The Sortanic Isles - Skyrim DLC Sized Mod - WIP

[AirtightSpring3]

Some of you may have been following my old mod, Riften Depths. Well I have decided to evolve it into a entirely new mod called, The Sortanic Isles. The mod is largely WIP and I am not the fastest worker, but I will be releasing the mod in four chunks, to lessen the wait. The first release will be everything RIften Depths was going to be and a little bit more. (Just not underground...) Expect to see stories involving Snow Elves, Dwemer, Espionage and more by the time the mod is finished. I would like to thank those who have supported me over my somewhat slow modding career, I am quite busy with school and am also an active game player as well as modder, but I continue to press on due to community support. Without further ado, I would like to introduce my project!

 

The Sortanic Isles - Background:

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The Sortanic Isles were founded in 4E 175, the same year the White Gold Concordat was signed, by a man named Nicoli Anduli. The Isles were stumbled upon by Anduli some years earlier in an area to the West of Morrowind. Anduli did not originally intend to bring others to these islands, but after the Great War ended, a small group of people came with Anduli to the Isles so that they could safely worship Talos, and live a life free of the Dominion. To this day no one not living on the Isles has stumbled upon them, making them a continued safe haven for those who live there.

The largest of the three main Islands is Aeldon, known for it’s large city surrounded by mountains. This was the seat of Anduli when he ruled, but he recently disappeared after years of rule, none knowing whether he is alive or not. Aeldon consists of two towns inhabited by various races found in Tamriel. Aeldon has a large amount of forests in the Northern regions, but there are plains found in the South.

Another of the main isles is Ethoria, found to the East of Aeldon, this isle largely resembles the ashlands of Solstheim due to the eruption of a local volcano some years ago, but the Northern part of the isle still remains to be a grassland filled with hot springs and geysers. The third isle is Pravon and is found to the Northeast of Aeldon. Pravon consists of a large snowy valley surrounded by mountains and contains open fields, forests, and glaciers. It is said that Pravon is home to a small population of Snow Elves.

Note to Readers: If any of what I have written so far goes against Lore please inform me, there will be towns/villages on Ethoria and Pravon, but I am going to leave it open to the community to decide who inhabits them once I am done with and have released Aeldon.

 

Story Information:

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The story will begin with a man named Gaius Crassus coming to the Dragonborn for help, eventually leading the Dragonborn to the Sortanic Isles. I do not wish to spoil too much of the quest but Act 1, which will be released with Aeldon, will involve a mysterious disappearance in the main town of Aeldon, known to the people as Sigminion. The Dragonborn will be tasked with finding this missing person, which will eventually scale into a much bigger story involving large dungeons, bandit attacks on Sigminion and more. The end of Act 1 will provide the player with a very generous reward and set the stage for the larger events happening in Act 2.

 

Factions Information:

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I would like there to be multiple factions the player can join by the time I am finished. I will only try to have one completed by the time I finish Aeldon, and which I choose will be selected by the community. The Sentinels will be guardians of the Sortanic Isles directly under the control of Cato Crassus, the younger brother of Gaius Crassus. The Sentinels defend the Isles from possible danger and are responsible for hunting some large monsters. The next faction is the called The Silent Order, or The Order for short. The Order is responsible for espionage throughout Tamriel on behalf of the Sortanic Isles and often works for the good of the people of Tamriel and against the Dominion, who do not know of their existence. A member of the Order can expect to be sent to infiltrate enemy strongholds and gather information using persuasion and stealth, the Dragonborn, if they join, will work up to be the head of operations in Skyrim. I would like to make a Bounty Hunter Guild which functions somewhat like a group of paid assassins but they have no ties whatsoever to religious sources like the Daedric Gods. Lastly I would like to make a player “Vigilante” system, where the Dragonborn can rise from lowly crime fighter to hero. The Dragonborn will be able to assemble a team, found a base of operations, and upgrade their abilities over time. These are the factions I was thinking of, remember only one will be finished when I release Aeldon, so vote wisely :smile:

 

Project Info:

 

- Three large islands with multiple towns.

- Four factions the player can join by the time the mod is finished.

- A four act main storyline.

- One (or more) custom voiced followers.

- New powers for the player.

- An Arena for fighting in and betting on fights in.

- A player home given at the start and a castle available later.

- A few things I don’t want to spoil given through the questline…

- Custom soundtracks for the islands.

 

Progress (V 1.0)

 

 

- Aeldon Landscape: 50%

- Town of Sigminion Exterior: 100% (May change walls)

- Town of Sigminion Interior: 60%

- Main Questline Act 1: 20%

- Working Arena: 50% (Working but need to add more fights to it.)

- Faction 1: 0% (Not chosen yet)

- Various Side Quests: 0%

- Custom Voiced Follower 1: 0%

 

Mod Requirements:

 

 

- Skyrim

- Dawnguard

- Dragonborn (Version 1.0 (Aeldon) will probably not require Dragonborn)

 

Photos of Aeldon So Far:

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Thank you for viewing my topic and I hope you will eagerly await this mod as I eagerly await the many other DLC sized mods in productions. Keep looking at this page for more info until the mods release, at which time I will put a link up to Airtight Studios Facebook Page for future mod updates.

 

Edited March 26, 2014 by AirtightSpring3

[AirtightSpring3]

Well today I did some work on the mountains surrounding Sigminion, before as you can see in the pictures they were somewhat flat on the top and very steep going straight up. I am attempting to give them a more gradual incline, have a pass between Sigminion and the rest of Aeldon, and to add multiple peaks to the mountain range. I have all of this but the pass now completed and after this I will add smaller rocks and other clutter to the mountains to make them look more alive. I do not have pictures of this yet because for it to look good I need to regenerate LOD because I have changed so much of the landscape. Once I have the part of the island I am working on done I will regenerate LOD and upload pictures. Look for screenshots of this, the new lake and the forest area in the coming days. After that I will be making the second town on Aeldon and then I will expand the island to include the larger plains area with the singular mountain, which at this point is unnamed.

[AirtightSpring3]

Update: I have been working the landscape some more, haven't done to much over the last few days due to a large amount of homework. I have got a large amount of pine forest put into the Northern half of Aeldon and am working every day on making the mountains look more like actual mountains out of Skyrim by making them more slopped than what they were before (before they were flat and went straight up) and have been decorating them with rocks and pine trees. Soon I'll be starting on the southern half of Aeldon which is mostly plains with one very large central mountain. Once I get the entire landscape done I'll post pictures since I have to do a fair amount of work to reload the LOD, so I am going to wait until I'm done so that I only have to go through that process once.

[DustReviews]

If you need voice acting for the mod, I'd be happy to help out.

[AirtightSpring3]

I'll let you know when I get to looking for voice actors, any help is much appreciated. I am at a minor setback at the moment, a fault on my part messed up my Skyrim game files and I had to reinstall, I was lucky enough to have made a back up last night of my work on the mod. The only thing I have lost is the working arena, the dialogue is still there but the scripts are not. I have the scripts saved on a word doc so it will take me a small amount of time to re enter them. I am going to spend the next few days making sure I can get the mods I like working stable, and I need to look into getting ENB to work on my game. I'll give more updates soon when I am ready to continue where I left off. I just need a little time to get my Skyrim set up again.

[DustReviews]

Alright!

[MerDryad]

Looks like a really cool mod, I'm eagerly awaiting more news!

[AirtightSpring3]

Good news: I got SKSE, ENB and all my nature graphics mods up and running without a problem, I'll now begin work on this mod again, next week is quarter finals so news may be a little scarce, but I will keep on working.

[AirtightSpring3]

It's been a little while but I got creation kit working again, had some problem with a missing executable but got a question answered that told me how to solve the problem. I have gotten most of the forest area done and most of the mountain of Aeldon done, meaning that all I have left is a little forest, a small village, and some rocky/plains terrain to design until Aeldon's rough draft is complete. I'm hoping to have pictures up by Friday when I leave for a week long trip, hopefully all goes well generating my LOD again, since it got deleted when my Skyrim files did. Keep checking back here for further update and thanks for your suport.

[AirtightSpring3]

Got the second town exterior looking good and made the large mountain which is the main feature of the southern part of Aeldon. None of this is as detailed as Sigminion at the moment but this is just a rough draft I of the isalnd that I wanted done by tomorrow so I could create the LOD and post some good pictures before I go on a weeklong break. So check back tomorrow for pictures of Aeldon and it's various features.