July 2023 Progress Update

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Tamriel Rebuilt is a massive community modding project for TES III: Morrowind that adds the mainland of the province to the original game, aiming to quadruple the size of the game world. The mod is developed and released as a series of fully realized expansions that seamlessly integrate sections of new land into the rest of the game world. Many such expansions have been released in the more than two decades that the mod has been in development; hence, players can already download and enjoy a landmass twice the size of the original game with thousands of interiors and NPCs complete with dialogue, and more than 500 new quests.

It has been quite a while since the last implementation progress update – all the way since October 2022, just prior to the release of our double expansions, Dominions of Dust and Embers of Empire. Those who read our previous teaser on the upcoming Andaram expansion will know that Tamriel Rebuilt development has been progressing at rapid pace since then.

This post will cover most of what the implementation team – that is, exterior and interior level designers and quest developers – has been doing in the past nine months (asset development has a separate progress report). For a Too Long; Didn’t Read edition:

  • release of Dominions of Dust and Embers of Empire expansions (duh)
  • completion of more than a hundred new quests for the Andaram expansion
  • a major expansion and update to Almas Thirr’s exterior, interiors, and quests
  • interior work on the Narsis expansion is close to conclusion, and the first quests are now being worked on
  • several exterior claims of the new Sundered Scar and all the interiors of the remade town of Darvonis are now finished
  • the first exteriors for the Othreleth Woods expansions are finished, and interior development has begun
  • the Tamriel Rebuilt version of the island of Firemoth is very close to being finalized, and a few new islands have been created on the fringes of Morrowind

Read on for a more detailed breakdown of this progress, divided between the different expansions which we mean to release in succession.

Yours truly has been rather lazy in compiling these reports, hence this one will be especially long… but maybe you will stick it out! If you like much more frequent bite-sized updates, be sure to check out Denis418’s posts on our new #progress-reports Discord channel.

For the following, it is helpful to know that development work on Tamriel Rebuilt is split into pre-coordinated claims (e.g. a chunk of the exterior worldspace, a building interior, a quest) that are implemented by individual developers, then reviewed by a team of experienced developers, prior to being merged into larger section files, and eventually, the mod’s master file.

As always, the links below will take you to the relevant asset or claims browser pages, but beware of spoilers! Furthermore, beware that the content on the linked pages often falls out of date, and hence may no longer represent the current state or future intent of the development team.

Dominions of Dust and Embers of Empire

Although our prior progress report at the very end of October last year covered almost everything related to these two already-released expansions, the three weeks not covered prior to the release were filled with frantic effort that should by rights be acknowledged here.

In these critical days, Jackimoff Wackimoff finished the last remaining interior for Dominions of Dust, the Tower of Contemplation for the Monastery of St. Felms and Am’Shak did the same for the Daedric ruin of Yamandalkal, the last needed one for Embers of Empire. Our interior reviewers MinerMan60101, Taniquetil, Cicero, and Vern then checked off the last items for the release, including the above as well as four caves in the Velothi Mountains (1, 2, 3, 4), made by Brannon the ilk, Phenoix12, and RDV.

Tower of contemplation in the Monastery of Saint Felms by Jackimoff Wackimoff.

A late-November release would, however, not have been achievable, if it weren’t for the absolute miracle pulled in these last three weeks by the questing department and especially the reviewers and playtesters:

Aside from the above four claims, our quest reviewers Mortimer, Dev Shah, Why, pralec, Arvisrend, and Rats toiled long hours to review all the questlines remaining on the docket:

The reviewers also took care of the miscellaneous quests:

Never before or after have so many quest claims been reviewed in such a short time!

A view across Roth-Roryn (screenshot by CDoubleOK).

Yet, this is only where the real preparations for the release started. Not only did our senior developers Evil Eye, Taniquetil, Mortimer, Why, Dev Shah, Cicero, abby, Arvisrend, and others have to carefully merge all remaining disparate claims into our main release file, Chef had to package and publicly release the new Tamriel_Data v9. Afterwards, the senior developers descended on our in-development plugin to spread new items from Tamriel_Data 9 among the mod and replace deprecated ones; remove remnants of old, superseded dialogue and quests; entirely re-implement our Vvardenfell-to-mainland travel network; outright cut or replace (parts of) many older and sub-standard interiors; add NPCs, NPC path grids, and item ownership to dozens of interiors missing such things (many discovered only days prior to release); address hundreds of small technical inconsistencies; and fix dozens upon dozens of mesh placement and quest bugs.

Despite these efforts, the quantity of new or overhauled content was such that just three days prior to the release, the mod seemed a hot mess and a November release looked improbable. Yet, after three frantic days of bugfixing, the new expansions were finally ready to see the limelight on November 24th.

A graph showing the accelerating pace of Mainland edits right up to the release of Dominions and Embers.

This was, of course, not all – all the way through to February, Why, abby, Jackimoff Wackimoff, Arvisrend, pralec, Evil Eye, and Taniquetil kept fixing dozens more bugs of varying severity, released as four hotfixes. Included in those were also Why’s Voddunius Nuccius follow-on quest and Taniquetil’s new dialogue for the Firewatch Cathnoquey Mission, all of which we had overlooked in the main release, as well as Sultan of Rum’s overhaul of Andothren’s House Hlaalu dialogue.

We originally intended to release a final, large maintenance release in Spring that would also include reams of cut content. But given the effort that a full mod release always requires, we thought it best to roll these fixes and additions into our fast-progressing next expansion. Which brings us to…

Andaram

Andaram, our next expansion, will include a major overhaul and content expansion of Almas Thirr, as well as a strip of new land south of Aanthirin, centered around Lake Andaram and the town of Hlan Oek. Most of what has been happening here was covered in the recent teaser article.

The biggest news since then is that our Lake Andaram section file, containing all of the changes listed below, has now been merged into the main in-development TR_mainland master file by Evil Eye. (I’d like to emphasize that this is not the released TR_Mainland, yet.) This means the there is no turning back – the new expansion is now inextricably part of our core mod! Read below for a recap of all that went into this section file or is still being added.

Overhead look at the new main landmass of Tamriel Rebuilt, freshly expanded to the south.

Exteriors

The exteriors and interiors for the new lands included in Andaram have been almost finished for a while, although we would like to do some further tweaks to the exterior, such as switching out the remaining Ascadian Isles flora and rocks with new bespoke Aanthirin ones. However, significant additions were since made in the already-released Aanthirin:

  • Most significantly, in the beginning of this year, Vern and pralec completed a total exterior overhaul of Almas Thirr, subsequently reviewed by Chef, the aim of which was to make use of new bespoke models and to expand the town to include more factions.
  • Realizing a lack of dungeon content on the eastern Thirr bank, in the very end of last year Vern placed several new dungeon entrances throughout the Aanthirin region, which were later tweaked and merged by Chef.
  • Chef also slightly expanded the Andaram release area to include three exterior cells from Blackbird’s Othreleth Woods #5 claim.
  • MinerMan60101 and Taniquetil helped improve performance in Old Ebonheart and Firewatch by removing a lot of unnecessary clutter.

The overhauled Almas Thirr. Exterior level design by Vern and pralec, based on the original work of Aeven.

Interiors

Work on the interiors of the additional Aanthirin dungeons started even prior to the release of Dominions and is now almost complete:

These were reviewed almost entirely by Denis418, with help from Jackimoff Wackimoff. Only a bandit-infested Chimer stronghold by Silvone remains un-reviewed.

Undead enemies in an abandoned Indoril manor. Interior level design by obie dwyer.

Also regarding an already-released area, Cicero finished the Bal Foyen caverns underneath Andothren, where vestiges of the Kamal invasion of Morrowind still linger (pending review).

The bulk of interior work still needed for Andaram, however, was in the top-to-bottom rework of Almas Thirr – the reasoning for this was covered more extensively in our previous news post, but this is something that we wanted to do already for the 2019 Aanthirin expansion, but ran out of time for.

After pralec had completed the exterior, Shadowhawk and Bero redid the canton waistworks, splitting it into a lower and higher half. It is worth noting that Bero is one of the developers who built the first iteration of Almas Thirr – it is very nice for them to join us in this quest to make the city truly shine.

Peter also made some adjustments to the old canalworks and Denis418 to the upper-level plaza. Peter then spearheaded a master plan for refurbishing, refitting, redoing, or creating completely anew more than 47 interiors that comprise Almas Thirr (with help from pralec, Vern, and Denis418) and premade many of the interior shells, so as to ensure against spatial overlap.

Almas Thirr plaza updated with new flora and clutter by Denis418.

Such a number of interiors was a big task, but our interior team absolutely demolished it in the few months since March. About half of the interiors made were outside the canton building:

Almas Thirr Hall of Tribute refit by Peter.

Inside the canton:

The rest of old Almas Thirr’s interiors received only a number of smaller touch-ups by Peter, and did not need separate claims. All of this work on Almas Thirr was diligently reviewed by Aveno, Denis418, Aidan1470, and Peter.

Almas Thirr Office of Intercession refit by Silvone.

Aside from this, some straggling claims in the new landmass around Lake Andaram still made their way in (reviews by Denis418, Jackimoff Wackimoff, and Vern):

A refit of the galleon Saber of the Straits by Osidian.

Some of the last interiors still needed for Andaram are refits of our pre-existing cutters and galleons, as we want to take advantage of the greatly improved exterior models and interior tilesets recently made by Melchior Dahrk for the OAAB asset repository. Almost all of these are either finished or pending review:

Quests

A few weeks prior to the release of Dominions, with most quest development for that expansion wrapped up, we were able to open up questing for Andaram. The first task was to add NPCs, creatures, and general dialogue to the Andaram expansion area. This work was very quickly finished by Revane (1, 2, 3), Delemis, PoasterToaster, and pralec, and reviewed by pralec and Mortimer.

Engage in some subterfuge in this Hlan Oek House Hlaalu questline by hardycore and Rats.

Since then, the progress on Andaram has been stunning, with more than a hundred new quests already complete for the next release. The first ones to be developed, starting in December, were the two major questlines in Hlan Oek, both of which are now finished and reviewed by pralec:

  • House Hlaalu by hardycore and Rats, which focuses on the Indoril-Hlaalu conflict
  • Tribunal Temple by Revane, exploring the dilemmas of the faithful in this thuggish town

In High and Dry by FlinSunset, something is afoot in Hlan Oek’s local Hall of Shipbuilders and Sailors.

Simultaneously, a ton of miscellaneous quests were added in Hlan Oek (reviewed by pralec and FlinSunset):

Lurker in the Mangroves by Kevin – a simple kill quest.

The same was the case in the countryside around Lake Andaram (reviewed by pralec and FlinSunset):

Leave your morals at the door in Almas Thirr’s Fighters Guild questline by abby.

Almas Thirr questing had to wait until the main structure of the revamped city was merged, but its main questlines were already opened up in March:

  • a series of relatively simple writs for the Morag Tong by Revane (reviewed by pralec)
  • an escalating series of jobs for the Fighters Guild by abby, going back and forth between the Hlaalu and Indoril on either side of the river (reviewed by FlinSunset)
  • Thieves Guild by FlinSunset, dealing with the rivalry between the guild and the Camonna Tong (reviewed by abby)
  • the soul-capture-focused Mages Guild questline, still in development by Taniquetil and Ricketybob

We intend to further expand the amount of miscellaneous quests in this enlarged Temple stronghold, but work on that can only start after we refit all older dialogue and quests into the new Almas Thirr (currently in progress by pralec) – as all interiors there have changed, we must make sure to fix any issues this may have caused in old content. pralec received help in this matter from FlinSunset, who already refit the 2019 Tribunal Temple questline for the new surroundings.

In past years, this meme used to be paraded every time someone bemoaned the small number of quest developers at our disposal. No more!

If the above was all the quest content that the relatively small Andaram expansion had, we would have been happy… but Tamriel Rebuilt has recently been blessed with an absolute profusion of great new quest developers – something that was unfathomable just a couple years ago! Faced with this mob of hungry questers angrily demanding claims, we took the opportunity to fill in gaps in the already-released Aanthirin area, similar to the interior top-up discussed in the previous section.

Most significantly, Threetooth made a short, low-level House Hlaalu questline in the Oran plantation on the western bank of the Thirr that focuses on infighting between Hlaalu plantation owners, reviewed by FlinSunset. Aside from this, there were several miscellaneous tweaks and additions (reviews by Revane and FlinSunset):

Shake down a ship captain or two in this Oran Plantation House Hlaalu questline by Threetooth.

Another item we managed tackle was the cut content and gaps in quest coverage in Dominions of Dust. There were two questlines that just barely didn’t make into the original release, but will now release with Andaram:

  • Baluath Vampire Questline by Dillonn241 and FlinSunset (reviewed by Mortimer), wherein you get to revive an ancient vampire clan, long thought dead, in the Armun Ashlands
  • Andothren Thieves Guild by Rats (reviewed by abby), with a similar premise of getting to rebuild a guild chapter that was recently wiped out

Embrace the night in the Baluath vampire questline in Armun Ashlands by Dillon241 and FlinSunset.

As we specifically felt that Andothren had a paucity of miscellaneous quests for a city that large, several new ones were made (reviewed by pralec and FlinSunset):

Help a pair of cousins come together in Soul Inheritor by Vayatir.

A number of miscellaneous quests were added and fixes made in the rest of the Dominions of Dust release area (reviewed by pralec and Mortimer):

The Proud Redoran by rockbiter64, Dunmerius, and Revane bulks up the quest coverage in Bodrum.

Now scraping the bottom of the barrel for things to throw at our quest developers, we cleaned out our website of old un-implemented quest ideas and showcases, resulting in a couple of new adventures being added to Necrom (yes, you heard that right!) and Old Ebonheart (reviewed by pralec):

Help a brother reach out in A Broken Family by Lexyp and Ricketybob.

As a final desperate act to sate our ravenous quest developers, we decided to provide temporary stopgaps for our ancient Telvanni and Temple content in northeastern Morrowind. These relatively simple quests will help make the Telvanni lands feel less incomplete for a while, but we fully expect to nuke most of them once the grand Telvanni redo comes around in a decade’s time or so – much better to start that with a clean slate:

Break into a secure vault in Reclaiming Oathrung by Donnerino.

As all this was happening, viol was steadily addressing a frequent player complaint about a lack of roleplaying reasons to visit the mainland. The solution was to add a series of simple quest hooks to questgivers from Vanilla, which will be packaged together with the optional TR_Factions plugin file. Several such quest hooks are now complete (reviews by FlinSunset and Revane):

Your old friend Ajira now has one more request from you; by viol.

Further good news is that Revane has now finished the review of our long-suffering Foul Murder questline by 6plus, which we originally hoped to ship with Dominions, but which may now ship with Andaram, instead. This will be an epilogue of sorts to the Morrowind main quest, centered mostly in Necrom, that will explore the Temple coming to grips with the waning power of the Tribunal. For the purposes of the quest, Cicero created a burnt-out Ashlander camp near Necrom (pending review), but some exterior edits and a new Velothi tower interior are still needed before the quest can see the limelight. Also still needed is the completion of a mural, a special bonewalker, and, just possibly, a new cutscene.

With a few more quests still in development, we hope this will be enough for the “little” Andaram expansion!

Lastly, we should mention all the diligent playtesting, claim merging, bugfixing, content tweaking, and other improvements that have been happening on the background thanks to Jackimoff Wackimoff, Evil Eye, pralec, abby, MinerMan60101, Taniquetil, Mortimer, Chef, Peter, Denis418, Ronik, and others. This work may be less sexy, but incredibly important for making the new expansion come together.

Narsis

The expansion that will contain the city of Narsis will rival and possibly exceed Dominions of Dust in geographical extent and amount of content, containing not only the eponymous city, but also the rest of the Coronati Basin region around the middle part of the Thirr river and a huge chunk of the southern Shipal-Shin region.

The city of Narsis. Exterior work by Chef, screenshot by hammered on sujammer.

Exteriors for this expansion have been completed for a while, with mojo187 finishing the review of Chef’s work on Narsis in February. We still hope to include a small strip of the Deshaan Plains in this expansion, but that is still waiting behind a couple more ground textures to be developed (interested texture artists, please come forward!). Hence, the big focus was on finishing up all the needed interiors – and, boy, are there many to go through!

Interiors

First opened for interior development last Summer, the city of Narsis with its nearly 200 interiors has been built quarter-by-quarter, in order to better manage the workflow. By now, thanks to hard work by all involved, most of the city’s interiors are finished and almost all of the few remaining are in development.

The six districts of Narsis.

First in the line was the northwestern Market Quarter, where the roads to Mir Corrup and Stormhold cross, being possibly the busiest concentration of mercantile activity in the whole of Morrowind. Most of this quarter was already finished last October; since then, all but two of the remaining interiors have been completed (reviews by Mark, Peter, Denis418, Jackimoff Wackimoff, and Vern):

Dining room in the manor of the Sixth Family of House Hlaalu, by PartiallySane.

The second one, St. Veloth’s Quarter, is a run-down and claustrophobic district mainly for poor Dunmer workers, dominated by the Camonna Tong and affiliated business interests. It, too, has been mostly complete for a while, but many more items than in the Market Quarter were finished since October (reviews by Vern, Denis418, Mark, and Jackimoff Wackimoff):

Sewers underneath the St. Veloth’s quarter, by Osidian.

The third quarter to be opened up was the Waterfront. Hugging the eastern cliffside right next to the Thirr, this is where most shipbound traffic in Narsis loads its goods. As the above quarters, it, too, is nearing completion (reviews by Peter, Mark, Jackimoff Wackimoff, Denis418, and Vern):

The watering hole where the Theoretical Dignity Club meets, by Salmonroll.

Next up for development was the huge Foreign Quarter in the south of the city – an anachronism from pre-Armistice times when foreign merchants were only allowed to ply trade in the floodlands south of the old city. Most interiors there are now finished (reviewed by Mark, Jackimoff Wackimoff, Rats, and Aidan1470):

Smithy at Heron Hall, the Imperial Legion headquarters in Narsis, by Khazar.

Many of the more significant interiors in the quarter still remain in development, but most of these are well on their way:

The bedroom at the modest old manor of the Narusa family, by Bero.

Sitting halfway up the cliffs just north of the Foreign Quarter is the wealthy Old Quarter, which in long times past was the core of the city. Most interiors there have been reviewed by Mark and Jackimoff Wackimoff:

The lobby and central stage in the Grand Casino in Narsis extend through three floors; by Osidian.

The last one to be opened up in Narsis, simultaneously with the Old Quarter, was the Council Quarter on top of the mesa. As it holds most of the wealthiest kingpins and institutions of Narsis, these are some of the trickiest interiors to make, and many are waiting behind bespoke models becoming available. Still, some are already reviewed by Mark and Denis418:

Many other major interiors are either pending review or already well into development:

All told, 153 interiors in Narsis have been reviewed, 6 are pending review, and 17 are still in development out of a total of 189. The city, the second biggest in all of Morrowind, looks on track to be completed after only a little more than a year in development!

The Temple of Dibella in Hlerynhul, by Fremennik and Lumpag.

A comparable amount of interior work was done outside of Narsis, too. There are several smaller towns in the Coronati Basin and Shipal-Shin region, most of which are now completed interior-wise.

One such is the town of Hlerynhul on the mouth of the river Kanit, called Ud Hleryn in our previous progress updates (and what a nauseating re-naming debate that was – ugh!). There, the last remaining interiors were finished and merged (reviews by Vern and Denis418):

The little town of Sadrathim on the eastern bank of the Thirr very recently received its last interior, too: the Temple of Stendarr and Zenithar by Saddboye, Denis418, and Khazar (reviewed by Denis418 and Mark).

Ald Iuval Temple by Jackimoff Wackimoff.

Ald Iuval, one of the two Redoran holdouts in the Coronati Basin, got a new Tribunal Temple by Jackimoff Wackimoff (reviewed by Vern), but is still waiting for Peter to finish the Council Hall of the Waters March, which very recently received a bespoke building mesh by Shivatheo.

The House of Red Wings in Shipal-Sharai by Phenoix12.

The last major settlement in the Narsis expansion to not have received any interior work was the once-wealthy, but now decrepit caravan town of Shipal-Sharai. Phenoix12, who also created the town’s exterior and conceptualized its story, opened up the first claims only in June. All were soon gobbled up by our many interior developers, with a substantial portion already finished for review. The House of Red Wings, a once-glamorous cabaret by Phenoix12, has even been reviewed by Jackimoff Wackimoff. The rest follow:

The office of the caravanserai, one of the few still-prosperous institutions in town; by CdoubleOk.

Others are not yet finished, but have already received substantial progress:

Ruined Redoran dwellings dot the old lands of the Waters March. Interior level design by Snailsting.

Aside from Narsis and the other towns, an important objective is to finish the wilderness and countryside interiors of the Coronati Basin, which would allow us to open up our next NPC, dialogue, and quest claims. These have been worked on for a long time, with many of the interiors having remained in review limbo for more than a year. New and returning interior reviewers (Jackimoff Wackimoff, Peter, Denis418, Aveno, and Aidan1470) have, however, made great strides this Summer in getting all of them wrapped up:

A Velothi tower by Excuses & Accusations and RDV.

Seveeral more were finished within in the past nine months, but not yet reviewed:

Also well under development in the Coronati Basin is Vandirelyon stronghold near Othmura by Quit, which will play an important role in the town’s Mages Guild questline.

The Daedric ruin of Nunalabbi, dedicated to Malacath, by Aveno.

Three more interiors were finished in the thin strip of Othreleth Woods next to the basin (reviews by Denis418 and Vern):

A cozy nook in the Vedas Manor by Aidan1470 and Syzygy.

Finally, innumerable wilderness interiors in the Shipal-Shin region were opened late last year and are now inching towards completion (reviews by Mark, Jackimoff Wackimoff, Denis418, Vern, and Rats):

A large Kwama egg mine owned by the Vedas family, by Silvone.

Many of the remaining Shipal-Shin interiors were finished, but not yet reviewed:

And then there are several still making development progress:

The Stormgate Pass outpost with the Barsaebic Ayleid ruin of Mala Tor in the background. Exterior level design by Phenoix12.

As you can see from the unwieldy length of the preceding chapter, the past year has seen the completion of the bulk of the interior work needed for the Narsis expansion. The rest are all under active development, with the exception of a few that still lack a required asset or two.

The most numerous of the latter camp are the Skyrender hives in the eastern part of the Shipal-Shin, which need to have their interior tileset finalized (willing 3D modelers and/or texture artists are welcome to help bring the in-development files to completion!), although we can initially ship these exterior-only, if need be.

Quests

Given the interior-completion of several towns in the Coronati Basin and with Andaram quests very nearly done, questing for the Narsis expansion has officially begun!

The first NPC and dialogue addition claims were already opened up in April for the towns of Hlerynhul and Othmura, and were quickly finalized by Revane. Now reviewed by abby and pralec, you can already see these NPCs strolling through our Thirr Valley section file.

Break heads and make money in this Hlerynhul Fighters Guild questline by FlinSunset.

Months of conceptualization by Revane, abby, pralec, FlinSunset, Donnerino, Mark, and others meant that several questline designs were ready to roll, one of which is already done:

As many more designs are currently under development, waiting for interior work to catch up, expect busy questing activity throughout the Narsis expansion area soon.

We must finally mention the hard work that Mark, Vern, Chef, and others have been doing in conceptualizing the city of Narsis and its surroundings; the structure, characters, and relationships within House Hlaalu; the Shinathi nomads; and many of the faction questlines. All the documentation written by these authors will hopefully ensure a smooth development cycle for Narsis content and a cohesive experience for our players.

Sundered Scar

The Sundered Scar expansion aims to remake the currently almost content-less Sundered Scar region (just east of Old Ebonheart) into a truly unique biome with plenty of quest content.

Work on this expansion has been relatively sluggish, with most people focusing on Andaram or the Narsis expansion. Still, several important strides have been made since last October and it may still be possible that we release this expansion prior to Narsis.

The Sundered Scar exterior claims laid over a top-down view of the game world. Claims 01, 04, and 06 are already merged into the Sundered Scar section file, whereas 07 is currently pending review. Others remain in progress; only 03 has not yet been started.

Exteriors

Solid progress has been made on Sundered Scar exteriors:

The sulfuric Scathes of the Sundered Scar transition into a volcanic mountain range that separates the region from the Aanthirin. Work-in-progress exterior level design by pralec.

The three finished claims above have been merged into a new section file by Chef. The rest remain under development:

  • Denis418 made some progress on the area just north of Almalexia, containing the town of Varon, prior to having to drop the claim.
  • Chef has re-sculpted the landscape for a part of the range of volcanic mountains directly abutting the Aanthirin region to the west.
  • MinerMan60101 has created the basic heightmap for the north-eastern part of the region, which will include the coastal town of Marog (a name repurposed from a to-be-reduced Telvanni settlement near Helnim).

Interiors

Chef organized the first interiors of the expansion to be opened up in the town of Darvonis at the very end of last year. All of these have since been finished (all reviewed by Denis418):

The humble Ash Sweeps keep the streets of Darvonis walkable. Interior level design by Shadowhawk_the19th.

Just days ago, Peter also opened up the first wilderness interior claims for this expansion, corresponding with exterior claims 01, 04, and 07, and our interior developers are currently diving into them. Shadowhawk_the19th has by now put a tomb up for review, whereas Quit has made progress on a second one. Even prior to all this, Ragox had been working on a cave in the region that he himself made many years ago, but which needs some updates.

Quest-wise, we are still waiting for more of the region to be finished, but Revane, Donnerino, and Sultan of Rum have already done some conceptualization in terms of miscellaneous quests and a Temple questline. Moreover, two new and enterprising developers have already created quest showcases that take place in the region:

  • Simple Cartography by Donnerino, successfully passed thanks to pralec
  • Muck Business by Deenday, which is currently in limbo, but will likely be turned into a full quest claim in the future

Deenday began implementing one of the first quests in Darvonis as a showcase (work-in-progress).

As a final bit of bonus content, we would dearly love to ship a rework of Kemel-Ze together with Sundered Scar – although the interior of that most famous Dwemer ruin has been in the mod since 2008, it is far from a coherent and full experience. heavenlee has been slowly making progress on a total rework of the interior, but much more is still needed, especially in conceptualizing the questline that will take place there.

Hopefully, steady progress on the exteriors and interiors will continue and we may soon see the full vision of the remade Scar come to life.

Othreleth Woods

This section of the newsletter actually concerns two different upcoming expansions – one centered around the town of Andrethis (previously called Saint Seryn) and one around Kragenmoor – both of which will mostly feature the Othreleth Woods region with a little bit of Shipal-Shin on the side (plus a little bit of the Velothi Mountains next to Kragenmoor). For now, however, there is little to differentiate the expansions in terms of development flow, and we will consider them together here.

The borders of exterior claims for the two Othreleth Woods expansions, overlaid on a top-down view of the game world, showing current exterior level design progress.

Exteriors

The exterior claims for the two expansions remain right on track, with nearly all of them having received at least some progress by now, and a couple already finished.

The grand Narusa winery in the Othreleth Woods feels almost like a small town in of itself. Exterior level design by Blackbird.

The finished claims were both made by Blackbird, a veteran exterior and interior developer who decided to rejoin Tamriel Rebuilt just last year:

  • The first claim, Othreleth Woods 05, forms the northeastern bit of the Othreleth Woods region and includes the sprawling Narusa winery, home base for perhaps the most influential Hlaalu councillor. Finished already late last year, it was quickly reviewed by Chef and forms the first bit of our new Othreleth Woods East section file.
  • On the opposite side of said section file is Shipal-Shin 14, which Blackbird finished in February, and which was reviewed early this June by mojo187 with help from Phenoix12. This area is mostly desert wilderness roamed by the Shinathi clans; the only sign of civilization is a crossroads inn.

A Dwemer ruin stands on the transition from the Armun Ashlands to the Othreleth Woods. Work-in-progress exterior level design by Chef and Blackbird.

Although these two are the only finished claims, several others on the eastern side of the Othreleth Woods (i.e. the Andrethis expansion) are quite far along:

  • Shipal Shin 13, a small claim on the border of the province that has a decent-sized Drumpear farm, is very nearly finished by Tombomb47 and Cookiemonster16, needing only slight border-matching with neighbouring claims.
  • Shipal Shin 11 – a large wilderness area on the Cyrodiil border – has also been brought very close to finalization by Sevenup243.
  • Shipal Shin 12 on the transition from the Othreleth Woods to the Shipal-Shin canyons contains a significant mining town (formerly called Andrethis, a new name is pending). Chef has made some progress on the town itself and the surrounding cliffsides.
  • Othreleth Woods 04 – a stretch of deeper woods with the Veloth’s path passing through – has seen a lot of work done by Chef and is currently being finalized by Blackbird.
  • mojo187 has completed a decent portion of Othreleth Woods 06, containing the Hlaalu village of Ilaanam as well as plantations and farms along the middle span of the Kanit river.
  • A significant part of Othreleth Woods 08 – a relatively cultivated stretch of the middle Kanit and its tributaries, also including the Hlaalu village of Narun – was finished by Saddboye this February. Silvone, another returning veteran developer, is now continuing it as part of an exterior developer showcase.
  • Fremennik made some progress on Othreleth Woods 09 early in the year. This claim holds the meandering lower span of the Kanit river, the Redoran ruins of Ald Lambasi, and the Hlaalu town of Ferventhil.
  • Wanax, a new exterior developer, made initial progress on Othreleth Woods 10 this June. This claim forms the southeastern corner of the woods and is almost entirely made up of deep, dense mushroom forest full of dangerous creatures and bandits.
  • Othreleth Woods 07, containing the Balmora-sized industrial town of Andrethis (earlier called Saint Seryn), is perhaps the least far along, with only heightmap and basic layout work done late last year by Gnomey.

A mid-sized Drumpear farm in the Shipal-Shin region. Work-in-progress exterior level design by Tombomb47 and Cookiemonster16.

Much of the western side of the Othreleth Woods (slated for the Kragenmoor expansion), is not far behind:

  • Shipal Shin 16, a dramatic cliff-scape containing the Hlaalu town of Salvelis, was finished in February by Phenoix12 and is currently awaiting review.
  • The centrepiece that is the city of Kragenmoor (claim Othreleth Woods 01 by Nemon) has been asymptotically creeping closer and closer to completion. Chef made some bespoke building meshes for the city earlier this Spring and Nemon is now only a couple steps away from sending it to review.
  • Phenoix12 has finished most of what’s needed for Othreleth Woods 02, a stretch of deep woodlands south of Kragenmoor, containing a major abandoned Reman Imperial ruin from late in the First Era.
  • Othreleth Woods 03 by DarkKnightComes received some initial progress early this year. This claim contains the town of Hla Rud, which is where goods are transferred between the carriages and wagons that travel through Shadowgate Pass through Kragenmoor, and flat-bottomed riverboats that ply the Kanit river down to Morrowind’s heartland.
  • Shipal Shin 15 is a wilderness area on the Cyrodiil border, home to the Liver Eater goblin tribe. It was worked on previously by Kaiel, but is now close to being finished by Mothpot as an exterior developer showcase.
  • Nemon has now started working on Velothi Mountains 01, just to the west of Kragenmoor, which contains the source of the Kanit river.

Steep canyons wind their way through the Shipal-Shin desert on the Cyrodiil border. Work-in-progress exterior level design by Kaiel and Mothpot.

Interiors

Perhaps the bigger news on the Othreleth Woods front is that interior development has now started up! To sate our busy interior bees with nothing to work on, Peter made claims for the first two reviewed exteriors late last month.

The winery building at the Narusa estate; work-in-progress interior by Fremennik.

In the Othreleth Woods 05 area, a considerable portion is already finished or pending review:

This Velothi tower in the otherwise-inhospitable Shipal-Shin serves as an inn. Work-in-progress interior by Quit.

The same is true in Shipal-Shin 14, despite claims only being opened up a week or two ago:

As the Narsis expansion moves firmly into the questing stage, expect much more exterior and interior progress here in the coming months.

Islands

In addition to these major upcoming expansions, Tamriel Rebuilt has been developing a series of smaller islands on the side, dotting the far shores of our landmass (see here for an in-depth overview). None of these are yet pegged to any particular expansion, but may instead be attached to the next upcoming one as soon as any are finished.

Sulfurwatch Keep near Firemoth, restored to its former glory. Interior level design by Nirvayn and Denis418.

The furthest along of these is our rework of Firemoth (the island being called Saros Caldera in our in-house lore, as from a TES III technical standpoint it is important for wilderness regions and settlements/forts to not start with the same name). In recent months, the final remaining ruined interiors from earlier were reviewed by Denis418 and Vern, as were a set of brand-new restored ones:

Siege at Firemoth will remain a fun dungeon-romp, but will now have a lot more meat on the bones (har-har!). Work-in-progress quest by Evil Eye.

Early in the year, Evil Eye also started the re-implementation and re-imagining of the Siege at Firemoth quest, which will integrate into the game more fully than the original version. After many iterations informed by Denis418’s playtesting, the quest is now ready for review! Evil Eye has also been brainstorming a follow-on questline for Imperial Legion players, wherein the fort will be restored as your own faction stronghold.

After several rounds of bugfixes and merges by Evil Eye, Denis418, and Taniquetil, the redone island is closer than ever to completion; only one interior and the restoration quest remain undone.

Something to note is that while the Tamriel Rebuilt version of Firemoth will still be optional, we will possibly bundle it into our main file by default, so as to make it easier to integrate the island to other mainland content. We will instead offer an optional plugin to remove the island and associated quests for those who prefer to load the original plugin or an alternative mod.

The shrine to Mephala on the island of Vounoura. Work-in-progress interior by Cicero.

The next closest to completion is Vounoura, a Mephala-and-Sanguine-related semi-mythical island far to the north of Telvannis, in the Sea of Ghosts. Cicero, the creator of the island, recently finished its Daedric ruin interior, complete with twin shrines to the two Daedric princes. While that is pending review, Cicero moved on to conceptualizing a quest for Sanguine, for which he already created a small new tropical island in the southern Padomaic Ocean, close to Morrowind’s shore.

A pleasant little island in the Padomaic Ocean. Work-in-progress exterior by Cicero.

Our longest-developed island is Olanar, situated a ways east of the Telvanni Isles, and slated to be the site of a complex miscellaneous quest involving the Maormer. This island, too, made some progress on the interiors front, and only an abandoned Telvanni tower remains to be finished:

  • RDV finished the Shaav grotto on the island, with a lot of feedback from Denis418. The interior is now waiting for review.
  • Osidian very recently finished up Vadridan, a Velothi tower at the “edge of the world,” which was subsequently reviewed by Mark.

The foreboding ruins of Leviathan Keep high in the Sea of Ghosts. Work-in-progress exterior by Cicero.

Finally, Cicero recently created a small archipelago called Leviathan Islands to the north of Sheogorad, based on Taniquetil’s design (pending review). These islands are there to host two locations mentioned in TES III canon:

  • The wrecked old Leviathan Keep from the War of the Red Diamond, also interpreted as one of the “series of Imperial garrisons along the coastal Morrowind islands” mentioned in the Brief History of the Empire.
  • A runestone and Nordic tomb belonging to Fokbar, an Atmoran companion of Ysgramor mentioned in the recounting of the Five Hundred, whose daughter is said to have “troubled the East.”

And that is all for implementation progress on Tamriel Rebuilt for the past nine months, although surely many items were forgotten. Hopefully it was enough to sate your thirst for progress; rest assured that work on the project is continuing at this very moment.

Outside of Narsis District, the start of exterior development on further expansions requires additional assets to be finished – if you are interested in helping out with 3D models or textures, see, for example, our wiki page on the Clambering Moor region, which will be the start of our Redoran content.

For more frequent progress updates and a view into the mod-making process itself, come see us on our Discord server, where we develop the mod in the open. And if you would like to help make the world of Morrowind come to completion sooner, consider joining the development team. TES III modding is very easy to get started in – no prior experience is needed and there is plenty of work to go around for beginner developers!

Special thanks to FlinSunset for a ton of screenshots, and hammered on sujammer for the banner screenshot!

Comments

Another wonderfully

darkspine10's picture

Another wonderfully comprehensive overview of development. I've been dipping in and out of the Discord to watch the progress but nothing beats these broader piece-by-piece examinations. All the progress down the Coronati to Narsis is so cool to watch unfold, something I never had in old TR since I came to the project during 2016 when work was mostly behind-the-scenes and focused on updating TR's guidelines before further exterior work.

 

Regarding a bit of curiosity, what was the motivation behind the name change of Saint Seryn -> Andrethis? I thought the older name was quite distinctive for Morrowind town names and I'd be interested to know what spurred the change.

2 reasons would be  1)

Cicero's picture

2 reasons would be 

1) Andrethis is a lore tier 2 settlement while St. Seryn is a TR made up place. So doing the change makes it so Andrethis isn't taking a back seat as a tier 3 or 4 settlement. A town placed in that location makes its so guild content is in an ideal location between Kragenmoor and Narsis which also has guilds. 

2) Why is St. Seryn so important over all the other saints to get their own Town? St. Seryn wasn't even a Hlaalu. 

Its the name that comes from

Vern's picture

Its the name that comes from the origonal morrowind concept map for the "main" settlment in that area, which has bounced between a few different locations of varyng sizes, going from a village, to a town to finally ending up at the size and location it was on the old map.

The Monastery of St Seryn will still be close by however.

Edit: HAH, got beaten to it

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