Aid from the Quillmistress!

Well, I must confess I thought I'd never see the day, but a few days ago I had the laptop in the kitchen and when I got up to start working on dinner, jokingly said to my wife "Do you want to design an outfit for me?". No sooner had I left my seat than she was turning the laptop round and asking me for the brief and a few pointers on how to use the toolset for costume creation. Perhaps even more surprising is that after she'd finished the first outfit, she turned to me and asked if there were any more I needed making. Seems I brought out the fashion designer in her!

One of the things I pride myself on is attention to detail. Just look at the effort put into making the NPCs matching their portraits in my "Muddles in Milton" module to get an idea of the lengths I go to. "The Relbonian Chronicles" are no different. Being set in their own mythology means I have to go that extra mile in preparing books etc that fit into the story. Costumes too require such attention, and I'm pleased to say my wife has done me proud, so I thought I'd share them with you all here.

The first outfit I required was for the "Chronicle Runners". These are usually apprentice Druids who deliver news throughout the land, so the outfit needed to hint at a love for nature and speed. It also needed to look as if it would offer protection from the elements, while being light enough to enable the wearer to run comfortably. I liked the way the cuffs of this outfit almost look like leaves while suggesting speed. She even included a pouch for the runner to place the scroll they'd be carrying.

As I'm now working on the town where the player can stock up before heading of for the final part of the module (Chapter One), I felt I should work on some custom items to tempt them with, and offer a choice when it came to the armour. Between me and my wife we made 3 sets, 2 of which are based on elemental faiths. Shown here is the set based on the faith of "Mouys" (Water), and again, I think she captured the essence of what I wanted beatifully, even down to the accompanying helmet.

The other elemental based armour was earth based, while the non-elemental one adds some flavour to the area in which it can be bought (a town situated in a desert), being made from the scales of the giant scorpions said to roam the desert. It occured to me while these were being designed that I'd never seen an option in a Neverwinter module to view an item of clothing while worn before purchase, so I set about creating a "changing room" in a shop. The latest 1.69 patch has a rather nifty curtain doorway perfect for the purpose, so I made a little room with a mirror at one end with the intention that you could use the mirror to preview the available outfits. For the preview mode to work, I had to assign a camera position to view the player face on, but this failed to work in the room because the wall behind the mirror interfered with the desired position forcing the camera to swing behind the PC. I've got round this by making a duplicate area of the room with a doorway where the mirror should be. When using the mirror, the player is transported to the duplicate area where the camera can sit safely in the doorframe. By placing two light shafts either side of the frame, it gives a fairly immpressive illusion of viewing yourself in a mirror. Below are a couple of screen caps of this "mirror mode" while trying on the "Rathna" (Earth) and "Scorpion" Plate.

The only downside to this rather nifty little routine is that it's possible to escape from the conversation and thus keep the outfit you are trying on without paying for it. I've dealt with this to a degree by making "preview" copies of the outfits that don't have any of the magical abilities in place and also tagging them as "stolen" so that they will be un-sellable (There will be no merchants that buy stolen items in this module). I might make an "on exit" script for the area that destroys all preview items on the player but am currently undecided.

Something else I'm fairly excited about is that the water based armour will be available as a reward, but it will be fairly difficult to collect...

SPOILER ALERT
Since the manner in which such a reward will be acquired will be difficult, I see no issue with posting the potential spoiler here as a treat for those who decide to play having followed this blog. There is a cave fairly early on in the module in which the player can untie a "Lith", after which a small battle takes place. If the Lith survives the battle (if he dies the reward potential is over), he rewards the player with an amulet that has the ability to cure poison once, after which it is destroyed. Provided the player does NOT use the amulet AND wears it in their neck slot when visiting the Temple of Mouys in Oasis, the armour can be acquired.

That's all for now. Happy gaming all :)