I'm planning on fleshing out various parts of the mainquest. I remember my first playthough when it bothered me that many parts of it feels rather dry and unimpressive. The quest in Kogoruhn had a great build up with alot of potenital.

Kogoruhn was the seat of power of house Dagoth before its fall. The stronghold is surrounded by a few ruined houses in vanilla. I have expanded these ruins so that the area around the stronghold is filled with ruins of a large settlement making the place even more forboding and dangerous than before.

I'm aware that this expansion suggests that the ruins are newer than the lore suggests. Given to the harsh conditions of the ashlands, they would probably have decayed beyond the vanilla ruins. As a lore-fanatic I do understand this issue.

I'm waiting for it to show up on PES. Here are a few screens in the meanwhile:

http://img842.imageshack.us/img842/4746/kogoruhn3.jpg

http://img686.imageshack.us/img686/1184/kogoruhn7.jpg

http://img517.imageshack.us/img517/3424/kogoruhn22.jpg

Feel free to leave feedback.

/ TBT

sorry for posting in the wrong forum! any mod who can move it? sorry again for the trouble

I like this idea, i will definitely try this one out in my next go through. As for the lore correctness of the ruins...well one can always say that the ruins where of a cult worshiping Dagoth Ur (Would not be the first time i guess.) and that at one point in time the temple destroyed the cult?

Sounds neat. Will be watching this, sir! :3

Yeah let's leave the exact age of the ruins unknown for the moment. If this mod grows, it might be necessary to flesh out the history of Kogoruhn, keeping it lore friendly of course =).

If anyone have any info on Kogoruhn, feel free to post it here.

I'll certainly be looking into this one. Considering how important Kogoruhn is, it's surprising to me that more mods haven't been created for it. I've spent a lot of time at Kogoruhn and I've often looked around the interior and the exterior trying to come up with ideas for what sort of improvements could be made and still keep the same sinister feel.

I like what you've done here, giving us more of a glimpse of what this stronghold may have been like in the past.

Any one who is new member in this forum are forgiving.


Welcome to the forum. :icecream:

I like the mod idea because history has always interest me. I will give it a try when the mod is available on PES.

I like the idea, as Kogoruhn was an important place in lore. I support this mod idea.

Make sure it can be compatible with RoHT (Rise of House Telvanni) as that mod adds a tower very close to Kogoruhn.

EDIT: Here is a picture of where exactly the tower is in the CS.

http://img185.imageshack.us/img185/5949/kogoruhnroht.png

Now that will probably introduce som issues in the current design : /

I'll look into it.

My original idea was a claustrophobic maze of ruined buildings where corprus stalkers and ash monsters comes out of the ruins from shadowed doorframes. The tower form RoTH takes away alot of the space that I'm working with. I'll see what I can do about it.

So, to understand this correctly, this doesn't change the interior of Kogoruhn at all? If so, cool.

Well, I wouldn't say you have to make it compatible. You could make 2 seperate versions, like the main one you're working on, and then just add a compatibility patch for RoHT.

That would probably be a better idea, as not everyone uses RoHT, but then again, a lot of people do use it.

awersume

In the current state, the mod only changes the exterior and some minor changes to the mountains south east of Kogoruhn. I may expand this mod with a larger interior but this will be optional.

About the issues with RoTH. I loaded both plugins in the CS and apart from some unnoticeable clipping the only thing which needs to be adjusted is a house so that you can approach the tower from the south. I'll adjust it and we'll don't have to worry about any compatibility issues. I'll get to it in a while.


So what about expanding this mod?
I have this idea:

***********SPOILERS OF THE MAIN QUEST AHEAD!**********

The Nerevarine "goes alone into dangerous places" But as hortator he is supposed to lead. But you don't get any help during the whole main quest even after Vivec accepts you as the Nerevarine. How about being able to lead a band of Urshilaku Ashlanders which helps you fight through the corprus and ash monsters in the ruins around the stronghold. When the path is cleared you enter the stronghold alone and the quest continues as in vanilla.

Im also thinking about the huge anticlimactic assault on Red Mountain. Where is the "host of Dagoth Ur" which you are warned about?
A few years back I did a mod which let you lead a small group of Boyant Armigers and Ordinators through huge swarms of corprus and ash monsters. Each citadel was swarming with them. I remember being ambused by dreamers with ranged weapons while a huge mob ran up for melee with salvaged dwemer weapons.

http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=Mods.Detail&id=8644 Download link.

I'm working on the issues with RoTH. Will be updated in a few days.

Thanks for the updated link. :celebration:

This is a very cool idea for a mod, I agree with Forest Stalker that it could use some modding love. And from what I can see, I like what you've done with the place. Maybe add some things for atmospheric effect: like a dagoth statue surrounded by a primitive camp of dreamers inside of one of the "houses", or use the terrain to create a sort of http://www.digdefence.com/images/digdefence-dug-stopped.jpg underneath the wall of one of the buildings (use planks of wood to cover mesh seams), or something so it isn't just empty buildings. Make interesting things for the player to find among them.


I like this idea as well, however, I would suggest making a new quest for this, a sort of "purge Kogoruhn" quest. I interpret that the point of the Nerevarine's first foray into Kogoruhn is a personal excursion to learn about House Dagoth and to retrieve certain tokens. I think that the Urshilaku Ashkhan would defeat his purpose by giving the player a few warriors the first time around. Since you may not learn much if you have a bloody frenzy of Ashlanders around you.

Some more clutter and details inside the houses is planned. I'm still thinking about what to use to leave the feeling of a dead city intact. I need some clutter which looks really old. The only thing that springs to mind at the moment is the stoneware clutter from the TR-data.esm. Some signs of dreamer activity is a good idea. Though I'd like to keep the signs of activity and remains to the minimum to keep the desolate empty feeling which you felt in vanilla.

Yeah you're right about sending Urshilaku warriors with the PC on the trial. But I didn't mean that they would follow you into the stronghold, just clearing the path to the stairs in front of it where they would stop and tell you to go inside. Then a script would disable them or teleport them to the camp when you enter the stronghold. But it could also be made into a quest which is given later on into the mainquest. The PC could be visited by a messenger from the Urshilaku Camp. You could be asked to make a raid on Kogoruhn's exterior or even interior. This could also be linked to the possibility for the Urshilaku to lend support through the tunnel in the assault against Red Mountain and the citadels.

The idea of disabling the ashlanders after entering could work. In the end, obviously it is whatever sounds good to you!

In regards to the clutter, redware could work well, even the stuff that shipped with the game should work. Maybe some static urns, half-buried.

I love everything I've read in this thread! :^) The mod as it stands adds a nice bit of atmosphere to the game, thank you for sharing it. I can't wait to see what's next.

On the subject of ROHT compatibility, I suggest the best solution is to move the ROHT tower. IIRC the tower is built, owned, and lived-in by a powerful mage who the PC convinces to join the Telvanni. So it really should not be in the middle of, or anywhere near, a bloodthirsty horde of monsters. :^) I think all that would need to be done is to open both mods in the CS with yours as the active file, load the cell Kogoruhn in the render window, highlight all of the parts of the tower and drag or cut/paste it to a new location. Save the result as "Koguruhn - ROHT Compatible.esp" or somesuch and that's that. Of course, you already knew all of this, but I figured I could use the finger exercise of typing it. :^)

edit - I'm trying to think of some resources out there that could make this mod better, but my brain wants sleep so it's working very slowly right now... all I can think of are the creepy sixth house animations Arcimaestro Anteres released in his animation mod (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6friXBiBhVs).

The urns is a great idea! The redware would work, but they are in good shape for my taste. They will also break the bleak palette of colors that I'm working with. There is also another issue with the insides of the multiple storied buildings.. At the current state I've piled the ruin meshes on top of each other, resulting in clipping on the inside. Covering the inside will be a tedious work. If some one got the skills and the program to combine and solve the issues it will be greatly appreciated.

But what about the additions of TR? I know that there are many contributions to the TR Data. Would I need to find the specific modder who made the stoneware or would a request in the TR forums be enough? Ohh and what about the broken urns from TR? They would fit perfectly.

Bycote, the clipping issues were fixed in a minute so it won't be necessary to move the tower. I guess the location of the tower is motivated in RoTH? Haven't played the that long into the mod yet.

A good idea for clutter would be to add like broken crates.

Also, If you where to pm one of the heads of TR, I think they would happily let you use whatever resources needed.

Almost everything in the TR Data is a resource. The ReadMe clearly states which objects are not resources. (mostly just some of the Creatures ,iirc)
The ReadMe also has details on who made the resources, so you can give proper credit easily.

thanks a lot for the info! I'll look into it. Given that I'm allowed to use the resources, what would be the optimal way of adding them?
The easiest way would be to make the mod depend on the TR data.esm. What about it? Is it safe to presume that people use TR now days?

No. TR is a great achievement, but it also conflicts with lots of other great mods. That's the reason why it won't become part of my current mod setup.

Moving the tower would probably be a not so good idea. There are a few scripted objects that are on the exterior.

As for why the Telvanni tower is at Kogoruhn, the master of the tower studies the Sixth House tediously. I think it would be somewhat cool to see some of the architecture a bit crushed by the growth of the tower.