Day 24: Greater Dwemer Ruins

Remember how I lamented in my last post about how small and unimaginative all the dwarven ruins have been after that first really good one outside Balmora? Especially the ones you have to go to near the climax of the main quest? Well, it seems Darknut has already addressed this issue, with his Greater Dwemer Ruins mod, which combines multiple dwemer mesh resources as well as some original meshes to greatly expand three of the citadels in the game -- those being the very ones that so struck me as disappointing! So, even though I had already been to Odrosal, I went back, to see the difference.

It was fantastic! It was about five times bigger, it had traps, puzzles, and false ends, lots of window dressing, and a real sense of something big going on in this place. And now, the sword really was "well-hidden", unlike before.

Looking at the Greater Dwemer Ruins Resource Pack, I see a team other than Darknut had the goal of expanding all of the dwarven ruins in the game, but apparently this goal was too ambitious, and nothing was ever completed, except for Nedius' Arkngthand, which I believe is complete, from what the readme says. There are 4 or 5 other expanded ruins in various stages of completion included with the resource pack.

Next, I decided to check out Vemynal, the second of Darknut's three expanded ruins. Wow wow wow! Now this is a dwarven ruin! It has everything I could have asked for -- huge turbines and steam pipes in massive underground lakes of magma, boilers, control rooms, a robot construction lab, lifts, labyrinths, living quarters, dining rooms, traps, puzzles, and a really great bit at the very bottom where you claim your prize. This citadel goes deep, deep down into the very core of the planet! My advice to you, is that once you've cleared the pitifully small two levels of the original vanilla fortress ("Outer Fortress" and "Hall of Torque"), unload as much of your inventory as you can, and bring the best fortify strength and/or feather potions or scrolls you can, because you're going to be in this place for a long time, and there's a lot of loot to carry!

Again, I say: Wow! The scale and imagination of this mod is awesome! You would do yourself a disservice if you didn't install this mod!