Tamriel Rebuilt

Just to derail the House Dres discussion for a moment, I'm getting ready to post a claim or concept art thread for Dres farming. So I'd like to come to a consensus on Dres farms. Obviously there will be a lot of salt, so I'm thinking salt pools, large, flat rakes of some type to break up the salt, small retaining walls and flumes to transport salt water to the pools or to holding/evaporating cells. Aside from salt, what are the main crops for House Dres? Wickwheat? Marshmerrow? Something new? As well, they'll use slave labor like we've never seen... we have some meshes already that can be used as overseer positions, but how about small slave pens or holding cells?

Would [url=http://www.imperial-library.info/content/page-13-0]the[/url] [url=http://www.imperial-library.info/content/page-14-0]origin[/url] [url=http://www.imperial-library.info/content/page-15-0]of[/url] [url=http://www.imperial-library.info/content/page-16-0]Cyrus[/url] [url=http://www.imperial-library.info/content/page-17-0]be[/url] [url=http://www.imperial-library.info/content/page-18-0]still[/url] [url=http://www.imperial-library.info/content/page-19-0]relevant[/url]? The walls are basically Velothi, but a bit more ornate, the bug shell huts look like Ashlander or Redoran stuff, and the slave pens are lazy cubes of (magical?) darkness surrounded by bamboo grids. I guess it would make sense for them to still use bug shells as they are supposedly very old-fashioned.

I'm not talking about using that comic as concept art, but asking whether it would be a relevant inspiration for concept artists, or whether it's too obsolete to fit with what Morrowind actually became and what we're making of it.

What about that hamum root in TR_Data? Maybe that could be an additional Dres crop.

From Adanorcil: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/355 ... /tools.jpg

Surely saltrice (salty rice) is the main Dres crop?
It would be interesting to use no flora (except saltrice) that grows in normal, non-salty conditions. Hamum root could also be a good one.

I have a few ideas about incorporating bug-shell building elements into Dres rural villages which I mostly haven't posted because I wasn't quite sure where to. My ideas would include a communal slave pen and bug-shell awnings.

I'm not sure whether that quite fits into the scope of a farming claim either, though.

1) I think the Dres should grow a hardy, thorny kind of tree (or shrub) from which they obtain a salty resin (something like frankincense) which is used as a valued alchemical ingredient, but historically it was used as an ingredient for embalming fluid all around Morrowind. The Dres still use it this way.

2) Since I assume that a significant part of Dres territory will be farmland of poor quality, very rocky and dry, I think it would be nice to create a simple model, like a mound made of stones that were gathered while clearing land for planting crops, which would then be used as a nest for these trees.

Something like this.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/fzafssnc9otkg ... ncense.jpg

A bit of real-life inspiration

http://www.dragodid.org/fotogalerija-masline-i-suhozidi-lun/

EDIT: also I think we should be very careful when we start conceptualizing the Dres farmland. It should be a break with the classic tilled-land-farming that is omnipresent in the rest of Morrowind. Players should be able to feel the difficulty of farming in Dres territory. Salt spires, white and gray rocks everywhere, permeating the soil, dry-stone walls, water reservoirs, plants that save water and trap it and are then used by the Dres as cisterns for water, dry plants, plants that only look dry, thorny plants (static or containers). As far as new ingredients go (if we're going to have any), we should go with dry and/or resinous products, just like the "incense" described above. The slave handlers should be equipped with thorny staves and staves with lightning damage (I think magical equipment is a must-have as far as slavers go).

Also, another thing as far as models go: how about slaver totems that prevent slaves from escaping? Remember the Mournhold quest with those traps that kept dealing damage as you walked past them? Well, how about a similar trap, simple-looking but with that same effect that would keep the slaves in a certain area? Something very simple-looking but nasty, like a wooden pole with a bit of cloth and an Argonian skull on top of it that deals enough lightning damage to knock out or kill a slave.

(So, something like this: https://www.dropbox.com/s/86f5f56ogcay3 ... 20trap.jpg)

We should also definitely have new models for irrigation equipment.

Another thing: Deshaan Nettle. Something that the Dres have learned from the Telvanni. A plant that is cultivated along the edges of farms. When grown in a row, the plants' vines tend to entangle, forming a sort of bocage or hedge. Only you wouldn't want to walk through it if it deals fire damage, would you?

So, something like this: https://www.dropbox.com/s/6nv4ii3qfowiw ... nettle.jpg

Just make the vines static and give them a fire damage version of the proximitymine script, it doesn't have to be a container. I hope it doesn't look too much like bittergreen, but if it does, the central part (the pod?) can be replaced by a new model or by a retexture of the current one.

(The more, the merrier: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ii3v4kbozf563i6/DN2.jpg ; see what I mean? https://www.dropbox.com/s/b5r8v4r1ci2urop/DN3.jpg)

Awesome suggestions, Jule. This stuff is great.

Lud: yes, we're definitely going to have lots of saltrice, but this thread is for the other stuff. Saltrice alone isn't enough. It's unrealistic as a support for the entire Dres economy and it's boring to see the same thing over and over again throughout all of Dres lands.

Presumably they would also produce salt, in rather large quantities. They can do this by mining, but as the Deshaan is also quite wet (as I understand it), they might pump salt water from underground and either filter it or evaporate it in the sun.

Dres farming:

A lot of these ideas have been brought up before, in [url=http://tamriel-rebuilt.org/old_forum/viewtopic.php?t=22852]this thread for example[/url].


Farming the Deshaan is nothing like what we're used to from farming. It is done entirely in irrigated saltpan-paddies. These are in roughly square patterns to suggest man-madeness and are connected by a network of small canals.


The water for this irrigation is hard to come by. There is basically no surface water in the Deshaan, but cracks in the salt crust can offer a link to the water deep under the surface. Estates tends to spring up around there, complete with big installations to raise the water up.


Crops are all weird and at first sight completely inedible looking. Saltrice is one of the obvious staple foods, but there's a few other ones like weird gnarly bulbs, some sprawny tuber like things (hamum?)...

How about high walkways surrounding the paddies, like [url=http://i1285.photobucket.com/albums/a584/Infragris/Dreswalkways_zps38709818.png]this[/url]? That way, guards or inspecting landowners don't have to walk through the sludge, have a better overview of the fields and avoid interacting with the slaves. It emphasizes the relationship between the Dres and their slaves, and gives farms a nice visual indicator in what is presumably going to be a lot of flat land. Richer manors could use a sturdier walkable wall, in the style of the new Dres set.