[FCG] Deshaan Plains

[blackbird]

Although it will take some time before we start with creating the concept art, I'll share my opinion with you.

As quoted from Myzel.
"The Deshaan are dry and brown, arid without ash. Their most defining feature is the salt flats, small pits of salt dotted across the plains, much like the lava in Molag Amur was."

"My own idea regards flora mostly. I thought it might look cool to go for prevailing pale brown and eerie gray/white colours for the plants, amidst brown grass and white salt pits."

I like the concept. It's cool,
but I don't think it will fit for the Deshaan plains and House Dres.
The first PGE states that the Deshaan plains are fertile and there are at least some saltrice plantations. We all know that House Dres is based on slave trade and their agricultural products, especially saltrice. They use some slaves to plow the land, harvest their crops.
Salt rice can be found on 2 kind of places: On farms, mainly on the Ascadian isles region and near some water, especially sea water. I assume the name salt rice derives from the salt from the sea and not from some arid, salty plains. Plantations are built (as far as i know) on fertile ground, or at least near water. The rice from the real world grows also in water. My point is that salt rice needs some water and can't grow in an arid region. I don't think the whole deshaan plains concept is not plausible (unless the hole area is heavily irrigated).
Edit: The deshaan plain are supposed near the argon jungle and Black marsh. Maybe we could do something with that.

However it would be sad if we removed such region from map 6. I propose we should find a new location for that region. I thought of adding the location south of the armun aslands and relocate the othreleth woods since the OW have to be be kept.
Another location, could be also good, maybe near the eastern coast of map 6.

[Haplo]

Salt flats don't seem like something that would appear in plains. The important thing is that this is salt rice, not rice salt. It's a salty type of rice. Not a ricey type of salt. So if we focus on saltrice, it should be as rice, since that's what it is, not salt.

[Bloodthirsty Crustacean]

Saltrice is native to Morrowind, not Earth. Normal rules don't apply.

I believe the idea was that the saltrice grows wild in the saltpits, and can be cultivated in some way (though there was opposition from Sload to a water-based paddy-style agriculture). So there is no contradiction or worry for the Deshaan Plains to be as inventive as we want - we make the rules, and whatever's cool goes. There were no hard and fast precedents set by Vvardenfell that we couldn't play with.

[Adanorcil]

Your main problem with the Deshaan plains is that you think a fictional plant can't grow well in a fictional place because of fictional biological restrictions. Which is to say, there is no problem at all.

EDIT: What BC said. He said it better than I did.

EDIT 2:

though there was opposition from Sload to a water-based paddy-style agriculture)

I think his prime objection was simply that it would probably require a scale of terrain we don't have. We can't go doing entire terrace mountains, after all. However I do think flat paddies and irrigation mechanisms in the plains are more than possible.

[Myzel]

I agree with the previous two posts.

Edit:
I believe the single most important thing about any area or city or dungeon is how it looks. Everything else is secondary.
I think we've got a potentially good idea for those plains here, and you want to dismiss it simply because it doesn't agree with your (real-world-connected) concepts of 'fertile' and 'rice'.

[Nalin]

*Agrees with Adanorcil, BC and Myzel

[blackbird]

I agree that how it looks needs to be important, but i wonder if it would look right. I think so, because there will be pale colors.
My concern is that it doens't make much sense, just like having purple hills, a palmtree in a snowy area, red snow and a lot plants in the ahslands. I have never seen them in a video game, but they could be possible or am I wrong?
The whole region concept could have some/more sense if there was a reason which is not only because it looks cool. Irrigation could prove a good answer and even dres magic(k).

[Bloodthirsty Crustacean]

I don't quite understand what you're saying, nor what palm trees in Skyrim has to do with saltrice growing in its native environment?

It seems you might just be falling back on the 'saltrice is realworld rice' logic again?

[Myzel]

My concern is that it doens't make much sense, just like having purple hills, a palmtree in a snowy area, red snow and a lot plants in the ahslands. I have never seen them in a video game, but they could be possible or am I wrong?
The whole region concept could have some/more sense if there was a reason which is not only because it looks cool. Irrigation could prove a good answer and even dres magic(k).

I don't really get what you're trying to say with those examples. If it contributes to the atmosphere a game is trying to create, there's is no reason not to make purple hills or palmtrees in snow. Even if it doesn't 'make sense' in our real world.
Very little actually 'makes sense' about the terrain and climate of tamriel. Hell, the scorching Alik'r desert has pretty much the same latitude as temperate Vivec and Cheydinhal. How does that make sense?

What matters is the atmosphere you're trying to create. The ashlands have few plants not because 'that makes more sense' but because that contributes to the atmosphere. Dwemer machines still work not because they run on ever present volcanic activity but because it too contributes to the atmosphere of the dungeons. Whether it makes sense or not initially doesn't matter and can later easily be explained some way.

So in short, I'll say it makes perfect sense for salt rice (a fictional plant) to thrive even on arid salt flats, if we choose so. And if salt rice thrives, the place can be called fertile. Problem solved.

Edit: what BC said, but long-winded.

[blackbird]

I thank you fro answering to my 'stupid' examples. I guess there is almost nothing left to discuss.

The only question I could ask( or now): Why did you choose for a pale brown region and not a green, yellow,.. one? Is it because you chose to create a pale brown region? Is it because there is too much green at the mainland? Edit: I don't want to refer to the saltrice with those questions. I could ask the same of any other region.

[Myzel]

I didn't mean to say that this region is beyond discussion and our ideas are absolute decisions. It's just an idea that seems to have consensus at the moment. Personally I do think a green or yellow fertile area will end up looking so similar to the ascadian isles or grazeland regions that it won't really be worth making a new set of models and textures for it.

Some more discussion might actually do some good, to better flesh out the Deshaan plains. But I do think that you started this discussion the wrong way by taking a slightly 'out of the box' idea and trying to put it back in the box. So to speak.

[Adanorcil]

The whole region concept could have some/more sense if there was a reason which is not only because it looks cool. Irrigation could prove a good answer and even dres magic(k).

So you feel there's not yet a good reason for the region to look the way it does, but you do feel 'magic' is an acceptable reason. I suppose it hasn't struck you yet but magic is a different word for "just because" too.

Personally I do think a green or yellow fertile area will end up looking so similar to the ascadian isles or grazeland regions that it won't really be worth making a new set of models and textures for it.

What he said. Though, like with other regions, I think we should wait with this discussion until some other regions currently being design are finished.

[Lutemoth]

[url=http://www.majhost.com/gallery/Lutemoth/Culture/deshaan.jpg][img]http://www.majhost.com/gallery/Lutemoth/Culture/thumb/deshaan.jpg_thumb.jpg[/img][/url]

Yellow chlorine pools crusted with sodium chlorate puncture the surface on their meander to Black Marsh. Ivory grass which greys the landscape like a dry tundra. Tiger-striped guars roam here, and have become iconic to the western Eyes. Saltrice is sporadically farmed, but salt from the earth must be raked from the ground to provide irrigation for this staple food, lest the cultivated plants die from acidic flooding. This can be seen by the pyramids of salt that dot the thin, near-pointless roads, too poisonous to be consumed or sold. Argonians are the perfect slave to accomplish this type of plantation, as the Black Marsh trade is adjacent to the South, and a free-running lizard won't make it far in the chlorine clouds brushed up by winds. An Argonian putrefying in a shallow pool is not uncommon a sight, and keeps the slaves in line.

[Nalin]

This is why you were so sorely missed.

[Nemon]

But the present proposed map of the Deshaan plains leaves us a quite small area, approx 1/3 of the size of the Armun ashlands. I love plains, they're easy to mod and the desolation itself is beautiful. Everyone and their dog will be using distant landscapes when this is released so bam. But we would require new sand textures (unless they've been added the last couple of months I've been resting).

I would gladly vote for having a large yellow-ish area here in the midst of Morrowind...

[Myzel]

Awesome art lute. I should make this FCG sometime soon.

[Nemon]

[url=http://img52.imageshack.us/i/map346.jpg/][img]http://img52.imageshack.us/img52/1556/map346.th.jpg[/img][/url]

Could we use this map 3+4+6 to set the deshaan region borders? It has got coordinates sort of... Setting all region borders as early as possible somewhere I can find it easily would speed things up, and although I often get reminded I'm HoE I value everyone's opinion, especially lore lords.

[Katze]

How about this? I tried to use river valleys, water and terrain elevation as natural borders to the region, and I really liked the idea of at least one city within the plains.

[url=http://img186.imageshack.us/i/deshaan.jpg/][img]http://a.imageshack.us/img186/7844/deshaan.th.jpg[/img][/url]

edit: the plains could perhaps even go around the back of Old Keep up to the northern border of 6-41 and 6-39?

[Nemon]

...

edit: the plains could perhaps even go around the back of Old Keep up to the northern border of 6-41 and 6-39?

I'd suggest including the deshaan plains text in the region at least

[Katze]

[url=http://img830.imageshack.us/i/deshaan2.jpg/][img]http://a.imageshack.us/img830/2926/deshaan2.th.jpg[/img][/url]

Better?

[Nemon]

Maybe, we also have the Shipal Shin region to consider. Does anyone have any lore on that one?

http://www.oocities.com/tr_majra/argon.html

this oldie perhaps??

[Katze]

Lots of sandstone shaped by water, scrubland and reddish rocks could be nice for Shipal Shin http://fineartamerica.com/images-medium/sandstone-illusions-mike-dawson.jpg

The document you linked seems to be describing the Argon Jungle rather than Shipal Shin.

[blackbird]

This can be seen by the pyramids of salt that dot the thin, near-pointless roads, too poisonous to be consumed or sold.

I do not disagree with you, but I think the salt can be collected and even sold. It can't be collected with the bare hands as those hands would be corrosed. This collection needs to be done with some tools which are acid resitent ( i guess it will be some kind of organic material or glass). I have found on wikipedia that this salt can be used for tanning and herbicide (which confirms your view of almost no plants in the area). I think the salt could have some uses, but only a very few dunmer can collect the salt.

Argonians are the perfect slave to accomplish this type of plantation, as the Black Marsh trade is adjacent to the South, and a free-running lizard won't make it far in the chlorine clouds brushed up by winds. An Argonian putrefying in a shallow pool is not uncommon a sight, and keeps the slaves in line.

My question is: How does the argonian slaves survive those plains? The dunmer have enough protective gear and they can use anything that protect them against the ashes from Dagoth Ur.

Could we attach a script to the chlorine vents which allows to create a damaging vents? The vents could do poison damage, desintegrate armor and weapons.

[Katze]

Argonians have a certain degree of poison resistance- they come from Black Marsh, one of the most toxic places on Tamriel, after all. Protective gear for the Dunmer overseers could be interesting, though.

I was just thinking along the lines of steaming green pools that do damage in the same way as lava. The chlorine would be bubbling out of those.

[Thrignar Fraxix]

What if it isn't that the salt is toxic, but that it is perhaps a variety of salt that basically does to argonians what NaCl does to slugs.

I mean, it isn't as though this is going to be normal salt.

Also, there should be a good variety of plant life here, otherwise it isn't plains, but a desert. Salt =/= no life necessarily.

[Haplo]

What plants and animals live in salt? There's a reason people "salt the earth" when they don't want anything growing or living there...

If we're going to have life in salt areas then it needs to be some sort of exotic new form of life that not only lives in/by/on/near salt, but depends on it for its very survival.

[Thrignar Fraxix]

What plants and animals live in salt? There's a reason people "salt the earth" when they don't want anything growing or living there...

That is boring salt. I want this salt to be more interesting than that.

If we're going to have life in salt areas then it needs to be some sort of exotic new form of life that not only lives in/by/on/near salt, but depends on it for its very survival.

Yes, very much this.

[Lutemoth]

Not simply just dependant on the salt, but the caustic materials that flow south. If anyone asks why such corrosive and deadly waters attract this variety of flora, just tell 'em "it's stupid-crazy-awesome Mainland plants, stupid"

that includes a recoloured grass texture, if you want

[Thrignar Fraxix]

that makes me think of salt armor, but I guess if we make it corrosive then we don't want to do that...

[Adanorcil]

What plants and animals live in salt? There's a reason people "salt the earth" when they don't want anything growing or living there...

If we're going to have life in salt areas then it needs to be some sort of exotic new form of life that not only lives in/by/on/near salt, but depends on it for its very survival.

[url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halophile]Wikipedia[/url]

Haplo Edit: I figured it was obvious I was talking about things pertinent to TR... like stuff we would include in our mod. I don't think anyone is planning on including any single-celled organisms or bacteria in TR, but correct me if I'm wrong.

[Thrignar Fraxix]

No more discussing real life. This is magical awesome salt that can do whatever we want.

What if, due to the nature of the environment, there was a slim border around the entirety of the deshaan. An area where normal plant life can't survive, but where there isn't enough salt for the deshaan plants? On this note, I would expect the rivers of this region look rather out of place as they wouldn't be salinated would they? (And thus would potentially have this border were it implimented)

[Tyrion]

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/photos/uncategorized/2008/04/01/morning_at_mono_lake.jpg

http://www.altacal.org/images/Mono%20Lake%20Moonrise%20by%20Jeff%20Sullivan.jpg

http://www.learncalifornia.org/GoDocUserFiles/786.f3698-230.jpg

http://www.visitmammoth.com/images/db/static/Summer%20Scenic/Mono%20Lake%20tufas.JPG?size=26440

http://www.digital-images.net/Images/Yosemite/MonoLake_SoTufa_X6476_XL.jpg

[Haplo]

I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess those are salt deposits. I just want you to know...

THESE FIT THE DESHAAN THEME PERFECTLY. (You know what I'm referring to)

No but really, they do all kind of look the same, which gives them the benefit of seeming plausible for some salt deposit meshes, which we need. Myzel, out of curiosity, can photographs count for FCGs?

[Myzel]

Photographs aren´t concept art but I don´t see why we can´t make an exeption for these. Let´s just see what artists come up with though, before making decisions on models. Such discussion seems a little premature atm. I´ll try and make the FCG sometime this week.

[Adanorcil]

Here's what you should all know about the Deshaan plains:

At the absolutely largest geographic scale the entire Deshaan (this is an acceptable usage) forms a single, huge valley/rift in Morrowind. This fact wouldn't be noticeable anywhere from very high up, and to a normal player would probably be invisible. The only in-game effect is that leaving the Deshaan in whatever direction always requires climbing out of it and crossing the valley walls. Of course the region itself is so big that it still has smaller valleys and hills in it.

The region itself is one of the most fertile of all of Morrowind, which is curious because it looks like a friggin' wasteland. It is dotted with salt flats, which are there just because. (But Vivec flooding all of Morrowind with the sea is a good thing to keep in mind regardlessly.) As a result, the place is rather barren. Large trees (mushroom or normal) are virtually inexistent. Water is present (sometimes in copious amounts below the salt crust), but it is brackish and doesn't invite a lot of wildlife. The land is colored in faint shades of brown and gray, but nowhere near as gray as the ashlands. The brown comes mostly from the hardy weeds and grasses that are somewhat the only successful wild flora. In many places, the rocky soil is exposed to the elements.

For as long as anyone can remember, the Dres have used the windswept plains for the cultivation of saltrice. This staple crop ironically thrives on the salt flats, provided that they are kept irrigated. The Dres plantations consist of vast inundated salt beds upon which hosts of slaves (almost exclusively beast races, with a large majority of Argonians) are sent to work every day. (Incidentally, daily contact with the saline water often becomes irritating to the skin/hide.)

Though these plantations would be an important feature of the region, I feel some of it could also be left uncultivated, just to give a feeling of 'wasteland'. However, I think the latter is not absolutely necessary and depends more on the amount of space we have at our disposal.

Pictures say more than words. I had this one lying around for a while now: CAUTION! Poorly cobbled-together pictures ahead. [url=http://www.majhost.com/gallery/Vahiku/TamrielRebuilt/deshaan.jpg][LINK][/url]



This is the direction I think we ought to be taking with the Deshaan.

There is a couple of things that I think we could get away from in this region while making it even cooler:

- volcanic activity: We've had a lot of that all through Morrowind already, so I propose we keep any signs of volcanic activity (vents, smoke, lava, mud puddles etc.) out of Deshaan.

- Huge rock formations. So far, significant parts of Morrowind consists of rock and then some more rock, the bigger the better. I say we try to steer away from that in this region and instead go for a more pebbly look, achieved primarily with ground textures and smaller rock objects.




What I think we would need to make the region this way:

- some land textures: one or two variations of brownish dirt/grass in texture and color. Same thing for some gray, pebbly land textures. Naturally, we'd also need a couple of salt textures, like ranging from coarse to fine-grained.

- some natural objects to liven the place up: rocky outcrops, small boulders, landslides, signs of erosion, etc. Also perhaps some salt rocks/formations, but I wouldn't take this to extremes. Jagged formations that sit on the surface of brackish lakes are probably fine, but I would go into huge saltrocks, so as to not encourage overuse. (Which huge things somehow always do.)

- probably a couple of flat salt-textured planes for places where land textures do not suffice

- for flavor, perhaps: one or two irrigation systems or things that look like they could be used for that. I'm thinking water screws, pumps, wheels etc.

- suggestions?

[Nemon]

This is the direction I think we ought to be taking with the Deshaan.

There is a couple of things that I think we could get away from in this region while making it even cooler:

- volcanic activity...
- Huge rock formations...

What I think we would need to make the region this way:

- some land textures: one or two variations of brownish dirt/grass in texture and color. Same thing for some gray, pebbly land textures. Naturally, we'd also need a couple of salt textures, like ranging from coarse to fine-grained.

- some natural objects to liven the place up: rocky outcrops, small boulders, landslides, signs of erosion, etc. Also perhaps some salt rocks/formations, but I wouldn't take this to extremes. Jagged formations that sit on the surface of brackish lakes are probably fine, but I would go into huge saltrocks, so as to not encourage overuse. (Which huge things somehow always do.)

- probably a couple of flat salt-textured planes for places where land textures do not suffice

- for flavor, perhaps: one or two irrigation systems or things that look like they could be used for that. I'm thinking water screws, pumps, wheels etc.

- suggestions?

I'll be uploading a rough sketch I'm going to draw, hiding under my desk at work this evening (overtime, damn oil industry), but I envision this: Steep hills when approaching the region, then sloped hills within the region as if in a bowl of its own, deep ravines cracking the surface, leading into salt lakes at the bottom, vast desolate areas with mostly small rock formations (hopefully new textures), new salt ground textures and flora.

Keywords; desolation, loneliness, salt.

[Katze]

Dres-style sluice gates would be a good addition, either as new models in the Dres architecture requests, or as makeshifts from other parts.

[Nemon]

[url=http://img85.imageshack.us/i/deshaan.jpg/][img]http://img85.imageshack.us/img85/7844/deshaan.th.jpg[/img][/url]

The hills rising up towards the outskirts of the deshaan plains, an arid yet bla bla blablian landscape. I think I could pull it off, especially with some new salty ground textures.

[Adanorcil]

[url=http://img85.imageshack.us/i/deshaan.jpg/][img]http://img85.imageshack.us/img85/7844/deshaan.th.jpg[/img][/url]

The hills rising up towards the outskirts of the deshaan plains, an arid yet bla bla blablian landscape. I think I could pull it off, especially with some new salty ground textures.

All in all I think it's very doable. I do think we should take care to create the feel of 'plains', though, which is not easy, since hills and obstacles tend to make a place feel way larger.

[Haplo]

Anyone here seen Master & Commander: Far Side of the World? The Galapagos in that movie seem similar to what we're trying to get here:

http://img15.imageshack.us/img15/8089/asdf1y.jpg
http://img826.imageshack.us/img826/485/asdf2.jpg
http://img836.imageshack.us/img836/8412/asdf3.jpg