I went back into the internet archive, and found the original post we'd made during the release of v1.0 of this mod:
My partner and I were both disappointed at the lack of variety in the khajiit race, and so we formed a modding team and set about the task of adding his favorite large cat, panther, to the game. He reskinned the models, I've been working on the coding, and between us, we've been developing storyline.
The initial inspiration/influence for this new panther race was the Drow from D&D.; These panthers are part of an offshoot Khajiit bloodline, branded by the Tamriel Gods for an ancient transgression, living in exile from their clansmen.
From the in-game race description at char-gen :
"The Ra'kath are an outcast breed of Khajiit, whose origin is shrouded in legend. The tales tell of a Khajiit matriarch who lead a failed crusade to drive slavers from the province of Elsweyr. In keeping with these legends, Ra'kath Prides are led by females. Rarely found outside of the forests of Valenwood, where they live in exile, the Ra'kath specialize in treetop ambushes, leading to stories among the wood elves of evil shadow-cats who stalk in the night. These stories have lead to the Ra'kath having a reputation for viciousness among the other races."
From a gameplay standpoint, they're designed to be a good race for spell caster types, with high intelligence and willpower, but their natural feline agility will certainly keep avenues open for other styles of play.
Race skills include Destruction and Conjuration magics (which tie in heavily with the storyline we're developing for later releases of this mod), and of course a high Acrobatics and bonuses to a few other feline-appropriate skills.
We also have what we think is a good mix on the racial powers/abilities useful, but not power gaming. Changed the night-eye to a constant effect, as none of us can figure out what the original programmers were thinking of by making it a short duration spell on the original khajiit. There's also a low-grade/low-cost Jump & Slowfall spell, and a decent duration bound dagger as a once-a-day power.
This is balanced out by the disadvantages. First off, their bad reputation proceeds them. The Khajiiti refuse to talk of them other than the fact that they've been exiled from Elsewyr for centuries, and the stories told by the Bosmer make them out to be blood-thirsty killers. In game, this is represented by lower-than-average personality scores. Don't expect merchants and quest-givers to like you.
The second disadvantage is in the form of a curse laid upon the race long ago, as punishment from the Gods for an abuse of power that they had been granted for a noble cause. In game this curse is a 50% Weakness to Poison, and a 10% Weakness to Magicka.
Our goal for the first phase of development is to have a fully playable race. The next phase will be to give the race context in game, by adding NPCs, Factions, and Quests in support of a storyline about this offshoot breed, their fall from grace, and hopefully their redemption.
As an aside, while developing these panthers, we researched much Elder Scrolls lore dealing with the different breeds of Khajiit. In particular, the Cathay-Raht are supposed to be quite panther-like. Because we want to be free to develop our own original storylines that complement existing Elder Scrolls Lore without being tied down by it, we've made a concious choice to keep the Ra'kath distinct from the Cathay-Raht. We're aware that this was disappointing to many old-school purists out there, so we have plans in a future release to include a secondary plug in that'd add Cathay-Raht to the game using our textures, slightly altered to allow for a cosmetic difference between them and our own breed.
Finally, we here at Evil Panther Productions are eager to hear any feedback you may have about our creation. Everyone has a different playing style, and we'd like to hear what you like and don't like about our kitties, and if you think they're balanced when compared to the stock races.
As half of the team that was Evil Panther Productions back in the day, I give my full blessing to TheNo1Odor's upload of this mod to the Nexus. Apologies for never updating it past v1.0, the team broke up sometime after release. I give full permission to modify and redistribute anything in the ESP so long as I'm credited for the original work and you email me at radwolf76 at gmail dot com to let me know what you've done with it.
The texture files are still copyright Evil Panther Productions and without permission of my ex-partner Rashock, I can't officially lift that copyright. However, unless you're using them for hateful purposes, I won't mind if you do anything with them, and the last I had heard of Rashock, he was in jail, so any legal resources he may have available to him might just have higher priorities than trying to enforce his rights to those images. Besides, as derivative works based on Bethedsa's stock textures, there's the question of whether his work on them was transformative enough for them to even count as a copyrightable work. I am not a lawyer, I am not your lawyer, this is not legal advice.
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My partner and I were both disappointed at the lack of variety in the khajiit race, and so we formed a modding team and set about the task of adding his favorite large cat, panther, to the game. He reskinned the models, I've been working on the coding, and between us, we've been developing storyline.
The initial inspiration/influence for this new panther race was the Drow from D&D.; These panthers are part of an offshoot Khajiit bloodline, branded by the Tamriel Gods for an ancient transgression, living in exile from their clansmen.
From the in-game race description at char-gen :
"The Ra'kath are an outcast breed of Khajiit, whose origin is shrouded in legend. The tales tell of a Khajiit matriarch who lead a failed crusade to drive slavers from the province of Elsweyr. In keeping with these legends, Ra'kath Prides are led by females. Rarely found outside of the forests of Valenwood, where they live in exile, the Ra'kath specialize in treetop ambushes, leading to stories among the wood elves of evil shadow-cats who stalk in the night. These stories have lead to the Ra'kath having a reputation for viciousness among the other races."
From a gameplay standpoint, they're designed to be a good race for spell caster types, with high intelligence and willpower, but their natural feline agility will certainly keep avenues open for other styles of play.
Race skills include Destruction and Conjuration magics (which tie in heavily with the storyline we're developing for later releases of this mod), and of course a high Acrobatics and bonuses to a few other feline-appropriate skills.
We also have what we think is a good mix on the racial powers/abilities useful, but not power gaming. Changed the night-eye to a constant effect, as none of us can figure out what the original programmers were thinking of by making it a short duration spell on the original khajiit. There's also a low-grade/low-cost Jump & Slowfall spell, and a decent duration bound dagger as a once-a-day power.
This is balanced out by the disadvantages. First off, their bad reputation proceeds them. The Khajiiti refuse to talk of them other than the fact that they've been exiled from Elsewyr for centuries, and the stories told by the Bosmer make them out to be blood-thirsty killers. In game, this is represented by lower-than-average personality scores. Don't expect merchants and quest-givers to like you.
The second disadvantage is in the form of a curse laid upon the race long ago, as punishment from the Gods for an abuse of power that they had been granted for a noble cause. In game this curse is a 50% Weakness to Poison, and a 10% Weakness to Magicka.
Our goal for the first phase of development is to have a fully playable race. The next phase will be to give the race context in game, by adding NPCs, Factions, and Quests in support of a storyline about this offshoot breed, their fall from grace, and hopefully their redemption.
As an aside, while developing these panthers, we researched much Elder Scrolls lore dealing with the different breeds of Khajiit. In particular, the Cathay-Raht are supposed to be quite panther-like. Because we want to be free to develop our own original storylines that complement existing Elder Scrolls Lore without being tied down by it, we've made a concious choice to keep the Ra'kath distinct from the Cathay-Raht. We're aware that this was disappointing to many old-school purists out there, so we have plans in a future release to include a secondary plug in that'd add Cathay-Raht to the game using our textures, slightly altered to allow for a cosmetic difference between them and our own breed.
Finally, we here at Evil Panther Productions are eager to hear any feedback you may have about our creation. Everyone has a different playing style, and we'd like to hear what you like and don't like about our kitties, and if you think they're balanced when compared to the stock races.
The texture files are still copyright Evil Panther Productions and without permission of my ex-partner Rashock, I can't officially lift that copyright. However, unless you're using them for hateful purposes, I won't mind if you do anything with them, and the last I had heard of Rashock, he was in jail, so any legal resources he may have available to him might just have higher priorities than trying to enforce his rights to those images. Besides, as derivative works based on Bethedsa's stock textures, there's the question of whether his work on them was transformative enough for them to even count as a copyrightable work. I am not a lawyer, I am not your lawyer, this is not legal advice.