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Khajiiti Chess Set

Another contribution of mine to a Morrowind modding project, Project Tamriel.
As part of PT’s workflow, quest and level developers may request for a certain asset to be made. Asset developers such as myself then come along and see what is being asked for and opt to develop it if the request suits our skillsets.

For this request, a developer asked for a chess-type game for the fictional cat peoples of Morrowind’s setting, the Khajiit. Sometimes these requests come with a concept that asset developers can work with, but this one didn't so I had to make one myself.

Requests like this will outline what’s needed or provide a reference of what to make. If there isn’t a concept reference, other references and details are provided to give potential developers as close of an idea as possible to follow.

The original request made by a Project Tamriel developer, and my concept for the board layout and game piece form factor, based on the specifications provided.

These mod projects have a close attention to detail with Morrowind’s lore and setting, not just from quest writers but from asset developers as well. Visual conventions must be followed while making assets, especially for assets such as this, where everything should be purposeful.

My first step in making a concept was sketches. Outlined in the request were its specifications: different types of pieces and an 8x8 space board.
Looking to the source material, the Khajiit hold the moons in high importance, and as mentioned in the request, there are 16 phases of the moons. For my initial concept sketch I found a way to have 16 tiles that could depict a different phase each to draw this cultural connection.

After that, I went into GIMP to try arrange the phases in different ways before finding a pattern that made sense. While the request didn’t require a whole rulebook for the game, it should look like it’s a game people could plausibly play.
Once I had the board plan done, it was a matter of making it an actual game asset. Using a tile texture from the game and scaling it to the spaces in my board, I created a texture that looked like it fit in with the game’s style.

Modelling the pieces was a challenge. Objects at this size in-game don’t usually have a lot of detail, so I had to pay attention to the texel resolution and general detail to make sure it matched the game's fidelity.
I settled on having the game pieces be made of wood, so I had to make sure the geometry looked believable as being carved from wood. I also made sure each piece had a distinct style and silhouette, again trying to tap into the cultural connotations of the people who would have made this.

All in all, it was probably one of the more involved assets I’ve made for Morrowind, as I had to develop the concept from scratch. Working within the framework of existing lore and design decisions can be challenging, but I felt I got a lot of flexibility with how I could approach this, and I’m very happy with the results.