Districts and Regions

[immortal_pigs]

This thread is aimed at maintaining an overview of the districts and regions of Morrowind. Will be expanded further. This thread should probably contain some kind of GIMP map eventually.

Districts
For the sake of organization it would be helpful to decide on the districts of Morrowind. I've read elsewhere that the districts are: Vvardenfell, Telvannis, Mournhold, Velothis, Narsis and Dres. Organisation by district helps with the organization of information, even thought they may be arbitrarily created Imperial borders.

Regions
Each district contains a varying amount of regions. This thread is to document the (a) visual character and (b) ludological character of the regions.

Vvardenfell
- Grazelands
- Ashlands
- Red Mountain
- West Gash
- Bitter Coast
- Ascadian Isles
- Sheogorad
- Azura's Coast
- Molag Amur

Telvannis*
- Mephalain Mountains
- Boethian Mountains
- Molagreahd
- Telvanni Isles
- Helnim Fields

*even though this area might be slanted for change, the thread's aimed at documenting the current situations

Mournhold
- Sacred Lands
- Nedothril Coast
- Alt Orethan
- Lan Orethan
- Inlet Bog
- Thirr River Valley

Velothis
- Ash Swamp
- Velothi Mountains
- Roth Roryn?
- Armun Ashlands

Seas and Oceans
- Inner Sea
- Sea of Ghosts

///

En example of a more developed region description would be:

Grazelands
The Grazelands are the pastoral heartland of Vvardenfell. On the northeastern corner of the island, these grasslands extend from the ancient stronghold of Falensarano north to the coast above Tel Vos. To the east, the Grazelands stretch to the coast and the islands of Zafirbel Bay. To the west, it is bounded by the forbidding steepness of the mountains of the Ashlands.

Difficulty: Medium.

Armun Ashlands
The Armun Ashlands are a vast desert of ash. Starting from the Mountain ranges in the west, the ashland threatens to spill over into the Thirr River Valley, being held back only by a wall of rock and perhaps some Tribunal manipulations.

Difficulty: Hard.

[immortal_pigs]

Uploaded file contains a map of the regions of Morrowind, created by Swiftoak.

Does anyone know what the following regions are:

(A), (B), (C), (D) ... (L)?

They are named in the map.

[Hells]

Why does the Telvanni Isles look like they were bombed? Is this a new concept for the region?

[gro-Dhal]

Why does the Telvanni Isles look like they were bombed? Is this a new concept for the region?

It's an approximate representation rather than an accurate map

[Gnomey]

My best guess, though I'm stumped on A-D because the Telvannis regions seem to have been completely shifted around:

A.
B. ?Molagreahd?
C.
D.
E. Deshaan Plains
F. Argon Jungle
G. Shipal-Shin
H. Othreleth
I. Velothi Mountains
J. Ash Swamp
K. ?Askkaedh Coast?
L. Uld Vraech

Edit: by the way, I'd like to mention how convenient it is to have an updated map, even if some parts of it may be imprecise.

[Why]

That map is a concept made when discussing regional planning with the Core, the Telvannis bits are different because the aim of the map was to make a regional planning rather than to actually represent our released material. In the far future, we want to polish Telvannis so that it matches our current standards, and this map was a first attempt at coherent region planning including the idea of a Telvannis redesign with brand new and unique regions. Anyway, far future, nothing to worry about right now.

Having said that, your missing regions. Temp names in accolades.

A: "shroomcoast"
B: Boethian Mountains
C: Mephalain Mountains
D: Molagreahd
E: Deshaan (Plains)
F: Argon Jungle
G: Shipal-Shin
H: Othreleth Woods
I: Velothi Mountains
J: "Ash Swamp"
K: "Pine Forest Region Surrounding Cormar Bay"
L: Uld Vraech

[immortal_pigs]

Ok so apparantly there's also a region along the coast with Andothren and Teyn called the "Askaaed Coast".

updated mappage

[Gnomey]

That map is a concept made when discussing regional planning with the Core, the Telvannis bits are different because the aim of the map was to make a regional planning rather than to actually represent our released material.

Yeah, I figured as much. When I said "imprecise" I was referring to the fact that places like the Telvanni Isles will probably have slightly different coastlines.

[immortal_pigs]

Ok so what's the official word on the Districts of Morrowind. I've been researching the forums and there are some different perspectives going, it might be nice to reach a definitive verdict on this issue.

1) From what I gather the Districts are just arbitrary Imperial borders, right? So District =/= House sphere of influence.

2) I do think Districts are a useful organizing tool for reference. So you have around 6-7 districts, which each contain a set of regions. Do people agree? (Basically I see a district as a "meta-region" label).

3) I think it would be useful if the Districts also contained entire regions, so no sharing of regions between districts. Do people agree?

4) So what should the definitive names of the districts be? There have been different proposals in the past:

a) Vvardenfell
b) Telvannis
c) Mournhold
d) Dres or Deshaan
e) Narsis
f) Kragenmoor or Velothis
g) Can we include Solstheim as a district?

5) One issue: Azura's Coast and Grazelands seem to be on the mainland as whell in this region map. Should these become separate Mainland regions? Or also be called Azura's Coast/Grazelands. This relates to point 3.

6) This map is a proposal of the districts, what do people think?

[Terrifying Daedric Foe]

Here's an old TR map from years ago on the same topic:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/vkrf57spr7i3thc/Morrowind.jpg

It's largely the same, except Velothis/Kragenmoor is smaller than on your map. To me your version is too large compared with tiny little Narsis.

3) I think it would be useful if the Districts also contained entire regions, so no sharing of regions between districts. Do people agree?

I think the Imperials would have drawn up the districts with fairly natural geographical borders, but I don't personally see a problem if a region overlaps two districts. For example, the river through Othreleth could mark the border between Velothis and Narsis.

[alex25]

3) I think it would be useful if the Districts also contained entire regions, so no sharing of regions between districts. Do people agree?

I like this in general but lets not get too far with this idea. Sometimes there are far more visible and logical landmarks than region transitions. The Mournhold/Velothis border should be the river Thirr since it is a huge, very important natural landmark and the clear border between Hlaalu and Indoril lands. Same thing should happen a bit further south at the Narsis, Velothi, Dres border.


Ignoring both major natural landmarks and House politics just to make districts fit the regions feels very forced, cheap and just plain bad.

[Gnomey]

1) From what I gather the Districts are just arbitrary Imperial borders, right? So District =/= House sphere of influence.

I think a bit of a mixture of both. The Imperials probably drew the Deshaan District and Telvannis District to roughly follow the borders of Dres and Telvanni territory, though the Telvanni have probably since spread past the district borders. Remember that the districts were probably drawn up in the Armistice, and that their borders have probably remained unchanged. The same cannot be said for House borders.

2) [...]

3) I think it would be useful if the Districts also contained entire regions, so no sharing of regions between districts. Do people agree?

Again, I see districts as fairly arbitrary. Tiber Septim and company drawing some lines on whatever maps they had of Morrowind at the time. I don't think they would be accurate reflections of regions or House borders.
The House borders probably also do not neatly follow region borders, and I think the Imperials would have put more effort into getting the districts politically accurate as opposed to geographically accurate.

4) So what should the definitive names of the districts be?

I'd suggest:

a) Vvardenfell
b) Telvannis
c) Mournhold
d) Deshaan
e) Narsis
f) Velothis

Solstheim would probably be a territory as opposed to a district.

[klep]

Reviving this thread.

I would like to see more detailed descriptions of the districts and regions. Describing not only their location (as this can be seen on the maps in the new [url=http://tamriel-rebuilt.org/old_forum/viewtopic.php?t=24856]Maps thread[/url]) and characteristics of it's inhabitants, but also the geological - or cosmetic - aspects, and region specific flora and fauna.

[Theminimanx]

While discussing the location of Mages Guilds and their connection to the Imperial Districts, Gnomey and I came up with two ideas for the districts, which you can see on the maps below. Since we couldn't reach a consensus on which idea was better, we figured we'd let the rest of you decide.

The first idea was to roughly line up the districts with the Houses' influence at the time of the Armistice. The main purpose of this is to show how much the influence of House Indoril has decreased since then.
[spoiler][img]http://i.imgur.com/5yNfb8Fl.jpg[/img][/spoiler]

The second was to make heavy use of the Thirr as a border, and favor the use of rectangular shapes, similar to European coloniess.
[spoiler][img]http://i.imgur.com/K0wLPBnl.jpg[/img][/spoiler]

And here's the IRC log, for those interested.
[spoiler]<Theminimanx> We´d have to reach a decision on the districts first though
<Gnomey> Though some of the branches would probably have to be merged.
<Gnomey> Hm.
<Gnomey> a) Vvardenfell
<Gnomey> b) Telvannis
<Gnomey> c) Mournhold
<Gnomey> d) Deshaan
<Gnomey> e) Narsis
<Gnomey> f) Velothis
<Gnomey> That list is correct, as far as the simple names go.
<Theminimanx> Yeah, but the border between Narsis and Velothis was still not set
<klep> I gotta run. Flatmates birthday in an hour and gotta buy champagne
<Theminimanx> bye
<Gnomey> They're actually named in vanilla dialogue, and the names seem good to me, so I see no reason to change them around.
<klep> Cya
<Gnomey> k
* klep has quit (Quit: HydraIRC -> http://www.hydrairc.com <- Po-ta-to, boil em, mash em, stick em in a stew.)
<Gnomey> Ah, right.
<Gnomey> Yeah, that could make a difference.
<Gnomey> Narsis itself would make for a poor guild guide network...
<Theminimanx> Latest map of the districs that I remember was this one
<Theminimanx> http://tamriel-rebuilt.org/old_forum/download.php?id=21784
<Gnomey> Though I have no idea how many Mages Guilds we have in Velotthis, and more to the point how many we will want to have.
<Theminimanx> But I might throw together an edited proposal tonight
<Gnomey> Yeah, I think that's the latest, and it's pretty old.
<Theminimanx> a year, according to the post date
<Theminimanx> wow
<Gnomey> I do actually think we should put the border for Narsis district at the southern fringe of the Armun Ashlands;
<Gnomey> maybe even the northern fringe, not sure.
<Gnomey> Sload did say Narsis district is supposed to be small,
<Gnomey> but Shipal-Shin will just be canyons and desert and Narsis, pretty much.
<Theminimanx> Maybe the river going through roth roryn?
<Gnomey> Nah, I'd go with the Armun Ashlands.
<Theminimanx> And just cut straight through the velothi mountains, sure thing
<Gnomey> That way Narsis district will still be comparatively small.
<Gnomey> Yeah.
<Theminimanx> right
<Gnomey> Hm...
<Gnomey> You could consider edging the Deshaan district west to the Thirr, but its current position is probably better, so I wouldn't.
<Gnomey> The Mournhold/Deshaan border is iffy; I'd look at Swiftoak's map for that.
<Theminimanx> I´d personally prefer using bodies of waters for the district borders
<Gnomey> Yeah, but there will be a mountain range there,
<Gnomey> and it is the border between Hlaalu and Dres.
<Gnomey> Both geographically and politically.
<Theminimanx> How much did the empire care about house influence when drawing these maps?
<Gnomey> Hm.
<Theminimanx> Because I personally imagined drawing some easy straight lines
<Theminimanx> Like north Africa
<Gnomey> There's an argument to be made about rough border division, just look at colonialist nations and the lovely borders they drew.
<Gnomey> Yeah.
<Gnomey> Hm...
<Theminimanx> Which I why I wanted to use rivers, almost all maps feature rivers, but comparitively few have mountains
<Theminimanx> *which is why
<Gnomey> I mean, Deshaan is basically hands-off territory,
<Gnomey> so they would want to section it off tidily;
<Gnomey> better make it too small than too large.
<Theminimanx> Hmmm
<Gnomey> As far as I'm concerned, you could just make it a box,
<Gnomey> with Lake Andaram as the corner.
<Theminimanx> Which one is andaram?
<Theminimanx> The one near Almalexia?
<Gnomey> The largest one.
<Gnomey> Yeah.
<Theminimanx> got it
<Gnomey> For Telvannis-Mournhold, I'd consider another straight line running horizontally through Fort Windmoth.
<Gnomey> (Working off of Swiftoak's map, still)
<Theminimanx> We´re keeping those forts?
...........
<Gnomey> Returning to the district map,
<Gnomey> I'm not sure on Mournhold district.
<Gnomey> You could consider moving its border back to the Thirr,
* RVNANT (Nalin@ChatSpiket64ppm.gv.shawcable.net) has joined
<Gnomey> but the Mournhold district is supposed to be really large,
<Gnomey> and that border also shows how times have changed since the Armistice,
<Gnomey> what with House Indoril having lost all that land.
<Theminimanx> I think there are better ways of showing that than by what the imperials think
<Gnomey> I'd actually consider moving it even further west, for the heck of it.
<Theminimanx> Have some abandoned Indoril Estates in Hlaalu lands, for instance
<Gnomey> Yeah, I'm working on that, but the OM set is a pain.
<Theminimanx> There´s a reason I´m doing map work instead of CS
<Gnomey> It's oddly well suited for making places like Daedric ruins, but not for Indoril castle estates.
<Gnomey> Haha.
<Gnomey> Well, my suggestion would be to make the Mournhold border bisect the Armun Ashlands more or less through the middle,
<Gnomey> but arguments could be made for the other options as well.
<Theminimanx> That would make for some awkward borders if north Armun is also the narsis border
<Gnomey> Yeah, that's one of the arguments for, in my opinion.
<Gnomey> Basically a sort of upside-down T,
<Theminimanx> hmm
<Gnomey> with a zig-zag or two if needed.
<Theminimanx> There´s nothing stopping me from just making two maps, and letting the forumers decide between them
<Gnomey> Indeed, that seems like a good approach.
<Gnomey> Or on one map, if you feel like using a lot of dotted lines/hatching/whatever works.
<Theminimanx> Meh, making a new one is faster
<Gnomey> Good point.
<Gnomey> When I make maps I like economizing in the oddest places, leading to a lot of hard-to-read maps.
<Theminimanx> As for the Mournhold/Telvannis Border, I´ll put it below the Necrom peninsula for now, to make Mournhold a nice rectangle
<Gnomey> Sure,
<Gnomey> though I still prefer putting it at Forst Windmoth.
<Gnomey> *Fort
<Theminimanx> Hmmm
<Gnomey> Or even roughly at that Telvanni settlement there, whose name I forgot.
<Theminimanx> I think this call for MOAR MAPS
<Gnomey> Everything calls for more maps, all the time.
<Theminimanx> sigged
<Gnomey> We had a really long map drought, while we were doing a lot of planning of all times,
<Gnomey> so I'm pretty happy to see that change.
<Theminimanx> But I´ll put it at Windmoth on the map where the Western Mournhold border is in Armun
<Gnomey> Yeah, sounds good.
<Gnomey> So that would basically be my proposal.
<Theminimanx> But now, I have some IRL work to get done
<Gnomey> Though I'm not sure about all of my suggestions myself.
<Theminimanx> That´s what the group consensus is for
<Gnomey> Exactly.[/spoiler]

[Gnomey]

Hm, now that I see the borders we discussed on (digital) paper, and because I can't make up my mind, I'm attaching a slight edit which is somewhat of a compromise.

My problem with the first map is that Velothis and Narsis are a little closer in size than I'd like. I'm not sure whether I prefer the extra lines or not. My problem with the second map is that Mournhold and Narsis are closer in size than I'd like, Mournhold almost looking like the smallest district.

As such, my new suggestion would involve Mournhold being a vast rectangle with a Vvardenfell-shaped chunk bitten out of it, Narsis as a smaller rectangle with Mournhold sprawling into it, in complete reverse of the modern situation, and Velothis being larger than in the first map. The Dres-Narsis border can be shoved about as desired; putting it on the Thirr would probably be better.

[Theminimanx]

Okay, made a new version of the map with the edits you suggested.
[spoiler][img]http://i.imgur.com/6MGGAQpl.jpg[/img][/spoiler]

[Rats]

+1

I think we can go with the above map. I like how Lake Andaram is divided. Would be fun to have a cairn sitting in the middle of the lake to denote the threefold border; after running around it you could say you've visited all three districts.

I also like how Hlaalu expansionism is demonstrated by how little their area originally was. (I am assuming that the district borders were drawn following the Great House borders once upon a time)

[Seneca37]

I think the 6 administrative districts should look more like the following picture. (This is immortal_pigs image from above). Narsis would be very small, Mournhold should be even larger - there is a TR Dialogue statement about "Mournhold District" that states:

In addition to all this splendor, it is also home to the most holy city of the Tribunal Temple: Necrom, and its surrounding Sacred Lands. Also to be found is the Imperial bastion of Old Ebonheart, perhaps the greatest Imperial city of Morrowind, where the Governor of Morrowind and Lord Marshal of the Legion reside, although the district as a whole is goverened officially by the King of Morrowind, at present Hlaalu Helseth. The famed Dwemer ruins of Kemel-Ze also are situated in this district.

NOTE: we'll probably have to fix that Governor section.

But the Dwemer ruins of Kemel-Ze should be in Mournhold too.
So we should see in the house map that House Telvannis has expanded south into Mournhold territory, and House Hlaalu has greatly expanded its territory into both the Mournhold district and the Velothis district.

[Gnomey]

Hm. Shoving the Mournhold-Telvannis border northwards presents no real problems, in my opinion. I mainly suggested Theminimanx put it there because I figured Fort Windmoth may have been built on the border between the Houses originally, but that may not have been the case, and it may very well not have been built around the time of the Armistice, so it was all pretty arbitrary.

My problem with Narsis in that image is, as I mentioned in the IRC log, Narsis district would pretty much just be Narsis and desert. I don't think that really qualifies as a district. I think it is sufficiently small in Theminimanx's most recent map, personally.

Other than a tiny sliver of land to the south, Theminimanx's Mournhold is actually larger than the image you linked, or rather they're basically the same size.

[Theminimanx]

Putting the Velothis/Narsis border below Kragenmar seems a little extreme to me. It seems illogical to me to divide a region into districts if one is going to be twice as large as another. Plus, putting the border that low would make Velothis larger than Mournhold.

Having Hlaalu get a quick claim on the best areas during the Vvardenfell land grab seems to me like a better way of showing how Hlaalu has a larger reach these days. Redoran would meanwhile be restricted to the lands they've had for ages. Their lands aren't being reduced like Indoril, but they also have difficulty claiming new territory.

Placing Kemel-ze in Telvannis was a complete coincidence, and I have no problems with moving the border north. On the other hand, I don't see any particular reason to place Kemel-ze in Indoril lands if the ruins weren't being actively used by them.

[Marandahir]

Query: Do we have a name for the "Shroomcoast" of Telvannis yet?

Also, why again should Mournhold not end at the Thirr? I realise at one point the Indoril influence was much larger, but the river is such a natural boundary line it's a bit surprising to see so much consensus on moving the Mournhold boundary west of it.

[Gnomey]

The region doesn't have a name, and may not end up existing. Everything in Telvannis is very much up in the air.

At the time when the districts were established, House Indoril owned a significant portion of land west of the Thirr. The district maps were drawn at that time. Hlaalu since gobbled up all of that territory, making Thirr a natural boundary, but before that the river lay well within Indoril territory, and the valley was of great(er) importance to Indoril economy. The region west of the Thirr has no shortage of mostly uninhabited land and natural boundaries through which one could draw a far more practical -- at the time -- arbitrary line.

[Marandahir]

Gotcha. The districts really are a non-issue in that case, since they were drawn by the Imperials in the past.

I assume the up-in-the-airness is the same reason why Lake Boethia has ceased to exist on Swiftcloak's maps (and as far back as the maps from last summer, at least, when the Telvanni Isles first started blowing up and Bal Oyra vanished)?

A lot of the discussion of where this is going must be hidden away somewhere on the IRC as opposed to the forums, I presume, since I've combed the threads pretty closely.

[Theminimanx]

Gotcha. The districts really are a non-issue in that case, since they were drawn by the Imperials in the past.

I assume the up-in-the-airness is the same reason why Lake Boethia has ceased to exist on Swiftcloak's maps (and as far back as the maps from last summer, at least, when the Telvanni Isles first started blowing up and Bal Oyra vanished)?

A lot of the discussion of where this is going must be hidden away somewhere on the IRC as opposed to the forums, I presume, since I've combed the threads pretty closely.

Discussion is spread across the publicly available forums, the publicly available -though less widely used- IRC channel, the developers-only part of the forums, the elite-only Skype calls, and there's probably other places I'm not aware of. Trust me, I'm as confused as you are.

EDIT: And I only now realise you joined in 2008, and are therefore probably far more familiar with all this than I am. Derp.

[Marandahir]

And actually, this is my second account, since I lost my first one that I made in 2006. >_>

It is confusing, but more so since it's relevant to this discussion I wanted to bring it up. These were unanswered questions raised in part earlier in this thread (and probably answered elsewhere, but it's alright to have repeat information for expediency).

[Gnomey]

I assume the up-in-the-airness is the same reason why Lake Boethia has ceased to exist on Swiftcloak's maps (and as far back as the maps from last summer, at least, when the Telvanni Isles first started blowing up and Bal Oyra vanished)?

I think all of those maps are, in fact, Swiftoak's. The idea of blowing up the Telvanni Isles did come up in the forum, I think; I have no idea about Bal Oyra, (and would probably advocate keeping it when we get there), or where the idea of removing Lake Boethiah came from. Those may well have been Swiftoak's innovations.

Since the site restructure, all discussion should be visible to developers, though as you say it is still spread all over the place. We're slowly [url=http://tamriel-rebuilt.org/old_forum/viewtopic.php?t=24809]trying to make[/url] the Skype meetings more accessible, but in the meanwhile we at least provide [url=http://tamriel-rebuilt.org/old_forum/viewtopic.php?t=24486]comprehensive summaries[/url] of their contents. Aside from some private IRC chatrooms, such as many conversations I've had with Swiftoak about Othreleth Woods and his map, really all of the planning since the site restructure should be visible to any developers.
That was very much not the case before the site restructure, though; for a while the core -- and after that a somewhat larger but still restricted group -- did a lot of planning essentially in backrooms. Swiftoak and I were making preparations for making a lot of that planning public, but I've frankly been focusing on other aspects of the mod lately. I will get back to it eventually. That being said, a lot of that stuff is outdated by now.

[Gnomey]

I'll make this short and sweet. I think we should kill the Inner Sea region:

[url=http://imgur.com/b90JW62][img]http://i.imgur.com/b90JW62.png[/img][/url]

There are two primary reasons for this: first of all, it's very thin in most places, and as such weather transitions will probably be a little messy.
Secondly, it alters a lot of vanilla cells we have otherwise not touched. Now I'm not against messing with vanilla stuff if there's a good reason; quite the opposite. However, assuming I'm not missing something, which could easily be the case, I don't see a good reason for having an Inner Sea region.

I propose we clean the region out of the section files. I don't think we need to worry about cleaning it out of the TR_Mainland file until we revisit those territories.
In the cases where the cell's heightmap has been changed, that cell shouldn't be cleaned out, obviously. We would just replace the Inner Sea region with whatever TR region is nearest.

This should provide a cleaner and more functional region map, especially around the Ascadian Coast, which is a very narrow region itself as it is.

---

Speaking of which, is there any reason for the Ascadian Coast to exist as its own region rather than just extending the Ascadian Isles over to our lands? As it stands, the Askkaedh Coast's weather tends to be much wetter with thick cloud cover, but I'm not sure if that needs to be the case.

[st.Veloth, The Repenting]

will vvardenfell be changed, to create a more lore friendly vvardenfell, that would fit TR's current map? (as in, turning it into mostly redoran territory, with some minor telvanni holdings, mostly ashlands, with a more desert ashland touch to it...)

[Yeti]

I'd say go ahead and nix the region. Also, I can't think of any reason to have the AI and AC as separate regions. Might as well call them the same thing if we're going for a similar look and feel for both of them.

will vvardenfell be changed, to create a more lore friendly vvardenfell, that would fit TR's current map? (as in, turning it into mostly redoran territory, with some minor telvanni holdings, mostly ashlands, with a more desert ashland touch to it...)

No, not to that extent. Even if we wanted to, we'd never have the manpower to pull such major changes off within a reason timeframe.

[Not]

Speaking of which, is there any reason for the Ascadian Coast to exist as its own region rather than just extending the Ascadian Isles over to our lands? As it stands, the Askkaedh Coast's weather tends to be much wetter with thick cloud cover, but I'm not sure if that needs to be the case.

I agree with this. Should just expand the isles to extend to our lands as well.

Also, I agree with yeti as far as nixing the one region altogether. We really don't need it, especially if it starts to affect vanilla Morrowind.

[Gnomey]

will vvardenfell be changed, to create a more lore friendly vvardenfell, that would fit TR's current map?

Probably not, and even if we were to consider extensive changes to Vvardenfell's landmass we'd probably only do it when we're done with the rest of the province, and possibly even as a separate plugin. I don't think it's too necessary myself, as we're adding plenty of desolate regions on the mainland to balance out Vvardenfell's more fertile, well, region. (Aside from the Ascadian Isles, Vvardenfell is still very desolate).

As for most of Vvardenfell being Redoran territory, despite what most fan-made maps suggest, I actually think that is already the case in vanilla Morrowind. Redoran controlled the land around the Caldera ebony mine, hence their conflict over it with the Hlaalu, and they have an outpost in Molag Mar, and the [url=http://www.imperial-library.info/content/red-book-3e-426]Red Book[/url] also ascribes a wide territory to the Redoran, as with Garisa Llethri, Lord of the Northern Ashlands. Only because most of that territory is empty, people have assumed that it's no-man's-land or Temple territory.
House Hlaalu controls the Ascadian Isles and a bit of Bittercoast, House Telvanni is eating into Redoran territory from the east, the Temple naturally controls Red Mountain and some of its own holdings, but the rest appears to be Redoran, at least in name.

[Not]

Actually, iirc, there was some sort of concept not long ago drafted up where we would fix/edit/add a lot of dialogue to vanilla Morrowind to better incorporate our mod into the main game. That way it doesn't seem like Vvardenfell is all by itself and the mainland is just sort of for decoration.

Again, this was probably a couple years back, but I remember the original planning was basically adding some topics and greetings that involve some sort of emphasis to the mainland.

Also, NPCs that claim to go off to the mainland and subsequently disappear from game would also get fixed, as in, they'd appear somewhere relevant on the actual main land.

Again, this was the concept that was drafted up a while ago, and I don't know if we're still planning on that or if it's been given up on entirely. If the latter, please feel free to delete this post altogether as I don't want to cause unnecessary controversy ><

[Gnomey]

Ah yeah, we will be making changes to vanilla Morrowind content, just not significant changes to its landscape.

[Not]

Ah yeah, we will be making changes to vanilla Morrowind content, just not significant changes to its landscape.

Ah, okay. Well I knew it was something like that. I didn't think we were redoing any of the landscape, although I imagine some individuals may end up doing that on their own or something as a side project, I know I've seen forums where people have requested that. But I digress.

OH! And we'll be redoing Telvanni land, I totally forgot about that.