Robbing the Ancestors
If you ask about latest rumors in Andothren, you can find out that Arniel Duront, a local Mages Guild apprentice, owes a large sum of money to a Camonna Tong thug Tedryn Thelas, and Tedryn has troubles with making him pay the debt.
If you speak with Tedryn Thelas in the Cat-Catchers' Cornerclub, he will ask you to shake Arniel Duront for the debt money. He promises to reward you with a relatively rare piece of armor if you agree to help him.
Arniel Duront confesses he doesn't have enough money, but he claims that he knows where to find a necessary sum to settle the debt. Arniel wants to deceive Tedryn Thelas by stealing some heirlooms from Thelas Ancestral Tomb (vanilla location) and selling them to acquire enough money. Adran Thelas, an ancestor of Tedryn Thelas, was buried with two enchanted Adamantium blades inside the tomb, and the stash was sealed behind a magical barrier. Arniel Duront has designed a spell which destroys the barrier, but he is afraid of the spirit of Adran Thelas which haunts the tomb as a bonelord. He asks you to assist him in fighting the undead in exchange of one of the swords found inside.
When you meet Arniel Duront inside the tomb, he follows you until you come close enough to the barrier. When you tell him to cast the spell, he will destroy the barrier, and the undead will be freed. You have to pick 2 swords and kill the undead (or just escape the tomb) to discuss it with Arniel Duront.
After you retrieve the swords, there are 3 options what to do next:
- Give 2 swords to Arniel in exchange of a Reputation point.
- Give 1 sword to Arniel.
- Keep both swords to yourself. In this case, Arniel attacks you.
After you return to Tedryn Thelas, he will reward you with a piece of Indoril armor. You will not be rewarded if Arniel is dead because Tedryn Thelas still had some plans for him. If Arniel has died before the quest begins, Tedryn Thelas won't have any quest-related dialogue.
Alternatively, you can report Arniel's plans to Tedryn Thelas before you agree to help him. He will reward you with 100 gold, and Arniel will disappear.
If Tedryn Thelas dies, the quest ends, and Arniel Duront returns back to the MG.
| Attachment | Size | Date |
|---|---|---|
 Showcase_RobbingTheAncestors.ESP | 31.2 KB | 2022-10-09 15:35 |
| Showcase_RobbingTheAncestors_v2.ESP | 32.67 KB | 2022-10-09 23:14 |
| Showcase_RobbingTheAncestors_v3.ESP | 34.07 KB | 2022-10-14 23:17 |
| Showcase_RobbingTheAncestors_v2.1.ESP | 36.79 KB | 2022-10-21 21:23 |
2022-10-05 00:13
1 hour 6 min ago
Uploaded a new version:
2022-10-05 00:13
1 hour 6 min ago
Uploaded another version, hopefully the last one before review:
2016-06-10 21:48
5 hours 24 min ago
Hello!
A few comments on this showcase
1. The rumor doesn't really tell me where to go to investigate this. If you go to the Mages Guild first, which is the only location listed, Arniel is completely nolored so he has nothing to say. I would both add a greeting to Arniel and rewrite the rumor to be more about Tedryn, like "A Mages Guild apprentice owes the Camonna Tong a large sum of money. Luckily for him, he has the protection of the Mages Guild, but Tedryn Thelas and his friends over at the Catcatcher's Hall won't back down so easily."
2. I don't think the tombrobbing bit should be disposition locked. Arniel is pretty screwed without the player's help
3. CT npcs are a unique case where it is perfectly reasonable to assume the player will cut their heads off. add in a quick throwaway line and a journal complete for killing Tedryn
4. Arniel lacks casting animations, have him do a cast mark on self or something when he brings the barrier down
5. Actions in choices use brackets [Give Arniel 1000 gold]
6. Either allow the player to pay the debt themselves or think of a conceit for why the other guy has to do it (maybe it's not about the money, he just really wants to see the guy grovel)
7. keeping the gold yourself and then leaving the tomb sort of locks you into killing him. As currently written I would think the guy doesn't care where the gold comes from
8. the gold items you pick up in the tomb are a bit too moddy. I'm not sure why the ancestral tomb has a bunch of raw septims as tribute anyway. what I would do is tweak it slightly such that the guy is tombraiding for some specific value object(s). he knows the guys family is loaded so he wants to steal some stuff to sell. maybe have like, a handful of gems (don't individually script ingredients) or some ornate bowls or limeware or something.
9. I'm not even too sure an arbitrary barrier makes sense in a tomb. if you did this for the showcase requirements thats fine, a-okay with that. but any kinds of item additions/cell additions to vanilla dungeons is very frowned upon for merged quests
2022-10-05 00:13
1 hour 6 min ago
Updated the showcase based on mort's review comments:
1. Fixed.
2. Decreased disposition requirement from 70 to 30. This value still makes sense because Arniel won't ask you for help if he hates you.
3. Fixed.
4. Fixed. For some reason, Cast command doesn't work with the barrier on the vanilla engine (because it's an activator perhaps?). I changed the casting target to Arniel himself.
5. Fixed. Is there any dialogue in the vanilla game with brackets in player choices? I don't remember any.
6-7. Tedryn's dialogue was edited to highlight that he wants Arniel to pay the debt himself, and the player is required to encourage Arniel to do it.
8. Gold items were replaced with two enchanted Adamantium swords. I decided to make it somewhat similar to the Redas ancestral tomb from a vanilla Redoran quest.
9. I added this barrier mostly as a showcase requirement, but it also makes sense as a protection measure. You can safely hide ancestral artifacts in larger tombs (such as the Redas tomb from a Redoran quest or the tomb from OE TG), but this one is too small for that.
Since this quest edits vanilla locations, I don't want it to get merged into TR in its current implementation. It might be better to use one of DoD tombs instead, but I don't know which ones are suitable for that.
2016-06-10 21:48
5 hours 24 min ago
1. Arniels first response "There is a bunch of problems" -> are
2. I get that this is a showcase, but Arniel's response of "I no longer owe him money" feels anemic. In a real quest I would expect him to be overjoyed and probably give you something as well for your heroic (criminal) deed.
3. When you make a new creature make sure to set the soundgen to the creature's base, otherwise its noises might not trigger (forgot to mention this the first time)
4. In npc scripts (and all other scripts, actually) try to avoid getdeadcount. I see what you're trying to do in arniel's script, and it works, but it's not a very performant function and might occasionally be worse than letting it check the two additional functions below. "Best practices" would say that if this is an NPC you care about, you would have a journal entry for their death that you can loop around. Or, have ondeath set the control variable.
That's it, good job. I think you know what you're doing. Recommended for promotion.
2019-08-25 19:28
6 hours 18 min ago
Made this into a design claim for Narsis or Othmura, on FlinSunset's recommendation: https://www.tamriel-rebuilt.org/claims/othmura-robbing-ancestors