Werewolves: This week's update

For as long as I've had this campaign in mind I wanted a werewolf companion. Not necessarily a vicious type, like the wererat in the NWN extension; at the start I was thinking of BG2's Cernd. Then I wanted him to be more of a tormented figure, the kind of character who knows he has ferocity in his nature (and his troubled past) and is constantly having to struggle with it.

As you do, I ran into several problems. First up was Cernd himself: I wanted to have my NPC as a druid, because, let's face it; what else are you going to do if you're a chaotic good lycanthrope who's lived in the forest most of his life? In the end I had to tweak my character into a spirit shaman to jump out of BG's shadow (still ropey, I know.)

Second up was the werewolf model, which is pretty much infamous now. So I had the choice of having the NPC constantly in wolf form, but looking like a werebadger with obvious breasts (I even wrote up some companion banter featuring Jashemi poking fun at Trent's 'puppy fat'), using the Vault's custom model, which would have been fine if I hadn't already worked Shadowfall's gnoll community into the mod (they come from the same starting place) or having him constantly in human form. Spending hours on a script mechanism to have him change back and forth when in battle would have been painful but possibly do-able...if there was a werewolf model I liked for him. Damn.

So, at the moment, Trent (and that's the third problem...there's about three great looking mods in development out there who also boast a companion called Trent. Hopefully mine will stand up to theirs...)'s staying human. But I'm praying before I finish the mod, some bright young genius on the Vault will come up with a werewolf model we can all relate to...

-Also worked on the Asylum; Crow's pregnancy is now a central plot point.

-Dregs are being tidied and populated. I even included some foliage...it's on the side of a damn volcano, after all! The soil's going to be incredibly fertile. Screenshot included mostly because the past few ones have been quite dark.

-Struggling with speaktriggers that refuse to pick up on the right speaking NPCs...retagging seems to be the only thing that works.

-Looking forward with excitement to working on the Underground Stair, Masked Ball and the finale!