My basic understanding is that the 5 Great Houses are made up of smaller houses. So Great House Telvanni for example say are made up of minor house Fyr and Andrethi. My questions are:

1. Is there an actual official "Telvanni family" or "Hlaalu family" etc?
2. Do minor houses move freely from house to house as alliances and politics change? I know for example Barenziah's minor house was formerly Dres if i remember correctly.
3. Are all Dunmer in Morrowind part of a minor house who is in turn part of a great house or is there a big pool among those who are not nobility that are just neutral?

there aren't any such thing as minor houses. All Houses have equal standing, and these houses are: Dres, Hlaalu, Indoril, Redoran, Telvanni, Dwemer (defunct), and Dagoth (defunct). There are councilors who own manors and have underlings and whatnot; I guess you could consider them "families" in a sense, but you couldn't call them that.

I'm pretty sure there are minor houses, like Dren for example.

And Llethan.

Which is the ruling house of Hlaalu, IIRC. Since Athyn Llethan is descended thereof.

Where is your source?

Dren is a family; the most notable members of this family are Orvas and Vedam (sp? He's the Duke, I know that much). I've never seen any info on "minor" houses. But my Morrowind knowledge is rusty.

Morrowind? Minor House Dren is part of Hlaalu.

I implore you to be more specific.

the major houses are made up by the major house - made up by the House proper and it's vassals.

on the next ring of power, you have the minor houses. Not represented at the highest level of power, they can stand on their own or associate with the major houses, giving up independance for protection in a form of vasssality line

another step down, you find the clans - basically extended families. Among an House, the leadership position are probably distributed among one clan - the largest/strongest in the house.

Last would be the families proper, the reasonably close family, I'd say uncles and cousins mostly.

I'm mostly making this up from IRL tribal/clanic structures - somewhat like what exited in Ireland

As I've said, there are no minor houses; just families that have major pull in some houses. Dren and Llethan are families (Llethan cannot even be the ruling family anymore anyway. Hlaalu Helseth is king), not minor houses. I haven't seen one piece of evidence that could support the usage of the term.

ImmortalBlood I see where you are coming from.


The Great Houses are more of like organizations, not families (The Telvanni family does not rule house Telvanni). They are ruled by councils, much like the mages guild or something like that. But there are minor houses (or families) that are very influencial in the Great Houses.

As far as "official" families. No, at least I dont think so. I have yet to see a "bob" Telvanni.

Metaphorical maybe; House Mora "whose rose-worn prince of garlands was a hero against the northern demons", but implied to be amongst, I quote, "the lower Velothi houses", Sermon 22.

Less obscure; Sotha Sil is described as "the only survivor of the minor House Sotha" in a dialogue.

The houses themselves are like clans, particularly the Japanese or Scottish clans. Clans are defined as groups of interrelated families. In Morrowind, it's also a sort of cultural designation as well as political for the people that live under them. E.g. Someone outside the political structure but ruled over by the Telvanni still builds in the Telvanni mushroom style. Strictly speaking, a House as defined by the dictionary is; "often House A family line including ancestors and descendants, especially a royal or noble family: the House of Orange."

1. There are people with surnames like Hlaalu, but they more likely got their name from being associated with house in some manner (living on their territory, ancestor who was a member, ex-slave...).
2. No, similar events were mentioned in some books as rare, but possible.
3. Great Houses consist of clans and their clients (retainers, hirelings, service providers...) and from individual members who aren't directly connected to any of the clans.
Examples for clans are Drens, Arethis and Arobars, and examples for independent members are Crassius Curio and I believe most of the Telvanni lords (since they pursue isolation for their arcane work and their family connections seam to be very loose).
Influential, powerful and/or clans with long tradition can be recognized as Minor Houses. Their core is family relation by blood, adoption or as a sept .
Examples are Redoran councilors, Dren family, House Mora.
Majority of population however doesn't belong to the any of Great Houses, they acknowledge their rule and live in symbiosis (Houses need workers, service providers and artisans, while people need law enforcement, protection and employment). One can live freely almost everywhere, but joining a Great House is usually only way to achieve greater level of political autonomy or to be part of ruling mechanism.


I hope this helps.

Except that there is no proof for any of this at all.
And the reason some people have Hlaalu as a surname is that the order of names is, formally, House/Given name/Family name. The House name is left out in most cases because it is formal, cumbersome, and not really needed.

It is very possible that at one point in Chimer/Dunmer history, there existed many minor houses, like Sotha, for example, but if it did, they have long since been assimilated by the Great Houses, as there is no mention of them in any sources.
Thus, we can't be sure, so you're free to make up your own mind :foodndrink:

Any "powerful" or "influential" family can be a House. The lineages of Main Houses in Morrowind just have become so large that they don't seem to have a ruling lines. The Houses find unity through more cultural and ideologically themes than through blood ties, which is more or less of a cop-out on Morrowind's behalf, but infinitely better than the non-existent politics of the Oblivion Cyrodiils.

The term 'house' can often be applied to a family, particularly to larger ones, encompassing those who are related but do not necessarily share the same name.

I think that that is what ImmortalBlood is referring to when he says 'minor houses': he is referring to the families that make up the Great Houses.

I had always assumed that a Great House has many different families within it (or minor houses, if you will) of varying power depending on the individual ranks of individual people belonging to that family, but I imagine that, beyond that, the structure of the Great Houses is purely based on individual ranks, family members of those of higher ranks simply 'riding along' on their power, using the rank of their relation to give themselves status.

This is purely speculation, but doesn't introduce any new elements that we don't already know of (I think...). If I were trying to distinguish how the power in different families of the Great Houses works, I would say this is the safest way of looking at it.

Exactly. I am trying to figure out if everyone is part of a Great House one way or another from the lowest peasant to the nobility. Like when you go to Vvardenfell in Morrowind, and you hop on the silt strider, the guy standing there is actually low ranking member #9543 of house Hlaalu.


And to everyone, the creative suggestions and assumptions are nice but it is not what I am looking for. I want something more backed up by lore or the game. thank you anyway

But unlike Morrowind, the Cyrodiils don't run around killing each other, stealing each other's business, and trying to encroach on each other's territory.

I'm not very good with a whole lotta families, but:

Telvanni
Telvanni
Hlaalu
Serethi(?)
Dren
Hlaalu
Redoran:
Redoran
Serethi(?)

Eh, not a very good list... Also, theres not a lot of Telvanni with similar last names, so, I don't know...

I'm pretty sure that happens in Cyrodiil also.

No. Actually, most citizens of Morrowind are NOT part of the great houses.

http://www.imperial-library.info/mwbooks/great_houses.shtml - "The Great Houses traditions derive from ancient Dunmer clan and tribes, but now function as political parties."

Like many countries in real life, a political party may rule a government, but usually a large majority of it's people are not official members of the party.

I don't know where it says most citizens of Morrowind are not part of the great houses. I assumed most would be affiliated in some way to a great house. Whether it be politically or some more along the lines of traders, farmers, and crafstman. I could understand if most were citizens were not politically active. IMHO

I've been trying to find it in a text because I dont feel like taking a screenshot of Morrowind. But I remember when they talk about Ald'ruhn they say most of the citizens are not part of House Redoran, but live under them fine. I took this to mean that they were not part of any great houses, just normal citizens. They may like one more than the other, but are not "officially" a part of it.

Look at Telvanni. They rule the lands surrounding their Towers, even providing shelter for the merchants and plebes that resides in fungal offspring of the main root. Most of these inhabitants of Telvanni land are not proper initiates of the House though.

For what exactly?

The answer to question three.
I guess I forgot to remove the other from the quote. The first one I commented on it's own, though, but the second one couldn't really be commented by "being unbased", could it?