Snippet: Keening

Aeryl was an elven wizard who sought to investigate deadly creatures to see if their powers could be used to the benefit of people instead of harming them. Her experiments with banshees were her first attempt at dealing with undead, and she was woefully under-prepared.

The wail of banshee is so fearful that the terrible noise has caused many to die of fright. Fortunately for Aeryl, the first banshee she encountered gave a wail so loud that it made her deaf. With its most dangerous weapon rendered useless, the banshee struggled to harm the elf. Aeryl took advantage of this to bind the creature with magic so she could study it at her leisure.

Aeryl was eventually able to use the banshee to create this mace, imbuing it with a portion of its terrible wail. Unfortunately for her, the research left her with almost no hearing, so this weapon and many other of her subsequent creations were stolen by thieves who took advantage of her weakness.

Snippet: Soul Collector

The scythe named Soul Collector almost emanates darkness, as though it seeks to suck out light and life wherever it can be found. Its blade is deadly sharp, and even looking at it seems to inflict the sharp pain of a cutting wound.

This weapon has only ever been associated with the most evil and dangerous of beings, for its magic is such that others are reviled by its magic. Its first known owner, and supposed creator, was the evil warlock Xarxoz, who used the weapon as fuel for his arts. The weapon allowed him to gather souls of the dead and the living to increase his power, sucking their life away with its fearful magic.

Thus the scythe became known as Soul Collector, in memory of those consumed by it. However, no sooner had the scythe been named than it fell from Xarxoz's possession, for he was tracked and killed by a group of adventurers whose families has been killed by the warlock. From there, the scythe has changed hands frequently, each time being held for only a short time before its owner is killed. Some now wonder whether the weapon collects its souls from its victims, or from its owners.

Status Update 5-May: Custom Item Descriptions

Today's update marks a milestone in the development of 'Fate of a City', namely that the total word count (courtesy of the PowerBar plugin) is 50,000 words! While this may be an arbitrary milestone, it's still nice to have reached. Of course, there's still much more to come, for I've still got a substantial number of conversations left to write... in addition to the rest of the work that still remains. I've started working on adding more depth to the party companions, focussing on the specific conversations you can hold with them as opposed to the interjections that I've been including along the way so far. I've also added a few more areas to the city, and a few merchants that are there to cater for specific item needs.

In other exciting news, I did an audition for Melirinda for a mod she's working on to voice Saemon Havarian - a swashbuckling pirate that you may remember if you played Baldur's Gate 2: Shadows Of Amn. I was lucky enough to have Melirinda pick me to do the voice acting for this fun character, and I'm looking forward to recording the many lines she's already sent me... and more to come! You should check out Melirinda's previous submissions to the nwvault, they're all of a very high quality.

Now, for a little more of a spoiler about some of the custom items that I've been working on, I'd like to post the descriptions of a couple of items that you'll be able to find within the city of Darthall. I won't divulge the actual statistics of the items, but I'm sure you can make some guesses based on their descriptions...

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Glittering Gloves

Designed for use by novice adventurers, the creation of gloves like these is popular for a first enchanting task. The gloves allow the wearer to cast the spell "Color Spray" without exhausting the mage's own repertoire of spells, which is a great boon for neophyte mages. While the gaudy colour of these gloves may be off-putting, their utility for beginning spellcasters is undeniable.
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Brute's Rapier

While rapiers are normally the domain of fine swordsmen or warriors touting finesse over brute strength, this particular weapon is designed for force rather than deft handling. This weapon was created by a former pit warrior turned smith by the name of Kullus, who appreciated the art that could be infused within a weapon like a rapier yet preferred a direct and aggressive fight.

Kullus created this weapon so that its wielder would be able to wield a finely crafted weapon and yet still attack with the same ferocity as someone wielding a larger blade. Unfortunately for Kullus, he never saw the blade in action, for he was killed by its intended buyer.

The balance of the weapon is slightly off, as though it were created for someone with a slightly different shaped hand, and the extra weight it has as a rapier makes it a little unwieldy. This means it lacks the defensive capability that is often a hallmark of rapiers, but more than compensates for this through the additional power it can inflict through its blows, as it seems to batter its foes into submission.
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Lastly, I'd love to hear feedback on yesterday's post about triggers and scripting. It may not be a paragon of scripting, but I still find it a useful tool to have in my repertoire, but more importantly, I'm really keen to hear whether people are interested in knowing more little blueprints, scripts or tricks that I use while modding.

Status Update 30-Apr: Custom Items Ahoy!

The past couple of weeks have been fairly busy, so I haven't been able to dedicate a whole lot of time to the mod, but I've been back to the introductory scene within the module, tweaking and testing it to make sure everything runs smoothly. As I'm sure any of you would know who've done involved cutscenes, getting things to happen exactly how and when you want isn't always the simplest of tasks. There's also been some fine touches to some of the areas I'd already created, just adding in little bits and pieces to increase the overall ambiance and visual appeal based on things I learned while creating my entry for the area competition.

And based on the poll results, it seems that (almost) everyone is a fan of custom items! In light of the votes the poll was receiving during its time, I'd already started work on a number of custom items over what I'd already created. At the moment, there's over 20 custom items create (which have varying degrees of usefulness), each with a backstory or description (ranging in size from short to fairly lengthy). But I'm by no means finished yet... perhaps the more difficult thing may be trying to work out where I'm going to fit them all into the module!

While I won't give away any of the details of the items just yet, I thought I'd post a screenshot of an outfit you could construct from the items created so far.


I should also mention that this is a shot from the Rich Quarter within Darthall... I believe I promised another screenshot of it quite a while ago!