TES:V, "What about Morrowind?"

[Pilaf The Defiler]

May I have your attention please.

We have received a transmission from the New North. A Census of the Great Houses as of the Fourth Era. Please read with due haste, and praise be to our High Alma Jaroon, who leads us in grace and piety in the name of the New North and the New Temple.

[OblivionDuruza]

That post is so full of awesome, and somewhat as I hypothesised, in part (obviously in much greater depth and detail). A most pleasing find, thank you greatly Pilaf, O Great Defiler! I was most intrigued by the split in House Hlaalu, as it should be some regards, in my view. Hopefully, The House of Hlaal-Odai shall see some of the corruption under Helseth cleansed from the House.

[Pilaf The Defiler]

My favorite parts:

Redoran Ghost Councillors.

Dark Ordinators, presumably bonewalkers of some sort.

Gravid Armigers awaiting the return of Vivec.

House Sotha as the Tamrielic version of Santa Claus, randomly teleporting around on Fabricants and tossing gifts at people.

How some of House Telvanni escaped by just calmly walking under water through the ocean, but their eyes changed as a result.

Apparently the Thalmor is protecting the interests of the Temple for some obscure reason only known to them - traditionally they were not allies by any stretch. In fact it seems outright odd for them to support a Lorkhanic tradition.

The three eyed masks of the Sul Ordinators.

[OblivionDuruza]

Indeed, my favourites, apart from the whole Hlaalu split I alluded to earlier are:

• House Sathil and House Skaal - I do like how the Dunmer and Skaal have intergrated, to an extent, and I think these two Houses are reflective of that, and a positive sign for Solstheim's future.
• House Sul - As I've always been interested in Alandro Sul and am glad to see a bit of expansion on the subject. Additionally, it's reflective of a move away from the Tribunal, towards a new era of the Dunmer.
• The Gravid Armigers -as you mention, it is most fitting that they are no longer Bouyant in Vivec's absence.
• The So-Called Children of Veloth - reflects a feeling I had that the Dunmer would abandon the Tribunal and return to the worship of Veloth and the Daedra.

Also, this:

How some of House Telvanni escaped by just calmly walking under water through the ocean, but their eyes changed as a result.

Reminds me of a House Chaos created for a Competition we had a while back, House Cardunmolag. It's fitting I guess, that some of the Dunmer had to resort to such grave measures, and were so affected, and House Telvanni's association to House Ouada is even more fitting.

[ArgonianDunmer]

Interesting that there is no real mention of what exactly happened to House Telvanni, apart from the mention of House Ouada, unless I missed it (I skimmed a little bit)

[Arterion]

I hope that the minor houses allied with the Telvanni will regroup and settle in Winterhold. The College would be an excellent base for the Great House and enough discrete to shadow many young Telvanni, keeping them in secret and providing them with all the means they need to learn their House trade, magic.

In fact I see Winterhold as the perfect base for a Dunmer enclave. Surely many perished in the Great Collapse or escaped the ostracism from the Nords but still I belive and sincerly hope that this Hold will return to its former glory.

[GhostOfNumenor]

The Dunmer would be better-off not trying to rebuild Winterhold. Obviously, something went horribly wrong there. As much for their safety, as it would be for the Nords'.

The Argonians were led into Morrowind by the Hist, and the Hist are apparently no more, so who's to say that the Dunmer wouldn't prevail in retaking their ancestral lands?

[Pilaf The Defiler]

The Dunmer would be better-off not trying to rebuild Winterhold. Obviously, something went horribly wrong there. As much for their safety, as it would be for the Nords'.

The Argonians were led into Morrowind by the Hist, and the Hist are apparently no more, so who's to say that the Dunmer wouldn't prevail in retaking their ancestral lands?

I'm not sure where you think you read that, but you got that part very wrong.

The Hist are still there and still politically active. In fact, I'm pretty sure the Argonians would all be dead or un-evolved into normal lizards if the Hist were to die.

[Da_BossMaN69]

The Dunmer would be better-off not trying to rebuild Winterhold. Obviously, something went horribly wrong there. As much for their safety, as it would be for the Nords'.

The Argonians were led into Morrowind by the Hist, and the Hist are apparently no more, so who's to say that the Dunmer wouldn't prevail in retaking their ancestral lands?

I'm not sure where you think you read that, but you got that part very wrong.

The Hist are still there and still politically active. In fact, I'm pretty sure the Argonians would all be dead or un-evolved into normal lizards if the Hist were to die.

I don't think its that severe, We've seen the powers of the hist before, I think they may be built up to, I mean in Oblivion there was nothing to differentiate it between it and a regular tree (although it could be "dead", which is why the nectar was so sour/foul in the Quests). I think the connection is that the trees just nurture the Land and as a result the Argonians honor the trees.

Whether or not their actual sentient beings is a different story, all of the reports/summaries of them you find in the books/lore seem to be facts given by an Imperial Scholar based on legends and rumors, has an actual book come out and say "Hist are sentient beings" (Such facts may be in the Argonian Account, but I'll have to review the books to know, honestly only read the first)

[Free]

When the ground of Morrowind is fertile, the Argonians, Dunmer and (nord/empire/akavir?) battle for Morrowind.

I think that might be a cool scenario. (probably mentioned here before)

[Pilaf The Defiler]

I don't think its that severe, We've seen the powers of the hist before, I think they may be built up to, I mean in Oblivion there was nothing to differentiate it between it and a regular tree (although it could be "dead", which is why the nectar was so sour/foul in the Quests). I think the connection is that the trees just nurture the Land and as a result the Argonians honor the trees.

Whether or not their actual sentient beings is a different story, all of the reports/summaries of them you find in the books/lore seem to be facts given by an Imperial Scholar based on legends and rumors, has an actual book come out and say "Hist are sentient beings" (Such facts may be in the Argonian Account, but I'll have to review the books to know, honestly only read the first)

Here's roughly a metric ton of passages and descriptions of events in the two official novels. Most of it involves the Hist but some involves the Um-Hist, a related species that the Argonian protagonist compares to the Hist.

Spoiler:

Infernal City:

“The Hist were many, and they were one. Their roots buried deep beneath the black soul and soft white stone of Black Marsh, connecting them all, and thus connecting all Saxhleel, all Argonians. The Hist gave his people life, form, purpose. It was the Hist who had seen through the shadows to the Oblivion crisis, who called all the people back to the marsh, defeated the forces of Mehrunes Dagon, drove the Empire into the sea, and laid waste to their ancient enemies in Morrowind. p.34

Though the Hist share a mind, it is possible for one to 'go rogue' and "escape itself." In such instances, the Hist purge the rogue tree. This last happened to a tree in Lilmoth over 300 years ago. The current Lilmoth Hist grows from part of its root. p. 34, 54

“It was generally believed that Argonians had been given their souls by the Hist, and when one died one's soul returned to them, to be incarnated once more. [To Glim,] that seemed reasonable enough, at least under ordinary circumstances. In the deepest parts of his dreams or profound thinking were images, scents, tastes that the part of him that was sentient could not remember experiencing.” p.90

The An-Xileel talk only to Lilmoth's city tree. p.31

Lord of Souls:

From Delia Huerc, a Redguard traveling with Minister Hierem: “The [ Hist] tree [in Lilmoth] is enormous. The only one I have ever seen taller was in Valenwood, but the Hist was more massive, more spread out. And I could feel a palpable presence in it. I had never quite credited the Argonian claims that the trees are intelligent, but when I stood in its presence, I could no longer doubt it. Further, I thought I felt a certain malevolence in it, but that might well have been my imagination, for the whole situation was anything but friendly. The An-Xileel have been uniformly rude and arrogant, the city itself is a festering, putrid place. From the moment I entered Lilmoth, I have wanted nothing more than to leave it.The minister, on the other hand, seems quite excited, almost jubilant.The An-Xileel sang to the tree, an awful cacophonous chant that went on so long that I might have drifted off a bit. At some point, Hierem added his voice to theirs, but in a sort of counterpoint. He lit a brazier, and I’m sure he did some sort of sorcery. In his younger years he was in the leadership of the Mages’ Guild, before that organization utterly collapsed, and so I know him capable of these things, but I was still somehow surprised.It was my impression that he was calling something, for he repeated the word “Umbriel” many times. It seemed like a name, although the language he spoke was not one I knew, and so I may have been mistaken, for nothing came, although everyone seemed pleased anyway.”

The following is a description of what Glim experiences when he is dead. His soul is trapped in a soul gem and being reborn into a new body grown by the Umbriel-Hist (Um-Hist henceforth). It is likely to resemble what one would experience with traditional Black Marsh Hist. “[Glim] swam in black water, probing through the rotting leaves, lifting his eyes now and then above the surface to search the shallows and shore for movement. Larger things in the depths of the swamp couldn’t reach him here, amidst the twisting cypress roots; here the danger usually came from land.
Something in the mud moved, and he snapped at it with webbed paws and lifted a feathery-gilled wriggler into view. He ate it happily and searched for more, but in a short time his belly was full and he felt like basking. He swam lazily back to the gathering hole.
The old ones had already claimed the choicest perches, so he crawled onto a log already crowded with his siblings and wriggled down among them until he felt the rough bark against his belly. When his brothers and sisters gave up their sleepy, halfhearted complaints at his added company, he felt the sun on his skin and began to dream his life; swimming, basking, killing, avoiding death, the sun and moons, all mystery, all terrifying, all beautiful. Each day the same day, each year the same year.
Until the root came, and the taste of sap. Some changes were slow, others came quickly, and he—they—flowed together, found the stream of time. His old body wasn’t forgotten, but it changed, became more like things the root remembered from otherwhere; his hind legs lengthened and his spine stood up. Small thoughts in his head put out branches, and those branched also, until what had before been warmth, light, shadow, movement, fear, contentment, anger, and lust became categories instead of simple facts. The world was the same, but it seemed more, bigger, stranger than ever.
Death followed life and life death, but it all flowed through the root, each life different, each the same.
Until that, too, ended, and the root was ripped away, and he was alone. The gathering place was empty except for him—no elders, no siblings. He swam in black water, forgetting everything. Losing his form, melting away.
But in that dissolution, the illusion was also dissolved. He was many, and he was one. He sang, a plaintive tune, a remembrance, a prayer. All of his voices took it up, trembling it out through every branch and root, through heart and blood and bone.”

The Hist “are sentient trees, and we [Glim, speaking on behalf of the Argonians] are—connected to them. They are many and they are one, all attached at the root, and we, too, are joined to that root. Some say we were created by the Hist, to see for them the world where they cannot walk. They can call us or send us away. When we are named, we take of the sap of the Hist, and we are changed—sometimes a little, sometimes very much. ...
“A few twelves of years ago, our country was invaded from Oblivion. The Hist knew it was going to happen, and called our people back to Black Marsh. Many of us were altered, made ready for the war that we had to fight. Made stronger, faster—able to endure terrible things. ...”
“The Hist are supposed to be unified,” Glim said, “but at times certain trees have gone rogue, broken away from the others. It happened long, long ago in my city, and I think it happened again, not long before your world entered mine. A rogue tree helped Umbriel somehow, do you understand? It helped kill many, many of my people so they could serve Umbriel as dead things. And now I think it may have helped summon Umbriel here in the first place.

The sap of the Hist can “alter things.”

The Um-Hist of Umbriel can produce all materials as long as they are “told” how. Specifically mentioned are nuts, fruits, grains, salt, sugar, acid, wine, vinigar, sulfur, iron, and glass.

The trees of Umbriel’s gyre are very similar to the Hist. According to Fhena, “They dream, they experience, they communicate needs.” Fhena cannot imagine them planing something like a largescale assault as the Hist can.

According to Glim, “some of my people believe that the Hist came to Tamriel from Oblivion. Umbriel is from Oblivion, too, so it doesn’t seem too far-fetched to me that they [the Hist and the Um-Hist] could be cousins.” Glim thinks that “ the city tree [of Lilmoth] somehow called Umbriel, or the Fringe Gyre trees may have called to the Hist—but I think there was some sort of collusion.”

Glim does not think the Um-Hist manevolent. He believes that they are “vaguer than the Hist. Not as intelligent maybe, or maybe just in a different way. Simpler. But like the Hist, they can form their sap into different things, the way you do with your equipment. And they can shape life, change its form.”

Glim thinks that “iit’s the trees who remember all the forms of life on Umbriel. ...they produce the proforms—the little worms Umbrielians start as. Then the ingenium gives them a soul, and they grow according to some sort of plan the trees remember.”

“His claws gripped about the tendril-thin branch tips, and the wind, the spin of Umbriel, and the long rippling undulation of the trees did the rest. It was merely exciting, at first, but after a few moments he began to feel the trees, their own joy in their existence, in the process of merely being, and he felt himself gently tugged into a state of pure thought, where no words existed to constrain his feelings, where no logic tried to make sense and order of the world, and there was only color, smell, touch, feeling, motion. When Fhena finally cajoled him back to thicker branches, he went only reluctantly, and he felt more refreshed—and more himself—than he had in a long time.”

After Glim passes out from exhaustion, he starts hearing “the voices, the gentle murmur of the trees, drawing him into the dream of thought, where past and future were irrelevant illusions and his mind was unhampered by reference to anything at all. And so he remained for a time, until finally the ache of hunger and the pain of his wounds brought him nearer to the world. The voices were still there, leading him through the twisting roots, finally into the light, amidst the great boughs of the Fringe Gyre.”

The incubation period of Glim’s new body was only a few days, and all his memories were preserved. However, the Um-Hist were somehow able to tap into them and control what he experienced while dead, and, once reborn, Glim was able to communicate with the Um-Hist more than anyone in Umbriel.

Once he is reborn, Glim hears the Um-Hist constantly and louder than before. They are “as strong in his mind as the Hist had ever been, except they weren’t telling him what to do; they were singing, a deep and melancholy song.” According to Fhena, they changed their tune when Glim died.

Lord Umbriel says that “the trees are fighting hard. They’ve shunted the poison through the ingenium, poisoning the rest of the city while they try to synthesize an antidote. It will cycle back around to them in time, but by then most of the damage will be done. I don’t know if you meant it to work that way, but it was brilliant; it’s attacking the head first—which means me. I had to absorb Rhel and three other lords just to keep going on in this body, to find the venom’s mother [Annaig].”

After drinking the antidote, Glim puts his face against the bark of an Um-Hist tree. He “could feel the poison dissipating; the trees could hear him again. He felt his self soften and flow around the edges as everything that was Umbriel opened itself to him. He heard the call of return, and with an easy bending of his mind gave it greater voice.” Before he manages to comand the trees to return, Umbriel interrupts him. “a spear of pain seemed to drive through him, an absolute command that he acquiesce and fling himself, to break on the lower boughs before falling and vanishing from this world and every other. He rose and took the first step before pushing back against the command, and for an instant he thought he could beat it, push through. But it was ancient, and the trees bent to it from long habit.”

[GhostOfNumenor]

I thought I read it in an earlier thread. Oh well, if that's the case, I stand firmly corrected.

Either way, my point is that the Dunmer should fight to regain their former grounds. They might not have the Tribunal any more, but nor did they really have them in their war against the Dwemer long ago (not as gods, anyhow).

[Pilaf The Defiler]

If you wanna get technical, they haven't really "had" them for a very long time.

The Tribunal had been dormant for centuries, trying to use all their powers to maintain the ghostfence. It had been decades since anyone but the Archcanon had seen Vivec, I believe.

Also, in the wars against Reman and Tiber, the Tribunal very rarely physically entered the battlefield except as generals and strategists. That is to say, while they commanded extremely potent physical and spiritual powers they rarely used or abused them. They remind me a lot of Gandalf in that fashion. They set good moral examples but mostly let the Dunmer solve their own problems unless it was absolutely necessary for them to physically intervene, such as when the Akaviri invaded or Mehrunes Dagon was stomping around in Mournhold.

So to be honest, the Tribunal had mostly been distant religious figureheads for a very long time, and the Dunmer had largely settled their own affairs. I imagine their absence now won't be a monumental change for the way the Dunmer settle their affairs.

[Da_BossMaN69]

Just out of sheer curiosity could the Tribunal stand up to Tiber Septim, even as a man, being Dragonborn and a Shezzar I would imagine he was still a mighty force to reckon with.

[OblivionDuruza]

The implication is that they, and Morrowind, could have stood against the Empire at one point, but the return of Dagoth Ur and the subsequent diminishing of the Tribunal's power, with the addition of the division between the approaches of the Houses to the issue of Imperial conquest (particularly House Indoril/Dres and House Redoran's disagreement on how to fight the invading Legions), made it too risky and potentially too costly, so Vivec decided to negotiate.

[Hissien]

Just going to point this out. The hist in oblivion was tainted, I believe this was because it was separated from the others. This is why the hallucinations effected argonians at all.

[Pilaf The Defiler]

Just out of sheer curiosity could the Tribunal stand up to Tiber Septim, even as a man, being Dragonborn and a Shezzar I would imagine he was still a mighty force to reckon with.

The way MK writes Talos, his laughter can cause entire armies to drop dead. While his recent works aren't game level canon, they give a pretty good view of a character with an extremely powerful Thu'um.

It's hard to say "who'd win in a fight." I think he's certainly stronger than Mehrunes Dagon, and it took both Sotha Sil and Almalexia to bring him down. Almalexia was badly injured in the fight, too. Her body was almost killed, and while she could have rebuilt it or made a new one that's still very inconvenient. And that's at the height of the Tribunal's power. At the time of the events of the Armistice, the Tribunal did not have access to the Heart Chamber I believe - so being killed would be more permanent for one of them.

I think their combined might could kill him, or at least force him to shed his human skin and get serious - which NOBODY wants - but perhaps at great cost. I think he'd murder one or two of them in the process of dying. That's not a fight they could afford to experience. Their powers were needed for the ghostfence. He made them an offer they couldn't refuse.

[Da_BossMaN69]

Define shed his skin? Is this something that is exclusively Tiber or another trait/word of power attainable to the Dragon born.

[Pilaf The Defiler]

Exclusively Tiber, I'm afraid. He knew Shouts beyond Shouts. Remember it was his breath that transformed the jungles of Ald Cyrod into modern day temperate Cyrodill that we all know.

[House of the Wolf]

I'm sure they'd have some trick to eliminate Talos, just as they did with Shor at the Battle of Red Mountain. But it'd still be something beyond epic to see (or at least read about).

On another note, how many houses, total, are known to have existed at the close of the 3E and where can I read-up on it?

[OblivionDuruza]

Five Great Houses existed at the close of the 3rd Era, although House Redoran was on its last legs after the Oblivion Crisis. Three of this number (Houses Hlaalu, Redoran and Telvanni) can be found in-game as joinable Factions in Morrowind, a forth, House Indoril, is also fairly prominent in the game. The fifth was House Dres. You can read about them here, and on their own pages on the Wiki.

[House of the Wolf]

Oh okay, thanks. I saw above you listing the Houses splitting, and I wasn't sure when they had started doing so.

[Pilaf The Defiler]

Oh okay, thanks. I saw above you listing the Houses splitting, and I wasn't sure when they had started doing so.

A lot of people including myself would argue that they were unified in name only as of the events of Morrowind. They began to splinter long before Red Year. The quest lines of Tes III make that abundandly clear, since many Councillors oppose others within their same House.

[Da_BossMaN69]

Shor would not be defeated by the Tribunal, no God/Daedra can stand up to save for Akatosh. It was his power that created the Tribunal, and his power that kept Alduin at bay in Sovngarde, he's not dead and defeated.

That being said, I just need to point out that House Redoran is dead. Ald'Ruhn ( The main seat of power in general, correct?) was leveled to the ground during the Oblivion Crisis, that coupled with the fact that they were dying out due to the aggressive politics of Hlaalu and their stalwart traditionalist attitude probably put them on the Hit-list for the Argonians during the war.

Dres was mainly seated in the Low lands and southern areas of Morrowind, which now belong to Argonia, and there is no doubt in my mind that they're all either enslaved themselves or killed by the Argonians, I can't see the brutal An-Xileel letting the very same people who were responsible for their slavery live.

And finally with the Tribunal gone, I would assume that would leave several ordinators displaced finding themselves with no real task at hand. They were the last members of the House Indoril, correct, when I checked the wiki it said they were a dying House, so they must surely be destroyed now.

So in actuality I'd say you really only have 2 house left, Telvani and Hlaalu

[Free]

Shor would not be defeated by the Tribunal, no God/Daedra can stand up to save for Akatosh. It was his power that created the Tribunal, and his power that kept Alduin at bay in Sovngarde, he's not dead and defeated.

That being said, I just need to point out that House Redoran is dead. Ald'Ruhn ( The main seat of power in general, correct?) was leveled to the ground during the Oblivion Crisis, that coupled with the fact that they were dying out due to the aggressive politics of Hlaalu and their stalwart traditionalist attitude probably put them on the Hit-list for the Argonians during the war.

Dres was mainly seated in the Low lands and southern areas of Morrowind, which now belong to Argonia, and there is no doubt in my mind that they're all either enslaved themselves or killed by the Argonians, I can't see the brutal An-Xileel letting the very same people who were responsible for their slavery live.

And finally with the Tribunal gone, I would assume that would leave several ordinators displaced finding themselves with no real task at hand. They were the last members of the House Indoril, correct, when I checked the wiki it said they were a dying House, so they must surely be destroyed now.

So in actuality I'd say you really only have 2 house left, Telvani and Hlaalu

I find it rather remarkable that these houses that were known for something else than martial/religious philosophy are the ones who survived. (or what's left of it)