As soon as I mentioned copyright in the post, questions started popping up :DD. It seems that mods in open access and personal experiments are not prohibited. Moreover, just a day and a half ago, there was no talk about reworking the Havens from Chaos Theory.=
Regarding the animations of attack effects, such as lightning – it's just a set of lightning bolts firing from an offset from the center and with different rotation axes, colored yellow (Photoshop/Visual Studio or whatever you like will help), and at the end, there's a cool dragon texture (probably a tribute to Disciples 2)... There are two options: either ask for permission (although I'm only interested in the numerous lightning bolts), or create something similar... I don't think a thunderstorm is patented :DD. The same situation applies to the vortex, so don't worry. I'm not just redesigning creature models, and if any work starts, I will definitely contact the author, but for now, it's just an (unexpected for me) discussion.
I asked for permission to release NTR for already implemented factions quite recently because... I was just quietly tinkering and didn't even think about posting it. Something like that.
About the Shadow Skull – I assure you, I reviewed all the factions and creature animations in combat. The model design falls into the second type – they are not NCF-based, they are original, and I can't even imagine how much time was spent on them, but they don't quite measure up, in my opinion (maybe I'm a graphics snob... you know what I mean=))). No flame wars =)