I am frankly completely awestruck at ZOS's dedication to doing the different "furstocks" justice in this most recent expansion. We have literally never had this delivered in a TES game before, let alone so thoroughly and with so much variety within a single furstock. Absolutely stunning work, truly.
But with that said, how do the different furstocks stand up to expectations? Rather than linking primary source material as I usually like to do, I'm going to go off my memory for this post, since I've been imagining how these different forms appear for many years now and I feel that every player's individual expectations are going to be shaped by a personal reaction to whatever they first read or saw in a game, and that a bare-bones factual analysis doesn't do much justice to that experience.
Additionally, as we all know, each Khajiit furstock has a base form and a -raht form, which by my take is similar in shape to the base form, but larger. I will be presuming what each in-game depiction is meant to be as denoted by the title of that section. It does not appear to me, in my survey of Elsweyr so far, that every single one of the 16 forms, -rahts included, has been represented. This is fine, there is literally only so much time in the year and I never expected all 16 to be covered, but as such I'm going to be making assumptions about what is being shown based on my presuppositions and how the available labels match up to that.
Alfiq
![97WqMhO.png]()
Meets expectations. Always thought they were supposed to look like housecats, and here we are.
Alfiq-raht
![lb6c6Ov.jpg]()
Again, completely meets expectations. Larger hosuecats. Cray cray adorbs. Fancy outfits. Could not be better! I am of course assuming that the ones in this particular style are actually the -raht form and not just regular Alfiq, but it looks like it fits, so with this label it sits.
Dagi-raht
![1Wzt1B7.jpg]()
Again, making assumptions here because I truly don't know if this is regular Dagi or Dagi-raht. I always pictured the regular Dagi to be smaller than this, but this is 100% my expectation for Dagi-raht so yeah, could not be better.
Ohmes-raht
![Ohmes-Raht-Statue-Trickster-1.jpg?w=695&ssl=1]()
Based on statue description. Mmmmm yep that's about right! Ohmes were described as being much more elf-like and there we go, elf with a cat tail. Now Arena and Daggerfall can be canon, too!
Tojay
![Tojay-Statue-Dancer-1.jpg?w=550&ssl=1]()
Statue description says Tojay, so hey, this is what those look like apparently! I can't really get a read on the height tbh so I can't say much on this. Also I don't think these were ever actually described, so hooray, breaking new lore ground! Maybe Tojay wear fancy hats as their defining trait?
Tojay-Raht
![Tojay-Raht-Statue-Monk-1.jpg?w=780&ssl=1]()
Again, don't know a description for these fellers and never had much in the way of expectations. These guys kiiiiiiind of remind me of the Really Big Monks from the new tutorial area because they're so long and spindly. But who knows, until we get more in the way of descriptions and self-referencing NPCs.
Suthay
![Suthay-Statue-Nimble-Bishop-1.jpg?w=1037&ssl=1]()
According to statue label, this is a Suthay. Yeah, looks about right! I know the purists will say that it should be digitigrade bEcAuSe MoRrOwInD but honestly I'm more than happy to leave that fully retconned. That's not how bipedal legs work.
Suthay-Raht
![8OZFvPd.jpg]()
Just making assumptions here, but I assume that PC and vanilla NPC characters are intended to be in Suthay-Raht height range. Of course, some may RP their character as being a different furstock, height, etc. (I myself always thought of Men'Do as like a 6'8" or so Cathay) but beyond such considerations this seems about right for Suthay-Raht given what we know from other games.
Cathay-Raht
![Cathay-Raht-Statue-Warrior-1.jpg?w=875&ssl=1]()
![mml1yYI.jpg]()
First one for sure based on statue description, second one is my assumption. Really big dudes, are the Cathay-Raht! I mean like
really big, just look at that! The sort of dude where at the end of a good date you have to go
up on him. Absolutely meets expectations.
Senche
Could not find a depiction that I was sure about, since I didn't see any talking NPC Senche and the wild "Senche-lions" and others are, as far as I can tell and recall based on previous ESO lore tidbits, just wild animals which people confuse for the actual Khajiit furstock. My expectation here was that they'd be larger but otherwise similar in appearance to lions and tigers and jaguars and such, so even if we don't have NPC for them for sure, the expectation appears to be met just based on the confusingly-named wild counterparts.
Senche-raht
![SGPsur4.jpg]()
*** boy, look at these bruisers! On the one hand, I always expected based on descriptions for them to be a lot bigger and have more elephant-shaped bodies (only, you know, still cats, and therefore way more terrifying), but I also heard there was a description of them in one of the novels where they're more gorilla-proportioned? Whatever, to hell with it, the way they look in ESO is
AMAZING. Meets expectations for giant talking quadripedal war cat, and is at worst a lateral move in terms of what I initially imagined.
Pahmar
No known depiction. Lore says they're supposed to look like tigers, so I imagine another quadripedal form, midway in size between the Alfiq and Senche furstocks.
Pahmar-raht
![900px-ON-npc-Sharjo.jpg]()
Yikes. So apparently there's an NPC you can meet (haven't seen him myself yet) named Sharjo who says he's a Pahmar-raht. Here is, unfortunately, my first and only disappointment, as I was expecting another quadripedal form and not just Second Cathay-raht. Really not the worst thing in the world, though, since we never had much lore to go on for them.
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So yeah, with pretty much just a single exception, this was exactly what I've always pictured! What an amazing era for TES lore! No other game in the whole series was able and/or willing to get all these different furstocks on screen, so this is an absolute triumph! Especially since some people were worried closer to the launch of the game that the whole "furstock" thing was just going to be glossed over and retconned fully. Instead, all of our hopes and wishes have been fully validated and expanded upon, so HUGE kudos to the ZOS team for their vision and execution!!!
What do you all think? Did they hit the nail on the head? Did they knock it completely out of the park? Or did they step on your fragile toes by getting something slightly off your elaborately-created if factually-unfounded headcanon? Let loose your feelings!
