Mageographic Influences
by Melchior Dahrk
Version: 1.0

Thank you everyone for your invaluable help so far on this project of mine, without your help - especially john.moonsugar and Kir - this would not have come about nearly so quickly, if at all. As those who have been following the WIP thread know, there are still many features planned for this mod. But this release only covers the environmental effects (meteorological, horological, and celestial). Keep in mind this is still a BETA release; I have not fully playtested this mod yet - though other than the listed issue, everything seemed to be working fine for me (but I'm not very good at breaking mods...). So there could be glaring issues which I have missed. Please enjoy this mod in its current state, but provide me with feedback if you run into issues (check the conflicts/issues section here or in the readme for a list of known issues). That is the primary purpose of this release, to iron out the bugs. Thank you for your help everyone!

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/42876609/Mageographic%20Influences/Mageographic%20Influences.rar

“Magnus is the sun, the largest hole in Oblivion, and the gateway to magic.” – http://www.imperial-library.info/content/cosmology

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“At night, Nirn is surrounded by Oblivion. The day sky is the multicolored elemental cloak of Magnus the sun. It changes colors as elemental influences rise and fall. Thus, when one looks at the day sky, they see into the raiments of Aetherius, and stare at magic.” – http://www.imperial-library.info/content/cosmology

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"The variable flow of daedrons in Oblivion streams can have profound effects on the magicka potential of various locations. Magicka use often causes effects on the streams themselves. By reconfiguring the polarity of the daedron fields, it is possible to manipulate and trace the streams in the following cases..." – http://www.imperial-library.info/content/itermerels-notes

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/42876609/Mageographic%20Influences/MGE%20Screenshot%20007.png

The premise for this modification is that Nirn is a mythic ball of matter and magic, surrounded by magical realms which wield influence over practitioners of the magical arts. The quotes above contributed to the conception of this idea.
While this mod is lore friendly, its scope expands on existing lore to create a more diverse magic system where spellcasters can strategize when different types of magic may be more effective based on environmental and racial influences imposed by the magical world they inhabit. Racial diversity is propounded by new meteorological, celestial, and horological bonuses and adverse effects.

One big plus for this project is that even though it has the trappings of an overhaul (which it arguably could be played as one if accepted as such by players) there are no worries of conflicts with other mods so far since the new abilities are handled by global scripts and future features will be executed in a similar fashion.

Part 1 – Weather and Time Effects
This part of MI will add those meteorological, horological, and celestial magical effects to players. Now various times of day, position of the moons and weather patterns will have an effect on the magical potential of a spellcaster. Races receive one boon from their unique mageographic¹ connection with the aurbis, and are inherently inflicted by one bane. The list of effects introduced by this part are summarized in the following tables divided into four categories: Time, Moons Phases, Weather, Racial:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/42876609/Mageographic%20Influences/Part%201%20Tables.jpg

(1) Mageographic: this word only appears once in the Obscure Texts of the Elder Scrolls. It is a Kirkbridean compound word combining “mage” and “-graphic.” The single appearance is in the http://www.imperial-library.info/content/imperial-census-daedra-lords: “Vaernima, Prince of Omen and Dream, shares a special mageographic connection with the Mundus, since mortal sleepers often slip into her realm without any help at all.” Given the typically vague use of the word, I made a general inference that mageographic could refer to any magical connection between the Mundus (world) and the magical realms of Oblivion and Aetherius, and possibly even the In-between Heavens of the Magne-Ge.



Installation
Copy files to the Morrowind Data Files folder.

Conflicts / Issues
No known conflicts.

The first time you use the mod (including with a new character), it’s advised to sleep at least 12 hours, otherwise the scripts quite often won’t kick in properly because of the way they are written. This is a potential open issue to be fixed; though I am currently unsure how to do so without reverting back to the previous script format with 30 second interval checks.

Credits
john.moonsugar – got me off the ground and running with his expert scripting suggestions, critique and troubleshooting

Kir – provided some creative scripts to help improve overall efficiency thereby decreasing potential for performance hit (nearly nonexistent currently)

Bethesda Softworks – for the amazing piece of art which is Morrowind

Michael Kirkbride – for all his swanky lore, Monkey Truth, fan writing, etc. which have helped make the Elder Scrolls universe what it is today

Forum Community – for all the great feedback you all have given me to help flesh out the rough idea I started with

Me – for initial concept, some CS crunching, terrible attempts at writing scripts, and minor testing to bring this mod to you

Usage
I maintain rights to this mod and its associated documentation until I choose to relinquish them; which will most likely occur once I get past the beta phase, but I make no promises. Exceptions may be made, contact me first:
Bethesda Forums – Melchior Dahrk - http://www.gamesas.com/user/483954-melchior-dahrk/

Changelog
0.8 – Initial public beta release: OPEN FOR PLAYTESTING (I’ll just pretend I went through some other tenths before I made this release, thus explaining the jump to 0.8…)