Unbroken Circle
an Amell/Surana standalone campaign

Overview
Unbroken Circle is a small standalone campaign set before/during the events of Broken Circle. It is based on the assumption that both Amell and Surana existed in the Circle of Magi. You choose to play as whichever one of them didn't participate in the events of the Circle of Magi origin. (So if your Warden was Surana, you would choose to play as Amell, and vice versa. If your personal canon Warden isn't either of them, choose whoever you want, but note that the mod still assumes that the events with Jowan took place regardless.) You will be prompted at the start of the mod to select the name and gender of the other mage you are not playing. This is primarily for the purposes of a codex and has no real effect otherwise.

To play, go to "Other Campaigns" in the Main Menu and choose "Unbroken Circle."

This mod is English language only, and contains both English text and audio. Character voices are dynamically-generated AI voices from elevenlabs.

Features

• 2~5 hours of gameplay, depending on playstyle and if you go hunting for every hidden/secret thing
• 2 new specializations ("Force Mage" and "Fade Weaver")
• 2 new skills ("Elementalism" and "Arcane Knowledge")
• complete, self-contained adventure to escape the tower
• a few "new" enemies ported from DA2 and DAI
  

Installation
Install the dazip with the mod manager of your choice.

Compatibility
As a standalone campaign, Unbroken Circle should be compatible with most mods. However, mods that alter vanilla items (such as Improved Atmosphere) may affect the mod in unexpected ways. None of these should be game-breaking, but may be immersion-breaking.

Any mod that ships the entire m2da_base.gda (which none should!!) will be incompatible and prevent the mod from working.

Clothing variations 225 and 226 are used within the mod. They shouldn't affect anything outside of the mod, but if you have another mod that uses those same clothing variations, you will see those items in place of the excellent Male Circle Robe Replacers ( Robes of the void ) and Female Circle Robe Replacers (Bethany Robe Replacer) by commanderstrawberry.

Unfortunately, mods that are contained in their own modules rather than being placed in the override, such as No Helmet Hack 1_6, will not take effect in Unbroken Circle.

Optional Files
Cerise and Nolan in Circle Origin: Simply places Cerise and Nolan (your two starting companions) in the Circle Tower during the mage origin. You can find them hanging out in the room you wake up in.

Voiced Protagonist Beta: This was something I really wanted to include on initial release, but I ended up not finishing in time for my planned release date. As such, I decided to include the incomplete "beta" version as an optional file. The intro conversation, Bowen's first conversation, and all of the final conversations are voiced; the others still need to be included. How this works: when starting a new game, choose one of the two new soundsets - "Circle Mage - Masculine" or "Circle Mage - Feminine." These will give you the soundset that matches the protagonist voice, and set the plot flags necessary for the game to play the lines. The voice can also be turned on or off via the debug menu. Voice and soundset are not gender restricted; you can choose either regardless of what body type you play as.

Realistic Teeth Morphs: Created for me by Jenya66! Cerise's morph is currently missing as I lost the MRH for her, so if you're using Realistic Teeth, you'll either want to make your own morph for Cerise or be aware that she'll revert to the default elf female face.

Hints and Tips
Debug menu: The mod's debug menu can be accessed via the console by typing the following: runscript zz_debug_unbroken
The debug menu contains various options for altering your playthrough or changing choices, but please use this with discretion, as messing with it too much may have unintended consequences.

Companions: 

• Your companions do have full conversations, but they cannot be accessed until you're in camp. Unlike some Grey Wardens I could name, they're not about to drop everything in the middle of a battlefield to have a deep conversation.
• Not every companion is required to complete the campaign; however, choosing to travel with only your starting companions may make the later sections more difficult!
• Your companions are quite chatty, especially in the tower -- and they usually have something to say about quests or your environment, which may be helpful as you proceed. A good rule to follow is if they start talking, stop walking.
• There are more banter options than you're likely to trigger in the normal course of the campaign. If you want to hear them all, using the debug menu while in the tunnels or the Deep Roads will bring up an "Initiate Banter" option. When there are only a few left, sometimes the file might skip one and do nothing, so you may need to run it a few times to ensure you've gotten through them all.
  

New Skills/Specs:

• The "Arcane Knowledge" skill will give you a couple of additional dialogue options; they aren't many, but if you want to be a bookworm and show it off, choose this.
• If you’re a Fade Weaver, you cannot use Fade Walk within the Fade.* This is to prevent you from entering areas that should not be accessible and potentially breaking the sequence. *(There is an exception to this, but it’s a specific case that will not occur in all playthroughs.)
• As a general note, be sensible about your use of Fade Walk. If you’re using it to access areas you shouldn’t be able to, things may not work as intended.
  

New Items: The mushrooms you find scattered about some areas can be used in new herbalism recipes to create health poultices and injury kits. These recipes will be automatically granted to you once you reach a specific section of the campaign.

Quests:
In addition to the main campaign, there are several small quests and hidden items you can access. Some of these are more obvious than others -- though none of them are necessary to complete the mod.

Blood Magic:
If you choose the Blood Mage specialization, some dialogue options and outcomes will differ. But please note that while the mod is built to acknowledge your use of blood magic, it will completely ignore it if you for some reason decide to add it to Cerise or Nolan.

The Fade:
The short Fade sequence will be different depending on who you send in. None of them are particularly difficult, however, as a heads up -- Cerise's sequence is probably the hardest and Nolan's is probably the easiest.

Credits
Jenya66 -- morphs for Realistic Teeth and the basis for Bowen's morph, which was adapted from her Witcher inspired morps
commanderstrawberry -- meshes and textures from Male Circle Robe Replacers ( Robes of the void ) and Female Circle Robe Replacers (Bethany Robe Replacer) 
midnightgeek -- Darker Spider Web Models
Elelith -- a couple of textures from Retexturing DAO
HollownessDevoured -- a few icons from Resources for Certain Interested Parties
AmstradHero -- Remove Single Player Codex Entries for Standalone Mod and Community Contest 1 - Hillside Village (for epilogue slide)
ElvGames & Peggu-sensei -- additional music
Obsidian Dawn -- photoshop brushes for arcane circles
Marcus22Khaar -- testing
Padme4000 -- testing
Hermaen2000 -- testing and technical assistance
beccatoria -- technical assistance
voices are AI-generated from elevenlabs using dynamically-generated voices rather than cloned from any specific VA