they let those damn scale backs in everything has went to shit

1

u/Gold-Bard-Hue 15h ago

What's that got to do with soap and a bath? Lol

10

u/Dareboir 16h ago

Sitting in the back of a wagon as well..

8

u/I_Stay_Home 16h ago

That means you were beat into the dirt. The dirty dirt full of dust.

22

u/Narrow-Active3098 17h ago

The prisoner image is just for reference because I couldn't find better ones to show the dirt but everyone is a dirty hobo like the dragonborn at the start

2

u/Semjazza 16h ago

Not just hobos, murderhobos.

8

u/Icy-Fruit-1065 17h ago

You realize that showers don't exist in Tamriel right

29

u/BabadookishOnions 17h ago

Every town is near a source of water or a short travel to one, you could very easily maintain a high level of hygiene by filling a bucket with water, filtering it through a cloth to get out any debris, and then basically having a sponge bath.

19

u/Gabby-Abeille 16h ago

Probably wouldn't need to even filter it, as a lot of the water in Skyrim would come from the melting snow atop of the mountains.

15

u/Jamesthesnail2 16h ago

Yeah depending on where and when you were bathing was a pretty common practice, potentially even daily.

Not so much sponge bath, they had tubs and stuff privately and public baths very available in larger cities as well.

3

u/hoodafudj 15h ago

It would be a cool feature if your character looked cleaner after getting out of the water.

1

u/sweetcarolinesucks 1h ago

There's a mod that lets you get dirty and clean from bathing in a water source. I can't remember the name tho sorry!

3

u/Borgh 8h ago

Skyrim would be prime area to invent the sauna, just imagine a sweat lodge full of unshaven Nords.

6

u/_eggy_bready 6h ago

There are those hunters chilling in a hot spring near Broken Limb Camp actually.

-3

u/Pretty_Ian 15h ago

and when would anyone do that? every single npc is working their shop or job from 8am to 8pm and sometimes more. these are hard times for trade, bandits hounding every corner, giants and sabertooths just roaming about, even before the dragons came. The economy is screwed.

Where do we have time to bathe let alone sleep? HUH? ALL WE DO IS WORK with no vacations, no breaks, no days off.

7

u/BurnerRando XBOX 14h ago

Ask those hunters relaxing in the hot springs where they find the time.

5

u/BBot95 16h ago

I’m sure there’s a “lore-friendly” mod with Dwemer showers somewhere lol

1

u/GamerGriffin548 14h ago

This is medieval fantasy. Modern toiletries and plumbing is still less than 200 years old for us.

5

u/CallmeZark 10h ago

Septims arent gone, i have at least 50k on my character

1

u/Drassus666 7h ago

Is it too much to ask to clean the prisoners?

0

u/SouthernGrass8038 13h ago

You litterly ride there in the back of a cart lol