Dres honey farming?

belisaurius42 · Post by **belisaurius42** » Mon Mar 10, 2014 9:29 pm

Hi everyone! I saw this article earlier about honey harvesting in Nepal and immediately thought of TR. I remember seeing a dres warrior riding a large bee and it got me thinking that the dres would probably harvest pollen as well. Anyways, it is a cool article nonetheless:

http://io9.com/stunning-photos-show-the-ancient-tradition-of-honey-hun-1538049319?utm_campaign=socialflow_io9_facebook&utm_source=io9_facebook&utm_medium=socialflow

Melchior Dahrk · Post by **Melchior Dahrk** » Tue Mar 11, 2014 12:24 pm

That's pretty awesome. I like the comment at the bottom. It's exactly what I was thinking.

Post by **Gnomey** » Tue Mar 11, 2014 1:01 pm

While I like the idea, honey and Dunmer don't much mix in my mind. Maybe if Skyrender honey is really foul-tasting to outlanders, and not overly sweet; or if it is put to a different purpose than consumption. I do think the concept could be put to better use way off in Valenwood.

belisaurius42 · Post by **belisaurius42** » Tue Mar 11, 2014 9:28 pm

Gnomey wrote: or if it is put to a different purpose than consumption.

Perhaps it would be used as a resin for bonemould armour? Honey is quite waterproof makes a good binding agent, in a pinch

Post by **Gnomey** » Tue Mar 11, 2014 10:54 pm

That could be an interesting direction to go with it, indeed.

Telvayn · Post by **Telvayn** » Wed Mar 12, 2014 2:02 am

Or go with using it as a preservative... in rituals concerning preparing corpses for making bonewalkers and other things like that...

Sload · Post by **Sload** » Wed Mar 12, 2014 4:03 am

bitter honey is a great idea

DestinedToDie · Post by **DestinedToDie** » Wed Mar 12, 2014 7:29 am

There are honeybee nests containing honey in Skyrim - Home of the Nords.

EJRS · Post by **EJRS** » Wed Mar 12, 2014 8:36 am

I like the idea, it makes sense for a people occupying a harsh environment(just like the the dunmer of vvardenfel) to find a use for any and all resources available.
Also, keep in mind that IRL, honey is antiseptic and antibiotic.

Andres Indoril · Post by **Andres Indoril** » Wed Mar 12, 2014 12:02 pm

Dres Mead for everyone!

Of course, with a much more interesting name than that. Tastes more like vodka than mead though.

Rats · Post by **Rats** » Wed Mar 12, 2014 12:11 pm

Andres Indoril wrote:Dres Mead for everyone!

Of course, with a much more interesting name than that. Tastes more like vodka than mead though.

Like vodka distilled from acid

Bitter honey sounds paradoxically wonderful.

sasquatch · Post by **sasquatch** » Wed Mar 12, 2014 11:22 pm

In my time working on a farm I had the opportunity to do some beekeeping and learned a lot about the history of beekeeping, bees, honey and its uses. Beekeeping has existed for thousands of years. Both the wax and honey have many uses. Honey can be used many ways medicinally or in beauty applications. It works as an amazing natural preservative and is used to make Mead. Honey is a great consumable by itself or in addition to other foods. Wax has/is used for conditioning leather and rope, waterproofing fabrics and obviously in the making of candles. Having worked with honey and honeybee wax, I gotta vote against its use as a fixative since there are many better alternatives. I assume all candles in Morrowind are made from tallow since there are currently no bees, maybe rendered guar fat, but it'd be great if bee products have a place in the Morrowind economy too.

Post by **Gnomey** » Thu Mar 13, 2014 1:43 pm

I think we could take some liberties in how Dres honey behaves, if it is Skyrender honey. Of course there's not too much point in calling it honey if it is too different from real-world honey, but at the same time Morrowind has many examples of staying close to reality while diverging on key points. I wouldn't suggest you try to protect yourself in a fight by wearing a suit of real-world chitin, nor would I suggest wearing a suit of armour made from plates of real-world bonemeal fused together by real-world resin.

Wax and its many applications had slipped my mind, by the way. Thanks for pointing that out.

greendogo · Post by **greendogo** » Sun Apr 27, 2014 7:53 pm

I don't know why you'd make the honey not sweet. The sugars in honey are the energy source that makes it useful to the organism that produces it. Just because 99% of Dunmer culture is paradoxical and alien doesn't mean the taste of their local honey needs to be. The alien part comes from the extreme nature of the hives and the implied insanity of harvesting it. If it were both sweet and bitter at the same time, that would fix the problem of the missing energy providing (and fermentable) sugars.

Bitterness is often a sign of natural poisons. Perhaps the honey is poisonous to local animals that threaten the hive, but is fine to injest for humanoids (except argonians maybe?).

I think fermenting the honey is a great idea.

The Dres Honey Mines sound like such a great slave death trap.

Post by **Gnomey** » Mon Apr 28, 2014 12:57 pm

Sweet and bitter sounds like a good approach to me. There's nothing that says that Dunmer food can't taste good, but I personally prefer if most Dunmer food needed getting used to, while the stuff that actually tastes good comes from places you'd rather not know about.
As honey isn't really inherently disturbing in where it comes from, at least to most people, I'd prefer if it had a taste that needs getting used to.
The point is that an Imperial merchant in Tear would think twice before consuming it, for whatever reason. And might regret it afterwards.

I think Argonians would be the last race to get poisoned, and I'm not sure if Dres honey is the right substance to make into an exception. I do like the idea of it being mildly poisonous, especially in large amounts, but I don't want Dres honey and mead to be too similar to the vitriolic Bosmer beverages.

Terrifying Daedric Foe · Tue Apr 29, 2014 4:25 pm

greendogo wrote:The Dres Honey Mines sound like such a great slave death trap.

Reminds me of historical fiction set in the Roman Empire, where misbehaving slaves are always threatened with being sent to the silver mines (effectively a death sentence).

greendogo · Post by **greendogo** » Sun Aug 31, 2014 1:00 am

Saw this around the web today. It's an old hornets nest that looks like someone had carved a face into.

Dunmer Mount Rushmore?

[url]http://i.imgur.com/CPCyPTN.jpg[/url]

Nalin · Post by **Nalin** » Wed Dec 24, 2014 5:52 am

I remember seeing a dres warrior riding a large bee and it got me thinking that the dres would probably harvest pollen as well.

Don't we already have honey in TR? A velk ingredient, if I'm remembering correctly. Something about induced vomiting and throat massages? fermented? Sounds more Bosmeri to me.

Do we have venim/venom drops from Skyrenders? harvesting something else from Skyrenders might be nice, and less obvious. Sheets of the papery nest building material that they spit out could make a lovely decorative sun-screen material, maybe.

klep · Post by **klep** » Wed Dec 24, 2014 11:10 am

I like this. Dres having a great history in slaving, these honey-fields (or whatever they are) would make a good place for Argonian slaves to work. As read in [url=http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Tes3Mod:Tamriel_Rebuilt/True_Sapience_of_Dres_Nobility]True Sapience of Dres Nobility[/url], the average Dres prefers slaves of higher intelligence, but Argonians serve well in the fields. These honey-fields may serve well as punishment for runaway slaves that have been caught by bounty hunters.

Maybe we could do something with the fact that Argonians have resistance against the Black Marsh Flies in their swamps. They may be better able to work with these bees than other races due to their natural resistance against dangerous insect types.

This could create some bounty hunter like quests, possibly to capture runaway (Twin Lamps) slaves.