by Kateri (khsimpson@gmail.com).

REQUIRES TRIBUNAL AND BLOODMOON
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED: Morrowind Code Patch


Introduction

This is a companion/quest mod. It started because the Morrowind Main Quest can be a lonely business. I wanted to create a companion who actually "knew" what was going on, had their own opinions and agenda concerning it, and would be interesting company on the journey. I also wanted to give a new perspective and approach to the Main Quest for those veteran players like myself who know it backwards, but still enjoy playing Morrowind. 

I wanted to create someone who was more than just a silent meat shield or beast of burden, but an interesting and believable character whom the player could gradually get to know, and develop a relationship with, from initial suspicion to genuine friendship (or more, should you so choose), in a way that felt natural and unforced.

Did I succeed? I have no idea! But I did have an enormous amount of fun trying!

The Lowdown

Julan Kaushibael is a young Ashlander man you rescue from getting pasted by Daedra outside Ghostgate. He wants you to take him on as a companion in order to train him into becoming a better warrior, but it quickly becomes clear that there is something going on that he isn't telling you. As you progress through the Morrowind main quest with Julan, he gets dragged into your mission, and you get dragged into his - a tangle of secrets, lies, love, loss and betrayal.

That makes the mod sound heavier than it really is, however. I hope that above all, Julan is fun to have around, whether you're playing the Main Quest or not. He has a vast supply of snarky comments and random observations. Due to his upbringing, he possesses an odd mixture of naiveté, pride and paranoia, and is sometimes completely oblivious to how ridiculous he's being - which is unfortunate for him, as he hates being laughed at. Underneath it all, however, is a dedicated and caring person, who is desperately trying to do the right thing in the face of overwhelming odds.

What's New for 2.0

Firstly: DON'T try to update an existing save from v. 1.3. Just don't! It won't work, and TERRIBLE things will happen! Scribs will eat out your eyes!!!

The major new additions from previous versions include:

- Commentary for the whole Tribunal Main Quest, and also the Imperial Cult questline.
- Expanded romantic possibilities! Both Julan and Shani can be romanced by either gender, and Shani has a proper romance now... well, as "romantic" as she gets, anyway. Also, Julan's romance initiates slightly differently this time (and is different for both genders, by the way) so don't worry if what you expect to happen at a certain point... doesn't.
- If you have The Romance Mod installed, and are a female character sleeping with Julan, for Azura's sake use protection or take the consequences. 
- Julan can learn many new spells, including shield-type spells for both of you in battle, summoned creatures on request, and can help you levitate, waterwalk and cast intervention spells.
- New scripts, based on Melian's work, improving following and auto-fixing that annoying walk-away-forever AI glitch that used to happen.
- Many new conversations, occurring over time, with Julan, Shani, and both of them together.

Companion Features

- All the standard fare you've come to expect from a companion mod, as developed over the years by many modders in the field - see the credits section for more details! Companion share, warping, teleportation - the usual stuff to make him a help rather than a hindrance.

- Train Julan's skills in whichever direction you choose, either by training him yourself (free, once per day), by asking an NPC Trainer to do it (expensive, but unlimited) or by lending him skillbooks. His attributes are calculated from his skills, and so will rise as you train him. He will also learn new spells as his skill in the magical disciplines increases. After a while, he can offer to train you in return.

- Can cast useful spells on himself or the player, such as healing, curing, protective, etc. Dependent on magicka level and his skill level. If you train his conjuration, he will summon creatures on request. He has a slow magicka-regen ability, as Morrowind is almost unplayable as a magic user without one!

- Takes healing, magicka, cure poison and cure paralysis potions automatically, and can keep himself healed on his own, with potions or spells, unless he runs out of everything.

- Option to have him get knocked out instead of dying, when his health is very low. Please note: no guarantees. If he takes a large amount of damage in one hit, he will still die, so try to keep him trained, equipped and with potions. If he is knocked out, you need to wait 100 seconds for him to wake up, and the timer will reset if battle sounds are continuing (including spellcasting). Rarely, he will pass out, but not actually fall down. Also, be aware that if another NPC sees you accessing his inventory while he's knocked out, you may get a bounty, and be expelled from the Ashlanders!! The knockout option is OFF by default. To turn it on, open the console and type: set ks_knockout to 1

- Various options for fighting, including ranged, melee, no magic except healing, or stay out of fight.

- Telepathy ring (after certain quest events) that let you warp him to you from anywhere if you are outside, and also warps him to you if you are both in the same interior cell - useful for pulling him out of battle, or out of lava pits!

- Literally thousands of lines of dialogue for loads of topics and hundreds of cells. He'll give running commentaries on quests for Mages, Fighters and Thieves Guilds, the Imperial Cult the Tribunal Temple, as well as the Main Quests for Morrowind and Tribunal. If you like companions who shut up and fight, this isn't the mod for you.

- Optional romance, for male or female characters. Be aware, however, that as well as the pleasant aspects, getting involved can also mean more opportunities for jealousy, screaming arguments and hurt feelings. Put it this way, he's no romantic ideal, but that's not to say he doesn't have his good points. He's not a "boyfriend mod" however, and it's not the main focus.

- An optional female companion, after certain quest events. While she doesn't comment on as many quests and locations as Julan, she has her own romance quest, and a large number of conversations, both with the player and Julan. She also has a lot of dialogue for Tribunal, in conjunction with Julan, so for best effect, take along both of them.

No guarantee of good behaviour! Julan MAY do any or all of the following:

- Disagree with things you say or do. Expect the odd yelling match once in a while. 

- Get horrendously drunk.

- Get on badly with your other travelling companions.

- Get on a little TOO well with your other travelling companions.

- Moan about the weather, the location, that he's bored, etc...

- Criticise your choice of faction or quest path.

- Make fun of your choice of headgear.

Recommended Mods

The one thing that's HIGHLY recommended is the Morrowind Code Patch (google for latest version!) as it fixes a lot of issues Morrowind has with companions, such as taking all their potions at once, improving following, and reducing the chance of NPC doubling bugs. So use it! Really!

Julan has some short interactions (as in, a couple of comments. Nothing major!) with various other companion mods, namely: Emma's Laura Craft, Witchgirl Companion, Constance and White Wolf of Lokken Mountain. He also has things to say about the companions from Qarl's The Underground, Jac's Jasmine and the (still incomplete, but released as beta) mod I co-wrote with Princess Stomper, Dance of the Three Legged Guar.

Julan has some new dialogue for characters using Princess Stomper's Royal Chargen.

If you are using The Romance Mod, you will not be able to romance Julan or Shani with it, since they have their own in-quest dialogue for this. However, female characters CAN get pregnant from sleeping with Julan, so do take precautions! Or prepare for the inevitable arguments about what to name the baby...

Julan is compatible with Vampire Embrace, but he doesn't want to be a vampire, thanks. (Well, not unless he REALLY trusts you.)

The mod is compatible with Children of Morrowind, and if you complete the quest to move the Ahemmusa to Ald Daedroth, there is a way to move the children as well.

Recommended mods: I use hundreds of mods, but to help with any companion mods, I'd say Better Bodies and Combat Angle Adjustment.

Known Issues and Incompatibilities

This is a Main Quest Companion Mod. It is NOT playable by characters who are past the Vivec Informants point in the main quest, and will be best used by characters who haven't touched the Main Quest at all yet. Part of what I wanted to do with this was to inject a new perspective and interest in the Main Quest for seasoned Morrowind veterans! It is playable by fairly low-level characters as a result - all that is required is the ability to reach Ghostgate and beat up three high HP Clannfears.

This mod relies on the Main Quest! Thus, it will of course be incompatible with any mod that alters the Main Quest in a significant manner, e.g.

- any "Instant Nerevarine" mod
- Blake's Nerevar Say Nerevar
- Princess Stomper's Ghostgate.

It also conflicts with: 

Mountainous Red Mountain
Guarded Ghostgate
Armingers[sic] at Ghostgate.

Exercise common sense! If you are unsure whether a certain mod will cause problems, please contact me and ask.

Other Issues

Do NOT clean this mod with TESTOOL, it doesn't need it. Evil GMSTs have already been cleaned. Do NOT use Merged Dialogues, it will probably break it.

If Julan is killed, reload a saved game, do NOT try to resurrect him either with the console, or any kind of resurrection mod. The game will still have recorded him as dead, and thus his quests will be broken. If you have this problem a lot, try the knockout-on-death option, described above.

I do NOT recommend making excessive use of the console. It can mess up quests, break scripts and make companions behave strangely. Don't console-cheat your way through a section of the Main Quest you think is stuck, it's possible it's supposed to be blocked at that point! Check the FAQ. (link at top)

Once you have started a game, don't do anything to alter the Julan mod's position in the load order, or you might get NPC doubling that could break the mod. If you need to add or remove a mod, change the dates of other mods to keep Julan in the same position in the load list, i.e. the 23rd mod to load, if that's what he was before.


Issues with companions and the game engine in general

Please use the Morrowind Code Patch! (Google for latest version) This fixes a lot of the issues with companions. It is also needed to stop Julan drinking all his potions at once, in battle, since I removed the potionsaver code that did this in previous versions.

- Don't give him Constant Effect items, they might start working backwards due to a game engine bug. Allegedly, the code patch can fix this, but I've seen mixed results, so be warned.

- Save before levitating through doors, as, very rarely, companions get zapped out of existence. He'll almost always appear eventually if you keep moving away from the door though. (this is hopefully fixed in 2.0)

- If he starts behaving strangely (more strangely than normal, that is!), try telling him to wait, then ask him to follow again, or tell him to reset his AI in the "-- combat" topic. You can also use his ring to try to reset his AI, or stop him fighting.

Any other problems or questions, please email or PM me.

Usage

This isn't really the kind of mod that has a lot of reusable resources, but if anyone wants to reuse, rework or copy scripts, feel free, but if they have credit given to modders other than myself, please leave that intact. Any resources listed in the credits as the work of other modders, please ask them. Anything by me, please ask permission first.

Please don't upload this mod anywhere either intact or in a modified form without my consent.

Credits and Thanks

First of all, thank you to Emma for all her help and support, and for hosting Julan on her site. Along with those from Qarl's Underground, her "living, breathing" companions were my inspiration to try and create something like this.

Thank you to Grumpy, for his companion templates and tutorials, without which I would never have been able to start putting my ideas into practice. I hope he'd have liked what I made, even if I daresay he'd have disapproved of having so much dialogue!

Thank you to Mercurybard, for writing stories of Dak and Jiub, and making me realise Morrowind needed more Dunmer companions. I also borrowed a line of hers about the types of Ashlander wise women.

Thank you to all the talented scripters whose work I have learned from, adapted, borrowed and generally pulled apart and put back together, including CDCooley, Cortex, DinkumThinkum, melian, Midgetalien, Qarl, Thelys and TheOtherFelix. Thanks also to Neko, abot, Edwardsmd, Flycatcher, melian and everyone else on the forums who helped with scripting issues. Thanks also to GhanBuriGhan for Morrowind Scripting for Dummies (lovingly updated by Yacoby and melian) and Edwardsmd for Morrowind Mod Maker's Manual - both invaluable resources!

Thanks to Princess Stomper for hosting my FAQ for so long, not to mention the hours of discussion, feedback, bad puns and general wonderfulness.

Huge thanks to everyone who helped with testing, including: lnelson, theskymoves, fragmentaryhorcrux, feneroe, arynethx, Charles Brandt, Tim, Emma, Hand of Sotha, Riptide, saber, Christianne, Dimitri, Phoniex, Apophis2412, Ohoyo Tashka, Ramira and fireseed. Thanks also to everyone on the forums who gave encouragement and support - it kept me going!

Thanks to everyone who has sent me screenshots and tales of things you and Julan get up to. It never fails to make my day!

And thanks, of course, to Bethesda for Morrowind!

Usage Credits:

- Julan's face is a mixture of faces by Lizardo and Westly, reworked by me. Thanks also to Dimitri for texturing help!
- Shani's face is by Qarl (Hot Girls Pack 3), slightly edited by me. Her hair is by iReni, recoloured and with ears added by me.
- Mashti's face is a mix of several faces, mostly from Better Heads, and I think, one of Emma's.
- Han-Sashael's face is also by Lizardo, slightly altered by me.
- Other hair by the Better Heads team.
- Animations by RX31, packaged by Qarl.
- "Wondrous Love" words set to the traditional tune best known as "She Moved Through the Fair". Recorded by me, with editing, processing and advice by Holly Boismaison.
- Other music from freesound.org: 178443 - Moroccan Guimbri Lute by iluppai, 140136 - Drums by xserra and 115227 - turkish baglama by xserra.
- WildKarrde for his Ashlander sword resources, "Ashlander's Pride" and "Ashlander's Fury" which were tweaked and partly retextured by me for this mod.
- NioLiv for the dress mesh. Texture by me, partially inspired by Aleanne's Mabrigash robe (although no part of his original texture was used).
- Aleanne for Shani's party dress.
- Phijama for the bowl resource used as Mabarrabael's gift.
- Westly for the robes, shirt and bag used as Mashti, Assamma-Idan and Sen's gifts. From his Fine Clothiers of Tamriel mod, used with permission.
- NeoRequiem for the feather script used on the bag, and Alien Slof for the idea!
- Midgetalien for part of the scripting on the summoned creatures, and the idea to use the spriggan effect.
- Regan for the papoose mesh
- Romance Mod integration based on the fine work of Mandamus, Fandorn and Lydie, translated by Larissa Mem.
- Some quotation from Aeschylus' Oresteia, the Robert Fagles translation (Penguin 1979).

If I've forgotten anyone, please remind me and I'll fix it!

Software for decompressing files in 7z-formats can be found here

Software for decompressing files in 7z-formats can be found here

Software for decompressing files in 7z-formats can be found here