In a Hostile Country: The Saga of Cahmel (Let’s Play Morrowind, Part 15)
When we last left our crafty hero, he’d trekked across miles of deadly territory and slaughtered dozens of fierce animals, all for the express purpose of visiting a city he had no real interest in visiting.
Sadrith Mora is one of the major Telvanni hubs—it has a nice slave market, a nearby Imperial fort, shops, etc. Technically, I’m not even supposed to do what I just did (which was to waltz in at an oblique angle, bypassing the front gates)—the laws of Sadrith Mora state that you need papers or authorization to go beyond the gateway area, but most citizens confess freely that you can trespass all you want as long as you don’t make any trouble.
They’ll only kick you out if you’re the sort of person who’d commit fraud, murder women because you want their stuff, rob a place of worship, streak through a heavily populated town, or tote around the stolen head of an Argonian in your backpack.
It is at this point in the conversation that I surreptitiously hide my Avaricious Butchering Pervert’s Club membership card.
So, if I take the quick route into Sadrith Mora, am I taking a shortcut to mushrooms?
The thrill of illicit souvenir shopping aside, Sadrith Mora’s pretty boring–there’s just not a lot of level-appropriate fun to be had in this city. It’s almost like I didn’t think this whole Let’s Visit a Random City in the Middle of Nowhere thing through.
So, new plan.
If I recall correctly, the city of Tel Aruhn is just two boat rides away from SM. Remember Tel Aruhn? Probably not, since I’m not sure I directly mentioned it.
Better question: remember that starry-eyed loony woman who fell in love with the guy who robbed her? And how her “reward” for my assistance was telling me the name of one of her friends? Yeah, see how far that gets you in real life. “Hey, thanks for giving me my wallet back! I have a friend in Pittsburgh named Robert Smalls. You two should totally get together some time. Bye!”
Anyway, this friend’s in Tel Aruhn, so I decide to pay the place a visit.
Tel Aruhn is a bit of a strange town. Guess which of these things it does not have!
• An armorer with a full stock of weapons and armor
• A half-dozen Telvanni mages in a tower
• An inn
• An alchemist
• A slave market
• More than three people who aren’t shopkeepers
It’s almost like the economy of this town makes no damn sense.
Oh, okay, I guess you could make the argument that the shops service the Telvanni, but that makes no real sense. I mean, a.) there’s not that many of them, b.) they’re already pretty well set up, and c.) there’s only like 6 of them, seriously, that’s not a compelling market right there.
There’s actually just about one non-Telvanni non-commercial guy in town. As far as I can tell–by the lack of anywhere for him to live–he’s homeless, so I guess whatever he was selling wasn’t doing too well with the evil racist mages demographic. Damn recession.
I poke around for ten minutes trying to find the friend. Finally, I find her in the basement area of the inn. She gives me my long-overdue reward:
A couple health potions.
Great. Awesome. Not like I can buy that at almost any shop in the game.
Oh, and she lets me know that apparently Slaphappy McLazypants and Robbin’ Hood back there are most likely getting along well (yeah, I was tossing and turning over that one). However, she does say that they haven’t been seen since I hooked them up.
Huh. Guess this story does have a happy ending.
Wait – theres a /reward/ for that quest?
Well, I’ll be .
I always figured that the “haven’t been seen since” line ment that the thief had killed the (incredibly) stupid girl, buried her body in some remote place and then skipped to the mainland with all her dough so as to live happily ever after. So yeah, a happy ending, no matter how you slice it.
I never look too much into the economy and demographics of any given freeform game.
For example, according to UESP.net, there are just under 1000 named NPCs in Oblivion, not including cloned and generic NPCs such as guards. Divide this amongst 10 races (with a slant towards Humans in Cyrodiil), and multiply it by the amount of provinces (9), and you have just under 9000 people, divided within 10 races, and 9 provinces, and you have just under 900 people per race for the entire world, and 90 people per province.
9000 people does not an empire make, and we have figured out why NPCs in the Elder Scrolls series are so goddamned stupid. They’re inbreeding within a pool of just under 1000 people, at best, for the entire world.
Now we get to the fun part of the eastern half of Morrowind. The only fast travel to any city located east of a line between Dagon Fel and Tel Branora is by boat(other than the Sadrith Mora mages guild). The boat system is insane. Which cities were connected seems to have been figured out by a drunk, and even if there is a connection, it probably costs twice as much by boat compared to any other form of transport(before factoring in the non-Telvani, non-Dunmer, and outlander special fees). Tel Aruhn and Sadrith Mora are right next to each other, but travelling between them requires 2 boat trips(and accompanying load screens) about 3x as long. You could walk, but the eastern cities are located on islands, which means swimming, which means slow+death.
Realization while typing this: The Telvanni towers aren’t intended to screw non-casters, they’re a wake-up call saying “DON’T TRAVEL THE EAST UNTIL YOU CAN FLY!”
Having never played Morrowind, I’m getting a bit lost hearing about all these cities. Maybe you could draw all over a map and show us your path through the game, compared to the path of the main quest.
Also, you have to realize that economies in video games like this are based entirely around the whimsy of fearless adventurers such as yourself. Without people like you, there would be no flow of goods and products between cities. Seems the people of Tel Aruhn are all too aware of this, and each one wants a cut of the lucrative adventurer profits that you provide. Reminds me of this OoTS strip.
It reminds me of how easy it is to break the economy in Fallout 3 once you’ve explored enough and leveled to the most powerful (non-clawed, *shudder*) thing in the wastelands. “Oh, you want two thousand caps for that minor quest item? Why don’t I just turn your extorting ass to goo, steal the item along with your caps, and give some money to a hobo to make up the karma? Is that worth two-thousand caps to you, punk?”
Not to mention all the useless ammo. .32 caliber says what?
That’s good for hunting rifles.
For those asking: http://www.uesp.net/wiki/File:FullMap_TravelRoutes.png
A map of Vardenfell, with cities labled.
For reference, he went Seyda Neen, Peligad(x3), Balmora(x2), fast-travel to Vivec, Suran, Balmora, Caldera, Gnaar Mok, Ald-Ruhn, fast-travel to Balmora, fast-travel to Vivec, spot just north of Peligad, Balmora, Suran, Sadrith Mora, fast-travel to Tel Aruhn.
And now I notice that Peligad isn’t on that map. It’s about halfway between Balmora and Seyda Neen.
I’m pretty sure I didn’t actually go to Gnaar Mok, but that’s otherwise more or less accurate.
Hunting Rifles? By the time you can properly maintain one of them, you have access to Lincoln’s Repeater, the best long range rifle in the game. And don’t even try that whole “.44 Magnum rounds are rare” crap, by level fifteen I had at least two hundred rounds. Of course, I optimized on my current play-through, so I had A3-21’s plasma rifle and 300 rounds for that at the time.