Skyrim: Home of the Nords Review (a Morrowind mod)

stand up there you go you were dreaming what's your name that's an excellent question skyrim home of the nords is a massive fan expansion for morrowind that was in development for over a decade the goal is to recreate skyrim based on an older version of the elder scrolls lore conforming to more impressive world building standards set by morrowind i suppose it would make sense for us to experience this adventure with a nord character so let's see um krvanthmere even light yes well not even last night's storm could wake you i heard them say we've reached morrowind i'm sure they'll let us go yeah i hope so too i need to be somewhere else great i'm sure you'll fit right in follow me up to the office and they'll finish your release he is just saying that to be polite you know the province of morrowind and the island of vardenfell are known to be unpleasant for foreigners ah yes we've been expecting you you'll have to be recorded before you're officially released there are a few ways we can do this and the choice is yours i usually end up picking one of the pre-made classes because they come with neat backstories we'll be playing as a mercenary sorcerer focusing on both magic and martial skills at the expense of thievery and speechcraft looting the tutorial cavern leaves us with enough money to afford a bunk on a ship to skyrim [Music] more like smart this man juried fast travel has a boat that will take us to the home of the nords the costs are quite steep the trip takes almost three days [Music] so this is skyrim don't stand about get moving and that is what the local guards look like you know the arrow to the knee people the armor is nice not too simple not too elaborate karthwaisten is one of the largest cities in the reach the mountainous region jammed between skyrim high rock and hammerfell funny thing if you played bethesda's skyrim you've almost certainly been to karth wasted before although you probably don't remember it in the official game the city was just four houses yeah it was one of those quite a few burned down buildings on the outskirts i wonder what happened so the first thing we should do is get a job this is the local fighters guild the chapters exist all over the empire these guys are essentially state-sanctioned mercenaries they do all kinds of work mostly legal but different fighters guild chapters tend to develop different let's call them cultural idiosyncrasies ways of doing things what's this regarding meet geode and toriyani a bretonnian knight and the leader of the local organization will be working for him it is understood that geod is not very good at his job but he seems like a nice enough guy the local mages guild is not far in the world of the elder scrolls magic is somewhat mundane and if you are a practitioner it's good to be a member of the guild this is where you get magical supplies spells training and a job employment is the reason we're here nords are known for their skeptical attitude towards spellcasters and the local mages guild is well i'd say it's understaffed g tavarad is the leader of the local chapter and he is he belongs to the subspecies of khajiit catman who possess fewer feline and more human features these were always part of the lore but absent from task games until now the reachmen the natives are over-represented among the lower social classes of skyrim in todd's game they were thoroughly dehumanized you might remember them as the force sworn generic enemies with cool antler helmets one of my favorite skyrim designs this upper class house is occupied by individuals who don't look like they belong here they are the bore snout clan a bunch of nord and orc warriors united in solidarity i'm not actually sure what unites them the mutual respect for each other's warriors abilities perhaps they own the place because in the past their leader made correct political bets the locals quietly despised them that's a very nice helmet the poor live in the northwestern part of the city it's a ghetto but at least they are allowed inside the wolves this is where we find a criminal in hiding after a short confrontation she surrenders wasn't a fight to the death we escort her to the local garrison where she is put behind bars this was one of the bounty hunting quests not a bad way to make cash early on here is an interesting bit of reactivity i'm pretty sure the original morrowind didn't have that when we arrest criminals they get placed in this jail cell so we can observe the results of our work all of this will have further consequences down the road the rich woman bartender at the local tavern is involved in the thieves guild for a low level fresh of the boat character thievery is an excellent way of making a living it's not our style though [Music] the warned god forest is perhaps the largest forest in any of the elder scrolls games just by itself it's almost the size of a typical skyrim hold perhaps bigger alteration magic allows us to walk on water avoiding various hostile creatures that live in the wilderness we arrive at karthgard a nord settlement hidden in the woods we are here on guild business ravo sterandus a dunmer wizard in training was sent to the village by the mages guild to provide various magic related services to the locals g tavarad wants us to check on him ravos is not doing well nords dislike dark elves and they dislike wizards so a dark elf wizard is well it might have been not the best choice to represent the guild but like i said we are understaffed the nords of the bear clan act like the town belongs to them but it doesn't it's this woman the thane who is the real power in karthgard not the bear people local caverns are illuminated by this glowing fungi it's very pretty another major's guild task sends us to a remote richmond village our job is to learn some of their famous hedge magic and bring that knowledge back to the guild the richmond blood is a mix of nord and breton but their culture is obviously very distinct the locals don't trust us i was told this settlement is actually one of the friendliest you're hardly worth my time do i need to call the gods but i couldn't tell this cave or a cavernous complex clearly has a special significance to the locals used for burial or religious purposes perhaps our sorceries enable interesting world interactions here is me walking on water and fishing with a destruction spell that fries anything it touches funny the mod is supposed to eventually include the entirety of skyrim but the reach is the only region released so far mountains and forests skyrim home of the nords more like the reach home of the rich man but i'm not complaining even in bethesda's game the region was the most interesting part of the setting we meet a redguard trader the natives the bandits failed to rob her but they did manage to successfully scare away the horses not my problem nice head though the main square in karthwaistan is always crowded but especially so in the evening i'm glad the nord mead whole traditions are present in the reach these are the local prince private chambers in the red palace interesting i take both the acquisition of magical knowledge and martial development very seriously and one of the ways to practice both is by using conjuration magic to summon ghosts or other creatures and then using them as sparring partners a good way to get some combat practice early on the reach isn't exactly a center of civilization most of the money i've made goes into acquiring new skills and it can be hard to find trainers in the reach this guy is one of the few spear trainers i found buying spells is also a pain in that respect the local imperial temple turned out to be more useful than the mages guild at some point we might have to travel back to morrowind to shop for sorceries i don't recall using teleportation and yet there i was alone naked relatable this hidden button in the cellar of one of karth wasted many inns opens a secret door to the city's underbelly the tunnel network leads to all sorts of places smuggler's caves the thieves guild hideout ancient elven ruins buried below the streets of qarth various individuals who want to be left alone take advantage of the privacy provided by the ruins like this guy a dangerous summoner we kill him and loot his little secret hideout there are a number of expensive magical items including this cursed ring the ring significantly increases conjuration skill but lowers the personality attribute basically it makes us a lot better at summoning monsters weapons and armor but as long as we wear the ring the npcs in the game world will find us to be physically repulsive oh please by all means ask me lots of questions what annoying creature ask or get going what a winning personality must you make a pest of yourself by the gods you tourists are a nuisance you risk your neck coming here spare me the formalities and get to the point no i don't have time for you i'm afraid our pursuit of sorceress mastery made us an insult what's your story this lady boss khanna is the leader of qarth waste and thieves she is appropriately hard to find remember when i said that working for the government will have consequences down the line when the leader of the thieves guild flat out refused to talk to me like at all i arrogantly assumed that i must have stumbled upon a bug couldn't be my fault i even considered harassing people on project tamriel discord about this but then after thinking about it some more it made sense some perhaps most of the individuals have been beating up and arresting on the bounty hunting jobs were probably affiliated with the guild boss khanna needs to take care of her own i like that she just unapologetically shuts you down if the game was like it's a point of no return for the thieves guild are you sure you want to do this that would feel too artificial video gaming next time i'm replaying this a year from now i'm rolling an acab thief character a bounty hunting job leads us to a hunting cabin in a remote part of the forest criminals can be brought in alive or dead they are usually worth more money alive but having to escort them all the way to the garrison can be annoying so i briefly considered ending the fugitive's life right here on the spot but then as soon as we stepped out of the cabin we got attacked by a spriggan and i almost certainly would have died here without the fugitive's assistance i guess i owe her the caverns around karth wayston are populated by these snake worm-like creatures i got cornered and had to resort to emergency teleport spell that transfers you to the nearest shrine of the divines it usually teleports you to qarth but this time i've accidentally ended up somewhere else this is tauros hole the imperial garrison in the reach welcome to the city of dragonstar the place feels deceptively empty at night that's because we're in a quiet part of town dragon star is about as big as karth the local fighters guild is closed permanently it looks like you're on your honor don't press your luck i love this guy's helmet no traitor in dragon star will deal with us until we register with the local imperial census office the reason for that is because well it's because of the war a few decades ago during the war of bandar mock the forces of skyrim marched into hammerfell took karthwaistan and besieged dragonstar the city was divided into western and eastern sections separated by a wall each with their own government this is why on some imperial maps karthwaistan is marked as a redguard settlement this is also the reason there are burnt houses around qarth and why there are so many ethnic red guards in skyrim the nords fought the red guards and it looks like the nords won the western part of dragonstar is hammerfell the eastern is skyrim and it's patrolled by nords the imperial legionnaires are stuck in the middle acting as peacekeepers welcome to hammerfell home of the red guards the local politics are even more [ __ ] up than in vardenfell and that is excellent navigating a complicated political landscape is what you do in morrowind and this player expansion does not disappoint not to mention this likely means there will be plenty of employment opportunities for us as a permanently destitute mercenary sorcerer i like everything about this that's how hammerfell guards look like if you were wondering dragonstar east seems to have more orcish presence looks like orcs and nords managed to coexist relatively well come on then say something or move on these carriages provide a convenient way to fast travel between major locations let's go back to karth the sun and moons transform day to night but what transforms the mind i do some more jobs for the fighters guild one of them has us figuring the mystery of disappearing caravans truth to be told there is not a whole lot of work for a member of the guild in karthwasten probably because bounty contracts are issued directly by the local authorities ai pathfinding bugs are a common problem in morrowind but they do seem to be extra prevalent in the mod i wonder if these are addressed in openmw somehow seen any elves there are very few dunmer in skyrim the owner of a local pawn shop is a dark elf and by her side there is a guide to local politics written from the point of view of an outsider remember nord barrows in todd's skyrim they are not very common in the reach but there are still a few to be found in order to access this barrow one needs to survive a very dangerous fall possible if you are an expert acrobat or if you possess a slow fall spell i like this a lot acrobatics is kind of a stupid skill and i wish it had more uses like this the mages guild in dragonstar is located in the western part of the city meaning it's technically in another country meaning we have to join it separately agreeing to all terms and conditions again the first task has us recovering some confiscated items from the imperial taurus hole this job is interesting because it's designed to be more like a new vegas style quest rather than a typical morrowind task it has multiple solutions including doing nothing at all you can simply buy the necessary items in a store and donate them to the quest giver i ended up breaking into the private quarters of the imperial officer in charge discovering he is corrupt and then subsequently blackmailing him into releasing the confiscated items morrowind doesn't have the now standard bethesda fast travel system where you can click on any visited location and instantly teleport there instead you have to rely on public transportation one of the several methods of transport are the guild guides essentially teleporters operated by the members of the mages guild probably the most convenient way to travel and you don't even have to join the organization in order to make use of them so when i notice that the karthwaist and guild guide doesn't seem to be offering travelling services i assumed it's because the mod is still incomplete turns out it's actually a legal issue the treaty between nords and red guards prohibits guild guides since they can be used to circumvent the imperial bureaucracy remember the bore tribe mansion nobody in qarth seems to like these guys so let's [ __ ] with them this orc woman has armor i want i provoke her into attacking me by using speechcraft skill she is deadly i had to use up all my reserves of various magic scrolls we looted from the early encounter with the daedra summoner but it paid off in the end we walk away with a suit of orcish armor durable medium weight and excellent from an aesthetic standpoint we also get an expansive axe orcs are excellent craftsmen here is a problem like i said there aren't a whole lot of magic related services in the reach and we do need spells conjuration illusion and maybe a more potent damage dealing spell i have to travel back to morrowind just for a day or two morrowind feels so foreign again i never noticed just how vibrant and colorful the southern vardenfell actually was and there are so many goddamn elves hours later we arrived at satanin this time not in a prison ship what's up guy why walk when you can ride why indeed we are going to balmora the council seat of the great house hlalu and more importantly the location of the most well-stuffed mages guild on the island keep moving scum oh yeah we in morrowind all right after buying the necessary spells i use the recall magic to instantly teleport myself back to skyrim just like i expected the entire trip took maybe two or three days the reach feels like home [Music] someone should teach you some manners what a winning personality you are beginning to annoy me do not toy with me get out of here we explore the elven ruins at this point we are powerful enough to take a dremora one-on-one using a summoned weapon granted if the dremora was armed with a daedric weapon like they sometimes are he would have killed me in one or two hits the durani architecture is it's certainly very different from everything we've seen so far the durani are not a nation or an ethnicity they were well actually they still are an aristocratic altmer clan wizards alchemists and schemers who became a powerful dynasty ruling over high rock for hundreds of years welcome to high rock home of the bretons the ruins on top of the mesa are visible from far away here is a severed nord leg in a campfire it can be used as a weapon oh is this a planescape torment reference what the hell is that thing is that one of them cliff racers i heard so much about one of the box has a drone map of dragonstar and the surrounding area very useful because the real world map doesn't work in the mod it's some kind of an engine related issue openmw fixes that but it doesn't support certain other additions i like to have in my morrowind install the skyrim part of dragonstar has a fighting arena since there are no fighters guild jobs perhaps this can be an alternative way of making a living the first fight is against a bunch of red dark criminals who are unarmored and just barely armed we easily kill them with a destruction spell the nearby tavern has another one of them human-like khajiit the poor in dragon star live in this here tent camp and in the caverns nearby this richmond has a pet rooster that's super cool this guy [ __ ] for sure the dragonstar arena is a multi-story building without a roof which is a pretty serious design flaw considering how terrible the local weather can be can't be comfortable for the spectators or the fighters it also tanks the frame rate unless you're using openmw this large room underneath the arena has training mats a bunch of basic weapons and caged animals this place will be our new home for about a month just what the hell is that thing have you seen anything like this before between the arena fights i summon various creatures mostly skeletons and ghosts and spar with them for practice occasionally we venture outside the walls on guild business this is one of the larger villages in the reach in terms of architecture it's a mix of nord and richmond influences actually are these stone buildings related to the nord culture or are they redguard i'm not sure and this is how the interiors look like very nice very homey while exploring the mountains we stumble upon a hidden smuggler's cavern i suppose this statue must have some sort of a religious significance to the locals after weeks of training and becoming a competent hand-to-hand fighter a job for the hammerfell mages guild has us investigating a merchant a dragonstar local who is suspected to be a daedra summoner and indeed the man has a book on daedric sorcery locked in his study yeah guy you should have hidden this stuff better we stumble upon a small camp near the edge of the dragonstar forest the nord hunter offers training services remember orc strongholds from todd's skyrim they are in this game as well and this is how they look like even in morrowind these settlements were tiny in size which i think is intentional and not just a product of technical limitations the western forest hides another durani ruin these are excavated and studied by the specialists from the guild or at least they would be if either one of the guilds we joined had the manpower to facilitate this is that a cliff racer much like in real life basic household items can look very different from culture to culture while being essentially the same in function i summon a pair of daedric gauntlets and proceed to beat the [ __ ] out of a dremora getting good at this these purple crystals were used as a source of illumination and possibly as decorations i dig it a private study of a high-ranking wizard perhaps and what is this machine whatever it does it looks like it still works the tower's former owner i'll borrow that hat thank you naid doesn't work for me at all now this is the tower's current owner the elf legally owns the ruins but he doesn't mind the guild researchers working here except lately he has been having problems with bad dreams the tower's depths were invaded by hostile rich men the witches and their hedge magics are preventing our ultimate friend from having a good sleep interesting this is a very expensive ancient alchemy set i don't dabble in alchemy myself but i know a traitor in karthwaistan who would love to take this off my hands clan fears can be dangerous in packs but individually not so much the forest in this part of the region is smaller geographically and has a different look and feel compared to the huge forest near karthwaistan the guild sends us back to the nord village of qarthgod our cultural ambassador [ __ ] up tried to sell the knowers potions that didn't work wasn't an intentionally malicious action he's just incompetent the beer clan wants his head our job is damage control the next task has us re-establishing the guild teleporter to hammerfell the dragonstar guildmaster straight up refuses to do this but strangely enough the representative of the hammerfell crowns didn't hate our initiative the yarl however had a different opinion jarl jonah the ensender first of all that's an amazingly badass name the khajiit specifically instructed us not to talk to her about the guild matter we are supposed to act behind her back i had little reason to dabble in local politics until now but i couldn't help but notice that the people of the reach could barely contain fear and resentment when speaking of jonah the hammerfell officials call her a barbarian others refer to her as reckless headstrong warlord she is supposed to be in charge of both dragonstar and karthwaistan but due to intrigue and politicking her actual power is limited to the north parts of dragonstar she is both a url and an exile jonah hates the idea of reestablishing the guild link and suggests we're being unknowingly manipulated by the outside forces so we can abandon the task or we can tell her that the link will be re-established anyway and there is nothing she can do about it and that's true she can't but at this point neither can we i have a long conversation with the imperial bureaucrat in dragonstar who eventually asked for 5 000 septims for permission to re-establish a guild link and before he even accepts the theoretical possibility of a bribe you have to persuade him by picking correct dialogue options i'm sorry but i just don't have that kind of money the arena doesn't pay this much speaking of which our next fight is against a giant bear i ended up over preparing for this with a shield spell hand-to-hand combat augmented by summoned daedric gauntlets is extremely potent in one-on-one fights in group battles not so much but that's what the rest of our magic arsenal is for and the bear goes down after that it's us against three richmond warriors i had to use my health potions for this one a knight challenges us to a one-on-one duel yeah whatever it's your funeral guy between the fights i keep sparring with skeletons in the chambers underneath the arena after becoming competent at hand-to-hand combat i decided to practice with different weapons swords axes spares the next battle is against a pack of these cat-like things i use a summoned daedric spear to take them down quickly after that we fight a minotaur looks like the arena owners ran out of creatures for us to fight the last challenge is this individual the orc who currently has the title of the champion he goes down in exactly three hits after spending another month in dragonstar i think it's time for us to move on this is how karth wayston looks from the roof of the red palace kind of resembles one of them daggerfall cities i used one of the rooms in carth wasted mages guild for storage i don't really need any of these items i guess i'll be selling them in order to raise money for the guild guide the most important equipment we have are our magic rings and the suit of orcish armor things we always carry on our person selling all the durani stuff got us just a little over 5000 septums nice we spent them on the permit from the imperial census office the chapter master of the hammerfell mages guild is not pleased with this development it seems we inadvertently forced a dangerous political decision upon her she'll go along with this but only because she doesn't want to embarrass us and the guild before the imperial bureaucrats there is another problem the guild doesn't have a trained specialist to fill the role of a guild guide eventually we find one working as a cook at one of the nord upper class mansions the theme of nord's disrespecting magic users continues but this individual is a proper specialist and sure enough the whole thing is set up and it works in fact let's try it out now teleport us to karthwaistan so what's this about nice wait something is missing where the hell is the cat man we find him upstairs the guildmate says the url must be responsible for this i ask the guide to take me back to dragonstar so we can confront jonah she doesn't even bother denying it it's time for us to go i think it's time for us to leave the reach [Music] goodbye skyrim it's been a fun two months but where to go next the patch for tamriel rebuild just dropped maybe we'll visit old ebenheart or perhaps it's time to go back to cyrodiil the intro cutscene says we were taken to morrowind from the imperial city prison so i suppose it used to be our home at one point the playthrough took me a total of maybe 35 or so hours i experienced around 60ish percent of the content probably less we arrived in the reach at level 1 left at level 13. the game doesn't arbitrarily lock content there is stuff to do for low-level characters but there are plenty of challenges for experienced nerevarines as well i didn't even bother installing a chance to hit mod although i would recommend one of those if you are new to morrowind now the bad i mentioned this before but the enemy and the general npc ai is terrible npcs will often get stuck in furniture and terrain which can trivialize some fights this is an old morrowind problem however the follower ai is actually really good and reliable zero problems with these sort of quests some buildings have irrationally designed interiors hammerfell mages guilt is goddamn impossible to navigate without getting stuck the karthwaist and fighters guild has this weird unused space in the back mistakes like these are rare but noticeable but these are little problems home of the nords integrates so smoothly into the morrowind experience you feel like it always belonged here both in terms of quality and quantity of the content the mod is superior to bethesda's official expansions both of them combined i highly recommend incorporating this adventure into your next morrowind playthrough for me this is going to be a permanent install from now on my original plan for early february was to play a mod for new vegas called the frontier that was just released a few weeks ago and holy mother of god that project turned out to be a catastrophe the whole thing made me appreciate the fantastic modding community we have working with the medium of morrowind thank you guys we are lucky to have you the adventures of mercenary sorcerer quan eben light will continue [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Warlockracy

Views: 319,190

Keywords: video games, gaming, game design, warlockracy, project tamriel, tamriel rebuilt, ShotN review, Skyrim: Home of the Nords Review, morrowind, the elder scrolls

Id: RnyIQkJru3o

Length: 33min 5sec (1985 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 11 2021