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

[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