[Suggestion] New zone: Southern Hammerfell

Billium813

I'v been thinking about a new zone design for Southern Hammerfell, so I wanted to jot down some ideas for feedback and sharing. Please forgive me if I make changes to this region that don't conform to established lore. I know this region has some known lore from TES: Arena, but I haven't played that game. I'll try my best to be as faithful as possible! Also, I will be editing posts as new ideas or improvements are suggested. I'll try to include players names in the edits to give credit.

---- Location ----
The zone area would stretch diagonally NE from the east of Hew's Bane to south of Belkarth, Craglorn. There would be 3 main cities: Rihad (in the south), Taneth (in the NW, on the coast), and StoneMoor (in the top NE near the border with Craglorn). This map isn't perfect, but it shows the basic area of Tamriel and where the cities may be located.


*credit: https://www.reddit.com/r/TESVI/comments/pg0v2y/elder_scrolls_6_hammerfell_map_idea/

---- General Design ----
Much of the zone design is based on the Hew's Bane and Alik'r Desert aesthetic, with a bit of Elsweyr's rugged cliffs in the north part of the zone. The zone layout would consist of mostly desert to the North East (Weeping Desert), with large rolling dunes similar to Alik'r Desert. The South West, around Rihad, would be a bit more tropical, similar to Hew's Bane, with tropical trees and scrub bushes. The Northern border would be much more rocky and be a mountain range.

Wayshrines: For this zone, there will only be 3 Wayshrines total: one outside the gates of Rihad, one outside the city of Taneth, one inside StoneMoor. The player may encounter other Wayshrines throughout the zone, however these shrines will be destroyed in some way or partially buried in the sand; inert. The region is rugged and harsh, which may explain how the Wayshrines fell into disrepair or were consumed by the desert. But whatever the reason, I want players to have to traverse the actual interior of the zone and Wayshrine travel is largely hampered here.

Billium813

---- Zone Mechanic: Day / Night cycle ----
The main new zone mechanic for Southern Hammerfell consists of a day/night cycle. The time of day changes within the zone every 8 real hours (midnight, 8am, 4pm EDT). This should allow every real day to alternate day/night for players who play during the same time (iow, Saturday 10pm may be Day, but Sunday 10pm would be night). This Day/Night cycle is crucial to the zone design because it directly influences what is going on in the zone (arenas, monster behavior, available merchants, quests, and access to delves/WBs)

----DAY----
During the day, the sun is ever beating down. The land is parched and seemingly barren. Only those that know how to survive will attempt to traverse this inhospitable landscape.

Ideas:

• Armor matters
  • Heavy Armor wearers (> 4 pieces) are going to find themselves easily fatigued (a debuff to reduce stamina recovery or move speed)
  • Light Armor (> 4 pieces) wears will find themselves at an advantage (movement speed buff or increased stamina recover)
• Dunerippers
  • Dunerippers hide beneath the sand; creating antlion traps, sand whirlpools, and ambushing players with seismic attacks. They then appear on the surface briefly to attack players, but quickly burrow again to escape the heat of the day.
  • Delve: Defeating a Duneripper causes them to start digging to escape, but this time they leave sand whirlpools behind. Players jump in and follow the Dunerippers down to their lair! But danger lurks down here too and Dunerippers aren't welcoming to your intrusions. Falling sand could find you quickly buried alive if you aren't on your toes. But perhaps there may be entrances to secret ruins buried in the sands or ancient treasures! Just beware the legendary Duneripper WB that may appear when the conditions are right...
• Rolling sandstorms seem to appear at random on the landscape. They are large storms; spanning upwards of 300 meters across. They disorient players that enter them, dismount them, push them around in random directions, and debuffing move speed. They also contain monsters that seem to use the billowing sand as cover from the sun. Scarab beetles that seem to be immune to the winds because of their short stature and dome-shaped bodies. They attack en masse and overwhelm players; rooting them in place. Sand worms erupt out of the ground, indiscriminately hunting beetles and players alike.

----NIGHT----
During the night, the empty landscape is replaced with flowering, luminescent plants that bask in the moonlight. The night air is chilled as the heat of the day escapes to the wide open expanses of the sky.

• Armor matters
  • Heavy Armor wearers (> 4 pieces) are going to find themselves favored
  • Light Armor (> 4 pieces) wears will find themselves hindered in the frigid air
• Dunerippers are now passive, and can be seen grazing on plants. Attacking them causes them to flee, but nothing more.
• Alchemy and Clothing resource nodes spawn during the night

Billium813

---- Zone Arenas ----
One of the major focuses of Southern Hammerfell will be the return of Arenas (get it?). The Arenas need to incorporate the zone mechanic of Day / Night in some way.

--- Arena (Day): Caravan Defense ---
A Caravan company, hired to transport materials to Cyrodiil for the war effort, is looking for groups of players to help protect the caravans as they cross the deadly desert. Monster attacks and thieves have been spotted in the area. But remember, you're just a merc. Those who fall behind, are left behind.

Description:
This is an instanced, 3-4 player game that is a slowly moving train of wagons/sleds through the dunes. The caravan comes under constant attack from monsters, thieves, and the elements. This game uses a combination of Sieges on the wagons, on the ground combat, and logistical fixing to keep the caravan moving unimpeded. Players need to work together to repel monsters, fix the caravans and get them to the objective!

• The Caravan is hulling lots of equipment for the war in Cyrodiil, but most notably: Siege equipment (Ballista and Catapults) and several Grapple Hook poles, haphazardly strapped to wagons and sleds. This siege equipment is instrumental in protecting the caravan once it comes under attack! Oil Catapults can slow down fast moving beetles and thieves. Leaping Sand wurms are repelled by electric ballistas. However, siege weapons can become broken in this terrible heat and with repeated use! Players can bring Siege Repair kits with them or purchase from the caravaners.
• Strong winds! For those players on the ground, beware traveling too far from the cover of the Caravan! Winds will blow you around and debuff your stamina! If you run out of stamina, you're gonna be easy pickings for the hungry Sandwurms stalking the caravan. They love snaring players in antlion traps and pulling you down to your doom! You'll need to sprint out of there! Or maybe use a lucky grapple to pull you to safety before the caravan leaves you behind.
• The encounters generated for the caravan are influenced by the group composition (ie. Templars generate larger beetle hordes but increase the safe AOE around the carvan, Sorcs increase ballista damage but cause them to break faster, DKs increase Caravan health but cause more Sand Wurms to spawn)

--- Arena (Night): Blood on the Sands ---
At night, the city of Taneth is on lockdown. Thieving has been on the rise and the city officials are cracking down hard! A stiff curfew is in effect and those caught out on the streets will be mercilessly attacked by guards. Night patrols walk the streets and most citizens have closed their shutters. But the city does not know it's being targeted by the Thieves Guilds and the Brotherhood! There's knife work that needs done here and treasures to pilfer. Nocturnal demands recompense for the Thieves Guild being prosecuted and the Night Mother has commanded the sands be stained with blood.

Description:
This is a 2v2v2, PvE Arena that spans the entire city at night! It's a points based game with 2 players on a team. The name of the game is assassinations and thieving. Lock pick into homes, pilfer treasures, grapple around the city, run the rooves and scaffolding, slit some throats! But don't get caught! Getting caught deducts points, while collecting rare treasures and eliminating difficult targets achieves bonus points!

• The streets are littered with lantern guards on patrol.
• There are plenty of hiding baskets lining the streets and grapple poles on roof tops for quick get-aways!
• There are 4 randomly selected objectives that yield bonus points if completed! (ie. Capture a certain dutchess's necklace marked on the map or kill 4 sailors at the docks while going unseen; that sort of thing) Be careful tho! Your competition has the same quests and there may not be enough killing and thieving to go around!

--- Arena: Legends of the Daedric Temple ---
During the day, this temple appears abandoned and dilapidated; a massive ruin. We heard there is treasure to be found within, but puzzles and traps abound! Perhaps these crystals and the light from the sun can be used to progress further within. But don't wake the temple guardians or you'll have a fight on your hands.
But at night, Deadra stalk the halls and appear to be using these grounds for some nefarious purpose! We better find out what's going on down here or all of Tamriel may be in trouble. A bit of stealth may do you well or you may be overrun by daedric hordes!

Description:
This is a 2 player co-op Arena that takes place within an ancient temple built into the side of a mountain along the northern border of Southern Hammerfell. The entire Arena takes place underground, however that does not mean the time of day outide does not influence this Arena!

During the Day:
During the day, the temple appears abandoned, except for the occassional spider or elemental. The design would be more bright-ish, with streaks of light from cracks in the ceiling contrasting harsh shadows and green vines clinging to the walls.
This version of the Arena is more about puzzles, traps, and platforming with a little lite combat mixed in. Throughout the temple, there are small windows that allow light to enter from outside. This light can be directed at gemstones that control various functions within the temple (doors, traps, rituals). It also contains various paths not accessable during the night thanks to the gemstones. There may be elemental guardians slumbering within the depths waiting to pounce on players unable to solve the difficult puzzles.

During the Night:
During the night, the temple is filled with Daedra conducting rituals! The daedra have opened alternative paths not reachable during the day and it seems they may be summoning something terrible! There are braziers everywhere, casting harsh shadows and hanging daedric banners. Daedra worshippers kowtow at large pyres as daedra are summoned. Rush to put a stop to these ceremonies or the group may be overrun with increasingly large and difficult to kill daedric hordes!
This version of the Arena is more about combat, with a little lite stealth mixed in. Daedric Champions (like the ones in IC sewers) are littered all over the place, so failing any stealth checks may result in a tough fight!

Billium813

---- Zone Locales: Rihad ----
This is the main capital of Southern Hammerfell. A city of warriors! There is a palpable feeling of combat and training in most of the activities available. Mercenaries crowd the streets and brawling fights between them start sporadically through-out the city! Dueling NPCs is an acceptable activity; in fact guards may even stop to cheer and watch!

Just outside the city gates there are two dueling arenas for 1v1 player combat (similar to those seen in Gladiator).

• Players enter the Arena by attempting to enter the gate that leads into the Arena. After 1 player enters on one side, that door locks and the player enters a gated area within. If another player enters the opposing side within 10 seconds, both players are teleported into the main Arena and the combat begins! Otherwise, the waiting player is teleported outside the Arena.
• The duels are restricted to 4 minutes.
• Whoever loses is quickly teleported outside the Arena and roses shower the victor for 10 seconds before they too are removed for the next match to commence! Ties after 4 minutes are both teleported out of the Arena immediately.
• The teleport location must be sufficiently located far enough from the Dueling Arenas to prevent the same players from monopolizing the system
• Spectators may sit in the stands and throw "junk" items at duelists. Vendors sell Mud Balls, rotten Tomatoes and spoiled Cabbage to throw from the stands. They wouldn't really do anything except be a distraction to the combatants.

---- Zone Locales: Taneth ----
Taneth has a stormy relationship with Hew's Bane and the Thieves guild during the Second Era. The city is cracking down on crime like never before and has therefore become a place of safety for those with bounties on their head and pockets full of gold. The city is surrounded by high walls and posted guards. Lawlessness is swiftly punished. Outsiders (non-Redguards) are often stopped by guards, even if they have no bounty! So be careful carrying stolen goods here!

During the night, the city gates are locked tight and no entry is permitted. But thieves and cut throats can easily get around that to enter the city: this is the instanced Arena of "Blood on the Sands". It would be a mirrored copy (more or less) of the city, but at night.

---- Zone Locales: Stonemoor ----

---- Zone Locales: Oases ----
Luscious looking Oases are dotted around the landscape. They are, however, not safe places. The water is poison and Insects, Nereid, Thieves overrun the area.

Oases (Day):
The air is thick with hungry insects. Some Oases may spawn a Giant Wasp WB! As this WB loses health, more and more smaller wasps are summoned. It could even scale depending on how many players are fighting the WB.

Oases (Night):
Poisonous Nereids roam the waters surface. Some Oases may spawn a Nereid WB! The Nereid splashes the poisonous water around to attack the players. Sister Nereids are summoned the more players there are attacking.

Oases ponds may contain a delve access! But beware as there may be undead hordes located within and thieves guarding the entrance.

Supreme_Atromancer

Cool ideas, man.

I think it will be great to see Rihad one day. In Oblivion, the Gold Road is supposed to go to Hammerfell, (presumably Rihad). If you go north and west of Anvil, you can technically see into Hammerfell, near where Rihad is- even swim right up to its banks. Sadly, you can't actually see anything of course (just bare hills), but it gets the imagination going: Anvil and Rihad are essentially twin cities. I wonder how they influence each other, and what the relationship is like? Anvil is said to have its architecture influenced by Hammerfell by NPCs in TES4. Its not immediately apparent what that means, but maybe its sort of Persian? I wonder if there's a transition in the landscapes between Gold Coast limestone hills to the and sands and palms of Hammerfell proper, to the west and north?

I think Rihad and Taneth are going to be fascinating places to explore. I don't know if they are Crowns or Forebears, but I picture their lands being balmy and exotic. I remember there are some mentions of Rihad and Taneth during the TG questline, but I don't remember the details (would be good to go back and play it through again). This guy, alternate art for ES:L's Rihad Battlemage is pretty awesome. I'd love to know his story:




Either way, the Redguards are fascinating, and so is Hammerfell.

The only thing though is that I'm one of those people who think that Hammerfell is for ES6, and that ESO won't touch it until then: it would be a shame to develop an amazing vision of Southern Hammerfell and have it contradicted by a completely different vision by the next mainline game. But if ESO is still going strong, they might do something after- or even in tandem with- ES6. And I think that's pretty exciting. Who knows tho, just guesses, and I may be completely wrong about what they would and wouldn't do!

Billium813

Supreme_Atromancer wrote: »

Cool ideas, man.

The only thing though is that I'm one of those people who think that Hammerfell is for ES6, and that ESO won't touch it until then: it would be a shame to develop an amazing vision of Southern Hammerfell and have it contradicted by a completely different vision by the next mainline game. But if ESO is still going strong, they might do something after- or even in tandem with- ES6. And I think that's pretty exciting. Who knows tho, just guesses, and I may be completely wrong about what they would and wouldn't do!

Thanks, I appreciate any specific feedback.

I understand that some players feel Southern Hammerfell will be the setting for TES6. However, I don't really think that should restrict ESO.

1. ESO takes place in the 2nd Era. I think a TES6: Hammerfell would most certainly take place after Skyrim in the 4th Era, or even a new 5th Era!
2. We have plenty of other ESO zones that include TES areas: TES Skyrim -> The Reach+Western Skyrim, Morrowind, TES Oblivion -> Cyrodiil+Gold Coast. There is even already TES: Arena set in Southern Hammerfell. Old as TES: Arena may be, all that needs to remain constant are the main landmarks, like cities. Anything else wouldn't step on a new TES game at all.
3. Todd Howard has said players can't expect to hear anything at all about TES 6 until 2025, at the earliest. That's a long time to continue excluding Redguard from ESO lore.

Fata1moose

It won’t happen until TES VI comes out because they’ll want the cross game synergy plus will want to make it accurate to the mainline game.

NotaDaedraWorshipper

Fata1moose wrote: »

It won’t happen until TES VI comes out because they’ll want the cross game synergy plus will want to make it accurate to the mainline game.

and it's not like they can communicate to make things match up because they are part of the same company ... 🙄

We have no confirmation if it will be Hammerfell, and that doesn't stop ESO from having it appear anwyay. We already have parts of Hammerfell.

Darkstorne

Billium813 wrote: »

---- General Design ----
Much of the zone design is based on the Hew's Bane and Alik'r Desert aesthetic, with a bit of Elsweyr's rugged cliffs in the north part of the zone. The zone layout would consist of mostly desert to the North East (Weeping Desert), with large rolling dunes similar to Alik'r Desert. The South West, around Rihad, would be a bit more tropical, similar to Hew's Bane, with tropical trees and scrub bushes. The Northern border would be much more rocky and be a mountain range.

Worth noting that this region borders Cyrodiil. Rihad is right next to the Gold Coast of Anvil, and heading north east borders the Colovian Highlands (and will eventually lead to ESO's Craglorn region, a part of Hammerfell, so they have added two Hammerfell DLCs in total so far). So I don't think Alik'r-style desert is likely. More likely we'll see south eastern Hammerfell be grasslands that transition from Cyrodiil's environments towards desert the further north you travel, and towards Craglorn's rockier environment as you head north east.

The Tamriel Rebuilt team had a fantastic biome map for Hammerfell for their TES4 mod project, and they referred to this region as a whole as Goldmoor.


Some screenshots of their work in this region:

gariondavey

What about curved swords?
Do you have any plans to incorporate curved swords?

AnduinTryggva

Yes please, more Redguard in the game!

Billium813

---- Quest Ideas ----

The Spider Shepard
There is a Dark Brotherhood sect found in Hammerfell. They call themselves The Dark Brotherhood and appear to have a Listener who communes with the Night Mother! However, another Brotherhood representative contacts the player to inform them that they are actually false prophets not to be trusted and no one knows where they came from. The player becomes tasked with infiltrating this mock Brotherhood and uncovering the secret.

The quest chain would be filled with choices on whether to put several of these mock-Brotherhood members to death as you uncover who knows what is going on. Ultimately, the player realizes that the Middle Speaker has been a puppet of the Daedric Prince Mephala all along! They have been controlling the Listener this whole time and making them believe Mephala was the Night Mother. The player must now confront the Middle Speaker who is imbued with the power of Mephala and being assisted by their Silencers!

The assassination choices made through the quest chain influence who arrives with you and assists during the final quest. The player had the option of killing several Silencers that work under the Middle Speaker. If they were spared, they will now be mini-bosses that the player must fight. Similarly, the player had the option of killing Silencers under the other fooled Speakers. Sparing their lives now gives the player NPC assistants to help in the quest.

---