Project Tamriel

The full Direnni set has arrived, and it is awesome. Thanks to Worsas, spine_inside and Lord Berandas for their work. The Direnni dungeons and fortresses have some parallels to the Dwemer towers from vanilla. 1. they're inhabited by a long gone race of Elves (though the Direnni are still very much alive), 2. they are powered (lights etc.) by a power source that has been running for all these years (steam/magicka), 3. They usually go underground a lot, as dungeons do. Probably more.

A major difference I think we should have in mind when designing Direnni interiors, is that the Dwemer were a complete civilization and society, where all layers of society lived inside the towers and worked together as the steam-punk Sumerian chaos-gnostics they were. The Direnni differ on this, as they constituted the very pinnacle of the society they lived in as the aristocratic rulers of Nede and later Breton peasantry and minor nobility. The Direnni ruins present in our mod are fortifications built to defend the Direnni Hegemony's eastern border against invaders. The way the interiors are designed should reflect this - living quarters are either for powerful, rich aristocratic rulers or barracks for soldiers. The Direnni also trafficked with Daedra, had a weird obsession with mathematics and certain mathematical rules, and were in general skilled with magic, alchemy, enchantment and mercantilism. Some towers and ruins should show how a Direnni sorceror-noble operated, where others should have a greater focus on the military defense aspect.

These are all good points. In order to not overstretch myself I have mainly focused on the wealth aspect of the Direnni when working on the direnni objects. I think that the poor people ultimately lived outside of the Fortresses and that servants, soldiers and others living in the fortress will have participated in the wealth of their masters in a modest way.

Yeah exactly, that is my point. There weren't really any poor Direnni around, so the set is perfect.

Hey, you guys may already be aware of this, but I just found this document as I was looking up Stone Atronachs and saw it mentioned some Direnni classes/professions: Battlereeves and Sapiarchs. Not sure if you're having undead Direnni in your mod, but I just thought that could be useful info. And there are some other tidbits about the Direnni you may find interesting or inspirational.

I know that many techniques of alchemy and enchantment are attributed to the Direnni. We've tried to account for that by adding some special direnni apparati and having soul gems as frequent loot in our standard containars. Other than that it's been mostly trying to get across a certain atmosphere.

Btw. I wasn't aware about the stuff with the zero stone. I probably read too little.

roerich wrote:A major difference I think we should have in mind when designing Direnni interiors, is that the Dwemer were a complete civilization and society, where all layers of society lived inside the towers and worked together as the steam-punk Sumerian chaos-gnostics they were.

This is just a side note, but some lore devotes have theorized in the past that the Dwemer didn't really have "layers" to their society. At Tamriel Rebuilt at any rate we've been running with the idea, I believe, that the Dwemer didn't actually have a lower class and that their animunculi were responsible for the menial labor required to build and maintain the Dwemers' strongholds. Otherwise, I agree with your post entirely.

A humming sound we could use around major Direnni power sources, for instance the Magi Consoles or the big lamp from my mine? It loops.

I like it myself, it reminds a vanilla crystal ringing sound, while still being distinctly different.

Talking about Direnni - when we got High Rock landmass from worsas (I assume everybody remember the fuss with it, nevermind then) and started to work on Balfiera (especially Ada-mantia), I've composed track for it. Atm it doesn't meet the standards of my creation (especially mastering) but if you want, I can remake it for SHotN .

thankyou for the offer. I don't know if dungeon-specific music is something we are really looking into. We usually avoid anything changing gameplay or atmosphere. Your soundtrack has got a nice old-school feeling to it. Though, I would change it to be less keyboardey and to be more along the lines of the soule - tracks in the vanilla game, if that's possible. We could add an optional plugin with dungeon music later.

Nice sound, berry. Going to include it with the next data.

Thanks for feedback. In fact, this track was made long time ago (probably around February 2013 when I started my adventure with DAWs), I was inexperienced. I will try to make it more morrowindish.

Also, if you'll need some sounds, PM me, I try to make it .

berry put some Direnni (broken) clutter in the booths of merchants etc. and it made me think - how rare do we want this stuff to be? It's not like Dwemer stuff which is illegal to sell or own. But it looks expensive and old, so I'd rather not make it too common. Make the broken stuff not too expensive, but the intact stuff at the same level as Dwemer or a bit less expensive. That way, when you finally stumble upon a completely untouched section of a Direnni ruin, you've hit jackpot.

What do you think?

Different from the Dwemer stuff the Empire has a direct claim on, the Direnni stuff in the ruins could legally still belong to the today descendants of the Direnni clan in Highrock, an establishment that could have been made in the first centuries of the Third Empire and that the Imperials only grudgingly accept until today. However, factually the Nords have always prevented the Aristocracy of Highrock from collecting their own from the Ruins in Skyrim. The Nords again would have to pay to the Highrock Aristocracy for ever owning Direnni objects, officially, leading to the situation that many Direnni ruins remain unexploited until today. Owning Direnni objects is illegal, like owning Dwemer objects, but the law enforcement on part of the Imperials is far less ambitious here, naturally.

I think that's a good proposal, though I'm not even sure it need to be that bureaucratic. Nor if the Direnni would want all their old clutter back.

I just want to be careful that we dont spread these items too far and wide into merchant booths and levelled lists. The odd piece here and there should be good, especially if broken, but it's something we'll need to have in mind.