Cyrodiilic Towns:

Okay, so there were a number of new towns mentioned in the novels. I've picked out a few:

Mortal, Mountain Watch, Ione, Sweetwater, and Easterbridge.

Mortal and Sweetwater, presumably, are at/near their camps on the Oblivion world map. Mountain Watch is somewhere along a straight line from Cheydinhal to Vivec, close to the border with Morrowind. Ione is presumably along the Green or Red Ring Road, close to Pell's Gate. Nothing on Easterbridge, other than its closer to Sweetwater than anything else.

Thinking on Mortal and Sweetwater, I've taken a look at the camp's names and subtracted any that are obviously not the name of a town (i.e. someone's name).

So possible towns include: Atrene, Bawnwatch, Bodean, Bogwater, Brotch, Ales, Collarbone, Crestbridge, Fisherman's Rock, Garnet, Mortal, Nayon, Seran, Sercen, Sweetwater, Trossan, Valley View, Varus, Walker, Wind Range. BTW, Sercen, Nayon, and Seran sound Aylied to me.

It should be noted that there is an unnamed fishing village across from the waterfront, built upon an Ayleid ruin, that is mentioned in Lord of Souls. Could the Ayleid ruin be Fanacasecul?

On an older Redguard map, there also the label Vergayun in the area of Sweetwater. Is that a town or city? And is is substantiated anywhere else?

The West:
Furthermore, in Oblivion it is mentioned that merchants in Anvil have ports of call in Hammerfell, Summerset Isle, Yokuda, and the Western Islands. Where are these Western Islands? Is he talking about those islands seen separated from Yokuda by the Sea of Pearls?

Elsweyr:
What river is Riverhold situated on? I haven't come across one map with it situated along a visual river, but given the relatively feasible action of extending an existing river to it, could we say...White-Rose River? Or the Larsius River (better situated for Rimmen?)

Also, next to White Rose River there is another river. Name? Given that there's two rivers merging into one, I'd say one is called White River and the other Rose River, merging up to form the White-Rose River. But then, which is which?

Are the badlands of Anequina a basin or a plateau or neither? "Rim men" suggests that its a basin, but do we have any more support for this?

Colovia:
What real-life environment would you re-purpose as an exemplary model for Colovia? Personally, I've speculated that it is similar to Patagonia. Have we heard from the developers what inspired Cyrodiil's landscapes? Or is someone really good with botany or geography and can identify the plants in Colovia/Nibenay with real regions?

nevermind

1. Weye? :facepalm:

2. Where is it said merchants trade in Yokuda? The western islands are probably Stros M'kai, Stirk, The Chain, herne and Cespar.

3. Probably the Larsius or Whiterose or a river which simply isn't on a map. We haven't had a decent representation of Elsweyr in a game.
Both of those are simply the Whiterose river. I'd say that it's a bigger river in lore than in game and the area we see in Oblivion is simply a delta of sorts.
And it doesn't really merge into one at all.

4. You can't really place either Colovia or Nibenay based on the plants. And the terrain varies in both. From hot and humid swamps Nibenay's south, to the frozen, rocky Jeralls in it's north.
Although Colovia is a lot less varied in it's terrain, it's still difficult to place. You could say patagonia, but then again, you could just as easily say Baden-Württemberg or Bavaria or the Scottish Highlands or Brittany or the Rockies... the list goes on. There are dozens of regions on Earth which could match some part of Colovia.

I don't think so. Attrebus would have at least mentioned the Imperial Bridge. Besides, Weye was probably overrun by undead, blocking anyone from leaving the city.


I thought about that, but those islands are part of Hammerfell, so I figured they were already covered. I'll accept this if I can get a source that calls one of these islands a Western Island.


I felt that it does merge. You start with two rivers, which combine in a single delta. Unless you imagine those two rivers rejoining further upland (which is quite possible), you can't have a river with two different headwater regions.



I suppose so yes.

Well, they're islands. They're in the west and there aren't any other "western islands" mentioned in lore. Other than Thras. But, I highly doubt there is much trade with the slugs.

If it was two rivers, there wouldn't be two mouths like there are, because if you look at the http://www.uesp.net/wiki/File:OB-map-Cyrodiil.jpg... rivers don't flow like that. Though it's probably best to ignore the way rivers are represented in Oblivion. They're done quite badly.

My guess is that it's a blanket term to refer to all islands between Tamriel and Yokuda. So, in addition to the Chain, Herne, and Cespar, you have the Systres, Pankor, and Kevalla (which, strangely enough, appears in two different places depending on which version of the map you look at).

I LOVE botany! Yay trees!

First of all, Colovia covers the western reaches of Cyrodiil, so I'm not entirely sure which region you're curious about. Contrary to the popular notion that Oblivion's Cyrodiil is one big bland ecosystem, there's a heck of a lot of variety in Colovia alone. I'll skip over the Great Forest, since that's just a general forest like England's New Forest or Nottingham Forest, along with a spattering of poorly represented Redwood forest. The road north from Chorrol to Bruma is also just inspired by a general elevated Silver Birch forest in autumn.

The Imperial Reserve and Colovian Mountains are probably best represented by Yellowstone National Park.
Comparison 1: http://farm1.static.flickr.com/54/125203684_5ca70b7ecc.jpg vs http://www.findingdulcinea.com/docroot/dulcinea/fd_images/features/travel/travel-tales/2008/June/yellowstone-national-park/features/0/image.jpg
Comparison 2: http://media.giantbomb.com/uploads/6/62830/1555973-250px_colovian_highlands_super.jpg vs http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4091/4981116737_947df44ebb.jpg
Again, it's rooted mainly in autumn / late summer as the inspired season. Implementing seasons into a game this huge would be a phenomenal amount of work that most people probably don't quite grasp. Locations change drastically throughout the seasons, as do the behaviours of all animals living in the ecosystem.

The West Weald I'm not entirely sure about. http://www.discovergrandteton.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/geo-glacial-erratics.jpg http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_RqzN5G5txtU/TK3I_tVJ4AI/AAAAAAAAFqI/r0fWKIWxFx4/s1600/DSC04980e.jpg is an obvious influence in it's design, but other than the vineyards of Skingrad hinting at French countryside in areas like http://lh3.ggpht.com/_XWSUvKqJKD0/Sps8k5ccXkI/AAAAAAAAAUA/hIpIFwT4wDM/%5BUNSET%5D.jpg being a reference point, I get a strong http://europeantravelista.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/bauernhof-hirsche-e1303412823980.jpg vibe in the denser areas as well, certainly nearer the Great Forest. It's also worth pointing out that both the French and Germans loved http://www.bestourism.com/img/items/big/90/France_French-castle_6672.jpg, just like http://renderfred.free.fr/Skingrad1280.jpg does.

The other main section is the Gold Coast, but that blends mostly from the Imperial Reserve into a generally saline-tolerant area. So rather than basing it on a specific area from real life, they've obviously thought about what grows along the coast, and which plant species are salt tolerant enough to live there. Hence you get the lovely gold http://s0.geograph.org.uk/geophotos/01/38/41/1384108_0309e9c7.jpg (horrible prickly stuff) visible in every part of the http://farm1.static.flickr.com/47/144786633_29c47315e7.jpg, and trees like the http://pics.davesgarden.com/pics/2006/02/27/Brent_In_NoVa/c44196.jpg (visible in the last screenshot, on the right hand-side). You won't get any Oak out here, but there's still http://imageshack.us/f/269/oblivion201007110810230.png/ scraping by.

Hope that helps!

In terms of the west weald, there's this snippet from the Infernal City:

I love you. :hugs: Thanks!