Day 20+: House Telvanni is misunderstood

Before I get into the main point of this post, I'm going to list all the factions I currently belong to:

• Great House Telvanni: Master
• Mages' Guild: Master Wizard
• Fighters' Guild: Protector
• Thieves' Guild: Operative
• Tribunal Temple: Diviner
• Imperial Cult: Primate
• Imperial Legion: Agent

The Blades and the Ashlanders also show up in my faction list, but I'm not aware of any quests for them aside from the main quest, so I don't count them. The Imperial Legion was the last one I joined, and I did so partially because I was so pleasantly surprised with how unexpectedly enjoyable the Temple quests were, but also because my journal had a few errant Legion entries that I acquired by accident while just going around interacting with people and things. This turned out to be a bit of a problem.

Imperial Legion problem

This section contains an anti-spoiler. Reading this may prevent you from messing something up in your game.

The main one I wanted to complete was in Ald Velothi, because I had picked up a quest from a random townsperson, who said someone was being held captive in a nearby camp. I went over there, found the woman, paid off the kidnappers, and brought her back to town, whereupon she thanked me, and the quest seemed over. But it was still an active quest in my journal, and it was marked as a Legion quest, even though I wasn't in the Legion. So I looked the quest up on UESP, and found that the one who should complete the quest was Darius of the Imperial Legion. It also said that if you began that quest before joining the Legion, you'd never get to do the quests that came before it, because Darius would not offer them. It claimed that the problem was fixed by the unofficial patch, but it was not fixed for me. First of all, after I joined the Legion, Darius immediately promoted me, but then kept telling me to go rescue the woman, and didn't acknowledge that she was already rescued. My journal showed that she was rescued, and I went back to town and talked with her again, and she again thanked me for rescuing her, but Darius still wouldn't acknowledge it. So I used the console to complete the quest. Darius then offered me the next quest, skipping the first two quests he was supposed to offer. This is a disappointment, because I was looking forward to the Widow Vabdas quest, since I had already found the things I needed to do for that quest while exploring, and purposely left them alone so I could do the quest normally. I guess the lesson here is: join every faction possible, just in case.

The worst part about the Legion is that you can't deal with the questgivers unless you're wearing an Imperial cuirass. They'll refuse to speak to you because you're "out of uniform." This is annoying because those cuirasses are useless extra weight to me, as I fight mostly unarmoured, and if I did need a cuirass, I have higher quality ones with useful enchantments in storage. Thankfully, there's a mod that adds a new item that satisfies the same requirement, but it's a weightless Legion badge that doesn't need to be worn, just carried.

Impression of other guilds

So far the Thieves' Guild quests have been rather boring. However, in Oblivion, the Thieves' Guild final quest was one of the most interesting quests of all, so maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised with them later.

The quests from the Wolverine Hall branch of the Fighters' Guild are better, especially since they had two quests that involved visiting glass mines. I'm happy to report that the problem I was having before with not being able to loot raw ebony deposits has been cleared up, and the glass deposits in these mines gave me no trouble either. I obtained a lot of raw materials that day. Maybe I'll even splurge a little on using some to craft some worthless glass pots and jars. The second load of glass was a welcome reward for trudging all the way to that mine loaded down with 50 pounds of sujamma to deliver. I don't know how these miners can claim that mining is "hard work" when I can just sneak some glass out of the deposit when they're not looking. Morrowind being a conquered holding of the mercantilist Empire, of course, all glass "belongs to the Emperor". I'm not a fan of mercantilism in general, and I still have a grudge against the Emperor for the prison incident at the beginning of the game, so I'm happy to relieve him of some of his unfairly claimed raw materials.

Telvanni stronghold quest

Reaching the rank of Master in House Telvanni allowed me to do the quest for the third and final stage of my stronghold, a Telvanni mushroom tower. After I had done so, however, I found it to be a bit lacking in utility for a wizard. I did a little search, and found 4 or 5 mods (maybe more) that redesign and/or expand the tower. This is not to say I think the tower is too small -- on the contrary, it's the largest stronghold of the three Great Houses. But the ceilings are rather low, the doorways are a little too narrow (I keep getting caught in them as I try to pass through them), and there's one section that's excessively tightly packed considering you have to work your way around these things via levitation, which gets you caught on even more things than just walking around does. Aside from the navigation issues, there's just not enough mage-related working space. Considering House Telvanni is mainly geared toward magic users, I'd expect more magic-related working space. Well, actually, I could work with it, as the "dungeon" underground (really just a cavern, as there are no prison cells there) has plenty of room where I could set up my portable alchemy lab and some of that portable furniture from Balmora. I might like to move my home base from the Magus Realm to here, and I'm looking to see if I can find a mod I like.

Several of them expand the place a great deal, though, such as adding a town surrounding the tower, quests, large underground extensions, etc. I don't need to run a whole city, but I do like the idea of more quests. The problem is, from the mods' descriptions, I'm again seeing a public opinion that House Telvanni is evil, and they're explicitly designing the tower additions and quests with this thought in mind. Now I'm drawing parallels to the robe I was talking about before, that was called a "Telvanni" robe, but had nothing to do with any Telvanni symbols or colours, and in fact looked like a necromancer robe. Whoever made that robe had this same idea that the Telvanni are evil.

In defense of House Telvanni

Like the other Great Houses, and also the guilds, House Telvanni has an in-game book describing what House Telvanni is all about. Theirs is called The Affairs of Wizards, which should give you an idea right away where they're coming from. "Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards," advises Tolkien, "for they are subtle and quick to anger." (Never mind that joke version involving dragons and ketchup, which has become better known than the thing it parodies.) The book explains that most of what you may have heard about the Telvanni is untrue, and that they are a cosmopolitan group who does not discriminate against outlanders or beast races for entry in the house, which is true. And they certainly don't hate outlanders as much as the 6th House does, what with all the "N'wah must die" business. The book also implies that House Redoran may have a grudge against House Telvanni, due to some limited economic sanctions the Telvanni imposed against the Redoran, "for political reasons".

Twice, when I was approaching the end of Master Aryon's quests, I was sent to defend two different Telvanni wizards from invasion and attacks by Houses Redoran and Hlaalu, in which their forces invaded these wizards' homes. In one of those cases, it was never explained why they were attacking, aside from a terse note I found on the body of the leader of the invaders saying that they've taken the tower "as ordered", and they'll hold it as long as possible. In the other case Master Aryon was of the opinion that it was just a simple land grab by the other house, and he opined that they should realise that there's plenty of room in Morrowind for all three Great Houses.

In reading the version of the quest for the attacking House in the first case, on the other hand, they had attacked the Telvanni wizard because he was apparently a necromancer. This does seem to fit the evidence, I have to say. There were skulls and bones lying around, which I assumed were there because the place looked like an ancestral tomb or one of those places that have those round sand pits with the bones in them, but he also had lots of summoned daedra in the place, and as we all know, conjuration and necromancy go hand in hand. (Never mind the fact that this particular necromancer has developed a new method of necromancy that doesn't require the use of body parts -- only a drawing!) But does this make House Telvanni evil? What, because a necromancer belonged to House Telvanni, that makes all Telvanni necromancers? I seem to recall also finding a necromancer as a member in good standing of the Balmora Mages' Guild. But I'm willing to guess that much of this idea that the Telvanni are evil is based on these quests that the other two houses get, even though from the Telvanni side these are preemptive strikes by the other houses.

The subsequent quests involving assassinating one member each of the other two attacking Houses were distasteful to me, but I can see them justifying it as an act of revenge against the other Houses' attacks, or as a means of sending a warning message not to do it again. I don't justify it, as I wouldn't have done it if it weren't necessary to complete the questline, and I understand the other Houses have more or less identical quests at this stage in their questlines, so no one's innocent.

In one of the Imperial Legion quests, I learned that Baladas Demnevanni is keeping an orc Legionnaire prisoner. When I asked him about it, he explained that she came demanding tribute from the Empire of Men. He had been living in Morrowind long before the Imperials invaded and conquered the place, and he expected to still be there after they were gone, and therefore considered himself exempt from their taxes. Personally, I find that to be a perfectly reasonable position to take. The Empire invaded a sovereign nation, conquered them, and are occupying their land by force, to the anger and resentment of the native population. This is another Telvanni who just wants to be left alone to his research, as seems to be the case in most of the conflicts between the Telvanni and other houses and guilds. Anyway, Baladas was very agreeable, and released her after I suggested that she'd learned her lesson. Considering what happened to that other tax collector back in Seyda Neen (remember Processus Vitellius?), it seems to me that I'm seeing more mercy and generosity from the Telvanni than others give.

Sliding scale of evil

How do the Telvanni compare to other groups that are unquestionably evil? The Dark Brotherhood -- now they're evil. From the first time you meet Lucien Lachance in Oblivion (accidentally in my case), he makes it very clear that he enjoys murder and torture, and approves of others who do so. The other members laugh and joke about killing children or entire families, and clearly joined the Dark Brotherhood because they love murder for the sake of murder, and consider it just a bonus that they get paid for it. I haven't seen enough of the Cammona Tong to know if they're as bad as the Dark Brotherhood, but the Morag Tong seem to be the "good" assassins. If you have a society with both good and bad assassins, I think the bad ones must be pretty evil. The Sixth House? Also evil. Telvanni? Not so much.

I thought at first that the reason for the impression of the Telvanni being evil was because they defend slavery, but as I found in talking with many NPCs, this is a Dunmer sentiment in general, not unique to House Telvanni. You see slavery in both of the other Great Houses, as well. But do the other Great Houses run a convalescence home for victims of corprus disease, as Telvanni Divayth Fyr does? Of course not! Redoran's too busy going out and smiting evil to care for the sick, while Hlaalu would never engage in such a lossy business venture. But here, the corprus victims are well-protected, and one of Divayth's daughters devotes all her time in tending to their needs while Divayth himself attempts to develop a cure, or at least eliminate the harmful effects of the disease.

I can't paint a purely glowing portrait of House Telvanni, of course. A couple of the counselors give quests that involve killing another House member for purely selfish and material gain, not justified at all. And I think the game is not fair for setting it up to require killing them, anyway. When I go to Senise Thindo because Master Neloth wants her Robe of the Drake's Pride, and she's wearing it (so it's not pickpocketable), and tells me it's "not for sale," realistically there should be an option to explain that Neloth means to obtain it over her dead body, and I should have the option to offer her a very good price for it. Most people would be willing to part with something if they knew that someone was planning to kill them to get it. That's the sort of option I was given in the quest where Ranis Athrys sent me to kill Tashpi Ashibael, so why not here? At least with mods that allow you to negotiate "companion share" with any NPC, you can roleplay around these limitations, and exchange someone's not-for-sale robe or Flesh Made Whole amulet for a generous amount of gold.

Anyway, that doesn't excuse the fact that these counselors gave the quests in the first place. But again, I consider these to be occasional bad apples that do not condemn the majority of the house members. Much like I shouldn't condemn the whole Mages' Guild for the murderous intent of Ranis Athrys and Sirilonwe, or the necromantic practises of Sharn gra-Muzgob.

Telvanni Décor and conclusion

With the worst out of the way, I want to finally draw attention to the preferred décor of Telvanni members. While necromancers and the Dark Brotherhood like to live and work in dark tombs, sleeping on stone slabs, surrounded by bloody altars, rotting dead bodies, and human bones and viscera, the Telvanni tend to prefer surrounding themselves with life and creativity rather than death and putrification. They grow their towers from tree-mushrooms like you might expect a druid to do, and surround themselves in these living plant-buildings with elegant carvings, glowing blue crystals, and objects of study such as books, scrolls, and potions. If preferred living conditions reflect a person's personality, then I'd say this reflects positively on House Telvanni.

Not much else to say about that, but this Telvanni apologia has run overlong anyway.