Shrinking Rethil Plantation Territory

[Gnomey]

The idea of shrinking the Rethil Plantation has been tossed about, but as far as I am aware no consensus has been reached.

Here's a (very) quick map of the Rethil plantation, with what I consider to be key locations up for discussion:



Dotted outlines are fields/land, full lines are buildings.

Yellow lines are places that I think should no longer belong to Rethil. The plantation dock might still be useful as a ship travel location; I'd consider consolidating it with the shack village to the north.

White lines are places I could also see losing their Rethil association.

Blue lines are what I consider the core Rethil Plantation. A dock could be added to either of the marked towers, providing the Rethil Plantation with a far more convenient dock. (The current dock is roughly the same distance to the core Rethil plantation as Almas Thirr, and is a little less than half the distance from the core plantation to Andothren).

Edit: all landowners should probably own at least one slave. The individual farmers/plantation owners might also work for Hlaalu higher-ups, for example one farmer might actually work for Orvas Dren.

Edit again: alternatively, rather than creating a lot of independent or semi-independent farmhouses, the lands split off from the Rethil plantation could be consolidated into one or two still large-ish plantations. For example Mundrethi could own all of the yellow territories (which would make him a lot richer than he currently is) while a new fellow could own the white territories. Vys-Ishra would not belong to any plantation.

[Sload]

So this plantation is spread across 18 cells & I personally think that would be ridiculous for a concept of an enclosed plantation regardless of any mitigating factors, but I think the biggest concern to me with this data is that players be able to see the difference between Indoril & Hlaalu social/economic systems and this huge plantation really obscures that.

I know that everyone isn't obsessed with historical modes of human-land relation like I am, but every time someone talks about "Indoril plantations" I want to rip my hair out. It is not possible to both understand what a plantation is & understand how Indoril land use / social hierarchy works and then refer to "Indoril plantations." The Indoril do not have plantations. I'm going to try to explain the two systems clearly here to be reproduced as necessary elsewhere:

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A plantation is an enclosed agricultural space which grows crops for sale on the market & export out of the immediate region rather than for local use. The word "enclosed" here is not arbitrary, "enclosure" is the process by which land becomes owned by a single person, family, or company, rather than being communal grazing or farming land for everyone in the area. Understanding enclosure is important because the Hlaalu practice it and the Indoril don't.

In the Morrowind juridicial system, sovereignty over space is the inherited rights of the nobility; this is feudal. The Indoril & Dres practice this system pretty much unadulturated, though they have different kinship practices. An Indoril noble is sovereign over some territory (say, much of the right bank of the Thirr). All who live and farm there owe that noble a tithe for his role as their benevolent ruler and adjudicator and as their interlocutor with the Divine. The peasants farm on open, communal farming and grazing land and then pay a portion of what they make to their lord. The lord does not have "his" farming land, where he oversees production. He has "his" territory, where he is locally sovereign (under the higher sovereignty of the Grand Ascendant and the Tribunal).

Among the Hlaalu, meanwhile, the Hlaalu Council Company has a legal personhood and nobility and has inherited the vast majority of the land in Hlaalu territory through various means. It leases out portions of this land to Hlaalu members which they then cultivate to earn their living. Thus, Hlaalu elite are, in a legal sense, equal to Indoril peasants, but with a different relationship to the land in that they lease a particular parcel rather than using the whole of it as shared commons.

So: Hlaalu, plantations; Indoril, estate manors. Hlaalu small independent farmer; Indoril, communal peasant farms. Hlaalu, sell crops on the market; Indoril, pay tithe to lord. It matters.

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Returning to the Rethil plantation, none of this contradicts the idea of an eighteen cell plantation in itself - but we need to think about how we are going to represent these differences. If all the land on the left bank of the Thirr is owned by Rethil & all the land on the right bank of the Thirr is ruled by Ilvi, the distinction between their systems will be much harder to get across.

This is why there should be independent farmers in the more far-flung parts of the conceived Rethil plantation instead of having all that land belong to one person.

Additionally, I am somewhat dubious of all these guard towers over this area. It makes Rethil seem much more like a sovereign than an entrepreneur.

[Gnomey]

Here are three different things we could do with the Rethil plantation, just so that we have some concrete concepts to discuss. (Tell me if the images mess with the page formatting).

[img]http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/xq90/197/ehe4.jpg[/img][img]http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/xq90/585/16r4.jpg[/img][img]http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/xq90/24/ukmc.jpg[/img]

The first image is the same as the most extreme version of what I outlined above: roughly half of the Rethil plantation is split into small plantations, the owners of which generally employ slaves. Blue is for Rethil, white is for 'independent' plantations, yellow is for (directly) Hlaalu controlled.
The second image has a total of three large plantations instead of many smaller ones. Blue is for Rethil, white for Mundrethi, purple for the third plantation and yellow is Hlaalu/'independent'.

Obviously some mixture of the two is possible, as well as leaving more of the lands to Rethil.

The last image presents a more extreme change: to my knowledge (which in this case is basically nil) Andothren has no proper slave market. This image, based off of the last one, would consolidate the shack village with the Rethil Plantation Docks, making it a sort of large slave (or general) market which supplies the surrounding plantations while nicely out of sight of Andothren's resident (and visiting) outlanders.
The shack village's manor would become a plantation house while the shacks would either be moved to the slave market or re-purposed as slave shacks and distributed over the plantations as required. The ship could be moved to Andothren.

Among other possible advantages, the last option could serve to simplify the fast travel network, whenever we get to planning it. Here are very rough images I mocked up to show what I mean:

[img]http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/280x200q90/208/pp8o.jpg[/img][img]http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/280x200q90/689/i6y4.jpg[/img]

Blue lines represent ship travel, brown lines represent silt striders. Solid lines are travel routes that seem fairly certain to me, while dotted lines are less certain. In the second image, the Rethil Plantation could or could not form part of the travel network. I mainly left it out to avoid cluttering the map.

[Yeti]

Right now, I'd be in favor of mixing map 1 and 3 (or alternatively, 1 and 2) and having the Mundrethi Plantation in the north, and independent farms in between. The slave market is an interesting idea, though I think someone with a better head on their shoulders than I should comment on its feasibility. We could always add a slave market to Andothren if we wanted to.

[immortal_pigs]

Am I the only one who thinks "Mundrethi" is a bad, or at the very least non-Hlaaluesque name?

some alternatives:
Helvi - Uvayn - Oran

(These names are associated with Vanilla Hlaalu)

//

Proposal name for "Shackville", the unnamed shackvillage east of Andothren: Hlavan

[immortal_pigs]

I agree the plantation should be shrunk. The plantation should be shrunk as it is possibly the largest plantation in Morrowind atm, and for many saltrice fields it isn't even clear if they are associated with Rethil or not. Some points:

1) Maybe we should change the crops from Saltrice to Comberry or Corkbulb. I believe we wanted to associate Saltrice mainly with Dres.
2) Most of the slaves are in fact Argonians. I believe there was a consensus there should be more Khajiiti slaves, right?
3) None of the towers should be directly associated with Rethil imo. But I don't think they need to be removed. They seem to be part of the Hlaalu line of defence/oversight for the River Thirr, they'd probably be property of the Hlaalu Council Company and be there for the benefit of all Hlaalu plantation owners.
4) I'm in favor of plan 1 posted by Gnomey. So the docks up north do not need a Rethil association either.
5) I don't see why the Hlaalu Outpost, Vys-Ishra, needs to be named. It's not a settlement and giving it a unique name seems out of place. It should just be one of the other neutral outposts/guard towers.
6) See image. The Rethil plantation does seem a bit too epic with that tower, doesn't it? On the other hand it does make the location more unique, so idk.

[Gnomey]

1) Yes. We could also consider Meadow Rye, which is found in the region and is grown to some extent across the Thirr.
2) Yes.
3) I am fine with any or all of the three towers in the newly defined Rethil/Oran lands belonging to Rethil/Oran, but don't think they need to either.
4) What do you think of Yeti's proposal for a mix of Map 1 and 3? Also, what is you opinion on liquidating Shackville and placing its ints in the new plantations and possibly a Slave Market town at the docks?
5) I agree, but don't think it's bad for it to have a name either. If it keeps its name, though, it might be nice if there were a story behind it; for instance it could be the first Hlaalu outpost on the Thirr, and thereby a symbol of Hlaalu ownership of the west bank.
6) I agree. However, in-line with my above idea, what if the Rethil Plantation was originally a stronghold which logistically and symbolically solidified Hlaalu control of the west bank of the Thirr? Much like the possible player stronghold of Novas Andaram might challenge Indoril control of the east bank.

[Sload]

Comberry or hackle-lo please.

I don't think there's anything wrong with the manor of a very wealthy individual looking "epic."

[Yeti]

We still need to come to a final decision concerning the Oran (formerly Rethil) and Mundrethi plantations. I still prefer the first of Gnomey's maps in his Jan. 21 post for the upper half of the region, and the third one for the region's lower half. Thus we'd have one larger plantation in the south, a medium sized one in the north, and some independent farms in between. Is anyone else in favor of this?

To touch on some other past comments here:

1. The crops should be Comberry or hackle-lo.
2. Khajiit slaves should be more numerous.
3. Keep the towers. I don't mind who owns them.
4. Adding a slave market next to the Mundrethi plantation would be a fun addition, I think. It makes sense for slave traders to bring their products directly to the Thirr's plantations. The slaves sold in Andothren, meanwhile, can be either be bound for Vvardenfell, the lands of the Redoran or the farms of the Roth Roryn.
5. The outpost can be called Vys-Ishra in dialogue, but I agree that it doesn't need its cell named.
6. I like the Oran plantation's tower.

[Gnomey]

I'm fine with all of those points. On the topic of the Oran tower being too epic, if it is specifically stated to be a stronghold I don't think it's a problem, as I've said before.

So Gol Mok would be left where it is and what is now the Rethil Plantation Dock would be changed to a slave market? I would be fine with that approach. Would there be any houses/shacks added to the slave market?

[Yeti]

I think it could be handled as a purely outdoor setup with pens, docks and awnings.

[Rats]

The existing shipmaster's home interior already has a cave-like basement which would serve perfectly as a slave pen.

[Yeti]

So, would it be possible to turn this into a claim of some sort, just so we can encourage someone to work on it?

[Gnomey]

I'd be all for it. We do need clear parameters for the claim, though. I'd personally be fine with those in your earlier post; maybe something like this?

Italics mark opinions; I'd really be fine with those decisions being left to the claimer's discretion, as they're rather minor points.

A. rename Rethil plantation to Oran plantation.
B. consolidate the fields north of the Vys-Ishra Lookout into a new(ish) Mundrethi plantation.
C. re-purpose the fields south of the Vys-Ishra Lookout but north of the Eastern Rethil Lookout into small 'independent' plantations. (That should make for three single-field plantations).

1. The local crops should be comberry or hackle-lo. I'd say mostly if not all comberry.
2. The vast majority of slaves should be Khajiit.
3. The outposts in the area can stay, but most if not all of them should be disassociated from Oran. Consider adding a good reason for them to be there, such as that they were built when Hlaalu was still trying to establish its ownership on the west bank of the Thirr.
4. The Rethil Plantation Dock should be changed to a slave market, mainly used by the local plantation owners. It is unclear whether it will continue to provide travel services. Or should this be Andothren's slave market out of sight of visiting Imperials so as not to offend their foreign sensibilities?
5. Vys-Ishra Lookout could lose its name to match the more utilitarian names of the other outposts, though that name can still be used in dialogue. If a really good reason is given for the outpost to have a name, it can probably stay.
6. Consider adding a reason for the Oran plantation looking as grand as it does or a reputation befitting its appearance. It could for example have been built to visually underline Hlaalu's ownership of the west bank of the Thirr, or perhaps Oran built it to show off his wealth or power or both, perhaps in relation to the neighbouring plantations.

Notes:
I. Current dialogue will need to be altered to reflect the changes, such as Mundrethi not being associated with Oran and being more important. I do think the quest involving him still works, with perhaps minor adjustments. (Mundrethi could be a somewhat weak plantation owner who doesn't want to get on the bad side of the Camonna Tong or something). I am not sure whether dialogue changes should be part of the initial claim, though.
(While we're on the topic of dialogue changes, I feel as though TR's dialogue is sometimes weak in familiarizing the player with the local area, and would like to see more dialogue to that end. I also have one or two ideas for the local plantation owners. I think they could be used to represent major Hlaalu faction-tropes. I think they could bear some discussion).
II. I am wondering whether the farmhouse and shack in the southeastern corner of the North AT merge (see the maps in this thread) should be moved to one of the independent plantations currently lacking buildings, so that the corner of land it is resting on can be sunk. IMO that corner is currently the main thing making the Thirr delta flow unnaturally. I do have an idea or two for a workaround that doesn't involve moving those buildings, though, if people are averse to the idea.

[Yeti]

NPC and dialogue changes definitely should be handled at a later stage separate from the needed exterior modding.

[Gnomey]

So maybe for the initial claim, something like this?

This claim mostly involves changing cell names, adding a few buildings and maybe moving some around, and replacing a few crops.

Italics mark opinions. I'd really be fine with those decisions being left to the claimer's discretion, as they're rather minor points.

A. rename Rethil plantation to Oran plantation.
B. consolidate the fields north of the Vys-Ishra Lookout into a new(ish) Mundrethi plantation.
C. re-purpose the fields south of the Vys-Ishra Lookout but north of the Eastern Rethil Lookout into small 'independent' plantations. (That should make for three single-field plantations).

1. The local crops should be comberry or hackle-lo. I'd say mostly if not all comberry.
2. The outposts in the area can stay, but most if not all of them should be disassociated from Oran.
3. The Rethil Plantation Dock should be changed to a slave market, mainly used by the local plantation owners. It is unclear whether it will continue to provide travel services. Or should this be Andothren's slave market out of sight of visiting Imperials so as not to offend their foreign sensibilities?
4. Vys-Ishra Lookout could lose its name to match the more utilitarian names of the other outposts.

Note: I am wondering whether the farmhouse and shack in the southeastern corner of the North AT merge (see the maps in this thread) should be moved to one of the independent plantations currently lacking buildings, so that the corner of land it is resting on can be sunk. IMO that corner is currently the main thing making the Thirr delta flow unnaturally. I do have an idea or two for a workaround that doesn't involve moving those buildings, though, if people are averse to the idea.

Edit: removed mentions of NPC changes.

[Yeti]

NPCs should only be replaced if the claimant has been promoted for both exterior and quest work.

[Gnomey]

Edited my last post accordingly. Is there anything else that needs changing in the description, or is there something I forgot to add?

I'd personally like to see a decision on the idea of moving those two buildings from North AT.

[Yeti]

I'm fine with having them moved.

[Yeti]

Soooooo... can I we ahead and make a claim for this? I'd like to see some physical in-the-CS progress here in the sections start up again.