After a week of deadly calm, we have the week of erebusant. So busy has he been that much of this fortnight pertains to his releases. Let’s check them out.

Sword Coast musing in many languages
erebusant has released dialogue patches for Northern Tales of the Sword Coast and Secret of Bonehill, each with three new translations. To experience this European goodness, check the release threads here, and here, respectively. Don’t forget that these patches require the base package to be installed first. These can be found here and here.

A vault of stinking goodness!
The Vault modification, originally authored by Josh Clue, has made its way into the Baldur’s Gate Trilogy platform, with erebusant releasing version 6 of the modification for Baldur’s Gate Trilogy only. The modification was originally a revamp of the BG:TotSC Items Pack, but has evolved to include a number of small quests as well. Download the modification here.

Put your thinking caps on
erebusant continues by producing a compatibility-friendly version of Josh Clue‘s Azengaard Tactical Encounter modification, which adds two challenging encounters into Baldur’s Gate II: Throne of Bhaal. Now you can safely put this modification into the friendship group of all the others. Download it here.

Finally, something other than erebusant
Well, the humble ones have to make their mark somewhere. Firstly, Miloch has updated pro5’s P5Tweaks modification to version 2, which sports improved installation and compatibility along with a new “Drop Items on Petrification” component. Well, who doesn’t spasm in shock when they turn into stone, thereby dropping all their paraphernalia? Furthermore, it is available in three juicy platforms, PC, Linux, and OSX. Find out more and download the mod at any of these links.

Beregost is not a place to crash
Sure there are many an inn in Beregost, but it is certainly not a place to have your party [gate]-crashed by exception errors. I have updated the Beregost Crash Fixer utility to version 1.3, which now produces backups of your saved games properly and introduces a second method of fixing corrupted Baldur’s Gate (with or without Tales of the Sword Coast), BG1Tutu, EasyTutu, and Baldur’s Gate Trilogy saved games. Find the utility here, and don’t forget you need Java Runtime Environment 1.6 or higher to run the utility.

The fighters are at it again… forging steel, washing their shoes, skinning dead wildlife, brushing up the tongues in their cheeks, and eating roast mutton all night long. And what do they get? More tools to play with and a more streamlined foe. Bah! This fortnight, there be two modifications for the combat-oriented adventurers out there.

Balances for Battles
Ever thought some of those battles in Baldur’s Gate II were a bit like playing gnomish pat-a-cake? If so, give Revised Battles version 6 a try. erebusant has revived Moonfruit and Tyrus’ discontinued Improved Battles modification to improve its compatibility with other modifications. With the word ‘Improved’ written into so many components, you certainly won’t miss out on an upgrade. Check out the modification here and discuss it here.

“And my axe!” says Gimli.
Well, hammer, but close enough. Except that he doesn’t throw them. So if you’d like to show more acrobatic prowess than Gimli, which isn’t all that hard, believe me, try out Miloch and Sam’s Thrown Warhammers modification. This Baldur’s Gate II modification allays any confusion over thrown hammers appearing as somersaulting axes by adding flying hammer animations for the Dwarven Thrower +3 and Aegis-Fang. It also adds Mjolnir, Yarah’s Dagger, and Bec de Corbyn to some stores that you’ll just have to trip over yourself.  Check out the readme here and the release thread here.

Look what’s happened now. The fighters are so distracted that there is no one patrolling the camp. That leaves us vulnerable. So tell ‘em to sate their curiosity already and get back to their posts!

Till next time.

Greetings, all. This fortnight, we have a trifle of things for you to, quite frankly, trifle with. Let’s cut straight to the chase.

To stuff or not to stuff? That is your magi.
If you acquaint yourself as a mage and would like to suit up with magi stuff, then don’t stuff the items in this modification into the bottom of your chest; this might be just what you need. Stuff of the Magi, the original modification by Victor Straff from Sorcerer’s Palace, has recently been converted to WeiDU format and currently sits at version 2.4. Check out the discussion thread here and download the mod here. Enough stuff to keep you occupied for a while.

A less soily Iylos
A monk with a spartan upbringing sure picks up much soil in his boots. Thanks to version 2.3 of the Iylos NPC mod, a few of undesirable grains have been washed out, including fixes for the Ascension cross-modification content, epilogues, and a few typos. Get the mod here. For more general informationa bout Iylos, check the forums here.

Dwelling into the past
K’aeloree has released a mini-modification that adds a new dialogue for Imoen during Throne of Bhaal. Originally it was written for the SHS Fanfiction Challenge 12: Impish Antics. If you are looking for a little bit of extra chatter from that good ol’ gal we all know and love, check out Retrospection here or directly download it from here.

Thanks to the ever-busy erebusant, Dark Side of the Sword Coast and Northern Tales of the Sword Coast have been updated, and a re-translation of Northern Tales of the Sword Coast has been released!

V200 of DSotSC includes a Castilian translation, fixed a bug that didn’t load the .oggs for the Italian translation, updated WeiDU support and updated Worldmap travel links!

V155 of NTotSC includes a new Castilian translation and a new Simplified Chinese translation, updates the Italian translation and includes the newest version of WeiDU.

V161 of NTotSC is a patch to be installed on top of NTotSC v155, and includes an English re-translation with many improvements made to dialogues for easier mod flow and understandability! It also changes a few aspects of the mod which were confusing in the original translation.

I’d like to give a big thank you to erebusant, who has taken up the job of maintaining DSotSC and NTotSC, as well as The Secret of BoneHill!

Related Links:

• Download DSoTSC v200
• Download NTotSC v155
• Download NTotSC Re-translation (v161)
• Website
• Forum

First up, I’d like to welcome new modder Qwinn to SHS! I hope you have a great time here, Qwinn, and it’s great to see you here.

Secondly, after an extremely productive month and a half, Qwinn has finally completed his three mods for Planescape: Torment. The PS:T Ultimate WeiDU Fixpack, PS:T Unfinished Business and Qwinn’s PS:T Tweaks are all fantastic mods, and we here at SHS are very grateful to Qwinn for putting in the time and effort to make Planescape: Torment an even better game!

Hopefully the titles of those mods are fairly self-explanatory, but here are some brief introductions for those who are curious:

The Planescape: Torment Fixpack is a comprehensive WeiDU Fixpack for Black Isle’s classic Planescape: Torment CRPG. Fixing literally hundreds of bugs and thousands of typos, thereby restoring a lot of lost and inactive content, the PS:T Fixpack (along with PS:T Unfinished Business and Qwinn’s PS:T Tweak Pack) provides a completely new Planescape: Torment experience! Click here for a list of the most important fixes, as well as further information on the mod itself.

Planescape: Torment Unfinished Business takes the almost-but-not-quite-finished content that shipped with Black Isle’s classic Planescape: Torment CRPG and polishes, bugfixes and finishes it so you can see and enjoy the new content in your game! With 14 components in the first release, this mod is a must-have for anyone interested in seeing what the developers didn’t get time to do--or even if you’re just looking for some new content! Click here for information on each of the compenents and further information on the mod itself.

Qwinn’s Planescape: Torment Tweaks adds a few ease-of-use tweaks to your Planescape: Torment install, as well as one or two must-have components! Including a banter accelerator, ease-of-use tweaks and several content changes, this is an extremely useful mod for any player. Click here for information on each of the compenents and further information on the mod itself.

Related Links:

• Download Links: PS:T Fixpack v1 - PS:T Unfinished Business v1 - Qwinn’s PS:T Tweaks v1
• Website: PS:T Fixpack - PS:T Unfinished Business - Qwinn’s PS:T Tweaks
• PS:T Fixpack forum - PS:T Unfinished Business forum - Qwinn’s PS:T Tweaks
• Readme Links: PS:T Fixpack Readme - PS:T Unfinished Business Readme - Qwinn’s PS:T Tweaks