ye olde script

script artifacts/ye olde script.txt

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+man I fuckin loved morrowind. 
+
+[launch game]
+mmm that music, that's the stuff. 
+"elder scrolls 3? This all feels familiar..." the full name of Skyrim is The Elder Scrolls 5, colon, Skyrim. 
+
+disclaimer: as I inevitably approach my destiny of becoming an angry, bitter old man (at least, moreso), of course my favorite game is one of the ones I played back when I was capable of enjoying things. by all means let that inform your ok-boomer memes. alright, here we go.
+[by now you should let azura's prophecy and jiub play]
+
+[fast-forward through the walk until you get above deck]
+
+Welcome to sedya nee-what the FUCK is that? [camera pan over to silt strider]
+we'll get to it. anyway, seyda neen!
+[receiving guard]: "you've finally arrived, but our records don't show from hwere" [cut] "great, i'm sure you'll fit right in." [fast forward up to office] "ah, yes, we've been expecting you" [just cut to picking a class]
+Morrowind's level up system is genius btw. You level up skills, and levelling up skills is how you level up your character. fuckin genius, because, in games where combat = xp = how to level up, you *will* play a combat-centric character. Here, if you want to play a speechcraft merchantile kind of character *you can*, if you're for some reason fixated on playing a stealth archer *you can*. 
+As is tradition, I however will be going with a jank custom build that I immediately regret.
+"born under a certain sign..."
+what's funny, I always did my playthroughs as The Atronach. more magicka, more casting, more fun, right? but stunted magicka is *rough* early level.
+It means you don't regenerate it naturally when you rest.
+all kinds of fun signs. 60 seconds of invisibility? for free? every day? not bad.
+We're just going Lady - not an exciting sign, but we're bee-lining to max Endurance.
+[video: finish character creation]
+
+Now, hot tip: you want to make this game *easy*? pick up but don't take the papers. Walk over here to this limeware platter. Grab it and immediately drop it. The gaurd runs over and tut-tuts you. now pick it back up.
+Bam. Value: 650 gold. How's that for a release fee ;) ?
+you can do that with everything else in this room. Ok enough messing around.
+"you should learn how to do combat"
+i'll be honest... combat sucks in morrowind. It still sucks in skyrim.
+Lockpicking was also just a die-roll in morrowind. better for balance, but less fun.
+alright, let me just grab this and this and this...
+ah, so! You can just eat ingredients to get their effects. This is why alchemy is the easiest skill to level up - just go around stealing and eating all the food you see.
+//TODO: move this to alchemy: Depending on how skilled you are, you can see the effects an "ingredient" would give.
+steal this and this and this.. ok enough messing around, next building! 
+wait, first, let's just check this barrel... 
+ooo, an enchanted ring!
+ok, really now, enough dicking around, let's go!
+"your papers, please"
+ok but also... Morrowind?
+So fun fact, The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind takes place in, anyone want to guess? That's right, Vvardenfell! The major district of Morrowind, an island with a giant volcano in the middle called Red Mountain.
+bit of backstory, and I have duties?
+Take this package. Ask at the south wall corner club for caius cosades. deliver him the package. got it. Off we go!
+J is for Journal.
+"you're on your own now... good luck!"
+aaalll right! Now if you want to say "fuck the main quest", here is the point where you drop the orders and package, and say "fuck it i'm a strong independent player who don't need no main quest". You could pick any faction, do all their quests, and that would be at least as interesting as most amateur D&D campaigns.
+This is fargoth. The guards took his ring. We found a ring, right? here ya go - and he puts in a good word with us with the local merchant. At this point in the game, that is *the greatest quest reward*.
+Before we visit arrile, check this out. Let's just start running off into the swamp.
+[pick violet coprinus] oo, mushrooms! and here we have a more differenter mushroom. Even today, the fact that the game doesn't just call it "mushroom" is goddamn impressive. 
+[get interrupted by tarhiel]
+right then. I want you to notice what's going on here. first of all, you don't have to take this path, ever. you can entirely miss this. Second of all: there is no non-cheating way to save this guy. You're not supposed to think "i'm me, finally isekai'd to a place where i'm allowed to thrive, therefore obviously i can do everything". But at the other end of that spectrum, this also isn't a bullshit sierra game style event where you somehow *have* to save him to finish the game. This is just.. the world happening. So what did happen? well, he's got dorky robes, a stupid varg vikernes hat, and a sword that shoots lightning! must be an enchanter. also, 3 scrolls of Icarian flight and a journal. 
+"it will allow me to leap great distances!"
+So what the scroll actually does: "fortify acrobatics". ok what does that mean? [cut reading the scroll untill later] 
+acrobatics dictates how high you can jump and land from.
+
+[need footage!]
+let's try one out!
+[use. jump straight up.]
+//MEME: "i'm flying, peter pan!" idk the exact moment
+[hit the ground.]
+[die.]
+[echo effect on VO] "...and land from."
+hmm. so what happened to us? the exact same thing that happened to tarhiel: we fortified our acrobatics, jumped really high, the spell wore off, and our normal level of acrobatics meant we couldn't safely land from that height.
+Now, dear viewer, you're a smart person (I assume). If not for the fact that I'm dragging you through the game, I assume you would have noticed 1) whatever weird thing tarhiel was up to killed him, and 2) he had an odd number of these scrolls on him.
+Let's do a little crime scene reconstruction here... I suspect his plan was originally to use scroll 1 to jump somewhere else, use scroll 2 to land, then use scrolls 3 and 4 to get back home! but for whatever reason he jumped straight up and lost his nerve.
+anyway. Restart.
+"i am from a land called spart-" "great. I'm sure you'll fit right in."  "what class" "i'm a locksmith" "a certain sign" "i'm a virgo, and-" "interesting." [pick up lightning sword]
+ok. Remember fargoth told us he'd put in a good word with his friend arrile? and I said a good word with the merchant is an amazing quest reward? that blue bar on the right is how arrille feels about you. we're *maxed* out. that gets us better prices for his spells, or our stolen goods. We're also going to pick up a mortar and pestle and advance our alchemy career. we'll just set up right here on his store counter, aaaand
+[probably a good place to talk about ingredients and effect visibility]
+
+//TODO: alchemy footage
+notice how we see 2 of the possible effects of each ingredient - as you get more skilled in alchemy, you'll see the 3rd and 4th.
+
+ok check this out. You got a dead log, just rotting in the swamp - on it grows Hypha Facia. you got a standing dead stump - on it grows Bungler's Bane. Neither of these, however, are violet coprinus or luminous russela. 
+
+oh one more thing. the school of alteration has all kinds of cool effects - like water walking! (7 seconds is *nothing* as far as time goes).
+
+alright, current objective (for the past hour) has been: Get To Balmora. let's go check out that giant tick thing!
+"we make a special trip just for you. same low price."
+Darvame, darling, what in the fuck is a silt strider?
+[pause footage]
+"a compartment for passengers and cargo is hollowed from the creature's shell; the driver directs the beast by DIRECTLY MANIPULATING EXPOSED ORGANS". Disgusting, i love it.
+also, check out that list of towns. make a note of that.
+//TODO: Note: silt strider towns
+So there you go. we can get a ride right to balmora, and it costs gold. It's the most logical shit in the world! meanwhile most other games (including this game's immediate sequel) think, ehh the world we built kinda sucks, you should just skip it. 
+Did you notice how when game of thrones was good, travelling on the kings' road took the better part of a season? then in the final season, Reek just pops open the fast travel menu and bam! across the world! I'm telling you; difficulty of travel corresponds with how much love and effort was put into building the world.
+
+ah, balmora!
+[lightning bolt]
+Let's get out of the rain.
+anyway, look at this place: it looks nothing like Seyda Neen, the imperial port city. Because the local dunmer built this city. 
+"is there something you... need?"
+every dunmer male has been smoking a pack a day since the day they were born.
+[cut to asking about someone in particular]
+"outlander", eh? we will be hearing this a lot. 
+Well he's an asshole but let's go downstairs. So House Hlaalu, eh?
+[pause footage]
+3 Great Houses, and 2 minor.
+so Hlaalu loves imperial law, freedom of trade, etc etc. They're all very proud of adapting, and harmonizing, and more importantly: making money.
+We'll buy a Guide to Balmora off him.
+Aaallll of this, by the way, is true. The only time morrowind lies to you is in terms of scale. Contrast that with, for example, the fact that Mass Effect took 3 installments to show a female turian - there was in-canon logic for the other council races to show only one sex, but for turians it was weird.
+
+let's have a look around Balmora!
+[cut ahead]
+Balmora has a mage's guild! let's poke our head in! "welcome to wal mart, do you have a membership card?" "no fuck off" upstairs we got Galbedir, enchanter! but obviously in this house of nerds, the real shit is down in the basement. let's browse some services, buy a few spells, oh what's this? spell making? if you know an effect, you can work with a spellmaker to prepare a spell. Oblivion still had this, but skyrim ditched it.
+let's step onto the transporter ring - Masalinie Merian will teleport you to another mage's guild! From Balmora to Ald'ruhn, Vivec, ...caldera? Sadrith Mora? hey, pull out your note, where did the silt strider go?
+//TODO: Note: silt strider towns
+hah, even if you just want to throw money at people until you get where you want to be, you still have to know where you're going! plan your route? can you imagine?
+Anyway. They have all kinds of (literally) magical services, and BOOKS! hold that thought!
+[cut to after fighter's guild]
+in fact, right across the street, a book seller! Good lord look at all these books! this game has a *library* of stuff for you to read! that's what we're in for, here.
+[cut back to fighter's guild]
+alright, sick of all this nerd shit. balmora's got a fighter's guild! walk in and BAM, big ass poster of a fighter! trainers, quest givers, smith... and that's pretty much it. i mean... it's a fighter's guild, not that complex really.
+let's go to the commercial district!
+we got clanler and whatzername, they don't sell anything exciting but they'll buy all your junk.
+Ra'Virr!
+"good hunting"
+he sells daedric weapons! well... not really. But here's the thing: it's a regular weapon that you can use to summon a daedric weapon. That's actually brilliant. that way if you're caught off guard (e.g., if you're sleeping), you still have *something*, but if you can prepare, you have a bound weapon. Price is a hell of a thing though.
+Meldor!
+"how do you do?"
+dreugh armor is amazing, and he'll sell you a full set of bonemold. 
+Bonemold armor, by the way, is the sick-awesome armor these Hlaalu guards are wearing. [there's one in Meldor's shop] who are these guards?
+So the imperial guards are walking around the imperial cities, so naturally the guards are imperials, with imperial steel armor. Right now we're not in an imperial city, this is dunmer territory. The game calls this guy a "hlaalu" guard. who are the hlaalu? well I'm so glad you asked, let's go visit the local Hlaalu office!
+[at like 18 minutes in Silt Strider to Balmora, you come up to hlaalu house]
+so the Empire controls basically half the world, right? but when I've been saying the native dunmer control morrowind, it's more complicated than that. There's 3 Great Houses (and a couple minor ones). Hlaalu are the richest, and Balmora is their capital. Also they have the coolest armor, just saying. Redoran live where there's far more dust storms, and are all about honor and truth and justice and shit. Telvanni are mages; we will absolutely be touring their architecture, but later.
+
+Balmora has a morag tong guildhall! first thing you see when you walk in: red lighting and spikes. who are the morag tong? (ethasi rilvayn tells us) dunmer assassin's guild! we'll come back to them.
+
+Balmora has... a ~-fine-~ alchemist. she has great shit in stock, and 3000 gold. I'm something of an alchemist myself... we're going to be great friends.
+
+//TODO: footage
+balmora has... a thieves' guild! you can join them too!
+
+Balmora has... a temple! Finally, Church! ok it's way more exciting than that. So you're going to see signage like this all over the place, and the locals are going to refer to "almsivi". 
+we got some living quarters, bunch of merchants, i don't know exactly what rituals are done in a temple, and:
+A shrine of St Llothis. These shrines are great - every temple shrine will offer the ability to cure diseases both common and blight (make a note of those //TODO:note: disease), and poison. (I imagine it was originally intended for poison to work much differently?) and then a specific blessing. What does the Rock of Llothis do? Little bonus to willpower. Whatcha got for me St Rilm? Endurance. 
+you know how D&D famously has like.. instead of Acid Arrow, or Projectile With Acid Damage, it's Melf's Acid Arrow. Who's Melf? Luke Gygax can tell you all about him. (https://www.belloflostsouls.net/2019/03/dd-a-brief-history-of-melf.html)
+Ok... so who's St Rilm? Well there's a book called lives of the saints that'll tell you, she gave away her shoes to better acquaint herself with the poor.
+//TODO: reshoot, go straight from shrine of st rilm, upstairs, read lives of the saints. then the sermons of vivec. (still cut back to 2024-01-02 19-50-59 - reshoots -temple so you can get the Unarmored skill.)
+oo check this out, we got these 36 Lessons of Vivec books, right? They tend to be skill-books - read them, gain insight. This one is a lesson about accepting death. The Ending of the words is Almsivi.
+make a note of that. //TODO: Note: "almsivi"
+Let's go downstairs.
+so, you know how I mentioned that the signifcance of travel is important? There's some spells in the balmora temple. Almsivi intervention, which will teleport you to the nearest temple, and mark and recall - cast mark, then cast recall to teleport to your mark. so you do get fast travel, but: you'd better successfully cast the spell. And sometimes, hilariously, almsivi intervention will take you to... not the temple you were expecting!
+//MEME: gandalf: "i have no memory of this place"
+I consider this great, because if you want to go to a specific spot, you cast recall. Almsivi intervention is for when you just want to teleport to *a* city. probably to drop the loot you can't carry, or just to get out of the wilderness, or close to the fast travel networks.
+
+alright, let's finally get some work done. Mission: report to Caius Cosades.
+So, one thing people constantly argue about is quest markers. In skyrim, your character's psychic GPS will make sure you don't get any silly ideas about "exploring", you just get led by the nose to wherever you need to be.
+In morrowind, a character will tell you directions, and you have to *listen*, and possibly even *think*, using your massive human brain.
+let's finally get our ass down to the south wall corner club. 
+[observe sign, walk in, ask lady right in front about cosades]
+Hey, you know where Cosades is?
+[she'll direct us to the owner]
+hey is this the south wall?
+"yes, this is the south wall"
+hey are you bacola closcius?
+//TODO: something memetic to say "are you fucking stupid?"
+"speaking."
+ok. i'm told you can point me to Cosades.
+"go out the front door -- NOT the upper door to the terrace -- turn right, go up the stairs, turn left, go to the end of the street".
+alright out we go. Hmm, we seem to be trapped. 
+[echoing replay of vo]: "NOT the uppder door to the terrace"
+consolation prizes... [steal gold and soul gem from crate]
+but now we have to go back in and shamefully walk past Closcius. Ok, let's follow these VaGuE and CoMpLeX directions.
+out the CORRECT door.
+turn right and go up the stairs.
+turn left.
+end of the street.
+alright, phew, we made it. 
+Here he is. Empty bottles everywhere, skooma pipe right at his bedside, moon sugar right on his nightstand. He welcomes us to morrowind, and hands us a book.
+Problem is, it's very imperial-centric, and Jeanette's got her timeline a bit fucked up here, so let me summarize.
+//TODO: commisioned artwork? Veloth leading the chimer
+the prophet Veloth lead the ancesters of the Dunmer to Resdayn, which would later be known as Morrowind. 
+//TODO: viking boat landing
+Nord raiders were fucking them up left and right,
+//TODO: commisioned artwork?
+so they banded together as Great House clans to resist.
+//TODO: just show the Tamriel map with a colored area expanding
+Later as Tiber Septim was uniting (or, depending on your perspective, invading) all of tamriel, 
+//TODO: commisioned artwork? vivec and tiber siptem signing
+//which I'm pretty sure isn't quite how it happened but meh
+there was a Treaty of the Armistice - morrowind joins the empire.
+//TODO: color coded map
+Also it talks about the various factions that control the various districts - the three Great Houses we talked about earlier, plus The Temple, all theoretically under the umbrella of The Empire. There's also a lot of wild, not-exactly-settled "ashlands" around Red Mountain.
+
+under his bed he's got The War of the First Council. what's all that about?
+a war between the Secular Houses, Dwemer and Dagoth, vs the Orthodox houses, Indoril, Redoran, Dres, Hlaalu, and Telvanni.
+//TODO: meme: lelu dallas crying
+Standard war stuff, until the secular houses are holed up at Red Mountain. Leading the Orthodox houses, Nerevar and his troops slayed the secular leaders, exterminated the secular houses, and died later of his wounds. The book then mentions:
+Imperial Impression voice: "Three of Nerevar's associates among the Orthodox Houses, Almalexia; Sotha Sil; and Vivec, recreated the First Council,"
+and this might be the biggest glossing over of details in any book, fictional or otherwise, ever
+Imperial Impression voice: "And went on to become the god-kings and immortal rulers of Morrowind"
+listen if you want to get filled in on the whole apotheosis, there's a temple in almost every town, they'll be happy to catch us up.
+Imperial Impression voice: "known as the Tribunal, or Almsivi".
+//TODO: note: almsivi, and pictures. Resist the urge to use the more modern pictures (with super-hot almalexia), since you want to not show vivec until you get there.
+there's "almsivi" again. It's an amalgamation of the tribunals' names: _alm_alexia, sotha _si_l, and _vi_vec - the immmortal god-kings of morrowind.
+well, "god-kings" is an inaccurate term. almalexia is a queen, and vivec loves his dualism. Tribunal rolls off the tongue much better.
+
+Alright, on to action. He wants us to go to the fighter's guild, talk to Hasphat Antabolis (henceforth nicknamed Ass Fat) and do him some favor. off we go!
+//runrunrun
+alright he wants us to go into the nearby dwemer ruins and retrieve a puzzle box. (i think skyrim gets more into these later?)
+//runrunrun
+look how cool it looks from a distance!
+//runrunrun
+we're going to run in, and hot tip: if you're fighting the steampunk monsters at level 1, you're going the wrong way. Walk in, hang a sharp left, grab the cube. Let's teleport back, run to the FG, hand the cube to assfat, he gives us some notes to take back to cosades. 
+//runrunrun
+Cosades says we're understanding a bit more about the sixth house, but not the neravarine cult, he's got another friend who wants a favor [cut way ahead] - she wants a skull. also, fun fact: in the empire necromancy is a legitimate discipline, though body and spirit are protected property - so like, you can be an organ donor, but aren't forced to be. She's not a fan of the hypocrisy. If you read blasphemous revenants, you'll see: long story short, it's just racism. Blasphemous necromancy is when foreigners do it, but righteous dunmer can call upon ancestors to guard hearth and kin.
+anyway, there's no fast travel to pelagiad, so we have to (slash, get to) walk. There's fun things to see!
+so we're walking through a Foyoda, a depressing ash region. but we step off that (rest till day), and looook! oooo! Emperor Parsol mushrooms, as tall as trees! Trees as tall as those mushrooms!
+[have this footage] meet Maurrie Aurmine! Some bandit robbed her and now she wants on. alright, grab her glove, find the guy. I bet he's in this cave.
+
+uhh... nope. Found some guy's Bowl though. journal says it has an inscription.
+
+check it out, this t-rex looking guy! he's a guar! the dunmer sometimes use them to carry stuff.
+//runrunrun
+alright, further along... there's lots of Ancestral tombs. stab this ghost real quick... and here's a dead body. Looks like he didn't have an enchanted weapon. also listen: creepy noises! as you look around, you see the velothi architecture, and lots of skeletons to be a dick to. [meme: ok first off you're being a dick right now], lots of urns full of bonemeal - i can assure you an urn in an ancestral tomb will always have 1 bonemeal and nothing else, unless they have a unique name. lots of sacred offerings to steal, ack! bonewalker! these dudes will damage your strength. As a murder hobo, the fact that you won't be able to carry your loot is *terrifying*. 
+skull aquired.
+Before heading back, let's go to pelagiad. [pelagiad 1.mkv]
+So we saw Maurrie, she's looking for a bandit, right? Thinking like a video game, we figured he'd be right over the nearest hill. But if we think like a human, where's that charming bandit? In the nearby town, in the tavern.
+Sup Nelos. Alright, bring Maurrie a note.
+Let's check out Pelagiad! 
+Imperials built a fort. Retired legionarres built some farms. voila, a town. cool. 
+it has a prison, naturally, and check it out: it explains who they are and why they're there.
+Elsewhere in the fort, Ygfa knows Piernette Beluelle - notably not Armond - but look at all that direction. Tell you what: YOU deliver that shit, i'm going home.
+//runrunrun
+[letter delivered.mkv] back to maurrie. Letter delivered. next:
+//runrunrun
+skull delivered. Nerevarine cult is illegal, gotcha. He's going to cast down the false gods, drive out the foreigners, fix the economy, get us all laid, and so on. Standard messiah fairy tale. back to Cosades.
+
+
+//TODO: Caius assigns us on a mission to vivec
+
+
+//meme: Ordinary Guy on Internet Historian talking about mythology, and hades: "the place, not the guy"
+Let's go check out Vivec (the city)! vivec is composed of cantons, just off the coast in the water. they have their own transit between them via gondola!
+"is there something you... need?" oof, my dude, you can't wear that hat these days. kidding.
+so the temple built the cantons and is collecting rent on every square inch. Let's ride to Hlaalu. oo, there's the imperial fort in the distance.
+here's an ordinator. These dudes always have a *goddamn issue*. fuck da police, as it were.
+it's super cool to walk through these places - always hearing the water lapping against the cantons, seeing the *giant* structures. basically a medieval skyscraper, right? 
+i'm going to be honest, this is my great sadness for morrowind: it was never to scale. it would be years before games could handle npc crowds, so morrowind will always feel empty. That, and, Elder Scrolls 1: Arena was to scale - but the only way to make that possible was to have it all procedurally generated. So your hundreds of square kilometers were meaningless, while morrowind feels meaningful... until you start thinking "where are all the people it would take to make this city work?"
+
+What was I doing again? oh right, we got a very important mission for Caius. let's knock that out.
+//TODO: main quest Mission to Vivec, up until heading back
+meet this person, do a favor, get some intel. 
+meet this other person, do a favor, get some intel.
+CAREFULLY get in touch with Mehra Milo, get some intel.
+Cool, work is done. Also, we're spies, right? We should work on our cover story. If anyone asks, we got sent to morrowind, and specifically vivec, to compete in the arena!
+Temember i said Elder Scrolls 1 was called "Arena"? yeah initially it was supposed to be [todo: wikipedia screenshot] a "medieval-style gladiator game". so you can definitely compete as a gladiator.
+However, I heard The Morag Tong headquarters, and grandmaster Eno Hlaalu, are below the arena compound, so we're going to the bottom level. well, up one. Stab this rat. Break and enter through this door. Stab this other rat.
+"hey you found the HQ, you're good enough to join"
+run up to the man's room, and have a chat.
+The Morag Tong is a great way to get out there and see the province. Travel to diverse places, meet new and interesting people, and kill them. and, we do need a cover identity. Is there any work more enjoyable or fulfilling than a simple assassination contract?
+yeah i will "bring honor to the guild".
+ok, test to see if I can join: assassinate a guy. He's in town! easy. Off to the Elven nations corner club. 
+"three blessings, friend"
+aww yeah. guys I think i'm in.
+let me just grab my best weap-FUCK. grab my best weapon...
+land a gd hit... ey! Initiation: done. Back to Eno.
+now, here's why the morag tong is awesome. See how it says "your crime has been reported"? Hold that thought. we're going to walk back to Grandmaster Eno. Calmly. Coolly.
+glathel: "arghh!"
+update: i am not in.
+
+ah, that ordinator wants to have a chat.
+[pause footage]
+You know how it's a popular trope in media to have a "fraternity of assassins" working just under the surface, [MEME: wanted] impossibly skilled, usually with stuff that's magic in all but name [wanted meme: "bend the bullet"], and impossibly well funded [anything from John Wick]?
+The Morag Tong is an ancient and proud dunmer tradition. it's allowed by law, normalized by society, even corrupted by politics. for gods sake, the grandmaster is Eno -->Hlaalu<--! none of this "a man has no name" vague mystical bullshit. a man *has* a name, but more importantly, an 800 credit rating, and a trust fund!
+so anyway, [MEME: meet the engineer video, but not audio] how do we stop this big mean motherhubber from tearing us a structurally superfluous new behind? [MEME: ron swanson's permit] Not to worry: I have a permit.
+
+alright, turn in to eno. We join. what's our job now? basically the same as initiation, except we get paid. 
+My god. they really did hire me out of my unpaid internship. Let me show you 2 significant writs.
+//TODO: first hit that takes you through Sadrith Mora
+
+[section: reeh jah]
+Alright, so I'm out looking for some criminal hiding out in some cave in the inhospitable ashlands, right? pages from history of the empire... and another... and another... 
+"ah yes. what is it, muthsera?"
+you seem... underequipped.
+what do you mean "must get home"? ...augh, there's no "let me save my game and decide later" option. welp, guess i'll rescue you. how hard could it be? So he follows, i'm pretty sure that's tel aruhn (and the slave market he escaped from).. 
+[guess we're going to tel vos] can I tell him to wait a moment while I clear a path? ...no? ...oh no.
+mount... mount... none of these sound like towns with boats to ebonhart... guess we're going to tel vos!
+[spongebob time card, "1 eternity later" or something]
+thank christ, a village. 
+tel vos is... strange. that's a telvanni guard up on an imperial wall? let's wander a bit. 
+[cut to dwemer museum]
+is that a fully intact dwemer centurion? that guy from Ruins of Kemel-Ze [//TODO: get some quick footage, but don't sweat it] would lose his shit. let's make our way out...
+ah an imperial museum!
+the... prisoner? erm... this guard locked in a cell? master aryon and the guy from ruins of kemel-ze would get along really well, I think. let's keep moving. Down the hill to Vos. instead of being telvanni/imperial, it's telvanni/velothi. [talk to guy] alright, basic farm village. happy to have the new mage-lord, he protects their shit, grew them some buildings, and only enslaves the races they don't like. onward to the docks, and onward to ebonhart!
+wander a bit, and, argonion mission! Im-Kilaya says thanks, hands me a low-level belt. "The lamps burn brightly for you", he says. alright, glad to hear it. Take care of reeh-jah, he's got moxie but not a lot of finesse.
+
+what was I doing again? Oh right, back to cosades. 
+//TOOD: footage of turn in, assigned to go find Hassour.
+
+tel'aruhn (main quest, looking for hassour)
+//TODO: new footage - reshoots doesn't have the dialog for some reason
+oh btw, let's chat with the local enchanter. look at that, he's got some stuff to talk about his trade - and because he's an enchanter, he can tell you how the various great houses like their enchantments. what a cool interlocking piece of the world!
+
+found hassour. Gave him a thoughtful gift: a poetry book. He told me how to not piss off ashlanders.
+Report back to cosades.
+He wants me to go off to the urshilaku camp. also he decoded that original package for me, uninteresting. Anyway, off to urshilaku camp!
+//use the footage where you get told by the scout to go up the foyada
+arrive. Hot tip: move your mark to here.
+they *hate* you more than other dunmer. but, we give a nice gift, she says "alright i'll give you permission to talk to ashkhan", He gives us an initiation rite, we fetch his bow, and he calls us clanfriend. now everyone loves us.
+chat with nibani. hear the prophecy: Seven Visions of the Seven Trials of the Incarnate.
+trial 1: be born. Check! So far we're killing it, let's release a self help book with financial advice.
+trial 2: immune to blight/age/curse-of-flesh. tragically, not check.
+write all these down, we'll get back to them.
+
+Nibani wants the lost prophecies. She says the dissident preists should be able find them. That means when we report to Caius, he might put in a good word for us with mehra milo.
+
+But before we go back...Let's take a quick detour.
+[//TODO: reshoot the dunmer stronghold]
+
+Check this shit out! This is a Dunmer Stronghold - see, waay back before imperial law, before the tribunal, these were the dunmer forts to defend against invading nords and imperials. Nowadays they just get conquered by the strongest, most well-equipped bandits. But that's why the shape of these buildings looks kinda like the velothi architecture, only made of dark brick. Right in the center is a shrine to Malacath, and check this out: a propylon chamber! We're at Valenvaryon, and if we have the index for (name) we can teleport to it! And who's hanging out in this one? Abelle Chriditte.
+[Chriditte greets]
+"oh i'm just an alchemist", she says. You know, like it's nothing. There's this book, The Cake and the Diamond. Really fun short story where some thieves have a diamond, and a brilliant master alchemist convinces them to make an invisibility potion out of it. That Master Alchemist's name? Abelle Chriditte! Appropriately enough, she's the master trainer for alchemy - anyone who offers training can only train you *up to* *their* skill level. Abelle Chriditte is the only NPC with the maximum alchemy level.
+
+Alright where were we? Nibani Maesa wants the lost prophecies. back to cosades!
+Cosades doesn't know. But he does have a mission for us, that he's hyping up. "We lost a bunch of soldiers. Your mission: Kill dagoth gares." Raesa says to head to Gnaar Mok, and there's no easy route. well that's fine...
+[flight to gnaar mok.mkv]
+grab these, maximize our strength, double check the map, and...
+(the woo-hoo is implied here)
+oo, a dunmer stronghold! hold that thought, we'll come back to one.
+bam, right in the water! perfect, saves us from using a second one to land. stab all this sea life, swim a bit north, and we're here!
+//TODO: footage of arriving at gnaar mok, ask about ilunibi, explore a bit
+now this is another cool thing: Raesa has never been to ilunibi. so it wouldn't make sense for her to be able to give you step-by-step instructions to get there. so we have to ask around.
+short run north, dungeon crawl a bit, and here's ya boi! 
+...oh no. we've contracted Corpus 19. welp, like a good imperial citizen, we immediately report back to work.
+Cosades says our best chance is Divayth Fyr, outfits us, and off we go!
+this is a fun telvanni tower. Let's meet Beyte. "paramor. consort. we're LIKE daughters." *clear throat* mm hmm.
+Levitate up. and here's the man himself: full suit of daedric armor.
+unfortunate fact: before the bloodmoon expansion, he's wearing the only daedric pauldrons anywhere in the game. Even with the expansion, they only gave us one. anyways, here's a 40-lb gift for you mr Fyr, uh, daughters?
+"not daughters, really." "Made them myself, from my own flesh."
+so he... cross-sex cloned himself a few times. does that make it incest or masturbation? Whatever, I got Fantasy 'Rona to worry about, here.
+"in some manner the curse or blessing of a god". hmm.
+[click corprus disease] immune to disease? hmm. 
+so go get some boots? can do.
+[SMASH! your acrobatics has increased to 33]
+corprusarium! i can't see shit, potion of night-eye please.
+vistha kai is pretty cool. "yeah, go ahead, but if you swing on a patient i'll fuck you up. It's fun for me." 
+alright. straight on through: yagram bagarn, last living dwarf! Grotesque, hanging out in a dimly lit basement, talking mad shit about inferior worksmanship.  ah, a fellow engineer.
+he was once a Master Crafter in service of Lord Kagrenac. he doesn't know what happened to the other dwarves, he was in an Outer Realm at the time. Yagrum thinks that Kagrenac either succeeded in giving the dwarves eternal life but accidentally teleported them all to an Outer Realm, or that kagrenac accidentally wiped out the dwarves.
+Morrowind never *explicitly* answers what *exactly* happened to the dwarves - Yagrum's theories are as good as you're ever going to get. He is confirming for us that the disappearance happened at the pivotal moment of Kagrenac's work. And we do know that the Chimer were changed into the Dunmer, aedra punishing them for Veloth's actions. so I guess we ought to think it's less likely that Nerevar exterminated them all, and more likely that Kagrenac angered the gods. But who knows. You'd have to play the MMO to find out, and I have no intention of that shit.
+Anyway. Horrors of corprus disease: observed, boots: acquired, back up we go!
+"close your eyes... drink it up..." this is weird.
+"of course, you still *have* corprus disease, just like i planned" you motherf- 
+"but all your symptoms are gone". ...good enough?
+immune to common! immune to blight! immune to corprus! 
+remember that second trial in the prophecy? CHECK!
+
+back to cosades. He's being recalled! they're sick of his sugar habit, maybe? So I'm "in charge" of the blades in vvardenfell, which seems HUGE. but also cosades assumed, but didn't know, that there's other cells in MW. And spends his days smoking skooma. so, overall. I have no idea if i'm in over my head, or this is a cushy psuedo-retirement job. 
+But that's long term. Right now: talk to mehra milo again, and learn as much as possible about the lost prophecies. silt strider to vivec.
+hmm. Our friend mehra isn't around. Let's ask her co-workers. 
+Both these dudes seem like true believers, so let's be delicate. They say she's probably either here at work (nope), or, she has quarters nearby. Well.
+I have a low-priority not-time-sensitive question to ask this random acquiantence, so let's break into her apartment.
+Note to ayam. She says she has to run over to the ministry of truth, and might be tied up for a while and amaya should bring some scrolls of divine intervention.
+
+Now... have you noticed that every time I need to get to the front door of a temple, I cast *almsivi* intervention? what's the difference between that and "Divine" Intervention? Well, we've been hanging around a bunch of dunmer, in the most dunmer-ass county of the dunmer province, where they follow the dunmer religion worshipping The Tribunal, a.k.a. Almsivi.
+Thing is, The Empire has its own religion - they worship The Nine Divines, none of whom are Almalexia, Sotha Sil, or Vivec. And you can learn all about it and do the entire Imperial Cult questline, which would absolutely constitute a game at least as interesting as many others! You'd spend a lot of time in Ebonheart, which is just across the lake.
+
+So mehra says she doesn't know how long she'll be in the Ministry of Truth, but what *is* the ministry of truth? [look up]
+so if you read the pilgrim's path, you'll see that this shrine right here is The Shrine of Daring. //TODO: footage of Shrine of Daring
+They teach us Sheogorath (trickster god) tricked Baar Dau (a moon) into hurling itself upon Vivec's new city, and vivec just gave a gesture and a pretty look, and the moon froze in place - now it's a citadel for the temple's ordinators. 
+Also if you read 36 Lessons of Vivec Sermon 33 (which apparently vivec wrote!) he says some fucked up shit!
+1) "I would have [removed it] myself if I wanted, silly Hortator. I shall keep it there [..] so that if the love of the people of this city for me ever disappears, so shall the power that holds back their destruction" - in other words it's an overt threat, ominously hovering over the city!
+2) Sodomy is illegal. [zoom on "piercing the second aperture is forbidden"]
+
+so the ordinators use it as their "citadel" - and the ordinators also operate with absolute impunity. 
+
+In case you're less "watching" this video, and more... "have it on", i'm going to spell it out: the priestess talking to the spy for the enemy nation left behind the necessary levitation potions to get to the prison moon, and a note asking to have some scrolls brought over to teleport to the rival religion's front door step, a lake away from her apartment and workplace.
+Inquisitors got her. This is a rescue.
+//meme: Morty: you son of a bitch, I'm in.
+erm... The door's locked, and locked well. Who locks a door on a floating moon?!
+...well the power of magical flight is pretty common in morrowind.
+lock level 80 is a bit above my pay grade, though.
+Oh good, an ordinator. Hopefully her corpse will have a key.
+"but you're not here to VISIT ANYONE", she says, leaning in and winking as unsubtly as possible.
+yeah i'm just here to visit someone.
+"mehra said you would come. I'll say you subdued me with magic and stole my key."
+prison keep, cell on the far right. got it.
+"some of us are sympathetic to the Dissident Priests, but kill an Ordinator, and you'll lose that sympathy."
+Alright. For the cause, we'll do this... *sigh* non-lethal.
+on-duty ordinator: [schwing!] "hrahh!"
+not to worry, I have a few scrolls of invisibilty!
+[walk in]
+...oh right, that's the drawback of Invisibility - you interact with anything, and it dispels itself. Good thing I got a bunch.
+[locklock!]
+...right, i was only given the front door key. Fair enough. Ondusi our way in, and:
+"hwat do you want of me, outlander"
+what do you fuckin think? this is a rescue, c'mon!
+alright, we travel separate. Using the magic of video games, I'll go straight there with superhuman speed, and you'll beat me there.
+Blatta Hateria: "Excellent "fishing". My friend ;) mehra ;) milo ;) says its her favorite "fishing" spot"
+"mmm yess, let us depart for a standard fish-gathering outing, nothing abnormal"
+"GOOD I CAN TAKE YOU TO HOLAMAYAN ANY TIME"
+//meme: facepalm
+fuck's sake. This is how mehra got caught you goddamn idiots.
+alright, follow the extremely obvious rock path, wait until twilight or dusk.
+[footage: door opening]
+Holamayan! they got the traditional bone pile, but all the shrines.
+[runrunrun]
+Mehra got a new job, good to hear. Gotta love transferrable job skills.
+Gilvas!
+"how can I help you?"
+...uh.
+I've never encountered a quest-vital NPC who just goes "sup?"
+idk, my actual question is "more content plz", but this NPC is *talking* to me. As normal. Like an equal.
+Uh. what's new at work, i guess?
+So The Temple is losing their fight against Dagoth Ur. You know how Almsivi are the immortal god-kings? Well, to put butts in pews, every temple needs a god, and needs a devil. Dagoth Ur is the tribunal temple's devil.
+
+so, watcha think about Nerevar?
+he gives us 3 books that give "a very different impression" of Nerevar.
+Saint Nerevar, Temple pamphlet: "the dwemer got defeated by "providence" and then nerevar just kinda died"
+Nerevar Moon-and-Star, ashlander stories: "actually nerevar respects the ashlanders, our traditions, and the land. that's why we joined up"
+The Real Nerevar, some telvanni's informal history: "one dunmer warlord, nerevar, had the A M B I T I O N to rule them all. now let's get into the nerd shit about the various enchantments and military movements"
+
+so gilvas, how about them lost prophecies?
+"The temple persecutes the nerevarine and the dissident priests. This persecution must stop - we must be united against the true enemy, Dagoth Ur."
+The Lost Prophecy: neither Hound nor Guar, nor Seed Nor Harrow, but DRAGONBORN
+//meme: use the Skyrim version of the theme leading up to when whatzisname says "in their tongue he is dovahkiin, DRAGONBORN
+"blah blah blah, notes from gilvas: "lines 1-3 - the sign of the Dragon - the Imperial sign". So dragonborn in this game just means, born in cyrodiil. heh.
+The Seven Curses: "rings seven curses of gods blasphemed" 4 of these we don't even know, but number 7 is bad dreams. lots of people are having those already.
+Kagrenac's Tools: //TODO
+//TODO: Gilvas talks about Kagrenac and his tools, this the first time since yagram bagarn to bring up kagrenac
+
+Nibani Maesa wanted the lost prophecies, right? BOY i hope I left my mark in the urshilaku camp.
+hal ley fuckin lu jah
+hand the prophecy to nibani. she agrees: trial 1, be born correctly: Check! trial 2, get pan-vaxxed: Check! third trial? go talk to the ashkahn.
+alright he says: nearby is Kogoruhn, an ancient Dunmer stronghold. It's a bad neighborhood. Bring him 3 tokens: corpus weepings so he agrees you're immune to corpus. house dagoth cup, so he knows you went into kogoruhn. The Shadow Shield, in the Tomb of Dagoth Morin, deep in kogoruhn.
+wait so why the cup? wouldn't the weepings and the shield be enough? whatever fine.
+"Follow the coast East from Urshilaku camp to the ruined dunmer stronghold called Valenvaryon. Turn southwest. You'll see Ebernanit, a ruined daedric shrine. Keep going south from there."
+"it is a bad place. Go prepared."
+//TODO: move the valenvaryon section
+
+[kogorun.mkv]
+Kogoruhn! This dungeon is actually hard. what's behind door number 1? [30 seconds in] and ascended sleeper specifically Dagoth Reler! he's dealing a surprising amount of poison damage. Fortunately my bonewalker damaged his strength so much he can't move. we kill him, and he just vanishes into a skull [3:02]
+chalk drawings of a beetle, and the furniture is stacked up. We'll crawl this dungeon a bit more, and... [12:55] ...I legitimately did not expect to find an ebony spear here.
+[31:37] like a good video game player, i'm carrying more loot than I can carry. let's start a nice Pile Of Priceless Items, since we'll be teleporting home anyway.
+[21:55] this is a cool moment. What's in the vault of Aerode? An Ogrim! Hits like a *truck* but easy to outrun. 
+[28:53] this guy was well equipped! glass armor, wow Fury is JUNK, and a glass halberd on the wall - i definitely did not expect TWO great weapon upgrades on this mission.
+[33:57] deeper in, let's go into the waterway... sudden velothi architecture! that timeline makes sense, I think.
+[40:43] behind Dagoth Ralas, we have another door [41:22] that drops us in a cave!
+[44:40] hug the wall around this lava, aaand... shit, 2 things I don't want see. A greater bonewalker, and an ash vampire. Ash Vampires are high ranking 6th house members. Vampires is kind of a misnomer - vvardenfell has regular, blood sucking vampires, after all. You can catch a disease in this game which is basically pre-vampirism, which (if untreated) will evolve to full-on vampirism. Then you can find one of the several vampire clans, join up, and do quests for them. or you can do the quest to get cured of vampirism.
+[52:57] further in we have a door to... outside. Welcome to the Red Mountain region - this isn't even a blight storm.
+[57:06] can I get a bit of light- AUGH 
+//TODO: surely there's an amusing form of "oh no too bright" meme
+[59:20] let me just stab Dagoth Elam here, 
+[1:00:00] Shadow Shield: check! surely I have some corpus weepings on me incidentally, now we just have to find a cup. How hard could that be?
+//TODO: title card, "literally 15 minutes later"
+[1:15:34] *deep breath* cup: check. back to my Treasured Pile Of Crap, and we're recalling home. You may hear that i'm a bit exhausted from backtracking every step of this place since I happened to miss it the first time I was in here. And maybe that makes you think this is bad game design, that it should have been utterly unmissable, like with a quest marker. I disagree. This is exactly the ashkahn's test. He wanted me to comb over this dungeon, and pay attention. I did it wrong, and having to search the entire stronghold is the consequence that teaches me to keep my eyes open. There's a sort of mood out there that video games must give you nothing but happy good feelings at every moment. 
+That's the design philosophy of someone who doesn't really like to play video games.
+I think it's more clear if we focus on PVP. 
+I'm not great at mortal kombat. But I have some skill. If I play with people who are *vastly* better than me, It's not fun - I can't do anything, I'm just waiting until the game is over. But imagine approaching it from the other side - imagine setting up a console in an elementary school, and racking up double-flawlesses on children for hours and hours and hours. Wouldn't that also be boring?
+//TODO: explain the rest of this thought. Maybe not here, though?
+[1:16:34] Just like last time, sul matuul says "impressive. keep the stuff". 
+also he says go find the cavern of the incarnate. He can't tell us where it is, but we can seek the wisdom of the tribes. Also we can ask Nibani Maesa who's been pretty cool about just serving up the answer on a silver platter so far.
+//TODO: can we have nibani holding up a silver platter, but it's a skyrim quest marker?
+star is the key and the dream is the door? only opens at twilight, just like the dissident preists' hangout. now, 
+the Wisdom of the Tribes means we can chat with the other ashlanders. Back at 
+//TODO: Kummu's tribe?
+, we meet up with Kummu again. She tells us pretty much exactly where to go; the valley of the wind. you time travel ahead, I'll walk.
+[cut ahead]
+[azura]: in the dawn hour, blah blah blah
+and we're in!
+[azura]: and when you have stood before the false gods and freed the heart from its prison, heal my people and restore morrowind
+so funny story about that, I only learned this while writing this video... that doesn't go well.
+anyways, we get to talk with previous failed incarnates. They all give me some kind words of encouragement and some trash gear. Except Ane, who gives us 36 lessons of vivec sermon 12 - imagine the bible was mostly gibberish, but there was a sex scene that was crucial to the plot.
+
+Recall back to urshilaku camp, Sul-Matuul names us Nerevarine.
+
+off to ahemmussa camp. talk to the Gulakhans, she says. What the hell is a gulakhan? a rank in the ashlander hierarchy, like a lieutenant.
+fun aside: there is, mechanically, a normal faction in the game for the ashlanders - but you can't advance like the rest. even at the engine level, the game works as a world.
+oh hey, Urshamusa Rapli says to keep our eyes peeled for a white guar. got it.
+talk to the gulakhan. He says sure, go talk to the wise woman, she'll want to hear that you can find them a safe place. Uhh.. i'll keep my eyes peeled..
+ok good, turns out she knows *just* the place. A nearby daedric shrine!
+[cut ahead]
+Sounds like the party's already started. He wants to know who we are. let's try for the truth.
+[fight]
+alright, noted.
+[he dies]
+ah, indoril gear! I believe the best medium armor in the game, bit of a drawback that'll come up later. in we go.
+[cut ahead to combat]
+oh good they're not all hostile, what happens if we talk to them... let's say we're here to loot. Surely we can murder them all later if necessary.
+[cut to running out]
+shrine: clear. let's go grab our girl and walk her here.
+[cut to wise woman following]
+ok goodbyyyye grandmaster's mortar and pestle, i'll be back to rescue you and take you away from this place 😘 byyeee
+[cut ahead]
+"hey wait for me"
+aaaaaa old game pathing aaaaa
+[cut to statue]
+and we're good! She names us nerevarine. 
+
+let's go to ald'ruhn and ask them nicely to name me neravarine. Garisa Llethri: check. 
+Miner Arobar: check, but he mentions "Berel Sala"'s accusations. who tf is that?'
+Mistress brara morvayn is in the redoran council hall. She doesn't trust me, but of course to get her to shrug approvingly to her friends I just have to make a small donation of a *life changing* amount of money.
+while we're in redoran council hall, here's Malpenix, some trader. Grab that exquisite shirt, ready to clothe up a dunmer.
+Hlaren Romaren doesn't want to listen. His lady friend says he's difficult, but doesn't say why. I bet if I did the redoran quest I'd find out. But in the meantime: *bribe**bribe**bribe* and he's a check. One last thing to do: Venim manor, rescue Varvur Sarethi. We got ourselves a heist, bois
+[clip from rick and morty]: you son of a bitch, I'm in
+ring of invisibility. the AI seems to want to trigger on me, but they forget pretty quick. 
+Hey Athyn, it's your son! he's... he's right there... 
+[part where I take a step back]
+and there we go!
+alright, have to duel bolvyn. Also if I duel him, everyone will love it. Let's go talk to everyone again!
+Garisa Llethri: double check! Hlaren Ramoran: double check! Miner Arobar: double check! Brara Morvayn: double check! the only issue is bolvyn venim.
+walk up to him and he challenges me. I was hoping to get a nap in for my magicka back... ah, good, we meet at the arena in vivec. Of course, bigshot like him will travel for this, rather than just right here right now. Good, i'll sleep on the gondolas on my way over.
+oop, came in the wrong entrance. Anyway.
+[bonelord drains his strength to 0]
+honorable.
+Alright, back to ald'ruhn. I bet Athyn Sarethi is next in line to be grandmaster.
+[on screen]: confetti
+it's official, house Redoran names me Hortator.
+and he's got the public notice, OH, that's who Beral Sala is. fair enough. as well as a message *to me* from beral sala.
+...what a windbag. not that I'd know anything about that, don't look at the runtime of this video.
+the most reasonable time in this whole game to say tl;dr, let me summarize: after being named hortator and neravarine by all the houses and tribes, Tholer Saryoni (the archcanon) will want to have a chat. Cool, back to it then. I picked up some exquisite clothing, which means: back to tel aruhn!
+[wife purchased.mkv]
+alright. fff, go buy some perfume first of course. alright, nearby apothecary. 
+[purchase sound]
+[va note: alternating caps = sarcastic]
+and NOW we go back. And she wants 1200 gold and "oh this is the SpEcIaL price because we're SuCh GoOd FrIeNds".
+[meme: trade offer.] [you receive: 1100 gold, i receive: 1 slave + 1 burnt friendship]
+alright. Wife: purchased. Hey what if I take her to the argonian mission and free her instead?
+...no dialog? they won't take her? racists. no i'm kidding, but hey, her husband doesn't understand that he'll actually be, legally speaking, her owner, so this is kind of like freeing her, right? I guess that's good enough for my conscience.
+[vos to zainab]
+boat to vos, marathon back to camp. So here's the thing: these zainab guys are almost universally dicks. 
+[editor: show dialog with a zainab guy]
+so I guess my "revenge" is tricking the ash kahn. I mean, cool and all, but he still gets his happy ending, and i still bought a slave. 
+whatever, we kill dagoth ur, and check back in later.