Orias,
We might get bumped to Tips and Tricks, but...
1. Yes, in Douwesan there is a guy walking around who looks like Nathaniel Hawk and he is a blacksmith who will upgrade your swords. Personally, I have found that he keeps strange hours because I cannot always find him, but that's where he should be.
2. In Buildsettings.h you can toggle off the weapons mod, but then I think you will only get the swords from the original game. There is probably a way to mod it, and maybe someone who knows more than I do can help you on this.
3. this usually works for me: In character_init.c I change this;
makeref(ch,Characters[0]); //Blaze Devlin
//ch.perks.list.InstantBoarding = true;
ch.name = "Nathaniel";
ch.lastname = "Hawk";
ch.id = "Blaze";
ch.nation = ENGLAND;
ch.model = "Animists1"; // NK <---this line
to
makeref(ch,Characters[0]); //Blaze Devlin
//ch.perks.list.InstantBoarding = true;
ch.name = "Nathaniel";
ch.lastname = "Hawk";
ch.id = "Blaze";
ch.nation = ENGLAND;
ch.model = "Skel1"; // NK <---this line
You can also put Skel2, Skel3, or Skel4, for different skeletons. I'm not sure if the skeletons can sit down or not, so I'm not sure you can play the main game with them all the way thru. Also, there isn't a picture for them in Build12 for your character screen.
Let us know if this helps. <img src="http://www.piratesahoy.com/forum/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/par-ty.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="

" border="0" alt="par-ty.gif" />