One of the consequences of my complete lack of modding experience is that NPCs don’t always work as intended. Some things you can write around, but not stuff that is essential to their character. Typically, the Creation Kit is such that even a novice can figure shit out. Want someone to cast a spell? Just tab over to the SpellList section and add your magic of choice.

The problem is, that doesn’t work for support spells, and doesn’t always work for bound weapons. As a result, Rumarin and Valgus, two of the more prominent followers, never really acted in the way their stories would indicate.

Thankfully, with an assist from Vidalia – who pointed me to Natalie the Healer, and Madcat221 who made me realize bound swords are actually normal weapons + textures, I learned a few things:

1) Support spells can be added via AI packages – the same used to sandbox or sit down in a chair, you just have to make them override combat.
2) Bound weapons can be added to an NPC’s inventory(in the alias so they can’t be stolen) and used in place of spells.

So Valgus and Rumarin will function more or less as they are intended, although there are a few things that still need to be ironed out (Rumarin’s combat audio is also a little tinny in the video, Jay’s getting a new mic so it should rectify that – maybe not for v3.03, but v3.04 for sure).

Rumarin will still occasionally use an invisible blade, no idea why, and Valgus won’t use up any magicka. He’ll use the HealOther spell if you’re within range and if your health is less than 40%, so he won’t spam the motherfucker or anything like that. As I mentioned previously, he’ll also have combat dialogue that better suits his character, but I’m not sure if it’ll make the next version.

When people wonder why the mod isn’t modular, well, the answer is simple. Everything is connected. Quests, NPCs, books – a lot of the auxiliary content blurs into disparate sections, often in ways that can’t be separated into neat little pieces.

In fact, given how cozy everyone is with each other, you can probably tie together most NPCs through a handful of Kevin Bacons. Of course, if you’re wondering who the Kevin Baconiest character in the mod is, the fatty crown would likely go to that most affable of companions, Rumarin.

With the Elf, even someone as isolated as Kianna is only separated by three degrees. Rumarin interacts with Mugnor, who would’ve been a colleague of the slain apprentice Borvir, who used Journeyman’s Nook with Kianna.

The web gets slightly more tangled when you choose NPCs at random, but they can still be linked. Iria and Viranya, for instance, can be tied together in 4 degrees.

Iria –> Danica Pure-Spring –> Melea Entius –> Jerulith —> Viranya.

Iria and Danica are priestesses of Kynareth, where Melea went to seek a healer, who shares Dead Man’s Drink with Jerulith, who is Viranya’s old friend.

Let’s try the same with NPCs that share the same voice, like Nelos and Leifan, who are voiced by Corey Hall but couldn’t be more different. Typically, it’s easier to work from the lesser known character, given their limited associations. Leifan makes reference to most of the NPCs in Rorikstead, in particular the former Stormcloak Sonja. Sonja once spoke to Larsdon about the perils of Orphan Rock, who hired Rumarin as a mercenary in the Blood of Kings, who was inspired by Olivia to learn a new spell, who is the chief adversary of Nelos.

See? In the end, the shortest route always goes through Rumarin. Kevin Pork Strips ain’t got nothing on him.

Here is Elisabeth Hunter voicing the newest follower, Meresine. The pie chart I made a few posts back revealed that the mod lacked a Dunmer female follower — I mean, it lacks a lot of things in terms of companions, but an Elf race is something that’s far easier to cast than say, an Orc.

Now it does not lack this thing.

About a week ago, a Nexus commenter mentioned that I had literally no standards with regard to recruiting voice talent. Well, that just isn’t true. I did cast a goldfish to play Rongeir initially, but he died during recording. Something about being unable to breathe on dry land. So technically, I do have standards. The actors must be alive. After that, all bets are off.

Still, despite my limited standards, for some reason I seem to have trouble casting female beast roles. I’ve been trying to get a certain actor to voice a Khajiit for almost a year now, with little success. Then came this email:

Some might call this a joke. Or perhaps a clear message that filling this role is a Sisyphean task. Nevertheless, I am choosing to take this literally, and not in the Nexus commenter’s meaning of the word. I mean literally, literally. After all, this may seem like an impossible task, but I believe the gathering of 10,000 Egyptian souls is nowhere near as difficult as casting female beasts. And I’m going to prove it.

This is a race. Which will happen first, the delivery of 10,000 souls, or the casting of this role? We shall see. Here are the first five:

Soul #1 - This is an Egyptian boy named Billy. He was ahead of his time and predicted the popularity of the name “Billy” for young American boys before the name or America was invented. Unfortunately his drunken ramblings of the future and the rise of something called the “Hokey Pokey” resulted in him being branded a servant of the evil jackal god Set, and was subsequently tortured to death.

Soul #42 - This was a farmer’s daughter named Bahiti, which is Egyptian for “fortune.” Bahiti did indeed earn a fortune by the age of sixteen, by selling her soul to the wealthiest merchant in town.

Soul #955 – This soul was a bit of a voyeur. He would constantly spy on his neighbors. When he wasn’t doing that, he’d spend all afternoon on the roof of his house, studying the passersby go to and from the market. For this reason, many contend he was the world’s first Egyptologist.

Soul #7,143 - This soul is actually one of Egypt’s first celebrities. His name was Fenuku, which I think is Egyptian for “three-nippled.” While Fenuku did not achieve celebrity status during his lifetime, mostly due to his excessive nipple problem, centuries after being mummified he was cast in two separate but unrelated IMAX movies starring The Rock.

Soul #9,999 - This soul belonged to a brother of a Pharoah. His favorite things to say were “Let my people go” and “I’ll give you my slave whip when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.” He would later lead the Jews to freedom, whipping them across the Red Sea. God congratulated him briefly before killing him for having an uncircumcised penis.

5 down, 9,995 to souls to go. Or 1 Khajiit.

Doing wiki pages is probably the toughest part of the mod. The work itself isn’t particularly grueling, but the motivation to do the work is another matter. Still, I want to finish the quest pages that have multiple routes or endings, particularly Stolen Property and Spell it Out for Me. I managed to finish the latter, so anyone who’s confused on how to win Cassock’s game or spare the lives of certain NPCs, I have spelled it out, as it were.

In addition, here are some notes in bullet point format. I dig the bullet point, by the way. It sure beats buying a gun and shooting up my monitor.

• There’s been a lot of Fallout 4 speculation as of late, but regardless of whether it’s real, I think it’s safe to say that the game will be made at some point. As I mentioned before, I’m going to start laying the foundation for a follower, with mostly generic lines until the specifics are released. I may also put out a demo of sorts, playable in Skyrim, which you can download from this blog.

• Thanks to Artisanix for making his Paintings and Frames available for use. I need to scour the mods on Nexus and see what other goodies I can use for quests.

• Speaking of which, a new miscellaneous quest has been added to the Casting Call menu. This one should be easier to cast than the previous one, given how short it is.

Lastly, I’ve been playing around with Meresine for a bit and she’s pretty badass. Elisabeth Hunter, who previously voiced Falatild and a few others, really captures the anger that’s a signature part of her character. Hopefully I can keep fleshing her out in the months to come. Now for some turkey and gravy.

It’s funny to say now, given my wardrobe consists of a three-year old pair of jeans, an old hoodie, and a bunch of vacation T-shirts my parents donated to me like a homeless person, but I used to have five separate outfits, one for each day of the school week.

Unlike business attire – where you’re basically swapping five different colored dress shirts – high school wardrobes are managed like a pitching rotation in baseball. You have your aces (the clothes you look your best in), your dependable innings eater (the clothes that aren’t flashy, but get the job done), and your back of the rotation outfits that you only wear because you can’t wear your best outfit twice.

In order to simulate this in Skyrim, I’ve chosen to give many NPCs random outfits. For example, Asteria in the picture on the left is wearing what most would identify as “The Ysolda,” whereas if given the choice, I would prefer she wear the dress on the right, or any variation without the plunging neckline. Of course, for the sake of realism, the hope was that over multiple meetings, you would see all the various outfits, with the NPCs ostensibly rotating their wardrobe the same way we do. However, upon further inspection, it seems that whatever outfit is loaded when you start the game stays for the duration.

Which is why, when given the choice, Bethesda probably decided it was best to give each NPC a set outfit. Randomizing clothing not only heightens the chance of a mismatched look, but also the awkward situation of showing up to fourth period wearing the same thing as that copycat Tracy, and you know that bitch isn’t gonna change.

As for the mod NPCs, I’m not sure I need to revert back to unique outfits just yet. For one, I think they’re spread out in ways that similar outfits rarely clash, and you still get different clothes on different playthroughs. But, if you spot two people wearing the same dress to the same party, let me know and I’ll see what I can do.

This is Isaac Silbernberg aka MagnusDux voicing the character Herran. This is part of a quest that I previously scrapped for scripting/mechanical reasons – I just couldn’t make certain ideas happen – but I decided the characters were enjoyable enough that it was better to simplify the quest so you could meet them.

The acting in the last line really captures the essence of this character, as Herran shifts back and forth between melodramatic and avaricious. The one regret I have is that I couldn’t make him fatter, because everyone in the game is sculpted like a Greek God. However, much like my abridged quest, I’m sure there’s a reason for that too.

Here’s a new follower I plan on including in the next update – one of three, actually, including Meresine and a Wood Elf bard. This is the first NPC voiced by Daniel Hodge, who previously did work on the Helgen Reborn mod. Given his range, hopefully I can coax him into doing a number of demographics that are currently underrepresented.

Gah, I really need to stop posting scripts to the front page. If you were expecting a new post, sorry about that. Since the end of the year is a time for reflection, here, have a bizarre screenshot of Zora I made back on March 4, 2012. Apparently I originally had her in leather armor before settling on the Scale Armor set she has now. I don’t even remember this, and I remember everything.

It’s easy to see why the change was made. The leather armor was a little too butch.

As for news on the next update, I’m pretty much finished with everything I want to include. Scripts are written, bugs have been squashed, everything is ready to go, save the voice acting. Given the time of year, that could be a good thing or a bad thing as far as a release date, as some actors will have plenty of free time while others will be too busy with family.

I will be tentatively shooting for a release in early January then, with the inclusion of at least one quest, but I’m not sure which of the three will be included. I might also add Gales of Guilt with Utei the Argonian unvoiced, provided all the other parts are finished. In which case, I’d put the (unvoiced) part in parenthesis like the picture above to alert players who turn the subtitles off. In any case, I suspect I’ll have a better idea once we move past Xmas and the New Year.

Some news regarding the wiki. For the most part, the NPCs are up to date, minus a few that nobody gives a shit about anyway. You can even click on the unreleased folks like Arghus and get a RefID if you’re into that sort of thing. The quest wikis are still nowhere near complete, but I do hope to finish them by the next release, albeit without pictures and fancy trimmings and shit.

Naturally, things can come up that will throw a monkey wrench in those plans, so I have no idea if those hopes are unrealistic. These wrenches are typically good things in terms of content. Today, for instance, I thought up a new quest on the fly and got that shit halfway done(check that – ALL THE WAY DONE), so the wiki took a back seat.

Aranas also thought I should ask people to whitelist the site in AdBlock. While the revenue is relatively piddling, every little bit helps, and right now about 60% of all advertisements are blocked. I do think the ads are relatively non-invasive, especially on the wiki pages where they’re buried under the trailer video. The ads on the videos themselves are a little more noticeable, but still relatively benign.

In other news, I’ve also cast the Argonian Utei with none other than Lindenlaurel, one of the scribes on this blog. I’m sure when it’s done and a video is made, she’ll introduce it herself.

At some point while poking around in the Creation Kit, I pressed the wrong button. I’m not sure what I did, or how I did it, but the result was clear. The faces in the preview window weren’t showing up. At least, not the entire face. There were no bones, no flesh, no hair and no muscle. All that was left was a ghoulish monstrosity of eyes and teeth.

This, of course, was pure serendipity. Mainly because it removed the natural instinct to make a symmetrical face. Now I could throw the sliders in all direction without compunction, and not be influenced by the sad face in the window, crying because God made her ugly. No, the lipless freak was always smiling. No matter how far I pushed the sliders, it never blinked.

So when I set out to meet my latest Frankenstein, I was caught off guard. “Bear-Foot” Froa was going to be a strong Nord woman with gnarly ass feet. She wasn’t supposed to be so goddamn…pretty.

In the past few weeks, I’ve tried to diversify the marriage pool. Taking into account the actors who are the most reliable, Hagravi Gray-Wave, Jaspar Gaerston, and possibly an Argonian male will be added to the list.  The last thing I want to do is add another human female. Froa, though, is just too adorable in her bare feet. I don’t want to change the face – I never question the Slider Gods – but I feel like releasing her like this will make her too attractive, and thus prompt a flood of marriage requests. In these instances, it’s better to write it first so the actor knows what she’s signing up for.

In any case, this is really just a protracted excuse to try out the poll feature. I’ve been wanting to put this thing into a post for some time, but I feared it would look pathetic given so few people would actually vote. That will probably still be the case, but at some point I need to make better use of WordPress’ features. I need to get wacky with the bells, whistles, and sliders, and stop worrying so much about the results.

We all know the end of the year is a time for a reflection, but it’s also an excuse for bloggers to make lists. This is sort of like that, but different, because I don’t really feel inclined to tell you what you already know. I’d rather celebrate some of the more minor things that deserve their own day in the sun, and I suppose it’s fitting that day happens to be the last one.

After all, while many have lauded the actors who voice their favorite characters, it’s also important to point out the people that have voiced the smaller, bit parts. Voicing a nameless farmer, bandit, or sellsword is often a thankless job, but when done right it can add a lot of depth and humor to a quest. And with that, here are some of my favorite scenes featuring nameless or minor NPCs:

Brother and Keeper – He’s the Boss

This pair of scenes actually may require multiple playthroughs to see them both. The bandits turn aggressive as soon as the first scene ends, which could cause the next scene to never fire. If you quickly make it inside the ship, however, you’ll see the mercs turn on the officer when you leave. Robert Ducat voices a merc and the guardsman, while Jay33721 does the Wood Elf.

While it’s not something everyone will see, I love how this little exchange provides a little levity to an otherwise serious quest.

The Sleeping Giant – A Giant’s Bane

David Bodtcher provides the voice for Jonas Giant-Bane, a slight bit of misdirection in the quest, The Sleeping Giant.  Obviously, Jonas isn’t technically nameless, because the name itself is part of the gag. You see, I imagine most Nords get their clan names by achieving some great feat, but it occurred to me that their kin would inherit these names without doing anything of the sort. Jonas’ ancestor likely slew a Giant to get his name, but poor Jonas is stuck with a destiny he can’t fulfill.

Daedra in the Dark – A Wholesome Girl

Unlike Jonas, this guy never really required a name. I’m still not exactly sure why he has one. In any case, it’s safe to say everyone knows someone like Parellius. In fact, many of us have at one time or another been that person (there’s a reason why strip clubs stay in business). But I have to say the best part of this video is how meta the vanilla-voiced Elise is. I didn’t have to make her shallow. That’s how they come out of the box.

Daedra in the Dark - Sixteen Babies

This is probably my favorite vanilla-edited scene. The dialogue is pretty straight forward, and not at all original, but the arrangement of it is just a mind blower in general. It has NPCs flirting with each other, marriage dialogue that’s typically reserved for the player, and a male fucking wench.

The Paper Mirror – Any Questions?

Jay33721 (Male Bandit) and Lila Paws (Female Bandit) join Randy Westbrook (Theron) for this exchange before entering Redoran’s Retreat. Provided it hasn’t been cleared, the bandits in Redoran’s Retreat do indeed own a dog, so the male bandit’s comment is actually rather prescient. I also like how Theron tries to simplify it at the end, but throws out the number four again in the process.

A Rose Without Thorns – Knights of the Eight

Lastly, here is Lila Paws (Female Bandit) again with Trent Martin (Bandit and Hiram) voicing the Knights of the Eight. This really shows Trent’s range as he’s essentially talking to himself. As with the Brother and Keeper mercs, this scene never fails to make me smile. Not just because it’s a nice change of pace from all the gravitas, but it’s genuinely funny.

In addition to the above listed actors, Anna Castiglioni, Christine Slagman, Zaf, Matt Dixon, Corey Hall, Giramor, J.T. Decker and many others have provided voicework where others would have scoffed. As much as we love the stars of the mod, these smaller parts are a healthy dollop of frosting on our metaphorical quest cake.

If we break the mod down into years, 2012 was the beginning. We introduced a lot of NPCs and a lot of backstories. This year and going forward to 2014, the focus has been more on quests. And when I reflect on the year that was and think about all the contributions people have made, I’d be remiss if I neglected the folks above. Their NPCs may not have the tag, but they’ve been every bit as essential as the named ones.

In a game like Skyrim, objectives are pretty much essential. You can’t really keep track of what the hell you were doing given there’s so much shit to do. Still, objectives do have unintended consequences. They tell you there is a piece of candy waiting for you at a certain place, and place an incentive on visiting it.

This is completely benign if the quest giver is self-aware. If I want you to fetch my sword from a cave, the player should have it marked on his or her map. They should have an incentive to go there. Objectives are just a helpful reminder of the task at hand.

However, in other cases, as with the crabber Juryk, the quest giver has no idea that certain events are taking place around him. There’s no reason an objective marker should point you to the next location, given the information the crabber provides. In this case, I decided to let things happen organically. The odds you would never visit the inns and taverns are next to nil, so there’s never a worry that lacking objectives will hinder your progress.

Nevertheless, I thought it’d be a good idea to highlight this and other easter eggy quests like The Queen of Mereth in the blog, if nothing else than to give the actors their due.

One of the things I’ve noticed when splitting up monologues is that the changes aren’t always for the better. In some instances, I feel like it transitions naturally. In other cases, I feel like the flow of the words is lost by the splitting question. For these conversations, I think a better way to present the backstories is through the use of scenes as opposed to a split or straight monologue.

Naturally, when the dialogue was constructed, I had no idea how to execute any of this, but now I know enough about the CK where I can implement these changes and do it in a way that’s consistent with the original layout. The dialogue stays as intended, the interaction is more dynamic, and by having free range of motion, you avoid the feeling of being locked into a conversation.

Here, we have two changes that were implemented in version 3.04. Both are examples of using scenes as opposed to splitting up monologues. Be forewarned, there are MINOR SPOILERS for the characters Zora, and MAJOR SPOILERS for the quest To Warm Sands. 

This video shows a similar effect with the initial meeting with Jaspar. With Flin, I start his dialogue early as opposed to after him sitting down. This prevents you from getting locked in to him for an extended period of time, while offering a different perspective and have free range of motion. You’ll also notice I sped up some of Flin’s lines, which I’ve been meaning to do for some time.

Here with have a similar opening to Jaspar to help condense Among the Hist’s initial sequence without removing any lines. Naturally, we don’t want to overuse the mechanic where we’re staring at people’s backs. There’s also the fact that with followers, you can’t orchestrate their movements as easily. Thus with Among the Hist, the sandbox feature is used when going into some of the protracted stories. This can be unpredictable – you don’t want him telling a sad story while riding the sword bicycle. However, I do think most of the sandbox items involve sitting down or standing still, so for the most part it should be a net gain.

Here are some thoughts while I chomp on this burrito and Vex teaches me about the nuances of infiltration:

• README - The new quests and the big update slowed things down with the wiki, but the NPC portion is still caught up, as it includes even unreleased folks like Cassius and Geel-Jah. I feel like if I force myself to make the wiki pages as I make the NPCs, I should be fine. The quest pages though, they can take all day to complete, and I’m sure you’d prefer I focus on new content.

• DONATIONS - I saw a donate button on Kayla Marquez’s Tumblr, and I immediately thought to myself, why don’t I have one of those? Do I hate money? Anyone who knows me would probably say yes. In any case, as long as you remove AdBlock, I think the advertising revenue will be enough to sustain the blog and my lavish yachting lifestyle. For that reason, donations are not necessary, but if you are so inclined, I will hold you in high esteem.

• UPDATES – I still feel like the weekly update is the way to go, so we’re still on track to drop 3.04.1 on Monday. If you’ve noticed the casting call section, I’ve filled the part of Duraz, and the best part is the voice is even better than the last one. I just hope we can make it to the finish line. She’s also going to be marriable, which I feel like should be a word. Anyhow, the voice, yes the voice is pretty amazing. It makes me happy. It has just the right amount of gravel without sounding raspy or whispered. Take a listen:

• OTHER PROJECTS – I’ve batted around a few ideas for the Evermoor Island mod that has been made available as a resource, and even wrote up a few characters to open with. It would all take place outside of the Elder Scrolls universe, as tying yourself to that world would basically limit the stories you could tell. The biggest deterrent would probably be the fact that the navmeshes aren’t done.

It’s a pretty stupid thing to quibble about given the dude made an entire island, but on the other hand, adding the navmeshes is probably the most tedious thing you could ever spend your day on. Even with clutter you’re still sort of decorating. But it’s just incredibly hard to motivate yourself to connect a bunch of triangles together. The villages and towns are one thing, but the open world is another. Maybe I’ll start with one small area and see if I can maintain my sanity.

Here’s some news, notes, and other things I want to mention while I have the chance:

Maligree is the latest wiki editor to join the ranks, but unlike all the previous folks I’ve brought on, she’s managed to finish a quest page, which you can view here. In contrast to the lazily written pages I put together, she’s added detailed summaries, nice screenies, and even filled out the tables. To put it in perspective, not even the legendary Blauwvis, who did maybe fifty or so character pages, dared try her hand at this overwhelmingly exhaustive task.

In short, Maligree is a true hero of our times and anyone who says otherwise is dead to me.

The second thing I want to address is the ongoing overhaul of old NPCs. Often times, when I approach actors about refurbishing their lines, they aren’t having it, and I completely understand why. Given how expansive the dialogue is, it can be a lot of extra work for little to no gratitude. That’s why I’m thankful to those who are willing to do it. Lila Paws has not only be working hard on Anum-La, but also found time to re-take Morviah. The difference I think is staggering, and should really help this NPC shine. Take a listen to Morviah before and after:

Lastly, I want to once again thank those who have donated their hard earned money as well as those who have removed AdBlock to help support the mod. After all, I like money. It is a relationship I think is going places. But in all seriousness, the extra bit of scratch does help pay for upkeep as well as better resources for actors, composers, and the like. I think outside of that bathtub vodka experiment, for the most part I’ve spent the money in ways that will improve the overall experience for you.

Heyo! I’ve been meaning to add a new post for a while now, but I’ve been fairly busy with stuff. Lot of stuff to do. Yup. And on top of all the stuff, a lot of shit has gotten in the way too, which is especially problematic given I can get easily distract – OH IS THAT A NEW EPISODE OF FUNNY SITCOM CO-STARRING ATTRACTIVE AND SOMEWHAT ECCENTRIC BRUNETTE WELL SHIT MY NIGHT’S GONE – but for all those who have sent me emails about new roles and the like, I will be getting to them shortly. I hope. As soon as I get finished with all the stuff and shit. In any event, we should be on track for a new release tomorrow with a new quest.

Here are the other notes:

• Nonoodles has been kind enough to make a sword texture for S’vashni’s katanas. I need to remember to add it to the Nexus description page, which is currently a government sanctioned clusterfuck. As President, CEO, and Archduke of said government, I humbly apologize to those affected. I think the music section in particular is missing credit for some of Giramor and Ronja’s work.

• Minor tweaks will still get done as I play the mod and talk to NPCs. The other day I noticed when Gerrod talks about blood and guts, it would be kind of neat if he sauntered over to the table and stared at the actual blood and guts. These are the sort of things that may seem obvious now but were simply out of the realm of possibility when I didn’t know how to script.

• Lastly, Damien has finished the latest batch of Vincent lines for Fallout 4, and since I’m too lazy to learn G.E.C.K., nonoodles will likely release a demo for Fallout New Vegas. It’ll be nothing but generic dialogue because after all, Fallout 4 isn’t even its fetal stages, it’s just a phantom of a sperm cell floating around in Todd Howard’s brain-scrotum. Still, at approximately 300+ lines and counting, it’s not like he won’t have anything to say.

Lately as part of the NPC overhaul, I’ve been playing a lot more Skyrim than I ever have before, seeing what works and what doesn’t. Along the way I’ve taken a few screenshots, so I may make this a monthly thing provided the photos are worth sharing.

In our first photo, we have Ange set to sandbox around an invisible Xmarker, which is basically to avoid making chairs and benches persistent. The problem is this sometimes leaves her standing in place as opposed to using the furniture around her. In this case, however, it kind of worked out well. Having her and Ingarte stand back to back was just pure serendipity.

Out of all the vanilla followers, I personally like to take Serana with me because she done taken one too many radscorpion stings to the head. Seriously, the woman is fucking nuts. Here she is stroking Alva’s thigh while glancing over at the player for approval. Does it turn you on when I pet the dead woman? Why yes, it kind of does, but only because I’m a pervert. Never change, Serana. You’re the best.

The last couple of times I’ve tested this quest, Renni has suffered from a serious case of gigantism. It only happens when she sits down at the table, but given that’s where the majority of the conversation happens, it can be rather distracting (although given the tenor of the quest, it might be a net positive). Anyhow, I’m used to child NPCs turning adult size at the table but at this rate Renni might have better luck playing power forward for the Portland Trailblazers than tag with the local children.

Yes, Meresine, that’s your bow. You put arrows in them and shoot them at your enemy. The thing on your back, the thing that’s on fire? That’s what we use to light the dark places. Incidentally it also seems to have burned off half your clothes. On second thought, forget what I just said.

What’s going on here? I don’t even…No, Serana! Shoo! Bad vampire!

Anyhow, that’s it for this episode. I probably spend way too much time playing with corpses instead of talking to NPCs and doing quests, but that’s probably Serana’s influence more than anything. After a bit of hacky sack I eventually decided to throw this one into the fire but that didn’t stop old grabby hands from pawing at its boot.

It’s no secret that when it comes to faces, I have no interest in making a world of Kens and Barbies. It’s not that I have anything against beautiful people – some of my best friends are beautiful. Part of it is a reaction to the entertainment industry in general, where every character is witty and charming and fun and gorgeous, but mostly it’s born out of a fear of my own unconscious – that my natural preferences will leak into the mod.

As I mentioned previously, this is why when I mess with the sliders, I pay little attention to what comes out on the other side. Well, not this time. My newest Frankenstinian creation, Ylgyne, was crafted to be the bachelor of your dreams, complete with rock hard abs, a charming smile, and of course, questionable intelligence. All right, maybe the last part isn’t necessarily dreamy, but I can’t help myself. I prefer my characters flawed.

• Maligree is on fire. She just finished the quest page for Stolen Property, probably the hardest page to do other than Blood of Kings. This is like watching Frank Lloyd Wright in his prime, if he was building quest pages instead of architectural wonders. Although let’s face it, what Maligree is doing is much harder. I mean Fallingwater? Bitch please. Gravity does half the work.

• Quest Progress (In Percentage)

Oddly enough, Azzarian’s Gold is the newest of the four quests, and is already set for a Monday release. That’s the way it works sometimes. Immortal Coil is probably the most consequential of the four, while Azzarian’s Gold is probably the most creative. Thankfully, the major roles have been cast for pretty much all of these quests, so it should be only a matter of time. Just how much is up to the actors in question. Nevertheless, I’m fairly stoked about this next batch of quests, and along with the release of Black Robes, v3.05 is setting out to be a rather hefty update.

Although the mod will always be the key and cornerstone of this site, I do feel obliged to give you words to read and music to listen to and videos to watch. So as we approach the two year anniversary of the mod, here is another state of the union post that will do a little of all three.

Here is Merrigan‘s cover of Arisen1‘s Tears of the Hist. I like to imagine her playing this with a flute in her mouth, a harp in one hand and a drum in the other, all while her feet play the triangle. Although science has allowed people to play the parts separately, I find human cloning to be a sketchy practice so I’m going to assume Merrigan played them all at once and sang the harmonies using a less controversial method like time travel.

This is an art project video made by Viridiane and friends called Sinhail’s Endgame. It features a bunch of dreamboat male voices including our very own Aranas. Vi has been hard at work on this and other school projects, but worry not, Zora fans, she’ll get back to it soon enough.

Lastly, the following is pretty much why Alphena will never get finished. This is another demonstration of the difference between the vanilla content and the content after integration. This took me 3-4 hours to finish, and it’s not even new content per se, it’s just for immersion. The other difficulty was trying to make sure the vanilla quest functioned properly when Alphena was dismissed, so in essence everything had to be done twice. In other words, ETA for finishing would be sometime in the year 2088.