In the middle of the month that contains the fateful leap day, a hush descends upon the Infinity Engine modding community as you silently read the news that is to follow. (You were expecting me to say something grand, weren’t you?)

Many, many hundredths to Infinity
As the original Infinity Explorer meanders on to an integer version, bigmoshi contributes brighter areas, creature item flags, custom area resource viewing, and a duplicate resource fix to make this Infinity Engine file browser utility enter version 0.85. Check out the listed fixes and download the update here.

Lunette shields, for goodness!
Screw butt-kicking when you’ve got great looking in-game shields to direct your tunnel vision at. Dubbed ‘legacy bucklers’, Erephine has released a One Pixel Production version 3 preview of these round shields for your use, and has more recently tossed up screenshots of another set of shields for your piquance. Check out the zesty visuals here.

Five old mods. Five old mods. See how they run...
You’ll be right with these old modifications as long as they don’t get their tails cut off with a carving knife. Badgert has informed us of five old modifications combined into a single WeiDU installer. It adds some Icewind Dale and Planescape: Torment items into a shop at the Adventurer’s Mart in Athkatla. Evaluate the edge, heft, and craftsmanship of the items here.

These updates should be enough to facilitate your illusions of grandeur for a little while longer. Till next time.

Although Zyraen has had it in progress for a while, we are proud to announce that Silmarillon, a new Total Conversion for Baldur’s Gate II, now is hosted at SHS.

Silmarillon takes place in the world of J.R.R. Tolkien, and this occurs in the First Age of Middle-Earth, where the mighty High Elves strove against Morgoth (aka Melkor), a God that walked the world, for 3 jewels called the Silmarils, crafted by Feanor the greatest craftsman that ever was, who captured the Light of the Creation of the world within his perfect creations.

To give a quick comparison to the 3rd Age of Middle-Earth - Sauron is essentially similar to Gandalf, both are of essence Spirits (called Maia), whereas Morgoth was a God that predated the creation of the world. The Balrog that Gandalf encountered in Moria is also considered a Spirit-level being, and Morgoth in his time, ruled over all the Balrogs there were, and moved them in regiments over battlefields. Morgoth himself also was the creator of Orcs, and later on, Werewolves, Wyrms, Wyrms made of pure Iron or Flame, and Winged Dragons.

The Elves were by no means the pale pathetic shadow of the 3rd Age. Despite Morgoth’s power, the forefathers of Elrond besieged his realm Angband and the fortress of Thangorodrim, with relative ease, keeping it up for more than half of the First Age, almost 400 years.

The mod begins at the Havens, where you are a commander of Earendil and the remnants of the peoples there. Earendil has not yet set sail, but the Havens is under frequent attacks by Morgoth’s forces, and Earendil himself has taken ill, a condition unheard of among Elves. Elwing reveals that there is some disturbance in the timestream of the past, by an unknown force, and Earendil is channeling his powers to prevent its effects from washing over the Havens. Take a party back to the past, and get more party members to fix up all the events.

Check out the new Silmarillon forum for more information! 

The Luxley Family introduces two joinable NPCs, Sebastian and Andrei Luxley, to your game. Sebastian is a Chaotic Neutral playwright with a rather idiosyncratic sense of humour who appears to take great delight in showing his cousin Andrei the world outside their family home. Andrei is a polite, Lawful Neutral young monk with a strong sense of self who has led a rather sheltered life until now. Throughout your journey with them, you will discover that their family is not all that meets the eye. You may have to make some tough decisions - and the path you choose will have repercussions.

v1.1 fixes a number of bugs in the original release, and it is recommended you install the new version as soon as you can.

Related Links:

• Download
• Readme
• Forum
• Website

This mod adds Drizzt, Wulfgar, Regis, Catti-Brie, Bruenor, Entreri and Jarlaxle into the game as playable NPCs. The main idea is that you rescue Drizzt’s friends and witness the final confrontation of Drizzt Do’Urden and Artemis Entreri. If you are evil, you can betray Drizzt and help Entreri. The mod also contains an arena where you can go and fight for rewards. Mages and fighters can participate. There are also over 10 new large quests (total quest amount 30+) and other special features.

This release features a new German translation, and so is not a necessary download if you’re an English or Russian speaker.

Related Links:

• Download
• Website
• Forum

Welcome all ye excitable folks to the first February edition of the Infinity Engine Modding digest. This fortnight I have news ranging from delectable, to the ferocious, and to the stoically technical.

Avatar-true Paperdolls for Pleasure
Erephine has let us in on some of her magnificent work to be featured in the third version of the One Pixel Productions (1PP) project, a graphical replacement modification. In this pre-release, human, halfling, half-orc, and elven inventory paperdolls are correlated to their avatars in Baldur’s Gate II. Check out the lusty images and grab her work here.

Exploratio Infinitum with XY Coordinata and Augurium
Not Latin at all, but bigmoshi has updated the Delphi-coded Infinity Explorer to version 0.84 with a fix for the display of XY coordinates during appraisal of area resources. Get it here. Also check out his assiduous work on the upcoming Infinity Explorer re-write (dubbed Infinity Xplorer 2008) using the C# programming language here.

Zulu-cum-Lion Warrior Metamorphosis
vilkacis decided to chip in substantially on an original mod idea posted by Scipio and has contrived a Zulu kit, which has now become a Lion Warrior kit, for the ranger class. Now, where have those long spears gone? Check out the original mod idea here and vilkacis’ work here.