[Cathartis]

This building is home to a small order of self-appointed psychopomps. A common sight around Necrom, these people are Dunmer who, through unknown magical rituals, have willingly become half-dead. This peculiar condition allows them to simultaneously have a foothold in both the mortal world and the spirit world. It is their duty to be a guide to those spirits who for some reason are incapable of finding their way home to Necrom on their own. For example, souls who have recently escaped the spells of a necromancer are often very confused and disoriented and wash up in random places such as abandoned tombs.

On the outside, these people look more or less like sleepwalkers. The inhabitants and visitors of Necrom treat them with a great deal of respect (their affliction is far from pleasant and is considered as an act of great sacrifice) and leave them to wander. They rarely wander outside of Necrom because the spirit world (which they are half part of) is subject to different laws. Every step their mortal body takes is multiplied many times in the spirit world, so that their ghost travels far and wide even if their body does not.

This interior is what you can consider their home. As if asleep, they wander into here now and then, requiring sustenance and healing. (Not rarely they return from their walks around Necrom with inexplicable wounds.) Other Dunmer (fully alive ones) look after them. For this reason, the interior should include sobre sleeping quarters and eating area. On occasion, the people here work alongside the inquisition department of the ordinators, if a necromancer has been caught red-handed. With the help of these psychopomps, the necromancer's heretical constructs are tracked down and freed if possible. For this reason, the interior also includes an 'interrogation room', but please do not make this particularly sinister-looking.


Note: avoid placing shrines here. Dead people don't pray to saints - they talk to them.

Note: avoid statues, but that ought to be obvious.

[MSam]

Shesh. A chance to work on Necrom. With real furniture. Goodness. I need this claim. I'm on a break atm so I can work on it a lot in the next few days. How exciting.

I'll take a look at Necrom's other interiors. Minimum clutter and very austere as you've just said.

I don't know how to identify what the exterior is but I'll try and do that as soon as it's granted. I'm psycheeeed.

[Cathartis]

Granting. The exterior can be seen in the local map link above the claim description. Make the interior either de_p or de_rm

[MSam]

Uhh okay, we don't have an internal file with Necrom released, so I can see the exterior in game, do we? I could've sworn we did but I can't find it in the Mainland or Map 3.

Otherwise I can guess the first room is 3x2, the one leading off is 2x2 and a downstairs for subliminal tortures. That seems awfully small, but that's what looks to scale from the picture since the door would take up a whole tile.

Edit: I've already looked at the local map.

[Cathartis]

The exterior is available in Why's NPC claim, found in Exteriors: Claimed. I also uploaded a local map so the exterior can at least be seen.

[MSam]

I'm really sorry I haven't worked actual tileset yet (read below).

I took a look at the exterior, and on the outside it looks like the entrance room is 3x2, with another layer on top, and the side room is 2x2.

Which is really small. So, uh, I was wondering if I could use the creative licence to expand the interior to 5x3? Otherwise should I stick in an additional third level, because if it's 3x2 that means the doorjamb would be taking up all the space.

I'm working on the furniture atm.

[Cathartis]

You could perhaps try adding a basement?

[MSam]

The reason this is such a dilemma is, I've been over it a few times and it seems natural that they'd walk in, sit down and eat, and then go straight to bed. If there was an entrance bit (so there are three levels) that means they'd have to walk upstairs, then walk down two flights of stairs to go to bed. I thought maybe I could put the dining room and bedroom together, but that means they'd be sleeping directly under the torture room.

While I was writing that I decided that it should be entrance room going off to the dining room, then a basement for the beds, with the 'torture' on top out of the way. Glad we got to the bottom of this.

I've never modded with TR_rm before. Funnnn! I will work on this all tomorrow.

[MSam]

This is layout okay?



The dining area needs to be separate, because on the outside you can see the building is on an angle. I'm just asking about this because I assume aids/servants would be constantly living with them (at least one at a time) and they would dine/sleep separately . But I don't know if this underground bit is too ambitious because it's outside the building dimensions now.

[Cathartis]

If you'll look at the local map of the exterior, I think you'll find it's bigger than 3x2. In a similar way to the Lucky Lockup in Balmora, you can ignore the kink in the middle, and add another 2 or so tiles to the ground floor length.

EDIT: Just noticed you earlier said you was going to add a side room, nevermind. Anyway, to increase space on the ground floor, why not change access upstairs into a trapdoor?

[Why]

You could just steal the shell of another int that uses this exterior, I believe they don't have an angle in them. They're in the Necrom exterior file somewhere.

[MSam]

Ripper! I had an older version of your file which didn't have any buildings with the exterior completed. Cathartis, the other interiors don't do the bend so I think I'll take your advice and do it a la Lucky Lockup. The other interiors are beautiful and even bigger in layout but I don't think that's suitable since this is such an austere/plain place.

[MSam]

So, the whole house is pretty bare. It has flowers in the planters/wherever because it's trying to make it as pleasant as possible.

I'm not sure about the dining room, because I included a kitchen bit too which doesn't really fit the sober idea exactly, but it's fairly neat. It looks cluttered because there's a trap door leading straight to the servant's quarters, but that's because if there wasn't one the only other way to walk through would be through the area where the psychopomps are sleeping, and it could possibly disrupt them. I made the fire bit especially because I swore there was an ingredient that said 'uncooked pie'. But I couldn't find it, and now it looks a bit jarring? The whole room is still really clean though, and I could consider it sober.

But there's still a door connecting the rooms because the servants may have to run in and use the stuff on the shelf to help them. Which makes me wondering if that was okay, or should I shift all the healing stuff into the servant's room? All the ingredients there have restore health/magicka/fatigue/sex drive functions incase they need any more to be made. The reason the potions aren't properly set is because I have a weird potion replacer which deformed the meshes (I'll reinstall when I find out how).

Comments on what to improve so far?

[MSam]

I'll take that as nothing to improve, so it's finished! Woo.

I can justify why everything is placed and included as it is. Next time I think I'll just try to make a house.

[Thrignar Fraxix]

Approving

[Bloodthirsty Crustacean]

Would it be possible to give these guys a better name than 'psychopomp'? At the very least, someone's going to need to explain the etymology of that to me.

[Haplo]

From Wikipedia: Psychopomps (from the Greek word ψυχοπομπός - psuchopompos, literally meaning the "guide of souls") are creatures, spirits, angels, or deities in many religions whose responsibility is to escort newly deceased souls to the afterlife. Their role is not to judge the deceased, but simply provide safe passage. Frequently depicted on funerary art, psychopomps have been associated at different times and in different cultures with horses, Whip-poor-wills, ravens, dogs, crows, owls, sparrows, cuckoos, and harts.

[Bloodthirsty Crustacean]

Okay. Personally I feel the intrusion of an explicitly real-world-Greek phrase into Dunmer culture is a bit odd. (alongside that the fact that even a relatively educated guy like me assumed the word was so made up and odd-sounding I didn't think it worth wiki'ing)

I hope an inoffensive, slightly less jarring term like 'Waking-Guides' will not be a problem as a substitute for 'House of the Psychopomps'? I'm disinclined to keep the old term unless it's an absolute dealbreaker somewhere. I am more than happy to accept any superior Dunmer options suggested.

[Terrifying Daedric Foe]

Spirit Guides?

Spirit Walkers?