Lucia

Thanks!  I'm working on finishing the writing right now before I start coding.  (Speaking of which, thank god for tutorials -- still easier than coding some HTML or even NWN though)  I'll probably release a bare-bones version first, SoA only, since I haven't started on ToB yet.  Here's what's done so far:

All Bioware NPC banters - 3 apiece (although certain others have one or two more)
Intro Quest (required to have Giselle join you)
Giselle's Store Dialogue (including Key, her assistant)
Joining and Leaving Dialogue Trees
6 Giselle Initiated Banters With the PC
Basic "Chat Pack" (IE, "What do you think of ____ party member?"  "What should we do now?" ect)
3 PC Initiated Chats About Giselle's past
Frum's Evil Quest (complete with Frum's small chat-pack and one banter apiece with Bioware NPCs)

Small question about interjections:  I've read a lot of reviews of other mods, and it seems to come right down the middle as to how much people think is TOO much for a chatty NPC.  Would you generally prefer it if she only commented on major quest related conversations, or do you want a chattier Giselle?  I don't want it to seem as though she always needs to throw her two cents in.

I've also started roughly sketching out some conversations with some other fan made NPCs (helps to relax me when I'm going through other seemingly endless dialogue trees).  Is there anyone in particular you would like to see Giselle banter with?  I'd have to get permission from their creators, but if I can, I'd like to include a few right off the bat with her release since so many people have other NPCs in their party anyway.  She will make vanilla comments about several of them (the ones I've played) if you ask her about them directly, but so far she doesn't actually speak to them.  What are some of those NPCs you can't live without, and who would you like to see Giselle chat with?

Also, is there anyone out there who wouldn't mind making me two custom item graphics somewhere down the road?  I'm really horrible in that department.

Hmmm.  I can't believe I hadn't thought of that.      Maybe, just maybe . . . I don't want to leave anyone out.  We'll see how this first batch of coding goes before I go "HEY!  You know what would make this EVEN BETTER?  MORE things I don't know how to do!  That'd be AWESOME!"  

*grin*

You've got it.  Giselle only has one quest that's "hers".  The two others, based on alignment, are offered to you by people who know her.  So really, if you wanted, after you'd had the quest offered to you, you could kick her out of the party if you wanted and still complete the quest.  Like Choo Choo has pointed out, the player is the spotlight of the game, so Giselle is, at heart, an NPC designed to allow you to really role play your character to your heart's content and open up new venues for you.  

Spoilers about the quests, for those of you who are interested.  These are general run-downs of the premises, and although they don't give everything away, if you want to have it all a surprise when the mod is released, don't look!

The Good Alignment:


The Evil Alignment:


Giselle's Quest:

Hey! Good luck with this. It sounds like she'd make a fun addition to the party. Keep letting us know how she's turning out -- your progress gives all the rest of us clueless first-time modders hope!

1)  Sounds good.  I hadn't really intended to change too very much on it anyway.  

2)  Noted.  I'm used to playing the older NWN modules where that sort of thing is the norm, but I can understand how it can get annoying when that isn't occuring anywhere else in the game.

3)  Here's some more, a bit of a longer version that still leaves some of the more important aspects of her past to be discovered later.  Some of this you can find out more in depth in the game from Giselle herself, and the rest you can cobble together from speaking with people who know her, when you run into them:
  Although Giselle would claim she doesn't even remember when she is originally from, simply tracing the trail of her past back as far as you can will eventually lead you towards Waterdeep.  Although she displayed some small innate magical ability at an early age, her parents and tutors were quick to advise her to keep it under wraps, doing their best to impress upon her how sorcerors were generally out of control, destructive creatures (well, that was the view they had back then, anyway).  
She left home fairly young, around fifteen or so, not due to any tragedy or falling out in her family, but out of a desire to simply see more than the one-dimensional people she was used to encountering around the noble houses her family frequented.  She managed to plead a ride out of a passing merchant's caravan, and although he would claim that when he awoke the entire morning half of his lightest, easiest to carry stock was gone along with his temporary guest, Giselle insists with her usual smooth aplomb it was a gift.  
However it was obtained, it served as the foundation for Giselle's financial endeavours;  first on a simple clapboard table in the marketplace, then a stall, then finally out of the back of her own caravan.  By all accounts she was a successful businesswoman for several years . . . at least successful enough to fund her tutelage under a more experienced sorceror who felt rather differently about her abilities than her family did.
Since then, she's spent much of her time travelling, often straight into the midst of conflict . . . or, as she calls it, being in the right place at the right time.  Depending on who you speak to, and the sides she's taken, her reputation is vague at best.  While she has never actually been involved in anything that would call for her capture or execution (at least, not that is publicly known), nor has she ever single-handedly stopped a war or saved a village, there are those who would either damn her or sing her praises.  Even more who had no idea she was even a factor in it -- Giselle likes to keep herself quietly in the background whenever possible, an accessory rather than the sword arm itself.  So far, she's come out of it relatively clean and unscathed.  But even she knows there will come a day when she will ultimately have to choose a side in a conflict once and for all.  It just depends on your actions what her stance will be.

4)  Her stats are a little sketchy right now.  I don't want her to be one of those insanely overpowered characters.  But here's a sort of rough outline I was leaning towards.  STR 10, DEX 12, CON 13, INT 15, WIS 12, CHA 16

5)  I'd planned on it.  That was basically just a rough idea I'd posted, since it basically fits the image I'd always had on her.  When I have all the scripting done, which is the important bit, I'll see about the portrait.  Rest assured that's not the final one, just an example of a person who looks like what I imagine her to be;  I want Giselle to look like she should actually be a part of the game.