 Towns and Settlements |
Braggi
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Registration Date: 2006.09.23
Posts: 287
Location: B.C. Canada
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This thread is to get the list of towns and settlements given from Lore
sorted out. High Rock has a lot of towns to consider and not all of
them appear on maps. What I want to do here is get a list, by game, of
all of the town names figured out. Once that is done, we can try to get
any Lore on them organized for development. Similar to the cities in
the mod, towns are going to require a lot of work, research and
creativity.
Note that getting this list organized and settled is critical to
sorting out our claims for the new height map! Therefore, we can really
use the assistance of anyone willing to help us get this done.
TES1 Towns
In TES1, the town layout was fairly simple. There were three main
settlement types: city-states, towns and villages. See the attached map
from TES1 to get a fully labeled list.
City-States
- Daggerfall
- Camlorn
- Shornhelm
- North Point
- Wayrest
- Evermore
- Farrun
- Jehanna
Towns
- Illessan Hills
- King's Guard
- Meir Darguard
- Old Gate
- Portdun Creek
- Vermeir Wastes
- Raven Spring
- Cloud Spring
Villages
- Reich Gradkeep - now known as Anticlere
- Glenpoint
- Ebon Wastes
- Moonguard
- Eagle Brook
- Meir Thorvale
- White Haven
- Markwasten Moor
- Thorkan Park
- Norvulk Hills
- Normar Heights
- Norvulk Hills
- Wind Keep
- Black Wastes
- Dunkarn Haven
- Karthgran Vale
- Dunlain Falls
TES2 Towns
This is one of the thorniest areas for development, since we have to refine the TES2 Lore heavily - there were literally dozens
of (or in some cases over a hundred) towns and villages in each region
of TES2 that were destroyed by the Warp in the West. (See the screen
shot below of the region around Daggerfall to get an idea - every dot
on the map is a settlement of some kind! 
The single black dot on the mainland slightly northeast of Betony which is a witch coven location.)
To keep things reasonably sane, we will list only the cities/towns that
a TES2 Region was named after. Further, TES2 only developed perhaps 1/3
of the entire province, since it focused on the Illiac Bay area. As a
result, we will likely need to create some items for the Western Reach,
Camlorn and the Shornhelm-North Point locales. To see the labelled map
from which these were drawn go to TIL, here.
Note: Anything in the list with an asterisk " * " has been carried over from TES1.
(Connected to the above, I have an idea to put out for
consideration: All of those missing places have names. Technically we
can view these as "Lore" although I think most would feel they are
invalidated by the Warp in the West. However, in the interests of
keeping our collective sanity, we may want to consider re-using some of
the place names in other portions of the province.)
TES2 Region Capitols
- Daggerfall*
- Tulune
- Genumbra Moors
- Glenpoint*
- Northmoor
- Shalgora
- Ilessan Hills*
- Ykalon
- Anticlere (formerly Reich Gradkeep)*
- Urvaius
- Phrygias
- Keogria
- Alcaire
- Menevia
- Orsinium and Area
- Wayrest*
- Gavaudon
Shadowkey
This is a very difficult area to extract Lore from. The map of Shadowkey
is nowhere near accurate to the areas it is supposed to cover, likely
because the game was a very simplified version of the TES universe. The
only useful items that can be added from here would be:
- Stout's Trading Post (Village/Hamlet)
- Azra's Crossing (Village)
TES3 and Beyond
Now come s the fun part. 
Although High Rock has not been directly developed siince TES2 and
Shadowkey, we need to go digging through the various books and scrolls
in the games to locate any references for High rock towns. This is for
two purposes:
1. To get Lore on any of the existing items in the above lists.
2. To see if there are any new locations listed in text that are not in the current maps.
For example - in one of the continental maps of Tamriel (located here)
there is a location marked as "Grim Dyke" (likely a mis-spelling of
"Grim Dike"). I personally have never heard of this location, so my
best guess is that this is mentioned in one the TES2, 3 or 4 book
sources, since the cartographer appears to have really done his
homework. This is something we need to confirm, along with any other
settlement names we can track down.
Updating the List
This last part is going to be a long process - there are a lot of books to sift through. Therefor, I encourage anyone to drop a post to this thread with an addition or update. Please make certain to indicate and/or link to your Lore source! Verified items will be added to the list and once it is done, we can finalize it, based on a location's importance to the Mod.
Note also that the process of keeping or discarding is not just based
on Lore. We also have a number of mostly-empty areas, especially around
North Point and the Western Reach, that will need some fleshing out.
These are important and we would do well to make certain we don't miss
something that might fit here.
(Deep breath...) Here we go!
Braggi has attached these images (downsized versions):
 
This post has been edited 2 time(s), it was last edited by Braggi: 2008.08.31 00:19.
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2008.08.31 00:09 |
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Deeza
Editor
Registration Date: 2008.06.03
Posts: 1,066
Location: Procrastination
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I believe "Dyke" is actually the correct spelling and that "Dike" is the typo.
Dyke is old saxon english for "ditch" or "moat". It's actually quite a
coincidence, there is a real-world iron-age fortification not very far
from where I live called "Grim's Dyke". Grim was a local version of the
saxon Odin equivalent, the saxons believed it to have been built by the
gods, because it predated their settlement of the area. Nowadays they
reckon it was the defensive boundary of an iron-age tribe.
Possibly this is where Bethesda got the name from in the first place?
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2008.08.31 00:35 |
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Braggi
Seigneur
Registration Date: 2006.09.23
Posts: 287
Location: B.C. Canada
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Thank you for the correction! And yes, that might well be where the location name came from.
I have just finished surfing TIL and have found no references to a town or settlement by that name. (Next up, the UESP...)
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2008.08.31 01:21 |
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Braggi
Seigneur
Registration Date: 2006.09.23
Posts: 287
Location: B.C. Canada
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Sorry for the long delay in replying to this.
I did look over the UESP and was unable to find any references to Grim
Dyke anywhere. If anyone can produce the Lore source it came from that
would be very much appreciated. If it cannot be verified, then I'll
suggest we delete it.
Thoughts?
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2008.09.23 22:03 |
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Braggi
Seigneur
Registration Date: 2006.09.23
Posts: 287
Location: B.C. Canada
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Since we have no replies on the subject, I am going to make the
decision to delete Grim Dyke from the list of towns and settlements. We
certainly have more then enough locations to fill the province.
With that sorted out, the next post will be aimed at placing the
locations on the prototype height map image and posting the finished
product here for design reference. The final form will be posted once
the finished height map is completed.
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2008.09.28 23:06 |
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Deeza
Editor
Registration Date: 2008.06.03
Posts: 1,066
Location: Procrastination
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Sorry I've taken so long to reply to this post.
Black Marsh has been very active lately, as you may have noticed.
You can probably delete the Shadowkey villages as well, since nobody knows where they are.
The fact is that we'll be working on a much smaller scale than either
Arena or Daggerfall (Oblivion's scale reduces the Imperial City,
supposedly home to hundreds of thousands of people, to a small town),
so very small villages would probably fade into nothing.
I would suggest that, except for Ilessan Hills, because it's important
and large enough to show up on our scale, any villages from Arena
called either "Heights" or "Hills" should literally be that - a
geographic description, where we name a few cells after them. In this
way we retain continuity without overcrowding the map. It would also
allow us to put villages on top of each other if necessary (e.g.
"XXXXXX Village" could be located in the "YYYYYYY Hills" area)
We can also name ruined castles after some of the missing villages, and
say Numidium stepped on them and the inhabitants have emigrated to the
larger towns.
I think Menevia and Anticlere should be kept, because they define the
borders of the city-states and are disputed, producing some interesting
quest potential. |
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2008.09.29 11:12 |
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Braggi
Seigneur
Registration Date: 2006.09.23
Posts: 287
Location: B.C. Canada
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I tend to agree with you about both the Shadowkey villages and the overall scale issue.
I also have a thought - this idea works well for the western and
central portions of the province,which are going to be quite crowded at
pretty much any scale we use if nothing is trimmed down. However we may
want to retain a few of the villages intact in the eastern end. It is
much more lightly settled, which makes sense considering the terrain,
but we need more then just the city-states there.
Thoughts?
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2008.09.29 12:41 |
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Deeza
Editor
Registration Date: 2008.06.03
Posts: 1,066
Location: Procrastination
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I think that's a sound plan. It seems like it's supposed to be a pretty
lonely place, but it shouldn't be empty. Which villages in particular
were you thinking of keeping?
I assume Cloud Spring and Dunlain, because they're pretty much the only
ones in the west reach, but once we get down to Evermore, it gets a bit
crowded again. Since we've already taken out Grim's Dyke, that leaves
Karthgran and Raven Spring.
Of the two I would say the lowest priority is Raven Spring, because we
could just put a literal spring there with a couple of huts in the
mountains.
What do you think?
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2008.09.29 12:55 |
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The Old Ye Bard
Princess
Registration Date: 2006.05.25
Posts: 3,663
Location: Post-Feminism
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| quote: |
Originally posted by Deeza
I think that's a sound plan. It seems like it's supposed to be a pretty
lonely place, but it shouldn't be empty. Which villages in particular
were you thinking of keeping?
I assume Cloud Spring and Dunlain, because they're pretty much the only
ones in the west reach, but once we get down to Evermore, it gets a bit
crowded again. Since we've already taken out Grim's Dyke, that leaves
Karthgran and Raven Spring.
Of the two I would say the lowest priority is Raven Spring, because we
could just put a literal spring there with a couple of huts in the
mountains.
What do you think? |
Imo, you could just put a Spring there, then have a cave, with a Enemy
Witches Coven (they, after all come in the form of Ravens).
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2008.09.29 13:01 |
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Deeza
Editor
Registration Date: 2008.06.03
Posts: 1,066
Location: Procrastination
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That's not a bad idea. We know nothing about the witches in the east
part of High Rock, so it would be a good place to stick a coven. |
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2008.09.29 13:02 |
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Braggi
Seigneur
Registration Date: 2006.09.23
Posts: 287
Location: B.C. Canada
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Personally, I'd prefer to reverse them and make Kathgran Vale the coven
location. My reason is nostalgic and can be easily out-voted - I may be
the one of leaders of the mod, but I am the first to go with a majority
idea. The main reason I would like to see this particular location is
that the character I have beaten every Elder Scrolls game with is Dran
Dreamdark and his original home base since TES1 has always been Raven
Spring.
I do intend to include Dran in a cameo appearance as a long-retired
Breton spellsword adventurer and I have a small, one-shot side quest
developed and outlined through him as well. Thus, I was hoping to have
him as a resident of one of the two towns mentioned above in his
retirement.
As mentioned, the reason is nostalgic. I've just always wanted Dran to have his home.
(Slightly embarrassed grin)
Thoughts?
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2008.09.29 13:25 |
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Deeza
Editor
Registration Date: 2008.06.03
Posts: 1,066
Location: Procrastination
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I say it's a good idea and a fair compromise, and we should run with it.
Eagle Brook deletion get my
of support. That's quite a narrow finger of land, and a lot of it will
be taken up by Daggerfall I suspect. If we have a small stream with no
name I guess we could call it Eagle Brook.
As for the other witch covens - I think some should be right up in the mountains, almost in Skyrim.
Could be quite dramatic.
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2008.09.29 22:42 |
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Deeza
Editor
Registration Date: 2008.06.03
Posts: 1,066
Location: Procrastination
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So how's this for a draft of where we've got so far with towns and villages:
City-state:
Daggerfall
Wayrest
Orsinium
Shornhelm
Farrun
Jehanna
Camlorn
Northpoint
Evermore
Town:
Anticlere
Menevia
Village:
Raven Spring
Cloud Spring
Meir Darguard
Ilessan Hills (? a bit too close to Anticlere maybe?)
Oldgate
Portdown Creek
King's Guard (boring name, in my personal opinion)
Vermeir Wastes (now very close to the position of Orsinium, perhaps remove?)
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2008.09.30 23:11 |
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Deeza
Editor
Registration Date: 2008.06.03
Posts: 1,066
Location: Procrastination
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I like the way you're thinking.
"A bottle of Portdown Creek please, barman...." it just rolls off the tongue...
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2008.09.30 23:26 |
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Towns and Settlements
