From 2002 to 2003, this address hosted the Morrowind faction page of the Unofficial Elder Scrolls Pages (UESP). That project is still active at uesp.net. The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind has 22 base-game factions. Ten of them are guilds or Great Houses that accept you outright. The others you join through the main quest, by catching vampirism, or not at all. This guide covers how joining, promotion, expulsion and faction reactions work, gives the rank titles for every faction, and explains what OpenMW, the Morrowind Code Patch and Tamriel Rebuilt change for faction play in 2026.
Key takeaways
- Seven guilds accept anyone, but you can normally join only one of the three Great Houses: Hlaalu, Redoran or Telvanni.
- To get promoted you need faction reputation from quests, two favored attributes and favored skills at the right levels.
- Faction reactions are not symmetrical, and they add to or subtract from every NPC’s disposition toward you.
- Tamriel Rebuilt 26.08 “Poison Song” (23 August 2026) adds joinable House Indoril and the Ordinators on the mainland.
How Morrowind factions work
A faction is a group with its own ranks, favored attributes, favored skills and a reputation score for you. You join by talking to a recruiting member. Quests then raise your reputation, and you get promoted when your stats and reputation meet the next rank’s requirements. Every faction has 10 ranks, from a lowly starting title up to the head of the order.
Membership changes how the world treats you. NPCs in allied factions get friendlier, rivals get colder, and higher ranks unlock better training, services and guild quarters. Some top ranks also give you real power, like a Great House stronghold or leadership of a guild.
Promotion requirements
Each rank checks three things:
- Two favored attributes. Every faction weights two attributes, for example Strength and Endurance for the Fighters Guild. On UESP’s rank tables, the first rank (Associate) needs Strength 30 and Endurance 30, and House Redoran’s Hireling rank needs the same 30 and 30.
- Favored skills. Higher ranks need one favored skill at a set level, plus a couple of others at a lower level. The requirements rise steeply toward the top.
- Faction reputation. Quests for the faction earn reputation, and every rank has a minimum.
Most stalled careers come down to skills, not quests. If the quest giver says you are not ready for promotion, look at your favored skills first. A Mages Guild member who has trained only Destruction will stall even with plenty of reputation.
Modder's note
Choose your major and minor skills with your planned factions in mind. Skills like Mysticism and Enchant count for both the Mages Guild and House Telvanni, so one well-chosen skill set can carry two careers at once.
Expulsion and making amends
Attacking or stealing from members, or breaking a faction’s rules, can get you expelled. Each faction handles a return differently, and the differences matter if you plan to play rough.
| Faction | How you get back in (per UESP) |
|---|---|
| House Telvanni | Pay 500 gold to make amends. You can do this as often as needed |
| House Redoran | You can be reinstated once. A second expulsion is permanent, and it does not let you join another House |
| Mages Guild | Wait about ten days, staying in or visiting the guild daily, and your membership returns |
| Morag Tong | Find a member of at least Master rank and ask about “make amends” |
The Redoran rule hurts the most. One mistake is forgivable and the second ends the career, so save before any quest that has you fighting in Redoran halls.
Joinable factions at a glance
These are the base-game factions you join by asking. The favored attributes and skills come from the game data that UESP has documented since 2002.
| Faction | Favored attributes | Favored skills | Type |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fighters Guild | Strength, Endurance | Axe, Long Blade, Blunt Weapon, Heavy Armor, Armorer, Block | Guild |
| Mages Guild | Intelligence, Willpower | Alchemy, Mysticism, Illusion, Alteration, Destruction, Enchant | Guild |
| Thieves Guild | Agility, Personality | Marksman, Short Blade, Light Armor, Acrobatics, Sneak, Security | Guild |
| Morag Tong | Speed, Agility | Marksman, Short Blade, Light Armor, Acrobatics, Sneak, Illusion | Guild |
| Imperial Legion | Endurance, Personality | Athletics, Spear, Long Blade, Blunt Weapon, Heavy Armor, Block | Guild |
| Imperial Cult | Personality, Willpower | Speechcraft, Unarmored, Restoration, Mysticism, Conjuration, Enchant, Blunt Weapon | Guild |
| Tribunal Temple | Personality, Intelligence | Unarmored, Alchemy, Restoration, Mysticism, Conjuration, Blunt Weapon | Guild |
| House Hlaalu | Speed, Agility | Speechcraft, Mercantile, Marksman, Short Blade, Light Armor, Security | Great House |
| House Redoran | Endurance, Strength | Athletics, Spear, Long Blade, Heavy Armor, Medium Armor, Armorer | Great House |
| House Telvanni | Willpower, Intelligence | Mysticism, Conjuration, Illusion, Alteration, Destruction, Enchant | Great House |
Balmora is the natural starting hub. The Fighters Guild, Mages Guild, Thieves Guild (in the South Wall Cornerclub), Morag Tong, Temple and House Hlaalu all recruit there or close by. The Imperial Legion and Imperial Cult are based in Ebonheart, House Redoran in Ald’ruhn and House Telvanni in Sadrith Mora.
The Great Houses: choosing one
Normally you get only one of Hlaalu, Redoran or Telvanni. That makes it the biggest faction decision in the game. Each House has its own questline, a stronghold you build as you rise, and its own place in the politics of Vvardenfell. UESP also records a bug that lets you be a member of Hlaalu and one other House at once. That is a flaw in the game’s checks, not a designed path, and Houses that see you as a rival can turn hostile.
| House | Seat | Plays like | Best fit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hlaalu | Balmora, Vivec | Trade, bribes, intrigue | Stealth or talk-focused characters with Speechcraft and Mercantile |
| Redoran | Ald’ruhn | Honor, duty, armored combat | Warriors with Long Blade, Spear and Heavy or Medium Armor |
| Telvanni | Sadrith Mora | Ruthless wizards, every mage for themselves | Pure mages, especially with Mysticism and Alteration (Levitation helps a lot) |
For a first playthrough: Hlaalu is the easiest House to start with, because Balmora is where most new characters spend their first hours. For returning players: Telvanni is often called the most rewarding, because it has the strongest personality and the stronghold at Tel Uvirith, but it moves slowly if your magic is weak. Redoran’s quests are the most traditional heroic storyline and suit a warrior who wants an armored Dunmer career.
What you lose matters too. Choosing a House shuts off the other two questlines on that character. Ranking up in Redoran or Hlaalu also puts you on the other side of their long rivalry. If you want to see all three, the honest answer is to play three characters.
Factions you join another way
Some factions don’t accept a simple request to join.
| Faction | How you join | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Blades | Automatically, early in the main quest | Your rank rises with the main quest. Favored attributes are Intelligence and Personality |
| Ashlanders | During the main quest, as you are named Hortator and Nerevarine | Endurance and Agility are favored; ranks run from Clanfriend to Ashkhan |
| Nerevarine | Hidden faction the main quest uses to track your prophecy status | Not shown on your character sheet |
| Clan Aundae | Only as a vampire of this bloodline | Willpower and Intelligence; a mage-leaning clan |
| Clan Berne | Only as a vampire of this bloodline | Willpower and Speed; stealth and unarmored skills |
| Clan Quarra | Only as a vampire of this bloodline | Strength and Endurance; Hand-to-Hand and Long Blade |
The three vampire clans share one set of rank titles, from Cattle to Ancient. Being a vampire closes off most normal NPC interaction, so treat a clan career as a deliberate change of playstyle, not a side quest.
Non-joinable factions
Several factions exist only so the game can drive NPC behavior and quests. You will meet them all the time and can never wear their colors.
| Faction | Role in the game |
|---|---|
| Camonna Tong | Dunmer crime syndicate tied to House Hlaalu, hostile to outlanders |
| Census and Excise | Imperial tax and customs officers at Seyda Neen, Ebonheart and elsewhere |
| Imperial Knights | Imperial knightly order |
| Sixth House | Dagoth Ur’s cult and enemy faction of the main quest |
| Talos Cult | Secret Imperial cult loyal to Tiber Septim’s memory |
| Twin Lamps | Underground network that frees Argonian and Khajiit slaves |
The expansions change things a little. UESP lists three factions added by Tribunal, none of them joinable. Bloodmoon takes you to Solstheim, where the East Empire Company’s Raven Rock colony questline gives you rank inside the Company.
Rank titles for every faction
Every faction has ten ranks. Most are set up so the tenth is the head of the order, which in most guilds you reach only after its final questline.
| Faction | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fighters Guild | Associate | Apprentice | Journeyman | Swordsman | Protector |
| Mages Guild | Associate | Apprentice | Journeyman | Evoker | Conjurer |
| Thieves Guild | Toad | Wet Ear | Footpad | Blackcap | Operative |
| Morag Tong | Associate | Blind Thrall | Thrall | White Thrall | Thinker |
| Imperial Legion | Recruit | Spearman | Trooper | Agent | Champion |
| Imperial Cult | Layman | Novice | Initiate | Acolyte | Adept |
| Tribunal Temple | Layman | Novice | Initiate | Acolyte | Adept |
| House Hlaalu | Hireling | Retainer | Oathman | Lawman | Kinsman |
| House Redoran | Hireling | Retainer | Oathman | Lawman | Kinsman |
| House Telvanni | Hireling | Retainer | Oathman | Lawman | Mouth |
| Blades | Novice | Apprentice | Journeyman | Finder | Traveller |
| Ashlanders | Clanfriend | Hearthfriend | Brother | Initiate | Clanholder |
| Vampire clans | Cattle | Neonate | Minion | Servant | Stalker |
| Camonna Tong | Bully | Tough | Thug | Brute | Lifetaker |
| Census and Excise | Novice | Apprentice | Clerk | Taxman | Taxtaker |
| Imperial Knights | Aspirant | Squire | Gallant | Chevalier | Keeper |
| Faction | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fighters Guild | Defender | Warder | Guardian | Champion | Master |
| Mages Guild | Magician | Warlock | Wizard | Master Wizard | Arch-Mage |
| Thieves Guild | Bandit | Captain | Ringleader | Mastermind | Master Thief |
| Morag Tong | Brother | Knower | Master | Exalted Master | Grandmaster |
| Imperial Legion | Knight Errant | Knight Bachelor | Knight Protector | Knight of the Garland | Knight of the Imperial Dragon |
| Imperial Cult | Disciple | Oracle | Invoker | Theurgist | Primate |
| Tribunal Temple | Curate | Disciple | Diviner | Master | Patriarch |
| House Hlaalu | House Cousin | House Brother | House Father | Councilman | Grandmaster |
| House Redoran | House Cousin | House Brother | House Father | Councilman | Archmaster |
| House Telvanni | Spellwright | Wizard | Master | Magister | Archmagister |
| Blades | Operative | Agent | Spy | Spymaster | Grand Spymaster |
| Ashlanders | Guide | Champion | Gulakhan | Farseer | Ashkhan |
| Vampire clans | Bloodkin | Reaver | Lord | Elder | Ancient |
| Camonna Tong | Chiller | Hammer | Old Man | Strongman | Kingpin |
| Census and Excise | Operative | Agent | Excise Officer | Inspector | Grand Inspector |
| Imperial Knights | Knight Brother | Commander | Marshal | Seneschal | Paladin |
The Nerevarine faction uses the single title “Nerevarine”, and the Twin Lamps use “Twin Lamps”. Neither shows up as a normal career.
Faction reactions and disposition
Each faction has a reaction value for every other faction, usually from -3 (Hated Enemy) to +3 (Beloved Ally). This changes how NPCs from one faction feel about a member of another. Disposition runs from 0 to 100, and UESP documents the faction adjustment as:
Disposition adjustment = (Reaction × fDispFactionMod) × (fDispFactionRankBase + Rank × fDispFactionRankMult)
With the values UESP gives, that becomes (Reaction × 5) × (0.5 + Rank × 0.5). Rank is the important part: the higher you rise in a faction, the more strongly its friends and enemies react to you.
| Reaction value | Meaning |
|---|---|
| +3 | Beloved Ally |
| +2 | Ally |
| +1 | Friendly |
| 0 | Neutral |
| -1 | Hostile |
| -2 | Enemy |
| -3 | Hated Enemy |
Worked example: say an NPC’s faction has a reaction of -1 toward yours and your rank value is 4. The multiplier is 0.5 + 4 × 0.5 = 2.5, so the adjustment is -1 × 5 × 2.5 = -12.5 disposition. At the same rank, a +2 ally faction gives +25. That explains why a high-ranking Legion officer finds Imperial NPCs easy to persuade.
Two points are easy to get wrong. First, UESP notes that sharing a faction with the NPC cancels the reaction values from your other factions, so a fellow Mages Guild member doesn’t care that you are also Telvanni. Second, reactions only go one way.
Did you know?
UESP’s faction data shows reactions are not always mutual: Census and Excise rates the Ashlanders at -3, while the Ashlanders rate Census and Excise at 0.
Guild conflicts to plan around
Most faction combinations work together, and one character can rise in all seven open guilds. The friction comes from questlines that set guilds against each other, not from membership rules.
- Fighters Guild and Thieves Guild. The late quests in each guild work against the other’s leadership. If you take both, finish one guild’s critical quests with care and read the quest text before you act.
- Fighters Guild and Camonna Tong. The Fighters Guild in Vvardenfell has ties to the Camonna Tong, and the later questline pulls you into that. Expect hostility from Tong members as you dig deeper.
- Mages Guild and House Telvanni. The Imperial guild and the Dunmer wizard house compete for magical authority. You can belong to both, but some quests in one tradition treat the other with suspicion.
- Hlaalu and Redoran. House politics come to a head as you approach the top ranks. Joining one rules out the other in normal play.
Before you install
Faction quests use scripted variables. Adding or removing faction mods in the middle of a playthrough can break a questline. Make a clean save before you change your load order.
Playing the faction quests today
Morrowind is still on sale as the Game of the Year Edition on Steam and GOG, both listing it at $14.99. It goes on sale often. That edition includes Tribunal and Bloodmoon, so the Dark Brotherhood attacks, Mournhold and the East Empire Company on Solstheim are all included. You then have two ways to run it.
Original engine with the Morrowind Code Patch
The Morrowind Code Patch by Hrnchamd, with Psyringe, is published on Nexus Mods. It is now at version 2.4. It patches the game executable to fix engine-level bugs that plugins can’t fix. Because it modifies the original executable, it does not work with OpenMW. For bugs in faction quests themselves, like broken dialogue conditions, wrong rank checks or scripts that misfire, players usually add the Patch for Purists by Half11, a plugin-level fix list that tries to keep Bethesda’s original design.
OpenMW
OpenMW is a free open-source engine that needs your own copy of the Morrowind data files. The current stable release is 0.51.0, released on 19 June 2026. Release candidates for 0.52.0 started on 2 November 2026. The new version adds clustered lighting and expands Lua modding to custom skills, attributes and weather. Saves from 0.51 load in 0.52, but a save made in 0.52 can’t be loaded in older versions. OpenMW handles the faction formulas above the way the original game does. Any faction mod built only as an ESP plugin should work. Mods that need MWSE (the Morrowind Script Extender) don’t run on OpenMW unless they have an OpenMW version.
| Setup | Strengths | Trade-offs |
|---|---|---|
| Original engine + Morrowind Code Patch | Runs every MWSE mod, and decades of guides assume it | Old executable, limited by 32-bit memory and draw distance |
| OpenMW 0.51 | Stable, modern renderer, distant land, Lua scripting, Linux and macOS support | MWSE-dependent mods need OpenMW versions or alternatives |
Tamriel Rebuilt and the mainland factions
Tamriel Rebuilt is the long-running project to build the Morrowind mainland. It matters a lot for faction players. Its 26.08 “Poison Song” release, published on 23 August 2026, added the Orethan Fields region and made Great House Indoril joinable. UESP describes the Indoril questlines as equal in length to the vanilla Great Houses. The release also added a joinable Ordinator faction with three questlines, one for each of its Orders. Tamriel Rebuilt also extends existing factions, like the Fighters Guild, Mages Guild, Imperial Cult and East Empire Company, with mainland branches and quests.
You can get Tamriel Rebuilt from Nexus Mods or from tamriel-rebuilt.org. It needs the Tamriel_Data asset package. A maintenance update, 26.11.01, appeared on Nexus Mods on 1 November 2026. Saves from versions before 26.08 don’t carry over to 26.08, so start a new character if you want the Indoril career.
Did you know?
According to the UESP wiki, Tamriel Rebuilt’s 26.08 “Poison Song” was the first Tamriel Rebuilt release made available on GOG.com, so GOG players can install it without a separate mod manager.
Modder's note
With Mod Organizer 2 or the OpenMW launcher, load Tamriel_Data before Tamriel Rebuilt. Load quest-fix plugins like the Patch for Purists after the official plugins but before large content mods, unless a mod’s own readme says something different.
Common faction problems
| Problem | Likely cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Quest giver won’t promote you | A favored skill or attribute is below the rank requirement | Train the favored skills listed in the faction table above |
| Can’t join a second Great House | Normal design: one House per character | Play a new character for each House |
| Faction members hostile after a fight | You were expelled for attacking a member | Use the faction’s make-amends route from the expulsion table |
| Redoran won’t take you back | Second expulsion, which is permanent | Load a save from before the incident |
| Quest dialogue missing after adding a mod | Script or dialogue conflict with an overwriting plugin | Check load order, then retry on a clean save |
| Mod with an MWSE requirement doesn’t run in OpenMW | MWSE only works with the original engine | Look for an OpenMW port or use the original engine |
The best plan for a first run is simple: pick one Great House, add two or three guilds that use the same skills, and save before every late-game quest that names another faction. That gives you a coherent character and steady promotions, and avoids the conflicts that end careers.
FAQ
How many factions can you join in Morrowind?
In the base game you can join seven guilds (Fighters, Mages, Thieves, Morag Tong, Imperial Legion, Imperial Cult and the Tribunal Temple) plus one of the three Great Houses. The Blades and Ashlanders come through the main quest, and a vampire can join their bloodline’s clan.
Can you join all three Great Houses?
Not in normal play. Joining one House blocks the other two. UESP records a bug that allows Hlaalu plus one other House, but it is an unintended flaw and can make rival Houses hostile.
Which Great House is best?
It depends on your build. Hlaalu suits talkers and thieves, Redoran suits armored warriors, and Telvanni suits strong mages. Telvanni has the most memorable questline and stronghold, but it is the slowest climb if your magic is weak.
Can you be in both the Mages Guild and House Telvanni?
Yes. You can belong to both. Sharing a faction with an NPC cancels the other reaction modifiers, so guildmates still treat you normally.
What happens if you get kicked out of a faction?
It depends on the faction. Telvanni takes 500 gold as often as needed, the Mages Guild restores you after about ten days, the Morag Tong wants you to make amends with a member of Master rank or higher, and Redoran forgives you once only.
Does OpenMW change how factions work?
No. OpenMW follows the original game’s faction rules, rank checks and disposition formula. What changes is mod support: the Morrowind Code Patch and MWSE mods don’t run on it, but standard ESP faction mods and Tamriel Rebuilt do.
Can you join House Indoril?
Not in the base game. With Tamriel Rebuilt 26.08 “Poison Song” or later, House Indoril is joinable on the mainland, with questlines as long as the vanilla Houses, and the Ordinators are a separate joinable faction.
Are the expansion factions joinable?
UESP lists the three factions added by Tribunal as not joinable. Bloodmoon lets you rise within the East Empire Company through the Raven Rock colony questline on Solstheim.
What changed
- Nov 13, 2026 First published.
About the article
- Fact-checked by Hollis Tremaine before publication.
- Published
