DO NOT DOWNLOAD
A major issue has been discovered with this mod unchecking it in mod manager causes the game to crash when saving, I have no idea why this is happening and am currently looking for a fix (any help would be massivly aprreciated) the file will remain up for anyone who deleted it and then their saves Won't work, apologies to all who downloaded this mod, hopefully i will find a fix but after I will be abandoning this mod


New update Sorry for how long it's taken, (holidays are good but not useful for modding) this update includes all missing textures and fix most of the bugs in the original the castle it's self is now complete all that remains is to make some side-quests for it.

Pls Rate

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1. DESCRIPTION
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--Introduction--

Welcome to Blackclaw castle the pinacle of ownership for any self respecting vampire lord, evil sorcerer or black hearted assasin. Positioned high in jerall mountains out reach of honourable knights and pesky crusaders it provides both sanctury and a devastating arsenal of tools to help you on you evil path.




--Features--

Currently there are no silent mp3's for dialogue. (will be fixed next version.)

The castle features:
- a walled castle in a great location
- courtyard contains stable, smithy and a necromancers alter
- entrance hall, dining hall, barracks, staff quarters, Lords manor (containing throne)
- Dispay room with plinths for manikins as well as many display cases
- Catherdral of sithis containing an alter scripted like the vile lair alter as well asshrines to molag bal, memphala, bothiah and nocturnal
- assasins quarters containing a merchant assasin plus apple poisoning station, securitytraining chest and two ingredients that can be mixed to make a poison with effectslike poison apples be careful though as the poison takes time and so your victim maybe able to call the guards before their last breath.
- necomancers lab with an assisant, spell making, encanting and a replenishing corpse containing all the appropriate body parts (great for use with the moriarcis mod) and maual ingredient sorting.
- prison with sleeping victim as well as others and a torture chamber (though features for this are currently minimal)
- training room allowing you to fight a catured hourable knight over and over again with no damge weapons to train all combat skills.
- sorcerers tower with spellmaking enchanting and jars for manual ingredient sorting
- Vault and escape passage leading to the well of a nearby village. perfect for a midnight hunt.
-Teleportation Pocket linking the castle to oblivion and allowing travel to locations in all the towns and cities.
- wine cellar and a vintner who with your help can make several intresting beverages.
- several old objects used in new ways such semi-portable skull containers that you can use the z key or telekinis spells to move and night mother statues letting you gain a blessing if you are evil or cursing you if you are good.
- wide selection of staff including guards, a butler, a maid, a cook, a vintner, and a blacksmith and a priest of sitis who will give you access to the listeners shrine once you have attained this rank.
- Custom five level dungeon packed with challenging enemies to obtain ownership of the castle.
-pale rider's berserk armor for guards and available from the blacksmith.

Update 1.1
-Guards now have full ai and have night and day shifts
- Towers and walls accesible
- Butler should now wait in the entrance hall until the player has spoken to him for the first time (and thus activate all the castle's dialogue options)

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2. Requirements
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- Requires TES IV: Oblivion, patched to at least version 1.2
- Shivering Isles (Sorry but the content this provides is invaluble).

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3. INSTALLATION/UNINSTALLATION
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Installation: unzip everything into the data folder (oblivion\data) then activate Blackclaw.esp in the oblivion launcher or mod manager.

Updating: you shouldn't need to move your stuff out of the castle as no containers are deleted and none of the architecture has changed so just overwrite the original esp. keep a back up of the old esp just in case but i'm certain it won't cause any problems.


Uninstallation:

- This is fairly standard procedure. First make sure your character is not currently in any areas added by the mod, and that you have retrieved any items from said areas that you wish to keep. Then save your game.
- From the Oblivion Launcher, select Data Files and uncheck the box next to blackclaw.esp.
- If desired, delete all files copied to your Oblivion\Data directory during installation
- You can now load your save game and continue playing.

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4. PLAYING THE MOD
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Head to all Saints inn in the temple district and find a note on the bar that gives you map markers to Blackclaw and the Trial grounds you must defeat the trial grounds first and acivate the shallow grave to get the key to Blackclaw, DO NOT USE THE UNLOCK CHEAT on the door to Blackclaw as this will break the generic dialogue quests and npc's wont treat you as the castles master.

Remeber alot of the really evil areas of the castle are hidden from public veiw just look for activators in the usual places (strange candles, movable pillars)

Make sure you go and see the butler as soon as you enter the castle as speaking with him unlocks some of the castles feature

A note on storage: all containers in the lords manor are safe as are any strongboxes however some containers in the necrmancers lab and elsewhere respawn all skull containers other than the one in the listeners shrine are safe. do not store anything in the replenishing remains as it will be lost for good.

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5. SAVE GAMES
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- Activating this mod should not have any negative effects on your existing save game/s - but as always, it is good practice to keep backups.

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6. CONFLICTS / KNOWN ERRORS
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- the castle repositions an oblivion gate slightly further down the mountain this shouldn't be a problem but since i have borders removed I can't be certain it isn't outside them.

- anywhere that edits the same area as the castle will obviously conflict.

- the summon spells sold by the necromancer are just normal spells with the duration boosted so you can still only have one at a time and you'll have to put up with the summoned icon on the screen not really a bug but still irritating.

- in the wine making dialogue it is possible to make the wine several times by repeating the same dialogue stages however this is simply a waste of ingredients as the dialogue option to get the wine is available forever after it is made once. I'm not sure how to rectify this but it isn't a problem so long as you don't select the wine again after a batch has been made.

- The mesh for the walls begins slightly above where the textures begin making it look as though the player is floating a slight distance above the wall. this is a problem with beths original mesh and is not likely to be fixed.

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7. CREDITS
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Thanks to Bethesda Softworks.

Thanks to pale rider for creating the Armory of the berserker which let me make truly evil guards.

Thanks to Monarch_Anor for helping me with getting screenshots working.

thanks to the makers of hoarfrost castle and makers of many other great house mods which I've been inspired by.

Thanks to just about anyone i've downloaded from as I've probably looked at your scripts at least once when trying to write my own.
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8. To do list
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Because of my currently limited scripting abilities and time constraints there are several things still to do.

- silent mp3's (where neccessary)
- necromancer summoning altar similar to the frostcrag spire antronach altar
- wall towers and gatehouse interiors
- more quests attached to the staff of the castle with rewars such as custom armor or prehaps a companion npc, a quest to gain a vampiric bride or courrupt an hourable knight
- quest to bring the experiment in the tower labs to life ganing the castle a gatekeeper
- butler gives more info on castle and fix some iritating dialogue issues.
- expand peasent village prehaps with a small quest for good characters so the mod isn'tcompletly usless to them.
- Advance AI on all characters so that they have more intresting routines prehaps actingdifferently on different days and interacting more with each other.

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9. RECOMENDED MODS
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I would recomend playing this mod alongside the moriarcis mod if you want to be a necromancer.
I would also recomend using a share mod shuch as toaster's or the midas share spell that way if you don't like how ive dressed the castle staff you can go ahead and change them.

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10. CONTACT AND INFORMATION
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feel free to email me with help on scripting but for support or suggestions for the mod please leave comments in the comments section on this mod and I'll try to get back to you.

My e-mail address is [email protected]

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11. LEGAL STUFF/ DISCLAIMER
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By downloading and using this modification, you agree that the author of the modification cannot be held responsible for any damage to software or hardware directly or indirectly caused by the aforementioned modification. Use at your own risk, basically.

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12. VERSION HISTORY
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first release Beta 1.0 most features implemented all areas except towers complete.

Beta 1.1 all minor bugs fixed found missing textures all areas accesible including towers and gatehouse. Guards placed with full ai