[OOC] Call of the Hunt [EliteCommander and Muttonhawk]

[EliteCommander]

Since Sabine has been a part of various research projects, you think she would attend the meeting?

I'd also like to delve a bit into Saras' past, but I'm not sure how to bring that up. I suppose someone not in the meeting could meet up with him, but I'm not sure what would justify talking about his past. He has been coordinating a lot of scouts and general information gathering since they arrived.

[Muttonhawk]

I could probably have Janius chat to Saras. They would have gone patrolling together a few times.

Sabine would probably be absorbed in the research. If she's there to present it with the other scholars, I guess she would be there.

I'll read your post and head to bed. I've been studying all day and I'm too tired to respond right now.

[Muttonhawk]

I noticed the spelling tag that you left. I never got Dawnguard, so I can only glean what you're talking about from the wiki. Do you mean animunculory? As in animunculi?

[EliteCommander]

Yeah, I typed that when my internet was out and forgot to fix it when I posted it.

[Muttonhawk]

Cool. I should really get around to the Skyrim DLCs at some point. I remember not bothering because they were a little steep compared to Oblivion and Fallout DLCs at the time. Oh well, there'll be sales, I'm sure.

[EliteCommander]

The aminunculory were in vanilla, I think, but they were basically just sections of the ruins that, in lore, produced automatons. It is never said explicitly, but I reason that for ruins to still have automatons after a few thousand years, they would need to be able to make more on their own.

Now, the Aetherium was part of Dawnguard. It is a strange, glowing material that can only be forged in the Aetherium forge. It can make a few unique Dwemer items, but the exact nature of its power is never explained in game.

Oh, and I suppose we should do something with Saras. I just can't think of a way to bring up his past in a way that makes sense. He wouldn't hide it if asked (at least if asked by someone important).

[Muttonhawk]

They were in vanilla? Huh, I mustn't have paid attention to the name of the ruin sections at the time.

I can have Janius strike up a conversation with Saras in my next post. I might be able to get one more in today.

[EliteCommander]

I went back and started playing Oblivion again recently, now that I have good enough modding practices not to break it immediately. I find myself reminded of questionably designed difficulty curves in some mods.

[Muttonhawk]

I never really got into Oblivion mods, but I don't remember the difficulty curve being the best in vanilla Oblivion anyway. I remember it being punishing initially, and instead of getting easier, everything became inexplicably tanky and took hours to kill.

'Course, that changed when I found a big sigil stone with a ridiculous absorb health enchantment on it.

[EliteCommander]

I played through the Lost Spires, which is a great mod overall, but there was a part in the final sequence that was terribly designed. It was actually legitimately impossible to outrun the threat with a low speed character.

[Muttonhawk]

Haha, so you were basically always locked down by it?

[EliteCommander]

Yeah. The threat was literal fire, so I couldn't fight it. You were meant to run to a pool of water, but on my slow character, that wasn't happening. Had to toggle collision, and luckily, all of the area underneath the floor was water. Having a good time with it overall, though. I downloaded mods to rebalance magic to make it actually viable to be a pure mage. In vanilla, magic is pretty much just supplementary to your primary weapon, since you can't get enough magicka, and the spells aren't effective enough, to rely on it alone. The mods nerf and buff different aspects of it to make it better.

[Muttonhawk]

That's pretty neat. Yeah, pure mage in Oblivion is a serious trap. The first time I tried that, I went with the atronach birthsign to see how it was. It did not go well.

[EliteCommander]

Atronach would be terrible for me. I think my mods nerf the intensity of spell absorption enchantments found in the world, and it removes it from spellmaking. I'd still get the 50% from the birthsign, but I'd have a much harder time maxing it out.

Did you ever play Morrowind? If so, you probably know where I'm going with Saras.

[Muttonhawk]

I never got to play Morrowind. It's been on my to-play list for a while now. I know the Nerevarine is the player character in that one, so it's likely enough for Janius to be a bit confused.

Is it to do with that Bloodmoon expansion?

[EliteCommander]

No, though the Bloodmoon expansion is an interesting one. It added werewolves. Hircine was the antagonist of that one. Saras' backstory relates more to Tribunal, where the Nerevarine casually kills more gods.

[EliteCommander]

The Nerevarine is pretty famous for killing Dagoth Ur and destroying the Heart of Lorkhan, so Janius would certainly know of him/her. He left on an expedition to Akavir just before the Oblivion crisis over 200 years prior. Regardless of the Nerevarine's race, he is immortal, so he could be alive, but no one's heard from him.

[Muttonhawk]

Right, I think I know where you're going lore-wise now. This'll be interesting.

[EliteCommander]

We can probably do a skip to the next big scene sometime soon. That would probably be in Cheydinhal, right?

[Muttonhawk]

I guess so. Where abouts did you want to skip to? Visiting the Avarul vineyard?

I also have another scene I'd like to do with the rest of the pack within Cheydinhal itself. Perhaps we could have them going into own to resupply?