Morrowind: Underground and Lokken mod Qs

[Mochan]

Anyone there who's played The Underground and White Wolf of Lokken, could you answer these questions?

1. Is there a teleport bauble for White Wolf of Lokken that lets you return to your castle? I haven't found one now that I've finished the game but Laurenna mentions that a teleport item was used to kidnap her so I'm thinking there might be one hidden in here somewhere.

2. How do you start The Underground? I just installed the mod and I can't figure out how to get to The Underground.

[Aku]

I've played Lokken and I'm about 2/3 of the way through Underground (it's a very large campaign).

If in Lokken you choose to make Laurenna your girlfriend/wife, you get a ring that lets you contact her remotely and have her teleport to you and all that. And you can have her teleport herself back to the castle if you want to go it alone. I don't know of any teleport ring or amulet that you can use to send yourself back to the castle (though one would have been nice). I have a mark spell set there all the time.

To play Underground, I would recommend starting a new game with a new character. Don't install a whole bunch of mods in your Underground game (I just kept it mostly to visual improvement mods, plus Return to Hellhouse). Use Better Bodies 2.0 with Underground - highly recommended! The Underground is a great mod if you're a vampire, but you don't have to be one (mine is). Be a male character, cuz if you're a female you have to romance a dude (my character's female...ugh). If you're a vampire, Vampire Embrace works with Underground. VTA Travel Agency also works and is recommended (get these at thelys.org). Don't install any mods after you start your Underground game. If you're playing multiple games, keep track of which mods you load (I accidentally loaded a couple of small mods from one of my other games without realizing it, which may have caused some glitches).

The Underground is an ambitious mod, and it is buggy as hell. You may encounter the disappearing door bug at the entrance to the Underground Club in Balmora (console to fix: Qex_velothi_loaddoor_01D->enable). Dialogue scripts can break (especially your companion, Johnny or Synda). Johnny/Synda's combat script can sometimes break. Objects and textures may occasionally disappear when loading a save. Teleporting out of a place you weren't meant to teleport from can cause problems. Some bugs are game-killers. Example: if you enter the room where the master vampire is in one quest without Johnny/Synda accompanying you, it breaks the whole quest (fortunately, I had a save from before I entered the room). Be careful, and keep multiple saves (always keep one from before you embark on a new leg of the quest). The Underground is also a performance hog. Your FPS will dip dramatically in certain places.

Don't start to play the Underground quest until you are at least level 20 or so. Post your questions on the Elder Scrolls mods forum, especially if you get stuck (Qarl - who made Underground - is active on the board and fixed a couple of my problems when I thought I was dead in the water). To begin, find a trapdoor in one of the taverns in west Balmora (like Lucky Lockup). In the sewers, find a drunk who wants you to get him some skooma. There are a couple of other people down here as well. Get him the skooma, and talk to him about Johnny/Synda. Then go to a small cave opening at one end of the sewer and you will find them there. You'll be asked to retrieve a sword in the water behind him/her that they're too lazy to get, then perform a little rescue mission near Seyda Neen. After this is accomplished, report back, and Johnny/Synda will escort you to the Underground Club, where your adventure begins!

In spite of the omni-present bugs, Underground is well worth it. The new locations are massive, lots of new creatures, NPC's, dialogue, textures, and music. The Underground Club alone is like nothing you've seen in Morrowind before. :D

[Mochan]

Aku, I play a girl character so I ended up getting married to Wulfran. I got his ring. Then I talked to Laurenna, and I got her ring. So I can have both characters do my bidding, hahahhaah!!!

I can't imagine playing Morrowind without Better Bodies. I think I'd rather die.

Unfortunately I don't feel like starting another game again. Hope The Underground works fine with my existing game an dmods. Now this sucks, I'm gonna romance a guy vampire? Bleh. Can't we do lesbianism instead?

I got tons of bugs from Children of the Night already, Underground shouldn't be too tough. Then again I stopped play CotN because of all the damn bugs. Wizards Islands may not have been all that great but at least it ran without any problems. CotN I got stuck at multiple places and it sucked so bad I just decided to call it quits.

Ok so it's in Balmora, good. I'm only level 10 or so but I'm already quite powerful from all the powergaming I did during Lokken. Though I'm nowhere near as strong as my previous characters. I'm also trying some new things this time around like Alchemy but I still fell back to my bad enchanting habits. Enchanting really breaks the game and makes it so easy.

But this time around I only have one CE item so far (haven't been collecting GOld Saints like before lOL) just a ring with 2HP and 4FP regen. I paid a pretty penny at an enchanter for it, too!

Hope Underground runs fine with my current mods. If not I guess I'll just restart another character and edit him a bit before loading Underworld so I don't have to go through the gauntlet again. Right now I'm playing with Astarsis beauty packs and NPC replace, better bodies, I also have two house mods Lokken and A Good Place to Stay, and for extra content I have Marksman Mod (still my favorite mod), Aleanna's clothes (they make women look really kinky) and this weapon pack I forgot what it's called. Heck I don't even know what stuff I got in it. I just installed it but I haven't seen any new weapons so far.

[Aku]

Heh, people have already asked Qarl if you can edit Underground to get Synda as your female character's companion, but it won't work. However, you do get a dialogue option to swing the other way a little bit in the middle of the campaign. If you want some great clothes for your female, load Qarl's Gothic Attire (install both version 1 and 2). Great stuff, not to be missed! But expensive...you'll need to make a lot of dough to buy some of the outfits (Return to Hellhouse has a trader with like a million gold or something, so since I'm shamelessly powergaming with this character I just go out and trap lots of souls and bring them back to Hellhouse and sell them there. Plus, Underground has lots of expensive weapons and armor that you can loot too.).

[Aku]

Let me know, I'll tell you where the trouble spots are for bugs (like Kalnoris Manor - save before you talk to the guards at the entrance or enter the place, there's a game-killer bug in there).

[Mochan]

I think already used Qarl's Gothic Attire in a previous game.

Was this the one where you go into a tomb with lots of skeletons who had the clothes in them, or was it the one with the girl in a buddha room all goth and stuff? I'm thinking the latter. I didn't buy the outfits, I remember just stealing them off the girls' back.

Well I'll start playing once I get home later.

[Aku]

You load them both and you get the tomb and the store with the buddha in it. Although in mine it was broke in that the skeletons didn't have any clothes on them. But the store is still cool, and I bought a whole bunch of the outfits for my hot vamp with a custom non-vamp Altmer face and hair.

[Mochan]

Oh yeah! It was a both in the same mod! LOL. I remember now. Aleatha's mod is cool too but not really for vampires. Maybe I should reinstall Qarl's Gothic for Underground.

[Aku]

If your character's a chick, then I say definitely load Gothic Attire. Get her in a chain bikini and some leather boots, LOL!

As you proceed through the quest (which is linear), I'd try and avoid venturing into areas you come across at random until you're supposed to go there in the quest, given this mod's fragileness. I chanced on several locations in the beginning. I did go through an underground crypt maze, but there were no quest events inside. But in a haunted house I came across I saw that there was some quest-related puzzle solving to be done, so I left it alone until it was time to go there.

[Mochan]

Good freaking #$@& where the @#^% is that damn crypt with the guy who can interpret the Ring of Awareness fragment?! I've been running around in circles all over the West Gash region for hte past two hours and I still haven't caught wind of the damn ****ing crypt!!!

What the *&#*$ is it with this idiotic mod designers who can't even give decent directions? "I've marked it on your map" he says! Bull #&$*!!!!

Problem with these damn modders they assume too much. Just because they know what to do, they think everyone knows what to do!!!

The hell, I hope the rest of the mod isn't like this. I already has to ask here where to go to start the crumby thing, then I had to go through that crap looking for a ring in the sewers (well maybe didn't have to... it didn't really seem to do squat -- but I had enough fun looking for that damn Ring of Shadows thing back in the original Morrowind and that was just in a puny little pool! This was a goddamn sewer!) And now I have to put up with this #$&#.

Help me out here, man!

[Aku]

Whoa! Chill, dude, pop open a cold one and relax a spell. First, here's a link to the walkthrough:

http://qarl.rpgmods.com/WT1.html

I'm guessing you're trying to find Vladir's lair. It's by the Caldera mine. Here's the problem - it's on the other side of the mountain from the mine (the west side). There is a big huge rock on the side of the hill by itself. It's a hidden door. Just activate the rock to reveal the door. Here is a picture of a map that shows its approximate location:

http://qarl.rpgmods.com/vladirscrypt.jpg

I just finished playing a session of it tonight. Fortunately, it went well with no bugginess at all. Getting closer to the finish, but still a lot ahead of me. This thing is long. What did you think of the Underground Club? Lots of other treats await you. Look up my threads in the Elder Scrolls forums under Dobian - you'll find a few on Underground. You'll find answers to problems you haven't even encountered yet! :D

[Mochan]

Gotta relax and give it another go later after I get home. The club was really funky, the new animations were quite good and really set things apart. Hopefully I don't run into any further issues later on. The mod looks like it has potential but it looks like it suffers the same issues Children of the Night 1 and 2 had... a really bad sense of direction and possibly failure to trigger scripts later on. I'll stick with it for now, that map location helps a lot.

[Aku]

Yes, this mod has some trigger script issues for sure (the head mistress in the back of the club will never talk to me, for example, though Qarl said that she isn't necessary for the main quest, so I was okay). There are a couple of points where you have to be psychic in order to know what to do, so refer to the walkthrough. The mod could have done a better job at tracking important information in your journal.

[Mochan]

Vladir's Crypt alone requires some psychic ability to know where it is! That freaking vampire said he would mark it on your map but I saw no such marks and he said it was "north of Balmora in the West Gash region marked by a rock." Um.... that gives me what, 4 square km of space to check?!

Couldn't he have said it was West of Caldera mine at least? =_=

[Aku]

Did you find it? Fortunately, that's the only place I've had trouble finding so far.

[Aku]

I'm a little concerned that it isn't on your map. It was marked on mine - just southwest of Caldera. Hope that quest was properly activated. When you get back to the club from Vladir, you should get some dialogue with Johnny/Synda and Kinzig Quarlox, and a couple more quests.

[Mochan]

I got that dialogue already cuz I went back to Johnny after the first lap around West Gash Region to see if he could clarify where it was. Well if it fails then I will consider restarting my game to play from scratch, and I'll play a guy so I can get the vampire chick.

[E.T.]

LOL, Morrowinds got Mochans BP up! [tell me about the promises of "...here, I'll mark the location on your map..."]

Re: the Better Bods Mod, any quirks if I install now...or best to apply w/fresh game start?

BTW, after numerous hours in MW, I found a quest that was most enjoyable, & challenging as a THIEF [without killing anyone!]; Test of Warrior [main quest]. It reminded me of being Garrett to a degree :)

[Aku]

I got that dialogue already cuz I went back to Johnny after the first lap around West Gash Region to see if he could clarify where it was. Well if it fails then I will consider restarting my game to play from scratch, and I'll play a guy so I can get the vampire chick.

No, after you get back from Vladir you have a dialogue with Johnny that can only happen after Vladir, then Johnny gives you the "Precious" quest.

[Mochan]

Twasn't Morrowind, twas the mod! You should install Better Bodies NOW. Post haste. There is no reason to hesitate. Then install some kind of NPC head replacer and you'll kick yourself for playing the normal version.

Well I guess I don't have the "Precious" quest yet. Kinzig gave me this quest to help out a vamp friend. I'll do it later. I am going home in.... 10 minutes! Yay!

[Mochan]

I'm currently in the Precious quest, and when I walked out the door the game consistently CTDs. Good grief, my game is ruined! I think I better play something else now.

[Aku]

I'm currently in the Precious quest, and when I walked out the door the game consistently CTDs. Good grief, my game is ruined! I think I better play something else now.

Oh no! You mean when you walk out the door to Precious' cavern? I never had that problem. Maybe you can get around it by just teleporting out with divine intervention or something. Qarl said it wasn't a good idea to load Underground into an existing game. Too many things can go wrong.

On an unrelated note, I got SWAT 4 today, and just a played a co-op game online. Woot!

[Mochan]

Nope, it triggers when I walk out anydoor, or when I sleep and then wake up. It's totally screwed the game. So I just removed the mod and cleaned my game.

I think I'll start a new game with it instead, but I don't feel like doing that right now. Do you have any other mods you can recommend?

[Aku]

The only other one I've done recently is Return to Hellhouse. The quest is short - you just run around Vvardenfell assassinating members of the Crowley family so the ghost of Crowley will give you the keys to Hellhouse. But the prize is great - two huge manors (Crowley manor and its alter-ego Hellhouse). New NPCs and creature companions, and other fun stuff. Great mod for powergaming, as it gives you a coupld of rich traders, some master trainers, and a full library.

A short time ago I did the Laura Craft mod so my Nord could have a girlfirend.

There's a new version of Hellhouse coming out, plus Underground II is due out in December.

[Mochan]

I think I'll play Hellhouse first, and I htink I also have Dulsya Island installed so I can do that.

[Aku]

Dulsya Isle is very stable, but a little conventional. Two main quests. One of them is very much like the Raven Rock quest in Bloodmoon, where you help someone build a town. Actually, it's a pretty nice campaign mod. Hellhouse you do really just to get the Hellhouse, as it is a great toy. The quest itself is boring, though if you have a low level character a couple of the assassination assignments might be hard to pull off. Hellhouse is good if you plan to do Underground, as it gives you master trainers and rich traders. Plus, you get teleportation and boat service from Hellhouse, and an amulet that teleports you back to Hellhouse. Great mod if you want to powergame and level up super fast so you can jump into Underground without having to wait too long. You'll need to load Underground at the start of your new game though; if you load it later, you'll probably encounter problems again.

[Mochan]

Could you give me a hint on how to do Hellhouse? I can't find the secret room to the prison, I can see them on the map but I just can't figure out how to get in!

I got a few other mods, Magus Castle, Inn of the Whispering Wood, Veldion, and Velayia. I'll try those out one at a time as well.

[Aku]

The secret is annoying. You know the library upstairs? The one with all those books? One of them isn't really a book, but a switch. One of those little secrets where you'd like to rip the modder's eyes out. So you don't have to click on 500 books, it's on a shelf on the right side (nearest the hallway). And when you pass the cursor over it, you just get the title of the book and nothing else. When you click on it, you'll hear an unmistakable sound, and when you run downstairs the wall near Shannon will be open revealing a trap door. At least she could have given you a clue or two in the dialogue on what the switch might be, instead of just making it a clickfest.

[Mochan]

DAMN! I was clicking all over the same floor but not on the 2nd floor. I was reasoning that the switch would be in the same cell but the damn thing was in another cell. Grr!!!

Like I said, modders can just sometimes be real asses, you know? Vladir's Crypt was one such thing and this is another.


BTW, I'm playing Magus Castle right now. This mod is fun, it's a dungeon hack just like the Castlevania mod (and hey, they're both based on games....) My character isn't too powerful right now (and I'm not using all my best equipment at the moment) so there's a hefty degree of furious hacking going on. Lots of fun. It's based on Chrono Trigger and the modder included some CT music into the mix, it's great!

The only problem is I could't figure out how to trigger the mod properly. So what I did was open up the world map, found the two new islands, then I *swam* all the way to the mod =_=

[Shaitan]

Psch, stop crying, Vladir's Crypt was easy, huge strange looking rock that you can "use". :p

'Course, if it wasn't marked on your map, that's a different matter entirely.

What's really got me stumped, is this "Torture Chamber". The one that has the zombie that keeps reviving, fills with water when I put "the key" in the ash pillar, and has a diamond that electrocutes me.

I really love how there's not a single NPC that mentions this, not even a vague hint of what to do. A google search informs me that I need "the scoop" to handle this diamond, which, is yet another item that isn't mentioned at all. :rolleyes:

Can't wait until Qarl's site gets more bandwith again, so I can just copy paste the walkthrough into a word document. Not generally a huge fan of such things, but as someone said somewhere else, it's a requirement, not an option.