SPELLHOLD STUDIOS - The Luxley Family

Introduction

The Luxley Family introduces two joinable NPCs, Sebastian and Andrei Luxley, to your game. Sebastian is a Chaotic Neutral playwright with a rather idiosyncratic sense of humour who appears to take great delight in showing his cousin Andrei the world outside their family home. Andrei is a polite, Lawful Neutral young monk with a strong sense of self who has led a rather sheltered life until now. Throughout your journey with them, you will discover that their family is not all that meets the eye. You may have to make some tough decisions - and the path you choose will have repercussions.

Though you do not need to start a new game to have them join your party, it is advisable to have them join early in order that their story arc is completed. Both banter with all the Bioware party NPCs and they comment on many of the quests in the game.

Sebastian and Andrei both have detailed talk tracks with the PC; they also banter with each other extensively throughout the game. Note that there is adult content in this mod, but all of it is voluntary on the part of the player - nothing that you feel uncomfortable with is forced on you.

The mod contains:

A custom kit for Sebastian, giving him an additional spell per level but also combat penalties
A special ability for Andrei, giving him a damage bonus with a Thac0 penalty and wisdom drain
A brand-new area, as well as a set edited from the original game areas, along with new non-joinable NPCs
A three-stage quest with different paths for each segement
A track of up to 9 interactions between the protagonist and both characters
A talk track of up to 10 conversations between Sebastian and Andrei
Extensive player-initiated-dialogue for both characters which changes depending how much they like the protagonist
Custom portraits for Sebastian and Andrei, and optional portraits for various non-party NPCs
Extensive voicing, including voicing for eleven non-party NPCs
2-4 banters with the Bioware NPCs in your party
Interjections about the player's conversations with non-party NPCs, and interactions with non-party NPCs
Tree of Life dialogue with different options depending on the paths you have chosen
String fixers (K) in the case of re-installations mixing up Andrei and Sebastian's name strings
Custom items, some of which are more useful than others

If you want to write your own NPC talking about or with Sebastian or Andrei, or commenting about their quest, you don't have to ask our permission. However, if you'd like to get in contact and get some ideas going, we're more than willing to put the work in.

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Installation

If you have not already done so, obtain and install the latest official Bioware patch from www.bioware.com. If you have other mods already installed, uninstall them before installing the patch. Like the majority of mods created for the Infinity Engine, The Luxley Family is made using WeiDU, meaning that it adds to but does not overwrite game files. If you plan to install any non-WeiDU mods, install them before Faren and any other WeiDU mods.

Make sure that Baldur's Gate II or any related programs are not running.
Place LuxleySoA.exe anywhere on your drive.
Open LuxleySoA.exe and follow the on-screen instructions. The installer will extract the necessary files into your game directory.
A DOS window will open automatically and ask whether you want to install The Luxley Family.
WeiDU will copy the necessary files into the game and compile dialogues and scripts. This will take a few minutes.
WeiDU will decompress the audio files packaged with The Luxley Family. The window will fill with text.
Choose whichever optional components you wish to install.
Start playing! You do not need to start a new game to have Sebastian and Andrei in your party

Uninstalling The Luxley Family

If you wish to uninstall The Luxley Family, run Setup-LuxleySoA.exe again and select the U option.

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Mod Details

Sebastian and Andrei can be found in the Bridge District of Athkatla.

Andrei's abilities are the following:
Str: 15
Dex: 17
Con: 16
Int: 12
Wis: 9
Cha: 11
Biography: Andrei smiles when you ask him about himself. Though he is willing to talk about his relatives and is forthright about his beliefs, he is politely evasive on some subjects. He is skilled in hand-to-hand combat, a skill he developed at a young age, and was trained by an older member of his family. Despite his combat expertise, Andrei has only just left the family estate and seems a little naive about certain aspects of everyday life that you, perhaps, take for granted. Nevertheless, he comes across as quietly confident and it is rare to see him stray from a path he has chosen.

Sebastian's abilities are the following:
Str: 10
Dex: 12
Con: 15
Int: 16
Wis: 15
Cha: 17

Biography: It is fair to say that whenever you question Sebastian about himself he is maddeningly elusive. He is a playwright by trade - or so he says, though he is secretive about his work and claims that a great deal of what he writes would go over your head. He has a keen sense of frivolity and seems to take little in life with any seriousness. Nevertheless, on occasion it appears that there is something else going on with him, and it would be unwise to underestimate his intelligence.

PLAYER-INITIATED DIALOGUES
You have the opportunity to initiate dialogue with Sebastian and Andrei if you click the Talk icon and click on their portraits or avatars. This option is available once they have had their first talk while in the party. Their reactions will depend on your behaviour during both scripted and player-initiated talks.

Notes on flirting with Andrei:
You can choose the option "flirt with" irrespective of race or gender. If the number of flirts he has accepted gets high enough, he will start a dialogue with you commenting on your behaviour and you can decide whether to try to take things further or remain friends.

Notes on flirting with Sebastian:
You can choose "flirt with" irrespective of race or gender. If the number of flirts he has accepted gets high enough, your Bioware loved one will object. Under certain circumstances, you can choose to try to take your relationship with Sebastian further.

With both, you can choose the option "I'd like us to just be friends" at any time, and "flirt with" will disappear from the response menu.

COMPATIBILITY

This version contains content for Shadows of Amn only, so while Sebastian and Andrei will be functional in a Throne of Bhaal game they will not speak to you. Any non-WeiDU mods and patches they come with must be installed BEFORE the Luxley Family. Note that Virtue must be installed AFTER the Luxley Family. In addition, if you wish to alter Sebastian or Andrei using a tweak- or fixpack, you should install the pack after the Luxley Family.

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Credits

Authors:
Hannah Powell-Smith (Miss Sakaki)
Fay Ikin (Feuille)

Artwork:
Area artwork by Rabain
Mietta BAM by Sir-Kill

Voice actors:
Andrei: James Taylor
Sebastian: Ross Cloney

Non-joinable NPC actors:
Alexandra: Lizy Cooper
Durydil: Richard Courcy
Genevieve: Hannah Powell-Smith
Josefyne: Mary Hamilton
Lealia: Fay Ikin
Lucas: Fred Groves
Lyel: Tim Morgan
Rosanna: Eleanor Hingley
Samuel: Dan Mitrovic
Simeon: Charlie Meigh
Xavier: Andrew Kitchener

Beta testers:
Berelinde, Clarion, CrazEeFan, K'aeloree, Kitana, Suspiria, toby_fowl, SteveThaiBinh

Special thanks to:
The Spellhold Studios team for forum and download hosting.
Chosen of Mystra for hosting when the mod was at the early development stage.
Zyraen for his assistance with dialogue scripting.
K'aeloree for major moral support and the roof over our heads.
CamDawg for letting us "borrow" pieces of code from the Fixpack.
Sir-Kill for the BAM creation.
Rabain for the area artwork.
Our wonderful beta testers, both for helping to find bugs and dialogue inconsistencies, and their feedback and suggestions.

On the technical angle, we'd like to thank Westley Weimer (creation of WeiDU), the bigg (maintaining and adding to WeiDU), igi (maintaining IESDP), Jason Compton & Jesse Myers (player-initiated dialogue technology), Avenger (DLTCEP), Simding0, Ghreyfain, Blue, Rastor and CamDawg (tutorials), and everyone at the Q&A forums who helped out when we were having difficulties.

The Luxley Family mod is built using the following tools and resources:

WeiDU by Wesley Weimer, maintained by the bigg

Near Infinity (Infinity Engine browser and editor) by Jon Olav Hauglid

Infinity Explorer

DLTCEP by Avenger

Shadow Keeper

ConTEXT Programmers' Editor

WavePad audio editing software

Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Photoshop Elements by Adobe

IESDP maintained by igi

Tispack by Per Olofsson

Snd2acm by TeamX