History Morrowind / TropesAToC

* AnEconomyIsYou: Averted. Vendors come stocked with everything from VendorTrash to food and drink to powerfully enchanted weapons and armor.

** Curing disease can be done via spells, potions, scrolls, enchantments, or with a blessing at a temple. After a certain point in the main quest, you'll [[IdealIllnessImmunity become immune to disease]], rendering all of these items as VendorTrash.

** That said, it is still possible to find consumable potions and [[InexplicablyPreservedDungeonMeat food]], as well as ammunition like arrows and even unlikely items such as lockpicks, in places they logically wouldn't be. Additionally, you can find Septims (the series' standard gold coins) almost everywhere. In fact, all coinage is represented by Septims (the currency of the ruling Empire which has been in power for around five centuries) even in places explicitly sealed since ''before'' the reign of the Septim Dynasty. Dwemer coins provide an exception to this, however, these still aren't treated as currency. Instead, they are a particularly valuable form of antique VendorTrash.

* ChangingGameplayPriorities: Unique for the series, ''Morrowind'' has very limited LevelScaling and has the skimpiest StartingEquipment available, leading a tough EarlyGameHell situation. It's not uncommon to see players scrounging through outdoor crates and urns for loose coins and near-worthless VendorTrash at low levels just to scrape together enough for their first set of equipment. Once they start adventuring, they'll back every item they can carry from every dungeon, carefully deciding what items to sell at which vendor (who have limited gold and avert WeBuyAnything) to maximize profits. Later in the game, once money is no longer an issue, they'll only take choice loot while leaving behind items worth hundreds or thousands of gold as they've reached a point where the hassle of selling simply isn't worthwhile. By the end, they'll be god-slayers carrying legendary equipment (or self-enchanted custom equipment) only picking up items that they want to display in their [[AHomeownerIsYou player houses]] as trophies.

* CrateExpectations: Crates, barrels, urns and all sorts of other containers are found throughout the game. They can contain anything from low-end VendorTrash to consumables to items of real value and weapons and armor. Unlike most examples, they aren't breakable, cannot be moved, and are rarely used as climbing platforms.

* ContemptibleCover: After being played straight with ''Arena'' and Downplayed with ''Daggerfall'', ''Morrowind'' averts it along with setting the trend of MinimalisticCoverArt the series has been known for ever since.

* BarefootCartoonAnimal: The beast races (Argonians and Khajiit,) are unable to wear shoes or boots due to the different size and shape of their feet.

* CharacterizationMarchesOn: The [[OurOrcsAreDifferent Orcs]] have experienced this as a race. Originally, they were simple "hurr durr smash hoomies" Tolkien-style Orcs with nothing particularly noteworthy about them (they weren't even playable in ''Arena'' or ''Daggerfall''). Beginning here, however, their characterization shifts massively. Rather than just being dumb, they've been severely marginalized for ages - even their patron deity reflects this. The [[BadassArmy Imperial Legion]] under [[TheGoodKing Emperor Uriel VII]], among other things, however, helped them to begin to properly integrate into the Empire better - thus [[PromotedToPlayable making them playable]].

%%* BaldHeadOfToughness: Jiub, the player character's bald, [[WalkingShirtlessScene shirtless]], [[HandicappedBadass one-eyed]] fellow prisoner aboard the Imperial Prison Ship at the start of the game. [[SpearCarrier His role is rather minor]], letting the player know they've reached Morrowind and asking for their name, but his badass appearance earned him the HeroOfAnotherStory treatment in numerous mods and fan fics. (Bethesda would get in on the act in later works in the series as well, making him a canon badass hero.)

* BaldHeadOfToughness: Jiub, the player character's bald, [[WalkingShirtlessScene shirtless]], [[HandicappedBadass one-eyed]] fellow prisoner aboard the Imperial Prison Ship at the start of the game. [[SpearCarrier His role is rather minor]], letting the player know they've reached Morrowind and asking for their name, but his badass appearance earned him the HeroOfAnotherStory treatment in numerous mods and fan fics. (Bethesda would get in on the act in later works in the series as well, making him a canon badass hero.)

* BadassBeard: An option for male player characters. Many badass [=NPCs=] also have beards, most notably Divayth Fyr. Dwarven Spectres and Ash Vampires (some of the most powerful enemies you fight in Dwemer ruins and Sixth House bases, respectively) also show some pretty impressive facial hair.

* AlwaysChaoticEvil: Played with In-Universe when it comes to Vampires. The Tribunal Temple's stance is that because it is easy to tell when you are becoming one and the condition is very easily cured within the first three days of the transformation, the only people who ''allow'' themselves to become night-stalking parasites are people who are ''already'' ChaoticEvil. Therefore, the policy of killing all vampires on sight is justified to them. As Galur Rithari's Papers (not to speak of a few incidents in later games) indicate, it's not always ''that'' simple...

%%* BadMoonRising: The titular moon from ''Bloodmoon''.

* BadMoonRising: The titular moon from ''Bloodmoon''.
* BaldOfAwesome: Jiub, the player character's bald, [[WalkingShirtlessScene shirtless]], [[HandicappedBadass one-eyed]] fellow prisoner aboard the Imperial Prison Ship at the start of the game. [[SpearCarrier His role is rather minor]], letting the player know they've reached Morrowind and asking for their name, but his badass appearance earned him the HeroOfAnotherStory treatment in numerous mods and fan fics. (Bethesda would get in on the act in later works in the series as well, making him a canon badass hero.)

** Near the end of the main quest of the ''Tribunal'' expansion, you find yourself fighting through (supposed BigBad) [[spoiler:Sotha Sil's]] [[ClockPunk Clockwork City]]. It is populated by his semi-organic MechaMooks, the Fabricants. Each variety, the Verminous and Hulking, drop "elixirs" which share their names. Verminous Fabricants are a dime-a-dozen, and even spawn infinitely at one point if you intentionally keep screwing up a puzzle. They drop Verminous Elixirs, which temporarily fortify your Speed. Not bad, but not especially useful. Hulking Fabricants, however, are much less common. Hulking Elixirs temporarily fortify your Strength, which is considerably more useful. However, in the Clockwork City's Dome of Udok, you'll encounter a "rusted lever" which requires 100 Strength in order to move, allowing you to advance. If you haven't been building up your Strength attribute (a common issue for [[SquishyWizard Mage-type characters]] especially), you'll need to use virtually all of your Hulking Fabricant Elixers to surpass that total. (Worse still, if you haven't been picking them up, you can end up [[UnwinnableByMistake stuck in the Dome of Udok]].)

** The Necromancer's Amulet has a powerful Constant Effect enchantment which boosts the wearer's Intelligence by 25 points, adds a 25% "normal weapons" resistance, [[HealingFactor restores 1pt of Health per second]], and gives a 25% chance to absorb incoming spells. It is in the possession of Mages Guild Archmage Trebonius.

*** Later in ''[Skyrim'', one mage tries to reproduce the Dwarven experiment in a smaller scale, substituting a modified soul gem for the Heart of Lorkhan and using the original, but severely depowered Keening. He vanishes, but can be summoned from ''somewhere'' as a ghost. Can this count as ascension to a higher plane? Your mileage may vary, but many people would think it's a pretty rotten existence.

* AnyoneCanDie: From the moment you've completed character creation, you can kill literally ''anyone'' in the game if you strong enough. In fact, the lack of restrictions on killing people can easily result in breaking quests by killing someone essential to completing it. (If you kill someone essential to the main quest, the game thankfully notifies you, but this does not apply to any other questline.)

* AbandonedLaboratory: Kagrenac's Workshop and Kagrenac's Library, located within two different [[OurDwarvesAreAllTheSame Dwemer]] ruins around the [[{{Mordor}} Red Mountain]] volcano. Kagrenac was the Dwemer master crafter who devised a means to tap into the [[CosmicKeystone Heart of Lorkhan]], the still-beating heart of the [[GodIsDead "dead" creator god]]. [[RiddleForTheAges Whatever he did]], it caused the entire Dwemer race to blink out of existence in a single instance all across Tamriel. Given that the game takes place some 4000 years after these events, these ruins aren't full of any nasties that Kagrenac created...but are populated by BigBad Dagoth Ur's twisted ash creatures. You'll need to visit each if you are completing the main quest via the "[[TakeAThirdOption backpath]]" method in order to acquire Kagrenac's notes.

** The whole concept of the Nerevarine is similar to the story of Jesus: he's a MessianicArchtype who saved Morrowind before and is destined to come back and save it again. The name Nerevarine even seems to be deleberately similar to Nazarene (A title given to Jesus, but also just a demonym for a person from Nazareth.)

** On Daedric shrine altars, you will find "cursed" gems and other items which will spawn Dremora Lords behind you if you pick them up. Said Dremora Lords can drop weapons worth five figure sums if you're strong enough to defeat them.

* CommonPlaceRare: Only one muffin exists in Vvardenfell, and it already belongs to someone. If you want it, you'll need to steal it, and if you eat it, it gives you the same minor fatigue boost as eating a piece of bread.

* ClassicalTongue: Most prominent is Aldmeris, the language of the Aldmer (Old or First Elves), {{Precursors}} to all of the modern [[OurElvesAreBetter races of Mer (Elves)]]. It parallels Latin in that it didn't so much die out as evolve into several distinct but clearly related languages, some living and others, like [[OurDwarvesAreDifferent Dwemeris]] and the Falmer language, extinct. Translating Dwemeris using Aldmeris as an intermediate is a plot point in the Mages Guild questline.

* CrystalDragonJesus: The Tribunal Temple. It bears more than a passing resemblance to the Catholic Church - hagiography, apocrypha, an Inquisition, sainthood, and the idea of a "new covenant" supplanting the older Daedric cults of the Dunmer.

* CameraLockOn: 1st Person and 3rd Person (in the AlwaysOverTheShoulder fashion) are both options. The game does allow you to [[FreeRotatingCamera rotate the camera angle]] when standing still in 3rd Person view, which lets you admire your character customization and gear, but if you move or draw your weapons, the camera will snap right back over the shoulder.