Project Tamriel

Inspired by TR, I have made the very first steps in the direction of creating dynamic Master Plan documents for our major regions, themes, factions etc. I made us a new Gmail account, as the previous one is unaccessible to me. (I think Lestat has the password)

I started with the Hjaalmarch, as it is a region I have some ideas for. I'm still in the process of working out a template for these documents, so bear with me while everything is still messy. I will inspect some of the TR documents once I have some time, in order to grab every good idea I come across.

Hjaalmarch region planning document:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1fG2 ... sp=sharing" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[hsimg=]http://40.media.tumblr.com/597e6115c420 ... 1_1280.jpg[/hsimg]

I like this characterization very much already, in particular the town ideas. I'm a bit worried about the practical implementation of it all, since it's even lying behind Haafinheim, that we haven't really tackled so far. On the other hand, it's refreshing to see something new conceptualized. The document structure looked ok, when I skimmed over it. The only thing that caught my attention was the creatures being listed so high up above. I'd have put them further down, myself below any culture-related- and town- stuff.

The Horn Moot feels like it could be a really epic moment (akin to "Gondor calls for aid"). It'd be really nice to include it as part of a quest line. You're in a village for some reason and then a scripted horn noise plays, followed by another one and another one and another one...

I've got this idea of a beaver/platypus/crocodile hybrid creature which is the apex predator in the marshes.

Indeed, in my thoughts for the questline I have planned for the Horn Moot to actually take place in relation to a Haafingar confrontation.

Sounds great! I like the concept, and I had some struggle trying to come up with a predator animal for the marshes myself.

Post away if you have more ideas.

How will the Hjaal people relate to the Horme? Do you have any ideas on that yet?

Yes, I don't see them as being overly involved in affairs outside of the marshes. But they are aware of the Hörme, and they don't have too much against them, as they perceive their struggle as being anti-tyrannical and just.

We could even have a few Hörme fugitives hiding in the marshes, or a group of Hörme agents trying to hire some of the Hjaal guerilla experts for their cause.

Map sketch:

[hsimg=]http://i.imgur.com/xlthNwM.jpg[/hsimg]

Is there any particular reason, why you are working around those outdated rivers in the east?

Not really no. I wasn't sure which rivers were to be kept, so I just left them in. Same with the mountains, but I wanted to add a mountain chain around the Hjaalmarch.

The most-up-to-date version of the rivers (and really anything else) is found here. It is still very rough and could stand being modified and detailled further. The river layouts are very crude and undetailled, compared to the river Thirr or rivers on the Cyrodiil-map. You can always modify this map to add in your wanted additions and changes.

Sorry for not having any worthwhile feedback yesterday. Here are my thoughts:

I like both the mountain ranges aswell as the locations and the intricacy of the many small "islands" coming out of the mud. You should be able to walk between most of them without swimming. I don't actually have any change proposals, except that I'd like your map to be carried over to our location map.

For the regional assets, I would like to see a limited usage of the trees that are also in Haafinheim, as I think they will give it a nice feeling, still. But there could be relatively few trees, overall and more pinebushes instead? For the groundtextures the frost- or slightly snow-affected ones would be cool, aswell as using the snow-affected 04 rocks without really having any dense snow coverage at the same time, if you catch my drift.

On the plants: the infamous Deathbell, of course. The orchid still needs to be given an identity, if you want it for these marshes, which is why I haven't added it to the new data.bsa yet. I was thinking about heather for a moment, but I'm not sure if we shouldn't reserve it for the further east areas, where it could be used together with cowbell and other small plants. Those barren, thorny snowberries would probably work quite well, too.

I have just looked at the lake in your planning document and I wonder, if there is even any place for it in your region draft, right now. The waterbody needs to be a bit larger for it. Now, thinking about it, some waterways in the marshes should probably made a bit wider to allow longboats to navigate. At the same time, some of the small islands could be made bigger (probably the ones the towns are situated on), just to have a few spots escape the regular pattern.

I'd like to second worsas' idea about making some of the islands bigger. But I think the general concept and shaping of the marsh is really cool and will hopefully be easy to make

I agree with pretty much everything, Worsas.

For the waterways, I'd like a labyrinthian network connecting the villages with each other and the Sea of Ghosts. Only a few of these are navigable by longboats, the rest should be done in canoe-like vessels.

Some of the islands should indeed be larger, everything should be scaled up a bit to compare to the size of the gameworld. Drajkmyr and Morthal should mostly be built directly on the water, with stilt-houses. The other islands should be larger.

This can be a really interesting region in terms of exteriors with the islands and all. Sort of like the Thirr River valley was made up of small-ish islands, which Nemon accomplished perfectly. Looking forward to this!

I know I haven't posted here, but I pretty much agree with That vision appeals to me, and I'm looking forward to us working on it.

As for possible monsters to see here, how about a variant of Muspila's swamp troll, retextured to grays and browns, with some alpha planes of fur (Uderfrytke-like, maybe slightly longer if that's possible engine-wise), and some majestic horns? A wendigo-like figure (the leftmost one is the closest to what I have in mind):

[hsimg=]https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/2mFqK ... u4ShdWmQST[/hsimg] [hsimg=]http://i59.tinypic.com/ncmakg.jpg[/hsimg] [hsimg=]http://pre12.deviantart.net/04f1/th/pre ... 9d898p.png[/hsimg]

It might play a greater role in the culture of the Hjaalmens, where a youngster is to kill the thing to prove his/her ascension into adulthood and so on.

Possible region sound asset, too - a distant horn blow. The Moot horns if we decide to implement the event would get a sound (a model, too? A giant bone one?) on their own, and this one supposedly would be a random hunter/settlement making a random call with an average horn.