Hammerfell Lore

[Majra]

ok perhaps you are right that there is no range between Imp Province and HF. Then I suppose the dragontail's could go up, and form the edge of the province with skyrim and HR, I still think the boundary would be a massively drastic Fyord almost. As to which peak is higher yours or mine, is which ever, but I believe both are true peaked mountains, very tall, as is the range around them, and should be snow covered through the last 10% of its elevation year round.

[Sload]

I suggest you expand the middle river, not the northern one. First, Karnver Falls is shown as being on the middle river. I also imagine it would be on the largest river, or atleast hope it would be because then would be much neater. Also, right now you're making the smallest river the largest river by far. Isn't it a less signifcant change to make the largest river the largest by far?

And I'm sticking this. If a mod objects, unstick it with pleasure.

[Sload]

I suggest we make the randomly-generated Arena names less cliche by removing things like "city" etc.

Names I don't want to change because of lore:
Elinhir
Dragonstar
Gilane
Hegathe
Lainlyn
Rihad
Sentinel
Skaven
Stros M'kai
Taneth

Names I don't think need to be unclichified:
Karnver Falls
Chougand

Names easy to unclichify:
Belkarth Guard -> Belkarth*
Corten Mont -> Corten
Heldorn Mount -> Heldorn
Lainbon Place -> Lainbon
Nimbel Moor -> Nimbel
Verkarth City -> Verkarth*
Vulkneu Town -> Vulkneu
Vulnim Gate -> Vulnim

Names needing total rehaul for unclichification:
Chasetown
Cliffkeep
Dragon Grove
North Hall
Shadymarch
Roseguard
Riverpoint
Riverview
Stonedale
Stonemoor
Sunkeep

*Karth appears at the end of both these cities, probably because it was a syllable in the list. The significance is that they're right next to eachother. The only other Karths I found were Karthgran Vale and Markarth Side in HR and Skyrim, also close to the HF, HR, SK border. I believe that this should be interpreted as being a Nedic word, possibly for city, and these cities should have Nedic heritage, maybe a Nedic ruin near or under them.

[Stalker]

What I don't like is the fact that new rivers are being made. Rivers aren't such a minor thing to forget on the map. That's my only objection as for now although rivers to make sense there.

[Moorkh]

I agree with your first suggestion, but I wouldn't completely do away with the latter names - they could be regarded as translation of more difficult Old Redguard names by the Imperials, in use amongst officials of the Empire but frowned upon by proud Redguards.

What we need, though, is to get a fell for the sound of the Old Redguard language. For example, "mload" stands for cheese. Let's collect them in a seperate thread.

[Moorkh]

Why not consider rivers in that region extensive dried-out riverbeds that run water only once or twice a year due to seasonal rains or snowmelt in the mountains? Thing is, from what information we get in Arena, the cities in that part of HF are in the desert and don't have rivers running through/by them.

[Stalker]

There's an already existing exntesive study on Yoku (correct name for Old Redguard) on ESF Lore forum. And I am completly against removing old names. Looks what TR is now (Kogo'Tel - Silgrad etc.). Want take two ?

[Moorkh]

link?

[Stalker]

http://www.elderscrolls.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=192005&st=0

[Arthmodeus]

What I don't like is the fact that new rivers are being made. Rivers aren't such a minor thing to forget on the map. That's my only objection as for now although rivers to make sense there.

On other maps(Cyrodiil...) it doesn't show the entire river, only the beginning of it.

Probably the Imperial Geographical Society being stupid again.

[Zephyr]

I think the rivers should really be longer than those stubs that are in the original map. After all, each segment I was planning to add was not going to be a very wide river, but rather a mountain stream that gradually evolves into a bigger river as it merges with the ones already on the map. I doubt that such rivers would be even noted by a cartographer.

I'm already rather fed up with drawing the mountains, it's really tedious work. I really hope that you would allow for a bit more variety on the map than just continuous mountains, hills and desert. There's even no way that all the cities could possibly sustain themselves from just the mountains, if there are no rivers running through them anywhere.

Oh, and the Karnver falls thing on the map was my mistake, it's hard to remember which town is where because I don't have the city and town icons yet.

[Stalker]

I really dislike the idea of extending rivers but I think we can allow it. What do you think ?

[Lady Nerevar]

we did it in morrowind, we can do it in hammerfell. Beth's maps dont show mutch in terms of georgaphical detail anyways...

[Sload]

And I am completly against removing old names. Looks what TR is now (Kogo'Tel - Silgrad etc.). Want take two ?

I don't see the problem with any of the name changes we have now. You haven't actually given a reason to not change the names.

[-Eidolon-]

True, Bethesda's maps (with the exception of the paper map for Morrowind) are mostly politically focused.

[-Eidolon-]

I suggest we make the randomly-generated Arena names less cliche by removing things like "city" etc.

[snip]

Names easy to unclichify:
Belkarth Guard -> Belkarth*
Corten Mont -> Corten
Heldorn Mount -> Heldorn
Lainbon Place -> Lainbon
Nimbel Moor -> Nimbel
Verkarth City -> Verkarth*
Vulkneu Town -> Vulkneu
Vulnim Gate -> Vulnim

[snip]

I think the only ones that really need 'fixing' are Lainbon Place, Verkarth City, and Vulkneu Town.

[Moorkh]

The Bethsoft maps we're looking at are quite obviously inspired by early modern seafarer's maps. Their focus lies in their coastlines, and rivers would only be mentioned as useful points for navigation. Lanf features are noticeably absent and very much vague.
In any case, maps such as these should be thought of as rough approximations, not as facts. They didn't have the means for anything more precise. I was very liberal about that in my map of MW, and modders rightly felt that they were, too, changing and adding where it made sense.

I like what Zephyr has done with that map a lot. With all the effort put into detail from the very beginning, however, I fear that changing stuff as a result of discussion is becoming very difficult. I wonder how others, most importantly Zephyr, feel about that.

[Zephyr]

How I feel about this is that there should be much more discussion about the map (not just kudos, although I certainly appreciate it). I wish that people who know the lore much better than me would actually contribute to the discussion by not just describing the landscape but also by MS painting regions, landmarks and such as they see fit. It's equally difficult to even start making any particular region of the map due to the same reason you stated, because I'm going to spend a lot of time with it and I don't want to have it wasted.

In any case, I've carefully layered most of the map so that if something needs to be moved, it should be easy enough to do. Another thing is completely removing some landscape features though, so that they wouldn't be even fit to be moved elsewhere.

I believe someone asked in another thread what I used to make the map. It's made with photoshop, mostly. A lot of source images are taken from google image search, then resized, scaled, recolored, retouched etc. Some stuff was rendered with Bryce. However, that's all trivial, because most of the work time-wise is done with pixel brushes.

[Moorkh]

I'm glad you're using layers - that will allow us to implement stuff like climate, height maps, political borders et al very easily.

What I'm worried about is that you might find the map to be a little too restrictive due to the scale you chose - a tree in your map might easily represent a later claim covering a small valley. I realize this poses a general problem, especially since we do not as yet know what scale Oblivion will use nor what it will use instead of the cells we have come to know in MW. My advice: don't make any decisions you cannot easily amend too soon.

I did have a map of my own started right after hearing the project had decided on HF as a next province and deciding for myself to become involved again. I might upload it somewhere next week, but I don't wanna trespass on your turf, it would more be to illustrate some thoughts I had. Will work on it some more, though, first - it pales embarassingly next to yours

[Zephyr]

I've scaled this map so that it's the same size as yours, 40*40 pixels per cell (although I have to say that yours was in fact something like 40*39, which posed some problems for me when making the map tools :p). I have a grid layer that I use for scaling. The mainland is 87 cells wide and and 50 cells tall, which makes for over 4000 cells (although some of that is water, but I'm not counting the islands). This is Morrowind scale.

I can't be sure of what scale Oblivion is, but I guess it's still open to discussion in what scale we're going to do Hammerfell in. I will continue to work on the current scale though, in hopes it can be altered later if need be.

I'm definitely interested in seeing your map as well.

[Sload]

[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v86/stanley/hf01.png[/img]

Sload's version of rivers and mountains. Red is river green is mountain ridges. The mountain ridges are just the basic contours of the land, not necessarily all mountains. They run up to the northeastern area of Hammerfell and then towards High Hrothgar and the Continental Divide in Skyrim.

[Zephyr]

[img]http://www.kolumbus.fi/zombie/mntoutline.jpg[/img]

What I dislike about sload's version is that all of his mountain lines are facing the same direction. I think this is somewhat boring for the lack of a better expression. The mountainlines would fill all the land in sload's version, making most of the land basically inhabitable in real life.

I agree about the rivers, they make sense save for Dragonstar which does not have one (see Shadowkey map, very recent lore too).

In my landscape, the Dragontails are already finished for the most part so I'd obviously like to keep them in that form. They extend to Skyrim and make a good natural border from north and northeast HF. They don't fully block the HR border though.

For the central mountainline, there's a bunch of rivers flowing in between the mountains. The mountain line thickens as it gets south around Corten Mont and finally ends around the border of Cyrodiil and the river that flows on that border. The coast would be rocky but fertile and probably have jungle or something around it.

It should also be discussed which version of the basic outlines allow for most interesting landscaping, because that's the most important aspect of a game. Since there's not very much lore on central Hammerfell, I think we can be more imaginative with it than fill it with just mountains.

I think that the Hammerfell map on TIL shows how the mountainline goes from northwest to southeast, being steepest at Karnver Falls and Corten Mont. That's just my intepretation though, I don't think that the Arena map is to be trusted that much anyways.

Anyways, please discuss this and present your own ideas as well, preferably in MS paint or something like that, so it'll be much easier to understand.

[Arthmodeus]

Here is my version; based off the Arena map.

RED=River
GREEN=Mountain
YELLOW=Forest
BLACK=New Land

[url=http://img503.imageshack.us/my.php?image=hf0kq.jpg][img]http://img503.imageshack.us/img503/8613/hf0kq.th.jpg[/img][/url]

[Gez]

*Karth appears at the end of both these cities, probably because it was a syllable in the list. The significance is that they're right next to eachother. The only other Karths I found were Karthgran Vale and Markarth Side in HR and Skyrim, also close to the HF, HR, SK border. I believe that this should be interpreted as being a Nedic word, possibly for city, and these cities should have Nedic heritage, maybe a Nedic ruin near or under them.

And also Karthor Dale in Morrowind...

[Stalker]

I like Arth's version the most.

[Stalker]

• Scarab - TES2
• Badger - TES2 Tavern name
• Camel - TES2
• Hedgehog - TES2 tavern name
• Elephant - TES2
• Snakes - TES2, PGE
• Wormmouth - TEST: Shadowkey
• Basilisk - TES2
• Whilloki - book [url=http://til.gamingsource.net/dfbooks/b006_faerie.shtml]"The Faerie"[/url]
• Djinn - TES2 tavern name
• Wereboar - TES2, book "On Lycanthropy"
• Centurion Sphere Rourken Clan Edition

[-Eidolon-]

It occurs to me that if we are interpreting Karth to be a Nedic word for city, then Verkarth City is extra redundant.

[Arthmodeus]

[Empire/High Rock/Hammerfell/Cyrodiil]

(D) Bat (Giant)
Bear ((D,B)Grizzly)
(L) Cat
(D) Centaur
(L) Dog
(L) Deer
(L) Dragon (Near extinct)
(D) Dragonling
(D) Giant Scorpion
(AT) Goblin (Normal, Chief)
(L) Giant
(L) Gremlin
(L) Griffon
(D) Harpy
(L) Manticore
(A) Medusa
(A) Minotaur
(D) Nymph
(L) Ogre
(D) Sabertooth Tiger
(DM) Spriggan
(A) Troll (Normal)
(L) Unicorn
Wolf ((ADB)Normal, (B)Plague, (B)Snow)


From my updated Nirn Bestiary.

[Zephyr]

I made a height map from the hammerfell province map of Arena by desaturating and contrasting it:

[img]http://www.kolumbus.fi/zombie/heightmap.jpg[/img]

This is not the most accurate lore, but I think it should clarify the mountain areas somewhat.

I layered arth's suggestion above this map and added my own stuff there, this is what it looks like:

[img]http://www.kolumbus.fi/zombie/heightmap2.jpg[/img]

I think this would be pretty good now. As for sload's suggestion about more or less continuous mountain lines from southwest to northeast on Cyrodiil border, I think it'd be enough to make them just hills with a short segment of higher peaks or so.

Stalker mentioned that based on a Daggerfall source, there's savannah and open plains (like prairie or something) so some of those areas that are left open would be logical to fill with this type of terrain.

[Arthmodeus]

[url=http://img401.imageshack.us/my.php?image=hf2aa.jpg][img]http://img401.imageshack.us/img401/3060/hf2aa.th.jpg[/img][/url]

Here's a map showing the lore-accurate territories from Daggerfall. I will add ones from my own imagination for TR purposes.

[Arthmodeus]

http://img447.imageshack.us/my.php?image=hf0sa.jpg

Here it is.

[Sload]

Wait, I make new and better map of my new ideas soon.

[Moorkh]

Well, I had threatened to, so I'll barge into this discussion now. I very much respect the various opinions that have been stated here, and I see much that I like.
Something I'm missing in many of these proposals, however, is consequence. There seems to be a general understanding that Hammerfell should provide ample stretches of all kinds of climate zones, possibly because this would afford modders more variety to work with. I kinda disagree with that.

To me, Hammerfell is a land of rock and fire, of vast deserts and cruel mountains. Water should be sparse if available at all. If there are rivers, think lower Colorado, Euphrates or Nile. Coasts should provide some humidity, much like the North African coast with the Mediterranean, and thus thin crescents of semi-fertile land.
There might be some very different regions, but they must be either close to the border or in exeptional locations.

Much of what I have collected from Arena, Redguard and Daggerfall lore affirms my opinion that most parts of Hammerfell are covered or at least bordered by desert, certainly the Alik'r and possibly another further east. Mountain ranges divide the land into several arid valleys and bowls, offering shrubs to cling to their shadows and leeward faces. Those ranges, unless volcanic by nature, should have a certain general direction to them, much as plate tectonics in the real world cause mountains to align to. In HF, this would mean the vast, multiple range of the Dragontail mountains (which towards the east will suitably change its name, since lore declares the mountains around Fang Lair to be the Dragon’s Teeth) dominates the northwest of the province. Other, lower ranges would generally move from southeast to northwest, too. We have to assume that the main winds bearing humidity come from the north or northwest – only that could explain the jungle cupped by the Dragontail mountains that we find in DF. So behind this barrier of mountains, deserts could have developed, since the climb over the mountains would bleed the winds of their humidity, leaving them dry and warm.
What we find in the manner of rivers will, again, most likely be ancient, deep riverbeds with seasonal floods (once or twice a year, once during an unreliable and short but torrential rain season in the mountains (a couple days maybe), another during snowmelt), some running dry much of the year. This would allow desert towns called ‘Riverview’ pretty easily 
I have taken further cue from Arena’s ‘topographic’ map, deciding where to place other high mountains, deciding on a singular one (possibly of volcanic origin) on the westernmost parts, and a small but steep range (supporting some rainforest due to its location) one the southern peninsula.

I have tried to keep as close to Arena, DF and Redguard lore as possible. Some of you contest Arena’s accuracy, but I cannot see how absence of information is preferable to at least some. Of course, this will restrict our imagination somewhat, but it will also harness it toward a common vision. For my map, I have left desert towns in the desert, and I have some sort of river in every city that had one in Arena. The savannah crescent is very much obvious in DF, and I have tried to complete it along all the coasts where it seemed appropriate. I even left a sheer cliff near the town of Cliff Keep (cliffs not yet visible on map) and some falls near Karnver Falls – with a little imagination, this is very much possible.

Now please have a look at my handywork and fire away – if it is enough to create some fiery discussion here, my chief goal has been met


[url]http://www.moorkh.net/images/tr/hammerfell.jpg[/url]


edit:

oh, that map is 12° turned to the side, sine I started out with the df map

[Resadyn]

I actually like your map best Moorkh

[Lady Nerevar]

hm... i think Zephs is better. Moorks, no offence, has WAY to many mountains. I don’t thing that it’s geologically possible to have that many mountain ranges... plus it doesn’t look to good. it worked for MW because the original game was like that, but hammerfell should be a lot less mountain-y i think.

What zeph has done is looking very good i think. it has a good looking and logical balance of environments, and seems to follow lore (as best i know). As Zeph gets further down the map, the comparison will become more fair I think. On moorks i like the mountain ranges on the peninsula, but I think there are to many mountains in the middle of the land. it seems to split it in many different parts, as apposed to having an unified province. Also, I don’t think Moorks map support the biomes found in lore very well. When I think hammerfell, I think a mix between Egypt and Texas. and neither has the Himalayas...

[edited for spelling]

[Eraser]

Neither has the himalayas, but hammerfell does have the dragontail mountains.

With the way the daggerfall map is made out, it looks like hammerfell really is pretty mountainous. Moorhk's I think has the mountains formed more natually, but they are incorrect in some places. The vast alik'ir desert should be much bigger and have less mountains around(and theres a green mountainy spot right in the middle.

We have a greyscale of daggerfall's terrain, we should keep it generally similar( though far more detailed)

http://til.gamingsource.net/maps/WLDIliac.png

[Stalker]

I agree that it has too many mountains. HF is supposed to have elephants which live in plains and savannas.

[Eraser]

Where'd you find that info stalker?

The plains and savannas would definitely be in the south and eastern portion of hammerfell

[Zephyr]

[img]http://www.kolumbus.fi/zombie/hftest.jpg[/img]

Ok, I layered your map above mine and drew some lines to illustrate some key differences about your map and mine.

I have also rotated your map to match mine more accurately, although it doesn't match exactly.

- Yellow color is area that we are mostly on the same track,
- red color is an area that I don't agree on at all,
- grey color (on Cyrodiil border) is something that is to be changed on Oblivion release and cannot really be disputed,
- green color something is for forest areas that would make sense to me to exist (based on the same Arena map you have looked at)
- orange area is something that I will change in my map, that is, extending the Alik'r desert by moving its borders to the east to both north and east.


As for the green areas, I think the arena map shows all the areas I've painted as green. I don't know what else this could mean than vegetation: rainforests, forests, farmland. Having not played the game though, I cannot be certain of course.

The green area marked with 1) should be mountainous though, as you describe, but it should also be lush in vegetation.


As for red areas,
1) You have a lot of vegetation here, as I do alongside the river. However, the river does not extend to Dragonstar - take a look at Shadowkey map. Again, I have not played Shadowkey myself, but since the map doesn't have a river, I very much doubt it would have one in the first place.


2) The river mentioned in first point extends to a huge valley in the middle of the mountains. Looking at Arena map, this makes little sense to me - especially in this magnitude. There are a few valleys but it's certainly not that big and definitely ends much before the town you have there. (Which makes me wonder about town placement; either of us has a lof of them off by many cells).

3) I see no real basis for these mountains. From the Arena map, this area seems to be a forest or farmland, through which rivers flow, not a mountainous desert. At most, they could be highlands, since the height map looks very even on that part.

As for Hammerfell being full of deserts, there's also the underground streams as a source of water. I think I read from somewhere that there's huge amounts of water under the Sahara desert, but it's so far under it that it's hard to get to.

In terms of gameplay, there can be no kinds of seasonal rivers. They're either completely dry or have water flowing through them all the time. Of course, there just might be ways to do this with some very clever scripting, but I very much doubt it.

Is Lainlyn area actually a rainforest? I will change it to such if it really is. I've never played Daggerfall either so I really don't know.

Having said that, I think your map is interesting. I would think that some major eastern deserts would be on the southern side of Dragontail mountains or bit after that, as some of the rainfall is bound to get through the mountainline anyway.

[Stalker]

Where'd you find that info stalker?

The plains and savannas would definitely be in the south and eastern portion of hammerfell

In Beastiary on tes.ag.ru. There's a description of Elephant saying this and stating TES2: Daggerfall as a source.