So, i think thats the basic thing we should aim for, next thing, do we have the models ect available to do this?

We have the majority of the houses, but really need some lower class occupancies for the Holorians. I have posted a request for help in this but havent received a reply yet. I could do them myself within a week or so, and anyway the Anvil lower class stuff is ok.

As this is a border settlement it might be walled, but does not have to be. Actually thinking out loud it would not need to be walled as during this period of time the borders were pretty secure.

I will make a last ditch attempt on the bethesda forum for someone to knock up half a dozen lower class Holorian buildings or at least to work with me.

Either way it will take me about 1 week to make five or six of them which when mixed with the current building set will be more than enough. Meanwhile what other prep work could be done by you guys?

Hmm, i could write some background/npc personality, mind you i need an accurate place of this town so i dont get facts mixed up. Um, we need a basic town layout also, is the town fortified? If so we could do a simple town based around the fort, is this town big? Approx population ect would help tons. Then maybe me and some others could begin working on interiors for the upper class guys while you get the models for lower class people.

Also, vali, do you use blender for your models?

Ok, lets go with the following:

Name: Ventarum

NPC population: (I accept this might be ambitious or maybe not, please say so)

Town governor, wife
Town militia 6 allowing for sleeping rotation
Market sellers 7
General population a further 12 if we can manage so many.
That will allow for a few more quest based people.

It will not be fortified but will have a small garrison at the centre.

Fields and a couple of villas nearby with their families if we can do that. We could plan in some fields.

I have two completed villas with interiors and a couple more interiors for town houses.

I would suggest for the town about a dozen lower class buildings, a fort, a town hall, about six upper class houses and a market area partially indoors.

I used to use Blender all the time and do so at home to work detail into models, I do the basic stuff at work on their software as I frequently need help. A work colleague of mine can knock up stuff in hardly any time at all so I usually stay on a couple of hours if i dont get time during the day.

Thanks for info, one question though, is it a mainly hlorian town or is there a lot of karithians aswell? I ask because naturally you will have prejuduce in some towns between the races and therefore you could do a couple of quests about a murder or some-such....

The demographic would be:

Wealthy, soldiers, upper class all Holorian.

No outsider would attain any real degree of importance though they might accrue wealth. Voting is the reserve of adult male Holorians only and the higher the status the higher the weight of vote. Voting was by writing ones name and rank on a piece of pottery and putting it into the jar of the person being voted for. A basic citizen carried one vote up to A consulor carrying what equated to 100 votes and etching name, city and rank in cuneiform on the shard. On voting the hand of the voter was painted with red dye so that they could not vote a second time.

I cant see any disbar for a person of non Holorian heritage holding land, though the precarious legality of it would not be condusive to one sinking much effort into it. Non Holorians would probably remain traders or tradesmen. The markets could be predominantly foriegn run, even under the guise of management having protection rackets. Sort of like the colleges of Rome being the forefathers of the Mafia.

Some of the generaly population and market sellers could easily be non Holorian.

One other part to this is we now need to look at a typical look for Holorians, the Karith and so on. Also the Holorians are not always pure blooded. They come from the East where the Eastern Empire is much more powerful and very much in existence so there will be sea trade too.

I had in mind the Holorians being the forefathers of an Indo-European people, the fathers of the Hittites, Greek tribes (Mycenaeans and Dorians) , Latins and Etruscans.

The Karith I think we already worked out would later become the Phoenicians, though I think they were linked to the Hittites after their destruction by the sea peoples. Actually it would be quite plausible for the Phoenicians to be a coupling of Karith and Holorian bloodlines. Hmmm.

Phew this beggars an entirely different thread doesnt it, building racial traits.

Best not over-complicate things, lets keep a blank canvas here, if we try and base our races on races in history, we will lose our originality. I mean, look at how society has changed in the last 100 years, we are looking at thousands of years or racial development so we dont necessarily need to narrow down our options.

Sure, it makes sense. There has to be a national or tribal identity though, more powerful than there is nowadays I would suggest. There are thousands of years of history in Mesogea but the Holorians arrived on the Agalien peninsula only 320 years before the period that this mod covers, the Karith 900 years before from North Africa and the Skaya have not been heard or seen for several thousand years.

Your right, we need to keep things simple but it would be crucial to have dinstinct races.

Just one question, are the Holorians a strict empire eg: do they frown upon/ ban customs besides their own?

The Holorians are a funny old lot, and we can adapt them as we see fit as this is a team effort so feel free to chip in.

The Eastern Empire has long had contact with older and more diverse peoples and has become very much a mish mash of cultures but retain a very strong Holorian identity. Both Eastern and Western Empires maintain the strict policy of votes for Holorian citizens, all men are free but slavery is legal, though you cannot keep a Holorian as a slave unless they are under punishment enacted by law. Anyone who goes into debt will be the property of the person to whom they own the debt until it is paid.

Religion is tolerated as the Holorians are quite happy to adopt the gods of others, they accept that the gods are a wide family and that the Gods of foriegners (unless they have perverse rituals against Holorian law or morals) are simply the Holorian Gods and the family sometimes under a different name. Midius was not originally a Holorian God, he was adopted from the Massinian God Miruk.

The Emperor Tarma tried to introduce a pantheon of new gods to the West, reviving some ancient Gods that would better have been left forgotten. There were whispers of human sacrifice and the waifs and strays of the empire going missing. It was not until Tarma started ripping down temples that the people rebelled and then the whole foul business of human sacrifices in the underground catacombs of Illusidum and in the mountains was exposed. Tarma was killed. His son ruled after him but didnt last too long.

Unbeknown to the Holorians, Tarma had been corrupted by the Gods of the Skaya, the Vandur and it was lucky he went mad and started doing stupid things that resulted in his death.

The Holorians are generally tolerant of outsiders, but do privately ridicule them and consider them lesser men. The lower classes of the Holorians are not quite so choosy and so long as it benefits them have no problem with outside religions and so forth. However they are a mob and when roused by influential people may and have turned against groups and rioted. The Karith are not tolerated and would be lucky to be able to walk the streets of one of the bigger cities at night without getting a knife in the back, because the Karith and the Holorians have been at war for so long. However a Karithian could easily pass himself off as an Agalien or a Scathan.

Hi, if they were an empire a bit like the Romans, they would presumably have certain people from outside the core territory who absorbed their culture and were full citizens. On the other hand if it's a bit like the Chinese or Inca empires, they would break up the conquered peoples and transplant them throughout the empire, as well as settling people from the core territory. Hence you could have pockets of 'core people' garrisons and administrators in non-core areas, as well as pockets of one ethnicity living in other ethnic areas.

There could also be situations like Sparta, where the elites are the descendants of invading conquerors, and the subject bulk of people are the indigenous ones, like the Helots.

In terms of physical race, we could imagine an early wave of pre-ice age people as the earliest inhabitants, likely scattered groups of hunter-gatherers later becoming settled but still isolated. Like Europe these could be darker, shorter, stockier people, possibly arriving from Africa. Later significant numbers of Holorians and other related people arrived with their agriculture, stirrups and other advanced technologies. These could be taller, leaner, paler people, coming in from Mesogean 'central Eurasia'. Compare with early Europe where a few language isolates (distinct cultures) survived for a long time after the initial Indo-European migrations. I'm thinking of Basque (still alive), Tartessian, Etruscan, and doubtless many others. The physical distribution would likely be a hotch-potch; some places would have mostly 'pure' races while others would have much miscegenation depending on their history of migration, conquest or absorption.

I'd suggest three main physical 'races' - not cultures. These would be the two 'pure' groups, and another representing the mixing. In terms of cultures, likely the high-castes of each would be 'pure-bloods'. e.g. the Holorian elites would be paler and taller, the Karithian elites darker and shorter. My god, this is dangerously verging on racism! But you know what I mean. The resultant cultures would be a hotch-potch as we see fit.

I considered the Holorians more like the Athenians. They would happily have slaves and yet Athenians themselves were free. Their police force was made of barbarians with no right to vote. I couldnt give a monkeys about the rights of these barbarians, they didnt live in a time when they had any, and if they had captured Athenians then I am sure they would have used them as menials too.

I think you have it when you describe movements of people though, I am sure that the Holorians would have practiced all kinds of things on the conquered "vae victis". Transportation might be an option but would be difficult in practice. The military was happy to absorb non citizens who would become citizens with a pension and property on retirement.

That the Holorians are tall an lean simply means that they are from somewhere different to the others. The Karith, being north african would look more akin to north africans because of climate, plus to differentiate. The Karith may appear to the Holorians to be barbarians but from the perspective of the Karith, who one earth do these Holorians think they are rampaging around attacking and conquering. The Karith might do well to remember their own history though because 900 years before the mod, they crossed the sea and conquered, built cities and demanded tribute. Only civil war set them lower on the pecking order than the newly arrived Holorians.

I have two houses done already for the town. I should have another half dozen or so ready within the next 7 days. Ive also been adding odd bits here and there, such as a pottery kiln etc. Just to make it a more working environment.

Hey, sorry i havent posted recently, ive been playing with deadly reflex (great mod, maybe we should add a compatibility patch at a later date?). Just saw yer video in the main thread, great work, boats look great. (maybe borrow some of reneers scripts ;P).

Yes, thats definately the idea with the boats. I want to be able to explore Mesogea by sea, then river, the lakes, the canals etc.