Since we're now talking about the area beyond the beta, we can start to think about the smaller settlements in the Darkmoor and Talu Swamp areas. In particular there is the imperial colony of Moonmarch, on the boder between Talu and the Mangroves. What's it going to be? Here are the previous threads which discuss this:
CLAIM: Moonmarch
[Moonmarch Quest] - Small-Town Politics
So our suggestions (so far) are a Legion fort and a small village terrorised by a daedric cultist. What does everyone think?
Tbh I'm not keen on either of those ideas at present. However, I had figured it would be a pretty rundown place myself. This is due to its location and the difficulty attached to reaching it so much as the fact that it's surrounded by mangroves and dense swamp.
I kind of like the idea of it being in some way related to the Kothringi. If placed on a slight hilltop, it could make use of the Easter Island statues rather well....and possibly use some of the 'lilmoth' and perhaps even 'jungle' buildings further down into the swamplands.
Hmm. That's actually a really good idea. I was hoping to save the lilmoth stuff for the native villages, but the jungle buildings would be a solid option, especially if it's on a hill.
You would probably need some Kothringi ruins for this. I'm not entirely sure about the jungle buildings though as I'd originally hoped to use them exclusively in the Arnesian Jungle. If using the Jungle huts though, I think that Meo's settlement resources would come in useful as well, so that you end with a wooden fence around the settlement, a bit like Hixinoag.
The Arnesian jungle will have plenty of its own stuff, courtesy of Phitt and all his Dunmer architecture. There are no Imperial colonies up there anyway, and very few villages that aren't solidly under Dres control.
Well, I'm certainly claiming a part of the Jungle for a very exclusively Argonian area (the 'real' Helstrom) complete with temples, Hist shrines and all manner of huts and carved constructions.
However, we still haven't used Dave91's Ashlander huts/tents so there'll be room for more Dunmer stuff as well...maybe these Jungle huts would be a good choice here then.
Huh? I thought Helstom was in Murkwood? It can't be too far north or the Dres would have already attacked it...
Anyway, back to the topic: one possibility we have now is that Moonmarch could be a mission post that would make use of Phaerus' Turil Church models.
True true. That might bring our Constantinian monks of Stormhold into the equation.
RE: Helstrom. I know we had the fake/real Helstrom discussion a while back. I think we'd decided on having the fake one destroyed somewhere in Murkwood whilst the other one was planned for the border of the Vudai Marshes and the Arnesian Jungle. That would leave it a little further North than the place where it is currently situated here:
All Maps (REFERENCE ONLY - No Posting) . And it would allow me to create the city I wanted to create with it.... =)
Well, I remember that according to the same discussion, Helstrom is kind of TARDIS-like anyway, so it shouldn't matter so much where you enter it, so it might be OK. The only reason I thought is that the city is supposed to be undiscovered, so it would have to have a concealed entrance if it was that far north, since Arnesia is probably the best-known and mapped area of BM apart from Blackwood.
Honestly I think it would work better solidly inside Vudai, since that would leave it far enough away from the Tree city in Murkwood, but I can certainly see where you're coming from with regards to the general awesomeness of a jungle city.
Although I guess the general mind-screw of the city would be even bigger if it was actually (
simultaneously) in two locations that look completely different... (the more artificial stone one and the more organic tree city...)
The main reason it concern me at this stage is that I might soon-ish be able to height-map the Vudai Marsh properly and I'll need to take this into consideration.
There could be advantages to situating it on the Vudai/Arnesia border. One is that the south of the city could well be surrounded by quicksand and the second is that to the North of the city, we could have a horseshoe-shaped hill/mountain rendered impassable by height, rocks and undergrowth. This was always going to be my plan. You'd still probably be able to easily see it in LOD though....