Finally, we are outside of the city of Solitude. We are going to be leaving Haafingar!
AND– it’s the end of the first arc.
I’m curious if it made sense throughout.
Do you think I should POV switch at some point, or is the elf bearable? He’s such a thinky little cuss.
So on the characters–
Ahtar is kind of flipping back and forth between his original look and the way I modded him. That’s due to the timeframe of when I made the screenshots and how tricky it is to do this without making your own modded NPCs.
In the early shots, Cyrelian is the player character and Ahtar is a modded NPC from the Males of Skyrim mod. That’s where he has the softer face with the thin scars. While that Ahtar is cute, it’s not the look I was going for throughout. Ahtar is really a scary sort of fellow.
All of the clothed Ahtar shots with the new scarred face are of Ahtar as a player character. Since his body is hidden, I didn’t need to worry about his distinctive arm scars. How did I give solo-Ahtar the correct facial textures? Simple, I used it as the base skin for every male in the game. That’s why you don’t see another male in those shots.
In contrast, all of the naked Ahtar shots with the thin braids/less scarred face and the body scars were accomplished by using the scarred body as the male default body. Cyrelian was the player character in these shots, and his body textures are unique, using a unique character mod which I did a bit of surgical repair on as I experienced errors with the face textures and meshes. For this reason, I couldn’t use the scarred face textures for Ahtar as Cyrelian would have ended up wearing them too.
I can’t remember why I didn’t just give up and use a custom race.
At this point I said the hell with it and taught myself how to make NPCs.
And then I realized I would have to make two Ahtars– one with skinny braids, and one with the dreads I wanted. And I’d already built the .esp file and just– nope.
This is why scarred Ahtar gets to wear headgear until it was time to get rid of those damned braids.
I can’t say the NPCs are good, but they work for screenshots. Currently Marcus, Cyrelian, and Ahtar are completed. Erdi’s meshes and textures are done but I need to redo that .esp as it made Marcus all wonky and bald.(Of course he didn’t look bad, just weird, but that’s Marcus.) Alfgar’s meshes are done and I’m still figuring out textures for him, old man that he is.
Really. Excellent. Chapter.
I did not expect the turning of Erdi. I guess I’ll find out if there’s a trick up her sleeve or if the turning was legit. Whew! That was really intense.
Bravo!
See, that’s what I’m debating, cause this is what caused to say, yeah, Erdi’s gonna get some POV at some point because she is awesome. I can’t wait to finish modding her so she can get her own new badass new look.
This was actually not the original plan for this chapter– I was waffling around with it and she just stepped forward and took control.
Oooh, this was a fantastic chapter. You write political intrigue and verbal jousting so very well – I loved the scene between Yorvik, Ahtar and Cyrelian especially, with Cyr weighing up his Thalmor-aligned beliefs with his more compassionate side (or maybe just the side that wants to make it out alive).
” “Palace maid. Not an elf,” Ahtar advised Yorvik. “My ah… girlfriend.”
Yorvik looked dubious.
“You wanna check, have her lift the helmet and show ears,” said Ahtar.
I was fairly certain that this was not the point upon which Yorvik had furrowed his brow.”
Yup, Cyr’s a canny one. I’m also laughing at Ahtar’s utterly unconvincing lie.
This chapter had so many great points, actually. So much happens and even on my second readthrough, it’s difficult to keep track/parse all the different happenings and each character’s train of thought (Ahtar’s past, Cyr’s motives, the war/Solitude in general), but I don’t think that’s to its detriment. There’s just enough given away to make me want to read on and try to get into each character’s head more. In regards to what’s happening war-wise, I think I get it, but in all honesty my head’s all over the place at the moment so I’ve likely missed details.
Poor Cyrelian in this chapter, though – something gnarly is going on with his insides, he can’t even take a shit in peace (I loved the “extended conversation with nature” euphemism, btw – how very Cyr), and then he gets a swift kick from Istvir. Still doesn’t stop him from being a bratty little shit when Athar’s blocking his sun, though.
I’m still kinda working out his and Athar’s dynamic. It’s very affectionate, but hoo boy, there are times where you can tell Ahtar is extremely unhappy about Cyrelian’s actions.
Speaking of actions – bloody hell, Erdi! Absolute wild card. Again, I’m still trying to get a handle on what her angle is – especially with this being my second readthrough. She’s definitely a character to be reckoned with. (Side note: the picture of her holding the key with Cyr like :O in the background is the best.)
So incredibly glad they found a way to ditch Gilgondoron, hah. I wonder if he’s still cooped up at Dragon Bridge.
Haha, yeah, Gil is up at the Embassy, no doubt making more trouble. Cyr actually did give him an assignment, last they spoke… uhoh.
There’s a reason Erdi’s got that patron, heh.
I assume at some point Thane Yorvik will fill us in on ‘what was Istvir’s deal, anyways?’…but I’m not sure yet how that’s going to play out.
Oh this was *such* a great chapter, so much going on. Cyr’s voice has gotten very, very clear by now, and you’ve handled the tense atmosphere excellently. I love that, at this stage, no one can really trust each other. Cyr is… fairly trusting? Trusting isn’t the right word, it’s more… he’s comfortable with pretty much whatever outcome happens. I really like that about his attitude and approach to the world, it’s both very Thalmor and distinctly his own.
And I loved all the pooping.
I know what you’re getting at– it’s an attitude I was hoping to convey in it. I’ve seen it in very wealthy (and always very wealthy) people; in folks who were truly and deeply religious; sometimes a well-adjusted kid with good parents…it’s not that common, really.
Not even sure what it is.
I wanted to give a hint of Cyr-how-he-is… he’s had a hell of a knock… but also Erdi as well.
This was the end of the first little arc; the next is the trek through Hjaalmarch.
Hm. I need to sit down and figure out a real structure for this thing. It’s getting unwieldy.