PHoD Things

[Legacy_PLUSH HYENA of DOOM]

               

The Maldrapur Chronicles isn't just one Ultimate Spleen Apocalypse after another, of course. Sometimes, it's actually peaceful.

This allows the people of Maldrapur to do such things as hold festivals.

Diwali, the Festival of Lights, is one of the biggest Hindu festivals - not to mention its importance to Sikhs and Jains as well - so naturally it had to be observed in Maldrapur, because it looks good with all the lanterns and the diya and the... Well, it would look good if there actually were hundreds of colourful Indian lantern whassname Placeables in NWN. Which there aren't weren't.

Now there are.

I'm still working on all the assorted Diwali festival Placeables, but I thought I'd stick a screenshot of some pretty lanterns up just as a contrast to the Gigantic Epic Level Spleen Monster in the previous post.

As with the first heap of stuff I did for Kali, this second (even bigger) heap is likely to be a bizarrely eclectic sort of collection.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_PLUSH HYENA of DOOM]

               

Maldrapur, like India, as you will by now have gathered, is full of temples. Yet, in all the piles of Maldrapur stuff I put in the first Big Box on the Vault, there was no temple specifically dedicated to Kali herself...

Once she'd removed the point of the scimitar from my ear and I had abased myself on the floor with all due grovelling and sticking all four paws in the air, I rectified the omission.

The Kali Temple is one of three completely new temples (so far) to add to the ones in the first heap. I'm adding some specific rooms to the slowly evolving Maldrapur Interiors Tileset to match all the new temples, though Kali's Shrine is as far as I've got since I'm still battling the balance between lots of architectural detail versus actual practicality in-game with regards the palace interiors... Just don't talk to me of ornate peacock doors and farcically over-decorated elephant statues, 'cause I'll likely foam at the muzzle and pounce upon myself with eerie and improbable precision...

Anyway, concentrating on exteriors at the moment... As well as all the mighty temples and palaces of vast proportions, I also aim to do some lesser buildings; you know, actual little houses that normal people live in, that sort of thing.

As usual enforced restrictions on model complexity in NWN keep stamping on my ludicrously over-ambitious ideas. The Kali Temple was way over the poly limit by the time I'd done just the front door and porch... so I had to start again and be sensible. Still, Kali's probably happier now that there are pictures of her painted on walls and my ear can recover...

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_PLUSH HYENA of DOOM]

               

(Very busy at present - sorry for intermittent helpings of Maldrapuri weirdness...)

Anyway, switching from architecture back to rubbery Spleens again...

The Preta - ghosts of the disfigured and malformed... Though, according to Indian folklore, they are not necessarily evil, mine appear to have gone distinctly malevolent, though I don't think I did that deliberately during the process of trying to force evolve (with a brick) something essentially human into an obligate quadruped...

Despite my initial desire to make them appear tragic and pitiful, they've gone all Spleen-shaped and thus now appear to be more or less completely malign and spiteful types. Perhaps, if I have time, I'll do two versions, an evil one and a poor, suffering, almost friendly one... Assuming version 2 doesn't become even more nauseatingly evil than version 1. That happens a lot around here.

Anyway, lots more Creatures, buildings, statues, Diwali decorations and - of course - cute Indian furniture - still heading your way from the shores of Maldrapur... assuming anyone really wants blatant Spleen things like this looking at them...

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Mecheon]

               

While I haven't had to deal with Preta much in my gaming history, I have had to deal with Gaki, their Japanese equivalent in the whole 'hungry ghost' motif

 

And let me tell you, Gaki can be right bloody assholes, and a bit more monstrous, what with the whole "distended stomach and neck so small food can't pass through it" thing going on

 

Still looking great, though!

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_PLUSH HYENA of DOOM]

               

And suddenly back to architecture, just to confuse and disorientate...

There's a very distinctive kind of arch which you see all over India, more or less everywhere from north to south of the whole subcontinent. Very nice, very elegant, very damned unfriendly toward useless NWN polycount limitations.

Since I'm supposedly trying to create a genuinely Indian feel for Maldrapur, these arches, despite their near fractal infinity of curved recursions, kind've therefore have to appear. Tried using a texture cut - horrible; just don't go there... Tried getting the geometry correct - game froze up amidst hideous lag from the deepest pits of Naraka...

Have continued hitting arch geometry with huge bricks repeatedly and have finally now got a workable arch that still has the basic look without having a polycount that causes Cray mainframes to suffer debilitating diode aneurysms.

This is a relatively simple Shrine type thing in which assorted statues, Shiva lingam, etc, can be installed. Mostly done to test the viability of the arches. Considerably larger piles of Indian architecture still to come. Also more statues, some of which might actually fit in the shrine, some of which assuredly will not...

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_PLUSH HYENA of DOOM]

               

And here's one of those larger piles of architecture I mentioned...

Based on the buildings at the Candi Prambanan Hindu temple complex (and similar structures in other places) with their distinctive, elegant style of architecture which, in Maldrapur Chronicles, I'm using to represent the most ancient temples and vaults.

Naturally, of course, NWN polycount limitations have strewn atomic elephant droppings in my path at every turn like some depraved Dung Beetle from Mars, so the structures have had to be drastically simplified, but the general look is still there, more or less...

 

Fifi - do we have any Martian Dung Beetle Be Gone Spray?

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_PLUSH HYENA of DOOM]

               

There's something that you see almost everywhere you go in India... well, yes, granted, the sky; obviously the sky, it goes without saying, you don't have to mention the sky... On the ground, I meant...

You see them in cities, you see them in rural areas, you see them in huge piles beside roads and in markets, you see them everywhere, millions of them - you even see them balanced with eerie skill upon ladies' heads... This rampaging ubiquitousness makes it imperative that I have them to heap all over Maldrapur as well...

 

What am I talking about? Cane Baskets of Sundry and Diverse Shapes and Sizes, that's what. India's heaving with them... But the available cane/wicker baskets I've been able to find for NWN all seem to be either very small or somewhat rubbish or, in the vast majority of cases, simply non-existent...

How the hell can a game exist for, what, twelve years without a decent set of Cane Baskets?! Ridiculous!

 

But it's alright - I've dealt with it.

(Caution:- The Shabby Hyena Weirdo accepts no liability whatsoever for any loose cobras that may be found lurking in any of these baskets).

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_PLUSH HYENA of DOOM]

               

Apparently Maldrapur faces destruction by monsters as often as Tokyo does in Godzilla films...

A Goddess' work is never done...

Garuda, the great bird/man/phoenix of Hinduism is a single magnificent being acting as the vahana (steed) of Lord Vishnu. Depictions vary wildly between India, Bali, Thailand, etc... and Indonesia even calls their national airline Garuda...

In Buddhism on the other hand, the Garuda are not a single entity but a whole race of intelligent, socially organized, predatory, bird-like creatures...

In the Maldrapur Chronicles, these latter Garuda descend in numbers upon Maldrapur to conduct their eternal war with the serpent-like Nagas. Long suffering Maldrapur finds itself in the crossfire and Kali has to negotiate a peace with her usual tact and diplomacy (which involves more trampling enemies into dust than most consider diplomatic...)

As with many of these creatures, the precise size of Garuda is difficult to pin down, different texts citing a wingspan of several metres to several miles. This is compounded since there are assorted different Garuda(s) to choose from...

The PHoD version is thus, naturally, simply made to be practical within the limits of NWN and the purposes for which it's required in the Maldrapur Chronicles storyline.

The wildly differing depictions of Garuda vary from something looking exactly like a man to something looking exactly like an eagle... Mine leans more toward the interesting hybrid versions, mostly Balinese or Thai, with much spikier appearance and teeth in the beak. They seem to vary in colour between gold and red quite a lot too; mine had to be red since if they were gold they'd all vanish in the scenes set in the Nagas' subterranean golden citadel of Bhogavati.

(Hopefully the Nagas will be in this pile of stuff too, but I just scrapped them all and started again as I A, wasn't really happy with them and B, radically altered the design.)

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Drewskie]

               

awesome... that bird creature could work as a Vrock I think.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Mecheon]

               

That is a rocking Garuda

 

Eager to see your Naga, though. Been meaning to make a more mythological version of them for a while, as I've never really been happy with the versions out there for NWN at the moment

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Drewskie]

               

That is a rocking Garuda

 

Eager to see your Naga, though. Been meaning to make a more mythological version of them for a while, as I've never really been happy with the versions out there for NWN at the moment

 

Me too.  The standard snake people models are yuan-ti purebloods and that's it.  There are a couple nice models in Q with the lower snake bodies, but those are medusae and merelith models, both female of course.  Good naga/yuan-ti abominations have been needed for a long time.  The standard Vrock model is just plain bad.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_T0r0]

               

PHOD,, you're a sick puppy and I love it !!  That preta is downright disturbing spooky !!

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Beccarte]

               

PHOD,, you're a sick puppy and I love it !!  That preta is downright disturbing spooky !!

  I concur. It's straight out of Dante's Inferno. I almost want to make a new module just for it.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_PLUSH HYENA of DOOM]

               

Sick Puppy, moi?

You're the ones all hitting the like button on the reeking Preta and praising its filthy Spleen-shapedness... See, I called it a nasty, rubbery Spleen. You're the ones as like it, not me!

All I did was to carefully craft it in an unregistered genetic engineering facility via a series of pathologically disgusting and very painful experiments whilst cackling with sadistic glee. Anybody can do that accidentally.

 

Now, for some nice Maldrapuri furniture without the slightest trace of Spleen contamination... Yes, I know I did a ton of Indian furniture in the last Maldrapur Chronicles release, but there's no law as says I can't do MORE! And besides, I couldn't resist putting my favourite cupboard in NWN.

Fifi frequently accuses me of polishing the wood on those doors far more often than is strictly necessary. This is not so. It is a very rare and very sensitive wood which requires much delicate care and attention... Shut up.

 

Amongst the masses of Maldrapuri furnishings I did last time, there were one or two glaring omissions - caused by my getting all distracted by the nice Indian silks and forgetting what I was actually doing... One of these omissions was traditional Dowry Chests, which you find all over the place in India. No excuse for missing them out since they're a nice, easy model, so here they are. The pale one came from Gujarat if I recall correctly, I can't vouch for the provenance of the one with the coloured inlays.

No "Dowry Chests" jokes, thank you very much...

 

And some more stuff, the throne and octagonal display table have an old, patterned wood texture instead of the highly polished stuff I've used for most. Plenty more furniture to come. By the time I'm finished you'll be able to completely furnish an entire Indian house - he said surreptitiously displaying a cane basket again as he's starting to fixate rabidly on them...

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_PLUSH HYENA of DOOM]

               

It may seem that every single building in Maldrapur is either a huge, complicated temple or an immense, ornate palace.

Whilst there are a plethora of both, the average Maldrapuri citizen just lives in a normal house...

Starting to get some basic rural housing done now, but they need lots more work... The only thing good about them thus far is the cane baskets standing outside them. (No, I'm not really that rabidly obsessed with the cane baskets, I'm just making a random observation that cane baskets are present. Again.)

Though, be fair, I recall seeing large cane baskets outside almost every house I've ever been near in India - and those as didn't have any baskets were derelict - and so it makes perfect sense to have a few baskets in view and besides there's no point my making a load of baskets because India's full of baskets if I don't then cover Maldrapur with baskets so the baskets are completely justified and really I ought to have put more baskets and... aaaarrgh! Fifi, get off!

From further away... you can STILL see a cane basket or two though! Aaargh!

These simple houses lack all the ornamentation and convoluted lumpiness of temples and palaces and thus have a nice low polycount which isn't as low as it might be since I put extra verts in all the straight lines to make them less straight since crudely-built rural houses have no right to straight walls and must logically be possessed of imperfect lines and angles and possessed of bendy tree branches for bannisters and... and possessed of cane baskets too!

Look! There are more cane baskets up there on that upper level! They're everywhere! Fear the baskets for they are legion! Aaaaarrrgh!

 

Fifi wishes it to be known that the so-called Hyena Object will be taken away and subjected to a complete psycho-basketectomy which may or may not render him fractionally less surreal than usual.