The Curse of Firmament 1

Frequent stone overhauls make blessings more interesting, give them all their drawbacks, and optionally assign them to NPCs.

TL;Ph.D.

Change the effects of all standing stones to be combat-oriented, diverse and challenging

Blessings now come with drawbacks and benefits

MCM allows you to choose blessings at any time, and you can even give yourself multiple blessings

Optional zEdit patch to distribute blessings between NPCs without creating conflicts

summary

Curse of Firmament changes the effects of the Standing Stones, transforming them from bland, boring, and unbalanced to exciting, diverse, and challenging. Crucially, blessings can be both negative and positive, so they can be as cursed as a blessing (hence the name). This mod was built with the following principles in mind:

Blessing affects combat gameplay. Combat is what players spend most of their time doing, so non-combat stones (like vanilla towers, mages, etc.) end up having little impact on actual gameplay. In Curse of Firmament, all stones are focal points of combat.

There are positive and negative blessings. In vanilla, all stones make the player better at completing tasks; in Curse of Firmament, the player must sacrifice something in return. So while bonuses enhance certain strategies, they have the disadvantage of punishing others, forcing a trade-off between specialization and breadth.

Nothing special. Due to the negative effects of blessings, they do limit the feasibility of certain approaches (like playing a mage, but now a warrior stone is a terrible idea), but this should never be to the point where the stone forces a specific style of play. Likewise, blessings don't rely on any particularly complex mechanics that would be cumbersome.

Not once a day is the power. If they're good, players will be incentivized to save them just in case there's a harder enemy around the corner. If they are weak, the player can forget about them entirely. Either way, they ended up not being used and so are not included here.

Blessings significantly affect NPCs. This is to allow blessings to be (optionally) distributed among NPCs and have a meaningful impact on combat. So now you may change your strategy based on the blessings of the enemies you face.

In addition to changing the effects of standing stones, the mod also comes with an MCM that allows you to change your blessings at any time (such as immediately after character creation), and even allows you to give yourself multiple blessings.

Stone

Below, stones are described according to their effects (divided into positive/blessing and negative/cursed), a summary of some suggested builds, and difficulty levels. Difficulty refers to how difficult it is to use the gems effectively, not how difficult they are to make the game.

apprentice

The Apprentice makes you an amazing spellcaster, but you'll struggle to live up to that promise, as your ability to control others and imbue objects with enchantments is weak, and running out of magic can spell doom.

Blessing: Spells consume 25% less mana

Curse: If you run out, Magicka regen will stop. Conjuration, Illusion are 25% less effective, Enchantments are 50% less effective

Suitable Build: Attack Mage, if you can manage your magic, or a hybrid build that uses magic as a complementary attack form.

Difficulty: Easy

NOTE: magicka regen curse does not work on NPCs as they don't know to avoid running out.

Atronach

Atronach turns you into a magical engine with immense spellcasting power, but you'll need to be creative to charge your magic.

Blessing: Spells consume 50% less mana.

Curse: Magicka does not regenerate naturally. Instead, you must obtain it by absorbing spells (25% chance) or melee hits (10 points per hit)

Good Build: Anyone who uses spells, as long as you have a way to get your magic back. You either need to utilize alchemy or tank well enough to reliably engage in melee combat.

Difficulty: Moderate

this lady

The Lady rewards those who are kind and forgiving, boosting you …