Devious Devices - Laura's Bondage Shop (16-aug-2025) v3.55 LE & SE

[Laura]

On 12/21/2022 at 10:16 PM, aurreth said:

 

I also had a weird idea to move the shop into the city, replacing Breezehome with it.  On account of I never use Breezehome ?

 

Poor Breezehome all cobwebbed up in your game.

[aurreth]

59 minutes ago, Laura said:

Poor Breezehome all cobwebbed up in your game.

 

I don't even buy it anymore.  I know there are some nice mods for it, but meh, I prefer other houses.  In AE there is a Creation Club mod to Goldenhills Plantation which makes it a fully functional farm, that produces nice passive income.  And it's just begging to be modded.  I mean people are hiring farmhands instead of buy slaves, there's no ponygirls in the stables, and there are cows instead of hucows.  It's all wrong!  ?

 

Replacing Breezhome with LBS is relatively easy, mostly changing door targets, hanging a sign, and removing the current shop from the world.  The outside of the building wouldn't quite match the inside, but most people are unlikely to notice.  And I don't think you ever actually have to buy Breezehome, so just removing that line from Proventius' dialogue should keep things tidy.

[kurotatsu]

17 hours ago, aurreth said:

 

I don't even buy it anymore.  I know there are some nice mods for it, but meh, I prefer other houses.  In AE there is a Creation Club mod to Goldenhills Plantation which makes it a fully functional farm, that produces nice passive income.  And it's just begging to be modded.  I mean people are hiring farmhands instead of buy slaves, there's no ponygirls in the stables, and there are cows instead of hucows.  It's all wrong!  ?

 

Replacing Breezhome with LBS is relatively easy, mostly changing door targets, hanging a sign, and removing the current shop from the world.  The outside of the building wouldn't quite match the inside, but most people are unlikely to notice.  And I don't think you ever actually have to buy Breezehome, so just removing that line from Proventius' dialogue should keep things tidy.

 

While you don't buy it anymore, it's still used in some other mods, like BaboDialogues for events in it. So it's bad idea to replace BreezeHome with LBS.

 

Naturally, nobody can forbid you to make patch for your own use...

[Gh0sTG0]

That's... really doesn't look like a good idea to replace one of player homes. Looks too incompatible with number of other mods some way touching it.

But, really nobody can forbid you to make a patch for your own use... or maybe even send it to Laura so it will be published as optional.

[aurreth]

1 hour ago, kurotatsu said:

 

While you don't buy it anymore, it's still used in some other mods, like BaboDialogues for events in it. So it's bad idea to replace BreezeHome with LBS.

 

Naturally, nobody can forbid you to make patch for your own use...

 

 

I've noticed, whenever I talk about modding something, that there is always someone who makes the assumption that just because they use Popular Mod A that everyone else does too.

 

There is a reason I work for Laura on LBS:  there is no rape, constant humiliation or degradation of women.  The only instances of this occur during one particular quest, they happen off-screen, and they are only included because they are absolutely essential to the story being told.  If they weren't Laura would gladly have skipped them.

 

I, and many others, do not build our modlist around rape and degradation.  I have ZERO mods that have rape as a possible outcome, unless it can be absolutely disabled.  I don't use Cursed Loot, because it does not respect its rape toggle (rape scenes are baked in).  There are several other, otherwise fun mods that do the same thing, and so I do not use them.  Nor do I use any mod that glorifies treating women as things rather than people (which includes BaboDialogue).

 

So, I will happily make whatever mods or patches I like, I will gladly share them with other people, and if they conflict with popular, sexist, misogynistic mods I don't care.  

[aurreth]

36 minutes ago, Gh0sTG0 said:

or maybe even send it to Laura so it will be published as optional.

 

While I consult with Laura, anything I put out is entirely on me.  My character makeovers are not "official" or even "optional" (and Laura actually does not agree with some of my choices there), nor is my patch for JK.  They are released under my own name, in their own threads.  If they end up here it was just me being all happy that I got something to work and wanted to share it with others.  The only "official" thing I've done was the Alpha Test, and if you go back to page 207 and look Laura released it, not me.

 

Believe me, there are a half dozen other projects I've done.  They weren't posted anywhere because they either wouldn't work with a base install of LBS plus the vanilla game, or because they conflict with future plans Laura has for the mod.  For example, this is what my version of LBS looks like:

 

 

Yes, I gave Katarina a workshop out back, and provided a rough sketch of how it could be integrated at a later date to Laura.  But this conflicts with ideas Laura has for future development post 3.x, so that's as far as it went.

 

As for "no one can forbid you from making things for yourself", well no one can forbid me for making things for everyone else either.  You don't like it, don't use it.

 

[Laura]

23 hours ago, aurreth said:

I don't even buy it anymore.  I know there are some nice mods for it, but meh, I prefer other houses.  In AE there is a Creation Club mod to Goldenhills Plantation which makes it a fully functional farm, that produces nice passive income.  And it's just begging to be modded.  I mean people are hiring farmhands instead of buy slaves, there's no ponygirls in the stables, and there are cows instead of hucows.  It's all wrong!  ?

 

Replacing Breezhome with LBS is relatively easy, mostly changing door targets, hanging a sign, and removing the current shop from the world.  The outside of the building wouldn't quite match the inside, but most people are unlikely to notice.  And I don't think you ever actually have to buy Breezehome, so just removing that line from Proventius' dialogue should keep things tidy.

I wish I could just place it in the city too. Would make way more sense. Compatibility is a bitch sometimes. But I also like the current spot.

Edited December 24, 2022 by Laura

[aurreth]

54 minutes ago, Laura said:

I wish I could just place it in the city too. Would make way more sense. Compatibility is a bitch sometimes. But I still like the current spot.

 

It's actually harder than it looks for Breezehome due to the way that door is linked to all the house upgrade quests.  I've figured out a way to do it, but probably not worth the effort.

 

The shop will, however, fit behind Breezehome if you get rid of the house of Olava the Feeble and eliminate an annoying rock (seriously, how long has Whiterun been there and they still haven't removed the big rocks?), and move one of the catapults from the siege.  

 

Orrr, there's a large, open space to the left of Olava's, behind Belethor's.  It would take a bit of terracing because there are rocks there, that are baked in so that if you try to remove them you delete the ground too.  Again, would require shifting catapults, but not like they are there for anything other than show.  I'm not any good at manipulating landscape, but someone could probably put a nice, flat space there with appropriate walls and whatnot.  And it wouldn't break anything, since that is unused space (well, except for aforementioned catapults.)

 

 

The last possibility is to replace the house of Severio Pelagia.  He spends the day out on Pelagia Farm, and only comes into the city to sleep.  Tweak his AI to not do that and his place is up for grabs, since he's not involved in anything inside the city at all (the only quest he has is to gather crops for him out on his farm), and he has a farm house outside of the city he can sleep in.

 

Edited December 24, 2022 by aurreth

[lordgdavid]

Just an idea. As we somewhat know the backround of Laura, it would make more sense if she was renting a place from Belethor in the basement of his shop (or a modified 1st/2nd floor). He seems like the businessman who would agree to ridiculously cheap rent for some well placed devices on our favorite heroines  

[Tetras66]

5 hours ago, aurreth said:

Yes, I gave Katarina a workshop out back, and provided a rough sketch of how it could be integrated at a later date to Laura.  But this conflicts with ideas Laura has for future development post 3.x, so that's as far as it went.

 

Oh cool, I like the little workshop for Katarina! Shame it's not going to make it in.

 

5 hours ago, aurreth said:

I've noticed, whenever I talk about modding something, that there is always someone who makes the assumption that just because they use Popular Mod A that everyone else does too.

 

or that when we talk about our individual preferences, Laura (or whoever other modder) is going to listen and put it in the mod ? 

 

I get it, we care about our favourite mods, but idgaf about compatibility either and even I wouldn't stick my (mod's) house on top of breezehome ? (and I know Laura does care, somewhat, so...)

Edited December 24, 2022 by Tetras66

[aurreth]

19 minutes ago, lordgdavid said:

Just an idea. As we somewhat know the backround of Laura, it would make more sense if she was renting a place from Belethor in the basement of his shop (or a modified 1st/2nd floor). He seems like the businessman who would agree to ridiculously cheap rent for some well placed devices on our favorite heroines  

 

Just the opposite.  Laura wants independence.  She wants her own place, where she is in control, and not at the mercy of someone like Belethor, who would happily sell her back into slavery for a few septim.

 

Plus no one is going to completely overhaul the shop.  The mod is 4 years old.  @Laura is not going to redo the entire interior, NPC pathing and AI, the dozens of unseen things that make everything work.  I'm only toying with the idea of relocating the building, which is mostly just redirecting the entrance door, and doesn't affect the mod itself.  The only real change would be you fast travel to Whiterun instead of to the marker outside the shop.

[aurreth]

6 minutes ago, Tetras66 said:

 

Oh cool, I like the little workshop for Katarina! Shame it's not going to make it in.

 

 

or that when we talk about our individual preferences, Laura (or whoever other modder) is going to listen and put it in the mod ? 

 

I get it, we care about our favourite mods, but idgaf about compatibility either and even I wouldn't stick my (mod's) house on top of breezehome ? (and I know Laura does care, somewhat, so...)

 

I've dropped the Breezehome idea, it requires a host of minor changes that aren't worth messing with simply because they'll cause minor but immersion breaking errors.  Nothing that will break the game, but too many little places you'd have to edit references to the house out of.

 

The best choice is the rocky area in the picture, but that requires a lot of landscaping.  Not sure I can manage that very well, but I'll probably give it a try eventually.

 

Katarina's Workshop:  I had an idea for a Hearthfire style build of the area, where you have to gather the resources while wearing the special delivery set.  Katarina would send you off to, say, Riverwood to get lumber, and Laura would insist you wear the delivery set while you did in order to advertise the shop.  Rinse and repeat until it is all completed.  At each stage a little more of the workshop would appear.

 

But @Laura shot the idea down ☹️  She doesn't want to expand the shop footprint, because the Captured Dreams compound was overly complex and difficult to manage.  Plus she has her own ideas for later on, so me tinkering with the layout could cause problems.  Soooo, no release of that, sorry.

 

[Tetras66]

1 hour ago, aurreth said:

The best choice is the rocky area in the picture, but that requires a lot of landscaping.  Not sure I can manage that very well, but I'll probably give it a try eventually.

...

But @Laura shot the idea down ☹️  She doesn't want to expand the shop footprint, because the Captured Dreams compound was overly complex and difficult to manage.  Plus she has her own ideas for later on, so me tinkering with the layout could cause problems.  Soooo, no release of that, sorry.

 

Yeah, I can imagine editing out a vanilla house would be a task in itself. Landscaping is not hard, the main problem (for me, anyway) is making it look natural, especially if you need minimal impact on the surrounding. But, you can 'cheat' by using statics, like the bigger rocks, dirtcliffs, terrace pieces, or wooden/stone platforms.

 

Ohh, your workshop idea sounds pretty cool ? I can understand that, CD did get pretty complex. A lot of mods use a trapdoor to get around the footprint problem, but I know that's visually less interesting.

[aurreth]

7 minutes ago, Tetras66 said:

Yeah, I can imagine editing out a vanilla house would be a task in itself. Landscaping is not hard, the main problem (for me, anyway) is making it look natural, especially if you need minimal impact on the surrounding. But, you can 'cheat' by using statics, like the bigger rocks, dirtcliffs, terrace pieces, or wooden/stone platforms.

 

Ohh, your workshop idea sounds pretty cool ? I can understand that, CD did get pretty complex. A lot of mods use a trapdoor to get around the footprint problem, but I know that's visually less interesting.

 

Whiterun does a lot of stone wall terracing, so making it fit in isn't a problem.  My lack of skill in terraforming is the problem ?  The wall behind Katarina's Workshop?  Took me ages getting everything to line up, 'cause those wall pieces are hollow and don't just snap together ?

 

Removing a house is easy though, they are all one piece externally.  I was checking the fit by selecting the Drunken Huntsman (the base exterior model for LBS) and dragging it around.  Basically if you want to remove a house, click on it and hit delete.  There is always a bit of cleanup of course.  Doors are separate entities.  For example the Huntsman has a side door; LBS has a spot around one side where you can see where that door would go.  So if you deleted the building you'd have to go back and delete both doors.

 

So basically I wouldn't have to actually recreate the shop.  I'd terrace off the area, copy the Huntsman and paste it in the new location.  Fiddle it, make sure there are stairs, etc., then add a door and link that to the shop's interior door.  Then disable or delete everything outside of Whiterun, which is basically a building, a door, and a map marker.  Well, and move the hanging sign of course.  Other than the landscaping it's not terribly difficult.

 

Hmm, quest SQ10 is tied to the LBS external door, so that reference would have to be changed.  There is also an XMarkerHeading outside the shop on the road that is used for SQ07, have to look at that too.

[Miauzi]

Vor 2 Stunden sagte aurreth:

 

Ich habe die Breezehome-Idee fallen gelassen, sie erfordert eine Menge kleinerer Änderungen, mit denen es sich nicht lohnt, herumzuspielen, nur weil sie kleine, aber immersionsbrechende Fehler verursachen. Nichts, was das Spiel stören würde, aber zu viele kleine Stellen, an denen Sie Verweise auf das Haus heraus bearbeiten müssten.

 

Die beste Wahl ist der felsige Bereich auf dem Bild, aber das erfordert viel Landschaftsgestaltung. Ich bin mir nicht sicher, ob ich das sehr gut hinbekomme, aber ich werde es wahrscheinlich irgendwann versuchen.

 

Katarinas Werkstatt: Ich hatte eine Idee für einen Build im Hearthfire-Stil des Gebiets, in dem Sie die Ressourcen sammeln müssen, während Sie das spezielle Lieferset tragen. Katarina schickte Sie zum Beispiel nach Riverwood, um Holz zu holen, und Laura bestand darauf, dass Sie das Lieferset trugen, während Sie es taten, um für den Laden zu werben. Spülen und wiederholen, bis alles fertig ist. In jeder Phase erschien ein bisschen mehr von der Werkstatt.

 

Aber @Laura hat die Idee verworfen ☹️ Sie möchte den Shop-Footprint nicht erweitern, weil das Captured Dreams-Gelände zu komplex und schwierig zu verwalten war. Außerdem hat sie ihre eigenen Ideen für später, also könnte es Probleme geben, wenn ich am Layout herumbastele. Soooo, keine Veröffentlichung davon, sorry.

 

The problem with the area you selected (the stones) is -> other mods are using it as well

e.g. the spur point of the "Tardis" aka "Sidra" for Whiterun is in this area

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/34272

 

yes - I also use "Laura's Shop" and would be very pleased with a placement within the city - but I also use the mod of the "Dwemer Tardis"

[aurreth]

28 minutes ago, Miauzi said:

The problem with the area you selected (the stones) is -> other mods are using it as well

e.g. the spur point of the "Tardis" aka "Sidra" for Whiterun is in this area

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/34272

 

yes - I also use "Laura's Shop" and would be very pleased with a placement within the city - but I also use the mod of the "Dwemer Tardis"

 

Why would I care about a mod I don't use (and for that matter have never heard of)?

 

@Laura is not going to change the shop location, anymore than she added my Workshop idea.  She and I discuss ideas, the same as she does for anyone else, but it's her mod and it's going to be her way, and I have always encouraged and defended that, publicly and privately.  Four years in she's not going to move the shop because I had a whim and decided to go with it.

 

I'm going to change the shop location because I want it in the city.  And I'm going to share that change with anyone else who wants to use it.  You don't like it, don't use it.  Make your own location, or patch your Doctor Who thingy.  You could move it to the Cloud District, Nazeem tells me it's nice.

 

Edited December 24, 2022 by aurreth

[aurreth]

Ok, that's it.  My next one off, instead of Nazeem endlessly saying ""Do you get to the Cloud District very often? Oh, what am I saying - of course you don't.", he's going to say "Do you get to the Bondage Shop very often?  Oh, what am I saying, of course you do."

 

[threp]

19 hours ago, aurreth said:

There is a reason I work for Laura on LBS:  there is no rape, constant humiliation or degradation of women.  The only instances of this occur during one particular quest, they happen off-screen, and they are only included because they are absolutely essential to the story being told.  If they weren't Laura would gladly have skipped them.

 

I, and many others, do not build our modlist around rape and degradation.  I have ZERO mods that have rape as a possible outcome, unless it can be absolutely disabled.  I don't use Cursed Loot, because it does not respect its rape toggle (rape scenes are baked in).  There are several other, otherwise fun mods that do the same thing, and so I do not use them.  Nor do I use any mod that glorifies treating women as things rather than people (which includes BaboDialogue).

 

So, I will happily make whatever mods or patches I like, I will gladly share them with other people, and if they conflict with popular, sexist, misogynistic mods I don't care.  

 

Wish I had several hundred likes to give. My only grumble to Laura (and believe me, she knows! ) is she doesn't give me enough options to slaughter the bloody slavers. I dislike them, a lot.

 

Edited to put off topic blathering behind a spoiler so no one needs to waste time on it.

Spoiler

I do use DCL because I like the traps option and the more advanced traps. The other decent traps mod I've found (Devious Chests) simply isn't as good and has a nasty habit of double placing the same class of binding. Getting out of an armbinder AND an elbow binder simultaneously really ISN'T fun. It does work if anyone wants an alternate to DCL for that, but F5 often in dungeons.

 

For DCL I've worked out a way of shutting down the main quest line completely while still being able to rescue that poor damned courier, delete Leon, Leah and the gormless servant who stands in the most annoying place in the market 24/7 on sight, and am slowly and clumsily altering the mod for personal use to remove the crap (quests) completely. Honestly never seen a baked in rape scene since it's always respected the "No, rapists don't appear from traps" option, but like I say, I avoid the quests completely. Sometimes use their alternate start option though - that is interesting (albeit infuriatingly slow moving) and rather well done.

 

In terms of putting Laura's shop in Whiterun itself for your idea, why not put it on top of the guard barracks by the main gate? There's already access to the flat roof and the only NPC that goes up there at all is Captain whatshisface from time to time. Of repurpose the barracks themselves into the shop, since as far as I know you never need to go into them for any quest. I didn't even realise they WERE barracks until I checked just now to make this suggestion!

Another alternative that would require almost no landscaping is to stick a door (maybe with a walkdown a-la Hall of the Dead) in the wall between the commercial district and the cloud district. There's plenty of shops built into the city walls and aqueducts in Rome, and I'm pretty sure the Nords could handle the same concept!

Edited December 25, 2022 by threp

[aurreth]

4 hours ago, threp said:

In terms of putting Laura's shop in Whiterun itself for your idea, why not put it on top of the guard barracks by the main gate? There's already access to the flat roof and the only NPC that goes up there at all is Captain whatshisface from time to time. Of repurpose the barracks themselves into the shop, since as far as I know you never need to go into them for any quest. I didn't even realise they WERE barracks until I checked just now to make this suggestion!

Another alternative that would require almost no landscaping is to stick a door (maybe with a walkdown a-la Hall of the Dead) in the wall between the commercial district and the cloud district. There's plenty of shops built into the city walls and aqueducts in Rome, and I'm pretty sure the Nords could handle the same concept!

 

While those are good ideas, respecting the author's original vision requires an actual shop building.  And I really want to use the same building she did, to avoid all the annoying "the shop inside is a different shape than the outside" pedantry.  It would be easy if the shop was in a different city; anyplace else @Laura would probably have gone with the "door in the wall" thing from the start, and I wouldn't be trying to figure this all out ?

 

[aurreth]

4 hours ago, threp said:

 

Wish I had several hundred likes to give. My only grumble to Laura (and believe me, she knows! ) is she doesn't give me enough options to slaughter the bloody slavers. I dislike them, a lot.

 

 

LOL  I recently found a flaw in one of Laura's scenarios where the character was able to wake up from being kidnapped and immediately use magic to slaughter every slaver in sight.  When she fixed that, I used Shouts to do the same.  The only thing that saved the rest of them was that Laura forgot to include the key to the door that was in the way. 

 

I have also suggested that the character be given the line, "No Laura, we've been doing it your way and it's a right mess.  Now we do it my way:  suddenly, violently and all over the place."

 

BUT, as I've explained before, the player is not the hero of this story, Laura is.  We are the plucky sidekick.  It's actually harder to write that way, and there is a lot of discussion and testing that goes on behind the scenes to ensure that the player retains a sense of agency.  And my biggest grumble is that there are too many places where it feels like the character is being taken for granted, expected to perform without any emotional payoff.  Some of that is being addressed in the next version, with dialogue edits to early quests in the series, although most people won't see it unless they start the entire mod over.

 

Speaking of which!  It is possible, on an existing save, to start the mod from scratch.  You can use ReSaver to purge the mod from your current save, and start over from the beginning, including discovering the landmark outside of the shop.  All my testing so far says this works without damaging anything.  Back up your save first of course, just in case.

 

[worik]

20 hours ago, Laura said:

Compatibility is a bitch sometimes. But I also like the current spot.

Moving it around at this stage soounds like a loooot of trouble with other mods, again ?.

Better to keep it where it is and let the community come up with compatibility patches if needs arise

[aurreth]

2 minutes ago, worik said:

Moving it around at this stage soounds like a loooot of trouble with other mods, again ?.

Better to keep it where it is and let the community come up with compatibility patches if needs arise

 

How about we try this:  we support people's attempts at creativity, as long as it doesn't break the original mod.  We don't tell them, "That doesn't fit the way I play or my mod list, so you shouldn't do it."

 

[threp]

2 minutes ago, aurreth said:

 

How about we try this:  we support people's attempts at creativity, as long as it doesn't break the original mod.  We don't tell them, "That doesn't fit the way I play or my mod list, so you shouldn't do it."

 

When you do pick a spot, screenshot please? Got me curious now.

[aurreth]

2 minutes ago, threp said:

When you do pick a spot, screenshot please? Got me curious now.

 

There's a large, open area behind Belethor's, between Ysolda's and Olava's houses.  Currently the only thing there (vanilla) are some large rocks.  The shop will fit there, but it will take some landscaping/terracing to make it work, but there's enough of that around the city that it won't look out of place.

 

The spot that says "Stupid Rocks":

 

 

Pellagia's house would be a better location, but I don't want to break a vanilla NPC, even if he's completely inconsequential.

 

[aurreth]

 

So, it fits.  I've watched a couple of NPCs walk the path behind it.  The problem, of course, is it's floating.  I tried grabbing some pieces from around the other buildings, only to find that they are inevitably attached to huge pieces of ground.  Yup, move some steps, move the entire level ground a building is sitting on.  

 

So now the hard part, building a stone wall around the building, then filling it in with some sort of level ground to hide the big ugly rocks, that you can't remove because you end up removing the ground with it.