TAOM — Tales From the Age of Men

A Lord of the Rings total conversion mod for Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord v1.5.4.

What is it

TAOM reimagines Bannerlord as Middle-earth during the War of the Ring. More than twenty kingdoms wage war across a custom map — hundreds of unique troops, rideable war beasts (war elephants, giant spiders, wargs), race-specific lifespans, alignment-driven diplomacy, a full career/class progression system, per-kingdom special resources, and dozens of other systems. Every kingdom, clan, lord, and troop has been replaced or rewritten to fit Tolkien's world.

Development happens on bannerlord-1.5.x (Bannerlord v1.5.4). The GitHub default branch, bannerlord-1.4.5, is the v1.4.8 line and shows its own README.

Working with AI

Start any AI client with AGENTS.md and the shared workflow. Any provider can build, review or adjudicate; the task determines the role. For Codex, use the operating guide and the five repository skills under .agents/skills/. Claude imports the same shared rules.

Paid reviewers run only when explicitly requested. Review and verification work uses the non-deploying checks, not the deploying build commands in the developer quick start below.

Quick Start (Developers)

Prerequisites

• Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord v1.5.4 installed (the Steam beta branch)
• Visual Studio 2022 (or the .NET SDK + MSBuild) — targets .NET Framework 4.7.2
• BANNERLORD_GAME_DIR environment variable pointing at your game install (the setup-dev-env.ps1 script configures this)

Two machines. Development happens on a desktop that holds the full content set and a laptop that deliberately does not. Absolute paths in docs/ are the desktop's E:\ layout; the laptop resolves its own through BANNERLORD_GAME_DIR and TAOM_DECOMPILE_ROOT. A machine without the complete TAOM_Map and LOTRLOME_Armory installs will report thousands of broken content references that are not repo defects, so check which machine you are on before believing one. See docs/reference/development-machines.md.

Build & test

git clone -b bannerlord-1.5.x https://github.com/haterade22/TAOM
cd TAOM

.\setup-dev-env.ps1        # set BANNERLORD_GAME_DIR (asks for your install path)
.\build.ps1                # build the mod
.\build.ps1 -RunTests      # build + run the test suite
dotnet test TAOM.Tests -p:DisableModuleCopy=true -p:ModuleId=   # tests only, no deploy

A successful build deploys the module into your game's Modules/ folder. Enable TAOM in the Bannerlord launcher and start a new campaign (existing saves are not supported).

TAOM.sln at the root contains both Main (mod code) and TAOM.Tests. Tests run with MSTest + NSubstitute. Shared build settings live in Directory.Build.props.

Project Structure

TAOM/
├── Main/                     # Mod source (.NET Framework 4.7.2)
│   ├── Features/             # Feature modules (CareerSystem, SpecialResources, LotrIssues, Elephant, …)
│   ├── Core/                 # Core infrastructure + IoC
│   ├── Adapters/             # Sealed-type adapters (IHeroAdapter, etc.)
│   └── _Module/              # Bannerlord module files (SubModule.xml, ModuleData, GUI)
├── TAOM.Tests/               # Unit tests (MSTest + NSubstitute)
├── docs/
│   ├── adrs/                 # Architecture Decision Records
│   ├── features/             # Feature documentation
│   └── migration/            # Bannerlord version-migration tracking
├── tools/                    # Rebalancing + localization scripts
├── .ai/                      # Shared AI policy, roles, scope and review packets
├── .agents/skills/           # Codex-discoverable TAOM workflow instructions
├── .claude/                  # Claude Code config (skills, agents, rules, hooks, memory)
├── .codex/                   # Codex configuration and onboarding pointer
├── CLAUDE.md                 # Shared AGENTS.md import + Claude-specific workflows
├── AGENTS.md                 # Provider-neutral AI instruction entry point
└── build.ps1                 # Build script

Architecture

All mod logic follows one pattern:

[HarmonyPatch / GameModel / CampaignBehavior] → IHookInterface → Service → IAdapter

Services never touch TaleWorlds sealed types directly — they work through adapter interfaces, which keeps business logic fully unit-testable.

Non-negotiable rules:

• TDD mandatory (red → green → refactor)
• Entry points under 150 lines — delegate to services
• No #region, no [Obsolete], no #if DEBUG (except IoC registration)
• Adapter pattern for any TaleWorlds sealed type
• Research TaleWorlds internals before implementing — never guess signatures

See the Architecture Decision Records for the full set of design constraints.

Features

Factions

Free Peoples	Dark Powers	Independent
Gondor · Rohan · Erebor · Dale · Rivendell · Lothlórien · Mirkwood · Lindon	Mordor · Isengard · Dol Guldur · Gundabad · Misty Mountain Orcs · Goblin-town · Blue Craig · Dunland · Easterlings (Rhûn) · Harad · Khand	Umbar (corsairs) · Shaghâna · Âbanissa

Over 100 clans and 800+ unique troop definitions across all factions. Settlements like Erebor are hand-kitbashed in the editor — see the build reference.

Headline systems

• Career System — culture-specific careers; pick one at character creation, progress a tiered choice tree, unlock passive bonuses + an active battlefield ability (press V).
• Legendary War Beasts — ride wargs, Harad war elephants (trample + tusk auto-attacks), and Dol Guldur giant spiders (auto-bite); each driven by behavior-tree AI and fielded as cavalry.
• Special Resources — 11 per-kingdom resources (War Spoils, Gems, Elven Wine, …) that gate elite troop upgrades; XML-driven with many-to-one kingdom/culture mappings.
• Cultural Feats — lore-driven per-culture bonuses (Rohan cavalry speed, Erebor smithing, Mordor raid damage, Gondor loyalty, …), each backed by a dedicated GameModel override.
• Culture Conversion — conquered towns, castles, and their villages gradually adopt the conqueror's culture, switching recruitment pools to match.
• Smart Battle AI — coordinated cavalry line-charges, companion-led formation tactics, and mixed formations that interleave unit types instead of segregating them.
• War of the Ring — scripted phased escalation into permanent total war between Free Peoples and Dark Powers; configurable via JSON + MCM.
• Race & Age System — race-appropriate lifespans and fertility (immortal elves, 250-year dwarves, fast-breeding orcs, ageless Nazgûl).
• Named Companions — 18 lore companions (Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli, …) as recruitable wanderers.
• Bandit Management — five LOTR bandit cultures replace vanilla hideouts, with configurable density and themed encounter flavor.
• Localization — full text support across 12 languages with graceful English fallback.

…and dozens more systems (castle recruitment, culture marketplace, troop-weight balancing, messengers, quick-action inventory, banner color persistence, settlement guards, custom battles, siege defense, tournament armor, and more). Each is documented under docs/features/. LOTR rules are enforced through GameModel overrides and Harmony patches, both catalogued in harmony-patch-registry.md and gamemodel-registry.md.

How It's Built (AI-assisted pipeline)

TAOM is developed with a structured, AI-assisted engineering pipeline.

• Claude Code is integrated as more than a code generator: custom slash-command skills, specialized agents, automated hooks, path-scoped rule files, persistent cross-session memory, and project MCP servers (symbolic code navigation, decompilation, git, GitHub). AGENTS.md, with Claude's CLAUDE.md layer, is the authoritative reference every session loads.
• Codex (OpenAI) runs as an independent adversarial reviewer — it shares no session context with Claude, so it provides a genuine second opinion. Review instructions live in AGENTS.md.
• Mandatory completion workflow — every C# feature passes a 4-phase gate before merge: build + internal /deep-review → Codex adversarial review → self-review of the fixes → closeout (issue, feature doc, commit body as the changelog entry).

Installing to Play (non-developers)

TAOM ships as four modules, all at the same version: TAOM, TAOM.Dependencies, TAOM_Map and LOTRLOME_Armory. TAOM.Dependencies carries Harmony, ButterLib, UIExtenderEx and Mod Configuration Menu (MCM) inside it, so none of those is installed separately: a standalone Workshop or Nexus copy of any of them must be removed before TAOM is enabled.

Bannerlord v1.5.4 is required (the Steam beta branch). Place the four modules in your Bannerlord Modules/ directory, enable them in the launcher, and start a new campaign: existing saves are not supported.

Contributing

1. Read AGENTS.md for coding standards and conventions
2. Write tests first — TDD is mandatory
3. Use the adapter pattern for any TaleWorlds sealed type
4. Keep Harmony patches and entry points thin (< 150 lines); delegate to services
5. Research TaleWorlds behavior before implementing — decompile, don't guess

License

TAOM is licensed in parts. LICENSE-CONTENT.md is the overview and carries the path-by-path scope; LICENSE is kept as plain MIT text so license detection keeps working.

What	License
Code (C# source, tests, tooling, build scripts, Gauntlet UI definitions)	MIT
Content (art, 3D and 2D assets, the world map, game data, lore text)	CC BY-NC-SA 4.0: non-commercial, attribution required, share-alike
Audio, fonts, and third-party binaries	Not TAOM's to license. See THIRD-PARTY-LICENSES.txt
The TAOM name, "Tales From the Age of Men", and the branding	Granted by neither license. See TRADEMARK.md

Forks are welcome and the code is genuinely free to use. Two things it does not come with: the audio and fonts (which are not ours to pass on) and the project's name (which no open license grants). "A fork of TAOM" is fine and always will be. Calling your fork TAOM is not.

Provenance record for the content: docs/reference/asset-provenance.md.

This mod is a fan project and is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Tolkien Estate, New Line Cinema, Middle-earth Enterprises, or TaleWorlds Entertainment.