Hlaalu uses Armun Am, Redoran uses Gah-Julan, Telvanni employs mercenaries with odd helmets and unique shields....

Do Indoril soldiers and guards wear the ordinator armor? Or do they use their own unique type of bonemold?

The Ordinator armor is unique the Ordinators. Indoril armor is bonemold, like the other Houses'.

It may, however be culturally ubiquitous because SO many Ordinators are from House Indoril.

Not really. Just because most of them are from Indoril doesn't mean they're going to allow sacrilege.

Similarly, most astronauts have conveniently been from Maine, but one wouldn't necessarily associate spacesuits with people from Maine...

btw, are there any mods that allow you to become an ordinator? just curious, mainly because having "we're watching you, criminal scum" as a dialoge choice would be SICK.

Well, I'm trying to find a way for Temple armor to be named after a Great House. So IF Indoril does not have specific armor and maybe IF they actually use the Temple to enforce the law in their territories, then it might stand to reason that people'd call it Indoril's armor.

In Morrowind, the armor that Ordinators wear, I seem to recall, is named Indoril armor. This seems to imply that the style at least has some connection to House Indoril, at least to me. This does not, however, mean that it is necessarily the kind of armor that Indoril guards where. It could also be that the style comes from House Indoril, but is only worn by Ordinators, not normal Indoril guards, and the fact that most Ordinators are from Indoril doesn't mean that the armor Ordinators wear is the same as Indoril guards, because it seems to be a uniform that is worn by Ordinators as a whole, even the ones who are not from Indoril.

In any case, the Ordinators don't take kindly to people who are not members of their order wearing their armor, and unless they make an exception for House Indoril, I'd say that the armor worn by Ordinators is unique to them, and is not used by those in House Indoril who are not Ordinators themselves. Though due to lack of information on the subject, I guess I could be mistaken.

I'd assume House Indoril has its own unique bonemold like the others.

IIRC the armor the Ordinators wear is designed to look like Nerevar Indoril, right? That would certainly explain why it's named as such in Morrowind.

Bonemold is a Vvardenfell thing.

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Bone,_Part_One

I don't think Indoril uses it.

That account seems to be fictitious, though.
“The problem with your theory is that your example is entirely fictional,” sniffed Xiomara.
“It's perfect nonsense,” said Xiomara. “But my point is still valid even so. Like all great inventors, even in fiction, the armorer worked diligently to create the bonemold.”

At least Xiomara believes it be fiction.

Not unless they are also Ordinators.

You said it yourself. The bonemold armors of those Houses are not called Hlaalu Armor, Redoran Armor and Telvanni Armor, they are Armun Am, Gah-Julan, and whatever it is the Telvanni feel like wearing on any given day.

It was on the old website at one point that Indoril armor was in fact named so because of how many Ordinators actually come from House Indoril. So YES, Ordinator Armor IS associated with House Indoril but only as a nickname, and that doesn't give random Indorils the right to wear it. At one time, yes Great House Indoril did have much control over the Temple and the Ordinators, but I would find it hard to believe that they would use them for all their petty tasks. Not every Indoril city is a Holy City(though... many could be or could contain holy sites that would have Ordinator guards), I believe they would have regular non-Ordinator guards as well, and whatever armor they may wear, bonemold or not, it would not be Ordinator Armor(because only Ordinators may wear it). House politics and family guards would of course be handled by retainers like the rest of Dunmer society.

Indoril may have control over them, but there would certainly be limits to what they could have Ordinators do without coming up with a convenient reason having to do with the Tribunal or Imperial Law.