We first meet Jiub on board a prison ship that has just pulled into the small port town of Seyda Neen, on the southern coast of the the island Vvardenfell. I’m talking, of course, about the very earliest moments of the game Morrowind. Jiub is a prisoner as well, having been arrested after a “botched” assassination attempt on a high ranking Redoran official. He arrives in Seyda Neen on the same ship as the prisoner who would eventually be called Nerevarine. It is not until seeing him again, during the Dawnguard expansion pack, that we learn the specifics of his arrest.
For people like me, whose first glimpse of the wild and beautiful world of Tamriel was in this game, Jiub was the first person I met. Jiub has the crimson red eyes characteristic of the Dunmer people, though one eye is shriveled and dead as a large and deep scar passes over it. He has no hair, but many earrings, up and down both long ears. He speaks with a low voice made of gravel and dust.
Once the Nerevarine steps off the boat and into the Census office, however, we never see Jiub again. Did he, too, disembark at Seyda Neen? Or did the boat carry him further along the Inner Sea to the great city of Vivec? Or Ebonheart? Did he rot away in a dark and festering cell? Or did he have a different kind of destiny?
In this auto-biography, titled The Rise and Fall of Saint Jiub the Eradicator Hero of Morrowind and Savior of the Dunmer, he talks about what destiny did have in store for him whenever (and wherever) he got off that boat.
At some point, Jiub found himself hunting Cliff Racers. Anybody who has played Morrowind will shudder at the mention of them, but it begs some explanation for those of you who haven’t. The Cliff Racers are extremely pesky and annoying enemies. You can hear them from a mile off, sometimes causing you to search and search in vain. They fly, allowing them to sneak up on you very easily, and are difficult to hit even with ranged weapons. It was not long after Morrowind’s release that fans were complaining about the Cliff Racers.
Well, thanks to Jiub, they are now extinct. Or, more accurately, they’ve been driven from the island of Vvardenfell. The status of the Cliff Racers as a species is unknown. In his auto-biography he recounts the events of one particular hunt, when he exhaustively pursued what he calls a Lingerer (a Racer without a nest). He gives chase riding on the back of a silt strider, common transport in Morrowind, nocking an arrow to take it down. Jiub explains that he “had sworn to eliminate the foul beasts”, but he does not specify who the oath was sworn to.
Finally, as Jiub’s strider is tiring and the Racer climbs over the lip of a foyada (lava flow), he fires. The shot nails the Cliff Racer who falls out of sight dead. Jiub’s excitement is cut short, however, when a whole brood of angry Cliff Racers emerge from the lip of the foyada and set their sights on Jiub.
According to the auto-biography, the battle lasts two days. However, if we look at how he talks about his deeds and the title he gives his autobiography, he thinks very highly of himself and his accomplishments. At long last, all of the Cliff Racers lie dead, and Jiub is up to his knees in their corpses. “I smiled to the heavens and all went black.”
“When I awoke, all I felt was my back on a cold stone floor. Every muscle in my body was on fire, and my vision was blurred. Slowly, I tried to climb to my feet. It took several agonizing minutes, but I finally managed to do it. As my eyes adjusted to the dim light of my new surroundings, I realized that I was standing before Lord Vivec himself. He was simply staring at me… floating above his throne and staring at me with his piercing eyes. When I began to prostrate myself as a sign of respect, he held up one of his hands as if to say it wasn’t necessary. Was I dead? Was Lord Vivec pleased with me? Was he about to strike me down in anger for my somewhat sordid past?
Suddenly I understood everything. Suddenly I realized that I was brought here for a reason. I should have died in those ash wastes, but Lord Vivec must have seen something inside me that he hadn’t seen in millennia and decided to spare me from my fate.
Thus began my ascent to Sainthood. Thus began the rise of Jiub!”
After the eradication of the Cliff Racers, Jiub moves west to Kvatch to focus on writing his auto-biography. This is how he ended up in Cyrodiil when the Mythic Dawn cult assassinated the Emperor and his heirs, and Mehrunes Dagon opened up Oblivion gates linking his world of the Deadlands with the seat of Imperial power: Cyrodiil.
So it is that, in 3E 433, Saint Jiub the Eradicator is killed by a Dremora during the Siege of Kvatch, and his soul trapped inside a soul gem.
Jiub can be found in the Soul Cairn, during the events of the expansion Dawnguard. He has more hair now, but he still has that same voice. He is unaware that any time has passed since his death, and believes that the Oblivion crisis is still at hand. You can do a quest for him too, if you like. Special thanks to stavius and ServerofJustice for clarification on a few points.
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