Thornswood
Thornswood
Skyrim, fifty years after the war. Free, cold, and still full of people.
A world run by the people in it
The towns are yours to fill. The game's own guards, courts and wandering townsfolk are gone, so the guard on the wall, the Jarl in the hall and the smith at the forge are other people playing. Thornswood keeps a chosen few. The traders, the drivers and the ferrymen stay, so a hold still works when two of you are online, and you are still the reason anything happens.
Fewer, and worth talking to
What stays is what a hold needs from somebody who is not a person: six guild traders in each, the Smith, the Woodworker, the Tailor, the Enchanter, the Cook and the Alchemist, who buy, sell and hand out work, and the drivers who carry you between the holds. The known issues say what is broken right now.
No paperwork once you are in
Getting in is a short Discord apply while we are in Alpha. After that there is no character sheet to have approved, no lore exam, and no waiting on somebody to bless your backstory.
The server owns the world
Your character and shared world records live on the server. The launcher and game files stay on your PC. This is an alpha: bugs and announced wipes can still lose progress.
Fifty years of a free Skyrim
The Stormcloaks won. The Legion marched out in the first
thaw of 4E 203 and the Moot put a crown on Ulfric's head. He held it for
twenty-six years and died in his bed.
The Thalmor were thrown out in 209 and have been illegal ever since.
Some of them are still here. The Empire could not come back with
soldiers, so in 221 it came back with trade, and there is an embassy
in Solitude flying a flag that used to fly over all of this.
There is a High King of Skyrim and nothing above him. Each hold keeps
its own Jarl, its own court, and its own opinion of everyone else's.
There is an embassy in Solitude flying a flag that used to fly over all of this.Fifty Years of a Free Skyrim
You can play
A Nord of any hold. An Imperial citizen or embassy staff, legal and
watched. A Thalmor remnant, hunted by everyone including the Empire.
A Jarl, a steward, a housecarl, a guard, a priest, a smith, a thief.
Not the Dragonborn. Not the Listener.
Not the last of anything important. Those slots belong to the world.
A place to live in, not a lobby
All of it server side, so it is the same world for everyone and none of it can be edited away on somebody's own machine.
Voice that carries
Proximity voice in the launcher, not a separate call. Whisper to the person beside you, shout down the length of a hall, and hear the room the way your character would.
Real locks and real keys
A house is locked because there is a lock on it. The key is a thing you carry, hand over, have copied by a smith, or lose to a pickpocket. Anybody can try the lock. Most people should not.
Notice boards in every hold
Pay coin to pin a notice, a job with its reward held, or a sealed letter for somebody to carry. Anyone can read what is up, and J reads every town's board from anywhere. Take a job and it goes on your list.
Nobody can do everything
You pick a profession, one half of it, and a class. An Edgewright cannot make steel armour. Only a hunter can loot an animal, only a miner can mine. So the leather in your armour came off somebody, and they remember. Professions and classes.
Property worth owning
Claim a door for free, carry the deed, and a steward sets the rent and can evict. The house is yours because you hold the paper, not because a menu sold you a plot.
Law with people behind it
Every guard is somebody, named by the Jarl of their hold, and the cells are theirs to keep. Nothing in the game puts a price on your head, so getting caught is not a fine and a loading screen. Somebody has to decide what happens to you.
What is being added next is on the roadmap.
What has happened here so far
Every picture here was taken by somebody playing. The gallery is open to anyone.