[Wip] An-Arane Cey: Armor of the Fallen.

This is a direct follow-up to "An-Arane Cey: Lost Sword of the Ayleids". You can visit the RELz thread for it and should if you plan on playing this mod when it's completed. It will require the sword in order to even begin the questline.

An-Arane Cey: Lost Sword of the Ayleids Release Thread:
http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/943432-relzan-arane-cey-lost-sword-of-the-ayleids/page__p__13648110__fromsearch__1&#entry13648110
And our sister thread on the TES Alliance Forums-
http://www.tesalliance.org/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=132

Goal: Armor of the Fallen will add 3 new dungeons, a puzzling questline, new Smith NPC and Forge dealing exclusively in Red and Blue Welkynd weaponry. It will also add a set of re-textured, unenchanted Elven Armor, decked out in welkynd stone and includes the Helm and a Shield.
The shield will be enchanted with Reflect Damage/Reflect Spell and perhaps another goodie or two to make it really worthwhile and will have both Red and Blue Welkynd stone inset on the face.

Plot: Meridia has a need of you, Traveler. By freeing An-Arane Cey from her long imprisonment, you have chosen yourself as her champion. A long hidden shrine has been fouled by the presence of an ancient spirit and you, and the sword, are required to cleanse her shrine.
It is not so simple as killing a spirit. You must first open the way, delving into the depths of mysterious dungeons to open the hidden locks barring your path. The journey will be hard, the dungeons challenging and the rewards great.
If you succeed, you will emerge with the thanks of a god and a magnificent and unique set of armor as your trophy.

Points of Interest:
-If you are interested in using something from one of our mods as a resource, please PM WhoGuru or Da Mage to request permission before taking it.

-This quest will be prompted to start after the final journal entry of Lost Sword. You'll need to have the sword with you to make it through this quest as it will be required to open certain doors for you.

-There will be no map markers for these quests. You'll have to rely on your own ingenuity, knowledge of Cyrodiil's layout and the information provided to get where you need to be.

-We will be including a side quest to add a smith dealing in, you guessed it, Welkynd Stone Weaponry.

Progress:
Story = 100%
dungeon design = 30%
Weaponry design= 50%
Armor design= 50%
Quests = 40%
Dialogue = 20%

Requirements:
TES IV: Oblivion
Lost Sword of the Ayleids - http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=20184 - questline completed.

Darkseed Team:
Da Mage - Textures, Coding & CS
WhoGuru - Writing & Dialogue
DarkRider - Voice Overs/Adviser
WillieSea - Adviser
CoolShady - Executive Engineer
Ysne58 - Beta Tester Extraordinaire

Images:

DUNGEONS - In Progress
CoolShady
http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f85/whoguru/Oblivion%20Screenshots/Armor/AotF01.jpg
http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f85/whoguru/Oblivion%20Screenshots/Armor/AotF02.jpg
http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f85/whoguru/Oblivion%20Screenshots/Armor/AotF03.jpg
Da Mage
http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f85/whoguru/Oblivion%20Screenshots/Armor/AotF04.jpg
http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f85/whoguru/Oblivion%20Screenshots/Armor/AotF05.jpg
http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f85/whoguru/Oblivion%20Screenshots/Armor/AotF06.jpg

WEAPONS:
http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f85/whoguru/Oblivion%20Screenshots/weapons/RedDarkBow.jpg
http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f85/whoguru/Oblivion%20Screenshots/weapons/BlueDarkBow.jpg

http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f85/whoguru/Oblivion%20Screenshots/weapons/DragonQuiverB.jpg
http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f85/whoguru/Oblivion%20Screenshots/weapons/DragonArrowB.jpg
http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f85/whoguru/Oblivion%20Screenshots/weapons/DragonQuiverR.jpg
http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f85/whoguru/Oblivion%20Screenshots/weapons/DragonArrowR.jpg

http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f85/whoguru/Oblivion%20Screenshots/weapons/DragonSheatheB.jpg
http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f85/whoguru/Oblivion%20Screenshots/weapons/DragonDaggerB.jpg
http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f85/whoguru/Oblivion%20Screenshots/weapons/DragonSheatheR.jpg
http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f85/whoguru/Oblivion%20Screenshots/weapons/DragonDaggerR.jpg

http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f85/whoguru/Oblivion%20Screenshots/weapons/DragonClaymoreB.jpg
http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f85/whoguru/Oblivion%20Screenshots/weapons/DragonClaymoreR.jpg

Updates:

10/22/08
-The first dungeon is nearing completion, at least for the building phase! Looks fantastic and with a great story of it's own!
-The arrow textures are done. We'll be moving on to the rest of the weapons shortly I think.
-Ganon is well on his way to modeling a truly wonderful set of armor for us. Shadow's ready to take over with the textures. Actually he's drooling to have a go at it.
-Dialogue is coming along, though we keep adding new characters in need of it everyday. LOL Voice actors are going to have their work cut out for them.

11/07/08
-Honor01 has joined the team as a builder and will be working on dungeon design!
-Weapons are more than half complete now and looking amazing.
-We're still in need of an armor modeler. Lord_Ganondorf has left the project citing real life concerns and we wish him well. We're not worried about the lack at the moment. We have plenty of time.

11/09/08
-The weapons textures and glow maps are complete! They look incredible.
-CoolShady has signed on in a trial basis to take a stab at creating a dungeon for us and has come up with a spectacular and original mini-quest for it as well. He's proving to be a great addition to the team in a short space of time!

11/14/08
-After a very nasty and irrational meltdown over a perceived insult from another modder, Shadowhider has left the team. Those who've been paying attention will be aware, I'm sure, this isn't the first such blowout from him. We are happily waving to his back and looking forward to a drama free future. We have also taken down the work he's done to this point. We want a clean break.
Never fear. Turns out there was more than one Texturer eager to have a go at this mod! Work has already begun on the weapons and is looking beautiful. I'll post some pics for you soon as I have them.
-CoolShady's first dungeon is turning out to be a marvel! A wonderfully original design that, even incomplete, we just had fun wandering through and looking at stuff! He's truly a find!

11/18/08
-We've settled on a final look for the weapons textures and it is AMAZING! The new darker look REALLY makes the Welkynd stone stand out! New images posted above!
-The armor textures are coming along beautifully as well! Looking more incredible every day! We are still in need of a MODELER to tweak the female version of the Elven Armor. Please PM if you're interested! Thanks!
-Just added the new Quivers and arrows!! They are mind blowing! Truly amazing!
-Daggers are up! The blades are truly impressive!

11/20/08
-Claymores are finished and added! Woo! Weapons are coming along nicely as is the building phase!
-We are STILL in need of a modeler for the female version of the Elven Armor. Please contact us!

12/15/08
-Work goes on! The holiday season has slowed things a bit but we're still plugging away here. Two of five dungeons are in progress, one near completion, weapons half finished and our armor has amazing new textures! Dialogue is coming along nicely as well, even as Mage piles more on me daily! There are some great twists in the first dungeon!

12/17/08
-We've made a slight adjustment to the size of our mod. Rather than the Five dungeons we had initially planned, we will be doing Three now, in addition to a forge for our Smith. This makes the work load more manageable and helps us ensure that release will come sooner after the new year rather than later. We're as anxious to finish and play as you are!

2/15/09
-It's slow going at the moment. School is once more taking up most of Mage's time. Never fear, we're still plugging away at it. It may take us a bit longer than planned but we'll get her done! Shady is still working on his marvelous dungeon as well. The locations in this mod are turning out to be incredibly unique and visually just fun to walk around in!

3/8/09
-Mage is back at it. He's now working on the final dungeon and has some brilliant ideas! No spoilers! CoolShady has passed his dungeon off to me for some cluttering to give him a break for time to work on other stuff. We're getting closer every day!

11/19/09
-Not forgotten. We are going to finish Armor of the Fallen. Far too much work has already been completed to allow this to fall by the wayside. It wont be soon but it will be finished. Work is planned to start again on this once DarkRdr's Reclaiming Sancre Tor is released.

07/22/10
work will start again in earnest on this once http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1070806-wipz-reclaiming-sancre-tor-thread-vi/page__p__15564109__fromsearch__1&#entry15564109 is released. The wait is because I have some work to do for Rider on RST. Mage is helping him out as well here and there.

There was one casualty though. Thanks to mother nature and a hellacious storm last month, my boot drive was fried along with my Oblivion installation and most of my backups. Sadly, CoolShady's dungeon has been lost. It was brilliant. I'm still searching about to see if I don't have an earlier copy of it stashed away somewhere that can be rebuilt.

Please, please!!!
I beg of you!!!!
Let my paladin character be able to play this one without the need of stealth or thieving. :angel:

While I do sympathise, we aren't going to ignore stealth. So far, thievery doesn't come into it, but stealth may and probably will. We can only see, as it's still evolving.

Edit: Though, if you read the first post, you'll notice you will need to get the sword to play the sequel?

Yeah, I'm aware of that, and had to use the console to reset his "slate" after he was caught five or six times in the IC bookstore alone.
He does not get arrested because of his high fame (302), but his stat sheet does show that he's a thief and trespasser. Not good for a holy warrior.
After all, he has just cleansed an ancient evil to get the sword.
I'm just hoping I won't have to reset these stats again when doing the next part of the quest.
It really does kill his role play aspect.
Thoroughly enjoyed the mod though. :thumbsup:

not to worry, this questline will have choice. for example, there are 4 different ways to get into the first dungeon. Its all fairly stealth though, im betting bribery is going to be best option for a pally.

Looks pretty cool, I want to try the first one now I'll be interested to see what happens with this.

yeah, the first was a bit of a test for us. see if we could work together. we can and so the real mod can now be made

We certainly do work well together! I'm already having fun with this one as well! :foodndrink: Got some Lore research to do now! Woohoo! and the first dungeon....wow. heh heh heh and that's all you get people! :rofl:

Edit: New weapons on the board.

Looks brilliant!

Nice to see a sequel in progress. That first quest was very well done.

Are you going to offer a combined version of this and the previous mod as well?
That would be fun and simpler.
It is your choice though.

I must say I liked the first quest line a lot. All this guessing/searching was neat and it stuck me behind my computer for quite some time

I would have one advice/request for the enchantment for the armor though: to me reflect damage/spell is a bit broken in the game, as there's nothing more frustrating than getting killed by your own sword/spells. Actually it's really the reflect damage that I hate. I mean you can be the weakest being in Cyrodiil, but if you gulp enough potions (or whatever reflects damage) you can make yourself immune to physical damage and kill your opponent. Where's the satisfaction in that? At least I don't see any Even 15% reflect damage is too much, since a very high level player can deal a lot amount of damage, and seeing your health bar go down because of you is just not fun. I'd rather see a monstrously strong opponent to get the armor rather than a normal boss with reflect damage. If you have not already, I would suggest you take a look at bosses from OOO/FCOM and you'll see that despite being yelled at, people tend to like these kind of fights because it's rewarding and not too much frustrating (most frustrated people don't understand that you're not supposed to be engaging those guys at level 10, that all )

I hope I'm not being too blunt about that I'd understand if those enchantments were "lore" related, but if the matter is still opened to suggestion I'd love to see passive enchantments instead

The matter of enchantments for the Shield is certainly open for debate! Nothing is written in stone yet! Those were more ideas than concrete anything.

Please, post ideas for the enchantment list. The armor however will remain unenchanted. We're leaving that up to the player. Call it a thumb up the nose at the Imperial Dragon armor which irritated me so! LOL Lousy enchantments, no shield and no helm. We're fixing that here.

I think we well be packaging the two mods together once we've finished "retro-fitting" Lost Sword to be OBSE-free, as Armor of the Fallen will be. Actually, my intent is to offer the sequel on it's own, for those who already have lost sword, and a combined download for those who don't.
That's the running theory at the moment anyway.

Again, please give us your ideas on what you would like to see as enchantments for the Shield. Feel free to be extravagant. You're going to have do some serious work to earn these, so we plan on making them worth the trouble. :foodndrink:

I have to agree with Dazu. Some passive enchantments would be a nice change!

Make some suggestions! Let's get a list going of what enchantments you'd like to see on the shield and then we'll start from there!

Armor of the Fallen has a new team member. Honor01 has graciously agreed to try his hand on one of our dungeons.

We still have positions open on the team, you can check our help needed thread here - http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=895142

and I haven't given up on you Shady! :rofl:

Anyone have any suggestions on the enchantments they would like to see on our shield? Please tell us what you, as the player, would be interested in having. :goodjob:

I think getting a special bonus like the sets in Warcry would be awesome: in Warcry you get special bonuses when you equip all the parts of a set of armour. If you equip at least 2 of them you get a small bonus. When you equip all the parts you get something unique, like a fortified armourer ability combined with fortified strength etc. That what makes those sets unique, and maybe it's something you could explore

So for the shield, I think that regular enchantments like "spell absorption 15 points, shield 10 points and fortify block 10 points" (all combined to make it more interesting than what you can create at an altar) would be more than enough since it will be most likely on par with either glass (if it's a light armour shield) or daedric (if it's heavy). Now when you equip the shield, getting a spell like resurrect for 30 secs as a greater power or a very expensive to cast/high conjuration skill spell (to balance things out) would be nice. Maybe a greater power like the doom stones/Hero stones from vanilla oblivion would do the trick as well. I said resurrect as it's called "Armor of the Fallen" so my guess is that it will deal with dead people, and An-Arane Cey is not a paladin-like sword

What do you think?

your a good thinker

thanks, this might help us create the enchantment for our armour.

Aye! Some very good ideas there. and there is a precedent for powers received when using various peices of armor or a whole set. The Crusader's armor in Knights of the Nine functions like that. We will definitley look into that.
I've already decided I want our armor to function something like the Crusader armor in that the player should receive Heavy or Light depending on their skill. Don't want heavy armor specialists stuck with light armor they'll never use and vice verse!

i'll add your suggestions to the list Dazu! Thanks!

OOO does that too with Dread Armor being required to touch spectral weapons. I prefer having an option regarding light vs. heavy armor for something like that.

That's our ultimate goal. I'm partial to light armor myself but many prefer Heavy. I'd like to make everyone happy, at least on that front! LOL

I am available for beta testing if you need that at any time.

Glad I could help

The scabbard and the sword mesh looks neat to me, thanks for showing us that :goodjob:

Thanks Dazu! Shadow's done a brilliant job!

The weapons are now complete! :ahhh: Quite the wicked arsenal we've got now! Building is putting along well. We have three builders giving their own personal marks to three of the five dungeons now. Da Mage, CoolShady and honor01 are creating some truly original experiences for you! The first dungeon is going to have you running in circles and cursing Mage. :rofl:

We are still in need of a Modeler. We have a suit of Elven Armor in need of remodeling. We're not in a time crunch for this yet but would like to get it done so Shadow has plenty of time to work on the textures for it. Interested modelers please post here or drop me a PM.

Edit: And Ysne, you should know you were already on the list of beta testers! :foodndrink: No question there. You're help testing the updated .esp's was invaluable.