Creating The Elder Scrolls Online: Maw of Lorkhaj

The folks at ZeniMax Online have shared some information on the making of the new 12-player trial that will be included in the Thieves Guild DLC for The Elder Scrolls Online, the Maw of Lorkhaj, a secluded Khajit temple that was secretly meant to seal the corrupted dro-m’Athra.

First of all, there’s a video showcasing the location to the notes of a rather relaxing tune:

Then, an excerpt from the post proper:

With the dro-m’Athra theme decided, the location easily fell in place. Nestled deep in the mountains of Reaper’s March, south of Do’Krin Monastery, is an ancient place that was previously known as the Temple of the Seven Riddles. The temple was once a pilgrimage destination for the Khajiit, where they could seek enlightenment and worship Jone and Jode in peace. Unbeknownst to many, the temple was also built upon a great seal meant to hold back the Khajiit’s ancient enemy, the dro-m’Athra.

The temple design itself came about from intense study of the Khajiit culture, and how a secluded mountaintop monastery might look and feel. There were also some real-world ancient Tibetan architecture inspirations. Throughout the temple, we wanted to invoke the symbolic aspects of the Maw and cat. In the first room, for instance, you’ll see this as you look at the mountainous vista we designed it in such a way that it resembles a cat’s mouth with teeth. As you explore the Maw of Lorkhaj, you’ll find the theme continued with intricate Khajiit and moon phase embellishments on the floors, walls, and doors.

With the design theme and world building set, we teamed up with our Concept Artists on a color study to produce a thematic color palette. They looked for examples of what we wanted to do with abilities and ran with it. This was a huge help for our visual effects (VFX) artists later in the project, as they had a wealth of concept artwork to draw inspiration from. As a result, throughout the Maw of Lorkhaj you will see a unified color palette with the same hues used for ability, monster, and environment effects.