[WIP] Shalidor's Heritage & Arena's Lost Settlements

[Altbert]

Floating Island of Legends will take more time. Lots of navmesh on the surface has to be done (some nine cells). I also want to make some changes to the AI packages of the NPCs on the island and the well door on the surface. My "Golden Dragon" gets a habit of resting on the well preventing me to get up to the island. But this all has to wait until the navmeshing is done, with the help of one of my testers who is doing an excellent job of the navmesh. This evening installed the latest version.

In the mean time I'm working on two other mods: Shalidor's Heritage and Arena's Lost Settlements.

Shalidor's Heritage is all about finding a unique and powerful illusion spell, created by Arch-Mage Shalidor in the 1st Era. Shalidor has hidden the spell tome and written a series of riddles to find the tome. However, the series of riddles has been divided into various single riddles, each leading to another location. Each single riddle is given to an elemental mage, which had to be rewritten to reflect the present day (4E 201), thus preventing the mages to find the tome themselves. Only when all of Shalidor's riddles have been obtained, the location of the tome can be found.

Arena's Lost Settlements is a small mod in which I have made an attempt to locate all the lost city-states, towns and villages that existed in the game The Elder Scrolls Chapter 1: Arena, in addition to my guide https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/ ... 2880620387. For those lost settlement of Arena I have used a small pillar with an edged tablet and blue fire on top. Signages are used to indicate the possible location of settlements found in literature or even the inscription on a word wall. Many other locations are known in the game Skyrim, mountains, mountain ranges, forests, valleys, farms, etc. which you never notice in game or even never made it into the game.

[Altbert]

If I'm lucky Floating Island of Legends SE is nearly finished, hopefully just some final testing.

In the mean time I was doing some design work for two new mods, Shalidor's Heritage and The Yellow Books. However, I have decided to combine in one mod: Shalidor's Legacy: The Yellow Books. At first I thought about starting the adventure in the College of Winterhold, but I think Shalidor's Maze in Labyrinthian is a better place. That's were you will find the first Yellow Book, which, like the Black Books, teleport you to another location where the adventure really begins.

[Selene310187]

I'll keep my fingers crossed that the final testing runs smoothly and look forward to your new project.

[Altbert]

I'll keep my fingers crossed that the final testing runs smoothly and look forward to your new project.

Problem is that I will have to start over again, since with my latest update I have changed a couple of scripts, some even with various properties, either added or removed, so that I may encounter the same issues as with removing mods mid playthru sooner or later. But, I have my testmod, which gives me some advantages at lower levels, although for now I will try to continue for at least a couple of hours.

[Altbert]

As I wrote in another thread I had to start a new game to test the scripts of Floating Island. In between gameplays I'm thinking about how to design the ingame interiors and exteriors and the flow of the story of Shalidor's Legacy: The Yellow Books. I started with the interior assets of Rielle from The Cause, but ditched it in favor of the Ayleid styled ruins from Oblivion. It surely needs a labyrinth design, but not like Shalidor's Maze. The player has to make choices based on their level and the items they have in their inventory, and of course whatever they find. Whatever level the player has, enemies will level up with the player without limitation.

The Yellow Books will be a variant of the Black Books and are not restricted to a specific worldspace. I will be using some ideas for mechanics from the 90s game "Tower of the Sorcerer" in which you can bypass powerfull enemies (related to the player) until the player's level is high enough, and some other mechanics (find a key, potion, poison, staff, weapon, armor, etc.). But ... you will not be a knight on a quest to save a princess!

[Altbert]

I've been working on and off "Shalidor's Legacy", in between working on my family history and writing "The Chronicles of Ysmir Sky-Born". I have finished the first part based on The Elder Scrolls Chapter I: Arena, "The Imperial Simulacrum" and am now working on part 3: "The Citadels of the Sixth House (Morrowind main quest line). I have skipped Daggerfall for now, as I already found it quite difficult to invent lines of speach for Arena.

I have renamed the mod to "Shalidor's Legacy: The Yellow Books". Those Yellow Books are infact Dragonborn's Black Books. The player has to traverse Shalidor's Maze in Labyrinthian to enable the first Yellow Book near the word wall in Shalidor's Maze. This Yellow Book will teleport the player to "The Hall of Choices" with 3 choices "The Hall of Fire", "The Hall of Frost" and the "The Hall of Storms". all based on destruction magic. Once these 3 labyrinths have been cleared, and the player returns to "The Hall of Choices" they will have 2 additional choices: "The Hall of Alteration" and "The Hall of Illusion". When these 2 labyrinths are solved (not cleared) the player returns to "The Hall of Choices" they will have 1 final choice, "Shalidor's Labyrinth", which will not be a simple maze but a real labyrinth, even better, the player will receive a spell which will alter the labyrinth: using it may open a corridor, but may also close one or more others. Not quite sure about the ending, but the rewards ... wait and see!