67 replies to this topic

[Tempest]

Tempest: Now you've done it... should you ever get to the point of writing crossmod material, I think we'll have to keep a discrete distance between these two and Darian-Tal's character concept wraps pretty much everything Darian finds offensive into one package. Again, absolutely no offense to you and I certainly don't mean to discourage you! I just get a little carried away with things...

Note to everyone else: I am sorry if this sidetracks things. As I have stated, I tend to get carried away with things. And blame Solstice for bringing up Darian's reactions in the first place-it wouldn't have occured to me that Darian would think anything about Tal if no one had said anything.

Sariss: And to be perfectly honest... dem's fightin words!

Darian: *To Tal* You are not an Avariel, filth-much less one of the Menel'Quessir. You have no conception of what it means to be one. Merely having wings is of no importance-ask any elf, or whatever vermin you come into contact with, who has acquired wings of flying. You are as deluded as Aerie, thinking wings are what distinguishes the Menel'Quessir from all others. What it means to be an Avariel is quite beyond you, wretch. Anger and contempt are perhaps irrational responses-filth such as you do not warrant as such. But I have never been accused of being a terribly rational individual. So go on, sell yourself for paltry coin. You are a perversion of everything that it means to be one of us-a group to which you do not belong.

Xarana: I think this is more venom than you have in your entire SoA material put together. The only person who comes remotely close to getting a fusillade like that is Elhan...

Darian: I am not yet finished. This wretch has a demon-blooded individual coming to his aid? Likes attract likes. You can call me a "jackass" all you wish. As you intend it, such a term is both warranted and appropriate. Are you perhaps a customer of this filth you defend?

Xarana: *Looks pointedly at Lonnie* You are an abomination of nature, and your friend is no better. This civilization you depend upon will fall, Athkatla will burn, and everything you hold dear will be swept away in the flood. Those who make their living off of society, such as your whore friend, will perish along with all others who would defile nature. You do have a place in nature's grand scheme-namely, about six feet underground. Assuming there is anyone left to bury you. Which there may not be, unless you submit to nature and the Frostmaiden's embrace. Such is the way of nature. The weak die off to make room for the strong-what else does civilization do if not protect the weak? Some say green is the color of nature. They are wrong-it is red. Blood red. I am giving you your choice now-with whom do you side? The weak or the strong?

[Solstice]

Erm, cease fire, please! I love Darian, and I think I'm going to like these guys, so let's keep things civil, k?

[Clarion]

TAL: (laughing hysterically) Oh my, you two are priceless!

LONNIE: Pricelessly dead, I assure you. Words mean nothing when someone has no head to say them with...

TAL: Lonnie! There shall be no beheading! Why take their lives, when they know not what it means to be alive to begin with? Would you that someone deny you the chance to live? To Darian and Xarana, I charge you not to judge what I am until you understand what I am, for to judge prematurely makes both of you look petty, and foolish, lacking of the depths I know you have. To Lonnie, I charge you not to judge them until you understand them, for judging them prematurely makes you sound equally the fool.

LONNIE: Are you sure you're not a priest, 'phuzzy? I swear, that sounds so annoyingly preachy.

TAL: The words of my sister, Icaria, and you would do well not to insult her, friend. Dear Xarana, strength is a weakness within itself. I shall side with whom has the wisdom to see this.

CLARION: Actually Talasphir, you'll be siding with the PC, whoever that is. And, because Lonnie apparently forgot to defend himself on this point, he doesn't swing Tal's way, and never has. Lonnie has every respect for Tal's sexual preference, but he still appreciates the female form, and only the female form.

LONNIE: Can I kill Xarana now?

TAL: No! Clarion, you may have to change Lonnie's class to Berserker, because if people continue baiting him thus, there may not be anyone left alive soon...he's about to snap.

CLARION: There are enough Berserkers. Lonnie is a kitless fighter, and that's final. There will be no tiefling temper tantrums, Lonnie, and besides, your alignment's Chaotic *Good*, not Neutral or Evil. Punch a wall if you have to. But leave the other NPC's alone, or I will personally throw you in the scrap pile! Whew, okay, maybe this should be limited to "Ask Tal", because Lonnie isn't so very good at reigning in that temper of his:) Actually, this is good for feeling out exactly what's gonna set him off. And, preferably, what to avoid, because I don't *want* Lonnie flying off the handle in-game, except under certain circumstances (talking to his mother, Charname's soul has just been stolen, you get the picture).

Oh, but if you think Lonnie is an aberration of nature, you should see his siblings, all four or five of them. Their mother - their only common parent - has a thing for breeding with unusual and extra-planar creatures just to prove she can, and is not above using extreme doses of magic to get her way. Please, no debates about how over-powered Lonnie's youngest half-brother Xylaaq is for being half Djinn - Xylaaq is eleven years old and not joinable. But if you want to talk strange and unnatural...

TAL: Thank you for side-tracking Lonnie. I think he should be okay soon. I've tried explaining to him that I don't need a big brother, or a knight in shining armor, but what's to be done? Lonnie believes what he believes, and though he doesn't always make sense, it's who he is. Now, I'm only in this prostitution business until I can raise enough gold to get a job. I don't like it, but our bad experiences make up who we are as much as the good ones do, and this definitely qualifies as a bad experience. Please don't keep me here long, Clarion. Well, I left home so I could see the world and make my own mistakes. Guess I got what I wished for.

[Tempest]

Darian: You speak of depth, filth, but even a cesspool has depth. I accept judgement and death by people who do not know me if they so judge me their enemy-do unto others as you would have them do unto you. I kill without warning or mercy, and expect no less in return. I have no desire to understand what you are-you are a wretched winged being, a prostitute, a prostitute who works in a city of humans, and one inclined towards his own gender. You think me without compassion? I am quite compassionate with you-I am perfectly willing to give you a quick and painless death.

Xarana: For once, I have to agree. Nature operates by simple rules, fool-kill or be killed. Eat or be eaten. The strong kill and take what they wish-they survive. The weak complain of misunderstandings and fairness. Nature isn't fair, boy. And in the battle between the weak and the strong, you have aligned yourself strongly with the former. You state that you are in the business of prostitution only to gain gold? What use is gold in the wild, fool? Nature cares not of your wealth, your silly little claims to morality, your unpleasant choices, even learning from bad experiences. You fight for the side of civilization and society because it is only through civilization that weak beings can survive nature's fury. It is a construct, a shell spun by those who know, consciously or not, that they are not fit to survive. And you are hopelessly dependent upon civilization, little copulating bird. You are exactly the kind of being civilization exists to protect.

Xarana: Lonnie, however, shows all I would have expected of one such as him. Do not listen to your friend's words, abomination. If you wish to die, I will be pleased to accomodate you. But you chain yourself to civilization. So continue to bark all you like, Lonnie. *Walks away whistling*

[Clarion]

TAL: Fools will be fools. Naught I can do of that. Not even my Sight can cure that. I depend on civilization only when I chance to be within it. Normally I am travelling, but Athkatla offers some new and interesting problems. What I can say about arguing with you two is that it's like rolling in the mud with pigs: we all get dirty but the pigs like it.

LONNIE: Ha! Nice one, 'phuzzy!

CLARION: Enough! Both of you, if you don't wish to be bound and gagged shall shut your traps immediately!!!

[Tempest]

Darian: And some of us choose not to accept being dirty, and serve principles that extend far beyond the flesh.

Riysler: Cease your childish bickering, all of you. Life is too precious to waste in conflict and feud. Darian, your people are dying and in time you will be but another name in the book of the fallen Avariel. Xarana, you will join your parents, the inhabitants of your home village, and all the other innocents you have murdered in time. Tal will see his sister once again when his time comes. Lonnie, whatever powers your heritage has given you, whatever salvation you seek in drunkenness, your journey in life will ultimately end in death. Life is but dust before the wind, a precious, fleeting time that you should not fill with strife and chaos, for it will be gone before you know it. Ultimately, all things end in death.

Xarana: I think I speak for everyone here when I propose a cease-fire. This is Clarion's thread, and let it remain his.

[Clarion]

TAL: Excellent idea, the cease-fire, except...I'm male, Lonnie's male, but Clarion is a woman. Though, that point is arguable...

Give it a rest, Talasphir. Okay, now that the bickering is over (though it was entertaining), I notice no one has voiced any complaints over their stats. Are there any improvements anyone would like to see? Any special interjections? Any characters (other than Darian, as he's made himself VERY clear) want to pop in and ask a question?

Hmm, no one's asked if they're going to have any custom equipment either. My thoughts are that Lonnie will have a weapon called Equinox, unsure as yet if it's a halberd or a two handed sword, as Lonnie will have some proficiency with both weapons. Hey, if it takes two hands to wield and does major damage, Lonnie likes it. Enchantments and special effects? Well, maybe it'll be of +1 or +2 enchantment, but Equinox won't have any real special effects. Why? Because. Upgradable? Maybe, probably not. If not, just hand Lonnie the Flame of the North when you find it and he'll be happy.

On a side note, don't hold your breath for these guys. Real life concerns mean they will take a long, long time to get here. I'm sick, my mother's sick, and my computer is ornery. But I enjoy reading people's comments all the same, so keep talking at me! I really like hearing what you think.

[Azkyroth]

Working on bios. In my head, at least, because actually getting things down on paper is something I'm not very good at. I'm on Vista because this is my mtoher's computer - I pretty much blew mine up in a wild surge concerning a program for running .rar files.

You managed to kill your computer with WinRAR?

...HOW?!

[Clarion]

I call myself a Technical Wild Mage for a very good reason. I did exactly what the instructions told me to do, and...well, what was once a computer with internet and gaming options as well as more than 2 GB of free memory is now a crippled, hobbling machine with less than 15 MB of memory - after deleting almost all of my unnecessary programs and defragging the system - left, that barely supports Microsoft Word and no longer has internet. I believe it's what you'd call a wild surge. This is why I said I shouldn't be trusted with anything beyond beta-testing, and even that's iffy.

I think my sig explains it some. To be a Technical Wild Mage, you have to do something exactly the way someone else does it, and come up with a wildly different result, most likely one that blows up in your face and is pretty much supposed to be impossible to achieve. WinRAR shouldn't murder a computer, but I've just got that magic touch.

LONNIE: Um, not to quote Xan or anything, but we're doomed.

[Azkyroth]

I call myself a Technical Wild Mage for a very good reason. I did exactly what the instructions told me to do, and...well, what was once a computer with internet and gaming options as well as more than 2 GB of free memory is now a crippled, hobbling machine with less than 15 MB of memory - after deleting almost all of my unnecessary programs and defragging the system - left, that barely supports Microsoft Word and no longer has internet. I believe it's what you'd call a wild surge. This is why I said I shouldn't be trusted with anything beyond beta-testing, and even that's iffy.

I think my sig explains it some. To be a Technical Wild Mage, you have to do something exactly the way someone else does it, and come up with a wildly different result, most likely one that blows up in your face and is pretty much supposed to be impossible to achieve. WinRAR shouldn't murder a computer, but I've just got that magic touch.

LONNIE: Um, not to quote Xan or anything, but we're doomed.

With that kind of set-up, it might well be still under warranty; I would suggest investigating. Failing that, either I or people I know could probably talk you through fixing it, depending on exactly what you did.

And for my own part:

ARKALIAN: Oh for crying out loud! Magical study isn't as easy as I perhaps make it look, so I'd appreciate if the lot of you wouldn't distract me. Darian, your wild guesses are correct: the world contains filth and wretchedness. You do violence to both truth itself and your own credibility in wantonly slinging the terms at anyone whose worldview cuts against the grain of your silly little preconceptions. Xarana, I have no time for your tautological pretensions. You've never looked upon a true abomination, and I doubt any have ever looked twice at you. Riysler, your point is trivially true, but since I'll have to live in - and live with - the world until I leave it, this line of argument is beside the point. Tal and Lonnie... (sigh) don't get me started on you two. Now, if the lot of you are still bickering ten seconds from now you'll be bickering in pantomime for quite a while afterward. I mean it.

[EDIT]Yeah, a little late. Blame United Airlines.

Edited by Azkyroth, 23 September 2007 - 02:24 AM.

[Jarno Mikkola]

Imp: Riysler, I see no wisdom in your words, priestes. "Xarana, you will join(?)... life will ultimately end in death...Ultimately, all things end in death." How can she join anyone, if her life will end in death and all things end in death(also her souls existance). Now I have to ask, if you even believe your own words or are they just a tool to confuse your followers, heretic. As you said:

Cease your childish bickering, all of you.

[Tempest]

Tempest: Oh, what the hell. Mind you, ask me to stop at any time, and I will. I truly do not mean to disrupt or derail the thread-I love a good argument, so Clarion, feel free to shut us down whenever you like.

Imp: Riysler, I see no wisdom in your words, priestes. "Xarana, you will join(?)... life will ultimately end in death...Ultimately, all things end in death." How can she join anyone, if her life will end in death and all things end in death(also her souls existance). Now I have to ask, if you even believe your own words or are they just a tool to confuse your followers, heretic. As you said:

Riysler: I am a priestess? This is news to me. Xarana will join those she has slain in my lord's kingdom when she dies. And I do indeed believe my own words, for I am already dead. This cage of flesh continues on in service to Kelemvor, but the man who once called himself Riysler died a long time ago. Even gods die, little demon. No matter who or what you are, no matter what you have done in life, that life will ultimately end in death. So do not waste that precious time you have with petty squabbling-live life to its fullest, for it will end sooner than you would think.

Darian, your wild guesses are correct: the world contains filth and wretchedness. You do violence to both truth itself and your own credibility in wantonly slinging the terms at anyone whose worldview cuts against the grain of your silly little preconceptions.

Darian: As opposed to your silly little preconceptions? What you see as filth and wretchedness might be pleasing indeed to vermin. We all have our preconceptions. To do violence to the truth is to pretend that you do not have those preconceptions.

Xarana, I have no time for your tautological pretensions. You've never looked upon a true abomination, and I doubt any have ever looked twice at you.

Xarana: To the contrary. I myself am an abomination. It is hardly my fault if you refuse to open your eyes to the truth, naive little girl. Accept it or reject it, your choice ultimately matters little. You cannot stop nature or its servants.

Riysler, your point is trivially true, but since I'll have to live in - and live with - the world until I leave it, this line of argument is beside the point.

Riysler: Alas, you will leave the world in time. At the heart of things, whether you listen to my words or not matters little to anyone, least of all to myself. In time, you will die, and it is then that you will truly understand. My lord's truth is as inevitable as it is inescapable, and so there is no hurry to heed his words. Life is but the process of dying, child, but death is not something to be feared.

Edited by Tempest, 23 September 2007 - 09:48 AM.

[Solstice]

*Holds up peace treaty*

Can I get everyone to sign this. Fun as it all has been, let's all just give Clarion a pat on the back and all the help she needs instead of verbally abusing her npc's, k?

[berelinde]

...I notice no one has voiced any complaints over their stats. Are there any improvements anyone would like to see? Any special interjections? Any characters (other than Darian, as he's made himself VERY clear) want to pop in and ask a question?

The reason nobody's commenting on the stats is that they probably look just fine to everyone. Human nature dictates that folks pretty much only comment when they disagree.

There have been numerous "Ask MyNPC" threads over the years, here and elsewhere. They're useful when the modder is still trying to get a bead on MyNPC, to figure out how MyNPC thinks and how MyNPC talks. After that, they're nothing but a distraction. The modder spends a lot of time answering forum user questions like "How does MyNPC feel about turnips?" and doesn't get a heck of a lot of writing done. Sure, we all need distraction sometimes, but when that distraction takes the place of actual mod work, it's time to rein it in.

Using my narcissistic self as an example, I never did an "Ask Gavin" thread for Gavin, because after 30 years as a PnP character, I knew him better than I know many of my cousins. When Gavin for BG2 starts nearing completion, I'll probably start an "Ask Lynnneth" thread, because I don't know her very well at all.

Back to Clarion, you seem to know Talasphir and Lonnie very well. You are probably quite familiar with their personalities.

Hey, if it takes two hands to wield and does major damage, Lonnie likes it.

That, I like! I'd like to see him have a proficiency in halberd, though, since there are so many cool halberds in the game, and no one to use them!

Anyway, hope RL allows you some time to mod, and I hope your computer survives.

[Neferit]

Clarion, Tempest and the others - stop that dialogs entries! I almost broke my nose! Well, that was really close meeting with my table - damn that laughing of mine

And Clarion - I adore the concepts. Just the image of possible banters make me giggling so hard that I completely forgot all the school projects I have to work on To hell with that damned project about inquisition and witch hunting

[Clarion]

I know Lonnie less well than I know Talasphir, given that Tal's been in my head longer. And, when you think about their ages (Lonnie's like, 34, and Tal's well over two centuries) it's easier for me to give Tal a backstory, simply because there's more room for a backstory.

Neferit, glad we got you laughing, that's the whole point of Lonnie and Talasphir! Just don't break your nose on your table. That really hurts. And don't forget about school projects, 'cause that'll hurt too.

Equinox'll prolly be a sword, with this totally misleading name. Usually items with names have all sorts of really cool special abilities, and here's Equinox, nothing special except maybe it's of +1 or +2 enchantment and it has a name. I was also thinking of giving Tal the Sorrow's Tear dagger from Icewind Dale 2. Magical items float all over the place, and the plot for IWD2 is long since done with, but who knows? That would seriously depend on me figuring out how to import things from another game, though. Maybe I'll just give Tal a boring old staff and be done with it. Lonnie'll still have his halberd proficiency though, so you can ditch Equinox at any time for something cooler, like Duskblade or the Ravager.

Solstice, I really appreciate your stepping in with the peace treaty, but my guys can take a little verbal abuse from other characters. It's nice for mapping out how others are going to react to (very demonic-looking) Lonnie and (homosexual prostitute) Talasphir. Besides, Tal doesn't care if he's insulted as long as nobody aims barbs at his sister - that's the one thing guaranteed to make him mad. But he's absolutely tickled pink that you care Tal Sees a beautiful friendship in the making, I think.

Mmm, Tal's Sight. Don't worry, what he says when he gets visions won't be spoilers unless you've already played the game and know what he's babbling about.

The one really special item I want to give Tal is a crystal ball, Sybill's Orb. It's useless and will just take up space in his inventory, but it was a gift from a friend a long time ago. PC should be able to ask about it, when I get to that part.

Mayhap I should start with the fiction about these two. Might help me catch my brain long enough to write out my mod... Gee, what'd I do to lose so many brain cells? I *used* to be darn smart. Now I feel like Oswald Fiddlebender...

[Tempest]

If it's any consolation, Clarion, Darian only has such an extreme reaction because Tal is a winged elf-he would still be contemptuous otherwise, but wouldn't be anywhere near as vehement about it since he views all non-Avariel as scum unless proven otherwise anyway. And Xarana is a cold-hearted murderer (well, Shadow Druid with a lot of blood on her hands) who doesn't like anyone, save for two particular people, one of whom is dead.

If you want to make a new equivalent to the Sorrow's Tear dagger, even say it's the same one, you can't import it directly from IWD2-just give it similar properties and say in the item description that it was originally from Targos or something along those lines.

Halberdiers actually aren't as uncommon as Berelinde makes them out to be-Sarevok is the only one who starts out with a proficiency in halbers, but I usually place the first four proficiency points Minsc gets into halbers and two-handed weapon style.

If Tal's orb doesn't do anything, no sense having it waste an inventory slot. Just mention it in dialogue as something he carries around with him.

[Feuille]

Actually, I'd much prefer having the orb in the inventory - I think it makes a lot more sense, and it's fun too!

[Miss Sakaki]

Custom items that don't do anything rock, and can add lots of fun. Look at Boo, he doesn't do anything, but Minsc wouldn't be Minsc without him.

[Choo Choo]

I'm siding with both Tempest and Feuille here - keep the orb in the inventory, but don't make it useless!

And this looks absolutely great, by the way.