As the night mother granted me leadership of the Dark Brotherhood, dominion over death itself, as my dreams of power became fulfiled, I gazed at my Blade of Woe. We had been together for a very long time, so much, in fact, that I hardly even remembered it.

Domination is destruction. All those who dare call themselves "loyal", "righteous" or "fair" only learn to oppress those they cannot see. The very principle of existence is thus : grow in strength so that none may overthrow your supremacy, control the meek and the weak-willed, and kill all who dare oppose you. Such is the will of nature. Such is my law.

I was like that blade. Pure. Virgin. Together, we discovered the thrill of the hunt, the lust for might, the empowerement of sinking into a terrified victims's first blood - my first blood. And hers. It is only nature. Those who label me crazed, mad, deviant, fail to see me as I truly am : the greatest expression of all predators' brilliant, overpowering health. Their disdain, and even their so-called "mercy" are poor disguises for their fear, the fear they share with lambs and all creatures too weak to claim power for themselves. They dare threaten me with justice. I will show them the justice of the night.

I am a child of the night, with the feline grace of the shadows and the cold patience of the stars. And now, my Blade, you are perfect, a flicker of darkness blazing in my hand. Slither through their souls, and extinguish them!


***

As you may have noticed, I love to add cheesy role-play intros to my mods.

Now to the ral thing: This mod changes the model for the empowered version of the Blade of Woe, which is rewarded for completing the Dark Brotherhood's questline.

When I saw the fan art picture, I just knew I had to add it to the game. Look at its shape! Dosen't it look perfect! It's like the blade was drawn before writing existed, and the word "stabbing" was just inspired by it! I think that a plain and dull ebony dagger model is just an insult to such an important and symbolic weapon.

This mod comes in two versions : One that simply changes the model and adds an unenchanted version to A Fighting Chance...

And one that not only changes the model and add an unenchanted version, but also gives the "virgin" Blade of Woe the model of a fine steel dagger (I think it's both prettier and more realistic - and it explains why Lucien Lachance has a bucketfull of them in his house), changes the blade's stats (slower, bit more range, more hard-hitting), and actually gives it a unique enchantment that better fits the assination style (heavy weakness to poison, among other things). It's awesome, really.

So there are two files available:

- Blade of Woe Replacer by Allomerus

The version that does all the changes

- Blade of Woe Replacer No Tweak by Allomerus

The version that just changes the model.

***

If you wonder what armor my character is wearing in certain screenshots, it's a WIP for a bigger mod.

The inspiration the the blade came from a fan art design made by Chenbo, who posted a few fantastic pictures on the WoW website fan art section.

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VERSION HISTORY

1.1 : A mistake made me also change the mesh and icon of the Sufferthorn, even thought the information belonged to another mod, causing the blade to simply disappear. Someone pointed it out to me two years later, and it's now fixed. Nobody likes Sufferthorn anyway...

1.0 : Initial release.

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Known issues :

IF Oblivion in installed in "C:Program Files (x86)", this mod will not work properly unless you tweak it personally - and know how to. You will keep running into issues with all mods created and not directly aimed at win7/vista, which is actually most of them, because win7/vista will mistake mods for potential malware if they are installed in that directory. I suggest installing your game somewhere your computer will not try to protect against modding like a paranoid.

Here's a walkthrough: http://wiki.tesnexus.com/index.php/Oblivion_reinstall_procedure.

Please go through this procedure before asking for help if you get yellow squares or missing textures.

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REQUIREMENTS

The official 1.2.416 oblivion patch, or the Shivering Isles expansion.

OBMM (Oblivion Mod Manager), or 7-Zip archiver.

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CONFLICTS

Mods that change A Fighting Chance's interior might give weird results, but nothing dramatic is to be expected.

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INSTALLATION

OBMM install:

-Click the OMod file (this should open The Oblivion Mod Manager)
-Select this mod in the list (there should be a green square beside its name)
-Click Activate
-Launch Oblivion

Manual install:

-Using 7-Zip, unzip the file.
-Select and copy the "Blade of Woe Replacer by Allomerus", Meshes and Textures folders found inside to your C:Program FilesBethesda SoftworksOblivionData directory, so that the file paths look like this (basically dump them into your Data folder):

C:Program FilesBethesda SoftworksOblivionDataMeshes
C:Program FilesBethesda SoftworksOblivionDataTextures
C:Program FilesBethesda SoftworksOblivionDataBlade of Woe Replacer by Allomerus

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It would be an honor to know that another modder has used these files to further his own goals. As long as, of course, my name appears somewhere.

Do NOT, however, use this mod or any part of it in a Skyrim mod, I'll do that myself once I can get a better dinosaur to play on...

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First and foremost, I have to thank the whole TESNexus community for the ideas, tutorials, help and inspiration they provide to every newcomer. Also, many thanks to Bethesda Softworks for producing one of the most fantastic games in the Multiverse.

I must indeed express my thankfulness to Blizzard's artists for their always amazing art.

Also, the inspiration for this weapon comes from the fan artist Chenbo who posted some great pictures on the WoW website fan art section. Sublime work indeed!

A few special thanks to:

The owner of the Nexus sites, Dark0ne, for his unrelenting work
LHammonds, for his devotion and help on technical matters

And a very special thanks to Jojjo, whose truly magnificent and inspiring works have litterally sucked me into the fantastic «modding-texturing-3d modeling-animation» vortex.

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PROGRAMS USED

Photoshop CS4
Oblivion Mod Manager
BSA unpacker
NifSkope
Blender
And FRAPS for the screenshots

NOTE: Just to be clear, I (unfortunately) do NOT own in any way Blizzard corporation or any related companies, and I do NOT intend to infringe copyright laws.