Good guess, Macole! Let's count your points.

The 1st tier:

1. Imperial Cult faction - 1/2 a point. No, but compare it to this, then remember that it is all about Skyrim.

2. Skyrim rebel faction similar to the Stormcloaks or Forsworn - hmm... no points. Too far away from the truth, but admittedly you couldn't have known. I'll reveal the full answers later today.

3. Dragonborn Cult faction - 1/2 a point. All three factions in the top tier are related to the Dragonborn because they are all about the dragons. This faction is very much from the Skyrim lore and note that the icon does not feature any weapons - just a dragon with its mouth open.

The second tier:
1. Five golden apples in a tree ringed by four flowers tells me it’s either A Witches’ Coven faction (serious guess), or (just for fun) the Cult of Nir established by the Jaandaga and the Field Hippies. Close! 1 point. The Order of Kynareth - the most important Aedra for Skyrim.

2. A Werewolf or Lycanthrope faction - 1/2 a point because although it has to do with werewolves, it isn't the main point - the weapons are. Axes, in particular, we're in Skyrim. What's the most famous group of Skyrim warriors through the ages?

The third tier:
You couldn't have known any of these because I invented them. But good guesswork!

1. I would say that the first one (Black hand with an all-seeing eye and white crystal) has to do with the Psijic Order - sorry, no points. The Welkynd Masons Guild.

2. The second is interesting, it looks like a Dwemer cog with crab legs floating over a chalice. My guess is an Archeology Guild - bingo! 1 point. The Dwemer Artefacts Collectors Guild.

3. Two rising snakes on a field of red says to me this could it be aTsaeci faction. I just don’t know. Interesting interpretation, and you couldn't have known this one at all. There's a story on the Bleak Isle, this faction is that of the most prominent family, and this is their crest. Bretons. Why snakes? May have something to do with their nature...


So, your grand total is 3.5 points! Impressive!

1/8 here.

I got Kynareth's Eldergleam tree.

Thank you for being so generous. With only spending half a year playing Skyrim when it first came out, I truly didn’t expect to be close on any of them.
D'oh, of course it's the Eldergleam Sanctuary which points to The Order of Kynareth and its military arm The Kynaran Order.
The crossed swords should have been obvious, it cries out The Blades.
A Welkynd Masons Guild, wonder what dangers that will lead the intrepid adventurer into?

Actually, this is an unused vanilla icon for the Nobility faction, with some modifications. Noble people grow on trees, apparently.

But yes, I thought it was perfect for the Order of Kynareth. They are a peaceful order, but funnily enough, it is always our character who ends up taking out the rats...





Masons of any kind are not to be trifled with, especially if they consider themselves free citizens... uh-oh. Well, the usual - you get to do the jobs that they don't want to because of the rats and goblins, of course.

The other faction in the second tier - the one with the (were)wolf, is Ysgramor's Companions (not to be confused with Lena's or the Jandaga's companions). They got lost... umm... on a mead sampling mission, I guess...

As for the top tier, those are the three factions involved in my Skyrim Main Quest: the Blades of Skyrim (Sky Haven Temple), the Dragon Knights (Whiterun) and the Keepers of the Voice (High Hrothgar). You can only join one of them, there are choices to be made - pros and cons for each. There will be someone present to help you decide... someone who might have guided an ex-prisoner before... is that the same person? May be, or may be it's just a really common name.

When events start developing, the player will have to choose but one path.

I have set up a mirror for some of my mods on Masser and Secunda - the site where all Lena's stories live. Most mods are also hosted on Nexus, but some have received unpleasant feedback which I have no wish to receive. Therefore the Night Mother's Caress series will not appear on Nexus. I first thought to publish these mods on AFK Mods, but unfortunately the admins decided that they didn't want to have mods with AI generated content. Since I use xVAsynth generated voices, AFK Mods is not the right place for me.

Masser and Secunda is a blog site and doesn't have a forum (and won't have a forum). It also does not really have space allowance for hosting mods, so don't be surprised to see Google Drive links to the actual files.

If you wish to contact me and you aren't a member here then you can reach me on Nexus Forums or through my mods on Nexus Mods.

I assume this was communicated privately, as there is nothing I can find to tell the rest of us about the rule. I host my own downloads, so it does not affect me, until they decide they don’t want discussion of such mods either.

It’s not unreasonable, as AFK don’t want to get involved in any lawsuits if a VA decides to prove a point, but at least add it to the rules, so we know.

Indeed I had a private message asking me to either remove all AI generated voices from my mods, or remove the mods. It isn't a mirror if it only hosts half a mod, so I chose to delete them. The rule is indeed new, they were only alerted to the issue just now. I expect they'll add it to the official rules, although indeed there have been no messages or announcements about it as yet. But then again, it's the holiday season, people may have lives and be busy elsewhere!

TWMP Skyrim Alive is nearly done! Just half a quest left... and a dragon to test.

I shall admit, I am running out of steam. I have been working on it every day since June. It has taken so much more work than originally anticipated... Much of it was behind the scenes technical stuff, I would estimate half, may be more. Then making the Main Quest proved rather more involved than I had naively planned... as always.

But the good news is that it is nearly there! Most of the critical testing is done, too. Like I said, just a little left to do, hopefully to be finished up this week!

This will be the final temporary installment v3.0.7. It will be already almost the same as the final official release v3.1, the difference being some more testing and bugfixing, updates to the Tamriel Resource Pack library, improved LOD and revamped little add-on mods found on the mod page - these will be either retired or made to work with v3. The idea is that v3.1 will be the official Release 3 First Version, with all the paraphernalia made to match.

Wow, just peeked at that mod over on Nexus. That's a lot of nice, quality work! Congrats.

Thanks, Acadian! It is my main project. Everything else is really just trimming and garnish for Skyrim... Well, almost everything else. I've been working on it for two and a half years now, all because I wanted to replace a few trees in The Rift... then it snowballed. You know, Skyrim. But now with the Skyrim Main Quest, it is really going somewhere.

The final preview installment of TWMP Skyrim Alive is released! This has all the content of the full release, with a few bugs thrown in. I already squashed some, so I know they are still lurking under the floor boards.

I have reviewed and updated the Optional Extras - little mods that alter game play in Skyrim, offer transport to Morroblivion or provide an alternate start. These versions now work with v3.0.7 (and will work with v3.1).

I've been also editing the mod page, and am still doing it, it's a bit of a WIP at the moment. But I decided not to hide the mod while I'm updating it, I'm sure people will figure it out.

It won't take long now, may be a week or two at most, and we shall have the official launch of release 3!

Amazing work and dedication on your part.

I aways wondered about how many items can be meant by the term, a few. Now I know.

Thank you, macole!

Yes, "a few" means "I hope there aren't too many".

I can't find any more, they all scattered. Probably because I've been working on it for so long, I simply don't see them.

The difficulty now is to resist the urge to improve things. Add another painting here, make another banner there. No, this will never end. I just have one more item on my list that's been sitting there literally for two years, I'll do that, and unless someone reports bugs, that will be it! Time to take a break.

Congrats! I'll bet you're please to perhaps take a break from this massive project!

Oh my gosh - yes! But at the same time there's a feeling of emptiness too...

Wow, congratulations on a massive project!

Thank you, SubRosa! But you see all that land in the first picture? That's High Rock. Completely empty so far, apart from the landscapes...

I am supposedly taking holiday from Skyrim... in Skyrim! I'm building the Blue Palace in Solitude.

The thing is that I enjoy building castles. It calms the nerves and engages the mind. And Solitude had no castle so far! That can't be right, being the capital of Skyrim and all. There supposed to be the Blue Palace.

Blue Palace in Solitude - TES5 Skyrim

So I decided to build one!

Blue Palace in Solitude - TWMP Skyrim Alive

Blue Palace closer look

These are just the first screenshots from the Construction Set, so you don't see the surrounding scenery yet. I have also built a long bridge from the Blue Palace right into the heart of Solitude similar to what you see in the TES5 picture. It is obviously NOT the same city, we have a different geography for starters, but I've always loved the Great Arch and saw no reason not to have one.

This will be released as v3.2. Of course you would wonder why the High King does not reside in his splendid palace... Well, glad you asked. Because there a small matter you could help with...

It comes complete with a quest, at the end of which the High King moves to the Blue Palace.

I was wondering how long it would take for someone to ask for a walkthrough. Turns out: two weeks. Yesterday someone asked for a walkthrough of the Skyrim Main Quest.

I think the answer is going to be NO.

Good answer.

Your Blue Palace is looking good.

Thanks, macole! This is becoming a rather larger addition than I originally planned... again. I guess I'll never learn. But you cannot tell half a story!

And while I'm building my castle (and stuff), I'm trying to start a game of Morroblivion with Geralt - he is going to Solstheim to answer Hircine's call. I am using several new and untested mods for this, and, well... Geralt is very busy testing them for me.

Today I finally caught a very elusive bug - "You don't need a hero, you need a professional", as Geralt would say. Rightly so. Had to have a witcher for my bug hunting. So, to reproduce this bug, I have to load a particular save, have a fight with a bunch of rieklings, get knocked out once or twice, then finish them off, get out the meditation pad, meditate to recover health, get up and... CRASH! Phew... So Geralt's been doing a lot of that, and I may be able to finally catch that bug. I also had a glimpse of possibly two more, completely independent, in three different mods, all coming together in that one sequence of events. So I'm not moving until this rare hunting opportunity is completely exhausted!

Oh, and I have already squashed three other bugs today, all discovered while trying to start up Geralt's game. Plus another very difficult bug squashed a few days ago. The witcher is definitely doing his thing!

Several people are playing the main quest of TWMP Skyrim Alive at the moment, and two people actively reporting issues - thank you LordPalpatine2020 and Chambcra, and Clayton1015 before that!

Nice to see how it looks in other people's games, too. Here's a screenshot from Chambcra: Librarium. Yes, you guessed it, it's a pocket of Apocrypha, of course...

The Blue Palace in Solitude is surrounded in mystery and magic. I couldn't just build a castle, I had to build a story around it as well. To be released in a not to far future in TWMP Skyrim Alive v3.2.




An unknown hero stood before the Matriarch of the Rimerock Coven of the Glenmoril Wyrd. The hero was on a noble quest - to lift a curse from a sleeping beauty, the Queen of Skyrim, Sylvana. As noble a quest as one ever existed, entrusted to the hero by the High King himself.

The Matriarch was unperturbed, for this was not the first hero that came to her with such a request. But will this be the one to see it through?


Yes, Sylvana has been cursed, I know of it for it was I who cursed her. Did King Harald send you? So, he thinks he found himself a champion.

I can help you lift the curse, yes. But do you know what came before? Did the King tell you why Sylvana was cursed? No, I didn't think he would. Then listen, for you will be the judge whether it's time to lift the curse or not.

Sylvana is Harald's first wife and the Queen of Skyrim, it's true. She was but a slip of a girl when she wed, inexperienced in the ways of love. Harald was much older than Sylvana, and it seemed that such an inexperienced wife could not fulfil his desires. And so he looked elsewhere.

He met Frema, a woman of some reputation and similar in years to himself. They were seeing each other regularly and became quite close. Frema's daughter was born a year later, and yes, she is Harald's child.

Sylvana was hurt by this, for she too wished for a child, but Harald would not give her one. Yet the Queen of Skyrim was Sylvana and not Frema, and so Frema's daughter was not a princess. Frema didn't like it.

People were saying that Harald had no heir, that Sylvana was not a full Queen, not having born a child, but people didn't know it was Harald's doing. People were also saying that Harald should divorce Sylvana because she was childless and make Frema the Queen of Skyrim instead.

Harald would not hear of it, for he knew why Sylvana had no children. Finally, he decided to do something about it. He was spending more time with Sylvana and less time with Frema, and Frema started bearing scorn. She came to me - a scorned woman. She wanted her daughter to take her place as Princesse, and for herself she wanted to be the Queen. She wanted Sylvana dead.

But know that the Glenmoril Wyrd will not kill a woman because another woman is scorned. We offered to curse her instead. This curse keeps Sylvana alive and well, and forever young. The curse can be lifted by Harald's will but not by his hand.

It was Harald's decision to marry Frema after Sylvana was cursed. Of course Frema was pressing him, but no one can force a King to do it. Harald married Frema because one way or the other he willed it. But now it seems he wills it no longer.

For here you stand before me asking about lifting that curse. It is for you to decide.

But first I must warn you: it won't be easy. This path is thorny, and besides the trials, also a sacrifice will be required. A sacrifice from you. So think hard whether you wish to sacrifice a piece of yourself for Harald and Sylvana.

Consider also what happens to Frema and her daughter after that, for there can be only one Queen of Skyrim, and Frema will be made to step aside. What will she do? What is she capable of? Is it wise to cross her?


Many a hero have heard this tale, yet Sylvana is still asleep, her beauty forever fresh, her heart forever young. Skyrim is still searching for her true hero.

Dunderhead Harald has made a mess of everything. This kind of quest can go so many different ways it will be very interesting to see how you take it.
As for Harald, perhaps he should have consulted with the Daughters of Wroth. The Wrothgarian Mountain coven has no scruples.

It is summer and we're having a hot spell, which means that I am back to building Skyrim, the further North the better!

This year I am building stuff in The Reach - the West is still very empty. This module will have Falkreath, Markarth and Karswasten. But it may not be what you think it should be! That is, it will not be like in TES5.

The geography of our Skyrim is mostly based on Arena, with some distortions "for technical reasons". Here is a map of Skyrim in Arena followed by a map of TWMP Skyrim, with some coloured dots.


The green dots are the ones we already have, roughly in the right location, and anyhow in the right location with respect to one another. We do have mountains and a somewhat different shape to the land mass, so we had to adapt. Our TWMP Skyrim is tall rather than wide, but who cares. We also have a few extra settlements that do not appear on this Arena map, such as Morthal and Helgen. There is lots and lots of empty space still, enough to build everything else and then some.

Blue dots indicate settlements that appeared in TES5 roughly in the right place. On the Arena map that's Amol - we haven't got it yet, and on the TWMP map those are new settlements that didn't appear in Arena.

Purple dots indicate new development - I'm working on it now. Light mint coloured dots indicate future development - these towns and villages are planned as the story takes us there later on.

Snowhawk is a bit of an issue, it is only a fort in TES5, but we have a proper glorious city, to outglory Solitude. Ours is also quite a bit more to the East, compared to this map, but I still call it roughly in the right place.

The real problem arises around Markarth and Karthwasten - I have to decide where to build them. Both towns appear in TES5 but their relative locations are swapped! In TES5 Karthwasten is to the East of Markarth, whereas on this map it is to the South West. Besides, in TES5 Karthwasten is literally a three-house mining hovel, while in Arena it is a major city.

So I decided to follow Arena because it is more fun. I am following Morrowind's Project Tamriel on this, that is, I am following their idea. Here is their page. And here is the "proper" lore page. I kind of like the atmosphere in the ESO screenshot there. But you see, the lore completely contradicts itself, and so I feel I can go anywhere with this. That's my kind of town!

In our Skyrim, Karthwasten will sit at the source of the Karth River, in the Western part of The Reach. It will be looking at Dragonstar, and may even wave to it from its tallest tower... Oh yes, we are having towers!

Dragonstar will come later, but I do keep an eye on it.

Oh, and by the way - my Falkreath will NOT be the four-house hovel that it is in TES5. It is one of the oldest cities in Skyrim, it is in fact older than Skyrim - lore page here. It housed the Second Imperial Legion since Hjalti Early-Beard founded it. Who was Hjalti? Falkreath remembers, even though he changed his name to Tiber Septim later. So my Falkreath will have Legion presence and will remember its history. It is only logical, seeing its location at the Threesome Junction. Cyrodiil, Skyrim, Hammerfell. What could possibly go wrong?

Expect all kinds of lore-bending fun here.

Lena, sounds fun!

Hey, lorebending is fun. I'm a big believer in using lore as a tool or resource from which to build and create, not as a dogmatic set of restrictions.

I have laid out Falkreath, Markarth and Karthwasten - that is, I built the exteriors. I also built quite a lot of interiors for Falkreath and played god by creating people. People with stories and things to do, but those stories are not yet written (these will be quests). Markarth and Karthwasten are just empty shells for now, there's also no clutter or rubbish in the streets yet... is that good or bad?

I started with a small town of Amber Guard, aiming to fill it out completely, stories and all, before moving on. One has to start somewhere! See preview pictures on Nexus. As for the story, the following report was found in the Imperial Office at the Amber Hall after the Imperial Inspector ran off in a hurry. Something's afoot!




The town of Amber Guard in Skyrim has suffered a peculiar but dangerous incident with relation to its amber mine. My task was to find out what had occurred and how to resolve the situation, and I have done it. However, my orders did not include actually seeing to the resolution, and therefore I leave it to the next unfortunate officer who gets sent to this place.

The amber mine in this town is a rarity in Tamriel, for amber is believed to only occur in the Shivering Isles, which is the Realm of Daedric Prince Sheogorath. But, one way or another, amber is also found in the rocks along the Karth River here in Skyrim, and the town of Amber Guard had sprung up on top of one such mine.

Everything was going relatively well for centuries (not counting Felldew addiction that the workers suffer here), until recently the local traders decided to mock Sheogorath. They summonned him and laughed in his face for having amber under their town. (I am of a firm belief that the Felldew addiction destroyed their brains, because this is pure madness!)

Sheogorath did not take kindly to the mocking, as one might have predicted, and by way of punishment he turned all the traders and mages of this village into chickens. He also multiplied the actual chickens, and so now the village has an incredible surplus of eggs, but no one dares to kill and eat a single chicken, for it could be in fact a person in disguise.

This incident shocked the town, all mine workers have left and I locked up the mine as a precaution. The remaining locals have no wish to go in, either. These people were not turned into chickens because they never went into the mine and were not present at the mocking of Sheogorath.

I have also discovered what can reverse this curse and turn the chickens back into people. It is as simple as it is insane: one must kill Sheogorath.

No, I have not been partaking of Felldew and have not gone mad. I do not actually mean the Daedric Prince, who is immortal. Sheogorath left behind a mortal champion, who was apparently the person that came up with that whole idea about mocking in the first place. This person was not turned into a chicken, but instead he was turned into Sheogorath's double. He resides in the depths of the amber mine.

By the accounts of the locals who saw the transformation, this fake Sheogorath is less fake than one might have hoped. He has some special powers, although I am not sure which, as the reports appear to contradict each other. Killing him will not be easy, and I gladly leave it to someone else.

Crazzzy! Cheese for all!

Or eggs... as this menu of the local inn testifies.

After a bit of a break, I'm back with modding! Back to building Skyrim in Oblivion.

But first, to compensate for Dragon Age: Veilguard being such a terrible flop (in my opinion), I decided to put some Grey Wardens into Oblivion, as I am known to do (drag everything of value into Oblivion). There will be some Grey Wardens in Skyrim (that is, in TWMP Skyrim Alive) because that's where my story goes, and here I mean THE story - "I am Lena Wolf". And so in preparation I made a teaser mod Warden's Oath that adds a small Grey Warden outpost all the way East along the Panther River. It's got goodies for the player and for the mod maker alike, as everything is a free resource.

And now back to Skyrim. I've been building Dragon Wood, also known as Kynesgrove (see Wiki). It is a small village with a malachite mine and, more importantly, with an arena (which for some reason vanished by the year 4E201). We are going to have Dragon Wood in TWMP Skyrim Alive complete with an enchanted arena (naturally).

Come and test your mettle against never ending varied opponents! Or are you a milkdrinker? And if you'd rather be betting - you can do it too. They will be happy to take your money, since you seem to have no use for it. Just don't expect to win anything - the only winner is the wizard who enchanted the thing.

See big pictures on Nexus!

Intriguing - a magic arena!

Well, you know, there are always people who like to fight for the sake of fighting. The idea was actually prompted by a post on the Nexus forum - someone was requesting a mod for Dragon Age: Origins with an arena with never ending opponents. The poster was so in love with the combat system in that game, that just never wanted to stop fighting... So... Ok! Not in the same game, but we will have an enchanted arena!

I decided to mirror TWMP Skyrim Alive on ModDB . The offering is slightly different.

The package on ModDB contains all of my content in one, making it easier to install. However, some options are missing and have to be added separately, if people want them.

The package on NexusMods is fragmented, offering updates, options and patches for those people who prefer to pick and choose. However, since upload times to NexusMods are ridiculously slow, I may not always post updates there.

The version on Masser and Secunda is somewhere in between. It is split into separate zip files but all of them work together - there are no old versions there. This is where I post all the latest updates before they make it anywhere else.

I made a big decision to move my TWMP Skyrim Alive mod out of the TWMP framework and make it stand-alone. This is a hugely big deal. Epic.

The reason it is such a big deal is completely technical and under the hood. To the player, the stand-alone version will look and work exactly the same as the TWMP-based version. To a mod author however, this is like moving to another planet. To a mod user with a full load order it is somewhere in between - masters will be different and you may have to reshuffle your load order, but you will still be able to use it alongside other TWMP mods, as long as they are not for Skyrim. Because that would be crazy.

I have done this because I wish to build my own Skyrim, completely according to my own ideas. As much as I appreciate the huge work that Haldar put into his TWMP Skyrim Improved, and as much as I made use of it as a base for my TWMP Skyrim Alive, there are also areas where I would have liked to do things differently. But doing it in Haldar's Skyrim would be bad manners, and so I decided to strike out on my own.

So then why ditch TWMP? Well, the idea of TWMP was that you would have various mods for Tamriel outside of Cyrodiil, and using the same framework would allow them to work together easier. The reality is however that we don't have said mods. There is at most one finished mod per province, TWMP or no TWMP. Building a whole province is a very big job, so not surprising that only few of us have enough steam for the duration. And so TWMP becomes an overhead rather than a help, and why load the land for entire Tamriel while you really only want it for one province? That's a lot of dead data that your game does not really need.

However, there are some brave souls with good PCs who in fact do run the entire Tamriel. Well, for them, my stand-alone Skyrim can be loaded alongside other TWMP-based provinces, so you could still have it without issues. Or you could opt for Haldar's Skyrim with or without TWMP Skyrim Alive.

And so, TWMP Skyrim Alive Release 3.4.3 is the final release for the TWMP version of the mod. It has very few bugs (as reported to me), it is a good and stable version with a story that brings a large chapter to conclusion. I feel it is good enough to be left alone.

The new stand-alone version is going to have a different name to make sure you don't try to load it into your existing game. With so many changes, that is sure to cause crashes. The new working title is "Skyrim Alive Lone Wolf". It may or may not be the actual title at the time of release. The mod will start with version 4.0 as it continues on everything that went before, and will include all the content that I built so far. I plan to make a small converter plugin that will allow you to bring forward the progress you made in TWMP Skyrim Alive and import it into Skyrim Alive Lone Wolf so that you would not have to replay the same quests again.

The first big change in Lone Wolf Skyrim is in the basics - the landscapes. Since I no longer use TWMP Skyrim Improved as the basis, I needed a new one. I went with the original TWMP_Skyrim.esp from the TWMP mod, the one that also Haldar started with. This base has land textures, trees and rocks, but it has no waterways at all. Haldar made rivers, but remember that he did it before TES5 Skyrim came out... so guess what - they are not quite the same. I have no problem with it as such, and indeed I am not trying to recreate TES5 landscapes either. But when I study to original Onra's TWMP heightmap, I can see The Throat of the World and Lake Geir, Riften and Windhelm - Onra made provisions for them based on the lore known to date (BEFORE TES5!) - and they are not where Haldar chose to put them in his version when he made rivers. And so I will make rivers where Onra originally intended them.



Here's a map of TWMP Skyrim. Haldar's rivers are shown in white and my planned rivers in pink. This is a heightmap - you see equal height lines showing the topology. This is an overlay of Haldar's map over Onra's, so the areas where Haldar made changes to the heightmap are the areas where height lines disagree and cross each other.

The biggest differences are around Snowhawk where Haldar made the Karth River, and around the Throat of the World, Lake Geir and Riften. Haldar moved them North so that he would have more room in the South of Skyrim, but I want to put them back where Onra intended them, and which is indeed similar to the map of TES5 Skyrim (Bethesda must have been planning ahead). My Karth and Hjaal rivers are still not like in TES5, and our landscape is different there, but I chose the flow for the rivers to follow the landscape rather than cut through it. And yes, I do intend to build Snowhawk as a city and not just a ruined fort.

But wait, Onra's heightmap is TWMP, and I just said I would no longer use it? Ugh... Yeah... Onra made a great heightmap... It can be made to exist also outside TWMP... This is under the hood trickery with cell form IDs. My Skyrim will have the same heightmap as Onra's TWMP, I shall be able to use the same map in-game... but it won't be based on the TWMP framework. However, with a flick of a wrist and a few choice words, I would be able to revert it to use TWMP, should I ever wish it again...

I started my landscape work in the North, in Haafingar. Since I am no longer using TWMP Skyrim Improved, I have to rebuild Solitude and Windhelm. I also intend to rebuild Riften completely from scratch as it is now going to be in a different location. And yes, I'll build Snowhawk too. That's four major cities on top of Falkreath, Markarth and Karthwasten already planned for release 4, plus half a dozen of villages and hamlets to add along the way. Let's say, this, once again, is turning out far larger than originally planned.

The changes in the landscape are such that my Skyrim will have some new varieties of trees and a lot more herbs and mushrooms than before. I like to pick ingredients and make potions, and there isn't enough variety at the moment. And new types of trees make for differently looking landscapes.

I started work on release 4 already in the TWMP setup. I built Karthwasten and Falkreath (both big cities), and laid out Markarth. Now in the new setup all this work continues, nothing is lost. In the last few days I laid out Solitude. That is, I built the exteriors, but all the interiors, people and stories are still to come. I felt that as the seat of the kings, it must be a grand city, and it must match the Blue Palace that I built previously. And so I've done it. I leave you with some pictures of my new Solitude - click the image to view the album.

This looks and sounds extremely interesting. It would be fun to be able to walk from Hermaeus Mora's Shrine to Solitude or to see your vision of Winterhold before its collapse without having to re-install my entire game with TWMP.

Thanks, Macole! It will still be a huge mod, no doubt - the land is much larger than Valenwood or Elsweyr. But it won't have to be layered over three other mods, and that will cut down on memory and processing power. I have been doing some tests... it does look promising, performance wise. If my 15-year old i7 can do it, then most people's PCs will be able to cope with it and have a few other large mods installed as well (I know you like your MOOs or OOOs or OCOs or whatnot). The plan is to just have it mastered on the TamRes library - but that's just ESMs for new objects and such, it doesn't add anything in-game in itself. It's still early days... but we'll see.

There's progress in Skyrim for Oblivion!

I finally took the plunge and merged my stack of ESPs into a single Skyrim Alive Lone Wolf ESP. After a few false starts producing a corrupt merge, "Merge Plugins" eventually came through, with a little help of yours truly and xEdit. The file loads, both in game and in the Construction Set. I didn't test further.

This file is 200MB. By comparison, Oblivion.esm is 256MB.

Why so large? Because Skyrim is a big country. It is roughly the same size as Cyrodiil, and land records are large, what with all the land textures and geometry detail. This is actually still without path grids, but with all the interior cells, quests and objects from TWMP Skyrim Alive, plus all the trees, rocks and mushrooms from the new Skyrim landscapes. Remember, the TWMP version was based on a stack of ESPs, so the data was distributed between them, while here we have all in one.

Can I even work with such a huge file in the Construction Set? Not as such... the poor editor immediately runs out of memory. However, there are ways. You can work on an add-on ESP and then merge it into the master, and that works just fine. This is because the active file is loaded with all its records decompressed, while all masters remain in their compressed state, using far less memory. Remember that the Construction Set also loads the 256MB of Oblivion.esm and there aren't any issues with running out of memory there. But decompressing a 200MB file is just too much of a good thing.

So, what's my progress so far? Well, I've got most land tears fixed, most patched landscape textures blended and most waterways made, complete with a plethora of waterfalls (will post pictures later). I'm thinking of even making a quest "Visit all the waterfalls in Skyrim" or some such. Here is the new map, pretty close to the actual situation:



Dark green circles show towns and villages that are already fully finished, although I might add content to them later.

Yellow circles are towns and villages still to be started.

Light green circles are town and villages in progress or requiring significant changes or additions.

Small brown circles are castles - these all come from the TWMP version, so they are done but need checking over.

Most roads are checked and good, but in some areas the landscape changed significantly and new roads need to be built.

And if you look carefully on the big map (click to enlarge), you'll notice that a part of the Inner Sea in Morrowind is for some reason completely above water level. This is an error in the original TWMP heightmap which I intend to correct for my Skyrim. Not that I'd do stuff in Morrowind... nope... no-no...

Wow, very ambitious!

That is just amazing. I look forward to playing it!

Acadian, SubRosa - thank you! I really didn't intend it to be so ambitious... it just snowballed... There's a lot of that happening in Skyrim, I noticed...

And also I'm having such a good time... I love snow.

I've taken a few preview screenshots of the city of Snowhawk. The final version will have a lot more detail, here we basically just have the city layout and buildings. And a Dwemer submarine! This is the second station of the Nautilus Tours network, the first one being in Karthwasten. You can call the captain using the Dwemer felitone installed at the booth; the captain will arrive as soon as possible and transport you to one of the other stations through a system of underground water channels that find their way to the surface through lochs, also known as sinkholes. Here on Earth Scotland has a lot of such lochs, and even a Loch Ness Monster. In Skyrim there are no monsters, just Dwemer submarines.

Locations of other stations of Nautilus Tours are still being debated over, but we already decided on one near Markarth, Darkwater Crossing and Laintair Dale. Please refer to the map in one of the previous posts, and you will see that all these locations have lochs or rivers with sinkholes. New lochs may appear too, you can never be quite sure how far that network of underground waterways actually extends... Perhaps even all the way to Kogotel?

The Dwemer Submarine is amazing. Wherever did you find it?

I didn't! I built it myself out of various parts we've got in the TamRes library... Thanks! It's got an interior too because obviously you've got to get inside and close the hatch if you're going to travel under water. The interior is based on Mr Siika's skyship interior, but the exterior is really everything and anything thrown together. Pipes, cylinders, the nautilus, other whatnots... a bit retextured here and there, and voila! One proper submarine.

Nice work, Lena! Looks great.

Building it yourself makes it even more special. Great job!

I have been building Imperial Legion Outposts along the borders of Skyrim, namely borders with Cyrodiil and Hammerfell. Because Skyrim needs protecting. They also need to levy tax and sell axes to every newcomer. No axe - no entry (but you can buy an axe from the smith at the outpost, how convenient). Here is the new map with the additional outposts that I felt were absolutely required. So, starting from the South Eastern corner, we have: Greenwall, Helgen, Neugrad Watch, Crystal Chasm Outpost, Triple Junction Outpost, and North Keep. Have a look at the screenshots here.

There's something odd at the Crystal Chasm Outpost, namely a chasm in the earth with those Order Crystals rising from it. The Legion thought it was a danger to the public, so they erected a wall around it. There's going to be a legionnair on duty guarding it at all times, and only people with a Death Wish will be allowed to approach it. You can purchase a Death Wish at the local Census Office right there on the outpost - it is a document stating that the bearer wishes to die in the chasm. This makes the bearer certifiably crazy and thus absolves the Imperial Legion of any responsibility for the bearer's wellbeing. Because otherwise having members of public die on the premises of an Imperial Legion Outpost would have had severe consequences indeed - several sets of forms to fill in in triplicate, and no one wants to do that.

The Triple Junction Outpost is on the border junction between Skyrim, Cyrodiil and Hammerfell as you can see on the map. It has three gates with roads leading to each of these provinces. Well, there's much going on in Hammerfell but there's a gate. The place is known in the folksmouth as the Threesome Junction... how strange.

You may have noticed that the outposts have pretty much the same design with a wall with square towers, an old fort and some buildings inside. Well, how many ways are there to build a fortified outpost? There bound to be similarities. Plus, the Legion values efficiency over imagination and so... yeah, they have the same walls. But the buildings are different and the contents of all forts is different.

For example, in Helgen the fort is locked and blocked by the order of the Captain. They've got a goblin problem, you see, and they tried to kick the goblins out, but that proved difficult. So instead they made the outpost secure by locking the goblins in. Whatever works.

I'm leaving you with some screenshots of Falkreath. The cemetery is not massive but instead they have a massive crypt under the chapel. And they still house the Second Imperial Legion which they have done since the times when Tiber Septim was still known as Hjalti Early-Beard. I don't see why they should suddenly stop housing the Legion, although there is apparently some tension between the Commander and the Jarl... go figure.

I am still at the stage of building up the land, but my stack of stories is growing. These will all make their way into local quests - the place does need to come alive.

It makes great sense that there would be outposts between Skyrim and Cyrodiil. Nice!

Thank you, Acadian! And yes, I figured I needed even more outposts... It seems that for each circle that turns green on my development map, another yellow circle springs up... Green ones are done, yellows are to do.

Development map 2 March 2025. Dark green and brown - done, light green - exterior done, interiors and quests still to do, yellow - planned and therefore still completely to do... But I've done a lot of new roads and waterways, and this new map shows them more or less correctly.

The point with this release, I think, is that I don't want it to look like a WIP. I want it to feel complete. It doesn't mean that every square inch of forest will be covered in villages, no, not at all. There may be beast dens instead. Generally main roads will remain mostly safe to travel, mountain paths less so and the wilderness... enter at your own risk. I mean, really, if you are going to wander through the wildest woods, expect the wildest things to befall you as well...

Walk with me... like lovers do...

Wow, lotsa progress!

Oh noes, not drunken forest goblins!