The Elder Scrolls

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Is the Tribunal DLC any good? I played through Morrowind main campaign some years ago and was kinda burned out by the end of it. Been considering trying another run and play the DLC.
 
Is the Tribunal DLC any good? I played through Morrowind main campaign some years ago and was kinda burned out by the end of it. Been considering trying another run and play the DLC.
Narratively, Tribunal wraps up the story of Morrowind and the Almsivi Tribunal. If you cared at all about the story or world in Morrowind's main scenario, I think it's rather enjoyable for that.
Gameplay wise? It's kinda just more of the same. Enemies are balanced around it being played after the main scenario, so numbers are kinda high, but otherwise it's not too different from the base game other than a few simple unique puzzles.

On the other hand, Bloodmoon has a handful of kinda annoying gameplay decisions (enemies with paralyzing weapons, even higher numbers than Tribunal, a few not-so-great puzzles/riddles), and a self-contained narrative almost entirely separated from the rest of the game.
The narrative itself is fine, nothing particularly special, but I do think it's the coolest depiction of Hircine and Werewolves in the franchise, so there's some value in it there.
If you ever have played or ever might play Skyrim's Dragonborn DLC, Bloodmoon is set in the same location, so there's a few reoccuring things that might be enjoyable to recognize from one in the other.

As an aside, any time I remember Bloodmoon, I can't help but remember this classic image:
god.jpg
 
Ashkhan Kaushad of the Zainab Ashlanders was a very wise mer; if you are to get married it must be to a high-born Telvanni bride -- a pretty one, plump, with big hips to bring you many sons.

As such, the only suitable wife in all of Skyrim would be Brelyna Maryon, of the College of Winterhold. So sayeth the wisdom of the Ashlanders.

Is the Tribunal DLC any good? I played through Morrowind main campaign some years ago and was kinda burned out by the end of it. Been considering trying another run and play the DLC.
It has a pretty nice and intriguing story, and immaculate vibes, but the gameplay is kinda dogwater. It's like, 90% sewers. And if it's not sewers, it's going back-and-forth, doing errands for Almalexia and Helseth. But there is a certain je ne sais quoi about it that I don't think a let's play or similar properly captures. Same goes for Bloodmoon; 90% busy work, 10% kino.
 
If you're using ANY mods, you're a cuck. Real men rawdog the game as the studio made it (official patches only) instead of dulling the sensation with some Nexus e-condom.
I like to imagine myself spitting on the face of todd and every other developer as i install Vohkrii and other Magic mods for an actually cool mage experience tailored to my autistic tastes, i go " yeah like that todd? im fixing your stupid Magic system oooh yeah watch me having fun with mage bitch ooooooh god im casting master destruction spells while moooooving"
 
kill them ash-skinned faggots every playthrough
Did you know that despite being 13% of the population, Khajiit are responsible for over 50% of thefts in Morrowind? If you have property, Khajiit has something he wants to fence for a fraction of its true value, just to immediately spend it on skooma. Every time a Khajiit gets opened up like a piñata filled with moon sugar, crime rates go down a little.

This would be a lovely feature to see where if you enter the store as a Khajit or an Argonian one of the NPCs just walks behind you and shadows you as you shop.
Imagine Ilmeni Dren and the Twin Lamps pushing for a law requiring town guards to wear magical devices that record their actions while on duty, in the belief that they're unfairly targeting innocent beastfolk. Then the plan backfires and it's just endless magical bodycam footage of Khajiit, Argonians, and Redguards committing crimes and then attacking the guards when caught.
 
View attachment 9341372View attachment 9341373
Tamriel Rebuilt is teasing the release Poison Song. Speculation on whether they're releasing it for Creation Mod Con 2026 in August
https://www.tamriel-rebuilt.org/content/coming-soon
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God im such a worthless chud i can read daedric naturally
Is the Tribunal DLC any good? I played through Morrowind main campaign some years ago and was kinda burned out by the end of it. Been considering trying another run and play the DLC.
I enjoy it i kinda wish we got the 'Gospel' acording to Amalexia and Sotha Sil respectively like we did with vivec it would be interesting to see the other perspecrives aside from just Vivec
 
Is the Tribunal DLC any good? I played through Morrowind main campaign some years ago and was kinda burned out by the end of it. Been considering trying another run and play the DLC.
Tribunal is my favorite part of Morrowind. I like the main quest, I like most of the side quests, I like its dungeons, I like its visual design, I like that it's an actual postgame expac with some properly hard encounters if unprepared, and I like that it's mostly free from the future warning signs that began to creep in with Bloodmoon.
 
What warning signs are you talking about?
Scaled tiers of enemies. This was always present but what was in Bloodmoon was above and beyond anything seen up until that point.
Hehe silly npcs, again turned up a notch.
Diverging but ultimately identical questlines.
Downgraded dungeon design. Bloodmoon's dungeons are the series nadir.

Coincidence that Bloodmoon was the first Bethesda project Emil worked on? I think not.
 
So on a recent Skyrim playthrough messing around with mods to distinguish gameplay styles, I went though the Olaf One-Eye quest to join the Bard’s College and while the quest itself is mostly just another gay draugr crypt, the whole sequence made me think more about Skyrim’s main plot.
The quest is getting back a lost verse of the Poetic Edda and then bringing it back only to realise it’s incomplete and helping to fill in the gaps with made up bullshit. It’s the dialogue section afterwards I like more because it’s one of very few parts in Skyrim to consider Nord history, and not in a ‘go in a crypt and kill a lich’ way, but in the way that it actually looks at how the Nords treat history.

I think part of why Morrowind and Oblivion to a lesser degree feel more cohesive as main stories, is that both of them reflect the cultures they’re about, and how they approach story telling in the universe. Dunmer culture and storytelling feels very inspired by ancient cultures where religion and worship are practical parts of life. They worship ancestors and enjoy a personal relationship with their gods, whether Daedra or Tribunal. They often talk about honour, tradition and ancient agreements. So the main story of Morrowind is about an ancestral hero who Azura prophesised would right the wrongs of the Tribunal, honour the old contracts and eventually lead to restoring the ancient worship of the Daedra. There is a spectrum between the tradition-focused Ashlanders who are waiting for the Nerevarine to fulfil the promises made in the past, to the Temple who are focused on controlling and censoring history in ways that fit the Tribunal’s narrative, with Redoran leaning more traditional, Hlaalu and Empire leaning more modern and the Telvanni not giving a shit.

Oblivion isn’t as well presented but it still feels like a story of the Imperial people. Imperials are defined by their emperors: they define themselves as the followers of the emperor's law; Cyrodil is named after an emperor; their central deity is an emperor; the story is kicked off by the death of an emperor which immediately causes the fabric of reality to begin unravelling. The story being a straightforward good vs evil story where the last of the Septim dynasty fulfils his destiny to mantle a god and save the people of Cyrodil, is therefore a reflection of how Cyrodil views itself. Even if its not 100% intentional, it happens to fit the culture of the Empire being the closest to the modern West, viewing themselves as the good guys led by great men, fulfilling their destiny by civilizing/protecting the world.
In short, both stories feel like they could be told by the people of their respective regions. It makes them more focused and gives them interesting meta qualities despite the fact that they’re still just ‘chosen one’ stories stripped down.

Skyrim's main quest feels like it’s more about dragons than it is Nords. Partly due to their watering down as a culture, but mainly just because the writers don’t want to add anything challenging or complex. ‘You want to know about the history of the Nords? here’s a direct window to the past, meet some Nord heroes, now kill the big dragon, good job.’

I really wish there was more bardic storytelling going on in Skyrim’s main quest like in the Bard's College. Nords in Morrowind are braggarts who care about strength and glory. They believe in honour and tradition, like the Dunmer, but they tend to resent central authority and care more about their clan’s honour than houses or temples and go on about their heroic lineage. A fair number like Hrisskar, Eydis Fire-eye or Sjoring Hard-heart are plain thugs. So tracking down an ancient story, finding it completely unhelpful for their needs and making half of it up in order to fit their own mythology is exactly the kind of shit Nords do. Especially since the whole thing is just to convince Elisif to let them have their regular pissup festival in the city (shame it’s just a bonfire outside the College).
There should be ambiguity in the main quest about what happened in the past with the Dragon Cult and Alduin not because of a central authority censoring stuff like in Morrowind with the Temple, but because half of the stories from the era are blown out of proportion by individual Nords claiming their great-great-great-grand uncle fucked a dragon’s ass to make themselves sound better. We should be trying to piece together how Alduin was defeated and why the Nords exterminated dragons by reading through the lines to figure out where and when it even happened. Even the dumbass 'do we kill Paarthurnax' dilemma would be more compelling if it was rooted in the cultural need of Nords to slay strong enemies, like if Paarthurnax himself encourages us to battle him to fit the narrative of a hero, while the Blades are the ones who want to protect him, to preserve the true history. Instead it seems like the writers confused the straightforward nature of Norse mythology for ‘simplistic’.

I know it’s asking too much of Todd slop, but it makes me sad realising the potential was there, they had the perfect excuse to lean into the ambiguity of the unreliable narrator again and just couldn’t be bothered to use it.
 
This would be a lovely feature to see where if you enter the store as a Khajit or an Argonian one of the NPCs just walks behind you and shadows you as you shop.

Am currently playing Oblivion as an Argonian and it's kind of lame that I'm talking to an unrepentantly racist Khajit in Leyawiin who's expressing her loathing of Argonians while talking to me.
 
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