Wrye Morph is a bit complicated and I tend to write fairly complete docs. Feel free to skim. However, you really need to read the Setup section. If you get into trouble, be sure to go back and re-read the readme more carefully. Pay special attention to the Minimal Support section.
• Overview
• Caveats
• Warnings
• Setup
• Usage
• Leveling
• Class
• Gold
• Spells
• Location
• Factions
• Versions
• Credits
Wrye Morph allows the player to shapeshift between multiple shapes or identities. Each shape/identity is physically distinct (race, gender, hair, eyes, face), and has its own equipment, class, faction memberships, and stats (level, health, magicka, attributes, skills, fame, infamy, crime gold, murderer flag). One character can be the famous, melee specialized head of the Knights of Nine; another a conjuration focussed Archmage; another an infamous, roundly hated thief.
Beyond the above – not only can you shift between between entirely new shapes, you can also doppelgang existing NPCs. Step into their shoes and shawls, walk around their homes without trespassing, take their stuff without stealing. Be the Countess of Bruma or that annoying beggar on the streets of the Imperial City.
Credit where credit is due... Wrye Morph is based on the shapeshifting technique developed by Breeze582000 for his Succubi/Seducers mod. It's a very cool approach involving a complicated interchange between OBSE, Breeze's own OBSE extension and Wrye Bash. I've expanded that approach quite a bit, adding doppelganging, stats, faction, and equipment morphing.
But shapeshifting is only one part of Breeze's Succubi/Seducers mod. He also introduces a new race, new worldspaces, quests, disposition handling, etc. The only negative thing about it is that it's not available yet! And unfortunately, Breeze is pretty tied up in RL these days, so it may be a while.
Meanwhile, my thanks to Breeze for letting me take off on his mod and steal some of his thunder.
Okay, before you get too excited about Wrye Morph, some major caveats...
Oblivion assumes at a fundamental level that the player has only one identity. While Wrye Morph currently includes some fixes for this sort of thing, largely speaking, various characters are still going to assume that you're the guy/gal who found their thing, saved their butt, close the Oblivion gate, etc.
Faction morphing allows different characters to belong to different factions. E.g. one character can belong to the Mages Guild, another to the Thieves Guild, etc. Or a doppelganged character might belong to the Bruma Guard faction, or the IC Citizen faction.
The idea is that different factions should help define your identity: where you go, how people talk to you, etc. And this works to a very large degree. But again, Oblivion fundamentally doesn't expect this sort of faction morphing and won't react always fully recognize your altered faction memberships. E.g. if you're currently not a member of the Mages Guild and kill a Mage Guild member, you'll still be penalized for it if any of your other identities are members of the mage guild.
Player class morphing will not work if you have a custom (created in-game) class. See Class.
There's only so much fame and infamy in Oblivion. If you spread it around too much, then no one character will have huge amounts. Note that this will affect a few things:
• Some of the birthstones require especially high fame/infamy.
• PC homes generally require a moderately high fame.
• Some trainers require a high fame/infamy.
The ability to doppelgang existing NPCs is potentially very uber. While some limits are placed on your ability to doppelgang characters, the faction memberships that you gain when doppelganging an NPC may allow you to do things that you wouldn't ordinarily be able to do.
• E.g. if you doppelgang any of the guards in the imperial palace, you'll instantly gain access to the upper levels of the palace – something that ordinarily is only granted during a high level thieves guild quest. If you do this, you'll walk into a situation where the local environment thinks that you're engaged in a quest, even though you're not. This may very well break this quest and prevent it from functioning if you're assigned it in the future.
• Doppelganging guards seems to be especially uber. Pick someone you don't like and attack them. Watch the other guards come join in – on your side!
Solution: Use your head!
• Don't abuse it! If it's going to ruin your game, then show some restraint. Doppleganging is fun, but don't let it ruin the game for you.
• Save reaonably often so that you can revert to an earlier save if you accidentally break a quest.
And to go with the Caveats, some major warnings...
• Wrye Morph is a complex mod to setup. While the end result seems pretty simple (cast the spell, and hey! you're someone else!), making that work is pretty darned complicated. In fact, the user must install four separate support tools/mods for it to work! Worse, there are a couple of steps that must be taken every time you start the game.
• In other words, Newbie, be gone! This mod is for advanced, experienced players only.
• In practice, if you already have and use both Wrye Bash and OBSE, then using this mod will be fairly easy. If not, then you should probably get used to those tools before thinking about using Wrye Morph.
• Because Wrye Morph completely changes the player's stats on a regular basis, it is likely to be incompatible with mods that are focussed on player stats.
• Leveling
• Leveling is particularly problematic since the wild skill and attribute jumps after morphing deeply confuse Oblivion's leveling system. It's likely that many leveling mods will be even more confused than vanilla itself.
• For this reason, it is strongly recommended that you use Wrye Leveling. While Wrye Leveling is attractive on its own, it's actually specially designed to work well with Wrye Morph. For more info on Wrye Morph/Wrye Leveling interaction, see Wrye Leveling below.
• Dynamic Ability Perk Mods
• Mods that dynamically alter racial and/or birthsign perks based on player level and/or race are also particularly likely to conflict with Wrye Morph due to frequent changes and in race and level.
Wrye Morph came out of experimental phase as of version X6-17, and has been playable since then. Games saved under X6-17 or later are compatible with the current version.
However, since Wrye Morph breaks such fundamental assumptions (especially doppelganging), it will probably always be "beta"! This is one of the reasons this mod is designated for advanced users – you need to have experience and wits to know what to avoid and when to revert to an older savegame. If you need mods with safety rails on it, then this mod is not for you.
In addition, there will likely be some continued (minor) development – mainly in regards to doppelganging and faction shifting. This works is mostly not very complicated, but potentially, there's a huge amount to be done. (E.g. making sure that crimes against faction members don't get you expelled when you're not in the faction. Or providing more identity specific dialog.) This will get done when it gets done. I.e. don't hold your breath, or let it stop you from playing now.
Since this is pretty darned complicated and since I'm doing it mostly for fun and my own use, I'm not going to provide much support. In other worlds,
If Wrye Morph causes your game to explode into little bitty pieces, I'm more likely to admire how completely it blew up than I am to actually do anything about it.
Don't Annoy The Monkey!
• While, I'm usually fairly cantankerous about stupid questions; in this case, I'm going to be cantakerous about non-expert questions!
• Again, Wrye Morph is for advanced players only. Questions about how to install OBSE or Wrye Bash; or how to create a Bashed Patch or any similar non-expert question will result in Insta-Ignore for the questioner.
• Seriously.
When saving autosaves and quicksaves, Oblivion autmatically creates backup files of the previous autosaves and quicksaves (autosave.bak, autosave.bak.bak, etc.). Wrye Bash allows you to convert these backup files to ordinary playable savegames.
Unfortunately, it appears that OBSE and/or Pluggy do correctly make their corresponding cosave (.obse and .pluggy) files correctly in all cases. For this reason, you should not make use of these backup files.
Okay now we come to the part that separates the beginners from the experts. This is not an easy mod to install. People complain to me about installing Wrye Bash, but installing Wrye Bash is just one of the things you have to do to get this mod up and running. So, here we go...
• Install OBSE 0.15 or higher.
• Install OBSE Plugin Modules (Pluggy and USV)
• Install Pluggy 0.89 or higher. This extends OBSE functionality in several ways.
• Install Universal Silent Voice. This is not absolutely required, but without it, new dialog in Wrye Morph will zip by too quickly and will lack lip movements.
• Note: OBSE plugins files (dll'x and dlx's) go into Oblivion\Data\OBSE\Plugins. You may need to create this directory if it does not already exist.
• Install Wrye Bash 194 or higher.
• Install Cobl 1.42 or higher.
• Follow Cobl instructions to install.
• If you don't want the rest of Cobl, then activate only Cobl Main.esm (i.e. don't activate the various Cobl esps).
• Unzip Wrye Morph.zip to Oblivion directory and activate the esps.
• Activate esps:
• Wrye Morph, X6.esp is the main esp. Position does not matter much.
• Wrye Morph Keys.esp is a support esp. It makes owner keys work on a few more doors, and adds some identity/faction specific dialog.
• Merge esps. (Don't activate these. Instead, merge them into the bashed patch.)
• Wrye Morph Wearables.esp (Optional): Makes more clothes wearable.
• Wrye Morph-See You Sleep.esp (Optional): Enhanced compatibility with See You Sleep mod.
• Install Wrye Leveling [Optional]
• Wrye Leveling isn't actually required. However it does resolve the erratic leveling behavior in vanilla style leveling under Wrye Morph.
• Update your Bashed Patch
• Merge Wrye Morph Wearables.esp. Import Guard Names. Activate Faction Morphing.
The "Wrye Morph Wearable.esp" mod changes some some clothing to make it wearable. This is a bit uber since it makes Dremora, Saints and Seducers armor lootable, but that bit of uberness seemed preferable to not being allowed to wear such gear when morphing into a Dremora, Saint or Seducer. This also changes the script on Amazon armor for OOO so that Wrye Morph can switch it out.
It's advised that you include this in the bashed patch using Merge Patches part of the Bashed Patch. Procedure:
• Make sure that "Wrye Morph Wearable.esp" is not active (i.e. not checked) in the main mods tab.
• Rebuild the Bashed patch with "Merge Patches" checked and with "Wrye Morph Wearable.esp" checked.
• Be sure to turn on Faction Morphing (next section) at the same time.
Note: If you don't have OOO installed, and you follow the procedure above, then the OOO specific tweaks will be filtered out during the merge process. For more info, see Wrye Bash: Merge Filtering.
The Bashed Patch provides some morphing related options:
• Wearables:
• See Wrye Morph Wearable above.
• To activate, check "Merge Patches" and "Wrye Morph Wearable.esp" under it.
• Note for filtering to work correctly, make sure that "Wrye Morph Wearable.esp" is not active in the regular mod list (i.e. is not x'ed) before rebuilding the patch.
• See You Sleep
• mmmpld's See You Sleep mod allows the PC to change into sleepwear and climb into bed when trying to sleep. (Thus "See You Sleep"!) The "Wrye Morph-See You Sleep.esp" file enhances this by allowing you to set a different set of sleepwear for each identity.
• To activate, check "Merge Patches" and "Wrye Morph-See You Sleep.esp" under it.
• Guard Names:
• This feature will assign unique names to most vanilla and OOO guards. Optional, but... If you're going to doppelgang someone, you ought to at least know their name! Besides, it makes the guards much more interesting and individual.
• To activate, check "Import Names" and then check "Guard Names" under it.
• Faction Morphing
• This feature is required for faction morphing to take place.
• To activate, check "Morph Factions" and "Bash_MFact.csv" under it.
• Faction morphing requires the use of a Bashed Patch built with "Morph Factions" component active. If you haven't done this, then your factions won't morph as you change shapes.
Before running the game, you'll need to start BashMon.
• Click the BashMon icon at the bottom of the Wrye Bash main window. BashMon will open in a new command line window.
• Note: Do not run more than one BashMon at a time!
You'll also need to launch the game using OBSE. You can do this several ways:
• From OBSE Launcher.exe:
• Just double-click OBSE_launcher.exe. You might want to move this to your Quick Lanch toolbar for easier launching.
• From Wrye Bash:
• Make sure that green "OBSE" checkbox in Bash's status bar is checked.
• Click on the "Oblivion" icon in Bash's status bar. This will launch OBSE + Oblivion.
Fatback Cave, south of the Arcane University and now overrun by goblins was once home to a necromancer. Recently, two students from the Arcane University entered it, both in search of something different. Things did not turn out well. But you can pick up where they left off.
Be warned that you'll have to read carefully and do a bit of thinking to solve this quest and receive the Book of Souls. Essentially, you need to figure out what you need and then go get it. Be warned that essential quest items are not protected by quest item status. So don't lose them.
Notes:
• Be sure to activate Bashmon before starting this quest! You'll ruin some immersion if you don't turn it on ahead of time. So if you see a "Bashmon is not running" message when you startup, quit out of the game, startup bashmon and then restart the game.
• Also, definitely be sure to have built the Bashed Patch with morph factions turned on. If you haven't done this, you may find it difficult to reach a place that you have to reach.
• The quest is fully functional, but still needs a bit of polish. Maybe stretch it out a little, fix the text up, add some incidental dialog. Maybe later. :D
Once you've acquired the Book of Souls, you can use it to shift shapes as well as copy NPCs and create new shapes. To use it, just select it in from your inventory (you can hotkey it if you like). When you do so, you'll get a menu...
• Bookmarks
• The top five items in the menu are your "Quick Shapes". You can choose any of these to immediately morph into that shape.
• All Souls
• Choosing All Souls from the Shape Shift menu will give you access to a container menu of all known shapes. Selecting any of these will give you some info on that shape, plus some options.
• Flag info: At the end of the second line you may see various tags like [Living], [TG], etc.
• Living: A doppelganged shape that is currently alive.
• Departed: A doppelganged shape that is dead, disabled and/or deleted.
• Generic: A doppelganged shape based on a spawned npc. If you assume this shape, you will not displace the original, nor can you teleport to their location.
• MQ: The identity associated with the main quest.
• Arena, DB, FG, MG, TG: The identity is the primary identity for the associated faction. Only non-doppelganged identities can fill this role.
• True: For doppelganged characters, the cell location of the original npc. Only available if the original npc is still alive and is not generic. If you Autoport or Teleport to True, this is where you will go. (Unfortunately, if the character is not in an interior cell, all you will see is "Outdoors".)
• Last: The location that you were in when you de-morphed from this shape. If you have never assumed the shape, then this will be blank. If you Autoport to Last, this is where you will go.
• Assume Form: Click to assume the form.
• Teleport to True: Click to teleport to True location. (This feature is a little too uberish and is disabled by default. You can activate it in the options dialog if you wish.)
• Autoport to Last: This on/off option will only appear if you autoport configured to "True,Last" in the options dialog. Activating this will override the general "True,Last" setting and cause you Autoport to go to Last for this character. This is useful when you usually want to autoport to True, but want a few identities to be less tied to the original.
• Bookmark: Allows you to set the shape to a slot in the bookmark menu.
• Scribe XXX
• This command will only appear if there is an NPC immediately in front of you (i.e. with the typical NPC speech/container icon). If it' present and several conditions are met, you'll be able to copy the targeted NPC into the Book of Souls.
• You can only scribe a given NPC once. Note that since many npcs are leveled with respect to the PC, scribing shapes while your level is low will often result in identities with low levels – these identities will not level up automatically.
• Some shapes may be unscribable (at least at your current level). You can use the options menu to specify to some degree what you can and cannot scribe. See Doppelgang Leveling.
• Note: for leveled NPCs the level/stats of the copy will usually vary somewhat from the original. Again, see Doppelgang Leveling.
• New Soul
• Choosing New Soul from the Shape Shift menu will allow you to shift into a completely new soul. To avoid confusion, be sure to choose a new name when defining this shape.
• The new soul will have zero infamy and zero fame. When you define the new soul, you'll also need to redefine your class.
• The level of the new soul will be defined by your Earned Level and by New Shape Leveling.
If you want to rename a shape (e.g. if you want your "Bruma Guard" to have a less generic name):
• Shift into that shape.
• Change to third person view, open the console and click on the player.
• Type setActorFullName "New Name In Quotes"
• Exit the console.
Each shape has its own level, attribute and skill statistics. When you shift between shapes, all of these statistics will also shift.
When you define a new soul, you'll suffer a deleveling penalty. By default this is 50% of your Earned Level.
If you prefer, you can decrease or increase the deleveling penalty in the Options Menu. Note that (surprisingly) there is an advantage to deleveling – it allows you to choose where to distribute your leveling points. If you create a new character that's at level 40, then the class menu will auto-distribute the points in a less than optimum way. Deleveling allows you to choose to distribute those points more rationally as you level up.
When you attempt to copy (scribe) an NPC, you will fail if the NPC's level is too high. If the NPC's level is fixed (as it is for most townspeople), then the copy will fail if their level is higher than the PC's Earned Level.
However, if the NPC is leveled (as it is for most guards and spawned characters), then the current level of the NPC will be checked against earned level + max level copy. E.g. if earned level is 20 and max level copy is 10, then you can doppelgang leveled NPCs that go up to level 30. (Note: You can configure max level copy in the Options Menu.)
Now, if you pass that test, you (probably) still won't get the NPC's exact stats. Instead, you'll get a newly leveled version of that character with level equal to your earned level – subject to the upper level bound of that character.
E.g. suppose that your earned level is 20, but you try to doppelgang an IC guard that has a minimum level of 25. In this case, the doppelgang will fail – because the lowest level allowed for this character is 25 – which you can't reach yet. On the other hand, if your max level is 40 and the guard has an maximum level of 35, you'll become a level 35 version of the guard.
Both New Shape Leveling and Doppelgang Leveling are limited by the PC's level. However, since the PC's level shifts up and down as the PC shape shifts, level limits are actually based on the PC's "earned" level. The earned level is simply the highest level of all shapes known by the PC.
If you're using Wrye Leveling...
Wyre Leveling requires you to recuperate between levelups. By default the recuperation period is three days, but can be configured otherwise in the Leveling options menu. However, when used in conjunction with Wrye Morph, the "days to wait" is tracked separately for each identity. I.e. one of your identities may ready to level up now, while another may have to wait three days. Moreover the levelup recuperation only proceeds for each identity while you are using that identity. I.e. if "Bob" needs to wait three days to levelup, you'll need to be Bob for three days before you can levelup.
Each shape maintains its own fame, infamy, crime gold and "murderer" flag. Keep in mind that there's only so much fame and infamy in the game! Each point of fame that one character earns by closing a gate or completing a quest is one less point that another character can gain! Ditto for infamy. If you spread your fame/infamy across too many characters, it's possible that some things may be denied to you (e.g. some of the birthstone rewards are based on fame/infamy).
When you create a new character, that character will have zero fame, infamy and crimegold. However, when you copy a character, that copy will be assigned fame, infamy and crimegold based on their level, rank and faction affiliations. Non-evil characters will be assigned fame, while evil characters will be assigned infamy and crimegold. If you doppelgang a high enough level evil character, then guards will attack on sight!
A moderately high level evil character will also be automatically deemed to be a murderer, which will trigger a visit from the Dark Brotherhood (if it has not already happened).
Warning: The handling of murderer flag switching may not be correctly handled as far as triggering Dark Brotherhood faction is concerned.
As you shift shapes, you'll also shift classes. Doppelganged shapes will have the class of the original NPC, while new shapes will have the shape that you chose at creation time.
Class shifting will not work if the PC has a custom class! Hence two things are important:
• If you currently have a custom class, then you must change it to non-custom class before doing your first shape shift.
• When defining new shapes, you must choose a pre-defined class.
Unfortunately, un-customizing the player class is a little difficult. I'll try to simplify this in a future release. But for now, you'll have to do it the hard way...
• Simple Solution
• Cure and heal yourself of any stat damages.
• Undress. If you have the skeleton key, remove it from your inventory.
• Open console and type showClassMenu. Close console.
• Choose your new class. Close console.
• Stats are hosed.
• Unfortunately, using the console recalculates all of your stats.
• Worse, when it recalculates, it ignores the effect of things like the skeleton key, which means that, not only do you fail to get the skeleton key bonus, but also when you do remove the skeleton key, you have your security reduced by the amount the skeleton key is supposed to add.
• Confused? Annoyed? Now imagine the code I had to write to get around this sort of problem every time you shift shapes or generate a new one!
• However, there are a couple of solutions to this problem...
• Fixing stats with SetAv
• You can use setActorValue to tweak stats while in game.
• Note that base magicka and health settings are particular bizarre.
• Best approach is to setAv Health (Magicka) to 0, see how that turns out and then use setAv again to get the value to where it supposed to be.
• But be sure to change/fix primary attributes (intelligence, strength, endurance, before trying to fix health/magicka.
• Semi-Custom Classes
• If you don't like the default classes in Oblivion, then you can define your own in a mod using TESCS. These classes can be used with Wrye Morph.
• After creating the mod, you may want to convert the mod to an esm. This would be useful if you later need to import a shape.
Again, I'll try to make this simpler in a future release.
Although gold is actually an inventory item, it's treated specially by Wrye Morph. You can choose to Morph Gold or not. If you Morph Gold, then each identity has their own gold supply – one identity may be poor, while another may be quite rich. If you need to shift gold between identities, you can use the Bank Book. The Bank Book is available as a misc item in your inventory. You can use it to deposit and withdraw gold from a single account.
Alternatively, you can choose to not morph gold, in which case, all identities will share the same gold supply.
By default Gold is set to not morph. You can change this (and enable the Bank Book) through the options menu.
Spell Morphing works a bit differently from other types of morphing. Here the spells in your spell book are automatically restricted to the spells that your current identity is capable of casting. As you change shapes and as your magic skills increase your spell book is automatically updated. Spells that you are no longer capable of casting are removed, and spells that were previously removed but which you are now capable of casting are restored.
In other words, spells aren't morphed on the basis of identity, but rather on the basis of ability. The main point here is to avoid cluttering the spell books of weak-magic identities with spells that they cannot cast.
When using this option it's wise to not buy spells that are beyond your ability! – otherwise you may end up buying spells that you already know (but are currently hidden).
You can enable/disable spell morphing from the Options Menu.
When you shift shapes you can automatically shift location as well. Whether this happens or not and where you go to depends on the options setting and which shape you're shifting to.
• Off: If autoport is turned off in options, you won't go anywhere.
• True: When shifting a doppelganged character, you'll shift to the current location of True character if: 1) the original character is alive and non-generic, 2) Autoport is set to "True, Last" in the Options Menu, and 3) The identity does not have "Autoport to Last" set in it's Allshapes menu.
• Last: If autoport is on, but for one reason or another, you can't shift to True, then you'll shift to the Last position that shape was in. If you've never taken on that shape before, you'll stay in your current location.
It's recommended that you stick with default setting of "True, Last". This keeps your doppelganged identities tied to the schedule of the originals, while leaving your non-doppelganged (and generic identities) more free floating. If you want specific identities to become "untied" from the position of their original, just check "Autoport to Last" for that identity in it's All Souls menu.
SEWorld Shifting: If you doppelgang a character that moves between Shivering Isles and Cyrodiil, then you should check "Autoport to Last" for that character in order to avoid the Shivering Isles dialog bug.
As you shift shapes, your equipment, inventory and hotkeys will also shift. I.e. each identity maintains its own inventory and set of equipped items. This is geared to make morphing a more complete shift of character and identity, which is cool.
A practical result (almost necessity) of this is that it keeps your inventory from exploding out of control (after all you don't want your skinny theif character to have to carry around the huge axe and heavy armor that your paladin uses!) There's a bit of strategy to this, since it means that your uber enchanted items cannot (easily) be shifted between characters. You'll need to be careful which character gets the best/most appropriate stuff.
Note that quest items will not shift when you switch identities.
When copying an npcs, all items in that npcs inventory will also be copied and given to and equipped on you the first time that you shift into that shape. One of the consequences of this is that you'll typically get house keys and other misc. items owned by NPCs. Note: Unplayable armor and clothing will not be copied or equipped.
Using the options menu, you choose to: 1) morph equipment and inventory, 2) morph equipment only, 3) morph neither. It is strongly recommended that you stick with the default (choice 1). The review above assumes this choice.
Morph equipment only: If you choose this option, then only the equipped parts of your inventory will be archived. And even then, only the non-scripted non-quest items will be archived. Worse, equipped items are not truly archived, but rather removed and duplicated – but the duplication is not complete. Armor and enchantment will both be reset to default values as items are archived. Mostly this archiving results in uberness (since armor is instantly healed and enchanted weapons are recharged), however, if you're a master armorer, you'll also lose the over-repair effects on all archived weapons and armor.
Morph Neither: If you turn off both equipment and inventory morphing, then hot key morphing will also be disabled.
When you shift to doppelganged characters, you'll gain ownership of most of their owned cells and items. This is fairly transparent, but there are some complexities...
First some background: Most items in cells do not have ownership explicitly set on them, but instead inherit their ownership from their parent cells. Usually ownership is only explicitly set on items when the parent cell is owned by a faction, and the owned item is designated for a particular NPC. E.g. a bed in a castle might be assigned to the count/countess, or equipment in a mage guild hall might be assigned to an alchemist npc.
Faction based ownership will morph along with faction morph. E.g. if you become an Imperial City guard, you'll gain access to the guard towers. Ditto for most stuff in castles. Ditto for most multi-person households, where ownership is held by a household faction instead of a specific NPC. (Note that this is dependent on factions covered in Bash_MFact.csv, which unfortunately does not cover all households.)
Ownership of cells and persistent items owned by your doppelganged NPC is semi-automatic. The first time you enter a cell or the first time you encounter a persistent item, Wrye Morph will recognize that ownership and transfer it to the PC. After this first encounter, Wrye Morph will remember the cell/object and automatically shift ownership as you shift into and out of that shape.
Notes:
• Persistence (in this case) means available to scripts even when the PC is not in the same cell. Some types of objects (NPCs, Doors) are always persistent, but other objects are only persistent if the source mod made them persistent.
• In practice, most explicitly owned beds are persistent. However, miscellaneous objects assigned to specific npcs (e.g. some equipment in Mage Guild halls) are usually not persistent.
• While it would be possible for a mod to make all explicitly owned objects persistent, this would not be desirable since it cuts into game performance and increases the risk of incompatibility with other mods. In practice, owned beds are probably the most desirable objects to make persistent.
• If you are not displacing the original owner, then you won't assume ownership of their cells or items.
Many owned cells are private (i.e. are not flagged as "public" in the source mod). Wrye Morph treats this flag much like it treats cell ownership – i.e. it will learn the cell the first time you enter it, and thereafter will automatically set the flag in accord with identity shifts.
Many interior doors in owned houses are locked – but are not unlockable with the owner's default key (which you usually get the first time you morph into the owner's form). Hence you'll have to lockpick the door. Modders can fix this by altering existing doors to accept the appropriate key. Wrye Morph Keys.esp does this sort of thing, but only to a limited degree – i.e. it (currently) only covers a few npcs/doors.
• Red doors will mostly resolve themselves after you've first entered the cell on the other side. I.e. you may have to lockpick the door the first time.
• Red hands/beds will will disappear within a frame or two if the items is persistent, but otherwise will persist.
As you morph between shapes, your factions will also shift. Not all factions will shift, but rather only those designated as morphable through the Bashed Patch.
The main vanilla factions (Arena, Dark Brotherhood, Fighters Guild, Mages Guild, Thieves Guild) are all morphable.
For each of these factions, there is also a "main faction identity" – this is the identity you should use for faction quests. The main faction identity is automatically assigned to the current identity when the current identity joins the faction. If your original (pre-Wrye Morph) character already belongs to a given faction, then it will automatically get the faction identity when you start using Wrye Morph.
If you would like to shift the main faction identity to a different character, you can use the "Assume Faction" command in the Options Menu to do so. This command will shift faction rank and fame/infamy associated with completed quests to the current identity.
Notes:
• Doppelganged identities are not allowed to assume main faction identity.
• Infamy shifting for Dark Brotherhood factions is not yet implemented. Maybe later. You can still do this manually though by using the modPCInfamy command in the console.
As of v22, the main quest identity is also associated with a specific (non-doppelganged) character. Currently, this has little effect, except for some of the incidental dialog (e.g. guards will no longer greet you at the "Hero of Kvatch".)
If you're upgrading from an older version of Wrye Morph, it's likely that the wrong character will end up being designated the main quest character. To fix this,
• morph to the correct character,
• open the console and type set wrmorz.aMqId to 0, then exit the console.
• Once that value has been set to zero, Wrye Morph will automatically assign the identity to the current character.
• If you then wish to switch the identity to a different character (along with appropriate fame), swith to that other character and use the Assume Faction command in the Options Menu.
A lot of the identity recognition that comes with doppelganging an npc comes from assuming their factions. When you gain these factions, you'll see them in your faction stats report where they'll appear with your other factions. (You can recognize them by the simplistic "programmer art" :) used in the faction icons.)
The name of the faction should give you a good idea of its effects. Typically, you'll gain citizenship in a town, access to a castle's private areas, etc. For multi-person households, you'll often gain access to the items and areas in that home. In addition, faction members may addres you differently (especially guards, who will likely tell how relieved you are).
Not all factions are morphable. Most are special use and should not be assigned to the player. Hence, factions have to marked in a way that Wrye Morph knows which factions you can and cannot join while changing shapes. Also, when you assume a different faction, that faction should be visible in your faction list and have at least one rank. Rank icons are nice too.
The Bashed patch "Morph Factions" handles all that. It unhides selected factions and adds ranks and icons to them as necessary. It also marks them as morphable through a relationship with a special cobMorphMorphable faction defined in Cobl.
So which factions are morphable? That's controlled by the XX_MFact.csv files you select in the Bashed Patch. You can add new factions by creating your own XXX_MFact.csv file and then rebuilding the Bashed Patch with it active in the Morph Factions component.
To see the format for the XXX_MFact.csv file, look at Oblivion\Data\Bash Patches\Bash_MFact.csv. Basically, the format of the file is:
• Same as you get after using "Export: Names" on a mod in Bash, except: First column has been chopped off and a few new columns have been added. The new colums are:
• MorphName:
• For a faction to be morphable, this column must be non-empty!!
• Since most non-playable factions are given poor names, this column also serves the purpose of providing the new name to use for the faction (e.g. "Anvil Castle" instead of "Anvil castle residents".
• Rank
• This column is optional. If present, it will supply the default rank name. If not present, then the default rank name will be "Member".
• Note that if a faction does have ranks defined, then the existing names will be used.
Rank icons: They're in Textures\Menus\Stats\Cobl. Hopefully someone will provide something better looking than my programmer art.
You can configure various Wrye Morph options while in game by using the Wrye Morph Options menu. To open the menu:
• Open inventory, go to Misc. tab and select "+[Options]".
• Select the Wrye Morph option token.
Note that the option token will disappear briefly after you use it. You can make it reappear by briefly selecting any other option in the menu (e.g. "About Options").
This allows the current character to assume the primary faction identity from another character. Only non-doppelgang characters can assume primary faction identity. Only available factions will be shown.
• Morph Inventory
• When you shape shift, your inventory (except for quest items) and equipped items will also shift. With this activated, each identity has its own inventory.
• Morph Equipment
• When you shape shift, your equipment will also shift. I.e. each shape remember what it had equipped and will resume that equipment when you shift to it.
• Disabling this only has an effect if Morph Inventory is also disabled.
• See Equipment for more info.
• Morph Gold
• Each identity will have its own gold supply if this is turned on. Note that this makes you poorer, since your gold supply is split across multiple identities. Undesirable, unless you want the realism of poor characters really being poor.
• Note that new identities will start with zero gold.
• Currently there's no way to redistribute gold between identities. Maybe later.
• Morph Spells
• Allows spell book to be morphed to current character abilities.
• See Spells for more info.
• Disable on Doppelgang
• When you switch to a doppelganged character the original will be disappear from sight. (Usually. Some scripted NPCs will reappear themselves.)
• Can Teleport To
• Allows you to use doppelganged NPCs as teleport recall points. Kind of uber and abusive. Not recommended.
• Autoport to: ...
• This determines whether you autmatically teleport when shifting shapes, and if so, to where. Options are:
• Off: Don't autoport.
• True, Last: Autoport to the current location of the original (doppelganged) character unless that character is dead or autoport to last is disabled for that character. Otherwise autoport to the Last location.
• Last: Autoport to the location where the player was last in a given form. Defaults to current location if that form has not been used before.
• Cost per Level
• Shifting to another shape will cost gold equal to the costPerLevel * Level of new soul. E.g. at the default level of 2 gold per level, shifting to a level 32 character will cost 160 gold – each time you shift into that shape.
• If you don't have enough gold on hand, you won't be able to shift into the new soul.
• Shift After Copy
• After copying, you'll immediately shape shift to the new soul.
• Can Scribe Essential
• Allows copying of essential npcs. Disallowing copying of essential npcs is a bit safer, but of course cuts down on number of npcs that can be copied.
• Can Scribe Guards
• Allows copying of guards. Copying of guards is a bit uber because they tend to have a lot of access to restricted areas.
• Can Copy Wary
• Check to allow copying of NPCs that have detected you. If unchecked, you'll need to catch the NPC unawares.
• Copy: Living/Dead/Either
• This can be set to allow copying: Only Dead, Only Living, or Living and Dead.
• Bank Book
• Activate the Cobl bank book. Useful for transfering gold between identities when using the Morph Gold option.
Controls the degree to which you delevel when creating a new identity. See New Shape Levelling.
Okay, now for some Grade-A, Super-Advanced Doppelganging Ninjutsu!
If you would like to import a shape (e.g. an old character, etc.), you can do that fairly easily.
• Create a slot
• Define a New Soul with the appropriate race.
• Save the game and quit Oblivion.
• Define New Face/Stats
• You'll need to import the new face from a mod to get the stats to import as well as the face. So first, you need a face in a mod...
• You'll probably want to import a face from a savegame into the mod. See Wrye Bash: Import to Mod.
• After doing that, you may want to open that mod up in TESCS and edit the stats of the imported face.
• Or you can create the face with stats, name, etc. entirely within the mod.
• You should also make sure that the character class is as desired as well.
• If your character class is semi-custom (defined in a mod file), then the mod with the face will need to have that mod as a master. This is easy if the custom class mod is an esm. But if not, you can use the (somewhat trickier) Esp Mastering technique.
• Import Face to Savegame
• Use Wrye Bash to import the newly created/edited face from the mod to the savegame you saved earlier.
• Be sure to import stats!
• After importing, you should check your character stats (while in game) to see if they're correct.
• If they're not right, then you can use setActorValue to tweak them while in game.
• Note that base magicka and health settings are particular bizarre.
• Best approach is to setAv Health (Magicka) to 0, see how that turns out and then use setAv again to get the value to where it supposed to be.
• Also, be fix primary attributes (intelligence, strength, endurance, before trying to fix health/magicka.)
Okay, I lied. That wasn't particularly easy.
• Allow doppelgangers to count towards maxlevel.
• Tweaked morph FX.
• Disabled light equip on morph to avoid flame animation error.
• Fixed a bug with health setting.
• Various tweaks to improve quest and morph behavior.
• Morph equipment now handles torches.
• Fixed death recognition in general and for quest.
• Misc. quest tweaks.
• Upgrade warning regarding spells.
• Now requires Wrye Bash 194!
• Now with starting Quest!
• Remove spells, replace with book interface.
• Morph equipment now handles ammo.
• Shifting now handles changes to factions of doppelref (mainly to recognize updates in underlying mod).
• See You Sleep Integration: Now fix see you sleep item to be
• Requirements
• Now requires Cobl 1.42, OBSE 15, Pluggy 0.89, Bash 191.
• No longer requires brzUtils.
• Misc Additions
• Main Quest character is now morphable.
• Can now autoport to Last position.
• Can now config autoport to True/Last, or always to Last.
• Better transform effects.
• Integration with See You Sleep
• Integration with Wrye Leveling
• Gold Morphing + access to Cobl Bank Book (for moving gold between chars).
• Now morphs Hot Keys if equipment and/or inventory are morphed.
• Now can morphs spell book to current magic mastery level.
• Wrye Morph Keys (& Dialog)
• Expand with some dialog stuff. (I.e. it's no longer just "keys".)
• No more "Hero of Kvatch" greeting if current char is not the MQC. (Well, got rid of some of the dialog. There's quite a bit left, I'm sure.
• Added some IC citizen specific dialog. Maily just a few greetings for Augusta Calidia (proprietress of The Tiber Septim).
• Options Changes
• Optional Per level morph cost.
• Optional Wariness copy filter.
• Optional Living/Dead/Either copy filter.
• Remove Max Copy Level option (no longer needed.)
• Misc Changes
• Switch to OBSE 15 nospam commands.
• Previous quicksaves are now recovered after morphing.
• Extended Morph Options and Copy Options.
• Fixed a problem with trespassing in non-public faction owned cells.
• AreaEffect cause evp on nearby actors.
• No more restraining player during shift.
• Standardized options menu.
• Tweaked token menu a little bit.
• Wrye Morph Wearable
• Makes various clothes wearable.
• Standardizes "female only" script for some clothes/armor.
• Now requires cobl version 1.32!
• No longer requires SI (I think).
• Add Wrye Morph Keys Mod.
• Shape tokens:
• Can disable teleport for specific shapes.
• Can teleport to shape at any time.
• Current location of doppelgangs is shown
• Incompatibile with previous versions!
• Copying/Doppelganging
• PCLevelOffset level scaling.
• Don't displace spawned NPCs.
• Ownership Morphing
• Owned cells
• Persistent objects
• Private cells
• Faction Morphing
• Main playable factions are now morphable.
• Main playable factions now assigned to specific ids.
• Add "Assume Faction" faction switching.
• Added checks for: obse, pluggy, quicksave, quickload.
• Updated docs a lot.
• Incompatibile with previous versions!
• Too many changes to bother listing.
• Docs still need some work.
• Incompatibile with previous versions!
• Alphaish! This is mainly to demo techniques. I'll be doing cleanup soon.
• Reimplement New Shape.
• Incompatibile with previous versions!
• More refactoring.
• Stat morphing is now done (moved to a functional activator).
• Copying is now in its own script.
• Token now reports bounty.
• Token now is up to date for current identity.
• Fame and infamy now guesstimated when copying npcs.
• New X3 mod – Incompatible with previous versions!
• Now requires:
• OBSE 0.14 or higher.
• Pluggy 0.40 or higher.
• Faction morphing requires Wrye Bash 142 or higher. (Not released yet.)
• Completely refactor code.
• Split stuff into arrays.
• Break code up into three quest scripts.
• Broken in this release.
• New Shape isn't working right.
• Player stats definitely get messed up in some ways after a few morphs.
• Docs are out of date.
• Fixed a bug with level of doppelganged npcs.
• Character menus now show level of each character.
• Tweaked baseMagick calculation.
• New X2 mod – incompatible with previous versions!
• Now requires Wrye Bash 139.
• Add racial spell morphing.
• Better menus.
• More shape slots.
• Now Requires Cobl 1.28
• Fix bug with spells points and fatigue.
• Add faction morphing.
• Now using BashMon (included with Wrye Bash v 111 and higher.)
• Add class swapping.
• Experiment with faction swapping (may not be doable).
• Update brzMonitor to 0.05 (added swapPlayer).
• Added level/skill/attribute swapping.
• Fix a bug that broke cross-gender doppleganging.
Contrary to my usual policy I am not giving permission for anyone else to pick up after me if I abandon this. Likewise, permission to copy code is not given. (I don't want to steal too much attention from Breeze's awesome work.) I'm releasing this with Breeze's permission.
Note: After Breeze's mod is out, the plan is to be generally more permissive. In paticular, Cobl will likely contain support for basic shapeshifting.
• Breeze582000: Succubi/Seducer Race Mod
• General architecture (design, concept, most shapeshifting scripts, OBSE plugin, original monitor).
• Wrye: Wrye Morph
• Wrye Bash face/skills copying/manipulation.
• Rewritten brzMonitor.py. (now bashmon.py)
• Tweaked shapeshifting code, modified design.
• Contact: PM to Elder Scrolls Forum
• Home Page: Wrye Musings
• If you want to bypass the startup quest, you can do so quite easily. Not as fun, but gets you quickly to the meat of morphing. To do so, open the console and type "set wrMorZ.bHasBookSouls to 1". You should receive the book immediately.