This is the first thing I’ve done here so don’t be afraid to tell me if I do something stupid.
Short Summary:
A town guard has completely lost his mind, costing him his job and the respect of the townspeople. Help his brother get to the bottom of what happened.
Assets:
Bildam Danoran (Dark Elf, Male)
Ralamus Danoran (Dark Elf, Male)
Ernandre Nermin (Breton, Male or Female)
An amulet that lowers intelligence and increases endurance or carry weight
A house in a town or city
A guar
Location:
Any town or city with guards
Quest Giver:
Anyone in town can talk bring up Bildam’s strange condition and direct the player to his brother, Ralamus, who would start the quest.
Possible Reward:
-An amulet that lowers intelligence and increases endurance or carry weight
Quest:
Bildam Danoran can be found standing outside his home, wearing his guard armor. Other citizens will decribe him as having a vacant look on his face, devoid of any sort of thought. He will never move from the exact spot in which he is standing until certain quest objectives are met. His refusal to move and his apparent loss of intelligent thought is threatening to lose him his job as a town guard, and his brother Ralamus, also a guard, has been told to get Bildam to snap out of it or inform him that he has been discharged. He will ask the player to try to talk to Bildam and find out what he/she can.
When talking to Bildam he will speak simply and he will somehow bring up the fact that he’s carrying too much stuff to move. “Captain told me to sharpen these blades before reporting in the next day… Bringing them home… Friend handed me a book to borrow as she walked by… It’s all too much...” (something like that)
He doesn’t seem to understand as you explain that he can just drop a few things if what he’s carrying is too heavy. In fact he says he’s had a hard time understanding much of anything since buying “this shiny necklace from <insert local shop>.”
Giving a description of the amulet to the shopkeeper Bildam told you about, the shop keeper will say that it was just another bit of junk he bought from the new mage who just came into town, Ernandre. The player will find Ernandre in the streets near his new home, or in the mages guild if there is one, but he will deny that there is anything wrong with the amulet itself. Ralamus will suggest inspecting Ernandre’s house.
Upon entering the house, the player will find a big, dumb, friendly pack guar in the main room. Perhaps furnature has been obviously pushed out of the way just to make room for it. Wheat and grass laid out for it to eat, papers laid out around the floor for... you know. Ralamus will have no idea of what to make of this, and will just tell you to demand answers from Ernandre.
Bringing up the guar with Ernandre will cause him to confess about his grand telepathy experiment. He had teleported the pack guar to his home while passing a traveling merchant out on a nearby road. Ernandre teleported away soon after so not to deal with the angry merchant. He then tricked the guar into thinking a telepathy amulet he had made was food by sticking some grass in it. He then sold the matching amulet to the local shop and waited for someone to pick it up. “How was I suppossed to get someone to agree to make such a mental connection with a guar by their own will? I can’t image what that poor fellow must be going through… To bear the simple, stupid thoughts of such a beast… But it was necessary for the research. I was going to kill the guar when I was done anyway; I don’t think I can teleport it far enough away for the effects to completely fade out. Bildam will be his old self without that animal dumbing him down all the time. Probably.”
At this point the player must kill the guar, or Bildam will be forever stupid. Bildam will thank the character, but will say the amulet is still making his thinking kind of fuzzy. He will offer it to the character. The amulet will lower intellegence, but raise carry weight or increase endurance. Ralamus can thank you with gold or some nice guard gear.
Notes:
-The race/sex of Ernandre doesn’t really matter, but his name is from the random name generator for a male Breton.
-Maybe there are rumors in the area of rogue mages zapping people’s guars out of existence.
-Ernandre can be arrested or he can skip town, it doesn’t really matter
-I’m sorry if I left any details out – I’m known to under-report information when writing down stories. If confused, just ask me about it.
2016-01-19 19:35
6 days 9 hours ago
Hmm, sounds awfully similar to ash statues. However I don’t think it should “be” ash statues, as players already know how those work and it takes the mystery out of it.
But... perhaps this group of mages got interested in this research due to the rumors they heard about ash statues. If you wanted to add another moralistic twist to it, maybe some of them are developing this research to counteract the effects of ash statues, and the player gets to decide whether to help or hinder them in that goal (knowing that part of the price may be more test subjects being driven mad).
2016-05-21 23:57
8 years 1 month ago
Hmm… I sort of see what you mean.
I honestly hadn’t thought about that. The artifact is found in the home just so there’s some sort of evidence to follow. With some re-writing it could be cut out entirely. Your idea about them being inspired by the ash statues is interesting, though I don’t know how long ash statues are supposed to have been around.
I think a better fix would be to change the mind-control magic to some other magical effect. The story will still work as long as the mages are trying to push the boundaries of magical knowledge in some way. Bildam is affected the way he is because the mages don’t yet fully understand what they’re working with.
2016-01-19 19:35
6 days 9 hours ago
I believe ash statutes harken back to when House Dagoth was an actual House, thousands of years ago. However, they’d be rare until recently because the House has been lost for so long, and probably only gained magical effects (if any) once the House began to awake. Research into their magical properties would then be very new and hence full of problems, like this quest here. Which could play in very well in the mages using them as a starting point for whatever they’re doing, whether to help combat Sixth House problems or because they want to do their own mind control magic.
Actually, we don’t even have to tie it to House Dagoth. Just some ancient Dunmer (or Chimer?) culture.
Another magical effect could work too, though it makes me wonder what kind of magical effect would be messing with Bildam’s head in such a way. Another kind of Illusion spell? Alteration spell that affected his brain? Speaking of, it might be neat for one the quest rewards to be a polished version of the spell for the PC to use. Perhaps part of the questline is the PC finishing their research, as a Mage’s Guild quest.
So yeah, a lot of ways you could go with this one. I like the premise, just have to hammer out the logic behind it.
Pick whatever lore interests you to work off, I think.
2016-05-21 23:57
8 years 1 month ago
In the Elder Scrolls the idea of an object being placed somewhere and having some sort of magical effect on the people around it isn’t totally unheard of outside of just ash statues. One example that comes to mind from Morrowind specifically is The Dwemer’s Bone quest in Vivec. I say this to say that I don’t think that players will feel this is just Ash Statues 2.
The mages could have defected from the Mage’s Guild because the guild tried to forbid them from doing this kind of research. I don’t want to tie the mages to anything bigger than the Mage’s Guild; if it were a Sixth House thing I think we would be making too big a deal out of something that’s just suppossed to be a miscellaneous quest.
As for what kind of magic is being used, perhaps it’s an absorb attribute effect. This would explain why they need subjects and why it was so detrimental to Bildam (the more I read and write this name the more I hate it – it came from the random name generator.) In this case the effects would last much longer and be more powerful, but the absorption of the attribute would a very slow process, explaining the long-term nature of what the mages are doing.
A reward for this quest could be some item picked up from the body of one of the mages that has an interesting absort attribute effect. I’ll try to think of something not boring and not OP
2016-01-17 13:07
1 year 8 months ago
Not that I’m against the idea of magical artefacts having magical effects on people around them, but the dwemer’s bone from The Dwemer’s Bone quest is notably un-magical; people are driven away from her shop because of the dwemeri ghost that turns up alongside the bone.
I do agree that secret, sinister, mindwarping statues feel like they’re hitting a bit too close to the ash statues. Maybe if the enchantment had a slightly more benign effect; the first thing that would jump to my mind if I saw Beldam rambling as described would be, “oh, a dreamer”. How about a toy guar that makes people a bit over-generous?
2015-09-28 20:13
2 years 6 months ago
I do like the quest, but I somewhat echo the sentiment in regards to the Ash statue. Although, speaking in meta-knowledge, I think their effects are well-known enough that putting it in a city far away from Vvardenfell would be a really ugly surprise, as the player wouldn’t expect them to reach that far (and they haven’t until now).
I can also confirm that Ash Statues are really old – in the first era Dagoth stronghold on Gorne island there’s even man-sized ones.
If Ash Statues are deemed unfitting, I’d suggest using two amulets of telepathy – one which was eaten by a Guar or something else and the non-human “thoughts” on the other end are driving Bildam Danoran crazy.
The player would then need to track down the Guar and kill it to stop the spell in a somewhat benign way. Ernandre Nermin could be a honest peddler of second-hand goods who just didn’t quite recognize the amulet for what it is, or someone who was involved in a Mages Guild-sponsored attempt to recreated the link Telvanni masters have to their mouthes, who is now cutting his losses by selling the (largely non-working but pretty) junk that the unsuccessful experiments left over. Or even gifting them in an attempt to shore up goodwill to sell more baubles later on (such as here).
2016-05-21 23:57
8 years 1 month ago
Thanks for the input guys.
My internet recently has been unreliable to say the least but I will try update/fix this quest soon with the help of your suggestions.
2016-01-19 19:35
6 days 9 hours ago
Transferred to asset browser. Edits have been suggested, but not yet incoporated as far as I can tell.
2016-05-21 23:57
8 years 1 month ago
Edited.
Shamelessly stole guar idea.