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The following are various extracts referring to Orfai Welkynd, taken from "The White Dragon; History of the Welkynd Family" written by Cladius Rex, a scholar in the service of Arcadia Welkynd



Lord Orfai Welkynd was considered to be one of the richest, influential and most powerful men in the Empire, let alone Morrowind. He was also, however, one of the most derided. Commonly termed by his opponents and detractors as 'The Bastard of Mournhold', 'The Hlaalu Bastard' or simply 'The Bastard', this powerful man had extremely humble beginnings. An illegitimate child born to a prostitute in the city of Almalexia, as a child Orfai was vastly underfed and rarely properly clothed.

At age 6, his mother died, leaving the boy an orphan on the streets of Mournhold. His mother had always claimed that his father was a Hlaalu nobleman, though if this is true then his father certainly never claimed him. Despite the city being home to the Tribunal Goddess Almalexia, the protector of the poor and weak, the poor were generally kept out of the city of Mournhold it's self by the guards and restricted to the outer city of Almalexia. It was not uncommon, however, for him to make the trip through the sewers if the guards would not let him pass the gates in order to gain from the charity of the temple and hopefully benefit from the coin of those much better to do than those of the outer city.

It was on one of these incursions into Mournhold that, in the great bazaar, he met a young Dunmer servant girl named Rayana Ulven. The two became good friends following and she would sneak some of the scraps from her masters table for him when she could. Orfai would later state that she did more for him than anyone else in Tamriel ever had and ever would. It was she who taught him how to read and write, after all; Two basic but essential skills that he would never have had a hope of reaching the status he did if she had never taught them to him. Eventually, she convinced her master to take the young boy on as a servant after another was dismissed and as such was given a place to sleep and food to live on.

Other events in his growing up also distressed him greatly. Perhaps from years of living malnourished, the young man had a somewhat sickly disposition that led to him commonly falling ill. Furthermore, he was a weak man with little muscle and was neither fast nor agile. This earned him little respect and in addition to being a man rather than an elf led to him being commonly ridiculed by the other servants. Indeed, the steward of the household was a paticularly cruel Altmer scholar who constantly referred to him as "little master Welkynd", in a not so veiled reference to Orfai's alleged parentage.

Regardless this had little effect on his life as a servant, he was a diligent man and continued to work as often as possible... if not out of respect for his master than certainly out of fear that he might be thrown out onto the streets again; He commented in private that he would rather face death than life on the streets. Unfortunately, those words would be put to the test.
Shortly after his 15th birthday, the manor where he was working in the Godsreach was raided by the High Ordinators and his master slaughtered before his eyes for supposed heresy. The High Ordinators slew several of the other servants in addition to his master and seized many of the remaining servants, including Rayana. Though he initially attempted to intervene with the use of a candlestick, on the prompting of Rayana's yells he fled into the basement and barely avoided the grasp of one of the Ordinators. Descending into the sewers and locking the trap door behind him, he fled quickly down the tunnels in full knowledge that the ordinators could easily take another key from the servants if they so desired. The young man fled out of Mournhold and Almalexia entirely before being apprehended, luckily by Imperial Legionaries rather than by Indoril lackies. The Empire was hardly concerned with the fate of a servant child, however out of fear of appearing weak in the eyes of the vassals, the Imperial Prefect who had captured Orfai would not hand over an Imperial for possible execution on such flimsy charges and instead negotiated with a Temple leader to have the young mans sentence commuted. They agreed that Orfai would be banished to Vvardenfell to increase the population of the new colonies there.

Released in Seyda Neen into a hostile world and although dejected, Orfai was not going to role over and die as those responsible for his transport to this land would have expected. He vowed unto himself that he would rise up and spite them all by prospering in this land... revenge, that would be good too. In what would later become one of the central tenants of his personal code, his decided to adopt the names that he had been called and to shroud himself in it so that they could never be used to ridicule him again. Introducing himself to people as "Orfai Welkynd the Bastard" perhaps wasn't the most illustrious title but it certainly meant 'bastard' quickly lost it's power over him. After all, why pretend he was something else? The world certainly wasn't going to.
After finding the corpse of the local taxman and investigating the murder, Orfai quickly deduced that the killer was Foryn Gilnith after investigating everyone who had come short on their taxes. When he foolishly decided to confront the Dunmer murderer personally, he was attacked and nearly killed, but was able to flee despite the knife buried in his leg to get the assistance of the guardsmen. After putting Foryn down, he was directed him to Socucius Ergalla who, thankful for the service but rather angry that the boy had not consulted him first, paid him 500 septims and sent him on his way.

With this gold, he paid a local sellsword, Fathis Locarn, to travel with him. Taking the road west from Seyda Neen towards the Bitter Coast region, they happened up Zainsipilu and entered it in search of riches. The sellsword made short work of the bandits within the cave and Orfai, searching the bodies, discovered the slave key for the five slaves within. Orfai claimed them as his own and decided that the group would remain in the cave to wait out a storm. Here the sellsword turned on him; Fathis reasoned that selling five slaves would bring much more profit than acting as a bodyguard to this pauper and attempted to kill him during the night.

During the night while Orfai lay motionless, struggling to get to sleep with the thoughts of the past week swirling around in his head like a torrent, he heard the clattered of armoured steps beside him and rolled over to see Fathis standing over him, sword raised and ready to bring down on him. Orfai stared in abject horror at the blade and expected death yet was frozen in place by a mixture of fear, shock and resignation. When he heard another loud clatter and watched the blade fly from view he half thought he was dreaming or indeed going insane. This was not the case, however, and propping himself up he watched as the slave Haran grappled with the armoured mercenary.

Although the Argonian had the upper hand from a surprise attack, it was clear that his claws were not strong enough to pierce the mercenaries armour and Orfai quickly lept to his feet, seizing the fallen sword and throwing it to Haran who caught it in mid-air. The sellsword, recognising that he was beaten, fell to his knees and begged for mercy. Orfai moved from the bed, taking up position beside the slave and ordered the sellsword to strip naked and toss his armor to the floor if he wanted mercy. The sellsword, fearing for his life obliged and was forced to the floor by Haran, only for Orfai to slap a slave bracer onto the dark elfs wrist.

After a brief moment of consideration, Orfai concluded that it would be much cheaper to maintain slaves than sellswords and informed the remaining slaves that Haran would serve as their leader... and they would serve as whatever he wanted them to serve as, be that warriors or servants. With that, he hung the key from a rope around his neck to ensure that the slaves would never be able to get to it without his knowledge and led them through the cave, equipping them from the storage crates and bodies of the bandits will whatever armour and weaponry he could scavenge.

With the cave cleared, Orfai was in a much better state than he had been upon entrance. In addition to now having several slave warriors in tow, the young man had acquired some slightly better clothing and the humiliated Dunmer Fathis Locarn had discovered a thief ring in the water near the warehouse section of the cave and though he had initially attempted to hide it, another slave, Ahnisa, had forced him to turn it over. Attaching a rope around Fathis neck, the small band continued along the road until they came along a diamond mine by the side of the road, known as the "Erengard mines". Orfai elected to enter the main shack and spoke with the Altmer inside who mentioned that the owner of the mine had gone missing on his way to a business meeting. Reasoning that only good could come of getting in the good books of a diamond mine owner, Orfai offered to take his band and search for the owner and after being informed that he had been on the road to Pelegiad, Orfai reversed direction and led his warriors back along the road to the east.

On the road to Pelegiad, they came across two nix hounds feasting over a corpse and after the slaves dispatched them and searched the corpse, Haran reported that they had found the deed to the Erengard mines and they assumed this man to be the owner. Taking whatever they could of value off the corpse and pawning it off in Pelegiad for money, they returned to the Erengard mines to report the tragedy. The Altmer steward lamented that this surely meant the mines must close as the owners heir was disinterested in it's affairs. Spying his chance, Orfai inquired how much it would take to buy the mine of the new owner and the steward guessed that, given his disinterest and with the mine being fledgling and in need of investment, about 500 septims. Ironically commenting to Fathis that his betrayal was a blessing in disguise, Orfai quickly turned over the money and became the new owner of the Erengard mine. The Altmer informed him, however, that there were no miners available. Reporting that he would return shortly, Orfai and the group quickly treked back to Seyda Neen and took a silt strider to Suran (the seven of them barely fitting into it). There, they entered the slave market and Orfai offered to sell Fathis to the slavemaster. Commenting on the good condition of the slave, the slavemaster offered 700 Septims but with a twist of the theif ring to assist him in his persuasion, Orfai managed to barter for 750 bringing his total up to just over 1000 septims. He then returned to the Erengard mines and hired an Overseer for the mines for 200 gold. After ordering in a shipment of 5 picks for 40 septims, Orfai hired 5 miners for 500 and set them to work. He then hired two guards for 100 Septims each. He then ordered the overseer to buy as much food needed each day and invested the remainder of his money into the mine.

Owning a diamond mine, Orfai quickly raised profits from the mine and left the steward in control of the mine while he led his small band of slaves further north towards Balmora. Outsourcing his slaves services for the fighters guild brought in additional revenue which he would reinvest into the Erengard Mine, eventually maximising it's output. He then proceeded to buy plantations and farms all around Vvardenfell and staffed them with brought slaves and was quickly making several thousand a day. He slowly expanded his slave army by raiding bandit caves and adopting the slaves into his army; Their living conditions were far better under Orfai's banner than they had been stuck in the far corner of a cave and many slaves who served well would eventually be freed, though a large number would consistently remain in service to him due to the relatively high pay.
Orfai proceeded to expand his holdings by aligning himself with various Great House and Imperial interests when it suited him, such as rooting out and informing the Hlaalu councillor Dram Bero of the location of the Vassir-Didanat Ebony Mine. Although many of the initial problems the legion gave him were almost mocking in their irrelevance for someone who had a quickly growing army in his service, the legion eventually turned over more important tasks such as recovering Lords Mail and Chrysamere. After his forces inevitably brought them back, Orfai became of more note to the Legion and was eventually named a Knight of the Garland. With this knighthood, he was declared legitimate and allowed to pick his own surname despite having been a bastard and declared himself to be 'Sir Welkynd of Erengard'. His coat of arms was the 'White Dragon', which in time would become synonymous with willpower and cunning within Morrowind.

Wishing to expand his power, he studied into the title of the Knight of the Imperial Dragon and realised that, so long as Varus Vantinius lived, the title would never be his. Varus offered to duel him for the title and although he was initially somewhat reluctant, he eventually reached an agreement for terms for a duel. As part of this agreement, Varus allowed Orfai to elect a champion to fight in his stead, so long as Orfai would sign an agreement that permitted his summary execution should his champion lose. Orfai named Haran as his champion for the battle and the two met in honourable combat at the Vivec Arena. Haran eventually won the battle by decapitating Varus, however was seriously wounded during the fight; Orfai spent vast quantities of money to ensure Haran was properly cared for and the Argonian survived, though the wounds never fully healed.

Having already paid off the correct people and having hired a legion of legal experts to press his case, he was named Knight of the Imperial Dragon of Vvardenfell, placing him in control of the Imperial Legion in Vvardenfell. 

With this title came the promotion to the echelons of nobility through the granting of a Lordship in addition to a formal pardon from the Elder Council for all previous crimes... and thus the reversal of his banishment. With his immense wealth, he not only expanded his holdings in Morrowind to include several newly constructed castles, forts and settlements, he also began to purchase land elsewhere in the Empire including substantial holdings in Cyrodiil, Skyrim and High Rock including mines, settlements, estates and even castles. He had Haran knighted for his actions and awarded him with a castle near Anvil, though Haran remained as Orfais right hand for a decade more before finally retiring. Harans descendants remain in the service of the Welkynd family to this day.
With his new found wealth, power and influence, Orfai assisted several other nobles into gaining positions on the Elder Council; In return, these nobles would be sure that the Elder Council supported Orfai's actions and goals.

Finally, Orfai was in position to do what he had desired to do for so long. With the rise of the Nerevarine in Morrowind, Orfai took the opportunity of the Fabricant assault on Mournhold as a cover story for a long standing plot. Using his connections, he managed to get the Elder Council to authorise him to "Ensure the Emperors peace is maintained in the Cities of Mournhold and Almalexia." Marching a force of nearly 6000 slave soldiers supported by an entire Imperial Legion into the city of Mournhold, he ordered the temple to release all documents regarding the events surrounding the 'Heresy of Muthsera/Serjo Samarys'. Identifying the names of all High Ordinators involved, he had them brought to a show trial and, along with the officers responsible for authorising it and the two citizens responsible for reporting the supposed heresy int he first place, had them executed or imprisoned for "Murder and the fabrication and perpetuation of falsehoods leading to murder."

Sera Thelas: Executed "For deliberate fabrication of falsehoods leading to a disturbance of the Emperors peace and leading to the murder of members of the Samarys household and their servants. Verdict: Guilty"

Muthsera/Serjo Vess: Attainted of all noble titles and banished to the Solstheim district "For deliberate fabrication of falsehoods leading to a disturbance of the Emperors peace and leading to the murder of members of the Samarys household and their servants. Verdict: Guilty"

Muthsera Imayn, Priest of the Tribunal Temple: Executed "For authorising a disturbance of the emperors peace despite the knowledge that the basis for the order was a falsehood. Verdict: Guilty"

Muthsera Drelathan, Priest of the Tribunal Temple: Stripped of all titles and imprisoned at His Imperial Majesty's pleasure "For authorising a disturbance of the emperors peace despite the knowledge that the basis for the order was a falsehood. Verdict: Guilty."

High Ordinator Imayn: Executed "For carrying out a disturbance of the emperors peace despite knowledge that the basis for the order was a falsehood. Verdict: Guilty."

High Ordinator Andrano: Executed "For carrying out a disturbance of the emperors peace despite knowledge that the basis for the order was a falsehood. Verdict: Guilty."

High Ordinator Llarys: Executed "For carrying out a disturbance of the emperors peace despite knowledge that the basis for the order was a falsehood. Verdict: Guilty."

High Ordinator Arvel: Stripped of all titles and sentenced to 40 years hard labour in the Erengard Mines. "For undue brutality in the carrying out of an order resulting in the deaths of several innocent and uncharged individuals. Verdict: Guilty."

High Ordinator Virian: Commited honourable suicide in prison rather than face the court "For undue brutality in the carrying out of an order resulting in the deaths of several innocent and uncharged individuals. Verdict: Judged guilty in abenstia."

Reading through the documents before the trial, he was elated to learn that Rayana and several other servants had not been killed but had in fact been enslaved and sent to work in mines along the east coast of mainland Morrowind. Leaving the Imperial Legion in control of Mournhold, Orfai led his slave army along the coast of Morrowind to find them and was successful in freeing most of them. Entire businesses were destroyed as their slaves were released en masse and their owners captured and attainted for various charges; Whether these were legitimate or drummed up, the result was the same.

In later life, Orfai married Rayana and had five children, though they lost their first child in his infancy. The other four would go on to be the legacy of the Welkynd Dynasty. Since one of the children was an Imperial and did not appear to be a Dunmer, it has been argued that this is possibly a case of infidelity on the part of Orfai. Some other scholars suggest that it may have just been a fluke of the strange racial phylogeny involved with interspecies relationships. This historian is leans towards the latter, but whatever the case, the modern day (As of the Fourth Era 202) Welkynd family is approximately 69% Imperial, 6% Nord, 4% Breton and 21% Dunmer. Before the eruption of the red mountain and the deaths of key Dunmer of Welkynd descent, a larger proportion (38%) of the Welkynd Line were Dunmer.

Due to his strange defects, Orfai Welkynd was unable to grow facial hair and indeed lacked much body hair all together. Furthermore, his skin was unnaturally smooth in youth and yet began to break out in wrinkles by age 34. Most of his already little muscle wasted away by age 50, leaving him unable to raise his own sword. However, he continued working hard to secure his family's power and expand his fortunes up until his death at the age of 75, at which point it was commented that death was a mercy for him, considering that he was taking up to 17 different magical potions a day simply to maintain his rapidly deteriorating form. Rayana was heartbroken and had still not remarried by the time of her death 104 years later. Of his four children, not a single one of them inherited this defect however several other descendants have been sufferers. Dunmer tales along the east coast and in Mournhold claimed that Orfai Welkynd was cursed after the Mournhold Trials and indeed this condition has been referred to as "The Welkynd curse," however it is obvious from earlier accounts that he suffered from this condition long before the Mournhold Trials and thus it was certainly no divine curse. This tale has widely fallen out of usage after the transition from the worship of the Almsivi back to the traditional worship of the Daedra.

The instructions for his passing left all his lands to his eldest child, though they also instructed that the other siblings must be given prominent positions within the Welkynd estate. He left all of his septims and clothing to the state, provided it be used to aid the poor, orphaned and homeless.
Orfai Welkynd is easily the most polarised figure of the Welkynd Family. None deny he was a great man and his achievements were monumental and worthy of remembrance, it is merely a question of what kind of person his was. Some see him as a morally bankrupt figure who built a dynasty off of the labour and blood of slaves, was ruthless and treated his enemies with cruelty. Some also claim that he murdered his father upon finding out who he was, though there is no hard evidence of this and it can be safely dismissed as simple speculation. Others see him as a noble man who was simply doing everything in his power to rescue the one he loved (This historian would like to note that this is at best a distortion; Orfai was under the impression for the majority of his life that Rayana had died, as evidenced by several contemporary accounts of his elation at the discovery that she lived still. It would be more accurate to say that he was motivated by a wish to avenge her). They argue that he was diligent, fair and that his slaves were more akin to servants. This historian believes that while his use of slavery is inexcusable, Orfai was certainly a just man at heart and although ruthless, he was also charitable and kind. There are several validated reports of Orfai's charity to the poor, though he never made a huge show of it, possibly out of fear of damaging his reputation as a ruthless politician.
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This was my newest Morrowind character. I already have a warrior (Grulok gro-Toglak), a mage (Arvel Beran), a spellsword (Clavidius Manakin) and have never really been one for stealth in morrowind (The stealth system in Morrowind is just so painfully bad in my honest opinion), so I decided I wanted a new experience all together. 

Enter Orfai Welkynd. 

I made a short backstory for the character and I set my goal to become rich and powerful... And to make this harder, my character had no skill with a sword, no savvy with spells and wasn't at all good at sneaking. I also decided I would give him genetic defects because why not? (I used the console to set his stats and skills low to convey this.) I picked his face and hair along these lines initially, and then changed his hair once he became lord.

I decided he would only wear the finest clothes he could buy at any given time, and wouldn't wear armour. This was a man clinging desperately to his new found wealth, after all. I even went out of my way to find a Red Transparent Glass Weapons mod so his own weapon would obviously be extremely valuable despite him never really using it.

So, what was my first step? Find a meat shield. Due to mods I have installed, I was able to hire a sellsword to do most of the hacking work for me early game (His name was not Fathis Locarn and he never betrayed me; The money made from selling him in the story was actually made from selling the worthless junk in the cave, but the betrayal sounded better for a story) And from there I took slaves into my service and gave them weapons. They were absolutely dire, but after putting together a nice sized slave army, I just ran forwards towards my foes, punched them once to trigger the ai and ran backwards as my half a dozen slaves charged forwards to hack him down. It was unbelievable satisfying. 

By the end of the playthrough, I had obtained masses of gold, became a druglord on Vvardenfell (The mod stated the questline was designed for level 20 characters and it wasn't kidding; It initially ate a hole in my pocket as I kept burning through slaves, but eventually it made me rich beyond my wildest dreams) became the owner of a mine, set up and ran several plantations thanks to a farming mod, I became the leader of several factions (I cut out the Mages guild, the Fighters guild and the Morag Tong from the story as it doesn't make sense for any of them to have made Orfai their leader)... really, this character ended up being far greater success than I expected. Apparently, he also severed the threads of prophecy, but that's alright because this character isn't the Nerevarine, so for the sake of roleplaying I'm assuming this took place after the main quests.
When I was done with him (Which was after I murdered the people in the Temple, having decided everything was done and it was time for Orfai to reach his final goal), I decided to compose an overview of my adventure here, changing some things to fit in better with the overall story, and wrote out what happened to him in the future. Obviously, everything to do with the Druglord business is cut out of the history as no historian in the service of a Welkynd is going to call the founder of their dynasty a druglord.

Finally, I took this screenshot and took a coat of arms from Crusader Kings 2 to post on the image as his own. I choose a white dragon as I felt it was what he would choose; He was a man who had become extremely proud because of his accomplishments and what better statement could a proud and arrogant man make than by taking a dragon, the symbol of the Empire of Tamriel, as his own symbol?

I hope you enjoyed my wall of text and it you made it this far, well done lol.