RIP, queen.

Part 4 - Finding My Religion

Author's note: Pol lives! I was sick this week and didn't play too much. When I did, I just took notes and screenshots for later. So this is the accumulation of few days. Not sure if it'll be this long between updates going forward or not, but it continues.

As the boat bumps the dock, Pol awakes after what feels like nearly a week of sleep, his first sight a magnificent sunrise over incredible stonework buildings.

He ventures forth into the immense and dense city of Vivec. The massive structures composing the various sections of the city are mazelike, reminding him of insect mounds he'd cracked open as a child looking for tasty grubs.

AN: I absolutely hate trying to find anything in Vivec, I remember that now. I'll come here for quests that send me here, but I'm not especially inclined to explore it on my own. If there's any quests starting here or anything specific here you think I should look for, let me know and I'll try to look for a way to weave finding it into Pol's story.

Lost and wandering, Pol converses with the citizens, gathering information and directions as he can. He learns that the structures are called cantons, and were all built by the temple in days long past. Some are used by the temple themselves, some house ordinary citizens, and some are leased from the temple to groups such as Redoran, one of the Dunmer noble houses.

The areas between the cantons are waterways. He finds that there are regularly spaced bridges to cross between them, but that there is also a network of gondoliers connecting various parts of the city with far less footwork. He takes a moment to admire the fine hats the gondoliers wear. Fashionable headwear fit for Argonians is far from common, and Pol finds a seed of envy planted in his belly. He continues on his way for now, but in a quite corner of his mind, he begins to wonder if there might be a way to take one of these hats for his own, short of harming its owner.

As he continues into the Temple canton, Pol finds that this city seems to be full of beautiful armor. Passing near one of the city guard, zealous temple warriors who he has learned are called Ordinators, he is thoroughly impressed by the fine craftsman ship of their bonemold armor, trimmed with fine gold and deep blue accents.

He is so impressed by the armor, in fact, that he nearly misses being shocked out of his scales at the sight of a gigantic stone floating low in the skies above the temple. Was this the power of Almsivi?

Pol wanders the temple for quite some time, seeking what the guidebook called the Shrine of the Daring. Annoyed, he stops for a break and out of idle curiosity, he reads the inscription on another shrine nearby, labeled as the Shrine to Stop the Moon. To equal parts relief and annoyance, Pol discovers this is the shrine he was looking for the whole time. His suspicions are confirmed, the shrine is apparently related to the hovering stone. It seems to have been a moon summoned from Oblivion itself, which Lord Vivec stopped in hurtle toward the city, fixing it in the air more surely than the sturdiest mortar.

AN: It was the only shrine in the area, but come on. Don't label it one way in the book and one way on the tooltip.

Checking the guidebook, Pol find that the next shrine is steps away at the Palace of Vivec, and that there is another one in the city as well. As he starts to walk down the stairs toward the Palace, Pol is astonished to find himself floating in the air. His feet now planted firmly on nothing, Pol can feel this will be no fleeting enchantment. The blessings of Almsivi are powerful indeed. Pol makes a donation of gold at the shrine and continues on.

The next shrine is held in the aqueducts below Vivec's palace. There are several entrances, but luckily Pol seems to guess the correct level to enter on the first try. This shrine does not immediately seem to bless him nor demand an offering. The cryptic words on the shrine's base seem to want him to breathe in the waters surrounding him. Sourly reminding himself of how many of the dark elves threat his people, Pol assumes the shrine is not taking into account people who actually can breathe water. Allowing himself to sink to the bottom of the pool, Pol breathes the water in like air, and his head begins to grow light. Trusting in the power that he's seen the temple display thus far, he forces himself to stay below the surface until he blacks out. When he awakens, Pol finds he feels absolutely fine, and that the path forward has revealed itself. Here Pol repeats the ritual described in the guidebook by presenting the bound daedra with a silver sword found in a nearby chest. From the weariness in its voice, Pol wonders just how long the daedra has been bound here, alone but for the occasional pilgrim and even then only to repeat the same action and words over and over.

Emerging back outside and with all of the shrines in the city accounted for, Pol takes advantage of his blessing of levitation to return to Pelagiad and see his good friend Ahnassi. As he rises above the city, he notices another Imperial fortress to the south, considerably larger than Pelagiad or Moonmoth, by the looks of it. Along the way, Pol largely zips above the hills, trees and mushrooms in his way, but darts down occasionally to attack a beast on the road, or to speak with someone he spies below. In doing this, he learns that the power of flight is a fantastic complement to the range of his spear. Pol will have to look into mastering this magic on his own. Pol tries to have a friendly chat with a man at a small farm along the way, but the insolent wretch is horribly racist. Pettily, Pol steals all the marshmerrow and comberry from the rude farmer's fields as he leaves.

Back in Pelagiad, our hero lets Ahnassi know she should now be safe from the criminal who had been threatening her. Showering him with thanks, Pol's true and dear friend thanks him with a set of extravagant clothes and a book, another of Vivec's sermons. She must have sensed his growing fascination with Lord Vivec's incredible feats, how thoughtful! She also informs him of an interesting rumor that an aristocrat, one Belrose Dralor in Vivec's Redoran district, keeps a key in his wife's clothes chest which leads to untold treasures in the Redoran vaults.

Pol is no thief, but anyone with a Vivec penthouse clearly has so much more than they need, and if he's a leader amongst the more traditionalist Dunmer, well... perhaps Pol could help himself to some of those riches and use them to help his own people and Ahnassi's. Consider it reparations. Perhaps he could even return some of the generosity Ahnassi had shown him.

Unfortunately, it was not all good news from his special friend. Ahnassi tells him that her former mate, J'Dhannar, is in dire straits. A skooma addict rotting in one of Vivec's lower cantons, she fears for his life. She assures Pol that she no longer harbors any romantic feelings for the man, but sentiment demands that she try and get him help. She asks Pol if he could somehow try to see if he can find the man and aid him in kicking his skooma habit. Pol thinks of how pathetic Cosades had seemed, and we was just playing a role as a skooma addict... or so he said. His tail twitches and his eyes narrow at the thought of sweet Anhassi being with such a wretch, but his heart prevails and he agrees to help, so as to set his special friend's mind at ease.

Suddenly finding himself with more tasks in Vivec, Pol cannot stay long. Springing back into the air as he leaves the tavern, Pol walks the wind back to Vivec, touching down in Redoran canton just before the blessing fades. Pol finds his way to Dralor's manor and, taking advantage of the common Dunmer thoughts toward his people, he convinces the residents he is a simple laborer. With little thought to spare for a Argonian, they promptly ignore him. Pol locates the room where the key should be, but there's a problem in the form of a noble Dunmer woman whose mission in life seems to be staying rooted inside the room. Pol is no thief, but he is clever. Stepping just outside the room, Pol makes to close the door, but blocks it with his foot. Carefully reaching a clawed hand through the gap in the door, Pol can just reach the cabinet and plucks the key from the drawer, the room's resident none the wiser.

AN: I don't know if I just got lucky, but if arm through the door burglary is a reproducible strategy, I a definitely going to look for ways to exploit this.

If lizards could sweat, Pol would have been positively drenched as he walked into the Redoran vaults. Again the people seemed to ignore him. Perhaps there were benefits to many Dunmer considering hm below their attention. Holding his breath, his tail tensed in terror, Pol opened the locked door with his purloined key, ready to flee if he had to...

Nothing happened. No one around seemed to care. It seemed that if he had the key, they assumed he was supposed to be there, just another lizard to sweep out a dusty vault. Pol closed the door behind him as the guard stationed inside the vault headed out, presumably on break. He surveyed the treasures within. Besides a fair amount of gold, there were quite a number of incredibly valuable arms and armor. Unfortunately most of them would be unhelpful to Pol, but they would be incredibly valuable to someone. He did find a wonderful matched pair of fine gold pauldrons in a medium weight, promptly attaching them to his armor.

The combined weight of all the gear was far more than Pol could walk with, but he had a plan. Piling the fine equipment on the floor, Pol heaved it all into his arms and read a scroll of Almsivi Intervention. It worked brilliantly. The next second he was standing in the temple district and for all anyone knew he was a ruin delver returning with a bevy of legitimately found treasure.

Pol threw what he could not carry on the ground and found the closet temple merchant to begin unloading his liberated loot. It was here Pol realized a fatal flaw in his plan. While the gear was fantastically valuable, most merchants simply would not have the financial capacity to buy most of it, certainly not for anything approaching its true value. Pol gets what he can for a piece or two of the gear, accepting all the priest's useful scrolls as partial barter as well.

Pol begins a tortuously slow slog to another canton where shops are more densely packed, so he can sell more of the gear off. Every now and then he drops more items to go back and retrieve the last pile, leapfrogging them bit by bit to his destination. His first stop in the plaza is in an armoury, where for the cost of one ebony shield, he is able to buy most of a suit of adamantium armor and again takes all the merchant's gold in the process. He returns to his pile of loot to carry the next load to the shops, and this time as he enters the plaza, he finds the mage's guild. Pol has heard that the mages offer members immediate transportation to other guildhalls on Vvardenfell. While he's not sure he cares to be involved in wizardly politics and experiments, this seems like an incredibly useful benefit. Especially if one is trying to sell a cart's worth of ill-gotten treasure piecemeal. Pol heads inside and joins up.

As he reviews the transporter's posted list of available destinations, a name he has never seen before stands out to him. When he reads the word "Caldera", Pol's breath catches in his throat as memories of he Hist wash through him. Without knowing exactly why, Pol tells the transporter to send him there. With a sudden flex of the space around him, Pol finds himself in a different mage hall. Brushing past its members without a word, Pol goes outside and finds himself guided by muscle memory to a dilapidated manor house and opens the door. He finds several orcs inside and ignores them. Still in a sort of trance, Pol climbs the stairs to the attic to find a small daedra. It appears to have interest in violence, instead muttering about gold and commerce endlessly.

Over the next several days, Pol retrieves all his treasure and sells it to the creature in a series of careful negotiations. His pockets now weighted with coin, Pol returns to the mage's guild and does a small tour of its chapters using the transporters. He learns several new spells including one to mark a destination and another to recall to it, and sets a mark at the creeping business daedra. He also works with guild spellmakers to create minor cantrips for restoration, alteration, and mysticism magic. These will have little effect on their own, but the small discharge of magical energies when cast successfully will help train his hands to make the proper motions. The alteration spell, being an incredibly brief dampening of gravity, might prove useful to survive a fall... if cast at exactly the right time.

AN: I'm certain I got fleeced on the value of all that vault gear, but between merchant gold limits being low, my poor mercantile, and limited travel, I'm glad enough with what I got. Pol has a nice boost in gold and gear to help accelerate the early game to more interesting places, without being severely OP.

Pol spends some of his newfound wealth and the next few days practicing restoration and alteration, soupmaking and jumping jacks. He also takes a cooking class one of the mage's guild members is putting on. Pol's soups and broths are certainly not impressive yet, but some of them are starting to turn out well, at least as a simple source of energy to continue running through the hills and swamps of Vvardenfell.

He finds an adamantium shortspear in a shop, then buys a valuable grand soul gem from a guildmate. Combining some of the new spell effects he's become familiar with, Pol works with the guild enchanter to imbue the spear with an enchantment to steal his foes' energy and even their very souls. Proud of his first personalized weapon, Pol dubs it the Draining Lizard.

Feeling more confident in his gar and abilities, and now better prepared to train himself, Pol remembers that he had made a promise to Ahnassi, and another mission is still at hand. Returning to Vivec by way of the mage's guild, Pol heads into the musty cantons to find a stay cat and drag hm out of skooma's grip.

AN: Three shrines to go! I didn't really expect Pol to become involved with thieves or the church, but here we are. It should make for some interesting dynamics later. Will Pol sink deeper into a life of crime, or will he turn Ahnassi around to the straight and narrow? (I have no idea, I don't remember this questline.) And then with the church, and Pol slowly starting to become impressed with its teachings, that should give us some interesting RP with the whole Nerevarine thing later.

Part 1 - I'm on a boat!

Part 2 - Did it hurt when you Vvardenfell from heaven?

Part 3 - Breaking chains, helping dames, and... spying games?!

Part 4 - YOU ARE HERE

Part 5 - Suffering From Success

And we're back! See previous parts for intro if you need it.

Pol awakens to find that Cosades has joined him in the bed as the big spoon. Aided by the man's drug-addled stupor, Pol extricates himself and exits to the streets of Balmora. With scant direction, Pol decides to take a walk around town. He notices that no one much seems to mind if he rifles through the boxes and baskets lining the outer walls of the city's buildings. Between the many containers, Pol gathers up a hearty breakfast, a double handful of petty soul gems, and a fair bit of spare change.

Having found a soul trapping scroll in the smugglers' cave, Pol pops outside town and uses it to fill one of the gems with the petty soul of a scrib. Taking the chance to speak to a few people as he resumes his walk, Pol learns that the hill on the west side of town houses the better shops in town, as well as the local temple. From what he's heard out of Cosades and the others so far, he feels that the Fighters' Guild may best fit his past training, but wonders if learning more of the local religion might help ingratiate him with the locals.

Taking note of the available shops and the location of the Fighter's Guild, Pol decides to save his coin and investigates the temple. The building is impressive, with sweeping curves rather than the sharp angles of an Imperial chapel. Inside the temple, an initiate has surprisingly little to say about his temple or religion, but does pass on a rumor that the local magistrate is corrupt, and that a Larrius Varro at nearby Fort Moonmoth is working to expose him. Pol isn't sure he wants to get any more involved in Imperial politics than he already seems to be, but notes the information just in case. Pol also notes that the initiate sells a number of blessed shield and magical scrolls.

Deeper inside the temple, Pol finds shrines to a few saints, as well as to something called the Tribunal. Poll finds that one of the priests offers to teach spells, and learns an invigorating cantrip to restore his stamina. He leafs through some of the holy books on display, finding another reference to Vivec, as well as a possible contemporary, a Sotha Sil. The religion appears to be largely based in ancestor worship, and many of the books lessons told by way of brief stories illustrating a moral. One tale, bizarre and brutal though it is, intrigues Pol for its focus on a mythical spear that this man Vivec crafts. At the end of the book, he notices again that unfamiliar word from the scrolls he'd purchased: ALMSIVI. He sees it again in another lesson of Vivec that leaves him with surprising insights on fighting unarmored.

Setting aside the books, lest he read all afternoon, Pol strikes up conversation with another priest. To his surprise, he is asked if he'd like to join the temple's congregation. Pol had not expected that such an insular people, and one worshiping their ancestors, would accept an outsider. Though... if they will have him, this could help ease the tensions between himself and some of the less accepting Dunmer. And, in a way does he not already worship his ancestors through the Hist? And some of the man Vivec's teachings have already started speaking to him...

He accepts. Caius had told Pol to join up with some group, why not the temple? He could always seek admission to the Fighter's Guild later, when his muscles had better caught up to his memory. He's told that his first duty is to make a pilgrimage to seven shrines and receive their blessings, and given a guidebook to get him on his way. He notices the first shrine is the one in the Fields of Kumma, where he'd escorted the woman on the road. A simple start then, he knew where that was. He still wasn't sure what the Tribunal was though. Seeking a blessing at the shrine anyway, to fit the local custom, he noticed tree names inscribed on the shrine. The first was Vivec, the one he'd heard the most of. The second was that name Sotha Sil again, and the third was a new one, Almalexia. Specific heroic ancestors they all worshipped? It seemed Vivec at least was certainly a man of mythical proportion.

On his way out of town, Pol stops in at what appears to be some sort of soup shop and buys some basic cooking implements of his own. He's not quite able to intuitively recall the subtleties of each unfamiliar ingredient yet, but he's eager to start experimenting, and even manages to successfully make two jars of soup himself that should provide energy on the road.

Pol returns to the Fields of Kummu the way he'd come, noticing this time that some of the road signs read "Vivec". So the man Vivec had a city as well as a place in the religion? Reaching the shrine, Pol sees that he is to leave on offering of that awful muck from the story. Remembering the nearby island, Pol retrieves some and receives his blessing. Checking the guidebook, Pol is intrigued to see that his next destination is the city of Vivec. There he'll need to donate a levitation potion. Pol already has one, so he heads back toward the Vivec signpost he'd seen before.

Checking his map along the way however, he noticed that the walk to Vivec would take him nearly straight through Pelagiad again. He'd hate to run into Ahnassi without being able to let her know he'd solved her problem. Gnarr Mok was supposed to be quite a hike up the coast, but someone in Balmora had made mention of a nearby fishing village called Hla Oad nearby. Perhaps he could hire a boat there. If nothing else, he could get better directions and swim from there rather than hike overland. Heading back to Balmora, he followed the river southwest to the coast. Spotting a campfire just off the road, Pol meets a pir of egg miners on break. Pol decides he's better off not asking how one mines eggs, and moves the conversation to other topics. They provide him some interesting information about the temple. It seems that every few years, one of the Ashland Dunmer is proclaimed "Nerevarine", the reincarnation of one of their other mythic heroes, Lord Nerevar. It sounds like the Nerevarine inevitably riles up the Ashlanders doing the whole mad prophet thing, and the temple has to put them down to restore order. Pol can understand the potential issues with having a madman like that running about, but wonders if perhaps the best way to make sure there are less followers for the next "Nerevarine" might be to simply let them prove themselves as charlatans when their mythical powers fail to ever materialize.

Rounding the bend in the road at the river's end, Pol almost thinks he's back home for a moment. Hla Oad is nestled in quite a lovely patch of swamp, it seems. The town itself is little more than a collection of fisherman's shacks, but Pol does find a small tradehouse among them, and buys a lantern to better light the dark roads he's been traveling lately. He discovers that he can indeed charter a boat from here to Gnarr Mok, and to his surprise, he can ferry to Vivec as well. Perhaps he'll head to Vivec by way of Hla Oad after his business in Gnarr Mok, and visit Ahnassi in Pelagiad afterward. He give s the boatwoman a few coins, and they head north for Gnarr Mok.

Gnarr Mok proves to be barely more of a settlement than Hla Oad, boasting only a small stonework manor in addition to its collection of shacks and hovels. Pol locates the shack where he was told Daren Adryn stays, and heads inside. By luck or aother blessing from the hist, he does not have to look hard. Adryn is the first person Pol meets walking inside. The man claims to have no knowledge of Ahnassi, a clear lie, and when pressed further he chooses violence. Pol is distressed to note that the man's three or four criminal associates make to join the fight as well. Weaving and hopping, Pol manages to slay Adryn, and even to snatch his enchanted blade before he hits the floor. In no mood to test his mettle against a crowd, Pol ducks out of the shack and sprints back to the boat. Shoving gold into the boatwoman's hand, he starts untieing the boat from the dock himself without even waiting for a response. Safely back in Hla Oad, he conducts a more standard negotiation for passage to Vivec, then nestles into a nap on the boat's deck as the waves rock him to sleep.

Level 3! Still not the best multipliers, but whatever. I'm not keen on sitting there spamming anything other than jump while I'm running and feasting on alchemy ingredients. I should probably practice spells more too, but mana's still fairly limited.

Based on a journal entry I wrote to chronicle the creation of my first Morrowind character in over a decade after asking Lemmy for suggestions, Morrow(Re)wind is the tale of Argonian Dragoon Polishes-His-Spear (Pol for short). Join us as I poke my way through the maddest Elder Scrolls game and attempt to complete it with no guides, only hazy memories and potentially the input of readers.

We're running OpenMW with the I Heart Vanilla modpack plus Daisy's Lua multimark and as of the end of part 2, HOPLITE. See the post on patientgamers for links.

Part 1 - I'm on a boat!

Part 2 - Did it hurt when you Vvardenfell from heaven?

Part 3 - YOU ARE HERE

Part 4 - Finding My Religion

Someone please say something if these get too frequent. I'm just uploading them whenever I get to what seems like a chapter break.

Pol awakens the next day, and after offloading some miscellaneous loot to Arille and purchasing some breakfast, he begins the walk up the hill to the freakishly large flea-like creature the townsfolk had assured him was the "silt strider" he was to ride to Balmora. As he crests the hill, he notes a nearby cave and recalls how a woman in town had mentioned recent problems with a nearby smugglers den. Pol hesitates a moment. This isn't his problem, and he has a mission at hand, but it's clear that if the handful of local legionaries could have dealt with this already, they would have. Besides, if the likes of Foryn Gilnith proved to be the norm around here, these people need all the help he can spare. Hefting his spear, Pol heads into the cave of Addamasartus.

The first smuggler attacks him immediately. Folks in these parts seem to stab first and ask questions later, if at all. Pol takes down the knifeman easily enough. In the next room a mage almost gets the drop on him, but Pol manages to trip the mage on a staircase and remain out of reach after the first searing blow. Luckily his spells, while devastating, appear to be limited to physical contact. Pol discovers a key on one of the bandits, and a knot forms in his stomach as he reads the words "slave pen" on the key tag. He continues through the cave, dispatching the bandits with less trepidation now. He finds a handful of throwing stars along the way, which should prove useful, and is thrilled to find a steel shortspear. These can be wielded in one hand, so will allow him the extra safety of a shield, should he procure one of a weight he's comfortable with.

As he reaches the end of the cave, Pol find himself back where he'd started, but now he notices a wooden gate opposite where he'd entered. Approaching the gate, he tries the key he'd found earlier and finds it fits the lock. He opens the gate to find two of his own people in shackles, as well as one of the Khajiit. Pol immediately unlocks all three. They don't appear in any condition to travel, but with all the bandits slain, they should be able to restore their strength on the smugglers' supplies and be on their way soon. Pol bids them a farewell and leaves the cave.

As he exits, Pol glances at the silt strider. He should continue his mission, but he can't shake what he's just seen. Is this really how his people are treated in Morrowind? If he stays here, will he too one day find himself in Dunmer shackles? He has no way to leave... Pol turns away from the silt strider and decides to follow the road to Balmora instead. He needs to clear his head.

Pol wastes all his throwing stars using a large white insect for target practice, then nearly runs facefirst into a massive-jawed reptilian beast, with a tail to rival his own. While startling, this one seems unaggressive, so Pol lets it be and cuts a hasty retreat back to the main road. Pol soon stumbles upon a small village built in front of a fort, all the buildings in Imperial style. Signs identify it as Pelagiad. It reminds him of nothing so much as one of the small villages he'd seen in High Rock.

Eager for a rest, Pol wanders into town and soon finds a general store in which to offload some of his valuables, but finds that the merchant will not trade with him. It seems some of the items the smugglers had dealt in, Moon Sugar and Skooma, are illicit to the point that their mere possession makes traders uneasy. Something like that has to be pretty good, or at least valuable to the right buyer, Pol thinks, so as he makes like he's tossing them in the bushes, he merely stashes them out of sight behind the shop, to be picked up when he leaves town. While shopping, Pol finds a nicely balanced medium weight shield to use with his shortspear. It's made of a material he's not familiar with called "bonemold". He's also able to complete his armor set, except for a helm that will fit over his snout, though he does have to get the bracers in more of this strange bonemold substance. His shopping completed, Pol heads to the inn to rent a room for the evening.

As he heads up the stairs, he is enchanted by a Khajiit woman. After some chatting, Pol learns that her name is Ahnassi. Sensing that Polishes-His-Spear is a born Lady's man full of raw reptile magnetism, she is enthralled by him as well, and almost immediately wishes for Pol to be her special friend. She gives him some interesting information, that a Nord in the room upstairs worships Mehrunes Dagon and has an enchanted belt that may be related to the daedra.

Pol stops by the Nord Hrordis' room on the way to his own, but she refuses to speak to him. Pol knows the ways to a woman's heart, and removes his clothing to perform the seductive pole dance for her, and now though she plays shocked, she is intrigued enough to speak to Pol. He woos the woman almost to the brink of ecstasy with his words alone, but to no avail. Smitten by Pol as she might be, Hrordis reveals nothing about the belt or the daedra. Frustrated, Pol retires to his own room to rest.

In the morning, Pol speaks again to Ahnassi, and the caring girl has procured a potion of feather for him, to light his load as he continues his journey. The kind girl seems troubled, and after some questioning by Pol, she reveals she has been receiving threats from a member of a local criminal syndicate, a man by the name of Daren Adryn in the town of Gnaar Mok on the northwest coast. Pol hisses in sudden anger at this. The first truly kind person he's met since setting foot in Morrowind, being threatened for petty thievery? This will not stand. Pol promises to deal with the man as soon as he's able. Bidding Ahnassi to stay safe and think of him, Pol heads back out to the road, a little more hop in his step as he thinks of his new special friend.

A wrong turn on the road to Balmora leads Pol to a fellow traveler on the road. Nevrasa could use some protection on her pilgramage to a nearby holy site called the Field of Kummu. Along the way, she tells Pol a tale of Lord Vivec, to whom the shrine is dedicated. Vivec, who seems to be some sort of Vvardenfell folk hero, is said to have shown great humility in aiding his people here when he assisted a farmer whose last pack animal had died by acting as a beast of burden to bring in his muck harvest. Pol does not know what "muck" means here, nor why one would want to farm it. He does not have to wait long for his answer. He leaves the pilgrim to medtate at the shrine, the surrounding area seeming safe enough, and backtracks to the last signpost for Balmora. Along the way, he spots a small island just offshore, full of mudcrabs. Deciding to clear them out for the pilgrim's safety, Pol finds tubular fungi excreting a brown custard-like substance into their hollows. He tries some and is still not sure why one would farm it. The taste and texture is unappealing, and it only makes his head slow momentarily. He does however find a delightful treat in a patch of marshmerrow, the pulp of the delicious reeds invigorating him and energizing him for the journey ahead.

Passing through a strangely blighted and empty pass in the hills, Pol finds himself in the presence of another Imperial fort, and catches sight of a walled city just past the bridges in the distance. Hopping with anticipation, Pol approaches the city wall and finally finds himself in the relatively bustling town of Balmora. This has proved to be a more eventful journey than expected. Pol feels he's learned much along the way and is ready for a good sleep to sort out his thoughts.

But first, he had best finally deliver this package. Pol asks a few folks on the street and manages to locate the South Wall Cornerclub, a dingy tavern whose proprieter seems eager to direct Pol to Caius Cosades, if only to get him out of the establishment as quickly as possible. Pol has no idea what to make of Cosades' home when he enters. It is, quite frankly, a hovel, and the man himself looks not much better. Pol notices a pile of the moon sugar substance on Caius' table and curses himself for forgetting to pick up the stash he'd left behind the general store in Pelagiad. He could only hope that it would still be there when he returned to let Ahnassi know he'd dealt with her thug problem.

Handing over the package, Pol waited in awkward silence and anticipation as the man before him read the accompanying letter. He'd made the delivery... could he go now? As it turned out, the answer was both yes and no. This addict or actor was, he claimed, an agent of the Blades - a secretive network of Imperial spies and agents. He said his orders were to induct Pol into the selfsame network, for reasons as yet unexplained. Before Pol could voice the forming thought that he had no training for this sort of thing, Cosades seemed to anticipate. The alleged Imperial agent told Pol that his first orders were, essentially, free time. He was to undertake some training on his own, be it through finding and taking on freelance jobs, or joining up with one of the various guilds and organizations present in the area.

The whole thing seemed ludicrous to Pol. A secret network of spies pulling strings from behind the scenes? And why him, of all people? Why not recruit someone whose already meager skills hadn't deteriorated over a year in prison and a months-long boat trip? It was all too unbelievable. And yet... here the man was giving Pol a sack of coins, and here the man was pointing Pol to experts who could professionally train him, and here the man was offering his bed (dingy as it was) to the road-weary traveler. ...Maybe. Maybe it could be true. Pol was so tired. As Cosades began to puff his pipe and a sickly-sweet scent filled the air, Pol practically dove into the bed and passed out, images of the last few days flickering behind his eyes in the moments before sleep took him.

Folks, we have reached Level 2! Our multipliers aren't great, but I'm not too worried about minmaxing, and it should get easier soon, as we gather more tools and go on more real quests, to naturally practice things and get better mults on our next levels. Even if our mults suck for a while, eventually enchanting, alchemy, and restoration should have us buffed to Aetherium regardless. I definitely need to jump and repair my gear after fights more often to make sure I start building Strength for damage. I take the 2 in Intelligence (magicka has been running out quickly trying to practice with my healing spell), the 3 in Endurance because we need to build that early for health, and 1 in Luck because it's always 1, so seems good to take on low mult levels.

Based on a journal entry I wrote to chronicle the creation of my first Morrowind character in over a decade after asking Lemmy for suggestions, Morrow(Re)wind is the tale of Argonian Dragoon Polishes-His-Spear (Pol for short). Join us as I poke my way through the maddest Elder Scrolls game and attempt to complete it with no guides, only hazy memories and potentially the input of readers.

We're running OpenMW with the I Heart Vanilla modpack plus Daisy's Lua multimark and as of the end of part 2, HOPLITE. See the post on patientgamers for links.

(Don't worry, I won't always be posting them this frequently, I just decided to repost Part 1 from patientgamers when I was ready to post Part 2 and onward here.)

Part 1 - I'm on a boat!

Part 2 - YOU ARE HERE

Part 3 - Breaking chains, helping dames, and... spying games?!

Part 4 - Finding My Religion

After recovering from his initial recoil, Pol learns that the particularly alien-looking elf is named Fargoth, and by his clear unprompted description, it's clear that the ring we found was his. With a heavy sigh at his fortune leaving as suddenly as it had come, Pol returns the elf's ring. The Hist had blessed him with all that fine diningware, best to not be greedy.

Fargoth promises us that his friend Arrille will give us friendly prices at his tore up the way, so off Pol trots for some shopping. We offload our scavenged goods, as well as our filthy prison clothes, and pick up a breezy robe, a fair-looking iron longspear, and a medium weight Imperial cuirass. Sadly the cuirass was the only piece of medium armor the elf sold, but Pol will make due. Pol also buys a healing spell to replace the ring, a few scrolls of Divine Intervention, which he remembers working a treat for returning to the barracks chapel after a night of drinking, and a few scrolls of something called Almsivi Intervention. Pol's not sure what an "Almsivi" is, but if it can also save him from passing out in a ditch, Pol will be glad to have it.

Our hero certainly intends to attend to his quest in a timely manner, lest he be tossed back into a dank prison, but reasons that a brisk walk about town and some fresh air before another leg of travel will leave him best able to respond to whatever unknowns this island throws at him. Pol mingles around town, chatting with the locals and sampling the local plants and fungi. Pol notices that however briefly, one of these mushrooms makes him feel as though he might dance atop the water rather than swim through it. One of the locals mentions some trouble with a den of smugglers just outside town.

As he wanders out towards the lighthouse, eager to get a higher view of this surroundings, Pol is tested in true combat for the first time! A skittering mudcrab charges him with murderous intent! Pol quickly discovers that with a short hop backward, he can remain just outside the reach of the beast's claws while deftly stabbing it in the face. The best defeated, Pol consumes the sweet crabflesh to gain its power.

While taking a refreshing dip and practicing some spearfishing, Pol discovered one of the local varieties of clam seemed to produce some fine pearls, and made a note to keep an eye out for them while he was near the coast. Pol journeyed further into the swamps outside town in search of more snacks, and discovered that not all the local fauna was palatable when some fern pods sapped his strength. Oh and a body. He also discovered a dead body. Pol recovered a sack of coins and a document appearing to list local tax collections. The man looked to have been done in by a weapon rather than accident or animal. Pol would have to speak to someone about this when he returned to town.

As Pol was just about to turn back toward town, he heard a startling scream. Rather more startlingly, it seemed to be coming from directly above him. As an elven mage slammed into the ground in front of him, Pol wasn't sure what was more astonishing: the mer's sudden appearance from the skies, or the fact that he hadn't splattered into mince on impact. He checked that the man was dead more as a courtesy than anything else. No one could survive a fall like that... could they? Pol found a few scrolls in the wizard's pocket, their label mentioning something about flight, which according to the journal he'd landed on seemed to have had something to do with the mage's final predicament. Tucking them away for further study, Pol also reasoned that there was no point letting good fashion go to waste and took the chance to trade up for a much more impressive robe.

Returning to town, Pol heads to the only authority he knows in Seyda Neen, the old man at the census office. After telling the Imperial about the body, Pol begins a new chapter in life as a bounty hunter, being deputized to find the taxman's murderer. Leaving the census office, he meets the strange little man Fargoth again. Remembering that his name was on the tax form, Pol questions Fargoth on whether he'd seen Vitellus in the days before his murder. Fargoth reveals that Vitellus tended to a flame in the old lighthouse, so to speak. Pol heads off to question the dead man's lover, hoping he's not breaking the sad news at the same time.

And of course, he was. After breaking the poor woman's heart, Pol manages to discover that Vitellus had been arguing with one Foryn Gilnith, another name on the tax sheet who'd owed quite a bit of money. He's also asked to keep an eye out of a particular ring Vitellus wore, one that certainly hadn't been on the body. Pol confronts Foryn in his ramshackle shack in the lower part of town. To his surprise, the man easily admits to the murder, gloating in fact. The man says he'd killed the tax agent because he was overcharging and skimming the profits. Detestable to be sure, but was this something that warranted a vigilante murder? Not to mention the man's smug attitude, and his clear personal motive for the murder. Pol decides the best course of action is to take the man to the authorities. If this sort of justice is accepted in these parts, then he can argue his case to someone well above Pol's pay grade.

Gilnith does not take this well, and immediately attacks Pol. Though bare-handed and unarmored, the man proves a slippery opponent for our out-of-practice hero, and manages to knock him down a few times before Pol's spear find purchase in the murderer's heart. Rifling through the Gilnith's pockets, Pol finds the dead taxman's ring. He reports his findings and the execution to the census office, receiving a tidy 500 septims in return. He also returns the ring to the grieving girlfriend, netting himself a few health potions that may prove useful if his magical energies are depleted. Exhausted and with nowhere else in town to stay, Pol returns to the one place in town he knows has a free bed. Giving a nod to Foryn's corpse in the corner of the shack, Pol passes out in the dead man's hammock.

Author's note: Another blessing from the Hist! I've added one more mod at this point. Just this week modder sn0rch released HOPLITE, seemingly the most workable one-handed spear mod to date, and just yesterday they managed to port it to OpenMW. This is a feature that I think should have been in vanilla. Spear and shield was an incredibly common real-world fighting style, and every other melee weapon barring daggers has 1 and 2 handed variants. The extra armor from a shield will help us offset our helm and boot problems, and provides one more thing to enchant later. This mod also adds throwable javelins. They're a fair bit stronger than other throwables, but also much heavier so we won't be able to carry near as many at once. If they prove OP, we may just forget these exist and revert to darts and throwing stars as planned - we'll see.

It Begins!

Based on a journal entry I wrote to chronicle the creation of my first Morrowind character in over a decade after asking Lemmy for suggestions, Morrow(Re)wind is the tale of Argonian Dragoon Polishes-His-Spear (Pol for short). Join us as I poke my way through the maddest Elder Scrolls game and attempt to complete it with no guides, only hazy memories and potentially the input of readers.

We're running OpenMW with the I Heart Vanilla modpack plus Daisy's Lua multimark and as of the end of part 2, HOPLITE. See the post on patientgamers for links.

Part 1 - YOU ARE HERE

Part 2 - Did it hurt when you Vvardenfell from heaven?

Part 3 - Breaking chains, helping dames, and... spying games?!

Part 4 - Finding My Religion

When our journey begins, our hero Polishes-His-Spear is shaken awake by a fetching and shirtless dark elf. Most Dunmer spit on and even enslave Pol's people, a fact which has his tail curling in anxiety, but Jiub has been a surprisingly decent fellow during this tumultuous voyage. Pol is sure that one day those abs will do great things, maybe even change the world.

The guard arrives to snap Pol out of thoughts about Jiub's abs, escorting hm off the ship and onto the dock. Here Pol explains to the hapless Imperial that no, he is in fact an Argonian and not a half-dragon, as in further fact, no one in Tamriel is known to have successfully fucked a dragon since the First Era.

Inside the census office, Polishes-His-Spear gives his information to an old man who presumably works here. After Hist school, Pol wasn't sure what he wanted to do with his life. Swayed by an Imperial recruiter's speeches that one could "join the legion and see the world", Pol signed on for a tour. To be fair, he did get some lovely views of the Abecean Sea before the ship dumped him in the port in remote High Rock where he'd been stationed. For three years, Pol drilled in Imperial maneuvers by day for action he would never see, and threw darts and drank amongst the local farmers and hedge wizards by night. Amongst the innately-wizardly Bretons, Pol discovered he himself had a fair proclivity for magic, but he could never get the hang of destruction. Pol prefers touching himself. With his spells.

*EDIT - I realized I didn't account for birthsign here. Pol is a Lady's man. Mechanically, Endurance is a great stat for us and Personality may help offset some racism against us.

After an incident on the ship ride home from his tour involving pirate kidnapping, a fancy captain's hat, and a case of mistaken identity with the Imperial Navy, Pol spent the next year seeing more of the world in the form of an Imperial prison. Pulled from his cell and shoved on a ship, Pol has now just as suddenly been shoved from in here from the ship and is now out of breath from recounting this hastily-written backstory to the clerk.

The clerk hands him release papers, stating that a simple "Morndas" would have sufficed. Pol is directed through to the next office, but before he goes, a sudden impulse grips Pol. Though he has never been much of a swindler or a sneak-thief himself, he recalls a trick from a past life. Taking this vision from the Hist as a sign, and reasoning that desperate times call for desperate measures, Pol sweeps a platter and some valuable crockery to the floor and is chastened by the guard, then pockets it as the guard turns and walks away.

After liberating some more valuable crockery and silver in the next room, Pol sets upon and eats every scrap of food he finds, ravenous from the journey. Though he's never been much for cooking before, Pol notices that the more he eats, the more he seems to feel in tune with the cuisine of Vvardenfell. Perhaps if he continues to sample the local fare, he might produce some fantastic soups and brews. Pol files this thought away for later, but vows to quietly continue exploring the path of the gourmand in the meantime.

Pol hears something rustling as the wind blows through a barrel in the courtyard and discovers a basic healing ring. Pocketing it, he heads through and has his papers stamped. Here he learns that his release comes with an obligation. Drafted back into Imperial service, he is to deliver a package to one Caius Cosades in Balmora, to the north. We are advised to take something called a silt strider as transport, and to ask for Cosades at the South Wall Cornerclub. Skeptical of this unconventional release, Pol is nonetheless happy to be out of a cell and willing to do quite a bit to stay that way.

With that, Pol steps out into Seyda Neen and breaths deep of Vvardenfell air and freedom!

Gah, who the fuck are you?

I just got done installing OpenMW and setting up the I Heart Vanilla mod list. I also added Daisy's Lua Multimark to help with getting around a little better.

My only real requirement is that I want my first character to use spears as a primary weapon, because I miss them so much when I play other Elder Scrolls. Medium armor synergises well with spears and Bonemold looks sweet, so I'm leaning towards that, or maybe a medium/heavy mix later when carry weight's less of a problem.

Other than that, I'm open to suggestion on race, the rest of the build, and factions to seek out. What do y'all think is the most fun for someone coming back to Vvardenfell after so long?

EDIT: A few people liked my writeup of character creation, and it's helpful to have a record of what I've been doing in a game like Morrowind, so this is now a Let's Play-type journal that I'm calling Morrow(Re)wind.

I'll be posting updates on [email protected] so as to not spam this community.

Part 1

Part 2

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moo_Deng

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punch_(monkey)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimothy_(raccoon)

I'm curious how that kind of visual/spatial memory interacts with the inability to visualize your imagination.

I am NOT afraid of H.O.W.A.R.D.

I used to play quite a few of them in the ps1/ps2 era, but sort of dropped out after Resident Evil 4.

Now I've picked up Resident Evil 7 and it's clear I'm about at endgame, and I've been enjoying it pretty well.

So aside from other RE games (I have Village ready to install when I finish 7), what are some more good ones from say the last 10 years-ish?

I find the superscience bullshit of RE is usually easier to follow than supernatural survival horror games, I prefer to have some combat and not be purely hiding like I think it's Amnesia? And I enjoy RE7's shift to first person. Tank controls are hard for me to go back to.

Not games with a convoluted mysterious story, per se, but if it's something that re-contextualizes the story somehow, that's the kind of thing I'm interested in.

Inspired by my digging into the FF:06:5B mystery in my current playthrough of Cyberpunk. There are all sorts of weird codes and ciphers, bizarre rituals you have to do at certain places and times, and vague clues in weird places. One clue was even in an update to The Witcher 3, apparently. Based on my reading, the community found a sort of conclusion to this one, but it really doesn't clearly explain things (though it fairly strongly hints at Night City 2077 being a simulation, and us not really playing V, but rather whoever is breaching the system at the title screen).

I got the urge to play again, but the last update broke some of my mods. I'm just about done reinstalling all the visual and QOL mods I think I want on a fresh install, but can anyone recommend any that add quests, random events, or minor romances like the Rita and Bugbear ones?

Somewhere out there, especially after the tau'ri started integrating the galaxy more (and distributing tretonin), there is a human man with a jaffa partner who probably asked if he could put his snake in their pouch.

...Sorry for inflicting this psychic damage on you all. Hallowed are the Ori.

I'm talking about the fast, bouncy singing that the main vocalist does underneath all the electronic stuff.

I'm fairly certain I've heard it in other jazz or swing songs before, but there's gotta be a more specific search term I can use, cause those are some pretty broad genres.