It occurred to me one day that when swimming around the waters of Vvardenfell, there's really only three things to worry about: drowning, slaughterfish, and Dreugh. Drowning is easily avoidable, slaughterfish are of course just plain annoying to anyone who's not a noob, and Dreugh don't show up until later levels, at which point they're likely to die in one blow, maybe two. Now of course there's mods already that address this, but, to be perfectly honest, not really in a satisfactory way for me. I'm no lore-head, but I prefer not to be swimming around Azura's Coast and come face to face with Jaws, not because it would be scary but because it would just take me right out of the game.

In come Melchior's http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/fms/Image.php?id=81846.

Now of course, just putting them into the leveled lists and calling it a day, isn't good enough. Not by a long shot. My plan is to fully integrate the Sea-Cat into the game, make it a part of the ecosystem, the economy, an important part of life in Morrowind. By the time I'm finished, my hope is for the player to feel as if these strange and fearsome creatures have been in the game all these 8-9 years.

What I intend to include (so far):

+ Three different categories of Sea-Cat: Youngling, advlt, and Elder, all of different sizes, abilities, behaviors, appearances (the Younglings will be darker-colored, while the Elders look like how Melchior has them, with the advlts somewhere in between), and numbers.

+ Ingredients and sounds for all three types.

+ A number of Sea-Cat farming operations (some legal, some illegal), all over Vvardenfell.

+ NPCs (vanilla and modded) who can tell the player about Sea-Cats (their lore, legal issues, where best to find Elders, etc.).

+ Sea-Cat dens placed all over Vvardenfell, where you'll find families of them.

+ New interiors/exteriors, and possibly small landmasses where multiple Sea-Cat families congregate.

I'd also like to make some scripts to control their behavior more intricately, especially as it concerns the differences between the types, but of all the things I could do with this mod, this'll likely be the most problematic. At the very least, I'd be satisfied with having them head into their dens when Masser and/or Secunda are out. We'll see.

EDIT: Sea-Cat armor would be fun to include as well, though I'm personally not so great with that.

Tell me what you think.

needs new textures. 3 sets in fact. showing aging. and a blighted one for good measure.

The aging is displayed through the lightening of their flesh (kind of like how hair grays over time), and they're immune to Blight disease, not because I'm lazy (hell I could get someone to do it for me anyway ), but because it's part of the allure behind harvesting ingredients from them. Like I said, I want deep integration with these things.

Ooh, armor'd be good too. I'd need help with it though, at least if I'm going to get this mod done in a reasonable amount of time. Wonder if Melchior himself would like to get involved...