Sunday 2 June 2002

Pic of the day: So, what's purrin' Kitty?

Furry side of Morrowind

Oh, there's one more thing about Morrowind that I would like to mention. The Khajjiiti have been upgraded to full furry status! In Arena, the first Elder Scrolls game, it was implied that the people of Elsweyr were just deluded humans who painted their faces to look like great cats. Yes, they were quick and agile; but natural selection would favor those traits in a cat-worshipping society. The catty girls get first pick ...

Anyway, in Daggerfall there were no Khajjiit NPCs, but you could choose Khajjiit as your character's race. In that case you did indeed get a tail, so I guess they were cat-people after all. You also got a fuzzy brown color that just might be fur. But this was all restricted to the paper doll view. Daggerfall was a pure 1st person perspective game.

In Morrowind, there is no mistaking a Khajjiit for a human, except on a dark night. You can choose between several feline heads and ears, none of them remotely human. You have a long sleek furry tail that swings back and forth. You've got claws (and a bonus to hand-to-hand fighting). You've got fur all over. And you've got no underwear! Ahem. I accidentally discovered this as I bought some new clothes for my catgirl ... Yeah, that's it.

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As befits a feline, your Khajjiit character can see in the dark. This is done a bit clumsily, with a free "Night Eye" spell. You are born with it, regardless of class and magic ability, and you can cast it for free as often as you like. But it does not turn on by itself, and it only lasts 30 seconds (real time). I am not happy about that. It should at the very least be like a switch you could flip when you went into a dark room.

In Morrowind, all rooms are dark rooms. Even at high noon, the inside of houses are cast in deep shadow. If it also happens to be daylight in the real world, houses and dungeons become hard to navigate at all. So the night eye feature is really a much bigger bonus than it would seem. Too bad it must be recast every 30 seconds ... this makes it pretty useless in a long fight. On the bright side you can travel by night and find your way easily, and also detect enemies (if any) at a distance. Unlike a torch, the spell raises the ambient brightness as far as eye can see.

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There is a downside to being a cat or crocodile person, though. (Crocodile? Yes, the Argonians of Black Marsh are at least as inhuman as the Khajjiiti, and have a water breathing spell as their racial bonus, along with some skills and resistance to disease and immunity to poison.) Neither of these races can wear boots or helmets, because of the inhuman shape of these body parts. If you rely on heavy armor, this can be noticeable. Of course, if you roleplay a furry, you may consider taking the skill unarmored defense instead. It gives good evasion, but when you are hit, there is nothing to absorb the blow, so it may not be suited for the most combat heavy classes.

But most of all, it is just overly cool to be a furry. I'm trying to get word out to the online furry community, so they can buy the game. You can't believe how many people there are who've secretly wanted to be a catboy or a catgirl. Well, get thee to Morrowind and see for yourself what's purring.