From positive, to negative! Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and a Negative Plane greeting to all! It's a great shift in attitude when you start to play what you've been working on, even when there's the second half of the plot arc to write. Having the entire first arc of the adventure written, and playing through it, offers a nice jolt when areas and the story begin to blend together. At this point, fixes in side quests, dialog bugs and tightening up journal entries with the plot are all I've been doing. Building new areas - since the revamp of the swamp posted in the last entry - has come to a stop. It's all about ideas and filling in the areas currently available for exploration.  But the more recent addition is flipping the prime material plane spells to the negative material plane. Who said a member of the Auren Society of Weavers can't heal themselves in the Land of the Dead? With one's own growing power, combat isn't as easy as it used to be. Numbers grow, and with it, so does damage. It's a fine line playing a pure caster, and campfires alone aren't going to do much when one needs to heal during a battle.  So now, Negative Energy Burst and Negative Energy Ray can heal a single target, or an entire party. Modifications to both spells were required, as well as target specific changes to the spells.2da to allow one to target themselves. Being a new avenue in building for me, it's taken some time to get working properly, but it was required to offer a proper understanding of the required balance I need during the course of the adventure.  |
| In death, we're negative | 12.24.12 |
| Flip Flop! | 10.29.12 |
Out with the old, in with the older Well, that's it. I've had enough! *stomps his feet* During the development of Fate of the Auren, I've made use of two external tilesets to help populate the final tale of the trilogy - Lord of Worm's Seasonal Tileset and Cypress Tileset. I've spent the past week and a half removing one of them, which was a lot of work having to go back and redesign each area using a replacement tileset. Thankfully, there were not that many placeables with a high z-axis that required fixing, so it just came down to a lot of copy and paste, ambient and diffuse colour placement, as well as triggers, waypoints and scripts that help populate each area. It's still a time consuming task which takes away from the train of thought that I need to continue pushing out conversations, journals, and plots that help bring the adventure and areas together, but it needed to be done. So for anyone who happened to download Lord of Worm's Cypress Tileset v2.0, I've axed it from Fate of the Auren. Why? Well, the intention was to upgrade it to the latest version, which sadly has not come to surface after a 2009 mention it would be released very, very soon. Now I do like the Cypress Tileset a lot! It's able to create a wonderful atmosphere and it's not like it didn't lack anything I needed specifically to tell the story. BUT ... a few tiles were hard to move along depending on how the area was laid out, such as a log crossing or even the wooden planks which made a bridge from one tile to the other. This caused the annoying Neverwinter Nights movement "no-no sound", despite being able to move through using the WASD keys. In the hope version 3.0 was to be released, I held off from developing a particular region and I can't justify sitting on it any longer. I've integrated a smaller 2meg tileset into the main Fate of the Auren hak to replace the Cypress Tileset. That brings Fate of the Auren down an extra download. Instead of four, it's now three. Lord of Worm's Seasonal Tileset [REQUIRED] Fate of the Auren HAK [REQUIRED] Fate of the Auren Music [RECOMMENDED] Here's a few before and after shots now that all the work is complete with this revamp.   |
| In and Out! | 09.30.12 |
Sometimes ... even for a Weaver, it's hard to resist There's a difference when a Weaver decides to hit the streets in the middle of the night compared to those so-called thief guilds. With the ability to bind a few spells, one may attempt to get past locked doors or even slip by posted guards undetected. Even when the unexpected occurs, a member of the Auren Society of Weavers can still bind a weave to charm someone, or paralyze them to buy some of that extra time just to slip back into the shadows. But what happens when everything works as planned and you find yourself inside? Should all that hard work go to waste? Slipping through locked doors is one thing, but are you the type of Weaver that has deep pockets too?  Stealing from shops is designed to be different than stealing from a home or a room at a local inn. A home or an inn room will not have a full selection of items to steal and because of this, items stolen from such places will not be marked as stolen. For the most part, homes and inn rooms offer unique encounters with those who dwell within and little odds and ends to stuff into one's pockets.  But breaking into a shop in the middle of the night to make off with a slew of stolen items, are marked as being stolen. Such items can be used freely as any other item normally would, just as if you paid for it in shards. What you won't be able to do, is sell it back to the same vendor. You can easily take everything from a shop but by doing so, you run the risk of shutting the shop down. As time goes by during the adventure and the shop has closed due to stock theft, it will no longer be able to offer new items as you gain new levels.  So how does selling stolen items work? The exact same way you'd sell a regular item, via The Stitchmen, who handle all transactions within the city of Kharé. They're a faction that keep the city clean, sniffing about in corners crunching and recycling what they find or are given, back to the shops of the city. The downside of this, is that the return on the items are far less than their true value.  Be mindful that you're a member of the Auren Society of Weavers and not a member of a local thief guild. All the best if they learn you're responsible for the recent thefts on their turf. |
| Knock, knock?! | 08.18.12 |
Sneaky little Weaver! Who said that one needs to play a thief to move about hidden in the shadows, have a quick tongue, or unlock doors? Members of the Auren Society of Weavers can do what is required, if such is called upon too. Invisibility spells are just as good as hide in shadows and a quick tongue is easily overcome by the use of spells during a conversation, as seen in Almraiven and Shadewood. But what about all of those doors folks just don't want you going through? Getting past doors that are otherwise locked by others usually calls for a thief to fiddle with the lock, shifting tumblers and unlocking the door. So, what about a member of the Auren Society of Weavers then? Fate of the Auren introduces another system to the series, expanding on the use of spells in a conversation ... with doors.  The right weave can offer a means to get past such a door, but it is wise to listen before doing so, otherwise one could very well enter uninvited.  Of course, not all locks are made the same. Quality does matter when using a weave on a locked door, and success is not always a sure thing. This member of the Auren Society of Weavers has stumbled across a poor quality lock.   Despite being well versed in this particular weave, this member of the Auren Society of Weavers didn't take the time to knock on the door to see if anyone was inside, and he enters too eagerly.  An approaching guard, spear tip pointed toward the Weaver, questions those she has been paid to protect.  Staying at an inn and want to look around? Or maybe you'd rather roam the night streets after preparing a number of Acid Splash, Knock and Invisibility spells. What about a locked shop. Dare take the chance of slipping in and stuffing a few pockets? Well, you can, if that's your fancy. |
| Camping | 05.05.12 |
Replenishing one's Spirit! Despite no longer existing in the Land of the Living, a spirit should familiarize themselves with taking care of their own projection. A spirit still requires their own projected self in the Land of the Dead to rest. Wounds caused by other projections, hostile or otherwise, still require healing. Energy lost from a spirit, requires replenishing. What once was, is still relatively the same. Such similarities from one realm to the next does offer some comfort and can keep your spirit in existence within the woven bind of the realm itself.  Introduced in Shadewood, camping played a part in allowing one to rest and memorize spells without the need of finding an inn or returning to one's laboratory. As in the previous module, one must find a campsite, have a camping kit, and some wood. Igniting the wood by using a camping kit removes the limit on how long the campfire burns. This is now replaced by a water bucket to douse the flames when one's spirit is ready to move on. If the wood is set aflame with a Flare Weave rather than a camping kit, the fire only burns for a limited time.  The Mixing Container is the newest addition to the modified camping system. It allows the creation of basic potions and mixtures that the Auren Society of Weavers make use of and need more in their travels than some of the complicated brews which can only be mixed in a laboratory. Finding growing reagents in the wild no longer requires one to make a journey all the way back to their laboratory to brew a simple potion that can heal one's projection. Now, it can be done while on the road.  Finally, there is the cooking pot and spit, also used along with the camping kit and wood. The cooking pot will allow one to cook mixtures, such as vegetable soup or even beef vegetable soup, which can replenish a spirit's energy if one does not have access to healing potions. Although, such substitutes is by no means better than the offered energy of a healing potion.  The spit cooks raw meat, such as beef, chicken and fish. Such levels of protein can be easily mixed with vegetables or fruit for a good pot of warm soup, for that quick hearty meal on the go. And to ease the mind of any who are pondering, eating is not a requirement in Fate of the Auren. It is there to use or not and plays no part besides offering a player more options when potions are on short supply. Fruit and vegetables will heal the energy of a spirit by one point. While mixing beef, vegetables or fruit into a bubbling pot, allows for more variety and recipes to any who enjoy such details. |
| The Firestarter | 01.28.12 |
Let there be light!
In the very depths of places that remain dark and layered with dust, there hangs brackets, some empty and some full. Left by those who built such places, torch brackets offer the explorer a way to illuminate rooms and passages that may otherwise remain dark and full of shadow.
Hanging torch brackets is one of the interactive systems created for Fate of the Auren. This system expands on the crafting of torches introduced in Almraiven and the use of them in Shadewood. In Fate of the Auren, delving into places deep beneath a projection, may very well require a few hand crafted torches if one has failed to prepare a Weave of Light.
Even so, weapons of choice that offer burning flame, can easily be used to ignite an already existing torch or a placed one, within the torch bracket itself, if one has not brought any along.
Rooms shrouded in darkness may reveal a few secrets when the burning flame of a hanging torch crackles and dances in its place.
Find a torch already burning? One may take it for themselves, holding it alight in their hand to illuminate one's passage or douse the flame and blend into the shadows that will return.
| Bits and Bites | 01.18.12 |
Like moving through mud. . .
Another year has come and gone, bringing only 5 entries for Fate of the Auren. Spending half of the year traveling will do that and without the ability to flesh things out on the road, the third and final stage of the Auren Trilogy has sputtered along.
Time does seem to go faster the older I get!
Now and again, I think of all the free time I had when building Almraiven, even Shadewood to some degree, but a lot has changed over the course of those modules and Fate of the Auren has not been blessed with the large number of hours I once used to spend building in the toolset.
Still, I continue to work away when I can.
In the next few entries, I'm going to discuss a few systems that are new to the series, as well as some of the older systems brought over from Almraiven and Shadewood.
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