 the wild hunt |
albutch
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Registration Date: 21.02.2007
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Location: Scotland
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This is a thread discussing the wild hunt with information i've compiled from various official sources
unfortunately allot of the lore on the great hunt has been written from
an imperial perspective i.e Eric of guis making it hard to determine
true facts.
"While sometimes amusing, the Bosmer have a bestial side. They can
resort to animal shapes if they need to, or water. Their most dreaded
transformation is the Wild Hunt, which killed King Borgas for the
"iniquities" of his Alessian faith. The Wild Hunt is a pack of shifting
forest-demons and animal-gods, thousands strong, which sweeps through
the countryside killing everything its path. The Wood Elves do not like
to talk about the Hunt, and I gather they do not feel proud of this
power at all-Gomini, my Bosmer companion of late, tells me that the
Hunt is used for justice, but that also, "every monster in the world
that has ever been comes from a previous Hunt. Those Bosmer that go
Wild, they do not return.""-Eric of guis.
There is some contradictory evidence about the wild hunt I don't
know how factual this evidence is so take it with a pinch of salt.
In the 1st edition pocket guide to the empire there is some
scribbling and drawing from an unnamed elf that refers to bosmer who
took part in the wild hunt but still roam valenwood I don't know if
this has already been mentioned before but ill look into it and add
more to this thread at a later date.
From a dance in fire
A flash of white fire erupted from every crevice of the temple, and the
moan of the Bosmeri prayer changed into something terrible and
otherworldly. The climbing Cathay-Raht stopped and stared.
"Keirgo," it gasped. "The Wild Hunt."
It was as if a crack in reality had opened wide. A flood of horrific
beasts, tentacled toads, insects of armor and spine, gelatinous
serpents, vaporous beings with the face of gods, all poured forth from
the great hollow tree, blind with fury. They tore the Khajiiti in front
of the temple to pieces. All the other cats fled for the jungle, but as
they did so, they began pulling on the ropes they carried. In a few
seconds time, the entire village of Vindisi was boiling with the
lunatic apparitions of the Wild Hunt.
Over the babbling, barking, howling horde, Scotti heard the Cyrodiils
in hiding cry out as they were devoured. The Nord too was found and
eaten, and both Bretons. The wizard had turned himself invisible, but
the swarm did not rely on their sight. The tree the Cathay-Raht was in
began to sway and rock from the impossible violence beneath it. Scotti
looked at the Khajiiti's fear-struck eyes, and held out one of the
cords of moss.
The cat's face showed its pitiful gratitude as it leapt for the vine.
It didn't have time to entirely replace that expression when Scotti
pulled back the cord, and watched it fall. The Hunt consumed it to the
bone before it struck the ground.
Scotti's own jump up to the next outcropping of rock was immeasurably
more successful. From there, he pulled himself to the top of the cliff
and was able to look down into the chaos that had been the village of
Vindisi. The Hunt's mass had grown and began to spill out through the
pass out of the valley, pursuing the fleeing Khajiiti. It was then that
the madness truly began.
In the moons' light, from Scotti's vantage, he could see where the
Khajiiti had attached their ropes. With a thunderous boom, an avalanche
of boulders poured over the pass. When the dust cleared, he saw that
the valley had been sealed. The Wild Hunt had nowhere to turn but on
itself.
Scotti turned his head, unable to bear to look at the cannibalistic
orgy. The night jungle stood before him, a web of wood. He slung
Reglius's satchel over his shoulder, and entered.
Connections between the wild hunt and Y'ffre
Most important deity of the Bosmeri pantheon. While Auri-El Time Dragon
might be the king of the gods, the Bosmer revere Y'ffre as the spirit
of 'the now'. According to the Wood Elves, after the creation of the
mortal plane everything was in chaos. The first mortals were turning
into plants and animals and back again. Then Y'ffre transformed himself
into the first of the Ehlnofey, or 'Earth Bones'. After these laws of
nature were established, mortals had a semblance of safety in the new
world, because they could finally understand it. Y'ffre is sometimes
called the Storyteller, for the lessons he taught the first Bosmer.
Some Bosmer still possess the knowledge of the chaos times, which they
can use to great effect (the Wild Hunt). This post has been edited 2 time(s), it was last edited by albutch: 18.03.2008 19:12.
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18.03.2008 15:28 |
  
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raggidman
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Registration Date: 06.01.2006
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Hey, you read the bible. 
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18.03.2008 19:04 |
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FC4
First Knight
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If it helps much...
With much creative license, I will be featuring the Wild Hunt in my
Role Play Dragon's Shadowed Fate on BGSF. Maybe you could use my work?
Now, I think you about covered all there is to know about it.
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09.04.2008 17:27 |
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FC4
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Here is a theory concerning the Wild Hunt that I had posted in one of the BGSF threads. Sounds good?
The Wild Hunt is essentially a ritual of the Bosmeri culture, appealing
to Y'ffre. While they could (in theory) shift into animal forms without
the wild hunt, those forms would be temporary, draining to maintain,
and likely take on the characteristics of their new form. And they
would be able to change back.
The Wild Hunt is a little different. Y'ffre helped make the Earth
Bones, so the Bosmer claim, to lock the spirits of Mundus into certain
material forms; before then the inhabitants of Mundus changed forms on
a whim and chaos was constant. Y'ffre brought order and continuity to
Mundus, so-to-speak. Which partly makes me wonder if he is the Bosmeri
equivalent of Lorkhan, but that is a different subject.
Now, the Wild Hunt is a ritual, yes. The result is rather drastic and
what follows is just my opinion on it. Those Bosmer who participate
surrender their mortal shell to Y'ffre, whose power ends up morphing
them. They end up taking feral, animalistic forms, and essentially
become like the spirits of Mundus before the Earth Bones. They
constantly shift and change, taking one form and then another and then
another. Each hideous, each deformed, mixes of animals of the world
onto one being. This constant transformation likely is painful, and
would drive them into a feral rage at the chaotic nature of their body
and mind. Wanton and uncontrolled, the monstrosities rush forth from
the ritual ring of the Wild Hunt ritual, devouring and ravaging
anything in their path.
A rather effective war machine, as their numbers are great and they
constantly change forms. The Wild Hunt will continue unabated until it
hits an immovable object, like a chasm wall for instance in Dance in
Fire. Read that book series for an example of a Wild Hunt. Eventually
the feral rage of the Hunt participants will subside, but their ability
to transform will leave them as well, and they are forever trapped in
their form; forever 'wild'.
All monstrosities trace their lineage back to a Bosmer participant of
the Hunt. Minotaur, Centuar, Cliff Racer, Dragon, Trolls, whatever.
Anything that isn't entirely natural (maybe even Werebeasts?) may have
likely come about from the breeding of two similar monsters of the Wild
Hunt in it's aftermath. (This is taking the above quote literally)
But the above quotation could also have another meaning; all monsters
of the world make an appearance in the Wild Hunt. This is more a
stretch than the first theory, I think, but still possible.
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22.04.2008 22:59 |
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FLESH
Archduke
Registration Date: 23.06.2006
Posts: 2,823
Location: Ireland
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Very interesting take FC4. Just as the Bosmer claim VW to be where life
started (I believe it is SOMETHING like that right?). You take it a
step further and bring it to life. It definitely sounds possible. What
of the Lore that states the Wild Hunt has been seen for the first time
in 500 years, what do uou think could be the consequences of this?
Several new species perhaps.
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22.04.2008 23:52 |
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JAAdventurer
First Knight
Registration Date: 16.03.2008
Posts: 130
Location: Not here, but not really over there either.
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Good, good! Now, the way I understood that part in DiTF, the elves each
took on one form and stuck with it. The creatures attacked both friend
and foe. Some of the creatures were left because they escaped from the
grasp of the others, and some were left because they were the only one
left where they were.
Now the question is: how do we pull this off?
We could either replace all the elves taking part in the ceremony
replaced by regular creatures, or we could also replace some with a
spriggand-acting humanoid and create several custom, un-lootable,
"flesh-armor" pieces. Random combinations of these pieces result in
many different mis-shapen creatures, such as minotaurs, centaurs,
trolls, etc.
So, which approach do we take?
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22.04.2008 23:55 |
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FLESH
Archduke
Registration Date: 23.06.2006
Posts: 2,823
Location: Ireland
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I think for the appearance of these creatures we could have all the
NPC's that went into the interior be replaced by creatures (couple of
variations) that don't really look like any specific one, perhaps have
them still behave as NPC's therefore capable of exiting that interior
and running out in all directions killing anything.
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22.04.2008 23:58 |
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FC4
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Registration Date: 09.04.2008
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Wait, we actually plan on making a Wild Hunt? Whoa whoa whoa.
Wild Hunt is a LAST RESORT measure for the Bosmer. I could see a Wild
Hunt against a Daedric Invasion, but what else could possibly warrant a
Wild Hunt?
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23.04.2008 00:46 |
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JAAdventurer
First Knight
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I just thought, "Hey, we're discussing the Wild Hunt. Maybe somebody
thinks we can use it." And the rest is (quite recent) history.
If we could, it would be so totally AWESOME! 
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23.04.2008 01:00 |
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FLESH
Archduke
Registration Date: 23.06.2006
Posts: 2,823
Location: Ireland
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| quote: |
Originally posted by FC4
Wait, we actually plan on making a Wild Hunt? Whoa whoa whoa.
Wild Hunt is a LAST RESORT measure for the Bosmer. I could see a Wild
Hunt against a Daedric Invasion, but what else could possibly warrant a
Wild Hunt? |
It was sighted recently, but we don't know for what purpose?
I think that when the time comes to it the Wild Hunt should be a major part of our MQ.
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23.04.2008 15:35 |
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FC4
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That would be the mainland main quest, and that would be hard to warrant using.
I think we should focus on the islands right now.
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23.04.2008 15:43 |
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FLESH
Archduke
Registration Date: 23.06.2006
Posts: 2,823
Location: Ireland
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Mainland is what I meant. And as I said, it's still a ways away. It
just seems to me that it plays a major role in Valenwood itself.
Nothing to warrant use on the Islands of course.
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24.04.2008 14:14 |
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giskard
Journeyman
Registration Date: 04.06.2008
Posts: 12
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Hi all
Btw the book "the wild hunt" speaks of hunt and his innocent prey and
how the hunter learns to feel for his prey before doing what hunters do
and killing it with a spear that cannot leave the grounds of the hunt.
Which is a far cry from whats written up there.
Also whats writen in The Wild Hunt is actually possible to do in the
game, whats written above may be possible with certain oblivion plants
retextured to be green but you would find it very hard to get the
desired effect.
Using the The Hunt Book, you need only add reflect damage to the animal
to make the player feel the animals pain as stated in the book.
Oh and a spear.
You could get one of the rocks and enlarge it, add a forest to the top
of it and make a floating hunt grounds that can be seen from the ground
when the hunt is active, thus fore filling the other thing the The Hunt
book states when it says the Hunt was seen for the first time in years.
The combination of the grounds, the spear, a faint chance of escape for
the prey is all possible if the book "The Wild hunt" is followed.
At the end of the day, any ideas that cannot be created in the game
will never be possible and those that are possible need a mod make that
thrives on these details to do them.
Otherwise it will be a hollow experience.
Giskard
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05.06.2008 01:09 |
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Deeza
Editor
Registration Date: 03.06.2008
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Quote: Btw the book "the wild hunt" speaks of hunt and his innocent
prey and how the hunter learns to feel for his prey before doing what
hunters do and killing it with a spear that cannot leave the grounds of
the hunt.
Actually, I think that's an entirely different Wild Hunt that just
coincidentally happens to have the same name. The book you're talking
about is a Daedric ritual from Battlespire, which is connected to the
Hircine ritual in the final battle of Bloodmoon. The hunter has to be a
particular type of Daedra called a Herne, and the "innocent prey"
always has to be a human. In Battlespire the player is the one who gets
hunted by the Daedra.
It's all on this page:
http://www.imperial-library.info/tsobs/part05.shtml
I suspect it doesn't have any connection to Valenwood at all. It's a
bit ridiculous of Bethesda to have two rituals with the same name, but
there you go. Sorry. |
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05.06.2008 18:36 |
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giskard
Journeyman
Registration Date: 04.06.2008
Posts: 12
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Well I live and learn, all good stuff to know, thanks for sharing.
Especially since I have not started work on this yet. But I had no idea
that 2 hunts existed untill now.
Still, I cannot imagine how the one your talking about above would work
in practice. Its just not possible to literally do whats being
described, not today and not with todays computers.
But a smaller scale quest targeting some wicked village with lots of wild animals might come close.
I need to research this more carefuly my self, so if see something that
will work as a game feature, I'll share it with you all.
Thanks again Deeza for sharing that info.
Giskard
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05.06.2008 19:34 |
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Deeza
Editor
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Don't worry about it. I only found out myself the other day.
But you do have a very good point.
What's described in the book is impractical. If we're going to do this
we have to do this in as economical a way as possible. Our time and
resources are limited, so...
Maybe we're thinking about this problem the wrong way?
Perhaps we should be trying to get across the spirit of the idea rather than reproduce it as written.
The wild hunt doesn't have to have any specific form - it can take any
form, randomly. So we don't necessarily have to follow the description
- we only can do the best approximation we can reasonably work on. So
the core concept is - ordinary people turn into monsters that attack on
sight.
We could have it so that it's more of a state of mind thing. I think it
should be rather like the ancient Greek legend about the followers of
Dionysius who go insane and tear people apart with their bare hands.
Rather than actually changing their shape they change form mentally and
go totally psychotic and charge around attacking everything in sight.
You accompany it with all sorts of creepy mist effects, weird sounds
and, yes, lots of wild animals with the stats bumped up, beastmen etc.
Change the eye textures of the people affected (small change but makes
a big impression, people always recognise eyes first). Have them a
really weird yellow from side to side, with no pupils (or glowing if
possible, I'm told its been done before). Instead of normal voices
they'd make really weird screaming sounds as they attack. You could
even get their whole body to glow or be surrounded by mist like the
Vanilla ghosts.
You get a scary and very dramatic effect, but with about a tenth of the hard work that making new textures would involve.
This post has been edited 1 time(s), it was last edited by Deeza: 05.06.2008 19:59.
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05.06.2008 19:57 |
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giskard
Journeyman
Registration Date: 04.06.2008
Posts: 12
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I found interpreted lore requires the reader to be able to translate it
in to CS speak just as a french man might translate english in to his
own langage.
For example reading the text above I read it like this.
Place 20 Bosmar, when the player enters a cell, disable them and
replace them with 20 beasts. Update the quest and evaluate the packages
on them all.
If this is to be a repeatable quest, it gets a little more complicated but lets ignore that for now.
For a wild forest, some oblivion plants placed in mass around the whole area will do, retextured.
That should produce the desired effect.
Thats roughly how to say the same thing in game types and thus as close
as your likely to get. So the real work has to go on eye candy and
sound to make all that sound realistic. So some custom audio for man
eating plans and screaming in a dark forest when combined with that
above would produce the effect your after even though its faking it.
Giskard
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05.06.2008 22:19 |
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Ibsen's Ghost
ST Modder
Registration Date: 14.12.2007
Posts: 1,387
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| quote: |
| Originally posted by DeezaPerhaps we should be trying to get across the spirit of the idea rather than reproduce it as written. |
That, to me, sounds like an excellent philosophy.
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(Writer and Voice Actor - Lost Spires, Giskard's mods inc.
Mage/Necromancy Guild, Silgrad Tower, Gates to Aesgaard, Painkiller's
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05.06.2008 22:43 |
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giskard
Journeyman
Registration Date: 04.06.2008
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Yes it is, I agree, sometimes its the only way you can do it.
Besides a literal interpretation often doesnt end up anything like what
the item of lore was supposed to be about. It likes the very soul that
made it what it was. So its often better to make it so the soul is
correct even if the mechanics are different.
Giskard
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06.06.2008 01:15 |
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Deeza
Editor
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The big flare of light mentioned in the book is easy to do, though. It already exists in-game.
All we need to do is slightly alter the script for the flash when you
grab a sigil stone so that it's triggered by the quest and not by
taking the stone. An easy modification to make.
The other big upside to a white flash is that it hides the awkward
transition when they disable and enable. Otherwise it's like.... DING!
suddenly they've swapped.
The big white flare and some scary sound effects would cover all that up nicely.
Also: eye retextures already exist, and I believe they are open mods.
The author only wants his name mentioned somewhere in the credits. I
reckon that otherwise normal people with really freaky eyes, screaming
and going all-out to kill you could potentially be creepier than animal
transformations, and if they're all mixed up together, with oblivion
plants suddenly enabling everywhere... sounds positively nightmarish!
And you're quite right. Staying true to the spirit of the thing is much
more important than trying to reproduce it exactly. Especially if it's
easier to do! |
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06.06.2008 02:20 |
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giskard
Journeyman
Registration Date: 04.06.2008
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I see your getting it, anybody can look at the game and say yes we can
use that and know its possible to do in the editor. Thats how people
need to approach these things.
Eyes and hair, this is a little different, yes its easy to do but only
one mod can edit the hair and eyes at a time. So this really should be
custom race to avoid conflicts.
You have to remove the race edits and rely on the NPCs remembering
their settings which for a esp is great but for an ESM its a nightmare
for all mod makers that come after you.
Giskard
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06.06.2008 09:54 |
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FC4
First Knight
Registration Date: 09.04.2008
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Whoa whoa whoa....
Where is man-eating plants mentioned in Dance in Fire? I never recalled
that. As to the mist and noises, sounds wonderful. I suggest that if
the player is ever in the area of the Wild Hunt, they should have waves
of two to three animals attacking them at a time.
And then, in the faint of the mist, we could have faded imagines of
terrible monsters. Maybe we could change the mist textures, so that on
occasion it will show a faded image of a monster. Then we could be able
to make true the statement that all the monsters of the world began in
the Wild Hunt, and make the player feel there are more horrible things
than wolves, bears, and crazed bosmer in this hunt. The images wouldn't
be noticeable for long before they disappear in the mist again.
And yes, 'The Wild Hunt' describes Hircine's wild hunts.
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06.06.2008 14:38 |
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giskard
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Yes, I was thinking MASS as in alpha centauri plant life for some reason.
Btw the Dances in fire book is just a story, not lore and it sounds
like its from Jagar tharns time too, so its not current either.
Oblivion rumours include current events in Valenwood if there is any
doubt.
Those current events tell that no clan leads anymore and the council in
valenwood have not met in a decade (i think thats it). Also it speaks
of a prophet saying the one of the gods is returning and that one of
the tree citys, one big F one, I forget its name, has rooted it self
for the first time ever.
Oh and the wild hunt has been spotted for the first time in years too.
Elsweyr got to keep the land it captured from Valenwood and then lost
land to leyawiin. The local bandits are fighting to get it back. I
cannot even prounce the name but its raja krin or something.
Thats current events according to oblivion.
Giskard
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07.06.2008 01:00 |
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Deeza
Editor
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| quote: |
Originally posted by FC4
Whoa whoa whoa....
Where is man-eating plants mentioned in Dance in Fire? |
Who ever said anything about man-eating plants? You're confusing me I'm afraid.
And if "a dance in fire" is meant to be fiction (though fiction in TES
tends to be treated as lore I've often noticed - it's a good device for
getting over information that would sound boring if it was explained
directly) then we've got quite a lot of freedom with how we do this.
I agree totally with your mist idea though - make the player think that
there's worse out there would actually be scarier than just throwing
some new monsters at them. The scariest monsters are the ones you can't see but know are there.
But the make or break here is going to be our sound.
Horror films are 99.99% the sound effects. If you watch them silently
they usually look ridiculous. I think you're right - with regards to
what actually attacks the player, less is definitely more. It's the
sounds we need to get spot on. |
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07.06.2008 01:25 |
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giskard
Journeyman
Registration Date: 04.06.2008
Posts: 12
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A script with a rotating selection of creatures would be the fine detail here.
A simple counter that advanced 1 point each time it was run so
different creatures appear each time the quest is run (if its a
repeatable quest). Repeatable quests work great for temples. In fact
theres a shivering isles tree that has a massive root structure that
may well server as a temple for this and actually look the part.
Anyway, youd need something like this to work.
marker.placeatme creature 250, 1
Theres a way around to do this to ensure accuracy, I cannot remember if
its marker first, then creature or the other way around but its
important to get it right. I used that in my TEC rat infestation
recently, so I'll dig it out at some point.
Anyway, you place that inside if statement checking the counter
condition and the quest stage and you can have a temple that runs this
quest more than once and offers different monsters each time too.
But with placemeat or placeatme, need to remember the correct spelling,
you must count the monsters you place, and count the monsters you kill
and ensure everything you put in to the word dies.
This prevents save bloating.
Clearing no respawn should be used on all creatures in the hunt. Low
level processing has advantages here because a creature can wander off
and be tracked by game. No Frost crag summoned creatures vanishing for
every type problems.
Giskard
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creative process, you must suffer with the problems fame brings. To
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This post has been edited 1 time(s), it was last edited by giskard: 07.06.2008 03:05.
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07.06.2008 03:02 |
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FC4
First Knight
Registration Date: 09.04.2008
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The time in which Dance in Fire takes place is irrelevant to it's
possible lore accuracy. I think Dance in Fire was written in Daggerfall
or Morrowind. Which means it is more current than Arena.
Regardless it is indeed fiction so not entirely trustworthy. However,
one would think that an author writing fiction about a non-fiction
location would study his reference material before he writes.
Therefore, what is NOT included in Dance in Fire is quite likely to NOT
exist. Such as moving plants in the wave of the Wild Hunt beasts.
I don't quite understand your rotating animal script. I think it should
instead function better based on the time frame. Every two to three
minutes a pack of varied beasts, from large wolves to minotaurs to
bears to large spiders to just about anything. We should probably
create two or three beasts exclusively for the Hunt, to make the mist
apparitions seem more real because they will occasionally run into a
beast from the mist.
The biggest thing should be to change the eyes for each beast. Make
them Bosmeri eyes, to expand the fact that these were once Bosmer in a
temple. The eyes are an important feature of any being, and I bet it
will make the beasts look VERY different.
We definitely need the apparitions in the mist, though, and the sound
effects. Both together will heighten the feeling that the player is in
the middle of something BIG.
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09.06.2008 00:29 |
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