In a Hostile Country: The Saga of Cahmel (Let’s Play Morrowind Part 1)

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is a great game, by a good company, with many exceptional qualities. It’s just that I can’t play it anymore.

With any other game, that would be an unremarkable statement. I got at least 60 hours out of it, after all—more than I’ve gotten out of three fourths of my collection. I’ve made countless characters, to the point where I once knew the entire first half-hour by heart. I played it until my fingers bled.

This would seem like an excellent value, then, except that I played its prequel more than twice as much and it’s fresh as a goddamn daisy. The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind is, to me, a far better and more replayable game.

For those of you unfamiliar with the franchise: The Elder Scrolls games, which are connected only loosely by the lore and background, are the most successful and vast open-world single player RPGs. These are games where the main quest, which is entirely optional and represents only a fraction of the gameplay, is usually viewed as more of an annoyance than anything. Indeed, by the time I got around to doing it with my primary character all those years ago, I was basically powerful enough to punch out the end boss while wearing only a festive belt and a plastered-on, low-res smile.

What I’m saying is, they’re big, and they’re nontraditional. If most games are a guided tour of some famous building, the Elder Scrolls games are the keys to every building in the city and a couple of brochures to get you started. It’s a massively entertaining formula, and you’d think they’d improve on it as computers got more and more powerful.

In The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, I hated the combat. The combat in Oblivion is much better. In Morrowind, the NPCs are bland idiots that loathe you with a passion. In Oblivion, the NPCs are greatly improved. Morrowind was a vibrant salad of bugs, and Oblivion…was a vibrant salad of bugs, okay, Bethesda hasn’t learned anything there. Oblivion added more space, horses, purchasable houses, improved inventory systems, dynamic NPC AI…lots of things. And for some reason, I don’t like it nearly as much.

Now, of course, the first thing out of your cynical lips is going to be “nostalgia”. Well, no, I don’t really think it is. I’ve played many franchises where where I’ve noticed every game getting better, building up to . And I’ve been playing Morrowind, in preparation for this series, and I love it every bit as much as I used to.

This series is going to do many things. It’s going to be an analysis of why I prefer Morrowind; it’s going to be a travelogue and commentary on the setting, for those of you who have never played; it’s going to be an account of my many misadventures and abject failures at playing the game; lastly, and most importantly, it’s going to be an excuse for me to goof of and take lots of screenshots of Morrowind.

It’s also going to be about a bazillion posts long.

One side note: I will be using no mods or expansion packs at the moment. I may add expansions, but it’s highly doubtful I’ll use any mods–except one I myself make to fix situational bugs. I’m also playing realistically—not stealing everything, eating occasionally, sleeping at night, walking everywhere—and I’m trying not to reload unless I die or do something really stupid.

With these rules in mind, I started the game.

With the exception of the second game, Daggerfall, all of the Elder Scrolls games start the same way: with your level-one arse in jail. It’s not hard to see the reasoning behind this. The Elder Scrolls games allow you tremendous freedom to be the kind of character you want to be—anyone from an assassin, to a virtuous mage, to a fellow with unfortunate kleptomaniacal tendencies. Starting in jail gives you a completely clean slate—you’re free to devise whatever backstory for your incarceration you like. If you’re playing a thiefly character, you can say you stole a diamond the size of your head. If you’re playing a brawling fighter, maybe you got carried away and beat down some nobleman. If you’re a virtuous paladin, you can say that you were framed for lewd acts in the presence of a nun.

For my character? I think I’ll decide later.

The game begins in a cluttered, unpleasant-looking transport ship, with you standing across from a shirtless dark-elf in a pair of sack-cloth pants.

Trying to be sociable, he asks you what your name is.

It's been a long voyage, okay?

This appears to satisfy him. Anyway, he tells you that you’re on a prison boat, and that you’re about to be released.  Sure enough, you’re soon taken to the top deck by a needlessly rude guard who, apparently, wears armor while pacing around the ship.

"Get yourself up on deck, and let's keep this as civil as possible." Big words for a guy dressed like Mad Max's larping cousin.

Glaring savagely at him, I follow his instructions. This is your first view of Morrowind.

Apparently, it's under the thrall of giant insect overlords. That's good to know.

(I’m skipping through large chunks of the character creation process: partially because it’s not terribly interesting, partially because it’s brief, partially because Zarah already dedicated quite some time to that in his Let’s Play series. Suffice it to say, you process some paperwork and end up with a character sheet. I end up like this:)

I should probably do something about the name.

Redguard are a dark-skinned warrior race that, excluding the blue-and-yellow skinned Altmer and Dunmer, make up 100% of Tamriel’s ethnic diversity. They get all kinds of bonuses to combat. That sounds kinda racist, but only until you consider that the other races are good at stealing, lying, burning things and hopping around like lobotmized toads. I change my name to Cahmel, for no real reason besides the fact that I like how it sounds.

I come to my first roleplaying dilemma in the next room. Bethesda, cunning bastards, basically do this: establish that you’re a convicted criminal, have a bunch of government pigs push you around and be rude to you, give you an inventory that contains a crappy shirt, some pants, and a release form…and then turn you loose into a room full of valuable, interesting, completely unattended swag.

It is so very beautiful.

I mean, they might as well just give it to you. The game assumes you’ll take it—several of the items are actually scripted to tutorials. In fact, it actually yells at you—and prevents you from proceeding—if you don’t loot one barrel containing a magic ring on your way out. The game takes the extremely correct assumption that you’re going to be taking everything that’s not nailed down.

It's like there's a party in my pockets, and all their loot's been invited.

What makes this interesting is that this thieving instinct has always existed in RPGs, but the first-person perspective somehow calls attention to it. You’re not just looting the tables and barrels on your way out, you’re personally scooping the stuff off of the tables. Not that this ever stopped me before, but it did give you a kind of guilty thrill the first time you did it.

This time, I have a little more restraint, and don’t take anything but a lockpick and a loaf of bread. This time.

You go into the next room, where a guy named Sellus Gravius gives you your first quest.

"Son, if you work hard and keep your nose clean, you too can have a shirt as awesome as...sorry, I seem to be blinded by the metric ton of swag you're smuggling in your bloomers."

Apparently, you’ve been released into some sort of work program, because you’re suddenly told that you’re now employed by the Empire. Your first task is to report to a man named Caius Cosades in the nearby town of Balmora for further instructions.

Oh…kay.

You got to wonder: is that really standard procedure for the Imperial penal system? “Okay, you dangerous felon, you, congratulations on being released from jail. We really needed Accounts Receiving clerks, so report to here. Oh, and don’t forget your new business cards.”

Maybe they’re making a special case for you—there’s some stuff later in the game hinting that you were marked by prophecy. Whatever the case, they give me 87 drakes and a sheet of directions that give me a rough idea of who would know where to start looking to find my new boss. Then they put me on the honor system as far as getting there goes. Maybe this Cosades guy needs errand boys, but I’m thinking what the Empire really needs is parole officers. I pretty much abandon any pretense that I’m going to follow their instructions as soon as I leave the building.

Look, guys, I’m sure this is a nice job, but gainful employment just isn’t how I roll. No offense—it’s just that murdering things for money is kind of a family business, and I’m not about to turn my back on 56 years of violence-based tradition.

Anyway, I blow most of the 87 drakes on gear and provisions. Cahmel is built according to my traditional Elder Scrolls setup—long blades, light armor, sneaking and infiltrating. Sort of a skirmish-fighter who can also crack open door and chests to get into their delicious loot-flavored cream filling. With this in mind, I buy a saber, a suit of light armor that is literally made from insect shells, and an extra set of rugged clothes.

So equipped, I sit back in the tradehouse and make plans.

I have absolutely no intention of doing whatever chores The Man has in mind. Still…Balmora does seem like a good place to start. This starting town, Seyda Neen, is a po-dunk collection of sticks sitting on the swampiest section of coastline one can imagine. Balmora, on the other hand, sounds much more cosmopolitan. Maybe I can figure out my next move from there.

So that brings me to my first real choice:  how do I get there?

I estimate from the distance on the world map that Balmora is about two in-game days’ walk from Seyda Neen. Not bad, but certainly an investment of time to be considered. On the other hand, I could just catch the Silt Strider, a sort of bug-like walking freak of nature that acts as the fast-travel system, but costs money to use (more on this later).

After a while, I decide that it would be more interesting if I hoofed it, so I set out on the road.

The summary of the trip there is going to be extremely brief and rather clipped, because I didn’t have the ability to take screenshots for my first few hours of gameplay. I actually had to go back and take some later.

Anyway, not long into the trip, I see a squat and mud-colored cave with a funny name and an unlocked front door. My adventurer senses tingling, I walk in with sword drawn.

A couple painfully easy fights later, I walk out with some more-or-less useless loot, a slightly better saber…and something else.

In The Elder Scrolls: Morrowind, there are narcotic substances called moon sugar and skooma—the former being roughly equivalent to cocaine, the second more like a cocaine-infused energy drink. They’re technically legal, as far as I can tell—they’re not confiscated if you’re arrested, and they’re available at several merchants—but many storekeepers will actually refuse to do business with you if you have skooma in your inventory, claiming that they “don’t want any trouble”.

This is sort of a nice touch—it gives you a form of (very valuable) loot that’s tricky to get rid of and, for many players, will introduce a bit of a moral dilemma. Sure, you get a handful of gold out of the deal, but you’re also enabling some poor schlep’s drug habit. So you have to ask yourself: are you really cold and heartless enough to trade the life of another for a few pieces of gold?

…

Well, obviously you are, or you’d be in the wrong profession.

Anyway, I continue along the road. I come to a town called Pelegiad, a pretty inoffensive cluster of houses with a few shops and an inn. Not wanting to cause a stir, I stash my drugs in a crate outside the inn before going inside.

The next morning, I set out on the road. I’m about halfway to Balmora, so unless anything unexpected crops up, I should be there soon…

I'm not sure why she's stuck in the ground, here. Remember: vibrant salad.

Huh. Someone on the road. I go to talk to her.

Oh god.

Gasp and shock! It seems a random person, who I have never met and will never meet again, has come up to me with some petty personal problem.

I’m sure this isn’t something that’s going to be cropping up a lot in the future.

To be continued in the next entry.