Daggerfall:Daedrafall

Daedrafall is an unofficial mod for Daggerfall. It was created by Tom Oldani (aka Neuman), and originally hosted at neuman.virtualave.net/daedrafall.html. That site is no longer available, but the mod is. For the purposes of documentation, it has been copied verbatim here.

Daedrafall

(download it here)

You follow the daedra price Vaernima into her throneroom.

The throneroom is built in the style typical of the morbid, powerful demi-gods. Carefully arranged bones surround the gleaming throne. The walls of the throne room pulse with living force. Inhuman voices whisper in your ear. If it were not for the glowing crystal orb in the center of the room you would think this is a realm for the dead. If it were not for that orb you would think those were voices of the forsaken. This is the daedric realm of prophecies and fate. Those voices in your ear, which grow in magnitude as you near the orb are the voices of fate. If you were a mortal you would feel nauseous. But you are no mortal.
"There are special rewards for loyal lesser daedra like yourself. The time has come, I think, to give you this reward." Vaernima says.
"Yes, mistress, thank you" you say.
"I’ve noticed your power has increased tenfold since the collapse of Orsinium. You've done very well for a lesser daedra."

Your lip curls as Vaernima says "lesser". You remember the collapse of Orsinium from several centuries ago, Vaernima was quite impressed with the way you led the attack, slaughtering all the orcs you came accross. Since then your mistress has yet to let you show your true power. You sense that this is about to change.
"I think it is time to give you an assignment of more importance. You seem to have done a fine job in Orsinium, so I’m going to reassign you on a solo mission in Tamriel."
"Thank you, mistress!" you say. Your hunch was correct, and this was far more than you had anticipated. A solo mission would mean a change in rank to just below Vaernima herself! The chance to slaughter mortals unchecked does not come every century, and you can feel your blood lust growing as you contemplate the situation. You walk out of the throne room, anticipation of your soon to come power welling about you and your hollow daedric soul.
"Karesh, the Lord has an assignment. Give him all he needs." Vaernima says.

Karesh is walking down the Hall of Fate as you appear. "Are you ready, my Lord?"
"Yes." you tell him.

You smile as he addresses you as "Lord". As you return to the throne room, you feel a strange sensation come over you. The air seems especially dense here. You wonder why you notice this seeing as how you don’t breathe. You look at your arms and notice they have turned into weak human hands!
"What kind of torture is this?" you ask. "Why this weak human form!?"
"You will need to pass in mortal form, seeing as how there are too many, shall we say, obstacles. You know the other princes would be upset if I turned you loose in Tamriel as you were." Vaernima says, with a slight smile at your anger. "You are forgetting your primary assignment, you must get the mortals to trust you. You must do this by doing favors for them." "ME!? A SERVANT TO MORTALS!?" you shout in your weak human voice.
"I have given you charms that will give you an advantage in this situation." Vaernima says. "You must gain control of the golem Numidium, and then give it to a mortal who can use it, therefore rendering it useless to Molag Bal."
"But why, mistress?" you ask.
"DO YOU QUESTION MY ORDERS?" Vaernima bellows.
"No, mistress, I do not. I don’t see why we must give the realm to a mortal, however. But, they are your plans and it is your plans I will follow."
"Good. Perhaps it would help you to know why we cannot use Numidium, so I will tell you. It is simple. Numidium is only useable to a small circle of mortals, one of whom secretly worships Molag Bal. His name is Lord Woodbourne. If ever you have a chance, kill this traitor to his own race. Numidium is too powerful to be used by anyone who knows its full potential. I believe Molag Bal has been scheming to get his hands on this for quite some time and you and I will have the pleasure of arresting his progress."

To you it seems to be a squabble among rival princes, but still you can't help but shudder when you think of what Molag Bal would do with the enormous power of Numidium.
"Despite being weak for a daedra you will, in fact, be far more powerful than anything you meet in Tamriel.", Vaernima continues. "Also, I am giving you the Skull of Corruption, but only use it when there is no other choice! Are you ready, my loyal disciple?"
"Yes, mistress"

Vaernima directs your attention to a portal that Karesh has been busy preparing. As much as you don't like to admit it, the climate of this realm is wearing on you and you are looking forward to going to a realm more hospitable to your new form. You walk to the portal and quickly step into it.

The dungeon is dark, lifeless, and without warmth with exception of the small magical fire that started with the blast from your entry. You are planning out how you are going to begin this when you hear the crunch of gravel. The sound was so faint you are beginning to wonder if you ever heard it. CRACK! There it is again.
"Step out, mortal. I will not kill you until I find out what you are doing here. If it is of interest to me, I might let you keep your soul. If you do not come out, then let me tell you that death comes in many ways, the worst of which is me."

The man steps out of the darkest corner of the cave, a small gold ring in his hand. He starts to speak, but then turns and bolts down the tunnel.
"Impudent swine!" you shout. "I might have let you live too!" You hold out your hand and feel the magic of Oblivion stream through your fingertips. The man screams in pain as a magic more powerful than any in Tamriel warps his body and vaporizes his skin.

The lifeless bones fall to the ground. You walk over, the portal to Oblivion still gleaming a deep blue-white in the cave. As you begin searching the man, the portal flickers then closes. As you pick up the mortal’s pathetically worthless belongings you watch your daedric aura fade away. You have become mortal. Your journey has begun.

Welcome to Daedrafall, a new mod for Bethesda Softworks' game Daggerfall. In this mod you play as a Daedra, one of the powerful immortal beings from the realm of Oblivion. To install this mod, run daedrafall.exe, the program that is included in this zip file. It will by default overwrite a few files in your arena2 folder, so if you don't have a cd, you should back these files up before you install this mod. To see what files are replaced, unzip the contents of daedrafall.exe into another folder. After you do this, run runme.bat. This will make a few more required changes. If daggerfall is on D drive, run runmeD.bat. If it is on some other or in some other folder, edit the runme.bat file so that it uses the right folder.

If you want to play old saved games with this mod installed, that is entirely possible. You may notice a few changes such as harder monsters and new items, and if you play as a Redguard you will find yourself transformed into some sort of demon, but not to worry, all it affects is what you look like. If you don't like it, copy scbg01i0.img, body01i0.img, body01i1.img, face01i0.cif, and face11i0.cif off the cd to the arena2 folder. If you would like to keep the mod installed but want to play as another race or class, dowload this file and unzip it in your arena2 folder.

Credits

Programming: Tom Oldani aka Neuman
Art: Tom Oldani (new art), Andy Polis (art included in Andyfall)
Writing: Sir (biographies and quest), deowolf (quest), Taemos (preceding introduction)
Editing: Tom Oldani
Programs used: Paint Shop Pro, Adobe Photoshop, Axe (hex editor), DJGPP (free C compiler), DF-Monst, andypic, dftext. A lot of this is available at the UESP.

Links

Download it!
The UESP. Lots of great DF-related stuff there (original link was to the old UESP site)
The home page for this mod (no longer available, moved here)
Email me (no longer available)
Leave feedback or read other people's feedback (no longer available)
See the development of this mod (no longer available)
Elder Scrolls Forums (original link no longer available)
Download the font that this page is written in (no longer available)
Instructions for getting Daggerfall running under Win2K/XP (no longer available; see DaggerXL, a project for updating Daggerfall, and Playing DOS Installments under DOSBox.)