As massive a game as Skyrim is, and though it's hard to believe, it could have been even bigger before content was cut. Numerous quests, locations, and NPCs ended up being scrapped and never making it into the final product. In the 11 years since its release, fans and modders have diligently dug through the game's files to find all the pieces that Bethesda left behind, including details surrounding one of Skyrim's strangest cities.
Skyrim is a vast province divided into nine holds, each containing its own city. Towards the north of the map is the hold of Hjaalmarch and its capital Morthal. Sitting on the edge of a swamp, Morthal is not the worst city in Skyrim, but it is definitely the most mysterious. Players visiting for the first time will immediately be met with a quest to investigate a strange house fire, but it is the content that is missing from the game that really makes Morthal intriguing.
Morthal's Jarl Is The Strangest In Skyrim
The mystery surrounding Morthal starts at the top of the citizens who live there with its Jarl. Jarl Idgrod Ravencrone is the elderly leader of Hjaalmarch and one of the most even-toned Jarls in Skyrim, similar to Jarl Balgruff of Whiterun. However, from the moment players encounter her, it is clear that she is very different from any of Skyrim’s other hold leaders.
Idgrod claims to have the power of foresight and says that these dreams and visions are gifts from the Divines. That on its own is strange enough as foresight is a rare gift in The Elder Scrolls' universe, with the only other in Skyrim being the Augur of Dunlain. But what makes Idgrod really odd is how she is also linked to at least two quests that appear to have been cut. This cut content makes it appear that Idgrod’s visions were intended to play a more significant role within Skyrim but never made it into the final game.
One of these cut quests can still be found in-game as a much smaller miscellaneous quest that players can receive from Idgrod's housecarl Gorm, called “For the Good of Morthal.” The Dragonborn can find Gorm in the Moorside Inn after six each evening, where he will speak to them regarding Idgrod's visions. He seems concerned they are affecting her ability to be a good leader, offering an interesting glimpse into the politics of Tamriel in Skyrim, and wants the player to deliver a letter for him.
The letter is for Captain Aldis, the Captain of the Solitude guard, and talks about their plans to overthrow Idgrod as Jarl. If read, the letter insinuates that the two men have spoken about this previously. All players need to do is travel to Solitude, give Aldis the letter, and… that’s it. The quest ends there with no follow-up or real narrative payoff.
This is one of many types of quest like this in Skyrim, and there are plenty of radiant delivery quests where the Dragonborn is asked to pass along letters for NPCs. Oddly enough, Jarl Idgrod’s daughter, Idgrod the Younger, also has one of these fun Skyrim side quests. She wants the player to deliver a letter to Danica Pure-Spring in Whiterun regarding her younger brother’s visions.
These two delivery quests on their own are odd, but fans who have dug through Skyrim’s game files have found another strange clue that hints at a more extensive cut questline. In Skyrim’s game files, every character has relationship data which indicates how they are linked to and feel about other NPCs. In Idgrod’s files, there is a character listed as a sister. This character is called Argi Farseer and does not appear in vanilla Skyrim, although Nexus Mods Arthmoor's Cutting Room Floor mod restores Argi and her home village of Stonehills.
Judging by the restored content in Cutting Room Floor, which is one of the best mods for Skyrim cut content, it seems that Stonehills was supposed to be larger than it appears in the vanilla game. Perhaps Argi would have replaced Idgrod after the coup, or maybe the family’s gifts were meant to play a larger role in Skyrim’s quests. But unfortunately, Idgrod, her visions, and Argi are just one of many underdeveloped plotlines in Morthal.
Cut Content Robs This Skyrim Mage Of His Full Potential
The second mystery and cut quest in Morthal involves a local mage named Falion. Falion has recently moved to Morthal, and the local Nords, suspicious of magic, don’t want him there. They want Jarl Idgrod to run Falion out of town, but she has so far refused.
Falion himself is an odd NPC with no apparent role within Morthal. He lives in Skyrim with his adopted child Agni while his sister, Jonna, runs the Moorside Inn. However, speaking to him gives the players tons of information, seemingly out of nowhere, about him being a Conjuration specialist and how he’s even met a Dwemer. It feels as though Falion was written as a much more substantial character than he ended up being in the final version of Skyrim.
Both his daughter Agni and Idgrod’s son, Joric, have ambient dialogue where they mention Falion doing something possibly nefarious. When Agni mentions Falion summoning monsters, he passes it off as just a dream. However, Joric’s comment is a little more direct as he will sometimes say, "It's Falion. He... he did it. I don't know what it was, but he did it." When asked why he is in Morthal, Falion is vague, claiming that he is needed there to keep Morthal safe.
This sinister feeling around Falion prompts Jarl Idgrod to ask the Dragonborn to follow Falion and investigate him beginning the hidden and easy-to-miss Skyrim quest “Falion’s Secret.” Falion spends all day in his house; however, if players wait outside his home between 10 pm and 1 am, he will sneak out and leave Morthal. Following Falion will take players to a ruin just outside the city, where he will just stand there doing nothing.
It is possible to talk to Falion at the ruin, where he will be shocked they have followed him and beg them not to tell anyone he was there. Then oddly, the quest autocompletes instead of the player having to report back to Idgrod. Looking into the game files reveals that the quest, “Falion’s Secret,” doesn’t have an end trigger. So while the quest completes in the Skyrim player’s journal, the game itself never considers it done, which makes it seem like more was expected to be added.
Players can still inform Idgrod of Falion’s trips to the swamp, and she will hurry off to confront him. This conversation will not trigger in vanilla Skyrim due to a bug, but with the Unofficial Skyrim Special Edition Patch, on Nexus Mods by the Unofficial Patch Project Team players can watch Idgrod warn Falion not to go to the ruins again. However, this conversation is pointless as Falion will continue to travel there every night and will even meet players there for the quest “Rising at Dawn” if they wish to cure their vampirism in Skyrim.
Like Idgrod, it seems as though Falion was destined to play a larger role in a Morthal questline, although fans will never know what those quests would have looked like now. As Bethesda never completed the questlines, even restoration mods cannot provide players with any real closure to these mysteries. From visions and mutiny to creepy mages, by looking through the game files, it is clear that Bethesda had much grander plans for the smallest hold capital in Skyrim.
Source: Arthmoor/Nexus Mods, Unofficial Patch Project Team/Nexus Mods