Gameplay...

They couldn't have you up and getting Corprus right off the bat, that would just ruin the plotline, and carrying a letter around is nothing that great...

He had a message from Dagoth Ur himself. That's something.

As for corprus, none of the other Sixth House Priests were capable of giving it elsewhere. And either way, if all of the priests could do what Dagoth Gares could, the Temple would have been in a lot more trouble.

The Corprus issue, as Luager2 already stated, is a gameplay thing. Citizens in the game routinely warn you against going into Blight-infected regions for fear of catching corprus, so it's definately contractable with or without Dagoth Gares.

In fact, there's a spell you can buy in the game (forgot where) that's a "Resist Corprus Disease" spell, which seems to imply that the Devs had originally intended it to be as contractable as the other diseases...but obviously, they decided against it in the end.

I understand that it was a gameplay issue, but if every Sixth House Priest had the power that Dagoth Gares did, then they probably would have taken Morrowind already.

I think you're greatly under-estimating the Temple and, specifically, the Buoyant Armigers.

The Temple's been battling this threat for thousands of years. They know what they're up against and how to effectively counter it.

The Imperial Legion, on the other hand, is new to the threat that Corprus and Dagoth Ur present; when they raided a bandit cave and stumbled onto a Sixth House base, can they really be blamed for not knowing how to effectively combat it?

Dagoth Ur most certainly seemed to be in utterly no hurry about anything. Even when you have a chance to question him about his plans for Akulakhan/the Dunmer, he gives a response along the lines of after he reforms Morrowind, throws out the evil foreign influences, restores a true religion (based on him, naturally), THEN we might consider the possibility of the Dunmer people contemplating the possibility of Empire. In other words it sounded like if he ever intended to do anything outside of Morrowind, he didn't mind waiting a very long time, possibly indefinitely, to ever do it. He was more concerned with immediate goals and slow buildups and consolidation, it seems.

Oh Another think about Akulakhan I forgot to ask!

"Numidium", at least when you search for it on Wikipedia, redirects to Numidia, the name of a former Roman province in Algeria.

"Akulakhan", at least when you search on Wikipedia, redirects to Numidia also.

Has anyone ever speculated, or explained, why both of these large weapon constructs refer to a country in Northern Africa? I was stumped.

One word: Assemanu. The Temple didn't do much better either.

If every Sixth House priest could inflict corprus this easily, an affliction that not even the Temple can cure, as easily as Dagoth Gares, then the disease would be far more prevalent. Heck, they could have infected all of Morrowind by now.

:facepalm:
Sorry if I sound rude but I like seriously, just, answered this in the text you quoted...

And as I already said, Dagoth Ur isn't ordering them to go out and take over Morrowind, he's biding his time because he can. And as Khajiit_Thief01 said, the Temple has Buoyant Armigers, more Ordinators than the Great Houses have guards, the ghostfence and also know exactly how to deal with what they're fighting from years of experience. (And maybe its just a 'dying breath' thing)


Of course, there is the lady in Vivec that can also give you corprus... where's her place in this 'special power' conspiracy... :ninja:

As I said before, Assemanu. The Ordinators screwed up just as badly, if not worse. And the Temple cannot counter Corprus, aside from a few minor resistance spells.

Assemanu was also a significantly larger operation with a more powerful Priest than Ilunibi. And one case doesn't prove that the Ordinators or Armigers don't know what they're doing. No, they can't cure Corprus, but they can contain it well enough that they don't have to worry as much about it...

There are between 55-65 Sixth House members of high enough rank to be able to attempt such a curse, probably less. There are 235 Ordinators plus 229 Bouyant Armigers, not to even mention the other Temple Crusaders, Priests and others that are capable of combat; then throw on top of that all the Great House Guards, the Imperial Legion presence and the able-bodied Dunmer in general, then the ghost-fence and the Tribunal. If any of those priests goes around trying to curse people he's gonna be dead quicker than anything, and that's not worth a few more converts to Corprus that may or may not evolve into Ash Beasts, and hopefully the people they try and attack don't have any resistance to Corprus. So no, even if all those Priests could perform that spell, it still wouldn't matter. And as I said, Dagoth Ur is biding his time, so he's not sending them out into battle to curse folk; he's acting subtly behind the scenes...

Exactly. Dagoth Ur doesn't NEED to send out his priests to infect everybody; once he finishes with Akulakhan, he can just set it to "Big Stompy Robot" mode and have at it...and that's the LEAST of what it could potentially do.

The containment of Dagoth Ur inside the Ghostfence was actually HELPING him, in a way...it was giving him plenty of time to build Akulakhan while subtly expanding his own power base through the spread of Corprus and the use of the Sixth House statues. Vivec realizes this in the end, which is why he acknowledges you as the Nerevarine and gives you Wraithguard...he knows that action on Morrowind's part is needed, and you're the only one capable of doing it.

All this talk about invading lands and being syndicalist about everything is in the wrong direction.

Nearly everyone past Caldera talks about how Blight is spread on the wind. If Dagoth Ur received Wraithguard, then soon he wouldn't have needed priests to act as his vectors, the winds from Red Mountain would infect the populous of the provinces.

It wasn't a significantly larger operation, if it was larger at all. Nor could their priest inflict Corprus with the ease that Dagoth Gares did, plot point or not. If all of them could infect every intruder with Corprus, it would be downright unrealistic. Either way, if they could, there would be far fewer people out there. But Corprus is usually considered a hard disease to get, almost always gotten by contact with Corprus beasts.

And it isn't just that. The Ordinators and Armigers couldn't beat the Legion before either way. And Corprus is contained by a Telvanni, not the Temple.

Ghostfence???

And that wasn't really the Ordinators/Armigers fighting the legions...

He had a physical message? Proof of his irrelevance and worthlessness, since the Dagoths are in constant communion with the Heart and its keeper. That's the whole point of the operation. And he had low level stats, since you're gettin' jiggy with gameplay excuses and you are sent to kill him at a lowish level.

In fairness the Tribunal never expected the Temple or Armigers to fight the threat militarily. THere was no point, given that even if they cleared Red Mountain everything would regenerate eventually, and more people would be getting sick with corprus meanwhile. It was strictly containment.

No one had any thoughts about how Numidium and Akulakhan are both somehow related to the country of Numidia?

I think that was accidental, as the second (RL chronology) name Anumidum seems to try and correct that.

Nu-Mantia now... that's another story.

depends on which one... with the first one the chimer would have died and the dwemer would win, if the 2nd one dagoth ur wins and the dumner die

It was not a message to him, it was for Nerevar. Dagoth Ur wanted Nerevar to stop by Dagoth Gares, and to probably get Corprus, and to get the message. He had a written message from Dagoth Ur to Nerevar, something that no other ash priest in the game has. Dagoth Gares proved that he had powers to inflict Corprus at a whim not once but twice. If every ash priest could do that, then the Temple would be much more worried.


They would have ended up doing so. They Ordinator are Indoril, so they were, and are, strongly opposed the Imperial presence. If it came to war, they'd be fighting the Legion.

I don't deny that Akulakhan would have tipped the scales in Dagoth Ur's favor, and that's what he was waiting for, but if he felt he could pull it off without a stompy robot, I doubt he would have waited.

I'd hardly consider a dying curse "a whim"...

He also did it to the legion trooper.

Pretty hard not to.

And, just for argument's sake. I'd wager that individually High Ordinators thump all warriors in Tamriel, pity there's only a few of them.

So explain how a note is a badge of rank. And every Corprus stalker and its mother infects victims. The Temple IS worried. Hence the Ghostfence.