I hate it because some random enemy that doesn't seem to exist on the same plane in existence keeps me from being able to fast travel every time I enter the marsh
@@goatslayer3160 almost certainly the slaughterfish. They prevent me from fast-travelling from the solitude docks, and from where the Khajiit caravan camps near Markarth.
Its one saving grace to me, is that it is a great place to find alchemical ingreients. That and I like the Jarl there. She's cantankerous, a bit crazy but also has a sense of humor. She also is one of the better characters to cause a scene at the Thalmor Embassy.
Yep, deathbell and swamp fungal pods galore. And for some reason, whenever I enter the swamps to gather ingredients, it puts me in a political mindset, who knows why.
In my experience it is also great for slaughter fish eggs and giant lichen. Might not be the biggest money makers, but they are the hardest ingredients to find in the shops.
For me, the swamp was always a plentiful source of fun alchemical ingredients, and that's mostly why I went there. Bonus: The name "Morthal" etymologically is probably from "mort" (death, dead) and "thal" (dale or valley) meaning "Death Valley." Perhaps not a bad name for a treacherous, Vampire-infested swamp.
Additional fun fact: The name Hjaalmarch comes from the River Hjaal and the word "march" (which roughly means "border" or "outlying area"). This possibly reflects the fact that Solitude was originally founded as a city-state and unified with Skyrim later, or maybe it just hints at the fact that the Karth River serves as a natural border between the holds.
I love the region because its different. Nice and creepy as opposed to the beauty that is the rest of skyrim. What I hate is the lack of things to do there. They could have added more quests dealing with supernatural threats I reckon.
You can find a lot of things there. Unfortunately most require finding very esoteric texts. Such as a notebook which if you happen to follow it properly will lead you to an item which starts a quest. Example being on of the dragon claws quests found in the area
I don't think it's boring, the icy area around WInterhold is worst, and I like the idea of this "no mans land" especially when you're in the abandoned shack during the Dark Brotherhood questline. It also more looks like the actual stage of the downfall of Morthal and that region. It could be lore, the vampires, or other Daedric things that make that area as it is now and this is why this city is less populated (eg your missing blacksmith example) and more affected by vampirism. Probably Falion is one of the last standing against it because most of ppl still don't believe it, just rumoring (especially the burnt house storyline).
Yeah, the entire area was a wasteland. I rode to Winterhold all the way from Solitude,i think. When i go into the area, there was nothing to see other than some beasts tried to chase ur horse...
Personally, I hate the northern ocean. My first playtrhu, I spent hours swimming, exploring the icebergs and islands up there, telling myself there must be SOMETHING to find up there, hidden treasure sunken below the sea for only the most diligent of searchers, or else they wouldn't have put those islands and icebergs there. But no. There's just nothing there. At all .
Falion was the teacher for Conjuration at the College of Winterhold (Phinis Gestor mentions him). He is likely one of the most powerful mages in Tamriel. I think his business in Morthal is to keep the Vampires and other Daedra-related threats from destroying Morthal. Without him Morthal would probably not be standing any more. Jarl Idgrod probably knows that which is why she wants him to stay.
Makes a lot of sense he would be the resident expert. I think I remember hearing he had some cut content explaining his creepy night time adventures. Quick thought it would be cool if you could learn some crazy conjuration spell only learnable through him.
Maybe he is the reason why the vampire (I dont remember his name but its linked to a quest there in Morthal) dont attack and wants to take control of the city slowly.
I think the Morthal Marsh is a bit underrated. It's got more going on than it seems at first. For such a small area, it does have some pretty significant locations that fit the scenery, like Fallion's vampire-curing ritual site (one of many unmarked locations in Skyrim. It's also one of the very few places in the overworld you find Swamp Fungal Pods and free-roaming Chaurus. It has it's problems, but that could be said of all of Skyrim. If the place was too busy, some things there wouldn't make sense. Fallion's site, Movarth's Lair, and the Abandoned Shack work best in relative seclusion and with a dismal atmosphere. On top of that, Anniversary Edition adds Myrwatch. If anything, one area that feels more empty is the plainlands between Whiterun and Rorikstead. It's not just about the number of locations or their density, but also their quality. A giant camp and a wolf den don't carry much weight.
Also a lot of stuff had to be scaled back cause they ran out of time. That's actually the whole reason for the "Great collapse" in winterhold. They didn't have time to build a major city there. They also ended up cutting several quests from Morthal cause they didn't have time to finish them.
The marshes of Hjaalmarsh are an alchemist's paradise. All the ingredients for some of the most useful poisons can be found readily here. If any place is truly "empty" it would be the craglands of Eastmarch, south of Windhelm. Its quite a contrast from the Rift immediately south of it. Sure, there's a mammoth graveyard, a bonestrewn mountain with a dragon on it, and the only friendly giant i the game, but other than that its basically just a geyser-filled hellscape with literally nothing in it.
There are some hunters chilling at the hot springs tho 😂 Bethesda should have turned that area into some kind of resort where the hot springs will give you some kind of buffs.
South of Windhelm is Eastmarch down to DarkWater Crossing. Which is why it is mentioned while on your cart ride at the beginning of the game. It's Ulfric's most southern part of his Hold. I like Eastmarch for all of the Dragon's Tongue, Jazbay Grape and Creep Clusters. After visiting Eldergleam Sanctuary I always go kill that Dragon. The Pale is Dawnstar area and south to just north of Whiterun where you can build a Hearthfire home for doing the quests of Dawnstar, and where you can first meet Cicero if you go there before doing Dark Brotherhood. A Pale / Dawnguard guard walks the road near the farm where Cicero waits for his wagon wheel to be fixed.
@@nighturnal9708 Thanks. I'll fix the comment. The Cicero connection might actually be why I was confused, cos a Pale guard shows up during the broken cart quest and he really shouldnt be on that side of Whiterun. Lorieus farm is on the EAST of Whiterun, too far to be in Dawnstar's vacinity but quite close to the road to Windhelm.
I like that area a whole lot! I honestly wish it was twice as big of an area because it feels way too tiny. I want my desolate lonesome swamp to feel as never-ending as the vampires that call it home! Plus, if it was bigger, we could add more points of interest without changing the ratio of markers and empty space. This area is especially interesting to navigate when using survival mods like Frostfall and Campfire. It makes falling into the freezing water a huge danger, and camping in the foggy swamp is a heckin spooky vibe!
I dont go to that area often, but I dont mind it. I usually avoid it because I dont have much reason to be there, and theres enemies like mentioned in the video. But theres alchemy ingredients there and the enemies are usually weak so overall its ok.
The hjaalmarch swamp / Morthal itself always seems to me like it was meant to be bigger and have a bit more stuff in it, but the constraints of the rest of the map meant it couldn't.
Mod Marshlands adds a lot of enemies and landscape to Hjaalmarch area of swamps and with right shaders/ENB this area changes from slightly uneasy to outright nightmarish. I imagine wandering there at night would scare the shit out of most people - literally.
You’re definitely right because if you play eso you can head to hjalmarch and it’s probably the second largest area in skyrim in that game, it’s fucking huge.
Maybe it's because I'm a horror fan, but I like the creepy atmosphere of the marshlands. It could stand to be bigger and more filled out though I agree.
I really like the creepy and desolate vibe in Hjaalmarch and the Reach, they have that same vibe in a different way. In the Reach it's closer to that "the hills have eyes" feeling. The funny thing is that even the beautiful places have this eerie feeling when you stop to think about it. The wide plains of Whiterun or the deep forest of Falkreath, they are very scenic and beautiful but carry that sort of noonwraith vibe. Can anyone relate?
Yeah, I think it's because that although the map is big and beautiful, there's so few things. The game doesn't have to much variety in animals, and unlike Oblivion in which you would get randomly attack constantly by a bandit or a pack of animals, or constantly find old ruins and towers or Oblivion gates, or a lot of random farms, in Skyrim it doesn't happen often, so actually most of the time playing you'll feel extremely alone in such a big map with nothing happening at all which gives this creepy vibe.
Same. Though I tend to not like snowy areas in games in general cause the bland whiteness is dull to me. But add difficult to traverse and it's just worse
Kind of with you there. I do like the fact you can walk between Winterhold and Dawnstar as there aren't carriages to either. But the fact it's so hard with the ice cliffs and such does make the prospect far less appealing.
I tried going from Winterhold to Dawnstar by horse and holy shit it's literal hell on earth. Plagued by wolves, bears, sabre cats and roadmen. How the fuck are the people of Skyrim even alive
As someone who plays with the mod that adds temperature and survival mechanics in the game, that stretch of icy region is a veritable death zone. Heck, just trying to trek from Winterhold to Windhelm nearly killed me twice
I always love going to Morthal. I like the characters of both Idgrods and the peaceful quiet of the swamp makes me feel at ease. I understand if someone finds that unnerving, but for me it's comforting. Also, Jarl Idgrod is one of the few people willing raise a ruckus at the Thalmor Embassy for you in the main quest line.
It is just like in real life: if you get lulled into a (potentially false) sense of security by the beauty and the quietness of the woods around you, next thing you know may be that you are face to face with a mountain lion or grizzly bear. Same is with the Morthal swamps and the trolls that live there
@@MrTreefoz Actually, you get so much Deathbell there that when you run out of River Betty, or Red Nirnroot, another route to take with Deathbell is to mix it with Imp Stool, Mora Tapinella and possibly with fourth ingredient whose name I have forgotten.
A funny thing is Morthal usually ends up a dead City for me. If you follow the main quest like you're supposed to and you have the DLC. The cultist from the Dragonborn DLC usually show up when you leave the inn. They usually end up killing half the population and then a dragon attack the next time you show up finishes the rest
The cultists are script based. Wherever you travel after completing up till the point you have first visited the greybeards and know you are dragonborn, hence there dialogue and it then leading into dragonborn
I dunno what platform you play on but there's a mod that makes any vaguely important NPCs flee inside for that instead of charging a dragon with a butter knife.
If you can use mods (or if it's still up) I got one years ago that reduced the Slaughter Fish aggro range and made them give up faster when you're on land. I'd argue it was more of an oversight with their aggression especially inland.
@@PP-cm4re What is so bad about them? You just have to see them moving in order to discover them and then one shot from your trusty bow and they are no longer there to prevent fast travel.
I actually like this place. I've found that I appreciated it even more without fast travel with the maximum of realism. This place is confusing to navigate when you play without any UI. You move from one weird shaped island to the other. You can get attacked by dangerous ennemies. The Chaurus are the worst at low level. So this place is excellent to cause dilemmas. Depending of where I am, I am sometimes tempted to save time by crossing this marsh land, but sometimes, I know that I'm too sleepy or hungry to give a good fight.
I’ve grown to like this area more recently because it’s teeming with mudcrabs, and the stew and bisque you can make with their meat are actually fantastic stamina recovery items.
In the defense of Morthal and the marshlands, they kinda make things more believable to me. Morthal reminds me of a "city" in rural america. I live in a state with a juxtapositing mix of bustling modern cities (density wise), and sparsely inhabited townships (both are refered to as cities depsite the numerical difference because around here, the difference between city and township is whether or not your connected to the utility networks of the city, rather than popularion density). I love the aesthetic of morthal. It isnt my favorite place in skyrim, but it gives me the same kinda vibe as where my parents live in real life. The entire township is under 100 people, and the whole place can be seen from one road, standing on the far end looking down. Everyone knows everyone, and that town is right off a major highway, so no one goes to the town itself unless they have family there. Theres no "open" or "closed" signs on local shops because they still use an old fashioned bell tower that rings every hour (which can be heard across the whole town), and they also have a factory lunch bell. Everyone just falls in sync with those chimes. Everyone there knows the system, but someone like me who just visits every so often just assumes the town is nearly dead, because i go out and see a bunch of unopen shops, when the reality is shop owners have been selling to the exact same people for decades and know when to open and close their shops to save operating costs. For them, it doesnt make sense to be open all day long when all their regulars are working in the factory, so they just open after 5pm, which is extremely unusual for a city dweller like me who has gotten used to shops being open before sunrise and closing well agter sunset, because people have different jobs with different hours and shops want the most customers possible. Over there its so different. Personally, i love it more, which is why i have an attachment to morthal. A place in Skyrim which is drenched on history as the town that built around a heroes graveyard. I might be off with the comparison, but that reminds me of arlington cemetery. A place that on its own was just a small town, but became predominately known for its cemetery that holds those who fought in the civil war. Nowadays Arlington has a lot more going for it than just the cemetery, but much in the same way most NPCs of the town state people come to bury their dead or pay homage to fallen heroes in morthal, people today take a form of pilgrimage to the arlington cemetary to pay respects to the fallen of the civil war and all those buried at the cemetary.
glad i'm not the only one who got reminded of rural america. A lot of things in morthal are eerily similar to my experiences in one of those "cities" that i lived in for a couple years. I hated it there, personally, but I definitely wouldn't call morthal unrealistic.
This might explain why I actually enjoy the Morthal marshlands. Cities are 5,000+ people where I live. While you will almost always see a house in your horizon here, you will seldom see more than two houses, and maybe Morthal's marshlands remind me of that. I've never hated this region of Skyrim. Mortal can take a hike though.
I remember when I first started using mods for Skyrim, I downloaded one that let you change your starting location so you wouldn't have to do the whole Helgen tutorial quest all over again. As i was going over the possible starting points, I saw Morthal and thought to myself "I dont really remember much from here so it would be a cool place to start and find new things" Five minutes after starting I realized why i couldn't remember anything about Morthal
Dawnstar is a good place to start. It's far enough from Whiterun that the chains of Todd's intended path are nowhere to be seen, there's a couple things to do, some interesting places you probably haven't poked around before, and there's a few obvious places to go next
Morthal could have been so much more. The Ravencrone family is fascinating. Jarl Idgrod's mysticism, her visions and her grandson's behaviour - there could have been a fascinating storyline and quest associated with that. She is a fantastic character and I think would be a great ally. Imagine a Jarl as a secret magic user for example? I would have loved to have more dealings with her. I would have thought with the Dawnguard DLC storyline being about vampires that Morthal would have featured quite a bit. I would have thought that Falion would have been an active part of the Dawnguard quest, considering he can heal vampirism and all. At least I wouldn't have minded bŕinging Serana to him to help cure her vampirism. Instead of hack, slash and kill it would have been cool to be able to heal Vrythur of his vampirism. I also thought that Sybille Stentor, only being a hop, skip and jump away at Solitude, may have had a role to play in the Hjaalmarch, with it being full of vampires and her, you know, being a vampire... It's like whoever was responsible for Morthal took the week off and was reassigned with a whole lot of half-finished tasks lost in the process. Pity, because it's spooky and atmospheric and a welcome break from the endless ice and snow you get around Winterhold/Windhelm/Dawnstar
But everyone around her knows that Sybille is a vampire. I doubt that she's a danger if she served in her position for hundreds of years as was stated somewhere ingame.
It's actually kind of a nice place to set up your alchemy lab if you have the manor out there. There are a lot of good ingredients in the swamp, you get the hatchery and as you said there really aren't too many enemies. The few to worry about (like the chaurus) give useful ingredients as well. My first magic playthrough was like a dark elf and it just suited the rp really well. Good spot for a vampire, conjurer, alchemist, etc.
So true that if you can survive the swamps around Morthal and Chillwind Depths, there will be so many alchemical ingredients that those choosing to become alchemists or poisoners certainly dont need to fear they have taken up a dead end career. However, I have to warn that there are some monsters who will be able to ignore poisons but dragons are not among them (perhaps some Bethesda developers played Quest for Glory 5 in their youth)
Morthal is great because it feels dangerous. That is its gimmick. People do not want to enter the swamps because it is dangerous and scary. It is perfect as a place to build a home, because you know that the wilderness will keep most people away from your family. It also makes it feel like your housecarl and steward actually have a legitimate point in being your families' bodyguards too. The area is actually very beautiful when you get a clear moonlit sky, with the Aurora. If people feel like it is so barren, then perhaps the modders should stop modding up areas that are already great on their own.
I am surprised you forgot to mention that if you want to build your own home via Hearthfire then Windstad Manor, the "best" location, will be in that swamp too. Though "best" is simply from a gameplay mechanics standpoint as this location's unique feature is the fish hatchery, which allows you easy access to Salmon to abuse Alchemy. Otherwise it still is a rather unpleasant place to live and have your player home in. If you have the Anniversary Edition or Creation Club content in general there is also the Myrwatch tower located roughly around that area, which could be a cool home for a Wizard character, though it is still not the most pleasant surroundings.
Before the anniversary edition the Morthal windstad manor was where i ad my family home wen i played as Argonian and i ad a great view of solitude as i was also in the legion
When it comes to the three hearthfire locations the one near the lake is by far the most scenic and the most pleasant living location I pretty much always build the kitchen, bedroom, and storage room on that house because of the roof top patios and the fact that my family moves into that home.
It does have a close proximity to Solitude so that's not too bad. If you get the carriage it doesn't really matter. Also because of the relative weakness of enemies in the area it is less hassle to go back to and not have a giant to fight. There's plenty of perks to it, and the swamp can be beautiful along with the icebergs along the coast. If you want to hunt the swamps are great.
If you can add mods-- Winstad Mine lets you build you're own town just south of the manor, another mod can add walls to the manor itself. I went further back when I had freetime and added beefy guards around the coast and that patrol the marsh to deal with random mobs. My home is now probably the safest place in Skyrim lol
Mentioning the Abandoned Shack unlocked a memory of first playing it way back when. I got out in the daylight and just wanted a safe place to save the game. Instead I trudge through what feels like miles of spooky marshes and swampland, with a sense of dread and a fear of getting jumped at every turn, until I finally enter Morthal and can save my game.
Same happened to me the first time, I ended in Marvath's Lair, let's say my first encounter with vampires in Skyrim was memorable, besides how OP they were to me at that time the scenery of butchery inside that cave really creeped me, one of the most unique experiences I have had while playing this game.
I like this area a lot, I have always liked swamps for their atmosphere, and certainly when the sun shines through the atmosphere there it is very beautiful. The area of the map I don't care for is any of the ice flows around Winterhold, because there is nothing to do there, everything is desolate and if you fall into a crevice it takes a long time to walk back around.
Thanks for watching! If you liked this video, check out a similar video I made on the Witcher 3's worst patch of land: th-cam.com/video/N5DH1H80gXw/w-d-xo.html&
I think in terms of raw ingredients morthal would be the best place to live if you are an alchemist or a healer. Bonus points if you are a business owner trying to import a large supply of deathbell and nightshade. I have also noticed there are a lot of nirnroot there, the most other than that nirnroot farm near Riften.
It's a creepy place, but the Dark Brotherhood quest makes me quite fond of it. Being abducted and dropped in the middle of the swamp just hit different. Loved that quest, even if it was very, very dumb.
Falion really just dropped in casual conversation that he’s spoken to Dwemer travelling through Oblivion and then moved on like it was a neat party trick.
I liked it, the lower density of points of interest felt like true wilderness, a step beyond the frontier feeling of other regions. It felt like a land that the Nords hadn't managed to make feel home, despite their fortitude and ability to live in other unhospitable places. Other areas of Skyrim felt at least like they were in the process of being tamed.
I actually really like / respect this area. Plenty of good Alchemy ingredients and a generally creepy area. I met my first Chauros Reaper in that area and I had no clue what it was, nor was I prepared to fight one! I was really creeped out and was slaughtered. I am cautious in every new play through in this area due to that memory. The Chauros species still creeps me out to this day. Lol
Interestingly, in ESO, that same region is still a wetlands... but is a lot less spooky. Mostly because it's got far less tree cover and a longer draw distance, making it far easier to see long distances.
It's atmosphere also got gutted some. Also half of it is covered in Snow and Morthal is totally covered in Snow if I remember right. Not the case in TES V. Heck, the Sea of Ghosts up north in Hjaalmarch is more frozen over in ESO. So if there's one thing they did nail in the ESO version, is that it's cold like it's supposed to be.
@@TheGravityShifterI mean it kinda makes sense, ESO predates even Morrowind iirc, and Skyrim’s events happen after the Red Year. It’s likely that the massive impact caused by Baar Dau and the following eruption of Red Mountain affected the climate of like 1/4 of the continent. My guess is that Winterhold collapse caused a change in the wind and water movements, possibly introducing a warmer stream from Morrowind, or the earthquake that caused the great collapse unearthed underwater magma. It could also be an indication that something’s happening in Atmora .
@@dungeaterfancam I see what you're saying, but I don't think that's the case. In fact, according to lore by TES V Skyrim it should be even colder due to the Sea of Ghosts and Atmora getting colder and colder. The Red Year in lore never implies any climate changing reactions to what happened, nor does the Great Collapse really have much to do with it aside from maybe affecting Nirn's rotation or something. Though ESO does explain the volcanic lands of Morrowind and the mountain range blocking the Sea of Ghosts is the reason why the Rift has the climate that it does. The mountains blocking winds around the North West parts of Skyrim are likely why the climate is the way it is there too. Not to mention it's the Last Seed by the start of the game and seasons never change, and Last Seed in irl is August.
One of my all time favorite mods is Windstad Mine, which takes place in this location. I feel like it adds exactly what is needed to make this region feel alive and interesting.
The Pieces of the Past Daedric quest takes you to Morthal. Also Lami at the Thaumaturgist's Hut (alchemist) has a fetch quest. Skyrim is weird in the way certain misc quests aren't always available so it's easy to miss them. I like the swamp mainly for its unique atmosphere and abundance of alchemy ingredients, but I can see how some might be turned off by it
The building that you passed at 4:03 looks like it was a blacksmith's at on time. It has the same structure as the blacksmiths in Riverwood, Dawnstar, and Falkreath. (Also, Lami is a skooma dealer)
@@wanderingshade8383 true, though usually the guard house is that two-story home like that of the Riverwood Trader that has the upstairs balcony. I guess a "head-cannon" could be that they seized the blacksmithy and turned it into a guard house, but it wouldn't make a lot of sense lol Either way I just add one with a mod. As per usual, rando's with passion fix oversights that devs never do xD
@@nathanwinters2400 I think the devs chose to use the blacksmith house shape because the two story one would be too tall for the guardhouse's position in Morthal. It would look strange if it were two story, so they chose a larger one story building.
This is literally tied for my favorite region in the base game (with Southern Whiterun Hold, near Riverwood, being the other). It's desolate and foreboding, while populated primarily with a mix of spiders and crabs. It's full of Deathbell and Swamp Fungal Pod...two of the coolest "plants" (Pod is 'shroom) in the game (and I'm not even talking about their considerable value for leveling Alchemy here). In addition...I just have a thing for cold marshland/cold wetlands in real life. I hate mosquitoes, but if the "swamp" you are in is between 45-50 F (~7-10 C), that isn't a problem.
The most annoying thing is that EVERY TIME I fast travel to my house there, there's always a group of bandits attacking it. I wish they'd released an update enabling you to create settlements around your houses, with fortifications etc, similar to F04. That would have been awesome. Maybe there's a mod out there, somewhere.
Several mods for the hearth fire homes. Depends if you're playing PC or Console as to what's available. PC mods will create villages around them, while console mods just populate them with guards, vendors, and unique features.
Check out the mod, "Lakeview Extended". I love it. It turns Lakeview Manor into an amazing walled village with vendors, pools, a poolside bar, new companions, a cave with planters tended by tame spriggans, etc. One caveat is that you must disable the mod before starting a new playthrough, and then enable it after you've completed construction on Lakeview.
Hearthfire Extended allows you to hire extra guards for all the Hearthfire homes .... I don't remember getting attacked at that one, the one by Falkreath on the other hand I have bandits and wolves and bears killing my livestock and skeevers in the basement ......
@@mikehartsough489Only problem with that mod is that Lakeview is in Falkreath not Morthal/Hjaalmarch. And you can have it active from the start if you use "alternate start" and choose Lakeview as the property you own. If you dont mind a bit of floating items, you dont really need to have it inactive on a new game. Just do the quest to buy it, go there and build the basics and you are fine. It's a pretty solid and stable mod that wont cause a CTD, just a break of immersion untill you built the full place. Which there is another mod for that plces a chest with all the materials needed you can do it in 5 minutes Now this is not for a first playthrough, but lets be real after character 5... ..................just get it over with asap, i want this house and i'm not going to spend another 100 hours gathering materials, my character simply inherited this place fully build from their family. hit ~ tgm build the place and let's go do whatever we want.
I really loved the marshlands especially when farming swamp fungal pods for paralysis potions. You could make a solid “S”shaped path through and then end up in Solitude, sleep and sell off or craft and then take the S path back.
I'm glad someone else referenced the horror aspect of the game. I remember I wouldn't go into oblivion dungeons at night (irl night not in game) cause it was just to scary for me.
One of my favorite places. If you pick those purple flowers and combine them with a river betty (a fish you can catch underwater) it makes one of the strongest poisons in the game.
Purple flowers with strong poisonous abilities? You must mean Deathbell. Yes, there is more than enough Deathbell here. Actually, so much that when you run out of River Betty, another route to take with Deathbell is to mix it with Imp Stool, Mora Tapinella and possibly with fourth ingredient whose name I have forgotten.
@@charaznable9209 Likewise. Mere poisons can be worth this line of career. Some monsters are immune to poisons but fortunately, dragons are not among them. What comes to potions, making sure you never go to dungeon without a powerful healing potion or two, can save your life. Also, whenever you see a hawk, shoot it either with a bow or a long distance destruction spell and watch carefully where it falls. Because I highly recommend taking their feathers. That way you will never need cure disease potions even if you were a complete beginner as an alchemist (I would still recommend you kill Skeevers from a distance).
That's the place where I go to fetch 20 deathbells for Ingun Black-Briar. Along with Sarethi farm to get nirnroot(won't fill the 20 but will get you a headstart). And the ground near the graveyards in the cities to get nightshade. Curious how fetching 20 of each might initially feel gargantuan... but it gets relatively easy once you know where to search for them.
@@matheusjahnke8643 You can easily get much more than 20 Deathbells (I think I got even as much as 60 once) if you know where in the swamp to go to almost clean it up of Deathbells. However, be warned that the swamp around Morthal could be dangerous to low level characters especially at night.
I like all the places, including this one. Right next to nice Solitude, you do the Abandoned Shack thing with Asstrid, they got deer to hunt, chauruses for their chitin, there’s a place you can build a house there, and they have SO many swamp fungal pods for paralysis potions. Plus in real life if you’d have to run around all day in full armor plus supplies, this place will help keep you cool.
I always got the feeling that the swamp was empty because of the vampires and spiders. A lair effect in DnD terms, and actually one of my favorite world building tools. Imagine what the town might have looked like before the vampires moved in. On a personal conspiracy theory I think there might have been a DLC outlined for this area, or some large cut quests. Either thing could explain the whole area. Bathesda has a history of leaving things boring in an area they plan on upgrading later
There is the rather minor quest involving the Jarl's son, but you're directed to go to Whiterun directly after its start. Lurbuk is also an assassination target if you go do the side quests from Nazir.
It's really funny watching this when Morthal and it's swaps are your favorite patch of land.. I just like the dark mystery behind it and emptiness that it brings. It's small and there's not much too do and its poor, but that's why I like it, it's like a relief from those other over-bombarded areas with quests, stuff, great castles and people. It's small village in a middle of nowhere and that's why it's beautiful. Quests, although, not much of them, are interesting I really enjoyed them. You have point that it could be more developed and it could be bigger, but even what it is know, I can it's my favorite land of Skyrim. I think this area brings the contrast that it's much needed in Skyrim, a brief pause from constant action. Also I was raised as a child in a swampy area so I have soft spot for it. You could say it's nolstagia.
I have great memories of this area due to the Interesting NPCs mod, specifically Anum-La's questline. the final encounter in the swamp, coupled with the thunderstorm, really set the mood; something that couldn't be replicated elsewhere
For some reason, Windstad Manor is my favorite of the all the house you can get, best real-estate in the game for me, and after they allowed consoles to add mod, I add the windstad mine, which turns the Manor into a nice lively town fit for a thane.
Always felt unfinished to me, like there's more that was supposed to happen that they never got around to. I like the Jarl. And becoming her thane is always a plan for me in every playthrough as is having the house at the edge of the water. Love using her for the distraction at the embassy. I enjoy accidentally getting Lurbuk killed which you can do just by practicing telekinesis in the inn. Drop anything worth even twenty septims and Lurbuk will try to claim it if you drop it enough times and because he is so hated someone else will try to claim it as well and Lurbuk has next to no health.
Oh she's wonderful as a distraction. She even warns you about the dangers at the party and about the advantages of people thinking you're a bit mad. She goes into a "vision" where she sees things crawling around the one party guest and evil omens of various sorts. But is it a vision or just an old woman having a "senior" moment? All the Thalmor just act confused and react like she's a bit mad and no one gets hurt at all at the party as the don't even kick her out as she is a jarl and known to be slightly "touched" and if you ask for the brandy beforehand you get to keep it if you collect things in game. @@masterturtle-duck
I like the emptiness of the swamp, its a nice break from the immersion breaking 3 bandit camps within half a mile of Whiterun (one of which is a fort clearly built as a forward garrison for the city )
Get a Morthal Mod (Jks or Great Cities etc..) and “The marshlands” mod to make the marsh actually sketchy and the hold capital actually respectable. Add in some undead/beastial creature mods too if you like. You’ll be lost going in circles and hoping you reach Solitude or Morthal, before getting run down by monsters haha
I have graphics mods that cause nights to be almost pitch black, and you need lights to see. I was doing a new play through and was dropped into the middle of the marsh at night with no moon out so it was completely dark, and I had no torch. For someone that has played Skyrim for 12 years, and knows the map of Skyrim like the back of their hand, I couldn’t for the life of me find Morthal before I froze to death.
I actually like it. It's a very cool area. I've always tested my load order at Solitude's docks and in the forest in the marshlands. It's a neat region.
I actually like Morthal. Lots of creatures to kill. I love it. Killing and killing and killing makes morthal my favorite place in skyrim outside a dungeon.
@@progamasEjogos with things my (legitimate not figurative) diagnosed psychopathic brain can enjoy to be in to kill. And to kill more. And more and kill more and some more etcetera
You missed out Lurbuk is a DBH target and there are side quests there like for Idgrod the younger and Mehrunes Razor. During Dawnguard ,the evil and mysterious ‘Traveller’ attacks you in Morthal and with The fishing quests you get an ambush there. Plus Falion is one of the few (only) sources of purchasable Black Soul Gems. So you left out quite a bit actually…
lol you really nailed it with the Witcher vid and this one, I've played both of these games a ton yet my memories of these areas are almost nonexistent
I truly enjoy quite a bit if these locations. There aren't many places I dislike in Skyrim. The only once being the snowy covered flats in Dawnstar hold as well as some of the hold of Winterhold. Best places for me are southern mostly. The plains of Whiterun, the forests of Falkreath, the Autumn like woodlands of Riften and the high peaks and mountains of Markarth all resonate with me. I do enjoy the tundra in the Northwestern side of the map as well. But whenever I find myself playing I always go back to those locations. Always.
Marches (marshes? swamps? How do you call them in English?) are hard to develop in real life. They are important biotopes, but of little use for humans. I like it that Skyrim included such an area.
I kinda like lull areas in an rpg map. No location should have nothing to do but a few that only have one or two things going on is fine. They become synonymous with that task. Meanwhile at best the places with lots of things to do feel familari andcomfortable but at worst they can feel tedious. So having a variety feels nice. A good map needs both its whiteruns and its morthals.
I love the swamp! The property there is my favorite in the entire game, Morthal is my favorite settlement and it’s such an interesting landscape. I love going there at night to collect deathbell and swamp fungal pods
I've lived in towns that border large swamps before and they tend to be very small towns (typically under 1000 people). One particular town had 4 bars and 2 gas stations. That was it. You had to go to the next town over to go grocery shopping. Swampy areas cannot be used for large buildings without extreme engineering and architectural efforts. Even after building the structures, you fight a never-ending battle against the encroachment of the swamp. So Skyrim's swamps are exactly what I expect from swampy areas. The swamp always wins.
One of my most memorable gaming moments was struggling through this swamp at 1am, real time and game time, search for Solitude for the first time ever, and then seeing its silhouette in the distance.
There’s a Hearthfire home called Winstad Manor that you can build there that has the fish hatchery. Because I never use beds in the game, I once came across the abandoned shack completely by accident when I decided to explore the neighbourhood. I was like “What is this? I can’t get in here. Is this blood? Why does it lead to this small boat?” Completely flabbergasted why this shack was here and within sight of my house, I left it alone. Then one time I had a friend over and was showing them the game, and the features of my house. When I built it I had no idea the upper floor came with beds otherwise I wouldn’t have built one of the wings to have beds as well on the ground floor. I jokingly used one of the many beds to show my friend the Well Rested mechanic, and low and behold I woke up with a bag over my head having previously met the requirements to start the Dark Brotherhood quest line. I was so confused, saying something like “This is NOT supposed to happen, I don’t know what’s going on.” When I finished that encounter and was allowed to leave, I had a huge revelation when I stood back outside and turned to look at my house. One of the weirdest moments in the game for me for sure. Was none too pleased to find out who my neighbour was.
It is one of the first areas I head to as I establish myself at Myrwatch which is a free home with everything a budding mage needs. A fully equipped smithy, a small ingredients garden, an alchemy table, an arcane table, and a staff table. Full kitchen with ovens, lots of storage, the usual trophy racks and mannequins. I then establish the farm in Rorikstead for income.
I know what you mean. Reminds me of the trip to Windhelm from Riften as compared to the trip to Riften from Windhelm. Going from Riften it's a fun little jaunt and can pick up some good animal souls for Enchanting. Trying to go the other way, it can be very easy to miss the cutoff and end up halfway to Ivarstead before you realize it if you aren't careful. Skyrim certainly isn't the best province of Tamriel when it comes to signage. Heck, I've been trying to walk to Morthal on the road and had to double back many times because the dirt track into town wasn't marked.
i swear in every single playthrough, when i leave the abandoned shack after getting kidnapped i always make the same mistake of trying to fast travel instantly only to remember that theres some enemy nearby
The main attraction for me is the achemical ingredients. You can get large amounts of death bell and fungal pods, with little effort. It also has a rather large number of slaughter fish eggs and wild giant lichen, significantly more than what alchemy shops try and sell me. Also it does have an alchemy shop.
I dislike it because I often can't fast travel while wandering through it because there's almost always enemies nearby. Usually slaughterfish in the water that I'm not even engaging.
It's one of my favorite locations in the game. One of my last characters was essentially a poison-damage only witch lady and it became one of my fondest playthroughs, and I had bought the land plot in that area as well as installed a creepy little hut mod nearby.
Wait, people hate this region? I get the issues about performance or lack of fast travel due to invisible enemies, but I always thought that the creepiness of this place really adds to the overall experience. Especially if you're playing survival (with no fast travel) and at night.
I'm living proof that you're wrong, this is one of my favorites on the main map. It's murky and foggy, and by night it feels like anything could emerge from the mist at any moment, like a werewolf or a creepy old hag. It's very atmospheric and fitting for a world where beings like that actually exist.
I love this place. I pop in from time to time to check if there is any random dragon encounter I could have here. The vampire quest is also one of my favorite.
I remember running from Morthal to solitude through that swamp because I hadn't discovered Solitude at that point in my playthrough and I didn't know about the carriage driver. The only other reason I went to that swamp was to complete that quest in Riften where you have to collect 20 deathbells for that woman.
I never payed Morthal much attention until about a year ago when I started a new playthrough and decided lakeview manour was getting old, actually fell in love with the place
There is a blacksmith in stormcloak camp nearby. I used to play without fast traveling (which has done wonders for me) and I was building a house on a land that I bought from jarl. Going to that blacksmith to sell stuff and buying iron for house parts and than going back to Morthal to buy lumber AND than going to a mine nearby for stone was one of the most immersive experiences I've had in TESV. I felt as if I'm connecting with the people of Hjaalmarch. I wasn't just a dunmer traveler in daedric armor that teleports himself once in a while to store weapons and sweet rolls at home. I became a neighbour P.s. I don't know what to do with civil war because my charachter is more imperial leaning but also I don't want to fight my stormcloak neighbours. I think I'll stay neutral. It' s not like my charachter has a background of being very political
that makes an interesting mod idea,. Lurking vampires that will only attack if you get too close , but will follow you and hide if you move towards them or attack you and try an bite you if you stand still too long
It hurts my soul that Morthal (and Hjaalmarch in general) is so underdeveloped because visually and lore-wise, it's my favorite region, and Winstad Manor is the perfect homebase for my alchemy-focused characters and those with a "dark secret" (the vampires, werewolves, necromancers and assassins). Making Lami a better skill trainer and adding a general goods merchant or having a Khajiit caravan stop by occasionally would have gone a long way to make Morthal a hold capital worth visiting. That, and actually finishing the half-dozen abandoned quests scattered around the town, like figuring out what Falion is up to or following up on Gorm's conspiracy against Jarl Idgrod. Side note: I know it was probably done to avoid conflicts with the Civil War questline, but it's a shame that there are at least three aborted quests (the one in Morthal, plus the daedric artifact quests for Mephala and Boethia) that would have involved the death or replacement of one of the jarls in some way, but were left on the cutting room floor. I will say though that everyone in town freaking out about the new court wizard while completely denying the possibility that the suspicious hot chick who keeps saying evil vampire-y stuff could be a vampire is a pretty funny joke about those types of close-knit and even more close-minded communities and their little witch hunts. You know, going on a righteous crusade the second an outsider rubs them the wrong way, all while going out of their way to deny the most horrid things when they're being committed by a respected member of the in-group. It's better social commentary than anything going on in Windhelm or Riften.
While I hadn't quite thought about how much I do or don't hate it, I have noticed that every time I happen to find myself there, I tend to want to leave as quickly as possible. It always gives me a sense that I'm not welcome, neither to be there, nor to leave.
I wish Skyrim's map was about 4x it's current size because everything is so condensed together that it feels like a lot of areas get shafted in terms of how explorable they are.
It's undeveloped because it's not very habitable land being damp, wet, swampy. Like the Florida everglades, you can't live there and develop there. Same for this area. I don't think Bethesda was being lazy at all. They were being realistic.
The swampland serves as yet another layer of defense for Solitude - anyone wanting to directly attack the city will have to cross it with their army, buying the city valuable time to shore-up it's defenses or for reinforcements from the Empire to arrive. Morthal serves the same purpose as Dragon's Bridge - a place to garrison troops and slow-down an invading army. My favorite part of the hold comes from Windstad Manor - you can build a fishfarm, which, in turn, allows you to reliably obtain Abecean Longfin, a key ingredient in everyone's favorite exploit ;)
It's actually one of my favorite places. Spooky, atmospheric, and very beautiful when modded. I have a fond memory from like 2015 playing modded skyrim with survival mods, and camping outside of ustengrav. Not every area has to be completely full of quests.
as a potion enthusiast i always like to visit morthal to gather ingredients, i also like the spooky and lonely atmosphere, it's refreshing to visit once in a while.
My backyard growing up was part of a marshland, and my front yard was full of trees -- As such, I actually found the area oddly serene (heck, the vegetation even looks similar to how it looks back home at the very start of winter). That is, except for the more freakish monsters, and the fact that it's easier to get lost there than pretty much any other exterior location.
I love Hjaalmarch! Brilliantly atmospheric, central to everywhere, and a great place for foraging, fishing and flycatching. I'd like a few more points of interest in the swamp itself, and maybe a boat dock connecting to Solitude, but being remote and undesirable sort of adds to its charm. If you're resisting the impulse to fast-travel it becomes a well-trodden route from Solitude to anywhere west of Markarth.
![[Live] : ONE 168 วันนี้!! "โจนาธาน vs ซุปเปอร์เล็ก"](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/0jIN65KgJsI/mqdefault.jpg)
I hate it because some random enemy that doesn't seem to exist on the same plane in existence keeps me from being able to fast travel every time I enter the marsh
Probably slaughter fish.
@@goatslayer3160 almost certainly the slaughterfish. They prevent me from fast-travelling from the solitude docks, and from where the Khajiit caravan camps near Markarth.
Those asshole Slaughterfish are what spells like Unbound Storms were made for.
Detect life/Aura whisper could help you with that
Ong😭
"You can not fast travel while enemies are nearby."
Meanwhile, in some tiny stream 200 feet away: random slaughterfish is eyeing you angrily.
Or a mudcrab
And a damn random charus
Its one saving grace to me, is that it is a great place to find alchemical ingreients. That and I like the Jarl there. She's cantankerous, a bit crazy but also has a sense of humor. She also is one of the better characters to cause a scene at the Thalmor Embassy.
Yep, deathbell and swamp fungal pods galore. And for some reason, whenever I enter the swamps to gather ingredients, it puts me in a political mindset, who knows why.
American political malaise?
Deathbells. Seriously, Deathbell + Salt = money machine
In my experience it is also great for slaughter fish eggs and giant lichen. Might not be the biggest money makers, but they are the hardest ingredients to find in the shops.
@@johnoglesby-vw7ck yes, perhaps influenced by the overabundance of aforementioned deathbells.
For me, the swamp was always a plentiful source of fun alchemical ingredients, and that's mostly why I went there.
Bonus: The name "Morthal" etymologically is probably from "mort" (death, dead) and "thal" (dale or valley) meaning "Death Valley." Perhaps not a bad name for a treacherous, Vampire-infested swamp.
Yeah, I spent a lot of time there looking for canis root. It wasn't a bad time, it's a neat area.
Additional fun fact: The name Hjaalmarch comes from the River Hjaal and the word "march" (which roughly means "border" or "outlying area"). This possibly reflects the fact that Solitude was originally founded as a city-state and unified with Skyrim later, or maybe it just hints at the fact that the Karth River serves as a natural border between the holds.
Everyone knows it's bleak when the hold capital is an anagram for Thalmor.
Should’ve known Morthal belongs in California.
Cool!
I love the region because its different. Nice and creepy as opposed to the beauty that is the rest of skyrim. What I hate is the lack of things to do there. They could have added more quests dealing with supernatural threats I reckon.
Same, my least liked area was the "hot springs" area.
But well the spooky marsh/swamp areas are my favorite in most games I play.
Agreed
You can find a lot of things there. Unfortunately most require finding very esoteric texts. Such as a notebook which if you happen to follow it properly will lead you to an item which starts a quest. Example being on of the dragon claws quests found in the area
Imagine the Silver hand or the Vigilants of Stendar beeing a joinable faction and having its headquarters in Morthal.
You ruined this video by making a liar out of the title.
I don't think it's boring, the icy area around WInterhold is worst, and I like the idea of this "no mans land" especially when you're in the abandoned shack during the Dark Brotherhood questline. It also more looks like the actual stage of the downfall of Morthal and that region. It could be lore, the vampires, or other Daedric things that make that area as it is now and this is why this city is less populated (eg your missing blacksmith example) and more affected by vampirism. Probably Falion is one of the last standing against it because most of ppl still don't believe it, just rumoring (especially the burnt house storyline).
Yeah, the entire area was a wasteland. I rode to Winterhold all the way from Solitude,i think. When i go into the area, there was nothing to see other than some beasts tried to chase ur horse...
@@huntermad5668 so you're not boring then isn't it? :)
I mean, I only play survival mode so that whole top bit is quite annoying. (But the lighthouse quest is my favourite in all of Skyrim)
@@customch33s32you mean the one that starts in the windhelm east empire company
Personally, I hate the northern ocean. My first playtrhu, I spent hours swimming, exploring the icebergs and islands up there, telling myself there must be SOMETHING to find up there, hidden treasure sunken below the sea for only the most diligent of searchers, or else they wouldn't have put those islands and icebergs there. But no. There's just nothing there. At all .
Falion was the teacher for Conjuration at the College of Winterhold (Phinis Gestor mentions him). He is likely one of the most powerful mages in Tamriel. I think his business in Morthal is to keep the Vampires and other Daedra-related threats from destroying Morthal. Without him Morthal would probably not be standing any more. Jarl Idgrod probably knows that which is why she wants him to stay.
Makes a lot of sense he would be the resident expert. I think I remember hearing he had some cut content explaining his creepy night time adventures. Quick thought it would be cool if you could learn some crazy conjuration spell only learnable through him.
Phinis mentioned him but until now I didn't think his character was actually in the game. That's cool
Maybe he is the reason why the vampire (I dont remember his name but its linked to a quest there in Morthal) dont attack and wants to take control of the city slowly.
@@drackoblack3341Movarth Piquine
@@drackoblack3341 So the vampire knows he can't take the Jarl's mage. Lol I wish that guy had more of a story dude seems like a legend.
I think the Morthal Marsh is a bit underrated. It's got more going on than it seems at first. For such a small area, it does have some pretty significant locations that fit the scenery, like Fallion's vampire-curing ritual site (one of many unmarked locations in Skyrim. It's also one of the very few places in the overworld you find Swamp Fungal Pods and free-roaming Chaurus. It has it's problems, but that could be said of all of Skyrim. If the place was too busy, some things there wouldn't make sense. Fallion's site, Movarth's Lair, and the Abandoned Shack work best in relative seclusion and with a dismal atmosphere. On top of that, Anniversary Edition adds Myrwatch. If anything, one area that feels more empty is the plainlands between Whiterun and Rorikstead. It's not just about the number of locations or their density, but also their quality. A giant camp and a wolf den don't carry much weight.
Yea, I visit the marshlands to complete Ustengrav and to load up on some ingredients in the early game. Then it is back to Whiterun.
Also a lot of stuff had to be scaled back cause they ran out of time. That's actually the whole reason for the "Great collapse" in winterhold. They didn't have time to build a major city there. They also ended up cutting several quests from Morthal cause they didn't have time to finish them.
@eddarby469 yeah it is great for Deathbell
The marshes of Hjaalmarsh are an alchemist's paradise. All the ingredients for some of the most useful poisons can be found readily here.
If any place is truly "empty" it would be the craglands of Eastmarch, south of Windhelm. Its quite a contrast from the Rift immediately south of it. Sure, there's a mammoth graveyard, a bonestrewn mountain with a dragon on it, and the only friendly giant i the game, but other than that its basically just a geyser-filled hellscape with literally nothing in it.
There are some hunters chilling at the hot springs tho 😂
Bethesda should have turned that area into some kind of resort where the hot springs will give you some kind of buffs.
Where be this friendly Giant ?
South of Windhelm is Eastmarch down to DarkWater Crossing. Which is why it is mentioned while on your cart ride at the beginning of the game. It's Ulfric's most southern part of his Hold. I like Eastmarch for all of the Dragon's Tongue, Jazbay Grape and Creep Clusters. After visiting Eldergleam Sanctuary I always go kill that Dragon.
The Pale is Dawnstar area and south to just north of Whiterun where you can build a Hearthfire home for doing the quests of Dawnstar, and where you can first meet Cicero if you go there before doing Dark Brotherhood. A Pale / Dawnguard guard walks the road near the farm where Cicero waits for his wagon wheel to be fixed.
Yup, always go there to farm ingredients for slow poisons and then sell them.
@@nighturnal9708
Thanks. I'll fix the comment.
The Cicero connection might actually be why I was confused, cos a Pale guard shows up during the broken cart quest and he really shouldnt be on that side of Whiterun. Lorieus farm is on the EAST of Whiterun, too far to be in Dawnstar's vacinity but quite close to the road to Windhelm.
I like that area a whole lot! I honestly wish it was twice as big of an area because it feels way too tiny. I want my desolate lonesome swamp to feel as never-ending as the vampires that call it home!
Plus, if it was bigger, we could add more points of interest without changing the ratio of markers and empty space.
This area is especially interesting to navigate when using survival mods like Frostfall and Campfire. It makes falling into the freezing water a huge danger, and camping in the foggy swamp is a heckin spooky vibe!
I dont go to that area often, but I dont mind it. I usually avoid it because I dont have much reason to be there, and theres enemies like mentioned in the video. But theres alchemy ingredients there and the enemies are usually weak so overall its ok.
The hjaalmarch swamp / Morthal itself always seems to me like it was meant to be bigger and have a bit more stuff in it, but the constraints of the rest of the map meant it couldn't.
Mod Marshlands adds a lot of enemies and landscape to Hjaalmarch area of swamps and with right shaders/ENB this area changes from slightly uneasy to outright nightmarish. I imagine wandering there at night would scare the shit out of most people - literally.
You’re definitely right because if you play eso you can head to hjalmarch and it’s probably the second largest area in skyrim in that game, it’s fucking huge.
Maybe it's because I'm a horror fan, but I like the creepy atmosphere of the marshlands. It could stand to be bigger and more filled out though I agree.
I really like the creepy and desolate vibe in Hjaalmarch and the Reach, they have that same vibe in a different way. In the Reach it's closer to that "the hills have eyes" feeling. The funny thing is that even the beautiful places have this eerie feeling when you stop to think about it. The wide plains of Whiterun or the deep forest of Falkreath, they are very scenic and beautiful but carry that sort of noonwraith vibe. Can anyone relate?
Reachistan
Yeah, I think it's because that although the map is big and beautiful, there's so few things. The game doesn't have to much variety in animals, and unlike Oblivion in which you would get randomly attack constantly by a bandit or a pack of animals, or constantly find old ruins and towers or Oblivion gates, or a lot of random farms, in Skyrim it doesn't happen often, so actually most of the time playing you'll feel extremely alone in such a big map with nothing happening at all which gives this creepy vibe.
@@Ireee702 Yeah in lore large parts of Skyrim are literally a snowy wasteland so it is fitting that you feel that little desolation.
The Reach always seemed to me like a great place to get robbed and thrown in a ditch
@@sayLeotardbutsayitChinese Could not agree more, it's part of the charm.
The area I hate is the icy region between Dawnstar - Winterhold - Windhelm with all the gaps in the glaciers.
Same. Though I tend to not like snowy areas in games in general cause the bland whiteness is dull to me. But add difficult to traverse and it's just worse
Kind of with you there. I do like the fact you can walk between Winterhold and Dawnstar as there aren't carriages to either. But the fact it's so hard with the ice cliffs and such does make the prospect far less appealing.
I tried going from Winterhold to Dawnstar by horse and holy shit it's literal hell on earth. Plagued by wolves, bears, sabre cats and roadmen. How the fuck are the people of Skyrim even alive
wow I actually love it, didn't know it was so unpopular
As someone who plays with the mod that adds temperature and survival mechanics in the game, that stretch of icy region is a veritable death zone. Heck, just trying to trek from Winterhold to Windhelm nearly killed me twice
I always love going to Morthal. I like the characters of both Idgrods and the peaceful quiet of the swamp makes me feel at ease. I understand if someone finds that unnerving, but for me it's comforting. Also, Jarl Idgrod is one of the few people willing raise a ruckus at the Thalmor Embassy for you in the main quest line.
It is just like in real life: if you get lulled into a (potentially false) sense of security by the beauty and the quietness of the woods around you, next thing you know may be that you are face to face with a mountain lion or grizzly bear. Same is with the Morthal swamps and the trolls that live there
I mean, the area is great for alchemy ingredient collection.
You get more than enough Deathbell there. That is why the swamp is worth visiting now and then.
@@Cybernaut76 Exactly.
@@MrTreefoz Actually, you get so much Deathbell there that when you run out of River Betty, or Red Nirnroot, another route to take with Deathbell is to mix it with Imp Stool, Mora Tapinella and possibly with fourth ingredient whose name I have forgotten.
A funny thing is Morthal usually ends up a dead City for me. If you follow the main quest like you're supposed to and you have the DLC. The cultist from the Dragonborn DLC usually show up when you leave the inn. They usually end up killing half the population and then a dragon attack the next time you show up finishes the rest
im pretty sure that the cultists only show up if you shout in public
The cultists are script based. Wherever you travel after completing up till the point you have first visited the greybeards and know you are dragonborn, hence there dialogue and it then leading into dragonborn
@@thatguynathan5816 which normally means Morthal because the player likely will travel there to then go to Ustengrav
I dunno what platform you play on but there's a mod that makes any vaguely important NPCs flee inside for that instead of charging a dragon with a butter knife.
@@thatguynathan5816 i actually saw somewhere that it’s instead when you leave ustengrav after delphine pranks you
Anytime you’re there: “you cannot fast travel while enemies are nearby”
Usually a slaughterfish (as you get closer to Solitude). That or trolls with their freaking ridiculous aggro range.
Bunch of mudcrabs too
If you can use mods (or if it's still up) I got one years ago that reduced the Slaughter Fish aggro range and made them give up faster when you're on land. I'd argue it was more of an oversight with their aggression especially inland.
Damn mud crabs lol
@@PP-cm4re What is so bad about them? You just have to see them moving in order to discover them and then one shot from your trusty bow and they are no longer there to prevent fast travel.
I actually like this place. I've found that I appreciated it even more without fast travel with the maximum of realism. This place is confusing to navigate when you play without any UI. You move from one weird shaped island to the other. You can get attacked by dangerous ennemies. The Chaurus are the worst at low level. So this place is excellent to cause dilemmas. Depending of where I am, I am sometimes tempted to save time by crossing this marsh land, but sometimes, I know that I'm too sleepy or hungry to give a good fight.
I’ve grown to like this area more recently because it’s teeming with mudcrabs, and the stew and bisque you can make with their meat are actually fantastic stamina recovery items.
There is also a small and well hidden encampment near the coast in the 'marsh'.
In the defense of Morthal and the marshlands, they kinda make things more believable to me. Morthal reminds me of a "city" in rural america. I live in a state with a juxtapositing mix of bustling modern cities (density wise), and sparsely inhabited townships (both are refered to as cities depsite the numerical difference because around here, the difference between city and township is whether or not your connected to the utility networks of the city, rather than popularion density). I love the aesthetic of morthal. It isnt my favorite place in skyrim, but it gives me the same kinda vibe as where my parents live in real life. The entire township is under 100 people, and the whole place can be seen from one road, standing on the far end looking down. Everyone knows everyone, and that town is right off a major highway, so no one goes to the town itself unless they have family there. Theres no "open" or "closed" signs on local shops because they still use an old fashioned bell tower that rings every hour (which can be heard across the whole town), and they also have a factory lunch bell. Everyone just falls in sync with those chimes. Everyone there knows the system, but someone like me who just visits every so often just assumes the town is nearly dead, because i go out and see a bunch of unopen shops, when the reality is shop owners have been selling to the exact same people for decades and know when to open and close their shops to save operating costs. For them, it doesnt make sense to be open all day long when all their regulars are working in the factory, so they just open after 5pm, which is extremely unusual for a city dweller like me who has gotten used to shops being open before sunrise and closing well agter sunset, because people have different jobs with different hours and shops want the most customers possible. Over there its so different. Personally, i love it more, which is why i have an attachment to morthal. A place in Skyrim which is drenched on history as the town that built around a heroes graveyard. I might be off with the comparison, but that reminds me of arlington cemetery. A place that on its own was just a small town, but became predominately known for its cemetery that holds those who fought in the civil war. Nowadays Arlington has a lot more going for it than just the cemetery, but much in the same way most NPCs of the town state people come to bury their dead or pay homage to fallen heroes in morthal, people today take a form of pilgrimage to the arlington cemetary to pay respects to the fallen of the civil war and all those buried at the cemetary.
glad i'm not the only one who got reminded of rural america. A lot of things in morthal are eerily similar to my experiences in one of those "cities" that i lived in for a couple years. I hated it there, personally, but I definitely wouldn't call morthal unrealistic.
This might explain why I actually enjoy the Morthal marshlands. Cities are 5,000+ people where I live. While you will almost always see a house in your horizon here, you will seldom see more than two houses, and maybe Morthal's marshlands remind me of that. I've never hated this region of Skyrim.
Mortal can take a hike though.
I remember when I first started using mods for Skyrim, I downloaded one that let you change your starting location so you wouldn't have to do the whole Helgen tutorial quest all over again. As i was going over the possible starting points, I saw Morthal and thought to myself "I dont really remember much from here so it would be a cool place to start and find new things" Five minutes after starting I realized why i couldn't remember anything about Morthal
Dawnstar is a good place to start.
It's far enough from Whiterun that the chains of Todd's intended path are nowhere to be seen, there's a couple things to do, some interesting places you probably haven't poked around before, and there's a few obvious places to go next
Morthal could have been so much more.
The Ravencrone family is fascinating. Jarl Idgrod's mysticism, her visions and her grandson's behaviour - there could have been a fascinating storyline and quest associated with that. She is a fantastic character and I think would be a great ally. Imagine a Jarl as a secret magic user for example? I would have loved to have more dealings with her.
I would have thought with the Dawnguard DLC storyline being about vampires that Morthal would have featured quite a bit. I would have thought that Falion would have been an active part of the Dawnguard quest, considering he can heal vampirism and all. At least I wouldn't have minded bŕinging Serana to him to help cure her vampirism. Instead of hack, slash and kill it would have been cool to be able to heal Vrythur of his vampirism.
I also thought that Sybille Stentor, only being a hop, skip and jump away at Solitude, may have had a role to play in the Hjaalmarch, with it being full of vampires and her, you know, being a vampire...
It's like whoever was responsible for Morthal took the week off and was reassigned with a whole lot of half-finished tasks lost in the process. Pity, because it's spooky and atmospheric and a welcome break from the endless ice and snow you get around Winterhold/Windhelm/Dawnstar
But everyone around her knows that Sybille is a vampire. I doubt that she's a danger if she served in her position for hundreds of years as was stated somewhere ingame.
Hey now I like living there and RPing as an Orc named Shrek. That is my swamp.
Our swamp!
@@kingjbird92 No my swamp. I took it fair and square.
How do y’all rp in Skyrim?
Haha shrek is an ogre not an orc.
@@pablocamarena4850 Ogre isn't a playable race so Orc is as close as I can get. I also like to pretend like Lydia is a donkey to.
It's actually kind of a nice place to set up your alchemy lab if you have the manor out there. There are a lot of good ingredients in the swamp, you get the hatchery and as you said there really aren't too many enemies. The few to worry about (like the chaurus) give useful ingredients as well. My first magic playthrough was like a dark elf and it just suited the rp really well. Good spot for a vampire, conjurer, alchemist, etc.
So true that if you can survive the swamps around Morthal and Chillwind Depths, there will be so many alchemical ingredients that those choosing to become alchemists or poisoners certainly dont need to fear they have taken up a dead end career. However, I have to warn that there are some monsters who will be able to ignore poisons but dragons are not among them (perhaps some Bethesda developers played Quest for Glory 5 in their youth)
Morthal is great because it feels dangerous. That is its gimmick. People do not want to enter the swamps because it is dangerous and scary. It is perfect as a place to build a home, because you know that the wilderness will keep most people away from your family. It also makes it feel like your housecarl and steward actually have a legitimate point in being your families' bodyguards too. The area is actually very beautiful when you get a clear moonlit sky, with the Aurora. If people feel like it is so barren, then perhaps the modders should stop modding up areas that are already great on their own.
I am surprised you forgot to mention that if you want to build your own home via Hearthfire then Windstad Manor, the "best" location, will be in that swamp too.
Though "best" is simply from a gameplay mechanics standpoint as this location's unique feature is the fish hatchery, which allows you easy access to Salmon to abuse Alchemy.
Otherwise it still is a rather unpleasant place to live and have your player home in.
If you have the Anniversary Edition or Creation Club content in general there is also the Myrwatch tower located roughly around that area, which could be a cool home for a Wizard character, though it is still not the most pleasant surroundings.
Before the anniversary edition the Morthal windstad manor was where i ad my family home wen i played as Argonian and i ad a great view of solitude as i was also in the legion
When it comes to the three hearthfire locations the one near the lake is by far the most scenic and the most pleasant living location I pretty much always build the kitchen, bedroom, and storage room on that house because of the roof top patios and the fact that my family moves into that home.
It does have a close proximity to Solitude so that's not too bad. If you get the carriage it doesn't really matter. Also because of the relative weakness of enemies in the area it is less hassle to go back to and not have a giant to fight. There's plenty of perks to it, and the swamp can be beautiful along with the icebergs along the coast. If you want to hunt the swamps are great.
Windstad has a great view to Solitude and Proudspire Manor :)
If you can add mods-- Winstad Mine lets you build you're own town just south of the manor, another mod can add walls to the manor itself. I went further back when I had freetime and added beefy guards around the coast and that patrol the marsh to deal with random mobs.
My home is now probably the safest place in Skyrim lol
Mentioning the Abandoned Shack unlocked a memory of first playing it way back when. I got out in the daylight and just wanted a safe place to save the game. Instead I trudge through what feels like miles of spooky marshes and swampland, with a sense of dread and a fear of getting jumped at every turn, until I finally enter Morthal and can save my game.
I rarely have to go more than a hundred steps away from hut to save or teleport
Same happened to me the first time, I ended in Marvath's Lair, let's say my first encounter with vampires in Skyrim was memorable, besides how OP they were to me at that time the scenery of butchery inside that cave really creeped me, one of the most unique experiences I have had while playing this game.
I like this area a lot, I have always liked swamps for their atmosphere, and certainly when the sun shines through the atmosphere there it is very beautiful. The area of the map I don't care for is any of the ice flows around Winterhold, because there is nothing to do there, everything is desolate and if you fall into a crevice it takes a long time to walk back around.
Thanks for watching! If you liked this video, check out a similar video I made on the Witcher 3's worst patch of land: th-cam.com/video/N5DH1H80gXw/w-d-xo.html&
I think in terms of raw ingredients morthal would be the best place to live if you are an alchemist or a healer. Bonus points if you are a business owner trying to import a large supply of deathbell and nightshade. I have also noticed there are a lot of nirnroot there, the most other than that nirnroot farm near Riften.
It's a creepy place, but the Dark Brotherhood quest makes me quite fond of it. Being abducted and dropped in the middle of the swamp just hit different. Loved that quest, even if it was very, very dumb.
Astrid is a two bit waste of oxygen. The only useful purpose for her is that she serves as your entrance to DB. But you will get your revenge.
Astrid has two brain cells- one for eating and other one for pooping.. Rest of her actions are more akin to random movements...
Falion really just dropped in casual conversation that he’s spoken to Dwemer travelling through Oblivion and then moved on like it was a neat party trick.
I liked it, the lower density of points of interest felt like true wilderness, a step beyond the frontier feeling of other regions. It felt like a land that the Nords hadn't managed to make feel home, despite their fortitude and ability to live in other unhospitable places. Other areas of Skyrim felt at least like they were in the process of being tamed.
It's polar opposite is Falkreath.
I love this region. So much character and atmosphere.
@l2evelations I use Mihails creature mods paired with some forest mods and its a creepy/atmospheric experience now..
It's my favorite build tester area when I want to test out how my dps is like, cause you can find a bit of everything in those swamps.
I actually really like / respect this area. Plenty of good Alchemy ingredients and a generally creepy area. I met my first Chauros Reaper in that area and I had no clue what it was, nor was I prepared to fight one! I was really creeped out and was slaughtered. I am cautious in every new play through in this area due to that memory. The Chauros species still creeps me out to this day. Lol
Interestingly, in ESO, that same region is still a wetlands... but is a lot less spooky. Mostly because it's got far less tree cover and a longer draw distance, making it far easier to see long distances.
It's atmosphere also got gutted some. Also half of it is covered in Snow and Morthal is totally covered in Snow if I remember right. Not the case in TES V. Heck, the Sea of Ghosts up north in Hjaalmarch is more frozen over in ESO. So if there's one thing they did nail in the ESO version, is that it's cold like it's supposed to be.
@@TheGravityShifterI mean it kinda makes sense, ESO predates even Morrowind iirc, and Skyrim’s events happen after the Red Year. It’s likely that the massive impact caused by Baar Dau and the following eruption of Red Mountain affected the climate of like 1/4 of the continent. My guess is that Winterhold collapse caused a change in the wind and water movements, possibly introducing a warmer stream from Morrowind, or the earthquake that caused the great collapse unearthed underwater magma. It could also be an indication that something’s happening in Atmora .
@@dungeaterfancam I see what you're saying, but I don't think that's the case. In fact, according to lore by TES V Skyrim it should be even colder due to the Sea of Ghosts and Atmora getting colder and colder.
The Red Year in lore never implies any climate changing reactions to what happened, nor does the Great Collapse really have much to do with it aside from maybe affecting Nirn's rotation or something. Though ESO does explain the volcanic lands of Morrowind and the mountain range blocking the Sea of Ghosts is the reason why the Rift has the climate that it does.
The mountains blocking winds around the North West parts of Skyrim are likely why the climate is the way it is there too. Not to mention it's the Last Seed by the start of the game and seasons never change, and Last Seed in irl is August.
One of my all time favorite mods is Windstad Mine, which takes place in this location. I feel like it adds exactly what is needed to make this region feel alive and interesting.
Probably my favorite region, tbh. Very beautful, especially at sunset or dawn.
The Pieces of the Past Daedric quest takes you to Morthal. Also Lami at the Thaumaturgist's Hut (alchemist) has a fetch quest. Skyrim is weird in the way certain misc quests aren't always available so it's easy to miss them.
I like the swamp mainly for its unique atmosphere and abundance of alchemy ingredients, but I can see how some might be turned off by it
The building that you passed at 4:03 looks like it was a blacksmith's at on time. It has the same structure as the blacksmiths in Riverwood, Dawnstar, and Falkreath. (Also, Lami is a skooma dealer)
Yes, but its not a blacksmith's. Its the guard house
@@wanderingshade8383 true, though usually the guard house is that two-story home like that of the Riverwood Trader that has the upstairs balcony. I guess a "head-cannon" could be that they seized the blacksmithy and turned it into a guard house, but it wouldn't make a lot of sense lol
Either way I just add one with a mod. As per usual, rando's with passion fix oversights that devs never do xD
@@nathanwinters2400 I think the devs chose to use the blacksmith house shape because the two story one would be too tall for the guardhouse's position in Morthal. It would look strange if it were two story, so they chose a larger one story building.
This is literally tied for my favorite region in the base game (with Southern Whiterun Hold, near Riverwood, being the other). It's desolate and foreboding, while populated primarily with a mix of spiders and crabs. It's full of Deathbell and Swamp Fungal Pod...two of the coolest "plants" (Pod is 'shroom) in the game (and I'm not even talking about their considerable value for leveling Alchemy here). In addition...I just have a thing for cold marshland/cold wetlands in real life. I hate mosquitoes, but if the "swamp" you are in is between 45-50 F (~7-10 C), that isn't a problem.
The most annoying thing is that EVERY TIME I fast travel to my house there, there's always a group of bandits attacking it.
I wish they'd released an update enabling you to create settlements around your houses, with fortifications etc, similar to F04. That would have been awesome. Maybe there's a mod out there, somewhere.
Ana's Unique Spells / Build, Interact, Decorate.
Those are a couple.
Several mods for the hearth fire homes. Depends if you're playing PC or Console as to what's available. PC mods will create villages around them, while console mods just populate them with guards, vendors, and unique features.
Check out the mod, "Lakeview Extended". I love it. It turns Lakeview Manor into an amazing walled village with vendors, pools, a poolside bar, new companions, a cave with planters tended by tame spriggans, etc. One caveat is that you must disable the mod before starting a new playthrough, and then enable it after you've completed construction on Lakeview.
Hearthfire Extended allows you to hire extra guards for all the Hearthfire homes .... I don't remember getting attacked at that one, the one by Falkreath on the other hand I have bandits and wolves and bears killing my livestock and skeevers in the basement ......
@@mikehartsough489Only problem with that mod is that Lakeview is in Falkreath not Morthal/Hjaalmarch.
And you can have it active from the start if you use "alternate start" and choose Lakeview as the property you own. If you dont mind a bit of floating items, you dont really need to have it inactive on a new game. Just do the quest to buy it, go there and build the basics and you are fine. It's a pretty solid and stable mod that wont cause a CTD, just a break of immersion untill you built the full place.
Which there is another mod for that plces a chest with all the materials needed you can do it in 5 minutes
Now this is not for a first playthrough, but lets be real after character 5... ..................just get it over with asap, i want this house and i'm not going to spend another 100 hours gathering materials, my character simply inherited this place fully build from their family. hit ~ tgm build the place and let's go do whatever we want.
I really loved the marshlands especially when farming swamp fungal pods for paralysis potions. You could make a solid “S”shaped path through and then end up in Solitude, sleep and sell off or craft and then take the S path back.
I'm glad someone else referenced the horror aspect of the game. I remember I wouldn't go into oblivion dungeons at night (irl night not in game) cause it was just to scary for me.
Some dungeons in Oblivion were just too scary. It was often a relief to be out of there after a completed mission.
One of my favorite places. If you pick those purple flowers and combine them with a river betty (a fish you can catch underwater) it makes one of the strongest poisons in the game.
Purple flowers with strong poisonous abilities? You must mean Deathbell. Yes, there is more than enough Deathbell here. Actually, so much that when you run out of River Betty, another route to take with Deathbell is to mix it with Imp Stool, Mora Tapinella and possibly with fourth ingredient whose name I have forgotten.
@@Cybernaut76 Good to see a fellow alchemist appreciating the biodiversity of Skyrim.
@@charaznable9209 Likewise. Mere poisons can be worth this line of career. Some monsters are immune to poisons but fortunately, dragons are not among them. What comes to potions, making sure you never go to dungeon without a powerful healing potion or two, can save your life. Also, whenever you see a hawk, shoot it either with a bow or a long distance destruction spell and watch carefully where it falls. Because I highly recommend taking their feathers. That way you will never need cure disease potions even if you were a complete beginner as an alchemist (I would still recommend you kill Skeevers from a distance).
That's the place where I go to fetch 20 deathbells for Ingun Black-Briar.
Along with Sarethi farm to get nirnroot(won't fill the 20 but will get you a headstart).
And the ground near the graveyards in the cities to get nightshade.
Curious how fetching 20 of each might initially feel gargantuan... but it gets relatively easy once you know where to search for them.
@@matheusjahnke8643 You can easily get much more than 20 Deathbells (I think I got even as much as 60 once) if you know where in the swamp to go to almost clean it up of Deathbells. However, be warned that the swamp around Morthal could be dangerous to low level characters especially at night.
I like all the places, including this one. Right next to nice Solitude, you do the Abandoned Shack thing with Asstrid, they got deer to hunt, chauruses for their chitin, there’s a place you can build a house there, and they have SO many swamp fungal pods for paralysis potions. Plus in real life if you’d have to run around all day in full armor plus supplies, this place will help keep you cool.
I always got the feeling that the swamp was empty because of the vampires and spiders. A lair effect in DnD terms, and actually one of my favorite world building tools. Imagine what the town might have looked like before the vampires moved in.
On a personal conspiracy theory I think there might have been a DLC outlined for this area, or some large cut quests. Either thing could explain the whole area. Bathesda has a history of leaving things boring in an area they plan on upgrading later
There is the rather minor quest involving the Jarl's son, but you're directed to go to Whiterun directly after its start. Lurbuk is also an assassination target if you go do the side quests from Nazir.
It's really funny watching this when Morthal and it's swaps are your favorite patch of land.. I just like the dark mystery behind it and emptiness that it brings. It's small and there's not much too do and its poor, but that's why I like it, it's like a relief from those other over-bombarded areas with quests, stuff, great castles and people. It's small village in a middle of nowhere and that's why it's beautiful. Quests, although, not much of them, are interesting I really enjoyed them. You have point that it could be more developed and it could be bigger, but even what it is know, I can it's my favorite land of Skyrim. I think this area brings the contrast that it's much needed in Skyrim, a brief pause from constant action. Also I was raised as a child in a swampy area so I have soft spot for it. You could say it's nolstagia.
Same here, I loved Channelwood in Myst and that translated well to Morthal and Riften.
I have great memories of this area due to the Interesting NPCs mod, specifically Anum-La's questline. the final encounter in the swamp, coupled with the thunderstorm, really set the mood; something that couldn't be replicated elsewhere
The marsh is such a atmospheric treat, and this swamp is a perfect place for some nice ingredients
For some reason, Windstad Manor is my favorite of the all the house you can get, best real-estate in the game for me, and after they allowed consoles to add mod, I add the windstad mine, which turns the Manor into a nice lively town fit for a thane.
Its the fishery isnt it? You like it cos it comes with a fishery.
I like the dialogue that adopted kids have if you move them to Windstad Manor. Kind of cements the creepy surroundings.
There's also the annoying slaughterfish near the abandoned shack that prevents fast travel, even if they're far away from you.
Always felt unfinished to me, like there's more that was supposed to happen that they never got around to.
I like the Jarl. And becoming her thane is always a plan for me in every playthrough as is having the house at the edge of the water. Love using her for the distraction at the embassy.
I enjoy accidentally getting Lurbuk killed which you can do just by practicing telekinesis in the inn. Drop anything worth even twenty septims and Lurbuk will try to claim it if you drop it enough times and because he is so hated someone else will try to claim it as well and Lurbuk has next to no health.
I didn’t even know you could use her as a distraction! I just did that questline again and regret not using her now lol
Oh she's wonderful as a distraction.
She even warns you about the dangers at the party and about the advantages of people thinking you're a bit mad.
She goes into a "vision" where she sees things crawling around the one party guest and evil omens of various sorts. But is it a vision or just an old woman having a "senior" moment? All the Thalmor just act confused and react like she's a bit mad and no one gets hurt at all at the party as the don't even kick her out as she is a jarl and known to be slightly "touched" and if you ask for the brandy beforehand you get to keep it if you collect things in game. @@masterturtle-duck
@@cstains5543 thanks for the deets! I’m pumped to do this now for my next playthrough
I like the emptiness of the swamp, its a nice break from the immersion breaking 3 bandit camps within half a mile of Whiterun (one of which is a fort clearly built as a forward garrison for the city )
Get a Morthal Mod (Jks or Great Cities etc..) and “The marshlands” mod to make the marsh actually sketchy and the hold capital actually respectable. Add in some undead/beastial creature mods too if you like. You’ll be lost going in circles and hoping you reach Solitude or Morthal, before getting run down by monsters haha
This is my Morthal!
I have graphics mods that cause nights to be almost pitch black, and you need lights to see. I was doing a new play through and was dropped into the middle of the marsh at night with no moon out so it was completely dark, and I had no torch. For someone that has played Skyrim for 12 years, and knows the map of Skyrim like the back of their hand, I couldn’t for the life of me find Morthal before I froze to death.
I actually like it. It's a very cool area. I've always tested my load order at Solitude's docks and in the forest in the marshlands. It's a neat region.
I don't hate it. I love it for all of the reasons you mention.
I love this area. Cool random encounters, nice atmosphere and pretty good use of fog to create the illusion of mystery
I actually like Morthal. Lots of creatures to kill. I love it. Killing and killing and killing makes morthal my favorite place in skyrim outside a dungeon.
Yes sir, killing killington sir
A non in doors dungeon lol
@@progamasEjogos with things my (legitimate not figurative) diagnosed psychopathic brain can enjoy to be in to kill. And to kill more. And more and kill more and some more etcetera
Plus the high volume of alchemy ingredients (cough death bells cough (mix with salt, btw, great potion))
Morthal Kombat
It's peaceful, nice view of the blue palace from my favorite player home you can build.
You missed out Lurbuk is a DBH target and there are side quests there like for Idgrod the younger and Mehrunes Razor. During Dawnguard ,the evil and mysterious ‘Traveller’ attacks you in Morthal and with The fishing quests you get an ambush there. Plus Falion is one of the few (only) sources of purchasable Black Soul Gems. So you left out quite a bit actually…
lol you really nailed it with the Witcher vid and this one, I've played both of these games a ton yet my memories of these areas are almost nonexistent
Yeah I don’t hate it but it’s quite scary when i didn’t really like those black centipede creatures those where really strong in early levels
I like the house you get near by /the tower I think it’s called mist watch
@@andresfurious8302lol..Myrwatch…😋
I truly enjoy quite a bit if these locations. There aren't many places I dislike in Skyrim. The only once being the snowy covered flats in Dawnstar hold as well as some of the hold of Winterhold.
Best places for me are southern mostly. The plains of Whiterun, the forests of Falkreath, the Autumn like woodlands of Riften and the high peaks and mountains of Markarth all resonate with me. I do enjoy the tundra in the Northwestern side of the map as well.
But whenever I find myself playing I always go back to those locations. Always.
I love that you included the ambient travel moment at the start. It reminded me of how it felt. It's been a while for me.
Marches (marshes? swamps? How do you call them in English?) are hard to develop in real life. They are important biotopes, but of little use for humans. I like it that Skyrim included such an area.
I liked jumping between the tiny islands.
If you have experience with swamps IRL, they are the worst places to travel over, around, through, near.
I kinda like lull areas in an rpg map. No location should have nothing to do but a few that only have one or two things going on is fine. They become synonymous with that task. Meanwhile at best the places with lots of things to do feel familari andcomfortable but at worst they can feel tedious. So having a variety feels nice. A good map needs both its whiteruns and its morthals.
I love the swamp! The property there is my favorite in the entire game, Morthal is my favorite settlement and it’s such an interesting landscape. I love going there at night to collect deathbell and swamp fungal pods
I've lived in towns that border large swamps before and they tend to be very small towns (typically under 1000 people). One particular town had 4 bars and 2 gas stations. That was it. You had to go to the next town over to go grocery shopping.
Swampy areas cannot be used for large buildings without extreme engineering and architectural efforts. Even after building the structures, you fight a never-ending battle against the encroachment of the swamp.
So Skyrim's swamps are exactly what I expect from swampy areas. The swamp always wins.
One of my most memorable gaming moments was struggling through this swamp at 1am, real time and game time, search for Solitude for the first time ever, and then seeing its silhouette in the distance.
I actually love that swamp. It's by far the scariest part of Skyrim.
There’s a Hearthfire home called Winstad Manor that you can build there that has the fish hatchery. Because I never use beds in the game, I once came across the abandoned shack completely by accident when I decided to explore the neighbourhood. I was like “What is this? I can’t get in here. Is this blood? Why does it lead to this small boat?” Completely flabbergasted why this shack was here and within sight of my house, I left it alone.
Then one time I had a friend over and was showing them the game, and the features of my house. When I built it I had no idea the upper floor came with beds otherwise I wouldn’t have built one of the wings to have beds as well on the ground floor. I jokingly used one of the many beds to show my friend the Well Rested mechanic, and low and behold I woke up with a bag over my head having previously met the requirements to start the Dark Brotherhood quest line. I was so confused, saying something like “This is NOT supposed to happen, I don’t know what’s going on.”
When I finished that encounter and was allowed to leave, I had a huge revelation when I stood back outside and turned to look at my house. One of the weirdest moments in the game for me for sure. Was none too pleased to find out who my neighbour was.
It is one of the first areas I head to as I establish myself at Myrwatch which is a free home with everything a budding mage needs. A fully equipped smithy, a small ingredients garden, an alchemy table, an arcane table, and a staff table. Full kitchen with ovens, lots of storage, the usual trophy racks and mannequins. I then establish the farm in Rorikstead for income.
I always liked looking at it from above when walking to Solitude but always hated having to cross through it _from_ Solitude
I know what you mean. Reminds me of the trip to Windhelm from Riften as compared to the trip to Riften from Windhelm. Going from Riften it's a fun little jaunt and can pick up some good animal souls for Enchanting. Trying to go the other way, it can be very easy to miss the cutoff and end up halfway to Ivarstead before you realize it if you aren't careful. Skyrim certainly isn't the best province of Tamriel when it comes to signage. Heck, I've been trying to walk to Morthal on the road and had to double back many times because the dirt track into town wasn't marked.
i swear in every single playthrough, when i leave the abandoned shack after getting kidnapped i always make the same mistake of trying to fast travel instantly only to remember that theres some enemy nearby
I love how isolated and atmospheric the area is. Not much to do there, but I like walking through.
The main attraction for me is the achemical ingredients. You can get large amounts of death bell and fungal pods, with little effort. It also has a rather large number of slaughter fish eggs and wild giant lichen, significantly more than what alchemy shops try and sell me. Also it does have an alchemy shop.
It is most useful for alchemists. A lot of hard to find items in concentrations like deathbells, swamp fungal pods, etc.
I dislike it because I often can't fast travel while wandering through it because there's almost always enemies nearby.
Usually slaughterfish in the water that I'm not even engaging.
It's one of my favorite locations in the game. One of my last characters was essentially a poison-damage only witch lady and it became one of my fondest playthroughs, and I had bought the land plot in that area as well as installed a creepy little hut mod nearby.
Wait, people hate this region? I get the issues about performance or lack of fast travel due to invisible enemies, but I always thought that the creepiness of this place really adds to the overall experience. Especially if you're playing survival (with no fast travel) and at night.
I'm living proof that you're wrong, this is one of my favorites on the main map. It's murky and foggy, and by night it feels like anything could emerge from the mist at any moment, like a werewolf or a creepy old hag. It's very atmospheric and fitting for a world where beings like that actually exist.
- Jurgen the lumberjack is part of Mehrunes Dagon's 'Pieces of the Past' quest as he is one of the guardians.
- Labyrinthan is located Hjalmarch
I love this place. I pop in from time to time to check if there is any random dragon encounter I could have here. The vampire quest is also one of my favorite.
I remember running from Morthal to solitude through that swamp because I hadn't discovered Solitude at that point in my playthrough and I didn't know about the carriage driver. The only other reason I went to that swamp was to complete that quest in Riften where you have to collect 20 deathbells for that woman.
I never payed Morthal much attention until about a year ago when I started a new playthrough and decided lakeview manour was getting old, actually fell in love with the place
There is a blacksmith in stormcloak camp nearby. I used to play without fast traveling (which has done wonders for me) and I was building a house on a land that I bought from jarl. Going to that blacksmith to sell stuff and buying iron for house parts and than going back to Morthal to buy lumber AND than going to a mine nearby for stone was one of the most immersive experiences I've had in TESV. I felt as if I'm connecting with the people of Hjaalmarch. I wasn't just a dunmer traveler in daedric armor that teleports himself once in a while to store weapons and sweet rolls at home. I became a neighbour
P.s. I don't know what to do with civil war because my charachter is more imperial leaning but also I don't want to fight my stormcloak neighbours. I think I'll stay neutral. It' s not like my charachter has a background of being very political
that makes an interesting mod idea,. Lurking vampires that will only attack if you get too close , but will follow you and hide if you move towards them or attack you and try an bite you if you stand still too long
With the Alchemy And Cooking Overhaul mod, this area turns even more into a grocery store plentiful of poisonous alchemic ingredients.
It hurts my soul that Morthal (and Hjaalmarch in general) is so underdeveloped because visually and lore-wise, it's my favorite region, and Winstad Manor is the perfect homebase for my alchemy-focused characters and those with a "dark secret" (the vampires, werewolves, necromancers and assassins).
Making Lami a better skill trainer and adding a general goods merchant or having a Khajiit caravan stop by occasionally would have gone a long way to make Morthal a hold capital worth visiting. That, and actually finishing the half-dozen abandoned quests scattered around the town, like figuring out what Falion is up to or following up on Gorm's conspiracy against Jarl Idgrod.
Side note: I know it was probably done to avoid conflicts with the Civil War questline, but it's a shame that there are at least three aborted quests (the one in Morthal, plus the daedric artifact quests for Mephala and Boethia) that would have involved the death or replacement of one of the jarls in some way, but were left on the cutting room floor.
I will say though that everyone in town freaking out about the new court wizard while completely denying the possibility that the suspicious hot chick who keeps saying evil vampire-y stuff could be a vampire is a pretty funny joke about those types of close-knit and even more close-minded communities and their little witch hunts. You know, going on a righteous crusade the second an outsider rubs them the wrong way, all while going out of their way to deny the most horrid things when they're being committed by a respected member of the in-group. It's better social commentary than anything going on in Windhelm or Riften.
While I hadn't quite thought about how much I do or don't hate it, I have noticed that every time I happen to find myself there, I tend to want to leave as quickly as possible. It always gives me a sense that I'm not welcome, neither to be there, nor to leave.
I like how dark it is. That dark chill you get is why there is not a lot of stuff there. Its like a cold dead hand has it grip on it.
I wish Skyrim's map was about 4x it's current size because everything is so condensed together that it feels like a lot of areas get shafted in terms of how explorable they are.
It's undeveloped because it's not very habitable land being damp, wet, swampy. Like the Florida everglades, you can't live there and develop there. Same for this area. I don't think Bethesda was being lazy at all. They were being realistic.
The swampland serves as yet another layer of defense for Solitude - anyone wanting to directly attack the city will have to cross it with their army, buying the city valuable time to shore-up it's defenses or for reinforcements from the Empire to arrive. Morthal serves the same purpose as Dragon's Bridge - a place to garrison troops and slow-down an invading army.
My favorite part of the hold comes from Windstad Manor - you can build a fishfarm, which, in turn, allows you to reliably obtain Abecean Longfin, a key ingredient in everyone's favorite exploit ;)
It's actually one of my favorite places. Spooky, atmospheric, and very beautiful when modded. I have a fond memory from like 2015 playing modded skyrim with survival mods, and camping outside of ustengrav. Not every area has to be completely full of quests.
as a potion enthusiast i always like to visit morthal to gather ingredients, i also like the spooky and lonely atmosphere, it's refreshing to visit once in a while.
My backyard growing up was part of a marshland, and my front yard was full of trees -- As such, I actually found the area oddly serene (heck, the vegetation even looks similar to how it looks back home at the very start of winter).
That is, except for the more freakish monsters, and the fact that it's easier to get lost there than pretty much any other exterior location.
I love Hjaalmarch! Brilliantly atmospheric, central to everywhere, and a great place for foraging, fishing and flycatching. I'd like a few more points of interest in the swamp itself, and maybe a boat dock connecting to Solitude, but being remote and undesirable sort of adds to its charm. If you're resisting the impulse to fast-travel it becomes a well-trodden route from Solitude to anywhere west of Markarth.