Strange Things are Afoot:
Where to start! This mission was shipped in an incomplete state and consequently, many strange things can be found without effort. Even with the patch, many things went overlooked. To make things easier, each floor of the mansion will, with the exception of the items directly below, be dealt with separately.
All the guards in this mission look pretty much the same - they're swordsmen and wear green tunics. As you were never meant to interact with them, some liberties were taken: if you pick one of their bodies up, it will appear as though you are carrying a guard wearing a purple tunic.
The Amazing technicolour swordsman
There are many fireplaces in this mission, in all of the major rooms in fact. Given this, it is surprising that only two of them are not qualified to be described as strange.
The fireplace in the library and the one in the room East of the chapel are the only ones in the mission which are correctly aligned.
Not-unusual fireplaces
In fact, it may be argued that because there are only two correctly aligned fireplaces out of a dozen or so incorrectly aligned ones, that the normal ones should be described as unusual, due to being so outnumbered and thus not normal for the mission.
Some of the room brushes (what the game uses to define how sound travels) aren't properly aligned either. From the balcony above the SouthWest end of the mansion, you cannot hear anything taking place out in the garden area, and vice versa. It is very strange to stand just outside the patio, on top of the section above the Southwestern doors, and see a frogbeast exploding only a few feet away and not hear anything. The windows at the NorthWest are the same.
The Ground Floor
If you enter the mansion via the secret passage in the garden, you will find yourself in a Hammerite chapel which has been converted into a Mechanist one. But, for once not displaying their usual efficiency, the Mechanists overlooked a very significant item during their renovations - the altar.
Opening into the chapel is a small room with what looks like a magic-healing/holy water font. It has the same glow, yet cannot be frobbed (read: used) and doesn't restore health or make your water arrows holy.
The closest you get to seeing Hammerites and Mechanists together
In the ground floor stairwell, just North of the foyer, is one of the many secrets in the mission. Although there is nothing inside the secret room in this mission (there is a gemstone in there in Masks) a closer look at the tiny switch which opens the doors shows it is one of the many, many items in this mission that hovers in midair.
In the foyer itself there are more things to be seen. The railings of the mezzanine balcony don't quite meet up with the support beam in several places and the large chandelier depending from the ceiling is a floater.
Freaky foyer
The railings of the small courtyard outside the ballroom have a few misaligned railings as well, but the most notably strange feature to be seen in that part of the mission is the weird 'optical illusion' of some of the railings where they join with the vertical supports. Leaning one way and then the other makes the railings move while staying still.
Optical illusion outside the ballroom
Continued next post...