Greetings! This time on the news post, we aim to give you a high-level overview of all the new expansions that the Tamriel Rebuilt team is working on and the order when we expect these to be released.
Remember, Tamriel Rebuilt is developed as a series of episodic releases or expansions, with new chunks of Morrowind’s mainland released every year (aspirationally, at least). Whenever an expansion is released, the new areas come with the full complement of interior locations, characters, and quests, all seamlessly tying into the base game and the prior expansions.
[Roadmap-map]
In order for all this to work, teams focusing on different fields of mod development are focusing on different parts of the province. Asset developers create the 3D assets that our level designers need to bring our concepts to life. Only once the asset palette for a new region is more-or-less finished, can exterior level designers create a new area of the overworld. Once that is done, a drove of interior level designers descends to fill our the (sometimes) hundreds of highly detailed interior locations – buildings, caves, dungeons – that each expansion needs. And only once the latter work is winding down can quest developers fill the lands with hundreds more memorable characters and quests.
Below, we will walk you through the different expansions we are currently working on, roughly in the order that we expect them to be released. All of this is, obviously, highly tentative and subject to change at any time. Furthermore, no dates are offered, as everything here is done by volunteer effort, the ebbs and floods of which are infamously hard to predict.
Grasping Fortune
Covered in-depth in our last news post, Grasping Fortune is the next expansion in our pipeline and the one closest to completion.
Grasping Fortune will add a vast chunk of the mainland stretching south from Lake Andaram (the focus of our last expansion) all they way to the southwestern tip of Morrowind against Cyrodiil and Black Marsh. Its main focus will be the grand city of Narsis, the headquarters of House Hlaalu, home of the Imperial Proconsul, and the second-biggest and possibly richest city in Morrowind. Smaller towns in the release include Othmura, Ald Iuval, Ald Marak, Hlerynhul, Sadrathim, and Shipal-Sharai.
Included in the release will also be huge chunk of countryside – both the cultivated Coronati Basin region and the wild canyons of Shipal-Shin. Search for monasteries, Shinathi nomad camps, a tower of the Barsaebic Ayleids, a Second Empire (Reman) ruin, and the giant Velothi tower compound where the Ja-Natta Syndicate makes its lair, as well as the Stormgate and Septim’s Gate passes to Cyrodiil and Black Marsh, respectively. Just don’t get mauled by a horned butcher or stung by a skyrender!
You can expect questlines for almost every imaginable faction (often several of them), including ones for House Redoran, the Twin Lamps, and the brand-new Ja-Natta Syndicate criminal organization.
Currently, exteriors are finished aside from a few optional touch-ups and, possibly, a new slice of land bitten off from the later Wealth Beyond Measure expansion. Interiors are almost done, save for a few larger locations and the Skyrender caves (which still need some new 3D assets). Addition of NPCs and general dialogue is finished for almost all of the towns, most of Narsis, and the Coronati Basin wilderness; some areas of Narsis and the Shipal-Shin wilderness still remain to be populated. More than a dozen miscellaneous quests and several questlines have already been merged and a similar number is finished pending review. But most of the questing load still lies ahead.
Should they be completed prior to Grasping Fortune release, several additions to the expansion’s core content also may be included, such as:
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Foul Murder – our short epilogue to Morrowind’s Main Quest, starting in Necrom. The questline is already merged into the mod, but is currently disabled by default until we get a creature model which the questline sorely needs.
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Firemoth Rekindled – our revamp of the 2002 official mod “Siege of Firemoth,” which now includes an Imperial Legion questline to rebuild the fortress, in addition to an all-around overhaul and improvement of the original level and quest design in the original mod. This revamp is now officially ready to go and you may, in fact, see it released even before Grasping Fortune.
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Telvannis Stopgap – finalization of our old 2000s-era Telvanni content by the addition of new questlines to Master Vaerin, Mistress Rathra, and a final quest involving Master Dral – all now complete. A stretch goal is to include an endcap to the Ranyon-Ruhn Temple questline, for which two new interior locations were recently finished. Eventually, these new questlines will be significantly revamped or superseded, once our Grand Telvannis Redo starts in many years’ time. But in the meanwhile, they will hopefully tide Telvanni fans over.
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Leviathan Isles – a small archipelago to the north of Sheogorad host to a ruined Imperial fort, and Nord barrow, and more. The archipelago intended to play a small part in a couple province-spanning questlines. The exterior location is finished, but interiors and quests are still works in progress.
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Old Ebonheart Melee Tournament – a complex scripting marvel of a questline (made only with all-natural, non-GMO MWscript) that has you betting on and/or participating in a full-blown melee tournament steeped in high inter-provincial politics. Most of the scripting work is finished, but much remains to be done, owing to the questline’s complexity.
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Northeastern Morrowind Dreugh Citadels – making use of the new dreugh tileset released with Andaram last year, three new dreugh citadels and several grottos will be added to fully flesh out the underwater portion of our 2022’s Embers of Empire expansion. Exterior work on these is finished, pending review.
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Vounoura – a shrouded island to the north of Telvannis, related to the Morag Tong. The island and related interiors have been made and a brand-new Daedric lord quest has been finished (complete with elusive new TES III voice acting!). Some more quests involving the location remain to be made, as does as a follow-on to vanilla Morag Tong content.
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Olanar – an island far to the southeast of Port Telvannis host to a long-abandoned Telvanni tower and a rumored to hide a legendary treasure. The island’s exterior and most interiors have been finished for a while, but we are waiting on some Maormer (!) assets to be finished, prior to quest work starting.
All of the above items are, again, not core parts of the expansion and may get bundled with following expansions, should they not materialize in time.
Poison Song
While our main effort remains focused on Grasping Fortune, we have in recent years kept going a side-effort to rework some of the our oldest and least content-dense areas, now called Poison Song.
Poison Song will revamp our old Sundered Scar region, but may tentatively also include some entirely new lands in the new Orethan region, including the town of Othrenis and the chapel of Nanaav, and, finally, our first three questlines for House Indoril.
[Poison Song gridmap screen?]
This expansion is the second of our “redo” releases, where we touch up older areas of the mod that don’t quite hold up to our current worldbuilding vision and quality standards, the first being 2022’s acclaimed Embers of Empire, which revamped Telvannis’ western seaboard and the Imperial settlements therein.
[Sundered Scar screenshot]
The Sundered Scar region, the expansion’s main focus, lies directly east of Old Ebonheart on the mainland coast of the Inner Sea (roughly south of Molag Amur in the vanilla game). This region is currently a clone of the vanilla game’s Bitter Coast region with a grand total of three minor quests taking place there. Although originally released in 2012 as part of the Sacred East expansion, its landscapes largely date to 2003, when much of the area was explicitly made as “filler content.”
[Marog screenshot]
Seeking to make this area something players would enjoy more, we have retooled the Sundered Scar into a dangerous wasteland of geysers, sulfuric hot springs, and weird tube-fauna, inspired by Bethesda’s scrapped concepts for a Great Scathes region on Vvardenfell, which was left largely unimplemented in the vanilla game.
[Sundered Sar screenshot]
Once the heartlands of House Mora, from which Nerevar hailed, the region was ripped asunder during the cataclysm that created the Inner Sea at the end of the War of the First Council, the ground underneath the land coming to a boil. Although ostensibly governed by the Indoril, this area has been left largely vacant in remembrance of the slain Hortator. Only small townsteads, the foremost of them being the trade town of Darvonis, dot the region. Most of it remains dangerous wilderness filled with the ruins of Morrowind’s past glories. An exception is the lush island of Gorne in Azura Bay (known from the vanilla Morrowind book “The Poison Song*”), which hosts an isolated chapel of House Indoril.
[Gorne screenshot]
Tentatively, we may also include a small-ish part of our new Orethan region in Poison Song, just to the south of Sundered Scar. Realizing we had most of the needed assets, we decided to kickstart exterior development there earlier in the year. This fully new chunk of land surrounds the city of Almalexia and would make Poison Song no longer just a “redo,” but a full-on “do.”
[Orethan concept]
Our currently released mainland includes two old regions of the same name – the rather nondescript Alt Orethan and the lush forest of Lan Orethan – which were released first in 2012. Although the latter is quite lovely in its own way, our new concepts for House Indoril call for turning the area into a vast central agricultural breadbasket feeding Almalexia, by far the largest city in the whole province. After all, Bethesda’s original concept for central Morrowind had it host to the vast Central (Deshaan) Plains, of which this region would form a part of.
[Othrenis landscape?]
Building off of the few environmental assets shown in TES III: Tribunal’s Mournhold, the new Orethan region will be a subtropical garden where Almalexia’s influence has sculpted the very land into the most perfect expression of Indoril theocracy. Lush green vegetation is accented by colorful flowers and trees; peaceful Velothi villages tend to bountiful fields irrigated by the meandering tributaries of the Orethan, while flowering fruit trees provide shade on the riverbanks.
[Darvonis wip? and/or concept art]
The central settlement in the particular slice of the Orethan coming with Poison Song is Othrenis. This is a wealthy trade town on Veloth’s Path that includes a popular pilgrimage Temple in addition to saltrice depots and a bustling slave market frequented by Dres traders. The town is ruled at a distance from Nanaav, the airy and lovingly cultivated chapel of Indoril Beroth, who despite being an anti-Hlaalu warhawk is at personal odds with the similarly warlike Indoril Ilvi of Roa Dyr to the north (this is in contrast to Beroth’s current depiction in the released mod, which shall change).
[Nanaav wip? and/or concept art]
So, how far along is Poison Song? Well, all except two Sundered Scar exterior claims are finalized and most interior locations are either pending review or being worked on. The Orethan part, while smaller in scope, has only just started exterior development. Although enough assets are available for initial work, we still need the final ground textures and pink gorapple trees that will give the Orethan more color, as well as a variety of new flowers. Therefore, should all the Sundered Scar bits get done much before the Orethan, we will likely release the former separately.
Regardless, once we do release the new Orethan chunk, we will finally be able to offer our players the first three questlines for House Indoril.
As for other quests, Poison Song won’t be rich in Imperial guilds, but expect at least Temple and Morag Tong questlines in Darvonis and Othrenis, as well as a ton of miscellaneous quests throughout the wilderness areas and the smaller settlements.
[Roth Roryn landscape side-by-side from Moth]
Finally, Poison Song will help us tie up some loose ends from our past releases. As is well-known, we weren’t quite 100% satisfied with the exterior and interior level design in our 2022’s Dominions of Dust expansion – much of the area had been in development since 2009, way before our current quality and consistency standards were in place. Therefore, there is ongoing work on the exterior landscaping in the Roth Roryn and Armun Ashlands regions, and we are well on our way revamping or remaking very many of the corresponding interiors – work we hope to release together with Poison Song.
[Armun Ashlands concept]
Wealth Beyond Measure
Coming right after Grasping Fortune in our main line of expansions is Wealth Beyond Measure, another massive release that will round out the remaining part of southwestern Morrowind.
The focus of this expansion will be the city of Kragenmoor, House Hlaalu’s second most important settlement and, certainly, the most imperialized native city of Morrowind. Stretching from Kragenmoor all the way to Lake Coronati is the bulk of the lush and alien Othreleth Woods region, filled with Hlaalu towns, agriculture, and industry. Running parallel to it is be the wild northern spur of the Shipal-Shin canyons, the border between Morrowind and Cyrodiil, which transition into the Velothi Mountains just west of Kragenmoor.
[WBM gridmap]
Kragenmoor is an up-and-coming power center for House Hlaalu, though not exactly rivaling Narsis yet. Built on the remains of what was once the heartland of the Kragen dwarves, then a Redoran stronghold, the city now sits astride the busiest trade route between Morrowind and Cyrodiil, and is full of Hlaalu and outlander nouveau riche and ostentatious mega-buildings. Imperial influence runs strong here; it’s where we find one of the most important East Empire Company halls and the center of Morrowind’s Imperial Cult, complete with two different chapels to Imperial Divines. Still, the city remains just as important to the Tribunal Temple, as it’s where Veloth’s Path really starts.
[Kragenmoor screeny]
Besides Kragenmoor, numerous other Hlaalu settlements dot the Othreleth Woods. The foremost among these is Andrethis, an bustling Balmora-sized industry town that is also one of the least imperialized Hlaalu settlements. Besides the other towns, villages, plantations, and mines, ruins of the once-great Redoran Waters March dot the region. Beyond them, in the deep woods await poisonous flora, carnivorous mushrooms, and dangerous predators – few dare venture far from roads in the Othreleth Woods.
[Othreleth woods screeney]
Besides that, you will see more of the wild west of Shipal-Shin, where a couple more Shinathi clans make their nomadic living, rubbing shoulders with outcasts, smugglers, and the occasional Hlaalu outpost. To the west of Kragenmoor is the southernmost part of the Velothi Mountains, now sporting a brand-new asset palette (compared to the part released in 2022, which relied mostly on vanilla Morrowind assets, and which will get repainted in parallel). There you will find Shadowgate pass, Morrowind’s busiest crossing into Cyrodiil, as well as the remains of the once-great Kragen dwarves, the antecedents of the Rourken Dwemer who emigrated to Hammerfell and built up a civilization there, prior to their disappearance.
[Shipal-Shin screeny]
Wealth Beyond Measure will complete our House Hlaalu lands and will therefore allow us to implement our first full, end-game faction questline. This will be a high-stakes affair that involves locations and actors all across the mainland and Vvardenfell. In fact, we will aim to integrate the whole vanilla House Hlaalu quest cycle seamlessly into the larger questline – of course, this will mean substantial edits to the vanilla game, which likely means we’ll make it optional. Expect also a new House Hlaalu stronghold on the mainland! Otherwise, the questing scope will likely be quite similar to Grasping Fortune, as we will need two questlines for a number of vanilla factions, along with innumerable miscellaneous quests.
[Velothi Mountains wip]
Progress on this expansion is quite good, as most parts of the exterior worldspace have been finished or are quite far into development. In particular, Kragenmoor is mostly finished, but will get a small reduction from it previously Narsis-rivaling size. About half of the landmass has also been reviewed. For those areas that have been, interior work is ongoing with many dozens of locations already finished.
Hope of the Redoran
The newest location in Tamriel Rebuilt to come into active development is the southern part of Velothis District, i.e.the lands of House Redoran. The first release, which we hope will comprise the southern half of Redoran lands, will be called Hope of the Redoran.
This expansion will include two wholly new, unique regions: the Clambering Moor and the Grey Meadows. In those regions lie the important Redoran March capitals of Veranis and Silgrad, but most of Redoran lands are be relatively sparsely inhabited, host to both Orc and Nord raids. A highlight of its own will be Malahk-Bazul, an isolated and mountain valley home of the particularly nasty Malahk Orcs.
[Hope of the Redoran gridmap]
Older Tamriel Rebuilt fans may remember that we already completed most of the Redoran lands between 2010 and 2013; these were present in our old, now-deprecated TR_Preview plugin, which you may have played. However, while generally enjoyable, those exteriors mostly relied on vanilla assets and come with a whole host of design issues common to our work in the early-to-mid 2010s. All-in-all, the experience of recent years (cough Dominions of Dust cough) makes it clear that it is much more fruitful to approach new lands as a clean slate with a strong starting concept and a fully unique asset palette – which is what we are now doing.
[Clambering Moor screenshot]
The Clambering Moor region directly abuts our released lands in the Roth Roryn. It is a crimson highland moor rolling down from the peaks of the Velothi Mountains towards the Inner Sea, dotted by sparse mushroom groves. The area is host to isolated Redoran farmsteads and outposts, Malahk Orc camps, Dwemer ruins, and even Nord ruins from the First Nord Empire.
[Veranis or other Redoran village screenshot]
The Clambering Moor forms the northern part of the Redoran Stones March, one of the five that comprise the house. Its capital is the well-fortified Veranis, sitting astride the Roryn river in a narrow valley and designed to deter and repel the Malahk Orcs. It and by extension the whole March is home to a long stoneworking and mining tradition but also includes the full complement of vanilla Imperial guilds. Besides it, several smaller villages eke out a living in the region, mostly relying on mining and ranching.
[Grey Meadows concept from b-a-s]
The Grey Meadows region to the north of the Clambering Moor was the darling of 2010s Tamriel Rebuilt, an eerie volcanic bog full of spiderwebs and of poisonous spores. Although we aim to recreate the atmosphere of the region almost 1-to-1, the technical execution of the wilderness will
Silgrad (called Kogotel in our former planning), in the north-west corner of the Grey Meadows, is the capital of the smaller Ashes March
other villages
Malahk-Bazul
Further Indoril work
Mephalan Vales & Draloris
Sacred Lands & Necrom
Nedothril & Othrenis
Almalexia
Further Redoran work
Julan-Shar
Great Valley
House Dres
Gridmap rework
Dres reconceptualization (AFFA’s book)
Architecture progress
Telvanni…
