Hi all!

This is something I'm thinking about doing for years and I'm developing the concept for quite a while, though I thought of it initially as being part of The Forgotten Shields, I have recently decided to do as a stand-alone mod. Yeah, I know, it is the first time I open a WIP thread - though not to advertise my work (I am a strong believer that marketing and free sharing belong to 2 different worlds ), but to ask for forumistic assistance. So, I apologize in advance to those who expected to see here graphs, tons of screenies and futile banter - this it's just a thread for exchanging ideas and information...

First of all, here's the scope of the mod: creating a short, but smart (and tough) quest-mod, meant for high level characters, with the http://i98.photobucket.com/albums/l256/Painkiller_rider/Death%20Dealer/Frazetta2.jpg gear and warhorse as reward.

Second, here's what's been done so far: http://i98.photobucket.com/albums/l256/Painkiller_rider/Death%20Dealer/PKR_DD4.jpg. Note that the whole thing is still a WIP, with the Boots still in work, the Cuirass just changed to having a long scale skirt, etc. Also, the provenience of the horse is still debatable (I am waiting for confirmation from a couple of extremely talented modelers), although I have beefed-up in Max my own version of http://i98.photobucket.com/albums/l256/Painkiller_rider/Death%20Dealer/PKR_DD7.jpg (based on Slof's textures), but, alas, it is missing the feathers, which I cannot add, since I don't know how to rig things like that...

Third: the quest. This is the part where I need your help, mostly for founding the perfect location, one that will not interfere/conflict with other mods (especially landscape-modifying ones). I need to add a very large tree somewhere in the Great Forest, visible from one of the main roads (and maybe even from Chorrol, with AEVD enabled and such). The quest will not include quest-markers, so visibility is very important (though it will be about 3x the size of a normal oak).

As for the quest content, I will say only it is based on the Shadows of Mirahan comics series and will involve, darkness, drama and lots of death dealing! Any suggestions coming from DD fans (or not) are very much welcome, especially ideas on how to blend the DD story into the ES lore.

That said, I'm back to work!

Cheers,
PKR.

This looks very interesting. Good luck.

Looks cool so far although maybe the enconter with the Dealer should be in the realm of Oblivion itself, maybe you have to go through all his flunkies before facing him

To me, the death dealer is the essence of strength and endurance. He is an example of the heroic figure that can never be defeated. The hero who never surrenders no matter what the odds. A mod that allows the player to face and eventually defeat him would be a disappointment. A long quest line that allows the player to become the death dealer would be so much better.

i second that!!!

Yup, that's what I have in mind. See the referrence to Shadows of Miranhan. The Death Dealer will be the quest-giver, rather than the quest-target (I plan to make him essential from the beginning). As for the lenght of the quest - I don't know yet how much time I will have at disposal. It won't be as long as Lost Spires, but neither a simple melee a la Umbra. Besides, I like to make the player use his wits rather than muscle, but I also intend to give the player the fight of his life as a climatic ending. You can see this mod, style-wise, as a blending of Gift of Kynareth and Forgotten Shields.

BTW, Exanimis, what went wrong with your horse project? I can try to get it into game, provided it is rigged and able to use the stock horse skeleton (I was probably one of the first to use, for instance, a Xivilai skeleton for a KOTN Ayleid in Gift of Kynareth ).

Cheers,
PKR.
PS: as you can learn by asking around, I don't use this avatar for nothing, nor for a couple of days...

No, I don't want DD to be the enemy - I remember the remorse of killing Umbra, both in MW and OB... Besides, like Exanimis said, the DD is a simbol of the undefeated, a defiant of impossible, bringer of balance between life and death...

looks like it will be an epic of Odyssean proportions...

This sounds very interesting and I love the way that gear looks! I can't be of very much help, but in regards to the tree, remember that very many people use things like Natural Vegetation and Enhanced Vegetation that already make all the trees much bigger. Be sure to make your tree with that in mind!

I still haven't learned enough to place new meshes/creatures into the game. My war horse wasn't going to be part of my mod other that a statue on a cliff side so it isn't that important to me. I have a great deal of creatures modeled and I am concentrating on what I need to get them into my mod. I have spent the last six months learning to model in Blender and now I'm learning to UV map, Paint vertices, weight paint, texture and add collision. I've actually figured out a lot of it with the help of people like Myrmaad, Sickle Yield and JDFan. I should soon be able to put my full attention to creating and animating new creatures. I really wouldn't be satisfied with being able to rig a creature mesh to an Oblivion/Bethesda skeleton.

On a personal note, I am all for anything that helps promote the fantastic art of Frank Frazetta. He has been my favorite since I was a kid and there will be, and are, several "tributes" to him in my Pellucidar project. Sorry, didn't mean to hijack this thread for a little self promotion.

Naaah, I ain't Homer!


Yup, I use Natural Vegetation, so I plan the tree to be 3x bigger than stock trees and about 2x bigger than Natural Vegetation trees (though I didn't measure them proper yet).

What I really need is finding a spot that wasn't affected by Landscape or housing mods, FCOM, etc., so I can place my tree and markers properly... Let's overbid a bit: I'm currently looking at the rectangular area between the Black, Orange and Red Roads, which has Chorrol in the SW corner and Lindai aprox in the center. I'm being extra-cautious this time, as I've had conflicts with some housing mods in the past mods (though mine were older) and I wouldn't want that to happen (yeah, I know most of the people doing housing mods won't care much about this mod, but just about finding the "perfect spot" )...

Well, the first thing to do, would be to check the Unique Landscapes thread (it's currently on the first page), they have links to maps of Cyrodiil with UL-mods marked on them in the opening post.

I have absolutely no problem with you promoting anything related to Frazetta here (actually, please, do so, the Death Dealer statuette is noding at me from my desk ). When I joined the ES forums some 3 years ago, I was actually a bit appaled by the fact that a community relying on a fantasy game knows so little about Frazetta's art. When I released a year ago http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=Mods.Detail&id=6486 for Morrowind (most of them based on Frazetta and Brom art), I was shocked to see many forumers discovered Frazetta only then... (Oh well, I'm still trying to convince my gf that Howard's Conan should've looked like Frazetta's Conan, not like Arnold!)

It's good to hear you are going to have many new creatures in your mod (Pellucidar, right?) and you are welcome to show them on any of my mods' threads, if you want. Btw, I don't understand why you would consider it unsatisfactory to rig your horse mesh to Beth's skeleton - I am aware of its problems, but I am also aware of the difficulty of making one from scrap and getting it into the game...

Cheers,
PKR.

Thanks for the tip! Unfortunately, I looked on the UL thread and failed to find the UL-marked maps... Should you find any, please forward it here...

Nevertheless, there are 3 of the UL mods who are altering the area in question. Since I have no intention of conflicting with any of them, I will contact the authors and see if they can point to a free cell...

Here you go, the UL maps

http://i87.photobucket.com/albums/k140/cthulhu314/ULMap-ReleasedMods.jpg
http://i87.photobucket.com/albums/k140/cthulhu314/ULMap-ReleasedandWIPMods.jpg

Thanks mate! I already posted a question on the UL thread, but it looks like there isn't much room left in that area, except for a small patch north of the Orange Road... However, that should do - will place the thing there once I get also the "blessings" of the UL guys...

No problem

I took a look on the map and I think I may have a good location for you. Its a good spot me thinks, it should be highly visible and easy enough to access.

I modified the http://i390.photobucket.com/albums/oo346/InsanitySorrow/ULMap-ReleasedandWIPMods.jpg, the area highlight in red is the bit I am talking about.

Aye, it looks good (I checked in the CS, it is roughly the area between Anga and Moss Rock Cave), except that it is not technically in the Great Forest (and I want to use that as a cue in the location description). What do you think of the -10,30 cell (close to the Lost Spire #5)? It looks quite empty, no interference with mostly nothing and there are a few huge boulders there which I can easily replace with my tree...

Oh I see, now I understand why such a specific area , sounds like a good place, not sure if it would conflict with Lost Spires since I don't use it, but if so It would be easy enough to patch it. Seems like its the most "free" area.

I hope it is... Lost Spires has a spire about 2 cells away, so it won't conflict, UL seems to leave that area un-altered - now I only hope that nobody thought about placing there a housing mod (although it is not a very nice area for something like that...).

Thanks for your help!
PKR.

Glad I could help.

You have a unqie concept here, I can't wait to see what you have in store for the quest

I've always loved Frazetta's art and it would be very nice to have a quest based on it! Death Dealer is one of my favourite of his paintings, though I never knew there was a comic based on it. I might have to check that out!

EDIT: According to Wikipedia, the comic tells that DD appeared during a war between opposing kingdoms and fought both sides, but disappeared when those kingdoms formed an alliance. Maybe we could tie this into, say, the Cyrodiil/Skyrim conflicts? The Death Dealer would fit pretty well as being a lone Nordic warrior who has fought against Skyrim's barbarian freedom fighters and the Imperial soldiers who oppose them. As a quest, you could have DD send you to kill some Nord vikings invading from Skyrim before they can attack Bruma, but at the same time killing off a party of Bruma guards who are also moving in to fight off the Nords, or something like that. This would be a sort of initiation, though, not the real quest. This would just prove you're worthy of DD's trust to become an ally of his.

For the warhorse, why not see if WhoGuru and Darkrider will let you use a Reclaiming Sancre Tor warhorse? They're the right size and they have the feathers and docked tails. Plus, since apparently Siika is making the meshes for those horses, and he's also making bardings for CHE, he could probably make a barding fit to a warhorse for you.

Also, your helmet has a mask. But in the painting, one of the things I think makes DD look as bad ass as he does is that his face is always in shadow, while the helmet seems to be open-faced. I don't think it would be hard to make those adjustments. I also think the shield should be more yellowish-bronze.

Yup, it was great help, as I've had a long break from Oblivion and I didn't roam Cyrodiil's forests for over a year (except for recently playing the excellent Lost Spires).


Thank you for the feedback! Here's my take, on points:
1. DD's background: it's not a bad idea - in the Shadows of Mirahan series, DD comes as a balance between the 2 warring kingdoms, then indeed goes away, so this might be a perfect parallel with the Skyrim wars. However, I wouldn't put the DD character onto a certain side - he has to be neutral and a bringer of balance between life and death (ie. too much death brings him around to even the sides). So far my scenario is this: you get the story, find the location (see messages above, about the tree, which is consistent with the Shadows of Mirahan story), then go through a series of tests before the previous DD will pass away and your PC will take over. Note that there is more writting done on this character: back in the late '80s - early '90s there was a series of novels (ie. Prisoner of the Horned Helm, see on Amazon for more), which is talking about the story of an individual who falls under the domination of the above-mentioned horned helm... I will use elements from those novels as well, not only the comics, so the story will be in the end deep and believable. I want to throw DD's background back into the Ayleid wars, and maybe connect it to the ancient mer wars (remember how the Dwemer disappeared and the Dunmer got their colour? ). I have yet more reading&writting to do, but there is a lot to say...

2. DD's appearance: his helmet is a tricky one... In the Morrowind version I used an open-face version only, but I reckon it was looking a bit silly, with the nose poking from under the helm... For Oblivion, I plan to release 3 versions: open face, lower mask (same texture as the upper part) and lower mask in shadow (easily done since I kept the lower mask as a separate object). This is for multiple reasons: in the original Frazetta DD paintings (6 total), you can see only a shadow; in all the comics and sculptures (including official ones, like http://www.darkhorse.com/Products/Previews/12-679 or -my other favorite- http://media.photobucket.com/image/frazetta%20death%20dealer%20statue/mcknightc/death_dealerIII.jpg, on which the rest of the outfit is based), there is a lower mask or even a full helmet... As for the other meshes, I'm struggling for the lower body piece, will probably resort to a full skirt, since experiments with other robes went so-so until now. Texture-wise, I am quite settled for what I use. I will not go towards a bronze shade, as Death Dealer I is the only painting that shows that hue, although it is not present in statuettes or anything else, but in the original painting - so I assume it is supposed to be just a yellow light falling on the grey metal (just as the horse is supposed to be pitch black, but in DD I it has a brownish appearance).

3. DD's Warhorse: yes, Darkrider already agreed a couple of weeks ago to let me use Mr_Siika's warhorse, after Sancre Tor will be released (and, since I change the original goal of the mod, I believe my mod will be finished well after his). I am also talking master modeller/texturer Waalx into making the harness and saddle for the horse (he already has some extremelly beautiful meshes and textures).

Cheers,
PKR.

Ah, but notice what I said about his position in the Skyrim wars: he fights both the Skyrim vikings and the Imperial soldiers, and that in my example quest you'd be fighting the Bruma guards and the Nords. If you think that'd be more of him being a third side, I guess he'd make temporary alliances from time to time, then. I picked Skyrim mostly because a barbarian warrior like DD would fit quite nicely in Skyrim.

Nevertheless, you may do what you think will be best.

And on a side note: Is it just me, or does DD have some sort of black furry scarfish-capeish (longer than a scarf, shorter than a cape) thing around his neck in some of the paintings? If so, will you include that?

I understand what you say about the position in the Skyrim wars, it is good for the background story - but fighting the Bruma guards will bring you some trouble, don't you think? I like more the stories from the comics, where he's fighting the undead ("in the quest for Death, he choses Life") - and that can be done very well within the game's frame.

As for the furry cape - yes, he does, I tried something, but it clips with absolutely everything (helm, pauldrons, etc.), so I decided to add just a simple (though leathery-looking) cape (a bit visible in http://s98.photobucket.com/albums/l256/Painkiller_rider/Death%20Dealer/?action=view¤t=PKR_DD1.jpg...

Now I'm off to make that skirt...

Cheers,
PKR.