Blackmarch (not to be confused with Black Marsh) is new sub-region within Blackwood, for Skyblivion’s new landscapes most of the new regions that neighbors another province will get a Border Gate, just like Skyrim introduced. The one thing we wanted to improve upon compared to Skyrim’s border gates was uniqueness. Blackmarch is the sub-region in Blackwood that houses the Blackmarsh border gate named Fort Bulwark.

As you can see from the image Blackmarch holds a forest of dead and burnt trees, I originally intended it to be a barren plain with trees that had been chopped down by the Guards on the wall in order to be able to see any folk trying to sneak into Blackmarsh, problem with that idea was that when you go out of your way to make a large area look empty on purpose it’s extremely difficult to successfully pull off and not have the player look at the area and say “These place looks unfinished”, this was a skill I knew I had to work on for longer before I try it, so I thought to myself ‘What about a burnt forest’ maybe the legion burnt the trees down to be able to see better like I said previously although that just seemed like a very nonsensical thing for them to do since a forest fire would be a hard thing to control, maybe they burnt the forest down due to bandits hiding in them, like that story Alfred told Batman In the Dark Knight, again sounded too drastic. I got really attached to the look of the area being burnt, it added a much-needed creepy portion to Blackwood that I really wanted.

A solution was found in a very un-likely place The Princess Bride, I was watching it one night and it came up to the bit where they were traversing the Fire Swamp, it had plumes of fire erupting every few seconds, I just realized that was indeed a real thing in certain swamps, methane gas, it seeps from the earth in pockets and sometimes bubbles up from the water and most importantly to me, it sometimes ignites.

It was clear to me this was the route to go, to instead have a forest fire be accidental or a natural occurrence and not on purpose. I did what I mentioned previously and imaged the player navigating the burnt down forest, how would we convey to the player how the fire broke out, perhaps we could have a few flames coming from the ground just like in Princess Bride, but that didn’t seem like it was clear enough to me. I perhaps thought maybe I could get one of the effects guys to make some gas-like effects for me. Then I suddenly remembered that Skyrim already has a gas effect in it and not only that, it’s flammable and reacts whenever the player is either wielding a torch or using a fire spell. When things like this come together it’s a clear sign to me that it’s the way to go. I found the trigger boxes and placed them all over the area. In the video below you can see how hostile it can make Blackmarch appear.