Skyrim Books Update

There a number of important updates regarding the progress of Skyrim Books.

The first is that one of our team member has disappeared and we have not heard from him for weeks. Since he was the one that was building the bookstore, we are going to have to figure something else out. nox.fox has offered to build a level, and I have an old level that we could use. Whichever possibility we decide on, the project will inevitably be delayed.

Because of the loss of our team member, we have also lost a number of stories and authors which we had decided would be added to the mod. He had gathered a list of stories from authors that he contacted and was going to send them to us. If you are an author that had their work accepted by John, please shoot us an e-mail and we will include your story in the mod.

We aren't sure what happened to him. If you do know, we'd appreciate it if you could let us know. And if you're reading this John, please let us know what's going on, buddy.

News Update: 3-10-12

News Update:

3-10-12

Skyrim Books:

New team member:

We are lucky to have been joined by John Allan, a writer and level-builder. He is building the bookstore for us, along with a printing press that will allow you to make copies of books if you have the proper materials. His contact info will be added to the Contact soon. Welcome to the team, John! :-)

New authors/books:

Due to a few threads that John posted around the Elder scrolls forums, we have gathered quite a number of new stories and authors. They are quality stories that will fit into the Skyrim world well, and will excite you as you explore the wonderful world that Bethesda has created. Once we receive as many as we want for the first edition of Skyrim Publishing, then we will publish a list of the stories for your perusal.

SP Bookstore:

The development of the Skyrim Publishing bookstore is in progress. The structure has been made, and the printing press designed. Screenshots will be posted soon.

Voice Acting:

I am in the process of writing the lines for the bookstore owner. With the help of Giskard and the Engineering Guild, I hope to find a good Voice Actor for the character.

Timeline:

In order to aid you by letting you know our plans and when they should be completed, a timeline has been created. The ultimate goal of this schedule is to finish the entirety of the first edition by the end of the month. I expect that we will actually finish quite a bit before then, but since we are real people with busy lives, stuff occasionally gets in the way. This schedule is subject to change.

1. March 17th: All books for 1st edition will be written, gathered, and added to the game.
2. March 24th: Voice acting is totally complete and added to the game.
3. March 31st: Bookstore, NPC's, will be complete, and the first edition of Skyrim Books will be released.

Unarmed Warfare:

While I have not actually completed any more development, I have finally found a way to create an Unarmed skill! It will not show up in the image of the 'heavens' along with the other skills, but will rather be upgraded through a system of 'milestones'. These milestones could be in the form of quests, achievements, reading books, or more. This would allow me to totally get rid of the 'Unarmed Weapon', and not have to make any edits to the perk trees at all. I'm looking forward to making the next version!

Tutorial: Writing good TES books

Object: Tips to write a book that fits in the world of Skyrim

Difficulty: Medium

Time Needed: Quite some, depending on your skills

Things you will need:

• Some skills in writing, preferably
• A little time

What is a TES book?

1. A TES book is a piece of text designed to fit in a game and this is something you must remember. What this means is that writing a TES book is not about writing a real book that can be printed, carried all around, bookmarked, anotated, etc. It is about writing a book that will be:

• Read on screen
• Has no numbered pages
• Can't be bookmarked
• In which you can't skip pages 10 by 10 but only 1 by 1

2. This means your book can't be too long or reading it won't be the smoothest experience. Among the longest books of the original TES games are those of the Real Barenziah series. Back to Morrowind I would go to Jobasha's Rare Books and read the whole series, totally hooked by the story. Back then it was a great chance pages had numbers in case I had to quit the game for a while and then try to find out where I was in the book, scrolling longly until I hit the right page. Now in Skyrim there are no more numbers on the pages... figure out the mess if you need to find back the page where you stopped in the middle of a long story without spoiling yourself. So what should you do?

• Limit your word count around 4000 words. 6000~8000 should really be a max for a stand-alone story.
• If your story is longer than this, split it into several tomes and make it a series.

Write in Tamrielic

1. A TES book should fit in the ES games not only from its design but mostly from its content of course. You don't want to hang around Solitude's Bard's College, open a book there and read a story about an Italian mushroom-eater plumber named Mario trying to find a princess in various castles. If you were to write such a story, please, make it fit in the lore or change your mind!
In exemple you can write the story of Mario, the Breton, and his misadventures in Sadrith Mora, getting totally skooma-high and starting to eat the mushroom homes of the Telvanni. As a Daedra worshiper, Mario seeks for Azura in his delirium and tries to conjure her. Unfortunately only Sheogorath answers and here comes a dark seducer... A great tale among Khajiiti slaves needing to cheer up.

2. Use Tamrielic names. Be it for your characters or for yourself as an author. Mario is a correct name for a Breton or eventually for an Imperial (though Marius would surely be more fitting) but surely not for an Orc or a Khajiit. The ten different races of Tamriel each have their own features regarding naming, try to stick to them as much as possible. Look the names of existing characters of a same race to understand how to compose new ones.
You can look the UESP's name lists or you can also generate lists easily with Tamriel Rebuilt's name generator but beware: it uses names of existing NPCs.

Here goes a little list of facts:

• Breton - Names often have a Latin origin, mostly (old) French and Italian (François Motierre, Vicente Valtieri). Sometimes it can also sound more English (Cassyr Whitley) or Latin (Socucius Ergala). Breton names feature a first and last name.
  
• Imperial - Names have a Latin origin, often ending by "us" or "o" for men (Hieronymus, Crassius, Toutius, Gergio, Falco) and by "a" for women (Camilla, Vilena, Simplicia). Family names often end the same way with "us", "a", "o" (Sextius, Curio, Cosma). Latin words are often a base for most names. Imperial names feature a first and last name.
  
• Redguard - Redguard names are a little more tricky as they look like a mix of Breton (Alonzo, Neville), Imperial (Demetrius, Varnado), sometimes almost elvish or sounding quite tribal (Phintias, Shenk, Domba, Karlirah). This reflects well the nomade aspect of Redguard as the race counts many sailors and adventurers. I suggest you to refer to name lists to check if your Redguard name would be fitting. Redguard names usually feature only a first name. In rare cases there is also a last name (Gor Felim, Jim 'gentleman' Stacey).
  
• Nord - Names have a germanic or scandinavian origine so you can refer to naming lists found on the web to help you out. Names such as Hadvar, Brindolf or Onmir car fit for men, names such as Svenja, Mathilda or Olga can fit for women. Nords often bear a nickname (Olaf One-Eye, Hjalti Early-Beard, Talos Stormcrown), that reflects who they are in some way. These nicknames may also serve as family/clan names (Battle-Born, Grey-Mane).
  
• Altmer - Names often end with "ril", "mil", "nil", "rion", "mo", etc. for men (Carelcalmo, Tusamircil, Sinderion) , and end with "inde", "wen", "we", "lin", etc. for women (Elenwen, Palonirya, Estirdalin). Altmeri names and Bosmeri names share similarities due to their common elvish origins but there are still slight differences. Don't hesitate to refer to name lists if you don't feel comfortable with name creation and combine parts of different existing names. Altmeri names usually feature only a first name. In rare cases there is also a birthplace (Lathenil of Sunhold, Ocato of Firsthold), or in very rare cases, a last name (Mankar Camoran) or eventually a nickname (Rynandor the Bold).
  
• Bosmer - Names often end with "gor". "dor", "nor", "goth", "roth", "fin", "lem", etc. for men (Fargoth, Meldor, Thrangirfin), and end with "wen", "el", "il", "iel, etc. for women (Aranwen, Aredhel, Menelin).  Altmeri names and Bosmeri names share similarities due to their common elvish origins but there are still slight differences. Don't hesitate to refer to name lists if you don't feel comfortable with name creation and combine parts of different existing names. Altmeri names feature only a first name.
  
• Dunmer - Both first and last names often contain no more than 2 or 3 syllables and are very recognizable by their redundance (Eno Hlaalu, Tholer Saryoni, Nelos Ondrano). I won't list them all here and rather advice you to refer to naming lists, pick syllables, mix them up and come up with a name you like. Male and female names sound different (Sevil, Tovas, Reler VS Dovesi, Arvena, Lathasa). Dunmer names feature a frist and last name.
  
• Dunmer (Velothi) - These names often stand out by their complexity and great ammount of syllables and consonants (Ninirrasour, Mabarrabael). Some names though are shorter but the syllables are still recognizable (Hanssour, Maley, Sakin) and some are composed (Erur-Dan, Ulath-Pal). Just as modern Dunmer names, Velothi names are composed with a set of given syllables combined together. Family names are often quite long (Sashmassamsi, Assunbahanammu) and sometimes composed (Dun-Ahhe, Timsar-Dadisun) but share a similar pattern and set of given syllables. Velothi names feature a first and last name.
  
• Orc - First names often end with "mul", "muk", "bul", "buk", "zol", "ash", "shum", "zur", etc. for men (Durbul, Morbash, Murzol) and end with "ob", "og", "a", etc. for women (Murob, Umog, Mazoga). Family names are composed with gro+name for males, and gra+name for females. "gro" means "son of" and "gra" means "daughter of", thus the name coming after is usually a first name as well. However, to help their integration in the Imperial society, modern day Orcs tend to use the name of a famous ancestor rather than the name or the genitor. Thus Nash gro-Shurakh will name his daughter Mogra gra-Shurakh in spite of Mogra gra-Nash.
  
• Argonian - Names usually either count one word (Huzei, Milos) or are hyphenated (Haj-Ei, Jeelus-Tei) or are translated in Cyrodiilic (Nine-Toes, Only-He-Stands-There) when too hard to pronounce for non-Argonians. Argonian names are usually rather short, counting 2 or 3 syllables. I suggest you to refer to naming lists for inspiration. Argonian names feature only a first name or nickname. Note that the name they use is one received during a secret ritual of passage with the Hist, different from their birthname. We don't know how Argonians out of Black Marsh get their adult name.
  
• Khajiit - Male names usually count 1 or 2 syllables and often feature a title, usually hyphenated, like (S'Rava, J'skar, Dro-Basha), etc. These titles have meanings that shouldn't be interpreted litteraly ("Dar" means "thief" but rather implies swift agility or a quick mind). Female names rarely feature a title except "S'" and count 2 or 3 syllables (Ahnassi, Ajira, Kisimba). I suggest you to refer to naming lists for inspiration. Khajiiti names feature only a first name.

3. Avoid using vocabulary unfitting to the world of Tamriel. We've never seen Vodka or Tequila in Tamriel but we've seen Shein, Mazte, Sujamma, Colovian Brandy. There is no cocaine or heroine but there's Moon Sugar. You get the idea. If you want to mention such elements, make sure they exist in the lore and find an equivalent at need.

More tips to come as this post will be updated

(don't hesitate to contribute with your own advice!)

News Update: 2-28-12

News Update:

2-28-12

Skyrim Books: The project has been planned and organized. There will be two main parts of the mod called Extended Book Mod and Skyrim Publishing, as well as two optional sub-parts. EBM will primarily be managed by nox.fox, while Skyrim Publishing will primarily be managed by Woverdude.

• The Extended Books Mod will extend the amount of stories, poems, background data, and lore within the game by adding original books. 

1. Readable Spell tomes is an optional add-on to EBM that will make Spell Tomes readable and add actual information to them

• Skyrim Publishing will function as a magazine, accepting fanfic submissions to be added to the game on a regular basis. 

1. Skyrim Publishing Bookstore will add a bookstore to the game world that will contain the latest and previous issues of Skyrim Publishing. It will also feature a unique character with an interesting background and (hopefully) original voice acting.

Better Books will also be available for download, but as a separate mod. It will add new and improved textures to books within the game.

Progress:

• The Readable Spell Tomes script has been made and is available for download at the Nexus as a modder's resource. As a part of Skyrim Books, information will be added to the Spell Tomes that players can read ingame when they learn the spell.
• A number of original books have been collected for EBM, and several submissions for SP have been received.
• Woverdude has begun building the level for the Skyrim Publishing Bookstore.

Unarmed Warfare:

Unarmed Warfare IS still in progress, but is a bit delayed. I reached the end of my familiarity with the Elder Scrolls system during my work on Unarmed Warfare, and even delved far deeper into the code of the construction set than I ever have before. Even then, though, there were so many features that an unarmed mod needs that are either impossible to do, I do not know how to do, or the CK is too buggy to do. I will pick the work back up at some point, but it will probably be a while. I am also much busier now than I was when I began Unarmed Warfare. The work on Skyrim Books meets my time constraints and experience far more than my coding and modding for UW.

When I DO manage to pick it back up, however, expect some brand-new features, such as new fist weapons, along with original models.

Skyrim Books

What is Skryim Books?

Skryim Books will be a compilation of the different mod-related books we're working on. We intend to create several mods that work together perfectly but can be used as stand alone as well. This will let you more freedom in the way you mod your game as you can choose which features you want to instal in case you're not interested in all of them.

What's inside?
First of all, the two major mods we are working on will be included in the bundle: Extended Books Mod and Skryim Publishing.
Secondly, we'll also add Readable Spell Tomes, Skyrim Publishing Bookshop and Better Books.
More information about these mods will come in a near future so keep tuned!