The Nords face hard and simple lives: struggles against the desolate and frozen north, economic hardship, fierce clan and brother wars, and occasional plagues of supernatural malady. This has created a hardened people who value strength and steel and treat oaths like lifeblood. A Nord's word is sacred and breaking a sworn oath is nothing short of sacrilege. They speak plain and expect you to do the same; a man who speaks too well or too often is putting on a show, or hiding something. Words are not toys or playthings to the Nords; they live and breathe as the Thu'um does, and their skaldic traditions and death songs are how they maintain their deep oral histories and culture. This culture of hardiness, honor, and necessity, combined with the ability to remain content throughout a life of risk and uncertainty, makes the common Nord a unique and consistent folk amongst the provinces of the Empire.
They are a superstitious folk, generally unfriendly to magic and near hostile to the supernatural, and their history with these realms lives as folklore that puts fear in every young child. It's the hope of every young Nord that the outlawed chivalric order of vampire hunters, the Dawnguard, might still be out there protecting the innocent. Some of these boys may grow up to become an initiate of the Vigilants of Stendarr, a militant order and priesthood. Other rowdy young folk often find themselves fighting for the Companions, a fierce berserker warrior-band of mercenaries said to fight and feast like a pack of wolves. Eventually some may be honored enough to find themselves in service to a Jarl as a Thane, or may even become a famous adventurer in their own right.
Some young Nords may drift towards a priestly life of theology, academia, or public service; tending the Hall of the Dead with Arkay, carving out knowledge from Imperial libraries of old, or keeping a Talos shrine alive in defiance of the Thalmor. Most Nords believe in the Divines, but believe in the blood and spirits of their ancestors more than the many priesthoods. The Nordic stubborn pragmatism concludes that men may not make reliable narrators for the will and words of the Divines, and they would rather meet the Gods in Sovngarde themselves.
