Morrowind:House Dagoth
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| House Dagoth | |
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| Locations: | |
| Leaders: | |
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Lord High Councilor: Ash Vampires: |
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| Favored Attributes: | |
| Friends & Foes: | |
| Camonna Tong | -1 |
| Ashlanders | -3 |
| Blades | -3 |
| Fighters Guild | -3 |
| House Hlaalu | -3 |
| House Redoran | -3 |
| House Telvanni | -3 |
| Imperial Cult | -3 |
| Imperial Legion | -3 |
| Mages Guild | -3 |
| Thieves Guild | -3 |
| Tribunal Temple | -3 |
| Vampires | -3 |
House Dagoth is the remains of the ancient, and defunct, Sixth Great House of the Chimer, headed by the evil god Dagoth Ur. The House briefly reappeared in Vvardenfell c. 3E 400 but was destroyed shortly thereafter by the Nerevarine champion. They form the major antagonism to the hero in Morrowind. Their primary bases lie within Red Mountain, in the ancient Dwemer strongholds.
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[edit] Early History
As far as is known, House Dagoth was much like any other Great House of the Chimer. Its advancement was done via struggle and confronting its elders. There isn't much data on any Great House in the early First Era; it's not known what support it had prior to Nerevar and Dumac's establishment of the First Council governing Resdayn (Morrowind).
[edit] The War of the First Council
In the War of the First Council between the Chimer and the Dwemer, some sources claim that House Dagoth stood with the Dwemer and were defeated, others that there was a subsequent Dunmer civil war against House Dagoth, and yet others claim that House Dagoth betrayed both sides in the Battle of Red Mountain. In any case, when the other Great Houses, led by House Indoril and their Hortator, Nerevar Indoril, defeated the Dwemer, House Dagoth was likewise destroyed. This same Chimer-Dwemer war caused the Chimer to turn into Dunmer in the late seventh century of the first era.
House Dagoth's leader was Dagoth Ur. He was at first a good friend of Hortator Nerevar Indoril. The specifics of what happened in the Battle of Red Mountain are lost to history. It has been suggested that Dagoth Ur at first wished for the destruction of Kagrenac's Tools, while Nerevar sought counsel with his advisors -- Almalexia, Sotha Sil, and Vivec. The rest of that sordid history, including the three's obtaining godhood from those tools, is not really relevant to the Sixth House. Dagoth Ur had already experimented with Kagrenac's Tools and the Heart, fought against the Tribunal (and possibly Nerevar as well), and was driven underneath Red Mountain, beneath even the Heart Chamber, and the Tribunal kept Kagrenac's Tools.
Since Dagoth Ur had disappeared, and the rest of his house had been soundly crushed in battle, Great House Dagoth sank into obscurity until the late Second Era. Some fiction books, like Poison Song, record other "official" successors to the House of Dagoth, but these are likely just romance novels. It is, in any case, unlikely that the House survived this way through the remaining ~2220 years of the First Era, or the following 882 years of the Second Era.
[edit] The Re-awakening
In the year 2E 882, at the close of the Second Era, Dagoth Ur and his Ash Vampires apparently became active again on Red Mountain, discovering the Heart Chamber. This year is known precisely because Almsivi, in their annual ritual to re-infuse themselves with the power from the Heart of Lorkhan, were opposed by Dagoth Ur and were ultimately unable to enter the Heart Chamber. Presumably, Dagoth Ur used rituals arcane and unknown to increase his own powers. It is possible that he simply spent the 3,100 years brooding, thinking, and studying the principles of the Heart of Lorkhan in abstract research. He may or may not have been aided by Kagrenac in some way, though his ideologies at this point resembled Kagrenac's own.
House Dagoth had been turned into ash vampires when the Tribunal came upon them.
When House Dagoth re-emerged, it sought a worldwide theocracy based on an as-yet-uncreated god, to be named "Akulakhan". This would be a second attempt at creating Kagrenac's god "Numidium", so Akulakhan was also known as Second Numidium. House Dagoth would then be the priests of Akulakhan. It is possible that Akulakhan would not even have been sentient, or that Dagoth Ur planned to fuse his own sentience into Akulakhan after its completion.
House Dagoth sought to gain the people's support both by religious support (like the Tribunal Temple did), and by promising the banishment of all outside governance in Morrowind.
The Sixth House demonstrated a tremendous amount of planning, and constantly looked toward long-term goals. Dagoth Ur typically maintained a "wait-and-see" approach to his later conflicts. While House Dagoth was ideologically incredibly expansionist, it was also extremely slow in its movements. Vvardenfell was largely uncolonized until its doors were open to non-Temple folk in 3E 414; during the more than 400 years of conflict with the Tribunal, House Dagoth hardly expanded from Red Mountain at all -- only to the lost Dunmer stronghold Kogoruhn and to some smuggling chains.
[edit] House Dagoth and the Tribunal
For the following four hundred years (roughly the first four hundred years of the Third Era), Almsivi sent raiding parties in an attempt to capture the Heart Chamber, but they were always unsuccessful. In the meantime, Dagoth Ur recruited followers by manipulating and controlling their dreams. Corprus disease appears in these 400 years, pioneered by House Dagoth. Blight storms progressively began to ravage more and more of Vvardenfell during this period. The growth of blight storms was practically exponential, posing a massive threat to the people of Vvardenfell. To combat this, at some time around 3E 400, Almsivi began the construction of the Ghostfence. Once constructed, it required most of the Tribunal's power for its own maintenance. It was completed some time before 3E 417.
The Ghostfence may have been part of House Dagoth's larger plan. With most of their power devoted to maintaining the Ghostfence, Morrowind was opened to non-Temple settlement in 3E 414, and Almalexia and Sotha Sil lost the artifacts Sunder and Keening while raiding the Sixth House Bases. Vivec's intervention was the only thing that allowed Almalexia and Sotha Sil to escape with their lives. Given these tactical strengths, it is not hard to believe that the expansion of the Blight was intended as a feint, to force the Tribunal to spend a lot of energy to stop said storms.
In keeping with the feint hypothesis, House Dagoth rapidly obtained the use of several smuggler bases and ships along the Bitter Coast. With these, they either imported or exported custom idols called "ash statues", which apparently had a sort of corruptive magic attached to them. They caused people to murder, to be aggressive, and possibly made it easier for Dagoth Ur to extend his dream influences. They also may have caused ash kin to be transported to a manor in Ald'ruhn.
In an event that was likely prior to the completion of the Ghostfence, in 3E 400, Dagoth Uthol took the old Dunmer fortress of Kogoruhn. The Tribunal were probably not aware of this until much later.
After the loss of Sunder and Keening in 3E 417, the Tribunal retired to their capitals and offensives were only carried out by the Temple priesthood. With the drain of the Ghostfence, the Tribunal could no longer raid within the Ghostfence. It is not known what their plan was; it is possible that they were waiting for House Dagoth to attack first, so that they could drop the Ghostfence and counterattack with more strength.
Dagoth Ur, though he held Sunder and Keening, lacked Wraithguard to bind them all together. The best he could have done would be to study Sunder and Keening's enchantments and attempt to duplicate them himself, later. This undoubtedly required some time; the next ten years are accordingly remarkably silent. Perhaps recognizing the Tribunal's strategy to wait for House Dagoth to make the first move, in 3E 427, his cultists became far more aggressive, and there was a sudden chain of assassinations. Curiously enough, these assassinations were all targeted at Imperials and at Great House Hlaalu's Imperial sympathizers. Presumably, these targets were chosen because of House Dagoth's opposition to the Empire and its belief that it would conquer all of Tamriel.
It is not known whether Dagoth Ur managed to grasp the secrets of Sunder and Keening sufficiently to immortalize himself. Prior to this, his actions had been on time spans longer than ten years, but that does not really prove anything.
[edit] Actions within the Game
The game starts in 3E 427. The Player's shipment to Morrowind is probably the Emperor's response to the Sixth House's assassinations. In that case, the Empire sought the responsible party, found House Dagoth, sought history of House Dagoth, received several myths, and acted on those myths. A parcel in the game indicates that the Emperor found these myths extremely convincing on the advice of several counselors.
During the Player's time on Vvardenfell, the Six House gains strength in two ways. First, as the Player levels, an increasing percentage of the creatures carry the blight disease. Secondly, as the Player pursues the Main Quest, Dagoth Ur's dreams spread, creating more Sixth House dreamers throughout the game. Both of these effects boost the nominal strength of House Dagoth, but other than having more blighted beasts and Sixth House dreamers to confront, very few game effects result.
The Sixth House is destroyed when the Player defeats Dagoth Ur, by shattering Kagrenac's enchantments on Lorkhan's Heart. To do this, the Player has to use the basic physical principle of resonance, hitting the heart several times with Sunder and Keening. The Heart itself appears to be destroyed when its enchantments are destroyed. It is not known whether this means the actual destruction of the heart itself; Vivec merely says that the enchantments enabling the use of the heart are destroyed.
Dagoth Ur's progress with Sunder and Keening is unknown. It was not sufficient to create Akulakhan. However, Dagoth Ur claimed that he was a god. Furthermore, he had one of Vivec's godly properties -- when he was killed, he reappeared right back at his central focus, and no time appeared to have elapsed at all.
This suggests he found a way to wield Sunder and Keening for the brief steps required to do this. Of the three steps, the first two do not require extended contact with Sunder and Keening; it is not known whether the third step does.
However, it is also possible that Dagoth Ur's research, even possibly before obtaining Sunder and Keening, was sufficient to confer that sort of immortality. In addition, it might have happened even earlier, during the War of the First Council.
At the same time, there is probably a little more to it. With the Heart destroyed, Dagoth Ur was destroyed directly, but the Tribunal was left unscathed. This suggests that Dagoth Ur was somehow still at a lower degree than Almsivi, that he was not a full-fledged god, and that the Nerevarine destroyed him once and for all.
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