Over 70 hours of gameplay and this is about how
much I've explored of Vvardenfell. To say that Morrowind is a massive game isn't exactly an
understatement. Sure, the later games in the franchise -- Oblivion and Skyrim -- both flaunt
worlds that are much much bigger than this, hell Daggerfall's world map is bigger than
Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim COMBINED! And even that is just the second largest map in the
Elder Scrolls series! However, the difference in size wasn't the only notable change in
TES3, rather the difference in ambition was. The intro cinematic, if you can call it that, in
Morrowind is nothing short of iconic. It's short, -- barely a minute long -- cryptic and oddly
eerie, but it so perfectly sets you up for your adventures in the Vvardenfell region of Morrowind
and it feels like there's so much beneath the surface that you've not been told. The voice
speaking to you in your dreams is that of Azura, one of the many daedric princes of this universe,
and she is the one that will be your guide throughout the game. Well, I say throughout the
game, but really this is the first of two, maybe three times you'll hear from her until the end of
the game. The important part is that you have been chosen. For what exactly is unclear as of yet,
but it is slowly revealed throughout the game. Morrowind introduced what would become a
staple throughout the Elder Scrolls series, "the walkthrough tutorial". Basically you're
lead through the character creation process with a series of events rather than creating your
character from the get-og. As you leave the ship and head for the docks a guard will stop you and
ask where you're from. Before you're released into the world you're asked for your profession and
birthsign. It all feels very organic and it's not entirely without personality either *play clip
"Yes, confused?"*. When it comes to the appearance of your character the creation tool isn't exactly
up to snuff with todays' standard, but honestly if you're like me and don't care about how big
the space between your eyebrows are it's fine for the most part. Each race has its own pros and
cons depending on which way you want to take your avatar. If you, say, want to get up close and
personal choose a race that has a bonus to melee skills. If you want to blast your enemies with
powerful magic or sneak around without getting seen, choose a race with the appropriate bonuses.
If you want to shoot people from afaar with a bow, don't. Look, I don't really understand the
hate that marksmen get in this game, I mean, I KINDA do. Bows are pretty much useless
untill you reach about 70 in the marksman skill and have a bunch of agility. Personally I
really like it, but anyways more on that later. After you enter the cencus office you're
greeted by a man that lets you pick your class. Essentially this will determine
what you're going to be good at. This will determine your characters' progression
since, and they don't really tell you this, every level in a minor or major skill will
give one point towards a level-up. So, since this is a pretty important choice, for
a first-timer it's recommended that you either choose from the pre-made list or answer the
questionaire -- which has some incredibly weird questions --, or you can make a class
of your own. Honestly as long as you don't pick acrobatics or athletics as major or minor
skills you should be good. That is honestly the worst mistake you can make here. Like I said,
the custom class option should only be used by experienced people that won't choose acrobatics
or athletics as major or minor skills. Ever. This tutorial also teaches you a
lot about the world. For example, stealing is allowed as long as you're not seen.
Even if you are seen, exploiting the fact that you're new to this land will let you get off
scott free if only once. Just make sure to drop whatever you stole so that you can pick it back up
immediatly after the guard turns his back on you. You're then instructed to talk to the
knight errant Sellus Gravius where you learn how conversations in this world works.
This is probably the most important tutorial in the game to be honest. I cannot overstate
the importance of learning how to ask about stuff in this game. Basically how it works
is you click these highlighted parts of the text to get to know more about the topic.
This will be how you accept most quests, learn new information about the land around
you and figure out where to og. All of this is shown here. By clicking the different
topics and working your way through the text you gradually learn that you have to deliver a
package to Caius Cosades who lives in Balmora. This is the first instance of why this game can
be so immersive if you let it. You're not told exactly where this person is, after all not
everyone keeps track of everyone else, but you ARE however told where you can look for info
about his whereabouts. You're given the package, a letter containing directions to Balmora and a
small disbursal of 87 gold… Wow, thanks I guess. And so you are finally free, just gotta og through
this door and, oh. Just gotta pick up this ring, og through this door and the entire island of
Vvardenfel is is your oyster. All this nature to experience, all these caves and cities to
explore, all of these friendly people to-- Well it was nice while it lasted. Yeeeaah,
Morrowind isn't exactly the most welcoming province of Tamriel. Actually the people here
are mostly sceptical towards new folk and like to keep to themselves for the most part. If I had
to describe it in one word it would definetly be passive-aggressive. That IS one word, right?
Especially the dark elves are very xenophobic, but that is explained through lore. For
the rest of the inhabitants though, well, I guess life on Vvardenfel requires a
certain pessimistic outlook. Thieves, bandits and smugglers run rampant, there's
been a steady incline of monsters, people lie, decieve and plot against each other for their
own benefit and people in general are as corrupt as can be. But hey, when they first start to
like you they REALLY like you so there's that. There's so much going on in this place that
you could talk about it for days. The small town you start in, Seyda Neen, is no exception.
If you do what the developers intended for you to do and og and talk to every person in sight
you'll learn a plethora of things. Let's start with Fargoth here since he was standing right next
to us when we first exited the cencus building. In most cases he would be the first NPC a new
player talks to and this is 100% intentional. He mentions that he believes the Imperials took
his ring. If you probe further he tells you that the guards regularly harrass him and that the ring
is a family heirloom. You can straight up lie to this guy and tell him that you have no idea what
he's talking about or you can give him his ring. Giving him his ring will win you favour with the
trader Arille, so now his disposition towards you is a bit higher than if you hadn't helped Fargoth
which means he'll sell you his stuff for cheaper. Funnily enough, asking Arille for the latest
rumours will have him point you towards a guy on the second floor named Hrisskar that wants you to
find Fargoth's hidden stash of treasure and give it to him as payment for Fargoth's gambling depth.
What a friend. Also, if you gave Fargoth the ring before doing this quest you'll find it along the
money in the hollowed out tree-stump. Turns out it was actually Hrisskar who stole the ring and
dumped it in the barrel for newcomers to find, it's a neat little explanation of how it got
there really and it makes everything in the world seem more deliberate rather than "oh hey
look at this randomly random thing I found". Exploring the world around you almost always
yelds some kind of result. Talk to Vodunius Nuccius and you'll get a discount on a trip with
the silt strider if you tell the operator that he sent you. Ask around for the latest news
and you'll learn that a local tax collector has gone missing recently and if you choose you
can og find his dead body in a ditch somewhere. Walk the opposite way of where you're supposed
to og and some guy just falls from the sky out of nowhere. That scared me half to death the
first time it happened. The best part of it is that you can kinda see how the whole event
transpired. He has 3 scrolls of icarian flight which fortifies your acrobatics skill by 1000
for 7 seconds making you leap great distances. The flaw is that the enchantment doesn't last
long enough for you to reach the ground and as such you instantly die from fall damage. The
book is already on the ground when you find him, so I like imagining him standing there with the
book in his hand before activating the scroll and then as he jumps, the force is greater
than expected so the book just kinda falls down while the guy rockets into the air.
These scrolls are actually a pretty nice means of transportation, well that is if you
can manage to hit the water on your descent. What I really like about these small moments
is that they are not pointed out to or hinted at you by anyone at all. There are examples
like these littered all throughout the game, but you NEED to explore to come upon these things
and they're literally just a small detour from whatever it is you're currently doing. Most
are assigned as some kind of quest, some of my favourites being delivering letters between two
orcs, getting tricked into collecting a ring in a pool of water and then being attacked, escorting
a merchant and then being rewarded with a pair of "Boots of Blinding Speed" which LITERALLY
blinds you and of course you can't forget the two instances of thirsty nords getting robbed
naked and paralyzed in the middle of nowhere. There really are a lot of quests in Morrowind and
you can for the most part tackle them however you want, though most times the quest givers have a
certain way they want their business to be handled and if you deviate from that you either fail
the mission outright or get a decreased reward The most important quest though is of course
the main quest. Starting out from Seyda Neen, Balmora is merely a short jog along a well
marked path. You're encouraged to take the Silt Strider by that one NPC, but honestly I
much prefer walking when it's the first time you're heading somewhere. The reason for
this is that the devs strategically placed caves and such along the path of most of your
objectives essentially guiding you to places of interest that you might want to stop by on
your way. They do this ALL the time throughout the adventure and while it's not required at all
you kinda feel this force pulling you towards the entrances because you're either hungry for
exploration or curious of whatever could be inside. And the best part is that there's always
something inside, be it money or better gear, exploring is consistently being rewarded whenever
you're traveling off the beaten path. This lessens the feeling of having wasted time if you get lost
considerably, "oh well, I guess this isn't the place I'm supposed to be, but I might as well
explore this cave while I'm here". Of course, this doesn't completely negate the frustration
of having climbed mountains for 30 minutes just to realize that you're supposed to be on the
other side of the map, but hey, it's something. When you eventually do get to Balmora and stop by
the South Wall Cornerclub you're told that Caius rents a small apartment in the North-west part
of town. Caius is, well, kind of an exhibitionist drug addict I guess? He's also a member of
the Imperial Blades and work directly under the emperor and we're told to serve under him
as a Novice in the Blades. This is most likely your first meeting with one of the many factions
in Morrowind, of which Caius will gladly explain more about to you along with the locations of some
exclusive blades trainers that will train you in a set number of skills. Funnily enough, if you
ask Caius for orders he'll just tell you to og out and explore. Make a cover story for yourself
by joining a guild and rising in the ranks or simply travel the world and look for people to
help. I've never really seen anything like this been done since Morrowind, it's like if the first
time you meet Zelda in OoT she's all like "Yeah, okay? Uh listen I'm really busy standing here
looking through this window right now, so if you could just og out and do some fishing or whatever
for a few days that'd be great." In actuallity though you can just og outside and wait for an
hour or so then og back in and start the quest. But hey, let's do this the proper way.
Personally I tend to join the Fighters Guild and Thieves Guild to start off, but
there are a plethora of other factions each with their own quest lines, including
the Mages Guild, the Imperial Cult, the Imperial Legion, the Morag Tong
(if you can find their hiding place), the Temple or any of the 5 great houses of which
3 are present on Vvardenfel. House Hlaalu are the mobsters of Morrowind and probably the
more forward-thinking of the 3 houses. House Telvanni is compromised mainly of egocentric
mages who care nothing for others and tend to live in isolation while House Redoran values
the settled dunmer traditions, specifically, the way of the warrior. Bear in mind though, when
you join a house the disposition of the members of other 2 houses plummets to the point where they'll
flat out refuse to speak to you in certain areas. So after you feel you're ready to take on whatever
lies ahead returning to Caius sees him give you an order to find out more about an important dunmer
figure called Nerevar and the emergence of the Sixth House. Of course, information is never free
so you're tasked with retrieving a dwemer artifact from an old dwemer ruin just outside of Ald Ruhn.
On the way here you'll encounter your first real enemy, often dubbed the "first boss" of Morrowind
by players and with good reason too. If you're not prepared this mage will straight up murder you
in 5 seconds flat. Morrowind is much like other RPG's where enemies are set at a certain level
no matter how weak or powerfull you yourself are. This is something I think they completely
dropped the ball with in Oblivion where they introduced level scaling on everything, even
unique weapons, but more on that when I get to that game. There IS a certain level scaling system
for Morrowind too, but the base levels of enemies never og down to fit the player. It seems more
to me that it places higher level enemies and better loot at certain points if you're past
a certain level, meaning the game never really takes into consideration what your actual skills
are, just how high your level is which is yet again why you don't choose Acrobatics
or Athletics as major or minor skills. The dwemer is an extinct race of dwarves that
no one really knows what happened to. You get a few hints along the way but it's never really
enough to ascertain exactly what happened so as of yet it's still a mystery. I do have a theory of
course, but more on that later. Dwemer artifacts are special because not only were the dwemer as
a race exeptionally more technologically advanced than the rest, they're also extinct meaning that
there's a limited amount of stuff left. Take into consideration that the dwemers as a race are
highly considered the big bad in Morrowind and it makes sense that the commerce of these items
are heavily regulated by the empire. Selling or even altering a dwemer artifact through improper
channels will at best net you a huge fine or at worst have the entire Mages Guild try to kill
you. Entering a dwemer ruin is like walking into a sauna after being trapped in a blizzard
for an hour. Not only in the metaphorical sense, but also because the dwemer were really into
steam technology. Most of this stuff is still running but no one seems to know how it works and
haven't manage to replicate it in the thousands of years since the disappearance of the dwarves.
Most of the time these ruins have been scavenged by looters looking to make a quick buck. Despite
the heavy regulations, dwemer artifacts are highly sought-after items for smuggling and collecting.
After returning with the puzzle box you get the info required and report back to Caius who
tells you to seek another piece of information concerning the Nerevarine Cult and yet again
you need to do a favour to gain what you seek. This time you're tasked with recovering a
skull from a tomb. For what exactly is unclear, as it often is, and you're required to fight
ghosts. Since etheral beings aren't effected by normal weapons the game has the foresight to give
you an enchanted weapon before sending you in, however if you're not efficient in short blade,
the Fireblade that Sharn gra-Muzgob gives you is pretty much useless. Attacking in Morrowind works
a lot like a classic table-top RPG like Dungeons and Dragons. Without getting into too much detail,
when you click the attack button a dice is cast and depending on the result you either hit or
miss. This is of course swayed by your stats, most previlently the Agility stat, the enemy's
stats, your skill in the weapon type you're using and most of all your current fatigue. Even
when starting the game you'll be missing a lot, which is one of the main complaints people have
regarding the combat and also why so many give up within the first few hours. Personally I don't
really mind, but it's easy to get annoyed when you're almost killed by a couple of rats even
though you're attacking them with the weapon your most proficient with. Later on in the game
you'll be able to hit enemies more consistently, but at that point you'll be at around level 15
to 20 with a 70+ weapon skill. This is also why som many people don't like being a marksman.
Even if the arrows hit your target dead center they won't take any damage whatsoever unless
the game decides to register it as a hit and your arrow is still considered used. Not
only is there a problem with hit chance, but a lot of the time the NPC's have very
erratic movements which can make it super easy to miss a ranged attack. Of course, you can
also take advantage of this. Dodging projectiles in this game is laughably easy as long as you're
far enough away. Enemies aim their projectiles where they calculate you're going to be given
that your trajectory and speed stays the same, which is why you see me moving so much back
and forth whenever I'm fighting an archer or a ranged mage. As long as you alter your path
the second after they fire you'll be safe. After returning to Caius with the info gathered
for giving the skull to Sharn you're told to travel to Vivec and meet up with some informants
that lives in the city. If you haven't already reached level 3, Caius will tell you to take
a hike and og train some more before you're ready to take on this task. This is one of the
two hard level requirements for the main quest, the other being that you're required to be level
6 to start the final part. Anyways, this is yet another example of why I really like the main
quest. You're essentially sent to every major city or point of interest on Vvardenfel. In a way
it serves more as a introduction to the world, merely touching on the surface of the culture, the
people and the mythology, rather than a complete history and if you want you can easily delve
deeper into it after or during the main quest. Morrowind has an interesting way of conveying
lore. Basically a lot is told to you via NPC's, but there are also a bunch of written accounts
detailing different phases of history and other events. HOWEVER most of these books are written
from the perspective of the one writing them, of course, so there is a bunch of either conflicting
information or intentional mis-information going around. Combine that with the fact that there's
a lot of information just missing and we get a timeline that is at best erratic and at worst
false. I'm not gonna delve much deeper into it than that, but there's a lot that can be
learned on the web if you're interested. Vivec is a huge city, possibly the biggest
in the game and it can be absolute hell to navigate through on your first visit, but
using the world map to your advantage makes it managable. There's a lot of blatant racism in
Morrowind. This is thrust in your face when you og to talk to the Argonian informant. Argonians,
Kajit and Orcs are heavily discriminated against by dark elves especially, but also by the other
races. This isn't exclusive to Morrowind either and takes place all over Tamriel. They're looked
at like nothing more than animals to be bought, sold and done with as you please. Slavery is very
common in Morrowind and chances are that if you meet a slave it's either of Argonian, Kajit or
Orcish descent. One quest involves escorting an Argonian from Hla Oad to Balmora. "There's a
lot of money in these slaves" he tells you, and when you reach your destination the one awaiting
the slave starts attacking her immediatly. Now, I'm not sure if that's because we literally broke
into his house, but I won't stand idly by and let someone I'm tasked with escorting get killed
so down he goes. Afterwards the slave, Rabinna, tells you that she's carrying drugs in her stomach
and the guy was planning to gut her to get it out. After this you can guide her to the Argonian
mission in Ebonheart next to Vivec. Anyways, the Argonian informant is surrounded by pissed dark
elves and since it seems like they'll attack if he tries to leave our options are either to persuade
them into not or killing them when they do. Speechcraft is the skill that governs how good
you are at interacting with other people and it's possibly the most OP skill in the game.
When it comes to normal people their disposition towards you decides wether or not they are
willing to divulge certain information or, in some cases, do as you ask. You can increase
this either by admiring, intimidating or bribing them. *Play speechcraft skit 1 (Some things can
only be shared amongst friends *throw gold* If you think you can bribe me young man let me
tell you *throw gold* my whole life story friend)*. Although shopping is governed by the
Merchantile skills, you can also bribe merchants and increase their disposition to get better
deals on items. *Speechcraft skit 2 (Sorry, can't og that low *throw gold* fine, here's your 2
gold discount, jackass)*. Though that might not be as rewarding as being a good haggler. Succesfully
increasing the disposition of the thugs will let you get off scott free, but you could always
taunt them into attacking you too. Alternating between bribing and taunting makes it possible
to kill almost anyone without suffering the legal consequences that comes from murdering someone.
The way the law works in Morrowind is that as long as you're acting in self defence, that is
to say someone attacks you first, killing is completely acceptable. Using the taunt option to
facilitate combat means that as long as you can talk to someone, you can kill them in the middle
of town in broad daylight without getting in trouble for it. And even if you do get in trouble
for it you could always pay the miniscule fine to get off quickly. Life is cheap in Morrowind.
After talking to the three informants you're sendt back to Caius and then told to og talk to
ANOTHER informant, but this time in Ald'ruhn. This guy is a succesful trader and a defector
of sorts from one of the Ashlander tribes. The ashlanders, or the Velothi people, are a group
of dunmer nomads that traditionaly hail from Morrowind's wildernesses. They differ from the
settled dunmer in that they don't aknowledge the power of the Tribunal. The Tribunal consists of
the three living gods of Morrowind: Almalexia, Sotha Sil and Vivec. The belief amongs the
settled dunmer is that the Tribunal are the real protectors of Morrowind and as such deserves
to be revered and worshipped while the Velothi people follow the prophet Saint Veloth who is
believed to be the father of the dunmer and the one that lead their race to Morrowind way back in
the day. They also see the Tribunal as false gods that has allowed foreigners to take over Morrowind
and believe that their war leader will come back to drive the foreigners from Morrowind. This
guy explains to us the customs of the ashlander tribes. This is actually really important to
remember since it will 100% come into play later and if you make a misstep they will not hesitate
to attack you. To exemplify these customs you're expected to find out that he really likes poems
and you need to find a book store to buy one for him. I feel like they kinda cheaped out later
when you actually get to the tribes. The only thing they really care about is gold which you
probably always carry on your person anyways, but it was probably for the best. After
all, imagine having to travel all over the place just to find some dumb book
or a specific piece of clothing or-- oh. Speaking of books, there are a lot of
interesting ones to read all over the place. If anything you should always read
through the books that gives you skills when you open them. They are usually a pretty good
read. Whenever I watch a video about Morrowind they never seem to mention the books for
some reason. It's kinda weird honestly, so to offset that balance here are some of
my favourite picks. ABC's for barbarians is a must-read, thankfully it's not very long as
it only covers the first three letters of the alphabet. Chance's Folly is a story about a thief
looking to gain great riches by robbing a tomb, it has a great buildup and keeps you on
the edge of your seat all the way until the end. A short history of Morrowind tells
you everything you need to know about current day Morrowind condensed into a few pages. Trap
is a thriller about a young man who wished he hadn't succumbed to his impulses and the Capn's
Guide to Fishy Stick is the definitive reference to fishy sticks in all of Tamriel… Well, if you
can get the fishy stick sauce out of the pages. Where were we? Right. After returning to Caius
with the info you've gained about the ashlanders he reveals to you that the reason you're here
is because the emperor believes you are the reincarnation of Nerevar, the same Nerevar
that we've been searching for info on so far, or at least he believes that we are
in a position where we can fulfill the Nerevarine prophecies and they plan to use us to
controll the ashlanders and the other dunmer of Morrowind. You are promptly sendt on your way
to one of the more civilized ashlanders camps, Urshilaku. It's pretty much out in the middle of
nowhere, so walking is the only option. If you haven't already, at this point you are almost
guaranteed to encounter the worst enemy in all of gaming. Whenever you enter combat the music
will change. Slightly at first then gradually more and more noticeable as a combat tune. The
normal music is usually atmospheric and calm, but when the drums kick in you know you're in
trouble. The Cliff Racer is the only flying enemy in the game and thank god for that. These things
can seemingly spot you through both mountains and trees from a kilometer away and there are
never less than 3 of them present at all times in the mountainus regions of Vvardefell. Not
only are they masters of dodging but they also possess teleportation abilities. Cliff Racers
not getting stuck in tree branches is more of a miracle than a regular occurence and they
always seem to find you at the worst possible time. In summary, fuck Cliff Racers, use the
console commands to erase them from existence. When you get to the camp and eventually gain
audience with the ashkahn he tells you that you must prove yourself and you're sendt to retrieve
a bow that belonged to his father. The dunmer are very concerned with venerating their ancestors.
As such it's only fitting that you meet the ghost of Sul-Senipul and claim his bow from him at the
end of the dungeon. The dungeon itself is pretty long too, maybe the longest one in the main
quest aaaand it can be somewhat of a slug. The enemies are mainly undead and there's not really
much happening here. Actually if you've explored one dungeon you've pretty much explored them all.
There's a bunch of unique set pieces in the main quest ones, but other than that they may throw
in an underwater section or some lava or some unjumpable gaps that you have to levitate over.
Since the dungeon is so long and since you'll be visiting the Urshilaku camp a bunch of times
after this, I always like to put down a mark in the middle of camp. The mark spell allows you to
use the recall spell to return to that point from anywhere you might be, though it's worth noting
that if you use the mark spell again you lose the previous mark. When you return you're finally
allowed to see the wise woman so that she can tell you that "eh, maybe you're the Nerevarine, maybe
you're not. Who the hell knows not me seeya!". Well, she DOES give you some useful information
though. You get a written copy of the seven visions and the stranger which you actually have
to write yourself since the ashlanders primarily pass their traditions down orally, but whatever.
The seven visions lists the trials one has to og through in order to become the Nerevarine. As
of now we only have an extended knowledge of the first trial, The Stranger, which is fulfilled
by us being born under a certain sign to uncertain parents. This sign is of course always the
one you choose in the beginning of the game. The rest of the known ones are the third trial,
but she refuses to tell us about it. The fourth trial which describes the nerevarine uniting
three of the five great houses of Morrowind. The fifth trial describes the nerevarine
uniting the 4 ashlander tribes. The second trial is a bit cryptic, but that's really
all that's known about it while the sixth and seventh trial is steeped in mystery since
the Velothi won't for the life of them write this down even though their whole belief is
basically based on it. Anyways, Nibani Maesa requests for you to find the lost prophecies, but
right now it's high time we report back to Caius. So Caius is all like "hey what's up og murder a
cave of people" and suddenly we have corprus. This is actually scripted so it's unavoidable and you
automatically get it when you kill Dagoth Gares. The cave, Ilunibi, is actually full of loot and
as far as caves og it's pretty unique. There's also what feels like a massive spike in difficulty
here. I remember the first time I got here I was destroyed by Dagoth Gares, there's a reason
he's called 'the second boss of Morrowind', but this time I killed him without any problems.
The cave is also full of nasty enemies that will either deal heavy damage or sap your strength
stat. The strength stat is pretty important and these guys just strip you of it in the
course of seconds, making you have to either carry a bunch of restore strength potions, of
which you probably won't have, or drop most of your gear to continue. The worst part is that
this isn't something that's fixed over time, you need to either drink a restore strength
potion or go to an altar and pray the pain away. It's all worth it though as you can find the
'Fists of Randagulf' in here. They're pretty much one of the best enchanted gauntlets in the
game giving you 20 strength AND 20 agility. There's so much equipment in Morrowind, more
than in Oblvion or Skyrim, and enchanting lets you customize any piece with a magical effect.
This is done by infusing a soul into the item. Souls are stored in soul gems and are aquired
by having an empty gem in your inventory when killing someone under the effect of a 'soul
trap' spell. Certain souls are worth more than others depending on how powerful they
were in life and also decides how much you can enchant one single piece of equipment.
You can do this yourself for free, but at the chance of it failing and the soul gem getting
destroyed, or you can pay someone to do it. This is something I kinda like. Whatever you want to
do, even if you don't have the skills to do it, there's always a roundabout way to get it done.
Be that either by paying someone else to do it, using scrolls instead of training spell
casting or training your skills until you're proficient enough. Most of the time
that also requires money since the easiest way is just to buy training from any
of the many trainers on Vvardenfell. After returning to Caius once again he's all
"oh you have corprus that's too bad you should probably og talk to this crazy telvanni mage
to have it cured." All the Telvanni mages, or at least the councilors, live in these big
fungus towers in different parts of the east coast of Vvardenfell. Divayth Fyr lives in Tel
Fyr, and his tower grows around a old fort. It's truly an alien sight, but so is the rest of
the landscape of Morrowind if you haven't already noticed. While the west coast is
full of giant mushroom trees and littered with mountains and swamps, the east coast
consists mainly grasslands and a bunch of small seperate islands. It's all very pretty
honestly, not something you'd expect to see in a game nowadays but it is helped by the
mods I have enabled. I have MGSO installed, which is basically a huge compilation of mods
with the intention of upgrading the game to todays' standard graphically. There's also a
bunch of bug fixes and optimizations in here, but I have tried to keep everything as close
to the original as possible when it comes to extra stuff. The mod community for Morrowind
is actually still pretty active, so if you're interested in seeing what they come up with you
should visit the nexusmods site. Anyways, while doing some task for Divayth we end up meeting
the last remaining dwarf in the corprusarium. His comments on the dwemer boots of flying really
highlights just how advanced the dwemer were. This enchantment is considered TRASH by his standards.
Just, wow. Returning to the mage with the boots promts him to give you the experimental cure and
somehow it works. Now, we're not exactly free of the disease per se, but at least the symptoms are
gone and we're also resistant to all diseases AND age. Looks like we have inadvertantly
fulfilled the second prophecy as well! If you're tired of me starting a sentence with us
returning to Caius, boy are you in luck because this will be the last we see of him in the
entire series as of yet. He informs us that there are some pressing matters to be taken care
of back in the imperial city and has been summoned back there to deal with issues regarding the
succession of a new king. (More on that in TES IV). Or possibly because of the fact that he's
a skooma addict. Good old Caius, I'll miss you pal. His final order is for us to find the lost
prophecies by contacting Mehra Milo in Vivec. He also promotes us to the rank of Operative which
means that we're currently the head of the Blades in Vvardfell. This doesn't actually make any
difference to what you can do, it's really only just ceremonial if anything. He also gives you
his clothes which have some helpful enchantments. Normally I wouldn't wear someones worn clothes,
but it's not like he used them anyways. When we get to Vivec and og to Mehra's quarters,
we find that she's been jailed in The Ministry of Truth, that giant rock floating omniously over
the city. This rock is actually a small moonlet from Oblivion called Baar Dau which was flung at
the city by Sheogorath but stopped in it's place by Vivec himself. So, as I explained, Vivec is
one of the three mangods of the Tribunal. As we learn later the Tribunal's power comes from the
heart of Lorkhan, an old god, but also from the whorship of the people, to a degree. As a means of
forcing the people to worship him Vivec left the meteor up in the sky as a show of force. At one
point Vivec temporarily lost his powers and the meteor got even closer to the city to the point
where it's at now, and still he won't move it, or maybe he can't? The fact that the moon rock
moved proves that it still retains its momentum and is merely halted, which means that when Vivec
loses his powers the meteor will hit Vivec city with it's full force, probably obliterating the
entire thing and everything around it. In later times the ordinators started hollowing out the
rock and made a prison within it and this is where Mehra Milo is being held. In the letter she
left at her quarters she specifies that you bring at least two scrolls of divine intervention.
The scrolls of divine and almsivi intervention teleports you to the nearest imperial cult
shrine or tribunal temple respectively, so they're nice to have in a pinch. You need
a levitate spell to get up to the ministry, so it's yet again nice of the devs to give you
a pair of pants that grants you exactly that. There's a bunch of ways to get through this
place, if you're for example a high ranking temple member you can just walk through most
of it without any problems. You can also bluff your way through by posing as a guard, it's
a very nice example of how there's a bunch of ways to do any single quest. I just ran through to
Mehra's cell and teleported out of there though. Mehra tells us to meet her in some secret society
off the coast or whatever. To get there we are to take a boat from the docks of Ebonheart which
is pretty convenient seeing as this is where the scroll of divine intervention will take
us. Once there you og talk to that woman on the docks that was ADAMANT she wasn't anything
but a fisherwoman. Well I guess she actually is? She asks if we want to og fishing and hell
yeah, I love fishing, but instead of giving us a fishing rod she gives us passage to some boring
island. I'm not proud to say that I got stuck here when I played the game for the first time. I had
no idea when dusk or dawn was supposed to be and I'm pretty sure it bugged out too because I'm
sure I waited there 1 by 1 hour for 24 hours, so I kinda left and went to do other stuff then
never went back there. Inside we find Mehra Milo with Gilvas Barelo, the leader of the dissident
priests, and he gives us the forgotten prophecies. These texts are kinda interesting. The Lost
Prophecy just describes what the Nerevarine must do to win over the sixth house or whatever,
but the Seven Curses contains the real meat here. This seems like a list of what opposes the seven
trials of the nerevarine. They also describe the steps at which the power of Dagoth Ur grows. The
first curse seems to be Dagoth Ur awakening and the seventh curse seems to signal the apex
of his return to power, meaning a crisis is imminent. The first and second curse concerns the
ash storms that originate from the Red Mountain, the big volcano near the center of Vvardenfell.
The curse of flesh suggests blight diseases, especially corprus. The curse of ghosts, seed and
despair seems like they're more in the background, but personally I think it has something to do with
the metamorphing of the corprus disease. The ash vampires and all the other horrible creatures
we saw in Ilunibi are all dunmers that have been inflicted with corprus and have apparently gained
power shared from Dagoth Ur which transforms them. The weak willed become corprus stalkers and the
strong become ascended dreamers. The last curse, the curse of dreams, is actually something that
has been with us almost as soon as we started the game. At some point during the main quest when
you rest you'll have these weird dreams that wake you from your sleep and is noted in your journal.
This happens a bunch of times as you progress and only when you sleep. A lot of the time it will
be Dagoth Ur almost speaking to you directly, trying to win you over to his side. There are
also these half naked people that start appearing around the world known only as "Dreamer"s.
They preach the gospel of Dagoth Ur and as the curse progresses and grows in power they
will often attack you on sight or when you try and speak to them. This also means that the
seventh curse is in effect which means the crisis is fast approaching. If you didn't feel
the pressure yet, now is probably the time. So I guess it's time to get our asses in
gear. Returning to our resident wise woman prompts her to nudge us towards Suul-Matuul
who will inform us of the third trial, but noooot until we og kill a cave of people.
Oh, sorry, a stronghold of people. This place is like a manifistation of madness truly fit for
a sixth house base. There are chairs stacked as far as they og and gold strewn about the floor in
uh, various, patterns. After this Suul tells you a riddle you must solve to find the cave of the
incarnate. You can ask around in the camps for the answers to this riddle, but honestly I never
once understood how to follow these directions so I just ended up levetating straight up in the
vicinity and find it that way. The entrance is a pair of giant stone doors with intricate
markings, impossible to miss. Actually, something that I've never thought of until now is
how much more enjoyable spells make the Morrowind experience. Not just the intervention and recall
spells, but water walking for example is so much better than swimming it's not even funny.
If you're able to use a spell that gives you levitate at 20 points or more odds are that
you'll be moving much faster than your ordinary running speed and you're able to fly at the same
time. Though, if you have a spell that lasts for more than a minute consider also investing in a
dispell on self because that levitation spell you get by donating a potion of levitation in Vivec
lasts way too long. Another nice thing about the spell system in Morrowind is how customizable it
is. You can og to any spellmaker and make a spell with a known effect. Say you already have the
Fire Bite spell, you can then make a spell with the fire effect but you're not limited to it being
a touch spell like Fire Bite is, you can make it a ranged spell if you like and there are also a
bunch of other options to mess with. The icing on the cake though is that you can combine
other effects into the same spell. The only real limit is how much magic is required to cast
it. Combining a bunch of elements into one spell really makes for an interesting lightshow and it
can be incredibly OP for a relatively low cost. There's a trick to entering this place too.
I don't know why they decided it would be a good idea to have it also be waiting for dawn
or dusk. I guess it makes sense since this is actually Azura's shrine, but they could have
spaced it out maybe? Or did they maybe think that the line 'the dream is the door and the star
is the key' was way too cryptic because yeah, it totally is, so I hope you paid attention during
the last part or you'll be screeewed. Actually, now that I think about it this is probably where
I got stuck and gave up. It always felt weird how these two parts are so close to each other.
Sure, there's a medium sized dungeon in-between, but if you wanted this to be a clever riddle
why give the answer to it only an hour before the riddle comes up? Well, maybe it was
to distract from the fact that there's something seriously wrong going on here. When
you enter the shrine you meet Azura. Well, not in the flesh but a via her statue and she
hands you the moon-and-star which triggers a short cut-scene. *play cut-scene* This cut-scene
always gives me the heebie jeebies for some reason. It's not because it's literally just
a capture of someone walking around the world, I mean you can see the jerky movement that happens
when you walk over stuff, there's just something about Azura's voice that gets to me. Also, she in
no uncertain terms calls you the 'reincarnation of Nerevar' but littered throughout the cave are
the supposed souls of the previous incarnations? Now, I might be wrong here, but doesn't
reincarnation refer to the process where your spirit re-enters the world in a new
body? In that case, why are the spirits of the so called 'previous incarnations of Nerevar' stuck
here in this cave? I don't feel like 'stuck' is the right word either, more like.. Imprisoned by
Azura for failing to live up to her expectations. Because Azura IS the mastermind behind this
after all. Let's take a look back at the intro cinematic. "Fear not, for I am watchfull. You
have been chosen". Now, she might refer to the fact that you have been chosen by the emperor
to be sent to Morrowind to exploit the fact that you might fulfill the role of Nerevarine,
but I believe that it was in fact Azura who personally chose our main character here to do her
bidding. Just as she chose the others. The ring is supposed to signal the true reincarnation of
Indoril Nerevar. If anyone else were to wear it, that person would die. We know for certain that
not everyone who claimed to be nerevarine got to the point where they'd try their hand at
wearing the ring, so that's not how many of them died. If any of these people died by trying
on the ring, well it's not described anywhere, which is why I think that the instant death
is either untrue or Azura can grant anyone she chooses the privilige. In the end I guess
she's trying to stop the imminent threat from Dagoth Ur and save her people, but something
tells me she's got something else in mind too. Anyways, once we return with the Moon-and-Star
we're told to be named Nerevarine of four tribes and Hortator of three houses. This is the part
which I have stopped at way too many times. Personally I find this part really dreary, or
well, at least I used to. This time around I found it tolerable. There are a few notable parts
here though. First of all, the moment you're named Nerevarine by any of the ashkahns the entirety of
Morrowind suddenly knows about it and the Telvanni especialy starts to dislike you. You'd think that
would pose a problem if you're trying to be named Telvanni Hortator but that is swiftly fixed by
merely murdering anyone that stands in your way. That's Morrowind in a nutshell for you, if it
can't be solved with money, murder is the only option. But whatever they were all crazy anyways
and hey, it's a Telvanni custom to kill each other too. This really shows how little life is worth
in Morrowind, even amongst the higher ranking members of society. Hell, even if you're found
out you only get a small bounty and this pretty much goes for whoever you kill. Another "fun" one
is where you have to find a "high born Telvanni bride" for one of the ashkahns. Now, if you didn't
already know the settled dunmer kinda don't like the ashlanders very well and that goes tripple
for the Telvanni. The wise woman of the tribe is well aware of this and immediatly says "nah fam
that ain't gon' work". And sends us to buy him a slave to pose as a noble instead. Two things.
One, this woman would rather spend the rest of her life with an ashlander, whom she believes
are all barbarians, rather than being a slave which explains what life as a slave is like. And
two, this is the longest escort quest in the game. Out of all the quest types, these are the absolute
worst. Yes, even worse than collecting mushrooms. The quest where you get the boots of blinding
speed wasn't too bad since it's pretty much a straight road. However, there are no roads from
Vos to the Zainab camp and the pathing for these NPC's are the worst! Merely running over a hill
can be a herculean feat for these people, and if you run too far ahead, which you are pretty much
guaranteed to since they're so slow, they'll just end up running in circles until you come back and
get them. There are a couple of these that suck almost as much, but this one's in a class of its
own just because of how long you have to travel, and your reward is a goddamn thong. A THONG! And
it's classified as an amulet! You're literally wearing a piece of underwear around your neck I
cannot deal with this! You actually get a unique piece of equipment for each time you're named
Nerevarine or Hortator, but I never ended up using them much because I had better options.
Quest rewards are generally helpfull, but since you can pretty much get endgame equipment without
even starting the main quest these things can be either extremely usefull or not at all. Then again
this is true for all quests. Their rewards don't really change as you level up so if you want to
get a downright game breaking weapon early look no further than Boethia's Quest. There's an NPC
that can point you toward his shrine in Dagon Fel, but it's also possible to just stumble upon
like I did by spotting a pair of glowing eyes on the seabed. Interacting with him sees him tell
you to restore his glory by finding a sculptor in Caldera to build him a new shrine since his
current one has problems keeping its head over water. In Caldera you'll find an Orc looking
to prove himself as a great sculptor and after giving him a some funds he runs off and starts
work on some big rock that a famous orc jumped off of and killed himself or whatever. Actually
constructing the statue takes 3 weeks of in-game time and once it's done you can just walk right on
up and accept your reward. There are other quests that can be done for different daedric princes but
honestly this one is the only one I bothered with. Speaking of quests I had to bother with. The rest
of the hortator/nerevarine ones are kinda drab. One involves killing a bunch of orcs in a daedric
shrine, another you basically kill the leaders of a tribe to name a new one and merely speaking to
Suul-Matuul will have him name you Nerevarine of the Urshulaku. The Hlaalu hortator quest sees you
interacting with, maybe the best NPC in the game, Crassius Curio. Funnily enough I had more
trouble finding the Dren plantation outside of Vivec than finding Dram Bero who is supposedly
extremely secretive. It seemed like everyone knew where he was in contrast to the fact that not
a single person could point me in the direction of the Dren plantation. This kind of problem
only comes up a couple of times in the game, but whenever no one tells you where a certain
thing is it's almost impossible to find it. To start the Redoran questline you have to
save one of the council members' son from a fellow redoran council member just across
the street. It all ends with having a duel to the death with one of them. The Telvanni you
already know about so that officially makes us the leader of all three houses and all 4
ashlander clans. Great, time to meet Vivec. If you were like me you were probably just
as flabbergasted when you got to meet Vivec in the flesh. What? Meeting a god? I never really
experienced anything similar in other games up to this point and to be honest, they do make it
a special occation. It feels like this is it, this is the endgame. Vivec gives you the plan
to take down Dagoth Ur which basically boils down to you going in alone while the others do
fuck all. It also specifies that you need two divine artifacts called Keening and Sunder
to sever the connection between Dagoth Ur and the heart of Lorkhan. Of course this will
also sever its connection to the tribunal but apparently that is a risk worth taking.
Remember Vivec has that giant meteor to ensure the worship of his people. To wield
these artifacts you need a special glove made to withstand the powers if these artifacts.
Touching them barehanded will overwhelm anyone and cause death. Vivec puts us in some sort
of pocket dimension to learn us how to wield the glove without repercussions, but if you
were to kill Vivec instead there's actually a backdoor to complete the main quest though
it has its price. Going the back route will see you bring the unfinished wraithguard to the
last dwemer and have him unsuccesfully fix it's enchantment making you permanently lose about
200 health. This makes it possible to complete the main quest even if you've messed it up, but
it also makes it significantly harder thanks to the health loss. When you have the gauntlet
it's time to raid Red Mountain and it's many sixth house citadels… If you want to. They have
some really good equipment in them, but the only things you really need are Keening and Sunder.
After that you can just og straight to Dagoth Ur. The entrance to his citadel is in the center of
the volcano and leads far underground. All along the dungeon, Dagoth Ur keeps speaking to you,
seemingly trying to win you over to his side. I really like him as an antagonist actually. He's
pretty much surrounded in mystery for the most part of the game, but he has a certain charisma
to him. You meet him in a chamber where he's willing to answer your questions. Whether or
not these are all lies is up to interpetation, but one would think there is at least some truth
to what he says. Basically everyone in this game has it in for no one but themselves so when we are
offered the chance at the first strike that too is a lie of sorts. You might think oh that was easy
when Dagoth falls, but this is just the beginning. In the next chamber we meet the real one and boy
is he strong. Not very smart though. I pretty easily trapped him running in place, honestly it
wasn't even on purpose, but that makes it pretty easy to get down to the heart. I guess the devs
saw this coming so as soon as you strike the heart Dagoth Ur teleports down and starts attacking
you. The documents described for you to hit it once with sunder then a bunch of times with
Keening. This results in the heart disappearing, or well, that's what should have happened, and
when you cross the drawbridge back to safety the entire statue that contained the heart falls to
pieces. If there's one thing I don't like about this it's the music. Basically the music
stays the same throughout the entire game, but sometimes that can feel a bit jarring.
It has a knack of getting to the epic parts whenever you're doing something cool, but here
it was just really mellow and anti-climactic. And that's pretty much it. No fanfare, no
great escape sequence, just Azura greeting you near the exit to say that the people of
Morrowind needs our help still. It all seems… unsatisfying. From now on whenever an NPC
has the conversation topic "Nerevarine" its disposition against you will og up by
10 until it's at 60. You could continue to explore Vvardenfell for a good while, but
if you're like me and felt a bit tired of the same old scenery, well, good thing then
that we have two whole expansions to cover! Tribunal was the first expansion to come out and
adds Mournhold, the capital of Morrowind. How you get there though is kinda cryptic. Whenever you
sleep outside of Seyda Neen there's a chance you get disturbed in your sleep by an assassin sendt
to kill you, presumably. Unless you're at under half health when he wakes you up you miiight be
at risk of dying. This is also very broken since their armour sells for waaaay too much for how
easy it is to get your hands on. In any case, reporting this attack to any guard will prompt
them to tell you to report it to some guy in Ebonheart who will then refer you to a mage that
can teleport you to the mainland. The reason that the only way is via teleportation is because
they're concerned about the blight and ash storms, but if you're doing this after the main
quest there's really no reason for this to be the case since it's gone, but I
digress. Mournhold is a huge city and to be honest I thought it'd be refreshing to
experience something more condensed than our adventures in Vvardenfell. However I found that
I got tired of it pretty quickly. The cause of that is the huge cave known as Old Mournhold.
This is the bane of my existence it's sooo boooring. Everything feels the same and the
enemies seems to respawn the second you gain a level. They're also overly strong, just
look at the stats on these goblin swords! But I'm getting ahead of myself. When you
first arrive you're plopped right into the royal castle. A little side-note here. This place
is the perfect example of why you should be able to walk through NPC's. It happens elsewhere in
the game too, but here especially seems like a hot spot for colliding into everyone and their
mother whenever you're trying to move through a tight hallway. This is probably the most annoying
aspect of the game by far. NPC's have a habit of positioning themselves either directly in
the center of a hallway or in the middle of a doorway. This means that you have to stand around
and wait in real time for their script to say that they should move about and a lot of the time they
will merely move literally two steps forward then two steps back again, ending up at pretty much
the same place. In the palace I got so tired of it I ended up killing a guard via the console,
but it turns out that the game still puts the blame on you even if you never laid a finger on
them. The captain wasn't too happy about that. Since this is the capital of Morrowind this
is also the place you'll find the king of Morrowind. Now, he's not present when you
arrive but he will be later. For now when you inquire about the Dark Brotherhood as
they're called you're told that they have a base down in the sewers. After you og there
and kill their leader you find a contract for your death signed "H". After this you're told to
report to the captain of the royal guard. He has a few quests for you but you don't really have
to do any of them I think. I ended up doing a few until I felt that I didn't get anywhere and
started looking around and found Fedris Hler, Almalexia's steward and leader of the Hands of
Almalexia. Almalexia is another member of the Tribunal and the "ALM" in "ALMSIVI" were Sotha
Sil is "SI" and Vivec is "VI". As of now the only way to progress the main quest is by following
his orders. First you're sendt into the sewers to fight some goblins which takes way too much
time because the sewers suck and then you're tasked with escorting a young priest down into
the lair of undead to bless an ancestoral shrine there. It feels weird that Almalexia herself
ordered this greensprout to traverse such danger when there must certainly be more experienced
priests available, no? Next you're tasked with retrieving a ring called Barilzar's Mazed Band.
Supposedly a incredibly powerfull ring capable of horrible things, so much so that the creator
himself has been cursed with eternal life as he puts it and has decided to do everything in
his power to keep it underground. When you bring the ring back you're granted audience with
Almalexia and she grants you Almalexia's Light, which restores every attribute by 25, as a reward.
Immediatly after there are reports of a monster attack in the plaza which uncovers a pathway to a
lost dwemer ruin. This place has some incredibly powerfull darts that are also being shot at you,
but if you can salvage them for your own use and you have a decent marksman skill you will be
invincible. You also find several piles of ash in these ruins which is probably what happened
to the dwemer if you ask me. After they used Kagnerac's tools to harvest the energy from the
heart of Lorkhan to link every dwemer with the divine power and attempt to highten the race
to Anumidium, it would seem that the process had some unforseen side effects and simply
eradicated them turning their bodies to ash. I don't know what happened to their souls, but
we sometimes meet ghosts of dwemer so maybe it was just their bodies that went poof while their
souls moved into their machines or something? Anyways, after this is where Almalexia starts to
reveal her true nature. There's a cult forming in the city called The End of Times which believes
that the Tribunal are losing their powers, and they are. They also preach that the
gates of Oblivion are about to open and that the daedra will walk the land. Yeah right,
and this city is actually out in the middle of the ocean, hahaha Ha.. Haaa… So levitation is
prohibited here and this is why. This entire city is actually just a standalone interior cell
with nothing but water around it. Seems kinda lazy to be honest but whatever. So to show
the non-believers she makes us og into the dwemer ruins to activate a weather machine and
use it to cause an ash storm in Mournhold. So, if you weren't already convinced
that the Dwemer were hyper-advanced, they made a weather altering machine. That works.
Interestingly not a lot of the NPC's have anything to say about the ash storms unless you interact
with them. There are a few new voice clips in this expansion but overall they seem unfazed
by most things when you just walk by. *Another wonderful day in mournhold*. This is true for the
rest of the game too, you don't really know how a NPC feels about what you have done unless you
talk to them or they attack you. *Play "Tell your friends" clip*. Of course, when your disposition
with people are high enough they'll change their demeanor around you, but that's pretty much it.
When we get back Almalexia continues her descent into madness. One of her hands has gone rogue and
we're tasked with killing him. Exactly why he's gone mad isn't known, but he mentions something
about how Almalexia has changed. Like Dagoth Ur, Almalexia also got her divine powers from
the heart of Lhorkan. Powers which corrupted Dagoth Ur and drove him into madness. One
would suspect that this is also true for the Tribunal and the ones they share their
powers with. The hands of Almalexia have actually had their bodies and souls fortified
by that same divine power which could explain why Salas Valor has gone mad. This guy is a
pretty tough fight, I got by pretty easily by using those dewemer darts I mentioned and
I'm pretty sure I would never have made it if not. You're meant to og here when you're
around level 15 to 20 and that really shows. Knowing this you'd think we'd be more
suspicious of the motive of the god, but she's kinda hot so who cares. Almalexia
used to be the wife of Indoril Nerevar after all so I'd guess are chances with her are
pretty high. *ehem* anyways. Next we're told to reassemble Nerevar's sword, Trueflame.
Almy gives us the first piece but tells us to seek out the remaining two ourselves.
One of them is simple enough to obtain, all you have to do is duel Karrod, the kings
champion, and then ask him about his sword. The other one is a bit weird. There's a museum
in God's Reach that collects artifacts and shows them off to the public. You need to donate three
artifacts to get your hands on the third piece, but if you've been talking to the curator and
asking about compensation before this she'll never really mention that you'll get it if you
donate three pieces of equipment which is why I got stuck right here. I eventually figured it out
tho, but the problem is that you need to donate, not sell and the game wasn't clear enough about
this. Once you've re-assembled the sword it's time to confront the so-called source of
the monster attacks earlier, Sotha Sil. According to Almalexia, Sotha Sil has gone mad
and needs to be put down, so she teleports you to his clockwork city for one final encounter. This
place is pretty cool from a design perspective, but these door move way too slow and these traps
are way too easy to avoid to prove much of a challenge. There's a bunch of cool architecture
to look at here and the place is swarming with these dino cyborgs from the plaza earlier.
They're really powerful but also really dumb so they can easily be lured into the traps for
a quick and easy kill. When we finally confront Sotha Sil we find that, oh, he's already dead?
Before we're able to ponder his fate any more Almalexia appears before us and goes into a long
ass monologue before she tries to kill us. She's really powerfull too and again what saved me
were the dwemer darts. On her body she has Barilzar's Mazed Band which allows us to teleport
to Vivec, Mournhold or Sotha Sil which explains why she wanted the ring so badly. She needed
it to get rid of Sotha Sil. With the death of Almalexia only Vivec remains of the Tribunal and
as explained by Azura his time is running out. But hey, if you thought the main quest was
the only thing you could do in Mournhold you're wrong! This place actually has some fun
quests. One of them has you act out a play as a stand-in for one of the actors. You recieve
the script by the playwright and are told to read through it in a couple of minutes, but
of course since time is stopped when you pause the game you actually have all the time you
need. You're then thrust onto the stage and need to actually pick the right lines as if you're
acting and you even get paid for how well, or bad, you do. It all ends in an assassination
attempt though so the play is cut short, but it's really interesting while it lasts
and the play itself is a fun read too! Then there's the wizard that just suddenly appear
in front of you and attacks. It has a really, like, maniacle super-villany feel to it and
it's super fun when it happens. If you visit the local tavern you can be hired as a bouncer
and be tasked with checking on the patrons and eject anyone that's too drunk. You're explicitly
told not to kill anyone but my stupid follower immediatly drew his dagger and stabbed him dead.
Escort missions suck. There's also Forstaag the Sweltering who's just standing around shirtless.
Of course because of my previous encounters with naked Nords I made a B-line to him, but it
turns out he's actually just really warm. There's a bunch more to experience in Mournhold,
amongst that the quests you get from king Helseth, but at this point I was so tired of this stupid,
closed in, claustrophobic city that I hauled ass over to Solstheim where the events of the
second expansion, Bloodmoon, takes place. The second you ask ANYONE about the latest rumours
you'll be told of a ship that has recently started carrying passangers from Khuul to Fort Frostmoth
in Solstheim. Now Solstheim is an island a stone throw north-west of Vvardefell which borders to
Skyrim, hence the cold climate. So, why exactly would you travel to to this desolate wasteland of
ice and snow? Uuuuuuuuh. So when you get off the boat at the docks an argonian there will suggest
you talk to Captain Fals Carius or Carnius Magius at the fort and you'll pretty much be unable
to properly talk to anyone else until you do. Tribunal was what introduced this annoying feature
where if the game decided you wouldn't be able to speak to someone, well then you couldn't, but
they give you some generic text where the only way to progress is to exit out of the dialogue box by
clicking the red text. The game used this kind of red text previously mainly for long walls of text
that would take up too much space if it was all revealed at once, or when asking questions and,
most prevalent, confirming decisions. It signaled that this choice is final and that it's likely to
affect your character or whoever you're speaking to. Doing it like this also means that you won't
be able to use the persuade option regardless of how the character might feel towards you. The
worst case of this is, although it's not in the Bloodmoon expansion but Tribunal, probably the
quest where you're tasked with killing this guy and steal his weapons, but as he's a red-text you
can't really taunt him and whatever you do while attacking him it'll get the attention of the other
people in the inn, so I just ended up skipping it. It's the same here, every single guard just
tells you to og talk to their commander. Seems like the people here are sick and tired
of this place and he wants us to find out why. Speaking to one of the soldiers will reveal
that they're so thirsty for a drink that they can literally smell the alcohol through an
unopened bottle. Turns out they've been told by Antonius Nuncius that the captain himself
stopped the shipments. If you search Antonius' desk you'll find proof that he's been seizing
the alcohol as soon as it's arrived for the past months. You can actually choose not to
report this to the captain and get a key from Antonius that opens his closet which contains
10 of each basic drink, but ratting him out has the funnier outcome as the captain punishes him by
extending his assignement at the fort indefinetly prompting him to say this always every time
you walk past him. *Play clip of Antonius* Next up we need to find a bunch of soldiers
turned smugglers. For this quest we're assigned one of two people. One of them a warrior and
the other a negotioator. Choosing the latter will get you faster to the end, but he's no
good in a fight. Regardless of who you choose you'll eventually end up at the same end except
if you chose Saenus you can let the leader if the smugglers og in exchange for a Nordic Axe
of Paralysis. At this point in the game it's damage is gonna be kinda bad though it's always
nice to have something that can paralyze. The real event starts when you return to the fort.
It has been attacked and the captain is gone. Apparently they were attacked by werewolves???
What's really cool is that the fort is noticably damaged and some interior halls have caved in
as a result. Whoever of the two you didn't bring tells you to og to the Nord Skaal Village
at the north end of the island and talk to Tharsten Heart-fang. It's pretty far and the
wilderness is full of new enemies and animals. There are even huge bears! Being a Nord up here
holds a huge advantage since most magic here seems to be ice or shock based and Nords have an
immunity to frost and a 50% resistance to shock, which is nice. Tharsten knows nothing
about the attack though he do know that the imperials have upset the natural order and
that someone must take responsibility! Of course, that someone is us, possibly because we
were the closest person at the moment. To restore the balance we need to perform six
different rituals at six different points on Solstheim. They're all detailed in a tale
which we get from the village shaman. You don't need to do them in the same order, but
it does make everything more digestable. So since this will take a considerable amount of
time, doing other quests in between can be a good way to be more effective with your time.
Especially the East Empire Company quests can be done simultaniously since you often have
to wait a bit between each part. The East Empire Company is looking to start up a mining
operation on Solstheim and the one in charge of this is Carnius Magius. This chain takes
you through establishing a brand new colony and then either protecting it or destroying it.
So about four parts in you're asked to take a side. You can side with either Falco Galenus
who wants the colony to succeed or Carnius, who wants the colony to fail. Carnius is actually
here just for the Stahlrim, a magical ice that you can only mine with a special pick. As soon as
you have that pick the colonists have outlived their usefullness in his eyes and decides to
take som drastic measures to get it disbanded, ultimately resulting in a fake Skaal raid on
the small town. The unique part is that you can choose to either play the hero or the villain
here depending on who you chose to follow. This is kinda refreshing when compared to the main quests,
all three of them really, where you're pretty much railroaded throughout the whole thing. Sure there
are small events here and there where it might seem like your choices matter but ultimately
you'll always arrive at the same conclusion. Here though you'll end up either killing all
the members of Raven Rock or saving them. Speaking of the main quest, after finishing
all the rituals we're still not worthy and need to solve a mystery in the village to prove
our wisdom *pick up paper* well that was easy. Then a big geysir of yellow light starts spewing
out of a lake and we need to meet the shaman there to discuss our options. So, you're supposed to
meet him at a specific point near the shore of the lake, but I went there and he was nowhere to
be found for some reason and then he just appeared after a while so idunno what happened. Seems like
there's a draugr lord, Aesliip, in a cave down there. Heh, don't you mean awake?? *ehem* Anyways,
we're tasked with putting him to rest but once we get down there it turns out he's actually good
and has been keeping a number of Frost Atronachs sealed away down there so that they won't murder
the Nords of Solstheim. You can choose to either help him or kill him, the quest doesn't
care, but here's a question. I touched upon the Nord's inherent immunity to frost earlier.
Now, how would FROST Atronachs kill a bunch of Nords who are immune to frost? Sorry, dude. I
think you've spent the last eternity in vain. After we're done reporting to Tharsten the
village is attacked by werewolves too and in the ensuing chaos Tharsten disappears. Yet
again, just lie with the corprus, there's a scripted disease being placed upon you here. This
time it's lycantrophy which will turn you into a werewolf if you let it take it's course. It can
easily be cured by a cure common disease though, the only problem is that none on the villagers
will talk to you as long as you're sick, so you're forced to og all the way back to the
fort ooooor you can just steal a potion from the medicine man. This disease will affect you even if
you have immunity to diseases. It's still possible to complete the main quest if you turn into a
werewolf but I went for the faster route which I honestly kinda regret. Being a werewolf gives
you some cool features. After this he tells us to retrieve a powerful totem for use in another
ritual, the Ristaag, which is supposed to bring favour from the All-Maker on the Skaal. Yet again
you need to og find some people by the lake, but this time they're NOWHERE NEAR WHERE THEY
SAY THEY ARE. I spent a good 10 minutes looking for these bozos before I gave up and had
to look up where they were, and get this, they're waaaaay into the forest as far away
from the lake as possible. After the hunt begins our companions gets killed off one after
the other before we manage to hunt the spirit bear. We rip it's heart out and return to
the shaman who seems rather displeased. Turns out there's been som ominous signs surfacing
lately that suggests the Bloodmoon prophecy is underway. At this point if you head to the north
coast you'll see a bunch of dead horkers and this is what disturbs him. He wants us to investigate
Castle Karstaag to see if it is it's inhabitants that are doing the slaughtering and we're
recommended to enter through a undersea cavern. It's really the only option you have though
since the main entrance is locked. Inside you're supposed to meet with a freindly Riekling and
escort him through the cave to gain entrance to the castle. HOWEVER, this guy looks exactly like
the other Rieklings who attack you the instant they see you. The game kinda conditions you to
instantly attack any percieved enemy you notice, especially if you're a marksman, so that you won't
have to bother with fighting them in close combat. So that's exactly what I did. Now NORMALLY in the
other main quests you'd get a notice saying that the thread of prophecy has been severed and yada
yada yada to let you know that the main quest has failed and is impossible to proceed with. Here
though you're told nothing of the sort until you eventually figure it out when you reach the
entrance and are told that you're not allowed in without an invite of its owner. So console
commands it is. But you also need that specific Riekling with you later, so now you also have to
modify the quest flag. It's so weird that this happens when every single important NPC in the
other parts prompts this message when they die. After exploring the castle we find
that Karstaag the giant is also gone, abducted by werewolves apparently. When you
return to the shaman you are told of the Bloodmoon prophecy and it turns out everything
is in order for it to be fulfilled. Hircine, the daedric prince of the hunt, the huntsman and
the father of the manbeasts will walk the earth once an era and initiate a great hunt where he
is the hunter and whomever he chooses is to be the hunted. Once you og to sleep you will wake and
be surrounded by werewolves and then teleported to the Mortrag Glacier. In here you are expected to
fight your way through a labyrinth consisting of werewolves and the other 3 that had been abducted.
This is by far the hardest stretch in the entire game. This place is filled to the brim with
enemies giving you little to no time for rest so make sure to bring a lot of potions and your best
gear. There are 3 areas you need to get through. In the first we meet the captain who helps us
and voluntairs to stay behind to have our back. Next we meet Tharsten who Carius warned us about
since he got a bad vibe from him and sure enough, he already has the key and attacks us halfway in.
Next is a big hall with the frost giant Karstaag standing in the middle. He'll attack us on sight
and after he's dealt with Hircine himself appears. He asks you to choose the hunter's most
important attribute. I chose the aspect of guile, but I don't know what's supposed to happen. I
think it might have something to do with his fighting style, but I'm not entirely sure, they
never really made that clear. I just killed him like I've killed all the other gods, by running
around and pelting him with darts. Be sure to loot everything from him though, because the
minute you exit the box his body disappears. I missed the spear, but honestly spears suck
so it's not a big deal. It's just the best spear in the game after all. Once you leave
through the portal you get this incredibly loud cut-scene and that's it. Again, it feels kinda
anti-climactic, not gonna lie. There's no Azura to greet us this time around either, we're
just dropped into the middle of the tundra. But that's the thing about Morrowind. It never
really ends. The main quests are there just to show you around. Show you the places you can
og and sights you can experience. There's no real time limit either, which means you can
stop in the middle of whatever you're doing and og do something else instead. The
real game starts when the main quest is over. The entirety of Vvardefell is at your
disposal. Help the people, read up on the lore, become grandmaster of any number of factions you
choose, the sky is the limit. You don't have to do this all with the same character either. Create a
new one, og for a completely different play-style, do things out of order. The most fun you'll
have in Morrowind is when you know what's about to happen. If you're looking for new
content there's a wealth of add-ons out there, one that even aims to make the entire region of
Morrowind accessable. And when you've exhausted that too, og into the construction set and make
a spell that will kill the entirety of Balmora! The replay value of this game is immense, and
every time I replay it I get sucked into it's world. Morrowind is probably the most immersive
RPG I've ever played. Whenever I sat down I instantly lost track of time, and there truly
aren't many games that do that for me these days. So I guess the only thing left for our hero
is to continue helping out the people of Morrowind until the end of time… OR he can just
fuck right off to Akavir… Thanks Bethesda..
