List of Factions

[Ibsen's Ghost]

I think it's a case of negotiating between the 'dark' variant and what we can manage to accomplish in making them more 'marsh-oriented'. We don't have the martial ingeunity to dream up an original 'martial swamp arts' style....unless there is a concept artist who might be able to produce a design. I guess we could set up a thread on Bethesda requesting designs for Shadowscales armour...?

@ Giskard - Btw, could you answer my questions from this post, please: List of Factions . Once I know what I'm doing completely then I'll be able to make some choices.

In the meantime, I'd considered setting up the Shadowscales as a racial type as per this resource: http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=23891 (although I'm not that bothered by this file, personally. I'd prefer a good set of armour.)

FAO EVERYBODY

I have updated the first post of this thread to include an extensive and thoroughly researched list of possible armour and weaponry for use in the mod. This has taken me a looong time and through over 100 pages of mods and add-ons. Everything has been selected for the purposes of relevance to the Factions and appropiateness in the mod. However, it's still a large list and will get severely cut down.

For those claiming questlines such as the Shadowscales, it is a part of your responsibility to make these selections. But this doesn't mean that can't offer your own opinion and select the items you think will work best.

[giskard]

Ibsen

Btw i do not own excell or anything like it mate.

I am having a hard time seeing the question you want me to answer mate, your post is full of questions that sound like they should be answered by this team not me bud.

But I suspect you just need a focus so let me see if i can provide one for you.

Consider these rules when dreaming up equipment lists based on lore because they will help you make blackmarsh a real lore mod and anybody can check this out in a few hours, so even noobies can do research and post ideas. Too much interpretation goes on that fails to take in to account the evidence and a result of that is you end up breaking more game lore than you support. So this should help you see the facts and take them in to account when generating equipment lists.

The benefit of this is you get lore based depth added to your mod for free as a side effect of this.

Rules

1) Remember where you are, it will either be a coastal imperial region or a native marsh region. Borders close to specific races also need considering since these borders have a history of their own.

2) Know the history of each region.

Also every race has invaded the blackmarsh at some point and been driven out. To the north you have morrowinds invasion. The the south the Ayleid, Topal bay is named after one btw. Dwarves where there too, just like all other races. So you any weapon they carried might turn up in coastal areas near the points they controlled. The best way of interpreting this is to find the closest border in the blackmarsh to a races region and but the invaders weapons in that region and no where else.

3) Game lore states the natives do not have much to do with the imperials at any level but the natives are not primative, they are actually very civilized. So coastal areas will be almost entirely imperial in nature and have imperial culture dominating them. Native areas will be almost entirely native and will be dominated by native culture what ever that might be. Equipment and faction details need to reflect this division. I'll talk about cultures and plots below to expand on this and give you some ideas.

This part is often forgotten but theres a reason my mods are favored amongst lore fans and its because i consider these things and you should too. Do not see it as a limitation, these actually expand what you can do in lore friendly directions, you will learn to love it once you see how it works.

4) Imperials will look and feel like the Cyrodiil imperials much of the time but the residence will favor the darker gods, not daedric, no evidence to suggest the daedra even have a foot hold their was ever been found, no word of any daedric invasion of the blackmarsh has ever been told. So nothing daedric in the blackmarsh. Consider it the last place the daedra want to be and ignore anything daedric. The hist are one of the original 2 races of Tamriel and as such might actually have some sort of arrangement with them for all we know. But the Sithis, necromancy, assassins sort of dark is common in the blackmarsh and any factions that support those things are more welcome there than other factions. So Necromancers and not the mages guild will likely dominate, or some blackmarsh version of those.

5) The hist are one of the original races of tamriel and the blackmarsh is their last domain. They tend to protect it. The Argonians, Khajit, Orcs (some say men) are also native to tamriel but came later. Where as aldmeri became the High Elves, Dwemer, Wood Elves, and Dark Elves. So those are your 2 groups of races and the Hist fall in with the beasts group.

Its best to consider these races linked for the purposes of lore since there seems to be a clear divide between the races of Tamriel and the races of the elves. Also the blackmarsh region tends to deal the the origins of species more than any other region. Not sure why, but it comes up a lot with the hist and all.

Faction Context.

Lets take Shadowscales, so things to consider would be...

These are Native so little or no contact with imperial authorities. Links to darker powers, so anything of a similar faith would probably have contact with them, probably in secret. Access to normal technology would be limited due to the nature of BOGS and Marshes. So they would use alternative materials for weapons. So poisons, beasts but also Bones that may be fashioned in to weapons instead of steel. I seen Boneswords working as a good native weapon actually. Perhaps bows are common. Armour in a swamp would be light and probably made from some sort of skin, so leather mostly, anything else might drag down the fighter to a swampy death.

Blackwood company.

Nothing in the game lore says they are still there, they went to the blackmarsh on a mission, failed that mission and returned with a hist plant and led by an argonian. The interesting part is a Khajit that was with them is another native race tamriel race like the Argonians and the Hist. The hist tend not to start wars but finish them and the Blackmarsh invasion by the Blackwood company could have ended in failure because the hist got to them. Hense the argonian in charge. You might find the blackwood company that came out of the marsh was not the same one that entered but a hist version of it.

I always considered it suspicious that an argonia led them and had a hist plant and that the hist samp allowed them to control their recruits in the manner it does.

They would have normal weapons as seen in tamriel since they where originally imperial but I would think about their relationship with the hist for plot purposes because its an interesting topic and worth exploring.

Argonians:

Argonians only leave the blackmarsh to act as eyes and ears for the hist and the hist which seem to assert some kind of control over other creatures. So perhaps the relationship the Argonians have the hist is what allows them to travel through the swamp without being eaten by the native beasts when imperials cannot. Probably hormones or something are given off that drives the native wildlife away from them or allows them to control them in some fashion. Perhaps this is a side effect of the hist sap. All guess work. But the fact is they can travel freely around the swamp and the imperials cannot.

The hist are sentient beings btw, one of the original 2 races of Tamriel if the myths are correct. If this was babylon 5, they would be the vorlons or the shadows but with branches everywhere lol...sorry had to say that.

Talking about Natives and shadowscales again.

Inventing set of native weapons with some cool descriptions might be best, Chose materials that would be found in a swamp as the materials used for such weapons. As mentioned earlier, bones would probably be common so bone based weapons might be the way to go here for all native weapons.

[Ibsen's Ghost]

I have no problem with the lore. I know what I'm doing in that sense. It's getting the Faction lists sorted that's the problem. My questions were all about managing the assets and the practical act of modding.

The main idea is that, as per the first post, I am trying to select a range of weaponry and armour that each Faction will be equipped with. I wanted to get an idea of how this had been done for vanilla Factions so I could make the right choices. In other words, assuming that some Faction members equipment will vary (because they're all supposed to be individuals), how many different sets of everything do I need?

My thinking is that, for example, the Ka'Pura tribe will wield shikah and seruit swords but, seeing as some weapons are more powerful than others, won't I need a wide enough selection so that everything can be levelled?

[giskard]

Thats your first question to be answered right there.

Do you want everybody and everything to level up with the player and all end up in glass armour by level 20 ?

Or do you want to do something more realistic, that choice is yours (typo) right now mate.

[InsanitySorrow]

I know for the vanilla OB factions that they use standard OB equipment, bar DB which use their own armor and enchanted weapons. But the rest like FG for example use iron, steel etc.

What you could do is choose maybe one set of armor/clothing, and two or three weapons. Make various versions in the CS, say for example WoodenSword01, the 01 lets you know its level one. Do this for every 5 levels say up to 20, and then add them to levelled lists.

Thus the factions get stronger but they have stronger versions of their normal equipment, should cut down on stuff included in the .bsa.

[Ibsen's Ghost]

Thanks, guys. That's exactly what I was looking for right there. I'd like to give the Factions a fairly decent range of weaponry but, by and large, keep them using the same sort of stuff throughout the different levels.

Am I right in thinking that when they appear in-game they receive these items according to different variations e.g. KaPura01 has a Seruit but KaPura02 has a Shikah, or are they equipped in a more randomised fashion?

Nonetheless, I was thinking that once over a particular level, you might introduce another variety with a very hi-grade weapon, thus introducing a variation we might call KaPura03?

If I'm right about these details then here's how I'll go about it:

1. Finalise weapon and armour choices - I need to get stuff like the Royal Guard armour completed and to enable the other assets first.
   
2. Produce a list of 'Faction Individuals' such as KaPura01, KaPura02 etc., each with their own set of equipment selected from the range available.
   
3. Produce a leveled list for the items that moves up-scale every 5 levels. I can base this roughly on vanilla lists.
   [/list=1]
   
   Will I need to produce leveled lists for just the weapons and armour or for the individuals as well?

[giskard]

Just remember there is nothing wrong with doing this anyway you want but remember overhauls became popular for a reason so try not to repeat beths mistakes.

[Ibsen's Ghost]

Are you saying I'd be doing too much here?

[Ibsen's Ghost]

The time for debating is over. I've made a final decision on the armour (barring shields). Some items have been dropped to preserve filesize. I have included notification of these decisions in the original post. :check:

In total, it only means that I'm adding Bonemold, some staffs, some Meteoric Iron Weapons and some Shadow Weapons. But I've also opted to go with the mighty Koniption on the Iguana armour and Morsyth's croc helm.

[giskard]

Originally posted by Ibsen's Ghost
Are you saying I'd be doing too much here?

No mate, I am saying you have the opportunity to create convincing factions here. Factions that immerse the player in to marsh. Go and play Blood and Mud for a bit, I found that mod unspiration when it came to character creation.

Try and achieve the same sort of depth here, its not hard to do but it adds so much to the authenticity of the mod and just needs you to consider the details at this stage. The rest of the work is no different from doing it beths way, but the results are so much better.