Tamriel Rebuilt

White shores, and beyond, a far green country under a swift sunrise

When talking about mods before I've touched on my adoration of those large scale land-maker mods which command a full amateur team's worth of talent in order to craft a new chunk of concentrated content to rival that of Bethesda's own talent. Of course, when I bring it up I mostly do so in order to celebrate promising upcoming Skyrim mods, however there exists a huge amount of projects that are already out there as well as ones not just limited to the worlds of Skyrim. In fact there are already completed new lands mods for Oblivion as well that I want to get around to eventually, however the focus of this blog is on one of the biggest examples of these mods for Morrowind. Yes, 2002's Morrowind is no stranger to the hugely ambitious mod projects that characterise the Bethesda modding community, and I knew that if I was going to be doing a 'complete' Morrowind playthrough then that just meant that I had to touch on some of these mods too. And so I tackled the biggest, most ambitious of them all; Tamriel Rebuilt.

Tamriel Rebuilt is a new lands mod that aims to create various entire provinces from all around Tamriel and bring them into Morrowind complete with unique enemies and dungeons, questlines and sidequests, music and distinct visual flairs no matter where you go. It's a work-in-progress affair built entirely by volunteers who work in their own time, and it's very likely to stay in 'work-in-progress' for the foreseeable future, but even then there's an amazing amount of work that's already been done and shown out there to the public. Right now there are three major branches to this project that are far-along enough to be in the public eye and they are, funnily enough, Tamriel Rebuilt, (which covers the Morrowind Mainland) 'Province Cyrodiil' and 'Skyrim: Home of the Nords'. I've tried all three and have come away so incredibly impressed that I want to talk about each briefly today. Other projects that don't have public builds out yet are 'High Rock 427' presumably dealing with the home of the High elves, 'Project Valenwood' for those Wood Elf fans out there and 'Elsweyr: Project Sugar' which sounds a little racist. (Oh, you just assume that all Khajiit eat moon sugar? They're an entire race of addicts, are they?) However apparently that was the official name of a cancelled sequel to an Elder Scrolls spin-off game. (So it's Bethesda themselves who started the stereotype, I knew it!)

The second I was done crying blood from finishing Bloodmoon's stupidly difficult final quest, I installed a plethora of mods for Morrowind and jumped right into all of this New Lands insanity, starting with 'Skyrim: Home of the Nords' because I've always attuned myself to my Norse brothers the most. It was at this point I learned that these mods are best played in the OpenMW version of Morrowind, a version of the game run on a fanbuilt engine that is frightfully easy to set-up but doesn't export saves (at least not automatically. The team don't seem all that fussed on developing actual workable tools for it either) and for some incomprehensible reason the aspect ratio for 1080p is stuck at some horrible 4:3. I'm sorry I don't have a 4k monitor! Why must I be punished through my aspect ratio? OpenMW is probably the correct way to play Morrowind in the current day, fit with an engine actually capable of running some custom scripts, but I wasn't having none of that hassle. For Tamriel Rebuilt, however, that meant I wouldn't have an ingame map to tell me where I was because the vanilla Morrowind map has fixed dimensions. (Thank the project's loremaster for the in-universe guide books; they saved my hide!)

'Skyrim: Home the Nords' takes Bloodmoon's attempt to bring Norse culture to Morrowind and puts it to total shame through it's own efforts. Taking place in the more temperate Eastern climates of Skyrim (For now, this mod is still work in progress) this mod envisions a version of Skyrim from before Bethesda fleshed it out themselves, based on the lore that was around at the release of Morrowind. Does this make for a richer world? No, Skyrim and Nords were very clearly underdeveloped as a people before Skyrim, but it does make for a fascinating look at another direction the series could have taken. Visually the new world is stunning with mountainous pathways, twisting barrows and surly tundra plains aplenty. I'm being serious when I say the team put Solstheim to shame with their landscaping, truly applaud worthy. The cities, on the otherhand, are curiously flat topped with the only exception being the small Reachman camps scattered here and there. I think that may be in keeping with the aesthetic from Arena, (Which I thought existed because of engine and team limitations rather than because of an actual conscious design decision) and is does rob the two featured cities of any even remotely interesting skylines. 

Their vision of Skyrim plays a lot more with the Nord's relationship to their 'border buddies' the Redguards and how those tensions could spark into skirmishes. The city of Dragonstar, revived for this mod, is a particular standout to me as it sits split down the middle with a gate that divides the Hammerfell run districts from the Skyrim run ones. The wilderness is full of wild and weird creatures exclusive for Skyrim in keeping with the weirdness of Morrowind's design aesthetic rather than 'TES V: Skyrim's more conventional enemies. Some of the factions are actually joinable and have unfinished but playable questlines and there's an actual arena in the game. Bethesda couldn't even shoot for an arena for the actual Skyrim, so this team even has a one-up on them in that regard. Honestly, Home of the Nords is worth it just for the sightseeing alone, the single Aylied ruin I stumbled across during my own explorations was mind-blowingly cool and uniquely designed, all the Skyrim exclusive items are modelled to a high degree (sometimes with better textures than base Morrowind items) and the new musical tracks provided by Tamriel rebuilt I think fit this environment the best. Strong offering that's an B Grade for what's there so far. (Though of course, bare in mind that all these mods are far from done and you will fall off the edge of the world if you try to walk into Hammerfell. I know. I tried)

Next I tried out 'Province Cyrodiil', but honestly this project is so early along in development that it should really be called 'Island Stirk' seeing as how that is as far as you can go right now. This is a mod that's a lot more like a tour rather than an exploration, because the land you traverse is pretty truncated. But that does allow you opportunity to enjoy everything this mod has to offer in the space of a couple of hours, so if that's what you're looking for than bully for you. Stirk is a typically tropical Cyrodiilian landscape, with warm sands and beaches, and honestly hardly any horrible monsters at all to deal with. The island is pretty sparsely populated too, with only one major port to speak of. The Aylied ruin from this mod is much more akin to Oblivion's design (disappointing, in my opinion. Home of the Nords' one was wild) and there's no real quests to speak of. Still as a mission statement for where the team want to go once they hit the mainland, Stirk does cover most every base well enough for what would be required in the various environs of mainland Cyrodiil, and I'm excited to see what becomes of this mod once plans start forming. I'll give it a C Grade for now, interesting in intent but yet to prove itself.

And finally I saved the big boy for last; Tamriel Rebuilt, the one who started it all. Beginning as a 'simple' plan to envision the Morrowind mainland, it's now grown into so much more and I wanted to see the base that launched so many other projects off of it. And right away I can say that the new parts of Morrowind mainland fit the landscape perfectly. So much so that when I had installed the mods but was still wrapping up some last faction questlines, I Almsivi Interventioned from the Tel islands (Expecting to be in Ebonheart or Ald Ruhn) and wound up confused and wondering through the mod for a good 5 minutes before I figured out what had happened. I literally thought I'd lost my mind before opening up the map and going "Oh, these are new lands!" I suppose that should make sense considering the tools that made Vvardenfell were right there for people to use, but these guys simply nailed the world design of the Bethesda team to a scarily accurate degree, and then went even further beyond.

My tour of Morrowind took me to some incredible looking places that matched the grandeur of Vivec or the personality of Ald Ruhn. Particular standouts to me was the mountainous city of Akamora and the familiar imperial streets of Old Ebonheart. But there was one city in particular that made my breath catch when I first saw. One that, even now, makes me excited to think back on for it's incredible uniqueness. That city is Necrom. Oh good lord the team did an amazing job with Necrom. Unlike anything else that Morrowind has to offer, Necrom is a city of the dead on the eastern peninsula that wears Morrowind's Egyptian influences proudly. Formed out of monolithic mausoleums that invoke the spirit of ancient Thebes, characterised by towering halls of marble white, populated by the ominous Ordinators-in-mourning with their weeping masks; Nercom is just brilliant. Truly and utterly. The only shame is the lack of quests and fleshed-out characters to populate this city, as such a stunning landscape simply demands that attention. I would adore the chance to write some stories and questlines for this place, it's very existence inspires a thousand voices to sing in my head. (But I've never coded a Morrowind mod before so I'd probably be better off leaving that to the actual coders, eh.) Tamriel Rebuilt has some quests to it, but it's mostly just an mindblowing tour as it stands right now; even then, the quality of what's on display right now easily earns the A grade from me. I can see why other teams were inspired to go off and start their own projects from this, some of the work is just breathtaking.

The modding community of Morrowind may not be as large as Skyrim's or Oblivion's, but as long as it has projects like this ongoing for it I don't think there's any doubt that it's just as chock-full of talented individuals looking to express themselves. Having played around with Mods and modding for a few years now, I can safely say that Tamriel Rebuilt is one of the coolest mods of it's type that I've seen, taking a classic and legendary RPG and matching it in scope and even beating it at it's own game in some places. Even if you've never played Morrowind before and are just looking for a base experience, I'd implore you not to finish up with the game without taking a look at the communities' best before you move on. All and all the Tamriel Rebuilt project is an easy recommend for owners of Morrowind, maybe not as a project to put on the calendar and wait upon with baited breath, but to check up on every now and then and be blown away by the things these fans get up to in thier spare time. Sometimes it's exciting and appreciation worthy, and othertimes it's nothing short of inspiring. Unbelievably great job keeping Morrowind alive after all these years team, you've got this blogger in awe.