Edit: I removed the somewhat "silly" parts that I originally included in the question for fun, since it appears some people didn't appreciate it.
In the Elder Scrolls games I played previous to Skyrim, there were only adults. Now, Skyrim has clearly shown that there are, without any doubt, children in the Elder Scrolls universe. However, we still don't see any infants/toddlers or any adolescents apart from young adults (even worse, there are no elvish, orcish or beast (argonian, khajiit) children/cubs that I'm aware of). Further adding to the mystery is the fact that we don't see any pregnant women. While I'm sure the reasons game design related (and ethical, considering the hardships that plague the inhabitants of Tamriel), I wonder if there are any in-game mentions of younger children.
Also, when you think about it, we have a lot of different races in Tamriel, and interracial couples aren't uncommon. However, we never (as far as I know) see any evidence of mixed-race offspring. This would suggest one of the following things:
- A couple of different races cannot produce offspring
- The race of the offspring is always the same as one of the parents
- It's easier for the developers to just have everything as one of the race presets (practical answer, I'm looking for in-universe answers or examples if possible)
Now, this could definitely become very speculative, something I'm sure we want to keep at a minimum. So I'm looking for official sources (primarily in-game, but dev/writer statements are also interesting). I'm not looking for answers like "it's hard to program" or "having infants would mean complicated ethical issues if you could kill their only parent, or maybe even them", as I am very aware of these issues.
Are there any examples of there being small babies or toddlers in the Elder Scrolls universe? Is there any mention or case of interracial couples having children? Is there any mention of elvish, orcish or beast race children?
Best Answer
Let's get the sillier part of the question out of the way- are there babies? Yes, there are.
There is at least one pregnant woman in the game. Seren, a Blacksmith in Skyrim mentions she is pregnant.
Babies, while never actually appearing, are also mentioned. Specifically, in Oblivion, Jauffre talks about how he took Martin away from the Imperial Palace when he was an infant.
The book Poison Song also mentions babies.
This refers to both a child small and young enough to be held in a girl's arms, and shows the use of "baby" in common parlance.
Interbreeding is a more interesting issue, but the answer is also yes.
The book Notes on Racial Phologeny states that humans are capable of breeding with elves and that children of such unions mostly take after their mother, with some traits from their father. It also discusses rumours of humans or elves breeding with orcs, khajit or argonians but mentions there are no documented offspring.
Agronak gro-Malog is a proven case of interbreeding, as his mother was an orc and his father was an imperial vampire.