About this image

The above image is something I made in tribute to the book on which the companion mod -- Realms of Asuron -- is based (Related Note: I'm considering renaming the mod to something more obviously attached to the parent book and the Arkania universe: i.e, Arkania: Realms of Asuron. Next, I can name the hosted files after the realms they include. So the next file release might simply be named Arunor v.0.1.1a. Finally, in the distant future, as new realm 'expansions' are developed, those will be listed as separate files on the same page, named after the realms they add. That should help communicate to people where this mod stands in the franchise and the mod series, and whether a sequel comes to the Oblivion engine or not, I'll have the infrastructure ready) Concept art for the cover, I suppose. You'll notice that I used the world map I showcased on the Nexus earlier as the background. Yes, I'm still writing. 170 pages and counting. It will be my first published work, so I'm pretty excited to see it nearing completion, especially after this many years of dreaming about it.

As for the mod, I recently uploaded some images in order to prove that the project is still alive. I'm always trying to find ways to get more canon material into the game, especially that which is astronomy-related. I recently figured out how to alter the vanilla sun texture to appear closer to the in-book description, and that was awesome to see come to life. The moons tend to pass behind Pyrrhos however, something that is not my doing, but Bethesda's. I don't know if there's a way to alter the trajectory of either body so that this won't happen, but if there is, I'll look into it. Otherwise, I don't think it's a real game-breaking issue and you won't really notice unless you're actively staring at it for days on end, which, I'm going to assume, isn't average gamer behavior (and you shouldn't do that in real life either -- your retinas will be thankful :P)

The only real issue I've run into so far is the fact that I can't get the tree models to spawn into the map any taller than a max size of 10. I think I just need someone to help me develop some taller tree models. Right now, I'm using the largest trees in the game though: the unique English oak ( which only appears once in the vanilla game, in the city of Chorrol.. the one in front of the guilds) and the redwood trees. I would prefer to use tall trees on Asuron because Asuron has the lowest gravity of the four moons. Thus, it stands to reason (pardon the pun) that upright cellular structures would be less strained by the force of gravity, meaning trees would be allowed to grow taller. That leads me to the next piece on my wish list: flying creatures. With Asuron's unusual tree height and low gravity, as the book describes, there should be an abundance and great diversity in flying creatures. In addition to taller plants, lower gravity would also allow for larger heavier-than-air flying organisms such as birds, bats, flying insects and the like.

More specifically however, in the realm of Arunor, gryphons make their habitat on Kings' Mountain and swoop down across the surrounding grasslands for prey. They are highly revered by the people of Arunor, especially the Tyrendarians, who use their image as the symbol of the royal family, especially since they make Kings' Mountain their home, which is the site of one of their greatest national treasures: the Royal Family's Tomb.

Anyway, those are just some additional pieces of canon material I'd like to eventually see in-game. Even if the gryphons prove impossible to create for the Oblivion engine, all is well, and I'd be happy with just some static imagery in royal family emblems, etc. I could easily say that the living gryphons had gone extinct since the events of the mod take place after that of the book, but preferably, I'd like to keep them alive. We'll burn that bridge when we come to it, I guess, heh. For now, I'm fixed upon perfecting the general atmosphere, look and feel of the landscape. Once I feel ready, I hope to take some more screenshots of that progress. Also, should anyone know how to cut worldspaces out of plug-ins and paste them into a different plug-in, I'd love to know how to do that. I don't want to have to manually replicate my work on Tyrendar. Sure, I can merge the two plug-ins, but that risks mod stability -- no way of knowing how the mod will react once it has the clutter of the old world mixed in with the new.