A
race in the Elder Scrolls video game series.
Little is known and less is understood about the reptilian denizens of Black
Marsh. Years of defending their borders have made the Argonians experts in guerrilla warfare, and their natural abilities make them equally at home in
water and on land. They are well-suited for the treacherous swamps of their homeland, and have developed natural immunities to the diseases and poisons that have doomed many would-be explorers into the region. Their seemingly expressionless faces bely a calm
intelligence, and many Argonians are well-versed in the magical arts. Others rely on stealth or steel to survive, and their natural agility makes them adept at either. They are, in general, a reserved people,
slow to trust and hard to know. Yet they are fiercely loyal, and will fight to the death for those they have named as friends.
While Argonians appear reptilian in nature at first glance, they also exhibit fish- and amphibian-like qualities, such as being able to breathe underwater, having
small gills behind their ears, and, swim using the same body mechanism as that of a tadpole or eel, waving its tail side-to-side to propel itself through the
water. Unfortunately for the Argonians, the very traits that enabled them to survive so well in the swamps of their homelands also made them ideal slaves for hard labor in regions of Morrowind that would prove uninhabitable to the other races. They are commonly enslaved along with the Khajiit in Morrowind. Though
slavery is
illegal in the rest of the Empire, the Dunmer of Morrowind were allowed to own slaves for quite some
time. This was due to the conditions of the treaty under which Morrowind joined the Empire, which allowed the Dunmer to follow their ancient traditions concerning the ownership of slaves. King Helseth has recently abolished
slavery from Morrowind due to political and moral reasons.