Nirnroot?

Cicero · Post by **Cicero** » Tue Feb 17, 2015 1:12 am

Just a quick question (sorry I have been asking a few today).

- Will there be Nirnroots along the cyrodiil boarder (not on the mountains of course, but in land (that mushroom forest in the Hlaalu region))? And maybe there should be a quest-line involved. It would make sense that it wouldn't grow on vvardenfell because of all the ash, and being isolated, but on the mainland I think it's plausible.

Post by **Haplo** » Tue Feb 17, 2015 1:56 am

The project itself doesn't have a stance on Nirnroot, but several of us have always felt that it was a stupid inclusion in TES:IV Oblivion, and are inclined to keep it out of Morrowind.

Cicero · Post by **Cicero** » Tue Feb 17, 2015 2:28 am

Fair enough

rymmie1981 · Post by **rymmie1981** » Wed Feb 18, 2015 5:55 pm

Nirnroot is a plant that rings or buzzes or whatever that noise is supposed to be. This implies that Nirnroot is tonal in nature which would make it related to the Dwemer technology that made the Tribunal into gods and was able to harness the power of Lorkan's Heart.

Its effects are all a form of "drain". Even the Elixir of Exploration doesn't come close to to the potential of tonal architecture, especially as it would apply to a plant that should be connected to the foundations of Nirn itself.

Nirnroot may be the most lore-breaking, stupid piece of crap in the Elder Scrolls series. And that's including half of the "head canon" you see on the TESLore subreddit.

Oh, and first post!

Terrifying Daedric Foe · Wed Feb 18, 2015 8:53 pm

I also like how the nirnroot is supposed to be extremely rare and only grow in remote locations, such as in plain sight in the middle of Anvil.

Cicero · Post by **Cicero** » Wed Feb 18, 2015 10:17 pm

ha, yeah, they were placed in pretty crap areas

Telvayn · Post by **Telvayn** » Wed Feb 18, 2015 10:56 pm

rymmie1981 wrote:Nirnroot is a plant that rings or buzzes or whatever that noise is supposed to be. This implies that Nirnroot is tonal in nature which would make it related to the Dwemer technology that made the Tribunal into gods and was able to harness the power of Lorkan's Heart.

Its effects are all a form of "drain". Even the Elixir of Exploration doesn't come close to to the potential of tonal architecture, especially as it would apply to a plant that should be connected to the foundations of Nirn itself.

Nirnroot may be the most lore-breaking, stupid piece of crap in the Elder Scrolls series. And that's including half of the "head canon" you see on the TESLore subreddit.

Really? It seems like you dislike the plant because of a theory made by yourself (one on the level of making mosquitoes related to vampires - since both drain blood)...

Post by **Gnomey** » Wed Feb 18, 2015 11:28 pm

Actually, I wasn't quite sure how to read that post, but I think the theory makes Nirnroot more interesting than it is now, which to be fair isn't much of an achievement. It's based off of several leaps of logic, but sometimes you need to leap to escape the pit of mediocrity. I still don't think it adds enough worth to make the Nirnroot worthwhile, and, as including it would require a new model, I'd say we'd be better off adding our own fundamentally more interesting plants.

As far as I have ever bothered investigating, Nirnroot is an incredibly generic plant which by design does not fit in to any particular province or region in Tamriel, the history of which was explained as a pseudo-evolutionary process, and a unique strain of which managed to adapt to Morrowind's harsh climate. For Morrowind's purposes, I think the original concept is flawed on several levels.

rymmie1981 · Post by **rymmie1981** » Thu Feb 19, 2015 12:07 am

Gnomey wrote:Actually, I wasn't quite sure how to read that post, but I think the theory makes Nirnroot more interesting than it is now, which to be fair isn't much of an achievement. It's based off of several leaps of logic, but sometimes you need to leap to escape the pit of mediocrity. I still don't think it adds enough worth to make the Nirnroot worthwhile, and, as including it would require a new model, I'd say we'd be better off adding our own fundamentally more interesting plants.

As far as I have ever bothered investigating, Nirnroot is an incredibly generic plant which by design does not fit in to any particular province or region in Tamriel, the history of which was explained as a pseudo-evolutionary process, and a unique strain of which managed to adapt to Morrowind's harsh climate. For Morrowind's purposes, I think the original concept is flawed on several levels.

Tonal architecture is what Keening and Sunder are used for. It's why you have to strike the heart a certain number of times with each one. Thu'um has been described as a lower form of tonal architecture.

The details of the concept is not well-described in the games since all the books are written by unreliable narrators, but it relates to the world bones of the Aedra which formed the laws of physics of Nirn. Beyond that, tonal architecture tends toward speculation. C0DA elaborates on it more than the games, but it is out-of-game stories by Michael Kirkbride who was the main creative mind behind the in-game lore.

No matter the source, it is definitely established that certain ways of manipulating sound can make large effects on the world, such the Tribunal's immortality and the use of Thu'um. The unique humming/buzzing noise of Nirnroot is what I based my hypothesis of what it should be on.

An herb of such "rarity" and possible connection to tonal technology would have been taken by the Dwemer, and later Sotha Sil for his own study if they hadn't wiped it out by the time the Tribunal used the Heart to become gods. Therefore, Nirnroot wouldn't be in Morrowind anyway.

Cicero · Post by **Cicero** » Thu Feb 19, 2015 12:55 am

I guess you could relate it that. I don't know if the dwemer would use it though. I think they would concentrate on "bigger" things (Aka. the heart). If you are to relate nirnroots to tonal architecture, I don't think it would be incredibly powerful, as it is just a herb.

Tondollari · Post by **Tondollari** » Thu Feb 19, 2015 7:29 am

A modder already implemented [url=http://www.nexusmods.com/morrowind/mods/42009]nirnroot in Vvardenfell[/url], so modelling might not be an issue.

I personally like nirnroot. If TR is going to implement a shiny noisy rare herb I don't see why it shouldn't be nirnroot. Make them really rare with small zones and they could make a decent quest hook.

Cicero · Post by **Cicero** » Thu Feb 19, 2015 10:21 pm

I've played that mod before, and I thought he did a pretty good job on it.

Infragris · Post by **Infragris** » Mon Feb 23, 2015 10:23 am

We are implementing Nirnroot as a thing in Province: Cyrodiil, though only as a normal flora container. We should probably coordinate this stuff if TR wants to add a collectible quest or unique ringing noise.

About the tonal architecture thing: Nirnroot is almost definitely an expression of the world's musical aspect, but so are many other things, like the thu'um, Redguard Sword-Singing, or even the supernatural voice of the Emperors. The Dwemer, who had this stuff down to a literal science, would likely be uninterested in such primitive implementations of the tonal principles.