Who are Dunmer in TES?

[rATANJOT]

I wanted to know more about the Dunmer because I haven’t gotten too far into morrowind yet and they seem to have very interesting lore. Also I wanted to know about the curse put on them by Azura because I don’t really get that and didn’t the tribunal do something to Azura? Besides the question I asked above can you either link me to information about the Dunmer in lore or tell me about it.

[Cruzz]

Oh well I kind of thought the high elves were actually more hateful than them. They are much more pompous the dark elves are just distrusting from the looks of it except Mordryn Oreyn of course. He is probably the coolest dark elf in oblivion. Ok well I read the first too thus far and now I get who the tribunal is so what I don’t get is what happened to the Nerevar and is the hero in Morrowind the Nevarine the Nevarars reincarnation wait someone please tell me the dwemer aren’t evil or is the third link biased too.

[Pierson]

The Dunmer have the most sinister reputation of all races, what with their legal practice of slavery and assassination and their open worship of three daedra though the Tribunal Temple has cut down on this later point as strongly as it could). In fact, you'll find in Dunmer culture many of the elements that defined the Drow in D&D, the aforementioned slavery and assassinations, the oppressive strength of the clergy, the fascination with creepy-crawlies though it's scarabs rather than spiders, and even originally the underground part, as at the height of its activity the Red Mountain was constantly covering the land with a ceiling of smoke making the whole province look like it was a large cavern.

[Abenaki]

The Dunmer, simply put, became realistic people. So, sure, many of them are still bastards. And they're bastards to varying degrees. It's possible to empathize with them. And the other races do not appear to be really that much better than them. There are good and bad people in every bunch, no clear-cut black and white with the dark elves as all bad. The Dwemer most certainly weren't evil. The only places where they're shown as being cruel is in the Sermons of Vivec, where they capture and vivisect Vivec's mother by curiosity, and one of Marobar Sul's pieces where the editor's note make it clear that the text wasn't actually about Dwemer originally, but about Dunmer and it was adapted to not displease a Dunmer audience.

[Januarius]

In TES, you read orcs are evil barbarians" and that's just the fictional author's bias. Sure, many orcs are aggressive barbarians, and they're not liked by most other races. And they were still officially considered as monsters by the Empire. Doesn't mean they actually are monsters; and indeed you get to meet many orcs which simply aren't evil at all. But it is so much more than that. Because it's been fleshed out in a way that makes sense and the Dunmeri culture has reasons for its aspects others than simply evils.

[Gajendra1]

Well, given the excessively bloody battles the legion fought against Morrowind during their invasion, I don't think they were 'helpless' at all. The legion's strength lies in open, organized battles, but once they got into Vvardenfell where they couldn't form up into large military formations especially in an extremely hostile land they would have been picked off. As for the Telvanni my opinion is rather biased since I hate them, but they wouldn't be enough to save Morrowind, in fact, I know they wouldn't.