In Which Tembriel Gets the Rest of Her Glass Armor

Back to Morrowind! This session saw me finally being able to finish out the set of glass armor for Tembriel, an expensive feat which required my running a couple of side quests for the Fighters Guild.

Play by play

• Play date: 1/14/2023
• Session number in this run: 33
• Resumed at smith’s in Ghostgate
• Amulet’d back to Ald’ruhn
• Silt-strider’d back to Balmora
• Sold Dark Brotherhood boots to Wayn at Fighters Guild
• Went into the Mages Guild and got my hammers to repair my gear
• Went back over into the Fighters Guild and got the quest to go take out the hunger at the Sarano Ancestral Tomb
• Headed over there; killed a few critters en route with Soul Drinker so I could fill soul gems for selling
• Made it to the tomb and took out a few bonelords and skeletons, and also the hunger which was a surprisingly easy fight
• Looted the place and got assorted notable bits of loot, including the Sarano Ebony Helm and a dreugh shield
• Gathered all the loot together then amulet’d out to Balmora
• Sold stuff to Wayn and also to the armorer Meldor
• Repaired gear again
• Sold filled soul gems at the Mages Guild
• Recall’d back to Ghostgate to pick up the glass helm since the Sarano bounty got me enough gold to get that
• Then amulet’d out and landed in Ald’ruhn
• Went to the Fighters Guild and took a bounty for a guy in Sargon from Percius there
• Silt-strider’d to Maar Gan
• Got directions to Sargon from one of the locals in the outpost
• Hoofed it from there; took a while, killed assorted critters and so many cliff racers
• Made it to the northern coast
• Had to invoke the wizard’s staff to get over to the island that Sargon was on
• Killed assorted critters including cliff racers on the island, too
• Finally made it to Sargon and started working my way in
• First time through, killed three hostiles, killed by the fourth and fifth combined
• Killed by those same hostiles a second and third time
• Also had to deal with multiple game crashes as I worked my way back to the final guy who was the one with the actual bounty on him
• Kept quicksaving and eventually cleared the place
• Took multiple attempts to get all the loot together in one place so that I could amulet out with it
• And it made some impressive stacks, too
• But finally got everything together and amulet’d out to Gnisis
• Started selling off stuff; that took multiple rounds because there was way too much to carry
• Discovered that Shulki, the trader in Gnisis that I had trouble talking to before, would talk to me if I actually approached her from the correct angle—realized this when the guy to her right showed the same behavior
• But she also got cranky at me for having moon sugar in my inventory, so had to return to Balmora to sell that to Ra’Virr
• Finally came back to Gnisis and bribed Shulki into being willing to talk to me again
• That got me down to having just the most expensive loot left, including an ebony cuirass
• So finally Recall’d back to Ghostgate
• Sold the guy the ebony cuirass so I could get the glass pauldrons, finishing out my set of glass armor 😀
• Amulet’d to Ald’ruhn
• Got bounty payment from Percius
• Silt-strider’d back to Balmora
• Got bounty payment from Eydis
• And since that put me back over 5K, went to House Hlaalu to see about getting a stronghold
• Was directed to Vivec for proper paperwork but I’ll take care of that next time
• Saved for the night

Commentary

I’d already found in Morrowind that some of the best dungeons to run have loot worth way more than the bounty I get off of running them. This time was no exception, because the combined haul I got out of running the Sarano Ancestral Tomb and Sargon was more than enough for me to get the rest of the glass armor pieces I wanted.

And I gotta say, if I wanted to wear heavy armor with Tembriel, I’d have considered keeping the ebony helm and cuirass I got. They looked pretty good for Morrowind’s graphics, and I honestly liked them better than the glass armor! However, I am not running Tembriel as a heavy armor character, so.

Because yeaaaah, not really a fan of how glass armor looks in this game. It’s way spikier than it is in Skyrim, and while I do like it better than the fugly Dark Brotherhood armor, it still looks pretty goofy to my eyes. The main beef I have with it is that it looks like it’s just got pieces of glass stuck to it here and there; most of it does not appear to be lined with glass, the way it looks in Skyrim. It’s not smooth. And those spiky, sticky-outy bits just look like they’re begging to be smashed in a close up fight.

But I’ll put up with it for now, because it is the best option I have for light armor at the moment. I haven’t been able to find any info on better armor to get. So unless I decide to trade off to medium armor later, the glass is probably the best I’m going to get.

Aside from the question of armor, I’ll note that the Sarano Ancestral Tomb was no particular bother. I’d seen on the wiki that the hunger in there is apparently deliberately set to not be as bad a fight as other hungers, which seems a little baffling to me. If they wanted you to have an easier fight hitting that tomb, why make it a hunger at all? And the other undead in the place weren’t any problem either.

Sargon, on the other hand, was more of a challenge.

(As a Trekkie, let me get this aside out of the way: the name of this locale does of course remind me of the character of the same name, in the TOS episode “Return to Tomorrow”. And all the jokes my household always made about that episode, riffing off of Calgon commercials. “Sargon, take me away!” Snerk.)

This was a big bandit lair, with multiple chambers in it, and I had to get past multiple hostiles before finally reaching the one I was supposed to take out for the bounty. And some of those intermediate hostiles were a problem. Particularly the one who was capable of summoning Greater Bonewalkers.

I got killed by those intermediate hostiles multiple times, trying to work my way through this dungeon. And multiple game crashes happened as well, the most frustrating of which was the one where I’d finally gotten all the loot off my vanquished foes and started making loot stacks so I could get the hell out in one go with all of it… only to have the game crash with a memory error. Augh.

That said, it was still very satisfying to finally get that bandit leader taken out. Particularly when, the last time I went up against him, he got stuck at the bottom of the ladder. Which meant he couldn’t get up to me, so I was able to snipe him to death.

And I was rather entertained by the large loot stacks, too! Though the memory error cost me the really awesome one involving stacks of bottles and plates, LOL.

One other thing I want to mention: now that I’ve started a Survival Mode playthrough in Skyrim, wherein I have no fast travel, it’s making me appreciate what mechanisms Morrowind provides you for quickly traveling more. Skyrim’s carriage system fulfills the niche occupied in Morrowind by the silt striders, but there’s no equivalent of the Mages Guild Guides. And no Mark and Recall spells, either. (Though I do see, with a quick peek on Nexus, that there have been multiple attempts to implement those spells in Skyrim.)

I do wish I could have a horse in Morrowind. (Though I suppose that taking a horse through the Ashlands would just be cruel to the horse!)

Next time

I want to boing over to Vivec and get the process of getting a stronghold underway. Then I’ll see if that puts me into a good space to proceed with the Main Quest, or if I need to do some other side activity first!

Screenshots

Editing to add

• 11/25/2023: Restored missing gallery.