LE Return to Vvardenfell expansion/questline/etc. - Ashwalker

[aiyergaen]

So this idea has been more or less stuck in my head ever since I saw EmeraldReign's "Red Mountain Erupts" mod. Well, specifically his primary image for the mod, which kinda makes it look like it's some sort of epic new quest. Which, after seeing it, gave me the idea for an epic new quest, some weapons/armors, some enemies... you get the picture. It would be absolutely awesome if it was something I could make myself, but with 0 mod-making experience under my belt that seems... unlikely. With that in mind, I figured it couldn't hurt to post what ideas I had here, in case someone who actually knows what in Azura's name they're doing sees them and gets inspired to try and make all or part of it a reality... instead of a fanciful dream filled with rainbows and unicorns and Silt-Striders (possibly rainbow Silt-Striders with unicorn horns).

 

Long story short: the main idea is for a DLC type mod, in the vein of Wyrmstooth or Falskaar, set in post-eruption Vvardenfell. Bet you didn't guess that from the title or anything. The basic outline for the quest is that some badass dragon, probably one of Alduin's lieutenants or a dragon who lived in Vvardenfell before the Chimer came, has come back to life and is slowly gaining in power. I figured this to tie in heavily with the Heart Stones introduced in Dragonborn: either Alduin brought our dragon (who shall henceforth be referred to as Kiiriikdu'ul, Ash-Gale-Crown, for the purposes of this post) back and he's taking advantage of the Heart Stone, or he was brought back entirely due to the influence of Heart Stone in some way (like Falx Carius). Either way, Kiiriikdu'ul is consuming Heart Stone to gain its power over ash and the dead... probably for WORLD DOMININATION (you know, the usual). And you, as the Dragonborn, have to stop him. Surprise!

 

Which brings us to the next idea: The minions. Since Kiiriikdu'ul's thing is ash and the dead, these enemies would be based around that. Luckily, since this is taking place in Vvardenfell there's plenty of ash to go around, and certainly plenty of dead that were killed by the 4E5 eruption. The most obvious possibilities for these types of enemies would be updated versions of the ash slaves, zombies, ghouls, and vampires from ES3. It wouldn't be quite the same thing, since those were created with magic by the sixth house and these would be Heart Stone raised-dead of various power levels, probably with similar qualities to the Ash Spawn from Dragonborn. And since we're in Vvardenfell, why not take advantage of all those lovely Dunmer ancestral tombs lying all over the place? The ancestral ashes inside could be corrupted to create some enemy types, with Morrowind's Ghosts becoming Ash Wight's (possibly similar to the Wispmother's in skyrim, but ash-themed), Bonewalkers becoming Ash Stalkers, and the Bonelords becoming Ash Wraiths.

 

Since no expansion is complete without new loot, I've also been thinking about some new weapon and armor sets. Dragonborn already has most of the iconic Morrowind gear covered, but updated Telvanni helms and additional bonemold variants could be added. As for new stuff, I considered the possibility of a steel armor recipe that makes use of Morrowind's Ash Salts. Design elements could be loosely based off of the Royal Guard armor from Tribunal and include glassed-over eyeslits and desert-style gear to ward off ash storms. Another set could be Heart Stone based armor, a set I had hoped for upon finding an ore vein of said material in Dragonborn but obviously didn't get. Since Heart Stone is known for its magic-ness and not its strong-ness, the actual Heart Stone would probably be set into another material. Glass seems to fit the bill best, but to avoid a Christmas theme should probably make it a black variant instead of the usual green. Call it obsidian - Morrowind's original volcanic glass changed by the 4E5 eruption. Final idea is based off of a mixture of the Dunmers' iconic Bonemold and the Skyrim theme of Dragons. We already have armor made from powdered human bones, why not powdered Dragonbone? For the discerning master smith. Also, since it's a cast armor, there's no need to make it look like the Dragonplate armor. I'm with Hothtrooper on this issue: for my Dragon armor, I'd rather not look like I covered myself in glue then crawled into a pile of random dragon bones and came out with whatever stuck.

 

As for the landmass part... well, it's Vvardenfell. No need to paint a picture with words to get us on the same page this time. I took a brief look around at existing mods and requests before starting this and there are a couple mods already attempting to remake Vvardenfell... but, well.... They don't really seem to take into account the whole Eruption thing, so they're more remakes of the Vvardenfell of ES3. I'm thinking more of a primarily wasteland Vvardenfell, with terrain looking a lot like southern Solstheim does. The shallower waterways would be filled in with ash, the central mountain might be partially blasted out, lava all over the place. Ash dunes, skeletal trees and chasms, oh my. Maybe restrict movement in places to wind-carved canyons in order to lessen the area in need of detailed rendering. Modify the textures for Skyrim's snowfall and blizzards to create ashfall and ash storms to mess with visibility and give Ash enemies cover to sneak up on the player and make them crap their shiny new drawers. With the island primarily a wasteland, there would only need to be a few coastal settlements. Maybe also have a few of the Dunmer fortresses and dwemer ruins still uncovered. And inside the caldera (Not to be confused with the town Caldera, likely a smoking pile of rubble now. Covered with ash. What can I say, there's a theme.) of Red Mountain would be Kiiriikdu'ul's lair, probably in the ruins of the Second Numidium chamber from the end of ES3. Dragons like mountains, right?

 

So there's what I have so far. Maybe writing it all down will give me the drive to actually learn how to make some of this myself. If not, oh well... it's here now to possibly-maybe give one of you an idea or two.

 

...And while I'm here typing, can somebody PLEASE make a replacer for the stalhrim armor? The Nordic Carved armor is much more of a spiritual successor to Morrowind's stalhlrim armor, just look at the shoulders.

Edited September 15, 2013 by aiyergaen