OE Section - Quest Approval

Development of the Imperial city of Old Ebonheart on the Eastern Mouth of the Thirr River.

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Yeti
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OE Section - Quest Approval

Post by Yeti »

Seeing that most NPCs have been placed in the city portion of Old Ebonheart and any work on the section file will likely involve minor adjustments in the weeks ahead, I'd like to open up some misc quest claims, since Not recently mentioned being interested in doing some questing.

Naturally, she and any other modder with interest would work using a separate esp dependent on the section file. After reading through some threads in this section, I believe these quests are ideal candidates to put up at the moment.

[url=http://tamriel-rebuilt.org/old_forum/viewtopic.php?t=24883]Kneading the dough[/url]
[url=http://tamriel-rebuilt.org/old_forum/viewtopic.php?t=24871]The Suffocating Spores[/url]
[url=http://tamriel-rebuilt.org/old_forum/viewtopic.php?t=24381]Liquid Inspiration[/url]

If everyone else is okay with this plan, I'll write finalized quest outlines for each of these, incorporating feedback from their respective threads. Then, if everyone likes the outlines, I'll put them up as claims.
Last edited by Yeti on Sat Jul 11, 2015 7:07 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: OE Section - Question Approval

Post by Not »

Yeti wrote:Seeing that most NPCs have been placed in the city portion of Old Ebonheart and any work on the section file will likely involve minor adjustments in the weeks ahead, I'd like to open up some misc quest claims, since Not recently mentioned being interested in doing some questing.

Naturally, she and any other modder with interest would work using a separate esp dependent on the section file. After reading through some threads in this section, I believe these quests are ideal candidates to put up at the moment.

[url=http://tamriel-rebuilt.org/old_forum/viewtopic.php?t=24883]Kneading the dough[/url]
[url=http://tamriel-rebuilt.org/old_forum/viewtopic.php?t=24871]The Suffocating Spores[/url]
[url=http://tamriel-rebuilt.org/old_forum/viewtopic.php?t=24381]Liquid Inspiration[/url]

If everyone else is okay with this plan, I'll write finalized quest outlines for each of these, incorporating feedback from their respective threads. Then, if everyone likes the outlines, I'll put them up as claims.
I'mma try and maintain my composure right now, but I'm seriously ready to jump for joy at this news! That sounds so awesome! \o/
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Post by klep »

Sounds great, looking forward to start seeing quests in there!
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Post by Gnomey »

Sounds good, and I like the starting selection of quests as well.
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Post by Yeti »

Well crap, I just typed up the quest summaries and then the forum logged me out when I tried to post them. Fuck shit fuck.
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Post by Yeti »

Here we go.

Kneading the Dough

Latest Rumor - I bought a loaf of bread at The Mother Alessia the other day -- stale as timber. I hear they are only kept afloat by the favorable contracts the Baker's Guild keeps steering their way.

"The Mother Alessia" is having a hard time making ends meet. Meanwhile competitors are flourishing that, unlike the Mother Alessia, are not part of the Bakers' Guild.

The owners want these non-members to pay guild dues. They need a mercenary (the player) to get them to pay up. There should be a few creative ways of doing this, some taking advantage of Mercantile/Speechcraft. Potential targets are:

*Pinefist Foods
*Gul-Ei's Pantry
*Emaroc Harquart's Baked Goods
*A street vendor selling homemade bread

The player will collect the dues and get to keep a 10 percent portion of the money, possibly more with good Mercantile skill. The player can also lie to the various bakers about the amount they owe to inflate his or her personal profits.

An basic outline with sample dialogue can be found in the [url=http://tamriel-rebuilt.org/old_forum/viewtopic.php?t=24883]original[/url] thread, though the claimant should feel free to revise, tweak or deviate from it to their liking.

Also, there should be no references to bread being imported or exported. It's a local everyday commodity.

Liquid Inspiration

Little Secret - "Have you heard of the Wayrest painter ____? He came to Morrowind seeking exotic inspiration as part of King Helseth Hlaalu’s and Queen Barenziah’s entourage. He’s since set up an art gallery in his home next to the Mages Guild here in Old Ebonheart. From what I’ve heard, he’s rather eccentric, though what artist isn’t?"

An artist brought up in Wayrest under the apprenticeship of the official Court painter lives in Old Ebonheart. He travelled to Morrowind with Helseth and Barenziah, seeking exotic influences, and was sort of forgotten. He is an eccentric and a skooma addict; and is somewhat paranoid.

Before the quest begins, he asks the player to pay a fee for viewing his gallery downstairs - 30 drakes or so. Once the artist is confident that the player knows the value of fine art, he will task the player with helping him find something very important - inspiration.

The first task will be to track down and purchase an appropriately artsy item from one of Old Ebonheart's shops (a decorative bowl, perhaps), giving the player a chance to explore the city's diversity of services. The player is rewarded with a bottle of Surilie Brothers wine.

Doing this will not provide inspiration, but bolster the Breton's confidence in the player. He then gives you some precious gems and asks you to approach a shady person in one of OE's alleyways. Using some kind of code word, the player will trade the gems for "liquid inspiration" (skooma). The player can then bring the skooma to the Breton for a unique reward - a [url=http://i1273.photobucket.com/albums/y417/rats_tr/ogrim_painting_zps9d1b15ee.png]psychedelic portrait[/url] of the player.

The Suffocating Spores

A customs agent working in the Old Ebonheart gate tower has been having allergy problems. He or she thinks that the cause is the giant mushroom just outside the gate, saying that the native flora doesn't agree with his or her sinuses. If the player has a bit of muscle (strength 50?), she or he will loan the player an ax from the armory to cut it down.

A text box will explain that cutting at the mushroom caused it to explode into a multitude of spores, making its effects worse. This would drive home that the quest giver is in an unwinnable battle with Morrowind's ecosystem.
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Post by Ironed Maidens »

I would just like to mention that Skooma isn't a liquid, so calling it 'liquid inspiration' might not be the best idea.
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Post by Tondollari »

Any source on that? UESP says liquid. I always assumed the pipe was used for vaporizing.
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Post by sirrah »

Unless it's mentioned in dialogue, I don't think Morrowind specifies either way; judging by the UESP article, the idea that skooma is liquid comes from Oblivion. Since skooma is refined moonsugar, I had always assumed it was similar to freebase cocaine. The "vials" could certainly contain solid material, despite their potion-y aspect.
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Post by klep »

Great write-ups, Yeti. I would like to see The Suffocating spores have different ways of completing the quest. Unfortunately I can't come up with something right now and I don't remember the discussions about it on IRC.

That psychedelic portrait might be a bit extreme, but then again it would probably be a good laugh for the player. I'm not really sure what to think of it.

I also thought Skooma was a liquid and am interested in why it wouldnt be.

Really excited about seeing quests in OE. I also like many of Tondollari's other quest ideas as well as Rats' "Sympathy for the Devil's Advocate".
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Post by EJRS »

A suggestion for an alternative brains-instead-of-brawn solution for 'Suffocating spores' would be to use an (al)chemical agent to kill off the mushroom in question. This could involve talking to a local alchemist and procuring the necessary ingredients. This would, of course, backfire.

I must say that I'm really not too fond of several details concerning the "Liquid inspiration"-quest. Mainly, it seems to be based too much in the assumption of a view of art and an artworld aligning too much with the real-world romantic period, which is mid-18th to mid-19th century. I'm all for having technological and cultural developments in Tamriel being unaligned with how things have developed in our own world, but it seems rather superficial if a whole branch of cultural development is simply transplanted in the shape of a specific stage of real-world development straight into Tamriel without question.
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Post by klep »

EJRS wrote:I must say that I'm really not too fond of several details concerning the "Liquid inspiration"-quest....
The man has a point. It makes me doubt my fondness of the quest as well. It could contribute in the neutralisation of Morrowind's and Tamriel's weirdness. Even though it's an Imperial settlement, it shouldn't reflect too much of the real world.
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Post by EJRS »

Counter-suggestions on the 'Liquid inspiration'-quest:

A mid-ranking Legion officer/clergyman stationed in OE has been offered the hand of a well-to-do woman/man (whom he has never met in person) back in Cyrodiil. She/he needs to commission suitor portrait to send to this person. The officer/clergyman is very much in love (with the letter and suitor portrait he has himself received, subject to much gossip and amusement among his fellow soldiers/clergy as well as the rest of town) and wants the most exquisite portrait he can get. He knows of the Wayrest painter currently residing in OE, and wants the player to convince said painter to do his portrait.

The player contacts the painter, who makes no promise but asks the player to gather pigment-bearing plants for him, either by purchase or foraging the surroundings.

Returning with the plants, the painter requests a small number of clay bowls to mix the pigments into paint in.

On returning with the bowls, the player is tasked with fetching one more thing: the painter confesses that he relies on skooma for inspiration (implying this is the cause for his fall from grace with the higher circles of society), and simply cannot work without it. He agrees to do the portrait, if the player can procure some skooma for him.

Pretty bare-bones, but I think it has a bit more local colour, and moves it away from the romantic-period connotations.
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Post by Tondollari »

EJRS wrote:A suggestion for an alternative brains-instead-of-brawn solution for 'Suffocating spores' would be to use an (al)chemical agent to kill off the mushroom in question. This could involve talking to a local alchemist and procuring the necessary ingredients. This would, of course, backfire.
I prefer this. It makes use of OE's merchant variety and removes the awkwardness of having to use the axe the questgiver gives you. However, it might be asked why the potion only works on the problem mushroom.

As to Liquid Inspiration. I initially imagined the painter as an outsider, his gallery largely ignored, his property paid for by dead noble money. I would prefer it if the relationship between the painter and player were more personal. The player acting as a go-between for a potential client seems impersonal. Besides, why wouldn't a client just go straight to the painter?

As to the implantation of romantic ideas, isn't the mere presence of a public art gallery problematic? To me that seems like the most infringing aspect. Any quest attached to the painter compounds the problem that the interior creates.
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Post by EJRS »

Tondollari wrote:I prefer this. However, it might be asked why the potion only works on the problem mushroom.
Because game mechanics, I guess. It'd be impractical to make it work on any mushroom. Just like in any quest where you're supposed to poison a specific NPC or similar.

I think that the idea that the mushroom would explode into spores also seems a bit..odd. Why don't we see this happening anywhere else?

I very much agree that a public art gallery is something I think TR as a whole would be much better off without. But I equally think that the whole outsider genius painter with a habit (to whom the player has to prove that he can understand art) is packing in romantic era cliches - that have been repeated to death - a bit tight.

I'd steer away from portraying a view of painters as exalted individuals driven by inspiration from the sublime, and steer it more in the direction of a view of the artist as a craftsperson and painting as a craft, thought of much in the same way as fine carpentry or pottery. This has been the dominating view of most forms of art, including painting, for the vast majority of our own history, and is something I think would fit better in with the non-mer cultures of Tamriel.

I'm all for religious meta-postmodernism among Dunmer and who-knows-what abstract shenanigans among the Altmer, though. :)
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Post by Ironed Maidens »

I will expand upon why Skooma is a crystal not a liquid later on, not much time now. However with regards to the quest let's say disposition has to be over 75 and the painter will simply ask the player to get a few things for him to prove their trustworthiness to him, then he will reveal that his normal Skooma dealer has ended up dead and he needs the player to find him a new one and score for him.
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Post by Yeti »

Good suggestions all around in this thread. I'll update the quest descriptions accordingly. As for whether Skooma is a liquid or not, I must admit I don't really care all that much, so I'll just change the quest name.
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Post by Yeti »

Can someone else post these as claims and delete the ones with errors I posted? I have no idea what I did wrong.
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