House Telvanni Faction Quest Design

[Bloodthirsty Crustacean]

yep, as i said above the best start would be to allocate which vanilla quests will be slotted in there. From there we can see what the gaps are.

Stage 1 will be mostly new quests, based on the whole Sadas Plantation Agent thing. The Hireling quest probably ought to be new too, but could be lifted from an existing PT misc or Mouth quest if we're feeling lazy.

The Tel Mora path could use the 'supress the usurper' quest or the (very very boring) Dratha's Mouth quests. Enough new quests to pad it out to equivalent length of the main path will be required.

(Length should be, I'd suggest - 1 hireling quest, 2 'agent' quests - keeps it snappy and allows for a not-overblown or too drawn-out narrative to develop. We could add maybe a third or fourth, but I think that's just stringing things out longer than necessary. If the 2 quests are sufficently developed and interesting, this should be a satisfactory experience)


Stage 2 can use existing Mouth quests - but a lot of these are hella boring. Plenty can be kept as filler, but at least half should probably be new and more inventive. Vanilla provides 13 fetch quests for the Mouths of 6 Vvardenfell mage lords. Original TR provides 12 fetch/dialogue quests for the Mouths of 6 Mainland mage lords. (UESP provides a neat list of both)

It's unclear from your post, Sload, which Mouths the player is working for. ("they have to complete work for the mouths, conveniently located right here in the Parliament of Bugs. ... The mouths on the council are too good for the player, so they have to do the work of the other mouths.") It would be helpful to know how many mages are on the Council, who they are, and which ones the player can work for.

In any event, 25 quests is probably overkill, especially when most are just fetch.


When I get a chance I'll try and get on IRC sometime, but life is as always pretty frantic.




On the 'two factions' thing, does this mean, if we're not having a seperate Hireling faction, that all NPCs below the rank of Kinsman are going to be removed from the Telvanni faction wholesale? Might cause some issues for dialogue filtering, and would have other knock-on effects (e.g. they'd provide services to people of other Houses, etc.)

[Sload]

This post contains some more uptodate information about house telvanni than previous ones

The ranks of House Telvanni are:
Oathman - You have taken an oath to serve in House Telvanni
Kinsman - You are now kin to Telvanni, the base rank for any member of the House
Craftsman - You are now in the service of a particular Telvanni magelord doing a "craft," that is, magic work. You deal with the Spellwright in charge of the magelord's staff, not the magelord themself
Caster - A rank above craftsman, you now work directly with the magelord.
Spellwright - You are in the magelord's inner circle
Wizard - You are a magelord, you have your own tower and mouth.
Master - You are a magelord on the Telvanni council.
Magister - You are claiming that you should be the leader of House Telvanni
Archmagister - You are the indisputed leader of House Telvanni.

There is an extra slot for a rank here that will probably be occupied by "Mouth," a rank the player will not achieve, or a rank in the line around caster, spellwright, and wizard.

As the game opens, the council includes all characters with Master and above rank, which are Dral of Tel Thenim, Neloth of Tel Naga, Rathra of Tel Ouada, Vaerin of Tel Bosara, Gothren of Tel Aruhn, Thelasa of Tel Muthada [Bal-Gernak] of [Tel ???], and Theruna of Tel Branora.

Wizards also have mouths, but they are not on the council. As the game opens, the Wizards of House Telvanni are Dratha of Tel Mora, Aryon of Tel Vos, Faruna of Tel Oren, [Eldale] of Tel Darys, [Narrusa] of [Tel Narrusa], [Rilmas and Solas] of Tel Marog, [???] of [Tel Mothrivra].

Later in the game, Theruna of Tel Branora is dropped from the council and later still Aryon of Tel Vos is added to it.

[Bloodthirsty Crustacean]

are the wizardly mouths also present in the Parliament of Bugs (interior cell) or are they to be found elsewhere?

[Sload]

in the same complex, at least

[Thrignar Fraxix]

I have merged this thread into the one in which we've been having our most recent Telvanni discussion.

[Thrignar Fraxix]

Nowadays we try to limit high level questing discussions to this subforum so that only the people we've decided know their ass from a hole in the ground can contribute. It has cut down on the needless explanations and bad ideas considerably.

[Haplo]

At this point and time, when we have only a fraction of active members, I think it's best to have some kind of discussion in the public area. I seriously doubt it will take off like wildfire, but it will show questioning people that we aren't as dead as it looks. Not every discussion has to be locked up and treated like proprietary information.

TF: Frankly, theviking is a member of TR and when he has ideas he has a right to post them where he pleases. If he wants to talk about quests in the Lore forum, he can do so. We will simply make final decisions here/in admin. Group discussions are best with more than just two or three voices, and it will allow every member to take part in the leg-work. Once said leg-work is finished, then we can bring the discussion to this separate forum to make more deliberative decisions.

However, theviking: when an administrator moves a thread you make into a hidden forum, it is NOT okay to just thumb your nose at them and re-post the thread. Additionally, you specifically went against the rules of the Halfway House by mentioning the Halfway House in the public forums. We only have two rules in the HH, and that is the biggest one. Please consider what you have done, and the manner in which you did it, so that we can correct this behavior in the future.

Right now, my inclination is to delete the duplicate thread, separate the original thread out of these posts, and move it back to Lore and Discussion.

[theviking]

I'm sorry, you guys. I had forgotten that keeping this forum secret was one of the rules.

In my opinion quests designing is a process that everyone can join. The actual desgning of the quest should be done by someone responsible for it, and anyone can offer suggestions or critique. That way, you'll end up with questlines that everyone can enjoy. That no one other than Haplo and TF commented on the quest might signal that we need to recruit members to offer suggestions and critique on the designing of quests, but I'll leave that to Why.

I realise it was pretty blunt of me to immediately repost the thread.

[Thrignar Fraxix]

I remember the discussion that perhaps the old TR policy of not interferring with vanilla Morrowind should be abandoned and factions TR_Telvanni and Telvanni merged and accordingly the whole Telvanni faction redesigned to provide meaningful and uniform experience of the house.
IMHO grand house questlines and other quests with political background and consequences should be considered only after the whole of morrowind is finished, and local quests and lore implemented.
This is the only way to make them fit into the world, which has been already designed and not create any conflicts.
Before doing this, I think some of the map 1 quests should be revisited then, because some of them still do not make sense and some even do not work properly. After a release of full Telvanni + Antedilluivan secret with 100 percent working local, misc and minor guild quests is out there, it makes sense to think how to enhance it with some overarching quests (remaking Vvardenfel too).

Oh hey look it is The exact fucking reason I wanted this in here! We haven't discussed the possibility of editing Vvardenfel outside of HH, and yet this discussion is instrumental in the larger Telvanni plan (if the direction from before is any indication)

[Haplo]

Please see my post in "Visions and restrictions: a proposal." We've gotten 3 good pages of discussion out of this with just the leaders. It's time to see what other people can add to the stale discussion.

[Sload]

This is a proposed plan for making House Telvanni and the Telvannis region awesome! It contains the following sections:

-Telvannis Settlements: Two pages of descriptions of the Telvannis Settlements, Telvanni or otherwise, under this plan.

-Telvannis Regions & Difficulty: A very sketchy overview of Telvannis wilderness, leaving the key details to people who are much better at this sort of thing than I am.

-Changes to Each Settlement: Describing what changes need to be made to each settlement to match the vision in this plan.

-Telvanni Hierarchy: An overview of the Telvanni ranks and the identities of the people at the highest ranks.

-Telvanni Questline: Based on the quest line posted by myself in January 2011, this is somewhat more fleshed out and explained than the 2011 version, but is not quest-by-quest.

THOUGHTS?

[Gez]

Man, I actually like Bal Oyra and Bahrammu...

Anyway, if they were to be removed, what would take their place? Musk farms? Bahrammu can already be turned into a small musk farming village. Just add whatever stuff musk comes from around it. (Since it's bug musk, I suppose musk comes from hives. With regular-sized bugs in it.)

[Yeti]

At first glance I like the quest plan overall. I'll comment on it in greater depth once I've had more time to mull over its details.

On Settlement Changes

Adurin Oek: Always felt the village was generic, so no qualms from me here.

Bahrammu: I see absolutely no reason for cutting Bahrammu "mercilessly". It's just a harmless shack village in the middle of nowhere. What's the big deal? Nothing about its concept or design screams terrible to me.

Bal Oyra: Yes! Burn it to the ground! Bal Oyra is probably the blandest settlement in all of Tamriel Rebuilt. It has absolutely no reason to exist, and harms the hostile image of our Telvanni lands by its very existence.

With that said, perhaps the fort is worth keeping as a small outpost protecting the Empire's desired control over the Musk trade? I'd also sort of like to keep the town's [url=http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Tes3Mod:Tamriel_Rebuilt/Fast_and_Furious]Orc hunger strike quest.[/url] Honestly, it's one of the only things that I bothered to remember about the place, besides that dumb quest with the Muskflys.

Firewatch:We should rearrange the actual town part of it to be more densely-packed like Old Ebonheart. It look's really shitty and generic with the buildings spread out as is. Also, the library seems pretty pointless to me. Why does Firewatch get a dedicated library while other more important settlements don't? Another gimmicky concept to cut is that stupid script on those stupid gates that makes them only open during the stupid day.

Helnim: Tel Narrusa needs to be moved at least a or two away from Helnim to undo the current ungodly fusion of the two settlements. While you're at it, burn the shitty shack slums to the ground. Otherwise I'm unsure where to make the cuts, though I don't disagree with the need to make them.

I haven't visited the city in-game in ages, but I remember liking the cramp streets and grimy atmosphere of the Imperial part of town. Perhaps we can keep these qualities in the redesign?

Ga Sadrith: Out of curiosity, what happens to Eldale in your plans? Having an Altmer Telvanni seemed stylistically pleasing to me, and makes a bit more sense than a Bjoulsae getting on the council.

Llothanis: Not sure how I feel about this. Llothanis certainly has a lot of problems and things that stand to be improved. But I love the concept of the city as a whole. I suggest a re-tool rather than a remake.

Port Telvanni: I love the description. Sounds exactly like how I'd picture the Telvanni capital. Definitely agree that it needs major remaking. Even when I first played TR I remember being disappointed by Port Telvannis. Like with Almalexia, we should try to salvage as many interiors as possible, but otherwise let's go all out on this.

Ranyon-ruhn: The Velothi part of Ranyon-ruhn is great as is. If possible, could we move Tel Aranyon away from the town by a few cells? A Velothi village overgrown with Telvanni roots has been done already at Vos. Having one here is an uninteresting duplication. On a slightly related note, I think this town has way too many quests tied to it in comparison to its size. Not sure how we could go about fixing this, or if it even needs to be fixed.

Sadas Plantation: Glad we're finally integrating the Musk industry into our Telvanni lands. The Siltstrider plantation was a disaster. Both in concept and implementation.

Sadrith Mora: I'm all for making Sadrith Mora more interesting. The city has a lot of unrealized potential. Are we keeping the secondary council hall here, or removing it in favor of the one in Port Telvannis? If so, can we find a way to keep the underground Temple in its basement at least?

Tel Marog: I agree that it needs improvements. Personally, if we were going to replace a Telvanni town with a Velothi one, I'd favor this place over Llothanis. Having a Velothi village built into the cliffs underneath a massive Dwemer ruin would look great, in my opinion.

Tel Mesdaryon: I support the change. Sounds like an interesting concept, which Tel Mothrivra definitely wasn't.

Tel Oren: Part of me agrees that cutting Tel Oren is a good idea, but another part of me think's we don't have enough Telvanni towers on the mainland compared to the huge number of them on Vvardenfell. Perhaps replace it with a normal Telvanni house of some recluse?

Tel Vos: I'm completely against getting rid of the Imperial parts. Unlike Helnim, the mixture of architecture actually works here, and fits Aryon's character. It's also a very iconic location. We'd probably get a ton of backlash for changing it.

Other Things:

Yes, Rathra and Uveldryn need new names. Glad someone has finally brought this up. Could we also rename Bal-Gernak while we're at it? It sounds kind of silly to me. Bal-Galorn? Bal-Garek? Bal-Galnak?

Tel Muthada's current Wizard is horribly bland. Replacing her with anyone would be an improvement. Personally, a Breton Telvanni doesn't immediately appeal to me, but maybe I just need to see the concept fleshed out.

Finally, we should come up with a new concept for the Helnim Fields that isn't ungodly bland. Something awesome and unique like the Ash Swamp or Othreleth Woods.

[Haplo]

I'd love to have anything other than Ga(h) in front of Sadrith.

[Gez]

I'd love to have anything other than Ga(h) in front of Sadrith.

Even "Mora"? :p

Preemptive veto of any and all of the following: ald, ruhn, bal, mora. And especially mora.

[rot]

Hey hey just name a village Moramora, you know you want it.

I think this town has way too many quests tied to it in comparison to its size.

No such thing as too many quests if they're good and already made




re: plan:

Baladas Demnevanni is missing in the lists. Iirc he can join the faction in vanilla

I've always loved the term "sycophant", but it has a meaning (flatterer?). Could be stretched to apologist / pleader... but none of these make sense wrt the supposedly no-bullshit attitude of the Telvanni. Derogatory nickname for the function perhaps, but would it get officiously adopted?

Since rank Mouth is to be skipped by the player, it doesn't have to exist ingame at all, can add a Retainer rank.


"There are two sites for the player's stronghold" - consider the possibility of building the stronghold anywhere the player wants. (even if not an option to be implemented immediately)

[arvisrend]

@Adurin-Oek: the shipwreck village is a cool idea.

@Dagon Fel: I recall it just being boring. But is it Telvanni at all? And should it be?

With that said, perhaps the fort is worth keeping as a small outpost protecting the Empire's desired control over the Musk trade? I'd also sort of like to keep the town's [url=http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Tes3Mod:Tamriel_Rebuilt/Fast_and_Furious]Orc hunger strike quest.[/url] Honestly, it's one of the only things that I bothered to remember about the place, besides that dumb quest with the Muskflys.

I like the hungerstriking orc, too, but that makes more sense on either of maps 3 and 4 and maybe parts of 6.

Firewatch:We should rearrange the actual town part of it to be more densely-packed like Old Ebonheart. It look's really shitty and generic with the buildings spread out as is. Also, the library seems pretty pointless to me. Why does Firewatch get a dedicated library while other more important settlements don't? Another gimmicky concept to cut is that stupid script on those stupid gates that makes them only open during the stupid day.

I like the residential part of Firewatch; the fort-and-docks part is ugly. Why not a library? Knowledge for everyone; a subtle way for Imperials to say Fuck You to the Telvanni?

Helnim: Tel Narrusa needs to be moved at least a or two away from Helnim to undo the current ungodly fusion of the two settlements. While you're at it, burn the shitty shack slums to the ground. Otherwise I'm unsure where to make the cuts, though I don't disagree with the need to make them.

I haven't visited the city in-game in ages, but I remember liking the cramp streets and grimy atmosphere of the Imperial part of town. Perhaps we can keep these qualities in the redesign?

I recall finding anything in that fucking town being a fucking pain. There's just too many houses. A large cramped town can look nice in a Witcher or Thief, but Helnim is just a stupid maze of identical architecture, and even the narrow alleys look not as much like narrow alleys as like accidental results of buildings being thrown together randomly in the CS. The shacks, at least, are few (though completely bland as well).

Llothanis: Not sure how I feel about this. Llothanis certainly has a lot of problems and things that stand to be improved. But I love the concept of the city as a whole. I suggest a re-tool rather than a remake.

I always found a bookseller being only accessible by levitation a bit too weird even for the Telvanni. But the town is neat, although I don't remember anything special about it.

Port Telvanni: I love the description. Sounds exactly like how I'd picture the Telvanni capital. Definitely agree that it needs major remaking. Even when I first played TR I remember being disappointed by Port Telvannis. Like with Almalexia, we should try to salvage as many interiors as possible, but otherwise let's go all out on this.

It has a lot of filler right now. And it is just another mushroomville like Llothanis; I hope it gets something more distinctive.

Ranyon-ruhn: The Velothi part of Ranyon-ruhn is great as is. If possible, could we move Tel Aranyon away from the town by a few cells? A Velothi village overgrown with Telvanni roots has been done already at Vos. Having one here is an uninteresting duplication. On a slightly related note, I think this town has way too many quests tied to it in comparison to its size. Not sure how we could go about fixing this, or if it even needs to be fixed.

I don't think "too many quests" needs to be fixed. The quests are good, compared to (say) Helnim's.

Tel Vos: I'm completely against getting rid of the Imperial parts. Unlike Helnim, the mixture of architecture actually works here, and fits Aryon's character. It's also a very iconic location. We'd probably get a ton of backlash for changing it.

Agree; the Imperial part of Tel Vos has a meaning and shouldn't be removed.

[Haplo]

I'd love to have anything other than Ga(h) in front of Sadrith.

Even "Mora"? :p

Preemptive veto of any and all of the following: ald, ruhn, bal, mora. And especially mora.

FWIW I would prefer Mora Sadrith of Gah Sadrith, even though I know Mora Sadrith means something nonsensical in Dunmeri.

[Sload]

Anyway, if they were to be removed, what would take their place? Musk farms? Bahrammu can already be turned into a small musk farming village. Just add whatever stuff musk comes from around it. (Since it's bug musk, I suppose musk comes from hives. With regular-sized bugs in it.)

Bahrammu: I see absolutely no reason for cutting Bahrammu "mercilessly". It's just a harmless shack village in the middle of nowhere. What's the big deal? Nothing about its concept or design screams terrible to me.

When you say harmless, I say pointless. If this region is going to be a part of the BADASS BACKWATER ADVENTURE DANGER ZONE of Morrowind (along with Red Mountain and the Argon jungle) it needs less random stupid shack towns. If anything replaces it, I would say dungeons.

Bal Oyra: Yes! Burn it to the ground! Bal Oyra is probably the blandest settlement in all of Tamriel Rebuilt. It has absolutely no reason to exist, and harms the hostile image of our Telvanni lands by its very existence.

With that said, perhaps the fort is worth keeping as a small outpost protecting the Empire's desired control over the Musk trade? I'd also sort of like to keep the town's [url=http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Tes3Mod:Tamriel_Rebuilt/Fast_and_Furious]Orc hunger strike quest.[/url] Honestly, it's one of the only things that I bothered to remember about the place, besides that dumb quest with the Muskflys.

Burn it to the ground and put a Daedric ruin to Sheogorath there as as a tribute to our maddening stupidity.

Firewatch:We should rearrange the actual town part of it to be more densely-packed like Old Ebonheart. It look's really shitty and generic with the buildings spread out as is. Also, the library seems pretty pointless to me. Why does Firewatch get a dedicated library while other more important settlements don't? Another gimmicky concept to cut is that stupid script on those stupid gates that makes them only open during the stupid day.

I like the gates a lot actually and think that they just need to be more explicitly played up as a defense in dangerous territory. I'll leave the exterior to someone whose good at that.

Helnim: Tel Narrusa needs to be moved at least a or two away from Helnim to undo the current ungodly fusion of the two settlements. While you're at it, burn the shitty shack slums to the ground. Otherwise I'm unsure where to make the cuts, though I don't disagree with the need to make them.

I haven't visited the city in-game in ages, but I remember liking the cramp streets and grimy atmosphere of the Imperial part of town. Perhaps we can keep these qualities in the redesign?

I don't agree that they need to be moved further away.

Ga Sadrith: Out of curiosity, what happens to Eldale in your plans? Having an Altmer Telvanni seemed stylistically pleasing to me, and makes a bit more sense than a Bjoulsae getting on the council.

I'd love to have anything other than Ga(h) in front of Sadrith.

Eldale is disappeared. I do not agree that an Altmer Telvanni is a good idea. In fact, I think it is a terrible idea. The conflict between the Altmer and the Dunmer is too ideological and too historical. A human Wizard is more reasonable because that's just overcoming racism. I also don't agree that Ga Sadrith is a bad name.

Llothanis: Not sure how I feel about this. Llothanis certainly has a lot of problems and things that stand to be improved. But I love the concept of the city as a whole. I suggest a re-tool rather than a remake.

It is intentional in this plan that the Telvanni do not build towns, because that is the cool and unique thing about the Telvanni: they live in wizard towers, not towns. I would cut Sadrith Mora too if I didn't think TR would never go for it. Llothanis cannot be saved.

Ranyon-ruhn: The Velothi part of Ranyon-ruhn is great as is. If possible, could we move Tel Aranyon away from the town by a few cells? A Velothi village overgrown with Telvanni roots has been done already at Vos. Having one here is an uninteresting duplication. On a slightly related note, I think this town has way too many quests tied to it in comparison to its size. Not sure how we could go about fixing this, or if it even needs to be fixed.

Like Helnim, I do not see any reason to move Ranyon-ruhn away. Mithras's quests are stupid, also.

Tel Marog: I agree that it needs improvements. Personally, if we were going to replace a Telvanni town with a Velothi one, I'd favor this place over Llothanis. Having a Velothi village built into the cliffs underneath a massive Dwemer ruin would look great, in my opinion.

While I'd be fine with either Llothanis or Marog going (and the other becoming a wizard's tower), I feel like this cliff face is more unique and has more potential for a Telvanni tower than the bay Llothanis is in.

Tel Oren: Part of me agrees that cutting Tel Oren is a good idea, but another part of me think's we don't have enough Telvanni towers on the mainland compared to the huge number of them on Vvardenfell. Perhaps replace it with a normal Telvanni house of some recluse?

The sadrith towers should be pretty unique sites. This plan leaves 14 of them. Tel Oren becomes a site for the player's stronghold.

Tel Vos: I'm completely against getting rid of the Imperial parts. Unlike Helnim, the mixture of architecture actually works here, and fits Aryon's character. It's also a very iconic location. We'd probably get a ton of backlash for changing it.

I think it is incredibly stupid but whatever.

Yes, Rathra and Uveldryn need new names. Glad someone has finally brought this up. Could we also rename Bal-Gernak while we're at it? It sounds kind of silly to me. Bal-Galorn? Bal-Garek? Bal-Galnak?

Uveldryn was the new name, I admit it isn't great but I want it to start with U. I like Bal-Gernak a lot because it is very unique but still Dunmer. Its not something that should be replicated but in this context I think its great.

[Swiftoak]

I mentioned this on IRC a few days ago, but it would be really cool if we built Firewatch on some sort of redoubt overlooking the sea. Sort of Solitude-ish but no a blatant rip off.

The harbor would be built in a natural alcove under the keep itself. And yes to OEizing the town part, and getting rid (or moving the library to OE).

Yes to the magic parliament portal in Sadrith Mora. We need more cool ideas like this.

I'm a little wary of having any GL extending into the mainland. I'm all for contigous regions, but with the whole Vvardenfell rift thing happening in the Inner sea, I pictured the coastline to be much more rugged. We have novel use of WG and GL in the Mephalains and Roth Roryn respectively. I'd rather not see any more in Telvannis, but more experimenation with different combinations of the AC set mixed in with some ouf our own assets. We could easily create 3 or 4 different regions using subtle variations of AC to give Telvannis that inhospitable remote look.

Anyways here's a map of what I propose could be potential region borders for Telvannis with short descriptions of what I conceptualize them to be.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/zah1z82zfofp8i7/regionmap.jpg

Azurian Coast - A continuation of Azura's coast, but with moar rocks. Very rocky and treacherous. Maybe hint at volcanic activity? Like steam vents rising from muckpools or something. Lots of pools, make the coast broken. Lots of natural alcoves and little islands.

Boethian Mountains - I don't know yet. But not WG. Please. Terraced cliffs with mushrooms growing off the crags? Make it sort of impassable and easy to get lost in. The part where the mountains meet the sea (Helnim, Kemel-Ze/Tel Marog), make this look like a crater's edge.

"Snowy Sheogorath" - I for one would love this region to be a semi-snowy (not map 5 velothi mountains snowy) version of AC/Sheogorath. Snowy mushrooms and telvanni roots. Flora wise there should be a gradual transition from Sheogorath to the far more wild, root-y Telvanni Isles. Nemon said snow Telvanni might be a neat idea to think of.

"Shroomcoast" - I don't know. Moar shrooms, but not vanilla shrooms. A forest of those ACshrooms perhaps. Hilly but not impassable.

Telvanni Isles - Make this super epic with twisty roots that make it almost impossible to go anywhere or find anything. Terraced cliffs for PT area. Near impossible by foot.

"Helnim" Valley. - I don't know. Not Grazelands. Maybe just vanilla mushroom forest lowlands. This valley should entirely be surrounded by mountains all over. Boethians to the North, Mephalains to the south. Could be AC lowlands, more dirt-ish and fertile. Sort of a place of respite from all the inhospitableness in the rest of the area.

[Haplo]

In your image, you forgot to mention that "Helnim Valley" isn't in Telvannis either. Telvannis cuts off about where the text starts.

[Swiftoak]

I meant Telvannis as a whole district, not just the old Map 1 borders. Sorry for the mixup.

[Sload]

In your image, you forgot to mention that "Helnim Valley" isn't in Telvannis either. Telvannis cuts off about where the text starts.

In general, at this stage of development, I think you should assume when someone refers to Telvannis, an area of the game world, (as opposed to Telvannis, the release we did in 2007), they are referring to at minimum the Telvannis District, and possibly also the Telvanni portion of Vvardenfell.

[Theo]

The overgrown temple at Tel Mothrivra is well-designed interior and could replace the underwhelming Tel Aranyon near Ranyon-Ruhn. It also blends well with the Velothi architecture better.

[Yeti]

When you say harmless, I say pointless. If this region is going to be a part of the BADASS BACKWATER ADVENTURE DANGER ZONE of Morrowind (along with Red Mountain and the Argon jungle) it needs less random stupid shack towns. If anything replaces it, I would say dungeons.

I agree pointless shack towns generally aren't very interesting, and that we shouldn't waste our time making places that aren't interesting, but Bahrammu already exists. We don't gain anything from cutting it. I mean, no one complains about places like Khuul and Ald Velothi in vanilla.

But I'm probably defending this shack village way more than it deserves. I might be a little too hesitant when it comes to throwing out work.

Eldale is disappeared. I do not agree that an Altmer Telvanni is a good idea. In fact, I think it is a terrible idea. The conflict between the Altmer and the Dunmer is too ideological and too historical. A human Wizard is more reasonable because that's just overcoming racism.

Somehow I don't see the Telvanni giving two shits about their race's ideological and historical conflict with the Altmer. They respect power and magical ability above all, and Altmer are known for having a lot of extremely talented Wizards.

Llothanis:It is intentional in this plan that the Telvanni do not build towns, because that is the cool and unique thing about the Telvanni: they live in wizard towers, not towns. I would cut Sadrith Mora too if I didn't think TR would never go for it. Llothanis cannot be saved.

Fair enough, though adding a minor tower to the place seems to me like an easier path to take than redoing it completely. Llothanis has only 19 interiors as it stands. If we cut five of them, it wouldn't be much bigger than Tel Mora or Tel Ouada. It would be about the same size of Ga Sadrith, at any rate.

I think it is incredibly stupid but whatever.

Tell that to Master Aryon.

Don't get me wrong. I can totally see where you're coming from in regards to the settlement's design. Looking at it now, it does look kind of moddy by 2013 TR standards. But Bethesda made it, and it's the kind of location you can't drastically change without having a lot of people noticing.

[Sload]

So imo we could make Llothanis into Tel Llothan and then make either Marog or Tel Muthada into non-Telvanni towns. I actually might be more in favor of that; especially Tel Muthada, the nice aspects of which can be saved easily for use elsewhere, because they are not location-dependent.

[Gez]

So we could shuffle worthwhile stuff from Bal Oyra into Marog or whatever?

[roerich]

So we could shuffle worthwhile stuff from Bal Oyra into Marog or whatever?

Marog is mentioned as a Dunmer village in lore, I don't see why it should turn Imperial all of a sudden. I think a velothi cliffside village would be cool if done right.

[Gez]

What I like in Bal Oyra?

The fort and its characters. The protesting orc, the khajiit trainer, the mini mages guild, etc. Imperial forts do not have to be near a common village. In fact, on Vvardenfell, the imperial forts are quite pointedly put next to non-imperial towns in all but one cases:
Moonmoth: Balmora
Buckmoth: Ald-ruhn
Ebonheart: Vivec
Wolverine: Sadrith Mora
Darius: Gnisis
The exception is Pelagiad, where local dialogue explicitly says it was in the wilderness and the town grew around the fort.

So putting the Bal Oyra keep atop a Velothi cliffside village bordering the ruins of Kemel-Ze? Fine.

The other thing I like in Bal Oyra is the silt strider port built on a natural rock arch. That design is easy to transpose anywhere else.

Most quests could be easily transfered to Marog. Like, "Head in the clouds"? It would work just as well in a valothi room; just use the two-story pieces (in_v_s_int* or maybe in_velothismall_pit*) for a room or something.

[Yeti]

Don't you hate it when you type a long post and the fucking forum logs you out when you click submit and you lose the entire goddamn thing? I sure do!

But anyway...

I wouldn't mind seeing Tel Muthada broken up. The settlement never really made much of an impression on me. Finding a place for its better parts in the redesign of Port Telvannis would be best, imo. Tel Llothan is a much cooler-sounding name for a tower anyway.

I feel a little guilty arguing against the current version of Marog. There isn't anything necessarily wrong with its design. But at no point when I was reading "The Ruins of Kemel-Ze" did I picture it as a Telvanni tower. It's current size also seems problematic to me. It's exterior is nearly as large as Kemel-Ze's! Kemel-freaking-ze shouldn't have to compete with a nearby settlement for the player's immediate attention. A smaller settlement overshadowed by the awe-inspiring massive ruins would be better thematically, imo.

Concerning Gez's post, I don't want to see Bal Oyra's keep anywhere near Kemel-ze. Having three vastly different architecture styles occupy the same place would look terrible. If we do end up keeping the keep (no pun intended) it should be kept as a small outpost used by the Empire to guard its limited trade routes in the region. Maybe move it closer to Firewatch to make its survival in the hostile lands of the Telvanni make more sense. This would give the Imperials at least a token presence in the District's north besides the Ducal-seat. The Black Ogre Tavern could be moved with it as well, since it has a number of quests tied to it.

But it isn't really than important to save the keep, really. At the very least, its Mages Guild Relay needs to be removed. The Mages Guild isn't a public transportation service. Guild Guides should only provide teleportation between dedicated Guild Halls.

-------

But anyway, I think we're focusing too much on settlements right now while neglecting Sload's quest plan. Overall I think it has a good flow and progresses to satisfying conclusions. I do have a few comments/questions to make, but nothing major.

I think the Hireling stage could stand to be a little long, giving the player the opportunity to experience what it's like to be the lowliest pawn of the Telvanni by doing degrading grunt work.

The Tel Mora alternative path for female players is an intriguing idea. How exactly will players be directed to it?

Killing Master Mithras early on is a good idea. He's been portrayed as the most likeable of our Telvanni, and killing him will show how brutal Telvanni politics are. Once Bal-Gernak replaces him, we can implement some new dialogue and quests in Ranyon-ruhn showing the consequences of the change in leadership.

What exactly will Gothren's role in the new Telvanni be? At the very least, we need to keep the part where he acts as a stubborn obstacle to the player/Aryon. Making him a close ally to Rathra would make sense.

Although it makes sense for Rathra to want the power of being Archmagister for herself, it seems a little out-of-character for Aryon. He was more than happy having the player take the position in vanilla. Granted, it did seem a tad weird how much he bent over backward to advance the player throughout the questline. We definitely should change him to be less of a blatant gameplay hook. With that said, Aryon still seems to me like the kind of guy who would want to exert power through a protege or ally rather than directly. He even invited Divayth Fyr to join the Telvanni Council in vanilla, showing he's more interested in influencing the future of his House than gaining absolute power for the sake of power.

On a related note, how exactly are we going to handle the player becoming Horator during the main quest? Will players have to get the approval of the mainland Telvanni lords along with the one's on Vvardenfell now that the two councils have been fused?

[Gez]

Maybe move it closer to Firewatch to make its survival in the hostile lands of the Telvanni make more sense.

That would just be overredundant. There's already Firewatch itself and its hill bastion. If the empire was cowardly to the point of bunching all its fortresses together, you can just move everything to Septim's Gate. The point is to have it some distances away from Firewatch so that it serves some purpose of projecting military might and attempting to protect non-Telvanni citizens a little bit.

The Mages Guild isn't a public transportation service.

Pretty sure there was a service refusal if you weren't mages guild or imperial legion.

The point was that the MG cannot afford to maintain a full guild hall in the region because of Telvanni rivalry/hostility, but they still want to be able to get there to study the interesting stuff that's around. Get in quick, go away quick. They're forced to be sneaky. Having the guild hall reduced to a simple relay (hidden in a fort's basement) serves that purpose.

What exactly will Gothren's role in the new Telvanni be? At the very least, we need to keep the part where he acts as a stubborn obstacle to the player/Aryon. Making him a close ally to Rathra would make sense.

He could be closer to his original status and be demoted simply to Magister; attempting to make use of Rilvin Dral's perceived political weakness (since he basically doesn't really care about politics anymore, what with being away in his little magical mind-world) to do so, because while it's clear that magically he's far from the best, politically he could be quite influential. At least, he needs to be influential if his death is to be still necessary for becoming Hortator (as well as for political advancement for a Telvanni player).

[Thrignar Fraxix]

The problem with saving bal oyra in any shape or form is that we've had it on the chopping block for probably a half decade by now and that there really isn't anywhere to move the stuff to considering we already have too many imperial cities in Telvannis and those cities are already too large.

[Sload]

Bal Oyra is gone. Any good quests can be relocated.

I feel a little guilty arguing against the current version of Marog. There isn't anything necessarily wrong with its design. But at no point when I was reading "The Ruins of Kemel-Ze" did I picture it as a Telvanni tower. It's current size also seems problematic to me. It's exterior is nearly as large as Kemel-Ze's! Kemel-freaking-ze shouldn't have to compete with a nearby settlement for the player's immediate attention. A smaller settlement overshadowed by the awe-inspiring massive ruins would be better thematically, imo.

I think that our exterior modders could do something incredible with the Kemelze site - including making Kemelze's exterior larger. I think Telvanni offers more possibilities than Velothi, especially if nearby Tel Muthada is now Velothi.

The Tel Mora alternative path for female players is an intriguing idea. How exactly will players be directed to it?

I would think it would be good if they weren't directed to it.

Killing Master Mithras early on is a good idea. He's been portrayed as the most likeable of our Telvanni, and killing him will show how brutal Telvanni politics are. Once Bal-Gernak replaces him, we can implement some new dialogue and quests in Ranyon-ruhn showing the consequences of the change in leadership.

Yeah I don't know what to do about Mithras's current quests. I think they could possibly be transferred to Firewatch, with one of the mines near Firewatch made into an ebony mine and the mine in Ranyon-ruhn made into an egg mine. Ranyon-ruhn is a small Velothi settlement, subsistence eggmining is appropriate here. Firewatch, in addition to protecting the musk route, should be extracting resources from Morrowind.

Although it makes sense for Rathra to want the power of being Archmagister for herself, it seems a little out-of-character for Aryon. He was more than happy having the player take the position in vanilla. Granted, it did seem a tad weird how much he bent over backward to advance the player throughout the questline. We definitely should change him to be less of a blatant gameplay hook. With that said, Aryon still seems to me like the kind of guy who would want to exert power through a protege or ally rather than directly. He even invited Divayth Fyr to join the Telvanni Council in vanilla, showing he's more interested in influencing the future of his House than gaining absolute power for the sake of power.

Aryon will have to be recharacterized. It is a key narrative point in the quest that Aryon or Rathra will be archmagister unless the player betrays them with little prompting.

[Yeti]

I think that our exterior modders could do something incredible with the Kemelze site - including making Kemelze's exterior larger.

For sure. I particularity have never liked the ugly vegetation on the green ridge forming the ruin's south flank. Covering it with more badass ruins is the way to go. If we keep Marog as Telvanni, it wouldn't need much alteration besides cutting the parts at the top of the cliff, imo.

That would just be overredundant.

Well, I didn't mean place it right next to Firewatch. Just a few cells further south of its present location. But whatever. Bal Oyr is dead and gone, along with (I hope) the hilariously pointless [url=http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Tes3Mod:Tamriel_Rebuilt/Cephorad_Keep]Cephorad Keep[/url].

[rot]

Aryon still seems to me like the kind of guy who would want to exert power through a protege or ally rather than directly. He even invited Divayth Fyr to join the Telvanni Council in vanilla

His inviting Demnevanni and Fyr aren't incompatible with his new personality, I think. Both are clearly uninterested in leading the Telvanni, so replacing ambitious councilors by indifferent ones (as close as he can get to an ally) would work in his interest too.

Bonus points if either flicks his fingers from afar and absentmindedly turns him to ash when he tries for Archmagister.

[Gez]

Why did Aryon order the building of Imperial architecture in his tower? He certainly did, as explained by poor Beram's [url=http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Beram_Journal]journal[/url]. (Fun fact: it's an ersatz of Imperial construction. The construction plans were provided by Aryon, and the workers who built it are Dunmer. It's not actually designed and built by the Empire.)

Pay attention to the [url=http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Imperial_Museum_Welcome]little notes[/url] that Aryon [url=http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Dwemer_Museum_Welcome]puts[/url]. That's right. "Dwemer Museum" and "Imperial Museum". The Imperial-style castle in Tel Vos is a mockery of the Empire. It's built explicitly to spite the empire. It's a way to say "Hey, you guys aren't gonna last. You're basically extinct already. And when you leave, like the Dwemer did, I'll still be around, and I'll sell your crap on ebay for mad buxx."

Also, he got the construction crew killed by a fire atronach. It's unclear if it was an accident simply because he didn't really care about whether work was finished and certainly didn't care about his workers' safety, or if it was deliberate (to silence them or avoid paying them, or possibly even just for the lulz).

If we're talking about Aryon's "progressive" personality, this has to be said. He's not a nice guy. He has a wicked sense of humor, he is arrogant, ambitious and remorseless, he doesn't care about Imperial or Temple law, and he has a clearer view of the big picture than any of the other Beth Telvanni councilors.

[Haplo]

Don't you hate it when you type a long post and the fucking forum logs you out when you click submit and you lose the entire goddamn thing? I sure do!

For me, if I hit the back button on my browser, it will take me back to the posting.php webpage and my post text will still be there, so I can copy and paste it again if I have to leave that page. Worth a try for you/others, because I doubt my Firefox installation is unique in that regard.

[Yeti]

I use Google Chrome.

[Lady Nerevar]

In terms of regions, giant tubers?

[roerich]

That looks very cool. I could see it working very well in a rocky, hilly, gnarly environment or in a foggy swampy setting. Either way it's something new, something weird and something alien. Fits the Telvanni perfectly, without resorting to the "mushrooms everywhere" strategy.