It had always been my interpretation of things that since the Ash Vampires are Ur's brothers, they received more power than the others, and that that results in a less disgusting transformation for some reason. But your explanation makes plenty of sense.

Personally, after having thought about a great number of things, the part about Ur I find to be regrettable is his trust of the Heart. He doesn't seem to think it may be leading him astray, he doesn't seem to be cognizant of the possibility that the Heart does not share his noble intentions, that it just wants to see mortals tear each other apart, and that if he ever achieved peace, the Heart would work to destroy it. It is a piece of a god, after all, and the one who dreamed up the idea of a mortal realm, no less. That idea cost him, and I find it foolish to ignore the likelihood that Lorkhan maybe, just maybe, remains a little ticked off about that.

You're correct in that the Heartwights do in fact have more power. Like Dagoth Ur, they are directly "plugged in" to the Heart. That is why, according to lore, even if you kill them they do not die. They sooner or later resurrect near the Heart and then return to their citadels. The other followers; from Ash Slave to Ascended Sleeper, do not have that direct connection, so when they are killed, they die permanently.

The creator of the GHD mod and I have had a lot of discussions about Great House Dagoth as well as the mindset/personality of Voryn Dagoth and we are both in agreement that not even Dagoth Ur, a mortal turned demi-god, could micro-manage everything, so a level of personal independence in his followers would be looked on favorably.

Again I refer to the dialog, and I am not referring to dialog added by mods that let you join House Dagoth. The higher ranking members have "normal" dialog. Yes, some may argue that the fact that they support Dagoth Ur is insane in itself, but again, I am referring to the fact that they are not just standing around muttering to themselves about how the furniture won't keep quite. The high ranking ones who earned the "Dagoth" title are speaking normally and doing their own thing. And these people who are showing independent thinking are placed in charge of their own bases.

And as far as why Dagoth Ur chose the methods that he did to fight against the Tribunal; here is one of Voryn's responses from the game:

"If, by my crimes, you mean the inevitable suffering and destruction caused by war, then I accept the burden of leadership. The Sixth House cannot be restored without war. Enlightenment cannot grow without the risk of upsetting the tradition-bound and complacent herd. And the mongrel armies of the Empire cannot be expelled from Morrowind without bloodshed. As I have charity and compassion, I grieve. But our mission is just and noble."

That doesn't sound like one who relishes death and destruction. He doesn't like it. But there is a war going on. War brings death. And as far as why he started the war in the first place and used the blight as a weapon; I attempted to have Voryn explain that himself in my fic when he says to my player-character;

"I alone did as Nerevar asked and for that I was struck down and have been mocked by the Tribunal. Before you judge me any further I ask you, Aeronwen, what would you have me do? Should I allow the Tribunal free access to the Heart so that they can recharge their 'divine' powers and continue to lie to their followers? Shall I just sit quietly in my citadel and allow them to do as they wish? Perhaps I should put out a red carpet and serve drinks. Is that it?"

Most of his House had been killed off by the Tribunal, he was beneath a mountain, behind the Ghostfence and with limited resources. He wanted vengeance against the Tribunal and to take back the land that had been handed over to the Emperor so he used what was available to him.

I am NOT saying that he is entirely sane or that there is nothing wrong with the methods he used, but I don't think he was a deranged tyrant who wanted to rule over a land of mindless, tentacled puppets. That may have been the result in many cases of people being exposed to the Heart, but I don't believe that was the objective Dagoth Ur was aiming for.

You may be right. But you must admit that at the very least, it's difficult to make friends in the world when you've liberated Morrowind using an army of mostly revolting-looking soldiers. It may not have been his desire per se, but if Ur had been successful, it definitely would've looked to outsiders like the province had been taken over by monsters. And he would've battled with external forces for his entire tenure as leader, probably as a direct result.

I'm not disagreeing with you at all. My posts were mainly to express my point of view regarding the idea that Dagoth Ur was deliberately trying to turn his people into a race of mindless zombies.

From what I have gathered from the lore, he was striving to create a divine race. He was not actively thinking, "I'm going to turn everyone into walking corpses that I can manipulate like puppets".

I apologize if I was not clear.

Oh no, that part I get. And in thinking on it, I'm hard-pressed to disagree. Although if he doesn't see an inherent problem with the way the Heart's power is affecting the physical structure and psychological stability of most of his followers, he's either foolish, or not very noble.

Ur's plan may be to do what the Dwemer tried to do millenia ago, or what he interprets them to have attempted perhaps, and may wish it wasn't turning his followers into freaks of nature, and it may make sense that he's willing to accept it in the short term, but my thing is, liberating a country with an army of creatures like those, with the obvious intention of placing their leader as the new head of state, is pretty well akin to a powerful lich doing the same thing with an army of undead. It's trading one set of ugliness for another.

And we haven't even gotten into his blatant racism, though it's not like he stands alone in that. It just happens to be more dangerous with him, because he's a demi-god.

This conversation is certainly taking an interesting turn. LOL

Dagoth Ur's point of view tends to remind me of one of the meanings of the Hanged Man Tarot card. One meaning is of course suspension, or a pause. The other is a drastically different way of seeing things; the world looks entirely different when seeing it upside down.

While Voryn was still his mortal self (with his feet on the ground and viewing things upright), he would have likely been just as repulsed as everyone else at the sight of an ash creature. But since he ended up bound to the Heart of Lorkhan, his world, and hence his way of seeing things "has been turned upside down", figuratively speaking of course.

So, my theory is that is isn't that he doesn't care that his "blessed" followers are taking on such odd forms. It's that he is not seeing it from the same perspective.

Again, I'm not saying he's in the right, and I am not saying that he is entirely sane. It's just that the Heart's power has turned his perspective on end.

Then again I know I could be way off on this and possibly a Morrowind character developer is laughing at me for my take on Voryn Dagoth, but such is the beauty of the lore that not everything is black and white and cleanly cut so we can still debate details about this lovely old game.

There's no doubt about Ur's world view being turned upside down by his connection to the Heart. Indeed, a powerful lich doesn't get repulsed by the army of undead that such beings are known for creating and threatening the world with, because they're undead themselves. Although obviously, in a lot of instances, lichs desired the transition, and so their world view was kind of twisted to begin with.

I think the thing I find to be most revealing about Dagoth Ur is his bigotry towards other races, and his level of ambition. He doesn't just want to liberate Morrowind. He's a conqueror, and that makes it difficult to find his intentions to be noble. To me, he's no better than Tiber Septim with the Numidium at his disposal, or a lich with an army of undead, or a Daedric Prince leading an army of their underlings.

Given how much of ES stuff is open to interpretation, I'd say it doesn't matter how accurate we are about old Man Under the Mountain.

how about kagrenac's tools? didn't it affect him im anyway like it drive almalexia crazy?

Alma went nuts because she lost her power, or most of it at least, and couldn't handle it.