Morrowind Mischiefs, A Characters Update thread Options

[mALX]

Well! Hi again. Months ago I'd hoped to be adding updates on my Skyrim characters Warm Waters and Gorlash and my necromancer... So many characters! However my Laptop is still in the shop (since February or March) and after hearing Fallout 4 will not be getting mods for the PS4 (the only system I have that will run the damned game) a familiar itch has started up. An itch than manifested in a need to return to Tamirel~

Now, I'll admit, my original idea was to play Oblivion and return to one of my fav Xbox games only, you know, on the PC. I however have made a COLOSSAL mess of that game file trying to mod it. Well. Not colossal. But there are a lot of missing meshes with Better Cities and the guards are floating bald heads carrying error signs and... Its a mess. SO! Next in line.. Morrowind, my old love! I've spent the last few hours modding it a little. Adding in stuff like Better Bodies and Heads, a Needs mod.. Better clothing n Armor. The Official Plugins.. All that nice stuff and now? Now I would like to introduce Morana Wolfblood my Nordic Mercenary gal. First night in Morrowind and shes already murdered some smugglers, bought herself some gear, and is ready to pick up where she left off before the Imperials snatched her up and tossed her in jail.

Arcry! WOO HOO !!!!!!!!

[SubRosa]

Welcome to Vvardenfell Morana! I hope you have as much fun with Morrowind as I recently did.

[Arcry]

Welcome to Vvardenfell Morana! I hope you have as much fun with Morrowind as I recently did.

Oh she is. Made a loooot of trouble lately. Delt with some Telvanni 'spies'... Threatened a local for a book. ... Cleaned out some bad people in Balmora... Busy!

[ghastley]

I'm currently playing a Silanu character in Daggerfall, Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim. In most of those, she's not my first character, but Morrowind is the exception.

She's doing unarmoured, long blade, with a bit of alchemy, destruction, restoration to back that up. Speechcraft has had to catch up in a hurry, as the game seems to depend on that more than I was expecting. I've got a minimum of mods to start with, just better bodies with DMRA to make her look like she should, and I've had to tailor her boots myself to make things fit. Fortunately she wears very little.

She could really use more health, but endurance has been shut out by her choice of armour and weapon. There's a catch-22 of not being able to use a spear to build it up because the lack of skill means it's not a viable weapon. She gets killed by rats if she tries to fight with a spear.

I haven't really got an impression yet on pacing the quests. There are a lot of places where there a minimum level requirements for quests to stop you getting them too soon, but of course, no indication that you'll find them much easier later. And with some having levelled enemies, that may not be the case.

She's doing Fighters, Mages, Imperial Cult, Hlaalu on the side, and trying to judge which ones help her forward.

She's just done the quest at the Ashlander burial site, and picked up Magebane, which may become her main weapon for a time.

[ghastley]

Silanu is starting to run into the problem of not be able to advance in the house/guild ranks because she doesn't have enough levels in secondary skills. She's doing well in Long Blade (100) and Unarmored (75) and Speechcratft and Destruction are close to 50 as well. But most of the neglected skills (other weapons, L/M/H Armor) are still below 10. I probably made the "wrong" decisions at the start, but really hadn't chosen her path at that point.

Endurance remains an issue. Her only option for building that is to learn Spear, it seems.

Edit: I'm letting her buy a whole lot of training. She can easily afford it, and that's probably the only way she'll get enough skill levels to finish her House Stronghold.

----

An another subject, I'm playing around in the CS with a custom race, to see if Diablita can come to Morrowind. Creating a race with a custom body mesh and texture is working so far. I haven't made the hair/horns yet, but understand how to do that. The one issue left is finding out whether she can have a tail without beast animations. Even though her legs will be hooved, with a raised ankle joint, she still wants to walk like a man/mer, rather than an Argonian or Khajiit.

Edit: It does appear that the tail is tied to the "Beast" option on the race, and so comes with all the jerky walk animations etc. that I don't like. I can still give her a rigid tail, but that's just as bad. However, there are mods for things like animated wings, so maybe she'll get a tail that isn't a "tail".

On the plus side, she now has hair, horns, lower legs/hooves as intended, and has started to quest. I'll be seeing how Mash's profiles work out in Morrowind. Oblivion's worked well, Skyrim's were not so good, and needed manual resetting of the active mod list when switching.

She still needs some "outfit" work - piercings, chains etc. Lower-poly versions of the Oblivion ones should work. Silanu will probably benefit from that research, too.

She's arrived, and looking (not very hard) for things she can wear. Apparently rings, amulets and belts will all fit properly

This post has been edited by ghastley: Dec 8 2016, 03:15 PM

[ghastley]

Since I made a Diablita, I needed an Angeline, too. That's easier, as she's just a blonde Breton in a lace dress. Except that I had to mix-and-match one hair shape with another's texture to get what I wanted. I did find the right dress in Korana's collection of mods, but had to translate the names into English before I could use it.

I'm finding it hard to get her started. I'm trying to play her as a mage, but she has little health that way and also runs out of magicka too quickly. I gave her a minor skill of spear, so she can build her health up, but probably should have made it major, as she can't hit anything yet.

Meanwhile Silanu is getting into her stride, and has just started the last phase of her Stronghold, and collecting support for Hortator. She's now wielding Chrysamere instead of Magebane, and that thing hits HARD!

(I'm getting very tempted to try and make an actual outfit of stars.)

And I almost forgot. Diablita now has a pitchfork at last. Equivalent to a steel spear for now.

This post has been edited by ghastley: Dec 11 2016, 05:46 AM

[TheCheshireKhajiit]

And I almost forgot. Diablita now has a pitchfork at last. Equivalent to a steel spear for now.

Khajiit likes Diablita's style!

[ghastley]

Since Khajiit was not here during her formative years, here is some background.

I was trying to create an Oblivion mod that provided a pair of companions, Diablita and her sister Angeline. I ran into some insurmountable problems with it, and it never got published, but it did make its way into the Gweden Report story here.

Since then, Clark moved on to Skyrim, still not being the player character, and I chose Diablita to be the Dragonborn in his narrative, and recreated her there. Angeline was human, not elven, so she's long dead. Clark got made immortal, for services rendered to Daedric Princes.

My main Morrowind character for playing is also a transplant from Oblivion. Silanu Hlaalu is Falanu's sister, and one of the early residents of Gweden. She needed a custom body, so I starting making/adjusting Morrowind mods, which led to the Diablita/Angeline ones. I want (at least) three characters, so I can do each Great House line. Plus as many combat styles as possible, ...

Diablita currently has a mesh issue. In trying to make her leg seam blend better, I've made parts of them disappear completely!

Silanu has just been made Hortator of House Hlaalu, and is deciding between the next House quest, and the other Hortator quests to do next. We're also chasing the level/reputation path for the Fifth bypass, as the Ashlander ones look like a lot of walking (and therefore cliff racers).

This post has been edited by ghastley: Dec 12 2016, 04:05 PM

[TheCheshireKhajiit]

Lol, sounds like kink runs in Silanu's family! Falanu has... different... tastes in sexual practices too!

[ghastley]

Silanu, Diablita and Angeline are progressing nicely, and each has just about completed the Great House quest series I assigned to them. (Diablita's legs re-appeared when I deleted a trailing space on a name in the .nif).

Silanu has done well with a big sword, Diablita with her pitchfork, and Angeline is using magic (although mostly Bound Spear, as she needs the Endurance/Health), so I didn't have an archer. Enilwen has now made the transition back from Oblivion, using regular and Bound bows. She's having slight problems with not advancing strength and endurance very fast, with only Armorer as a strength skill, and spear for endurance when they get too close.

I had to use the console to fix Diablita's game, as doing things out of order can break quests. When it's part of chain of quests, that breaks the whole series. Loading an earlier save was not an option, as too much had happened that I didn't want to repeat on other quest lines.

Nobody has the expansions active yet. I'll wait until the Main Quest is done.

Edit: Still no tail on Diablita, but I've installed LizTail's Animation Kit that promises to make that possible. I've also been working on clothing for the modified body shapes, after noting that most of Korana's are based on the same few meshes with varied textures using transparency. If I modify those base meshes to fit around the adjusted bodies, then all her clothes will work. Her spear (cloned from her original one at present) is now roughly daedric-equivalent in stats (but not actually daedric material).

Started Enilwen the archer (as nobody was yet using that skill). She'll likely not do any house quests, and just explore while following the MQ line as she levels up.

This post has been edited by ghastley: Jan 4 2017, 04:04 PM

[ghastley]

Anybody recognize this character from my Oblivion game, now transplanted to Morrowind?

I didn't make the body mod, just fitted the outfit to it. It's not complete, as I'm working on stockings, shoes, etc. to go with it, but the basic dress mesh is simply re-textured with various degrees of transparency for different lengths of sleeves and skirt, so this is just one of many.

The texture is from Korana's Clothiers of Vaardenfell, which has at least twenty based on the same mesh. She did the same with a pants mesh, and a torso mesh (for undies etc.) There's also a skirt-only subset of the dress mesh. Each of those has multiple textures applied, so I'll soon have the entire stock converted.

She needs different hair. That's just one of the two blond options in the Westly's head replacer I'm using. I can easily adapt a different style by mixing and matching meshes and textures intended for other races, and from other sources. Ditto with shoes. The body mod doesn't replace the feet, so there are lots of options. I'd like to find ones that cover the ankle join between the meshes, as the inventory pose distorts that.

I doubt if I'll bother releasing any Morrowind Mods, but you never know. If Diablita gets her tail ...

[Acadian]

It's Heidi!

[ghastley]

Acadian gets the .

Your turn!

[ghastley]

Angeline has paused after completing the Fourth and Fifth trials, to build herself up before going inside the Ghostfence to do that final huge quest. So she's going back to building Tel Uvirith, which had been on hold while she built up the ability to trap the right grand souls. That means she needs to advance her Telvanni rank to Master (which means Archmagister, as she already did the deed on her way to Hortator). So she's spending a lot of time at Tel Vos, and doing those quests. Buying a lot of training that I should have given her before now, to build up her stats.

Diablita is still looking for a tail, but progressing on the Ashlander quests to catch up with her sister on those. She already did her Redoran House quest line, however. The Hlaalu and Redoran strongholds are easier to get started, as they don't have the requirement for two grand souls that Tel Uvirith does. She'll probably head for Ald Daedroth next.

Silanu (Hlaalu Grandmaster) is at much the same point as Diablita, but has done a lot more miscellaneous quests, including Imperial Cult, and higher levels of Mages/Fighters Guild ones. She's been chasing artifacts more than questlines. She was the "explorer" character by design, so has probably made a lot of build mistakes.

Enilwen and Heidi are just getting started, and are having more training sessions than the other did, so they don't out-level themselves. Enilwen is doing Marksman, and I may try out the throwing weapons soon. Heidi will use Heavy Armour, as the others have all been Unarmoured (because of their signature outfits, and because the skill is only in Morrowind). Neither has joined a Great House, or Factions other than Fighters/Mages which they mainly use for training. They'll advance just enough to open all trainers.

I just noticed that there are significant steps in equipment stats between "beginner" gear, and the advanced stuff. Separating things into Light/Medium/Heavy means that you don't move up through them, unless you swap styles on the way. I know you can mix and match, but some combos just don't look right, even if they work well! Heidi will stay in Steel, until she can use Ebony, which will more than triple her AR.

I have the Anthology, so I installed Tribunal and Bloodmoon for the executable upgrades, but have not enabled the esm's yet for anyone. It's possible that I'll do so for either Enilwen or Hedi, to see how they interact with the early game. The other three will wait until the Morrowind MQ is completed.

[ghastley]

So I downloaded the companion template by Grumpy from Emma's site, and started playing around with it.

Now Clark is in Morrowind with a pair of companions. Diablita now has a tail, but it's not animated yet.

I just placed them next to him in Seyda Neen with the console. They really need a starting location to find them. Any suggestions?

Edit: I added another shipwreck to the North of Seyda Neen, balancing the one to the South. Nothing in it except the stowaways. Had to start another character to go get them, so I now have a Orc axe-wielder.

This post has been edited by ghastley: Jan 19 2017, 10:22 PM

[ghastley]

Diablita's solo game has just finished the MQ (barely, as wielding Keening with a Short Blade skill of 5 made it harder). She'll have Tribunal enabled while her sister and some friends catch up in their own games.

She and Angeline are continuing to accompany Clark, and I'll be working out some code to level her pitchfork, so she can continue to use that instead of needing inventory management by the player.

[ghastley]

I gave Diablita a steel pitchfork at the beginning of her game, and upgraded that much later to a Daedric one (cloning the stats of the respective spears). She needed to embue the latter with a nominal enchantment to let it affect all enemies, and that will become important for her companion version. She used a fire damage / soul trap combo, so it fed itself (via Azura's star), but I'm wondering what would be a good enchantment for a companion? I'd also like to come up with an intermediate level of pitchfork between the two.

Steel spear/pitchfork: Chop 2-5, Slash 2-5, Thrust 6-17,
Daedric spear/pitchfork: Chop 2-9, Slash 2-9, Thrust 6-40, so
Intermediate: Chop 2-7, Slash 2-7, Thrust 6-28? That's about half-way between the dwarven and the ebony.

My current ideas:
Enchanted weapon at all levels - minimal fire damage of 1 to n points, with the upper level increasing between the three level of weapon.
Weapon should be preferable to any the player normally finds - with exceptions for the uniques. Her skills should bias toward spears, anyway.
Intermediate wants a distinct appearance, so maybe Dwarven? or Glass (which may be too high-level).

Angeline is more flexible, and I'm using her as an archer with Thudd (my big axe-wielding Orc). Both companions need a reason not to use alternate apparel, so Unarmored is a key factor, and I may have to script a "nothing else" limitation. I want keeping them alive to be part of the challenge, but not so much that it takes over.

This post has been edited by ghastley: Jan 23 2017, 06:21 PM

[ghastley]

An interesting observation from last night's play.

I needed to take on a tough, heavily-armoured opponent, and since my character had legitimately acquired an Amulet of Shadows, she used it, but found that her companions were quickly slaughtered. So I reloaded, told them to wait while Thudd did all the work. Their usual path-blocking behaviour suddenly became an asset, as they kept my opponent confined and he couldn't run away! As non-combatants, they didn't get attacked, and it was all much easier.

I need to do some work on their script, and make a mesh for the middle pitchfork. Adapted one from the Dwarven halberd, by doubling up the longer side and reshaping a little. Still needs the script change to replace it at an appropriate level.

This post has been edited by ghastley: Jan 27 2017, 10:57 PM

[ghastley]

Development on the Angeline and Diablita mod continues, but the latest change meant that I had to start a fresh character, as they now need personal scripts, instead of being able to share one.

So Thudd has been parked, just as she became Hortator of all the houses. "Hortator, that's a special kind of Hor, ain't it?"

I've rolled up Delilah, an Imperial in a black (thin) silk dress, with lots of personality, and endurance, and big hair. She's just reached level 4, and Diablita has the second pitchfork.

I now need to enshrine that need in her level-up script. That runs when the player levels up, so the obvious thing is to make the pitchfork level depend on player level, but I may base it on D's own skill with a spear. But if that's always going up at the same time, it may be moot.

[ghastley]

Silanu just discovered that while wearing the Boots of Blinding Speed, she can get master-level training in Unarmored (Khargol gro-Boguk in the Vacant Tower near Dagon Fel). At last they're actually useful!

She now is at level 100 in both Long Blade and Unarmored, has 100 strength, and is desperately catching up on some others in preparation for a visit to Red Mountain. She may even visit Mournhold first, as there are spells you just can't buy anywhere else. She'd like to enchant a Constant Effect Fortify Unarmored on something, for example, and Fortify Skill is a rare effect.

Delilah may go get those boots, too. She's still trying to build up her Endurance, and will switch to throwing things once she's maxed that out. The visit to Dagon Fel for the training probably has an optimum level, and I'm trying to figure that out. Part of the equation will be easy use of the Greater Mark/Recall spells from the mod Improved Teleportation that lets Angeline and Diablita travel with her. Those added spells allow multiple locations to be marked, but the spells are harder to cast - higher skill / more magicka.