I like the way that mod was done, it doesn't just clean up the mess but lets the Player do it - really nice roleplay mod, and Arthmoor knows his stuff so it shouldn't have any issues whatsoever.

That battle sounds Awesome! I wish you'd caught that in a vid, it would be great to see it!

Actually, it would have made a terrible video, as the screen was obscured by the teleport effect all the time - a swirl of purple as used for conjurations. That's the main reason she was finding it so hard to fight him, because we couldn't see him to target him.

The one with the bow was really Serana versus Orchendor, with Mellewen getting a few shots in when she could.

This post has been edited by ghastley: May 18 2015, 04:22 PM

I fought one Dragon Priest that was like that - kept disappearing and popping up in a different place - really fast, too.

Ghastley, I am trying to make a collection of 10 items (totems) that (once all 10 are gathered and placed together) it triggers a change in them from dormant to the ability to activate them for a purpose of the Player's choice:

1) use like a soul gem to recharge an enchanted weapon
2) use (on a one time use only basis) to summon a dragon to fight by your side
or:
3) use all 10 totems at once in a ceremonial fire to create on permanent friendly dragon (pet type).

Is any of this possible? Can it be done without a script or must have one? Is a quest necessary? And do I need to make the totems activators? (etc).

Do you have any advice for me?

That picture / story is really fun to read, h.e.r ! Great shots, as well.

haute, I love the picture of Alise with the Elder Scroll. The one with Paarthurnax is my second favorite. Clear Skies makes a gorgeous day at the Throat of the World. Yikes, what a close call (and marvelous photo catch!) with that glass arrow!

ghastley, thanks for Mellewen’s report on cleaning up Castle Volkihar. I’ve looked at that mod for Captain Zanimal if he makes it far enough to be in charge there, and it’s nice to know what it does and doesn’t do with Serana and her mom. Good luck with the statue hunt! I think Mellewen’s possible idea is a good one, since Dibella certainly blessed her with legs!


It’s a good thing that newlyweds Valdi Knight of the Dawnguard and Erik the (Vampire) Slayer are insatiable undead hunters, because between all of the killing they’re sweet enough to give me a cavity. Erik kept his dialog (whew!) so he’s still his old self even after the wedding. He is a star with the home-cooked meals no matter where they are camped, and they pick some disgusting hovels to hole up in. Still he always seems to feel like cooking. Also due to a glitch with their tent he sleeps right on top of Valdi so you can just see her fluffy hair and skinny feet sticking out, which if memory serves is a pretty accurate representation of getting used to sharing real estate on the marital bed(roll). I’m sure the spacing will get fixed eventually, but in the meantime it makes me giggle.

They spent the rest of their honeymoon helping the rebuilt town of Helgen gets its affairs in order, which included a long and very rewarding hunt through a huge and complicated barrow. The place was pitch dark in places and packed with skeletons and draugr. Valdi led them through casting Mage Lights occasionally since her Detect spells use too much magicka. Once Erik sneaked in front of her as she cast, and she hit him right in the back. He said, “Oh! I don’t feel any different. What did you do?” I had never heard that comment before.

Valdi got a surprise during their midnight ambush of a slavers’ camp on the north coast. Someone started using a red drain spell during the fight. At first Valdi thought there was a random roaming vampire joining in the fun, but then she heard a familiar voice. Serana! Afterward Valdi found her in the dark and asked how she was doing.

Serana seemed to be thriving in her renewed mortal life. She said, “It’s like the world is alive again. Just like me.”

And yet she still uses Vampiric Drain. Valdi would have suspected that she was being played if she had not visited Serana at Fort Dawnguard not long ago to check on her/ verify that she had followed through with her plan to turn in her Daughter of Cold Harbor card and be a true child of Kyne again. At the time Serana seemed happy with her situation, though she did not look entirely healthy with those jaundiced eyes. Perhaps switching to solid foods takes a toll.

Anyway Valdi considered asking Serana to join them, but she hesitated because she and Erik were about to do a really dangerous thing. She knew Erik was not afraid to hear Sovngarde’s drums and neither was she, but Serana could probably stand a little more time in the mortal realm before someone got her killed on a crazy rescue someone who might already be dead/kill the slavers/oh by the way also kill some Thalmor mission.

So they parted ways in the dark. Valdi and Erik survived their task and returned eventually to Rorikstead and their new cottage.

Valdi was adorable when she went inside. It’s perfect for her and she loves it. Erik made the furniture so it is not fancy, which makes ex-bandit kid Valdi feel right at home. Abiene ordered some nice rugs for them from Whiterun. Darnand filled the bookshelves and set up a compact little magical crafting station. Lildereth brought in some house plants. And Jerric stocked the mead barrels and gave them a really nice bedroom chair for a wedding present. (Why one would want such a chair in the bedroom is a mystery to mostly innocent Valdi and young Erik, but Jerric is sure that they will eventually figure it out.)

After Valdi settled in they went over to the Frostfruit Inn to have dinner with Mralki and spend one last night in Erik’s room there before they officially move in to their cottage. It was the last night of their honeymoon and the first time Valdi was to greet Mralki as her father-in-law, and she was nervous.

On the way across the road there was a fracas. Three bandits were mixing it up with the guards in the dark. Valdi immediately sprinted up to join her town’s defense wearing her pretty green dress and armed with her Ma’s old axe, since her Dawnguard one was already hanging on the rack in their cottage. After the skirmish they checked the area for casualties and then started walking the rest of the way to the inn. Valdi turned to her man Erik and murmured, “I hate bandits and thieves…”

It is good to hear that Erik finally decided to give up men and try playing with girls! Sounds like if that tent starts a rockin' don't come a knockin'!

Maybe that glow in Serana's eyes is just her happiness to see Valdi? Is that how your vampire eyes normally look? Mine tend be more orangey, but I think I am using a mod/fix for them.

That’s how cured Serena looks on the PS3, so I think that’s her vanilla human look. My game’s vampire eyes are glowing orange again since I gave up the vampire eye mod during my last load order reduction. I’ll probably look for a mod for Serana’s mortal head if Valdi ends up hanging out with her a lot so that she doesn’t look so gross. Otherwise Serana will have to endure lots of Cure Disease spells cast on her by Valdi.

I’m not sure Erik is 100% convinced he made the right move with Valdi, since he does not put out the way married Stenvar and married Vorstag do. (Which is every time their spouses try to rest, no matter the circumstances.) He’s right there with the Comfort in vanilla inns and player homes, though, so Valdi has no idea that something might be amiss. Just sometimes she awakens Well Rested when she’d planned to spend the whole night riding from Whiterun to Ole Rorikstead. Rocky Top cottage could be rocky times ahead for these two. Ah, the joys of a glitchy save and modding an NPC into marrying your character!

None of my characters have ever talked Serana into turning human again. Persephone is the only one I continued playing for any appreciable time after completing the DG questline. The last thing she wanted was to watch Serana grow old and die. Aside from Darryl, Serana is her only friend.

I know the game uses a script to give Serana her vampire powers. So my guess is that it never got turned off, or had the right things turned off in it, when she went to the light side. Given that she was using the absorb health too, that sounds like the case.

This post has been edited by SubRosa: May 19 2015, 07:21 PM

Ghastley – Congrats to Mellwin the vampire slayer as she now goes about collecting Dibella Dolls. Hmm, her misadventures with absorb health sound frustrating.

Grits - 'Between the killin’, they’re sweet enough to give you a cavity!' Bedrolling with only her fluffy hair and skinny feet sticking out! Wow, meeting cured Serana sounds like it was quite the surprise.

Mikke of Green River was too brusque with Serana to get the Cure Yourself dialog options from her, so this is my first time seeing her human in my games. I didn’t even know it was an option until I saw The Girl cure her in The Girl’s game. Her character was very sweet to Serana.

I looked around at the various Serana fixes, and of course I would want to change all of them in some way to suit me. So I just tweaked the Serana dialog edit mod that I’m already using to give her human eyes and remove her vampire drain spell. While I was at it I gave her the Soul Cairn conjuration spells and swapped Icy Spear for her Chain Lightning. I figure she isn’t going to forget her Volkihar frost magic, and Chain Lightning didn’t make much sense anyway.

I also gave her a default outfit that will be easy to change. I didn’t touch her hood swapping system due to my inexperience in the CK, but if I give her a pretty circlet I doubt that she will equip her hood. I guess we’ll find out when Valdi goes to see her for real and not just to check my work.

I think I’ll also check out Arthmoor’s mod for Valdi’s game. It takes me a while to catch on, but it finally processed that I could use it to install a Dawnguard presence in Castle Volkihar to keep an eye on the Soul Cairn portal and then move Serana there with another mod. I doubt that Valdi will invite vampire Valerica to join them. She intends to offer Valerica the same deal that she would have offered Serana if she had decided to stay a vampire, and she has no expectation that Valerica will choose a mortal life. Valdi’s plan gets pretty grim after that. Young Valdi has gotten interesting.

@SubRosa: So did I! I thought it was a particularly beautiful day to be coming back with the Elder Scroll.

@mALX: In my game, the giants are indeed friendly. I tried SubRosa's Animal Friend mod, but strolling through the wilderness became too boring as the animals just stood there. I also found getting pelts for crafting to be a very expensive proposition, as my PCs are not hunters and won't kill animals unless they are being attacked. So I found a mod called One with Nature, which I liked better, as it lets me set the aggression values for each animal. So I have Giants and Mammoths set as Allies, which means they will come to my aid if I am attacked in their vicinity. The prey animals still flee from me, which is fine, and the wolves still attack me. They're like rabbits, so I have a huge stack of pelts sitting in the smithy at Lakeside. I can go into the MCM menu and turn off their aggression, so now I don't have to keep killing them. Maybe I will! At level 25/26, they're not much of a challenge anymore.

@Acadian, mALX and Grits: the shots with the glass arrow - I didn't take that one (or any of the killcam shots). I found this mod that automatically takes screenshots when the killcam triggers. I have it running with VioLens, which lets me dictate the kind of killcam scenes I want to see (i.e. none of my PC being killed - which is extremely disturbing because of the sudden switch in POV). That shot was scary - when Alise released the arrow, Argis stepped into the kill zone. All we could do was hold our breaths and watch that arrow!

On a further note, Alise has finished the MQ, so we have more screenies waiting in the wings. But I'm having Internet problems, so I want to troubleshoot those first. Let me tell you, though, Alise never did so much sniping as when she was in Skuldafn! This was our fourth visit, and it was just as exhausting at this high level as it was the first time we played it. Even with the Penobscot War Bow and glass arrows, it still took four arrows to take out the higher level draugrs. That was when Alise decided she needed to practice her smithing more, so she could upgrade the bow and move up to ebony arrows. It made a significant improvement to her archery, as we found out on her next foray with Argis.

ghastley, I enjoyed reading about Mellewen, the Mage who isn't part of the Mages Guild. Alise gained entrance in her quest for an Elder Scroll, but she has yet to speak to Mirabelle Ervine. Nope, not when we've got SubRosa's Nature Summonings installed and she can buy a fire atronach from Morcant!

Grits, how adorable Valdi and Erik sound! Cuddly, cuddly, cuddly! Let's hope they get some action soon.

I like the idea of being able to set the aggression levels individually for each species; and being able to use the MCM menu to adjust and tweak it is really great too.

On the other mod - Boy would I like to have a camera that automatically took shots every time battle music was triggered. That way I could finally get some awesome action shots,

Most of my character have felt that Serana's happiest as a vampire and haven't suggested she get cured. The few who did noticed that her eyes don't stay "reset" properly. It appears that the function to change them doesn't persist its results properly, so the mods that work edit her base eyes, and have the vamp ones as the "temporary" override that may not always work.

---

Mellewen's having problems getting enough Dibella statues. Two of them are held by Maven and Mercer Frey, who she doesn't want to deal with, and another is all the way at the end of Brinewater Grotto, which you have to reach through the East Empire warehouse. A Thieves Guild member might get them all, but she hasn't joined. Then there's one that is only enabled when you do a quest that starts in the Midden, and she's not joining the College either. She has both of the others, and I gave her the orcish version, as she seemed disappointed.

We discovered that the one at Broken Tower Redoubt respawns, so we're avoiding that location for a while to let it happen again.

Meanwhile, she's tried on the outfit I made for the priestesses at the Temple. If I add a script that changes their outfits when they're down in the private section, it will make more sense of the Sybil quest. They may not have her legs, but ...

This post has been edited by ghastley: Jul 1 2015, 03:09 PM

Erik looks gorgeous here, if he looked that good in my game he might be marriage material ... but, does he have ... er ... breasts in this screenshot?

And Serana cured is actually more frightening than having a vampire around; what does she have, sickle cell anemia?

That shot would have been perfect for the "Caption This" thread!







This post has been edited by mALX: May 20 2015, 03:31 PM

Oh my! The one in the foreground with the headband and mini-breasts is our flat-chested Valdi, lol. I wasn’t kidding when I called her skinny! Erik is in the background looking at the rocks and saying that line. Sorry about that! (Anyway I’m sure Erik’s pecs are bigger than Valdi’s!)

Those yellow 'cured' Serana eyes glow a little, too. They had to go!

Well, I thought he looked too good to be a Skyrim man, lol. He had a bit of an 80's David Lee Roth (before the drugs) thing going on or something:





To be honest, I wondered when I saw the breasts; but since the only man in the room was so far away - couldn't believe it could be them talking from that distance. I thought it might be a mod,


I did notice that in the CK you can cue your males to walk like females and vice versa; and was considering bringing my Crassius Curio mod to Skyrim if I could find a way to make him look less hulky than the Skyrim men. The original I made for Oblivion was modeled totally off Freddie Mercury.

Whoa, David Lee Roth is way prettier than poor sweet Valdi! Let’s not show Erik that picture.

I made a Jerric replacer once for one of the female Housecarls but failed to uncheck the Opposite Gender Animations box, so he was mincing around in that steel armor with the cinched-in waist like everything was a bit too tight. Needless to say I went right back to the CK, lol.

I'm glad to know that feature works, if I can ever get his looks right and bring him to Skyrim I'll def use that then. Right now he is modeled off that follower mage in Riften - can't remember the name, but he is an Imperial male who doesn't have the huge body-builder neck/body or massive head with the flat face that most of the Skyrim men have - I really don't like that look, it has kept both Maxical and Misa single, lol.

Young David Lee looks better than a lot of women! Even I might try him out for a night.

And I don't think there is anything wrong with Valdi's twin battery packs in the forward torso compartment. I have always preferred women with smaller packages. Besides, anything more than a mouthful is wasted...

SubRosa, you made Valdi’s day! Like lots of young women, she’s still not sure about what Mara gave her.


ghastley, I saw this on my phone but then forgot to come back and comment on it. I love Mellewen’s Dibella outfit!! I know a Breton who would trade in her sparkly naked temple robe for yours and a wood elf who would love to wear that around camp. Special attire for the private rituals would make good incentive plus a nice reward for trespassing back there.

I really dislike quest-locked locations! In some cases I don’t mind busting through the back door and ruining the associated quests, but sometimes that doesn’t even work.