The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Monthly Modder: PossessedLemon
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Perhaps best known for their finely designed locations and well-paced dungeons, PossessedLemon has created everything from ancient Akaviri ruins, to hole-in-the-wall stores and hidden apartments.
In addition to these standalone mods, they’ve also brought their talents to the upcoming Beyond Skyrim: Cyrodiil mod project. We talked with them about all of these in July’s Monthly Modder interview.
How do you go about adding character to the world spaces you design? Is there any difference in your approach to homes and dungeons?
The character comes from a series of choices, like "What has the place been used for over time", "Have there been battles here before", or "What do the inhabitants do to celebrate"!
The best dungeons have multiple layers to them, where today's inhabitants have expanded over ancient architecture. There may be bandits here now, who have their own story and lives, while in the ancient past it would have been different people entirely. Having multiple layers to a location can allow a player to engage with whichever layer they happen to be interested in at the time. Kit-bashing (mixing styles of architecture) is my favorite way to add character.
Houses will be more directly about the current inhabitants, be they a family, or an individual, and can dive more deeply into their personal lives. What is their profession? What is their diet? You can make some interesting decisions there, and lead the player to ask fun questions like, "How come there are all these apples in Cyrodiil, and yet there are no apple trees?"
You’ve released a wide variety of mods, how do you balance form and function?
After making mods for five years now, and before that having written down so many notes and ideas about what I want to make, I found that simplicity is key to getting a project successfully completed. It's essential to have things working properly in the game, to prove to yourself that it is possible and that you can achieve what you want if you persevere through all the learning, testing, and fixing that inevitably follows. There are so many projects that exist on paper, that it's only something special to make something exist in reality!
I find that having that "Eureka!" moment where you achieve something fantastic has been a great motivator for myself to build projects through to completion. It's important to keep yourself motivated, and sometimes by something so simple as adding lighting to a location, you can have that moment of wonder where you really want to bring a project all the way through. When you cast lighting on an area, it really pops! For me, form has been an essential part of being proud and motivated to build out more difficult features. I tend to lead with function first, while form is something that I use to keep myself motivated!
You’re also involved in Beyond Skyrim: Cyrodiil, what work are you doing in this mod project?
My contributions so far have been in level design! I'm most proud of the Bravil Castle interior, as well as a slew of Ayleid dungeons being Fanacasecul, Vilverin, Atatar and Vanua! I've also built Bloodmayne Cave, and lastly a home in Kvatch for two Khajiiti news writers of the Colovian Chronicle named Assiri-Daro and Hi'jhari.
What it’s like collaborating with a team?
I've learned so many skills from my collaboration with Beyond Skyrim: Cyrodiil! The basic philosophy of it being entirely volunteers, and so everybody tends to be very positive and encouraging to each other. What brings us together is our love for the Elder Scrolls, and our intent to bring the project to completion!
We use tools like Trello and Google Docs to collaborate over distance and time, as many of the ideas have been running through dozens of peoples' heads for something like seven years now! With the entire project having no economic incentive, for us it is all about building our talents and sharing our love for Elder Scrolls. There's a plethora of free collaboration tools available nowadays for global efforts like this!
What is your favorite part of modding?
It's most definitely the community. Being one among thousands of active authors who make and share content across the globe for no reason other than our love for the game and our want to share and build on that enjoyment for everyone. When I first discovered my mods translated into Japanese, Italian, German, I was over the moon! I also heard a father tell me about enjoying playing my mod 'Realm of Lorkhan' with his son, and that's had a deep impression on me for years now!
As well, searching for my mods on YouTube and being thrilled to see somebody playing it, and leaving a comment on their video saying "Hey I'm the mod creator! Thank you for making this video, it brought a smile to my face!" Has always led to a fantastic interaction. It's fun to be one of the first couple generations of humans on the internet, talking to people across the globe and sharing joy this way.
Any mods you'd like to recommend?
I have a special admiration for mods that multiply possibilities exponentially, especially when it comes to roleplaying.
Project Proteus by Phenderix allows you to take control of any NPC in the game and play as them! This is remarkable when it comes to storytelling, because you can truly take control of your game world. Want to play as Ulfric and fix relations with the Dark Elves? Go ahead, it's your world!
