DOTS — Dawn of the Stag

A Game of Thrones total-conversion mod for Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord v1.4.5 — Westeros at the outbreak of Robert's Rebellion (282–283 AC).

What is it

DOTS recasts Bannerlord as Westeros on the eve of Robert's Rebellion. The Seven Kingdoms fracture into rebel and loyalist camps as Robert Baratheon, Eddard Stark, Jon Arryn, and Hoster Tully rise against the Mad King, Aerys II Targaryen. Play any of the great houses across a custom Westeros map, recruit house-specific troop trees, pursue a tiered career, exploit per-region war resources, and fight toward the rebellion's set-piece battles — the Bells, the Trident, and the Sack of King's Landing. Every kingdom, clan, lord, and troop is being rebuilt for the world of A Song of Ice and Fire.

By the numbers: 49 feature modules · 35 GameModel overrides · 30+ Harmony patch categories · 2,382 unit tests · 85 feature/architecture docs.

The mod is built on a mature engine framework bootstrapped from a prior total conversion; the Game of Thrones content (cultures, troops, lords, careers) is being authored — see the CHANGELOG and the roadmap. The default branch is master.

Quick Start (Developers)

Prerequisites

• Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord v1.4.5 installed
• 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)

Build & test

git clone https://github.com/haterade22/DOTS      # clones master (default branch)
cd DOTS

.\setup-dev-env.ps1        # configure BANNERLORD_GAME_DIR + dependencies
.\build.ps1                # build the mod
.\build.ps1 -RunTests      # build + run the test suite
dotnet test DOTS.Tests     # tests only

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

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

Project Structure

DOTS/
├── Main/                     # Mod source (.NET Framework 4.7.2)
│   ├── Features/             # 49 feature modules (CareerSystem, SpecialResources, CulturalFeats, …)
│   ├── Core/                 # Core infrastructure + IoC
│   ├── Adapters/             # Sealed-type adapters (IHeroAdapter, etc.)
│   └── _Module/              # Bannerlord module files (SubModule.xml, ModuleData, GUI)
├── DOTS.Tests/               # Unit tests (MSTest + NSubstitute, 2,382 tests)
├── docs/
│   ├── adrs/                 # Architecture Decision Records (10)
│   ├── features/             # Feature documentation (85 files)
│   └── migration/            # Bannerlord version-migration tracking
├── tools/                    # Rebalancing + localization scripts
├── .claude/                  # Claude Code config (skills, agents, rules, hooks, memory)
├── .codex/                   # Codex adversarial-reviewer config
├── CLAUDE.md                 # AI instruction file (authoritative project reference)
├── AGENTS.md                 # Codex review instructions
└── 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

The War of the Usurper splits Westeros into two camps, with the Iron Islands, the Wall, and the lands beyond the realm standing apart.

Rebels (Baratheon cause)	Loyalists (Targaryen cause)	Neutral / Unaligned
House Baratheon — Stormlands · crowned stag · Ours is the Fury	House Targaryen — Crownlands · three-headed dragon · Fire and Blood	House Greyjoy — Iron Islands · golden kraken · We Do Not Sow (opportunistic)
House Stark — the North · grey direwolf · Winter is Coming	House Tyrell — the Reach · golden rose · Growing Strong	The Night's Watch — the Wall · sworn to no crown
House Arryn — the Vale · falcon & moon · As High as Honor	House Martell — Dorne · red sun & spear · Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken	The Free Folk — beyond the Wall · the kingless wildlings
House Tully — the Riverlands · leaping trout · Family, Duty, Honor		Essos — Dothraki khalasars & Free-City sellswords
House Lannister — the Westerlands · golden lion · Hear Me Roar (joins late, sacks King's Landing)

Roughly twelve to thirteen playable cultures across the Seven Kingdoms, the Wall, and Essos — house troop trees, lords, and recruitment are being authored culture by culture.

Headline systems

• Career System — pick a career path at character creation (man-at-arms, outrider, sworn sword, sellsword, …); progress a tiered choice tree, unlock passive bonuses + an active battlefield ability (press V).
• War Resources — per-region resources (Valyrian Steel, Dornish Wine, Reach grain, the gold of Casterly Rock, Ironborn plunder, …) that gate elite troop upgrades; XML-driven with many-to-one region/house mappings.
• House Feats — lore-driven culture feats (Northern winter-hardiness, Dornish skirmish speed, Reach prosperity, Westerlands gold income, Ironborn raiding), each backed by a GameModel override.
• Robert's Rebellion — scripted phased escalation from the Mad King's provocations into open war between the rebel houses and the Iron Throne, toward the Trident; configurable via JSON + MCM.
• Named Companions — era-canonical lords as recruitable wanderers (Eddard Stark, Jaime Lannister, Ser Barristan Selmy, Jorah Mormont, Brynden "Blackfish" Tully, …).

…and ~40 more systems (banner color persistence, settlement guards, custom battles, siege defense, tournament armor, shader precompilation, and more). Each is documented under docs/features/. House and faction rules are enforced through 35 GameModel overrides and 30+ Harmony patch categories — both registries are catalogued in CLAUDE.md.

How It's Built (AI-assisted pipeline)

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

• Claude Code is integrated as more than a code generator: 33 custom slash-command skills, 5 specialized agents, 18 automated hooks, 15 path-scoped rule files, persistent cross-session memory, and 7 MCP servers (symbolic code navigation, decompilation, git, GitHub). CLAUDE.md 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. 40+ reviews completed to date; 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, CHANGELOG).

Installing to Play (non-developers)

DOTS ships as a set of modules. Required alongside the core DOTS module:

• Companion modules: A Dance of Dragons Armory (Westerosi equipment), DOTS.Dependencies, and a Westeros map module (provided separately)
• BUTR dependencies: Harmony and Mod Configuration Menu (MCM)

Place all modules in your Bannerlord Modules/ directory, enable them in the launcher, and start a new campaign — existing saves are not supported.

Contributing

1. Read CLAUDE.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

Code (C# mod source): MIT License

Content (art, lore, data, and XML assets derived from the works of George R. R. Martin): CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 — non-commercial, attribution required, share-alike.

This mod is an unofficial fan project. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by George R. R. Martin, HBO, Warner Bros. Discovery, or TaleWorlds Entertainment. A Song of Ice and Fire and Game of Thrones are trademarks of their respective owners.

Acknowledgments

• The Old Realms (TOR) — DOTS's Career System and War Resources were inspired by TOR's Warhammer total conversion. Their career-progression and resource-gating designs served as the reference architecture, adapted for a Game of Thrones setting.
• TAOM (Tales from the Age of Men) — DOTS was bootstrapped from the TAOM Bannerlord architecture (IoC/DryIoc, the adapter pattern, the TDD infrastructure, and the carried-forward feature modules).