Skyrim's Lordbound

Ever expanding

Skyrim was the first game which really dragged me into the concept of modding and prolonging the story of the hero I loved to play as indefinitely, and anyone who's dipped their toes into the PC Skyrim scene can probably figure out why. Hundreds of talented makers have flocked to Skyrim's comprehensive modding tools over the years to make sure that it, and it's Special Edition rerelease, have almost always been flush with cool, exciting, game changing or just bizarre game mods to shake everything up. Much of the modding world as it exists today for the entire industry owes itself to trends started in the Skyrim modding boom, for example, Resident Evil 8 has already been hit with a mod to turn Lady Dimitrescu into Thomas the Tank Engine. Where do you think the trend of turning everyone into Thomas came from? It came from Trainwiz and Skyrim when he first turned Aludin into Thomas years ago. That's what I mean, Skyrim is sort of the starting point for a lot of modding trends, even if it wasn't the first big modding game or even the first heavily modded Bethesda game, something about it just made that game a flytrap for creativity amidst the community.

But whilst all these brilliant little mods have ever peppered Skyrim's online presence, I've always been drawn specifically to the large scale mods. The one's which demand a small team of talented folk come together in order to pool skills and resources and create something with as much polish, yet much more concentrated, of the main Bethesda team would be capable of. I'm talking relatively small quest mods when compared to the full game, but brimming with care, love, talent and time to the point where it stands out as some of most memorable experiences in the entire game. Skyrim's modding community has been blessed with so many projects in that vein, and whenever I see another on the horizon I just have to click my heels together in utter excitement. Which is probably why when I stumbled upon the in-progress details regarding a certain ongoing mod project called Lordbound, I knew it's something I wanted to talk more about on this blog.

Reading the press-content from the mod's page, Lordbound is a mod that has been in development (of some form, at least) for the past six years, aided by at least one fellow who's now actually working within the game's industry now. Presented not so much as a 'mod' but as an 'expansion', Lordbound's completed vision should offer players 60+ hours of content, 40+ new quests and 50+ new dungeons to explore. Now even acknowledging that as 'best case scenario' speak, I have to say that looking at face value on those statistics make it sound like this mod is promising a simply obscene amount of content. 40 quests? 50 Dungeons? I cannot imagine dedicating that level of effort in the heart of a single project unless what I was working towards an entirely new game. One that would be sold. But apparently this is going to be a freely accessible mod, which just kind of breaks my brain a little bit. (At least it explains why the team are still looking for members even after all this time; that's a lot of content ground to cover.)

Set in the 'Valley of Druadnach', (A name which, in the base game, was simple used to denote the homecave of the King of the Forsworn) this mod looks to explore the political tension of a strip of land laid out between the lands of Skyrim and High Rock. (And perhaps even a little sliver of the ever unmapped region of Orisinium, home of the orcs, judging from their name drop in this little affair.) The story will apparently explore trade route tensions and all those diplomacy-related story hooks that I always thought made for the best Elder Scrolls stories. Legends about saving the world are one thing, but Morrowind shows how interesting that sort of tale can be when tied to the very real-world implications it has on the everyman in the area. I'd imagine that this Lordbound questline similarly will have it's own twists and compounding circumstances, one's which I'm excited to feel out for myself.

An aspect about this mod which I really find myself liking is the familiarity of the location in question. It's not some alien culture from Skyrim, but a location just right next to it's play area, meaning that visually a lot of what you are seeing is inkeeping to the design rules established by Skyrim. Now witnessing whole new environments is cool and everything, but there's an extra level of ingenuity between taking the familiar and differentiating in way that's stubble and yet stands out. Even just looking upon the screenshot provided you can already see a visual style that reminds you of base Skyrim but with that little bit extra. Specifically I've noticed that the interiors tend to be really filled out with decorations that tell a story of being living in, and the lighting has been given great care when setting up. I also love the vague aura of the mysterious and supernatural seeped into some locations, really utilising throbbing deep green auras or mystic blues; some top design work even from the getgo.

Another thing I have noticed, both from screens and the trailer, is that the locations do have a tendency to air for the 'bigger' feel it terms of space used. This tends to be a habit from mod creators, as they see the opportunity to make a huge location and will typically shoot for it, however it's in fluffing up and filling that space which issues can occur. It requires a really disciplined eye for design not to make dead space really stand out, which is why a lot of the oversized conceptual art you'll see for fantasy games, and even Skyrim itself, tend to be scaled down for the final product. That being said, a lot of what I've seen for this mod hasn't worried me yet, the guys working on environment building appear to be fonts of creative design thusfar. I can't help wonder, however, if that might become an issue in the long run for making all those 50+ dungeons to the same standard. (But perhaps I'm just compounding on a nothing issue. I admit, I know nothing of this team's inner workings.)

Last but not least, is my favourite part of mods like these; the new armour sets. Good lord, do I love it when folk sit down and decide what sort of armour, weapons and clothing these new folk would wear in the environments designed for them. Of course, this part also take an extra amount of work for the dual modelling alone, (First and third person models) disregarding the added scrutiny things such as armour motifs and racial styles always elicits. Lordbound's team have been tantalising vague about the new items primed to show up in this mod, although what little they have shown, mostly renders before they've been implemented into the game, have this sort of Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings vibe to me. (Which I'm a fan of, obviously.)

I find it amazing to think that even now, after nearing up to 10 years from it's launch, Skyrim is still juggling incredibly ambitious projects like this one, although I suppose that's a testament to the sorts of creative fellows that this series draws in. I mean just look at Morrowind, I count at least three incredibly ambitious new lands project in active development over there! Lordbound reminds of the OG new lands Skyrim mods, like Falskaar, in taking something we're familiar with and remixing a bit here, adding a lot over there, to show as something we've never seen before. So keep make sure you keep up on this one for when it launches, and see if it's enough to draw you back to the land of the Nords once more.