Smoking Traditions of Tamriel: The Black Marsh

The native modes and styles of smoking in Argonia largely reflect the rough and uncivilized peoples who populate the region. However, outside of the fetid swamps and jungles, the rich soils and hot, humid environs have provided for the cultivation of the finest strains of tobacco in all of Tamriel.

Though their styles are not as refined as elsewhere in the Empire, the Argonians have nonetheless built a rich smoking culture, steeped in tradition and social gravitas. Argonian pipes are deeply personal and treasured items, each created by it’s owner and never to be sold. On rare occasions, these items are gifted, and this is considered a very meaningful and important gift.

In my homeland of Morrowind, this tradition has evolved into a new ritual. In the Velothi custom, if one frees a slave, it is protocol to gift the slave, upon release, a dagger of the highest quality that the slaveowner can afford. Over time, it has become customary for a freed Argonian slave to gift his pipe to the former owner upon receipt of said dagger, as a sign that all is well and no ill feelings are held. Many Dunmer treasure these pipes and often hold their former slaves in high regard.

The Argonian pipe is typically somewhat small, and made of fired clay that is usually carved into figural forms, often or serpents or lizards. The pipemaking process is in and of itself a sort of ceremony, wherein a young Saxhleel carves his first pipe, thus symbolizing the way he himself was carved from the clay by the Hist. Saxhleel will often practice the sculpting of clay in their spare time for some years in preparation for this event. When a Saxhleel dies, it is customary as part of the funeral rites to shatter his pipe and lay the dust upon the corpse, thus symbolizing the inevitable return of the body into the earth. If a pipe is gifted, the Argonian will usually set to work creating a new one as soon as he is able, although this tradition is less common the further one gets away from Black Marsh.

Argonians without access to a pipe, or who simply desire to smoke something different will sometimes make a sort of crude cigar by rolling whole tobacco leaves around a filler of aromatic leaves and spices. Although the Saxhleel seem to enjoy these rough creations, they have proven far too harsh for most Mer or Men to smoke.

Priests and Elders will ritually partake of a special long pipe with a stone bowl and wooden stem on special occasions. These pipes are loaded with a special tobacco that has been cured in hist sap, and thus promotes a short-lived but powerful hallucinogenic episode in which the elder will commune with the trees. This ceremony has been known to kill non Saxhleel who attempt it, and those who survive are invariably, and irrevocably, driven to madness.

Along Argonia’s Eastern and Southern coasts lies a strip of highly-fertile land that lends itself perfectly to the cultivation of Tobacco. This region is known the world over for producing strong, sweet, highly aromatic leaf with nuanced, complex flavors that are desired by discerning smokers everywhere. While each of the major cities (Archon, Lilmoth, Blackrose, and Soulrest) has its own signature breed, discriminating tobacconists have traveled from as far as High Rock and Summerset to contract farmers to produce specialized strains of tobacco for their personal blends. The famously powerful Breton tobacco, known as Perique, is in fact not Breton at all, but an Argonian strain prepared by Breton tobacconists who learned that tightly packing the tobacco in hollow logs during the hot and sweaty summer months will produce a leaf of unparalleled flavor and character.