The Imga, often called the Great Apes, are intelligent ape-like Beastfolk native to Valenwood. They are among the region's ancient inhabitants and are believed to have flourished there before extensive Aldmeri influence. Later sources commonly emphasize their admiration for Altmeri culture, but this should not be treated as the entirety of Imga civilization.
During the Age of Myth, the Imga are a living and established people sharing Valenwood with the Bosmer and other inhabitants. Their communities, traditions, and political relationships should be treated as older and more complex than the simplified descriptions preserved by later foreign writers.
Imga are large, powerful humanoid apes with heavy builds, long arms, dark or brown fur, and expressive faces capable of speech and complex social communication.
Individuals vary considerably in grooming and dress. Foreign accounts especially note Imga who deliberately imitate Altmeri clothing and manners, including capes, carefully maintained appearance, formal speech, and even the shaving or powdering of their bodies.
These customs should represent particular social groups or individuals rather than every Imga in Valenwood.
The Imga belong to Valenwood independently of Bosmeri settlement.
Their ancestors inhabited its jungles alongside other ancient Beastfolk before many later Merish histories were written. They therefore possess their own relationships with the forests, rivers, animals, mountains, and sacred places of the region.
Bosmeri dominance should not erase this history.
Some Imga communities may occupy territories rarely visited by Bosmer, while others live close to Elven settlements and participate actively in regional politics and trade.
Very little reliable information survives concerning early Imga government, so their society should remain diverse rather than being defined through one invented kingdom.
Communities may be organized through extended families, clans, village elders, chiefs, religious authorities, or influential households. Larger settlements can form alliances with neighboring groups without implying that all Imga obey one ruler.
Status may be gained through strength, wealth, diplomacy, learning, religious standing, or success in dealing with neighboring peoples.
Valenwood's difficult terrain naturally encourages substantial local independence.
The best-known foreign descriptions claim that many Imga admire the Altmer as an ideal of civilization. Some adopt Altmeri clothing, etiquette, speech, swordsmanship, and other customs in deliberate imitation of Summerset culture.
In the Age of Myth, this should be understood as a real cultural current but not universal submission.
Some Imga may genuinely admire Altmeri scholarship, magic, architecture, or aristocratic customs. Others may adopt these practices because they create opportunities in trade and diplomacy. Still others may consider such imitation embarrassing or reject foreign ideals entirely.
Imga culture should contain its own debate about what, if anything, is worth adopting from Summerset.
Knowledge of Altmeri language and etiquette can provide practical advantages.
An Imga capable of negotiating with Altmeri merchants, scholars, or nobles may become valuable as a diplomat, intermediary, translator, or advisor. Foreign education can therefore become a source of prestige within certain communities.
This creates the possibility of Imga elites who deliberately cultivate an international identity.
It also creates tension between those who see foreign customs as useful refinement and those who believe excessive imitation diminishes native Imga traditions.
The Bosmer are the Imga's most immediate major neighbors.
Both peoples inhabit Valenwood, but their relationship is not defined by one permanent alliance or conflict. They may trade, compete over territory, serve together against outside threats, or clash over access to hunting grounds and settlements.
Bosmeri adherence to the Green Pact also shapes these interactions. Imga communities are not automatically bound by Bosmeri religious law, creating practical differences in how each people uses the forest.
Local agreements are therefore especially important.
Imga live within one of Nirn's most unusual environments.
Their understanding of Valenwood does not need to duplicate Bosmeri theology. They may possess their own traditions concerning great trees, animals, spirits, ancestral places, and dangerous regions of the forest.
Some communities may respect Y'ffre or participate in Bosmeri rites through centuries of contact, while others maintain completely independent spiritual traditions.
The forest can therefore be sacred to both peoples for very different reasons.
Canonical knowledge of Imga religion is limited, and the Age of Myth should preserve that uncertainty.
Imga may honor ancestors, forest spirits, local divinities, or gods adopted through contact with Mer. Communities heavily influenced by Summerset could worship Auri-El, Y'ffre, or other Altmeri divinities, while older traditions may survive deeper within Valenwood.
Religious diversity is preferable to giving the entire people one unsupported pantheon.
Their own priests and spiritual authorities should remain important even when foreign gods are accepted.
Imga settlements are suited to Valenwood's dense forests.
Villages may occupy natural clearings, rocky elevations, riverbanks, cliff faces, or elevated platforms where flooding and predators are easier to manage. Construction can incorporate stone, hide, bone, clay, rope, and materials gathered without requiring the same restrictions followed by Green Pact Bosmer.
Communities with significant foreign trade may show clear Altmeri or Bosmeri architectural influences.
Others remain distinctly Imga in organization and appearance.
Imga communities rely on hunting, gathering, fishing, trade, and whatever local cultivation is practical within their territory.
Daily occupations include hunters, warriors, craftsmen, traders, guides, healers, porters, religious specialists, diplomats, and caretakers of settlements.
Their physical strength makes them valuable in labor and warfare, but it should not define every profession.
An Imga scholar or merchant is no less plausible than an Imga warrior.
The Imga's size and strength make them dangerous combatants, especially within Valenwood's close terrain.
Warriors may use spears, clubs, axes, bows, shields, and heavy hand weapons. Communities influenced by Altmeri culture may also favor swords, formal dueling traditions, or imported equipment; later sources specifically associate some Imga with imitation of Altmeri swordsmanship and courtly behavior.
Forest warfare favors ambush, climbing, scouting, and knowledge of routes difficult for outsiders to follow.
Imga forces can therefore be formidable without needing highly centralized armies.
Valenwood places the Imga near important routes connecting Summerset, Bosmeri territories, Khajiiti lands, and the southern Heartland.
Guides familiar with the jungle can be extremely valuable to foreign travelers. Imga settlements can trade food, hides, crafted goods, medicinal materials, information, or regional resources for metalwork, textiles, weapons, magical goods, and foreign luxuries.
Those who cultivate Altmeri manners may be particularly successful in diplomatic environments.
This may help explain why later foreign histories disproportionately remember the most Altmer-influenced Imga rather than those who remained within isolated communities.
Most detailed surviving descriptions of the Imga come from outsiders, and they often present the Great Apes as comical imitators of the Altmer.
For the Age of Myth, such accounts should be treated cautiously.
The behavior they describe can exist without defining an entire people. A culture with thousands of years of independent history would contain competing traditions, social classes, political factions, religious disagreements, and attitudes toward foreigners.
The stereotype tells us something about Imga-Altmer relations.
It does not tell us everything about the Imga.
During the Late Merethic Era, the Imga are one of Valenwood's established native peoples. They share the forest with Bosmer and other inhabitants while maintaining communities and identities of their own.