[Opening music and rousing intro to get you hyped for entering the world of Morrowind modding] Greetings, salutations, and welcome to the return of our Mod of the Month series, remastered, reformatted, and redesigned for 2024! And obviously with a new name! And today we'll be taking a look at the best Morrowind mods released in January of 2024, and good heavens, was January a busy month for the Morrowind Modding Community! 142 new Morrowind mods were released last month, an all-time high for the first month of the year, covering everything from gorgeous new city overhauls, to perilous new dungeons, exciting new quests and adventures, immersive new audio additions, new gameplay mechanics, armors, weapons, and so much more! Now, we've only got time to cover about 5 of those mods here today, but you can see some of the other major highlights just here in the background, and as always, download links can be found just right down below. And besides all those shiny new mods, there were also hundreds of new mod updates released in January, so stick around after our top 5 list for just a quick highlight reel of some of the biggest expansions and updates to your favorite mods. As always, you can use the timestamps just right down below to jump to a specific mod, and of course, we do have a graphics mod list just linked in the video description. But with all of that out of the way, let's just, let's jump right in with the top 5 new mod releases of January 2024, starting with the stunning and transformative city overhaul, Vivec: City of Swords by Tyrant. Vivec is the largest city in vanilla Morrowind, the home of a godking warrior poet, a religious pilgrimage site for the followers of the Tribunal Temple. It has been the subject of countless overhauls, but none, none have gone so far, have been so transformational, so utterly rebuilt the city of Vivec as Vivec: City of Swords. Everything has been changed, the layout of the cantons, the shape of the city, all to create a more logical, a more urbanized city center, one that feels like a real city. The Palace, instead of pointing out into the Norvayn Bay, is now located in the heart of the city, surrounded by residential neighborhoods, and of course, the temple, which has been given a more prominent and vertical position, just atop the foreign quarter district. The residential cantons of St. Olms and St. Delyn have been replaced with exterior neighborhoods, giving the city that-that urbanized core that it was missing before, and beyond these neighborhoods, Vivec now has a massive port, with cargo docks for a dozen ships, twin lighthouses guarding the bay. It is a gorgeous, daring, and scenic transformation, one that goes further than any other overhaul that we've yet seen for Vivec, and we have seen quite a few. Just to cover a bit of our history, in the last few years, quite a few major overhauls were released for Vivec City, each innovating and adding to the city in their own way. Rethinking Vivec, released by Atrayonis in 2020, in addition to open cantons, was the first Vivec city overhaul to heavily use cargo ports with a proper harbor for the city itself. Vivec City by the Nwahs and Mushrooms Team, released in 2021, expanded upon that port concept with additional canton ports, as well as a dramatically enhanced gateway entrance to Vivec, outdoor merchants, and just tons of detail and clutter. Vivec - God the City, released by Tapetenklaus in 2022, continued the tradition of canton harbors and open canton plazas, but vastly overhauled the interiors of the cantons themselves, expanding them with enormous, verticality-inducing waistworks, and large interior residential areas. And in 2023, Ashstaar released Bustling Vivec, a major concept art inspired overhaul that focused on detailing Vivec with the-the strange and alien, an aesthetic alignment that just perfectly suits the cultural styles of Morrowind. But none-NONE of those mods went so far as to so dramatically change the layout of the city, to get rid of entire cantons and replace them with exterior neighborhoods. Not til now, in 2024, with Vivec: City of Swords, has a mod so dramatically altered the city of Vivec. It is a big, big change, that extends even to the interiors of the Foreign Quarter waistworks, with a new, large, interior plaza, with that lovely picture of verticality, and personally I dare say this may become the new standard by which Vivec city overhauls will come to be known. The mod is, you know, still being worked on, Tyrant is currently working on overhauls for more of the Vivec canton interiors, so additional visual changes are to be expected, and right now it is... it is just a bit of a compatibility nightmare, Concept Art Vivec Palace, Passage of Prayers, Gates of Ascadia, Baar Dau - Ministry of Truth and the other various Meteorite Ministry overhauls, any overhauls for the library of Vivec, all of those will currently conflict. It'll be a monumental effort to patch everything for compatibility. But I do think it'll be worth it, there is no denying that Vivec: City of Swords feels far more like an actual city than the Vivec found in the vanilla game, and I dare say it represents the future of Vivec overhauls, which is what makes it the first mod in our list for January 2024. But let's move on, to another mod, and another overhaul, this time a dungeon mod, for next we have Dagoth Ur Fleshed Out By Orion. If you've ever finished the Morrowind main quest, you'll have known the utter and complete disappointment that is the game's final boss dungeon, the Dwemer ruins of Dagoth Ur, the final bastion of the House Unmourned, the last, deepest, and darkest of the Sixth House bases. In vanilla Morrowind, what should have been an epic battle across a disturbing lair of vile corprus blight, was instead a boring slog through a handful of tiny Dwemer rooms, with nary a single Sixth House decoration, populated by just a few apparently confused and lost minor Dagoths and Ascended Sleepers. The entire thing could take you less than five minutes to get through. Hardly the riveting challenge you'd expect before the big bad final boss battle. But now, at long last, Dagoth Ur has been given the dungeon-delving treatment it always should have had, resplendently and horrifically rebuilt for the modern age. With Dagoth Ur Fleshed Out, you'll experience a terrifying, atmospherically detailed, challenging final dungeon for you to fight through before you can encounter Dagoth Ur himself. No longer an anonymous Dwemer ruin, the facilities of Dagoth Ur are now covered in the regalia of the Sixth House. Scribbles adorn the walls, Sixth House statues whisper menacingly from a thousand alcoves, great bloated growths of corprus undulate in the dark, and countless candles cast the halls and passages of this forsaken realm in hues of scarlet red. And throughout this new, expanded, deliciously detailed stronghold, you'll find countless servants of the Sixth House, beastly abominations of the blight, and dreadful dagoths ready to rip and tear and shred any would-be hero who dares enter here. Dozens of Sixth House priests, warriors, corprus monstrosities, bell ringers and more stand ready to defend Dagoth Ur to their last breath. A truly frantic and fraught battle that'll last all the way to the very doors leading to Dagoth Ur's final domain. To say this is an improvement over the vanilla game is an understatement, it is a true breath of fresh air, or rather, blighted and corrupted air, turning the once dull, boring, and forgettable final dungeon into a truly memorable experience, one that makes this mod unquestionably one of the best new mod releases of January 2024. But of course, you know, we did just showcase this mod, so let's just hop on to our next entry, the immersive cinematic audio enhancement, Gares Last Gasp by Von Djangos. In vanilla Morrowind, the meeting of Dagoth Gares within the depths of the Ilunibi Sixth House base is a pivotal moment in the Morrowind main quest. Dagoth Gares passes along a message from Dagoth Ur, along with the corprus disease, a major plot point around which the future actions of the main quest rely. But as you can see here from the vanilla game, the meeting is rather underwhelming, Dagoth Gares himself looks like just any other ash ghoul, and you simply get a messagebox at the end of your encounter, you know, informing you of your corprus infection. Now, with Gares Last Gasp, this interaction is far more cinematic. And as a note here, I am using New Ilunibi by Seelof, which overhauls the dungeon itself, and Gares Last Gasp does have a compatibility patch for New Ilunibi. Not only does Gares have a new unique model and animations, but he also has voiced lines, and here, let's just, let's give it a listen. Dagoth Gares: The Sixth House greets you, Lord Nerevar, Dagoth Gares: or whatever name you now call yourself. Dagoth Gares: I am known as Dagoth Gares, Dagoth Gares: priest of Ilunibi shrine and minister to Sixth House servants. Dagoth Gares: My Lord Dagoth Ur has informed me of your coming. Dagoth Gares: I wish that, this time, you had come to honor your lord's friendship, not to betray it! Dagoth Gares: The sleepers and dreamers are newly come to Lord Dagoth Dagoth Gares: and are not yet blessed with his power. Dagoth Gares: But we children of his flesh, Dagoth Gares: we are deep in the heart of his mysteries, our bodies swell to contain his glory Dagoth Gares: and to yield the rich sacraments of our lord's feasts. Dagoth Gares: Ilunibi shrine is just a small Dagoth Gares: quiet retreat for Sixth House servants. Dagoth Gares: A place to contemplate and grow strong and wise in Lord Dagoth's ways. Dagoth Gares: Here we share the sacraments of flesh and blood Dagoth Gares: and dream the dreams of our lord Dagoth Gares: Lord Dagoth gives me these words to say to you so you may give them thought. Dagoth Gares: Once we were friends and brothers, Lord Nerevar, in peace and in war. Dagoth Gares: Yet beneath Red Mountain, you struck me down as I guarded the treasure you bound me by oath to defend. Dagoth Gares: But remembering our old friendship, I would forgive you Dagoth Gares: and raise you high, in my service. Dagoth Gares: My Lord Dagoth bids you come to Red Mountain Dagoth Gares: For the friendship and honor that once you shared Dagoth Gares: he would grant you council and power, if only you would pledge that friendship anew. Dagoth Gares: I am not your Lord Dagoth Dagoth Gares: Yet I too would say to you: Dagoth Gares: "You come with weapons to strike me down" Dagoth Gares: "Or would you put away your weapon and join me in friendship." Dagoth Gares: Even as my master wills, you shall come to him. Dagoth Gares: In his flesh and of his flesh. Now, I think you'll agree, that is a far more memorable and exciting encounter, worthy of the importance of this event in the Morrowind main quest. Obviously, this isn't a huge mod, but it is just another fantastic immersive voiced audio mod by Von Djangos, and certainly worthy of special mention here. Now, so far all the mods that we've looked at have been from modding veterans, but January was also home to the first ever Morrowind Mastery Month, a month-long mentorship program with tutorials and workshops hosted by the community's veterans with the intent of teaching newer modders the ropes of the Morrowind CS. And up next we have one of the first mods submitted under the Morrowind Mastery Month banner, for we next have the immersive little world detail mod Immersive Grotto Entrances by Hurdrax Custos. In vanilla Morrowind, grottos were natural underwater caverns that you could find along the coastlines of Vvardenfell. They weren't exactly the most interesting dungeons, you know, most of them had very little in terms of loot or...really in terms of anything. And yet, despite being natural caverns, they all had presumably Mer-made wooden doors. Oh....wait... Okay yeah, I just heard that, yeah, that-that might be a bit confusing... Uh yeah, Mer-made, I was, what I meant- you know, what I was going to say, is basically, you know, man-made. But Vvardenfell is the land of the Dunmer who are obviously Mer, so you know, I was just, I was going to replace man with mer but... Saying it out loud, yeah, that is, that is unnecessarily confusing... Uh, let's.....Okay, how about Mer-crafted? Okay, so... They had mer-crafted wooden doors So, you know, in any event, in any event as the name here implies, this is an immersive replacement of those grotto entrances, removing the wooden doors that were here before, and instead, replacing them with a more natural entrance, a dark hole that leads down into each grotto, covering both the interior and exterior entrances of all 11 grottos in the vanilla game. You know, to say the least, it is not a big mod, but it adds a beautiful extra level of just immersion to the game world of Morrowind, and it is honestly just surprising that no one has attempted a replacement like this before. If you're a fan of immersive world details, it is just another fantastic addition to add to your game, and for a better showcase of this mod, I would be remise not to point out that Hurdrax has posted his own showcase to YouTube, a link to which you'll find just right down below. But moving on, we next have the delightfully unique quest mod A Familiar Song by Superduple. An adventure told through story and song, A Familiar Song is a quest mod quite unlike any other, offering a unique series of encounters that each tell a strand of a bard's tale, all leading to the culmination with a unique boss battle with multiple different potential outcomes and a new music-based spell that's cast by your character's combat movements. It all begins when you encounter a mysterious bard on the bridge outside of Fort Moonmoth, and should you agree to hear his story, you'll be teleported into a memory, acting out the scenes as the bard narrates the tale. From here you'll encounter this bard all across Morrowind, each time learning a new piece of the tale, and experiencing it first hand, from battles with vampires, to a blooming romance with an Ashlander, the tale takes twists and turns with interactive elements. It is a just a truly unique experience, and alongside The Professionals by Viga, it is one of the most unique quest mods of 2024. The final boss battle is particularly challenging, but the way it's weaved in with the new music-based magic is just masterfully done, and the end result here is a just a truly memorable and impactful narrative experience that adds yet more depth to the world of Morrowind. As, you know, as a big fan of quest mods, I honestly can't recommend it enough! And speaking of quest mods, that does bring us to our final mod today, with the quest overhaul Morrowind Redux series by Kildozery. This-this was actually a series of mods released by Kildozery throughout the entire month of January as part of Morrowind Mastery Month, covering the vanilla game factions of the Thieves Guild, Mages Guild, Imperial Legion, Tribunal Temple, House Redoran, East Empire Company, and the Bloodmoon expansion. These were eventually all combined into the singular Morrowind Redux release at the end of January, and the goal of all these mods is to is to simply overhaul the quest rewards for these vanilla game factions. As noted by the mod author, many of the game's vanilla quests actually had little to no rewards, often lacking both any kind of reputation gain and any kind of reward for actually completing the quest itself. Other factions relied heavily on almost exclusively gold rewards, which, you know, given particular factions, may not even make a whole lot of sense. The aim of this mod is to add new, more varied, but lore-friendly and balanced quest rewards to these vanilla game quests and factions, ones that make sense for each faction in question. This means things like more quests in the Imperial Legion rewarding you with armor, or more quests in the Tribunal Temple rewarding you with books or skills. There's also new spells and powers, weapon and clothing, and other unique quest rewards that, while they don't change the nature of the quest themselves, you know, just do make them feel more, well, rewarding of course! And this also fills in any gaps in reputation gains, as all quests will now reward you at least some reputation, which, you know, if you're familiar with Morrowind's mechanics, the reputation system was basically a rudimentary fame system. As you became more famous, you'd unlock certain quests and NPCs would have a better reaction to you. Quests are supposed to reward reputation, but it is something that often got overlooked by both Bethesda and quest modders in the vanilla game. But, you know, anyway, this is just, this is a great vanilla+ enhancement on the game's vanilla factions, and well worth checking out for yourself! And that, that rounds out all of the core mods for today, but wait, there's more! Not only were there 142 new mods released in January, there were also hundreds of minor and major updates for existing mods, and we'll be taking a quick look at the highlights here today. Now, we aren't going to do an extensive overview of every mod update from January but we are going to, just briefly, showcase some of the major updates from that particular month, and if you'd like to see just a longer breakdown of major mod releases and updates, we do have a weekly summary and mod report poster over on Patreon, which is, you know, available to everyone, it's basically just, you know, kind of a free blog. But anyway, first up is Caldera Priory and the Depths of Blood and Bone by Seelof and his many, many minions, which was updated to version 2.0 on January 1st of 2024. A major update and expansion that added three new massive dungeon interior cells to the already massive dungeons of Caldera Priory. Alongside these new dungeon interiors, there were also 4 new quests, bringing the mod's total to 10, more loot, new documents and lore, and just tons of tweaks. Caldera Priory is just one of the all-time largest dungeon mods made for Morrowind, and this new expansion adds a hefty, hefty amount of content! Following up on that is another expansion for another dungeon mod, this time The Stone Halls of Solstheim Reforged by Naufragous77 which was updated to version 1.2, and then 1.3 on January 25th and 26th of 2024. An overhaul mod with the aim to overhaul the Nordic barrows of Solstheim, this update is the first time in years that new dungeons have been added, with new overhauls for the Frosselmane Barrow and the Jolgeirr Barrow, essentially tripling the amount of content in The Stone Halls of Solstheim with massive, richly detailed, Skyrim-like Nordic barrows for you to explore. January was also a banger month for major gameplay updates, with a number of new features and gameplay mechanics for a number of big name mods, like The Guar Whisperer by Merlord, updated to version 2.0 on January 7th of 2024. The Guar Whisperer allows you to tame and breed guars and it's got a ton of new features! Improvements to the AI, UI, new recipes from AshFall, and perhaps most importantly, you can now actually ride your guars, so not only can you tame and breed them, but you can also ride them as mounts, an exciting new feature that gives you a new way to travel around Morrowind! But anyway, while we won't cover all the gameplay mods updated in January, two more that are worth mentioning, are More QuickLoot by Herbert100, which was updated several times in January, adding new quickloot features for grouping containers, pickpocketing, and animated container quickloot support, among other things. And also Repopulated Waters - Rowing NPCs by GrumblingVomit, which was updated to version 1.1 on January 3rd and 1.3 on January 30th, adding new rowing NPC routes to Tamriel Rebuit, and also allowing you to ride along with NPCs as they just, you know, as they row their boats, similar to how it works for abot's Water Life. Moving on from all that though, January also saw some pretty major updates for town mods, like Dallara Imperial Forts by Dallara1000, which was updated to version 1.4 and 1.5 on January 24th and 26th of 2024. This was a major optimization update, optimizing a ton of meshes, albeit you know still pretty performance heavy, but that's not all, this was also a big update for new details, adding tons of new content to the Imperial forts and castles of Morrowind, including new windows and interior additions, as well as compatibility patches for, you know, some major popular mods, like Solstheim - Tomb of the Snow Prince and, you know, Rocky West Gash. We've already showcased this version just pretty extensively in our Mod of the Day showcases, but it is still just a beautiful looking mod. Also updated in January was Amazing Balmora Expansion by Eluwil, which received a version 1.7 update on January 6th of 2024. A major update with tons of tweaks and changes, this included countless just minor bugs and typo fixes for quests and dialogue, as well as object placement and NPC changes. The big parts of this update though included changes to the Balmora Sewers layout, with more detailing and clutter, and a variety of exterior and interior changes for what is still probably just the largest Balmora expansion mod for Morrowind to date. Not exactly a town mod per say, but Roaring Arena - Betting and Bloodletting by Team VonVom was updated several times in January, from version 0.4 to version 0.8, and has consequently been updated several times since, adding new animated audiences to the Vivec Arena, new compatibility support, new random fights on the Arena floor with a variety of new NPC opponents, new crowd voicelines, new betting on NPC fights, and the ability to schedule player versus NPC fights, as well as Arena rank advancement and just a whole slew of other features. Roaring Arena has added just quite a bit of content since we originally showcased it, and it's honestly become one of the most exciting, actively still being worked on and updated mods for Morrowind. Also worth noting here, Superliuk's massively ambitious city mod, Windhelm - City of the Kings, received a number of major updates in January, for versions 0.2.1 and 0.2.2. The project is still very much an alpha, but these updates made landscape changes, added a quest, and pathgriding to the city. Visually it is a very scenic project, and one that's definitely just worth keeping an eye on as it continues to get new development updates! In the quest mod department, Blademeister by Superduple was updated to version 1.5 on January 5th, bringing this unique companion and quest mod to the original Morrowind game engine, after it was originally released only on OpenMW. A weapon companion mod, Blademeister introduces you to a talking, shapeshifting blade, that can take the form of other weapons, provided that you find the right components first, or even shapeshift into various Daedra, should you feed it soul-gems with those Daedric souls first. One of the more unique mods from 2023, the 1.5 update also includes new dialogue options and a spell overhaul. Finally, one last update that's just particularly worthy of mention, Magical Missions Recharged by Von Djangos was updated from version 2.0 to 2.21 between January 27th and 31st of 2024. The remake of the famed 2011 mod Magical Missions, Magical Missions Recharged not only adds five new Mages Guild quests to Caldera, but as of the 2.0 release, also adds a new rival to the player in the guild Rival: Well, well, well....Looks like they'll let any old half-wit into the guild these days. Rival: Like my new robes? Rival: I'm celebrating my promotion to Warlock, in suitable style. Rival: How are you getting on, half-wit? Somewhere behind me I imagine. and revamps five of the vanilla Mages Guild missions, as well as changing just some dialogue here and there and a few bug fixes. We'll give this one a proper showcase in due time, but you know, it is worth noting that, 13 years later, this mod is still getting major updates! And that's, that's pretty much everything for our major mod updates, you know, that hardly covers all of the activity from January but... that should give you just a slice of the major content updates from around the community! And that's it for today's video, stay tuned for new videos covering February and March, and... otherwise, as always, download links are just right down below! And real quick, I would like to just take a moment to thank our patreons, including: Aestheticjmack, Alexios, AreaFive/Simbelmyne, Billyfighter, Carter Canterbury, Cuiwi, Cyprinus, Danae, Deliant, Denina, Denis418, Exovian, Jaume Alcazo Castellarnau, Julien, Koreador, Langusteer, Lord Brinne, Macbone, Melchior Dahrk, Merlord, Michal, Mrthejoshmon, NullCascade, Old_Navy_Twidget, OperatorJack, Peaurcques, Povuholo, RavenTalonn, rfuzzo, Ris_Ellith, SandGentleman, Shadowbanishwine, Shuuda, Sokacat, Stiffkittin, TelvanniWithAThousandNicknames, Tezrel, Two-Timing Trama Root, Tyraa Rane, Wyrhta and XeroFoxx. If you'd like to join them, check out our rewards, including early access, behind the scenes content, and access to polls to you know decide what kind of content we showcase, visit our patreon page at Patreon.com/MorrowindModding. Thanks for watching, and as always, stay safe, stay healthy, happy modding, and I'll just, I'll see you all next time!
