Lore talk:Great Houses

House Dwemer

Several sources refer to the Dwemer as a Great House. See The War of the First Council, The Lost Prophecy, The Real Nerevar, The Seven Curses, as well as the dialogue topics in Morrowind: "War of the First Council", "The Lost Prophecy", "Nerevar", and "The Seven Curses". (Oddly enough they seem to be the same four topics as the books' names.) Should we include a section about the Dwemer on this page? --TheRealLurlock ^Talk 18:01, 1 August 2008 (EDT)

Yes, I was just about to do that, go ahead and include them. They were part of the First Council as well as the Chimer Clans. Although the Chimer would never officially acknowledge them, the literature calls the Dwemer just that, a Great House. So we then have seven Houses in Reysdan, and 5 in Morrowind, after the war, with the Tribunal eager to eradicate all references. --Benould^•T•C 18:09, 1 August 2008 (EDT)

I went ahead and changed it, as it's been a year and it looks like nobody got back to it. 71.231.42.97 07:04, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

Here is a basic explanation: http://www.imperial-library.info/obscure_text/dwemer_great_house.shtml or try http://www.bethsoft.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=992762&hl=dwemer

There is no difference between House Dwemer and the normal Dwemer. The Dwemer were sometimes considered a Great House, because they had a seat on the First Council when Morrowind was united by Dumac and Nerevar. — Unsigned comment by 195.241.93.36 (talk) at 11:53 on 29 August 2009 (GMT)

Ashlanders is a house?

The Ashlanders are not a house, not even unified. just primitive nomads. — Unsigned comment by 81.230.139.57 (talk) at 19:57 on 12 August 2009 (GMT)

Layout

Someone better fix the table of contents. It is saying that the Telvanni, Redoran and Hlaalu fall under "Current Houses" category, while Indoril and Dres under "References". I don't think that's quite right... Kertaw48 19:23, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

It was an issue with the House Telvanni article. A references section was added there lately, which transclusion to this page resulted in the layout mix-up. It is fixed now. --Timenn-<talk> 14:53, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

A Quick Question

If a dunmer has the last name Hlaalu, for example, are they just in the Great Hlaalu House, or are they in some royal family? --Arch-Mage Matt ^{Did I Do That?} 20:12, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Could be both, but more likely just the Great House. Order of succession and membership of a royal family can be an incredibly tortuous affair: see this for a real-world example! rpeh •T•C•E• 20:21, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Minor Houses

There are a couple of mentions of minor houses (I think house Sotha, listed here as a great house, was actually referred to as this), and according to the umbra sword page, there is also a minor house Sathil. Is there any more information on minor houses and should we list them here? — Unsigned comment by 85.191.86.135 (talk) at 17:52 on 26 February 2012

Well, there are a few of them, but this is the article about the Great Houses. Minor Houses should probably have their own article. -- kertaw48 21:20, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

It would probably be better to rename this into houses rather than great houses and include the minor ones here, just to give all the general information on the house-system of morrowind on one page. — Unsigned comment by 85.191.86.135 (talk) at 00:16 on 27 February 2012

Sadras

When talking to Lleril Morvayn, following the dialogue chain starting with "What is House Redoran", and you ask him "Council? You mean there's no Jarl?", part of his response is:

"They embody a council made up of Five Great Houses: Telvanni, Dres, Indoril, Sadras, and Redoran."

Is there any other reference to House Sadras made in the game? I know from the quest involving the Severin family that House Hlaalu is essentially gone, but should we assume any relationship between the two houses?
LoveWaffle (talk) 01:05, 21 December 2012 (GMT)

Time period

This article is written in a third era perspective and doesn't mention the changes that have taken place since 3E 427. Indoril is gone according to dialogue in Oblivion and since the red year the great houses are no longer the political powers they where. — Unsigned comment by 82.73.72.148 (talk) at 16:40 on 23 January 2013

I've added a cleanup tag. —Legoless (talk) 20:23, 23 January 2013 (GMT)

Is this article intended to cover the entire history of the Houses or just up to the end of Oblivion? Should the House Redoran article include a mention of their colony at Raven Rock, for instance (from Skyrim:Dragonborn)? 174.6.51.17 01:22, 6 July 2013 (GMT)

Yes, its purpose is to cover the entire history of the Great Houses (particularly the History section), but only the Great Houses and the Grand Council in general. The sections on the Houses themselves are just introductory; for full details on the history of specific Houses, you can visit their own articles. For example, there is more about Redoran's Solstheim holdings on Lore:House Redoran, as it is more specific to them than it is the Council as a whole. --Enodoc (talk) 18:34, 6 July 2013 (GMT)

No Index Entry

I noticed that there is no "index entry" to this article. By that I mean it is not linked from one of the Lore hubs. (I know it can still be found from Category:Lore.) Since Lore:Grand Council redirects here, would it be reasonable to add Grand Council to Lore:Factions G (as one of the examples of a faction is "governmental departments") and have its entry as the introduction section of this page? I would also suggest that the first line be reworded to include both terms, bolded in the standard way. Something along the lines of: In modern times Morrowind is ruled by the Grand Council of five Great Houses: .... I'm not entirely sure how to use the {{Lore Link}} template, or whether it would not be needed in this case. Thanks, Enodoc (talk) 15:49, 13 February 2013 (GMT)

House Dagoth as Former or Historic

House Dagoth had not sat on the Council since prior to the War of the First Council. This puts their tenure as being during the same timeframe as House Dwemer, which is listed as a Historic House in the article. In contrast, House Hlaalu's tenure spanned from before the WotFC until the 4th Era, well after House Dagoth had been expelled. It seems appropriate that House Dagoth be listed with House Dwemer, at the very least (giving some sort of meaningful chronological distinction two the two categories, or merging them into one, simply 'Historic Houses'). It may even be worth changing the structure of the article to instead reflect the different between Former Great Houses and 'other' Historic Houses. --OblivionDuruza (talk) 06:56, 24 December 2013 (GMT)

I think what I was going for was, both Hlaalu and Dagoth were definitely Great Houses and aren't any more, and both existed (in some form) as recently as 3E 427. (Even though Dagoth hasn't been on the Council since the First Era, its involvement in the events of Morrowind were too current for it to be considered 'historic' at that time.) The 'Historic' Houses are the ones we know little about, weren't part of the Dunmer Grand Council, and haven't had an impact on recent history. Indeed, there are debates over whether 'House Dwemer' even existed by that name. --Enodoc (talk) 13:42, 24 December 2013 (GMT)

The difference here is that the "Former" were Great Houses, while the "Historic" are noteworthy minor Houses. Don't really know why the historic ones are on this page. House Dwemer is a funny one, but might as well include it with the others. —Legoless (talk) 15:39, 24 December 2013 (GMT)

The Five and One?

The first paragraph states "...ruled by five great houses", then immediately lists six.  ? Crayolamanic (talk) 02:15, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

"In modern times, Morrowind is ruled by the Grand Council of five Great Houses: House Redoran, House Telvanni, House Sadras, House Indoril, and House Dres." I count five. —Legoless (talk) 02:29, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

Founding

Is there any information regarding each of the Great Houses' founding, or when they earned their position as Great Houses. I know there's a little bit for House Dres, but I'm sure that's about it. At the very least, what were the earliest records of each of the Great Houses. --Vincentius1 (talk) 23:45, 13 September 2018 (UTC)

The Library of Andule/The Lost Library quest have some info on them. The Indoril, Hlaalu, Redoran, and Dres Ancestor Spirits have dialogue on it. The books Understanding House Dres, Understanding House Hlaalu, Understanding House Indoril, and Understanding House Redoran also have some info. Hope this helps. The Rim of the Sky (talk) 02:23, 14 September 2018 (UTC)

The Battle of Molag Beran

A ballad named The Battle of Molag Beran mentions a battle between the houses Drenim and Retheran. There might be more references to them somewhere.

Mavon Drenim is a Telvanni, so House Drenim might have been absorbed by them. Fonas Retheran, Faral Retheran, and Guril Retheran are all Redoran, suggesting Retheran was also absorbed into another house.

Perhaps they should be added to the list of historic houses?

There's no shortage of minor Houses spread throughout the games, including House Sathil, House Selos, House Tirethi, House Sandil, and every family to have an ancestral tomb in-game. We should only list the ones with explicit historical significance, else we'd be essentially listing every Dunmer surname. I don't think being mentioned in one song makes House Drenim and House Retheran historical enough to list on this page. Feran Derethi (talk) 13:29, 9 September 2022 (UTC)