Mellewen went off to Dragonsreach to do a bit of posing. I made her a series of shorter variants of the mage outfits, suitable for someone from the Summerset Isles. It's not as cold as Winterhold, so she doesn't need so many layers, and especially not those pants!

So far I've only created the Restoration ones, but they all use the same templates, so the rest just need some drudge-work in the CK. Note that there's no Archmage Robes, as she won't be doing those quests, and won't need any. She'll probably want a set of Psijic robes that show off her legs, eventually.

These are gorgeous!

These look great, ghastley! Are you doing the brown/gold mantled adept robes, too? I think they would look great with Mellewen’s coloring. I love the shorter sleeves that you’ve given these robes.

I just saw the Psijic robes on Quaranir today. Those colors would look awesome on Mellewen! She’s beautiful.

Nice work! Don't need no stinking pants.

Ghastley, since you working with the College robes, do you know what about them causes NPCs to comment, 'Nice robes, you some kinda wizard?' and other such remarks? I wonder if there is some box in the CK or such to check that causes them to be so recognized. In modding these robes, I wonder if you encountered such a setting or box or tag or such. The reason I ask is that I'm wondering if modded outfits that look sort of like College robes but aren't could be so 'tagged' in the CK.

There's a FormList called WICommentCollegeRobesList - it contains the template forms for the two basic College mage robe styles, plus the Archmages' Robes. It does not include the blue or black robes that non-College mages wear, and I didn't add Mellewen's, as she's not joining them.

Tried a re-texture of the Novice robes, based on the Psijic ones.

Initiate's robes

Here's a screenshot of Mellewen wearing them.

The stats are the next step up from the College Master robes, as I see the Psijics having taken Magic beyond what the College of Winterhold (or the College of Whispers or Synod) knows. They haven't lost research to wars, being isolated on Arteum.

But those were done for Mellewen. I'm not sure what makes sense for a general-use mod. A parallel set of robes for non-College mages, or an extension set with greater stats that start becoming available at higher levels?

Oh, that is Awesome! I've always loved the Psijic robes anyway, love this one!

Wow, the Psijic redo looks fabulous! Nice job!

How to get them in the game for a general mod seems really clear to me: From a Psijic Monk! Seriously. Perhaps gift them to the player during the second meeting with the player - when they freeze time in the Arch Mage's quarters.

She looks gorgeous in the initiate's robes. I love it!

How about having Nelacar sell them? He's in the Frozen Hearth so he is accessible to college and independent mages.

added: I like the idea of them being better or somehow different than the college robes you can buy to reflect their Psijic origin.

Adding those two replies makes sense; the regular series should be available from Nelacar as "non-College" ones, and the Psijic ones (enchantment matched to player's highest skill) from Quaranir.

I just noted that the gold value of mine didn't match the standard ones, although the enchantment is the same. I need to find out why before I start making all the others, just in case some of the enchantment isn't being applied.

Oh, that is interesting! If the enchantment is set for it, what would make it not apply?

Turns out that the higher values are directly set in the CK to override the calculated ones. I made mine match.

But do the effects still play out regardless the value?

The current effects tab reflects what I'd set, so I assume it's all working. It's hard to judge in-game.

I never even wondered about it working or not till you mentioned it over-riding values; but if it is showing up in the active effects it must be working. Was it showing up in the active affects before you altered the values to match the vanilla game values?

(just curious).

I hadn't looked there until I saw the gold disparity. But I did look before I made the change, and they looked good.

Mellewen went to Winterhold for the first time last night, so I could check out Nelacar, and he wasn't acting as a merchant. I wonder if that's only after doing Azura's quest? If so, he's not so good as the sole source of the robes.

Edit: I checked his definition in the CK, and couldn't see why he didn't offer services before doing Azura's quest. He certainly did after it. He's in his own faction for that, but that's added in his base form, not by script. It may be something to do with quest priorities, or just a bug!

I may also have to attempt this - the Psijic robes, minus the outer layer.

Nelacar not a merchant, what?! That’s annoying. I rarely ever do the Azura quest, but he sells reliably in my games. Let me know if there’s something I can check out.


That would look great! And the grey under-robe fits the lore’s description of their garb. I love that wide belt thing cinched around the waist.

False alarm. I just had to let him get through all his Azura's quest dialog, and the merchant prompt came up eventually. I may have arrived at the wrong time of day the first time, too.

Whew, glad you got Nelacar sorted out.

That is adorable! But are those booties on the feet?

They're these

Oh, well that is much better! I was picturing little soft cloth booties, lol.

Making some progress: I have all the summer robes defined, and in a leveled list. I've added it to Nelacar's merchant chest, so now he sells a random selection of them (provided you don't go to see him with the Black Star quest pending). I also added the College Boots and unenchanted mage hood, just for completeness.

I did that by editing the base chest, but I'm looking for a way to add it when the game loads. No luck so far.

Likewise, I haven't found a way to pass the Psijic Initiate robes when you speak to Quaranir, without editing the quest script. I'd rather find a way to trigger a separate quest to do that, so it's "clean".

And I'm still working on the texture for this one, but the picture gives you an idea where I am. I only have a 100 weight version, but shrinking it around the smaller body is relatively easy.

I’m glad Nelacar is cooperating. Great idea to have him sell some accessories to make an outfit.

The Psijic inner robe looks great! It’s exciting to see the progress. I love the color and the wide belt is really neat.

That is really nice looking! You should be able to make a separate quest that is triggered by the condition "If X Quest is >stage Y then Z happens" - so it doesn't effect (affect?) Quaranir's quest at all, can't you? I know that worked in Oblivion, but have only compiled one script in Skyrim so really don't know if it works that way in Skyrim too.

And if the Player has to talk to Quaranir; then you could actually just have the robes placed in the Player's inventory as a result of the dialogue without it even being a script condition - again, if it is done that way in Skyrim. It was in Oblivion, but I haven't seen if it is the same way in Skyrim.

In Oblivion, scripts were running all the time, and so as soon as a condition was true, the script would act on it. Effectively, it was sitting there asking if the condition happened, over and over, until it did. Way too much overhead, so they got rid of that!

In Skyrim, they don't run until triggered by an event in the game. So I have to find an event that I can subscribe to. They didn't provide a "stage completed" event, as the quest script can create one - a script event - for when it needs to notify other quests. But that means editing their script, which I want to avoid, in case any other mod does it. Adding a Quest Fragment (a piece of script that runs when a quest changes stage) can only be done as a change to their quest. Again, something to avoid for the same reasons.

It may have to be started on entering the room (a change location event) with the right conditions (CoW quest running), and then test every few seconds to see if the quest stage is reached. The quest would stop if you get the robe, or leave the room without talking to Quaranir. In the latter case, re-entering would start it again.

Bottom line is that it's easy if I change the vanilla content, but that's bad because other mods can turn it all off (such as Unofficial Patches), and harder but safer to do it right.

I need to find out if I can make Nelacar a member of an additional merchant faction with its own chest to give him the new content, or whether the game only allows one active at a time. Adrianne in Whiterun is in two factions, but that controls selling inside and outside the shop, so only one is active.

I wondered about adding a note in to trigger a mini quest in my mod, but I have heard that any note added to the list ends up messing up all the other notes. Do you know anything about that?

Still making progress on this one. It's taken multiple iterations through Blender and NifSkope trying to get the texture maps and rigging right, and there's still clipping in some poses, such as the enchanting table.

But the rest of the outfit's not being wasted!

I may release this outfit as a separate mod. The summer versions of the college stuff will appeal to a different audience. The Psijic Initiate texture falls right in between, as it will apply to the regular novice mesh, (and I have a male version of the texture, too). It could be an optional file with either.

I really love that first robe outfit. On the Psijic one - had to zoom in the screen to realize I was seeing Psijic panties there, wasn't sure if she was just clean shaven or something,

"Jake, from State Farm? What are you wearing, Jake from State Farm?"

"... Uh...Khaki...?"

For those who may not be familiar with Jake from State Farm, here's the TV spot. Enjoy!

That is the one!

Revisiting this, and I may have found a mechanism for giving the player a robe when Quaranir visits. The player has to leave the Archmage's quarters at the end of the scene, and I can catch that location change, and test for the stage completion, to determine the right time.

The player will find a note in their pocket, which tells them to look in the closet in their room. The robes will be in there. The note will explain that Quaranir knew he'd have limited time, and wanted to ensure that nothing was left unsaid or undone. It can recapitulate the conversation, as well as directing the player to the robes.

The quest that is started by the location change can hopefully show an objective of "Read Quaranir's note" without that having any journal entry etc. I need to confirm that, but it looks possible.

The initiate's robes you get this way may need to be a leveled item to avoid unbalancing the CoW quest line. They'd still want to be better than College ones at the player's level. The ones I made already have stats higher than a College Master Robe. That would be more appropriate on a set of Psijic robes to be found in the quarters after becoming Archmage, and doing some additional quest(s). They'd also need a non-specific benefit, rather than fortify one skill, so maybe just higher regeneration and no fortify, or a small boost to all skills, like the Archmage's robes.

I need to consider players that also use the Archmage's Amulet. They can wear a lesser robe with that and it won't be too unbalanced. If the robes get too powerful, I'd have to add exclusion for the Amulet.

I added this to a game to see if still worked, and of course it did not. Then I recalled that there was a setup quest that adds Nelacar to a new faction that gives him the second chest of items. so I ran that, and his stock did not change. He only has his regular stock from his vanilla game chest. I have some debugging to do before I can package up a beta version. The setup will be set for run at startup when distributed, but if it is set in my test game, then every test has to be new character.

Then I need to port up to SE and retest, as most will be on that version. I run both, as developing on LE and then porting works well enough.

OK it's near enough to try, if anyone is brave enough, and still has a Skyrim LE installation.

It's on the TESMods site so this is as much a test of the navigation as anything else.