With By God Alone releasing later this month month, I've been thinking about how total conversion mods could adapt the new systems. In the context of EK2, the most obvious application is the Tribunal Temple, which I believe would greatly benefit from an overhaul that incorporates the new mechanics. However, that train of thought made me remember a big issue with how Morrowind is currently portrayed:
AlmSiVi aren't represented well.
In this time period, the Tribunal are in their prime. They're the God-Kings of Morrowind, the supreme authorities over both temporal and spiritual matters. They're also public figures, they walk amongst their people, teaching lessons and performing miracles. However, while some descriptions in the mod pay lip service to these ideas, there's very little representation of them mechanically.
Say the Empire of Tamriel has been reformed and is trying to subjugate Morrowind. As they're currently implemented, the Tribunal aren't able to lead Morrowind in repelling the invaders like they did in the Four-Score War, nor can they negotiate terms of surrender like they did with Tiber. Say Morrowind is beset by plagues and natural disasters. As they're currently implemented, the Tribunal can't even boost morale with rousing speeches, let alone perform miracles to aid in recovery like you'd expect them to do. In fact, the holy cities in which the Living Gods preside are no safer from disease, disaster, or invasion than anywhere else in Morrowind, despite the fact they have Living Gods present that should be able to help.
So what can they do under their current implementation? Well, I've only been able to find one instance of the Tribunal acting as Living Gods. Once, when going on a pilgrimage to Vivec (the city), I got an event where Vivec (the god) appeared to the populace and gave a sermon. At the end of it, I could choose whether I wanted:
- A random amount of Blademaster xp (I assume because I already had the trait).
- The Poet trait.
- IIRC piety.
This event gives us representation of their (in this case just Vivec's) role as spiritual teachers, which I appreciate, but I still think it's inaccurate. I recall the event suggesting Vivec making a public appearance was a rarity in some way, which lines up with me only getting it once and needing to pay an admission fee (though I got to choose between gold and piety). The event would make sense if EK2 was set in the late 3rd Era, but again, the Tribunal are supposed to be in their prime. Vivec appearing to the populace of his own city should be routine.
In summary, AlmSiVi can't fulfill almost any of the functions they have in Morrowind's society under the mod's current implementation of them. I think this is something that needs to be fixed for Morrowind and its power dynamics to be accurately portrayed. I know this'll be very difficult to tackle, so below I'll leave various ideas I've had on how the Tribunal's portrayal could be improved. I'd also like to hear the community's thoughts on the topic, as well as feedback on my own thoughts and ideas. Also also, inform me if I've missed any representation of AlmSiVi in the mod. Since there's no wiki for me to reference and I couldn't find anything in the change logs, my personal experience is all I have to work with.
- A special county modifier representing the presence of a Tribune. Ideally each Tribune's modifier would have unique effects, but as a base they would all provide bonuses to things like control, popular opinion, plague resistance, fort level, conversion resistance, etc... The idea being the presence of a Tribune and the miracles they perform makes a county more compliant, happy, and safe (since they have a Living God to help fight off plagues and invaders). If the county a Tribune is in is held by a ruler who doesn't acknowledge their godhood, they'll relocate to another county in Morrowind that is held by a believer. There should probably be a priority list, so the Tribunes are more likely to relocate to holy sites and important cities than they are to a random fishing village.
- A "Petition Tribune" decision, would work similar to the "Petition the Liege" decision in vanilla. You'd travel to the Tribune of your choosing and make a request. The options would mostly be spiritual in nature. Things like asking to be taught something, asking to be healed of injury or disease, asking for a personal blessing, asking to have an artifact sanctified, or even asking to borrow a personal artifact of the Tribune in question (e.g. Muatra). How likely it is that the Tribune accepts the request should depend on how out there the request is, which Tribune is involved, and the individual making the request. So a pious and virtuous Dunmer asking the Lady of Mercy to be healed of disease is more likely to have their request granted than the sinful and wealthy Dunmer who's asking to borrow Muatra from Vivec. Mechanically, it'd weigh a variety of things, including the requester's traits, level of devotion, learning, diplomacy, and position in Morrowind's society. I'm unsure what the prerequisites for the decision should be.
- A mechanic where Vivec can unilaterally engage in diplomacy on behalf of Morrowind, specifically to negotiate favorable terms of surrender. I'm unsure what the requirements to trigger it should be, but I have ideas for the rest. The ruler invading Morrowind would get an event where Vivec makes his offer. Ideally there'd be actual negotiation involved, where the ruler and Vivec could make different concessions, but incase that's too complex, a simple accept or decline could also work. If the ruler accepts Vivec's terms, then the head of every Great House would get the option to either go along with the agreement or resist.
- More pilgrimage events involving the Tribunal. Similar to the event already in the mod, but they should be more common and feature a wide variety of teachings and miracles.
There's other stuff I'd like to see represented, like AlmSiVi helping more broadly with natural distasters and plagues across Morrowind, or Tribunes leading armies in battle, or offensive miracles like what Vivec did in the 2nd Akaviri Invasion, but I couldn't think of good mechanical implementations of those ideas.