Vegtabill’s Threads of the Webspinner
- a mod for TES3: Morrowind




GREETINGS!
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Hello, and thank you for downloading my Threads of the Webspinner (TotW) mod! In the following sections I’ll go over what this mod does and why I thought it needed doing, how to install the mod, and any possible conflicts with it. But if you really just want to get started with the mod, go right ahead and skip down to the INSTALLATION section. I tend to get a little long-winded, as some of you well know!




RATIONALE
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I love the Morag Tong (MT). I only saw a tiny glimpse of them in Oblivion and, let's face it, that glimpse was pretty pathetic! But I was intrigued nonetheless, so when I finally got around to playing Morrowind I was thrilled to find that the MT is a big factor in the game, ~and~ that they are a playable faction! No kidding, that little detail was a huge factor for me; I would have bought the game for the MT alone!


The MT in Morrowind is indeed an awesome faction, but most of the quests are execution attempts. Don't get me wrong; there are uncountably many ways to pull off the executions, providing plenty of potential for variety. Plus, once the player has reached high enough levels, some unique quests become available. But by and large the MT's quests are execution runs. There is, however, one very notable exception...


TotW is a truly unique series of mini-quests and non-quests that all add up to a final big reward: Mephala's Skill. Mephala's Skill is a powerful, low-cost (30) spell that never fails as long as your player character (PC) has enough Magicka. Further, once Eno Hlaalu decides to step down as head of the MT, your PC has an opportunity to reclaim the entire TotW collection depending, of course, on how you choose to let the old Grandmaster leave. There are quite a few threads and most of them have little to nothing said about them in the vanilla game. In a sense, that makes TotW one of the most open, unguided quests in the game, and I didn't want to do so much that I ruined that aspect.


But the truth is, TotW is actually a little too open and too unguided to be a functional, completable "quest". Put another way, it is nearly impossible to finish TotW and acquire Mephala's Skill without 1) consulting some out-of-game resource (like the UESP Wiki, or even these forums), or 2) abandoning your role-play and killing people almost at random (unless you're role-playing as a homicidal berzerker, in which case why is Eno Hlaalu still alive? :D ). In all seriousness though, there is just no way to complete TotW by following any kind of natural, in-game progression.


To prove my point, have a look at some of the results from my research:


1) There are a total of 20 NPCs with Sanguine items.
2) Of these, only 7 have MT quests that lead you to them.
3) Of the 13 left, 3 are in the same locations as the targets of those MT quests.
4) That leaves 10 NPCs with no MT quests to lead you to them, or even near them.
5) Of these 10, only 3 are in locations that other, non-MT quests lead you to, and one of these 3 NPCs is not hostile. (Gluronk gra-Shula in the Gateway Inn is not hostile. There is a rumor about her, but it is only spoken by 1 NPC in the entire game.)
6) That leaves 7 with no quests that lead you to them; they are only discovered by exploring.
7) Of these 7, only 1 has a rumor that might lead you to him. The rumor is very vague, and is only spoken by 1 NPC in the entire game.
8) Of the 6 left, 2 are not hostile.


From this, you can see that there are at a minimum two NPCs that pretty much have to be killed at random. No dialogue leads you to them, and they will not attack when you encounter them. There are two more non-hostile NPCs that do have rumors, but in both cases only one NPC in the game knows the rumors. Further, Dro'Zaymar's rumor simply says, "Dro'Zaymar, a Khajiit in St. Delyn, can jump higher than anyone I know. I wonder what his secret is." To me, that's hardly enough to murder poor Dro'Zaymar! And then you have several more NPCs that you would literally just have to "happen upon" in order to find and collect the items. Vvardenfell is big, and with so many locations to explore I'd argue that finding all of the Sanguine items organically, that is without consulting the Construction Set, a wiki, or some other reference, is statistically improbable and practically impossible.


Once I put all of these facts together, I knew something had to be done. I had never made a dialogue mod before and my only other public mod was on a much smaller scale than TotW, but I was determined to come up with something that would improve the MT's biggest quest.




WHAT THIS MOD DOES
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In a nutshell, this mod aims to give players what they need to figure out the locations of the Sanguine items without going on random killing sprees or exiting the game to search wikis and forums for answers. Existing topics have been more fleshed-out and completely new topics have been added, all with the purpose of getting the player to the right places with enough information to connect the dots and find the items.


As I said earlier, I kind of liked the open, unguided feel of vanilla TotW and I wanted to preserve as much of that as I could while still giving players enough information to complete the quest. So to those with concerns about making it too easy, rest assured; I've tried really hard not to turn this into "scavenger hunt" where you're told what to do and where to go every step of the way. At the same time, anyone looking for a quick and easy way to get the items is probably going to be frustrated. You are going to have to think a little and use detective-like skills to put the pieces together. Some of the NPCs you will need to talk to aren't necessarily going to tell you what you want right away, and still others won't be able to do any more than point you in a very general direction. This will make you have to work a little harder, but I thoroughly believe it will make the rewards that much greater. Nothing beats that "aha!" moment, does it? I don't think so! :D


There are four versions of the plugin included in the mod. Only activate ONE (1) of the plugins at a time. They are each built off the same core plugin (veg-TotW.esp), so they all contain the changes it makes plus a few additional edits. All you need to do is decide which version has the right changes for you, and then install and activate only that one plugin.


veg-TotW.esp
This is the core mod the other three are built off of, and it is the least likely to conflict with any other mods. In short, it is strictly a dialogue mod; no edits were made to any NPCs, items, locations, spells, or anything else you can think of. Some of the vanilla game's topics were edited with new content and new filters. In addition, new topics were created to provide more depth and variety. But from a technical standpoint that's all the mod does, so it's highly unlikely that this plugin will conflict with any other mods at all. The worst case might be that some dialogue from my mod might not make sense when compared with the topics in [hypothetical] Dialogue Mod X, but that's about it. Further, LGNPC mastermind Cyrano has assured me that there should be no problems using LGNPC’s Khuul plugin alongside my TotW mod. [If anyone has a different experience with LGNPC or any other mod, PLEASE let me know!]


veg-TotW-books.esp
This plugin does everything veg-TotW does, plus it adds a journal and a few letters to certain NPCs ("books" for simplicity). The "books" are all added using a method shown to me by Cyrano. To keep from editing the NPCs directly (which is more likely to cause a conflict), I placed invisible activators in the cells where they can be found. The activators add the books to each NPCs' inventory when the PC enters their cells. Once the NPCs have been dealt with, the books will be there for looting along with the Sanguine items. This mod has a low risk for conflicts, but it could interfere with any mod that edits the same cells. There are only three cells changed and all three are in Daedric ruins so I believe the risk of a conflict is very low.


veg-TotW-MSrestored.esp
This plugin does everything veg-TotW does, plus it restores Mephala's Skill. In its original form, Mephala's Skill had a Fortify Short Blade effect in addition to the Chameleon and Fortify Attack effects it currently has. When I first mentioned on the Bethsoft forums that I was considering making a mod like this, some people had said they would like to see Mephala's Skill returned to its earlier state if the mod was ever made. Well, I remembered you folks (you know who you are!), and this plugin does just that! Because this plugin edits a spell, it could potentially conflict with any mod that also edits spells. This mod only edits Mephala's Skill so if you want to keep the change I made simply load my mod after your spell mod(s).


veg-TotW-books-MSrestored.esp
This plugin does everything veg-TotW does, plus (yep, you guessed it) everything the other two plugins do as well. So in addition to the dialogue changes in veg-TotW, you get the journal and letters from veg-TotW-books ~and~ the original Mephala's Skill from veg-TotW-MSrestored. This plugin has the same possibilities for conflicts as veg-TotW-books and veg-TotW-MSrestored. The risk remains relatively low, but it is worth mentioning.




INSTALLATION
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The four plugin files provided contain many of the same edits. They are intended to be used independently of one another. Choose the version you want to play and install ONLY that version. Do NOT install more than one plugin!


Load Order:
The plugins in this mod are dated 2011/11/11 for two reasons, neither of which being what you’re thinking! One, the date is significant to me; my lovely wife took my hand in marriage that day, making it the best day of my life. That’s reason enough for me! But the second reason is more practical: it should load well before your Mashed Lists file (or multipatch) and/or any merged plugins you might be running. Some files just need to load late and I wanted mine to slip in snuggly without upsetting them, so I picked a date that’s not so recent. Still, I can’t think of any problems you might have if you needed to load it earlier or later, so feel free to play around with it as needed. If you are using a spell mod and want to keep the change to Mephala's Skill in veg-TotW-MSrestored or veg-TotW-books-MSrestored, then be sure that my mod loads after your spell mod(s).
[Thanks again to Logorouge, for reminding me that there ~is~ another reason 11/11/11 might be meaningful to TES players!]


Manual Installation:
1) Decide which version of the mod you want to play.
2) Extract the plugin you wish to play to your “Morrowind” > “Data Files” directory. Do NOT extract all four files, only the version you want.
3) Start Morrowind and select “Data Files” from the menu.
4) Double-click the plugin you extracted to activate it.
5) Click “OK”, and you’re done!


Wrye Mash Installation (recommended):
1) Copy veg-TotW-1.0.zip to the “Installers” directory in your Morrowind installation.
2) Start Wrye Mash and click on the “Installers” tab.
3) Select veg-TotW-1.0.zip in the “Package” list.
4) Under the “Esp/m Filter”, select which of the four plugin files you wish to install. Don’t select more than one.
5) In the “Package” list, right-click on veg-TotW-1.0.zip and select “Install”.
6) Once complete, select the “Mods” tab.
7) In the “File” list, check the box for the plugin you chose to install.
8) If you are starting a new game, you’re done!
Optional for existing saves:
9) Select the “Saves” tab.
10) In the “File” list, select the save you wish to update.
11) Right-click on the save and select “File” > “Duplicate”. Give the copy a name.
12) Select the new copy in the “File” list.
13) In Mash’s bottom-right corner, you will see your plugins listed under a “File” heading.
14) Right-click the “File” heading and select “Sync to Load List”, then click “Save”.
15) Right-click your new save and select “Repair All”. (Some references may be repaired.)
16) You’re done!


The extra, optional bit for existing saves is completely up to you. This is a procedure I follow religiously (with a very few exceptions), but it is in no way required. If you don’t do this you may get some warnings when you load an existing save, but they are resolved by saving, exiting, and then reloading. This is just an extra bit that takes advantage of Wrye Mash’s save file features.




TECHNICAL
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This mod was built using Morrowind’s Construction Set (CS) as the primary tool. As such, I was certain to use tes3cmd for cleaning out any garbage the CS dropped in. All four plugins should be completely clean. I also used Argent’s Book Gen for previewing some of the books before adding them in the CS.


Conflicts:
Everything concerning potential conflicts is listed above in each individual plugin's description. By and large I don't think this mod has much potential for conflicts. The two versions that change Mephala's Skill are probably the most likely to cause a conflict with your load order, but if they do it is easily resolved. Nevertheless, if you have a problem with this mod causing conflicts please let me know.




ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
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First and foremost, I have to thank my lovely wife, Carla. You are my moon and star. Thank you for being the amazing person you are, and for letting me spend ridiculous amounts of time in Tamriel! xoxo


Next up is my good friend Logorouge. He's been a big help to me for so long now that he really should be listed as a collaborator! In all seriousness, the guy has some mad editor-like skills and I am eternally grateful for the time and effort he has put into helping me make my mods the best they can be. He has some killer mods of his own, and I highly recommend using them; I most definitely do! Thanks Logorouge... I wouldn't be releasing this without your help!


Next, I must take a moment to acknowledge Cyrano. I reached out to him in the early days of planning because I was afraid my mod might "conflict" with LGNPC. He took his time to straighten me out on conflicts where dialogue mods are concerned, and then offered to proof some of my work. Well, he ended up doing much more than just proof reading my copy, and I am sincerely grateful for all of his help. And yes, if anyone is curious, that is Cyrano providing Ra'Virr's voice. My "Khajiit-speak" was just awful, so he took my content and gave it a proper Elsweyr dialect. Thank you Cyrano!


Next up, you! Yes, you, the person who took a chance on my mod and downloaded it! You are the reason I made sure I got everything right when I made this mod, partly because I want you to really enjoy it, and partly because I don’t want to screw up your game. I am now very confident that pretty much anyone can install and run my mod without any trouble, but it’s only because I thought someone like yourself might actually try it. If it were only for me, I wouldn’t have been nearly as careful and thorough. So thank you! In a very real way, you helped to make my mod better.


Of course, none of this would be possible without the amazing Morrowind Modding Community, and everyone at the official forums, Great House Fliggerty, Morrowind Modding History, Wolflore, The Imperial Library, the UESP Wiki, and more. Almost everyone has been awesome since I first got involved with the TES Community, and it’s clearly impossible to name them all. In one way or another, big or small, they have all been a part of my TES experience, and I am all the better for it!


Last but not least, thanks to Bethesda Softworks. Bethesda has been consistently cranking out great games for decades, and all along they way they have provided unprecedented support to their fans and to the modding community. Thanks, Beth, for Morrowind, and for the tools to make it even better. You guys rock!




PERMISSIONS
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My policy is very simple: You are free to use this mod for anything you like. All I ask is that my original mod is credited and that this readme is always included so that credit can be given to the people who deserve it. If you have any questions along these lines, please contact me.




CONTACT
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Besides trying to track me down on whichever hosting site you got this from, you can always find me on the official forums, here: forums.bethsoft.com (soon to be bethesda.net). My username there is “vegtabill” (hopefully I’ll be able to retain that on bethesda.net), and I’m usually posting in the Morrowind subforums. There should also be a thread for my mod there in the “Morrowind Mods” subforum (hint: look in my signature line on the forums… there should be a link there within a couple days of release).