Forsworn kinda hate the Bretons too, they kinda want to be their own thing, despite racially being Breton, they are completely different culturally and religiously
Well they created an anti-memetic border so when you enter Wyoming you forgot you were there immediately and ended up on the other side. Wyoming does exist but no one knows it.
Step 1: draw out the tectonic plate lines Step 2: draw the continents and maybe some fault lines Step 3: draw mountains on tectonic lines on continents where they meet, ravines in the ocean, plateaus or hills descending from the mountains and hills descending from the plateau. Step 4: draw rivers descending from the mountains following the path of elevation downwards, water always flows downhill and almost never branches off creating a distributary. Step 5: establish water currents and where warm water will go, as well as where winds will go. These will help determine the weather along with the mountains Step 6: when rain flows to a mountain, the rainy side should be more lush than the opposite side. If lakes equivalent to the great Lakes exist (ones created by glaciers) then mountains won't matter much. Places that don't receive much rain because of dry winds will be deserts and probably will lack many rivers and lakes. Step 8: now with all this information, you can start placing down towns and cities. Towns on rivers, cities on low coast to act as ports, or on navigable rivers. And villages can be scattered, just make sure any large settlement has water and a road connected to it, roads should lead to the capital but not always, they can lead to major cities instead. Without roads that town or city would be pretty independent Step 7: now you can draw the country borders. Think of power dynamics and how they've changed. Don't just give land to a country for sexy borders, make sure there's a legitimate reason the country has that land. Either because it's rich in resources or the leader wanted to expand the nation's influence. That's all I can think of
“Most people start with an outline of the continent, then add in mountains and rivers and stuff” “You should start with the coasts, and mountains and rivers”
@@znightowlz6585 elder scrolls 2 and 3 were edgy.(read up on The interactions between The deadra, the tribunal and several of the nobles) The benefits of not being completely taken over by zenimax and not having all your original devs driven out yet.
@@goolabbolshevish1t651 Fallout and Elder scrolls both suffer from this. It's the continual dumbing down of everything in the game. It has to be simplified for the masses. There are no negative outcomes any longer. From character creation to quest lines, everything has been made simple and there is always a right answer with little to no downside whatsoever. Most quests ends with choices like: 1) Piss off faction A for 1000 gold 2) Piss off faction B for 1000 gold 3) Piss off both factions for 250 gold 4) Everyone is happy and you get 3000 gold Langue skills in elder scrolls? To complicated, players aren't smart enough to figure it out. Cut them. Magic crafting could become overpowered and nonsensically enjoyable? Cut it, quick! Before people like it too much. Want to use a sword and shield and cast spells at the same time? You could in Oblivion, but that's too complex for Skyrim.
Stoneworks: Skyrim is so well designed! Me: Wait. Takes a map of Ireland, rotates it 90 degrees anti clockwise. “Breathes in through nose and exhaling, carries on with day”
That's actually a very good trick if you want natural looking shapes on your maps. I used a map of Hungary for one of my islands because I think the shape is cool :P
Mountains are better borders than rivers, Because huge mountains are harder to cross and claim than water. If you can't reach the river, you can't have the river
“If you can’t reach the river, you can’t have it.” I want to imagine a lot of ancient wars started not over religion or politics but the fact that some guy tied to the deed to a river to a fishing line and dangled it in front of someone’s face. 🤣
15:14 the Imperials do in fact use Pale Pass for cargo/reinforcements, as implied by a note you can find in a Stormcloak controlled fort in which the author is worried about a Legion massing at Pale Pass
Exactly. The developers just didn't want to program an actual path into Cyrodil, for obvious reasons. You gotta use a little reasonable imagination when filling in the blanks in worlds like this, Stromcloak note or not.
The way I went about shaping continents and regions was by importing a rule from OC creation, it was a tip for creating uniquely designed characters (though I think the rule breaks down with more realistic characters.) Make the silhouette distinct. If your region's silhouette is put into a group with other silhouettes of blobs and regions, tilted, flipped n resized, and you can find it quickly then you're on the right track. Kinda like how Australia is really recognizable as an arc with horns and a lil crescent shaped island close by.
*snorts some coke* sooo yeah I don't know italian borders should stop right at about venice because the boot shape is a little ruined by all that political border nonsense also who the fuck thought it was a good idea to give the southern peninsula below california to mexico? completely unnatural border...
@Colin Curtin No, no. See, it's actually the spaghetti that holds the answers *within* the borders, and the way the meatballs "interact" with those answers that determines the "motion" of each region.
When he was speaking about High Rock "claims" to the West of Skyrim, I remembered that when the Nords arrived from Atmora and eventually took Skyrim for themselves, there were already Men living in the region. In fact, in the 4th Era there's still people fighting against this Nord occupation, per say. The Reachmen even look more like High Rock men (not speaking of Bretons here) than anything else.
Actually the high rock peoples are descended from the earlier arrivals to skyrim. When the snow elves slaughtered the original human settlement a number of the people fled. It's explained in one of the books in skyrim, they fled and were captured then enslaved by high elves. A number of generations latter when Nords spread out they encountered them and mistook them for some form of mer and killed a bunch, a survivor explained to them that after being enslaved and breeding (weather they liked it or not) with elves they had become what they are now which disgusted the nords. Hence why they have higher magical talents as well as a resistance to magic.
Solitude makes sense as an Imperial trade port, though. By the events of Skyrim, Tamriel is in the midst of a Cold War. The Aldmeri Dominion isn't going to provoke a premature war by interfering with Imperial shipping. They could demand payment for passage or take the opportunity to spy on the Empire through their trade traffic, seeing how deeply entrenched the Thalmor are in Imperial life in the game. Hammerfell wouldn't want to rock the boat either. They may not like the Empire for throwing them to the wolves, but the Thalmor are as big a threat to them as the rest of Tamriel and they know it. Messing with Imperial trade doesn't help them at all.
Also Anvil is still a massive port city in Cyrodiil and the one that does most of the trade with Solitude, which bypasses having to go through Dominion controlled seas.
Except for the fact that you know the f****** high of bastards are paying Ulfric Stormcloak to win and mere people are not real people elfs well not replace us elfs well not replace us elfs well not replace us elfs well not replace us elfs well not replace us
@@Himmyjewett They're not paying him to win. The Thalmor are doing everything in their power to keep the Skyrim Civil war going. This includes supplying and supporting the Stormcloaks . Since Ulfric couldn't win a tavern fight let alone a war. However given enough aid through background channels the Stormcloaks can keep the Imperials busy and their attention divided between Skyrim and the other borders.
@@clothar23 yeah that's why they're trying to keep the Stormcloaks secretly good to fight we all know that you're paying them surprise money doesn't matter they knew what was going to happen and they were ready
It is typically easier to travel by sea than across land, especially through sub-arctic mountain ranges. But more importantly, imperial administration is not about establishing a foot-hold after-the-fact when a rebellion starts. It is about actually administering the empire. In its glory days, the Empire was not particularly concerned about rebellions in Skyrim, as it was among its most loyal provinces. Solitude was the capital of Skyrim, and is a natural center of trade due to its location at the mouth of a river. It is the largest city in Skyrim, and the where the King of Skyrim reigns, so naturally, it is where the legion has its base. A rebellion king is more of a threat than a rebellious Jarl. The trade routes would not really go through Skyrim, but rather, along the coasts and through the ocean. So, Solitude would be a natural main trade hub.
You're right. But, any military organization is going to prioritize logistics over "hearts-and-minds" especially when the logistics is either; a few weeks across allied territory or a few "weeks" through antagonistic waters which is exactly what the elves ought to be. Establishing a heavy presence in Falkreath would guarantee a strong position to secure Skyrim, with minimal garrison in Solitude if they can manage it. Priorities.
@@AlHyckGaemsTAD Not to mention as stated in the video the Imperials are Roman based. And those guys had no issue marching armies through the Alps and other mountainous terrain. And built spanning road networks, bridges, and even tunnels through said mountains to aid transportation through the mountains.
@@AlHyckGaemsTAD While I partially agree, its not as if Imperial presence should disappear in Solitude either. Solitude is not the one rebelling, and it is still the capital of Skyrim, so the large Imperial presence still makes sense. Skyrim still needs to be run even if half of it is rebelling. However, I agree it would have made sense to see a larger Imperial presence in Falkreath as well, especially a military presence.
@@AlHyckGaemsTAD I really don't know what you're talking about. They never said anything about hearts or minds. They're talking about logistics, you're just imagining that moving supplies and armies through snowy mountains is easier than taking a ship. Also, the Aldmeri Dominion want the civil war to keep going. Why would they stop the empire's ships? If the empire can't get stuff into Skyrim to fight the Stormcloaks, the empire would likely give up on the war effort entirely. Skyrim isn't a threat to the other provinces, hates the Aldmeri Dominion more than anyone, and just aren't that strategically valuable for resources either. If the empire cut it's losses, and moved on, it'd probably be in a better position against the dominion, whereas continuing the civil war not only deprives the empire of what it can get from Skyrim, but it saps the resources of the empire as a whole.
There is content that explains markarth belonging to Skyrim. There was apparently a lot of fighting over it years ago, and during the empire/dominion war there was a rebellion by the native bretons and they were sovereign for a little bit until they were again brutalized and subjugated by the nords with the help of ulfric stormcloak. Later on the former Breton king would rebel again and he was captured by the markarth jarl, and held prisoner in cidna mine. His followers would be driven into the mountains and become who we call the forsworn, becoming more tribal and shamanistic in nature as they allied themselves with hagravens in hopes that their old magicks would help in getting revenge against their Nordic subjugators
This belief that the Forsworn are somehow native to the Reach and the Nords aren't is stupid as hell. Markarth was part of the Snow-Elven Empire which fell to Ysgramor and his Atmorans, the ancestors of the Nords, and it is clear in books found in Skyrim that Nordic soldiers first encountered Proto-Bretons in their expansions west into High-Rock (Or, the part of the "Reach" which belongs to High Rock.) By the time of King Harald, Skyrim had been fully unified under the reign of Windhelm and the House of Ysgramor, and this means all of Skyrim, including the Eastern Reach. By this time, Bretons were still an infant race, and for people to somehow suggest they had managed to take Markarth and the Eastern Reach from the Dwemer and the Falmer (Two Races which the Nords would defeat for full control over Skyrim, with the Dwemer holds of Skyrim being the last defeated during the Aetherium wars) while all historical proof shows that the Nords were, in fact, the first humans to control both the Eastern and Western Reach is stupid. By the time of King Harald, the Eastern Reach was part of the High-Kingdom of Skyrim, by the time of his son, King Vrage, the Nordic Empire stretched both portions of the Reach and ruled as far as Daggerfall and Morrowind with the exception of Vardenfell. It's much more probable that the Forsworn migrated to the Eastern Reach during the war of succession after the death of High King Borgas and the fall of the Nordic Empire, for afterwards Skyrim was reunified again under the reign of Olaf the one Eyed's Whiterun. It was probably after the fall of Hoag Merkiller and the first death of Wulfharth that the Forsworn would take power over the reach from the (Firstly-arrived) Nords, and would probably lose it and gain it back during the many interregnums that befell Skyrim after the loss at Red Mountain, and then the subsequent division of Skyrim into two Kingdoms.
As a Logistics Engineer, I'd like to add a few: About the lore stuff at the end, namely why the Empire doesn't choose to use Pale Pass for trade route instead shipping across two enemy domains' water is simply a matter of money & tech. You see, when you want to move a whole lot of things (preferably heavy stuff or highly valued, like provisions for a war), big ships like galleons are way better than a line of carts. Cheaper. Maintaining a ship and it's crew is much cheaper than maintaining all those horses, carts, guardsmen along the road, outposts along the road and inns, carpentry and blacksmiths along the road (for repair purposes), animal handlers (for changing horses, etc). Out on the water, it's rather hard to ambush a trade caravan, yet on land it's like walk in a park, so it's about a matter of security too. Also not forget, that aren't just the opposing forces have to deal with, but bandits too, so there's a whole lot more danger along the road (not to mention the hostile fauna). Weather is also a factor, on sea, there's only about two kind of weathers that a sailor has to deal with: calm (can't go with no wind) and storm (probability to turn over or washing ashore). While on the road: too much heat (animals, people need more water), too cold (animals and people need more frequent stops to warm up), blizzards (visibility goes out the window, cold, wind and snow makes it difficult to steer or climbing up the hills), rain (makes quagmire out of the dirt, or slippery the road). And do not forget the basic technology of transportation and roads. Yes, Romans had high quality roads, but they too preferred the waterways when they could choose between the two (today also preferred to use water ways instead of roads). Because those roads, unfortunately aren't fit for high density trade routes. And the technology of transport vehicles? A cart with a wooden wheel (maybe an iron plate running across as "tire"), with no suspension (that technology is yet way away in time), on rocky road. And do this in a middle of a civil war. Add that together and you'll have a logistic nightmare. So, yes even today, with all the tech, we still prefer using water ways to haul the huge stuff (=huge in volume), because the cost/weight (or cost/profit) ratio is a whole lot better.
Also, it arguably depends a lot on just how aggressive the antagonistic powers are, actively engaging in armed attacks on foreign vessels or overtly supporting those who do is the sort of provocation that forces the other side to at minimum match the escalation of force. When your enemy is already embroiled in a civil war then covertly support the rebellious forces with your enemy's territory. Sure the opposing side will almost certainly learn of this through their intelligence networks but it is not like they will generally have the desire to start a foreign war while embroiled in a civil war. Military intelligence is a lot easier for them to keep quiet from the population so they don't start demanding action making this a pretty good strategy to weaken your opponent by dragging out the internal conflict for as long as possible. All the while you can invest in your own military to strengthen yourself so you get stronger while your enemy gets weaker if you can pull this off for long enough then you can hope to shift the balance of power to the point you can sweep in to take advantage of the chaos when the enemy is weak. Not to mention a weak, war-weary enemy that has been in a protracted civil war is likely to be cheaper to extract the concessions you want from they really don't want to fight anymore and this presents an opportunity to extract the best kind of victory ie the one in which you don't even need to fight.
Personally, I also just don't think the dominion would be inclined to do too much to the Empire's ships. The dominion have clearly chosen to poison the empire gradually rather than fight them in open conflict. They also especially want the empire to continue fighting the civil war. Just as they want to rob the empire of Skyrim, they want the empire to throw it's resources into a futile civil war to sap the rest of the empire's resources too. If the empire gave up the civil war, it'd lose Skyrim while also minimizing the loss of all the resources they'd throw into the war. It's not like Skyrim is a threat to the empire anyway. Just as the empire can't easily extend over land into Skyrim, Skyrim can't go the other way, nor would it really want to, and Skyrim hates the dominion more than anybody.
"Every dm goes coast, river mountain, which sucks, so now I'm going to focus on how Skyrim makes everything cool out of coasts, rivers and mountains." ... What? Am I missing something?
I think it's moreso that most DM's don't take the method and reasons mountains, rivers, and coastlines are formed and inhabited into account as they're more focused on making a cool-looking world rather than a world that might have a believable history
listening to you talk about country shapes having "flow" and being shaped "well" is so interesting to me as a history major. like my immediate reaction is "what are you talking about? borders dont form based on what looks pleasant!" and then I remember that its a fantasy map drawn specifically TO look good
lol, yeah. I also just think they're not making a lot of sense. It's like they learned art/design terms and are misusing them to try to justify why they like or don't like certain shapes, and not making much sense in the process.
It sounds to me like he has the skeleton of several… what could be good ideas… but he really doesn’t have a handle on the ideas yet. The ambiguous boundaries between the ideas he’s trying to work out makes them interesting 🧐 Wait. What were we talking about?👐
Which time, the original skyrim from elder scrolls 1 had allot more farm lands and much of the West was among them as well as more variation in its map.
Even if it wasn't a primary thought, that doesn't mean it still can't apply to your works. This entire video is basically why it looks good and natural, which is a cool idea for a video imo
One thing that made Morrowind really unique was it's architecture. It was the first time I saw a fantasy setting with buildings made of giant mushrooms and giant crabs anyway.
@@donniedewitt9878 it's the byproduct of a week long acid and writing binge by the lore and story director they had at the time. He had the philosophy of going for strange, edgy and crazy. Sadly Emil pagilo their lead writer as of oblivion and lead creative director as of skyrim has the philosophy of keep it simple stupid because the audience is simple. (Look up his Ted talk, he actually said this)
I think it makes plenty of sense for Solitude to be the imperial capital in the civil war. Obviously it’s not what they would choose if they were naming a capital at that time, but Solitude in the lore was the historic capital of Skyrim, and the locus of power had been there for centuries. It never mattered before because there was no Aldmeri dominion to contest it. In order for that not to be the capital, the Empire would have to change the royal residence of the monarchy of Skyrim and additionally move the entire government South. Also Solitude seems to be the most well defended settlement and one of the most loyal to the Empire. There isn’t much reason other than potential pressure from the Aldmeri Dominion for them to move the capital, and it’s not remotely clear the Aldmeri Dominion wouldn’t want them to be able to keep their armies supplied.
Aldmeri dominion were backing the imperials at that point. So they would want the imperials enforced? Im pretty sure they wanted the imperials to win in the long haul but just not too fast for it to be a clean victory.
@@dantecaputo2629 I think it's said in some of their reports that what they REALLY want, is to just keep the war going, as it is weakening both the Nords and the Empire, but if it has to end, then the Empire losing would be best for them.
It’s also much harder to conquer for the elves. Protected by marshes, mountains, rivers, other cities, plus the people would be higher and have an easier time of defending using spells or catapults
@@Ch35h1r3C47 The Empire winning but there being a large amount of lingering resentment to Imperial Rule within the population is equally as good. That resentment could be harnessed and fomented into open rebellion whenever it is convenient for the Elves.
Skyrim has shape very similar to borders of Poland during Boleslaw I The Brave reign. For most of the history the rivers did not divide, they connected, the more sense is that the river passes through the center of the region because the region was probably formed in the basin of this river and all those waterfalls are not problem because they're really far from one another taking the size of world in lore and even if rivers are not navigable all the roads would be build along them .
7:36 So glad that you mention that geographically, it looks like the Reach and Haafingar should be part of High Rock... Because they absolutely should. The Reachmen are Bretons. The Nords just took the land in the days of Tiber Septim. Also, if you look at Solitude, the architecture is distinctly Breton compared to the rest of Skyrim.
Solitude and Haafingar have been Nordic for thousands of years, and were likely built by early Atmoran settlers. And the Reach was conquered by Olaf One-Eye.
Yeah, you hear all these tales of Nords who made their living sailing the rivers of Skyrim, even the companions who sailed up the river from the sea and came upon the Skyforge where they decided to convert their ship into Jorvaskr... how the hack did they sail a ship the size of Jorvaskr up the narrow and shallow White River, even if it didn't have the waterfalls? ... I believe that the Land we see is a very small representation of its size in Lore, and certain aspects were likely exaggerated to make the land seem more dramatic
Or, those tales being so ancient, tell of different geography. Any river will have a tendency to change course if obstructed, especially if that river flows through plains. I don't think those tales specify that is was the White river either, there is a branch of the Karth river that flows most of the way to Whiterun. By the way, having been based on the Vikings, their boats probably didn't need that much depth to sail in. Also, it's entirely possible they actually carried the boat a fair distance after bringing it ashore.
catboy357 most likely is that the Skyrim devs didn’t care about the world enough. Morrowind had bigger cities and it came out like 8 years before Skyrim.
@@uwotm8153 it also looks like ass in comparison. If I was given the option of making a morrowind quality city or a skyrim quality city I'd pick morrowind because the longest part of making a morrowind city is typing all the dialogue, everything else can be done in a week tops.
I think Solitude has more imperial influence also because of it's proximity and ties to High Rock. And the other imperial holds in skyrim are such aligned because they have economic ties to Solitude and direct trade routes to Cyrodiil. Also about the Pale Pass, there's a note in game at a fort somewhere near there that states it's avalanched over at the time of tes5. But they are apparently massing a legion on the cyrodiilic side, so they should definitely have some engineers to clear it had they not already. Also really nice video bræh
To me, Solitude always sounded like the "Foward Base" of the Empire, like a central point to use to keep dominion over the Northern Region and have a port city there. Sounds far from the lore reason though. Also, just noticed Windhelm makes WAY more sense as a port/trading city than Solitude.
Which is why Windhelm and Winterhold have historically been capital cities, and why Windhelm is also a major port (there's an East Empire Company building in Windhelm and a questline), Dawnstar is also a major port in lore. Also Stoneworks completely forgot that Anvil exists and that most of the Imperial shipments from Cyrodiil to Solitude go via Anvil rather than the Imperial City itself, meaning ships don't have to pass through Dominion territory. Also Hammerfell doesn't hate the Empire, but rather are neutral towards them now that they have their freedom.
There is ingame lore that Pale Pass has been blocked off due to an avalanche and the Empire is simply waiting until summer when the snow melts to bring in a proper army to crush the Stormcloaks. The Imperial Legion that you see in the game is mostly just militia and that's why general Tullius was sent to lead them, as the Empire viewed him as being capable of using the local resources to buy time until the Empire could truly start fighting. The Empire never expected the current forces to win the war, much less to lose. Solitude is the Empire's main hold as that's where General Tullius entered Skyrim (on boat) because Pale Pass was blocked off. Also I think they sometimes go around Blackmarsh to avoid the elves. It's partially explained in the "Imperial Missive" if you're interested. This technically means that no matter which side the dragonborn sides with, the Empire ends up winning as soon as the snow melts. elderscrolls.fandom.com/wiki/Pale_Pass#cite_note-1
To defend high rock a bit: About that mountain chain, keep in mind skyrim's boarders changed a lot over the years. At one point the proto high rock borders (when it was direnni owned) was high rock + all of the reach + (and i quote) "most of skyrim and hammerfell". Also terrain retcons are very much a thing in tes. Originally, there were the dragon tooth mountians that cuts through eastern high rock through eastern hammerfell, western cyrodiil, and down to northern valenwood. As an example
@@StarlasAiko I get that, but most players of the Elder Scrolls are not gonna notice or care if a mountain range is in slightly the wrong place. It's s OK to take liberties once in a while.
12:25 There's a small line of dialogue that actually explains that the mountain pass from Falkreath to Bruma is impassable due to a rock slide/avalanche. Tulius is the Emperor's best General, and was sent to the Capital of Skyrim to muster the Imperial forces already stationed there. He's merely buying time while the main Imperial force clears the mountain pass and marches north.
Tell me if you're a glorious imperial or a virgin stormcloak Also- join the discord for worldbuilding and life advice from your internet grandfathers: discord.gg/bncqFy5
Awesome video, I especially loved the technique of creating country skeletons and the idea of regions ambiguously delineated by rivers, basins and mountains!
The idea that rivers are always natural borders is a bit of misconception. Rivers are typically easy to cross with a boat or a bridge (not true with mountains, which are used as borders much more often). Add to that the inherent value of rivers for trade and transport, as well as river valleys often being great farmland, and it makes owning the whole river much more valuable than just half of it. For example, the Nile, Tigris/Euphrates, Ganges, and Indus river were almost never used as borders for the aformentioned reasons. So rivers = borders is by no means a hard rule.
@@cakmadavinci8901 kind of figured something like that may have been a factor. Can't quite build/carry a boat, launch it, then just ride across when under ranged attack. Same for bridges, which would also be massive choke points. It might be nothing more than a brief hassle to establish infrastructure to pass in peacetime but an advancing force could really get bogged down there.
I live on the Eastern border of Ontario and Quebec and most of the border between the two provinces is the St-Laurence river which flows into the Ottawa River, which itself flows in the Northern Mississippi.
Yet sizable part of Roman borders were rivers Danube and Rhine. Crossing rivers may be not that hard for a single person, however its very hard for armies to cross.
@@rublikonemamtucha6966 The Romans used the Danube as a border because it was on the edge of their empire, not because they reached it and were like "damn guess we can't cross this let's just go home". Besides, the Romans made several incursions into Dacia (modern Romania) and it was a client state for a time. Rivers do make good borders, but all rivers are not borders by default.
@@SpookeyGael Yeah obviously but it was a very convinient borders for their empire. Not because they couldnt cross it, but because its easiely defendable. There is a reason why Attila demanded the Romans to abandon just few kilometers of border along the river Danube in one of the peace treaties - Romans lost a great line of defence, making his future raids easier. Also, Romans didnt really invade Dacia because of their ambitions to expand the empire further - it was a reactionary, defensive war. And the fact that the conquered territory became a client state instead of becoming fully part of the empire shows even moře how important Danube was to the Romans.
Most world borders were formed like this though. Based on mountains and rivers which were harder to cross than anywhere else. The US is an EXTREMELY new country, and can't be used as a basis for any sort of medieval worldbuilding, unless you use the natives (and maybe some vikings)
No, the Empire DOES use Pale Pass in lore, the developers just didn't want to program a path to Cyrodil, for obvious reasons. You got to use a little imagination instead of just using what the game gives you because it can only tell and show you so much.
This is one big reason I love TH-cam. I get to watch 20 minutes of highly nerdy high-Quality analysis of the map, of a country, from a fantasy RPG (I love BTW) and learn interesting things that make me see things from the real world in a different light. You sir are amazing! Great job. I love your fascination of worldbuilding. Truly great content! I've enjoyed it all the way to the end.
That entire area of that you were referring to with High Rock laying claim is more so the Reach, which was its own Kingdom at one point between High Rock and Skyrim owned by the Bretons. So yes and no.
The other lore reason could be that it is a good defence because as you said the thalmor have solitude on the front lines and against any races trying to invade from on sea if they land in skyrim they can form a war to stop them without it reaching cyrodil
Skyrim reminds me of the outline of Poland. And you know what, I find Poland to have some of the most pleasant looking boarders despite the cultural challenging it faces with those same boarders.
Ehh... I dunno. To me it just looks like an artificial, uninspired shapeless blob. It even has an almost straight border with Kaliningrad Oblast - it seems Stalin took some inspiration from the western colonialist powers in this regard. Now, Interwar Poland, on the other hand...
@@Damo2690 only the Kaliningrad and Belarus are mostly artificial, to the west there is the Neisser and Oder river, Czechia and Slovakia have the Carpathians, and Ukraine's borders mostly follow Ethnicity but a bit simpler
Vlad Prus The stormcloaks knew this. Why let them live on their land at let the empire take everything they love away. If the stormcloaks didn’t resist, the outcome of them would be their enslavement by the elves. Under the stormcloak banner they were united with a majority, especially when they win.
@@thinkingmachine354 except thats not true. The Empire is the only thing preventing the thalmor from having any more presence than they already have. Ulfric himself is unwittingly assisting the thalmor by further drawing the empire into a war that drains its resources and support. He also completely fails to target the thalmor, and focuses on fighting the empire. The stormcloaks alone simply wouldn't be able to take on the thalmor, even if they weren't dividing and draining themselves by attacking the empire. Stormcloaks have heart and imperial training, but they don't have numbers, magic, or high quality gear, while the thalmor have all of that and more, especially since they've spent 30 years rebuilding after the Great War. The best chance for taking on the thalmor is taking the hit of "no talos worship" (which is effectively "no public talos worship" until ulfric stirred up a storm and drew the thalmor's attention, who had previously done little to prosecute private talos worship) and assisting the empire in rebuilding, and joining up in arms alongside them once again when the empire is ready. Not a guaranteed win, but much better luck than the stormcloaks would have alone (not to mention how cutting off from the empire could hurt skyrim's economy)
Lore knight it’s funny that from your point of view, you value comfortable enslavement over brutal freedom. The nords should be free to do what they please in their own homeland. It’s that simple. And if it means death and hardship then so be it.
@@thinkingmachine354 He values survival, you know, like any sane sentient being? Besides all ulfric had to do was LITTERALLY ASK the king to declare independence and hed do it, but no lets cause a civil war because, SkiRIm belOngs TOo The norDS. Any king/warchief/wtv that ignores the survival of the kingdom in his care is no leader.
I might add that there is a significant altitude difference between the Whiterun basin and East March that is not shown on the maps but are in-game making the regions very different and have an obvious border in-game. Same between The Rift and Eastmarch
I always thought Skyrim was missing a river. Like, there's just way too much empty space between the White River and Karth River systems. If you look at the topography of the map then there's clearly a third drainage area that extends south from Dawnstar, but it doesn't have a stream in it. I think the game should have added a stream flowing north through The Pale and emptying into the bay at Dawnstar. Then again Skyrim also has some pretty inexplicable endorheic basins (Falkreath, why are you in a hole?) and a stream that flows out of Lake Ilinalta when it really should be flowing into it so methinks they didn't quite understand how rivers work. Don't even get me started on the random streams that start and then stop after about 100 meters.
Palepass was covered by a recent landslide, this tiny bit is discovered during the civil war questline when you take Fort Neugrad (or something) It also tells that general Tulius doesnt have a proper legion cause its busy clearing the pass.
The map drawing you did reminded me of a good JIPOE (Joint intelligence preparation of the environment) map, showing major terrain features and how they affect the battlespace. It's the first step in preparing for a conflict, and i think you did a rather good job there.
This video is such a mess lol. I clicked it hoping to watch an in-depth video that connects Tamriel's landscape to real world anthropology, human migration, and logistics... instead he just says that "this area looks good visually on a map because its a well defined basin between rivers etc". Near the end of the video he seems to get the right idea but doesn't fully understand why Skyrim's landscape works just as fine as in real life. First of all, rivers being borders in the real world is the exception, not the norm. Regions are not defined between rivers, but *around* rivers. Just look at ancient civilizations; Ancient Egypt was centered along the Nile River. The Nile did not split Egypt into "West Egypt" and "East Egypt", Egypt *was* the Nile river valley. Same with Babylon and Sumeria on both sides of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, or the Indus River Valley civilization on both sides of the Indus River, or the Yellow River which is the cultural center of China. Man has always defined their areas between mountains and not between rivers. Think about how much easier it is to herd livestock, grow crops, live along and cross a river, as opposed to crossing mountains. Even today it is easier to construct a bridge than to bore a tunnel. Mountains are natural barriers while rivers are natural providers of food, water, and transportation. It is easier for Skyrim to thrive on the West bank of the Karth river than it is for High Rock to defend it. There is an almost impassible mountain range between Karth and Iliac Bay, while the Nords could just build a bridge. Also, Solitude makes complete sense to be Skyrim's capital because it's on a peninsular cliff next to a fucking bay, and bays are well known to be the perfect place for a port. And without a port your country loses most of its trade. Not to mention a place to garrison your navy. Windhelm is located on a smaller river delta and does not sit on a well defensible cliff, nor is it on a peninsula. Windhelm is like Rome while Solitude is Constantinople. It's also the same reasons why the capital of the U.S. is on one of its coasts and not located smack dab in the middle of Kansas. There's more I could say but overall there is no problem with Skyrim.
Yeah, the borders seem perfectly good to me in terms of geopolitics/logistics. I think they even overdid it with the geographical barriers making it too defensive probably to avoid invisible walls. I think Stoneworks was looking into it more in a sense of aesthetics though.
With your talk of how interesting the Western border of Skyrim is with the river and all, it just reminds me of how different, and therefore awesome, the Reach feels compared to the other holds of Skyrim. :3
This dude's just drawing random lines on a map and calling it a "skeleton" lmao the reason the structure is "ambiguous" is because it's some nonsense you made up
Yeah, I think the map is pretty believable by itself, many of his possible changes seem a bit arbitrary and more focused on a sense of aesthetics. Solitude is a very powerful Nord city, so I don't see why it's a problem that they project that influence through the peninsula in the north. I don't see the issue with Skyrim owning the riften region either.
Also, keep in mind elevations. The Rift has its borders because it's high up above Eastmarch, so even with the rivers flowing through there the two lands are very different. That's a big thing throughout Skyrim: differences in elevation from region to region. You only really saw that in Cyrodiil in the north. The rest was roughly the same elevation and was delineated more by rivers.
12:40 I have a question ( anyone could try to answer ) First of all, are they talking about the East Empire Company? and Secondly, couldn't they go all around the east side and make a stop at port telvani?
1- Both the East Empire Company and the Empire. The EEC warehouse is in solitude, but it's also the Empire's base in Skyrim, hence why Tullius and the generals are there. 2- I think they decided not to go around east because the coast of Blackmarsh is notoriously hard to navigate and filled with pirates.
Honestly I think one of the most important parts of worldbuilding a map and borders is randomness. Just as often as borders naturally stretch to a coast, mountain range, or river, borders will stretch willy-nilly across random sections of plains or forest. Sometimes a border is a couple miles past a river, because one power invaded another and took both banks of a river for themselves. Or there just straight up is no strict border between two countries, and it’s more of a semi-lawless region where two cultures meet. This actually adds a lot of interesting storytelling opportunities, from people being unfairly taxed by two kingdoms at once, to entire towns deciding that they’re no longer in the country they were in yesterday. Just as often as geographic boundaries and strategic points form vitally important regions, they’re ignored of passed up for other less geographically valuable regions. Look at Rome for example; if you were to just look at a map of Italy, you would probably say that Tuscany or Naples or the Po valley would make better spots for the power center of Italy, but it ended up being Rome because the Romans were the ones who were best at killing.
I don't really see why you wouldn't think Rome is well situated. It's in a defensible position, has access to the major river in the region, and is surrounded by those productive areas you mention. Seems to me a natural regional seat of power.
The subconscious compartmentalizing of the map into areas really works and even overpowers the Hold borders to some extent. When I cross the White River, it feels like I've left Whiterun. And further north, that road works as the border in my mind so that Lake Yorgrim is Eastmarch to me. Rorikstead on the other hand feels like a border town. The border between Whiterun and The Pale is also very blurry (in my mind, not the map). The Rift is definitely my favorite, always has been but this analysis really cements its position further. It feels like its own little nook when you look at the mountains and lakes, Shor's Stone is like a little border town and Ivarstead is like a little Satellite Riften. And no waterfals in the Treva (only river in the whole country like that) means that water transport works in The Rift.
15:09 Actually they do use the Pale Pass. It's mentioned in a letter at the Falkreath fort if the Stormcloaks have it that the Pass is currently covered in an avalanche and the Empire has been digging it out.
Dang. You don't seem to know very much about historical nation-building. Dude, rivers generally don't make borders. Mountain ranges do. Virtually all civilizations of any note exist along rivers. It's just obvious, mate. These centers of civilization or regions expand their influence outward until they reach a geographic boundary. Usually a mountain range or forest. The only times that real world nations demarcate their borders along major rivers is when these rivers are so far away from the center of power that it is irrelevant. But in Skyrim, every hold is situated along a river/water source. And their influence extends until it reaches a geographic boundary. Skyrim's team did more research than you did, buddy.
Historically rivers were both used as an interior agricultural center and a defensive border depending on the river in question as not all of them provided fertile agriculture and ease of travel like the Nile. The Danube was a defensive border for the Romans, but it was also used for fishing and travel.
And I think you missed the point of this video entirely. I'm not even sure how you could miss that. The rivers don't refer to political borders. They are visual clues for the player to create aesthetic borders in their minds. Also, he DID say that the mountains make for natural borders. Everybody knows that rivers mark trade routes, not genuine borders. The player instinctively forms shapes in their heads when looking at fantasy maps. Developers understand this and use it to mark locations, regardless of whether these locations could be realistically formed in real life, through political actions. This was the entire point of this video. It's literally praising the map design. Fantasy maps would be a whole lot more boring if they followed your logic to a T. The map designers indeed did their research, but not because they chose realistic borders, it's because they understood how game design works.
Yeah but if you're world building a fictional place, it certainly doesnt hurt to have it aesthetically pleasing. I also feel like most of his aesthetic criticisms are there to prevent people from making the "potato/blob" countries and to realize that most countries do have some sort of direction or movement to them. This doubles as realism though, because most countries dont take shape of the potato blob because it would: 1) have to be coincidental, 2) natural borders that help make nation borders arent usually coincidentally "circular" and have direction, and 3) the people who occupy these lands have direction, movement, and ambition themselves, and that's rarely an equal "circular" spread in all directions.
Among said geopolitics are: This river and this mountain range are easier to defend than this open plane. There's a reason Italy's borders are almost entirely coastline, ridge-line, and valley. But this is like that old: "Nearly every major river flows to a lake, sea, or ocean." "No, they flow downhill." argument. In world building, frankly the only reasons geological features exist are aesthetics and 'the world needs to make sense' - for those who know what they're doing. Geopolitics flow with compromise and "I can see a physical border" is a historically decent compromise.
@@HughMansonMD Well, I don't buy any of that. How is France not a potato blob country? Where is the movement in Poland? Bulgaria? Romania? Chad? Algeria? The Congo? Botswana? I don't mean to insult, but aesthetics applied to national borders is a bunch of wishy washy crap.
@@choronos yes, but they aren't very aesthetically interesting countries now are they? And believe me, I'm not trying to be a dick either, but if you arent willing to take artistic integrity into something as simple and mundane as map borders, all because of realism, then what's the point of even making a fictional world in the first place? Like if you're going to knitpick the practicality of borders, then I imagine things like magic systems will crumble apart rather quickly under a critical lens, as will everything in whatever hypothetical fictional world we're talking about. Not to mention the fact that for every example of a "potato" country someone can give, there is like 5 countries with very distinctive traits and directions that are result of all the practical things mentioned in this video. But just speaking in a creative sense, and to put it another way - imagine if you're writing a serious drama/high fantasy book with magic in it, and you wanted to have one character burn another character to death. You have total artistic freedom on how you do that. You could: have him concentrate ebb flow into a ball of fire that is thrown from his hands. You could have him open a portal to the Fire-scape where the 2nd ones reach their charred hands upward to tear the literal soul out the other man, and incinerate it while this, now humanity-less, shell of a body falls to the ground, unleashing mammalian shrieks before turning to ash. Or you could have him magically produce and bury his opponent in a powerful stream of freshly made, and still very hot, baked potatoes... you have full artistic freedom, but different approaches have different results. You can make a whole map of blob countries that are all shaped by very strenuous amounts of geopolitical lore, that have to conveniently shape all the countries like that, but it will be boring, unmemorable, and confusing. Edit: also, all of those countries you mentioned still have some measurable amount of direction within their shapes: Poland \\ or \l, Bulgaria =, Romania _\, Chad \l or ), Algeria \/, Congo \l, Botswana l> or \> France is the most blob-like and I can still see a ")( "or ")/" in it.
You also have to realise that the planet of Elder Scrolls is literally built from the corpses of gods on myth and magic. A dev once said "it wasn't formed with tectonic plates and march of the penguins." This place doesn't run on the same laws we experience in the real world by any means, it started off as an amorphous magic mess and only had any semblance of form because the gods decided to become the laws of nature. Things like climate, geography, and nature are basically spiritual in function, not scientific.
theres an interesting thing i noticed is that all the cities are placed well within the range of rivers aside from dawnstar and winterhold, but dawnstar is a fishing town, so winterhold is most likely built on the foundation of magic rather than food or water, and relies on neighboring cities to assist
13:20 They're working on clearing it, it collapsed, that's what they used to do. That's why Whiterun became a trade hub, also in arena Falkreath was part of Cyrodiil. Also the best route isn't down the river and around the dominion, Hammerfell and Highrock, you can avoid the dominion by trading out of Anvil and Hammerfell won't mind, they're still *allies* of the Empire, they may even rent out their warships for extra protection.
@Spore Murph - I think the point of this video was the design aesthetics, not the geographic realism. If you think that’s rubbish, fine, but I liked it 😉
I gotta say, I liked the idea. But I didn't get alot. Especially the start. He started drawing odd shapes and saying he liked this. Oh this country shape isn't interesting. I didn't get it at all, there was really no explanation. Then some of his rants didn't make sense like solitude when there's literal hundreds of years of solitude being a capital. He says fix pale pass. But before aldmeri dominion (very recently) came into power, there was no reason to move solitude as high king position. Nor take a more dangerous route for cargo. Pale pass probably had tons of dwemer ruins. So now aldmeri dominion became powerful, so either imperial has to use anvil, run through the AD waters or pale pass. But they're so weak, I doubt they have the time or resources for clearing a dangerous mountain pass.
@@liamcullen3035 dude, you're not wrong, but his video has "worldbuilding" in the title. If it was map design or level design, i would give it a pass, bit this is just misleading.
So honestly how I got here was by trying to find out how too make maps or gloves for planets and such for dnd and more or some of my personal stories and this helps so thank you. :)
As a geography major interested in cartography I am fascinated with the Skyrim and greater elder scrolls map and I think other games can learn from it.
I cannot play the stormcloak side of the civil war unmodded just because of how much the mountain pass issue bothers me. Pale pass and the unnamed one in southern Falkreath should be *the* reinforcement points for the legion, followed up by Solitude (with its exclusive land and sea access to High Rock). The road through that bandit camp east of Dragon’s Bridge is so critical to all movement through the western region that even a basic patrolling soldiers mod will clear it on a daily basis. That it has a bandit camp on it is so frustrating I have never stopped my quest to find a way to replace it with an inhabited fort since I first plugged in the game... what, 7 years ago now? Also, the resistance camps need to be reorganized for my sanity. I let the stormcloak camps in the Reach, Falkreath, Morthal and Whiterun stay, but I have my game spawn extra camps in each of the stormcloak territories. The legions gets camps in all their held territories but none in stormcloak land unless it’s the next quest location, but get extra strength road patrols. It just... I can’t play the game and fail to notice that unless I have mods to make it work that way.
In response to the border feeling in a weird place between High Rock and Skyrim: It's not just visual. They worked that into the worldbuilding; that region was conquered during the last years of the 2nd era, and the Forsworn in the area are the native Bretons who wish to reclaim their rightful land. It's not just an interesting thing on the map; it plays into major historical events.
In a note in the fort near Whiterun after the battle for Whiterun, there is a note that states that the pale pass got bodied by an avalanche. So the supply chain got rekt until they can move it and the note says that the empire is assembling a legion on the other side for when it's cleared.
The reason a lot of people don’t like Tamriel is the scaling, if we go off daggerfall (TES 2) scaling the entirety of Tamriel’s biomes would make more sense given the iliac bay region is supposed to be the size of Great Britain. Based off modern Morrowind/Skyrim/Oblivion scaling, I can see why people dislike it
"It looks like High Rock should own this part."
The Forsworn: "Our thoughts exactly!"
Forsworn kinda hate the Bretons too, they kinda want to be their own thing, despite racially being Breton, they are completely different culturally and religiously
@user-lk7cv8vg7r no they are definitely bretons
@user-lk7cv8vg7rDefinitely not atmoran.
the Forsworn don't represent High Rock.
3:36 Yes there is. His name is Tiber Septim
Can you do a worldbuilding:Wyoming? Ever since the dark elves invaded Wyoming, they made the state border dynamic and detailed.
Who's Why-owning?????
Wyoming has such a unique shape indeed, been there my whole life and I still have yet to find why Colorado mimics its shape
Well they created an anti-memetic border so when you enter Wyoming you forgot you were there immediately and ended up on the other side. Wyoming does exist but no one knows it.
MonoRat Similar to how New Zealand functions in games featuring the entire map.
The lush jungles of Wyoming necessitated the Dunmeri invasion, honestly.
Step 1: draw out the tectonic plate lines
Step 2: draw the continents and maybe some fault lines
Step 3: draw mountains on tectonic lines on continents where they meet, ravines in the ocean, plateaus or hills descending from the mountains and hills descending from the plateau.
Step 4: draw rivers descending from the mountains following the path of elevation downwards, water always flows downhill and almost never branches off creating a distributary.
Step 5: establish water currents and where warm water will go, as well as where winds will go. These will help determine the weather along with the mountains
Step 6: when rain flows to a mountain, the rainy side should be more lush than the opposite side. If lakes equivalent to the great Lakes exist (ones created by glaciers) then mountains won't matter much. Places that don't receive much rain because of dry winds will be deserts and probably will lack many rivers and lakes.
Step 8: now with all this information, you can start placing down towns and cities. Towns on rivers, cities on low coast to act as ports, or on navigable rivers. And villages can be scattered, just make sure any large settlement has water and a road connected to it, roads should lead to the capital but not always, they can lead to major cities instead. Without roads that town or city would be pretty independent
Step 7: now you can draw the country borders. Think of power dynamics and how they've changed. Don't just give land to a country for sexy borders, make sure there's a legitimate reason the country has that land. Either because it's rich in resources or the leader wanted to expand the nation's influence. That's all I can think of
hey how do you save someone else's comment?
@@ronanshanley7829 unfortunately this ain't reddit, TH-cam needs to add this feature.
@@ronanshanley7829 copy and paste it into a .txt file
7 and 8 are flipped
India and Pakistan's been fighting forever over an uninhabitable plateau with no resources....js sometimes people are just kinda stupid
“Most people start with an outline of the continent, then add in mountains and rivers and stuff”
“You should start with the coasts, and mountains and rivers”
"I dont really buy that"
Only to tell the viewer to do exactly that 0.3 secs later. Thats when i stopped listening honestly..
seriously lmfao. I don't think I've found a "MUH REALISM" youtuber who has ever managed to remain logically consistent.
I went back to that a few times and still feel like I must've misunderstood. Was it a joke?
@@paddyotterness I honestly expected him to go on a rant about strong and weak facial features at any moment.
@@paddyotterness I thought he was speaking another language honestly. Didn't understand a word he was saying.
“Skyrim likes to be simple.”
Truer words were never spoken.
need something?
Ice Flow where it is edgy
The map is FILLED with details
@@znightowlz6585 elder scrolls 2 and 3 were edgy.(read up on The interactions between The deadra, the tribunal and several of the nobles) The benefits of not being completely taken over by zenimax and not having all your original devs driven out yet.
@@goolabbolshevish1t651 Fallout and Elder scrolls both suffer from this. It's the continual dumbing down of everything in the game. It has to be simplified for the masses. There are no negative outcomes any longer. From character creation to quest lines, everything has been made simple and there is always a right answer with little to no downside whatsoever. Most quests ends with choices like:
1) Piss off faction A for 1000 gold
2) Piss off faction B for 1000 gold
3) Piss off both factions for 250 gold
4) Everyone is happy and you get 3000 gold
Langue skills in elder scrolls? To complicated, players aren't smart enough to figure it out. Cut them.
Magic crafting could become overpowered and nonsensically enjoyable? Cut it, quick! Before people like it too much.
Want to use a sword and shield and cast spells at the same time? You could in Oblivion, but that's too complex for Skyrim.
Stoneworks: Skyrim is so well designed!
Me: Wait. Takes a map of Ireland, rotates it 90 degrees anti clockwise.
“Breathes in through nose and exhaling, carries on with day”
Sometimes, it's better to not know the truth.
The Modern Storyteller Skyrim is so well designed, Ireland took inspiration.
That's actually a very good trick if you want natural looking shapes on your maps. I used a map of Hungary for one of my islands because I think the shape is cool :P
Valkea Kirahvi use old formations as well.
@@valkeakirahvi use the pre ww1 shape of hungary for more interessant spaces
Mountains are better borders than rivers, Because huge mountains are harder to cross and claim than water. If you can't reach the river, you can't have the river
Hannibal: Are you challenging me? You challenging my Elephants?
“If you can’t reach the river, you can’t have it.”
I want to imagine a lot of ancient wars started not over religion or politics but the fact that some guy tied to the deed to a river to a fishing line and dangled it in front of someone’s face. 🤣
If you cant REACH it then REACH isn't yours lol
Also, ultimately, the concept of natural borders is more a suggestion than a rule in the first place.
15:14 the Imperials do in fact use Pale Pass for cargo/reinforcements, as implied by a note you can find in a Stormcloak controlled fort in which the author is worried about a Legion massing at Pale Pass
Exactly. The developers just didn't want to program an actual path into Cyrodil, for obvious reasons. You gotta use a little reasonable imagination when filling in the blanks in worlds like this, Stromcloak note or not.
Mountains are the more logical natural borders. Rivers are secondary.
Agreed rivers should only be used if there are no mountains
True but rivers running alongside a mountain range is a more definite marker, instead of trying to figure out where along the mountain the border is.
The way I went about shaping continents and regions was by importing a rule from OC creation, it was a tip for creating uniquely designed characters (though I think the rule breaks down with more realistic characters.) Make the silhouette distinct. If your region's silhouette is put into a group with other silhouettes of blobs and regions, tilted, flipped n resized, and you can find it quickly then you're on the right track. Kinda like how Australia is really recognizable as an arc with horns and a lil crescent shaped island close by.
@Not Important Wyoming and Colorado messed up big time
Yeah! AND your state isnt a mitten!
@@hashiramasenju3246 Ayy that's MY mitten
@@leiderhosen7110 compromise? You can have the UP.
I believe that one of the devs of Team Fortress 2 stated that this was the philosophy when designing the mercenaries
When he started drawing lines I was like he’s making shit up now
Kind of me. Took a while for me to understand what he was saying
cant believe this got in my suggestion feed what a bunch of garbage.
Was looking for this thread. I dont understand why this was suggested on my feed. This is pure bull
*snorts some coke* sooo yeah I don't know italian borders should stop right at about venice because the boot shape is a little ruined by all that political border nonsense
also who the fuck thought it was a good idea to give the southern peninsula below california to mexico? completely unnatural border...
@Colin Curtin No, no. See, it's actually the spaghetti that holds the answers *within* the borders, and the way the meatballs "interact" with those answers that determines the "motion" of each region.
Skyrim: *exists*
Stoneworks: *notices bulge*
UWU
@@picklem576 I was gonna say that
@@duskyracer8800 I 'noticed' that
OwO Skyrim senpi, notices your throat of the world. UwU
Why am I like this?
UwU
Whats this?
When he was speaking about High Rock "claims" to the West of Skyrim, I remembered that when the Nords arrived from Atmora and eventually took Skyrim for themselves, there were already Men living in the region. In fact, in the 4th Era there's still people fighting against this Nord occupation, per say. The Reachmen even look more like High Rock men (not speaking of Bretons here) than anything else.
Actually the high rock peoples are descended from the earlier arrivals to skyrim. When the snow elves slaughtered the original human settlement a number of the people fled.
It's explained in one of the books in skyrim, they fled and were captured then enslaved by high elves.
A number of generations latter when Nords spread out they encountered them and mistook them for some form of mer and killed a bunch, a survivor explained to them that after being enslaved and breeding (weather they liked it or not) with elves they had become what they are now which disgusted the nords.
Hence why they have higher magical talents as well as a resistance to magic.
The Reach belongs to the Forsworn!
@@angela_merkeI nope
Solitude makes sense as an Imperial trade port, though. By the events of Skyrim, Tamriel is in the midst of a Cold War. The Aldmeri Dominion isn't going to provoke a premature war by interfering with Imperial shipping. They could demand payment for passage or take the opportunity to spy on the Empire through their trade traffic, seeing how deeply entrenched the Thalmor are in Imperial life in the game. Hammerfell wouldn't want to rock the boat either. They may not like the Empire for throwing them to the wolves, but the Thalmor are as big a threat to them as the rest of Tamriel and they know it. Messing with Imperial trade doesn't help them at all.
Also Anvil is still a massive port city in Cyrodiil and the one that does most of the trade with Solitude, which bypasses having to go through Dominion controlled seas.
Except for the fact that you know the f****** high of bastards are paying Ulfric Stormcloak to win and mere people are not real people elfs well not replace us elfs well not replace us elfs well not replace us elfs well not replace us elfs well not replace us
@@Himmyjewett They're not paying him to win. The Thalmor are doing everything in their power to keep the Skyrim Civil war going.
This includes supplying and supporting the Stormcloaks . Since Ulfric couldn't win a tavern fight let alone a war.
However given enough aid through background channels the Stormcloaks can keep the Imperials busy and their attention divided between Skyrim and the other borders.
@@clothar23 yeah that's why they're trying to keep the Stormcloaks secretly good to fight we all know that you're paying them surprise money doesn't matter they knew what was going to happen and they were ready
@@Himmyjewett Chill, Pelinal
Nobody:
Stoneworks World Building:
"You guys want some map bones?!?"
Boneless map please
It is typically easier to travel by sea than across land, especially through sub-arctic mountain ranges. But more importantly, imperial administration is not about establishing a foot-hold after-the-fact when a rebellion starts. It is about actually administering the empire. In its glory days, the Empire was not particularly concerned about rebellions in Skyrim, as it was among its most loyal provinces. Solitude was the capital of Skyrim, and is a natural center of trade due to its location at the mouth of a river. It is the largest city in Skyrim, and the where the King of Skyrim reigns, so naturally, it is where the legion has its base. A rebellion king is more of a threat than a rebellious Jarl.
The trade routes would not really go through Skyrim, but rather, along the coasts and through the ocean. So, Solitude would be a natural main trade hub.
You're right. But, any military organization is going to prioritize logistics over "hearts-and-minds" especially when the logistics is either; a few weeks across allied territory or a few "weeks" through antagonistic waters which is exactly what the elves ought to be. Establishing a heavy presence in Falkreath would guarantee a strong position to secure Skyrim, with minimal garrison in Solitude if they can manage it. Priorities.
@@AlHyckGaemsTAD Not to mention as stated in the video the Imperials are Roman based. And those guys had no issue marching armies through the Alps and other mountainous terrain. And built spanning road networks, bridges, and even tunnels through said mountains to aid transportation through the mountains.
@@AlHyckGaemsTAD While I partially agree, its not as if Imperial presence should disappear in Solitude either. Solitude is not the one rebelling, and it is still the capital of Skyrim, so the large Imperial presence still makes sense. Skyrim still needs to be run even if half of it is rebelling.
However, I agree it would have made sense to see a larger Imperial presence in Falkreath as well, especially a military presence.
@@AlHyckGaemsTAD I really don't know what you're talking about. They never said anything about hearts or minds. They're talking about logistics, you're just imagining that moving supplies and armies through snowy mountains is easier than taking a ship.
Also, the Aldmeri Dominion want the civil war to keep going. Why would they stop the empire's ships? If the empire can't get stuff into Skyrim to fight the Stormcloaks, the empire would likely give up on the war effort entirely. Skyrim isn't a threat to the other provinces, hates the Aldmeri Dominion more than anyone, and just aren't that strategically valuable for resources either. If the empire cut it's losses, and moved on, it'd probably be in a better position against the dominion, whereas continuing the civil war not only deprives the empire of what it can get from Skyrim, but it saps the resources of the empire as a whole.
There is content that explains markarth belonging to Skyrim. There was apparently a lot of fighting over it years ago, and during the empire/dominion war there was a rebellion by the native bretons and they were sovereign for a little bit until they were again brutalized and subjugated by the nords with the help of ulfric stormcloak.
Later on the former Breton king would rebel again and he was captured by the markarth jarl, and held prisoner in cidna mine. His followers would be driven into the mountains and become who we call the forsworn, becoming more tribal and shamanistic in nature as they allied themselves with hagravens in hopes that their old magicks would help in getting revenge against their Nordic subjugators
This belief that the Forsworn are somehow native to the Reach and the Nords aren't is stupid as hell. Markarth was part of the Snow-Elven Empire which fell to Ysgramor and his Atmorans, the ancestors of the Nords, and it is clear in books found in Skyrim that Nordic soldiers first encountered Proto-Bretons in their expansions west into High-Rock (Or, the part of the "Reach" which belongs to High Rock.) By the time of King Harald, Skyrim had been fully unified under the reign of Windhelm and the House of Ysgramor, and this means all of Skyrim, including the Eastern Reach. By this time, Bretons were still an infant race, and for people to somehow suggest they had managed to take Markarth and the Eastern Reach from the Dwemer and the Falmer (Two Races which the Nords would defeat for full control over Skyrim, with the Dwemer holds of Skyrim being the last defeated during the Aetherium wars) while all historical proof shows that the Nords were, in fact, the first humans to control both the Eastern and Western Reach is stupid. By the time of King Harald, the Eastern Reach was part of the High-Kingdom of Skyrim, by the time of his son, King Vrage, the Nordic Empire stretched both portions of the Reach and ruled as far as Daggerfall and Morrowind with the exception of Vardenfell. It's much more probable that the Forsworn migrated to the Eastern Reach during the war of succession after the death of High King Borgas and the fall of the Nordic Empire, for afterwards Skyrim was reunified again under the reign of Olaf the one Eyed's Whiterun. It was probably after the fall of Hoag Merkiller and the first death of Wulfharth that the Forsworn would take power over the reach from the (Firstly-arrived) Nords, and would probably lose it and gain it back during the many interregnums that befell Skyrim after the loss at Red Mountain, and then the subsequent division of Skyrim into two Kingdoms.
As a Logistics Engineer, I'd like to add a few:
About the lore stuff at the end, namely why the Empire doesn't choose to use Pale Pass for trade route instead shipping across two enemy domains' water is simply a matter of money & tech.
You see, when you want to move a whole lot of things (preferably heavy stuff or highly valued, like provisions for a war), big ships like galleons are way better than a line of carts. Cheaper. Maintaining a ship and it's crew is much cheaper than maintaining all those horses, carts, guardsmen along the road, outposts along the road and inns, carpentry and blacksmiths along the road (for repair purposes), animal handlers (for changing horses, etc).
Out on the water, it's rather hard to ambush a trade caravan, yet on land it's like walk in a park, so it's about a matter of security too. Also not forget, that aren't just the opposing forces have to deal with, but bandits too, so there's a whole lot more danger along the road (not to mention the hostile fauna).
Weather is also a factor, on sea, there's only about two kind of weathers that a sailor has to deal with: calm (can't go with no wind) and storm (probability to turn over or washing ashore).
While on the road: too much heat (animals, people need more water), too cold (animals and people need more frequent stops to warm up), blizzards (visibility goes out the window, cold, wind and snow makes it difficult to steer or climbing up the hills), rain (makes quagmire out of the dirt, or slippery the road).
And do not forget the basic technology of transportation and roads. Yes, Romans had high quality roads, but they too preferred the waterways when they could choose between the two (today also preferred to use water ways instead of roads). Because those roads, unfortunately aren't fit for high density trade routes. And the technology of transport vehicles? A cart with a wooden wheel (maybe an iron plate running across as "tire"), with no suspension (that technology is yet way away in time), on rocky road.
And do this in a middle of a civil war.
Add that together and you'll have a logistic nightmare.
So, yes even today, with all the tech, we still prefer using water ways to haul the huge stuff (=huge in volume), because the cost/weight (or cost/profit) ratio is a whole lot better.
Also, it arguably depends a lot on just how aggressive the antagonistic powers are, actively engaging in armed attacks on foreign vessels or overtly supporting those who do is the sort of provocation that forces the other side to at minimum match the escalation of force. When your enemy is already embroiled in a civil war then covertly support the rebellious forces with your enemy's territory. Sure the opposing side will almost certainly learn of this through their intelligence networks but it is not like they will generally have the desire to start a foreign war while embroiled in a civil war. Military intelligence is a lot easier for them to keep quiet from the population so they don't start demanding action making this a pretty good strategy to weaken your opponent by dragging out the internal conflict for as long as possible. All the while you can invest in your own military to strengthen yourself so you get stronger while your enemy gets weaker if you can pull this off for long enough then you can hope to shift the balance of power to the point you can sweep in to take advantage of the chaos when the enemy is weak. Not to mention a weak, war-weary enemy that has been in a protracted civil war is likely to be cheaper to extract the concessions you want from they really don't want to fight anymore and this presents an opportunity to extract the best kind of victory ie the one in which you don't even need to fight.
Personally, I also just don't think the dominion would be inclined to do too much to the Empire's ships. The dominion have clearly chosen to poison the empire gradually rather than fight them in open conflict. They also especially want the empire to continue fighting the civil war. Just as they want to rob the empire of Skyrim, they want the empire to throw it's resources into a futile civil war to sap the rest of the empire's resources too.
If the empire gave up the civil war, it'd lose Skyrim while also minimizing the loss of all the resources they'd throw into the war. It's not like Skyrim is a threat to the empire anyway. Just as the empire can't easily extend over land into Skyrim, Skyrim can't go the other way, nor would it really want to, and Skyrim hates the dominion more than anybody.
"Every dm goes coast, river mountain, which sucks, so now I'm going to focus on how Skyrim makes everything cool out of coasts, rivers and mountains."
... What?
Am I missing something?
It's all about them coasts, rivers and mountains mate.
@@iopklmification It really is.
I think it’s meant to be a joke
I think it's moreso that most DM's don't take the method and reasons mountains, rivers, and coastlines are formed and inhabited into account as they're more focused on making a cool-looking world rather than a world that might have a believable history
@@MapleFried Yeah and then the guy proceeds to explain why he preffers the borders that look cool to him.
“My ancestors smile upon me imperial, can you say the same?”
*Chop*
@@binarekoharijanto4586 "The Empire I Knew Never Surrendered!"
High Elf: "I doubt you even know most of your ancestors"
@@Nethan2000 I doubt any living soul knows most of their ancestors, what the fuck kinda criteria is this?
@@enderman_666 You underestimate the autism of High Elves, who can trace their ancestry right back to Auriel.
listening to you talk about country shapes having "flow" and being shaped "well" is so interesting to me as a history major. like my immediate reaction is "what are you talking about? borders dont form based on what looks pleasant!" and then I remember that its a fantasy map drawn specifically TO look good
lol, yeah. I also just think they're not making a lot of sense. It's like they learned art/design terms and are misusing them to try to justify why they like or don't like certain shapes, and not making much sense in the process.
Although I really like these worldbuilding summaries, this sounds far too subjective.
It sounds to me like he has the skeleton of several… what could be good ideas… but he really doesn’t have a handle on the ideas yet. The ambiguous boundaries between the ideas he’s trying to work out makes them interesting 🧐
Wait. What were we talking about?👐
Thought the same. Boring video
Exactly. The "skeleton" concept is completely irrelevant. You can draw some random lines anywhere. They have no bearing on anything.
@@megadev9099 you never made a fantasy map
Well, 80% of this video is "I like this or I feel this" Almost nothing he says is objective. Its all *I* *I* *I*
The people that designed the Skyrim map: "Oh shit yeah bro you figured it out ha ha ha ha..."
"Yeah we DEFINITELY thought about all this stuff, nice catch bro"
Which time, the original skyrim from elder scrolls 1 had allot more farm lands and much of the West was among them as well as more variation in its map.
Even if it wasn't a primary thought, that doesn't mean it still can't apply to your works. This entire video is basically why it looks good and natural, which is a cool idea for a video imo
13:30 this is even funnier because your character is caught on a road between cyrodil and skyrim
“I’m not saying this part should be owned by Morrowind”
You N’wah!
A video on Morrowind to be interesting. Morrowind is so weird and different, I want to know what your take is on it.
Morrowind is probably one of the most unique fantasy settings ever
One thing that made Morrowind really unique was it's architecture. It was the first time I saw a fantasy setting with buildings made of giant mushrooms and giant crabs anyway.
@@donniedewitt9878 it's the byproduct of a week long acid and writing binge by the lore and story director they had at the time.
He had the philosophy of going for strange, edgy and crazy.
Sadly Emil pagilo their lead writer as of oblivion and lead creative director as of skyrim has the philosophy of keep it simple stupid because the audience is simple. (Look up his Ted talk, he actually said this)
@@goolabbolshevish1t651
Michael Kirkbride did not use drugs to come up with Morrowind, that's a community joke that people took as a fact.
2:14 " So here's really the shape of Skyrim, and now you can notice that the shape isn't really of anything."
Belgium: "Am I a joke to you?"
TheZapan99 I always thought Belgium looked like a humpbacked guy squatting a poop out
@@Stoneworks Belgians themselves like to call it the Brain that sits atop France.
Well, Belgium is a fantasy country as much as Skyrim, except uglier.
@@iopklmification And like Skyrim, it is torn between two factions, one of which also rooting for an evil bureacratic empire.
I thought it always looked like Venezuela, compare the western coastline and tell me I'm wrong
I think it makes plenty of sense for Solitude to be the imperial capital in the civil war.
Obviously it’s not what they would choose if they were naming a capital at that time, but Solitude in the lore was the historic capital of Skyrim, and the locus of power had been there for centuries. It never mattered before because there was no Aldmeri dominion to contest it. In order for that not to be the capital, the Empire would have to change the royal residence of the monarchy of Skyrim and additionally move the entire government South. Also Solitude seems to be the most well defended settlement and one of the most loyal to the Empire. There isn’t much reason other than potential pressure from the Aldmeri Dominion for them to move the capital, and it’s not remotely clear the Aldmeri Dominion wouldn’t want them to be able to keep their armies supplied.
Aldmeri dominion were backing the imperials at that point.
So they would want the imperials enforced?
Im pretty sure they wanted the imperials to win in the long haul but just not too fast for it to be a clean victory.
Alex Trollip
I would think they wanted a Stormcloak victory. Divide and conquer after all.
@@dantecaputo2629 I think it's said in some of their reports that what they REALLY want, is to just keep the war going, as it is weakening both the Nords and the Empire, but if it has to end, then the Empire losing would be best for them.
It’s also much harder to conquer for the elves. Protected by marshes, mountains, rivers, other cities, plus the people would be higher and have an easier time of defending using spells or catapults
@@Ch35h1r3C47 The Empire winning but there being a large amount of lingering resentment to Imperial Rule within the population is equally as good. That resentment could be harnessed and fomented into open rebellion whenever it is convenient for the Elves.
Skyrim has shape very similar to borders of Poland during Boleslaw I The Brave reign.
For most of the history the rivers did not divide, they connected, the more sense is that the river passes through the center of the region because the region was probably formed in the basin of this river and all those waterfalls are not problem because they're really far from one another taking the size of world in lore and even if rivers are not navigable all the roads would be build along them .
7:36 So glad that you mention that geographically, it looks like the Reach and Haafingar should be part of High Rock... Because they absolutely should. The Reachmen are Bretons. The Nords just took the land in the days of Tiber Septim. Also, if you look at Solitude, the architecture is distinctly Breton compared to the rest of Skyrim.
Nope, The Nords built Solitude.
@@bestkill6888 Nordic propaganda
@@capsandnumbers Nope
Solitude looks more Cyrodiilic than Breton.
Solitude and Haafingar have been Nordic for thousands of years, and were likely built by early Atmoran settlers. And the Reach was conquered by Olaf One-Eye.
Yeah, you hear all these tales of Nords who made their living sailing the rivers of Skyrim, even the companions who sailed up the river from the sea and came upon the Skyforge where they decided to convert their ship into Jorvaskr... how the hack did they sail a ship the size of Jorvaskr up the narrow and shallow White River, even if it didn't have the waterfalls?
... I believe that the Land we see is a very small representation of its size in Lore, and certain aspects were likely exaggerated to make the land seem more dramatic
Or, those tales being so ancient, tell of different geography. Any river will have a tendency to change course if obstructed, especially if that river flows through plains. I don't think those tales specify that is was the White river either, there is a branch of the Karth river that flows most of the way to Whiterun.
By the way, having been based on the Vikings, their boats probably didn't need that much depth to sail in. Also, it's entirely possible they actually carried the boat a fair distance after bringing it ashore.
catboy357 most likely is that the Skyrim devs didn’t care about the world enough. Morrowind had bigger cities and it came out like 8 years before Skyrim.
@@uwotm8153 it also looks like ass in comparison. If I was given the option of making a morrowind quality city or a skyrim quality city I'd pick morrowind because the longest part of making a morrowind city is typing all the dialogue, everything else can be done in a week tops.
I think Solitude has more imperial influence also because of it's proximity and ties to High Rock. And the other imperial holds in skyrim are such aligned because they have economic ties to Solitude and direct trade routes to Cyrodiil. Also about the Pale Pass, there's a note in game at a fort somewhere near there that states it's avalanched over at the time of tes5. But they are apparently massing a legion on the cyrodiilic side, so they should definitely have some engineers to clear it had they not already.
Also really nice video bræh
To me, Solitude always sounded like the "Foward Base" of the Empire, like a central point to use to keep dominion over the Northern Region and have a port city there.
Sounds far from the lore reason though.
Also, just noticed Windhelm makes WAY more sense as a port/trading city than Solitude.
Don’t forget Solitude is the provincial capital
@@ethanblevins1116 that's for now. The High King hasn't always been from Solitude. Windhelm and WInterhold used to be the capital.
Which is why Windhelm and Winterhold have historically been capital cities, and why Windhelm is also a major port (there's an East Empire Company building in Windhelm and a questline), Dawnstar is also a major port in lore.
Also Stoneworks completely forgot that Anvil exists and that most of the Imperial shipments from Cyrodiil to Solitude go via Anvil rather than the Imperial City itself, meaning ships don't have to pass through Dominion territory. Also Hammerfell doesn't hate the Empire, but rather are neutral towards them now that they have their freedom.
There is ingame lore that Pale Pass has been blocked off due to an avalanche and the Empire is simply waiting until summer when the snow melts to bring in a proper army to crush the Stormcloaks. The Imperial Legion that you see in the game is mostly just militia and that's why general Tullius was sent to lead them, as the Empire viewed him as being capable of using the local resources to buy time until the Empire could truly start fighting. The Empire never expected the current forces to win the war, much less to lose. Solitude is the Empire's main hold as that's where General Tullius entered Skyrim (on boat) because Pale Pass was blocked off. Also I think they sometimes go around Blackmarsh to avoid the elves.
It's partially explained in the "Imperial Missive" if you're interested. This technically means that no matter which side the dragonborn sides with, the Empire ends up winning as soon as the snow melts.
elderscrolls.fandom.com/wiki/Pale_Pass#cite_note-1
Wayne Gretzky, the famous world building guru. I have long waited for you to use one of his majestic quotes.
To defend high rock a bit:
About that mountain chain, keep in mind skyrim's boarders changed a lot over the years. At one point the proto high rock borders (when it was direnni owned) was high rock + all of the reach + (and i quote) "most of skyrim and hammerfell".
Also terrain retcons are very much a thing in tes. Originally, there were the dragon tooth mountians that cuts through eastern high rock through eastern hammerfell, western cyrodiil, and down to northern valenwood. As an example
Skyrim to me always looked like Iceland but with land borders
It also looks like Ireland but rotated
Your main concerns seem to be aesthetics....I am sure, the people living there cared more about defensible borders and availability of resources...
Kilravok it's from an out of character and game design perspective you n'wah
I mean, it is a fantasy map for a piece of media, so art and aesthetic play a big role
Immersion is just as important, and for that you need believability
@@StarlasAiko I get that, but most players of the Elder Scrolls are not gonna notice or care if a mountain range is in slightly the wrong place. It's s OK to take liberties once in a while.
@@StarlasAiko and real borders don't care about how appealing they are, as long as it benefits the country it's good
It's 2 in the morning, I have insomnia, and TH-cam recommended me a video of a guy putting bones in Skyrim's map
it's two in the morning and I'm putting bones on Japan
12:25
There's a small line of dialogue that actually explains that the mountain pass from Falkreath to Bruma is impassable due to a rock slide/avalanche.
Tulius is the Emperor's best General, and was sent to the Capital of Skyrim to muster the Imperial forces already stationed there. He's merely buying time while the main Imperial force clears the mountain pass and marches north.
Tell me if you're a glorious imperial or a virgin stormcloak
Also- join the discord for worldbuilding and life advice from your internet grandfathers: discord.gg/bncqFy5
what you think of this video and if you're a glorious imperial or a virgin stormcloak
what you think of this video and if you're a glorious imperial or a virgin stormcloak
I think this video is about Skyrim's map. I'm not a glorious imperial or a virgin stormcloak
what you think of this video and if you're a glorious imperial or a virgin stormcloak
finally, I missed you
Awesome video, I especially loved the technique of creating country skeletons and the idea of regions ambiguously delineated by rivers, basins and mountains!
Maps and elder scrolls, recommendation system is working
Lord Yuri I’m happy for you, you normie
It's hype as fuck that you still find the time to release these. Your biggest fan, keep up the good work
yo shoutout
The idea that rivers are always natural borders is a bit of misconception. Rivers are typically easy to cross with a boat or a bridge (not true with mountains, which are used as borders much more often). Add to that the inherent value of rivers for trade and transport, as well as river valleys often being great farmland, and it makes owning the whole river much more valuable than just half of it. For example, the Nile, Tigris/Euphrates, Ganges, and Indus river were almost never used as borders for the aformentioned reasons. So rivers = borders is by no means a hard rule.
@@cakmadavinci8901 kind of figured something like that may have been a factor. Can't quite build/carry a boat, launch it, then just ride across when under ranged attack. Same for bridges, which would also be massive choke points. It might be nothing more than a brief hassle to establish infrastructure to pass in peacetime but an advancing force could really get bogged down there.
I live on the Eastern border of Ontario and Quebec and most of the border between the two provinces is the St-Laurence river which flows into the Ottawa River, which itself flows in the Northern Mississippi.
Yet sizable part of Roman borders were rivers Danube and Rhine. Crossing rivers may be not that hard for a single person, however its very hard for armies to cross.
@@rublikonemamtucha6966 The Romans used the Danube as a border because it was on the edge of their empire, not because they reached it and were like "damn guess we can't cross this let's just go home". Besides, the Romans made several incursions into Dacia (modern Romania) and it was a client state for a time. Rivers do make good borders, but all rivers are not borders by default.
@@SpookeyGael Yeah obviously but it was a very convinient borders for their empire. Not because they couldnt cross it, but because its easiely defendable. There is a reason why Attila demanded the Romans to abandon just few kilometers of border along the river Danube in one of the peace treaties - Romans lost a great line of defence, making his future raids easier.
Also, Romans didnt really invade Dacia because of their ambitions to expand the empire further - it was a reactionary, defensive war. And the fact that the conquered territory became a client state instead of becoming fully part of the empire shows even moře how important Danube was to the Romans.
This guy managed to say sentences that make sense in the English language but at the same time say literally nothing at all for 15 minutes
You should have attended the Berlin Conference in 1884 and just ranted at those leaders for drawing all the weird and straight lines
Most world borders were formed like this though. Based on mountains and rivers which were harder to cross than anywhere else.
The US is an EXTREMELY new country, and can't be used as a basis for any sort of medieval worldbuilding, unless you use the natives (and maybe some vikings)
No, the Empire DOES use Pale Pass in lore, the developers just didn't want to program a path to Cyrodil, for obvious reasons. You got to use a little imagination instead of just using what the game gives you because it can only tell and show you so much.
This is one big reason I love TH-cam. I get to watch 20 minutes of highly nerdy high-Quality analysis of the map, of a country, from a fantasy RPG (I love BTW) and learn interesting things that make me see things from the real world in a different light.
You sir are amazing! Great job. I love your fascination of worldbuilding. Truly great content! I've enjoyed it all the way to the end.
That entire area of that you were referring to with High Rock laying claim is more so the Reach, which was its own Kingdom at one point between High Rock and Skyrim owned by the Bretons. So yes and no.
The other lore reason could be that it is a good defence because as you said the thalmor have solitude on the front lines and against any races trying to invade from on sea if they land in skyrim they can form a war to stop them without it reaching cyrodil
Skyrim reminds me of the outline of Poland. And you know what, I find Poland to have some of the most pleasant looking boarders despite the cultural challenging it faces with those same boarders.
Ehh... I dunno. To me it just looks like an artificial, uninspired shapeless blob. It even has an almost straight border with Kaliningrad Oblast - it seems Stalin took some inspiration from the western colonialist powers in this regard.
Now, Interwar Poland, on the other hand...
Modern Poland's borders are like 70% artificial
@@Damo2690 Not really, they are based on rivers and the old outline of Poland
@@Damo2690 only the Kaliningrad and Belarus are mostly artificial, to the west there is the Neisser and Oder river, Czechia and Slovakia have the Carpathians, and Ukraine's borders mostly follow Ethnicity but a bit simpler
"The yellow are the mountains and the green are the basins"
Me, a colorblind person: "oh FUCK"
Aldmeri Dominon is wanting Skyrim to split up.
Stormcloaks are stupid.
Oh, I see you're man of culture as well.
Vlad Prus The stormcloaks knew this. Why let them live on their land at let the empire take everything they love away.
If the stormcloaks didn’t resist, the outcome of them would be their enslavement by the elves.
Under the stormcloak banner they were united with a majority, especially when they win.
@@thinkingmachine354 except thats not true. The Empire is the only thing preventing the thalmor from having any more presence than they already have. Ulfric himself is unwittingly assisting the thalmor by further drawing the empire into a war that drains its resources and support. He also completely fails to target the thalmor, and focuses on fighting the empire. The stormcloaks alone simply wouldn't be able to take on the thalmor, even if they weren't dividing and draining themselves by attacking the empire. Stormcloaks have heart and imperial training, but they don't have numbers, magic, or high quality gear, while the thalmor have all of that and more, especially since they've spent 30 years rebuilding after the Great War.
The best chance for taking on the thalmor is taking the hit of "no talos worship" (which is effectively "no public talos worship" until ulfric stirred up a storm and drew the thalmor's attention, who had previously done little to prosecute private talos worship) and assisting the empire in rebuilding, and joining up in arms alongside them once again when the empire is ready. Not a guaranteed win, but much better luck than the stormcloaks would have alone
(not to mention how cutting off from the empire could hurt skyrim's economy)
Lore knight it’s funny that from your point of view, you value comfortable enslavement over brutal freedom. The nords should be free to do what they please in their own homeland. It’s that simple. And if it means death and hardship then so be it.
@@thinkingmachine354 He values survival, you know, like any sane sentient being?
Besides all ulfric had to do was LITTERALLY ASK the king to declare independence and hed do it, but no lets cause a civil war because, SkiRIm belOngs TOo The norDS.
Any king/warchief/wtv that ignores the survival of the kingdom in his care is no leader.
Pardal madgod whether he could have asked is besides the point. The point is about Nordic freedom in the Nordic homeland.
I might add that there is a significant altitude difference between the Whiterun basin and East March that is not shown on the maps but are in-game making the regions very different and have an obvious border in-game. Same between The Rift and Eastmarch
This is my favorite style of your videos, I still appreciate the scripted / highly edited feel of the others but this casual style is great.
Instant fan. I'm both a DM, worldbuilder and amateur history nerd and this is great. Subbed. Can't wait to see your other stuff
I always thought Skyrim was missing a river. Like, there's just way too much empty space between the White River and Karth River systems. If you look at the topography of the map then there's clearly a third drainage area that extends south from Dawnstar, but it doesn't have a stream in it. I think the game should have added a stream flowing north through The Pale and emptying into the bay at Dawnstar.
Then again Skyrim also has some pretty inexplicable endorheic basins (Falkreath, why are you in a hole?) and a stream that flows out of Lake Ilinalta when it really should be flowing into it so methinks they didn't quite understand how rivers work. Don't even get me started on the random streams that start and then stop after about 100 meters.
Palepass was covered by a recent landslide, this tiny bit is discovered during the civil war questline when you take Fort Neugrad (or something) It also tells that general Tulius doesnt have a proper legion cause its busy clearing the pass.
I have learned that the aesthetics of maps is important
The map drawing you did reminded me of a good JIPOE (Joint intelligence preparation of the environment) map, showing major terrain features and how they affect the battlespace.
It's the first step in preparing for a conflict, and i think you did a rather good job there.
This video is such a mess lol. I clicked it hoping to watch an in-depth video that connects Tamriel's landscape to real world anthropology, human migration, and logistics... instead he just says that "this area looks good visually on a map because its a well defined basin between rivers etc". Near the end of the video he seems to get the right idea but doesn't fully understand why Skyrim's landscape works just as fine as in real life.
First of all, rivers being borders in the real world is the exception, not the norm. Regions are not defined between rivers, but *around* rivers. Just look at ancient civilizations; Ancient Egypt was centered along the Nile River. The Nile did not split Egypt into "West Egypt" and "East Egypt", Egypt *was* the Nile river valley. Same with Babylon and Sumeria on both sides of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, or the Indus River Valley civilization on both sides of the Indus River, or the Yellow River which is the cultural center of China.
Man has always defined their areas between mountains and not between rivers. Think about how much easier it is to herd livestock, grow crops, live along and cross a river, as opposed to crossing mountains. Even today it is easier to construct a bridge than to bore a tunnel. Mountains are natural barriers while rivers are natural providers of food, water, and transportation. It is easier for Skyrim to thrive on the West bank of the Karth river than it is for High Rock to defend it. There is an almost impassible mountain range between Karth and Iliac Bay, while the Nords could just build a bridge.
Also, Solitude makes complete sense to be Skyrim's capital because it's on a peninsular cliff next to a fucking bay, and bays are well known to be the perfect place for a port. And without a port your country loses most of its trade. Not to mention a place to garrison your navy. Windhelm is located on a smaller river delta and does not sit on a well defensible cliff, nor is it on a peninsula. Windhelm is like Rome while Solitude is Constantinople. It's also the same reasons why the capital of the U.S. is on one of its coasts and not located smack dab in the middle of Kansas.
There's more I could say but overall there is no problem with Skyrim.
I'm working on a logistics/geography video like that right now so stay tuned
Yeah, the borders seem perfectly good to me in terms of geopolitics/logistics. I think they even overdid it with the geographical barriers making it too defensive probably to avoid invisible walls. I think Stoneworks was looking into it more in a sense of aesthetics though.
With your talk of how interesting the Western border of Skyrim is with the river and all, it just reminds me of how different, and therefore awesome, the Reach feels compared to the other holds of Skyrim. :3
This dude's just drawing random lines on a map and calling it a "skeleton" lmao the reason the structure is "ambiguous" is because it's some nonsense you made up
Yeah, I think the map is pretty believable by itself, many of his possible changes seem a bit arbitrary and more focused on a sense of aesthetics. Solitude is a very powerful Nord city, so I don't see why it's a problem that they project that influence through the peninsula in the north. I don't see the issue with Skyrim owning the riften region either.
Its called shape language and its a design principle.
You deserve more subs. Memes are on point & your videos are full of helpful content
Skyrim sounds like my friends. They get high, then they dip.
Also, keep in mind elevations. The Rift has its borders because it's high up above Eastmarch, so even with the rivers flowing through there the two lands are very different. That's a big thing throughout Skyrim: differences in elevation from region to region. You only really saw that in Cyrodiil in the north. The rest was roughly the same elevation and was delineated more by rivers.
Morrowind > All other peasant nations
Random big volcano enters the chat
daggerfall enters the chat
False gods have left the chat
12:40 I have a question ( anyone could try to answer )
First of all, are they talking about the East Empire Company?
and Secondly, couldn't they go all around the east side and make a stop at port telvani?
1- Both the East Empire Company and the Empire. The EEC warehouse is in solitude, but it's also the Empire's base in Skyrim, hence why Tullius and the generals are there.
2- I think they decided not to go around east because the coast of Blackmarsh is notoriously hard to navigate and filled with pirates.
Why doesn't the empire go through the pale pass?
I think that's what Helgen was for...
Emphasis on was🤣
Honestly I think one of the most important parts of worldbuilding a map and borders is randomness. Just as often as borders naturally stretch to a coast, mountain range, or river, borders will stretch willy-nilly across random sections of plains or forest. Sometimes a border is a couple miles past a river, because one power invaded another and took both banks of a river for themselves. Or there just straight up is no strict border between two countries, and it’s more of a semi-lawless region where two cultures meet. This actually adds a lot of interesting storytelling opportunities, from people being unfairly taxed by two kingdoms at once, to entire towns deciding that they’re no longer in the country they were in yesterday.
Just as often as geographic boundaries and strategic points form vitally important regions, they’re ignored of passed up for other less geographically valuable regions. Look at Rome for example; if you were to just look at a map of Italy, you would probably say that Tuscany or Naples or the Po valley would make better spots for the power center of Italy, but it ended up being Rome because the Romans were the ones who were best at killing.
I don't really see why you wouldn't think Rome is well situated. It's in a defensible position, has access to the major river in the region, and is surrounded by those productive areas you mention. Seems to me a natural regional seat of power.
The subconscious compartmentalizing of the map into areas really works and even overpowers the Hold borders to some extent. When I cross the White River, it feels like I've left Whiterun. And further north, that road works as the border in my mind so that Lake Yorgrim is Eastmarch to me. Rorikstead on the other hand feels like a border town. The border between Whiterun and The Pale is also very blurry (in my mind, not the map).
The Rift is definitely my favorite, always has been but this analysis really cements its position further. It feels like its own little nook when you look at the mountains and lakes, Shor's Stone is like a little border town and Ivarstead is like a little Satellite Riften. And no waterfals in the Treva (only river in the whole country like that) means that water transport works in The Rift.
15:09
Actually they do use the Pale Pass. It's mentioned in a letter at the Falkreath fort if the Stormcloaks have it that the Pass is currently covered in an avalanche and the Empire has been digging it out.
Can you make one for the Tamriel please? Because Skyrim is part of it.
Super interesting video ! I love worldbuilding, and your work help me a lot !
Dang.
You don't seem to know very much about historical nation-building.
Dude, rivers generally don't make borders. Mountain ranges do. Virtually all civilizations of any note exist along rivers. It's just obvious, mate.
These centers of civilization or regions expand their influence outward until they reach a geographic boundary. Usually a mountain range or forest.
The only times that real world nations demarcate their borders along major rivers is when these rivers are so far away from the center of power that it is irrelevant.
But in Skyrim, every hold is situated along a river/water source. And their influence extends until it reaches a geographic boundary.
Skyrim's team did more research than you did, buddy.
Historically rivers were both used as an interior agricultural center and a defensive border depending on the river in question as not all of them provided fertile agriculture and ease of travel like the Nile. The Danube was a defensive border for the Romans, but it was also used for fishing and travel.
Damn you really had to be so snotty about it?
And I think you missed the point of this video entirely. I'm not even sure how you could miss that.
The rivers don't refer to political borders. They are visual clues for the player to create aesthetic borders in their minds. Also, he DID say that the mountains make for natural borders. Everybody knows that rivers mark trade routes, not genuine borders.
The player instinctively forms shapes in their heads when looking at fantasy maps. Developers understand this and use it to mark locations, regardless of whether these locations could be realistically formed in real life, through political actions. This was the entire point of this video. It's literally praising the map design.
Fantasy maps would be a whole lot more boring if they followed your logic to a T. The map designers indeed did their research, but not because they chose realistic borders, it's because they understood how game design works.
Solitude is supposed to be the capital city and the biggest but you could spend 20 minutes roaming around and you have already met its entire populace
Yes! Exactly
wtf is this, maps dont form due to visual aesthetic, they form due to geopolitics.
Yeah, the US-Canada border is one good demonstration of that.
Yeah but if you're world building a fictional place, it certainly doesnt hurt to have it aesthetically pleasing. I also feel like most of his aesthetic criticisms are there to prevent people from making the "potato/blob" countries and to realize that most countries do have some sort of direction or movement to them. This doubles as realism though, because most countries dont take shape of the potato blob because it would: 1) have to be coincidental, 2) natural borders that help make nation borders arent usually coincidentally "circular" and have direction, and 3) the people who occupy these lands have direction, movement, and ambition themselves, and that's rarely an equal "circular" spread in all directions.
Among said geopolitics are: This river and this mountain range are easier to defend than this open plane. There's a reason Italy's borders are almost entirely coastline, ridge-line, and valley. But this is like that old: "Nearly every major river flows to a lake, sea, or ocean." "No, they flow downhill." argument.
In world building, frankly the only reasons geological features exist are aesthetics and 'the world needs to make sense' - for those who know what they're doing. Geopolitics flow with compromise and "I can see a physical border" is a historically decent compromise.
@@HughMansonMD Well, I don't buy any of that. How is France not a potato blob country? Where is the movement in Poland? Bulgaria? Romania? Chad? Algeria? The Congo? Botswana? I don't mean to insult, but aesthetics applied to national borders is a bunch of wishy washy crap.
@@choronos yes, but they aren't very aesthetically interesting countries now are they? And believe me, I'm not trying to be a dick either, but if you arent willing to take artistic integrity into something as simple and mundane as map borders, all because of realism, then what's the point of even making a fictional world in the first place? Like if you're going to knitpick the practicality of borders, then I imagine things like magic systems will crumble apart rather quickly under a critical lens, as will everything in whatever hypothetical fictional world we're talking about. Not to mention the fact that for every example of a "potato" country someone can give, there is like 5 countries with very distinctive traits and directions that are result of all the practical things mentioned in this video.
But just speaking in a creative sense, and to put it another way - imagine if you're writing a serious drama/high fantasy book with magic in it, and you wanted to have one character burn another character to death. You have total artistic freedom on how you do that. You could: have him concentrate ebb flow into a ball of fire that is thrown from his hands. You could have him open a portal to the Fire-scape where the 2nd ones reach their charred hands upward to tear the literal soul out the other man, and incinerate it while this, now humanity-less, shell of a body falls to the ground, unleashing mammalian shrieks before turning to ash. Or you could have him magically produce and bury his opponent in a powerful stream of freshly made, and still very hot, baked potatoes... you have full artistic freedom, but different approaches have different results. You can make a whole map of blob countries that are all shaped by very strenuous amounts of geopolitical lore, that have to conveniently shape all the countries like that, but it will be boring, unmemorable, and confusing.
Edit: also, all of those countries you mentioned still have some measurable amount of direction within their shapes: Poland \\ or \l, Bulgaria =, Romania _\, Chad \l or ), Algeria \/, Congo \l, Botswana l> or \>
France is the most blob-like and I can still see a ")( "or ")/" in it.
Legit my favourite TH-cam channel, and I watch a lot of youtube. Cheers dude.
I thought Skyrim's shape was boring before and after watching the video, I also think it looks better without High Rock- and Morrowind parts.
You also have to realise that the planet of Elder Scrolls is literally built from the corpses of gods on myth and magic. A dev once said "it wasn't formed with tectonic plates and march of the penguins." This place doesn't run on the same laws we experience in the real world by any means, it started off as an amorphous magic mess and only had any semblance of form because the gods decided to become the laws of nature. Things like climate, geography, and nature are basically spiritual in function, not scientific.
Nobody:
Stoneworks: the Skyrim map is thicc
I’m big on world building in video games books and movies and all that jazz and I loved this video
I came in here expecting you to not be very knowledgable on Elder Scrolls lore but you completely proved me wrong.
theres an interesting thing i noticed is that all the cities are placed well within the range of rivers aside from dawnstar and winterhold, but dawnstar is a fishing town, so winterhold is most likely built on the foundation of magic rather than food or water, and relies on neighboring cities to assist
I hope there are gonna be jokes to as how High Rock sucks in future videos. Or is it already has?
13:20 They're working on clearing it, it collapsed, that's what they used to do. That's why Whiterun became a trade hub, also in arena Falkreath was part of Cyrodiil. Also the best route isn't down the river and around the dominion, Hammerfell and Highrock, you can avoid the dominion by trading out of Anvil and Hammerfell won't mind, they're still *allies* of the Empire, they may even rent out their warships for extra protection.
This was frankly rubbish. All this stuff about the look and "motion" of the map is just nonsense. There is no realistic geographic analysis here.
@Spore Murph - I think the point of this video was the design aesthetics, not the geographic realism. If you think that’s rubbish, fine, but I liked it 😉
I gotta say, I liked the idea. But I didn't get alot.
Especially the start. He started drawing odd shapes and saying he liked this. Oh this country shape isn't interesting.
I didn't get it at all, there was really no explanation.
Then some of his rants didn't make sense like solitude when there's literal hundreds of years of solitude being a capital.
He says fix pale pass. But before aldmeri dominion (very recently) came into power, there was no reason to move solitude as high king position. Nor take a more dangerous route for cargo.
Pale pass probably had tons of dwemer ruins.
So now aldmeri dominion became powerful, so either imperial has to use anvil, run through the AD waters or pale pass. But they're so weak, I doubt they have the time or resources for clearing a dangerous mountain pass.
@@liamcullen3035 dude, you're not wrong, but his video has "worldbuilding" in the title. If it was map design or level design, i would give it a pass, bit this is just misleading.
@@GuruThesla it's just the worldbuilding style. Why should fictional worlds stick to our "realistic" rules?
@@LautaroArgentino Because fantasy need some logical sense too. Or else a landmass will just look like Falskaar.
So honestly how I got here was by trying to find out how too make maps or gloves for planets and such for dnd and more or some of my personal stories and this helps so thank you. :)
"Also it looks like a pig," killed me XD
As a geography major interested in cartography I am fascinated with the Skyrim and greater elder scrolls map and I think other games can learn from it.
Feels like most of this is opinions walked back to reason, rather than good design principles informing opinion.
Why the Flip flop knickity knik knok scmidity bip bop hippity hip hop tippity tip top is this video so good????
I cannot play the stormcloak side of the civil war unmodded just because of how much the mountain pass issue bothers me. Pale pass and the unnamed one in southern Falkreath should be *the* reinforcement points for the legion, followed up by Solitude (with its exclusive land and sea access to High Rock). The road through that bandit camp east of Dragon’s Bridge is so critical to all movement through the western region that even a basic patrolling soldiers mod will clear it on a daily basis. That it has a bandit camp on it is so frustrating I have never stopped my quest to find a way to replace it with an inhabited fort since I first plugged in the game... what, 7 years ago now? Also, the resistance camps need to be reorganized for my sanity. I let the stormcloak camps in the Reach, Falkreath, Morthal and Whiterun stay, but I have my game spawn extra camps in each of the stormcloak territories. The legions gets camps in all their held territories but none in stormcloak land unless it’s the next quest location, but get extra strength road patrols. It just... I can’t play the game and fail to notice that unless I have mods to make it work that way.
In response to the border feeling in a weird place between High Rock and Skyrim: It's not just visual. They worked that into the worldbuilding; that region was conquered during the last years of the 2nd era, and the Forsworn in the area are the native Bretons who wish to reclaim their rightful land. It's not just an interesting thing on the map; it plays into major historical events.
You're talking about ***bulges*** a lot. You dog whistling to furries, bro?
I only dog whistle to the Furies
@@Stoneworks Next thing we know you'll be doing a video on Elsweyr!
In a note in the fort near Whiterun after the battle for Whiterun, there is a note that states that the pale pass got bodied by an avalanche. So the supply chain got rekt until they can move it and the note says that the empire is assembling a legion on the other side for when it's cleared.
Hammerfell doesn’t hate the empire
Bro. Nice video. Liked and subscribed. Made me want to play Skyrim again, and I'm not a huge skyrim fan. Great work, keep it up!
ugh. I don't really like Tamriel as a whole, geographically speaking. It just feels fake af.
My thought exactly. It has feature that you would never see in real life put together awkwardly.
The reason a lot of people don’t like Tamriel is the scaling, if we go off daggerfall (TES 2) scaling the entirety of Tamriel’s biomes would make more sense given the iliac bay region is supposed to be the size of Great Britain.
Based off modern Morrowind/Skyrim/Oblivion scaling, I can see why people dislike it