The Elder Scrolls III: Tribunal is an expansion for the role-playing video game The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind by Bethesda Softworks, released in November 2002. The first of two expansions released for Morrowind, Tribunal is set in Mournhold, the capital of the province of Morrowind, and a self-contained city disconnected from the original game. The central quests task the player to resolve the tensions between the King of Morrowind, Hlaalu Helseth, and the Living God Almalexia. The expansion includes quality of life additions, including alterations to the game's quest journal and map.
Developed following the release of Morrowind, Tribunal was based on earlier concepts and settings in The Elder Scrolls series. The developers aimed to create a self-contained experience that explored the characters and mythology of the 'Living Gods' of the Tribunal, a key element of the narrative in the original game. Upon release, Tribunal received positive reviews, with praise for its gameplay improvements, greater difficulty, and setting, and criticism directed to the linear and short nature of the expansion and ongoing technical issues with the game. The reception of Tribunal influenced the game's second expansion, The Elder Scrolls III: Bloodmoon, released in 2003.
Gameplay
thumb|left|Sortable entries in the player journal were cited by reviewers as an important quality of life addition to Morrowind.
Gameplay in Tribunal is identical to Morrowind, with the game functioning as an extension of quests and open-ended locations to explore. The main addition to Tribunal is the inclusion of a city, Mournhold. Mournhold is not a contiguous part of the game world in Morrowind, and players are required to access the area through a teleportation service, with certain features such as levitation disabled to conceal the city's separation from the game world.
Plot
The player is attacked by an assassin, later revealed to be a member of the Dark Brotherhood, an assassins' guild. To find out more about the Dark Brotherhood, the player is directed to Mournhold, the capital of Morrowind. Upon arrival, the player locates and defeats the head of the Dark Brotherhood, and complete a series of side quests for the new King Helseth and the Living God Almalexia. Almalexia has ruled Morrowind for thousands of years alongside her fellow gods Vivec and Sotha Sil, who call themselves the Tribunal, and are worshipped by the Dark Elves. During the player's visit to Mournhold, a group of mechanical creatures called Fabricants attack the Plaza Brindisi Dorom area. The creatures emerge from the statue in the middle of the plaza, revealing a secret passageway to a Dwemer ruin. Since the creatures are mechanical, it is suspected that the secretive god Sotha Sil is behind this attack. The player investigates the ruins and completes further quests in order to reconstruct Nerevar's lost sword called Trueflame. Upon acquiring the sword, the player is sent to the Clockwork City in order to kill Sotha Sil.
The player explores Clockwork City, finally arriving to find Sotha Sil dead. Upon leaving, Almalexia appears and alleges that she had killed Sotha Sil and instigated the attack in Mournhold, in order to gain more power and control over the citizens and the Tribunal. Driven mad by the Heart of Lorkhan, Almalexia perceived Sotha Sil's silence as mockery. The player is then forced to kill her before returning to Mournhold. As the player exits Almalexia's temple in Mournhold, the Daedric Prince Azura reveals that the Heart of Lorkhan drove Almalexia mad and made her hunger for more power, and that mere mortals cannot become gods without consequences. By destroying the Heart of Lorkhan and killing Almalexia, the player continues fulfilling the Nerevarine prophecies, particularly the death of the Almsivi Tribunal.
Development
The plot and setting of Tribunal was conceived during earlier development in earlier Elder Scrolls titles. Mournhold, the setting of Tribunal, featured as a location in Arena. In 1996, following the release of Daggerfall, Bethesda Softworks began initial work on an unfinished sequel that would later become Morrowind. Also named Tribunal, the sequel was intended to be set in the entirety of the province of Morrowind. Initial development for the title contained "conflicts, characters and themes" later used in the design of the Tribunal expansion, including the use of adamantium armor, and monsters including goblins and liches.
Development on the Tribunal expansion started after the release of Morrowind, Development of Tribunal was expedited by the inclusion of the Construction Set, providing the development team with tools to quickly add content to the game. Initial work on Tribunal was strained due to fatigue from the Morrowind development cycle, with creative differences between lead designer Ken Rolston and writer Douglas Goodall leading to the departure of Goodall from the studio. with Todd Howard describing the expansion as an "add-in rather than an add-on", noting that "any character can play [Tribunal] at any time". Tribunals setting, Mournhold, was separated from the main game's setting, requiring players to teleport between the two locations. The developers stated this decision was intentional to minimise the risk of overlapping content with the original game and additions by the modding community. with Todd Howard adding the expansion sought to "follow up on the other two members of the Tribunal, (who) get mentioned often in Morrowind, but there wasn't a real resolution to what happens to them, so that was a story we felt needed exploring." Tribunal features alterations to Morrowinds interface, including sortable quests and map notes. These additions were based on player feedback, with the developers discussing that the journal system was a major complaint from players of the original game. The development team otherwise attempted to minimise the conflicts between gameplay additions and features that had already been introduced by player-created modifications. and released on November 8, 2002, in North America, and on November 29, 2002, in the United Kingdom. Despite initial statements by Bethesda Softworks that Tribunal would not be released on the Xbox, the expansion, along with its successor, Bloodmoon, was packaged as Morrowind: Game of the Year Edition for PC and Xbox on October 31, 2003.
Following release, lessons from the development of Tribunal informed the development of the game's next expansion, Bloodmoon, released in June 2003. Todd Howard noted reviewers and players found that the expansion was more difficult than expected, as fewer enemies were scaled to the player's level, and the design of the expansion was insufficiently open-ended and lacked wilderness exploration. and greater use of levelled enemies for reduced difficulty.
Reception
Reviews
Tribunal was generally well received by reviewers. Among aggregate review sites, Metacritic scored the PC version of the game with an 80 out of 100,