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.
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