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[Mattanja]

A while ago I started a series in the german forum that showcases some Locations and Dungeons that were never finished and thus are not accessible in the game, but can still be found in the files and accessed via console. And as I thought it might be interesting for the english fans as well, I will try to translate my thread and post it here, so that you can have a look at some of the interesting stuff I stumbled upon: e.g. Some interesting unfinished dungeons, a dream sequence of the mainquest, that was discarded at some point, the old city of the starlings and even a tank
Please forgive me if my english sounds a little bit strange from time to time, but I haven't had too much practice at translating text from german to english in the recent past^^ I don't know how regularly I will post here, but I will try to go through the whole german series (which isn't finished btw) if you are interested.

Don't worry this will not contain any spoilers regarding Forgotten Stories, as the cells I'm going to show were agreed by the devs
If someone wants to take a look at the location for themselves, I am going to post the Cell-IDs so you can access them by console. But as I cannot guarantee you that visiting those locations per console won't have any effect on your savegame, I would advise you to do that directly from the main menu. Furthermore it is possible, that some cells might get removed from the game with a future update (I tested everything with 1.2.4.1)


Part 1: "It starts with the startcell"

One of the first rooms I discovered is an old startcell, that was once either used for testing or meant to be a part of the prologue.
You start in a cave in front of a door that doesn't lead anywhere and you get immediately thrown into character creation.

[+] Character

You then walk through some passages, where you meet a small child called "Hurala".

[+] Hurala

I was not sure if the kid and the whole cell were just meant for testing at first, but later I discovered something Hoxyd wrote at Discord:

[+] Spoiler for the Mainquest

(roughly translated from german) "Those were children from the civilisation after the Cleansing. They were playing in the ruin and found the notes of the prophet. Then the story of Enderal began and at the end of the game, you would see them again. The kids would leave the cave and you could see the civilisation that had developed."

The only thing that is visually remarkable in the cave is a bigger cavern with a waterfall and some kind of sanctuary.

[+] cavern

While the startcell is not the most exciting thing on my list, I thought it would be a nice way to start

[Mattanja]

Part 2: "Hidden in the temple"

Part 2 is probably the reason, why I'm doing this series at all. During my second playthrough of Enderal, I was a bit irritated by the fact that the two locked doors in the temple in Riverville actually seemed to lead somewhere, as they were not just called doors, but referred to the cell they were leading to. So I unlocked both doors and was a little surprised about what was hiding behind...

The right door leads to a small room that looks like the chamber of the priest.

[+] The priests room

At first nothing special, but it turns out you can actually examine many of the items in the room.

[+] Traces

Probably not too interesting as those are the german popups

Apparently you are after some kind of burglar. I suspect those are the remains of the quest 'Rampant Greed' that was used for the cutscene demonstration that was sadly cut.

The left door leads to some kind of storage room, filled with crates and shelves and a door leading to a crypt beneath Riverville. The crypt seems to be completely designed and is even populated with loot, aggressive undead and a small boss.

[+] Minor Spoiler for the quest Secrets from the can

First of all you push through some crypt corridors, before finding the greatsword "Cold Night", which is now the reward for that quest. So it was either placed simply as loot or the scavenger hunt was supposed to continue into the crypt. But as there are no further clues supporting that theory, I suppose it was just meant as loot before the quest was finished.

You then get to a larger hall, where 'Gugosh' is already waiting for you.

[+] Gugosh

He does have a few enchanted items, but nothing special like a set-item. Continuing through some narrow passages, you end up in the lower parts of the crypt, that seem to be from some kind of nightmare.

[+] Piles of skulls

[+] Bloodbaths

[+] Demonic bone constructions

Do the people of Riverville know what is happening beneath their feet? For my part I was really surprised and intrigued by that find, so I started digging through the Creation Kit to find more stuff like that, which I definitely did.

I'm not entirely sure why the crypt didn't make it into the game, as it seems to be rather close to being completed. My first idea was that the buried people didn't fit into the lore, as only cremation is legal on Enderal, but 1. the crypt in Ark wouldn't make sense in that regard either and 2. it could just be a relic from before the ban. I guess the design of the crypt was just a little too extreme for Enderal, as most of the dungeons are rather realistic regarding the lore and that cult-like stuff didn't really fit in.

[+] Cell-ID

FlusshaimTomb_UnusedCell

[Buccaneer]

That was fascinating, thank you for posting these.

There was another hidden/incomplete place that I have always wondered about. In a lower section of Grave Caves in Soul Bed, there is a circular room with a tent and a large Olmec-type head. There are two overlooks, one easily accessible but the other is not (the one with a down gate). If you tcl through that gate, there are several corridors (and I think some items in there). One of the corridors lead outside to a void but another corridor leads to the back of the Olmec-type head! Was this supposed to be an extension of Grave Caves? The unnamed Olmec-type head made me curious.

[badgesareus]

Mattanja, thanks, very interesting. I don't know how I missed the door to the crypt. It seems well-developed, I don't know why it wasn't used in the game. I think the round room at the lowest level is really curious; you would think something that unusual was designed for some specific reason.

[badgesareus]

Buccaneer, I'm not following you. When you are in the room with the tent there are 2 overlooks. As you face the head and look right up, that overlook leads to void, and I see no other corridors there. As you face the head and look left up, there is an overlook where there are 2 chests behind the gate. This is accessed when you enter the Grave Cave and go straight ahead to a gate with a pull chain to open it.
A - tent B - Head C - overlook gate to void D - overlook with 2 chests behind gate, reached by going straight from Grave Cave entrance E - 2 gates to enter the room with the tent & head.
Where are the corridors you mention with loot? and to the back of the head?

[Mattanja]

Yeah I'm not sure either, as badgesaurus said there is nothing behind that gate. But maybe there was at some point and it got removed in a patch.
Patch 1.2.3.0 seems to have made a few changes to the soul bed and the grave caves including "increased performance", which could mean removing unused assets like corridors...

[stuemper]

Patch 1.2.3.0 seems to have made a few changes to the soul bed and the grave caves including "increased performance", which could mean removing unused assets like corridors...

Yes, both dungeons look pretty but were poorly optimized. I did my best to increase the performance by removing assets that can't be seen (e.g. the corridor behind the head that Buccaneer mentioned) and adding in rooms and portals.

[Buccaneer]

Ah, that explains it, my apologies. My experience was from a pre-1.2.x version, which was the last time I was in there. I just now checked again and there's only a short corridor leading to a void from both the gate and behind the head. There used be a corridor from the top leading to the bottom.

[badgesareus]

It's too bad that crypt under the Riverville temple isn't accessible without using the console to unlock the door. Seems like a lot of work went into designing it. Even if it was made for a quest that was never implemented, it would be nice to have it available just for exploration; no great loot for a high-level player but some useful stuff for a player at a low level just reaching Riverville. Is there some reason the left temple door to the storeroom (& to the crypt) can't be made to open normally or to be lockpicked?

[Mattanja]

Part 3: "Red fragments of the past"

Today we are looking at three large dungeon-complexes, that are presumably from an earlier stage of development and that share a small detail, distinguishing them from dungeons in the game. How do you know they are from early in the development? On the one hand they mainly consist of Skyrim-assets and are a little more reminiscent of Skyrim than of Enderal and on the other hand they all contain many strange red crystals, that cannot be found in the game anymore (afaik).
Note: The names and IDs of the cells were in german, so I tried translating them more or less literally which is why they probably sound a little strange. (Thx @badgesareus for some of the correct translations)

The Deep
The deep consists of 5 cells, all connected to each other: The 'Shadowbreathdeep' where you start, the 'Bat-shelter', a 'Tunnel' trough which you get into the 'Decayed Temple' and the 'Chamber of Ceremonies'.
What I found particularly interesting is the fact that you already meet vatyrs, who are not called 'Vatyr' but instead 'Lost Keeper'.
So maybe the vatyrs were meant to be some kind of predecessor of the Oorbaya or some kind of Keeper-version of the ordinary Lost Ones. But I'm not sure what would turn a group of keepers into pathless ones.
You also meet some kind of small boss called 'Glemrand the Preacher', who is a vatyr as well. Besides that there are just some Lost Ones attacking you or just standing around.

[+] Pictures of the Deep

[+] The Decayed Temple

[+] Lost Keepers

The Undergreen Vault
The Undergreen Vault is a dungeon that reminded me a lot of the draugr-ruins of skyrim. At first you walk through some halls, before entering the 'Undergreen Front' that are dominated by a large cavern with some kind of temple. The entrance to the temple leads into the 'Underground', that abruptly ends without really having some kind of end.

[+] Undergreen Vault

[+] Undergreen Front

[+] Underground

The Rock Mist Mine
A large convoluted mining complex including a tavern and a loading dock:

[+] Mine and loading dock

[+] Tavern The Thirsty Miner

The interesting thing about the Rock Mist Mine ist that the entrance to the mine is actually still in the game: The Miner Cabin at the Scout Tower you visit with Jespar on your way to Ark was meant to be the entrance to the mine and the minute book you can find there inside reports of the mine and its collapse. Entering the mine is impossible as the door leading down is blocked by rubble, though it seems you were once supposed to be able to enter and explore it.

As you can see on the pictures, all three dungeons share these red crystals and I was wondering if there was a meaning to them. Maybe there was a connection to the red madness or they are just assets that were discarded early in the development and I'm reading a little too much into them

[+] Cell-IDs

• Tiefe01_UnusedCell
  
• Untergruengewoelbe
  
• Felsennebelmine

[badgesareus]

Thanks for this information. Here is what I found using your cell references:

- The Deep: everything just as you described. When I checked my local map, each cell had the name in German + "Unused Cell". Quite a large and well-developed dungeon; I even found a couple of books (which I had already read, nothing new). I wonder if Glemrand was mentioned in any of the Enderal books.

-Undergreen Vault: Also as you described, the map showed the name in English only, the second part was named Undergreen Front. So large, it took me an hour to explore it all!

-Rockfogmine: My map showed the name in English as Rock Mist Mine. All I found was a fairly small mine, I didn't discover the loading dock and tavern you describe. I wonder if I missed a secret door or something. How do you reach them from the start (where you coc in)?

It's amazing there are such large unused dungeons. If SureAI isn't using them for FS, I wonder if some good modder could make something of them.

EDIT: Never mind, I found the rest of the Rock Mist Mine, tavern, loading dock, terminal. Wow, so big. I'm calling the police, because it is definitely a crime to not use this mine in the game!

[Buccaneer]

So if I understand correctly, the Deep and the Undergreenvault exist only as unattached cells with no entry point (blocked or otherwise)?

[badgesareus]

I believe that is true, also true of the Rock Mist Mine. The Rock Mist Mine had a collapse (according to the book found on the table in the mine hut) and was abandoned. The steps leading down to the mine (I presume) are full of rubble, and there is no connection to the Rock Mist Mine cell. [As opposed to, for example, the Rhalata temple, where there is currently a locked door to it in the Undercity, which can be unlocked with the "unlock" command and the area can then be entered directly.]

[Mattanja]

Teil 4: "All the Dead Corpses"

Today we are taking a look at a creepy vision of the Prophet, that was part of the main quest and sadly got lost somewhere in the sea of eventualities...

In the vision we enter a house: its all dark and blurred, we hear some screams in the distance and some parts of the house seem to have been on fire and it is still smoking.
Scattered on the floor we find the well known books 'Nutritiousness of Meat' and 'The Art of Crispy Meat' and the shelves are filled with raw meat.

[+] Vision

Behind the counter of the shop, that we seem to be in, there are three burned corpses, that are all named: ("The Grey Karen", "Thoren" and the "Silver Blossom").

[+] Burned Corpses

A staircase that is barricaded is leading up to the first floor and and another one leading down to a storage room in the basement. On our way down we stumble upon "Jagen" who is dead and sitting on a chair surrounded by strange spiddal sticks.

[+] Jagen

Down in the basement we find a hole in the wall through which we enter another room. There we find "Boreo" kneeling naked in a cage putting his hands up as if he was praying or pleading. He is surrounded by candles, skulls, food and four slighty creepy children that start to giggle from time to time.

[+] The Basement

The vision seems to end at this point and we enter the house at a later time, probably to pursue the vision.
The shop turns out to be "Boreo's Book Blessing" is now full of (regular) books and free of corpses.

[+] The Shop

Our investigations are quickly stopped by a wall in the basement, that is blocking the hole from the vision. Using a pickaxe from the now accessible first floor, we are able to break through the wall and enter the room, where Boreo is dead in his cage.

[+] Boreos Corpse

Examining his corpse, we find a key and observe a few other things:

[+] Observations

English Translation: 'Boreo's body is emaciated, bloody and scratched. He must have harmed himself in his hunger. Furthermore the floor is covered in aspen leaves. Where might they come from?'

The hunger is pretty self-explanatory as there is food all around the cage, but out of reach for anyone inside. No idea what the meaning of the aspen leaves might be though. Probably something that is impossible to understand without some previous knowlegde that we don't have...
Taking the key triggers the quest 'A Song in the Silence' and you get the objective to visit Ketaron Dal'Geyss.

[+] Speculations and a small spoiler regarding the mainquest

Tbh I'm not entirely sure who Boreo actually is: the only Boreo in Enderal is "Boreo Oatbash" the third corpse of Jespar's scavenger hunt and child trafficker and murderer. On the one hand "Oatbash" is not really the name you would expect from an endralean book merchant, but on the other hand there are a few hints that indicate they might be the same person. First of all I find the scenario very reminiscent of the way the three corpses of the scavenger hunt are aligned and it would explain the laughing children around him (pretty fitting for a child abuser). I assume the character was just rewritten from a book merchant to a farmer(?) to fit the new scenario.
The fact that 'A Song in the Silence' starts when you pick up the key, is in my opinion rather a bug, as the numbering of the quests seems to have somehow changed between MQ11 and MQ13. The game probably tries to set the queststage of a quest that was replaced by 'a song in the silence' at some point.
I don't know where the key would fit, I guess it might have been for the trapdoor in the same room that leads nowhere.
Sadly I couldn't find any clue who all the other corpses in the house are or how you actually start the vision. The only trace i found is 'Jagen' on the stairs: He has the id _00E_MQ13_Victim03 and there us a cell called 'MQ13Victim03Home'. The cell only consists of a small hut where we find 'Dushak', who doesn't do anything, so it seems to be a dead end...

[+] Cell-IDs

• MQ13VisionHome
  
• MQ13BoreosHome

[Mattanja]

Part 5: "The Biggest Easter Egg Hunt Ever"

This post was originally for Easter Sunday which also happened to be the 1st of April, so I thought doing something about Easter Eggs and similar stuff that isn't in the game would be fitting

Let's begin with a skyrim reference: Somewhere in Riverville there is the hut owned by someone familiar. Even though he tried to cover up his true identity, it is possible to see through the little adjustment he made to his name:

[+] The Dowakien

His outfit is admittedly rather a deterioration, but maybe he was not allowed to import his armor to Enderal because of the embargo

In his little house we can find some souvenirs of his homeland:

[+] souvenirs

Around his bed there are some candles arranged as if he was planning some kind of ritual and on the bed there is an arrow in a pool of blood...

[+] The bed

What that might be about? ^^


The second "Easter Egg" (if you can call it one) is found beneath the desert. What starts like a regular desert cave,

[+] cave

actually turns out to be some kind of starling garage for

[+] ...

TANKS

They actually look quite good, considering that they are just assembled Dwemer-assets
I really did not believe my eyes as I randomly stumbled upon them. I think someone might have been overdoing the steampunk elements

If the order had had such a weapon, Coarek wouldn't have stood a chance

[+] Cell-IDs

• FlusshaimHouseDowakiehn
  
• FFUntergrund

[badgesareus]

Wow, I would really, really like to know what scenario SureAI had in mind with that armory! I saw a couple of interesting things in the underground cave, using tcl:

[Mattanja]

Yeah there is a lot of randomly floating stuff in that cell. Apparently this dungeon as well as a few others (judging by the CellIDs) were made by a level designer, that left the project at some point. While they do look pretty cool, none of them is finished and some of them are rather messy with a lot of floating objects, as the designer seems to have just copied cells without deleting the remaining objects. What you found there is the framework of another quite big but sadly unfinished dungeon, that will be covered in a future post
Concerning the tanks, I think they were probably just something the designer included and the team never actually wanted them to be in the game.

[Mattanja]

Part 6: "The Fist From The Water"

Somewhere on Enderal in the middle of the Powder Desert, there is an isolated crater containing an apparently inhabited oasis, probably called "The Glass Fist" or the "Palm-Tree-Refuge". Around the water there are some smaller huts, mostly built on stilts and partially furnished. Everything is connected by a branched system of platforms, planks, stairs and ladders.

[+] Huts

But where does the strange name of the oasis come from? Right in its center there is a huge rock in the water, that doesn't really fit the surrounding landscape and that has a lot of crystals growing on its surface. The form could be interpreted as some kind of fist and the 'glass' is presumably caused by the crystals, so the locals probably gave it this name. On one side of the rock there is a hole that you can reach via a footbridge and that lets you see inside of the rock where some kind of small shrine was built.

[+] The Glass Fist

Besides that you can also find a tavern in the crater: "The Hollow Hand", which as you might know actually exists in the game and is situated southwest of Duneville. It is constructed slighty different though: While the barroom looks quite similar, the version in the crater has a second floor, consisting of a few bed- and livingrooms, as well as a cave connected to the barroom, that contains a huge blue crystal, a lot of candles and several passages leading into the void.

[+] The Hollow Hand

So apparently another small settlement was once meant to exist somewhere in the desert. Maybe as location for some quest, maybe a predecessor of Duneville and maybe just populated by bandits, as the Hollow Hand in the game is... At least the crater seems to be rather inhabited than deserted, even if there are no creatures besides a 'dummy', a few crabs and birds. One theory I had, is that the crater might be the result of a meteor and that the "Glass Fist" itself could be what remains of it. That would at least explain the very different stone and the crystals, even if I think you can find crystals like that in the Powder Desert.

[+] The crater from above

[+] Cell-IDs

• FFPalmenhort
• FFZurHohlenHand

[badgesareus]

This version of The Hollow Hand is much more interesting! Thanks.

[Mattanja]

Part 7: "Into The Forsaken City"

Spoiler Alert for all those who haven't finished "Forgotten Homeland" in the mainquest.

As you probably know, the Star City is a huge and impressing structure. Compare it to what should have been the 'City of the Ancient Fathers' though and it suddenly seems pretty small. While you are walking through the halls and corridors searching for information about the cycle, you see very little of the actual city where the starlings would have lived. In the original city that was different:

But let's start with our arrival with the airship at one of multiple jetties of the enormous harbor.

[+] The Harbor

Coming from the harbor we can already see the mighty tower, guarding the entrance of the city: a large portal, which we enter, followed by a picturesquely overgrown passageway leading us up into the city.

[+] The Entrance

In the city itself we wade through ankle-deep water, that has spread over large parts of the city, through a small waterpipe and past some old residential houses and starling statues through the city full of greenery.

[+] The City

Passing some kind of small park we arrive at the Nexus Dome and the enormous palace at the end of the city.

[+] The Palace

The palace is actually so huge that the game can't really cope with its size. Standing in front of the palace, we can see about half way up, the rest is not even loaded and when we look to the left and right we can hardly see the end as well.

[+] A few screenshots to showcase the size

Looking down from the top:

So why was this huge city replaced? Well it was probably a little too amibitious: The performance in the whole city is most of the time horrible (especially the palace kills the framerate^^) and that's without the LOD being loaded. Maybe it was rather a design choice or the effort for optimization would have been too big...

[+] Cell-IDs

The city is not located in a cell but in a worldspace, you can still reach it though by using the following IDs:

• AStar
• AStarPlace
• StarPier