[Apocrypha] A Nord's Guide To Morrowind: Clan Ra'athim

Published 2E583 under supervision of the Tribunal Temple.

A NORD’S GUIDE TO MORROWIND: CLAN RA’ATHIM

by Brina Elf-Speaker

Hello, reader! I’m Brina Elf-Speaker but you can call me Brina. Since I’m living in Mournhold with my pa right now I decided to hone my diplomacy skills and write some books for Nords, so you can learn interesting things about Morrowind and impress your friends. Today I’m gonna be writing about the Ra'athim, who are the royal family in Morrowind.

Now hold on, Brina! I bet you’re saying. The elves don’t have Kings or Queens! They’ve got Gods who do that. And you would be right! But just hold on and let me explain.

Before you can understand the Ra'athim, you’ve got to understand a little about Morrowind. Morrowind’s a lot like Skyrim in lots of ways, and not just cause their ancestors walk around in their tombs like ours do! Morrowind’s divided into five Great Houses. A Great House is the dunmer version of a Hold. Instead of a Jarl, each House is ruled by a Council, since it takes five or six elves to make the decisions one Nord Jarl would usually make. And instead of a High King like we’ve got, the dunmer have got their Three Living Gods who they all swear fealty to. (Only House Telvanni doesn’t any more cause they didn’t want to join the Pact, but I hear they aren’t very nice anyway.)

Now go get another flagon of mead cause we’re going to talk about the early First Era. Around the time we invaded them (for the first time) Morrowind had more Holds, like one for the dwarves and one for Ysmir’s General and his House. They also had two city-states and those were Ebonheart and Mournhold. (That’s why it’s called MournHOLD). Ebonheart and Mournhold were different from the other Holds. Instead of being ruled by Houses, they were ruled by Kings and Queens. These Kings and Queens were real special, because they had to be of a certain clan (that’s right, dunmer have clans too!)

Now, nobody’s quite sure what it was like in the early days of the first era. Some say that the Ra'athim ruled both Ebonheart and Mournhold, which used to be one city despite their distance, cause elves never let little things like ‘common sense’ get in their way, they’re very daring. Others say that there were two lines but the Mournhold one ended with Almalexia cause she never had children. The point is there’s two cities and both of them ended up being ruled by the Ra'athim, and nobody knows how.

Well, go get another flagon of mead and raise a toast because I have good news. A Hand (they're Almalexia's guards) just came over and told me in fact that after the war with the Nords Almalexia made the first Ra'athim woman the Duchess of Mournhold. She did this cause Almalexia loves Mournhold so much that she wanted someone to look after it while she was doing important things like marrying Nerevar and becoming God. The Ra'athim ruled Ebonheart originally. Thanks Sadathi for answering this question and helping me educate Nords everywhere!

Now where was I? So as I said there are two types of Ra'athim, the Ebonheart and the Mournhold Ra'athim.

The Ebonheart Ra'athim don’t exist any more but when Ebonheart was a city state that’s what they ruled. They also ruled Kragenmoor and probably others. They were miners and got rich off mining ebony. The last known King was Kronin Ra'athim and he had two sons which were Cruethys Ra'athim and Moraelyn Ra'athim. He also had a daughter who’s the one Almalexia made into a duchess. A cool fact about the Ebonheart Ra'athim is that they didn’t surrender to the Nords when we invaded, instead they ran off and lived in the wilderness like Ashlanders (those are dunmer reachmen) and fought a guerilla war, which I think is very brave and noble of them. They all died in an accident after that though.

We know lots less about the Mournhold Ra'athim other than that the first one was Kronin’s daughter and she was the Duchess of Mournhold. Sadathi says that when Vivec talks in the sermons about an enchantress Almalexia likes, that’s who he’s talking about. Now, I can’t understand anything Vivec writes, but seeing as he was alive at the time I say he probably knows what he’s talking about even if I don't. Anyways the Duchess is the ancestor of Brindisi Dorom, an old Duke that Mehrunes Dagon killed.

An interesting difference between Mournhold and Ebonheart Ra'athim is that for the Ebonheart Ra'athim only men can have Ra'athim children but for the Mournhold Ra'athim only women can be Ra'athim. I guess that’s cause the first Mournhold one was a woman. All the Mournhold Dukes are called by their full names like Indoril Brindisi Dorom, while the women are just called Hlalaliah or maybe Hlalaliah Ra'athim if they feel fancy.

So Brina, you may ask, who’s the Duke of Mournhold right now? Well actually there isn’t one right now. The old one died fighting the Akaviri and part of the Pact was that they weren’t going to appoint a new one. There are still Ra'athim around though but Sadathi says not to talk about that so I won’t.

Oh, one last important thing is House Mora. While a Great House is like a Hold a normal sized House is more like a clan, they’re a family who’s loyal to each other and take that very seriously. House Mora was the clan that Ra'athim belonged to. Why is this important? Cause it’s also the House Indoril Nerevar belonged to! (Nerevar is dunmer Ysmir). That means the living Ra'athim are probably the closest descendants to Nerevar, cause he and Almalexia never had children and all. The Hands aren’t happy that I wrote that so don’t mention it to anyone.

Well, I think this concludes what I’ve got to say about the Ra'athim. Sadathi says that if I want this to ever see the light of day I should probably wrap up here. Now go get yourself another flagon of mead and impress your friends with how much you know about the elves!