Another big experimental release today! We've focused again on the region covered by the Baldur's Gate games, with new graphics, new provinces, and lots of new characters. But there's little treats further afield as well, and a lot of minor fixes to enhance playability. This update breaks existing saves - be warned.

Map:
* De jure rework of the North and Heartlands
* New provinces in Amn and the Western Heartlands

History:
* New history for several provinces in Amn, Tethyr, and the Western Heartlands as well as the Wayrock in the Inner Sea and Cony Gap in the North
* Lots more courtiers in various places
* Two new Bedine-cultured mercenary bands
* Fewer characters are arbitrarily slated to die in 1500DR

Graphics:
* Static portraits for a range of canon characters
* Flags for new titles, including all the dwarf realms from the previous release

Lore:
* More cultures and culture groups have descriptive text
* Lots of new canon dynasty names
* New wiki links for historical figures in Baldur's Gate and Amn

Events:
* The fallen angel Zariel can now invade, if she isn't already present on Toril

Optimisation:
* Minor titles improved, and age limits removed

Bugfixes:
* Joyful patron selection now works correctly
* File format corrected for lots of critical culture and religion localisation
* The nickname 'the Lion' will only apply to male rulers, and 'the Lioness' now has equivalent conditions for female rulers
* Removed references to real-world religions and historical figures in several places
* The AI should no longer be allowed to try shattering the realm of a ruler who doesn't have one
* Bjornhild Solvigsdottir now looks like she should, and her family makes sense
* The City of Shade's description is now short enough to read
* Hengeyokai are now informed correctly about prospective partners

Hotfix for September 23rd release...

- Added Belt as interim Grand Duke of Baldur's Gate while Entar Silvershield is dead
- Also added Belt as bookmark character
- Also exonerated Abdel Adrian of the murder of Skie Silvershield

It's time for another experimental release. And this one's a big one! Experimental Release 89 is now up on GitHub & on here, and while the release notes are below, the main news is that this is a big update for people who like non-human OPMs, and the Baldur's Gate series. We have lots of playable BG characters, including Abdel and Sarevok during their appearances in BG1. We have many fixes for our existing BG3 characters, and more added. I'll be doing a separate post just to update our 'playable video game characters' list to reflect this release. And there are about a dozen new OPM realms, many of them duchies, with non-human holders. Because of the extensive map changes, this release breaks saves. Please be aware - the next experimental release will probably also break saves, this time due to trait changes.

So without further ado, the change log!

Bookmarks and Timeline:
- The Bhaalspawn Crisis start date is now 2 Eleint 1368 instead of 1 Hammer in the same year. Additionally, both Sarevok Anchev and Abdel Adrian are playable as Dukes of Baldur's Gate in that date, and throughout the month of Eleint.
- There are a quite few Baldur's Gate 3 spoilers scattered around, but most of them occur on or after the Toril Restored major bookmark.
- The final possible start date is now 1 Hammer 1499. Note that starting after the 'Honor Among Thieves' bookmark may reveal spoilers for the movie.
- The fall of Elturgard now happens in 1492, not 1494.

Map:
- New provinces: Qarlondrar, Harheldur, Ahruukar, Raskuldin, Khaelud, Fireforges, Graskynar, Utuerth, Skurrukh, Moonrise, Cloak Bay, Wood of Sharp Teeth, Lake Weng, Amstelar, Wild Hills, and Green Shadows
- Sage's Bay formally renamed to Crab Reach, and The Ruins to Selskar Vale

Titles:
- New de jure duchy of Cloakwood, as well as lots of OPM de jure duchies for new dwarf realms
- New titular duchies of Emerald Grove and Night Church
- Various historic names updated
- Female Grand Dukes of Baldur's Gate are now addressed correctly

History:
- Full title histories for new titles, including the Night Church back to the time of Gorothir
- Lots of new characters, including some more Baldur's Gate series ones, a notorious Calishite crime-lord, and a very special inhabitant of pre-Time-of-Troubles Waterdeep

Art:
- New desktop icon for the mod
- New icon for the 1479 major bookmark
- New sympathy icons
- Several elven clothing sets re-fitted to work better on humans and half-elves

Lore:
- Culture descriptions for some cultures and groups; more to follow
- FR Wiki links for the Snowsword dynasty

Flavour:
- Illithids encountered when adventuring will now be psions

Optimizations:
- Many factions
- Many ambitions
- All nicknames, both vanilla and mod-specific
- All minor titles

Bugfixes:
- Flind culture now has dynasties and retinues
- Shargrailar the Dark now gets a better nickname as intended
- A secret dragon's gender changes now take effect
- Dwarf/half-dwarf reproduction now works as expected
- Orcish religion now reluctantly allows matrilineal marriages
- Yuir patrons decision should now only list valid choices
- Far Realm fanatics will no longer be distracted by Asmadai rituals, even in theory
- Many historical characters are now born and die at the right times
- Many others

Have a wonderful time, and let us know how you get on!

Another experimental release! This time, we've got:

- History changes - Sespech in the 15th century, titular duchy of Scornubel, Shargrailar the Dark, Surcross after the Spellplague, new NPCs in Waterdeep and Huzuz
- Four new mamluk companies
- New names in various human cultures
- Optimisations - factions
- Fixes - half-giant and half-ogre child portraits, demon lord bloodline, obsolete empires, and more
- Tweaks - better loc for various things including bloodthirsty gods traits

Another set of incremental improvements today, in Experimental Release 87:

- New portraits by Nendur: Ogrillons, Aarakocra, Undead Giants
- The CleanSlate overhaul continues
- Many small history tweaks, including royal ancestors and descendants in Cormyr and Dambrath, more playable Khans of Yaimunnahar, and some new courtiers
- Cultural diversity overhaul continues
- Lots of localisation fixes
- Several new nicknames

Enjoy!

A small but nice incremental release today:

- New ears and tattoos for ogres
- New portraits for half-giants and half-ogres
- A lot portrait triggers and localisation cleaned up
- Lots of bug fixing, especially in missing or inappropriate localisation
- New names, especially for Shield Dwarves and High Coasters

Enjoy!

We're making steady progress with a number of areas, and we have some new elements to show off!

In this update:

Graphics updates:
- New half-orc portraits, with our continuing gratitude to Geheimnisnacht
- New Sossrim clothing, courtesy of After the End
- Late era clothing for Highcoaster, Bedine, D'Tarig and Illuskan characters, courtesy of After the End
- Wemic child portraits
- More appropriate religious garb

Patron trait overhaul continues:
- Deneir - recruit scribe
- Eldath - cheaper Cure Disease

De Jure rework in northern Faerun:
- Northern Realms empire split up - Frozenfar to Moonshae, the rest partitioned between Delzoun and Eaerlann (both previously titular)
- Cold Lands empire split up - Leewai moved to Vaasa, and the whole partitioned between Pelvuria and Bloodstone, both of which are new

Other:
- More 'Honor Among Thieves' characters - data files contain spoilers
- Some more dragons in earlier history
- Cultural diversity overhaul begins
- Cleanup of offmap likes/dislikes
- Cleanup of ambitions
- Cleanup of plots
- Nomadic Tribal rulers can now convert to commonwealth or merchant republic with a fully upgraded ranch

Fixes:
- No more seelie/unseelie double-agents
- Queens Under the Mountain will be actual queens
- Kobold clerics should have stable localisation

Bugfixes for the previous version
New nicknames

Bugfixes for 0.7.0

Version 0.7.0

It's time for another middle-number release! The main religion overhaul is now complete, which was our milestone for this release. There will be a subsequent overhaul of patron deity and branch traits before v1.0 appears, as well as some more enhancements, but our main religious structure and key functionality is now in place. Most of this was in previous experimental releases, but here's the very latest:

Religion updates:
- Better capital provinces for many religious titles
- Public notifications of contests for the Grand Caliphate
- Decision to form the Grand Caliphate if it doesn't already exist
- Cleanup of triggers and descriptions for religion features
- Patron trait overhaul begins:
- Akadi: Retinue of air elementals
- Amaunator: Recruit Judge decision
- Azuth: Hold Magical Symposium decision
- Bane: Undeath After Death decision
- Beshaba: Beshaba's Boon decision

Species code overhaul:
- Odds for species of mixed-race characters readjusted, and the whole reproduction code simplified and clarified
- Lots of new triggers for different species groups
- Better tool-tips for many species
- Deep Imaskari now have proper child portraits
- Better handling of offspring with only one known parent

Fixes:
- Challenge for the Grand Caliph now works as intended
- Diwali is no longer available
- Behaviour of the Shou Lung offmap title cleaned up
- Followers of the Draconic Pantheon can now choose patrons correctly
- Player-characters cannot become apprentices
- Borderer republican clothing is now appropriately post-Shoon