Just want to share some changes that will be a par of version 3. This is a blurb I was working on for the description page, hence the tone.

Interesting NPCs began as a project to bring color and life to Skyrim. However, the early characters were rather modest creations – a direct result of my own limitations with the CK. Over time, as my modding skills have improved, those NPCs have evolved into companions, spouses, and quest givers. Yet as a product of this unusual development cycle, any quest that involves an older NPC may require having met them previously. As I am still unable to create new lands, it may require clearing vanilla obstacles to prevent the possibility of conflicts.

To help rectify this, many of the innkeepers will provide notes directing you to Quest NPCs that are harder to find. Meeting them will ensure you can meet the prerequisites organically. This will result in many small quests whose only goal is to meet the NPC.

For instance, if you start the game and go directly to Zora, upon speaking to her a quest “A Field of Cotton” will complete in your journal. This may seem peculiar to long time users of the mod. New users, however, might first talk to Orgnar, who will give them a note to search Brittleshin Pass. Reading said note starts the quest, finding Zora completes it. This is a huge help in finding Gorr after his initial departure.

Couriers will also help guide you to NPCs when two are involved in a quest. Find one, and a courier will lead you to the other. Another thing I’ve added are filler NPCs that just point you to the quest starter.

This NPC, for instance, voiced by SageHalo, will direct you to two harder to find quest starters. Ytharil in particular is extremely hard to find given the location of her barrow is not on any map. Having a quest marker point the way is extremely convenient. In hindsight, I probably should have used NPCs like this as opposed to the innkeepers, but at least the notes will be less resource intensive.

The other primary changes that need to be noted are thus:

• Duraz is the only NPC who did not make it. She will still be in the Old Hroldan Inn, but as a deaf/mute. “Setstage 3dnpcenable 1″ will turn on her dialogue as well as other silent commentary and conversations with Valgus and Qa’Dojo.

• Similarly, there is also a mechanism to remove NPC dialogue, by setting the quest that holds their base dialogue to stage 500. For example, to remove Yushari’s dialogue, simply type “Setstage DialogueYushari 500″ and she will be a mute. Scenes with other NPCs will remain.

Quest names can be found using the HELP command in the console.  However, essential/quest NPCs cannot have their dialogue removed, as the player may not be aware exactly how much content they are removing.

• If I think of anything else, I’ll update here. There should be increased compatibility with other mods, including Convenient Horses and EFF, in addition to AFT and Simple Multiple Followers.

This is a little collage of the three bards who can play the song, A Warrior’s Life. I asked many singers to get this is on only a few day’s notice, and understandably many didn’t. However, Barrett Leddy, Alice Bell, and Giramor – who also composed the song and for both the bards and Luaffyn’s Band – got it done, and the music in the mod is that much fuller for it.

It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these, but with the mod out of beta I can start working on the blog again. Part of that is doing more actor interviews, particularly with the fine men and women featured in the main quest.

Elisabeth Hunter is relatively new to the mod, but she’s already churned out multiple roles and no two are alike, including Inari for the Warm Sands quest and Falatild for the Blood of Kings Questline. She’s one of the rare breeds who is as hard-working as she is talented, and you all have her to thank for the release coming as swiftly as it did.  Go on. Thank her. By singing telegram preferably, but a nice comment would also suffice.

Here is her interview in glorious text form, and like the previous interviewees, she graciously answered all the questions, not just the stupid ones.

Introduce yourself as much as you are willing. You know, name, location, belly button
type, whether you snore in your sleep.
My name is Elisabeth Hunter. Im from Orange County, California. I have an “inny” belly button. I do not snore in my sleep. I have a birthmark that looks like a dog. I have a “buh-gillian” freckles. I
am a huge foodie, a Seinfeld addict. And I married my high school sweet heart.

Tell everyone a little about yourself, how you got into acting, what your goals are if
any.
I grew up in the theater doing musicals primarily, then continued doing drama and acting/singing competitions in high school. Went to a college and got my BFA in theater. Since graduating 2 years ago, I got an agent, attended GROUNDLINGS improv school, theater has taken a back seat to on camera acting, commercials, and voice over work.

My number one goal is to make a living doing what I love most, performing. Other goals are to be a main voice on an animated TV series or film, land a few big time national TV commercials, be the snarky mom on a sitcom, be on SNL, be on Broadway…I like to have my hands in a lot of different cookie jars.

Would you rather have pointy ears, a tail, or neither?
I feel like both of those features would just get in the way. People would be stepping on your tail, it
might get a door shut on it. The pointy ears could get caught on things and you could accidentally poke yourself.

How did you find out about the mod project?
A little bird named my husband (who is a video game enthusiast) actually told me about mods and found your website that had a list of roles yet to be cast. So I decided to give the roles a
look, recorded an audition and ended up voicing many characters in the mod.

Have you played Skyrim? If so, what sort of character do you typically role play? If not, what kind of crippling addiction do you prefer?
Yes, I’ve played a little bit of Skyrim as a Bosmer, but personally I prefer WOW, Old Republic and Guild Wars. Love the voice acting in O.R.

Talk about some of the larger roles you’ve done – Caylene, Inari, and Falatild.  
Caylene was so much fun to play. We have a lot in common given that we are both performers,
we can be a little annoying/over-the-top at times and like to use our charm to make up for our short comings.

Our one difference would be that I like to think I hold a little more skill in the “acting” department than Caylene.

For Inari, I enjoyed getting to play a voice that is 100% different than my own. I can relate to her getting over emotional and to the frustrations she has with her love. We both love men that tend to be occasionally oblivious, but still would do anything for them.

I loved playing the warrior Falatild. She and I are both strong women. We are not easily trifled with. However, Falatild I think may be a bit more courageous than me, she is a soldier after all…

Does Caylene have any actual talent? Or would that make her less charming?
I think Caylene has a talent for entertaining people. She’s no Meryl Streep, but she can hold a crowd’s attention-even if that means people laughing at her and not with her.

Would you like to do an actual bard in the future?
Yes, I would enjoy doing an actual bard someday.

If you were a zombie, whose brains do you think would be the most delicious and
why?
Mmm, Ina Garten aka The Barefoot Contessa…her brains would be filled with all those yummy recipes of delicious food she makes.

Waffles or pancakes? Stormcloaks or Imperials? A hook for a hand or a brick for a
foot?
Lemon ricotta pancakes with blueberry compote from La Grande Orange in Pasadena, CA. Imperials all the way. Hook for a hand. Death by a thousand cuts and easier to conceal. The brick foot would slow you down when running from enemies, but kicking people in the shins or anywhere else for that matter would be fun.

Outside of this interview, when is the last time you thought to yourself, “This is bad idea” and yet did it anyway?
My wedding. JK JK! Probably any time that I test how far below the red line I can get on my car’s gas tank meter.

You’re walking down the road when you stumble across three eggs. A dragon, a cliff racer, and a gigantic chaurus hunter. Which one do you raise as a pet, which one do you sell, which one do you make into an omelette?
Dragon as a pet. Sell cliff racer. Tomato Basil Chaurus Omelette.

The face of your worst enemy is now on the boxes, labels, and packaging of all your favorite
foods. Do they taste worse?
Nothing could interfere with my tastebuds and their favorite flavors in food…nothing!

What kind of recording equipment and setup do you use? What are some of the
difficulties you encounter while recording?
I use a Rode Broadcaster Mic, a Tube Compressor, and I have a Macbook Air which runs programs such as Adobe Audition and Garageband. The biggest issues are always decreasing room noise and the fan on my computer is obnoxiously loud. So I have to take frequent breaks so it can cool and calm down to be quiet for recording.

Plug any work you’re doing. Where else can people hear your talents?
The next upcoming project where you can hear my vocal stylings will be an animated TV series. The show is called The Adventures of Circle Jerk, an adult cartoon comedy about a sociopath Circle who passive aggressively ruins the lives and self-esteems of all the other Shapes, Symbols and Signs in a world called Semiotic City.

Fig (Anna Castiglioni) and Whig (Incoherencel) are two patrons that are available via the Robber’s Refuge tavern. Simply talk to Ortheim about altering the drink menu, then get the approval of Evette San in Solitude. This will add the more “posh” patrons, just as Black Briar Mead will bring in the adventurers.

In the video, I’ve done a lot of the requirements for adding new folks, so the tavern is bustling with activity. By altering everyone’s schedules, I also think I can keep adding more people without overloading the area. Right now most patrons are there 3 days a week, but that can easily be altered to 1 or 2, with the weekends being the busiest.

With the release of version 3, I want to talk about some of the new quests, which are a bit experimental at times, and perhaps require some discussion. The first of which is Idle Dreams, a quest I’m fond of much in the same way I’m fond of The Paper Mirror, but I’m not sure how well it will be received.

SPOILERS CONTAINED BELOW. If you haven’t played the quest, which is highly likely given it’s new, then I suggest you do that first, as this will make even less sense than it already doesn’t.

***

The word addiction is never meant to be a positive. Regardless of the consequences, it essentially amounts to a lack of control. An addict isn’t an addict because he uses. He’s an addict because given the choice, he can’t say no.

Amicus is an addict, and his choice of drug is a soft pillow and a warm bed. He spends every night and half the day in his own world, and shows no concern for the waking one. When he does manage to open his eyes, he directs them straight at a noble’s coin purse. When you first wake him from his slumber, he nearly throws a fit.  He gets angry at Haelga despite the fact she’s providing him with room and board. Amicus doesn’t care about the needs of others. For him, the only world that matters is his.

When Vaermina turns his gift into a curse, the larger metaphor is obvious. He is trapped within the walls of addiction. However, it’s his self-absorption that manifests itself first, in the form of a warrior coming to rescue him. Like the Falmer in the dungeon, the warrior wears his face, and moreover is Amicus’ betrothed. In this dream, he is literally making love to himself, over and over again.

When this realization hits him, with perhaps an assist from the player, Amicus tries to picture someone other than himself.  Yet all he can think of is Sadrin, who predictably, cares only about Haelga.  In the second chamber of his dream, it’s evident Amicus not only fails to make lasting and meaningful relationships, he can’t even fake them.

In the third and final chamber, Amicus retreats to his child-like fantasy of wanting to be a jester. The clowns once again wear his face, but the larger theme is that of immaturity. Amicus is a grown man who spends all his days in a child’s world. He enables this behavior by stealing from hard-working folks, and yet justifies it by saying his dreams hurt no one. When you speak to him about the doors, he will tell you he never managed to solve the riddle. That’s because Amicus has trouble growing up. He can’t find his way out.

Now, I’ve been asked, and with good reason, about the emotional aspect of this quest, or lack of it. In other words, do we care if Amicus overcomes his addiction?

For instance, in another quest, I gave the main character a wife and a child to add an emotional component to his behavior. That way, even if he continues his current path, the fact that someone loves him provides a measure of tragedy or success depending on the outcome. The player is given a reason to care, if not for the character, for his fate.

So it’s safe to say I took a risk when not doing the same with Amicus. Amicus has no family. He has no friends. He is completely lost in his own world. Which is sort of the point. I don’t know if there’s a reason to care about Amicus, but your concern for him wouldn’t be a solution. In fact, it’s part of the problem.

You see, in this quest the player is the enabler. Rather than overcome his childish behavior on his own, Amicus cheats his way out of the nightmare by enlisting the player’s help. It’s unclear, however, if he even has the mental fortitude to escape, as allowing the warrior to take him will have him shuddering in a corner for the foreseeable future – but I stress that that is a future I’ve left open-ended. It is not necessarily a bad ending.  It’s also unclear whether helping him will cause him to re-evaluate his behavior. He seems intent on returning to his dreamworld, but it’s possible that if he doesn’t change his ways, the nightmares will continue. After all, it’s his self-absorption, his indifference, his dream. He owns it until he proves otherwise.

Do we care if Amicus overcomes his addiction? The real question is, does Amicus?

This is Acidrica bringing the Orc Duraz to life. Duraz is one of the original 10 or so characters in the mod, and the last of 200 or so to be unvoiced. Hopefully. I mean, I don’t want to jinx things here, as we’re still not even halfway through the recording stages for this one.

The fact that she’s still unrecorded tells you something. It should also tell you why there aren’t many female Orcs in the mod. Which is why Acidrica is a special snowflake, and I thank Malacath every night that she exists. She is awesome.

One of the things I’d like to incorporate into the next release is more band options. I’ve figured out how to get the player to join in, as well as get your follower to play along with. The only issue so far I’ve encountered is lag, and if one person lags it’ll throw the timing off for everyone. So I think I’ll have to cut up the files into smaller and smaller pieces so the game isn’t taxed. I’ll fiddle with it some more tomorrow.

So while the pictured experiment was a bit of a mess timing wise, duets seemed to go pretty smoothly. Here’s a video of the PC and Alassea playing Tears of the Hist, a cover by Ronja Monto of Arisen1′s song.

Over the past year and a half I’ve learned a lot of tricks. It’s safe to say if I had to start all over again, Interesting NPCs would look nothing like it does now. While I don’t know if that’s a good thing, a bad thing, or no thing at all, what I do know is that with Dragonborn, I essentially have a clean slate and plenty of toys.

With version 3 released, and version 3.01 cleaning up the last of the bugs, I decided to dust off my old follower Alphena Dren and tinker around a bit. I wanted to design her in a way that allows her to interact with everyone in town, and even partake in quest conversations, especially since so many of the vanilla player choices are limited to a single response. So instead of mindlessly clicking on a sentence, why not let Alphena ask those questions? The following is a concept video of how this would work.

In the first scene, Milore and Alphena chat for a bit while the player stands off to the side and picks his nose.  In scene two, we have a quest starting conversation with Glover Mallory that turns into a three-way conversation instead.

It doesn’t have to be limited to a single person either. Using the same techniques I use for the bards, I can take any NPCs in the room and make them have a conversation with Alphena. The one caveat is I have to play Dragonborn first, and frankly I don’t know if I’ll ever find the time.

TurboDelgado suggested the bard have an option to completely fail at the duet. It was an awesome idea and pretty easy to implement, even without additional voice options. Still all very experimental, but I think it really helps give this feature an added dimension of joy.

I changed the pitch and tempo, then rearranged portions using a cut-paste method to make the tracks. The result is pure, wonderful crap. William S. Burroughs would not be proud. Oddly enough, this would be the first shitty bard in the game, as it occurred to me that Lurbuk the Orc Bard can play as well as anyone, even if his singing is a little off.

It’s likely many players have already met this and other NPCs I want to feature, but I’m way behind on these videos and the actors deserve to see their work.

Similar to Prompt-But-Bashful, Sixby is loosely inspired by a Nexus troll who claimed the mod destroyed his game and could somehow manage to travel through time and infect his older saves. Luckily, this occurred about a week before the release of version 3, giving me ample time to write the lines and SageHalo to voice them.

One of the things I find fascinating about sports is how it’s completely goal oriented. Creativity is a means to an end, but it’s hardly a requirement. The great Yankees closer Mariano Rivera built his Hall of Fame career on one pitch. In his later years, Michael Jordan would make a living going into the post and executing a simple, turnaround fadeaway. Neither of these could be considered original or groundbreaking tactics, but nobody cares how the ball gets in the basket, or how the outs are made. The goal is to win. To win, you need but one, unimpeachable skill.

All you have to do is repeat it.

The same can’t be said for an artist. What comes next can’t be the same as what came before. While athletic skill is built upon repetition – training your muscles to reflexively perform the same task over and over again – for an artist there is no greater sin than imitation, even if the person you’re imitating is yourself. The goal isn’t just to make something interesting, but rather, to do it in a way that hasn’t been done before.

This neverending search for novelty is why I changed Marigoth to a Disney villain. It’s why Ignar the Lucky embraces his odd misfortune whereas Jade can only see it as a curse.

For the character Lundvar, it’s the entire reason he was created.

Whether it was Hjoromir bitching about his sister, or Ingarte being driven off by her father, some of the early NPCs didn’t always have the healthiest relationships with their family. With Lundvar, I set out to create someone who unequivocally loved his brother, and as such, the conflict was derived from losing him as opposed to wanting him gone.

Only Lundvar doesn’t love his sibling the way Zora loves hers. It isn’t complicated. It’s compulsory. His brother is blood, and that makes him infallible. No matter what you say, he lived a great life, and died a greater hero. Lundvar would rather stick a fork in his eye than see the truth. That makes him loyal, and to an extent, admirable. It also makes him blind.

Moreover, Lundvar’s devotion isn’t limited to his brother. He’s your classic jingoist, your banner-waving, axe-wielding, mead-blooded Nord. It’s what blinds him to the rampant corruption of the city, and what makes the narrative of his brother, Defender of the Reach, such an easy sell. You often hear about people altering the facts to fit their viewpoint. Lundvar is the same way. Nords are paragons of honor, and the guardsmen are true Nords.

So when confronted with Wuuthmar’s letter in The Raven of Anvil, it’s no surprise Lundvar struggles to grasp its inherent contradiction. The words are damning, and while he partially accepts them, he still insists on going through his superiors – despite the likelihood those are the very men who betrayed his brother. Ultimately, there is only one answer that will satisfy Lundvar. He wants his superiors to convince him the letter is fake. His goal is to seek the liar’s comfort, a place where the integrity of his misguided beliefs remain safe. For Lundvar, these lies can be true.

All he has to do is repeat them.

One thing that has bothered me for a while now has been Tikrid’s AI. Her character is supposed to be physically awkward but effective, but the standardized animations belie that. She fights normally, she moves normally, as does every NPC in the game. So for the most part, for narrative purposes, I’ve resorted to breaking the cardinal sin, telling you why she’s awkward instead of showing you said awkwardness.

Without being able to alter her fighting style, the best I could do was make her gangly by dropping the weight slider down. There’s also the tan lines I’ve placed on her face – a story I will elaborate on further in v3.01 since most people seem to assume it’s dirt (Basically, when I constructed her face, I thought it’d be typical of her to try on war paint on the hottest and brightest day of the year, and come home with a tan line that stayed on her face for months).

In Darkened Steel, I was able to direct her a little more and have her commit faux pas – knocking urns over, crossing sacred boundaries, and stepping on traps – but she still does them with the same grace that is intrinsic in all NPCs. In other words, she feels a little more clumsy than awkward. After all, she’s bound to the matrix of the game, and the people who designed its animations wanted them to look impressive. For the most part, they succeeded.

However, while explaining this on the Nexus forums, I realized I’ve come across animations that aren’t really utilized in the vanilla game, mostly because they are patently ridiculous. For example, in the video below are the IdleLaugh and IdleGetAtttention – idles that for whatever reason do a head-first dive straight into the uncanny valley.

There are some animations though, that fall in the tenuous space between the impressive and the absurd. Animations that are just realistic enough to simply be, well, awkward. While it’s impossible to change Tikrid’s fighting style, in the next version I hope to add little touches here and there that unintentionally match her character. Given her background as a guardsmen, the IdleSalute and IdleSnaptoAttention actually fit perfectly, and having her stand at attention whenever you speak to her is one way to show her awkwardness instead of telling it.

One of the things that didn’t make it into version 3 was the re-write of Ignar the Lucky’s mage story. In retrospect, I felt it showed way too much concern for his fellow sellswords, and Ignar only cares about himself. So, here it is redone and ready for the next update, with Serithi providing the voice.

As I mentioned before, Ignar was somewhat influenced by Jade, in that I didn’t want another character who felt cursed or encumbered by his odd circumstances. Ignar is someone who embraces his situation, and thinks himself the luckiest man alive, even if the people who work with him feel the opposite.

One of the things I still need to do is get rid of the placeholder audio for the female Khajiit. The original actor who I cast for all these roles is AWOL, so I’ve decided to re-open them all. This is J.T. Decker voicing Zajhirra, the skooma addict in Rorikstead. Really looking forward to adding this to the next version as well as the eventual replacement for Yushari.

Whenever someone is critical of an NPC in ways that are ostensibly subjective, the first thing I try to do is understand why, and perhaps figure out ways to improve the experience. Why do some users hate an NPC that others unconditionally love? Sure, it’s easy to ascribe this to taste and opinions, but that would imply it’s an unsolvable quandary for which I can only toss my hands in the air and curse the Gods for making people different.

However, if you’re like me (for your sake, I hope not) and are unsatisfied with such an answer, there is another explanation. Even if the world was filled with emotional clones who felt the same and thought the same and were in love with the same person, if you think about it, there is still one variable that often changes depending on the playthrough, and could account for some of these varying opinions. Location, location, location. In other words, where you meet an NPC is just as important as what they’re saying.

For instance, when I added daily schedules way back when, it may have compromised your first impression of certain NPCs, especially the folks in Whiterun. Meeting Iria outdoors in the sun results in a completely different mood than if you’re meeting her in the Hall of the Dead. Even in the crypt, if she’s sitting down chowing on a piece of bread, that doesn’t feel particularly morbid. As a result, the deadpan, gallows humor can get misinterpreted.

On the other hand, if you meet her in the crypt first, then see her parading around Whiterun, suddenly it adds a second layer of depth. All right, she’s a creepy, ghoul of a woman, but she also doesn’t mind the occasional walk in the park. So, minor tweaks like the one pictured are aimed to enhance the experience. In the next version, she’ll stay here mulling over a corpse (I considered the open coffin being taboo, but fuck Andurs asks you to kill skeletons so whatever) until you speak with her. Only then will she depart. The same could probably be done for Eldar, although it would be somewhat bizarre for him to run the shop in the middle of the night. Larkspur too will have his initial encounter moved to the dungeon.

Another thing I want to correct is the generic combat dialogue for super followers. Bethesda used generic combat lines because the same files were utilized across multiple NPCs. Since Aela has the same voice as Uthgerd, it’s convenient for them to share the same battlecries.

Conversely, there’s no reason for unique voice types to do the same – it was probably laziness on my part that I had the actors share a list of generic babble. This results in hilarious incongruities like Valgus screaming “Why won’t you die already!” despite him being a healer who advocates peace. The video also shows him heal you at the end of battle, which yes, isn’t the same as him using the spells in combat, but I’ve yet to figure out how that’s done – hence no animation or magicka use involved. It’s solely for immersion.

In any case, these are some examples of what I’m working on as I take a break from quests and new NPCs. I think the mod can always find ways to get better, and not just by adding new content. In other words, it’s more about turning my brain sideways as opposed to upside down. Yeah, that metaphor makes no sense.

Earlier this week I posted a sample of the new song for Alassea, to much rave reviews. Here is Ronja Monto’s original song from which the melody is based. The lyrics for “The Journey” have been Skyrimized and the music simplified to fit the game, but the video demonstrates what happens when the musical Voltron comes together. Watch her form the head.

• Merrigan – Ronja Monto’s Youtube Channel

Despite the fact that I’m taking a break from the NPC making business, I have sprinkled in a few goodies here and there for v3.03. I’ve decided, for instance, to expand some of the early NPCs so they aren’t on rails. Hagravi will be revamped for the next version, with multiple responses to choose from. Hjoromir and Skjarn will have more follower and combat dialogue, Iria will get a slightly less neutral voice, and some followers will chat with innkeepers.

There’s also this guy, who I originally considered making a follower, but there’s enough weirdos chasing you around, so I figured it would work best if the mannequin was, well, a mannequin. He goes to your home and wears your clothes and watches you when you sleep.

I was thinking of giving him a tranquil/HAL 9000 personality so it isn’t all that surprising when he strangles you. I’m sure it’s not the most original NPC idea but cut me some slack I’ve been on auto-pilot for the last month. Preliminary lines are here.

It’s no secret the chairs are soaked in ale. Wet and rotten and filled with bugs. Probably. That’s the theory, anyway. Degaine, for one, is a believer. That’s why he’s crawling on the stone, sniffing the chairs, inhaling their musk.  He finds one that’s damp. Sticky. He clings on to it for dear life. He licks its thorny stems.

Sometimes he’ll get too excited and bite into the wood.  It’s soft, splintery.  Degaine doesn’t chew. Not at first. He clumps them in the corner of his mouth like bales of hay. Then he presses them with his molars. Squeezes out that last bit of juice.

On this day though, his bite severs the chair’s artery. Sweet, golden barley pours out from the wound. Kleppr sighs. The innkeeper only sees a mess to clean. Luckily Degaine’s clothes are made of old rags. Frabbi, Kleppr’s wife, spears his back and uses the beggar to wipe the floor.

The Khajiit doesn’t find this behavior odd. Not after Ysolda told her of the tree. She has cradled it many times, tasted its purple nectar. The tree sleeps. The soul dreams.

A chorus of sneers fill the inn as Frabbi’s mop soaks up the last of the malted syrup. This mop, which once had a name, Dejohn or something or other, was said to be a liar. Perhaps this was so, the Khajiit thinks, but the drink changed him. In the end, the mop was true to his feelings.  It was the ale that made him honest.

When she’s alone with her thoughts, the Khajiit sometimes gets anxious. She wonders if the last time will be just that. Her body shudders. Her whiskers go limp. She tries to say goodbye, but her mouth can’t even form the words. Yet with each breath, all of her doubts are trapped in a chrysalis of smoky white. And when the cocoon tears so does time itself, transporting her far beyond, to a place where she too has lost her name.

In that vision, she finds herself laid out in front of an old hearth.  Her owner, a High Elf, ambles slowly across her pelt, his bare toes wading through her gentle fur. He falls into his velvet chair before falling asleep, counting the crackle of flames as they warm the curved stone. As his body grows still, his grip loosens. He drops the bottle in his hand. It barely makes a sound.

From the lip of the bottle, a milky substance drops onto the pelt. An old friend. And the Khajiit realizes, in this life and the next, that she has no need for parting words. She’ll never have to say them.

Here’s some more stuff for the mannequin. There’s still the occasional weirdness where it doesn’t load in (read: teleport to) the right place, and I’m not entirely sure how it picks what to wear, but I suppose the vanilla mannequins were equally finicky. One thing I think I’ve gotten figured out is how to get the poses to load when you enter the cell, based on your previous selection.

Another thing featured in the video I will likely have to axe is the kill move, as it causes the NPC to get stuck in a drawn weapon stance, which prevents other idles from being played. In any event, it’s coming along nicely.

As part of my ongoing quest to make the mod perfect, I’ve decided to expand some of the older NPCs as well as check in with actors to see if their mic situation has improved. As I couldn’t get a reply from DutchDude, I went ahead and got J.T. Decker to voice the revamped version of Hagravi.

Being one of the original five or so NPCs, Hagravi had a pretty shitty* dialogue tree. It wasn’t so much a tree as it was a goal post.  This, of course, is my fault, because when I started I had no idea what the fuck I was doing.

Now, like most other NPCs in the mod, those posts will branch out into secondary role playing options, and he won’t seem so ancient. Of course, all the new branches will make it a lot harder to kick field goals, but the point of the mod is not to play handegg, but rather to give starving children free ice cream or something like that.

*Of course, when I say shitty, I don’t mean the internet’s definition of shit, which is “imperfect.” I mean  the simulated ingestion of feces.