Lichdom

[kromey]

Could you out source the Dragonborn script check to another modder who could make the fix and link it to you mod? Just an idea. Can't wait!

My scripts are in so much flux right now that it's not practical to outsource anything to anyone else. I will get Dragonborn and update the script, I just want to get the mod released before I do that. It'll be annoying to anyone who becomes a lich and then goes wandering through Apocrypha (and gets killed there), but it's far from game-breaking so I'm not too worried about it right now. And, like I said, it'll be noted as a known issue upon release, so unless people don't read the mod page before downloading and installing they'll know what they're getting in for (and if they don't read it, well, frankly I don't have any sympathy for them).

 

Awesome lich, Skulleris!!

[lordzaros]

Skulleris, did you seriously draw that on MS Paint? The MS PAINT? Holy s#*! man, you have got some MS Paint talent.

 

I know right!

 

I was looking at it and all I could say was 'Woah'

[DaxxTrias]

Looking forward to this SO much.

 

Just a thought regarding the locations of the fragments. If we are searching for "ancient, forbidden, and lost" knowledge, shouldn't the scraps be far between?

 

What I mean by this is I think a breadcrumb trail makes more sense rather then:

oh here's a paper that says where all 5 are, even though they were separated a thousand years ago and hidden individually (Or whatever you put the story as)

Edited February 22, 2013 by DaxxTrias

[kromey]

Looking forward to this SO much.

 

Just a thought regarding the locations of the fragments. If we are searching for "ancient, forbidden, and lost" knowledge, shouldn't the scraps be far between?

 

What I mean by this is I think a breadcrumb trail makes more sense rather then:

oh here's a paper that says where all 5 are, even though they were separated a thousand years ago and hidden individually (Or whatever you put the story as)

Well, it depends. If you're working under the theory that these fragments were deliberately hidden by someone trying to keep them secret, then yes, perhaps.

 

However, while it's never explicitly explained as such, the journal fragments were simply lost over time by people who didn't understand what they had found, and it wasn't until later that it became known just how valuable they really were. The note that you can find in the College of Winterhold is by someone the previous Archmage hired to track them down; he went through all the hassle to figure out where all 5 are so that you don't have to! (Otherwise it would really strain credulity that you could reasonably find them at all -- basically you're stumbling into the tail end of this centuries-long quest just in time to snag the reward and claim the glory, you lucky bastard!!)

[CredibleJoe]

Question--
Will Lichdom be obtainable if you are a vampire or a werewolf? Either case is pretty overpowered, but I was just thinking about how you can't contract both Lycanthropy and Vampirism simultaneously. Stands to reason that Lichdom would behave similarly, but I have no idea how your approaching this-- if it's a technical race change like vampirism/lycanthropy, or if it's a separate effect all together.

[ArtMurder]

I came across this mod a while back, and i decided I want to see if there is anything I can do to help. I might people able to wright some of the books, I have a very good imagination for writing, but I tend to have some minor grammar errors from time to time... EDIT: I am also GREAT at hiding s#*!, in fact the only mod I ever made was one for Morrowind where I made a special armor set that made it os you basically where invincible if you had all the pieces, and hid them in the most insane, off the wall impossible to find places. As far as I know, no one ever found them.... XD It would make since for at least one the pieces of the journal to be 'lost' and next to impossible to find.

 

But, I wanted to ask if I could assist in making a different 'type' of lich, or at least be given permission to try and make it myself from this mod. I have a character concept I designed for Oblivion ages ago, and have been redesigning for skyrim since it fits it more. It's a sort of... 'Ice lich'. Instead of being like a normal lich, it's more of a curse of the living tundra of skyrim, a relic that clings to people, turning them into frozen undead monstrosities. Instead of making yourself a lich, you would encounter an exceptionally powerful 'ice lich', and upon killing it (twice - It's a lich) when you touch his deceased corpse, an object would 'cling' to you, effectively replacing it with you, as an incarnated form of skyrim's frozen hell. You could then either go through a large amount of effort to have this artifact removed from you by priests (Which could make for some interesting quests, something like the azura star quest comes to mind, only you would be killing the ultimate form of the lich dwelling inside you now.) or you could simply enjoy your new found power.

 

This wouldn't be all that much different from a normal lich, accept that once you die, instead of becoming weaker, you actually become stronger, as the horrid being hiding inside the artifact overtakes your body. However, the weakness to fire would become so great that staying in this form for long would be an incredible risk - one fire mage and you aren't likely to survive. The visual appearance would be different as well, it would appear frozen over, and be shrouded in a large cloud of 'ice fog'.

 

These are all ideas I've had since the lich mod for Oblivion, and I would love to see them worked into Skyrim, even if I have to do it myself. :whistling:

 

 

Oh, and one last question, how does the lich form act in first person? I'm basically trying to remove third person from my game alltogether, and I use the joy of perspective, and I can't imagine these mix to well with the final lich form. Though, I can see a logical reason behind why you would be in third person in the final lich form, as you are basically outside of your body anyways.

Edited February 23, 2013 by ArtMurder

[kromey]

@Voltage_Joe: Lichdom is being implemented (at least for now) as a series of abilities, not as a technical race change. The transformation will prohibit the already-undead from becoming a lich (so vampires can't become one), but not werewolves. As for going the other way, becoming a vampire requires contracting a disease; liches are immune to disease, however, so you cannot become a vampire as a lich. On the other hand, becoming a werewolf or a vampire lord is a quest, and as such a lich can achieve those transformations.

 

I have no plans at this time to change any of this; if you feel a werewolf-lich or vampire lord-lich is over-powered, well, don't become both.

 

@ArtMurder: Sounds pretty cool. Unfortunately, I don't think my mod will give you quite the jumping-off point you're looking for here -- you're basically creating a cursed item that imparts several abilities (not all of them beneficial, I'm assuming), whereas I'm creating one heckuva magic spell/quest to do similar. I think what you're looking to do here is pretty dang sweet, I just think you'd be better off starting from scratch (although I'd be happy to offer my help answering questions and suggesting solutions to any problems you may encounter).

 

As for first person/third person, the only time I force one or the other (third-person) is if the player decides to drink the Elixir of Endless Night (try it and find out what happens, if you're curious ;) ), although the game engine does force third-person upon the lich transforming into a nether lich. There's unfortunately no real difference, visually, between being a lich and being... whatever you were before. Becoming a nether lich, the only difference is you become a literal "ghost" of your former glory (i.e. you're reduced to being 75% transparent). So first person will be no different as a lich/nether lich to what you're familiar with now (I myself play in first-person all the time as well); I have no idea how well Joy of Perspective will handle the transparency of a nether lich, but worst case is you'll still be looking down your non-transparent cleavage I'd imagine.

[ArtMurder]

@Voltage_Joe: Lichdom is being implemented (at least for now) as a series of abilities, not as a technical race change. The transformation will prohibit the already-undead from becoming a lich (so vampires can't become one), but not werewolves. As for going the other way, becoming a vampire requires contracting a disease; liches are immune to disease, however, so you cannot become a vampire as a lich. On the other hand, becoming a werewolf or a vampire lord is a quest, and as such a lich can achieve those transformations.

 

I have no plans at this time to change any of this; if you feel a werewolf-lich or vampire lord-lich is over-powered, well, don't become both.

 

@ArtMurder: Sounds pretty cool. Unfortunately, I don't think my mod will give you quite the jumping-off point you're looking for here -- you're basically creating a cursed item that imparts several abilities (not all of them beneficial, I'm assuming), whereas I'm creating one heckuva magic spell/quest to do similar. I think what you're looking to do here is pretty dang sweet, I just think you'd be better off starting from scratch (although I'd be happy to offer my help answering questions and suggesting solutions to any problems you may encounter).

 

As for first person/third person, the only time I force one or the other (third-person) is if the player decides to drink the Elixir of Endless Night (try it and find out what happens, if you're curious :wink: ), although the game engine does force third-person upon the lich transforming into a nether lich. There's unfortunately no real difference, visually, between being a lich and being... whatever you were before. Becoming a nether lich, the only difference is you become a literal "ghost" of your former glory (i.e. you're reduced to being 75% transparent). So first person will be no different as a lich/nether lich to what you're familiar with now (I myself play in first-person all the time as well); I have no idea how well Joy of Perspective will handle the transparency of a nether lich, but worst case is you'll still be looking down your non-transparent cleavage I'd imagine.

Hmm, alright, I see. I might actually be able to get most of my resources from vanilla skyrim though, so that's okay, I can look into the normal werewolf/vampire lord transformation, take some bits from the azura star quest, maybe look into how you handle the "coming back to life" bit, and then the rest I can just do through trial and error. I can probably get permission to use some really cool armor from someone, and just edit it to look like ice, and use that as the 'lich' form. I imagine I could track down an hourglass mesh somewhere for the "cursed artifact", and making it blue should be simple enough.

 

And I was under the impression your mod made it so you were controlling a dragon priest after you died, and I don't see how THAT would work in first person, but if you are just transparent, as long as it's just a shader, it should work just fine for tjop, I know "get wet/snowy" works just fine in first person with that mod, as does the black shadow goo from the ebony mail.

 

If nothing else, seeing this mod coming together really inspired me. I would like to see if I can make it so the artifact reacts different if you are already a lich when you get it. I dunno if I can do that though, I'm pretty limited with my modding abilities.

[lordzaros]

Check it

 

http://static.skyrim.nexusmods.com/images/536685-1361739794.jpg

 

 

So if you guys remember, a few weeks past I was inquiring about any armor mods similar to 'mannimarco revisited' from oblivion which I believed would be perfect lich material and shadowjin pointed me to an interesting tutorial involving nifskope.

 

Well, I pretty much go it working (thanks again shadowjin).

 

Basically, I'm using the skull mask added by the 'bobby bones revisited' mod (instead of the grim reaper hoods). Its not found in game so you have to use the console (help "bobby bones mask" 4). This is the element that I had to nifskope as per the tutorial shadowjin pointed me too.

 

The robes I'm using are 'tribunal robes'

 

As you can see, there is some slight clipping but I hope to sort that out...hopefully I can use blender or something

 

 

 

And yea, I've just decided to use the wrathman summoning as its not affected by spell absorption

 

The excitement is mounting kromey, I'm now hiding this mask away until I actually become a lich :thumbsup:

[kromey]

That looks pretty sweet, lordzaros!

 

Hm, just had a totally crazy thought: Is it possible to put an item in the player's inventory, and force it to be equipped, without it showing up in their inventory? Making a skull "mask" that is forced onto the player when they become a lich could be a quick, easy, albeit rather dirty method of applying a different look to the lich.

 

Or better yet: Since the player will be forced to wear their phylactery while a lich, maybe the mesh could be updated to include both amulet and mask? I have no idea if that would play well with head movements though -- maybe someone up on meshes and such could provide some insight?