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sapphim ☆ she/they ☆ varric tethras faked the moon landing ☆ download twinception

[sapphim]

/ / nexus mods profile / / sapphimods tutorials / / tag directory / / character directory / / ko-fi / /

main: @vaxilmores

ravenloft sideblog: @barovianfinewines

only the mod updates with none of the bullshit: @sapphimods

faq ☆

↳ tag: #faq

↳ see also: #modding tutorial, #modders resource, #troubleshooting

Right now, my focus is primarily on DA2 mods and modding tutorials. I am happy to answer questions about topics I regularly post about. Questions about modding DA2 or about cut content/datamining in DA2 or Origins are always welcome, for example.

If you can't figure out where to begin with a mod, or if you have been following my tutorials and have gotten stuck at a certain point in the process, and you haven't been able to find a solution elsewhere, I may be able to help. All I ask is that you be understanding that this is something I volunteer to do with my free time!

If you need troubleshooting help with one of my mods, please do not contact me on anon! It makes it difficult and tedious on my end to get the information I need. Either leave a comment on the Nexus mod page (that is what it is there for!) or message me off-anon. I promise I don't bite.

☆ I have a question about mods for Inquisition/Veilguard, Mass Effect, or [other game]!

↳ I haven't touched Frostbite games like Inquisition or Andromeda in nearly a decade now and I'm too out of touch to answer modding questions. I don't even have the games installed anymore.

These days most modding discussion takes place on Discord servers and, regardless of how one may feel about that, that is the single best place to find people available and willing to answer questions. Such questions should be directed to a server such as Frosty Toolsuite, DAI Modding, DA Veilguard Modding, or Mass Effect Modding, rather than to me.

(For good measure, here's a link to the Dragon Age Origns Modding discord for Origins/DA2 mods, as well.)

☆ Do you take requests or commissions?

↳ I do not take requests, unless I have specifically solicited requests for additions to a specific mod.

I am open to taking commissions for mods of the type that I usually post, but I would have to talk through the idea to get an idea of the scope before I could even quote a price, let alone accept the offer.

I do not create mods for Frostbite games anymore.

I will not consider commissions for mesh/model/hair/armor type mods, which seem to be the type of mod commission people most often try to solicit. I just don't enjoy porting or modding 3D models and don't do it anymore!

☆ How did you/How can I get started modding?

↳ I got my initial start fiddling with others' mods that I had downloaded, fixing minor bugs or tweaking them for personal use, which introduced me to the process without having to start from scratch.

My general advice for getting started is to pick something small in scope to work on, where you will be able to start testing it in game in short order. Being able to see the results of your work in game is really helpful both to be sure you're on the right track and to maintain motivation. However, if this doesn't interest you and there's a bigger project that you're super enthusiastic about, go for it! It is all about the enthusiasm.

Just remember that modding is all trial and error. Sometimes you'll try something and it won't work and you'll have to spend a lot of time figuring out what went wrong. Don't get discouraged when this happens. The mark of a seasoned modder isn't that you stop failing, but that you get better at powering through the failures.

For Dragon Age Origins (and DA2) I have compiled some resources to get started here.

☆ Can I message you off-tumblr?

↳ Yes, you can DM me on the Nexus, or if we are mutual members of a modding discord server, you should be able to find and DM me from there.

☆ Solas/Abelas/Fenris/Orsino is taller than the other male elves in the game, right?

↳ No. ♡

☆ Are you sure?

↳ Yes. ♡

☆ Is this really a frequently asked question?

↳ Yes. ♡

[sapphim]

estrogen could have saved donnie darko

[sapphim]

Do you have any tips on making compatibility patches between two mods that edit the same .dlg files? Also thank you for all of your tutorials on modding DAO/DA2. They've been of tremendous help :)

So what I would personally do with Origins dialogue files is I would take the vanilla .dlg and any modded .dlgs and use xoreos tools gff2xml to convert them to .xml format and then diff the modded .xml files against the vanilla file. Personally I typically use ComparePlus for Notepad++ but lots of programs offer a similar feature.

(Unfortunately if your modded files have inserted, removed, or rearranged lines of dialogue ComparePlus will very likely not handle this gracefully lmao. I don't know if there is a better solution and I don't run into that situation often enough to have gone looking for one yet. It will be far more likely if your dialogue mods were made in the toolset.)

Diffing the files allows you to take notes on *exactly* what changes each mod has made to the vanilla dialogue, without the need for B2B files (or thorough documentation on the modder's part), and then you'll be able to make a decision about what needs to be done to make them compatible, and if you want to merge the contents of both mods yourself in the toolset or if you want to hand-edit one of the modded .dlgs.

Now, if you're working with large or complicated mods or large or complicated files (you know, your MRPs and ZDFs), especially those which also involve modded plots or plot scripts, then simply listing what edits were applied to a .dlg is, I'm afraid, just not going to inherently impart an understanding of how the mod actually functions. But even so, compatibility patches for these mods may be as simple as adding a few nodes of dialogue to trigger a modded cutscene. It'll really, really depend!

[p-pamda]

When one like feels like a hundred

[sapphim]

grey warden work songs sung in time with the call of the old gods... ough

[sapphim]

#oh fuck I’m making a grey warden bard IMMEDIATELY #imagine the warden singing the most haunting beautiful thing you’ve ever heard #and everyone in camp is still and awed. and then they notice alistair looks pale and nauseous #and that’s when they Realize (via @rogue-ishly)

#oh #oh yes #a 'good' bard gets into throat singing #but it's not their throat that sings the discordant (via @thejabberwokk)

#dwarven warden not knowing how to sing at all and then suddenly humming a quiet tune while they oil their leathers without even thinking #not understanding why it feels really familiar even though theyve never heard it before. (via @childofthestone)

[sapphim]

got a drive-by like last night on an old post in which I mentioned That Time (my favorite) Strahd Dungeonsanddragons von Zarovich Kidnapped a Bard (yoinked him right out the window (silly dracula style)) And (over the course of a business week) Monologued His Entire Life Story and. it's only just occurred to me to notice how funny the date on the timeline actually is. so. for posterity I'll reproduce The Incident:

April 8, 454: Fear—cold and dripping, like blood from a hanging corpse—has been my constant companion for several weeks. The closer I get to that accursed Castle Ravenloft, the stronger I feel the grip of terror's icy hand. There can be no doubt now as to the source of Barovia's plight. April 10, 454: I need search no longer. The object of my quest has not only appeared to me, but sequestered me away within his foul domicile! Late last night, he appeared in my room like some silent apparition from the grave. Ordering me to take up my quills, inks, and parchment, he seized me and leaped out my window to his waiting coach. This confirmed my suspicions that Strahd Von Zarovich is other than a natural man, you see, for my window is four stories from the ground! April 15, 454: For five days and nights I have literally been Strahd's prisoner in Castle Ravenloft. Strange how the castle seems so warm and cozy inside—not the lurking horror its external visage portrays. I have discovered many things about Strahd and may scribe them later in a tome dedicated to such an endeavor. I feel, however, that this task will never be accomplished, for how can this man allow me to live when I know such dark secrets about him. He has shared himself, all his intimate secrets, with me as if I were his dearest friend.

(Van Richten's Guide to Vampires (1991)) (don't worry, it was a catch and release)

ok so. it's like. really important to note that all that shit with the dusk elves and the revenants &c. wasn't introduced until 5e. (well ok the dusk elves were more or less added in 4e but not like. The Shit With The Dusk Elves (well ok patrina (elven maiden) did technically exist in the crypts all the way back in the the original 1e module but like. look that doesn't matter)). in 2e ravenloft, strahd simply did not have a rahadin. in 2e he spent several centuries of his unlife doing basically nothing but alternating between depression napping and scrabbling at the walls of his enclosure until the in-universe timeline caught up with the production timeline (because the writers couldn't (or wouldn't), like, retroactively introduce much of note that hadn't existed at the time of earlier publications).

454 BC (barovian calendar) was 16 years before the vistani, 21 years before jander sunstar, and 88 years before azalin rex. it would be 74 years before he'd murk that party of nameless adventurers in house of strahd and a whole 93 years before a second domain (forlorn) would join barovia in the mists. (and then tristen apblanc wasn't even like. fun or anything. so even then strahd and azalin were still left with nothing to do except eat hot chip, mad magiscience experiments, and petty psychological warfare at each other to pass the time)

during the whole 103 years prior to The Bardnappening, the only incidents worthy of note were that 1) strahd had finally (after a 47 year depression nap) hunted down leo dilisnya and 2) [SPOILERS] only about once or twice (sources differ). strahd had otherwise spent his time pacing restlessly around the perimeter waiting for hapless bandits to get randomly snatched up into the mists so he could kill them and take all their stuff and add it to his ariel thelittlemermaid-ass shrine to where the people are (where they walk (where they run (where they stay all day in the sun))). and, of course, depression napping.

Kidnapping That Bard was the most enrichment strahd barovich TSRovich von zarovich had introduced into his wretched enclosure in. I am not exaggerating. literal decades, easily

[sapphim]

watch me rewrite the world vault plot script and debug script from scratch in a fit of pique

[sapphim]

oh my god… birth of import fixes. May 17 2018. one like no reblogs.

[sapphim]

eight years old today.......... how time flies

[ceruleanheaven]

bad media will piss you off good media will heal your soul bad media that couldve been good will ruin your life forever

[sapphim]

need to trans some more of my ravenloft/curse of strahd npcs if anyone has any suggestions I'm all ears

[sapphim]

sigh!!! rly hard when there's a narrative choice you can make that's haunting and resonant and couldn't be more thematic and then there's a mutually exclusive kind of silly narrative choice you've already grown self-indulgently attached to and you know very well what would be the correct choice to make. and you already know you're not going to make it lol

[sapphim]

told myself I wasn't going to homebrew a forged in the dark hack specifically for this pbp ravenloft game and now what am I doing? breaking promises I made to myself, that's what

[sapphim]

what it's come down to is that we need a basic resolution mechanic so that we are not simply doing 100% freeform roleplay (more like... 95%) and something like ironsworn (free btw) is quite simply too procedure-heavy if you're not playing gm-less (since the procedures are there for the precise purpose of making the gm role unnecessary) and something like cthulhu dark/trophy (free [pdf] and also free btw) is designed for the purpose of death spiraling and unsuited for campaign play so when it came down to it, it was either gonna be 1) an into the odd-like hack or 2) a blades in the dark-like hack. and as much as I love odd-likes like cairn (also free btw) and mythic bastionland I am quite simply not strong enough to run a dramatic high-stakes campaign ending in cairn. lmao.

so here I am stripping all the procedures out of blades until it is nothing but a dice pool and harm track. lmao (free. btw.)

[sapphim]

new butt-ugly xnalara height charts

note: the relative heights between models (from the same game) are exactly the same as they are in game. their heights relative to the background are subjective. I tried best as I could to match the numbers from APR_base:

DF: 143cm / 4′8″ (DAO)

DM: 143cm / 4′8″ (DAO/DA2)

EF: 155cm / 5′1″ (DAO) - 167 cm / 5′6″ (DA2)

EM: 160cm / 5′3″ (DAO) - 173cm / 5′8″ (DA2)

HF: 168cm / 5′6″ (DAO) - 170cm / 5′7″ (DA2)

HM: 175cm / 5′9″ (DAO) - 174cm / 5′9″ (DA2)

QM: 194cm / 6′4″ (DAO) - 199cm / 6′6″ (DA2)

all models (from the same game) of the same race/gender are always the same height. the one exception is Sera, who uses the human skeleton rather than elf.

models extracted by padme4000, berserker79, and nicco-and-jake; some textures by ellise

[sapphim]

six foot solas haters you are safe here. get behind me

[sapphim]

told myself I wasn't going to homebrew a forged in the dark hack specifically for this pbp ravenloft game and now what am I doing? breaking promises I made to myself, that's what

[sapphim]

Tested the Twinception yesterday and IT'S OMFG HOLY AMAZING.

You're doing the work of the Maker, thank you, for giving us the opportunity to witness the three bickering Hawkes on screen. 🥹

they really do bicker like siblings don't they haha thank you 💜

[sapphim]

wouldn't that just be fanfiction with extra steps? I mean........... yeah.. yeah.

[sapphim]

Ironsworn could absolutely be hacked for a good solo game of Dragon Age Origins I think. if there. you know. if there weren't already a solo game. called Dragon Age Origins.

[sapphim]

I've been trying to decide on the system for a one-on-one pbp game I want to run with a friend and it's got me to thinking how when someone asked me just a few years ago me what TTRPG system I'd choose to run a campaign in the dragon age setting my answer was "well it depends on what tone you want to emulate" but if you asked me today my answer would be "well it depends on what tone you want to emulate; what specific aspects of the setting you want to emulate; if you want to play analog, digital, on a vtt, pbp, with props, etc.; your preferred style of game; your preferred style of GM-ing; etc." but I still probably wouldn't say the official licensed system lmao