I've just encountered a bug that appears to be related to this mod.
If I enter the bridge area with the mod installed, Dorn's quest won't trigger - he won't say his dialogue regarding Simmeon, and Simmeon and his gang won't be waiting on the other side of the bridge.
If I uninstall the mod and then re-enter the area for the first time (in other words, using a saved game from before I had first entered that area), Dorn's quest triggers without a problem.
Strange... I'll look into it, but I don't recall anything in the mod affecting Dorn's or the actual script for that area. The only changes are to Tenya and her dialogue.
I forgot to say anything for a while, but I wasn't able to replicate the bug mentioned above. Every time I went over the bridge to fight Simmeon everything triggered fine as usual. And like I said I can't how this mod could have interferred with that since neither Dorn's or Simmeon's or even the script for that area are modified at all by this.
I consider this mod more or less done. I'll check through again to see if there's NPC'd I missed from having a banter with the brat.
Of course I'm always to ideas and suggestions. Not a romance obviously. She's twelve, and I'm not interested in whether or not that was okay in any society that existed in the past. Maybe a parenting path though, or perhaps you can recruit the aid of other NPC's to teach her about various things, with varying degrees of success...
One idea I had early but ended up not implementing was for every sailor you spoke to with Tenya to hand over a small gift or offering (in the form of a few coins or a trinket) in an attempt to gain favor with Umberlee. It turned out all the sailors in the game as far as I can tell are concentrated in one tavern, with possibly some more spawning later as part of TotSC. I'd have just preferred them more spread out, I guess, so that you don't exhaust all the dialogue I had planned in one place.
Another I had but didn't go through was to spread a number of 'fish' items in various containers all over the map. Talking to Tenya while having a fish in the party inventory would have brought up the option to have Tenya read it's entrails (something she had started studying before the bad stuff went down), making predictions much like other fortune tellers in the game (although the entrails aren't exactly fresh, so maybe not completely reliable). The only real advantage this would have given the player would have been to possibly save a tiny amount of coin during a quest in Baldur's Gate... so, yeah, didn't bother in the end.
I'll be changing the format of the code of this mod, as well as my other mods, to match that of other mods and hopefully tidy things up a bit. While I'm at it I might add a little more banter and rewrite a few little bits here and there.
Then, who knows. It's quite possible that as I work on Wings, I may a take a break intermittantly to work on a Tenya for BG2:EE. And here's little snippets of some banter you may look forward to:
Aerie: Oh, nonsense, CHARNAME! She is a sweet girl who’s been through a lot and just needs to be shown some kindness.
PC: Aerie, she is going to devour you.
--
PC: You mean after he has ‘dragged’ himself from out of a pool of his own innards. Not drug.
Jaheira: Do not correct her, CHARNAME. You’ll stifle her.
--
Tenya: AHH! HELP! THIS MAN IS TRYING TO MAKE ME FOLLOW HIM!
Dwarf: Huh?
Edwin: Why you evil little…
Dwarf: ‘ere now, what’s going on?
Edwin: Oh, no… nothing at all. My darling little… erm, niece, here, is just playing a game (a very dangerous game...)
--
Tenya: Oh, I know! Why don’t we visit the circus? Go and stare and gawk and maybe even poke some of the freaks. That is the kind of thing normal children do, is it not?
Well, unless there are bugs, corrections, or other fixes that need to be made.
I've rewritten a bit, most notably during the encounter with Lethe and some of her banter with the PC.
Tenya's been fun to write though. At first, I just thought it would just be a funny mod, and a welcome change from Aerie who is all so tragic and serious... but actually, as I fleshed Tenya out a bit, she became a deeper and more complex character than I thought and I started to really like her, even though she's a complete brat. So I'd definitely like to do a bit more with her some time.
Another thing I'd considered was a sub-plot of you trying to find a new home for Tenya, away from the Umberlants who would obviously just screw her up more. Trying to get other temples to take her in, or even convince characters like Firebead Elvenhair to take her on as an apprentice. It likely would not have worked out and she'll have ended up back with you again before long... but, I felt it was a bit too complicated to implement and I've tried to keep most other things in this mod brief to be more in keeping with the rest of BG1.
Early on, I changed Tenya's alignment to Chaotic Neutral, for several reasons. First, she's twelve, and the psychologist in me doesn't really go along with the idea of children being evil. Second, I feel it better reflects her personality anyway - she is quick to anger, abrasive, and like children do will sometimes try to test the limits of people around her to see how much she can get away with. But, she can actually be quite helpful and even nice, on occasion. Lastly I just wanted to leave it open so that maybe in the future she can develop either way due to your influence.
And spoiler:
You can pick up a weapon at the end of her 'quest' (I say quest - there's a few dialogues Tenya will initiate, at the end of which she'll suggest going and meeting somebody). It's basically just a halbard that uses the quarterstaff proficiency so it can be wielded by clerics. Obviously intended to be used by Tenya (although I don't think I specified, so other characters can maybe use it too).
She has a bunch of mephit spells she can cast (steam and ice shards etc... basically all the ones that have any sort of connection to water). Not really very powerful, but can be useful on occassion.
She can also cast Storm Shield once per day like a Cleric of Talos.
Spoiler:
At the end of her 'quest', she'll be able to use the bowl. It allows her to summon a Water Elemental once per day, which gets stronger as she levels up (Lesser, norm, Greater). It improves every five levels, so since she caps at level 9 I think in BG1, you won't get the first upgrade without removing the XP cap first. Since I couldn't find any water elemental creature in BG1, I had to make up my own, just taking the fire elementals and swapping around fire and ice.
It's always good to see a new NPC mod! What I can say about this one is that it's really very well written.
I personally would have preferred to have longer banters with Tenya and other NPC's, but brevity is the soul of wit as they say, and what there is, is mostly very good and funny. Tenya herself is funny a lot of time - she's funny when she gets mad, she's funny in those moments she acts like an actual bratty little kid. She can be a real bad-ass at times as well. But then, there are those moments when she expresses a sadness and vulnerability which just makes me want to scoop her up and hug her, although she would probably kill me if I did. In particular, the conversation she has when you enter the city with her is... just the saddest thing I have ever read. But it's not overdone or trying to strangle you with your own heartstrings too much.
I found writing the shorter length banters and figuring out how to get a point or something about the characters across in usually just two or three lines to be quite a useful exercise. There's a few I'm not happy with and maybe I will change some time in the future. But unless more people would like more BG2 style banter, I'll keep them short for now. I've a feeling I'm probably not going to be able to resist doing a BG2 mod with her though.
No biggy. Just a few small corrections and changes to her banter.
I've been thinking a bit about what happens when you already have Tenya in your party when you do the Jebadoh quest. As it is, having her in your party means you have to talk to Jalantha, who is actually less reasonable. I've had a few thoughts on ways to get around her and not have to part with your hard-earned cash, so we'll see.
EDIT: Sorry, I meant the Varci quest. Jebadoh is one of the fishermen. I think I was going over some of her banters at the same time as posting this and that's why I made that mistake.
Tenya is human, but she uses an elven cleric avatar because it's smaller and she's younger than most. But obviously, if you have any scripts that change an NPC's appearance based on what they're wearing (like switching between robes and armor for a cleric/mage, for example), it will change Ten to the 'full-grown' human avatar whenever she wears anything. Haven't figured out any way around it.
Originally I had wanted to try and take a minimalistic approach to this mod (short banters with other NPC's) because I thought it fit better with the rest of the BG1 cast. But it seems people want more... I guess many of them are playing with mods that expand the rest of the cast to BG2 levels of interaction.
So, I'm firing up my BG:EE game again, and guess what... I'm going to give you more. More comments and interjections, more and longer banters with the other NPC's. I think I might finally find a use for that doll she has in her house as well.
So stay tuned (this time I'll take some screenshots as well I think).
Disclaimer: I didn’t play your mod, nor will I probably do in the near future. But for some reason I’ve been lurking in this thread from time to time. I think I just enjoy reading about interesting characters with some depth and good writing to them.
So, why am I posting here? I had a bit of fun with Tenya’s portrait. It struck me to be the slimmest tad too plain. So I touched up her clothes to have a bit of a wavy pattern to them. The inspiration was actually Japaneese-art style tsunami.
You can do whathever you want with my version of the portrait – I just wanted to get the idea out of my head. But maybe it will turn out to prove useful as an alternate image or something.
(Of course, due to just wanting to have fun I wasn’t paying attention to keeping the colour space or anything like that that the game will probably want, besides .bmp format, to accept the portrait. Sorry. ;p)
So, why am I posting here? I had a bit of fun with Tenya’s portrait. It struck me to be the slimmest tad too plain. So I touched up her clothes to have a bit of a wavy pattern to them. The inspiration was actually Japaneese-art style tsunami.
Appropriate. As she's getting a bit of an overhaul right now anyway, maybe I'll include your portrait in the next version.
She has quite a bit more banter now. Most the banters with other NPC's have been expanded, and she has several with some characters (4 with Alora, 3 with Minsc, 2 with Dynaheir, Imoen, Garrick, Ajantis... that's all I can remember, but she has at least one with everyone apart from Baeloth at this time).
She has a few comments along your main quest as well, as well as a few interjections and comments scattered around elsewhere. I'll keep looking around to see if I can put in any more.
Also, now if you take Tenya into your party before doing Tremain's quest, it should (hopefully if all has gone well) now be possible to still retrieve the body without paying out 2,000 gold or killing anyone.
I also changed her in-game portrait to the version done by @Asthner.
I forgot to say anything for a while, but I wasn't able to replicate the bug mentioned above. Every time I went over the bridge to fight Simmeon everything triggered fine as usual. And like I said I can't how this mod could have interferred with that since neither Dorn's or Simmeon's or even the script for that area are modified at all by this.
After further testing, I think the problem may have resulted from having the NPC Project mod installed at the same time. It seems that if one or the other is installed by itself, everything triggers as it is supposed to, but when both are installed at the same time, then Dorn's interaction doesn't trigger (though the modded Tenya's still will).
I forgot to say anything for a while, but I wasn't able to replicate the bug mentioned above. Every time I went over the bridge to fight Simmeon everything triggered fine as usual. And like I said I can't how this mod could have interferred with that since neither Dorn's or Simmeon's or even the script for that area are modified at all by this.
After further testing, I think the problem may have resulted from having the NPC Project mod installed at the same time. It seems that if one or the other is installed by itself, everything triggers as it is supposed to, but when both are installed at the same time, then Dorn's interaction doesn't trigger (though the modded Tenya's still will).
My apologies if I've wasted your time with this.
I'll try and look into further then. I don't have many other mods installed when I'm testing these. Just the tweak pack I think. But as I mentioned, none of the scripts for that are affected by this mod. I've not heard from anyone else about this, but I suppose not many people will have had a chance to test everything yet. I'll try installing the NPC project myself when I get a chance and see if I get the same problem.
Darn it @Coutelier, I finally had the party all picked out for my next play through, and now I have to rethink it! Looking forward to adventuring with Tenya!
Congratz, this mod is a real nice idea. In fact it strucks me now that Tenya is one of the most appropriate NPCs to join, lose everything, has nothing to do, nowhere to go and, above all, has a lot of anger to discharge.
didn't played this mod but i intend to, so lemme share some questions:
1° - It's Tenya playable in SoDS? Didn't purchase the game yet, but i plan to and i'm making some BG saves to continue the game there.
2° - Any plans to take her to BG2?
3° - Does her alignment change based on Main Char influence from Chaotic Neutral to another alignment? If so, leaving the chaotic neutral, chaotic evil or neutral evil sphere will you find another god/godness for her to worship (due to the alignment restrictions for umbrelee)?
Suggestion:
She's a child and is developing her atributes, body and mind. I believe that a few months (BG1 saga) aren't enough to change physical atributes, but her wisdom could get a boost based on some quests done in the right way (which don't mean good or evil way, just right way). Children tend to learn fast.
4° and final question: Is this compatible with v2.1?
Just chiming in here, and backing @kamuizin completely! I want to do the whole run with her in the party. I'm happy to see that I'm not the only one still paying attention to the state of this NPC!
Tenya is probably my favorite NPC, period. Every run I have done since discovering this mod has had her in it. The dialogue is well written, the character evokes a certain sorrowful determination with just enough levity.
Thank you for writing this, and - hopefully - for continuing this.
Thank you everyone for the kind comments. I don't drop by Baldur's Gate forums very often these days. I'm a professional writer now (in that I have written some stuff under my own name, and some people have paid money to read it, therefore I am a writer). Tenya is my favourite character too, which is why I've reused essentially the same character I wrote in this mod in some of my other work.
As for your questions... I don't know if this will work with Siege of Dragonspear, as I've not been able to play it yet or test any mods with it (I'm busy doing writerly stuff... mostly agonising over how the next sentence should go). Obviously I haven't written anything for it either, so I suspect there may be some issues. Eventually I'll try it out, but I can't say when.
I'd always planned that if I continued the mod into BG2, the main char would have a lot more influence over how she developed, from what stats she develops, alignment and deity, maybe even what class she is (if she gets booted out by Umberlee). It would basically have been a parenting mod, and whether you're good or bad would affect how the child grows. But again I don't know when or even if I will ever attempt such a thing.
Still, if there are other mod makers who would like to pick it up you're welcome to contact me. Tumblr is usually best as I'm on it most.
There's a conflict with the Garrick, Tales of a Troubadour mod, which adds a dialogue between Tenya and Garrick after Tenya's quest, and thus blocks the option to ask her to join you. Quickfix: remove Garrick from the party before speaking to Tenya, then add him back after you recruit her. (This will block him from getting Tenya's reward item, but I don't think it breaks anything.)
I think she's a bit OP as a party member. She has powerful items, she starts at level 5 when the PC can encounter her at level 1 if they run past the ankhegs, and 16 WIS is the highest of any recruitable cleric in the vanilla game. I'd have left her stats as-is, or maybe just bumped up her dex a little and given her some non-removable light armor so you can't slap the ankheg plate on her and make her your tank (because that seems out of character, lol), and also lowered her starting level to 3 if the PC is level 1-2.
Tenya is the one NPC that I realized was OP, but I somehow felt better about it. Yeah, she's in Ankheg armor, wield her quest weapon... but... She's 12. Shitty life. Must be the parent in me, but I protect her from virtually everything (that she hasn't already killed). @amyae : enjoy
There's a conflict with the Garrick, Tales of a Troubadour mod, which adds a dialogue between Tenya and Garrick after Tenya's quest, and thus blocks the option to ask her to join you. Quickfix: remove Garrick from the party before speaking to Tenya, then add him back after you recruit her. (This will block him from getting Tenya's reward item, but I don't think it breaks anything.)
I think she's a bit OP as a party member. She has powerful items, she starts at level 5 when the PC can encounter her at level 1 if they run past the ankhegs, and 16 WIS is the highest of any recruitable cleric in the vanilla game. I'd have left her stats as-is, or maybe just bumped up her dex a little and given her some non-removable light armor so you can't slap the ankheg plate on her and make her your tank (because that seems out of character, lol), and also lowered her starting level to 3 if the PC is level 1-2.
That said, I'm liking her dialogue so far!
Oh wow, I never knew of this!! Thanks for telling about the Garrick issue. I always wished Tenya was a joinable npc...
Does this infer with Garrick's quest? I have not played either of these mods but I plan to on this run!
This is a great NPC, esp. since she is made from an existing character in BG from the beginning. Her banter really fits her age and alignment. Works just fine with BGEE v2.3. Great work.
EDIT: may have spoken to soon. When locked up by Angelo in the Flaming Fist headquarters there is a problem with the Neb banter (funny by the way) and getting stuck. I can see what is supposed to happen but Neb sometimes disappears or is unkillable causing problems with the key. After tryin it a few times and use of the pause button I got it worked out, and got out. Only problem so far.
Comments
If I enter the bridge area with the mod installed, Dorn's quest won't trigger - he won't say his dialogue regarding Simmeon, and Simmeon and his gang won't be waiting on the other side of the bridge.
If I uninstall the mod and then re-enter the area for the first time (in other words, using a saved game from before I had first entered that area), Dorn's quest triggers without a problem.
I consider this mod more or less done. I'll check through again to see if there's NPC'd I missed from having a banter with the brat.
Of course I'm always to ideas and suggestions. Not a romance obviously. She's twelve, and I'm not interested in whether or not that was okay in any society that existed in the past. Maybe a parenting path though, or perhaps you can recruit the aid of other NPC's to teach her about various things, with varying degrees of success...
Then, who knows. It's quite possible that as I work on Wings, I may a take a break intermittantly to work on a Tenya for BG2:EE. And here's little snippets of some banter you may look forward to:
Aerie: Oh, nonsense, CHARNAME! She is a sweet girl who’s been through a lot and just needs to be shown some kindness.
PC: Aerie, she is going to devour you.
--
PC: You mean after he has ‘dragged’ himself from out of a pool of his own innards. Not drug.
Jaheira: Do not correct her, CHARNAME. You’ll stifle her.
--
Tenya: AHH! HELP! THIS MAN IS TRYING TO MAKE ME FOLLOW HIM!
Dwarf: Huh?
Edwin: Why you evil little…
Dwarf: ‘ere now, what’s going on?
Edwin: Oh, no… nothing at all. My darling little… erm, niece, here, is just playing a game (a very dangerous game...)
--
Tenya: Oh, I know! Why don’t we visit the circus? Go and stare and gawk and maybe even poke some of the freaks. That is the kind of thing normal children do, is it not?
Aerie: (sighs) Children… can’t know any better.
BGEETenya13.
Well, unless there are bugs, corrections, or other fixes that need to be made.
I've rewritten a bit, most notably during the encounter with Lethe and some of her banter with the PC.
Tenya's been fun to write though. At first, I just thought it would just be a funny mod, and a welcome change from Aerie who is all so tragic and serious... but actually, as I fleshed Tenya out a bit, she became a deeper and more complex character than I thought and I started to really like her, even though she's a complete brat. So I'd definitely like to do a bit more with her some time.
Early on, I changed Tenya's alignment to Chaotic Neutral, for several reasons. First, she's twelve, and the psychologist in me doesn't really go along with the idea of children being evil. Second, I feel it better reflects her personality anyway - she is quick to anger, abrasive, and like children do will sometimes try to test the limits of people around her to see how much she can get away with. But, she can actually be quite helpful and even nice, on occasion. Lastly I just wanted to leave it open so that maybe in the future she can develop either way due to your influence.
And spoiler:
She has a bunch of mephit spells she can cast (steam and ice shards etc... basically all the ones that have any sort of connection to water). Not really very powerful, but can be useful on occassion.
She can also cast Storm Shield once per day like a Cleric of Talos.
Spoiler:
I personally would have preferred to have longer banters with Tenya and other NPC's, but brevity is the soul of wit as they say, and what there is, is mostly very good and funny. Tenya herself is funny a lot of time - she's funny when she gets mad, she's funny in those moments she acts like an actual bratty little kid. She can be a real bad-ass at times as well. But then, there are those moments when she expresses a sadness and vulnerability which just makes me want to scoop her up and hug her, although she would probably kill me if I did. In particular, the conversation she has when you enter the city with her is... just the saddest thing I have ever read.
I'd really like to see more of her.
No biggy. Just a few small corrections and changes to her banter.
I've been thinking a bit about what happens when you already have Tenya in your party when you do the Jebadoh quest. As it is, having her in your party means you have to talk to Jalantha, who is actually less reasonable. I've had a few thoughts on ways to get around her and not have to part with your hard-earned cash, so we'll see.
EDIT: Sorry, I meant the Varci quest. Jebadoh is one of the fishermen. I think I was going over some of her banters at the same time as posting this and that's why I made that mistake.
Tenya is human, but she uses an elven cleric avatar because it's smaller and she's younger than most. But obviously, if you have any scripts that change an NPC's appearance based on what they're wearing (like switching between robes and armor for a cleric/mage, for example), it will change Ten to the 'full-grown' human avatar whenever she wears anything. Haven't figured out any way around it.
So, I'm firing up my BG:EE game again, and guess what... I'm going to give you more. More comments and interjections, more and longer banters with the other NPC's. I think I might finally find a use for that doll she has in her house as well.
So stay tuned (this time I'll take some screenshots as well I think).
Character Sheet:
Exploring her land-home:
So, why am I posting here? I had a bit of fun with Tenya’s portrait. It struck me to be the slimmest tad too plain. So I touched up her clothes to have a bit of a wavy pattern to them. The inspiration was actually Japaneese-art style tsunami.
You can do whathever you want with my version of the portrait – I just wanted to get the idea out of my head. But maybe it will turn out to prove useful as an alternate image or something.
(Of course, due to just wanting to have fun I wasn’t paying attention to keeping the colour space or anything like that that the game will probably want, besides .bmp format, to accept the portrait. Sorry. ;p)
BGEETenya15.rar
She has quite a bit more banter now. Most the banters with other NPC's have been expanded, and she has several with some characters (4 with Alora, 3 with Minsc, 2 with Dynaheir, Imoen, Garrick, Ajantis... that's all I can remember, but she has at least one with everyone apart from Baeloth at this time).
She has a few comments along your main quest as well, as well as a few interjections and comments scattered around elsewhere. I'll keep looking around to see if I can put in any more.
Also, now if you take Tenya into your party before doing Tremain's quest, it should (hopefully if all has gone well) now be possible to still retrieve the body without paying out 2,000 gold or killing anyone.
I also changed her in-game portrait to the version done by @Asthner.
Here's a sample of some banter:
Comments on entering certain areas:
Player Initiated Dialogues:
My apologies if I've wasted your time with this.
didn't played this mod but i intend to, so lemme share some questions:
1° - It's Tenya playable in SoDS? Didn't purchase the game yet, but i plan to and i'm making some BG saves to continue the game there.
2° - Any plans to take her to BG2?
3° - Does her alignment change based on Main Char influence from Chaotic Neutral to another alignment? If so, leaving the chaotic neutral, chaotic evil or neutral evil sphere will you find another god/godness for her to worship (due to the alignment restrictions for umbrelee)?
Suggestion:
She's a child and is developing her atributes, body and mind. I believe that a few months (BG1 saga) aren't enough to change physical atributes, but her wisdom could get a boost based on some quests done in the right way (which don't mean good or evil way, just right way). Children tend to learn fast.
4° and final question: Is this compatible with v2.1?
Tenya is probably my favorite NPC, period. Every run I have done since discovering this mod has had her in it. The dialogue is well written, the character evokes a certain sorrowful determination with just enough levity.
Thank you for writing this, and - hopefully - for continuing this.
As for your questions... I don't know if this will work with Siege of Dragonspear, as I've not been able to play it yet or test any mods with it (I'm busy doing writerly stuff... mostly agonising over how the next sentence should go). Obviously I haven't written anything for it either, so I suspect there may be some issues. Eventually I'll try it out, but I can't say when.
I'd always planned that if I continued the mod into BG2, the main char would have a lot more influence over how she developed, from what stats she develops, alignment and deity, maybe even what class she is (if she gets booted out by Umberlee). It would basically have been a parenting mod, and whether you're good or bad would affect how the child grows. But again I don't know when or even if I will ever attempt such a thing.
Still, if there are other mod makers who would like to pick it up you're welcome to contact me. Tumblr is usually best as I'm on it most.
Or just e-mail me:
jc@coutelier.org.uk
I think she's a bit OP as a party member. She has powerful items, she starts at level 5 when the PC can encounter her at level 1 if they run past the ankhegs, and 16 WIS is the highest of any recruitable cleric in the vanilla game. I'd have left her stats as-is, or maybe just bumped up her dex a little and given her some non-removable light armor so you can't slap the ankheg plate on her and make her your tank (because that seems out of character, lol), and also lowered her starting level to 3 if the PC is level 1-2.
That said, I'm liking her dialogue so far!
(edited for autocorrect!)
Does this infer with Garrick's quest? I have not played either of these mods but I plan to on this run!
EDIT: may have spoken to soon. When locked up by Angelo in the Flaming Fist headquarters there is a problem with the Neb banter (funny by the way) and getting stuck. I can see what is supposed to happen but Neb sometimes disappears or is unkillable causing problems with the key. After tryin it a few times and use of the pause button I got it worked out, and got out. Only problem so far.