What, why, how

^{[modlist updated February 2026]}

WHAT: Ya-ya Cluthluth ftaghn After celebrating Tamriel Rebuilt's Grasping Fortune 25.05 release on May the 1st 2025, this Modlist is designed to help most users achieve a stable set-up that can offer an immersive and mechanically rich roleplaying experience in the province of Morrowind. WHY: While there are lot of great modlists and curators out there (see Credits) that do a great job of (re)introducing players to the wonderful world of Morrowind modding, some however recommend mods that do not fit mechanically, or which I feel are slightly estranged from Morrowind's vanilla core aesthetics and game-play design (see problems below). So after many months of research, testing and anticipation, what I propose here is a MWSE-based* mod list that is oriented on these factors:

• Immersion: Add and improve gameplay mechanics based on original designs (e.g: Enchanting and Scroll services, Religious practices, Expanded Magicka; Speechcraft and Mercantile not being useless, etc); Optional Survival and new Immersive mechanics.

• Loreful content: Add content mods that fit in with Morrowind og, such as Tamriel Rebuilt projects or small NPC and landscape additions based on Bethesda's design docs and art works.

• Faithful Vanilla + : Graphics, textures, bugfixes and unofficial patches — all meant to improve the game's look and stability without oversaturating like some other modlists do. Focus on keeping vanilla tone, art styles and architectures; Add performance and stability patches to make the OG engine as stable as possible.

• Balance and User Customization made easy: MWSE mods with in-game Mod Config menus allow to tinker game's unbalanced progression in-game, according to personal style/expectations and in relation to content and mechanical expansions.

WHY NOT (...) : The main problems this modlist tries to avoid are:

• Overtune or change core gameplay: I avoid combat and drastic rebalance mods that lock-in certain playstyles. This modlist focuses on improving existing, Bethesda game-designs paths, not axing them or ignore in lieu of others (e.g Alchemy and Enchanting), striving to offer degrees of rebalance and progression difficulty.

  • Lack of customization: Some classic balance mods (BTB edits, Wakim, etc) are too broad-stroke for individual preferences or personal time available to invest in the game. This modlist aims for progression to be balanced through customizable MWSE mods that can offer user-in game customization without risk of mod reinstallation, conflicts or save corruption.

• Overpopulating the gameworld: keep vanilla-like atmosphere, avoid non-TES archetypes from the game, allow for openness and eeriness of game-spaces to creep in naturally.

• Alter artstyle and/or over-saturate game visuals: some mods transform the game's assets, textures and architecture into a baroque hellscape or anime extrabonanza. This modlist avoids them, focusing instead on lore-friendly and Bethesda-art sourced additions.

• Conflicts: Self-explanatory, modlist is focused on a pain-free playthrough, not experiencing exclamation marks and crashes after 30 hours of playing or finding out that one mod impacts your roleplaying style further on.

Most changes view the island of Vvardenfell and general game mechanics/balance. Tamriel Rebuilt's content is mostly left untouched because it is simply exceptional and respects lore while offering many new avenues for og-sourced game play.

HOW: Easy! Just follow each Section as described here

This Modlist Guide is designed to be followed in the provided order, see Install order. Each category having its distinct order for a conflict free, no-pain install. If you encounter any issues please write me at "[e-mail]"

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Disclaimer 1: For reasons stated above, this modlist is based on MWSE, not OpenMW. OpenMW is a great way to enjoy Morrowind, being slightly easier to install and play. There are also a lot of great mods for OpenMW that do not work on MWSE (classic) build. Still, most of the mods I personally recommend here work only through MWSE scripting (Original Engine + MGE/MWSE), not OpenMW. Let's hope the two can become more compatible to each other in time. Because this modlist aims for dynamic/play-testable framework and customization, MWSE offers stable and in-depth Mod-config adjustments to skill progression balance. There is no one-fits-all balance mod, which is why I feel MWSE best suits these objectives (Note: I offer suggested / play-tested Presets after the end of the Mod Install guide/steps; see Mod config page). Another reason is because Morrowind Graphics Extender (MGE) does not work on OpenMW. There are a lot of graphical mods for OpenMW but personally I prefer the look of og engine MGE+texture mods.

If you prefer ease-of-installation over the aesthetics of MGE and the benefits of MWSE mods, you can use OpenMW's Auto Installer presets by choosing one from here. Feel free to compare to this modlist and choose what you prefer. I try to offer a stable and powerful base to add content for MWSE-friendly builds.

Disclaimer 2: This Modlist was made and tested on Windows 10. I am not sure if MWSE runs well on Linux, Linux users usually prefer OpenMW because of this.