Artifact of Khenarthi

[raggidman]

While I wos elsweyr it seems things have happened. With all the other artifacts around speed +10 points is a sad gift from a major Goddess, though combining CE 100pts feather improves this considerably. Not happy about calm weather because then the player cannot experience / becomes insensitive to - weather variations = more like a curse of boredom. Aaand we have to see it all in the context of what all the other mods are likely to do.

Remember that this is an apology to an entire people for ruffling their fur.

Levitation - how to begin - again sigh...

If you trawl the Forums everywhere in ES you come up against two main arguments that seem to revolve around a question of taste and attitude to the wishes of others:

- I want to fly or;

- I do not want to fly, so I will ignore the wishes of others (its easier for me to ignore it that way) as I see no reason why others should be able to fly as I do not enjoy it and so it does not matter to me if they enjoy themselves.


It is understood that this also relates to feel for the game and what it should be, but I do not think that anyone ever refused to use levitation in Morrowind, and with the spell being generally available in both the Telvanni and Mages Guild in Morrowind the cat is now out of the bag.

It was one thing to suggest that access to the spell in Cyrodiil was restricted, quite another in other areas of the continent where the Imperials have less control. And even now you will discover that lev has arrived in Cyrodiil by various means - with Bethsoft running the gauntlet of players' disapproval.

The best you could argue is that flyte is a rare phenomenon - hence the Artifact and the value of such a 'small' gift suggested to include teaching the secrets of 'wind walking' and flyte, also = wonderful opportunity for a tiny 'dream sequence' with the voice of the Goddess (including lotsa Goddess-level purrs) as she gives something personal of Herself...

'course I don't want to make things too easy. So let's take a fresh look at the question:

One thing I will suggest in the Common Room is that the player's lev spells and artifacts always cease to work on first entry to a Province previously unvisited by that incarnation, until the player has 'adjusted' by learning the local magica variations, and had any artifact/s blessed by an appropriate diety following the completion of the essential Lev Quest.

Please be realistic - we will lose the interest of a huge percentage of elderscrollers if we totally exclude lev, so the best that can be done is to make it challenging, interesting and carefully collate the Lore surrounding it.

It may be that you do not personally want to fly, but others most certainly do, and the process of dreaming relates the urge to fly with the need for freedom = the freedom of flight.

The converse is that we take away permanently / totally exclude a basic reward that people have often already earned. Just how many potential players do you want to piss off? By grounding the player even temporarily we will lose a number anyway, but ...

Make no mistake about it, flyte is not only a reward, once many people have passed a certain stage they really do not want to give it up. But if they know that they will be able to regain it, they may relent in their judgement. And by starting a player off in each Province without it you have several opportunities to prove to them that they did not really need it after all - not to be confused with totally denying it.

This is a Major Lore country and needs to be co-ordinated so I will copy this before I post and then place it in the Common Room for everyone to consider.

yrs sincerely,
rm

[Hrafnkel]

The main problem being, the whole 'stop levitation spells when you do X" would be a pain in the ass to try and integrate. A large one.

[DarkAsmodeous]

There is much more to the arguement than that.

Flight is also against teh expansive desert feel. I still say it should not be in the mod.

[Silver_leopard]

who remembers the Ring of the Wind from Morrowind? Its description(but not its effects) sounds allot like what you have there. It also was a artafact of Eleswyer.

[raggidman]

Hah, that was one of the few I didn't find... ty, Silver_leopard.

Hrafnkel are you are suggesting that you will not have integrated stop lev anyway? If there is no lev in Elsweyr then you will have to write it out. The real questions will come with ways to reintegrate it - it will have to be integrated in anyway unless you are going to mess with the artifacts and spells that players will learn in Oblivion and the other mods or run the risk of seriously upsetting the huge majority of players... hrug: or prevent people from using their old characters entirely...

The way I suggested is that when you first enter a new Province you lose the all lev effects you have (and maybe other spells) because they do not resonate with the local majica.

Then that you are made aware that you can regain all of them when you fulfil the conditions set down:
- by the mod to learn lev in that Province - those conditions could be a very challenging quest, or just a matter of visiting the local mage guild.

- and once you have done that you then have to get the blessing of the local God or Daedra Prince so that your relevant previous spells and artifacts are adjusted/linked into the local magica.

DarkAsmodeous if the Temple of Kinarthi is in the heart of the Desert and protected by a mirage then completing a flyte quest may not be such a simple thing. It could take a loooong time = loads of expansive desert experiences with the final end-reward being the finding of the artifact, the blessing of Khinarthi and the teaching of flyte to Her people... By which time it may be that even you would be in the mood to take to the skies.

Also there is the question of weather which we have not seriously discusssed. It could be that with the new physics the player will be affected by weather - esp when flying! And that being the case it could be very difficult if not impossible to fly in the deep desert. Sure there are times when the desert is dead calm, but then there are sandstorms, dust devils and such. For example if Kinarthi was not happy about people using Her gift in the Deep Desert for some reason (is that another story coming on?) or it could be that there are creatures that object to flyers - some kind of 'Dust Devil' creature?

So we now have another reason why I want to re-consider the question of giving a calm weather artifact... At first glance it is a useful thing to have, but it does not offer the same possibilities that stormy weather might.

'course it may be that you really all want lev, but you are all playing devil's advocate. hrug: But I am doing my best to give you a solid platform here whatever your unspoken thoughts.

Besides, what if the desert scenery visually works really well with lev?