THIS IS NO LONGER BEING WORKED ON. Sorry but I just don't have time for Skyrim these days.

Soul Forge: Mystic Arena

OVERVIEW
--------------

This mod is comprised of two major components, the Soul Forge and the Mystic Arena.

NOTE: Version 3 and above requires Dawnguard.
NOTE: For existing users, upgrading to version 3.01.06 or above from version 3.01.04 or below requires a clean re-installation of this mod. See the Upgrading section below. Failure to do this as outlined will break the forge and probably your save game.

Soul Forge
--------------

This Soul Forge adds a house which contains a 'Soul Forge' : A series of spells & control objects that allows the player to store soul energy in a 'ghost buster' like storage facility, then re-use that soul energy in different ways. This is suitable for use by any class of player, however it is primarily targeted at high level mages.

In the latest version the forge has been split up into multiple rooms. Although there are more functions now, the new design is rather bland and boring. But function is still more important than aesthetics so for now it remains as is. If I am inspired at a later date I will improve the visual aspects of the forge.

This mod is recommended for use with Master difficulty level or monster mods to increase difficulty. However extra spawns should be disabled when using the Arena, see below.

FEATURES
--------------

-Teleport: Able to teleport self or others to Soul Forge, as well as multi-summon others to yourself directly.
-Soul Capture: Can use Soul Snare or Chain Snare to capture souls directly to the forge without soul gems
-Soul Gems: Can store, extract and resize gems using the forge controls. Can store and extract Soul Energy into or from the forge using gems.
-Fortifications: Can use Soul Energy to fortify or restore Health, Magicka and Stamina
-Summons: Can perform multiple summons with no time limit. Includes Mystic ghosts and Dremora Mimic, a fully fledged Daedric follower.
-Resurrect: Can resurrect corpses to living state permanently, or temporarily raise multiple corpses multiple times.
-Crafting: House contains a full set of Crafting equipment for smelting, smithing and enchanting.
-Alchemy: Includes 10 Alchemy pods containing all standard plant ingredients, as well as scripted potion transfers & upgrades. Pods must be unlocked.
-Recharging: Can recharge/overcharge magical weapons directly from the forge, or using the Distil Corpse spell
-Dragon souls: Can store and extract Dragon Souls into or from the Soul Forge
-Mannequins: Contains 52 Bound Dremora to use as living mannequins.
-Spells: Includes a series of Soul Energy powered spells covering all classes of magic (see below).
-Storage: Includes individualized storage with scripted mass item transfers, including a "store all" button.
-Racks: Contains custom weapon racks that store weapon or shield in a floating upright position.

INSTALLATION
-------------------

-Download and extract Soul Forge into your Skyrim\Data folder, or use Nexus Mod Manager

-NOTE: Users of Skyrim School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, please download the No Dungeon Exterior version. You will receive a Soul Forge (Dungeon) teleport spell either immediately or when you visit Whiterun. The no dungeon version will not be kept as up to date as the main version as maintaining a branch is time consuming. I will update the no dungeon version periodically after multiple updates to the main version.

OPTIONAL
-------------------

Hearthfire users may download the optional "Hearthfire Patch" by Rylasasin. This adds a Hearthfire oven and ingredient sorting to the cooking area. Note I cannot provide support for this as I don't even have Hearthfire.

UPGRADING
---------------------------

When upgrading to version 3.01.06 from any prior version, the following process must be observed:

1) Load save game with old Soul Forge version
2) Sell all Soul Forge items such as Soul Snare enchanted weapons and Soul Forge Spell Tomes. Attempting to keep these in existence will crash the game.
3) Take all items out of the Soul Forge and store in another location.
4) Disable all mannequins and disable all Soul Forge fortifications.
5) Kill all Soul Forge summons. If used Daedra or Dremora Mimics, play the game for at least 30 real-time minutes for mimic script to self cleanup.
6) Save the game and quit to desktop.
7) Delete SoulForge.esp from Data/ and all Soul Forge scripts from Data/Scripts and Data/Scripts/Source, all scripts start with SoulForge_ prefix
8) Load the game, save and exit.
9) Install new version and enable SoulForgeMysticArena.esp
10) Load game. Should now be safe to use the new version. May not be perfectly cleaned, last resort may require starting a new game.

Failing to do this will result in breakage of the Soul Forge and some of it's associated scripts, particularly to do with summoning.

GETTING STARTED
---------------------------

-To access the forge, fast travel to Hag Rock Redoubt. Immediately turn right and head up the hill. Follow the walkway.
-Complete the very short, level 25-35 dungeon to access the Soul Forge. Once there, buy the Soul Forge (Teleport) spell from the Magic Merchant

-No Dungeon Exterior version users can cast the Soul Forge (Dungeon) spell to access the dungeon.

-Alterantively, just "coc SoulForge" and buy the Teleport spell immediately

SUMMONS
--------------

Summoned creatures gain levels, stats, skills and selected spells together with the player. All can be commanded to Follow, Wait or Guard.

-Undead : Custom versions of Death Hound, Boneman, Keeper and Reaper. Attacks deal poison and disease effects. 10% stronger than player.
-Daedra : Flame, Frost, Storm Thrall and Dremora Lord. Only has basic spells. Cannot heal self, but can be resurrected. 25% stronger than player.
-Mystic Warrior : Flame, Frost and Shock melee ghosts. Uses a sword. Can heal self, but cannot be resurrected. 50% stronger than player.
-Mystic Marksman : Flame, Frost and Shock ranged ghosts. Uses a bow. Can heal self, but cannot be resurrected. 50% stronger than player.
-Mystic Mage : Flame, Frost and Shock magic ghosts. Learns elemental spells. Can heal self, but cannot be resurrected. 50% stronger than player.
-Mimics : Melee Mimic and Magic Mimic. Learns Flame, Frost, Shock and Conjuration spells. Can heal self and can be resurrected. 100% stronger than player.

Mystics and Mimics are spell-mimicking, meaning they won't use any spells you don't know yourself. If you are a warrior and want mage support, you will need to learn Flames/Frostbite/Sparks (which have Novice skill level) in order for the mages to be capable of magic.

SPELLS
---------

Below is a list of all Soul Forge spells and a brief description. For details see SoulForgeReadme.txt

-Soul Forge (Teleport) : Player teleport access to the Soul Forge. Vanilla & Marked follower transported automatically.
-Soul Link (Location 1/2) : Establish up to 2 permanent two-way links from Soul Forge to Tamriel
-Soul Mark : Mark a single target for summoning
-Soul Summon : Summon a Marked target
-Multi-Mark : Mark multiple targets for summoning. Separate from Soul Mark
-Multi-Summon : Summon all multi-mark targets to self. Summons in front of player, in line of sight.
-Soul Cast : Send targets directly to or from the Soul Forge.
-Soul Resurrect : Resurrect any corpse to a permanent living state
-Soul Snare : Snare souls directly into the forge without using gems
-Conjure Soul Eater : Summon a magic wisp that automatically casts Soul Snare on enemies
-Chain Snare : Chain casting version of Soul Snare
-Soul Rip 20/30/40/50 : From 20 to 50% chance to insta-kill all currently Soul Trapped or Soul Snared enemies
-Forge Health/Magicka/Stamina (Remote) : Remotely toggle the fortification beacons in Soul Forge. Manage fortifications in the field.
-Full Restore Health/Magicka/Stamina : Fully restore Health, Magicka or Stamina
-Renerate Health/Magicka/Stamina : Fortify Health, Magicka or Stamina regeneration rate by 100% for 5 minutes
-Sap Spirit 15/30/45 : Weaken targets max Health, Magicka or Stamina and all skill stats by 15, 30 or 45% for 60 seconds
-Dragon Soul : Instantly recharge Shout bar
-Immortal Soul : Become immortal for 33 seconds
-Devils Charm : Fortifies Speechcraft by 99 and allows selling any item to any vendor, including stolen goods.
-Divine Strike : Greatly increase Critical Strike chance for 16 seconds.
-Spirit Bomb 1/2/3 : Deals non-elemental explosive damage. Type 2 and 3 include knockdown chance.
-Devour Corpse : Devour a target corpse to heal self for 15% Health, Magicka and Stamina
-Distil Corpse : Distil a corpse to recharge/overcharge equipped weapons. Charge amount dependent on target level.
-Transmute Corpse : Transmute a corpse into an empty Soul Gem. The gem size is dependent on target level.
-Alchemize Corpse : Alchemize a corpse to receive Gold and/or loot rewards. Reward dependent on target level.
-Imbibe Corpse : Imbibe a target corpse to permanently raise HMS by a tiny amount each time (less than 1 point).
-Magic Arrow : Infinite arrows for 15 minutes. Can use enhanced Steel, Dwarven, Glass, Ebony or Daedric arrows. Deals more damage than standard arrows.
-Third Eye : Night eye and long range Detect Life for 30 minutes.
-Enslave Mind : Between 10 to 50% chance to permanently alter living targets faction alliegance to player ally faction.
-Voodoo : Resurrect multiple corpses multiple times. Resurrected targets are also mind enslaved.
-Vooodoo Hex : Deal variable damage to living target. On death strike, automatically casts Voodoo on target. Target must be near death for this to succeed.
-Intervention : Cast on living target for a single auto-resurrect if death occurs within 60 minutes.
-God Step 33/66/99 : Fortify speed by 33, 66 or 99% for 30 minutes.
-Holy Diver : Water breathing for 30 minutes.
-Sentinel Flame/Frost/Shock/Target : Summon from 1 to 3 elemental sentinels for 10 minutes. Cast Target and sentinels will attack using elemental magic.
-Doom : Guaranteed insta-kill on any target if the target still lives 66 seconds after spell impact. Extremely expensive spell with long charge time.
-Soul Light : Creates a floating white light with wide radius for 30 minutes.
-Resist Flame/Frost/Shock/Magic : Resist elemental or all magic by 33/66/99 % for 15 minutes.
-Spirit Barrier 111/222/333 : Increase armor rating by 111/222/333 points for 15 minutes.
-Remote Bomb 1/2/3/Detonate : Remote detonation bombs. Causes same explosive damage as Spirit Bomb 1/2/3.
-Snare Bomb 1 : Deals same damage as Spirit Bomb 1, but snares all enemies in range of the explosion.
-Snare Bomb 0 : Deals no damage but Soul Snare for 48 seconds in large radius
-Magic Chest : Access the Deposited Items chest at any time from anywhere
-Unlock Apprentice/Adept/Expert/Master : Doors and containers at or below spell level unlock automatically.

Mystic Arena
--------------

The Mystic Arena allows fighting against spirits of enemies captured via Soul Snare. This is not a classic pit arena, but rather set on an island with a Soul Cairn theme. This is primarily intended for end-game players wanting a difficult combat challenge. The arena has an unlimited number of matches, with each consecutive match increasing enemy strength via scripting.

The concept to this arena is that the player farms Skyrim for creatures/NPCs and Soul Energy, then uses them to compete in the arena. In each round the player faces 50 in the arena, although due to the size of the arena usually combat involves about a dozen at once.

Matches are made up of 3 rounds:
-Creature round
-NPC round
-Boss round

Boss rounds can be of 4 possible types:
-Undead
-Daedric
-Mystic
-Dragon

Bosses are all custom types with enhanced stats and abilities. Champions have powerful weapons, damage resistances, magic resistances and spells depending on type. Dragon bosses do not grant dragon souls.

Completing matches provides loot rewards. The more matches played consecutively, the more rewards are given.

The arena is available in 2 modes - Softcore and Hardcore. In softcore, followers and Soul Forge summons are permitted. There is a summoning pedestal in the arena that can be used after selecting round start. In hardcore mode, no followers and no Soul Forge summons are possible. Additionally, only vanilla Skyrim summons are possible - anything else will automatically eject the player for cheating. Hardcore comes with triple loot rewards and a small Soul Energy reward. Some extra powerful spells or items are available as arena rewards in any mode, in addition to unenchanted versions of various unique items, such as dragon masks or archmage robe.

For more details, see the arena manual available from the Magic Merchant.

If using Nightmare spawning mod, please set difficulty to Normal before playing in arena. If using other spawning mods please take necessary steps to disable spawning. Otherwise additional enemies will spawn that are not ghosts and not arena contestants. In Hardcore this will result in being ejected by anti-cheat function.

This version is current in beta test phase. Will not be available for No Dungeon Exterior version will be released until bug fixing is complete.

There are still some bugs with the arena.

UNIQUE REWARDS
--------------

In the arena boss level randomized loot rewards are the following items that are only available in this manner:

-Doomed amulet: Reduces Doom soul energy cost from 666 to 66 but damages wearer 11 points per second while equipped.
-Staff of Strong Absorb Magicka: Concentration lightning attack that deals no damage but absorbs 33 Magicka/second
-Staff of Intense Lightning: Concentration lightning attack that deals 64 Health and Magicka damage per second
-Snare Bomb 2/3: Snare bomb versions equivalent to Spirit Bomb 2/3
-Supreme Barrier: Erects an indestructible stationary magic barrier for 30 seconds
-Regenerate Health/Magicka/Stamina: 200% fortification versions of Regenerate, and a 300% version fortification of Magicka
-Fortify Health/Magicka/Stamina: Fortify Health/Magicka/Stamina by 333/666/999 points. 1333 point version also available for Magicka. Intended for use in high level matches in the arena.

BUGS
-------

Most of these bugs are due to limitations in Skyrim and cannot be fixed.

-Not compatible with Azura Star
-Mismatched Soul Gems & Souls cannot be stored into the Forge
-Using Resurrect on any non-mimic target causes the inventory to reset. So additional items will be reset. Grab items from Vanilla follower before casting.
-Taking a Mimic into a place followers can't go can cause the game to delete the Mimic
-Sometimes Spirit Bomb direct hits do not detonate, and only cause direct impact damage but no splash damage.
-Sometimes Chain Snare hits but does not take effect, or no chain recast is launched.
-Weapon charge bar max does not change when recharged, however over-charge still occurs.
-For Magic Arrow, the count in the bottom right appears to count down. However, inventory always contains 999 arrows for spell duration
-Voodoo will have strange effects on some NPCs in town. Guards will still attempt to arrest you for crimes.
-Graphics for sentinels are glitchy. This was a last-ditch attempt for moving sentinels so this is as good as it gets
-Some staves sit a bit high above the weapon beacons. Wood axe also sits too low and clips into the pillar. Other weapons seem fine.
-Although corpse devouring spells can be cast on dragons in the moment between death and dragon soul absorption (but not after), do NOT cast on Durnevhiir or he will never be able to be summoned afterward.
-Devouring Skjor's corpse before Aela gets a chance to look at it will crash the game to desktop.
-When completing the quest Purity of Revenge, return to Whitrun on foot through the front gate with Vilkas. Teleporting into Whiterun will permanently break the Companions questline.
-Imbibe corpse is not compatible with the mod AutoPSL when using auto-stats
-Stolen item cleanser may still charge you for items you don't own but aren't stolen.
-Putting stolen then user enchanted items into the cleanser may remove the enchantment.