Ok so I understand that it makes him look quite intimidating. But does he infact need one. Is it pehaps to keep in a more human form (enchanted to protect from w/e happens to the rest of the sixth house, blight Iirc) does he not have a face any more such as some of his minions.

Thx
Ghost

This topic came up a few years ago. Someone produced pictures from the CS or something,

If I recall he has a full Dwemer style beard, fangs and a third eye on his forehead.

Isn't that just an Ash Vampire? Beard, third eye(sown shut for the in-game version). Did the proof actually say, "Dagoth Ur" next to it?

This is an example of an Ash Vampire. http://www.uesp.net/w/images/MW-creature-Ash_Vampire.jpg
BTW, it should be noted that Dagoth Ur's mask does have a third eye as well.

You try spending two or three AGES living in dwemer ruins and try not to get some of their culture embedded into your psyche.

No, it's a different (even if similar) texture.


As for why he needs a mask, the answer is simply that masks are a big thing in Dunmeri society. See the Ashmask of Vivec, the warmask of Almalexia, the Ordinator "Indoril" helmet, and so on.

That certainly sounds like the description of an Ash Vampire.

However, it wouldn't surprise me if Dagoth Ur would look a lot like them beneath his mask.

As to why he wears a mask, someone might be able to come up with some kind of explanation as to some special meaning the mask holds, maybe even a Bethesda employee or former Bethesda employee will come in and do so. But the real reason is probably just to make him look menacing, he is after all the big bad evil god of the game, so he has to look threatening.

The mask is a sun and Dagoth Ur wishes to be the center of everything.

http://www.imperial-library.info/mwbooks/lessons.shtml

'The ruling king will remove me, his maker. This is the way of all children. His greatest enemy is the Sharmat, who is the false dreamer. You or he is the shingle, Hortator. Beware the wrong walking path. Beware the crime of benevolence. Behold him by his words.'

I AM THE SHARMAT
I AM OLDER THAN MUSIC
WHAT I BRING IS LIGHT
WHAT I BRING IS A STAR
WHAT I BRING IS
AN ANCIENT SEA
WHEN YOU SLEEP YOU SEE ME
DANCING AT THE CORE
IT IS NOT A BLIGHT
IT IS MY HOUSE
I PUT A STAR
INTO THE WORLD'S MOUTH
TO MURDER IT
TEAR DOWN THE PYLONS
MY BLIND FISH
SWIM IN THE NEW
PHLOGISTON
TEAR DOWN THE PYLONS
MY DEAF MOONS
SING AND BURN
AND ORBIT ME
I AM OLDER THAN MUSIC
WHAT I BRING IS LIGHT
WHAT I BRING IS A STAR
WHAT I BRING IS
AN ANCIENT SEA

http://pnmedia.gamespy.com/planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/fms/images/mods/5068/1169433814_fullres.jpg

and

http://pnmedia.gamespy.com/planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/fms/images/mods/5068/1169433838_fullres.jpg

Note what are either double sets of ears or devil horns.

NOTE: This is from a user generated mod but this is NOT a user generated texture. This is an actual texture that exists in the game files, created by Bethesda artists. For whatever reason the decision was made to have his mask unremovable in the finished game but the facial textures remain hidden away in the data files. Apparently he was supposed to be mutated like this. Note that much like his brothers the Ash Vampires his mutations are less severe than other blighted creatures. It's possible the third eye and double ears/horns were things he actually CHOSE to develop as a personal taste.

Ah well thanks for the info guys

Ghost

Just of a matter of interest,
where is he located in the CS?

Still, the mask is freakin' awesome!

I don't have Morrowind installed, but if the image posted above is supposed to be Dagoth Ur's real face, Bethesda was right not to include it in the game.

There's two versions of him listed in the CS. The one you meet in "Inner Facility" and the full-powered one in the Heart Chamber. To get the images above some modder meddled with his textures and stats somehow. Figured out how to activate his mask as a removable item, as it was supposedly originally intended.

what's funnier is that hircine has a face too, and his is really funny in the context of a daedra prince.

Is it John Romero's head on a stick?

*wonders if anyone gets the reference*

I'd have to agree, he'd look too much like his Ash Vampire underlings.

DOOM II.

Also, I think the existence of a face texture for Dagoth-Ur may have simply been leftover from Bethesda basing his model off of a modified Ash Vampire one, and not bothering to delete the unused parts.

well that is exactly what I didn't think of when I thought of Dagoth Ur's face

dude he looks dwemer

haha I didnt think that but your right.

Wait I just had a thought if he dided while the dunmer where chimer why does he have dark skin?

Ghost

It's unclear as to why he has dark skin. We are told the seven Ash Vampires actually survived the Battle of Red Mountain and were scattered and absorbed into different houses or went into hiding. They'd have theoretically been fully mortal when Azura placed her curse on the Chimer, and thus became Dunmer.

The Tribunal themselves were changed as well, but had the powers of gods. Almalexia chose to fully revert to her previous form. Sotha Sil remained a Dunmer and even comforted the other Dunmer about their new appearance. Vivec, forever the contradiction, could not choose and split his color down the middle.

Dagoth Ur himself by most accounts was actually dead while all this was happening. To what extent his original physical body was damaged or even obliterated during his battle with Nerevar and the Tribunal, I don't know. For whatever reason he became Dunmer shaded, dark purple-blue. He may have been affected by Azura's curse or he may have chosen his form diplomatically, to appeal to the Dunmer and help them accept him as their Leader once his plans came to fruition.

We are? Afaik they woke up in the Heart Chamber allong with Voryon. Voryon then bound them to the Heart so they can be brought back.

Maybe it's a welding mask to protect his face when he's welding Akulakhan together. It could even be an extension of that mech, so that when it hops up and starts breaking dragons, reshaping reality along the lines of what the Dwemer originally intended, etc, he gets a direct (or direct mythic) link to it.

Actually the mask is sort of symbolic of Dagoth Ur's general ethos of projecting a new reality.

Okay, you're right. I was thinking of Sleepers, Dreamers and other lower ranking members. I dunno why I thought that included Ash Vampires.

His face looks like an ash vampire except that his middle eye is not shut it is open. I have seen this in the art files for Morrowind. He has his middle eye open because he is the most powerful of his kin. The regular ash vampires don't have an open middle eye because they are not as powerful as Dagoth Ur, and not completely a god like him. His skin is dark because like all chimer he was changed to have bruised dark skin and red eyes when Azura cursed them for the Tribunal betrayel of Nerevar wishes. Which was not to use Kagrenac's tools to munipulate the heart of Lorkhan. The Tribunal wish to have golden skin because they are gods and can bypass Azura's curse because they choose to. Dagoth Ur liked this new skin so he chose to stay the way he was, because it made him and the Dunmer race diffrent which he liked. Vivec is half Chimer and half Dunmer because he/she (Yes,Vivec is both for those of you who don't know) chooses to be like that. Why he wheres the mask has been answered in a previous post.