Content Type: Gaming Guides
The Elder Scrolls series is well known for its plethora of race options: four kinds of elves, four kinds of humans, and two kinds of animal people. So which one should you pick for your next Skyrim character?
The answer, is of course, it depends on whether you’re trying to min-max and get the most mechanical benefits out of your character, and on what you idea of your character is. This guide will help you with both, going over the mechanics of each race and give you a paragraph of lore for each race.

For the most part, all of the races in Skyrim are interchangeable. In previous Elder Scrolls race choice mattered a lot, and picking one that didn’t suit your build could make the early game much harder than it needed to be. Those days are long gone. In Skyrim you can be whatever you want to be and your non-standard characters won’t be punished for it. Despite this, there a handful of things to keep in mind:
- Altmer, The Elder Scrolls version of High Elves, are the only race that start with a bonus to any of Skyrim‘s three stats. All characters start with 100 points in each, but Altmer start with 150 points in Magicka. Altmer also start with an extra spell: Fury. This might save you some gold early on, but it isn’t a big deal.
- Bretons, The Elder Scrolls version of Half-Elves and fantasy Medieval European stand-ins, start with 25% constant Magicka resistance. This is traditional for Bretons in the series, but unlike in previous installments this bonus isn’t a big deal. Bretons also get the spell Conjure Familiar for free, which might save you a couple hundred septims early in the game, but otherwise doesn’t matter.
- Dunmer, The Elder Scrolls version of Dark Elves, start with an extra spell: Sparks. This doesn’t matter because every character gets this for free in the opening sequence. Dunmer also have a 50% resistance to fire, which won’t come up often enough to pick a Dunmer because of that alone.
- Argonians can breathe underwater. In previous installments this didn’t matter much, and it matters less in Skyrim because there is no underwater combat and not much underwater exploration.
- Khajiit do an extra 15 points of unarmed damage, which matters a lot if you’re trying to make a unarmed character work in Skyrim, because the game doesn’t have an unarmed skill.
- Redguards have a 50% resistance to poison, the Bosmer have a 50% resistance to poison and disease, the Argonians have a 50% resistance to disease and the Nords have a 50% resistance to Frost. For the most part this doesn’t matter, but it is more useful than what most races offer. It’s arguably a negative for Argonians and Bosmer, if you want to become a vampire.
- Imperials find slightly more gold in chests, but this doesn’t matter in the long run because your Dragonborn will be flush with cash in no time.
- Orcs start out as clan friends of Skyrim’s Orc strongholds. Arguably, this makes them a worse choice if you want to see the dialogue that other characters get when they gain that status.
Every race has an ability that works on activation. You can use those abilities once every in-game day. Constant effect abilities, such as all damage resistances, are always active.
Every race also starts with bonus points in specific skills. If you’re trying to min-max you’ll probably want to pick a race with a bonus to hard to level skills like Enchanting, Smithing, Alchemy, or Speech. Just like in Oblivion, all characters start out with Healing, a basic healing spell, and Flames, a basic fire attack spell.
Altmer (High Elves)
Racial Starting Skill Bonuses
- +10 Illusion
- +5 Conjuration
- +5 Destruction
- +5 Alteration
- +5 Enchanting
Racial Abilites
- Highborn: Regenerate Magicka faster for 60 seconds
- Highborn: High Elves are born with 50 extra magicka.
Extra Starting Spell
– Fury: Creatures and people up to level 6 will attack anything nearby for 30 seconds.
Altmer get a bonus to all of the magical skills-including enchanting. With that and their 50 bonus magicka points, Altmer are arguably the best race in the game. Especially because they don’t have the magic weakness as in previous titles.

Argonians
Racial Starting Skill Bonuses
- +10 Lockpicking
- +5 Restoration
- +5 Alteration
- +5 Light Armor
- +5 Sneak
- +5 Pickpocket
Racial Abilities
- Histskin: Recover health 10x faster for 60 seconds.
- Resist Disease: 50% resistant to disease.
- Underwater Breathing: Breathe underwater.
Argonians possess the unique natural ability to breathe water, but this is nothing that people of other races cannot replicate with a potion or spell. Their other abilities are lackluster, and they don’t have skill bonuses in hard-to-level skills.

Bosmer (Wood Elves)
Racial Starting Skill Bonuses
- +10 Archery
- +5 Alchemy
- +5 Light Armor
- +5 Sneak
- +5 Lockpicking
- +5 Pickpocket
Racial Abilities
- Resist Poison and Disease: 50% resistant to poison and disease.
- Command Animals: Make an animal an ally for 60 seconds.
Bosmer skill bonuses and abilities are nothing special.

Bretons
Racial Starting Skill Bonuses
- +10 Conjuration
- +5 Alchemy
- +5 Illusion
- +5 Restoration
- +5 Alteration
- +5 Speech
Racial Abilities
- Dragonskin: Absorb 50% of magicka from hostile spells for 60 seconds.
- Magicka Resistance: 25% resistance to magicka.
Extra Starting Spell
– Conjure Familiar: Summons a Familiar for 60 seconds wherever the caster is pointing.
The stereotypical Breton is a wizard or a politician, and with their bonus to both Speech, Enchantment, and their magic resistance they’re a race definitely worth looking at twice.

Dunmer (Dark Elves)
Racial Starting Skill Bonuses
- +10 Destruction
- +5 Alchemy
- +5 Illusion
- +5 Alteration
- +5 Light Armor
- +5 Sneak
Racial Abilities
- Resist Fire: 50% resistant to fire.
- Ancestor’s Wrath: For 60 seconds, enemies that get too close take 8 fire damage per second.
Extra Starting Spell
– Sparks: Lightning that does 8 points of shock damage to health and magicka per second.
Dunmer are the most well balanced race when it comes to skills, which unfortunately means they don’t have anything special.

Imperials
Racial Starting Skill Bonuses
- +10 Restoration
- +5 Destruction
- +5 Enchanting
- +5 Heavy Armor
- +5 Block
- +5 One-Handed
Racial Abilities
- Voice of the Emperor: Calms nearby people for 60 seconds.
- Imperial Luck: Imperials find more coins.
Imperials are legendary for their Speech skills but they also have a nice Enchanting bonus that is quite useful.

Khajiit
Racial Starting Skill Bonuses
- +10 Sneak
- +5 Alchemy
- +5 One-Handed
- +5 Archery
- +5 Lockpicking
- +5 Pickpocket
Racial Abilites
- Night Eye: Improved night vision for 60 seconds.
- Claws: Khajiit claws do 15 points of damage.
Your skills bonuses aren’t great, but that alchemy bonus could be useful if you get into potions and the 15 points of unarmored damage are vital to and hand-to-hand character.

Nords
Racial Starting Skill Bonuses
- +10 Two-Handed
- +5 Smithing
- +5 Block
- +5 One-Handed
- +5 Light Armor
- +5 Speech
Racial Abilities
- Battlecry: Target flees for 30 seconds.
- Resist Frost: 50% resistant to frost.
Nords are often thought of a little more than violent barbarians, but they do have a quite handy bonus to Speech.

Orismer (Orcs)
Racial Starting Skill Bonuses
- +10 Heavy Armor
- +5 Enchanting
- +5 Smithing
- +5 Block
- +5 Two-handed
- +5 One-Handed
Racial Abilites
- Beserker: You take half damage and hit twice as hard for 60 seconds.
The Orc bonus to both Smithing and Enchantment makes them one of the better races, as far as starting skills go.

Redguards
Racial Starting Skill Bonuses
- +10 One-handed
- +5 Destruction
- +5 Alteration
- +5 Smithing
- +5 Block
- +5 Archery
Racial Abilities
- Adrenaline Rush: Stamina regenerates 10x faster for 60 seconds.
- Resist Poison: 50% resistant to poison.
Redguard skill bonuses are nothing special, but their Smithing bonus could save you some time.

Hopefully this run-through of the many races of Skyrim will help you decide which one your next character will be. What will you pick?
Thank you for all your help this is very helpful advice im think imma choose the two handed weapon race which is The Nord
You’re very welcome CJ — glad the Skyrim Fansite could be of service. Now get out there and slay some Dragons with that duo-wielding Nord of yours 🙂
Nice