After writing a lot about it referencing my last playthroughs, I started it once again via OpenMW with official expansions and nude mode only, for it became kind of a habit.
So, initially it looks like an RPG, and we see these stacks of numbers in a character sheet affecting our speaking capabilities or our impotency to kill a crab, okay. If we dive more into it, we’d learn our ways not only around that, but also to become the most potent mass killer Nirn ever had. Alchemy loops to boost your intelligence and brew a better potion of intelligence are known for 20 years already, even in Skyrim, and the ways this game is completely broken are meta-knowledge making us love it even more.
But is it only an RPG?
More, than in other TES games, I encountered a lot of NSFL content. No, I don’t talk about Suran’s harlots, but about customs of danmers and the Sixth House.
We can go back to the Planescape: Torment, the game that starts in a morgue that people don’t play these days (sorrely), russian Pathologic that hbomberguy praised and where kids with dog heads exchange stuff for razors and drugs, or that cringe project called Hatred, but non of them combined have the same amount of what is now considered non-publishable.
Besides encountering racism and cop’s attention at any step (even if you are a dunmer, because you are still not a native), we have stories of imperials coming from Ilunibi and dying horribly due to corprus, that seems like a radiation poisoning. We have a cult that eats flesh and is one second from overthrowing the government, killing everyone who doesn’t meet their criteria. We have all dunmers having dreams that make them insane and irrate, one step from starting a murder spree. We have gods, who by a treachery took their powers, and the center of the island being guarded by their weakening powers and literal bone ash from local funerals. We have a real gestapo from local officials, and we can participate in glory kills that are a custom of this wicked land, with us still be a member of churches and guilds. And don’t even start talkimg about Fyr cloning himself into daughers, fucking them, and having a whole dungeon for adventurers to find either their award or a sudden death. Or that one quest when you search for a sex slave. And that all continues in a completely corrupt world where a duel or a bribe can significantly change the political landscape.
There’s so much I can put Horror, Thriller, Grindhouse lables on, or those I don’t even know. I’m glad it happened in my life and I can replay it now on any system, even on mobile phone. But it’s even more vile than Fallout and it’s one of the reasons it clicked with me. Morrowind is very russian, and it’s popularity on our 4chan clones cements this. If your friend ever get vocal about moving here, get them Morrowind as a testing experience and then ask, if they still want that. Guess, they wouldn’t, for their own good.
I would love to hear your stories about how beautiful or grim this game is.
The world building in Morrowind is what makes it my favorite TES game, it’s so distinct to any other fantasy game. One of my favorite aspects is how Vvanderfell has its own versions of the mainland guilds AND the mainland guilds themselves competing with their Dunmer counterparts, there’s an Imperial cult presence but the Temple also exists… It’s a very insular world with a very distinct culture and everyone just fucking hates you for no reason. It’s great.
Even the main quest is kind of bonkers when you think about it, the end goal is basically overthrowing the government and installing a Dunmer ethno state… And the Emperor is fine with it lol.
Red Year is coming in 3… 2… 1…
I’d disagree with you saying you are building the ethnostate since your end goal is to kill the one who tried to do that, and also to use Akhulakhan (big godly mecha) to undo the Empire, like it’s some Metal Gear Solid game lol. You kill the most dissenting party here, and whatever your choices were before, you still build this province as a more tolerant place than Dagoth Ur envisioned. Even Redoran’s ultraconservative pov is vanilla compared to what could’ve happened if he won. So it’s a win for Empire even if they didn’t know that wouldn’t last.
I’m referencing the Nerevarine prophecy which states that the reincarnated Nerevar would restore the worship of the original gods and drive out the outlanders from Morrowind, it’s basically an ethnostate by that point. What I find most bizarre is the fact that the player is basically responsible for destroying Vvanderfell after killing Vivec (or at least making him mortal again) and causing the Red Year, I don’t remember if it’s ever implied in the game that that’s going to happen, but in retrospect you’re not really the hero of the story, you basically killed everyone post-credits lol.
I don’t think that the driving the empire from Morrowind ever happens in game, but maybe it technically comes true as a concequence of the Red Year which in turn is a concequence of the Tribunal losing their power because of the ending of the main quest. It’s interesting that Uriel Septim sets the prophecy in motion knowing that this is part of it.
The Tribunal where losing their power anyway, but I suppose that Dagoth Ur could have kept Bar Dau in its place if he’d won, but then everyone would have been transformed into a corpus zombie instead.
The Red Year isn’t part of Morrowind lore, but “what is going to happen with Bar Dau now?” is kind of an open question at the end of the game so it is an event that absolutely builds on things set up in Morrowind
AlMSIVI are losing their powers at this point, so unlike Daggerfall with it’s 6 endings, whatever you do, the star that Molag Bal launched and Vivek slowed down would eventually crush into the capital even if you leave Vivek alive. The one thing they could do is releasing slaves and establishing good relations with argonians, who are happy to pillage the province in the distress, but they didn’t. So they ate the cake they baked.
I’m pissed that most of that was designed when they did the OG game, but we come to know that through books in Oblivion and poorly-written published fanfics.
I mean… You just have to do all that in order to kill the very real threat of Dagoth Ur which is what the emperor wants because he has seen the future that happens if the prophecy doesn’t come true. If you could have just walked into the volcano and bitch slapped him just like that, he probably would have just done so with his army and not use the reincarnated Neravarine.