That says it exactly truant. I am entirely happy with what you have both said here. Settles the Vandur then. Can we make an NPC into a Vandur? Or are we needing an entirely new mesh etc?

Yes, I think that would work excellently! The Vandur would have a number of warlords and potentates constantly vying for power - more quest hooks and machinations. The only caveat would be that there would not be one monolithic Vandur organisation trying to manipulate man, but some or all of the warlords would have their own plans. The shifting conflicts and (probably?) allegiances amongst them would be mirrored in how they try to use humans. One warlord may use his human-manipulating agents primarily to counter another warlord; another two may cooperate for mutual benefit against others. One warlord may be a right bastard and try to wipe out all foes, whether humans, Durya or Vandur opponents. Another may be more Machiavellian, pulling the strings of those others as pawns in his rise to the top.

I suggest there should be one warlord or allegiance that are the most active in terms of their long goal of enslaving man, so likely the destiny quest would refer to them. They would not just have to collect the Glissidia for themselves but also prevent other Vandur competitors from doing so. Or maybe a PC could turn the tide of such a civil war to bring one warlord out on top and gain essential resources, only thereafter to do the Glissidia quest to crush man.

If so, the PC would most likely have to be a Vandur to be able to interact well with others. An alternative may be that the PC is a Durya who can pass as a Vandur, the quest being to stymie the warlord's plans. The Durya destiny quest may involve manipulating the Vandur into a self-destructive civil war which will leave them fatally weakened. I'm a bit scared of the PC being a Vandur- wouldn't that be a huge restriction as many human-based areas and quests would effectively be off-limits? Unless we treat it a bit like vanilla's vampires and intend that stealth and incognito travel is the way. A Vandur may impress the hell out of an individual human, but surely they couldn't really appear in a crowded marketplace. Or would they be that powerful?

Actually it might be cool to have the PC as Vanduric. They could enter a city at night, get on with their thing then be away. Any exposure would have them either scare people away or a mad rush to destroy them. The PC character would be astoundingly powerful but the counter to that would be the restriction of travel and exposure. Might be very interesting.

OK, so does this means there would be a bunch of Vanduric territories in the north-east? At game time there could be a series of struggles going on, mostly low-level or stalemated, but with balances that can be shifted. Some of the warlords/factions would have spread their influence further south, such as Andeburg, and these will be the ones that currently most affect man. There could be a series of small bases of operations for their agents spread right through to Karithia.

What about the Durya? Where should their heartland pockets lie, or would they be distributed in several areas?

Yes they have their homes scattered about Mesogea. I had determined a few of them:

Raudafel, wandering about the city states etc
Vilmiud, Astaroth, yet to be built in the CS but a very exciting prospect.
Rusika, In the forests to the far north.

There should be several other main ones. There should also be a number of Sheahlin coastal settlements, as their navies are the most powerful in Mesogea, but are entirely devoted to fighting the Skaya who are assaulting their islands and have been for centuries. The Sheahlin live in the north, off map, but occasionally they foray south to deal with the Vandur when they can. I foresaw that the Vandur would be throwing an enormous military effort into the destruction of the Sheahlin and hunting down the Durya. Meanwhile the Vandur are fighting amongst themselves for supremacy. They are growing in strength since the ice age.

We need some other Durya in the south, east, west etc.

I would like to see some segregation and conflicts within knitted cities. Two different races rivialing each other. Nothing would grab my attention more than to be walking down the street and hear some quarrel going on in the distance. Walking over to it to see these two guys arguing over something stupid while the PC sits back and laughs.

There should be plenty of factions especially within the Holorian cities, and no reason why some of the other cities would not take factions to another level entirely, like medieval florence with tower houses for different city factions. Romeo and Juliet anyone....

The capital city certainly has enough alleyways and regions to have faction fighting amongst the poor, it would be advantageous to the wealthy Holorians to keep the poor quarreling rather than putting their mind to more important social matters. Plus the politics of Holoria would make good use of gangs to intimidate rivals to secure votes or make sure they couldnt get to the Middenstal to cast a vote or put in a veto.

It would make sense that sizeable cities would have minority populations from elsewhere, such as merchants, artisans, labourers, etc. They may live and work in distinct quarters/ghettoes/barrios, either through choice or legal restriction. Although based there, their business may happen right across the city so there would always be opportunities for inter-group frictions to surface. Organised self-interest factions could arise out of such groups.

Other places where tensions may surface would be where convoys terminate, where all sorts of people would gather. We could even have tensions at the boundary between quarters, such as the present day Belfast 'peace' wall. I do like your idea of local Montague & Capulet-style factions competing for dominance. It would make a good reason to have architecturally interesting compounds, towers & enclosures, and an excuse to add quests of thievery, kidnap, assassination or takeover. Maybe even an elopement one!

Most sporadic violence would happen in the poorer areas, with the danger of escalation to mob riot, while the wealthier dons/capos would deliberately use targetted violence (by henchmen) as part of their operations.

One of the areas I am researching right now is the relationship between aggression and disposition. There is a reason why vanilla NPCs in cities generally have an aggression of 5: higher aggressions lead to combat resulting in mass slaughter. Bandits and other 'villains' generally have aggressions of 100 for similar reasons. Bethesda more or less just set everyone's aggression to 5 or 100 to sidestep the issue, resulting in NPCs who will attack and NPCs who won't. Much of the combat is then handled by faction membership. (Eg. townspeople attacking creatures in creature factions.)

I'm looking into ways to have 'controlled' fighting without a lot of scripting: for my own mod, I'm trying to create 'occupations' like bouncers and street fighters who can engage in combat without being slaughtered by guards and creating mass mayhem. Example: the player takes a job as a bouncer; when tavern patrons get rowdy, the player can ask them to leave, and if they refuse, he can toss them out, roughing them up a little if necessary. Problem is, I don't want NPCs suddenly deciding to fight to the death, and town guards killing citizens. I think part of the solution might lie in faction membership and faction combat, but I haven't had time to really experiment with it yet. I'd like to see some of this dynamic, non-fatal, unarmed combat in slums, bars, etc., and for 'occupations' like enforcers, bouncers, etc., to give the world a little more color and flavor, and to make unarmed combat a little more viable as a skill.

It sounds like there should be some sort of trigger to stop fighting a long way before fatal. The loser could stop and withdraw if damaged beyond a threshold level, however the winner should also choose to stop at this point. I'm not quite sure how that could be scripted, especially the withdraw - maybe by setting a route to a nearby location?