Morrowind Role-Play: The Gladiator

In Ahead of the Classes, one of the classes offered for playing is the gladiator. Here's a guide how to roleplay them in Morrowind!

For the gladiator, I recommend an Imperial, for three reasons: 1. They fit thematically, as Imperials were inspired by ancient Romans. 2. They are great for making a warrior character - remember, the Imperial Legion is the strongest army of Tamriel for a reason! 3. They have a bonus for personality: a gladiator should not only prevail in combat but also win the crowd over.

As far as birthsign is concerned, I recommend The Warrior, as it makes combat easier.

For worldview, the character could worship Boethiah, the Daedric prince of battle and conflict.

For gear, go with your favorite set of light armor and a spear, blade or axe. Avoid expensive armor sets and weapons (such as glass) - you are not a noble or a knight, but someone who fights for money. A backup weapon might be useful too: use a blade or an axe for regular combat, and use a spear when you need to keep some distance from the opponent.

Your primary goal is to become the champion of every Arena in the game. After that, you might consider joining up the Imperial Legion, House Redoran or the Fighters' Guild to make a career out of your skills in combat. The uncenventional fighting methods you have picked up in the arenas will surely be an asset for these factions. Perhaps when you retire, you might want to train a protege.

For handicaps, you can simply never refuse a challenge. How it manifests in-game is that if you get a quest, you must do it immediately, no matter how challenging it is. Another handicap is that you should only earn money from fighting in arenas - at least until you manage to become the champion in all of them.

Mods:

Roaring Arena - Battling and Bloodletting or Welcome to the Arena: Both mods make it possible to become a gladiator in the Vivec Arena. They are incompatible with each other, so pick only one!

Project Tamriel mods, including TR, PC and SHoTN: All three adds new arenas (Narsis, Anvil and Dragonstar) where you can fight as a gladiator and eventually become a champion.

Combat Enhanced (MWSE): 30 different combos, and the ability to trance and utilize your rage in combat, along with new difficulty sliders to make combat more challenging and fun.

Panoplies - Helluva Ways to Suit Up: Lots of new armor sets, some of which seem to be quite suitable for a gladiator.

Divine Providence: (Vanilla/OpenMW) or PRAY (MWSE): You can pick Boethiah as your patron god and gain perks and abilities from him.

Necessities of Morrowind or Devilish Needs (Vanilla/OpenMW) or Ashfall (MWSE): It makes it necessary for the player to eat, drink, and sleep regularly. Another thing to take care of between fights so that you could be immersed more into a character who is just a regular person, not some hero with superhuman abilities.

Julan, Ashlander Companion: Only because you can train him in any way you wish. You can roleplay that he is your protege whom you teach to follow your footsteps in the arena, once you retire.

Duel of Honor - Improve the Chances: A small tweak for a vanilla Redoran mod, by me: Improve Rothis Nethan's chance in his duel by giving him a glass netch dagger. If you choose to start a career in House Redoran after becoming the champion of every arena, it might be a good roleplay opportunitity: you can roleplay that your past experience as an arena fighter helped solve this quest.