It’s now only 11 days until Christmas, so we’ve decided to deck SHS out with some decorations! And wonderful decorations they are - thanks to khayman for putting them together, they looks fantastic!

I would also like to personally thank those who have donated to the upkeep of SHS so far - it has been a tremendous help! :cheers:

We have a great and interesting Christmas ahead of us, I think… ;) Stay tuned over the coming weeks!

I hope everyone is having a happy holidays! 

Welcome to the second edition of the fortnightly news on Infinity Engine modding. Today I have several updates with far-ranging implications for the land of Faerun, other lands, and even other planes. Be sure to read them carefully, for they may affect you in subtle ways.

Knitting up those holes in Classic Adventures
Classic Adventures is a total conversion for Baldur’s Gate II that re-creates the experience of many classic pen-and-paper modules from Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. Recently, a juicy version 0.43 to 0.44 patch was made available by Sir BillyBob. You need the full 0.42 archive and the 0.42 to 0.43 patch for this patch to install correctly. Be sure to grab them all here.

Dealing with the hard of hard-coded
I recently generated two executable patches for Baldur’s Gate II: one allows the player to speak to charmed and dominated creatures and characters, the other corrects the giving and reporting of experience. The former not only enables charm-specific dialogues for Tutu and Baldur’s Gate Trilogy users, but future modifications and updates to modifications may now begin to introduce charm-specific dialogues. More details and download links can be found here and here.

Restoring harmony within the Planar Sphere
Buried within the forums is a fix to the Planar Sphere mod generated by ScuD. This mod was a derelict mod that extended and expanded the Mage Stronghold of Baldur’s Gate II, adding new quests, encounters, items, and spells. In recent times, the mod has been converted to a more compatibility-friendly format and several bug fixes made. Find out more about the mod in the Mod Resurrections forum, find version 2.6a here, and grab the version 2.6a fix here.

A deeper, more nefarious Ariena
Ariena is a female Aasimar-blooded half-orc non-player character that forms part of an evil-centric project called the Mod for the Wicked. Deathsangel has updated her to version 2.0. Find out more information at the Mod for the Wicked forum, and grab a copy of this plane-touched non-player character here.

Hey all,

We at the SHS Staff are currently looking for someone to post regular gaming news - whether it be about new CRPG game releases, expansions, updates, rumours, brilliant large new mods for games or about the larger RPG websites, we would like to hear about it!

We don’t only want news about the games we host here, but about CRPG in general. Keep us up-to-date with the latest scoop about the Neverwinter Nights II expansion, or the latest official video release of Mass Effect! Is there a new patch for Jade Empire? Are there whispers about a new Final Fantasy game? Not to mention fantastic mod releases for Knights of the Old Republic!

If you’re actively interested in roleplaying games and enjoy following news across the gaming industry, have a good grasp of the english language (as we ask that posts be original, though they may contain some quoted content!), and are interested in contributing to Spellhold Studios, please send me a PM with an example post, and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.

Thank you for reading, and I hope to hear from some of you soon!

- K’aeloree

At long last the Oblivion modding news post has arrived. As both Kellen and Ascension64 have explained before (in the NWN and IE sections respectively) this is going to be a bi-weekly post occurring on every other Wednesday. It will cover major mod releases, noteworthy WiP mods, news, and anything else I think of that fits.

WiP mod of the week
This week the WiP mod of the week is FCOM.
This downright amazing mod created by dev_Akm combines 4 of the largest mods for Oblivion and allows them to work together: OOO, MMM, Oblivion Warcry, and Francesco’s Leveled Creatures. All these mods combined make Oblivion a massively different place, adding around 1,300 new weapons, 1,600 new shields and armor, over 1,300 new Creature variants, and over 2,300 new NPCs. It also removes almost all level scaling making for a very challenging experience. Also in preparation for the upcoming 1.0 release Vini has created an amazing trailer for FCOM. The link for this can be found in the FCOM thread linked above. The trailer is very large but well worth every MB.

Released mod of the week
And the winner is...Blue Destiny Armor for Exnems! Created by Lady Blue.
This is a great retexture of the Darkness illusion armor that is (you guessed it) blue. Many thanks to Lady Blue for this great armor. 

News
Okay since I can’t find any news today the news section will be replaced with a poll. The poll this week will be: “Do you use OOO in your game of Oblivion?”
Please leave your vote in the discussion thread!

Final thought for the day: Why is it that doctors call what they do “practice”? 

The SHS Fanfiction Challenge is a monthly challenge where everyone can submit their entries related to the challenge genre. The challenge is open to everyone and there is no limit on the length or number of the entries submitted. It can be any kind of game!

The theme for December is: Happy Holidays!

December holds some of the biggest holidays of the year, certainly one of the most publicized. In tribute to a month of celebrations and holidays we want to see your characters having their own celebrations. Show us how your characters prepare for their parties. Do they undergo the same stress as they prepare for company? Do they make small changes or go all out? Or show us how they celebrate when the day finally arrives. What holidays do they celebrate? Is there a highly ritualistic ceremony or a joyous revelry? Just the family, or does the whole town join them? Show us all the best and worst of the days we love and hate.

Interested in participating? Check it out in the Fanfic Challenge Forum!