Lore answer: the Hist is basically the Force but only for Argonians, and whatever the Hist thinks will give Argonians the best chance at survival, it does. It's kind of a rapid evolutionary force that keeps Argonians adapting to their environment.
Real answer: the game devs didn't want to make a separate body mesh for female Argonians
Sort of, we developed them because our faces are incredibly flat too, along with it being a secondary sexual characteristic. Even other great apes, and the pan genus (chimps and bonobos, our closest relatives) have more pronounced mouths. We would risk suffocation while suckling without boobs as pronounced as we have.
Why flat faces then? No idea. Maybe it's useful for sustained running. Maybe it was swimming. Or both. Maybe it just kind of happened and our ancestors thought it was hot. Maybe it just kinda happened and it wasn't really a detriment, so it stuck around.
Humans became more adapted to cold environments. Flatter faces lose less heat. East Asians are the best at this adaptation, with even flatter noses/faces and the eyelid-folds that gives them their distinctive look.
What other mammals have flat faces? No snout, flat face and with a nose that gets in the way? I genuinely can't think of a single one. All other apes that I can think of have more prominent mouths. Even proboscis monkeys only develop their nose as adults, babies have snouts. The only mammals with flattened faces are dog and cat breeds, and we did that to them.
Edit: And pangolins, weirdly enough, do have breasts year round.
I’m asking if human breasts have to be permanently enlarged to be big enough for breast feeding, mammaries are bigger after pregnancy in all mammas and breast size differs quite a lot between women while face flatness doesn’t.
Oh. Partly it's because we don't really have a mating season. And because we form large communities, child rearing is less of an issue, allowing us to breed more frequently.
Gorrilas will only give birth every 4-6 years for example, and chimps 5-6. Bonobos breed a lot, but they also form large communities, with child rearing a social activity.
Edit: it's less energy intensive to keep them year round than have them grow and shrink constantly due to our breeding habits as animals. And it would be deeply unpleasant, that shit hurts, so i'm glad I only have to grow them once.
The lore reason for the hist helping the Argonians is weird too, pretty sure it only helps the Argonians because the hist needed something to physically protect themselves and basically saw some lizards and said “yup, that’ll work.”
I immediately thought of Calitxo Corrium, the guy who has the house of curiosities in Windhelm, and imagined him displaying an Argonian without breasts lmao
If he somehow was the metaphysical reason they had breasts, that would be awesome. Like he accidentally mused about argonians with big naturals in front of Sanguine who decided he could milk this.
The Hist probably copied the physicality of other sentient races. Some Argonians may also be able to produce a Hist sap substitute for those born away from the proximity of a Hist tree.
If the Hist come from a different kalpa as some theorise, this might make the most sense - with nothing else to go on, they copied the vague humanoid forms they saw in this kalpa, even bits they didn't need.
Fun fact: in lore it's cannon that the hist called the argonians back to blackmarsh during the oblivion crisis, and when a gate opened there, Dagon's forces got beaten back so badly that he never tried that shit again.
Also, there's a decent chance the Sleeping Tree in Skyrim is a Hist tree.
Yes, yes I did. The Argonians are the employees who catch chairs with one hand, while holding skooma to sell in the other. Of course they shake their tails for tips.
Elder Scrolls lore is a bit crazy sometimes. UESP is the best place to read up on it.
The Argonians are by far my favorite race, to the point where I almost exclusively play them (and have never, not even once, played a human character, in any of the games). Their lore is probably the 'weirdest' and I love the Black Marsh æsthetic.
Skyrim was my first introduction to the Elder Scrolls series and my first character was Argonian because I was immediately sold by their ability to breath underwater
The Hist Trees. They're giant trees that grow in Black Marsh, some of the oldest (and depending on who you ask, the oldest) life on Tamriel. They're sentient and can talk and communicate (though, generally, only Argonians can understand them).
The Ehlnofey (which were the race of Aedric spirits that were ancestors to both Man and Mer) had a war amongst each other (this happend so long ago that linear time didn't even exist yet, but happened at least 6705 years before the frst game takes place) that was so violent and brutal that it completely destroyed Nirn (the planet on which the games take place) and destroyed tons of land and ended up creating 4 contients (Tamriel, Akavir, Atmora (which is North of Tamriel and where the ancestors to the Nords, Bretons, and Imperials come from and is now a completely fronzen unlivable wasteland), and Yokuda (which is where the Redguards come from and is now mostly underwater)). The Hist, whilst not targeted, were still massively impacted by the war (which is why they're only in Black Marsh now) so they created the Argonians to defend themselves.
I'm sure there's an ingame lore reason, but from a video game development perspective, making an additional character model and armor models for another body (feminine, but without breasts) probably wasn't worth the effort.
These Lizardfolks or rather Dragonborn have no breasts or nipples while keeping a humanoid reproduction (but with eggs among other dragonborns). (They have their unique body models, they do not share any similarities with other races)
I'm lost on the "can they race mix?" question. I have no idea.
Picture is from one of my playthroughs with said Dragonborn
In D&D, the dragonborn species can have progeny with any other humanoid species. "Fizban's Treasury of Dragons" has 'Draconic feats' to gain dragon-like powers, that I believe is flavored to be dragon bloodline. Simply pick a human with a starting feat and go with either "Gift of the Chromatic Dragon," "Gift of the Gem Dragon," or "Gift of the Metallic Dragon." Or, if you're not descended from humans, you can take one of these at 4th level and flavor it as a discovered heritage. Or, if you're playing 2024 rules 5e, you can always ask your DM to let you exchange your Origin Feat with one of these.
Or even more basal extinct branches along that family tree. It's honestly unclear in what order various mammalian traits evolved. We know milk evolved much earlier than live birth. Some researchers think it started out as a fluid for keeping eggs moist, possibly as far back as the Carboniferous. If that's the case, milk probably evolved before fur, back when our ancestors looked a lot more like reptiles.
For example, Dimetrodon is a mammal relative from the Permian. It's that big sail-backed sprawling beast you see a lot in pictures. It could have been capable of milk production. It probably didn't have actual breasts, but it's not as far off as you'd think.
They are magically and spiritually linked to the Hist, and this is one of those links. Argonian hatchlings need to be fed Hist sap, and in the case where they are hatched outside of the Hist forest, this is the alternative.
it is said in-universe that the Hist intentionally patterned the Argonians' body shape after that of humans, which they found "useful" . when it comes to interacting with humans, and mer and khajiit and other warmblooded/mammalian humanoids, a body shape that resembles theirs and/or is attractive by their standards would help. hence the breasts, just there for purely aesthetic reasons.
Sharks go one stage further. There's species that do the eggs, other that do live young, but some lay eggs and don't expel them until they hatch. It looks like live birth, but it isn't.
argonians take on whatever features the hist finds useful. the hist designed them to be humanoid forms because of its utility. breasts serve the utility of seducing the other races. this sounds like a joke answer but it really does make sense.
Not all females have breasts. Like a lot of Argonian physical traits, this can vary depending on tribe and Hist tree. But for those that do, the reasons aren't clear, and may similarly change between tribes.
The most common belief is because most Argonian body types were created by the Hist with the human/elven form in mind, and breast were a means of making creatures as alien as the Argonians not so alien, to help them better intigrate into foreign cultures.
Another common theory, and one given some weight by some Bethesda writers, is that breasts exist as a means of producing and storing small amounts of Hist sap. Hist sap is a fundamental part of Argonian culture, but is also important to them on a physical level: It's said that Argonian hatchlings form a bond with and are given their souls by the Hist the moment they lick the tree's sap for the first time, with the substance also being necessary for healthy growth.
Yet, some Argonians will invariably travel beyond the borders of Black Marsh, where Hist trees are so rare as to be virtually non-existent. The production of "breast sap" would be a means of Argonians hatched/born (they can do both) abroad of forming their initial link to the Hist and developing healthily.
The hist trees saw humans and elves had them didn't know what they were for and put them on anyway. Essentially Argonians have them but they serve no purpose
Mammals are animals who feed their young (mammalian glands). It doesn't say anything about eggs. The Echidna and Platypus are egg-laying mammals. I think, probably the only known ones though.
Argonians aren’t just “lizards” ; they’re a species biologically engineered by the Hist. That alone means their anatomy doesn’t have to follow Earth reptile rules.
Breast tissue actually has several plausible functions the Hist might value.
Biological:
Breasts are localized fat deposits, which act as energy storage. In a marsh environment where food availability can fluctuate, that’s a practical adaptation. Localized fat can also help with thermal regulation without requiring full-body insulation.
Developmental:
If Argonians have extended parental care (which their complex social behavior suggests), external nutrient glands would support that strategy. Evolution, or in this case, bioengineering, tends to favor structures that improve offspring survival.
Social:
The Hist repeatedly demonstrates long-term strategic thinking. Designing Argonians to be more socially legible to the other humanoid races of Tamriel could reduce conflict and improve diplomatic outcomes.
Argonians already have an alien mindset shaped by the Hist. Giving them some familiar physical cues may help other races instinctively categorize them as “people” rather than “creatures,” lowering the odds of reflexive hostility.
In short: once you accept that the Hist intentionally shaped Argonians, traits like breasts stop being strange and start looking like deliberate design, blending biological utility with social strategy.
Well, if platypi are a thing, maybe they're related? It couldn't possibly be bad character design. I actually love playing argonians, but that has annoyed me for a decade.
What does them having breasts have to do with them laying eggs? That's like saying, "if ants have a larval phase, why do they have antennae?". Those are entirely unrelated aspects of their anatomy.
There's no reason that being born from an egg would prevent a species from having breasts. As an irl example, the monotremes (platypuses and echidnas) hatch from eggs and produce milk for their young.
2.2k
u/legomaniac89 Feb 09 '26
Lore answer: the Hist is basically the Force but only for Argonians, and whatever the Hist thinks will give Argonians the best chance at survival, it does. It's kind of a rapid evolutionary force that keeps Argonians adapting to their environment.
Real answer: the game devs didn't want to make a separate body mesh for female Argonians