#morrowind mainland

[cedarnommer]

West bank of Aanthirin

[yeoldecorprusarium]

The journey to defeat Dagoth Ur.

[kinghlaaluhelseth]

more morrowind distant land shots

[babyblueetbaemonster]

What is the city of Blacklight?

Me choosing Dunmer because I think they're cool V.S. Me finished Morrowind and realized we can't visit Blacklight

[nirnrootic]

have i mentioned that eros' biggest fear — aside from death and losing control — is the ocean? he's been to every province but summerset isles because of this.

you couldn't pay him enough septims to get on a boat in the middle of the big blue.

[czerwonywilk]

nereaverine prophecy be damned i just wanna grill

[hazzzyrider]

Hey, don't cry. Tamriel Rebuilt is a massive community modding project that seamlessly adds the mainland of the Morrowind province to Bethesda's The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, okay?

[uesp]

Pictured: An early map of Morrowind created for the development of TES3 in 1996. By the time the game came out in 2002, the plans for the mainland had been dropped.

[elderscrollsconceptart]

How does Ulfric expect to "take the fight to the Thalmor" when he basically needs the Dragonborn to win his war against a *single* legion of Imperial auxiliaries?

Even High Rock is leaving Ulfric on read. I assume most other nations would be similarly disinterested. Presumably Ulfrics greatest hope is to lead an alliance of nations (along with The Empire?) against the Thalmor.

IMO the free nations of Tamriel are waaaayyy too divided and mutually hostile to somehow unite with enough force to defeat the Aldmeri Dominion.

Cyrodiil: hates Ulfric (duh). High Rock: aloof and loyal to Cyrodil. Morrowind: hates and distrusts all outsiders and foreign powers, especially post-Oblivion. Black Marsh: pretty much the same as Morrowind and possibly even worse. All that leaves is Hammerfell and even they have lingering issues with internal political stability. The others could perhaps be convinced, but I'm not sure how or why they would risk joining Ulfrics alliance unless the Thalmor were actively attempting to invade those nations.

IMO the best best beeesst hope Ulfric has is a potential alliance with Hammerfell against the Thalmor.

"That alliance could win since Hammerfell alone fought the Thalmor to a standstill!" Yes maybe! But Ulfrics war would have to be an offensive war. Hammerfell fought defensively in friendly territory. Offensive wars are by nature far more costly for the attacking force and the alliance would have to remove the Thalmor from any territory on mainland Tamriel *at minimum* for a meaningful victory.

"Kill elves in big heroric battles" isn't a plan. Removing Thalmor puppet governments and liberating occupied territory is. The hypothetical alliance would have to enter hostile territory and attempt to liberate Valenwood and Elsweyr. I'm sure there's anti-Thalmor factions in those places that would help as best they can, but the victory would have to be won via outright military means.

All in all, even a revived and unified Mede empire would have rough odds against the Thalmor. Im not sure what Ulfric expects his path to victory to be.

Perhaps he's more inspired than i give him credit for, or perhaps his confidence is all a naïve delusion on his part. I'm biased but I suspect it's the latter.

[blackfeathercourt]

Got Nocmos Brain Rot™ again and made a timeline to pinpoint the most important events of her life and to illustrate the way she's been changing and growing

Close-ups and some notes below the cut

weirdly cut because I didn't want images to be giant and long to scroll by x_x

Just a baby. Nocmos had a relatively normal early childhood. Definitely cast her first spell before spoke her first word.

Nocmos begins her studies when she's around 10 years old… and that's when her free time is done for. Almost every minute of her day now is dedicated to studying, with magic being most paid attention to, which is a given with her Telvanni background. Moreover, she was taught with the intention of her enrolling to Shad Astula, a prestigious magic academy near Mournhold. She wastes all her teen years being stuck in her family's tower in Sadrith Mora, barely leaving the settlement and having little idea of the world outside.

elves must hit their puberty later then humans, so she's still yet to grow a little

Alright, Nocmos makes it to Shad Astula. She immediately starts distancing herself from her family back on Vvardenfell, since now she's away on the mainland (kinda). She keeps her studies up, a bit more enthusiastically now since she can finally meet people all over the Ebonheart Pact and not be limited to the Telvanni bunch. Starts learning to socialise on her own, catastrophically at first, with accidental racism all over the place... But it's alright, she even manages to make some first friends.

Initial meeting with Endalwe occurs at around this time, somewhere on a field trip I suppose while Endalwe is adventuring around the region. Neither one of them pays much mind to each other at this point.

Nocmos (barely) graduates Shad Astula and begins her own independent research, albeit under Divayth Fyr's guidance. She becomes his apprentice, living in the same tower as him, assisting him when he makes her and accompanying him in his travels. She learns a lot during that time and finally gets to explore Tamriel a little, which inspires her greatly to continue her studies.

At around that time, Nocmos discovers her new special interest - tinkering and constructing, though still on a very early stage. She meets Endalwe again in Vivec, when she's completing the Morrowind story line, and spontaneously decides to assist her. That allows not only for them to develop deeper friendship, but also for Nocmos to become acquainted with a former Clockwork apostle, Barilzar. I imagine she does all the quests which involve him, which means she gets a peek of the Clockwork city at the very end of the storyline. And… she becomes obsessed! Barilzar kicks her out and doesn't really want anything to do with her anymore, so she takes matters into her own hands and starts exploring Dwarven ruins on her own, eager to study the nature of the constructs. She even tries to build something on her own, bringing home spare parts and tools, thinking Divayth isn't aware of her new hobby. He is.

So, this is the most crucial point of Nocmos's life. She completes the Clockwork City DLC! With Divayth's guidance, as he notices her interest and deems her worthy of such endeavour, but she does all the quests mostly on her own. After that, they bid farewell and he officially ends her apprenticeship. Nocmos decides to stay in the Clockwork City and later becomes an Apostle. This allows her to bring two of her hyperfixations together - she starts practicing some actual constructing and occasionally studying magic from Sotha Sil himself as she's now in a pretty favourable position, having rescued his life and everything. Yeah, that also makes her times more religious than before.

Another point of importance is that her design finally settles down. Her appearance doesn't change much past that. She gets that Apostle tiara, crafts some ear extensions to correct their shape, loses her arm in an accident and gets a prosthetic (along with her staff, but that happens a little later) from Sotha Sil, adopts local clothing style which she uses later independently and grows her hair out to its final length, not letting it get longer or shorter.

Some time later, Nocmos's Telvanni heritage starts calling out to her. She gets a permit to travel freely to and from the Brass Fortress, and returns to Tamriel, intent to make a name for herself as a Telvanni sorceress, just to spice up her life a little. Nocmos manages to get on Mistress Dratha's good side in Vos, and gets a permission to grow her own tower in there. Then she starts eagerly and deliberately climbing up the ladder, rising in ranks, using all means to get as high as she can - charisma, cunning, thievery, backstabbing, secondhand murder... whatever. She acquires all those necessary skills which help her later on in life. Of course, this process is a very long one, and goes on for decades, but eventually she manages to rise to the rank of Master and only then does she settle down.

Here she's pictured in a Telvanni attire from ESO, tweaked a bit to my liking, but I think she continues wearing her Apostle robes just to remind people who she is

This is the point in her life when she reunites properly with Endalwe and starts adventuring with her, along with Bliss and Tanarion. Endalwe lures her in by promises of an endless research material during their world-saving quests... and Nocmos doesn't need a lot of persuading, since she's herself eager to travel and explore, especially in the safety of the company of warriors. And since she likes Endalwe as it is, of course.

Okay, so I haven't developed anything much beyond that point. Nocmos and others does all those big chapter and dlc storylines... and that takes years and years because I absolutely refuse to believe that Vestige has to do everything on their own within the span of one year. They also have periods of rest in between them, when Nocmos either collects the data she's earned on their adventures and writes a paper or too, ooor comes back to her duties in the Clockwork city.

[darkelfguy]

Morrowind - Tamriel Rebuilt - Cities of the Mainland

[dylant-100]

So I thought I'd make a post of my skyrim oc since I've been inspired by my friends and some blogs on here to post her so here goes

This is Aniela Drelas, my beloved dunmer lass!

She's from Morrowind! Born in 3E 417 so she's about 217 yrs old at the start of Skyrim. She lost most of her immediate family during the Oblivion Crisis when daedra attacked her town on the mainland, so she doesn't have many loved ones still around. The Red Year made this issue worse, but despite her losses she stayed behind and helped the rescue efforts for a time until she departed for Skyrim. She's a member of House Redoran, but doesn't keep much contact with other members as often as she used to.

Sorry for the wall of text slfkfkgn it's 5 am and I'm sleepily posting this cuz I really wanted to share her! I might occasionally post more of her later on with more tidbits about her :)

[trickstarbrave]

TCS FRIDAY BABEYYYY

i just wanna talk about steren because i love him. sorry for what will no doubt be rambling u_u @the-elder-polls i will be including art and stuff as necessary bc i love my boyyyyyyy and ive drawn him a lot

he's technically a nerevarine. he isnt nerevar's reincarnation though, instead nerevar (trans) and voryn had a kid by accident and well. steren is the reincarnation of THAT child.

first lifetime in his early life he was born at kogoruhn and raised in house dagoth. The cover story is nerevar was on a pilgrimage for azura and voryn had a drunken affair with a woman. steren is born, voryn fakes the death of the random woman, now he has a son. very few people know the truth. nerevar wanted to raise him but he was originally born a commoner and while he's strong enough to protect himself, he wouldn't put it past anyone with a grudge to target a literal infant just to spite him. nerevar still visits often though, under the guise that of course he'd be nice to his closet friend's son

steren was born a few years before the war of the first council though. tensions were getting high between the chimer and previously quiet dwemer, and house dagoth being the spies for the chimer by and large discovered what kagrenac was up to. you know the rest (mostly). nerevar and voryn die, the tribunal become gods, the dwemer vanish, everyone becomes dunmer except ayem and half of vivec... tribunal had caught on though that steren was nerevar's son as well though and they think it is particularly cruel to kill nerevar's only child just because he's of house dagoth blood. so they pretty much wipe his memories for the most part and have him raised in house indoril.

steren grew up in house indoril, and eventually realized he was of house dagoth. he confronts vivec who had become a sort of mentor to him, and vivec tells him to leave it in the past. he was spared because he was an innocent child. house dagoth were destroyed because they were traitors. they had to be purged from morrowind. there is nothing in the past that will give steren the answers and comfort he wants and will only lead him to his doom. this goes over as well as you would expect with him leaving house indoril and looking for answers alone. at some point he got married and had a kid, but his mission was about uncovering the secrets of house dagoth the tribunal tried to bury and learn more about his parents. he's killed during a collapse of some ruins. his wife takes the kid and promptly leaves morrowind, fearing what the temple may do now that steren is dead

family line continues for a while, and during this time nerevar's ghost has been watching over them. he felt too bad leaving his son all alone in the world, so he silently watched over him, heartbroken. then steren died and nerevar followed his child, his child's child, and so on. up to the third era where steren is reborn to a dying woman on the run from some illiac bay nobleman. after she dies, steren goes to an orphanage. unknown parents, born under a certain sign, fulfilling the prophecy. he's arrested when, after leaving a house he was robbing, he stumbles upon a dead body at the completely wrong time. the trial is shit because this is the TES universe (guilty until proven innocent is canon fsr, dont let me ramble about why we'll be here all day) and he develops a fear of large crowds having their eyes all on him (idk what thats called). he stays 3 months in prison before being pardoned and shipped to morrowind. despite it being his home province he never heard great things about it.

he follows the storyline pretty closely. except that this is my world so mods like tamriel rebuilt are canon for me. he joins house hlaalu and the mages guild. he's really freaked out by all the sleepers who know him by name saying weird shit calling him 'prince' or some shit so he decides to take the opportunity to visit the mainland when the mages guild asks him to. on the mainland he does a bunch of stuff but finds vissamu and an ancient tome from house dagoth. he doesnt know why but he cant let go out of the house dagoth stuff. its familiar. but it also makes his heart ache.

more importantly though on the mainland is he comes across a dunmer who didn't know what house or family he was from. a nearby temple has you gather ingredients for a ritual to summon an ancestor spirit. steren does it correctly and then after seeing the guy happy to know who he is and able to build a relationship with his deceased family, asks the temple to do the same for him. an ancestor spirit is in fact summoned but before they can reveal who steren is, nerevar shoos them away. all steren knows is it fails but the priest sees what is clearly saint nerevar watching over him and tells him he doesnt know why it failed but that he is watched over well. steren hears a voice urging him to go outside and does so. there, nerevar reveals himself, able to communicate with him now, and tells him he stopped the spirit. she wanted to come and talk to him, but she was a woman of house dagoth (voryns mom specifically) and nerevar feared what might happen if his lineage was revealed to others. steren is kinda freaked out, asking if he'll go insane like some of the sleepers he sees, but nerevar assures him he wont let that happen.

back on vvardenfell steren continues his questing. gets corprus, cures corprus. goes to kogoruhn and finds at the old family hearth a bottle with what was originally his baby teeth as well as locks of hair from both parents, typical things to leave near the family hearth for protection. steren takes it with him, not knowing why he's so attached to it.

after getting the ring though he gets his past life memories back and realizes he's not nerevar reborn. he has memories of "uncle nerevar" in his first life. he demands answers, crying, and nerevar comes clean that no, he isn't nerevar reborn. nerevar didnt want him doing this either, but azura has no other options because nerevar refused to reincarnate and apologizes to steren. but steren asks how he can wear the ring then and nerevar is quiet before explaining that while he was alive he asked azura to modify the enchantment so that nerevar and his descendants can wear the ring. that steren's other parent was always nerevar, but nerevar couldnt be open about that fact because he couldnt bear the thought of his own child being killed

fighting dagoth ur is particularly painful because dagoth ur recognizes steren as his son but well. he's still insane. dagoth ur thinks steren is too corrupted and blinded by the tribunal who stole him away and brainwashed him, but dagoth ur can kill and remake him, just like he did his brothers. then he can bring back nerevar, purge the empire from morrowind, and live together as a family, proud and openly. defeating him was not easy emotionally or physically tbh, but steren did win.

also at some point he got trueflame. i havent figured out when he did the tribunal dlc quite yet. it might be while he was on the mainland if im being honest but i feel like almalexia would def spill the beans on who he is. maybe he takes out the assassins, comes back, gets the ring, and then goes to deal with the rest of the stuff from tribunal.

after daogth ur's defeat, azura comes to usher nerevar to moonshadow. spirits arent supposed to remain in the realm of the living for too long and he risks being completely destroyed. nerevar is worried, but steren assures him he'll be fine, and nerevar goes to rest. then azura says she'll give steren any gift within her power to him as a reward for doing such a difficult task, and steren says he just wants to be with his parents again. azura frowns and says she cant bring back the living. steren knows. azura is even more upset because steren is not that old for dunmer and is already asking to die. but instead of killing him she sends him to another world where his parents ARE alive. and also 200 years in the future where theyre together in hopes steren can be with his parents and live happily there. she's going to let this worlds nerevar and voryn have the memories of steren's world too so it wont be weird.

mephala though intervenes with the reasoning "you can just send people to different worlds and time periods. you'll fucking break the dragon." and drops him off not in mournhold but in blacklight, outside of a brothel where the reincarnation/child of vivec (named vivienne, who belongs to @wellthebardsdead) is currently being kept. in this world nerevar was the nerevarine, azura restored him to his status, voryn reincarnated, i wrote about them getting together here. steren, strongly resembling voryn, is taken in by force and fed poison to both diminish his strength and keep him from healing the injuries from dagoth ur. but he and vivienne save up money from tips and escape. steren couldnt take his ring or sword but he figures the brothel madam probably pawned them off and he should just gtfo of morrowind before the temple figures out theres two copies of nerevar's ring and sword and if theres an impersonator running around. they hop on a boat like a day or two before voryn and nerevar track down the brothel in blacklight to look for steren.

they get off the boat in.... SKYRIM!!! surprise, vivienne is the dragonborn too. he and steren are very close but very shy about admitting the fact theyre in love. theyre both traumatized and afraid of hurting the other or being rejected. im sure you can imagine.

look at how cute they are...

also since steren isn't the dragonborn he doesnt do much of the msq. he is more like a follower but he has some side content he does. he joins the companions, contracts lycanthrope (thanks hircine, not helping steren's opinion of daedra at all), ends up doing the forsworn conspiracy and after breaking out of the mine the forsworn take over markarth. vivienne does the thieves guild and steren helps with that bc he does know some dwemer from being taught it by both nerevar as a ghost and voryn when he was a kid. also he did the mages guild in morrowind so he knows a lot of dwemer stuff. oh steren also got fucked up by the heart of lorkhan a little and during the peace talks he did make the throat of the world start shaking when he got violently angry. steren is also not at all impressed with delphine (he already didnt like the blades for obvious reasons)

oh they also adopt a scrib. named mr scribbles. its later revealed scribbles is a girl but (sorry i cant draw bugs well)

alduin is defeated and vivienne comes back. steren was worried sick but is happy to have his beloved back. they confess, its cute, and steren gifts him a necklace he made with traditional house dagoth craftsmanship

shortly afterwards though miraak's cultists show up and despite what they want they have to go to solthsheim and deal with it..... ugh. while all this is going on nerevar and voryn arrived in skyrim and were trying to track their son down sort of on a wild goose chase. by the time they catch up steren and vivi are on their way to solstheim.

on solstheim they try to keep a low profile. steren uses a bandana to keep the big red star on his face covered. vivienne ends up getting turn grey and cold like vivec which doesnt help the vivec allegations. after he's turned steren starts getting some gold patches on him too (i forgot the red star like an idiot sorry)

one of vivienne's clients though survived the purge that voryn and nerevar did. his name is sen dres and he's been hiding out on solstheim getting enough political power to either go to skyrim and find vivi or get vivi when they come to solstheim. sen hates steren thinking steren is the one who convinced vivi to leave and his plan is to kill steren and take vivi back to morrowind to live with him forever. when he finds out vivi is the reincarnation of vivec he wants to force him to become vivec too because then he can have a god as his slave/husband. i hate sen dres so much. anyways he manages to get steren and vivienne alone and convinces vivi if he comes quietly they'll leave steren alive. only to promptly stab steren straight through the stomach and leave him there to bleed out while vivienne is gagged so he cant shout and drugged.

nerevar and voryn do arrive in time to help steren and heal him up. they were told by the house hlaalu dude actually what sen dres' plan was because that guy saw steren had the tattoo of a house hlaalu grandmaster and he doesn't want a potential high ranking member of house hlaalu to die. they get steren to safety and with the rest of the dragonborn gang rescue vivi and the two of them are happy together again while recovering :))) and steren gets to see his parents

steren and vivi also end up getting married eventually. yay!!!!!!

other stuff i couldnt figure out where to put it-- at first the good three think vivi is vivec. mephala sent steren to vivi to see if he'd betray steren to alleviate his own suffering. but vivienne did not, instead he took care of steren and wanted to escape with him. boethiah and azura both try to kill vivienne though. and molag bal thinks vivienne is vivec and should be married to him ugh. do you see why steren hates daedra.

[vomitlover-art]

Hydra, Daughter of the Sload

Born and sold, Hydra was once a handmaiden for a Sload merchant across the seas from Morrowind. However, early in her life, her potential as a wizard was discovered, and she was taken from labor to learn the art of necromancy and destruction magics. She would learn from her Sload teachers the art of corpse preparation and command of the undead hordes she was left to study. Eventually, she would pass her final exam by poisoning her teacher and escaping back to the Mainland- where she was promptly arrested for illegal border crossing and theft of food.

On the way to prison in the Imperial City, she would be freed in Vvardenfell in attempt to fulfill the Nerevarine prophecy. With this new opportunity, she has taken it upon herself to seek higher power and glory- and Moon-and-Star by her side only proves her own might. She aspires to fulfill the prophecy in her own way- by slaughtering Dagoth Ur and the Tribunal and taking the heart of Red-Mountain for herself, raising Vvardenfell's countless ancestral tombs in a bid for full control over Morrowind and the rest of Tamriel and beyond.

She will be participating in Art Fight this year- the first time I've ever entered aack. Hopefully it'll be fun.

[tikattu]

more refs for my tes characters.

this is my nerevarine's lover companion, vultise. he's an exiled ashlander and a necromancer from the morrowind mainland. the stick he's carrying works as a cane and a staff.

[lensdeer]

No I can't fucking be normal about the Morrowind intro

After you start the game, Jiub says he "heard [the guards] say you've reached Morrowind", but in the cutscene Azura says they took you out of the Imperial City Prison "first by carriage and now by boat", so what the fuck sort of route did you take that the people driving the boat set sail from somewhere outside Morrowind and only "reached" it near Seyda Neen.

I'm extremely autistic about The Elder Scrolls lore, so I have obsessed about this issue for years: Jiub clearly meant you reached "Vvardenfell" the island within "Morrowind" the Province. I get it; from a marketing point of view, it makes sense to namedrop the name in the game's box right as you start playing, but bear with me here (why they didn't name the game "TES III: Vvardenfell" instead still escapes me; Daggerfall isn't named "High Rock" or "Hammerfell" anyways, so it doesn't have to be a province name! "TES II: Iliac Bay" would've been a significantly worse if more accurate name for that one anyways, but I digress).

With the beautiful amount of care Morrowind's team of writers put into even the most mundane details of the game's lore this detail has always struck me as weird, and since TES canon has an in-universe explanation for even the most minor gameplay mechanics like Oblivion not having levitation spells, I can't stop fucking thinking about it.

See, it's pretty easy to see that this is the optimal/fastest (and therefore most likely) route the guards used to move you from the Imperial City Prison to Seyda Neen:

Out of the Prison through the Imperial City itself, over Lake Rumare through the Talos Bridge, around the Red Ring Road and then the Blue Road, maybe stopping for the night in Cheydinhal, entering Morrowind through some frontier pass in the Velothi Mountains, traveling through the Stonefalls region for a bit, and finally boarding a ship on Old Ebonheart to take you to Seyda Neen.

In this case, you entered Morrowind WAY before even getting on the ship! It makes absolutely no sense that they would say you "reached Morrowind" if you traveled through this, the only sensible route.

So what the hell kind of route did they take you through?

If, for some reason, the guards didn't want you to set foot in Morrowind-The-Province until Seyda Neen and Seyda Neen only, they would've had to have taken you through a laughably inefficient route:

It starts the same as the previous route, but they would've had to split off the Blue Road before reaching Cheydinhal, crossed the significantly colder and more dangerous Jerall Mountains to enter Skyrim somewhere around Riften (rest stop?), wasted a bunch of time navigating through The Rift and Eastmarch, boarded a ship on Windhelm, navigated through icebergs in the Sea of Ghosts, and wasted a even more time navigating all the way through the Inner Sea to get to Seyda Neen (why not drop you off at Gnisis or somewhere else in north Vvardenfell at that point?).

If you were being taken to Morrowind with any degree of urgency it makes absolutely no sense to waste this much time and resources navigating through Skyrim's significantly less hospitable geography. And, even then, wouldn't the guards have said you "reached Morrowind" around the time the ship went into the Inner Sea anyways???

Thing is, that's literally the only other justifiable option. If they didn't want you to touch Morrowind OR Skyrim before getting dropped off at Seyda Neen, the only remaining option is the even more stupid Plan C:

Maybe they wanted to take you for the scenic route! The Nerevarine prophecy can get fulfilled fucking whenever, who cares:

Go down the Green Road through Bravil and board a ship in Leyawiin (maybe the Khajiit heard you're Azura(h)'s champion and let you through the Tenmar Jungle so you board it in Senchal instead?), and strap the FUCK in for the voyage of a lifetime through the Nepal Sea and sail the Padomaic Ocean aaaaaaaaall the fucking way around Black Marsh and mainland Morrowind, dodge a couple icebergs in the Sea of Ghosts, and navigate the Inner Sea to finally get to Seyda Neen (because fuck Tel Mora, Vivec and Ebonheart; we're determined here), like, at this point multiple years after leaving the Imperial City. Hope you packed enough provisions, because these guys are determined to not "reach Morrowind" until the Bitter Coast!

Alternatively: at this point, why didn't they just commit to the bit and just get some weirdo at the Arcane University to teleport you directly to Vvardenfell?

Condense multiple days of travel into a quick afternoon stroll through the Imperial City! Maybe the guards can do some shopping, watch a quick match in the Arena or chill for a bit in the Arboretum on their way back from dropping you off. Why not. Perfection.

Anyways. I like Morrowind, and I obsess over this topic every time I think about it. Hope I passed on my brainworms to y'all.