I'm thinking that the Svartalfar Archmage Banshee art would work much better for the Silkies than as a Svartalfar Archmage. The model does not even have elf like ears, or any legs. It never seemed to be properly animated either, but I'm thinking it looks ok as a ghostly being denied entry to the afterlife rather than an elf.
I'm thinking the model as it is, with the crown/headdress thing, would work well for Maoliosa herself. Perhaps adding a cape or veil could be nice, or just a glow effect like that of Barbatos.
A version without that headdress could be better for the ordinary Silkies.
Neasa should be a prepubescent version, without the bust of an adult woman. I'm thinking it would be better to combine the upper body from the Svartalfar settler_child.nif with the shirt of the archage bainsheesi.nif
I wanted to lighten and desaturate the lower part of the dress, but somehow it seems that the included texture only controls the model from the waist up. I'm not sure where the red and blue on the skirts come from.
I'll probably want a new Dark Elf Archmage model to replace this, something more in line with the Svartalfar Adept and Illusionist art. I can probable come up with something myself from stuff you've already shared. The Svartalfar Illusionist has its staff as a separate mesh so it should be easy to swap out and add new effects to it for its upgrade.
I'll read through everything in a moment. Is this how you would like them separated?
If separating them into separate meshes in the same file like what I attached works, I'll go back through and do them this way. Let me know what is top on the list and I'll do that first.
I prefer it the way it is handled in most of the existing models that contain multiple meshes, but the separated versions you shared (including the second one, where I could at least adjust the size, position, and orientation of the mesh in NifSkope) still float some distance away from the unit mesh when I copy them into a new model. There is not much difference between doing it that way or having them completely separate.
I looked for Bhall Orc and didn't find where that was located. From the screens, I think the model without the flame effects looks better. The lack of flames gives the staff and the halo more attention. They're very good so I think that's a plus.
I had not attached any files, but if you want them here they are
I agree and wish I knew something about animations. I subdivided the tentacle a few times and then smoothed it so that It did not look jagged. That's why the file size is so much larger. If you look at it in nifskope, you'll see it is a large increase in triangles. I'm thinking I might adjust this some so that the tentacles are closer to the body so that they don't stand out nearly as much. That would probably make their being static less noticeable. However, I really don't want the eater's arms clip through them. The animation for the eater brings his arms up to his face which makes that very hard to avoid and is why I have them so far out.
Maybe it is better to just not use the tentacles. Would it be easier to animate the Spider legs instead? The giant spider unit should already have animations. You might need to rotate and tweak them, but could those animations be combined with he Taoist missionary animations to make something that does not move as a static block?
Hmmmm, I need to look for something that could be attached to the top of a staff then that might be more fitting. I don't recall reading about Sucellus returning prior to your mod. All I can recall is that I believe Mulcarn killed him when they fought. I think Cernunnos stepped into the void that his death created?
If you missed the resurrection of Sucellus then you must have missed most of the lore that was already present in the original mod. It has been defining event that began the Age of Rebirth since before the first release.
During the godswar and age of magic, each evil god had a good god most responsible for holding their enemy's influence at bay. Bhall was the strongest of the gods (or at least the most able to act freely due to having the most worshipers) while her enemy Mulcarn was the weakest.
When Bhall fell, however, Mulcarn was unopposed. This made it easier for him to get the Illians to complete Trenton Majosi's ritual and summon him into Erebus.
The other gods then met and chose Sucellus, the God of Nature, as the new god responsible for balancing out the sphere of Ice. He too entered creation to try to stop Mulcarn, but he failed. (I don't think this would count as a violation of The Compact, as the gods met to give him a special exception from the rules in order to stop Mulcarn, but the fact that he was able to be killed while in Erebus perhaps means that 19 gods were not able to fully overrule a decree that was agreed upon by the gods of 21 spheres.))
Mulcarn broke his body into seven pieces and buried them deep in the frozen ground far away from each other. His spirit passed into the Otherworld, the realm of Arawn, the same as would the soul of a mortal whom god claimed and took to a different vault.
Nantosuelta loved Sucellus and recruited Kylorin to gather the pieces of Sucellus together so that she could resurrect him. The last piece of Sucellus was guarded by Mulcarn himself. Kylorin retrieved it after using the godslayer to destroy Mulcarn, and then brought it to the Tomb of Sucellus just before Samhain.
Arawn needed to die and be reborn on a regular basis in order to properly embody both the spheres of Death and Life. (He did not need to do this before taking the sphere of Life from Nemed, in order to allow the original God of Life to become the first human.) He killed himself with the Ending Stone/Opalus Mortis on the night of Samhain each year and was then resurrected by the Font of Life/Adamans Animans the next morning. In the time between his death and resurrection the veil between Erebus and the Otherworld was weak, so spirits could slip through most easily.
The priests of Sucellus claim that Arawn recognized that Sucellus would make a better God of Life than him and so gifted him the Adamans Animans in order to allow himself to resurrect and ascend. The truth is that Sucellus stole the gem and the sphere against Arawn's wishes, leaving Arawn so broken that the sphere of death was vulnerable to being usurped by a mere mortal.
(That was Laroth's plan, although in Kael's newer retcon Laroth fails and then Auric succeeds, after previously ascending to be the God of Ice but then being killed and banished to the Otherworld by the Netherblade.)
Basium hates Sucellus for this. He had often asked Arawn to give him the Adamans Animans so he could use the sphere of life to fight demons and heal the world's corruption, but always been denied. He had no respect for "The God of Daisies," a god who failed where a mere mortal later succeeded, a coward and thief who allowed Basium's creator to die when he could have healed him. Basium may also blame himself, as he was created with the purpose of guarding the Font of Life but chose to abandon his post in order to continue the godswar.
The pieces of Sucellus were formerly said to have become eggs from which each of the 7 Phoenixes hatched, although Kael more recently changed the Phoenixes to be the 7 Aspects of Life (the greatest Life Angels of Arawn other than Basium) and has Sucellus grant one to Arendel Phaedra and one to Immanuel Logos upon the signing of the Compact before leaving Creation behind. This strikes be as extremely odd, as Sucellus was god of Nature back then and should have had no connection to Arawn's Aspects of Life. I prefer the previous version of the lore, or some compromise where Arawn's Norns were formerly Aspects of both Death and Life, the Huntsmen (Cernunnos's Seven Aspects) were created by Cernunnos upon his ascension, and the Phoenixes were originally a different sort of Aspect of Nature (Perhaps The Seven Seeds?) that upon his resurrection transformed into eggs of the Phoenixes.
The sphere of Nature was in a horribly broken state during the Age of Ice. Cernunnos did not stay in the Wildlands (Sucellus's vault) to try to fill his role as the new God of Nature during that age, but rather lived among the Ljosalfar to protect them from the ravages of the long winter. He did not become God of Nature until Sucellus gifted him his old sphere and old vault, as he found that he could not properly embody both spheres at once and his resurrection had changed his nature such that he was a better fit for Life instead.
(In Kael's most recent lore document, which I am not supposed to share, Basium eventually seems to accept Sucellus's role as the new god of life. This is at the end of the Age of Ruin, after Arawn is gone and Auric has taken over the sphere of Death, after the Matronae have wiped out other religions, after Belphegor (Son of Bhall and Agares) raped Cliodna, corrupted Sarabride, had her destroy the Yggdrasil (the world tree whose roots are in the Wildlands, the vault of Nature, and whose branches reach to the Infinite Garden, the vault of Life), give the Heart of fire back to Bhall, and let Bhall subjugate Agares to become the new Queen of Hell. The whole world would have been destroyed were it not saved by Gabella the Lightbringer, who in previous ages had wished the world to end but whose friendship with Cliodna and anger at his friend's abuse led her to instead try only to rid it of such evil. After all this the world Basium agrees to swear an oath to return the Font of Life to Sucellus if the god of life would only lend it to him long enough for him to resurrect the Yggdrasil and heal the broken world. He keeps this oath, but first creates the sword Apricus to be the greatest weapon against demons that could ever be wielded by mortals, and only by mortals.)
I have always seen the Elohim as an aggressive defense. That probably has as much to do with their world spell as their lore. I have imagined them as holdouts against more aggressive neighbors and as sanctifying their homeland / territory to keep the conversion to hell at bay. What about removing Guardsman from the Bannor and giving that to Elohim? Reducing monks to mysticism could be very good for them and lore friendly. That sounds like a very good change for them to me.
I'm planning to change the Sanctuary world spell to require Brotherhood of Wardens instead of Elohim. The Warden of the Weak and Tristan the Ring already have Defender. The Elohim already have Homeland. I don't think I want to take anything away from the Banner to give to them.
If I give the Elohim free promotions based on unique features, should that apply to all units or just specific units (like monks or Pilgrims)? How much free xp is enough, or too much? If I ave +1 xp per unique feature, that could mean up to +33 xp if they control every unique feature. That seems like too much. Maybe it should be a random number of XP up to one per unique feature?
Canonically the Order of the Elohim was originally founded to take care of the victims of the Godswar, but upon the signing of The Compact Sucellus tasked the head of the order with taking care of all the holy places of Erebus. That explains their connection to the unique features. The Sucellus connection explains why they start with Life mana (although Nature could also work as they were tasked before his resurrection). I'm not quite sure why hey start with Water. I'm thinking I might change their 3rd mana type to Metamagic, as they do a lot to preserve knowledge lost to other civilizations.
Can you think of any other world spells that might fir the Elohim civ better?
How do you think the Eternal Cabal ought to be founded? Should I still let the Sidar build their Shrine of Arawn without a religion prereq and have it spread it? Should it be unavailible without them in the game? The religion seems to have a canonical link to the Elohim as well. Would it detract from the Sidar too much if I let the Elohim also have he Tower of Mortality replacement for the Tower of Necromancy, and let that found the faith? I'd consider letting any player choose between Mortality or Necromancy, but I think that would require having two separate building classes and it would he harder to let either one of them be prereqs for the Tower of Mastery without requiring any player to build both.
The Grigori getting the scourge promotion makes so much sense I'm a little annoyed that I didn't think about it. I also just realized that the Code of Junil in your mod will give the command 1 promotion. Something similar for the Grigori plus scourge could work. Is there anything that could act like slavery for the Grigori? Defeating a disciple unit has a chance to create a worker maybe?
I was thinking of giving them Scourge 3, which is currently only available to Matronae units owned by Matronae players, and grants +100% combat vs disciples and +100% combat vs the Divine promotion. I'm thinking I may also give the promotion magic resistance, resistance to various damage types (mostly holy and unholy), and a chance to capture units. I could also make give it immunity to the Divine promotion, preventing them from having the spells. I might rename the promotion something like "Agnostic" or "Enlightened."
The Grigori should not practice slavery. They believe in religious liberty, including the freedom of priests to preach their religions so long as they use neither force nor fraud to abuse their followers or make them abuse others' rights.
I'll have to devour those links and lore so that I know more about these things. So much of what you mentioned is new to me. This is pretty exciting as my knowledge of FFH stopped when the mod did. If there are any other links, please send them so I can read more.
A lot of lore has only been revealed on the Fall from Heaven sub-Reddit.
19 days ago someone did the work of compiling links to practically all of it.
https://www.reddit.com/r/fallfromhe...t_though_all_available_ffh_lore_and_compiled/
The Hippus being able to gain the loyalty of mercenary units seems very fitting and also very powerful. This sounds like variation on what happens when the Avatar of Wrath appears. I had a game once when I spammed my neighbors with order acolytes. The Hippus converted to the Order, built the Mercurian Gate, and proceeded to crusade against evil. I was pretty stunned when a message came up that the Hippus were taking Doviello cities on the other side of Erebus. That being said, their being able to gain the loyalty of mercenary units could be very nasty.
I think of it more like For the Horde than Wrath, but it still seems pretty nice so long as you can get other civs to hire enough mercenaries.
The current world spell of Warcry is probably one of the best (giving all your units the Warcry promotion, which acts as Blits, Mobility, etc), but I think it would better for the worshipers of the God of War and/or those who follow an Aspect of War. I already have the Aspect of War randomly grant Warcry to the unit itself, so extending that perk to the whole civilization seems nice.
I am leaning towards giving every religion and every civ its own worldspell, but forcing players to choose only one. Most of the existing world spells seem to fit religions better.
Motherlode is definitely for the Runes of Kilmorph.
I added a new "Delve to the Underhome" spell for the Khazad, giving all their current dwarven units Mountaineer so they can cross mountains.
Sanctuary is definitely best for the Brotherhood of Wardens. I'm still trying to decide on what is best for the Elohim themselves.
Training blooded werewolves would be a lot of fun to explore. The lore behind Duin and werewolves has always been interesting to me. Even just playing this as a game, building Duin has always made me wonder what I was rereleasing into the world.
Would it be better to let the Sons of Discord train blooded werewolves directly, or to let them take Lycanthropy as as normal promotion with that unit religion (and maybe state religion, if I let it be adopted as such) prereq?
Let me check and see what I can do with a lamia and an infernal beastmaster. I only recently noticed the lamia model. I had been thinking about toying with it to see what could be done.
Thanks.
If they don't mesh well I could just try a reskin of the Colubra, which uses the same snake tail as the Lamia but has a cobra head and a more muscular and scaly torso even if it still has a mammalian female chest.
I was thinking there was not much we could do with it because NifSkope always crashed when I tried to load its maar.nif or maar_sword, but I just found that maar_no_sword.nif will load.
However, with maar_no_sword.nif the pauldrons are transparent and show the terrain behind the unit instead of using the player color as maar.nif does.
edit:
I just added a flaming sword (the Seraphim sword), a shield (a reskin of the Crusader shield, showing the Ember Legion emblem instead of The Order emblem), and a candle effect (copied from the Seraphim sword) on the tip of its tail (reminiscent of the Pokémon Charizard, Charmeleon, or Charmander)
I went ahead and included a screen shot of this female Salamander and her files too, and am image from the Bestiary that Kael placed next to the Salamander entry to give you an idea of what I was originally aiming for.I'm still thinking I'd like the torso and head of the infernal beastmaster more, but you could take the tail from the file I'm uploading and keep its flame effect if you like.
