Of the five great houses of Morrowind, House Dres, which possesses the large plainlands on the southern border of the province, remains the one that keeps most to itself and openly defies Imperial authority. Great House Dres still commemorates the laws of old with their beliefs in ancestral spirits and their religion based on the worship of the living gods, the Tribunal.
The economy of Great House Dres, which is very stable and strong and has fluctuated little in the past 600 years, relies primarily on their cultivation of saltrice. The slaves that Dres employs as workers in the plantations partially power this production. The trading of these slaves also offers an important, though secondary, source of profit. The house relies so much on its slaves that the Dres capital, Tear, is built so as to allow the control and efficient transport of slaves. In fact, the most memorable areas of Tear are its famous slave pits, immense bowl shaped holes in the ground, surrounded by thick, high walls, where slaves are kept and stored like merchandise, before they are used.
House Dres maintains a stable number of slaves by slave trade and supplies itself by raids in the Black Marsh as well. Dres territory is ideally situated on the southern edge of Morrowind to take Argonian slaves forcibly from their home province. Very often Dres nobility send raiding parties to the dreaded marshes to bring back large numbers of young Argonians. One of the techniques employed is to bring groups of Argonians already accustomed to slave life with their parties, to help make the new slaves feel more secure. In fact, it is said that Argonians have been known to join raiding parties and submit to follow the Argonian agents of House Dres, as they had no idea what slaves were, nor did they imagine there was something other than the swamp where they had lived all their lives. The slaves of House Dres are surprisingly stoic about their situation.
Of course, Dres can also obtain slaves through the natural processes and slaves sharing shacks in the estates may reproduce. In the slave pits families of slaves may be observed, creating homes of scrap wood and such, making simple lives for themselves within the fortified walls. Naturally, these Argonians and Khajiit can be sold any time and be sent away to work. Those slaves who refuse the authority of Dunmer are often sent to very nasty pits. The males stocked in these pits, where they usually end up in need of physical pleasure, tend to go mad and very violent. Female slaves who have committed serious mistakes are sometimes sent to these pits to be raped and abused by the males.
Argonian slaves are usually seen working in the endless saltrice fields. Khajiit are usually sent to work inside the houses, where they serve their masters, tending to more domestic duties. The slaves are also the ones who deliver the saltrice to the ports and work in the large granaries and warehouses of Tear.
Slaves have ever stoked the economy of Great House Dres; they are prolific in Dres society and deeply ingrained in the culture and lore of the Great House. For this reason they remain attached to this repulsively barbaric activity. The treaty by which Morrowind entered the Empire of Tamriel allows for slavery in the province; consequently, the law abolishing slavery in the rest of the Empire has no power in Morrowind. Let us hope in the future slavery will be abolished everywhere without exception.