Day 7: Alchemy lab

Well, now that I've gotten a chance to play again, I spent most of my time redecorating. Before I found out how profitable filled soul gems were, I thought I was going to have to settle for the mid-range alchemy set, but it turns out I can afford the grandmaster set! Here, then is my new alchemy lab, which I set up in the aforementioned Magus Realm tower, after removing the existing shelves and apparatus in the construction set. With this purchasable alchemy lab, you get four crates full of shelving and jars, an alchemy formulary with its own optional lectern, and all four pieces of alchemical apparatus. Once you unpack the crates, you can move them to wherever you want through movement scripts, and as you can see, I placed them two abreast on two tables.

It also comes with an in-game user's manual, which is nice. This explains how to do some things that may not be obvious, such as moving the alchemical apparatus. The shelves and other items give you an action menu when you activate them, but the menu of the apparati does not include an option to reposition them. As found in the manual, you move them by activating them while your inventory is open. Otherwise, they remain where you put them while you mix your potions, which is something I like about them. (Logically, an alchemist should not have to juggle his or her equipment while brewing potions.)

Of course, with the formulary tome, you don't even need to touch the apparatus. Though I haven't tried it yet, the book's menu includes putting away ingredients, retrieving ingredients, and even retrieving applicable ingredients for specific potions.

The only trouble with this set was getting it home. The four crates are heavy. Once I bought them, I was overencumbered, and I don't yet have any feather or fortify strength spells or potions. I dropped one crate and the alembic to lighten my load, which is where I found the temporary problem of how to pick it up again.

Anyway, now that my lab is nicely outfitted, it's time to start practising! First potions I want to have a supply of: Fortify strength/feather, invisibility, fortify intellect, fortify speed, and of course, restore mana. I need to start looking for a mod that'll allow me to apply poisons to a weapon or to throw them at an enemy. Very strange that the only action you can perform with poisons in Morrowind is to drink them. I used poisons a lot in Oblivion.

Bigger font

In one of my earlier posts, I expressed a desire for a bigger font in Morrowind, because I run it at 1280x960, and it was straining my eyes. In searches, advise was mixed, but this is a built-in solution that worked for me. In the Morrowind.ini file, under the header [Fonts], just change the first line to:

Font 0=century_gothic_big

Much more readable. Text in books is a little too big now, but I'm more concerned with readability than with aesthetics. But, for the sake of aesthetics, I might try Make MW Fonts later, which allows you to make a Morrowind font out of whatever fonts you have installed on your system.

The Wailing Wench

While looking around at Morrowind videos on Youtube, I came across a video of a mod called Clothiers of Vvardenfell, which adds a great, fun-looking tavern to the game, with a live band, dancing and drunk NPCs, and an overall fun atmosphere. I want more places like this!