French Ninja's TES V Lore Review

[Praedator]

I love it. And i dunno what y'all might think of this. But i think those docks are screaming for some large warehouse type buildings. About the size of 5 or 6 of the houses put together.

Very nice work Lestat, looks good.

I agree with the warehouses, and how about a brewery and a seperate watchtower with small building in the most empty corner of the docks, so the 'city wall' feel also is there in the docks.

[Tes96]

Cool to see you back mate and thanks for this thread.

There are a couple of thinks that I really hate in TES5, one is that they moved a complete hold (The Pale) form south to north, bringing the dwemer to Skyrim plus making the falmer their pets and explaining that with an obscure story and a few other things they've obviously done to get casual and action gamers to play a TES game.

Do you think there will be any problems if we stick with the old positions of the holds?

Lestat, I don't see anything wrong with retconning some of the new lore, seeing as Bethesda retcons some of their old lore. In fact, I hope we do as TESV is too friendly, polite and liberal for a province influenced by viking culture.

Here is the map of Skyrim from Arena. I am currently in Valenwood searching for the 3rd piece to the Staff of Chaos.
Arena in-game map of Skyrim <-The bottom town where the pointer is at is spelled Falcrenth.
A beautiful prostitute in Whiterun <-Just for laughs
Winterhold, Skyrim <-Thelan, the nordic mages guild master tells me where the Fortress of Ice is. It is an official Skyrim location and not a randomly generated one. Will it be in TESIII: Skyrim?

Question, how much Arena lore are we going to apply "retroactive continuity" to?

[french ninja]

Do you think there will be any problems if we stick with the old positions of the holds?

I think this would be perfectly fine. There is a gap in south central Skyrim, while the north east has both Solitude and Morthal; a bit too crowded imho.

Edit: Made updates to Haafingar's post, mostly dealing with walls and the Blue Palace and why we may not need to include it. Please read!

[Tes96]

I havn't posted screens of the city yet, because at the moment it's nothing more than a draft. One modeler is working on a new, unique castle set and new houses for Solitude, so every castle tile or building on the screens will be replaced sooner or later.

I kept scrolling past those pictures thinking "bah, I don't want to see any TESV screenshots." until I finally scrutinzed them and realized that they are TESIII screenshots of our Skyrim! You guys are capturing the nordic theme very, very well!

I love it. And i dunno what y'all might think of this. But i think those docks are screaming for some large warehouse type buildings. About the size of 5 or 6 of the houses put together.

Oooh! If anybody loves doing the tedious and arduous task of individually adding hundreds and hundreds of sacks, crates and barrels, it's me!

Do you think there will be any problems if we stick with the old positions of the holds?

I think this would be perfectly fine. There is a gap in south central Skyrim, while the north east has both Solitude and Morthal; a bit too crowded imho.

Maybe they are close to each other so that business and trade can be conducted more conveniently.

[Dirnae Profile]

Hey French Ninja, long time no see. I should probably pick up Skyrim already, I bought like 15 games around christmas, and never even thought to get it. ¬_¬

P.S That Solitude looks great.

[Yeti]

Are we using the same Hold names from TesV? I've seen differant names used here on the forums.

[Lestat DeLioncourt]

I would handle the hold names the same way as the hold locations. The first pocket guide mentioned that the old norse name for Solitude was Haafingar and the hold was called Haafinheim pre TES5. Hjaalmarch should be a part of Northshore (which was in TESCasual called The Pale whereas the original Pale was far south.

I don't like it how the hold system was handled in TES5, but that's not the point here...but I felt pretty much punked when I've played TES5 and that old lady in Morthal told me that she is the Jarl of Hjaalmarch and Morthal is some sort of hold capital for her.

Hjaalmarch was mentioned in one or two lore writings before TES5 and it description was very vague.

I hope you guys don't get me wrong. I'm not against incorporating new TES5 lore, but I'm really old school if it comes to holds and their locations/ names before and after TES5.
I don't say that the old hold system is better, but it is the old hold system, no hold was callled Hjaalmarch before TES5 and it feels the same if someone would like to rename and move some country names/ countries on our world map, putting Africa far north and rename europe to make world maps more accessible to a wider audience to sell a world map to kids who havn't even thought about buying a world map before.

[Tes96]

God bless you for being old school, Lestat! TESIII: Skyrim isn't supposed to be an exact replication of TESV: Skyrim any ways, which encompasses its lore, geography, politics, religion, flora and fauna. I like your style of thinking, muthsera.

[Scamp]

Heyhey, let's all be friends. Of course we aren't using the same names as TES V.

Apart from that, I never stated that the lore invented in TES V is in any case "better" than the pre-TESV-lore. In fact, it does suck at many places... just saying that the overall game was still pretty fucking enjoyable
I do very much prefer the old hold names anyway. Hjaalmarch was damn ridiculous and the borders between holds were sometimes also highly weirdly shaped, I did never understand why the Pale would be larger than a hold as important as Winterhold. Hjaalmarch was also much larger than it should have been.

[Lestat DeLioncourt]

@ Scamp

Nah, it wasn't meant that the game is bad by itself. I just don't like the changes Bethesda has made compared to the long time established lore and RPG elements.

[Rattfink333]

Then we should go ahead and stick with the old hold names and locations. If anyone complains, Just remind them that this is 300 years earlier. And a whole lot of things change with time. I don't think we should make a tes5 mkII anyways. Originality, with using what we think we should use will be awesome enough. After all what we are building is bigger in the end.

[french ninja]

Finished my review of the Reach; began working on the Pale and Northshore

[Worsas]

Good stuff, French.
As for the Forsworn and their Hagravens and such locations like the sundered towers (could we utilize our breton tower-ruins for such locations?), I've been thinking for days about how to properly incorporate those. We might use that crow-harpy-model TDW modelled for us as hagraven. I'm too wondering how to deal with the other uncivilised reachmen? Are there several groups of barbaric Reachmen or should those generally considered to be Forsworn?

[french ninja]

Good stuff, French.
As for the Forsworn and their Hagravens and such locations like the sundered towers (could we utilize our breton tower-ruins for such locations?),

Skyrim doesn't really differentiate the ruins that well. Ruins that predate the 500 Companions look exactly like a tomb still being used (Hillgrund's Tomb). I am unsure if the breton ruins would work however. Sundered Towers is located roughly near where our Markarth is located.
Edit: I took a quick look at the location and it seems like it uses mostly ancient nord assets plus caves.

We might use that crow-harpy-model TDW modelled for us as hagraven.

I think this is an excellent idea.

I'm too wondering how to deal with the other uncivilised reachmen? Are there several groups of barbaric Reachmen or should those generally considered to be Forsworn?

By uncivilized Reachmen, do you mean reachmen not living in towns like Amber Guard? I personally feel like they ought to be represented like the Ashlanders though not entirely the same. You have camps/farm communities like Old Hrol'dan and the other currently unnamed villages that don't attack the PC on sight, and you also have smaller camps with a few reachmen bandits, like in Morrowind. For the Forsworn, its a separate faction entirely; essentially wanting their own province like the Orsimer. Bothela is a reachman living in Markarth and does not refer to herself as Forsworn and actually states that they have "broken her heart": "So many friends, so many kin, all lost trying to rebuild a past that was over long ago". Therefore, its pretty safe to say Reachman =/ Forsworn, same as Dunmer =/ Camona Tong.

[Lestat DeLioncourt]

Personally I see no special need to explain the appearance of the ancient tower ruins we call breton towers at the moment. They could be relics from the time of the aldmeri domination in High Rock/ The Reach once inhabited by human sorcerers. TES5 made Labyrinthian a simple tomb although it was originally the testing ground of Shalidor, the most famous archmage who ever lived on Tamriel (why should Shalidor who has build Labyrinthian make it a barrow?) without explaining anything.

[french ninja]

That would make sense. "Velothi tilesets" covered everything from family tombs, pre-Great House Velothi towers, Vivec, Molag Mar....

"Breton ruins" could just fall under "this is what forts in western Skyrim and eastern High Rock look like"

[french ninja]

Finished Windhelm