Yes, It was on concept bethesda map

I think it need physical ruins - only as enter portal to city. Something like that

Ruins with a portal to Sotha Sil Expanded?

Hm, true.

The ruins we put in could be a portion of it with Sotha Sil Expanded being another. Some of the writing about the Clockwork City gives me the feeling that it slowly turned into a massive underground network, not so much a city so much as slowly overtaking the workings of the world. Like an automaton, the outside looks human, but you peel away the skin and it's all a machine. Or a virus, Sotha Sil hacking into the Mundus code and turning it to his own design, the physical manifestation of which is all these gears and things just under the surface of Morrowind.

How to put that into ingame terms though? Hm.

Sotha Sil was not always the person he was when he died and my gut says that just like the other two Tribunes he would have had a seat of power on Nirn in his name. I would say even if he hadn't wanted it, he would have been expected to have one and that it would have been a very interesting place.

However, this is not to say the place he eventually resided is not in a pocket dimension (or similar structure) of his own devising. He could have simply torn his ultimate labs and residences from his city and put them into his pocket dimension or they could be lost underground.

The underground idea, regardless of whether he moved his more important labs and rooms to a pocket dimension, probably was true, seeing as he obviously had a certain liking for Dwemer practices and ideas. A lot of his city could have been built underground.  This also allows a possible TR interpretation to be lazy with external asset creation if need be, and allow the city to be all the more hidden.

However, above all of this, his city, and I do believe there was one (his seat of power expected of him by his followers, no-doubt), must lie in a place not walked by many people. Jungles are certainly this type of place. He was a mad scientist-wizard, and like the Dres and Telvanni probably didn't like outsiders trampling about his city.

Like Almalexia or Vivec (the cities), his city proper (the external portion, not the final resting place and probable lab portion of his city, wherever it ended up) was probably a sight to behold, with unique architecture (Dunmer + his own musings) and an even more unique local populace of worshippers and like-minded mad scientist-wizards and oddly dressed and mannered Ordinators.

I'm not sure, but I think the interior cultures of Morrowind that he probably most associated with were people like the Telvanni, Dwemer and Dres, and to a more managerial and cultish respect the Indoril. I don't think he had much use for Redoran or Hlaalu culture, and probably hated the interventions of the Empire, the Imperial Cult, the Guilds or Morag Tong and even for that matter the normal everyday Tribunal Temple members and their practices. But for the purposes of research, he was probably a big fan of Dwemer and Daedric places, artifacts, persons and research (mad scientist-wizard after all), and I'm sure he had more than a helping hand in establishing the Ghostfence and reengineering Dunmer ancestor worship to power it with souls from Necrom.

All that is to say, his city, Sotha Sil, was (or is) probably a fascinating place. A figurative gold-mine for adventuring and whatnot. The externally still existing parts of the city should exist somewhere to mark the fact that this Dunmer/Chimer was an important figure and a living deity for thousands of years before he disappeared (rather recently the game suggests).

But that city (or its ruins) shouldn't be easy to find. The suggestion that it still exists somewhere is questioned even in the game, but the difference is that when that city is mentioned, it's called the "Clockwork City", not "Sotha Sil". This leads me to my most important point- that the "Clockwork City" is to "Sotha Sil" as "Mournhold" is to "Almalexia". The most central seat of power to the grander city of Sotha Sil, and maybe no longer on the plane of Nirn. The requirement to ever connect the "Clockwork City" to "Sotha Sil" with any kind of door or teleportation is up to the discretion of the modders of TR, but I think whether the greater city of "Sotha Sil" existed at all is a no-brainer for a god worshipped for thousands of years when his brother and sister in god-hood both have their own. I'm sure he had a bigger head for such self-aggrandizement before he got old and silly.

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EDIT: A side thought- Expand the underground rivers where riverstriders are used in the Deshaan to encompass a deep underground lake and cliff system with huge interiors and high ceilings that extend under much of southern Morrowind.  Then a case could easily be made that Sotha Sil (the city) was tucked as a settlement in the side of a cliff in a glowing mushroom laden giant cavern system, and the way to find it was always hidden as a task for pilgramage and had been mostly lost since Sotha Sil "left".  The city of hidden dunmer mad scientist-wizards could still be lurking in the depths, lost in Telvannic madness and Dresrosian xenophobia.

Alright, it sounds like you don't disagree with my central thesis that he "would" have had a city, still; just in a location apart from greater society.  It sounds like the unknown part is the extent of this "city".

• What do you think of separating the "Clockwork City" and "Sotha Sil" like "Mournhold" is separated from "Almalexia"?  A core and an exterior, with the core possibly removed to a pocket dimension.
  • It would let you focus on a more original vision for "Sotha Sil" while catering to the Tribunal expansion's disconnection of the "Clockwork City" from the external world.  This would let you change less with "The Clockwork City" and be more creative with what "Sotha Sil" would be like.
  • Plus it would let you explain the lack of any other people in the "Clockwork City" and still let "Sotha Sil" be important in a different way, since people could be living or had been living there
  • The point of contention is whether people are still living in Sotha Sil and if so how they've lived there since dropping off the map without interference or acknowledgement by the rest of Dunmer society.  And also, why they'd still be living there, and what kind of people would live alongside Sotha Sil.
• Lastly- Since you don't want to expand the riverways underground, would you be opposed to the rest of the idea of a large underground cavern separate from the Salt Washes, under the Arnesian Jungle instead.
  • It would let you avoid creating a lot of external meshes, and would help explain the lack of people stumbling across it, unless they're really looking for it, out in the middle of the jungle.
  • I think if you put it above ground, it pretty much eliminates the possibilty that people would still be living there unless you did another "hidden spider valley" kind of thing.

I think it may be a good idea to know the location of the city but not necessarily build a physical ruin. I like the idea that Sotha Sil is still a physical place, but in a sense dislocated from the earth. I say: no ruins of any sort on the surface, but at least know the general placement of it.

I don't really care for ESO's interpretation. In c0da you get the feel that Sotha Sil and then Memory worked so long and hard that the entire planet was eventually replaced with clockwork just under the surface, and it sounds more thematically interesting, the world slowly being replaced by a machine...

EDIT: I apparently already said that in this thread. But...

I've always imagined it in the orange location. I think I recall lore about it being near Black Marsh in a swamp on the same latitude of Narsis, but I can't say off the top of my head where that lore comes from.

For what it's worth, my interpretation has always been attached to the clockwork city existing as a network underneath morrowind. The Pocket guide and 2920 report different locations, indicating that the city's location isn't common knowledge. Despite that, I like the idea of having a small external representation of Sotha Sil in the swamps and am on board with Gnomey's imagery for the exteriors. Minimally, to acheive the effect that the clockwork city is a sprawling underground, exits could be made within the interior that exit to different cities on the mainland.

I can't imagine Sotha Sil being a publically accessible city. I imagine it functioning like Tel Fyr, inaccessible without levitation and occupied by some magical/religious faction for which lore is developed. I like the idea of the Psijics occupying and researching it after hearing of Sotha Sil's death, but I am not sure whether this is compatable with what you guys have developed already.

I think it could be interesting if there were multiple ruins of different age that could tell something of the progress of the character Sotha Sil. Several abandoned prototype Clockwork City complexes on the physical plane that he built and tried and then abandoned as they wouldn't perform to his satisfaction, until he realized that he had to put in a pocket plane for it to work flawlessly? Each Clockwork City built in a different manner in an attempt to find perfection, but failing. The ruins filled, obviously, with mechanical traps and contraptions, unfinished inventions and various books, plans, diaries, and the like of knowledge, which obviously would be of interest to the Temple, to the Mages Guild, to the Archaeological Society, and to any and all who desires a taste of the brilliance of a living god. Perhaps ruins also containing the remains and written accounts of the mortal retainers Sotha Sil had but for various reasons eventually left behind. It could show the development of a character that went from a powerful recluse who still was benevolent to his people, to a man balancing on the edge between madness and sanity ere sensations of the Heart grew too great, to the man that he appeared to be towards the end - someone who had seen the signs and portents and knew what the future held, and was abject.

In fact, it could, if done right, be made into a quite interesting quest where a high-level character that had advanced in all the guilds would have to balance the interests of all involved, and perhaps even decide whether the legacy of Sotha Sil should be preserved or destroyed.