Shadows of Old Shanatar
ShadowLance194

Description
This mod's location of Old Shanatar is a Middledark domain south of Northdark that extends for hundreds of miles and is home to common races existing in Northdark. In "Shadows of Old Shanatar" we are going to focus on some of the more dominant and lost races of the region. The Dwarves in the past had eight mighty kingdoms within Shanatar, but now only one remains. The would be conquerors who war to control this area are the Mindslayers, http://img241.yfrog.com/img241/5470/screenshot1tw8.jpg, the evil Duergar dwarves, and the Kou-tan (fish-race). But that will not last for too long. The once forgotten and original inhabitants of the realm of the entire Underdark is now ready to awaken and take back what was their own.
They disappeared, hid themselves from all that entered the deep, and left their legends and magic for those who craved their power. The feared Phaerim, powerful Drow and even mighty Dragons who polymorphed themselves to conceal their nature amongst the races in the Underdark seek their lost knowledge as well. But once they have found it, they are likely to have found .. the lost of Netheril and not live to tell about it.

Details
Old Shanatar is reached by traveling through the cell of Blingdenstone where the Labyrinth is accessed. Entering the Labyrinth entrance leads you to the south domain of Old Shanatar.
The locations of Ch'Chitl, Melee-Magthere, Tower of Sorcere of which all are partially or completed will be added to this expansion. Sloopdilmonpolop is the major city here in Old Shanatar.
Other possible locations: The Spider Stalkings (Upperdark), Gatchorof (Hamlet, http://img241.yfrog.com/img241/5470/screenshot1tw8.jpg; Middledark)
and the Abyss.

The city of Menzoberranzan, House Baenre, Arach-Tinilith, The Labyrinth, Blingdenstone, Veintaur and Ched Nasad are complete with Sloopdilmonpolop, Ch'Chitl, Melee-Magthere, Tower of Sorcere of which all are partially or completed and on the way.

Progress
A picture is worth a thousand words. This is a link that will show both parts of Old Shanatar and Northdark. You'll notice that Old Shanatar has it's own worldspace and ultimately the Northdark will be converted to the same format.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXfBHUmKs2c

I want to point out a few things on the video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXfBHUmKs2c

1) You begin with seeing a character standing at the entry point to the middledark area where Sloopdilmonpolop (city of Kou-tan) await nearby. In the scene you can see the swaying grass and trees inside this dungeon cell. As the video progresses you will note the cavern ceilings though it is dark, it is a cavern (created to seem like a cavern within a worldspace).

2) Secondly, the water that seems to be a lake is infact the Glimmering sea of the Underdark, but we have closed the worldspace to certain parameters until/if we expand further.

3) This whole expansion is complete and finished with ShadowLances mod, though there are many other things that I am placing inside of it as well.

4) Further in the video, you'll see a couple of Ash fiends. No big deal, but what you may want to pause and notice is that some video shots are done of Ched Nasad. The relevance of this capture is that it shows partial view of the alpha walls I placed in the city. If you are very observant, you can see parts of the floor where it is viewable at what is below it and through some walls into other passages. The reason I changed a lot of the meshes to add alpha to the tilesets (not all of them) is because Ched Nasad is textured with webs and the city in lore is made of webbing, rocks, and all other kinds of material. This gives the interior a more realistic feel for a web city, that which is left behind from the war.

5) The rest of the video shows off how I added MessageBoxes for clues to key locations, sound and visual effects, some creatures that I suspect have not been found, and sample locations and encounters, such as with the Phase spider and how it uses phasing while fighting.

This sounds really interesting!

Aoikani, this is just awesome. Thank you for doing this.

This mod will show a lot of ShadowLance's creativity, for he constructed all of the expansion area. I merely textured it.
A little FAQ on it for those interested.

As of this moment, the mod is 100% complete and can be uploaded for use. But, we're going to incorporate within this mod, the changes being made to the Upperdark, as well as the additions of those things left out in the TRoN 1.1 release.

Bump

Richard :foodndrink: don't get yourself in trouble =^)

Corthian has created some good armor for the http://img241.yfrog.com/img241/5470/screenshot1tw8.jpg race and hopefully is doing the weapons now.




Very nice indeed!

Thanks much for the kind words Aoikani

Just watched the vid, looks cool, but the alpha channels on that web city is [censored] awesome, looks like a totally different game.

I came up with two swords for the Githyanki.

http://img682.imageshack.us/img682/6506/greensteelclaymore.jpg

and

http://img21.imageshack.us/img21/8544/silvergithsword.jpg

That is absolutely awesome Corthian, you must be pretty up to date on their lore. I'm out of town right now, when you send the stuff to me, I'll return a plugin back to you to check out and get some more ideas for them. If needed.

As the bandits and marauders are used in Tamriel, I think the Gythyenki should be used in like manner through the domain of Old Shanatar. Random encounters, small quests, though they will be much tougher than the Black Bandits and Marauder bosses on an individual basis.

Awesome job! Really nice texturing on that gith silver sword btw. You really put out quick and amazing work

Here's a http://img594.imageshack.us/img594/4717/tescapture12.jpg and comparison of the Gythyenki done months ago.

I just finished a little something. I don't suppose there is room for a rogue Modron in the Underdark?

http://img641.imageshack.us/img641/7038/modronpic.jpg

This is really just a test for new uses of TheTalkingToaster's scalable skeletons. I didn't think it would turnout nearly this well.

I suppose we could, but it would most likely have to be an outer planar quest

I was talking to ShadowLance or InsanitySorrow, don't remember which, about creating an outerplanar cell for a quest. I think it would be more accessible from the Abyss where there would be more of a good chance of acquiring portals to that realm. The good thing about that is, within the domain of Old Shanatar, there is a huge open domain to the Abyss close by.

Cool pic, though it would have to be from mechanus right?

Yeah, I would love to use it for within a quest. Who know's, would really be a cool companion or party guide?
I bet I could find a great voice actor for a talking box :rofl:

Update on Underdark version 1.1 conversion to version 2.0:
The main cavern where Blingdenstone resided and the connecting cell of northdark where the deep pit and Kou-tan's occupied the depths, is now converted to worldspace. I'm beginning new texture settings design now.
If you have missed on what's happening with this conversion, then I'll give a short recap. As seen in the 1st post, the youtube video presents Shadows of Old Shanatar in it's own worldspace that will now allow fast travel to a dungeon of epic scale, new races, live environment within a cave that has ceilings (swaying trees, breezes, moving grasses and all in total darknesss), large sea (the glimmering sea), new creatures and new quests.) This realm is 100% complete, but the underdark (TRoN) - the parent mod, is being converted to the same format. It will still have Blingdenstone, Ched Nasad and Menzoberranzan but may seem just a little different in flora. No, a lot different, but the caves will be the same design in their tilesets. In otherwords, the original tileset layout will be exact, but the flora placements will be different. So it will be a different experience, though all roads will lead to the same destination as in the first mod. Only 2 cells are affected as of now, the two main wilderness cells. Menzoberranzan may or may not receive this conversion.

Nice, is it tough to do? Hows that progressing?

No, converting is easy enough. Duplicating and modifying texture settings for the region is a bit more time consuming and tedious. But it's progressing. I'm working on Kielanai's addition into the settings at the moment.

:brokencomputer:
Couldn't figure out why my settings were not working, then I noticed hmm, the nif's are not centered for a lot of flora. So, I'm making repairs for all off-centered meshes with Nifskope for the Kielanai Flora resources.

I made a new Gith Dagger and retextured the green steel claymore. I have been beginning to try high poly models for use in making normal maps and things have been turning out well. Also I modeled a new creature, the Chitine, they are the ones making all of the Web buildings.

http://img651.imageshack.us/i/githdagger.jpg/

http://img683.imageshack.us/i/greensteelclaymorenew.jpg/

http://img718.imageshack.us/i/chitine.jpg/

Truly fantastic work Corthian!

awesome work on all! How does that 4 armed critter animate? look okay?

Well, the Chitine are a pretty docile race, more likely to avoid conflict then fight, so I didn't worry about fighting, the arms just kind of hang there. I am thinking of making a few more underdark creatures. Next will probably be troglodytes, and maybe some more large slow non-aggressive types. When you are made of stone and only worry about eating more stone you don't really think about Ithilids or Drow.