Vvardenfell, Balmora

Day 8 (Time: Year 427 of the Third Age)

It's pretty easy to peg the trait that makes Balmora my favorite city in Morrowind: moderation. The other cities are places of extremes, but Balmora is a place of rational compromise. Here, realism prevails. It figures into the architecture, which is simple but efficient. The people are frank but open to debate. It was my base of operations on my last visit, and has lost none of its charm in the interval.

Balmora is nominally the center of power for House Hlaalu, the most powerful of the Great Houses. While other houses turn inward to chew off their own legs, Hlaalu has turned its gaze outward, and from Balmora it controls trade through the ports along the Bitter Coast, the southwestern edge of the island and that closest to the empire of Cyrodiil. Hlaalu rejects nationalism and racism to embrace trade and cultural exhange.

The good favor of the empire has brought Hlaalu considerable wealth, and none of its leadership actually resides in the city. Instead, they own private estates on some of the best land on the island. This has left the city in the hands of the common folk and a sizable body of foreigners. In fact, two of the most powerful leadership positions within city limits belong to foreigners, an unusual situation in the land of Dunmer.

This isn't to say that Balmora's a perfect place, mind you. Hlaalu has a reputation for underhanded tactics, and Balmora is home to a much-feared assassin's guild. In fact, crime in general is fairly prevalent in Balmora, the natural result of weak law enforcement and plenty of local wealth. Open violence is very rare, but theft is common (even expected). The drug trade is also unusually visible in Balmora as well. Skooma, a crystaline narcotic, is dealt openly by certain shopkeepers, and the town is home to a fair number of skooma addicts.

Still, there's something I prefer to a place that embraces its faults than a place that tries to conceal its problems. While a truly progressive environment is best, I prefer a place that is honest about itself. As in the old riddle, you can bet that the man who says "I always lie" and the man who says "I always tell the truth" are both liars, so I figure, best to go with the former.