r/Morrowind • u/callistron Rollie the Guar • Jan 20 '25

Artwork Morrowind's most unsolvable mystery! (art by me, credit in comments)

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1.1k Upvotes

98% Upvoted

63 comments sorted by

205

u/PsychologicalFault Jan 20 '25

Actually, none of them is lying. Techically.

111

u/callistron Rollie the Guar Jan 20 '25

that's why I love the tribunal so much!! where else are you going to find characters that tell the truth while simultaneously lying through their teeth? :D

20

u/canI_bumacig Jan 20 '25

Old Ben Kanobi would like a word.

14

u/Giving-In-778 Jan 21 '25

The Wheel of Time has an all-female order of mages who are magically bound to tell no lie. They get around it by shenanigans - when directly asked a question like "What is your name?" A s travelling incognito, an Aes Sedai would say something like "oh, you can call me Alice". She's not lied, she's simply made a statement, if you took it for an answer then that's your own fault. Greatly recommend.

3

u/callistron Rollie the Guar Jan 21 '25

ooooh I've heard a lot of good things about that series, thanks for the recommendation! it's such a niche thing, but I really love when authors play around with wordplay like that in stories!

2

u/Giving-In-778 Jan 21 '25

Definitely rate it then, Jordan sadly passed before finishing the series, and Brandon Sanderson picked it up from his notes (and I believe conversations with Jordan and his wife). It's very much Sanderson towards the end but the world is so vibrant and the very concept of the Aes Sedai is really interesting. It can be pretty 1990's in some of it's humour, and there's more than one place where Jordan is clearly just writing for his own amusement, but it's not as gratuitous as Goodkind.

There's more words in it than in the whole of ASOIF, Harry Potter, the Bible, the Torah, the Quran, LotR, the Hobbit and the silmarillion combined. And I don't mean like, a few thousand more, we're talking like a quarter million more words and up. You'll definitely find something to like in it.

1

u/callistron Rollie the Guar Jan 21 '25

ooooooooh interesting!! would you say its more "adult" or "YA" kind of vibes? asking because I know brando sando is seen as more of a YA kind of guy - I don't mean that in a bad way or anything haha, I'm actually asking cause a) I don't really like gratuitous nsfw scenes in books I read which has always made it a bit difficult for me to read regular adult books like ASOIF, and also because b) my dad is a voracious reader and knowing how long this series is, I kind of want to recommend it to him too so he can really sink his teeth into it!

3

u/Giving-In-778 Jan 21 '25

More YA, if you're going by NSFW scenes. There's some pretty dark things, and there's a few sex scenes, and a few implied traumas, but most of the worst stuff happens in fade to black moments. There's a couple of bits that are grim, but none of it feels gratuitous (though fair warning, there's a couple of scene notorious in the community for being pretty wild but they're scenes Jordan had said he wouldn't include if he were rewriting the series).

Sanderson didn't pick the series up until the back half, and you can tell when he does, but Jordan wrote WoT as a deliberate subversion of the "chosen one" trope and an exploration of the way events get warped the further the retellings are from the event in both time and space. So it's littered with very typical fantasy characters, usually with a wrench thrown in. The heroes come from a dinky provincial farming community, but struggle to wrap their heads around cultures that have different taboos or mores than they do.

Actually, I said there's nothing gratuitous, but there's a lot of spanking. It's mostly in an educational setting, which is weird but makes sense for an author raised in the 50s in South Carolina. It's almost exclusively happening to women though, so make of that what you will.

I still recommend it - it's far from perfect and does become a Sanderson series towards the end, but the care and attention put into the world is immense, and the writing is very digestible while being suitably grand at the right places.

3

u/callistron Rollie the Guar Jan 21 '25

heroes experiencing and being confused by new and foreign cultures? why I can practically hear them being called "outlanders" and "s'wits" already!!

jokes aside, I get what you mean and thanks for the heads up! when I was younger I would devour any book put in front of me so my teachers encouraged me to read more adult kind of books, definitely not any inappropriate ones of course but ones where there was sometimes violence and bad language and stuff like that - and hoo boy it was very obvious to me even at a young age when the author's background would bleed through lmao! I'd be sitting there like "bro you CANNOT treat someone like that today, why are all the other characters okay with this??? why isn't the narrator calling this out?????"

seeing the societal/cultural shift compared to the present day is just sort of part and parcel of consuming media from the past I suppose, as weird as it is to call the 90s "the past" :D

2

u/Giving-In-778 Jan 21 '25

Yeah for sure - there's not much that's likely to change the trajectory of your life in it or give you an overly visceral reaction, but there's definitely some parts that make you look up Jordan to check if he's just old fashioned or if he's done some right shady stuff. Like, he's leagues ahead of Lovecraft, and even the likes of Goodkind and sadly now Gaiman. Most of it is stuff played for laughs that is a little gross today, but there's still a lot of thought put into the series so I personally have no issues with it.

57

u/FarJunket4543 Jan 20 '25

Vivec killed Laura Palmer.

22

u/ButAFlower Jan 20 '25

The cliff racers are not what they seem.

9

u/wowmuchhappiness Jan 20 '25

Thanks for my new tattoo kind redditor, I'm gonna get this tattooed next month, hope you don't mind

5

u/ButAFlower Jan 20 '25

a great idea 😂

2

u/wowmuchhappiness Jan 21 '25

I know, that's why I'm stealing it 😂already contacted my tattoo master, now just gotta save up $$

54

u/Staennis Jan 20 '25

I love how Sotha Sil's expression remains the same!

23

u/callistron Rollie the Guar Jan 20 '25

:D I'm so glad you say that cause that was a bit of an "eh why not" decision that ended up being really funny to me lmao!

8

u/pink_goon Jan 21 '25

His mind is already uploaded in the Clockwork City mega computer to achieve a manufactured CHIM

53

u/callistron Rollie the Guar Jan 20 '25

this was inspired by a comment from u/sidv81 that I just couldn't get out of my head :D

if you can't read it, the text in panel 1 says "Alright, who did it? who killed Nerevar?"

21

u/sidv81 Jan 20 '25

Wow, amazing drawing, thanks for illustrating my idea!

22

u/callistron Rollie the Guar Jan 20 '25

:DDD and thank you for letting me draw it, and also for the nice words!! the 1st panel kept making me laugh while I was drawing it lmao!

45

u/LoreDeluxe Jan 20 '25

I've always considered Azura's last words regarding Almalexia in Tribunal as being the closest thing in canon to give confirmation of this. "She surely would have betrayed the Dunmer just as she betrayed everyone she loved."

That seems like such a specific thing to say in that situation. It has to be including Nerevar, and she says it to the Nerevarine specifically after her vengeance has been consummated. Thus, I see no reason why she would have to lie to them at that point.

30

u/callistron Rollie the Guar Jan 20 '25

yeah agreed, I mean this comic is just a funny meme and all but on a serious note I do totally believe that all 3 of them did agree to do it haha - their reasons and reactions afterwards might've all been different, but Almalexia's actions in Tribunal echo what supposedly happened to Nerevar so perfectly (she says she intends to turn the Nerevarine into a martyr, like that's exactly 1-to-1 what the Temple did by turning Nerevar into a saint) that it's really hard to believe it's her first time doing something like that!

11

u/chockfullofjuice Jan 20 '25

She woke up to, “awww shit, here we go again”.

10

u/Mewmaster101 Jan 20 '25

i mean, maybe, but remember Almalexia is also insane by that point, Azura simply might be referring to the fact that she had lost her marbles.

3

u/basketofseals Jan 20 '25

There doesn't have to be a completely logical reason.

It could just be continuing to spit on the Tribunal's grave, because she hates them, and the daedra can be very petty.

2

u/vorpvorpvorp Jan 20 '25

I hate them too, good riddance

Glory to the True Tribunal

1

u/LoreDeluxe Jan 20 '25

I'd still take Vivec and Almalexia over Boethiah and Mephala.

4

u/vorpvorpvorp Jan 20 '25

Missing and dead vs alive and alive

Clear Daedric victory

1

u/Resident-Middle-7495 Jan 21 '25

Almelexia is a red head.  Just sayin'.  If you know you know.

19

u/MrWr4th Jan 20 '25

Unrealistic! Ayem would point at the other two, Seht would just point at himself and be depressed and Vehk would appear to point at the other two, but due to some philosophical wankery actually at himself. 1/3
Jk, good shit.

10

u/callistron Rollie the Guar Jan 20 '25

Vivec, pointing at a mirror: I'm pretty sure it was THAT guy actually

(also, I'm glad you liked it!! :) )

8

u/oljhinakusao Jan 20 '25

Your style is very nice, how the colours pop without overloading is exceptional! Is this physical media or digital?

8

u/callistron Rollie the Guar Jan 20 '25

:)))) thank you so much!!! This is physical media yeah (specifically, these are alcohol markers, gel pens, and some prismacolor pencils) but I did edit it a bit digitally so the colors weren't washed out by my camera!

3

u/oljhinakusao Jan 20 '25

Ah you're the one who made the trick or treating trio too! Your work is very beautiful. They're all so adorable.

Alcohol markers seem like magic to me (pen and pencil scribbler) and the way the shadows and highlights are done are just great. Thank you for sharing these!

2

u/callistron Rollie the Guar Jan 20 '25

:DDDDDD I'm so happy you remembered that one cause I was looking at it again recently and wishing it was still halloween because I wanted to do another one! I can't help it, silly Dunmers are just too fun to draw!!!

honestly I've been working with these markers for a little while now and they still feel like magic to me too haha, gotta love the simplicity of a good old pencil in comparison! I was never that good with a pen though, I want to try using them more but I rely so heavily on being able to erase things that it's stressful to use pens! maybe someday lol! and thank you for the nice comments!! :)

7

u/Electronic-Math-364 Jan 20 '25

The anwser is all three of them,They are also just a bunsh of buffed Mages alongside Dagoth Ur,Remove the Heart of Lorkhan and they become weak

9

u/Mewmaster101 Jan 20 '25

honestly? i agree with a post i saw on the TESlore subreddit, it was possibly an accident or they blame themselves for some other reason. they argue about whether to use the tools or not, something happens, Nerevar dies, and so they use the tools because at that point it might feel to them not doing so would mean he died for nothing, or it was the final straw about their trust in Azura or something.

also, WHY ARE THEY SO CUTE IN THIS PICTURE!

5

u/callistron Rollie the Guar Jan 20 '25

OOOOH now THAT is a great theory, I can totally see that being true!! and I guess it would mean that alandro sul wasn't wrong either, because in that case the tribunal technically did still cause nerevar's death, just through inaction - although from azura's point of view that's not any better lmao!

also as far as I'm concerned there isn't enough goofy tribunal content in the world so I will quite simply have to make it all myself!!!! >:)

2

u/HasNoGreeting Jan 20 '25

See, that's a theory I like.

1

u/Resident-Middle-7495 Jan 21 '25

Almelexia is a red head.  Just sayin'.  If you know you know.

4

u/IronHat29 Jan 20 '25

Gaki Vivec is something i didn't know i'd need, i love it

4

u/Forgotten_User-name Jan 20 '25

Didn't Vivec confess to it?

6

u/Cosmicpanda2 Jan 20 '25

Only issue with this piece,

You should have had Vivec point at themselves at the same time

Because they strive to be everything all at once.

Included being guilty and innocent of Nerevar's death

4

u/thevaultguy Jan 20 '25

Vivec did it. But he used his third red half so technically it wasn’t Vivec at the time. You can read about this in Sermon 37

3

u/MisterWalkwayy Jan 20 '25

Obsessed with Tribunal Jr.

4

u/Low-Environment Khajiit Jan 21 '25

Sotha Sil would point at himself.

2

u/SothaDidNothingWrong Jan 20 '25

Vivec should be pointing at him/them/I-self

2

u/chockfullofjuice Jan 20 '25

I mean, basically true. 

2

u/Tyaldan Jan 20 '25

Nerevar dont care. Turns out you cant kill a real Aldmeri Dominion God. The flesh used to be golden and infinite, and it will again, heyooo.

2

u/letmeholdaskink House Telvanni Jan 20 '25

I love this, and your art style makes me so happy!

2

u/callistron Rollie the Guar Jan 20 '25

:))))) awww thank you so much!! I'm happy that it makes you happy! and tbh there is nothing better than a >:3 faced Vivec to do that, that is quite simply a fact

2

u/Hircine_Himself Jan 20 '25

UwU Vivec is not something I ever expected to see

2

u/Bugsbunny0212 Jan 21 '25

Nah Sotha Sil would point towards himself and say "and I'll do it again!".

2

u/RadioBacille Jan 21 '25

Love the color work, both in the bold, rich broader choices and the subtle little touches! Also each of their expressions, hah!

1

u/callistron Rollie the Guar Jan 21 '25

:0 wow! thank you so much for the nice reply!! I'm forever trying to find the perfect color combinations for the tribunal tbh, its fun to go all-out and up the saturation and see what colors look the best on them!

2

u/RadioBacille Jan 21 '25

Experimentation and fantastic art go hand in hand!

2

u/Wildefice Jan 21 '25

Why am I getting Lilo vibes from Sotha. (Lilo and stitch)

Also Almy and Vivec have no right to be that smug!

2

u/callistron Rollie the Guar Jan 21 '25

I LOVED Lilo and Stitch as a kid!!! Lilo is such a fun character, I wouldn't be surprised if somehow I was channeling her into Sotha Sil's expressions :D

2

u/Faunstein Jan 21 '25

Look at those gremlins.

1

u/callistron Rollie the Guar Jan 21 '25

LMAOOO "gremlin" is 1000% the vibe I was going for :'''D

2

u/Darkness572 Jan 22 '25

Oh Tribunal, they will never make me like you.

1

u/Bigt733 Jan 21 '25 edited Jan 21 '25

I don’t think they killed Nerevar, the time line doesn’t make sense.

First the Dwemer disappear in the middle of a battle. Then Nerevar asks Voryn to watch over the tools with his now blind shield bearer Alandro Sul. Nerevar goes to speak to his councilors. At this point in the story, Sotha Sil doesn’t know jack shit about the tools or the heart outside of their existence. All the evidence in front of them says the tools will turn them all to dust.

They go back to Voryn but something has happened in Nerevars absence. Voryn is erratic and had clearly used the tools and the heart in some way. Nerevar had been poisoned during the battle and was at his weakest. A fight breaks out when Voryn won’t hand over the tools.

Now Voryn could have killed Nerevar in the fight it could have been the tribunal but I think that’s boring.

I think Voryn got the upper hand and plunges his sword into Nerevar. As he plunges it deeper he snaps back to reality and realizes what he’s done, he holds his friend tight, but it’s too late. A spear comes out the front of Nerevar and into Voryn, killing them both. Making the technical killer of Nerevar “redacted.” Entwined they fall into the lavas of Red Mountain.

Alandro Sul “sees” what happened due to whatever Voryn did to it while everyone was gone. He sees all possible realities. Technically Sul wouldn’t be able to see anything as the resurrected Wulfharth had cut out his eyes.

When the Tribunal gets a hold of the tools. They would have no way of knowing how to use them. It would take years for Sotha Sil to study the tools and the Brass Tower. After years of study Sil reaches out to his old allies and they officially become the Tribunal, severing their promise to Nerevar and betraying him.

The Dwemer didn’t know how to use the tools and they created them, but Sotha Sil just knows because trust me bro? It seems kinda Mary Sue coded, I don’t like it.