PHoD Things

[Legacy_PLUSH HYENA of DOOM]

               

As far as I'm aware, nobody but me has ever done anything specifically Indian/Hindu for NWN... And if there IS any other Indian stuff out there, I want to know about it 'cause it might be useful for my Maldrapur Chronicles.

As I probably explained back in whatever CCC it was when I finally got round to making Kali, these Modules are a branch of Demoness Tales, Maldrapur a distant island continent bearing a remarkable similarity to India. Due to that utter lack of any Indian content whatsoever in NWN, Luce's travels to Maldrapur were few and far between since there was then no way of making it look the way it should. But...

Latterly, however, armed with more and bigger bricks and the usual PHoD obstinate refusal to accept reality, I am now getting somewhere with creating a somewhat Hinduesque world for Maldrapur. Featuring Kali as the PC, the Maldrapur Chronicles are a sort of semi-faithful retelling of many of the stories from the Upanishads, the Vedas and the Mahabharata - with a bit of PHoD mayhem and lunacy thrown in. I'm using a lot of the characters and monsters from Hindu mythology, though altering a few specifics of the original stories from the Vedic texts whilst trying to keep the purport, as well as my own characters to create a fusion of Hindu myth and Hyena-shaped weirdness.

On the vague assumption that there might be someone else wanting to do something in some way Indian in tone, I'm slowly gathering together what I've got firmly finished so far and shall put it all on the Vault in a big box marked "Potatoes". NO! Not potatoes... Something more relevant... like "Kali", for example. An assortment of Creatures, plus various Placeable buildings, statues, etc, etc...

I think most here are aware that I'm in no way religious, though Demoness Tales has assorted Modules involving Hell and Heaven. Therefore, naturally, there's a brutally sarcastic deconstruction of Christian mythology in Demoness Tales, along with a few bits and pieces from obscure African folklore, but it's not taken in any way seriously... So why, you might ask, is this shabby atheist treating Hinduism with a mild degree of respect?

Well, it's the oldest surviving religion on the planet (at least as far as common knowledge goes) by some considerable degree. It's got lots of voluptuous warrior goddesses and piles of weird monsters. Some of the vast philosophical and cosmological elements are seriously fascinating the deeper you examine them, there are some remarkable parallels to modern science in Vedic texts thousands of years old... but... MOSTLY it's because Hinduism contains - wait for it - UNDEAD ANIMALS! I mean, a religion that features Undead Animals must be doing something right.

The Rompo is a malignant flesh-eater, semi-skeletal, generally savage and unpleasant - and eerily ALSO turns up in various African folk tales nowhere near India. Makes you think. Undead Animals are amongst us! The Rompo looks different in almost every rendering I've ever seen of it, but now you know the real reason I did THESE things for the Krynn CCC... Yes, I had them down for the Rompo and, naturally, the much larger and more terrible Maharompo, so's Maldrapur could be instantly attacked by Undead Animals. Proper Hindu ones and everything.

You understand that the jungles of Maldrapur are not the kind've place you just take a relaxing stroll, right? Not unless you're an all-powerful, immortal Devathi to whom jewellery constitutes "attire".

Anyway, once I've finished scraping everything into a big bag, all sorts of Hindu Gods, Demons, Spleens and more will be available to all, along with some very nice Indian Placeables with "Made in India" written on the back and everything...

Watch this space for more eerily "a bit Indian at the edges" stuff...

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_henesua]

               

i really like this stuff, PHoD. We could use more of this kind of thing. As far as I know, the Rakshasa was the only remotely hindu thing in NWN.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_PLUSH HYENA of DOOM]

               

Rakshasa, the Devil God, the Corruption, Thirteenth of the Immortals that survived the sundering of Deva'Loka and descended upon Prithvi... as it is in the Maldrapur Chronicles - a twenty foot tall abomination, a god mutated beyond recognition. Sort of a warped version of the Rakshasa of Hindu myth that were, in essence, fallen gods.

BioWare's respectable looking tiger-headed people never really said "Rakshasa" to me, not that they haven't found alternative employment in Maldrapur.

My own Rakshasa will soon be revealed and, as stated, is something wholly different...

Beyond just making loads more rubbery monsters, having started to get characters such as Hiranyakashipu, Ravana and Narasimha battling Kali amidst lots of genuine Hindu tapestries and some vaguely Indian architecture via Placeables and some heavy-handed retexturing of everything in sight, I think when I get all this stuff bundled up into a Hak, it'll provide at least some tiny ability to add another cultural zone to NWN's potential horizons. Or at least, that's the alleged hope beyond me just having busty goddesses battling rubbery monsters as usual.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_3RavensMore]

               

I'm fascinated to see how a six armed Kali animates.  Or does she even have to?  "I have six arms, goddess powers, and razor sharp blades in each hand.  Are you feeling lucky punk?  Well are you?"

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Proleric]

               Ganesh would be cool...
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_PLUSH HYENA of DOOM]

               

Ganesh, as you probably noticed in the above screenshots, has got as far as being a statue. Unlikely to become a Creature model any time soon since Kali is, essentially, the Last of the Devatha in Maldrapur Chronicles, the gods' home of Deva'Loka destroyed with very few survivors. Only when the Great Wheel turns full circle will they be reborn - though I have long term thoughts in this direction and am painstakingly sticking the Dharma Chakra together so as to get it to turn a bit faster...

The apocalyptic Prakrita destruction was caused by the seething betrayer, Jhurgha, a traitorous megalomaniac and Kali's filthy, disgusting arch enemy...

Jhurgha is not specifically a Hindu god, he's my own character who happens to have traits of a few different Hindu creatures rolled into one seethingly nasty, sadistic, eeeeeevil package. A dribbling maniac hell bent upon ruling the entire cosmos and being the supreme being. You know the type.

Since his evil masterplan that resulted in the destruction of the gods' homeworld (as it was an ill-advised and rubbish plan) failed abysmally to bring him the ultimate power he sought due to Kali basically mushing him into a thousand evil little pieces, he is also ravingly embittered and determined to gain vile revenge upon Kali. Fortunately for the rest of the cosmos, Kali's stronger, faster and cleverer and thus thwarts his repeated efforts to resurrect himself and cause no end of malodorous trouble.

Jhurgha is a Blatant Spleen.

However, I have kept a sort of "blank" version of him to use as a base for other Devatha later on. Proper Devatha who aren't stinking evilists. At present, Shiva, Lakshmi and Vishnu have all appeared as wafty emitter Creatures in spirit form, but I do eventually intend a grand resurrection when I pluck up the courage to tackle all the new models it'll involve.

For now I'm mostly still concentrating upon Kali's main hideous enemies and putting the actual world of Maldrapur together... architecture, statuary, furnishings, etc. So that's the sort of stuff which will be in the Hak to start with.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_PLUSH HYENA of DOOM]

               

APPARENTLY, so Fifi claims, I have "gone all girly" over choosing fabrics for the upholstery of the Maldrapuri furniture I'm currently lovingly hand-crafting from the finest digital wood available. Fifi further infers that I was going "ooh, colours - ooh, patterns" and making stupid noises whilst going through endless Indian silk patterns...

Don't see what's wrong with working with nice fabrics, he growls to himself, going back to his gmax sewing kit...

So meanwhile here's another rampaging, rubbery monster instead.

Narasimha is an avatar of Vishnu, a fearsome aspect into which the god transformed to battle dire enemies... In Maladrapur Chronicles, however, following the destruction of Deva'Loka, with Vishnu currently reduced to spirit form, this fearsome manifestation of Narasimha is split from him, wandering wholly mindless and killing all in its path. So Kali has to push its face in. (That's kind've the short version, you understand).

What demand there is in the NWN Community for rampaging, death-dealing, four-armed, half-man half-lion spirit avatars with silly hats I don't know, but you'll be getting one all the same, whether you want one or not.

Now I'm going back to all those gorgeous fabrics. I think I'm going to pile more cushions on everything. Never attempt anything without ample cushions... Expect irritatingly abundant screenshots of epic-level cute Indian furniture any time now...

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_PLUSH HYENA of DOOM]

               

Having finally stopped dreamily flapping about with heaps of different Indian silks and actually nailed some of them down, here's some of the Maldrapuri furniture I've been hitting with fabric-padded bricks... (Obviously this is palace furniture, not rubbish, home-made tat like the proles have in their muddy hovels). 

There are influences of Thakat design and assorted Indian (mostly Mughal and later) styles, but the furniture of Maldrapur is essentially a PHoD Fantasy Indianesque pattern rather than any specific, actual Hindu furniture, though I have copied a few elements very closely - or at least as closely as poly counts allow. This stuff is higher poly than any of BioWare's furniture but I've restrained myself reasonably well and I haven't noticed any lag, even with chairs and tables and stuff just STACKED in a room, so it should be fine. My computer, after all, is no blistering powerhouse.

I think this shelf cabinet is among the highest poly counts 'cause it's crammed full of loads of idols and whatnots...

Having become fixated with new and different patterns (like a "Depraved Ocelot" according to Fifi), I experimented with a black lacquered variant of the furniture, since we have a small Indian table which is somewhat similar and has little inlaid diamond shapes. Gmax being what it is, my inlaid diamond shapes are sort of lumpy bas relief things, but the general effect is the same... And the furniture's bigger than it looks; Kali's ten feet tall, remember...

Amongst other less prosaic things dragged back here from India, we also have a big old blanket with traditional designs upon it which Fifi - having also succumbed to the furniture building bug - insisted went on the Maldrapuri bed. So there it is, sitting there, blanket fashion, in the likeness of a... blanket.

As for the tapestry of Durga on the wall, it's just one of many. I'll deal with those and the carpets in a further post. (For the sake of my Placeables Palette which is in grave danger of crushing to a paste under all the excessive weight of PHoD Rubbish being piled on it, I'm trying to restrain myself from doing too many Maldrapuri tapestries).

Anyway, that's (some) of the oh-so-grippingly exciting vaguely Indian furniture. That tall Almirah cabinet has a genuine pattern from a very old Indian cabinet on its doors and there are all sorts of kalamkari designs all over everything I could realistically apply them to... With a sense of putrefacted depression, however, I feel these screenshots don't show the lovely silk patterns clearly enough... Fifi - where's the Mega Ultra Extra Super ZoomLens-O-Tron DeLuxe with Added Macromatic Viewomizer?

By the way, I piled the furniture up in a little room in the Maldrapur Palace Tileset I'm hitting with a brick, which isn't remotely finished, so please forgive the slimily incomplete geometry and the sweeping vistas of sky and jungle outside the windows which are less sweeping than they might be because they AREN'T THERE YET! 

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_PLUSH HYENA of DOOM]

               

The half-demon King of Lanka, Ravana, possesses ten heads, representing his great knowledge - the lore of the six Shastras and the four Vedas. These heads are commonly portrayed in Hindu art in a single horizontal line. Tried that... It looked well properly ridiculous as a Creature model in-game when moving about. Also he tended to smack three or four of himself in the face any time he tried to go through a doorway...

So I altered the arrangement somewhat, going for a vertical, faces to the compass points look, reminiscent of carvings, sometimes of huge size, on a lot of old Asian temples. Strictly more Thai or Khmer than Indian, but, well, it worked in-game better, although to keep the three tiers of heads regular, he ended up with twelve instead of ten...

Obsessed with power through ultimate knowledge, Ravana ceaselessly seeks to steal the ancient secrets of the Devatha, enacting dire evils (and stupidly overcomplicated plans) to do so - whilst at the same time considering that he must surely deserve the resounding defeats Kali inflicts upon him, knowing he must atone for his evil yet equally fixated with continuing his vile crusade... Probably completely schizoid 'cause of all those heads. Stands to reason.

Ravana, the main antagonist of the Ramayana, was a necessary addition to the Maldrapur Chronicles' roster of Hindu Demons and monsters due to the fact that his mental dichotomy (utter dribbling lunacy) of wishing to indulge his evils yet also wishing to be punished for them gives me a good chance to explore some of the concepts of balance central to Hinduism. And also have a lot of fun with his revoltingly unhinged dialogue and Kali's acidly unimpressed responses.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_3RavensMore]

               

Ravana is one seriously creepy half-demon King...as far as half-demon Kings go.  I just had a twisted vision of a partially beheaded Ravana running around with stumps spraying blood while people scream at the impossible to get out stains on all those gorgeous silks.

 

Yes, it's been one of those days. 

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_PLUSH HYENA of DOOM]

               

At least Ravana's a snappy dresser, which is considerably more than can be said for some of the loathsome articles that crawl and lope twistedly forth from the black pits of Naraka...

Such as the particularly unpleasant Pisachas, who are nasty, emaciated, sadistic, malicious Spleens who eat you if you let them. Preferably eat you alive, conscious and screaming. And they reek too.

Dwellers in eternal blackness, when Pisachas manage to cross the Planar Veil to the "material" world of Prithvi, they skulk in forgotten, shadowed places, emerging only during the hours of darkness. A malevolent whispering in the night, a faint, furtive scraping at a bedroom window, they stalk their prey with a relentless determination, usually no more than a flicker of half-sensed motion in the shadows. They strike with speed beyond the natural, just a blur in the corner of the eye before they begin to revel in slowly dismembering the still screaming victim... and they reek too.

Also, in case I hadn't mentioned it... they reek too. A lot. The stench is usually the only warning you get.

Which isn't a big help in a video game.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Tarot Redhand]

               

Well neither of these are plush but... Hyena 1 and Hyena 2. I just came across these on deviantArt and thought they might be of interest.

 

TR

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_PLUSH HYENA of DOOM]

               

Kaitabha and Madhu, troublesome twin brothers of loathsome habits who delight in causing chaos and misery. Pig-headed (in more ways than one) and cowardly yet not without a certain vicious cunning, the noxious brothers are never separated, always purveying their disgusting presence as a Novelty Limited Edition Collector's Box Set of two. Though they're not the terrible threat posed by Jhurgha or Rakshasa, these two fiendish Pigoids are still a right pain in the posterior...

Gathering this stuff together for the Vault now, but I want to sort out a couple of bits of stupidly wobbly geometry on one of the temples first...

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_PLUSH HYENA of DOOM]

               

Wall tapestries... Tapestries that glue handily onto walls... Unless they're sloping walls.

Still not decided which designs I'm definitely going to use but I've narrowed it down to about fifty now. Won't do all of them since I don't wish to smother my already heinously overloaded Placeables palette with millions of Maldrapuri tapestries, just stacked.

Obviously that's four different ones stuck next to each other.

And six more, the middle one on the bottom row being the Kali Yantra, which is her symbol. These are just the one's I've definitely decided to use but there'll be a few more in the Hak as well when I've finished sifting about through masses of roughly square bits of Hindu art.

There'll also be carpets with Indian designs... all of them circular so far. The one at the front here displays the DharmaChakra and is thus reserved for use in temples, of which Maldrapur has more than a few. And when I catch up with a texture I appear to have mislaid, you'll be getting the temples as well. At least the exteriors. The Tilesets still need loads of work.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_The Mad Poet]

               

I'm really happy to see all of this. India is ripe with fantastic art and mythology that barely been plucked.