In development, Kerick NPC mod for BGEE.
Ravenslight
Member Posts: 1,609
in BG:EE Mods
Kerick
NPC mod for Baldur’s Gate Enhanced Edition
Human - Chaotic Neutral - Male - Thief
By Ravenslight
Coding by Shadowhawk
Original Portraits by Isandir
Voice work undecided
Kerick is used to making his living as an assassin for hire, and bodyguard to the “soft bellies” among the local noble classes of Baldur’s Gate. He seldom talks about himself or his past, even when pressed. Kerick loves women, and as many of them as will let him. He enjoys the chase. Despite the fact that he actively pursues any woman that catches his eye, he always treats them with deference and respect, high born or low. As with most people, his views on men, women, love, and life in general, are heavily colored by his past.
I see Kerick as a discordant combination of gentleman and rogue. A chameleon, who can easily move among and be accepted by those around him as he wishes. A talent that has served him well in his dealings with both the upper classes of Baldur’s Gate and the seedier inhabitants as well. He has no compunctions about taking advantage of that talent. His weakness is a true innocent. This weakness has not often stood in his way, as he rarely sees people as such.
Kerick on reputation:
Reputation is important to Kerick as he believes that only a fool would allow their reputation to drop so low as to draw unwanted attention to themselves. He believes that one is always better able to accomplish ones goals if they can move freely within society, hated or hunted by no one. Whether or not ones true intentions are noble, how others perceive you should always remain nonthreatening. Especially if that is far from the truth. He will not long follow a leader who continually draws negative attention to themselves. He is far too fond of his own hide.
Kerick on the gods others worship:
Kerick has no problem with others that have a strong faith. Even those who have dedicated their lives to their god. He himself however, believes the gods have their own agendas and the only true interest they have in those who follow them is how they can be used to further their own cause. He believes that those who choose to follow a god are deluding themselves if they believe that their god truly cares what happens to them personally.
The romance:
This mod provides a branching romance option for any elven, half-elven or human female PC of neutral to good alignment. If the PC is the kind that likes to kick puppies and kill innocents, she won’t hold his romantic interest for long, but he will put up with most of your decisions as his boss. He works for you, you make the decisions.
If Kerick takes an interest in a woman, he tends to be fairly up front about it. If your protagonist is not interested in such shenanigans, she can easily tell him that she is only interested in a business relationship via the PIDs at any time. He will respect your wishes.
Rating:
Ratings are always subjective and based on personal perceptions, but I would personally rate the content within this mod as mature.
To see more beautiful portraits crafted by Isandir, please follow this link.
http://isandir.com/
25
Comments
No eta just yet @chrstnmonks
We want to feel confident that we have a stable mod before we release an alpha version to the public for testing. This being the first time we have done this sort of thing, we just don’t feel comfortable trying to give a release date yet.
What I can say is, it is well underway.
Can I ask what his Ability stats ? or it isn't fix yet?
Thank you. We do plan to continue the mod into both SoA and ToB. We are still wavering on a final decision regarding his stats.
Look what @Isandir surprised me with in my inbox this morning. This reminds me of a professional movie poster for an upcoming blockbuster.
"Damen" is German for "Ladies" :P
You *might* want to rethink that name choice (lest this one was on purpose).
(chuckles) Hmm… Well now, it never occurred to me to consider what a name might mean in a different language. He simply “told me” what his name was. I know, my mind works in strange ways.
Also, like many other mods, yours may end up with an translation, so then it might be weird.
I don't know.
Thank you for bringing something to our attention that we had not considered before. We have decided to change the spelling just a bit to, Damien. Now if the gods are kind, we won’t find out later that this means “your momma” or something.
This mod adds a new, joinable NPC to Baldur’s Gate: EE. It also adds extended dialogue to some base game NPC’s, as well as some new NPC dialogue based encounters sprinkled throughout the game.
Also included, is a new merchant, based in Gullykin. One of the base game, party NPCs can develop a relationship with her, should the player choose to have both him and Kerick in the party.
In an effort to help the player tailor their game experience to better suit their personal tastes, I am including the following.
If Kerick takes an interest in a woman, he tends to be fairly up front about it. If your protagonist is not interested in such shenanigans, she can easily tell him to stop his advances via the PIDs at any time. He will respect her wishes. Well… most of the time anyway.
Choose: Kerick, I would like to talk about our relationship. Then choose the option telling him that you are only interested in a business relationship.
Kerick’s personal armor:
There are story reasons related to why Kerick chose the armor he did, but some players may feel it affects the balance of their game in a way they find unappealing. This can easily be solved by removing his armor and storing it in the chest on the first floor of the Friendly Arms, near where you first meet him. He can then be outfitted in any way the player feels is appropriate for their game.
Kerick is a master pickpocket due to the training of his early “mentors”. If you would prefer to readjust his skill, this is easily accomplished using EE Keeper under the thieves tab.
Kerick on reputation:
Reputation is important to Kerick as he believes that only a fool would allow their reputation to drop so low as to draw unwanted attention to themselves. He believes that one is always better able to accomplish ones goals if they can move freely within society, hated or hunted by no one. Whether or not ones true intentions are noble, how others perceive you should always remain non-threatening. Especially if that is far from the truth. He will not long follow a leader who continually draws negative attention to themselves.
A drop of reputation to 7 will result in Kerick leaving the party and the game. He has no problem with neutral or high reputations, but he will not start to open up personally, to a PC with a reputation lower than 9. For story reasons, he will not join an evilly aligned PC’s party.
Rating:
Ratings are always subjective and based on personal perceptions, but I would personally rate the content within this mod as mature.
There is content within this mod that goes beyond a PG rating, in my opinion. It does not contain content that I would rate higher than Mature. Please take this into consideration when deciding if this might be a mod that would suit your tastes.
Kerick is most interactive with a female PC involved in a romance path with him. If the PC is male, or the player has chosen to shut the romance paths down, dialogue with him becomes more like that of a base game NPC.
PLEASE NOTE:
Some talks are dependant on quest items or scrolls being in the party’s inventory to fire. So make sure to pick up those scrolls that you have picked up a hundred times in previous playthroughs. Just hold them in your inventory for a few minutes before you toss them out again.
Kerick, like most of the other NPCs, has personal preferences, and is therefore more compatible with some NPCs than others. He has little or nothing to say to some, while with others he can develop a close bond, or even friendship.
For those interested in considering such possibilities in planning their party’s composition, in order of most potential dialogue. (Note: This list is very subject to change at this point. An NPCs name not appearing on this list just means that Kerick hasn’t chosen to speak to them yet. It doesn’t necessarily mean he won’t in the final version. He surprises me all the time.
Yeslick
Kivan
Jaheira
Rasaad
Khalid
Coran
Minsc
Ajantis
Branwen
Faldorn
Garrick
Imoen
Viconia
Xzar
Montaron
Dynaheir
Neera
Edwin
Thank you for your interest.
The long search for just the right music for Kerick’s romance track has finely born fruit. A piece selected from Carolan’s Welcome will be used. I had long hoped to find something that I felt was right, but that was also royalty free, if at all possible. Just as I had about given up hope I found this piece on a royalty free album by the Santec Music Orchestra. Wind Of The North, Irish-Celtic Music.
As a bonus, on the same album I found two other pieces that would be lovely for two other NPCs that I would like to make, one day. I have often thought that the game could use a Dwarven NPC that the ladies of the shorty races could torment.
It tickles me no end that now every time a love talk comes up in game it has music that makes me smile and think… just right!
Also of note…
Rumor has it that the illusive Fire Leaf Clan has been spotted hunting near the falls in the area of the Fire Leaf Forests.
Thank you for your interest.
Do I understand correctly that mod is not finished yet? Because if so - there are other NPC Kerick could talk to (at least they could be brought to his attention
As for romances, there are no official BG1 romances for females and only hints of any relationship with Dorn and Rasaad in BGEE. Yet, there are three well known romance mods - Xan, Ajantis and Coran. Any plans to make Kerick react to them?
In the first release of our mod, Kerick will notice and react accordingly to Rasaad's interest in the PC, but the conflict will be very light as Rasaad’s romance is really only hinted at in BG1. He will also react very lightly to other NPCs when I feel that there is enough evidence of the possibility for romantic conflict within the base game. For instance, in my opinion there is plenty of evidence in the base game that Coran would be doing at least some minor flirting with a female PC. I felt he could not help but notice such attentions.
In the future I would be very interested in cross mod banter with other peoples NPC mods, however, I would never include such content without the expressed consent of the other mod authors. But yes, I would love to add romance related banter between Kerick and the Xan, Ajantis and Coran romances contained within the BG1 NPC mod, as well as their expansions.
Kerick is being developed and constantly tested with the BG1 NPC project compatibility in mind. But at this time, he is still oblivious to a PC actively romancing Xan, Ajantis or Coran using the NPC project. We hope to change that in the future.
It is difficult for me to know what I might say that others might find interesting. Except perhaps to say that this mod is still very much alive.
I can’t imagine that anyone wants to hear about the mundane details of development.
For instance, this week as I was running a play-through in order to test a new merchant NPC with dialogue that we had recently added to the Nashkel Carnival. I noticed that previously added Love Talks, that had always fired perfectly before, were no longer firing. Even though I know that anything that goes wrong is eventually fixable, I still tend to panic at such moments.
Of course it all just rolls off my husband’s back. “Ahh… Oh yes, I tried something new with the Dream Scripts and…” (He starts talking in the foreign language that is coding.)
I would like to have a beta version ready for release by this fall, but that may be optimistic. It is hard to judge with work schedules and life in general interrupting at will.
It good to be hearing he is in progress and fall wow that will be wonderful if it will happen tho even if not it ok, it will be cool to test him, so take your time and make him perfect as he already is I'm sure
All that said, those are some impressive looking portraits. I'll have to check out some more of that artist's work and keep an eye on this mod in the meantime.