Morrowind talk:Crime

Peer Review

I just read this (don't tell my boss!) and it looks good to me. I haven't yet played enough Morrowind to be 100% certain about some of the things on the page but it seems to correspond with what I've seen so far. One exception to that is that all Khajiit seem to trade Moon Sugar and Skooma - not just those in the Thieves Guild. That would also match what's present in the Moon Sugar article. I'm not going to change the page myself in case I'm horrendously wrong! –Rpeh^{•T•C•E•} 09:06, 10 January 2008 (EST)

You are right, there are Khajiit outside the Thieves Guild who buy Moon Sugar. Ra'Virr (Trader in Balmora) and Ajira (Balmora Mages Guild) are examples. I'm not sure if all Khajiit merchants who buy ingredients will buy Moon Sugar. But considering the pages of the examples I gave have a sentence like "Being Khajiit, <name> is one of several merchants who will buy Moon Sugar and Skooma.", and my own experience, I think this is true. --Timenn < talk > 09:20, 10 January 2008 (EST)

It is true. See the discussion at Morrowind Talk:Ra'Virr. --Gaebrial 09:41, 10 January 2008 (EST)

So does this mean that the Thieves Guild bit is a red herring, or will non-Khajiit Thieves Guild merchants also deal with you when you're carrying? --TheNicestGuy 09:52, 10 January 2008 (EST)

Yes, it's the race that determines it, not any faction affiliation. Additionally, creature-merchants such as Creeper and Mudcrab will purchase Skooma (but not Moon Sugar, since they don't deal in ingredients.) Note that Khajiit merchants who do not deal in ingredients or potions (e.g. Jobasha) will of course not buy Skooma or Moon Sugar, though they will do business with you if you're carrying some, unlike all other races (including those who don't deal in ingredients or potions). The actual list of merchants who can buy these substances is very short. See Morrowind-Drug Merchants. There's only six total merchants, 2 of whom only buy Skooma, not Moon Sugar. --TheRealLurlock ^Talk 13:01, 10 January 2008 (EST)

And for the record, it just occurred to me that none of these merchants are in the Thieves Guild. (One is in the Mages Guild, the rest are not in any faction.) --TheRealLurlock ^Talk 13:03, 10 January 2008 (EST)

Just for the record, it was me who added the note about the merchants from the Thieves Guild buying this type of items, and not TheNicestGuy. Sorry for the confusion, I guess my memory plays tricks on me sometimes. --DrPhoton 03:17, 11 January 2008 (EST)

I added this Crime/Resisting Arrest hint yesterday from work. I killed both NPCs in the Ra'Zhid's Dwemer Artifacts quest for the Thieves Guild. When I left my hideout in Balmora, I was immediarely arrested. Since I did not have the 1180 fine, I was to be hauled off to jail, so I resisted arrest. The Guard said his "You will die" message and walked away. I assume it was because of my 400+ Personality from a Super-Potion. Brf

Is the peer review done? The article looks good to me now. --Benould^•T•C 00:19, 23 May 2008 (EDT)

I agree that the text is pretty much complete. There is still a VN tag on the 'Resisting Arrest' section, and a little clarification is needed about skill decreases in the first paragraph of 'Getting Your Stolen Goods Back' (or that sentence could be deleted since the issue is covered just above under 'Jail'). It's been a loooong time since any of my characters have been arrested.– KJR1012 ^{Talk Email Contribs} 06:35, 23 May 2008 (EDT)

I havent had a chance to try resisting arrest lately, but I did have a similar situation happen when I was rescuing Varvur Sarethi with a legitimately high Disposition with the guards (no potion this time). The first guard we walked past said his "You will die" greeting, hit me once, and then turned friendly. I believe the attack routine might be bugged, so they stop attacking after the first swing if your disposition is high and the first attack was scripted, rather than in retaliation. --Brf 07:05, 23 May 2008 (EDT)

I verified the removal of contraband. When I paid a fine for stealing, my legally bought moon sugar was removed as well. I rephrased the comment about disposition affecting Guards and removed the Peer review tag. --Benould^•T•C 16:34, 23 May 2008 (EDT)

Chest Question

If you get arrest'd in Gnisis, what chest does your goods go? 121.219.160.181 09:00, 6 June 2008 (EDT) 121.219.160.181 09:00, 6 June 2008 (EDT) 121.219.160.181 09:00, 6 June 2008 (EDT) 121.219.160.181 09:00, 6 June 2008 (EDT)

I'm not 100% sure, but the logical place would be Fort Darius. If not, then try the Buckmoth Legion Fort, the nearest "large fort" in that area. - Game Lord^{Talk|Contribs} 09:07, 6 June 2008 (EDT)

Another chest question: What about in the expansions? If you get your stolen goods taken up in Mournhold, where do they go? In Bloodmoon, I'd imagine that they go to Fort Frostmoth, but with Tribunal...?

There's a chest in the Royal Palace: Jail cell in Mournhold. It's off of the Guards' Quarters in the Palace. --TheRealLurlock ^Talk 23:04, 28 January 2009 (EST)

Self-Defense

In order for it to count as self-defense, does the other guy have to actually hit you first, or is trying to hit good enough? Thanks. Revan 00:26, 14 September 2008 (EDT)

As soon as he's made his intention to kill you clear, you're acting in self-defense. –Rpeh^{•T•C•E•} 04:28, 14 September 2008 (EDT)

Thanks for clearing that up. Revan 13:03, 15 September 2008 (EDT)

I seems to have found a weird bug in that if a NPC uses only Hand to Hand (and/or 'non hostile' spells?) against you, even if you fall down and take health damage, its still not legal to attack them back. (Crime reported when you attack them and everyone comes running) — Unsigned comment by 205.250.65.139 (talk) on 25 September 2010

Death Warrant

I'm pretty sure this page is missing information on a death warrant. Unless if a death warrant is something a guard threatens you with when you have a very high bounty. Kestral 23:04, 17 October 2008 (EDT)

A "death warrant" is when bounty is over 5000 drakes, the guards attack on sight. It's in the bounty section. Lukish_ Tlk Cnt 23:19, 17 October 2008 (EDT)

Then you can get rid of the supposed death warrant? Kestral 23:20, 17 October 2008 (EDT)

Are you referring to the wrath of the Ordinators? When wearing Morrowind:Indoril head and chest pieces, Ordinators and other guards will attack. There is also a bug with certain quests which fail to stop currently attacking guards when clearing the bounty. Lukish_ Tlk Cnt 23:55, 17 October 2008 (EDT)

No. I've known of the Wrath of the Ordinators. Kestral 00:58, 18 October 2008 (EDT)

≤≥ Im not sure if this is how im am supposed to do this, so if im in the wrong just delete this. but now i dont know if it is just a glitch in my game or if there is a way for me to fix this but while i was playing here not to long ago i incured a bounty that far exceeded the "death bounty" so of corse all guards tyr and attack me, so i went and got it taken care of yet all guards still attack me, even if im just on the outskirts of town they will vacate the city and bumb rush me. has any one ever had this problem or is this really just a glitch in the game im gonna have to deal with? (BTY i have the greatest hits xbox version of the game.) if any one has any ideas to fix this? even suggestions. anyways thanks for the help, 174.16.184.54 10:11, 7 May 2010 (UTC) Matthew 174.16.184.54 10:11, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Sleeping

As I recall, sleeping in other people's beds is illegal. I would edit this in, but I'm unsure if you can do it if no one can see you, what happens if the owner dies, how faction reputation comes into play etc. I just know that I've been reported for sleeping in beds ALOT of times, and have been kicked out of the imperial legion for doing so! Speaking of, maybe someone should add the effects of crime against one's faction as well? 75.137.117.250 00:14, 9 May 2009 (EDT)

I believe sleeping does not become a crime until Bloodmoon is installed. I never remember gaining any bounty for attempting to sleep in an owned bed before that. -Itachi 21:03, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

I have tested this, and I can confirm that it is considered a crime without Bloodmoon installed. I have the Game of the Year edition, without Tribunal and Bloodmoon installed, and sleeping in an owned bed in front of a witness with an alarm value will get you a bounty of 5 gold. I think the reason it is not always considered a crime is because a lot of house owners, for some reason, have a Alarm value of 0 meaning that they will not report a crime committed in front of them. Try stealing something in front of them, for instance. They will yell "Thief!" but will not report your action. The same applies to sleeping in an owned bed. So in short, Sleeping in an owned bed is ALWAYS a crime, regardless of the owner, it is just that most of the time the surrounding people have no alarm value and you will not be reported for it. I suppose it may have not been considered a crime in the unpatched version of the game, but I have no means to test that. Feel free to confirm this. Kalrot 20:57, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Well I've revised the information, and I do agree with you. Beds owned by guards are the most dangerous, since even NPCs with low alarm levels will still cause guards to come running, and of course faction-owned beds can result in your expulsion. Many beds are scripted so they lose their ownership tags when you join factions, but because not all faction beds have this script it really is luck of the draw. Also if you are able to sneak successfully you can sleep in owned beds, even if the owner is right next to you. -Itachi 15:50, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

stealing flat out in plain sight

go to the house with creeper in it go to the top room in there is an Orc and some crates one crates has orc gear. Take the gear with no hide sneak just flat out take it the same is true for the Ebonheart missions They will say something but won't charge you. This armor blows the doors off most store bought armor good until you raid the vaults It has a 1 for 1 ratio steel armor is .5 ratio in Morrowind crime does pay. Mrp8196 15:17, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Any House that is not a guild member you can take from and of course no guards 173.45.214.238 19:51, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Re: the concept of plain sight. Does anyone know if a Blind 100pts spell prevents detecting crime? Just thought of that now, but I'm not at home to test the idea. If it does, that could be mentioned on this page. Tenwit 20:40, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes I think that's worth mentioning, as it certainly works. Blind is not a hostile spell, so casting it isn't considered a crime in itself. -Itachi 20:58, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

On second thoughts, better put it on the Hints page. -Itachi 21:01, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

crime reported even in self-defense ?

While attacked by some bandits and running to some settlement before fighting the bandit follows and wait outside the armory to resume fight. Hope it's clear. Then, if my character kills the bandit, then I get the message "your crime was reported" and the guards come to arrest the PC. Even when it is a summoned creature... Normally summoned creatures don't fight any NPC except to defend the PC. Is it a glitch ? It happens often when the NPC is killed after it begins to fight but before any damage is inflicted to the PC.

Guards Chasing me down without bounty

For some odd reason, even after I cleared my bounty at the thief guild, all of Aldruhn's guards are on my back. Is there some way to take care of that, besides fighting a whole city whenever I need to go somewhere?— Unsigned comment by 85.65.167.131 (talk) on 7 February 2010

This was probably caused because you gained your death warrant in Ald'Ruhn. Unfortunately, there is no easy way to fix this, partly because guards respawn - otherwise you could just kill them all and never be bothered again. You could try using calm spells, but this is usually only a temporary fix. Calming and then charming every guard in the town may work, as long as you make sure not to enter dialogue with any of the guards ever again. -Itachi 17:49, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

-_-. Well, I guess I'll just stay out of Aldruhn for the moment.

AI settings apply to all references of an object. So, if one "redoran guard male" calls the function setFight 100, that becomes the default for all "redoran guard male" NPCs in the game. I never was in a situation like this, but I suggest finding a safe place without guards attacking, open the console and type:

"redoran guard male"->setFight 30 [Enter]

"redoran guard female"->setFight 30 [Enter]

Then try again without any outstanding warrants and behave...

Karl1965 22:51, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

I've got imperial guards chasing me after 'Bad People' quest (Larrius Varro), with zero bounty. Managed to obtain 5040 drakes of bounty during quest, used divine intervention, escaped guards, got my bounty cleared by Varro. But still chased by imperial guards (all forts and guard managed towns except Gnisis and Eboncart). Also guards in mines (that kinda ruin most quests in mines, so I use console to faint 'em with 'setfatigue -5000') Oxyk 00:10, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

You will. As mentioned above, a bounty of 5000 or higher gets you a death warrant, which persists even after you have cleared your bounty.--Gaebrial 13:15, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

funny thing is that not all guards chase me. I have noticed guard captains stay put, any guard in eboncart also stay friendly. so it looks like if 'imperial_guard' spotted you with bounty, he will memorize it and will chase you all the time. other guards will behave ok once bounty is cleared. my point is, not all guards will be so evil to chase you. only these who saw you. Oxyk 14:31, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Only the guards who spotted you react this way. For your situation I guess that would mean all the Hlaalu and Imperial guards. The other types of guards are unaffected. Wolok gro-Barok 22:23, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Wierd thing

For some reason EVERY time i pay my fines the guards steal my pants!

Has anyone else encountered something like this?

I mean jesus taking my pants that i bought? Whats up with that? — Unsigned comment by DarthMikael (talk • contribs) on 22 February 2010

Either you are mistaken, and the trousers are in fact stolen, or they have the exact same RefID in the CS to another pair in your inventory that were stolen, and the stolen tag has been copied onto them. This is a glitch which should be solved by dropping the item and picking up another of the same type. It might be something else but that's all I can think of. -Itachi 15:59, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Hmmmm might be like that but i usualy loot enemys or buy my clothes but it is kinda funny that my pants disappear everytime i pay the fine :P — Unsigned comment by DarthMikael (talk • contribs) on 25 February 2010

For The Record

Will anyone care if someone steals from a dead peson's body or house? What if someone stores an item in someone elses chest? Would he be in trouble if he put it inside, or if he took it back out? Just wanted to make sure. --Zander490 15:24, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Nevermind, found the answer: "Unlike Oblivion, you can place items in containers that you don't legally own." - Houses. Should have been mentioned in this article, though. --Zander490 15:35, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

It is much more complex than that. For this discussion let's assume, that nobody is watching you.

• You can put things into any container, as long as there is enough room inside and it is not organic.
• If a container has an owner (NPC or faction), then everything inside the container is implicitly owned by that owner. If you take any item out of that container, it is theft, and the item becomes marked as stolen - even if you put it into the container in the first place.
• It is NOT theft to take things out of a container owned by a faction, if you are a member and meet the rank requirement.
• Dead bodies can be looted without consequences.
• If the owner of a container is dead, you can loot his containers and the items inside are NOT marked as stolen. However, since the container is still marked as owned, taking things from the container will raise an alarm, if you are seen! (corrected after test Karl1965 14:17, 20 September 2011 (UTC))

• Items in the open, that are owned by a dead NPC, can NOT be taken freely. They would still be marked as stolen.
• If a container is owned by a NPC, that exists more than once (like guards or ordinators), the above does not apply, as long as one of them is still alive (or has respawned).
• NPCs that "die" as part of the story, but really have been disabled, are not technically dead. Looting their containers is theft.
• NPCs that do not exist (like "a shady smuggler") can still own stuff. They are treated as alive. To be considered dead a NPC must have existed once and ended its existence by its health dropping to 0. That also applies to NPCs that are placed into the game with health set to 0 (like Processus Vitellius or Ralen Hlaalo).

• Note that there are many containers that logically should have an owner, but have not (like the containers in the open in Balmora). Also, containers and items are not always owned by the people you think.

HTH Karl1965 23:57, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

One annoying thing with containers of dead owners. You can take items out of it, and items will be clean. However if you'll decide to store your items in such containers, and then take it out, your items will be marked as stolen from this dead owner. Tested on multiple owners, result always the same. Oxyk 08:54, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

(←) the above is actually only partly true since there is a fix for that that is VERY simple actually. i just tested this today since the items i took from velas manor in mournhold to get storage room for myself all counted as stolen even tough gavas velas is dead already because of the quest. so i decided to test something out.

i picked up all the items standing around inside the manor. i placed my own items inside the chests. they dont count as stolen when i take em out again. just tested it. the above is only the case if you do that RIGHT AFTER YOU KILL the owner. and now comes the trick into play. it seems that morrowind checks if a owner of an container or item is still alive EVERYTIME you LOAD your savefile. so it couldnt be easier to get the stolen tag gone from these items again.

take the items. do a quicksave or regular save. doenst matter. then LOAD that save you just did were you already have the items inside your inventory. the game will check if the owner is still alive. if he is DEAD. all owernship will be removed from the items you "stole" from him FOREVER. this is also true for the owners containers.

so if you want to get the stolen tag removed find the owner of said item and kill him/her. save and load. stolen tag GONE. i tested this just now. it works. i am playing on the goty englisch version. no plugins or code patches are running. only tribunal and bloodmoon and morrowind esm. — Unsigned comment by 77.184.72.25 (talk) at 21:05 on 9 September 2013‎

I just checked some mentioned above with GOTY English version with MPP1.66 and MCP,

• If a container has an owner (NPC or faction), then everything inside the container is implicitly owned by that owner. If you take any item out of that container, it is theft, and the item becomes marked as stolen - even if you put it into the container in the first place.
• It is NOT theft to take things out of a container owned by a faction, if you are a member and meet the rank requirement. Also, items in the open owned by a faction can be taken if meet requirements without being considered theft.
• Dead bodies can be looted without consequences.
• If the owner of a container is dead, you can loot his containers and the items inside are NOT marked as stolen.
• Items in the open, that are owned by a dead NPC, CAN be taken freely. They will NOT be marked as stolen. Checked with Enhanced Editor.
• The only way to clear the stolen flag from an item is to kill the owner, then save and load. Lywzc (talk) 10:10, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

Indirect Merchant Kill

Why does that result in a murder bounty? Does the game know what you did or is it any murder that the game can't pin on someone automatically goes to you? 99.237.87.79 11:24, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

My hero!

I found a wonderful, wonderful post on forumplanet for dealing with the absolutely unfair system where every item of a type stolen counts as stolen for every person you ever stole that sort of item from in the past. (REMOVED) It works like a charm! :) Eidolon 09:17, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

We do not recommend players to text-edit their save games. --Brf 12:57, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Ownership Editing

I'm just sticking this here becasue I don't know exactly where it should go.

To change or remove ownership of items, load the cell (usually interior) into the the Render Window, draw a box around the whole cell/map shown (LMB and drag), click "c" to zoom in and double LMB on an item you can pick up . A new window will open, at the middle bottom you'll see a NPC name (if the item actually has an owner), select this and scroll to the top of the name list so that you clear it and then click the large button "Apply To Selection". This will change ownership of every single item which can be taken, to that of none ownership.

You could alternatively just untick the box (you'll know which one when you see it) but that will remove custom size data, so it ain't the best option.

This method is probably the quickest way to bulk remove ownership data, but at the same time, you'll have to load each cell in the render window to do it. — Unsigned comment by 115.70.80.179 (talk) on 26 jan 2011

Well, this page involves crime within the game. It is not concerned with using the CS to edit your game. --Brf 03:34, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Hence why I mentioned that it probably isn't the best location for this information. if you know where it would be better suited, then by all means, move it.

MORE TO ADD: The tick-box pertains to the 3D data, not the ownership info as I thought. I went thru and edited some cells and I noticed that some pick-up-able items don't have any "Extra Data", thus, the "Apply To Selection" button is unavailable. This would mean you'd have to search manually thru the cell to find something with it enabled (that is, an item which has an active owner), but there is a better way:

To be able to edit all the items to remove ownership flags, tick the "Extra Data" box and the button "Apply To Selection" should become available. Since there is no ownership to that particular item as default, it will change all items regardless if some have ownership and some don't, to ALL (pick-up-able) items within that map.

You'll know that all items have changed because you'll get a message like: "Change Applied to 104 items" etc. etc.

If this is long-winded and confusiing, have a go at changing ownership flags, its quite easy. — Unsigned comment by 115.70.80.179 (talk) on 26 jan 2011

Sorry but this isn't relevant to UESP. There's a different site dedicated to using the CS, and they probably have this covered already. Thanks anyway. rpeh •T•C•E• 10:43, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Looked at that site and its heavily Oblivion based, and even then, touches lightly on ownership flags of whole cells via the console. Not really the bulk way of doing things. Even though you say this isn't relevant to the wiki, someone will definitely find this information useful.

MORE TO ADD: Open console in game and type TFH to see who owns what (and scripts used)

The game may behave strangely if you remove the ownership info from Evidence Chests. When editing a cell containing that chest, just Ctrl-LMB on it to deselect it and continue removing ownership flags as per usual.

Merchant chests when not set ownership to that particular NPC will cease to function for the merchant, however, what ever they happen to be holding on their person will still be a sell/buy item, which includes anything you sell them. They all actually carry it and not put in chest (which they may have had ownership previously before you chnaged it). To permanently have an NPC carrying something, you'd give them a negative value of it (ie: restocking until you pickpocket them)

That's not the point. I could add my recipe for chicken marinara and somebody would find it useful, but it's not relevant to UESP. This is a talk page for discussing improvements to the article. Please stop using it to dump random information about modding. rpeh •T•C•E• 09:38, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Theft Imbalance

Should we note on this page that the entirety of Morrowind's integrity rests on you NOT figuring out that you can loot 9 out of 10 homes in plain sight with nothing more than repeateded angry ranting by NPCs? Eidolon 14:42, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Not really worth it. You can loot the homes, but then 9 out of 10 homes don't contain anything worth looting. rpeh •T•C•E• 15:26, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Pickpocket Problem

Whenever an NPC becomes unconscious via Hand-to-hand combat, I'm unable to even try pickpocketing them - I merely get the "This character is in combat" message instead of seeing their inventory. Is this possibly an Xbox GotY issue? 75.62.197.238 20:17, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

I believe that's common behavior for unpatched game. Latest MCP or unofficial morrowind patch for PC version have added a fix for it (saw in readme couple of days ago). Oxyk 23:47, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

outdoor containers

in oblivion and skyrim, there are many items and containers outdoors that can be looted freely(that is, its not considered a crime). is this also true in morrowind? Vegetablevandal 17:05, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

There are some, but most of them are owned. From memory, I think only the crates in Pelagiad and Balmora are free, but many of the ones in other cities near the guild halls are owned by the guilds, so are free to loot if you are a certain rank in the relevant guild. --Gaebrial 14:21, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Bounty multiply

I've noticed that sometimes, when I murder someone with a single swing of sword to their back (not sneaking, low skill) I get bounty over 4000. 82.128.188.130 14:10, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Stolen Items

Moving this fragment from Illegal Goods > Stolen Items to this talk page. It needs to be verified AND edited to meet the wiki's style guidelines. Salamangkero (talk) 10:57, 15 October 2013 (GMT)

there is a "fix" to this. this only works for items from owners that are DEAD.

morrowind checks if a items orginal owner is still alive. BUT! morrowind only does this when you LOAD a savefile or quicksave file or autosave file.

taking the above example : you stole diamonds from nalcarya. from then on ALL diamonds in the game are marked stolen. no way to prevent that from happening. BUT! if you now go and KILL nalcarya the diamonds still count as beeing stolen first, but if you SAVE after her dead and then LOAD the file morrowind does the "is dead yes/no?" check on her. since you killed her the check will be yes and morrowind will remove the ownership of all items that you stole from said person in the past forever, means guards will no longer take your diamonds (except if you stole diamonds from more than 1 person then all owners of em need to be dead for this to work). this wont work if the check is NO and the owner still lives the stolen tag remains and spreads over like mad on all items of the same type. the important part is that morrowind does this check everytime you LOAD a game. and only then. now. if you pick uo something that nalcarya was the owner of from her house after her dead it still is owned by her since you didnt touch that item ever before. to get rid of that "corpse" ownership simply save and load again after you have taken it. the ownership is gone after the load. morrowind only does this for items you have taken. not items you never touched before.

while the above is not an ideal solution it atleast is one that doesnt require the use of the console.

Strange ownership

Not sure if this is noted anywhere else on this page/its talk page but sometimes selling stolen items to merchants, they will claim ownership of it and either take it from you/sic their personal legionnaire on you. This applies even to items stolen from another town entirely. Sup wit dat? 217.210.144.163 16:20, 30 November 2013 (GMT)

This is general caused by stealing one of the same objects from them at some point in the past. For example, stealing a ruby from a merchant will cause all rubies to be marked as 'stolen' if you try to sell them to that merchant.--Ratwar (talk) 04:10, 26 December 2013 (GMT)

Vivec: Item Confiscation

This question seems not to have been posed yet; if an ordinator confiscates stolen property while in the cantons of Vivec, where do those items go? Do they go to Ebonheart, as the nearest imperial garrison? Or is there a separate jail for crimes resolved by the native population? 166.147.120.38 17:31, 5 July 2014 (GMT)

Check the Evidence Chest is Seyda Neen. That is the nearest one. If not there, Try Fort Pelagiad. 69.35.160.61 06:28, 25 August 2014 (GMT)

Hard Labor

Discussion moved from User talk:87.205.84.219

Hello, I see that you have reversed my change regarding "hard labor". I think that current line "As a result of hard labor during incarceration, you will lose one skill point from a randomly chosen skill every day that you are imprisoned." contradicts existing Morrowind lore or at least doesn't focus how Imperial Law differs in this province compared to Oblivion and Skyrim. I'd like to recommend following change:

"If you can't or won't give up the cash, you can pay your debt to society with hard time instead. Again all your stolen items are confiscated, and a length of game time will pass. Your term is equal to 1 day for each 100 gold of your Bounty (with a minimum of 1 day). When it is up, you will be released with no bounty. As a result of hard labour during incarceration, you will lose one skill point from a randomly chosen skill every day that you are imprisoned. (When Security or Sneak are chosen, the skill actually goes up one level instead.)"

->

"If you can't or won't give up the cash, you can pay your debt to society with hard labor served in Imperial workcamps instead. Again all your stolen items are confiscated, and a length of game time will pass. Your term is equal to 1 day for each 100 gold of your Bounty (with a minimum of 1 day). When it is up, you will be released with no bounty. For each day served you will lose one skill point from a randomly chosen skill as a result of physical, mental, or emotional punishment. (When Security or Sneak are chosen, the skill actually goes up one level instead.)"

---

These changes presents exactly what "hard labor" mentioned in lore means and explains why skills are affected, using quotes from the game. I'm not a native speaker, so feel free to adjust the text to sound better, if my proposal is not good enough, but before completely declining it please read following sources (direct quotes from game):

Guard dialogues when you are caught: - "You violated the law, %PCName. Pay the court %PCCrimeLevel gold and surrender your stolen goods, or surrender your stolen goods and serve your sentence of hard labor. Deliver the gold immediately, or come with me." - "Then you must serve a sentence of hard labor. Serve your time peaceably, and pay your debt to society."

Evidence that hard labor is sentenced even for a petty crimes: - "Verbal assault, pickpocketing, and trespassing are minor crimes, punished by fines or hard labor."

In-game explanation what hard labor actually is and how it affects your skills: - "Fines and compensation are determined by magistrates, and may be paid to guards. In place of fines, the criminal may serve extended sentences of hard labor. The workcamps are hard places for hard men, and for each day served, expect to lose some hard-earned skill as a result of physical, mental, or emotional punishment." - "If you do the crime, pay the fine, don't do the time. You might think a little hard labor isn't a bad price to pay, but while you're breaking rocks for the Empire, you lose the edge in your useful skills, and it takes a long time to get back to where you were before."

General information about law: - "We uphold Imperial law as well as the laws of the Temple. We enforce the laws against theft, brawling, verbal assault, and murder. Guards like me determine your punishment, whether you may pay fines and compensation, or must serve hard labor."

There are many other examples in Morrowind dialogues that mentions hard labor as an optional compensation for crimes, if you don't have enough gold to clear your name. Literally it is referenced every time when the crime is mentioned. And yet the Morrowind:Crime page doesn't acknowledge this and states that the skills regression during the jail time is caused by "inactivity", which suggests that prisoner stays in jail and does nothing.— Unsigned comment by 87.205.84.219 (talk) at 16:44 on 3 December 2014‎

Your edit actually wasn't reverted at all when you made this page. However, I'm about to revert it now. I'm not reverting it because there isn't evidence of hard labor in the game, it's the fact that your wording claims that hard labor is what causes characters' skills to decrease while serving time. I can't recall any reason of why skills decrease in jail. Stating that it's due to hard labor is speculative which we don't allow on this site. •WoahBro^►talk 18:18, 3 December 2014 (GMT)

I'm afraid you are referring to old suggestion instead of the new proposal that I composed in this page

Thank you for the answer. I'm afraid either you did not read the wall of text that I have posted or my English is not good enough to describe it - sorry if this is the case. The new proposal that is posted above changes more than 2 words compared to my original suggestion (which I agree was flawed). I just decided to send you a message before posting the new suggestion on site just to be sure that it meets the UESP standards and won't be reversed. This new suggestion does not contain ANY speculation and is composed with DIRECT quotes from game.

This UESP line is a speculation: "As a result of inactivity during incarceration" - nothing like that is suggested in game. And I provided 2 different evidences (direct quotes from Morrowind dialogs) that describes prison sentences (hard labor) skill regressions:

"Fines and compensation are determined by magistrates, and may be paid to guards. In place of fines, the criminal may serve extended sentences of hard labor. The workcamps are hard places for hard men, and for each day served, expect to lose some hard-earned skill as a result of physical, mental, or emotional punishment."

"If you do the crime, pay the fine, don't do the time. You might think a little hard labor isn't a bad price to pay, but while you're breaking rocks for the Empire, you lose the edge in your useful skills, and it takes a long time to get back to where you were before."

Once again here is a version that I want to add to the site that is based on provided evidences:

"If you can't or won't give up the cash, you can pay your debt to society with hard labor served in Imperial workcamps instead. Again all your stolen items are confiscated, and a length of game time will pass. Your term is equal to 1 day for each 100 gold of your Bounty (with a minimum of 1 day). When it is up, you will be released with no bounty. For each day served you will lose one skill point from a randomly chosen skill as a result of physical, mental, or emotional punishment. (When Security or Sneak are chosen, the skill actually goes up one level instead.)"

Can I add it as it is or should I change something? Or do you still think that the information is incorrect - if yes, why? How the in-game lore can be considered speculative? — Unsigned comment by 87.205.84.219 (talk) at 02:47 on 4 December 2014 (GMT)

edit: It will be easier to just post the new version myself linking to this post with explanation and wait for review. I'm not even sure if you were able to read this post. Discussions in wiki sites are really confusing. — Unsigned comment by 77.255.197.245 (talk) at 20:41 on 4 December 2014

Just to note, I've marked this as patrolled. This information comes from dialogue, so I don't think this change classifies as speculation. See here for the quote. The quote clearly suggests that the stresses from the labor causes your skills to decline, which is how the change in the article is worded. Forfeit (talk) 00:45, 5 December 2014 (GMT)

Yup, they were right when they said I didn't read that whole wall of text. Being a full-time student I've learn 1) Not as much time for UESP and 2) Skimming is your friend, although that didn't work here haha. •WoahBro^►talk 00:56, 5 December 2014 (GMT)

NPCs killing each other gives you a bounty

I made the mistake of picking up one of Ernand Thierry's ingredients, which caused the entire Caldera Guild of Mages to attack me. Someone started casting spells and ended up killing the other mages. I killed only the spell-caster, but also got the murder bounties for the four mages he killed. Fiwiji (talk) 17:12, 13 December 2015 (UTC)

I have a couple of questions:

a. Was the spellcaster casting spells at the other mages on purpose?

b. Were they area of effect spells, enabling them to kill more than one person at a time? DRAGON GUARD^(TALK) 17:46, 13 December 2015 (UTC)

I've noticed similar things. If an NPC dies from a creature's AoE spells, such as a Dremora Lord's or a Daedroth's, and the NPC is not in combat with that creature, the player then gets a 1000 gold bounty. So if you stand next to a civilian and a Dremora Lord shoots a fireball at you, and the explosion happens to kill the civilian, you get blamed. But, if the NPC is in combat with that creature (such as by using the console command 'startcombat'), and then he dies, the player gets no bounty.

I've noticed other ways NPCs can die that will give the player a bounty as well. If you heal an NPC as they die, leave the cell before their death animation finishes, and come back, they will be alive, and will report their own murder. If you make a potion with a deadly Poison effect, but it also has something like Restore Fatigue, then the NPC will use the potion if they're in combat and their fatigue gets low. And if you're in combat with them (because you assaulted them or stole from them, not taunting them), you'll get a murder bounty. If you enchant a weapon with "on strike" "on self" damage effects and give it to an NPC, and they die from using it, you will get blamed for their death as well. It's very funny to see these things happen. --Croup shrunk (talk) 00:12, 24 January 2019 (UTC)

Death Warrant VS Thieves Guild "remove bounty" guys

It seems the "Death Warrant" article may need some checking/corrections. Specifically, "two ways out are to go to a Thieves Guild member and have them remove it" suggests that you CAN clean your name and get rid of the bounty EVEN when you have a Death Warrant on your head; my current character (about 60.000 bounty; this little Dunmer is just purging the Imperial Legion from the face of Vvardenfell, you know) has however no "price on your head" dialogue option available when talking to the proper TG members, while being TG member herself and all. I'm using OpenMW 0.42, with no bounty system-altering mods I would be aware of. Just in case I have something broken in my game, should anyone feel like to check this and perhaps adjust the article accordingly, that would be great. P. S.: Don't mind my poor grammar and stuff, I'm not a native speaker. Thanks.89.177.220.95 14:31, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

What items guards will confiscate

I've done some testing on a vanilla GOTY install. When arrested, my skooma and moon sugar are never confiscated if I have never stolen any. For example, the drugs found in smugglers' caves. They are not assigned an owner, so they are not flagged as stolen when you take them. If you've only taken these, the guards won't confiscate them. But some instances of these drugs, such as in the warehouse in Seyda Neen, are owned, and are flagged as stolen if you take them. And because of how Morrowind behaves, if you take any owned instance of skooma or moon sugar, then every instance of it that enters your inventory will be flagged as stolen. And then they will always be confiscated when you pay a fine or are taken to jail. Because they are removed for being stolen items, and not because they are illegal to have, I removed mentions of guards taking "stolen goods and contraband", because they are just taking stolen goods. --Croup shrunk (talk) 00:12, 24 January 2019 (UTC)

You can techically get a permanent death warrent from Ordinators

If you are confronted for any crime after ending up on the Ordinators hatelist for wearing their armor, you will never be arrested by them. Only attacked. This will also happen if they attempt an arrest while you are wearing their armor for the first time as their armor dialogue will override the arrest dialogue. I don't think anyone has mentioned this yet.

Jail time for fun and profit

I noticed that while jail time reduces skill levels, it does not lower either levels or stat gains from leveling. Thus, one could use jail time to indefinitely level, though the randomness of the reductions makes this a not so direct method. I don't know if this is worth commenting on on the page or not, I haven't edited here before. DaBarkspawn (talk) 08:31, 20 October 2022 (UTC)