#{.headcanons

Hades just wants to take care of you, like how he takes care of the rest of his family

He cares for you deeply and makes sure you always know it

Loves giving you gifts, jewelry made from precious metals and gems, forged by the greatest cyclopses his brother is willing to spare (which is normally the best of the best, Poseidon would never give Hades subpar workers)

If you're not into jewelry though he'd find out what you enjoy and gift you that instead, no expenses spared

You might think that due to his love of giving gifts that that would be his love language, but you'd be wrong, Hades is more of a quality time man

He wants you with him all the time

Getting ready in the morning? You're side by side, or one of you in the bed while the other is close by

Taking care of his realm? You're right by his side, walking the halls, speaking to your subjects

Ruling from the throne room? You're there, sitting in your own throne by his side (or on his lap if he can convince you)

When the day is done all he wants is to lounge in your shared room together and relax in each other's company

Loves having his hands on you, whether it is just a casual touch, fingers brushing while you walk, or his hand on your thigh while you sit together, he needs to be touching you

He also is a bit hard headed and can be quite stubborn, which can lead to disagreements, though you always get over them quickly

He loves teasing you, he enjoys watching your reactions and getting a ride out of you

Titles

It seems, to me, that there is some general confusion on what serjo/muthsera/sera and other honorifics mean in Morrowind. To me, it seems to boil down to this:

Dunmeri titles are not gendered, generally. While some are purely based on vibes rather than official titles, some are in fact officially recognized.

Serjo straight up means lord/lady. In Cost, specifically, I had a bit of a pickle on my hands: because the term is not gendered, technically both Orvas and Ayleth would be Serjo Dren. I found that this might be confusing and that I was not smart enough to write around it, so my headcanon has become this: Serjo is a specifical title to land-owning nobility; if Serjo Lastname has a spouse, they are referred to simply as Lord/Lady Lastname. Therefore Orvas is Serjo Dren and Ayleth is Lady Dren.

Muthsera is a form of address for non-landed nobility, essentially taking the place of my lord/my lady.

Sera is sir/ma'am. It is kinda vibes-based in the sense that its the most basic form of address to give someone; you can insult someone of higher status by referring to them as sera even if it isn't wrong to necessarily.

Sedura is for the non-nobility wealthy class, aka the gentry. This is also generally vibes-based as there's no real cut off for it, it's all based on how someone perceives another.

Mehra is reserved for priests.

Kena and Kema are sort of...interchangeable and vibes-based, but again can be insulting depending on the person. Kena is a scholar, and it is often used for mages as well, at least ones who have a scholarly bent. (Divayth Fyr, for example.) Kema is specifically a tutor or teacher, but it wouldn't technically be wrong to call them kena, just perhaps insulting due to the lack of authority implied.

Khan is not really used among settled Dunmer anymore, but means leader. It is from westernizing khan that got the idea of "king" for Morrowind. To me, this kinda solves the problem of people in Mournhold claming that the Dunmer don't have kings while Nerevar was often referred to as "High King"; he wasn't a king in the western sense, but a Great Khan. Obviously it's used a lot more among the Ashlanders; ashkhan, gulakhan, etc.

Morag is exclusively used for members of the Morag Tong.

Hetman is used similarly to mayor, it is an elected village leader or elder.

This is a tricky one, because I'm pretty sure it's just straight up canon, it's complex enough to warrant an explanation, especially for Cost in particular.

Settled Dunmer vs Ashlanders

It would be correct to call all Dunmer "Velothi", but in practice this is not used due to multiple different cultural groups.

1.) The Great House Dunmer: Dunmer belonging to any of the five Great Houses; they are all their own different subcultures in themselves. These do include Dunmer belonging to minor Houses such as House Sadras or House Retheran. You have the division between the ruling nobility, the middle-class gentry, and the lower class retainers who serve either.

2.) The Ashlanders: nomadic Dunmer who reject modern Tribunal worship and venerate the Good Daedra. The Ashlanders consider themselves as the only true Velothi anymore, and refer to themselves as such rather than "Ashlanders."

3.) The Velothi: these are settled Ashlanders, or descendants of settled Ashlanders. On Vvardenfell they are often found in Redoran settlements in or along the borders of the Ashlands (Ald'ruhn, Maar Gan, Gnisis) and have Ashlander-sounding names such as Tashpi Ashibael or Ilasour Tansumiran.

Ayleth's mother was Velothi; her maiden name is Neribael.

4.) The Chap'thil: Dunmer that are not settled Ashlanders nor belonging to any of the Houses; basically, peasants.

There are three languages typically spoken in Morrowind, and most of the time you come across Dunmer who can speak at least two of them. They are Tamrielic, Dunmeris, and Velothi/Ashlandic. Based on this chart, so more or less canon.

Language

Tamrielic is the lingua franca of the entire Empire, and so most Dunmer know how to speak it.

Dunmeris is the native language of the settled Dunmer.

Outlander Dunmer do not speak Dunmeris as a rule, but native Dunmer are usually fluent in both Tamrielic and Dunmeris.

Velothi/Ashlandic are spoken almost exclusively by Ashlanders or the settled Velothi.

Both Dunmeris and Velothi descend from Ald Chimeris, which few in Morrowind can read or speak anymore.

Okay this one may be pure headcanon, but it's based on the vague ideas presenting in Arena and Morrowind (and Tamriel Rebuilt).

City-States and the Dukes

In TES Arena, there were eight city-states, each ruled by a "king": Ebonheart, Mournhold, Blacklight, Firewatch, Tear, Kragenmoor, Narsis and Necrom. Obviously, this was retconned in Morrowind to six duchies/districts and dukes, taken even further in Tamriel Rebuilt as the duchies of Vvardenfell, Deshaan, Telvannis, Narsis, Velothis, and Mournhold.

My headcanon has become a mix of the two. There are six dukes ruling over six city-states which govern a district in the name of the Emperor. Previously, during the Imperial Simulacrum, when Barenziah fled and Symmachus was killed in the revolt, Morrowind fractured into those eight city-states temporarily before being reverted back when Uriel Septim VII was rescued and Jagar Tharn was defeated.

The city-states, even in ancient times, were outside of the Great House system, though often the rules of the city-states were apart of the Great Houses who held the territory outside of the city-states and its environs.

I'm still noodling the city-states; Narsis is ruled by the Great House Hlaalu, for example, while there's still a Duke of Narsis district that also governs from that city-state. But places like Ebonheart is easy: Ebonheart was always a city-state, at first ruled by the Ra'athim (Moraelyn and his family), then when that line died out, by the Indoril for a time before changing hands to the Hlaalu (and the Ra'athim line again).

Right now my ideas are Ebonheart, Mournhold, Blacklight, Firewatch, Narsis and Tear being city-states, to match the six districts, but I'm still playing with it. But this is why Vedam Dren can interchangably be called the Duke of Ebonheart and the Duke of Vvardenfell (that happens even in vanilla Morrowind). Necrom is Temple-ran and a holy city; it will not be a city-state past or future in my fic (AU?) for that reason, leaving Kragenmoor as the odd one out.

I don't know, perhaps in ancient times all seven were city-states, and only when the Empire came were they consolidated into six.

Oh boy, this drives me crazy, I admit. This is partly headcanon, partly canon, and is still being puzzled out by me. The facts:

The Ra'athim

The Ra'athim line ruled Ebonheart in the time of Nerevar. It is unknown if Moraelyn or Lian were contemporaries of Nerevar.

The Ra'athim were from House Mora, a minor House that was later absorbed by House Hlaalu (when?) after being almost wiped out by the Morag Tong on Vivec's orders (per the Sermons).

Moraelyn's daughter, Queen Lian, left Ebonheart and Mournhold to her twin sons, leaving the Ra'athim line as rulers in both places.

Kragenmoor was also ruled by a Ra'athim at one point: Queen Yoriss, a contemporary of Moraelyn's father Kronin. (What happened to that line?)

The Ebonheart line of Ra'athim died out before Morrowind joining the Empire, and was placed back as rulers when Tiber Septim ruled.

Katariah, the Duchess of Vvardenfell/Ebonheart was a Ra'athim who abdicated her seat to marry Pelagius Septim III.

Barenziah, and consequently her children, are of Ra'athim blood. King Athys Llethan also has Ra'athim blood (somehow? Barenziah is not a Llethan so I'm still puzzling this out).

Jagar Tharn had Ra'athim blood, specifically of the Ebonheart line.

Hlaalu Pasoroth may have Ra'athim blood (I admit I can't figure this one out other than he's related to Barenziah and Llethan, but it's very possible he married into the Ra'athim line instead).

So probably the biggest headcanon I've come up with out of this is that the Drens have Ra'athim blood. In my headcanon (AU?), Katariah's sister married a Dren, and when Katariah abdicated, Ebonheart went to her sister, Vedam and Orvas's grandmother. Their father was Casik; which is a bit of a mismatch from Arena: the King of Ebonheart during the Simulacrum was Casik, though in my fic he's been long dead and technically Vedam was ruler of Ebonheart at the time.

Tamriel Rebuilt, I think, had a different solution to this, something about Casik being a general that sort of took over at the time, though Vedam's father had been Duke of Ebonheart at one point according to TR. I thiiiink I read a book about how this general took over during the Simulacrum, but I'd have to find it again--it isn't on UESP.

In any case, the reason why my headcanon doesn't really match TR's lore is simply because I developed it before I really started to play it, some time in April or May of 2025. The Drens having Ra'athim blood is relevent to my fic, so even if it doesn't have proof in either vanilla Morrowind or TR, it's what I'm sticking with, mostly because there's no proof they aren't (other than it probably would have been pointed out they might even if they had a different last name than Ra'athim).