Skyviatar, Loviatar in Skyrim? Options

[SubRosa]

Ever since Persephone paid her first visit to Markarth, I have been kicking around the idea of porting Loviatar to Skyrim. Namira's ring adds a the cannibilism perk, which would be perfect. I found a mod that improves cannibalism, but for some reason the author decided to have it turns the cannibalized corpses into ash piles. Which I really don't want, as I will have manually markfoedelete every one. I tried modding it to remove that part, but I am not really sure if it worked.

I was also thinking about poison. I could give her 100% resistance like Persephone has. But that is only half right. Loviatar lives off of poisons, toxins, and corruption. So poison should heal her. I could mod all the poisons in the game to do healing, but then if she uses it against someone, it will heal them as well. So I would need to mod things so poison still harms others, but heals her. I think I can do it by editing the existing poison magic effects and putting in a check to see if it Loviatar. If it is not, then the poison will work as normal. Then I could create a second effect with a similar check, but if it comes back positive for Loviatar it will do healing. Then I would have to add the new effect onto every poison in the game.

And of course I have spent some time looking at outfits. So far I am looking at four I like:

Tribunal Robes

Ebony

Deadric

Witch Battle Armor

Right now my thought is for the Witch Battle Armor to be her standard adventuring outfit, and the Tribunal Robes her town clothes.

She is also wearing the Jack of Blades mask in all, and Grace Darklings Hood and Hair. The mask is enchanted to allow her to breathe normal air (a replacement for her gas mask filled with cyanide that she wore in Fallout 3).

There is no hurry on any of this. I still want to play Saya, and I was planning on doing some Fallout 3 before either. But character creation is my favorite mini-game!

This post has been edited by SubRosa: Nov 19 2016, 10:13 PM

[Lopov]

Right now my thought is for the Witch Battle Armor to be her standard adventuring outfit, and the Tribunal Robes her town clothes.

I wanted to write that robes suit her better than armor and that the Witch Battle Armor should be her main outfit. Tribunal robes also suit her very well, though. Blackness suits her, actually.

Like the mask too, at a first glance when not zooming in, she looked like an Argonian.

How does she look like maskless?

[SubRosa]

Loviatar sans the mask

Loviatar sans mask and hood

[Acadian]

Lovie is looking good - and I agree with you entirely on your choices for combat/town attire.

[Grits]

Oh wow, Skyviatar's look is insta-awesome. I think you nailed it.

I'm trying to think of a place that has poison fumes where she could lair. Is there a Dwemer ruin with a low-lying poison gas area in Skyrim? Maybe in the Thieves Guild questline, I'm halfway remembering a Khajiit character in there. Anyway, that and a garden of poison bloom flowers are my thoughts for Loviatar. Oh! And she'll love the Afflicted.

I'm also at a loss with the idea of making a poison-healing perk for her, other than the bare idea of doing it that way. Will she use spells? I wonder about making a poison cloak like the elemental damage ones, only using the visual effect as if she's been poisoned.

I love your character creation mini-game!!

[SubRosa]

Thanks all.

Loviatar was a scientist in Fallout, and used energy weapons. So I have been thinking she would probably be a magician. She might summon dwarven animunculi, or perhaps Gargoyles. The idea of using a crossbow with poisoned bolts is appealing as well.

I cannot think of any place in Skyrim where the air itself is poisonous. There are probably a few traps though. It is funny, because there were a lot of Ayleid ruins in Oblivion with poison gas filled rooms! One of those would be perfect for Loviatar.

I did some modding on the poison-healing, and have had mixed results. I did get the Chaurus Poison spit to heal her. I am not so sure about the bite though. It might be healing her. But it also does regular damage as well. The Spit is Fire and Forget Aimed type, and the Bite a Contact type, and even though I created a restore health effect that works on contact, I don't know if it is actually healing or damaging her. The problem is that the game seems to expect a spell to either do all beneficial effects, or all harmful ones. Anything marked Poison seems to always be harmful. So I had to change the Bite to a Spell, which the Spit was by default. I suppose I could remove the regular damage for the chaurus bite. That might help me test.

It did work. Though it took some finagling. I also tried with the Falmer poison, which is added by a perk. But I am again not sure of its effect. This is probably going to take a very long time to get to work on all forms of poison, if it is even possible.

This post has been edited by SubRosa: Nov 20 2016, 03:20 AM

[PhonAntiPhon]

God Damn.
I completely agree.

[SubRosa]

I have another top contender for both adventuring and town outfit.

Raven Witch Armor

I think I have the poisons covered. At least the poison attacks that creatures make, such as Chaurus or Falmer. I have only done a few of the regular posion potions. I am not really sure if there is a need to, because I don't think NPCs actually use them. I think only the player character does. For that reason I didn't bother editing the Ebony Mail poison effect, since only the Player can ever get it.

In one regard potions are easy to mod. They are made to support having both harmful and beneficial effects at the same time. But the ones that are poison cannot be drank by the player. They can only be used to poison a weapon. So I am not sure if there is any point to modding them. I can remove the Poison flag so that Loviatar can drink them. But then she can never use them to poison a weapon.

So I have a conundrum. I suppose if I do go the mage route Loviatar won't be poisoning any weapons anyway. So I might as well turn the poisons into regular potions that heal her. Since I don't think the NPCs use poison potions on weapons anyway, that should not affect them. Unless I am wrong and they do.

[Acadian]

Another solid option! Although it is close enough that the subtle features you pick up on in game and your own tastes may sway you. From what I can see in the screenies, I think I would give the narrow edge to your first plan of attire. Can't go wrong either way though as both options look great on Lovie.

As far as tactics go, you might consider the mage route. A mage who can use poison spells.

[SubRosa]

I am going to go the mage route. I just finished making all the poison effects beneficial, and removed the poison flag from the vanilla potions. I gave it a test with a couple bottles of Weak Poison, and it works like a charm, healing instead.

I had not thought about poison spells. I do have some, that I made a few years ago for my character Ivy. Lovie could definitely go that route...

[SubRosa]

Look what Loviatar can summon now!

[Acadian]

Woot! He just screams to be named Stanley Steamer!

[haute ecole rider]

No, that would be Stanley Steemer.

Honestly, though I haven't followed your adventures in Fallout (I don't have any of those games), I am interested in your thought processes behind creating new characters to RP with. Never having played D&D back when I was in college (when it was at its peak), I sometimes feel like I'm not RP'ing as effectively nor as creatively as others like yourself, SubRosa.

This is where I need to play more like a story teller and less like a consumer of video games (i.e. thinking more thoroughly about choices, ethical stances, developing some skills at the cost of others, and generally playing my PCs the way I write my paper characters, rather than playing to "beat the game" or collect achievements).

[SubRosa]

I usually start a character with a single theme or idea. Then I follow that theme with every aspect of who they are, from appearance, to clothing, weapons, spells, attitudes, etc...

As strange as it may sound, I think watching the bonus features in movies has helped me. Because many filmakers and especially art directors do the same thing. For example, in The Clone Wars tv show, they take us to the planet of Mandalore in many episodes. In the behind the scenes featurette about the first Mandalorian episode, the art director explains that they based the entire look of the Mandalorian culture off of the faceplate of Boba Fett's helmet. Everything follows the same proportions, from the people's heads, to doors, to windows, buildings, etc...

I think of myself as an art director when I am creating a character. I look for some motif, and I follow it wherever I can. For example Persephone's basic concept is that she is undead. So I followed that. First I thought hard on what kind of undead she is. The game itself limits me here, as I cannot make a a draugr work, or a zombie, or a skeleton, or a wraith. I could do a vampire, but that is its own genre, which I didn't want to do.

I had already done an undead character named Revansch. She was a revenant, back from the grave to take revenge upon the vampires who had tortured and killed her. That roleplay fell apart when I tried doing the Dawnguard questline, as it requires you to team up with a vampire from the very start. That led me to abandon the character.

But I had already created a Deadwalker race. Basically I took the Imperial race and tweaked the textures, to make the skin a pale, bloodless white. Then I added in some powers that the undead should, have, like waterbreathing and resistances to poison and disease, etc...

I had the race mod already, so decided to use it. Looking at other undead ideas, I remembered Frankenstein's Monster. That would give me a human-looking undead creature. So I followed that idea when working on the back story. Being undead, she could have been 'created' at any time. I embraced having all of history to work with to go way back to the Alessia's Revolution in the First Age, using White Gold Tower as not only the place of her creation but also an integral part in it. Which explains why there are not a bunch like her running around. It also gives us an important part of her personality. She was born a slave, and fought for her freedom. Being made undead enslaved her again, until the death of her creator (with her hands around his throat). That gives me a clear theme with Persephone, the fight for freedom, not only for the living, but especially to free the dead from the enslavement of necromancers.

Her name came out of the dead motif. Persephone was the Queen of the Dead. One of the etymologies given for the name is Pherein Phonon, which means "To Bring Death".

Being undead herself, it made sense that Persephone would be able to summon other undead. Given her age and views on enslavement, it was only natural that the undead she summons are not forced by her, but rather they are her friends. She calls on them for help, and they come because they want to. An Absorb Health also felt natural, as she was a dead thing sucking the life out of others. Also being undead, it felt right to me that potions would not work on her at all. Finally, shrines do not work either, as the Divines no longer see her, except as an anathema. My roleplay is that shrines would actually harm her, and she is incapable of touching a holy amulet. Gameplay-wise, this also makes up for the undead powers she starts with.

As far as actual art design goes, again, Persephone is dead. So I followed that pale skin with everything she wears. Her hair is always white. At first I began her in the same Ancient Nord Armor she was buried in. But she moved on from that and got more stylish. First with white Eisen Platte armor. Then with grey zzjay's Plate, and finally grey Dragonplate. Everything was pale and monochrome. She never gets very colorful, because color is for the living. Her existence is bleak and stark, so is her appearance.

Her sword followed that. I have alternated between three swords: a Steel Greatsword, a Draugr Greatsword, and a zweihander from Drunkzealot's Realistic Weapon mod. The Draugr sword went with her original Nordic Armor. But I wanted it to fit with her background, so I made is summonable, and added the ghostblade special effect to it. That gave it whitish glow. The Steel sword was naturally grey, and was enchanted with frost damage, which worked perfect with her white Eisen Platte armor. Finally her zweihander is grey, and also has the ghostblade effect, so it appears white.

This post has been edited by SubRosa: Nov 21 2016, 02:12 AM

[Lopov]

Loviatar looks good without the hood. But I assume she'll keep her hood on most of the time, just like in Fallout. She's a Breton, I assume?

Wow, she has her own Dwarven Centurion.

Do you have any questlines planned for her?

[SubRosa]

She is a Breton. That seemed the most scientisty of the human races.

She does not have a Dwarven Centurion yet. That was just a test to make sure my dwarven summoning mod works. It does look badass though!

Loviatar will definitely be doing Namira's cannibal quest. In fact she is half way through it already. But I am giving her the cannibalism perk right off the bat. Namira's Ring will just be extra flavor. I will probably wind up changing its enchantment though.

I can see her doing many of the other Daedric quests. The ones my other characters refuse to do, like the Molag Bal and Boeithah ones. Or the Black Star side of the Azura quest. The fun thing about playing Loviatar is that she is not constrained by pesky things like morals or honor.

I could see her doing Dawnguard from the vampire side, but that is predicated on your becoming a vampire. But that could never happen. Loviatar's Prometheus Serum-infused body would literally eat the vampire disease. The same with lycanthropy. So the Hircine quest is out too. (My Poison Absorption mod also abosrbs diseases, so rather than contract them, she receives healing).

I did start playing Loviatar last night, starting out just outside Markarth. I was using the Cannibalism Reloaded mod. But I was getting CTDs, and it looks like the scripts in that were the cause. I removed the mod, and had to use a save game editor to remove the scripts. But the test run I did afterward was CTD free. So hopefully that resolved it.

There is another cannibal mod out there, I think it called Bloody Cannibalism? But it does some things I do not like, such as change the corpses to body parts. I am not sure what it does to the items in the victims inventories. It might just dump them on the ground. But even if it just deletes them instead, all those bones are just going to contribute to save game bloat, which I do not want. Worse, the mod uses scripts, and after all the CTDs I was getting from the last mod, I am very gunshy about another mod heavily dependent upon scripting.

So I think I am just going to make my own Cannibal mod, like I did with Fallout 3 and NV. All I am really looking to do is add an option to carve up a corpse and get an item of Human Flesh instead of devouring it right then. Plus maybe change the effects of devouring and create a few cannibal recipes.

This post has been edited by SubRosa: Nov 21 2016, 07:37 PM

[Acadian]

Yup, she can eat that Priest of Mara and claim Vaermina's skull for herself.

Oh, she can still do the Hircine quest - it does not turn you into a ww at all. WW comes from going far enough along the Companions questline.

And I should imagine Peryite's quest will be right up her poisonous alley.

[SubRosa]

I thought doing the Hircine quest sticks you with a cursed ring that turns you into a werewolf?

I am hitting a brick wall with my own cannibal mod. Papyrus is killing me. I can create an activation button for Butchering a corpse. But it refuses to recognize the script command to add an item. And this is an item from the vanilla game! I even copied and pasted an example from the CK Site and it still says it is undefined. I have no idea where to define it. So either I am going to have look for an existing mod, or not be able to take food for later off a corpse.

Back in FO3 and NV this was so easy. All it took was using the additem command and it worked.

This post has been edited by SubRosa: Nov 21 2016, 08:43 PM

[Lopov]

I thought doing the Hircine quest sticks you with a cursed ring that turns you into a werewolf?

Only if you already are a werewolf, otherwise it does nothing.

[SubRosa]

Hmm, maybe I will try that quest then.

In other news I have done my Cannibalism Improved mod without the option to butcher meat for later. Instead I am using Harvest Overhaul. The Creatures.esp has an MCM menu that allows you to toggle NPC corpses to sometimes drop Human Flesh. So far so good. I created a Cannibal Steak recipe in my Cannibalism Improved to complement it, so Loviatar can get to cooking. The steaks only do straight healing though, no special effects.

I changed Cannibilsm so that it is not dependent upon Namira's Ring. Instead I just added it with the AppPerk command. Now it restores 30 points of Health, Magicka, and Stamina, and also Fortifies each by 30 points for one hour. So snacking on a body is a handy thing to do in the middle of combat!

I also changed Namira's Ring to buff the Health, Magicka, and Stamina regen rates.

It is all finally coming together. Now she just needs a Lair. I have been thinking of buying Vlindrel Hall, but maybe I will look for a modded home, or make something myself. Something poisonous...

This post has been edited by SubRosa: Nov 22 2016, 02:37 AM