The Sanctum

Shuurai recently offered the following thoughts about continuing the Sanctum saga in Neverwinter Nights as opposed to Dragon Age. Since they might be of general interest, I thought I would post my own thoughts on that here.

"Just to throw it out there, I too think it’d be cool if the entire series was kept in NWN1. Despite the age of the engine and it’s limitations, I personally find the interface to be much better than NWN2 and even Dragon Age. That said, the most important thing (to me) is the story, and I think this one will be strong no matter what the platform."

I very much appreciate the kind words about the story (thanks, Shuurai!). This is an issue that I’ve been torn about since the first module came out – first with NWN2, and then with Dragon Age. As some of you may know, I was fortunate enough to have had the opportunity last year to be invited by Bioware to participate in the Dragon Age toolset beta and Builder’s Event. So I’m very familiar with what Dragon Age has to offer the series, and I’ve been very impressed with it from the beginning. I think it was designed much more for the kind of story-based modding that I’m trying to do with the series than was NWN, and that I could do a great deal more with it as a result.

So to be honest I really would prefer to switch to Dragon Age as soon as possible, for that as well as other reasons. For example I do strongly prefer the interface and game design, and the Sanctum world never has really fit well with the D&D ruleset. But I’m in the awkward position of being in the middle of the saga and having a lot invested in building the mods in NWN1, including an established player and fan base there. Those are things that I can’t just disregard.

If I come into enough free time or can recruit enough DA collaborators to help, then I may port Sanctum 2 to DA as a test. If that’s successful I could then port the rest of Part II ("The Miracle Worker") as well. I think I could handle that for DA-only players by including a video "prologue" telling the story of Part I ("The Sight"). If that works out then I’d end up with Part I as a NWN1 only mod, Part III ("The Alliance") as DA only, and Part II ported to both.

Either way, though, I don’t plan on building "The Alliance" in NWN1. But I also really don’t want to stop building in NWN1 until the end of "The Miracle Worker". That’s when the story will reach a point where I can at least give NWN1-only players a sense of closure with the series, even though it will be continued in "The Alliance."

And, I hope, in a series of novels to pick up the story after that. From the beginning, the Sanctum modules were intended mainly as an experiment on my part: a way of exploring the new medium of CRPG modding as a means of telling the backstory to those novels. So with any luck, it’ll be a long time before I have to commit to giving folks a full sense of closure with the saga as a whole.

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I thought I’d post some preliminary screenshots from Sanctum 3.

Nicodemus’ Tower

Highpeak Castle

I also noticed that I hadn’t done anything with the screenshots on the module pages for Sanctum 1 and Sanctum 2 since before the v3.2 update. I’ve updated them to (among other things) show the new Pegasi and companion heads.

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I posted this to the Sanctum 2 module page, and thought I’d post it on my blog as well.

Here’s a question for players. I’ve seen a number of criticisms and downvotes on Sanctum 2 recently for its short length and ending in the middle of a quest. I was planning to release Sanctum 3 as a new module with a new architecture using project Q, but setting all of that up is understandably taking some time. I could get the "Mission to Rayche" quest out much more quickly if I added it to the end of Sanctum 2, where most of the necessary infrastrucure is already in place. I did the same thing for the Wind-Walking / Flying scenes, since the first version of the module actually ended with leaving the peak to start on the mission to Rayche. (I thought that players would appreciate the added content, and that the price of having to stop in mid-quest to continue my graduate work would be worth it.)

Adding the rest of the Mission to Rayche at the end of Sanctum 2 would make the module longer, and allow me to once again end it at the end of a quest. This could help address the criticisms and downvotes of those who are objecting to the module’s current length and ending, and to get some sequel content out faster. I could probably even rig up the necessary scripts to allow players with a savegame at the end of Sanctum 2 v3.2 to jump right to the continuing point in the new module, so re-playing the whole thing might not even be necessary.

The price, though, is that the quality of the Rayche quest wouldn’t be as good, partly because it would be missing some of the new features and the new Q-based infrastructure. Those seem to be particularly well suited to the Mission to Rayche quest, which is one reason why I’ve resisted adding the quest to the end of Sanctum 2 in the past.

So what do players think? Should I continue with my current plans (which would probably get Sanctum 3 out in Spring ‘10), or add the Rayche quest to the end of Sanctum 2?

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The v3.2 update to Sanctum of the Archmage Chapters 1 - 2 has finally been released!

I heard from NinjaWeaselMan today and got his OK to host the Romantic Animations Suite on my website, so I decided not to delay releasing the Sanctum v3.2 update after all. I just finished updating the module pages and I think I’ve got everything set up OK, but if anyone has any problems downloading, installing or running it, please let me know.

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Since it’s now been nearly two weeks since I announced that I was about to release the Sanctum of the Archmage v3.2 update, I feel that I owe the community an explanation regarding why it has been delayed.

Since the Sanctum update uses NinjaWeasel’s Romantic Animations Suite (which I have been helping him to beta test), I have been waiting for him to make that publicly available before releasing it. I last heard from him on August 15th, in an email which said that he was submitting the RAS and that it would be available in a couple of days once it cleared the Vault. That should have been around August 18th or so. It was on the basis of that information that I posted my announcement that the long-delayed Sanctum update would be uploaded shortly, and prepared it for release.

The RAS hasn’t become available as I expected, either on NinjaWeasel’s website or on the Vault. I’ve emailed him several times over the last two weeks to inquire about the matter, but with no response. I’ve also tried to reach him through others in the community who know him, but no one seems to have seen him around recently. I hope nothing’s happened to him.

My only choices right now are to cancel my plans to release the Sanctum update until further notice, to release a version that doesn’t include the RAS, or to temporarily host the RAS hak on my own website. I’m not comfortable acting on that last choice without his stated permission, though, since I know that he wants to control the distribution of his work.

As I said in a previous post, I have a lot of RL related issues to take care of in the immediate future. So since I no longer have time to properly support a module release right now anyway, I’ve decided to postpone the Sanctum update until I do. I’m not sure exactly when that will be, but it will likely be in late September. Hopefully by then the unexpected confusion about the release of the RAS will be resolved, the Sanctum update can finally be posted, and I can get started in earnest on the next chapter.

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I wanted to share a recent article that I just came across, which gives a very positive mention to me and to the Sanctum of the Archmage series. It was on Brad Gallaway’s blog at GameCritics.com, in a guest post by romance and SF/Urban Fantasy author Ann Aguirre. Here’s the link:

Guest Blog: Writer Ann Aguirre talks games

It can also be found here with some comments on Brad’s personal blog, Drinking Coffecola. Here are Ann’s very kind comments about my module work, for which I would very much like to thank her.

"Write a script that determines the NPC love interest according to the gender the player chooses. That way, you only need to write one romance with minimal tweaks. I’ve seen this done with real expertise in player-designed modules for Neverwinter Nights. Andarian has designed an amazing module called Sanctum of the Archmage, where the romance is really well-developed in addition to combat, traps, and story. He integrates this swing-sex NPC with great skill, so if he can do it, why can’t the bigger companies?"

Ann makes several other observations with which I agree, particularly about RPG developers’ all too common lack of emphasis on writing decent romances – a topic that has been a hot button of mine for years. I particularly resonated with this one, which I’ve jokingly offered a couple of times myself:

"So why are the romances so half-assed, seriously? If you guys don’t know how to write one, CALL me."

I think she’s right that this often reflects an unwillingness on the part of game builders to prioritize writing romances as a development goal, and to invest resources in hiring the writers they might need. Writing good romances is a skill, to be sure, but it’s also not rocket science and there are folks out there who know how to do it. And as she observes, this is a wide-open market – not only for female gamers, but for male gamers who know how to appreciate a good romance. And trust me, we’re out there.

With that said, though, I do think there’s another factor that’s helped complicate the evolution of writing for RPGs in general, and not just for romances in particular. That’s the fact that writing for an RPG isn’t the same as writing for a novel or a movie. RPGs are a new medium for narrative art, and while there’s a lot of overlap, it has its own distinctive requirements as well. Those involve developing new writing skills, and to some extent ways of thinking about plot construction, than what experienced writers for other mediums may be used to. Because an RPG is interactive, the plot needs to be both integrated to a central theme and adaptive and multi-dimensional. This "dance" between linear and non-linear design is distinctive to interactive fiction, and it forces you to think about the central plot in more abstract terms than in other media.

As both a programmer and an amateur novelist myself, I can see how RPG writing to some extent involves an integration of both kinds of skills and thinking. That’s actually one of the things that fascinates me about the genre, and has motivated me to invest so much of my personal time in writing and building them myself. As experienced writers from other media begin to do the same and to learn these new skills, I think we’ll see something of a sea change in the depth and complexity of story-based gaming. Indeed, I think we’ve already started to see this happening.

All of this holds true as well, I think, for writing romance plots. One of my goals with the Sanctum of the Archmage modules was in fact to explore not just how to write a good RPG, but how to design and write a compelling RPG romance – so I’m especially gratified by Ann’s comments about my work. Thanks!

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Just a quick note to say that the v3.2 update to Sanctum of the Archmage Chapters 1-2 should be ready to upload shortly, and hopefully by this weekend. I’ve finally had the time to finish the remaining work I needed to, which included updating the documentation and credits and helping to prepare and package some of the new custom content. I just finished my final playtest of Sanctum 1, and expect to be done with Sanctum 2 by tomorrow.

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I just wanted to give everyone a quick update on the status of the Sanctum v3.2 update, as well as some news that may be of interest to readers of my blog.

Between the demands of my job, vacation, managing the AME, and some other projects (see below), my schedule has gotten very busy in recent weeks – and that has unfortunately delayed my efforts to get the Sanctum update posted for general release. I have only a few remaining tasks to finish before I can upload it, but unfortunately my available time is still going to be very limited for the next few weeks. Hopefully when some of the smoke clears from my "real life," I should be able to finally get it completed and online by the end of the month.

The very talented Estelindis has graciously offered to develop some high quality custom NWN head models for the Sanctum update. We’ve been collaborating for a few weeks now on how to get the look just right for the various characters, and the results are truly amazing (if I do say so myself). Robin (both genders) and Orion are basically done, and Diana is currently in development as well. Here’s a link to a screenshot featuring (female) Robin’s new head and the use of the Romantic Animations Suite. Este, thank you very much for your fantastic work on this!

Although sworn to secrecy until recently, I can now also reveal that I’ve been a participant in the beta test for the Dragon Age Toolset since early this year – and I was invited to travel to Bioware HQ in Edmonton last week to participate in the Dragon Age Toolset Builder’s Event. I plan to blog at more length about that amazing experience when I have time – but for now, to see what it was all about check out the posts on the Bioware Blog here and here. I’ll only say for now that from what I’ve seen, the tools that Bioware is making available for Dragon Age are going to change the landscape of RPG modding. I’m very excited about it. Although I’m still committed to finishing "The Miracle Worker" in NWN1, I’m now giving serious consideration to completing Part III of the Sanctum Saga – The Alliance – in Dragon Age.

Thanks again to everyone for your patience and interest!

Cheers,

Andarian

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I’m happy to announce that the Sanctum v3.2 Beta Test 1 is Ready to go! As soon as I finish packaging the beta test files, I’ll contact those of you who’ve offered to help out.

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I finished my playtest run a couple of days ago, and I’m making the rest of the required changes now. Unfortunately, though, the list is too long (and in some cases the fixes are too substantive) for me to just finish them and upload the beta test. Some of the new changes (such as the new shopping system and modifications to some of the items) also have the potential to alter the play balance, so I’ll need to make one more playtest pass through the modules after finishing to make sure nothing serious is broken. Unfortunately, that’ll take at least a few more days.

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I took a detour from playtesting today to add something that I’ve been thinking about for a very long time: a complete re-write of the merchant appraisal system. I’m a big fan of shopping and of using the appraise skill, but the NWN1 implementation of it was really awful. Here are my criticisms of it:

• Appraise rolls encourage players to save and re-try to get better shopping statistics, especially since they are remembered from visit to visit until your appraise skill improves.
• An unlucky second roll can actually cause your shopping adjustment to get worse when your appraise skill improves, which makes no sense.
• Characters with a very high appraise skill can actually sell items back to the merchant for more than they paid for it.
• Characters don’t get a charisma-based shopping adustment, which I always thought would have been appropriate.

I’ve just finished testing the changes that I’ve made to Sanctum v3.2 to address these issues, and I think you’ll like the results.

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The long-awaited (certainly by me, anyway ) version 3.2 update to Sanctum of the Archmage 1 and 2 is just about ready! I’ve finally finished building it, and I’m just about to start what hope will be my final playtest before making the module available for beta testing. It should be ready by next weekend if everything goes well.

I’ve ended up adding a lot of new features in v3.2, most notably Romantic Animations and Ridable Pegasi in Sanctum 2 (thanks to NinjaWeaselMan and Hardpoints, respectively). The ridable pegasus system in particular was an enormous bit of work, and required probably the most elaborate NWN scripting system that I’ve ever had to develop. Most of the rest of the improvements are smaller and more isolated, and came from going through my "dissatisfaction list." These were a lot of little things that I never really liked or thought worked quite right, and someday wanted to figure out a way to "fix up." Often these were things in the base game or in the CEP that I needed to work around, such as the (I thought) awful crafting system, or the custom CEP items that you couldn’t cast Magic Weapon or Flame Blade on because of the very inflexible way that the scripts were written. I’ve paintstakingly fixed as much of that as I could manage, and re-vamped the crafting system for exotic weapons and materials in a way that I think players are likely to enjoy.

The beta test will be closed and I’d like to keep it fairly small, so if you’d be interested in participating, please let me know.

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I just wanted to give everyone a quick heads-up that Tybae and I will be participating in a "streaming preview show" on the NWN Podcast to announce this year’s finalists for the AME’s NWN1 Golden Dragon Awards for 2008. For details on how to join us in IRC, and to listen live to the show stream, see our announcement here.

Also, just an update on the Sanctum 1-2 v3.2 work: I’ve finished my playthrough, and I’m in the process of making some fixes. Once those are done, and I’ve done another playthrough to make sure everything’s working right, I should be ready to set up a beta test. So stay tuned!

Also, check out my submission to the Vault’s NWN1 Screenshot contest:

Mount Cassandra Peak by Andarian

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I’m very pleased to announce that I have officially resumed work on the Sanctum of the Archmage module series.

During the time since my last announcement, I’ve been working on and off to complete the v3.2 update to Sanctum chapters 1 and 2 that I started working on last fall. I had originally planned to release it before the end of last year, but as many of you may know, that plan was delayed by events related to a custom content authorship controversy that arose at the time. Since that controversy now appears to be largely resolved, I have decided to return and pick up with the series where I left off.

Right now, I’m putting the finishing touches on the Sanctum v3.2 update, which I hope to be able to release within the month. Sanctum v3.2 will have major feature upgrades to include both ridable pegasi and (the now final version of) NinjaWeaselMan’s Romantic Animations Suite. It will also feature a large number of scattered improvements in various places, including some new dialogues, rebalancing and other improvements to some of the combats, and compatability with CEP 2.2.

After Sanctum v3.2 is complete, my next project will be to continue the series with Sanctum of the Archmage 3: The Miracle Worker, Act II. My current plan is to substantially re-vamp the scripting and custom content infrastructure for Chapter 3, and in particular to improve the series’ companion AI, with which I’ve never really been entirely happy. Sanctum 3 should also include a number of new tilesets, particularly for mountain scenes, which will dominate much of the next part of the series. The new ridable pegasi and romantic animations, of course, will be integral to the follow-on modules as well. And finally, I’m currently planning to use Project Q for the rest of the series, which should give a distinctively new look and an overall artistic facelift to the entire experience of Neverwinter Nights gaming.

As for the status of future chapters: I’m still debating whether or not to build Part III of the saga – "The Alliance" – in Neverwinter Nights 1. I do have a number of compelling reasons to consider doing that, many of them having to do with the newly available NWN1 custom content that I expect to be able to make use of in the process. I can also provide some useful information for the benefit of those players who dislike NWN2, the idea of changing games in mid-saga, or playing a module that they regard as "unfinished." First, I’ve firmly decided that Part II – "The Miracle Worker" – will definitely be completed in NWN1, and it will have an ending that should provide a sense of closure for players who may for whatever reason not want to continue the saga after that. Although I’m unlikely at this point to build "The Alliance" in NWN2, I have been giving some thought to the possibility of continuing it in Bioware’s new CRPG, Dragon Age, which should be released later this year. But my main concern right now is to complete "The Miracle Worker," and as I’ve said, that’s definitely going to be finished in NWN1.

In other news, I’m also pleased to announce that I’ve just been elected as the new Chairman of the Academy for Modding Excellence. More information about that can be found in the latest announcement on the front page of the AME Website here.

Thanks to everyone for their continued interest in and enthusiasm for the module saga and the story!

Sincerely,

Andarian

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I regret to announce that my plans to develop any new updates or modules in the Sanctum of the Archmage series are suspended until further notice.

My reason for this is that the availablility of several cutting-edge cc (custom content) packages that I had been intending to use in the series has been called into question by recent events. For those interested in understanding the background and details of this developing situation, I recommend reading this recent post on my blog, as well as the comments on it from a number of prominent NWN cc authors. The bottom line is that some of these authors, in protest over having their work stolen and over the rude treatment that they have received by others in the community, have decided to either cancel plans to publicly release works that are in progress, or are considering doing so. Since it would be problematic for me to try to publicly release a module (or a module update) that is built partly with custom content that is not going to be made publicly available, I think it only prudent to suspend my development plans until I see how that situation works itself out.

The Sanctum of the Archmage series is being developed using some custom content that is in parallel development by other authors, and consequently it is directly affected by several of these decisions. Taking place in and around the Nurian Mountains of the World of Glorn, it is primarily a mountain adventure, and it also features a prominent romance sub-plot. For these reasons, I have been actively working to integrate NinjaWeaselMan’s Romantic Animations Suite into the series, starting with the v3.2 update to Sanctum 2. I had also wanted to use Lord Rosenkrantz’ Rocky Mountains tileset in the follow-on modules in the series, and I already use (and planned to continue to use) the Community Tileset (CTP) and the CTP Doors packages. The future public availability of these packages (and/or updates to them) is now in question, so I will have to do some hard thinking about how I may have to adapt my module development plans. If this situation cannot be resolved satisfactorily, I may have to switch to building with older or (in my opinion) inferior custom content, switch to building in NWN2, only release my own future modules for private distribution as well, or give up modding altogether and go back to writing my novels. These are all viable alternatives to my mind, and I am currently considering each of them.

I want to make it clear that I fully support these content developers in their protest. Since discussion of this issue is unwelcome on the Bioware forums, I have even helped to organize a web forum on which discussion and debate about it can continue openly and without interruption. That forum can be found at:

The ‘Modders Shrugged’ Initiative: http://www.moddersshrugged.com

I encourage anyone who may be interested in these developments to check out that forum, and to feel free to offer your (civilly expressed) thoughts on these matters.

It is my hope that an acceptable resolution to this situation can be reached by raising consciousness about it in the NWN community. I think that most players and builders here are decent folks, and that a consensus of support for content authors who do not want their work to be used without their permission can be arrived at if the matter is discussed and debated openly. In the meantime, though, further work on the Sanctum of the Archmage modules will have to remain on hold.

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I’ve been talking on and off for a while now with my good friend Charles – who is a professional artist – about the idea of doing a custom portrait for a character from my Sanctum of the Archmage saga. We’ve recently agreed to go ahead and try this out with Orion, and I thought I’d post (with his permission) his first sketch to solicit some player feedback.

Keep in mind that this is a preliminary sketch, and that he’s already working on several changes that we’ve discussed to better fit my image of Orion and his personality. The main ones will be to shorten his hair, and to change his pose and expression to be more direct (looking right at the viewer) and less threatening.

Here it is. If you have thoughts or suggestions, let us know what you think!

Orion Custom Portrait – First Sketch by Charles Imbro

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It’s been a while since my last blog post, so I wanted to give everyone an update on the status of my building activities for the Sanctum of the Archmage module series.

First, a bit of good news. Some of my readers may know that I’ve been splitting my time for the last several years between a full-time job, working on a graduate degree in physics, my work for the AME, and of course building the Sanctum modules. I’m happy to be able to announce that I’m now on the verge of being able to close out one of those projects. Just a few days ago, I completed my final requirement for graduation in January (a paper that I should be submitting sometime within the next week). Perhaps not surprisingly, this has been occupying most of my focus and attention for the last two months. So if all goes as expected, a major block of free time should begin to open up for me to begin building again in November.

My next step will be to complete the final update to Sanctum 2, and then to move on in earnest to Sanctum 3. Although my new ridable pegasi are now working in Sanctum 2, I still need to decide exactly how to handle a few issues regarding how to work them into the plot. Should I give the player a choice between Ridable Pegasi and Wind-Walking, or get rid of Wind-Walking altogether? How should I handle it if you get your mounts killed in battle? Should you be able to summon new ones, and if so how frequently? (If anyone has any advice or thoughts on that, please feel free to opine. ) I’m working out those issues now, and trying to write the scripts I’ll need to make whichever solution I decide on work seamlessly in-game.

I also have a couple of final tweaks and updates to make to the module in general, such as (for example) updating the "Flooded Cave" battle. I had some very good feedback on that battle from a player, which made it clear to me that I need to make a serious effort to hack the standard monster AI for that encounter to make it more realistic.

Finally, there are NinjaWeaselMan’s Romantic animations. I corresponded with him recently, and the updated version of his hak (which will include some additional animations that I need for my update to Sanctum 2, such as hugging) should be ready in about 2 weeks. I’ve got the code ready for these animations now, so hopefully I should be able to just plug in the final version of the hak when it’s ready.

I hope to have a beta version of Sanctum 2, version 3.2, available sometime in November, and (hopefully) to be able to release it next month as well. And then, after that, it will be on to Sanctum 3!

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Since I posted a video preview of the ridable pegasi, I thought I’d post one for the romantic animations as well. (Size is about 6 mb.)

Romantic Animations Video Preview

For those who may be having trouble playing the above video, here’s one in Quicktime format that may work better:

Romantic Animations Video Preview (Quicktime)

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I’ve got most of the scripting and details worked out for including ridable pegasi in Sanctum 2. I’ve decided to leave both flying options in the module, so that the player can choose whether they would prefer Wind Walking or Ridable Pegasi as their means of travel to other lands. Here’s a video preview. (The size is about 34 mb.)

Ridable Pegasi Leaving Mount Cassandra

I’m still tweaking the details, but I think it’s good enough to show. I’m still having trouble with the wings not showing up during the mounting animation, but I think I can live with that for now. I was also able to use one of the custom horse animations to make it look like the characters were really flying off the side of the mountain. Unfortunately the only suitable one I could find also has the rider losing his balance for a moment at the start. It actually makes the scene a little more humorous than I’d intended, but I think it’s a small price to pay to actually see the characters fly off the peak and into the distance.

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At my request, Hardpoints has finally posted a ridable pegasus model that I can use in Sanctum of the Archmage! See below for a screenshot, and here for details and more screenshots.

I should be able to integrate them into Sanctum 2 in a few days. When I do, I’ll post some screenshots from it in-game, with our heroes riding them through the Wind-Walking areas. (Our pegasi, of course, will be white. ) I’ll still need to figure out what to do with the Cloak of Flying, since it’ll no longer really be needed for the story; but that’s a minor detail.

EDIT: Except for some timing details with the mounting and dismounting animations, I now have ridable pegasi working in Sanctum 2. I’ve replaced the image above with one from a test in one of the wind-walking areas. I think it looks great!

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