The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind/Headscratchers

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • How does the food chain in Morrowind work? It seems odd that such a diverse group of large predatory animals would appear on an island where the only herbivores are hive based giant insects (I'm assuming the guar are predators because they have sharp teeth and wild ones are aggressive). The same problem appears on the island of Solstheim. There are literally no herbivores, yet there are bears and wolves. Why didn't they just put some sort of reindeer-esque herbivore on Solstheim?
    • I suspect that there are some omnivorous among them, most likely the Guars.
    • What do the netch eat?
      • Adventurers.
    • Perhaps the population of predators in Solstheim could be attributed to the presence of Hircine? In turn over hunting would have wiped out almost he entire herbivorous population.
    • Morrowind in general talks about a lot of animals that you don't see. Giant grabs are supposed to live in the Ashlands (just look at Under-Skar in Ald-Ahrun), wild Stilt Riders should be seen here and there, and the Ashlander tribes supposedly herd large insects. It is quite likely that there's a thriving wildlife - but the developers just didn't have time (or money) to put in all of the creatures needed to sustain an ecosystem.
      • Te giant Emperor Crabs actually live in the ocean. Far out in the ocean. Ald'Rhun Skar died while on holiday, or something.
    • Just because the guar are aggressive doesn't make them predators. There are a lot of herbivores in the real world that are aggressive if you approach them. The Ashlanders follow "herds" of guar (even if we don't actually SEE herds), and the guar have eyes on the sides of their heads rather than in front like predators generally do, so likely the guar are herbivores.
  • How are Argonians supposed to drown in the canal, HMMM? WE BREATHE UNDERWATER.
    • Well, unlike in Oblivion, Argonian's water breathing is a limited time spell.(sucks, I know) I do recall there being a mod that gives them indefinite water breathing and allows them to complete the canal pilgrimage, though.
    • Remember that the Dunmer and Argonians are enemies. The Dunmer probably design their pilgrimages to screw with Argonians, and even if they didn't, they certainly aren't going to think, "Hmm, this particular spot should be altered to be less inconvenient to the one Argonian in 10,000 who decides to join the Temple and undertake pilgrimages relating to the Dunmer religion." At any case, the Dunmer are anything but politically correct.
  • If the Ministry of Truth was largely hollowed out it wouldn't have all the inertia it originally had because the bulk of the mass had been removed. Unless the explanation is just "Magic is weird".
    • Magic is wierd, especially when gods are involved (and that specific incident involved two gods). Beyond that... maybe it was fairly hollow to begin with?
      • It probably was. A chunk of that size that wasn't hollow would have done much more damage to the planet than wrecking a single island.
    • 'Vivec stopped it and when they hollowed it out, who says he didn't adjust the spell to meet the new mass? Besides, according to the lore, sometime after events of Morrowind, Vivec lost his powers and the moon came crashing down. Remember, only reason why it is there is because Vivec was a god at that point.
  • Looking at the map of Tamriel, Vvardenfell is on the same latitude as Skyrim. A good chunk of northern Skyrim is snowy, but if we look at Vvardenfell a lot of it is bright and green on the same latitude. What's up with that? Mountains blocking the cold winds or something?
    • The volcano at the heart of vvardenfell is said to still regularly burst out lava, and there are several permanent lava rivers. Though northern vvardenfell is still said to be very chilly, so that can't fully explain it. Maybe one of the greybeards either cooled skyrim or warmed up vvardenfell during the battle of red mountain?
    • It's a magic volcano. Geothermal heat keeps the island relatively warm.