Quick question: what is a netchiman in the Dunmer culture?

With all the goings on around here lately, I've been brushing up on my sermons but do not know how to characterize this concept in my mind. I've tried searching the forums, google, TIL, UESP and all I get is direct quotes from the sermons.

Is it simply a netch farmer? Is it something more sinister like a cut-throat or scoundrel (netch blade)? Is it merely a derogatory term for a poor person? Something else entirely?

Thanks guys!

Like a fisherman, I think. Wielder of sky-hooks.

I think it's like a shepherd, just with... well, netches.

Netch shepherd (nearly spelled that Shepard, durr) was always my assumption, furthered by the occasional Christian symbolism employed around Vivec.

The only one who could ever reach me
Was the son of a netchiman
The only one who could ever teach me
Was the son of a netchiman
Yes, he was, he was, oooh, yes, he was

Go look at the TIL Morrowind concept art. You can see ashlanders hunting bull netch with grappling hooks.

Ok, so it was my first assumption. I just wanted to clarify... you can never be too sure with MK's work. Thanks everyone.

Do you suppose they had covered pens, too? (For bad weather or nighttime)
Herding floating sheep-bugs can't be an easy job.
Do we know what netches eat?

I doubt netches care for the weather. I think netches are mainly herbivores.

Gah, this makes me want to know more.
How do you keep the domestic ones away from wild netches? Do you suppose the herders can tell the things apart? Is there any lore friendly, non-game critters that could be natural predators? (I can only see the occasional nix-hound catching one...)

Uh, hope that wasn't too ambitious.

Cliffracers, hunting in packs I imagine they could take down a netch.

Humans have always been around in Tamriel, so they have always been predators on the food chain.

Looking at a lot of the artwork on TIL, it appears that they would have branded or marked their netch or various other herds. They could be painted, or have strips of leather or banners hanging from them to differentiate between different farms just as they would have marked their homes and shrines.

I would assume most netch are perfectly suited for outdoor weather. The bulls have a thick leathery hide protecting most of their surface area. Betty netches may require more careful supervision, as they seem more fragile than the bulls. They make up for this in terms of fending off most wildlife by being more aggressive than the bulls. I'd assume rain and ash are little problem for the netch, but the associated wind would produce a bigger threat, blowing them away from their territories or into obstacles that could damage them.

As far as diet, I would have to disagree with them being herbivores as they seem to lack the proper features to ingest plant life. Being that they are basically airborne jelly-fish, I'd suggest that they are more likely to be carnivores; ambushing small prey with poisoned barbs on their tentacles causing neurological shutdown of the prey item, and then slowly absorbing and breaking down the food within their "stomachs". Stretching my mind a bit further, I might be inclined to believe they operate much like whales, ingesting large swarms of small insects, or siphoning micro-organisms through pools of water.

Being that they float almost exclusively (it seems that they would be unlikely to "land" unless they did graze on low plants) they would be safe from any predators other than airborne ones. Therefor, it is fairly easy to imagine a pack of cliff racers assaulting the "safe" backside of a netch, ripping into it in an attempt to "down" it and then consume it (like a pack of wolves hunting a moose). If it did land, for whatever reason, they would definitely be susceptible to Morrowind's ambush predators: the Alit and Kagouti.

The real question I have about the netch, is how do they float? Are they filled with a gas? How do they replenish the gas? Where do they get it naturally? What would happen if the source "dried up"? Do they have micro-organisms living within them that metabolize the gas? Is their choice of prey related to sustaining the organisms in its gut? Are netch born with this ability? What is the lifecycle of the netch?

(If you can't tell, I love thinking about the flora and fauna of Morrowind... kinda nuts about it.)

I've never thought of cliffracers like vultures. To me they seemed just aggressively territorial and feed on smaller critters. But they did chase the dragons out, so maybe the pack thing is closer.

I can only find a reference on uesp, which states that, "they are supported by internal sacs of magical vapors." I know that's not the best of sources but it sort of connects to your theory. Only "magical" seems like a cop out on the creators part..


I can just picture a windstorm blowing away the pack of netchs and the poor herders having to chase after them..^^

I tell you what, I remember when I spent all day hunting a netch. I saw it flying over my house north of Vivec, and I told my wife "Whooooboy! Jinah we're gonna eat well tonight!". But Red Mountain shot a great gust of ash and the netch flew away! I spent all day hunting it (I even chased it over the sea; that waterwalking potion I bought when I was at Temple sure came in handy I tell you what!)! After dark though I lost it. Needless to say, I didn't eat or sleep in my bed that night (mah wife sure is really nasty when she don't get no food!).

Haha...You've been hitting the special skooma haven't you? I like it.

"Save a netch, eat a cliffracer."

I imagine cliffracers taste nasty, just like everything else about them is nasty.

My new shtick is to write in-character drabbles. And the only substance I have is being tired from begging people to open Macy's credit cards....and maybe some Balmora Blue spiked with Hist-sap.

"Netch are chemophiles that live off a combination of minerals spewed into the air by Red Mountain and water vapor containing microbes. Vvardenfell's coast are a veritable petri disgh for these things.

Even the most mindless cliffracer respects a netch's magical venom blasts, feuled by the magickal essences of the ash further powered by the Heart of Lorkhan. As such, they often hunt them down in the middle of the night.

As such, netchyman are ever vigilant, tying their netch to the ground and painting runes upon them. Said runes are impolite messages on the Daedric Doormat Cluster font, most often many insulting paragraphs long. These are believed to offend cliffracers into flying "

- A note from the studies of Divyath Fyr

Divayth is having some serious spelling issues. Otherwise awesome.

Due of course to a night's hard partying and snorting moon sugar off the derrieres of his fun loving daughter-wives.

That Daedric armor can make arthritic bones shaky. That, and he has more pressing matters to attend to, such as making more, even sixier daughters.

Divayth Fyr is a pretty cool guy. I look forward to finding him in the coming abomination that is known as TESO.

Quest where you have to help him gather the ingredients to clone his daughters.

+1

You're rewarded with one of the troglodytic failed attempts to keep as a vanity pet.