Gpstr – Interesting character evolution with Tina. Shetcombe Farm is indeed a neat spot. Nice little place with a pond, crops and even a little stable. Since she’s helping with Kvatch, it sounds great.

CT – An old Telvanni wizard going through new recruit recommendation quests. Heh, that’ll be fun.

Mirocu – Eeep! Sorry about the bug problems. I hope Lothran’s world returns to spinning smoothly!

Just can't stop fiddling with my game.

Tina actually got out and did a bit of stuff, but even that was related to fiddling with my game - I was trying out Sneaking Detection Recalibrated, and took her up to Fort Linchal to sneak around and kill necromancers. The mod was pretty good with her, and she had a good time in the fort. Then she went to Gottshaw (Arthmoor's village there) and sold loot, and while she was there, she met a refugee from Kvatch and fell into a quest that took her to and from another Arthmoor village - Vergayun, just north of Bravil. Then I parked her back at Shetcombe and fiddled some more with that, and it's now to the point that I think it's done, but I'm leery of moving her in there quite yet, since I might want to change something.

Then I took Belladonna out just to see what effect SDR had on archers, and that led to LOTS of tinkering with the mod, and eventually, after I did some more testing with Clive and command and summon spells, to disabling it, regretfully. And though both of them ended up going through dungeons (Belladonna actually went through two, and the second one about a dozen times total), neither one of them have any saves from any of it, so they're still where they were when it all started.

Then, tired of messing with that sort of stuff, I cast about for a character to just play - one I hadn't visited in a long time - and decided to spend some time with Jibran the Redguard swordsman. And the first thing I was reminded of when I started his game was how much I disliked the way his clothes looked, with his blocky and miscolored vanilla arms sticking out of his sleeves and attached to his nicely shaped and colored Roberts hands. So that meant that it was time to finally get around to downloading and installing and testing and, because it's what I do, tweaking the replacement clothes and armors for Roberts. So I spent most of today in Blender and Gimp, with occasional quick loads of the game just to check things out.

But then, once I was mostly satisfied (I still need to tweak my Redguard textures a bit), since Jibran was at his shack on Niben Bay, I took him down a ways and cleaned out Fort Aurus, so he at least got out and did something.

At some point here, I'm going to actually play the game some more...

Sounds like my last two sessions...

I feel your pain gpstr. I have often spent more time modding games than actually playing them!

[Magneto voice]
You PC gamers and your mods
[/Magneto voice]

[Darth Vader Voice]
You do not know the power of the mod side!
[/Darth Vader Voice]

Today Lothran went to Cheydinhal in his quest to obtain one town cuirass from all the towns. On the way, as always, he stopped by Morcant´s to say hi, purchase some ingredients and charge up his weapon.




What do you say, guys? Enough to start a fanfic with?

[Obi Wan Kenobi voice]
She's more modder now than gamer
[/Obi Wan Voice]

Why not? Go for it!

Meh, I think this thread is good enough for me


And Lothran, who in fact spent some time at the University tonight. It was time to change some spells after extensive tests out in the field. Primarily it was a matter of reducing unnecessary high effects and/or prolonging time. Also, some spells needed a new name

So Lothran's working on a collection of cuirasses from each city guard force! Sounds neat. And updating his spells - always a worthwhile endeavor and he has the whole previous winter to plan out new spellmaking refinements.

That´s exactly what he´s been doing ever since he began to spend his winters in Bruma


I think this highlights why it´s so important to slow down once in awhile and think things through. Lothran always has new ideas for his spells after a winter in Bruma

That's cool that he's re-arranging some spells. Always good to keep fresh ideas with a longer-lasting character, I would imagine.

mirocu, how is Lothran getting cuirasses for his collection? It’s neat to hear about his interests. I once tried a mod to delete spells from my spellbooks, but I accidentally removed a large chunk of Chorrol in the process. (This was in Abiene’s game. Needless to say she made me reload.) I am too much of a klutz with the mouse to be trusted with such a thing.

Well, he doesn´t sneak in and steal them from the shelves or from a guard if no spare cuirass is found, that´s for sure. Don´t care about the evil rumors in the Black Horse Courier..



How did you delete chunks of Chorrol with a delete spell mod?

If I see a naked guard when Darnand gets to Leyawiin, I’m taking a screenshot!

Best guess I must have missed the spell on the screen and clicked the horizon. I really don’t know how I managed it, but when I went back and read the mod’s fine print I realized that the warnings were there for a reason. So now I use the console to clean up spellbooks. I’m less dangerous when I have a chance to proofread.

Okay... let's see...

Tina's still parked at Shetcombe Farm. I think I'm pretty much done with the renovations, but I'm letting it go a while just in case.

I spent quite a while with Clive the scumbag. He was tracking down the Draconis family, plus doing a few other things along the way, all of which took up a few weeks his time. Since he started in Bruma and was going to end up going to Leyawiin eventually, he swung by Frostfire Glade and retrieved the Tears. Then on the way down the mountain from the Glade, he came across the shrine of Mephala, so he ended up doing that quest, which was right up his alley. He spent a couple of days in the IC before he tracked down Matthias, but dealt with him pretty easily when he did, since all he had to do was taunt him a bit (talk to him with his staff drawn) and Matthias attacked him, so he could kill him in "self defense." Then he made the long trip down to the Drunken Dragon and found that all he had to do was talk to Andreas to enrage him, then stand back while the Imperial soldier killed him. Then it was on to Leyawiin and Caelia, which turned out to be very complicated. He finally got her with the death hood, and luckily enough she survived long enough to leave the barracks and die outside, so he could retrieve it. And while he was in Leyawiin, he also settled the matter with Mazoga the so-called knight. He really did not like Mazoga at all, and was sort of relieved when she died fighting Black Brugo. Then he made his way back up to Muck Valley Cavern to deal with the last of the Draconis family, then made the trip out to Skingrad to collect his reward and his next mission. He's now parked at his house in the Elven Gardens.

Then I spent a little while with Lemdel the Altmer barbarian. He's not doing much of anything though - fighting a few bouts in the Arena and gritting his teeth every time one of the guards launches into that insipid "All hail the champion of Cyrodiil" nonsense. Oh, and he's been adding notches to his bedpost. That last - way back when Lemdel was still sort of early in the MQ, he infiltrated the Mythic Dawn and fought what was, at that point, the first really dominating fight he had. As an Altmer trying to be a barbarian, he really struggled just to survive, but that running battle in the Mythic Dawn hideout was the turning point - that was when he was finally strong enough to move through the world with some confidence. When it was all over, he made his way back to Cheydinhal, and to the Newlands Lodge for the night. And when he was talking to Dervera Romalen, it just clicked. He was proud and confident and he was going to seduce her. Then that just became a part of his characterization - everywhere he goes, he's keeping an eye out for new conquests. I just play whether he succeeds or not by how it seems to fit with the character he's pursuing. So for instance, he did manage to seduce Countess Carvain (and is quite proud of that, though he understands the benefits of discretion, so no one else knows) but he's still pursuing Dynari Amnis. In-game, of course, nothing happens at all - it's just a bit of roleplaying flavor.

Then I spent a bit of time starting and restarting Elenin, the new Altmer. I'm still struggling a bit with her character, but broadly, she's some sort of paladin. I keep envisioning her with a claymore, but I'm sort of fighting against that, since I've done it with so many characters now. I don't see her using a bow, so she'd either be a pure claymore fighter (like Kyla) or a claymore battlemage (like Dawn). But really, at this point, whatever she uses will be the same as someone else anyway, so I'm probably going to just go for it. And I already know of a sword that'll fit her well, and I can just do what I've done with some others (Dawn most notably) - make a mod for her and use that to give her a series of ever more powerful versions of the same sword, so it'll be as if she has the same sword all the way through, but it won't be either overpowered early in the game or underpowered late. I haven't worked out the cause of her sadness (and it's possible I never will) but it's certainly rooted in a loss of someone important to her. And I ran across an odd bit of flavor already - when she was browsing spells at Edgar's on her first attempt at the world, I got the impression that Absorb spells disturbed her - that they seemed sort of vampiric. At the moment, she's parked in the Market District, midday on the first full day after her escape. She has her sword, and I'm trying to sort out what sort of armor, if any, she's going to wear. I'm leaning a bit toward a robe and sandals actually, but we'll see...

On another note, I redid my Altmer male textures and got rid of the greenish cast that bothered me and dealt with a couple of things that had always bothered me. First, I did a set of Altmer ear textures, so they now have ears that are gold instead of pink, then I tracked down the cause of the shiny stripes on the sleeves of some of the robes and fixed that. Those stripes have annoyed me since I was playing Bogmok, and it's so nice to have them gone.

And with that, it's back to Elenin...

This post has been edited by gpstr: Apr 15 2015, 06:45 PM

Whoa, why is Clive a scumbag?



This is cute. I occasionally get the sense that some of mine have little flings, or whatever. Kahreem once had two elves at the same time, down on the Waterfront. I am like you, in the sense that I don't need to know too many details at moments like this.



Do you ever try any weapons mods? I found a whip mod (though I haven't tired it yet), and also one which adds spears. But the spears one is weird because we can't throw these, nor can we poke. We can only slash. So it's a little weird, but at least it is different (to me).

Renee Gade III has her own chakram (which is like a circular boomerang), and Lady Saga has a silver crossbow. Both of those work really well. I found a mod which adds thrown weapons too, although I haven't used this one yet. When I make my druid, I'm going to really want a quarterstaff mod, although I doubt the animations in Oblivion will allow this to work.

This post has been edited by Renee: Apr 15 2015, 11:22 PM

Why is Clive a scumbag?

He just is. I mean - he REALLY is. He's thoroughly and completely vile. He always has been.

His bare bones backstory is that he's from a wealthy family fallen on hard times. He's very conscious of his reputation and goes out of his way to curry favor, particularly with the upper classes. And he loathes doing it - it causes him a lot of stress to keep up appearances. He vents that stress by torturing and killing people, and he was doing that long before the DB started paying him to murder. I can feel it when I'm playing him - every time that someone demands something of him, it gets under his skin, but he can't turn them down because then what would people think? They have to believe that he's a fine, upstanding man-about-town. So he just buries it and smiles and does whatever he needs to do, and privately fumes. And when he can't take it any longer, he slips out at night and finds a safe target and slowly and methodically kills her. Or him, but usually her.

He actually has a torture chamber in the basement of his house in the Elven Gardens. Seriously. Of course, it doesn't actually "work" in-game, and I doubt I'd actually use it even if it did, but in-universe, he's used it a couple of times in the time I've played him (in reality, he's just killed NPCs, then I've console disabled their corpses, but in his story, he's drugged them and taken them home and slowly tortured them to death).

Seriously. He's a scumbag.

Regarding weapons: I use lots of mods for existing weapon types, but I've never been satisfied with any that add entirely new types of weapons, since they can't add the necessary animations to go with them. As you mentioned, spears have to use the two handed melee animations (or I guess they could use the staff animations, but then all you'd do is point them at enemies).

I actually briefly considered giving Elenin a staff - there's a particularly nice bo staff that's a part of Marco's Samurai set - but the only animation that works with it is the two-hand melee, and then it's not really a staff. It's more like a really long baseball bat.

As it's turned out though, the sword I gave her is working very well. Yes - Elenin is out in the world, living a life.

The problem, more than anything else, was the weapon. I had no idea who she was going to be really, but that's fine - I usually don't. That all comes as I play the character. But I needed to have some idea of what she was going to do when something attacked her, and I just didn't know. With most characters, it's either fairly obvious or not terribly important - either I know right off what they're going to want to do or I just pick something on a whim and that then gets folded into their stories. But with her, the choice had to fit in context since she's obviously going to be a deep character, but I couldn't figure out any reason to pick any one thing - nothing seemed to fit the little bit of an impression I got about her. I saw her as a fairly unwilling fighter, but not a pacifist necessarily. Just not terribly eager to fight, or particularly well-suited for it either. I kept coming back to one particular claymore that I thought could fit her well, but as I mentioned, I was a bit lukewarm about playing yet another claymore fighter. But nothing else really jumped out.

After a few false starts, she finally got going yesterday, and it's already clicking into place.

She is - or at least was - a healer. Maybe a priestess of some sort. She has that sword because it belonged to... someone. A sibling? Parent? Partner? I'm not sure yet, but someone very important to her, and someone who's now dead, or worse. She's on a sort of private quest related to that and that's why she carries the sword, even though she's frankly terrible at fighting with it, but I'm not sure yet what her quest actually is. I tend not to think it's simple vengeance, but I'm just not sure yet.

Here she is on the Imperial Isle. That gives a sense of the scale of that blade. It's Trollf's Empire Greatsword, which I've had knocking around for years now, just waiting for a character who could use it. The robes are the Worn Healer's robes from Tegeal's Extra Robes.

She spent the first few days in those robes, just exploring the Imperial Isle. Between a couple of different mods, I've got a bunch of really simple beginner quests around the Isle, and she was doing a few of those and just getting out a bit. She wasn't fighting much, which was a good thing - even with that enormous blade (which is currently set to duplicate the damage of a steel claymore - I'll edit it as the game goes on to keep it current with whatever's common in the game world), it took her four hits just to kill a mudcrab. Luckily, she didn't run into anything else for a while.

Here's another shot from that time.

On about her fourth day, she ran into two nearly identical (sisters?) Redguard bandits by a cave on the north side of the Isle, and that was her first taste of real combat. She struggled a bit, but managed to beat them and was feeling pretty proud of herself. And in a twist I didn't expect at all, she was sort of impressed by their armor. I had been presuming that she was going to stay in clothes, and probably robes, but I could feel her being drawn to the armor, and between the two of them, she got a full set right there. As it turned out, she wasn't much impressed with the Fur cuirass (who is?) so she swapped that for a Leather one from Maro Rufus, and now she's in light armor.

Out and about in her armor.

Over the next couple of days, she did Unfriendly Competition and handled that battle quite well - she's been expanding into some destruction to offset her still meager blade skills. Then she went back and went through Sideways Cave - she'd discovered it on the second day out, but wasn't feeling confident enough yet to explore it. She didn't find any notable loot, but loved just looking around in there. And when she came out, she waded across to check out the rest of the Ayleid ruins she could see on the opposite shore there, so discovered Vilverin, and she's now in the early stages of exploring that.

I haven't worked out what I'm going to do with her and the main quest. In my own mind, right now, nothing has happened yet - she doesn't even have the Amulet (which is how she can spend her time wandering around the Imperial Isle - she has her own private quest, whatever it might be, but she's nothing close to prepared to actually undertake that yet, so she's biding her time and learning how to survive in the world. Her past as a healer/priestess/whatever-she-was left her poorly equipped for a rough life, so this is all new to her). Her adventure started on the first morning after she left the sewer exit, when she woke up in Luther Broad's Boarding House, having just arrived in the IC from... wherever she's from. When I sort out what to do about the MQ, I'll retcon whatever I need to to fit it into her story.

And I'll try to work up an actual story to post...

This post has been edited by gpstr: Apr 16 2015, 10:24 PM

Things I've learned about Elenin so far:

The sword belonged to a lover who's not an Altmer, and is dead, or maybe worse. He might've been a Redguard - in any case, he had an aversion to profaning and manipulative forms of magic, which she shares. They met due to their common interest in... something... vampires? Necromancy? Anyway - some threatening practice/beings that she was dealing with as a healer and he was hunting. Whatever it was killed him, or worse. I've backed off from the idea that she's on a private quest related to that, though it's still possible. But it's also possible that she's just lost and alone.

She has no family - I don't know if they're dead or she's estranged from them, but they're not in her life.

She generally likes people so long as they're decent and honorable, and that pretty much regardless of race or class or station. She doesn't like manipulative, deceitful or cruel people, and that again pretty much regardless of race or class or station. She's awkward with people though - too locked in her own thoughts. I don't know if that's just her current situation or a deeper personality trait, but I tend to think it's the latter.

She's relatively pious and a bit defensive about it. When she met Umbacano after going through Vilverin, he made some condescending remark about the people having a "simple faith in the nine," and it made her mad. She considers their, and her, "simple faith" to be much better than his smug pretensions. And it was significant that he's an Altmer.

She's kind of interested in bows, but hasn't tried one yet. I don't know if she will - she's really trying to learn how to fight with this blade and doesn't want to divide her attention. She backs that up with magic - mostly restoration and destruction - but that comes naturally to her.

I think she's beautiful.