ACCEPTED White Phial Replacer (by Saerileth)

[WilliamImm]

Actually looks more like a Core canidate to me - the vanilla item's look really does not fit with it's supposed lore and placement.

[redirishlord]

I believe the "artistic license" is based on Auriel's Bow and similar assets from DLC (see Nexus description & or author's forum posts), so despite being a rework of the original it is (in a sense) lore friendly. I second the vote for Core (not that I have voting power).

[phryxolydian]

Don't you? I thought users had a right to vote. I also think this belongs in Core. 

[DoubleYou]

Oh, I'll have to investigate the lore behind it. The huge difference in style made me think we couldn't allow it in core, but if lore suggests otherwise, we might squeak it by.

[Saerileth]

I'll quote Madcat about this:

"From the name of the creator, I surmise that the White Phial may have actually been a pre-Sarthaal Falmer creation. "Curalmil" sounds like an elven name, not a nordic name. Maybe you can get some inspiration by studying their design motifs in Dawnguard."

 

So Curalmil might have been a Snow Elf, even though he's entombed in a nordic crypt. The evidence is shaky though, and he does come back as a draugr, so... it's a matter of debate. It just gave me a good excuse to use pretty Dawnguard stuff, and I really didn't know which direction to take the design otherwise.

 

One thing to note is that the mod requires Dawnguard. The meshes themselves wouldn't actually, but since I used modified pieces of Auriel's bow & shield I had to make the DLC a requirement for it to be hosted on Nexus. Which I did by packing everything into .bsa-archive and adding a blank .esp that will crash the game if loaded without Dawnguard. Now I don't know if this is an issue for STEP, but having an essentially useless plugin in your loadorder is pretty wasteful... unfortunately there isn't much I can do about it. You could unpack the archive, but I can't host it that way, and having the users do it themselves might be too complicated.

[phryxolydian]

At any rate, that's not a problem for MO users (which STEP promotes) since it's just flagged as a dummy esp and can be safely unticked.

 

EDIT: I only found one object ID so..

 

[TechAngel85]

I'm thinking the same line as DY. Core is VERY strict about what can be added and just from a replacer standpoint, this is outside of the Core Mandate.

[EssArrBee]

I agree, Tech. This fits a bit in the category of Radiant Bottles. Just a bit to far from vanilla, but still quality work and a good candidate for STEP Extended.

[DoubleYou]

Tested these in-game. I'm advocating this for Extended.

[redirishlord]

If I do then I vote yes on all of Saerileth's work to date, it is excellent and lore friendly enough IMHO to be placed in Core.

[TechAngel85]

If I do then I vote yes on all of Saerileth's work to date, it is excellent and lore friendly enough IMHO to be placed in Core.

Core Mandate: https://wiki.step-project.com/STEP:Mandate#STEP:Core

 

This mod is not Core material. It could be added to Extended, tho.

[Saerileth]

I agree, this is definitely a mod that "subjectively alters or contrasts with the style of vanilla Skyrim". As I said, apples and oranges, it's a completely different design from vanilla.

[TechAngel85]

After some research I can't agree with this being included in STEP for a couple of reason.

 

1) The size of the bottle. This is suppose to be something that you're carrying around with you and it's absolutely HUGE.

 

2) The lore doesn't support at least part of the design. Lore states it is forged from unmelting snow and mammoth tusk powder as the material and a briar heart as the magical ingredient (most likely used as the combining agent). This brings into quest the handle which doesn't appear as a material from this list and more closely looks like stone or metal.

 

This would exclude it from Core without any doubts. Extended might be able to squeak it in; however, the size of the bottle alone makes me question that.

[Livnthedream]

On the size, the White Phial always looked out of place to me next to the gigantic potion bottles anyway. While I agree its huge, so are all of the potions in Skyrim. They could all use a good shrink.

[Saerileth]

Lore does not technically state that it's forged from those ingredients, that's just what Quintus repairs it with if I understood correctly (and look what a great job he does with that in the vanilla design, none of the other parts of the bottle look like medieval duct tape). The only thing I gathered about the original bottle from the conversations with Nurelion and his apprentice is that the phial is said to have been "made of the magically infused snow that first fell on the Throat of the World". I agree that my design is too far from vanilla to fit the core mandate, but it is as lore-friendly as I could make it. I've spent a lot of time researching this item and anything known about it's creator.

 

About the size, it is rather large I agree. I was going to release optional smaller versions once I get some other stuff done.