I agree that we want to make sure our crystals look natural and not quite like quartz. It’s going to be interesting modeling and texturing that though...
Does: concepts, textures, youtube vids, admin stuff e.g. PR, handbook, assets, small website things. Activity level: wildly unpredictable. Still active. Find me on Discord.
We could use those large crystal column as hives for the skyrenders though, the idea that they maybe dissolve the salt and bring it back to the hive to make a structure, like bees making honeycombs that kinda thing, certainly such a structure should be wider for that, but maybe you could even make a tiered dungeon out of it.
We could use those large crystal column as hives for the skyrenders though, the idea that they maybe dissolve the salt and bring it back to the hive to make a structure, like bees making honeycombs that kinda thing, certainly such a structure should be wider for that, but maybe you could even make a tiered dungeon out of it.
Hm. And instead of hexagonal, make the insides of the hives more square like salt crystals? Not just plain squares all in a row, though, more like:
or
Also google search bismuth for more square pattern ideas. Bismuth is an artificial substance and way too colorful for our purposes, but some of the patterns it forms is amazing.
IMO, these square formations would be coming out of the inside walls though, while the outside of the hives would still look like organic salt pillars. The Skyrender salive/stomach acid/whatever they mix it with does a lot to prevent weathering, but mother nature still takes its toll.
Along the same lines, Skyrender crystal patterns could also be reflected in Dres art. Tapestries like these:
Or vases: Have to use your imagination for the hunk of bismuth. Turn the top into an opening, or something.
The main issue with this kind of patterning is it can look modern and sci-fi-ish very quickly, which isn’t very Morrowind-y. The large crystals I think still should be rare or hard to get to, like a treat for the player upon getting deep inside a difficult Skyrender hive dungeon. But dat’s just me.
Yes, I think it has to be seen like a sort chichen-itza only with a crystal column sticking out of it. and large salt "squares” at the bottom, slowly going up in this shape.
Keep in mind that organic shapes tend not to be that geometric; large crystals only grow in isolation when they have time to grow slowly without disturbances. More likely the crystals would appear more organic, though their fundamental structure could easily be the same square crystal you get table salt in. We may wish to look into existing beehives, as well as soap bubbles or geodes for a more rounded, grown look.
Does: concepts, textures, youtube vids, admin stuff e.g. PR, handbook, assets, small website things. Activity level: wildly unpredictable. Still active. Find me on Discord.
Aye, I was thinking the very clear cut squares would be on the insides of the mounds, where they would be resistant to weathering, and perhaps maintained by the Skyrenders. The outsides and more heavily trafficked tunnels would be more organic and lumpy.
I have to say that a square outside exterior will make it stand out in a positive way, but maybe with this design from pyrite Maybe hexagonal/pentagonal crystals could also be added to give it more variety.
Hm, just to be clear, the majority of salt formations in the Deshaan will indeed have a more organic appearance as in the images above:
The more ‘pure’ salt crystals would indeed be more common underground, primarily in the Salt Washes, but I do think including a few, sparingly, on the surface would enhance the visuals. I’m all for keeping to more cubic forms for the most part, though. A lot of the crystal meshes are actually already more or less cubic.
The organic formations would look more like this then, correct ? also the pure crystals you mention in the Salt Washes would it be roughly this ? These kind of formation would be nice to function as pillars.
The organic formations would basically be the lumpy formations here, and would be much the same colour as the rest of the Deshaan (so pale yellowish):
In the above .esp the TerrDPSaltRock texture is supposed to be for the salt formations, but the current version is more of a placeholder than anything else.
Does: concepts, textures, youtube vids, admin stuff e.g. PR, handbook, assets, small website things. Activity level: wildly unpredictable. Still active. Find me on Discord.
Some ideas from the meeting transcript from yesterday:
Edit: more ideas happened.
Does: concepts, textures, youtube vids, admin stuff e.g. PR, handbook, assets, small website things. Activity level: wildly unpredictable. Still active. Find me on Discord.
Had some time to draw a few quick sketches last night: a view from inside a crevasse, a view from inside a cave, and a view of the border with Shipal-Shin.
Does: concepts, textures, youtube vids, admin stuff e.g. PR, handbook, assets, small website things. Activity level: wildly unpredictable. Still active. Find me on Discord.
Made two more quick sketches. A very fast one of a daedric ruin in the sand, and one of the Shipal-Shin border again, this time looking north. Then also a quick color sketch of the landscape (starting in the south, looking northwest) and then a more involved art of the landscape. Then I also have a few closeup zooms of some of my earlier art.
EDIT: and also I made a cave drawing.
Edit: and I made another one.
Does: concepts, textures, youtube vids, admin stuff e.g. PR, handbook, assets, small website things. Activity level: wildly unpredictable. Still active. Find me on Discord.
So I have been instructed by Kaziem to share this. Please note that these are pictures from an ACTUAL GAME. I do not take responsibility for any of the art, they are screenshots I have taken, this is more or less for inspirational use, not copy and paste implementation.
As note, that was from a discussion on how to make something look “dead” but still be visually interesting and alive. Another game’s screenshots as an example.
Does: concepts, textures, youtube vids, admin stuff e.g. PR, handbook, assets, small website things. Activity level: wildly unpredictable. Still active. Find me on Discord.
Does: concepts, textures, youtube vids, admin stuff e.g. PR, handbook, assets, small website things. Activity level: wildly unpredictable. Still active. Find me on Discord.
so, none of this i’m about to post is new, but i spoke with kaziem a few weeks ago and she recommended i posted the stuff from my concept art thread into the brainstorming threads, so that’s what i’m doing.
cookiemonster and kaziem posted some images that showed some patterny mineral flows that looked pretty appealing, which is what i put into that picture. i’m not sure how you make textured puddles in the cs, unless you just made them non solid statics, like the flowing river rapids in skyrim and oblivion. either way – i think they look really good. other things i’d comment on here – lots of rectangular-ish salt crystals, but also importantly i feel, lots of crushed salt crystals from beasts running over them or just general decay, lots of salt crystals breaking up a bit, etc – instead of a bunch of sticks on forest flaws, broken off salt crystal segments and crushed mounds near growing salt spires is probably a way to go. not too much else to comment on here, other than the beetle, which is the next one.
”...When dealing with Salt Beetles, use a longer knife. First remove the tail over a bucket, so you don’t spill the venom all over your shoes. Then, stick the knife under the head carapace, and separate all the connections with the thorax around the body. Start shaving off the head carapace until you can whittle it down to the trunk and throat, the most valuable part of the beetle. Don’t worry about the eye mesh – it might help protect the beetle’s eyes, but it’s worhtless to a mer.
These beetles have a natural water filter in their trunk – they can drink the most toxic water on the plains and none of the poison will get to them. Don’t sever the connection from the trunk to the stomach – you can remove it carefully, and clean it either for yourself, to sell.”
not much more to add, i think.
”...’What’s that you got there?’ I asked him.
He looked at me as though I’d urinated on his mother. ‘That, outlander, is a beetle water pack.’
’Beetle?’
’Salt Beetles. We remove the trunk, throat and stomach intact, and we use it to collect water ready filtered. You can wack out most of the poison from the trunk and then it’s ready to drink.’
’Why would you want to drink out of a bug’s stomach?’
’The alternative is dying of thirst.’ He said. ‘Any more stupid questions?’
I paused. ‘What’s with all them belts?’
’Because, outlander, if you’re caught in a salt storm, the last thing you want is getting poisoned salt all over your skin and inside your clothes. You have to keep the Zoarskin buckled tight to keep the salt from getting underneath.’ He said. ‘Can we stop talking now?’
’Well hang on a sec. You’re wearing some sort of high platform boots so that you can keep most of it out of the chlorine, right?’
‘Yes.’
’Why’s your guar barefoot?’
’Guar don’t wear shoes outlander.’
’Horses wear shoes.’
’I don’t know what a Horse is, but only an outlander would be foolish enough to make shoes for animals.’”
the planning document states that the chap-thil, and really anyone with any sense wandering the deshaan, wear zoar skin clothing to protect themselves from the elements. some have commented that this looks a bit hazmat-y – i agree, which is why the head part should just look more visibly cloth-y.
it’s been questioned before how you’d actually pull off zoar skin, protective clothing in the creation set. like, some script from clothing that protects you from deshaan specific elements. there was talk in a meeting about whether it would be possible to script actually dangerous salt/chlorine storms that zoar skin could protect you from, and while it would be really easy with enchantments, there’s obviously disadvantages to that, and seems a bit obvious. if we really wanted to have actually poisonous storms and terrains just giving you diseases (maybe even picking some plants unprotected could do this – can containers have a disease/poison chance attached to them?), that’s hard enough on its own. adding unenchanted items to protect from it is harder. but, from at least a lore point of view, this could be a thing that the locals still actually wear.
also, on the note of that “horse” comment – i imagine a lot of the more chap-thil ish or poorer dres being ridiculously isolated and ignorant of the rest of tamriel, let alone morrowind. the imperial simulacrum, for example, probably passed under the notice of a lot of locals who were more concerned about whatever they were doing in their daily lives.
also, we have no zoar design, so, i just guessed. the doc says they’re meant to be large anteater like mammals.
”...Sometimes, some of the exotic salts from underground get swept up onto the surface – usually through some sort of water irrigation problem, then tossed about through the wind until it winds up in some puddle of acid and colours it with all sorts of strange patterns. Waters and acids seem to encourage the salt to clump together and form crystals – but being that they emerge from or near acid and acidic fumes, they seem to crumble very quickly and drop in heaps again.
Salt terraces with pools of chlorine provide some of the few elevations on the plains – most are shallow enough that anyone well prepared won’t be too bothered by stepping in them, but some of them are deceptively deep. In these areas with high chlorine, you seem to get some sort of mold, or moss, that seems to thrive off the salt and float on the chlorine. Indeed, it seems the Deshaan hosts many unique molds, probably all as poisonous as each other. Lucky for everyone who lives there, these molds don’t seem to be found on the underground water.”
i wrote another post, mainly focused on the skyrenders
”Most sane and normal people don’t want to traverse the overland in the Deshaan plains. Necromancers, of course, have no sanity, or decency.
If you are a Necromancer, the plains present an interesting opportunity – there is little will to hunt criminals on the overland because of the dangers, and there is therefore, little risk of being discovered by Ordinators, or casual adventurers more capable than them. They acclimate themselves into wild Skyrender Hives, and then they have a nice, easily defended fortress with which to practice their dark art in, because only idiots barge deep into the underground chambers of a Skyrender Hive.
And, to make things sweeter, the carelessness with which the Dres handle their slaves presents another opportunity. It’s not uncommon to find an Argonian rotting in chlorine – and the chlorine is good for rotting away even Argonian flesh. While normally, a Necromancer has to take a body, and hope wild animals might clean the bones of their flesh over who knows how many days, and hope the bones aren’t discovered or stolen by a nix-hound, mostly bleached and rotted corpses and skeletons for use can be found near any plantation. Simply get a guar to carry it for you, and you have a functionally endless supply of skeleton warriors or zombies.
Thus, this is my ultimate concern about Necromancy in Morrowind – many are comfortable, and believe that Necromancy has been almost completely crushed in the land, but I fear that if we are complacent about the potential threat of Necromancers establishing a reliable, consistent hold in the Deshaan, we could have a big problem on our hands before we knew it.”
-- “Concerns about our Security”, Morvayn Arys
one difference – i think the head wrap here looks much less helmet-y, so that’s good. also, mainly some atmospheric details, plus enemies that could be found in dungeons given the likely lack of smugglers on the overland (although in the underground canals is another question). argonian zombies or not quite fleshless skeletons could also be a fodder enemy as a result too.
this isn’t really the main event though compared to the skyrender stuff
“A parasite is something that sucks onto a host, and leeches the life out of it, giving nothing in return. In contrast, a symbiote is something that attaches itself to a host, takes from the host, but gives back to it in return. Symbiotes co-operate with other life. Some symbiotes become so ingrained into other creatures, the boundary between the host and the symbiote might start to blur. Of the intelligent races of Tamriel, none can really be called parasites or symbiotes. Yet something strange happens in the Deshaan Plains of Morrowind.
Skyrenders are Mephalic bugs, wasp-like, that live in giant hives dotted around the Deshaan. These hives are made of giant cuboid salt crystals, mashed together with dead, rotted organic matter. Skyrenders are scavengers mostly, and not hunters. They eat carcasses whole, bones and all, and they build to their hive using the dead rotted matter, which they barely even digest before excreting it from their giant, poisonous stingers. It’s not uncommon for Skyrenders to practice cannibalism – in fact, it seems to be the norm. When one dies, the others eat it as quickly as possible, and use their remains as pastes, or building materials to connect the giant salt crystals into place.
They don’t need to do this to eat – that’s why the carcass matter is scarcely digested. There are streams of red, silky jelly inside the Skyrender hives, and this is all the nutrition they need. But they use dead, organic matter, and they harden it with a web like paste, and they use it as a building material. Some of the things they build inside their own hives seem beyond just an animal instinct, and deserve closer study than they get. I have heard of Skyrenders who build pillars and pillars inside their hives, and carve square patterns into it with their stingers, not for any particular purpose. Sometimes they just pile skulls together, without eating them. Unsettling, almost writing-like scrawls are often carved into the walls.
The dead matter no longer rots once the Skyrenders have treated it properly, but it does change over time, becoming thick, heavy, and strong, while still staying flexible and soft. It’s colour changes too, sometimes going a bluish colour, most of the time going a reddish or greyish one, and the smell dies down – but blood sometimes, still apparently drips from the ceilings.
Skyrenders are Mephalic not because they’re bug-like, and so closer related to the webspinner just because of that, but because they don’t seem to be entirely mundane. Skyrenders, at least some kinds of them, seem able to use very, very basic forms of magicka to emit light, or heal wounds. This is almost unheard of amongst normal animals. But Skyrenders are not normal animals. The layout of their hives is unsettlingly patterned and squarelike, with a strange mathematical, geometric precision, and rather than just building functional homes, they seem to create endless tunnels for the sake of it, or traps, for no reason. Those that work with Skyrenders stop being surprised, after a while, of finding a fresh dead body of some poor wonderer embedded whole and unchanged into a wall with patterns written on him, or a corridor that wasn’t there the month before, that only leads to a spiked pit, or to find the Skyrenders in circles, humming rhytmically at each other, ignoring everyone else. Their behaviour is deeply enigmatic.
kevaar was unsold on the idea of them being symbiotic, feeling it too similar to the kwama miners. there’s a dres settlement provided for potential scale, and also because some hives would have houses near them. overall – the pyrite-esque sort of square crystals shoved together by organic, necrotic paste, with a lot of wear and tear on the salt crystals themselves. a port up top for flying out of them. it’d be *really* good if it was possible for players rising high enough in dres to have ownership of a skyrender hive or something or able to ride skyrenders, but that sounds like a lot of scripting to me and might not be on the cards any time soon. i feel like skyrenders and skyrender hives should also drop valuable alchemical ingredients too – player dres manor might have a nearby hive where the workers collect those ingredients so the player can use or sell them.
The Dres are the only mer on the Deshaan, and they have a long history with Skyrenders. Mer of House Dres use the Skyrenders as transport, beast of burden, or cavalry in war. They learned long ago that a Skyrenders strongest sense is their sense of smell, and learned how to make Skyrenders trust them with that alone. But keeping a Skyrender hive useful for producing the trained Skyrenders that the Dres need is a difficult art in and of itself. The Dres build small colonies around Skyrender hives, and mer go into the hive bearing gifts regularly, of new carcasses, or sometimes of saltrice, or crystals, or just something that seems to catch their interests. They need to keep the health of the Hive, find promising Skyrenders when they’re young and before they develop into a Worker, so they can train them properly. They need to negotiate the apparent social politics that Skyrenders have amongst themselves. In many ways, the mer who work with Skyrenders, have to be able to live as a Skyrender.
I have met some of these mer. They are not like other mer. They are changed. Different somehow. They seem to stare at you for long hours, barely blink, and don’t react to much. But this is a subtle thing. They’re still the same mer they were before… but something’s changed, and I find it difficult to put my finger on what it is. So do they. They’re aware they’re different now. I’ve heard some mer start to eat the Skyrender jelly as their main meals, forsaking other food, and some find that they’ve been scrawling patterns inside their house while asleep, completely unaware. Skyrenders have a powerful effect on those who try to use them. The guards and warriors who ride them don’t feel this, it seems – or if they do, they don’t talk about it. But the rangers, and workers, who live at the hives and spend most of their time inside them, do.
The Skyrenders, to give some credit to them, are said to be very appreciative. They bring the mer who live with them gifts, albeit usually corpses, skulls, piles of poisonous salt – but they expect their gifts to be accepted. They become attached to certain mer, and become distressed if some mer disappear for long periods of time. Some have told me that they suspect that Skyrenders even mourn dead mer, and others have told me, more distressingly, that if a mer dies inside their hive, they must memorialize them immediately, by sticking them into the wall and covering them in those unsettling square patterns.
just some interior segment corridor ideas – salt crystals arranged in a slightly poorly made square tessellating pattern, again like kevaar suggested, because i think the straight lines and geometric-ness is unnatural and alien even in morrowind enough tobe the direction to go for, plus it can be offset by overly done organic paste, etc. lots of ideas for potential stuff found in hives there too, and for dungeons in an exterior that doesn’t offer much opportunity for smuggler caves and the like (except, perhaps, in the underground canals).
Most Skyrender hives on the Deshaan aren’t being used by the Dres, but many are being used by rogue necromancers, and some, I’ve heard rumoured, used by factions of the abolitionists known as the Twin Lamps. They co-operate less with the Skyrenders – so perhaps they are less effected by the strangeness of these creatures. But other hives, I am told, are often found to have mer who’ve gone mad, covered themselves in the square patterns, cut off bits of their own flesh or whole limbs, and can no longer talk, but seem as bound to the Skyrender queen as the Skyrenders are, being found in the Queen’s chamber where her mutated and bloated, chaotic body is pasted into the wall with the eggs hanging around her. On their knees, staring up with a blank look as the workers sometimes do.
Some Skyrenders never co-operate with any mer. The Fal-hir – big, bulky, tank like, with vestigial wings – simply ignore mer, and never acclimate to them the way the others do. And the Fal-kom – tall, hairy, and with their eyes torn out by themselves – it simply can’t be told whether they accept mer or not. They are the most enigmatic, and magically gifted, of the Skyrenders. They simply float in a vertical position around the hives, slowly, observing even with their eyes torn out.
The Skyrenders and the Dres have a symbiotic relationship. Indeed, it’s a Skyrender that’s on the banner of House Dres. And the mer who work with the Skyrenders for the rest of the House are the host organism for the Skyrenders, but one wonders if for some of them, the line becomes so blurred that the living things become one.”
-- Skyrenders, by Aluene Bennette.
the skyrenders as i saw them in game in port telvannis seemed too… well, “just big wasps” to me. i don’t want to step on established designs and completed models, so i just thought “how about other types of skyrenders”. also adds the possibilities of people who’ve gone Weird from being in hives too much as potential enemies/quest targets. i also like the idea of one of the few daedric shrines in the deshaan being to mephala, and having been used by a Skyrender colony that’s mashing up its designs into the daedric shrine, things like that. i think the fal-kom and fal-hir should look more different than i made them though, maybe different colouring, or maybe the fal-kom should have more obvious self mutilation.
also potential for things like, closed off canal ports that have accidentally struck a skyrender hive (potential quest targets), or things like that. given how there’s a lot less potential for traditional dungeons in the deshaan, i think we need new categories like this for it to go somewhere.
no, you’re right, it wasn’t the most recent design. i’ve never seen these ones before but i love the legs, very “mephalic”. but no, this isn’t what the dres guard in port telvannis was riding that’s for sure.
still, the idea of different kinds of skyrenders in the hives for some variety can still work out well enough.
that said – i wonder if the brown-ness of them makes it a bit too easy for them to just blend into the surroundings? one thing i did like was the distinctiveness of their colour at the very least, because every other animal in morrowind is Brown.
Yes, the official release seems to utilize the old ‘renders.
Oh, definitely, we should have color variety. Skyrenders from different nests could have different colors and patterns going on. War-paint on the “domesticated” ones, maybe even glow mapped.
On the nests. I’ve always been a huge fan of Lutemoth’s concepts for the nests that were posted by Kaziem on the first post. Especially this one:
I really like the (queen’s?) legs sticking out of the nest as it slowly drags the gigantic nest with it across the plains. The nests wouldn’t actually move in the game, but there would be a visible track behind it, a depression in the earth – a record of their movements over the centuries. Those nests that are unfortunate enough to become farmed by the Dres have their legs cut off. The nest should be significantly larger than it is in the concept art for the player to enter the nest. Now, once inside, the player would witness the brilliance (and the horror) of the skyrenders’ collective genius: they’ve built their nest around the queen, combining organic materials (wax and whatever real wasps’ nests are made of) and the (inorganic?) salt crystals of Deshaan in a maze-like construction – much like in the interior concepts posted above by nwo_viper. The swarm has basically entrapped the queen ‘render: even though they’re feeding the queen they’re also forcing it to carry the nest and the colony with it.
to be honest, i didn’t see lutemoth’s concept, but something about it, particularly the leggy queen, seems more “morrowind” than my concept… but i still really, really like kevaar’s notion of square salt crystals featuring heavily (and obviously, i quite like my own ideas, particularly about scavenger skyrenders making things out of dead things.” less the bulbous orby thing and something that looks like it’s questionable how organic it really is.
i also really like the idea of underground segments too, no idea how a queen would drag those along… but if they did, that’d probably make some of those crevices in the deshaan. and i agree, they need to be a lot taller than that one in lutemoth’s pic.
Maybe instead of dragging the next, she drags eggs around? And is in essence trapped inside the hive because she’s too big to fit back out once its built over her. We could still play around with the notion that you can hit a Skyrender hive if you dig in the wrong location. Maybe have an Imperial salt mine that runs into this problem.
On the other hand, the insides could still be square-ish on the inside with the outside being the organic lumpy stuff: it depends on how big these things get. She might also burrow into the soil every so often, only moving when the annual rains come and she has to move to higher ground to keep everyone from being drowned. The ones you encounter ingame are assumed to be burrowed. Though perhaps there is a case of a Dres water pipe system breaking and flooding, and the Skyrender Dunmer are freaking out because their house has walked away without them to find dryer ground.
Wasps can build their nests out of paper (wood), grass bits, and mud IRL if I remember right. So salt and maybe something a little more fibrous would probably work. I kind of like the idea of hapless Dunmer getting built into the hives...so perhaps they use animal bones or skin as that fibrous component. Make them a little more creepy. (And another use for Dres slaves. Go be a wall! They particularly like Argonians because of the tough scales...)
I’d love to see salt being incorporated as a structural element in caves or buildings, in places that are not watery, as water would make a salt block dissolve. I’d also be interested in seeing the exterior of a skyrender nest include activators like siltstrides thar are slowly waving or tapping legs, implying that the nest has just temporarily stopped while you were there.
Now, some art for the Deshaan…
Some creatures: the floating jellies would be about 6 inches from top to bottom. Once I imagine to be generally friendly (like a butterfly) and the other to be generally friendly but mean if bothered (like a bee).
Does: concepts, textures, youtube vids, admin stuff e.g. PR, handbook, assets, small website things. Activity level: wildly unpredictable. Still active. Find me on Discord.
a significantly more detailed post about skyrender hive interiors.
alright, so briefly, a potential layout of a random skyrender hive dungeon. this is something that’s not particularly special and just out on the deshaan, but has some of the deshaan’s specialized abolitionist faction hiding inside. the passages are very square/rectangular, and a lot of more weird maze like stuff because that’s how the skyrenders would build. not much to say about the map layouts, they’re just for the pictures below, for reference.
the int_corridor_whatever segment kits i’ve got here as being either pure crystal wall, pure necrotic fiber, or a mix of both. i imagine floors would be mostly salt crystal and less often necrotic fiber in most cases, but it couldn’t hurt to have them. perhaps there could be some necrotic fiber kit pieces that are blank in certain parts so they go over the top of pure salt crystal pieces? and can be used to make other kinds of lumpy corridors.
in addition – some bodies that might be sewn into the walls, including an argonian slave body, the patterns as i described them that you’d find scrawled onto things (be nice if it could be glow mapped), egg sacs (good source of ingredients), which are mildly luminescent, spike crystals which are just spiky salt crystals that, if possible/a good idea, could inflict some contact and poison damage, and the pillars as i described too, which are of various sizes. basically, a lot of potential interior features.
the entrance in the nestings cavern, that first passageway, where you can see to the end (where if you look real close, a body’s been sewn into the wall). spike crystals, patterns on the wall too, and a lone skyrender, just a normal one.
still in the nestings, one of the dead end paths leading to a puddle drop with a lot of the inorganic material that the skyrenders couldn’t eat, mainly some levelled list objects, maybe a glass boots or fighters ring/mage’s ring, things like that. and some bones too, and some spike crystals to make the drop a little riskier. also, one single pillar there.
pretty hard to tell without colouring to be honest – it’s meant to be a part fiber/part salt door. but to be honest… why would skyrenders make doors? i feel like that’s a copout just to separate cave rooms. maybe cave rooms shouldn’t be separated to make it more maze like? or maybe it should be like “Thick Web Through to Fal-Sar Hive, Pillars”. i don’t know about this one.
queens chamber – lutemoth’s queen is honestly much better than mine, so i just, put it inside the nest (since i still prefer my cube-y nest.) points of interest here are a lot of egg-sacs on the wall, square-y patterns on the queen, some fal-kom weird-magic-creepy skyrenders protecting the queen as well as a fal-hir and a random dunmer who’s just gone too deep down the salt wasp hole, covered himself in the patterns the skyrenders make. as well as some smaller, harmless skyrender workers. lots of actors for one room, but it’s pretty wide if you use the dunmer for scale. i reckon the queen herself should have some really good, and valuable alchemy ingredients. this is the big room in the middle of the queen’s chamber room
one of the wide room in the pillars chamber. of note: two argonian abolitionists/escaped slaves hiding here with some bedrolls, and those leather-strap non-shelves that i posted to the dres settlements thing, nailed to the pillars. also more patterns and pillars in these rooms, a lot of Weird Shit going on in these places, hopefully the setting should feel as eerie and somewhat offputting as a sixth house base or a dwemer ruin the deeper you go (the fading lights and the noises in dwemer ruins and the desire to not encounter a damn robot really get to me).
hm well i didn’t number any of them six, so
a basic escaped slave who hides in a hive – covered himself in the patterns just to fit in really. now, i mentioned this for a dunmer too, and i have a concern that this kind of body retexturing and not clothes texturing isn’t really practical or properly feasible for the CS work. i don’t know enough about modifying this kind of thing to be sure. it could be just a very thin clothes thing, but that seems… unnecessary. it could just be patterned clothes as a result. or, it could be as the image says, skyrender chitin armour (which is something i think we should have anyway, as a medium strength but high enchantment potential light armour? definitely strongther than boiled netch and chitin anyway), which can be just as patterned to make it look something other than brown, and would certainly be favoured by anyone trying to scavenge in the deshaan.
just a rough potential int segment of a passage to levitate up, but covered in damaging spike crystals.
A quick overview of new and updated content can be found in your dashboard. If you are interested in our ongoing development, check out the claims browser and the asset browser.
2015-12-12 23:47
3 years 3 months ago
I agree that we want to make sure our crystals look natural and not quite like quartz. It’s going to be interesting modeling and texturing that though...
Does: concepts, textures, youtube vids, admin stuff e.g. PR, handbook, assets, small website things. Activity level: wildly unpredictable. Still active. Find me on Discord.
2016-05-09 13:13
2 days 4 hours ago
We could use those large crystal column as hives for the skyrenders though, the idea that they maybe dissolve the salt and bring it back to the hive to make a structure, like bees making honeycombs that kinda thing, certainly such a structure should be wider for that, but maybe you could even make a tiered dungeon out of it.
2016-01-19 19:35
1 month 1 day ago
Hm. And instead of hexagonal, make the insides of the hives more square like salt crystals? Not just plain squares all in a row, though, more like:
Also google search bismuth for more square pattern ideas. Bismuth is an artificial substance and way too colorful for our purposes, but some of the patterns it forms is amazing.
IMO, these square formations would be coming out of the inside walls though, while the outside of the hives would still look like organic salt pillars. The Skyrender salive/stomach acid/whatever they mix it with does a lot to prevent weathering, but mother nature still takes its toll.
Along the same lines, Skyrender crystal patterns could also be reflected in Dres art. Tapestries like these:
Or vases:
Have to use your imagination for the hunk of bismuth. Turn the top into an opening, or something.
The main issue with this kind of patterning is it can look modern and sci-fi-ish very quickly, which isn’t very Morrowind-y. The large crystals I think still should be rare or hard to get to, like a treat for the player upon getting deep inside a difficult Skyrender hive dungeon. But dat’s just me.
2016-05-09 13:13
2 days 4 hours ago
Yes, I think it has to be seen like a sort chichen-itza only with a crystal column sticking out of it. and large salt "squares” at the bottom, slowly going up in this shape.
2015-12-12 23:47
3 years 3 months ago
Keep in mind that organic shapes tend not to be that geometric; large crystals only grow in isolation when they have time to grow slowly without disturbances. More likely the crystals would appear more organic, though their fundamental structure could easily be the same square crystal you get table salt in. We may wish to look into existing beehives, as well as soap bubbles or geodes for a more rounded, grown look.
Does: concepts, textures, youtube vids, admin stuff e.g. PR, handbook, assets, small website things. Activity level: wildly unpredictable. Still active. Find me on Discord.
2016-01-19 19:35
1 month 1 day ago
Aye, I was thinking the very clear cut squares would be on the insides of the mounds, where they would be resistant to weathering, and perhaps maintained by the Skyrenders. The outsides and more heavily trafficked tunnels would be more organic and lumpy.
2016-05-09 13:13
2 days 4 hours ago
I have to say that a square outside exterior will make it stand out in a positive way, but maybe with this design from pyrite
Maybe hexagonal/pentagonal crystals could also be added to give it more variety.
2015-08-10 20:50
1 day 37 min ago
Hm, just to be clear, the majority of salt formations in the Deshaan will indeed have a more organic appearance as in the images above:
The more ‘pure’ salt crystals would indeed be more common underground, primarily in the Salt Washes, but I do think including a few, sparingly, on the surface would enhance the visuals. I’m all for keeping to more cubic forms for the most part, though. A lot of the crystal meshes are actually already more or less cubic.
2016-05-09 13:13
2 days 4 hours ago
The organic formations would look more like this then, correct ?
also the pure crystals you mention in the Salt Washes would it be roughly this ? These kind of formation would be nice to function as pillars.
2015-08-10 20:50
1 day 37 min ago
The organic formations would basically be the lumpy formations here, and would be much the same colour as the rest of the Deshaan (so pale yellowish):
In the above .esp the TerrDPSaltRock texture is supposed to be for the salt formations, but the current version is more of a placeholder than anything else.
Your image for the pure crystals is spot on.
2015-12-12 23:47
3 years 3 months ago
A picture for the canals.
Does: concepts, textures, youtube vids, admin stuff e.g. PR, handbook, assets, small website things. Activity level: wildly unpredictable. Still active. Find me on Discord.
2016-05-09 13:13
2 days 4 hours ago
I'll post my concept for the Dres canal/caves as well:
2015-12-12 23:47
3 years 3 months ago
Some ideas from the meeting transcript from yesterday:
Edit: more ideas happened.
Does: concepts, textures, youtube vids, admin stuff e.g. PR, handbook, assets, small website things. Activity level: wildly unpredictable. Still active. Find me on Discord.
2015-12-12 23:47
3 years 3 months ago
Had some time to draw a few quick sketches last night: a view from inside a crevasse, a view from inside a cave, and a view of the border with Shipal-Shin.
Does: concepts, textures, youtube vids, admin stuff e.g. PR, handbook, assets, small website things. Activity level: wildly unpredictable. Still active. Find me on Discord.
2015-12-12 23:47
3 years 3 months ago
Made two more quick sketches. A very fast one of a daedric ruin in the sand, and one of the Shipal-Shin border again, this time looking north. Then also a quick color sketch of the landscape (starting in the south, looking northwest) and then a more involved art of the landscape. Then I also have a few closeup zooms of some of my earlier art.
EDIT: and also I made a cave drawing.
Edit: and I made another one.
Does: concepts, textures, youtube vids, admin stuff e.g. PR, handbook, assets, small website things. Activity level: wildly unpredictable. Still active. Find me on Discord.
2016-05-09 13:13
2 days 4 hours ago
Nice
2016-07-07 08:08
4 years 1 month ago
So I have been instructed by Kaziem to share this. Please note that these are pictures from an ACTUAL GAME. I do not take responsibility for any of the art, they are screenshots I have taken, this is more or less for inspirational use, not copy and paste implementation.
2015-12-12 23:47
3 years 3 months ago
As note, that was from a discussion on how to make something look “dead” but still be visually interesting and alive. Another game’s screenshots as an example.
Does: concepts, textures, youtube vids, admin stuff e.g. PR, handbook, assets, small website things. Activity level: wildly unpredictable. Still active. Find me on Discord.
2015-12-12 23:47
3 years 3 months ago
New art, hot off the presses.
Does: concepts, textures, youtube vids, admin stuff e.g. PR, handbook, assets, small website things. Activity level: wildly unpredictable. Still active. Find me on Discord.
2016-05-09 13:13
2 days 4 hours ago
concept “scribbles” for the function of the Dres waterworks.
2016-07-06 07:55
3 years 1 month ago
so, none of this i’m about to post is new, but i spoke with kaziem a few weeks ago and she recommended i posted the stuff from my concept art thread into the brainstorming threads, so that’s what i’m doing.
cookiemonster and kaziem posted some images that showed some patterny mineral flows that looked pretty appealing, which is what i put into that picture. i’m not sure how you make textured puddles in the cs, unless you just made them non solid statics, like the flowing river rapids in skyrim and oblivion. either way – i think they look really good. other things i’d comment on here – lots of rectangular-ish salt crystals, but also importantly i feel, lots of crushed salt crystals from beasts running over them or just general decay, lots of salt crystals breaking up a bit, etc – instead of a bunch of sticks on forest flaws, broken off salt crystal segments and crushed mounds near growing salt spires is probably a way to go. not too much else to comment on here, other than the beetle, which is the next one.
”...When dealing with Salt Beetles, use a longer knife. First remove the tail over a bucket, so you don’t spill the venom all over your shoes. Then, stick the knife under the head carapace, and separate all the connections with the thorax around the body. Start shaving off the head carapace until you can whittle it down to the trunk and throat, the most valuable part of the beetle. Don’t worry about the eye mesh – it might help protect the beetle’s eyes, but it’s worhtless to a mer.
These beetles have a natural water filter in their trunk – they can drink the most toxic water on the plains and none of the poison will get to them. Don’t sever the connection from the trunk to the stomach – you can remove it carefully, and clean it either for yourself, to sell.”
not much more to add, i think.
”...’What’s that you got there?’ I asked him.
He looked at me as though I’d urinated on his mother. ‘That, outlander, is a beetle water pack.’
’Beetle?’
’Salt Beetles. We remove the trunk, throat and stomach intact, and we use it to collect water ready filtered. You can wack out most of the poison from the trunk and then it’s ready to drink.’
’Why would you want to drink out of a bug’s stomach?’
’The alternative is dying of thirst.’ He said. ‘Any more stupid questions?’
I paused. ‘What’s with all them belts?’
’Because, outlander, if you’re caught in a salt storm, the last thing you want is getting poisoned salt all over your skin and inside your clothes. You have to keep the Zoarskin buckled tight to keep the salt from getting underneath.’ He said. ‘Can we stop talking now?’
’Well hang on a sec. You’re wearing some sort of high platform boots so that you can keep most of it out of the chlorine, right?’
‘Yes.’
’Why’s your guar barefoot?’
’Guar don’t wear shoes outlander.’
’Horses wear shoes.’
’I don’t know what a Horse is, but only an outlander would be foolish enough to make shoes for animals.’”
the planning document states that the chap-thil, and really anyone with any sense wandering the deshaan, wear zoar skin clothing to protect themselves from the elements. some have commented that this looks a bit hazmat-y – i agree, which is why the head part should just look more visibly cloth-y.
it’s been questioned before how you’d actually pull off zoar skin, protective clothing in the creation set. like, some script from clothing that protects you from deshaan specific elements. there was talk in a meeting about whether it would be possible to script actually dangerous salt/chlorine storms that zoar skin could protect you from, and while it would be really easy with enchantments, there’s obviously disadvantages to that, and seems a bit obvious. if we really wanted to have actually poisonous storms and terrains just giving you diseases (maybe even picking some plants unprotected could do this – can containers have a disease/poison chance attached to them?), that’s hard enough on its own. adding unenchanted items to protect from it is harder. but, from at least a lore point of view, this could be a thing that the locals still actually wear.
also, on the note of that “horse” comment – i imagine a lot of the more chap-thil ish or poorer dres being ridiculously isolated and ignorant of the rest of tamriel, let alone morrowind. the imperial simulacrum, for example, probably passed under the notice of a lot of locals who were more concerned about whatever they were doing in their daily lives.
also, we have no zoar design, so, i just guessed. the doc says they’re meant to be large anteater like mammals.
”...Sometimes, some of the exotic salts from underground get swept up onto the surface – usually through some sort of water irrigation problem, then tossed about through the wind until it winds up in some puddle of acid and colours it with all sorts of strange patterns. Waters and acids seem to encourage the salt to clump together and form crystals – but being that they emerge from or near acid and acidic fumes, they seem to crumble very quickly and drop in heaps again.
Salt terraces with pools of chlorine provide some of the few elevations on the plains – most are shallow enough that anyone well prepared won’t be too bothered by stepping in them, but some of them are deceptively deep. In these areas with high chlorine, you seem to get some sort of mold, or moss, that seems to thrive off the salt and float on the chlorine. Indeed, it seems the Deshaan hosts many unique molds, probably all as poisonous as each other. Lucky for everyone who lives there, these molds don’t seem to be found on the underground water.”
2016-07-06 07:55
3 years 1 month ago
i wrote another post, mainly focused on the skyrenders
”Most sane and normal people don’t want to traverse the overland in the Deshaan plains. Necromancers, of course, have no sanity, or decency.
If you are a Necromancer, the plains present an interesting opportunity – there is little will to hunt criminals on the overland because of the dangers, and there is therefore, little risk of being discovered by Ordinators, or casual adventurers more capable than them. They acclimate themselves into wild Skyrender Hives, and then they have a nice, easily defended fortress with which to practice their dark art in, because only idiots barge deep into the underground chambers of a Skyrender Hive.
And, to make things sweeter, the carelessness with which the Dres handle their slaves presents another opportunity. It’s not uncommon to find an Argonian rotting in chlorine – and the chlorine is good for rotting away even Argonian flesh. While normally, a Necromancer has to take a body, and hope wild animals might clean the bones of their flesh over who knows how many days, and hope the bones aren’t discovered or stolen by a nix-hound, mostly bleached and rotted corpses and skeletons for use can be found near any plantation. Simply get a guar to carry it for you, and you have a functionally endless supply of skeleton warriors or zombies.
Thus, this is my ultimate concern about Necromancy in Morrowind – many are comfortable, and believe that Necromancy has been almost completely crushed in the land, but I fear that if we are complacent about the potential threat of Necromancers establishing a reliable, consistent hold in the Deshaan, we could have a big problem on our hands before we knew it.”
-- “Concerns about our Security”, Morvayn Arys
one difference – i think the head wrap here looks much less helmet-y, so that’s good. also, mainly some atmospheric details, plus enemies that could be found in dungeons given the likely lack of smugglers on the overland (although in the underground canals is another question). argonian zombies or not quite fleshless skeletons could also be a fodder enemy as a result too.
this isn’t really the main event though compared to the skyrender stuff
“A parasite is something that sucks onto a host, and leeches the life out of it, giving nothing in return. In contrast, a symbiote is something that attaches itself to a host, takes from the host, but gives back to it in return. Symbiotes co-operate with other life. Some symbiotes become so ingrained into other creatures, the boundary between the host and the symbiote might start to blur. Of the intelligent races of Tamriel, none can really be called parasites or symbiotes. Yet something strange happens in the Deshaan Plains of Morrowind.
Skyrenders are Mephalic bugs, wasp-like, that live in giant hives dotted around the Deshaan. These hives are made of giant cuboid salt crystals, mashed together with dead, rotted organic matter. Skyrenders are scavengers mostly, and not hunters. They eat carcasses whole, bones and all, and they build to their hive using the dead rotted matter, which they barely even digest before excreting it from their giant, poisonous stingers. It’s not uncommon for Skyrenders to practice cannibalism – in fact, it seems to be the norm. When one dies, the others eat it as quickly as possible, and use their remains as pastes, or building materials to connect the giant salt crystals into place.
They don’t need to do this to eat – that’s why the carcass matter is scarcely digested. There are streams of red, silky jelly inside the Skyrender hives, and this is all the nutrition they need. But they use dead, organic matter, and they harden it with a web like paste, and they use it as a building material. Some of the things they build inside their own hives seem beyond just an animal instinct, and deserve closer study than they get. I have heard of Skyrenders who build pillars and pillars inside their hives, and carve square patterns into it with their stingers, not for any particular purpose. Sometimes they just pile skulls together, without eating them. Unsettling, almost writing-like scrawls are often carved into the walls.
The dead matter no longer rots once the Skyrenders have treated it properly, but it does change over time, becoming thick, heavy, and strong, while still staying flexible and soft. It’s colour changes too, sometimes going a bluish colour, most of the time going a reddish or greyish one, and the smell dies down – but blood sometimes, still apparently drips from the ceilings.
Skyrenders are Mephalic not because they’re bug-like, and so closer related to the webspinner just because of that, but because they don’t seem to be entirely mundane. Skyrenders, at least some kinds of them, seem able to use very, very basic forms of magicka to emit light, or heal wounds. This is almost unheard of amongst normal animals. But Skyrenders are not normal animals. The layout of their hives is unsettlingly patterned and squarelike, with a strange mathematical, geometric precision, and rather than just building functional homes, they seem to create endless tunnels for the sake of it, or traps, for no reason. Those that work with Skyrenders stop being surprised, after a while, of finding a fresh dead body of some poor wonderer embedded whole and unchanged into a wall with patterns written on him, or a corridor that wasn’t there the month before, that only leads to a spiked pit, or to find the Skyrenders in circles, humming rhytmically at each other, ignoring everyone else. Their behaviour is deeply enigmatic.
kevaar was unsold on the idea of them being symbiotic, feeling it too similar to the kwama miners. there’s a dres settlement provided for potential scale, and also because some hives would have houses near them. overall – the pyrite-esque sort of square crystals shoved together by organic, necrotic paste, with a lot of wear and tear on the salt crystals themselves. a port up top for flying out of them. it’d be *really* good if it was possible for players rising high enough in dres to have ownership of a skyrender hive or something or able to ride skyrenders, but that sounds like a lot of scripting to me and might not be on the cards any time soon. i feel like skyrenders and skyrender hives should also drop valuable alchemical ingredients too – player dres manor might have a nearby hive where the workers collect those ingredients so the player can use or sell them.
The Dres are the only mer on the Deshaan, and they have a long history with Skyrenders. Mer of House Dres use the Skyrenders as transport, beast of burden, or cavalry in war. They learned long ago that a Skyrenders strongest sense is their sense of smell, and learned how to make Skyrenders trust them with that alone. But keeping a Skyrender hive useful for producing the trained Skyrenders that the Dres need is a difficult art in and of itself. The Dres build small colonies around Skyrender hives, and mer go into the hive bearing gifts regularly, of new carcasses, or sometimes of saltrice, or crystals, or just something that seems to catch their interests. They need to keep the health of the Hive, find promising Skyrenders when they’re young and before they develop into a Worker, so they can train them properly. They need to negotiate the apparent social politics that Skyrenders have amongst themselves. In many ways, the mer who work with Skyrenders, have to be able to live as a Skyrender.
I have met some of these mer. They are not like other mer. They are changed. Different somehow. They seem to stare at you for long hours, barely blink, and don’t react to much. But this is a subtle thing. They’re still the same mer they were before… but something’s changed, and I find it difficult to put my finger on what it is. So do they. They’re aware they’re different now. I’ve heard some mer start to eat the Skyrender jelly as their main meals, forsaking other food, and some find that they’ve been scrawling patterns inside their house while asleep, completely unaware. Skyrenders have a powerful effect on those who try to use them. The guards and warriors who ride them don’t feel this, it seems – or if they do, they don’t talk about it. But the rangers, and workers, who live at the hives and spend most of their time inside them, do.
The Skyrenders, to give some credit to them, are said to be very appreciative. They bring the mer who live with them gifts, albeit usually corpses, skulls, piles of poisonous salt – but they expect their gifts to be accepted. They become attached to certain mer, and become distressed if some mer disappear for long periods of time. Some have told me that they suspect that Skyrenders even mourn dead mer, and others have told me, more distressingly, that if a mer dies inside their hive, they must memorialize them immediately, by sticking them into the wall and covering them in those unsettling square patterns.
just some interior segment corridor ideas – salt crystals arranged in a slightly poorly made square tessellating pattern, again like kevaar suggested, because i think the straight lines and geometric-ness is unnatural and alien even in morrowind enough tobe the direction to go for, plus it can be offset by overly done organic paste, etc. lots of ideas for potential stuff found in hives there too, and for dungeons in an exterior that doesn’t offer much opportunity for smuggler caves and the like (except, perhaps, in the underground canals).
Most Skyrender hives on the Deshaan aren’t being used by the Dres, but many are being used by rogue necromancers, and some, I’ve heard rumoured, used by factions of the abolitionists known as the Twin Lamps. They co-operate less with the Skyrenders – so perhaps they are less effected by the strangeness of these creatures. But other hives, I am told, are often found to have mer who’ve gone mad, covered themselves in the square patterns, cut off bits of their own flesh or whole limbs, and can no longer talk, but seem as bound to the Skyrender queen as the Skyrenders are, being found in the Queen’s chamber where her mutated and bloated, chaotic body is pasted into the wall with the eggs hanging around her. On their knees, staring up with a blank look as the workers sometimes do.
Some Skyrenders never co-operate with any mer. The Fal-hir – big, bulky, tank like, with vestigial wings – simply ignore mer, and never acclimate to them the way the others do. And the Fal-kom – tall, hairy, and with their eyes torn out by themselves – it simply can’t be told whether they accept mer or not. They are the most enigmatic, and magically gifted, of the Skyrenders. They simply float in a vertical position around the hives, slowly, observing even with their eyes torn out.
The Skyrenders and the Dres have a symbiotic relationship. Indeed, it’s a Skyrender that’s on the banner of House Dres. And the mer who work with the Skyrenders for the rest of the House are the host organism for the Skyrenders, but one wonders if for some of them, the line becomes so blurred that the living things become one.”
-- Skyrenders, by Aluene Bennette.
the skyrenders as i saw them in game in port telvannis seemed too… well, “just big wasps” to me. i don’t want to step on established designs and completed models, so i just thought “how about other types of skyrenders”. also adds the possibilities of people who’ve gone Weird from being in hives too much as potential enemies/quest targets. i also like the idea of one of the few daedric shrines in the deshaan being to mephala, and having been used by a Skyrender colony that’s mashing up its designs into the daedric shrine, things like that. i think the fal-kom and fal-hir should look more different than i made them though, maybe different colouring, or maybe the fal-kom should have more obvious self mutilation.
also potential for things like, closed off canal ports that have accidentally struck a skyrender hive (potential quest targets), or things like that. given how there’s a lot less potential for traditional dungeons in the deshaan, i think we need new categories like this for it to go somewhere.
2014-01-08 21:55
5 hours 11 min ago
The 'just big wasps' you refer to might not be the most recent design for Skyrenders. The new design is well weird, IMO:
2016-07-06 07:55
3 years 1 month ago
no, you’re right, it wasn’t the most recent design. i’ve never seen these ones before but i love the legs, very “mephalic”. but no, this isn’t what the dres guard in port telvannis was riding that’s for sure.
still, the idea of different kinds of skyrenders in the hives for some variety can still work out well enough.
that said – i wonder if the brown-ness of them makes it a bit too easy for them to just blend into the surroundings? one thing i did like was the distinctiveness of their colour at the very least, because every other animal in morrowind is Brown.
2014-01-08 21:55
5 hours 11 min ago
Yes, the official release seems to utilize the old ‘renders.
Oh, definitely, we should have color variety. Skyrenders from different nests could have different colors and patterns going on. War-paint on the “domesticated” ones, maybe even glow mapped.
On the nests. I’ve always been a huge fan of Lutemoth’s concepts for the nests that were posted by Kaziem on the first post. Especially this one:
I really like the (queen’s?) legs sticking out of the nest as it slowly drags the gigantic nest with it across the plains. The nests wouldn’t actually move in the game, but there would be a visible track behind it, a depression in the earth – a record of their movements over the centuries. Those nests that are unfortunate enough to become farmed by the Dres have their legs cut off. The nest should be significantly larger than it is in the concept art for the player to enter the nest. Now, once inside, the player would witness the brilliance (and the horror) of the skyrenders’ collective genius: they’ve built their nest around the queen, combining organic materials (wax and whatever real wasps’ nests are made of) and the (inorganic?) salt crystals of Deshaan in a maze-like construction – much like in the interior concepts posted above by nwo_viper. The swarm has basically entrapped the queen ‘render: even though they’re feeding the queen they’re also forcing it to carry the nest and the colony with it.
2016-07-06 07:55
3 years 1 month ago
to be honest, i didn’t see lutemoth’s concept, but something about it, particularly the leggy queen, seems more “morrowind” than my concept… but i still really, really like kevaar’s notion of square salt crystals featuring heavily (and obviously, i quite like my own ideas, particularly about scavenger skyrenders making things out of dead things.” less the bulbous orby thing and something that looks like it’s questionable how organic it really is.
i also really like the idea of underground segments too, no idea how a queen would drag those along… but if they did, that’d probably make some of those crevices in the deshaan. and i agree, they need to be a lot taller than that one in lutemoth’s pic.
2016-01-19 19:35
1 month 1 day ago
Maybe instead of dragging the next, she drags eggs around? And is in essence trapped inside the hive because she’s too big to fit back out once its built over her. We could still play around with the notion that you can hit a Skyrender hive if you dig in the wrong location. Maybe have an Imperial salt mine that runs into this problem.
On the other hand, the insides could still be square-ish on the inside with the outside being the organic lumpy stuff: it depends on how big these things get. She might also burrow into the soil every so often, only moving when the annual rains come and she has to move to higher ground to keep everyone from being drowned. The ones you encounter ingame are assumed to be burrowed. Though perhaps there is a case of a Dres water pipe system breaking and flooding, and the Skyrender Dunmer are freaking out because their house has walked away without them to find dryer ground.
Wasps can build their nests out of paper (wood), grass bits, and mud IRL if I remember right. So salt and maybe something a little more fibrous would probably work. I kind of like the idea of hapless Dunmer getting built into the hives...so perhaps they use animal bones or skin as that fibrous component. Make them a little more creepy. (And another use for Dres slaves. Go be a wall! They particularly like Argonians because of the tough scales...)
2015-12-12 23:47
3 years 3 months ago
Comments on previous art:
I’d love to see salt being incorporated as a structural element in caves or buildings, in places that are not watery, as water would make a salt block dissolve. I’d also be interested in seeing the exterior of a skyrender nest include activators like siltstrides thar are slowly waving or tapping legs, implying that the nest has just temporarily stopped while you were there.
Now, some art for the Deshaan…
Some creatures: the floating jellies would be about 6 inches from top to bottom. Once I imagine to be generally friendly (like a butterfly) and the other to be generally friendly but mean if bothered (like a bee).
Does: concepts, textures, youtube vids, admin stuff e.g. PR, handbook, assets, small website things. Activity level: wildly unpredictable. Still active. Find me on Discord.
2016-07-06 07:55
3 years 1 month ago
a significantly more detailed post about skyrender hive interiors.
alright, so briefly, a potential layout of a random skyrender hive dungeon. this is something that’s not particularly special and just out on the deshaan, but has some of the deshaan’s specialized abolitionist faction hiding inside. the passages are very square/rectangular, and a lot of more weird maze like stuff because that’s how the skyrenders would build. not much to say about the map layouts, they’re just for the pictures below, for reference.
the int_corridor_whatever segment kits i’ve got here as being either pure crystal wall, pure necrotic fiber, or a mix of both. i imagine floors would be mostly salt crystal and less often necrotic fiber in most cases, but it couldn’t hurt to have them. perhaps there could be some necrotic fiber kit pieces that are blank in certain parts so they go over the top of pure salt crystal pieces? and can be used to make other kinds of lumpy corridors.
in addition – some bodies that might be sewn into the walls, including an argonian slave body, the patterns as i described them that you’d find scrawled onto things (be nice if it could be glow mapped), egg sacs (good source of ingredients), which are mildly luminescent, spike crystals which are just spiky salt crystals that, if possible/a good idea, could inflict some contact and poison damage, and the pillars as i described too, which are of various sizes. basically, a lot of potential interior features.
2016-01-17 13:07
1 year 9 months ago
I was doodling today, so I thought I’d add something to the mileu for skyrender hive concepts.
A ‘nursery’:
Pages