Bethesda recently showed off Skyrim at the Eurogamer Expo, revealing much that we haven't yet seen of the game, including details about its races and skills. Elder Scrolls forum user Sammuthegreat managed to spend some hands-on time with the game, and helpfully shared his experience.

Skyrim's character creator contains a tiny bit of information about each race's abilities.

ORCS: Beserker

REDGUARDS: Adrenaline Rush,

WOOD ELF: resist poison, resisit disease, command animals

NORD: Battlecry

KHAJIIT: night-eye, claw attacks

IMPERIAL: Voice of the Emperor, find more coins when looting

HIGH ELF: regenerate Magicka more quickly

DARK ELF: Ancestor's Wrath (surround self in fire), resist fire

BRETON: Dragonskin (absorb spells), resist shock

ARGONIANS: Histskin (regenerate health quickly), resist disease 50%, breathe underwater

Additionally, the character development screen comes with a new weight slider that allows you to modify your character's girth. Female characters range from skinny to muscular and slender, while male characters can get massively buff.

Different races will have different stats to begin with. The baseline statistic is 15, with +5 or +10 in certain cases. For example:

Argonians start with 25 in Lockpicking, 20 in Pickpocketing, Sneak, Light Amour, Restoration, Alteration

Orcs start with 25 in Heavy Armour, 20 in Enchanting, Smithing (didn't see any more.

Bosmer start with 20s in most of the thieving skills – Sneak, Alchemy, Pickpocket, Lockpicking – and a 25 in Archery

Additionally, Skyrim will see the addition of perks from Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas. Each skill can be further improved and specialized upon with these perks.

Speech

Buying and selling price 10% better (5 ranks)

10% price buying from opposite sex

Invest in shops and increase available gold permanently in invested stores

Master Trader every merchant in world gains 1000 gold for bartering

Buy and sell from any merchant regardless of what they normally buy and sell

Intimidation attempts twice as successful

Persuasion attempts more likely successful

Alchemy

Potions 20% stronger (5 ranks)

Potions for restore health, magicka or stamina are 25% more powerful (maybe ranked)

Poisons 25% more effective (maybe ranked)

Poisons last for twice as many hits

Two ingredients are gathered from plants

50% resistance to all poisons

All negative effects removed from potions and all positive removed from poisons

2 effects of an ingredient are revealed when testing it for the first time (instead of just one)

Another (unclear recording, sorry!)

Illusion

Dual casting overcharges effect for more powerful spell

Cast Novice spells for 50% less magicka

Cast Apprentice spells for 50% less magicka

Cast Adept, Expert, Master etc spells for 50% less magicka (more levels this time around)

Spells work on higher level animals

Spells work on higher level people

All spellcasting (from ANY school) is done silently

Spells work on undead, daedra and automatons

One I genuinely didn't understand, and it wasn't clear on the recording either – something about "Kindred Mage" or something.

Fear spells work on higher level enemies

Conjuration

Novice for 50% magicka etc (up to Master)

Dual casting overcharges –> greater spell effect

Bound weapons do more damage

Bound weapons cast Soul Trap on target

Bound weapons banish certain creatures (and I think summon creature in their place, not 100% on that though, dodgy recording)

Reanimate undead with 100 more health

Summon 2 Atronachs or reanimated zombies

Summon Atronachs at twice the distance

Summoned Atronachs twice as strong

Destruction

More damage for each school (fire, frost and shock) – ranked

Novice for 50% magicka etc.

Shock damage chance to disintegrate targets if their health is under 10%

Frost damage chance to paralyse targets if health low

Fire damage chance to make low health enemies flee

Place runes 5x farther away

Restoration

Healing spells also restore stamina

Novice for 50% less magicka etc

Healing spells do 50% more healing

Something about recharging healing spells (sorry about poor recording quality, it was in my pocket!)

More is recharged with each hit with healing spells (again, sorry not 100% sure what this means!)

Spells more effective against undead

Once a day chance to autocast 250HP restoration when health drops low

Magicka regenerates 25% faster

Alteration

Novice for 50% less etc

Alteration spells have greater duration (probably ranked)

Absorb 30% magicka that hits you

Another couple – bad recording again

Enchanting

Enchants are 20% stronger (ranked)

Enchanted armour 25% stronger

"Soul gems provide extra magicka for recharging" again, dodgy recording but that's what I heard, even if it doesn't make much sense

Death blows to creatures but not people trap souls for weapon recharge

Health, magicka and stamina enchants stronger

Extra effect on already-enchanted weapon can be applied

Shock, Frost and Fire enchants 25% stronger (individual perks for each element) (probably ranked)

Heavy Armour

Increase armour rating 20% (5 ranks)

Unarmed attacks with heavy armour gauntlets – damage increased by gauntlets' armour rating

Half fall damage if all in heavy armour

Heavy armour weighs nothing and doesn't slow you at all

Additional 25% armour if in matching set

25% armour bonus if all in heavy armour (not necessarily matching)

50% less stagger if all in heavy armour

10% damage reflected back to enemy if all in heavy armour

2-handed weapons

2h weapons do 20% more damage (5 ranks)

Attacks with warhammers ignore 25% armour (ranked)

Attacks with battleaxes do extra bleeding damage (ranked)

Attacks with greatswords do extra critical damage (ranked)

Power attacks cost 25% less stamina

Standing power attacks do 25% bonus damage, chance to decapitate

Sprinting power attacks do double (critical) damage

Sideways power attacks hit all targets

Backwards power attacks have 25% chance of paralysis

Archery

Bows do 25% more damage

Zoom in

Zooming slows time

10% crit chance

Move faster with drawn bow

Recover twice as many arrows from dead bodies

50% chance of paralysing for few seconds (might be 15%, can't really hear…)

Draw bow 30% faster

Another about arrows – can't hear

Sneak

20% harder to detect (ranked)

Sneak attacks do 6x damage with 1h weapons

Sneak attacks with bows do 3x damage

Sneak attacks with daggers do 15x damage (end perk on skill tree)

Noise from armour reduced 50%

No longer activate pressure plates

Sprinting while sneaking performs silent forward roll

Running does not affect detection chance

Crouching can make hostile enemies lose sight of you and search for a target

Sammuthegreat mentions that the perks he managed to record aren't the full list contained within the game. Certain ones can be ranked up multiple times for further improvement.

You can look forward to more details about Skyrim's in-depth skill system in the coming days and weeks as more information gets out.