Priority:
Stage:
- Merged
Development Progress:
Claim Type:
Faction:
Location:
Description
Dreynos Helvi is concerned about the disappearance of one of House Hlaalu's affiliated outlander merchants, Gavros Falas. The player is sent to investigate Gavros’ house. As evidenced by the stashes of ash statues and other illegal goods (skooma, dwemer artifacts, etc) hidden in his residence, it becomes clear Gavros was a smuggler along with being a Hlaalu merchant. (The interior dev is encouraged to get creative with the placement of these illegal goods, such as behind false walls or hidden behind furniture, etc.)
There are also several threatening letters found stacked on Gavros' desk. These letters are unsigned, and demand him to either let the writer in on the profits, or to clear out of town. From there, the player must find additional leads by asking around.
Indoril Merchant: There are two ways to get to this lead. One is asking about the town, which will result in the player finding out that the merchant’s nephew is visiting to check on his uncle, who he is worried is getting involved in the bad parts of Morrowind society.
If the player goes to the tavern, the tavern owner says someone has been looking for them and nods them over to a patron drinking in the corner. This patron is the nephew, but that can also be inferred by the player by the NPCs last name so attentive players can simply find him that way. If questioned, he shows the player a letter his uncle had sent him a few weeks prior. The letter details how Gavros tried to broker a trade deal with a member of House Indoril, by giving them a cut of the profits if they helped protect his smuggling operation from “the Dunmer natives” who have been threatening him and his business. The letter points the player to Darane Navur, a dunmer merchant in Almas Thirr.
The other way is speaking with traders and merchants, with a high enough disposition they point the player directly to Darane Navur, who they know had a partnership with Gavros at one point.
Darane Navur is an Indoril-aligned merchant. She admits it is not typical for the Indoril to engage in much trade with the Hlaalu controlled areas, but that her goals are her own. When questioned by the player, she explains she had been trying to broker a trade partnership with Gavros before he had disappeared, but had had to pull out of the deal due to him getting involved in illegal smuggling operations. She states proudly she is loyal to Temple law, and lambasts Gavros for being a Hlaalu heretic who should never have come to the Thirr River Valley. She tells you the location of the cave he was smuggling in to back up her statement. With a little more persuasion/intimidation, she would also admit Gavros was trying to convince her to trade in ash statues, but that she, as a faithful follower of the Tribunal, refused of course!
Sixth house: This is intentionally harder to find, since it bypasses the journey to Almas Thirr, but should still be an alternate route. In an alley of the town is a Sleeper, who can give clues as to the merchant’s fate through his confused ramblings. The dialogue they have should be sensitive to the completion of the main quest. For instance, before the Sixth House has awoken, the Sleeper may say: “ Try... down. By the waves. In the dark. Somewhere... Sorry, I’m rather preoccupied, try asking someone else.” The sleeper also has some statues in their home.
-Whereas after the Sixth House has awoken, the dialogue might be: “Dragged where surf and crawling worms go down, down, down, at behest of star-wound and the red in my eyes. Into darkness he climbed, twisting scales and bringing smiles to the sleeping, dreams to the betrayed...my dreams, oh, my dreams. Leave me, outlander!”
-While after the main quest, the Sleeper tells the player coherently that he believes Gavros was murdered in a Sixth House cave and gives them directions to it, asking the player to not tell any others of his “indiscretion” in return.
This all leads to a cave by the coast (cave directions are notoriously hard to follow so make sure they are almost excessively clear, except the two cryptic ones from the sleeper). The first few rooms of the cave should look like a smuggler’s hideout. The last rooms should have open crates of ash statues scattered around (but no other overt signs of the Sixth House). The dead body of the merchant is also in here.
Next to his body is his journal. The journal details all that has happened so far: being threatened by a syndicate (he writes he thinks it’s the Camonna Tong), losing his Indoril business partner over a disagreement, writing his letter to his nephew, and then coming to the cave to meet Darane. This last entry details some confusion as to what the contact wants from him, and his hopes that the Indoril has finally seen reason.
After gathering this journal, the player may then return to Helvi, and have three options. Any choice will reward you for solving the investigation:
1) Only shows if the player spoke with the Indoril merchant. They can accuse Darane of the murder, on the basis that she believed Gavros to be a heretic and “took care of him”. Helvi says this is just another regretful symptom of the brewing conflict in the Thirr Valley. (curiously, you get a little extra pay for this option)
2) Only shows if they have the nephew’s letter and the merchant’s journal. They can accuse the Camonna Tong, saying they hate outlanders and wanted to gain control of Gavros’ smuggling operation. Helvi hushes them up, saying accusing the Camonna Tong is very dangerous and to say no more of it. However, they say the player has gained enough evidence to satisfy their investigation, and that the house will take over to find “the real killer”.
3) Only shows if they picked up one of the unique ash statues in the merchant’s house, the sleeper's house or in the smuggler's cave. They can accuse the Sixth House cult of the murder. Helvi is incredulous and finds it hard to believe, but because he recognises the statues he is satisfied that Gavros's meddling with sixth house artefacts caught up to him in some form and considers the matter resolved.
This is constructed so that it reasonably could be any of the three, so any choice will successfully complete the quest.
Once the quest is finished, Helvi will tell the player that they are now working for Andas and should report to Ulvys Ules for their next task.
Assets needed:
smuggler cave dungeon
letter addressed to nephew
threatening letters addressed to Gavros Falas
Victim’s nephew NPC in The Dancing Cups, with last name Falas
Sleeper NPC
Old version under the spoiler:
Comments
Grabbing dis for dialogue.
Grabbing dis for dialogue.
First draft of dialogue
First draft of dialogue posted into the claim description. Might still need some loose ends tied up, but a review at this point for it would be appreciated!
I am a returning modder to
I am a returning modder to the site after several years, and my account is no longer active, so this is a new one. I interested in doing this interior, but I notice the cave type is not specified. Would someone clarify the cave type to use?
Picked a different claim to
Picked a different claim to showcase.
I think this could be just a
I think this could be just a smuggler's cave with sixth houses elements.
Granting to Envy
Granting to Envy
I don't see the new NPCs in
I don't see the new NPCs in the latest Roryns Buff release file. Am I missing something?
Rewritten to be more in line
Rewritten to be more in line with the redone Ando HH roadmap
ₒₕ, bₒₒ𝒹?
Taking over from Envy to
Taking over from Envy to review and finish this up.
Finally done. There were a
Finally done. There were a lot of edits back and forth to make this fit well into Andothren. I feel a bit of pity for Envy who had to deal with this. Anyway, I promised him some feedback, so I took some time to review his work, which could hopefully bring me closer to the Reviewer role.
General: If this would not have been a major blocker for the House Hlaalu questline, I would have sent this back to development instead of finishing it myself. The quest was clearly not playtested to a larger degree and several paths were incoherent or partially missing. On the positive side, I like that there are several ways to finish the quest and the open ending, which could get a promising sequel in a later release (if you report the Indoril as the killer, that should have consequences for the relation between the Houses, potentially sparking a House War). The writing was also generally quite good, although some information was missing at places.
Clean: No.
Follows TR naming conventions: Mostly.
Object placement: Generally okay, but some objects were missing.
Journal: The general layout was okay, but some information was missing, and there was one serious issue.
Dialogue: Was somewhat incomplete, especially compared to the rest of the questline.
AddTopic: Should be added to every topic to be on the safe, but was missing for a couple of topics.
Scripts: While functional, the few that were used were based on some questionable decisions.
Quest flow: Generally working okay (after having fixed the above issues), but there were some serious issues (not including the Sleeper path here):
Sleeper path: Was mostly missing, and had serious issues. I had to add most of this myself.
Other additions/fixes: I fixed some more bugs, added some parts that I felt missing, and edited a few things to be more consistent with the rest of the questline.
Typos/style errors: Found a couple.
Merge notes: replace all ash statues in Molkobal (in TR_Mainland) with the unique version using the ID TR_m4_HH_GavrosStatue. Add a level-25 lock to the door in the middle of the cave.
To playtest the quest, one option is to load it alongside the Hlaalu questline. It should load after the Hlaalu questline, but it might not be important. The quest is the seventh quest you will recieve in the questline (read playtesting notes in the Hlaalu claim). Alternatively, type AddTopic "Gavros Falas" in the console, make sure to advance to Retainer rank in House Hlaalu, and speak to Dreynos Helvi about this topic.
After a bit more playtesting,
After a bit more playtesting, I added a suggestion to Dreynos Helvi to ask around town if the player gets stuck after having searched Gavros' house.