There are a lot of minor Houses. But they're consolidated into larger Houses. Think of clans, or tribes -- the structure is basically a sedentarised version of Ashlander tribes. Each family allied itself with other families, forming bigger and bigger clans, and the clans themselves started to develop allegiance to other more important clans, and that's how the Great Houses appeared.

Examples of lesser House include House Sotha, that was slaughtered but to the last by Mehrunes Dagon, leaving Sotha Sil as its only survivor. On the razed ruins of the House's clanstead Dagon's worshippers built a shrine to their master, which still bears the name of Ald Sotha...

Another lesser House, which still exists, is Ra'athim, the House of Barenziah, Helseth and Morgiah. This House is but one subpart of House Hlaalu.

Large families, such as the Hlaalu Dren, or the Redoran Venym, are such lesser Houses.

The Telvanni don't really have a use for lesser Houses, though. There's no room for a level of power between the Great House and the individual.

Yeah - Lennon wrote it and Micky wished he did ... repeats


So maybe we have an unusually small mer with a deep voice?


Yeah - that's the thing Gez - might give extra perspective when examining Helseth's plans to realise that his house is only part of the Hlaalu conglomeration - and not the one that created it. Rather like Dren ... rose mighty high in the sceme of things and is not from the prime Hlaalu House either - parvenues in a House of parvenues made significant only by hanging from the coattails of dead Emperors who represented an Empire now without an Imperial Family.

Maybe the Dwemer hoped to disbelieve and misinterpret the illusiory world enough to reduce themselves down to sapient singularities at the truest level of reality, and those could be seen as both 'small' and 'deep'.

Or maybe they were just on the runty side compared to the painted-cow-loving giants.




I'm not so sure. Certainly they'd be less interested in them than other Great Houses, but cold as they are, I don't think all Telvanni would be completely aloof to family ties.



I wonder what makes the difference between a minor House and just a big important family, or if the two are synonymous.

The Telvanni have to be looked at as a whole - if you did those quests you might remember the enthusiasm with which they talked of the group of young people going off to found a new settlement?

The problems seem to arise when an individual Telvanni gets the 'Necromancy Bug' and that is where their colonies seem to fail. Also that appears to happen in old settlements - possibly resurrected Resdaynian locations. And one might assume that those Telvanni are often hiding out because others would not approve - but the Telvanni that have Mushroom Mansions appear to be (generally, excepting senile dementia) more stable and reliable. In Mushroom cities you meet normal guards and people - which tends to suggest that to found that kind of settlement you have to be officially accepted and therefore that despite their delight in independance they have a sensible idea of government.

It's very hard to imagine their family life because of the lack of children - but there are Telvanni Mushroom Settlements that are small cities or towns and they are full of life and people - traders, tradesmen, skilled artisans and household companions as well as servitors. If Morrowind had been made using this year's hardware then it might have been possible to include more of that.

But we digress -



When all the above is taken into consideration the Dagoths seem to have had their place in the family hierarchies and History re-written - but they liked to call themselves the 6th House - maybe because they wanted to remind people that they saw themselves being apart from the circle of the 5 other Houses, but that they were still a Great House ... oh well, not any more

The others are not known as the "x" house, that should give you a clue as to why it is known as the sixth. By saying it is the sixth it is saying it is the last house, the final house, the house that is left, the house that is alone, the house which is ostracized or exiled, the pariah. It is the "other" house, in other words, don't associate it with us, the Great Houses. Its not like their leaders lined up and counted to six, and Dagoth just happened to be last in line (of the Dunmer, as gez said House Dwemer was just out of convenience for rule and tradition).

The only example of Telvanni family we have is Divayth Fyr's vat-grown daughter-wives.

Typical Redoran counselor: Athyn Sarethi (first name, family name)
Typical Hlaalu conselor: Crassus Curio (first name, family name)
Typical Telvanni counselor: Mistress Dratha (title, first name)

There are Telvanni NPCs who share a family name (GC member in Ebonheart, the lord of Telvanni Compound in Vivec, and some sort of mage in one of the Tels), and there's an Aryon ancestral tomb. Actually the fact that the vast majority of Telvanni NPCs even have family names might be telling. But all the examples are pretty thin stuff to be going on alone, there's always going to be some degree of conjecture and deduction.

I remember reading somewhere (maybe uesp) that dwe means deep, so Dwemer would mean deep folk.

Heh - I had overloked the Sarethi Family and the quests associated with his son and the murder. It's true that they were father and son - and that the Redoran set-up is more family-oriented, but still no babies, young children anywhere ofc and no sign of such relationships actively working in Telvanni territory other than the afore-mentioned would-be settlers - and yes the most unique Fyrs! I rather liked them - more personality that most of the rest of Telvanni put together I loved their explanation of their embarrassing situation - very British.

Hey, is it just my brain twitching or does Redoran seem the most... unified, I guess would be the word? Now there is internal strife, but it seems that since the councilors are all in the same place, and their emphasis on honor and duty, makes them less inclined to be killing eachohter, at least compared to Hlaalu, Dres, and Telvanni (Indoril are too busy killing themselves to kill rival councillors )

Redoran are the efective military arm of the Dunmer - for that you need loyalty and a certain willingness to accept cohesiveness. They are presented as generally sensible folks - and that is what makes good armies.

Back on the Dwemer bit. Dwemer literally means Deep Elf. (Dwe means deep, mer means elf). As for the name dwarf, it DOES come from their friendship with a now extinct race of giants, that isn't mere dev cheek. That information is garnered from multiple sources in MW, I just can't site the exact referencehe top of my head.

Is there a reason why "'Dwemer' mean's deep elves" has been repeated like 18 times? :huh:

yes - it's about the only Dwemer word people know and they enjoy showing off their erudition :icecream: ?

Nyargh it's not a Dwemer word xO
...or is it? I thought it was Aldmeris, like any other word with "mer" at the end.

The only Dwemer word I know is "N'Gasta!", and I don't know what that means.

Isn't this about the Sixth House anyway?

"N'Gasta", a Dwemer word? You're really sure of that?

No, actually not.

Good. Because it's the name of a Sload necromancer we meet in Redguard.