maskedbucklander

What sort of books do you want to see/see more of in Skyrim? History? Pantheon expository? Magic theory? Even more tales of thievery and betrayal? Series or singles? Adventurer journals, guidebook style skill books, poems? I ask because one of the mods I'm working on is a clean and simple book mod, adding more of them to Skyrim, because there can never be enough. I'm aware of a few projects like this already out there, but I want to keep this one lore-friendly and entirely free of feature creep (for universal compatibility) and I intend to write all or most of the books myself. Obviously, I want to make a mod that the player base will find interesting and useful, so I come to you asking what you want to see more of. I've included below my first six books, covering a variety of topics. To anyone who reads them, if you have a strong interest in or dislike of the topics/writing styles of any of them, I'm interested in any feedback. Don't want to make a mod that adds 100 uninteresting books to the game. Also, of course, if you note any errors or lore incongruencies, or think I've taken unfit liberties with any canon information, please let me know. --- Sacred Defiance (A poem praising Malacath) http://pastebin.com/n9e7mt8D Many Tellings series (Series incomplete, latter two books are alchemy skillbooks. A Khajiit tells of many things he has seen in his travels, both useful and inane.) http://pastebin.com/0Gurjuut http://pastebin.com/LyMQjgAj http://pastebin.com/c4DSwCG1 Good Honest Toil (A poem extolling the virtues of honest labor...not really praising Zenithar, but he gets a mention) http://pastebin.com/YAtucE6P Bosmerian Gambit (A tale of Sheogorath and a shrewd old Bosmer) http://pastebin.com/c9aHtHy3 I'm currently getting started on another series, The Riften Anecdotes, about an Argonian's continuing mis-adventurers in The Rift area.

I made a rare gaming decision...to base my actions in a quest off of the measured consideration I would show in reality. For in-game politics. Needless to say, I was impressed with how Bethesda handled fictionalized politics. The first difficulty in choosing a side is being a US citizen playing a game influenced by European lore. No matter how familiar I am with the fantasy genre or how many books I read and games I play, the idea of nationality and political influence being nearly synonymous with racial identity in such a pervasive way that they cannot be separated by most characters is a very amusing lodestone. Even if Bethesda were to code in a path to peace and compromise, it probably would not include the Dragonborn singlehandedly bringing concepts like individualism and a pan-racial sense of unity to the forefront of Nord culture. Given this, then, you have to throw out all sides as wrong. The Thalmor want to dominate, the Nords want to rule themselves (and probably fight back against the Thalmor, whether with/for the Imperials or on their own), the Imperials want to keep managing everything while appeasing the Nords and Thalmor. Ulfric and the Empire are equally puppets of the Thalmor...I can't get into much detail about this without spoilers, but they are. Either side I choose will win through some quest chain, but realistically the Nords simply wouldn't defeat the Empire, and if either side gained too much traction, the Thalmor Embassy would be there to balance the scales either openly or covertly. Ulfric can certainly be sympathized with in wanting to drive every last Thalmor out of Skyrim, and unfortunately one can't easily draw a clear line between liberation and racism, due to the complex interests of the Thalmor. Individually, there seem to be at least a few Thalmor who have no strong sympathies regarding the White-Gold Concordat and just want to conduct trade or make their living. Then you have various unaffiliated parties, thieves or exiles or cases like Brand-Shei. The Gray Quarter certainly isn't a nice thing, but at the same time the Thalmor do not tend to show proud scruples like the Altmer, and may very well be putting on an act to appear much more wretched than they are (contrast with the Argonians and Khajiit, who are mistrusted and downtrodden by both sides and take it all with sarcastic humor/quiet resolve). Of course, as a player I know that whichever side I choose will eventually win after the dramatic sacrifice of a few named NPCs on both sides, and as a player I'm sure both questlines are intriguing, rewarding, and the only real opportunity to participate in battles. However, as a character, all I want to do is sit down with the Greybeards and both sides again, tell Ulfric to stop grandstanding and Tullius to stop whining when he's getting good deals, and work things out. If the Stormcloaks are too violent and racially motivated, the Empire is too inflexible and fascist. Stormcloaks kill those who oppose them, but the Empire may kill random people if they are found in suspicious circumstances or for relatively minor crimes. It's prone to corruption, curries favor for and makes underhanded deals with the Thalmor, and has no true justice. Talos worship is outlawed. At first this may not seem like such a big deal - Talos is a newer god, a seeming self-insert fan-fiction bit of religion, a bit cultish really given that it is the supposed rise of a man to a god. Keep in mind that the Dragonborn does not have any innate knowledge of the events which transpired in previous Elder Scrolls games. However, if you've read up on your elven pantheon legends, and if you actually stop and listen and consider the bold ranting of the Talos prophet in Whiterun, you begin to understand. The mer consider themselves direct children of the gods that are, and the men do not, therefore in the view of the mer, the races of men acknowledge themselves as beneath mer. This, combined with their longevity and near-universal magical affinity, gives them the superiority complex which is so common. Having a man directly ascended to a god in the main pantheon is not necessarily mankind's way of asserting dominance or sueriority, as much as it is a way of establishing equality...besides, don't forget about Vivec and pals and the whole Thalmor belief complex. Honestly, the choice is racial supremacy and religious oppression or racial supremacy and further warmongering. The loose parallels to colonial times are apparent, and I'm as morally conflicted and undecided as the politicians in 1776 were. Why can't we all just get along? (Looking at you as well, Blades and Greybeards) The Stormcloaks have Skyrim and the Nords in mind, the Empire has a far larger area to think about, one which apparently cannot withstand the Thalmor. The Blades are broken, Tamriel is subdued. If I do free Skyrim, beyond the scope of the game dialogue and the quests, wouldn't I be making things worse for the rest of the regions and races under the Empire? I've talked to the rogues and the acolytes, the warriors and the mages and the smiths and the merchants, the inn-keepers and the drunks, the leaders and the followers, wise and foolish, well-meaning zealots, distressed scholars, manipulative criminals, war widows and orphans from children in villages to Elisif the Fair, and it's tearing everyone apart, but neither side can back down without more damage and losing important rights, important people. It makes me want to become the benevolent dictator for life, but even if the game allowed it, isn't an absolute leader exactly what I travelled to Blackreach and Sovnegarde and fought so hard to prevent? Besides, who am I to talk? Sure I could make fair laws, but it means nothing if you don't practice what you preach and lead by example. Even if no one knows it, I'm the one who's crushing dreams and trashing the economy, cleaning out houses of all of their gold and jewels and enchanted items. I'm just another part of the problem with Alduin gone. There is no solution, no happy ending, and everyone on every side is wrong, especially the ones in charge. It's just like real life. You win, Bethesda. I get it. Time passes, people make decisions and try their best and die sooner or later, mountains crumble, eras and worlds shift and replace one another, but... ...but war...war never changes.

Sorry for gravebumping (does it count as gravebumping when it's a sticky thread?), but I'm having some trouble with a script I wrote based on this, and if it's a syntax problem, it's evaded me. I only have one computer available right now, and I'm running 40-something ESM/ESP files on it between various mods and High Res. This has made the player.additem console command tricky to utilize given load order and all, so I've been looking around for a while now for a better way to get a copy of a given mod object in my inventory on command. Surprisingly enough, after some days spent looking, the simplest way I could find to do that was in this tutorial. I imagine I could attach the script to an inventory item (once I got one in my inventory...) and do the same thing like I see in some mods, but for now I just tried the button. The script is supposed to give me one copy of the book corresponding to the menu button I press. The messages seem to be set up correctly, and the menu displays on button press, but when I hit a button (menu item) in the menu, it brings up an empty message box, just a horizontal line and an OK button, and doesn't add the chosen book. If I comment out the .show() lines in the if/elsif options, it will just close. I've checked my inventory after trying, and it doesn't silently add them, they just don't show up at all. I'm sure I have the variable names right. I tried MiscObject first for the object declares, and it does the same thing. I got to using Book instead through experimentation. I also tried appending .GetReference() to each of the book objects in the Additems lines, but that failed to compile too. I'm guessing there's some extra function I have to call to get non-gold items or for books specifically, but I haven't found any answers from forums or the creation kit wiki. Any idea what I might need to change? Code is below. Edit - I'm not sure why it has the odd background stripes or how to get rid of them, so if your eyes are bleeding, here it is on pastebin: http://pastebin.com/rWkc61E4 Scriptname mskd_itemMenu extends ObjectReference {Menu for custom items} Message Property Question Auto {Menu description} Message Property SacDef Auto Message Property MTel01 Auto Message Property MTel02 Auto Message Property MTel03 Auto Message Property GHToil Auto Message Property BosGam Auto ;Various buttons, like menu, message items I made in Creation Kit. Book Property mskd_SacredDefiance Auto Book Property mskd_ManyTell01 Auto Book Property mskd_ManyTell02 Auto Book Property mskd_ManyTell03 Auto Book Property mskd_GoodHonestToil Auto Book Property mskd_BosmerianGambit Auto ;The script doesn't know about game objects unless I name each one specifically, so Book does that. ;I also tried MiscObject, it ran but didn't add to inventory. BookItem and BookObject fail to compile. int Button ;Keeps track of the button index, that is, which of the question messagebox options is chosen EVENT onActivate(objectReference akActionRef) ;" akActionRef is a variable name you will be using in the script below. It holds the reference of the actor that activated the object this script is attached to. For clarity, you should leave it named as is." If akActionRef == Game.GetPlayer() ;Checking if the variable 'akActionRef ' is the player. Button = question.show() ;Display the 'question' text, get the index number of the item ('button') chosen. if button == 0 SacDef.show() ;Keep this option showing while the rest disappear and the action happens, like in conversations. Game.GetPlayer().AddItem(mskd_SacredDefiance,1,true) ;Place item in player inventory. elseif button == 1 MTel01.show() Game.GetPlayer().AddItem(mskd_ManyTell01,1,true) elseif button == 2 MTel02.show() Game.GetPlayer().AddItem(mskd_ManyTell02,1,true) elseif button == 3 ;MTel03.show() Game.GetPlayer().AddItem(mskd_ManyTell03,1,true) elseif button == 4 GHToil.show() Game.GetPlayer().AddItem(mskd_GoodHonestToil,1,true) elseif button == 5 BosGam.show() Game.GetPlayer().AddItem(mskd_BosmerianGambit,1,true) endif ;No more if/elsif/else statements on this level. Endif endEVENT