Proposed Agenda

• Faction ranks: Should any of TR’s faction ranks for Great Houses replace the vanilla ranks?
• Player strongholds

Meeting Summary

Faction ranks

In general, the discussion started with a review of a previous short disagreement whether the vanilla ranks should be kept or the ranks that TR invented for the mainland factions (which no longer exist) should be used instead.

• The general preference in the meeting was for Hlaalu to keep their ranks; the general progression will probably be centered around TR’s questlines more than the vanilla one, as it is fairly drab.
• Telvanni will keep their ranks and general progression; the rest can be figured out in the distant future when it becomes relevant.
• For the most part, the TR Redoran ranks will not carry over (specifically the two changes ‘Councilman’->’War Councillor’ and ‘House Cousin’->’March Captain’, House Cousin being moved to the lower rank, pushing all the lower ranks down one and removing ‘Hireling’)
  However, the idea of changing the top rank from ‘Archmaster’ to ‘Hortator’ was eventually viewed more favourably, where becoming Hortator through the vanilla MQ would mean becoming leader of Redoran, who by their nature see the title of war leader far more seriously than the other Great Houses. This means that, whether the player is the leader of another House, a lower-ranked Redoran or not affiliated with any House, the player will become the leader of House Redoran.
• Other than that major change, faction progression will probably stay much the same, and perhaps the player will only be able to progress through the highest ranks by completing the Vvardenfell quests, as all of Redoran’s leadership is in Vvardenfell.

Faction Questlines

It was touched up again that TR’s previous faction proposals were fairly linear and ignored Vvardenfell questlines.
As we have now merged factions, this is no longer possible, which means that endgame edits need to keep in mind that they edit around or supplant existing questlines. There has been no actual decision made on how this is to be done, just general brainstorming and bringing the problem to the attention of all meeting attendees.

Suggestions:

• Hlaalu: The Great Hlaalu Conspiracy could only become unlocked as a questline after the player gains top rank through the Vvardenfell quests, in essence serving as an epilogue to the vanilla quests. Other mainland Hlaalu questlines would then be more localized in scope.
• Redoran: Interaction between Redoran mainland and Redoran Vvardenfell questlines can probably be kept minimal, as TR lore states that the leaders of Redoran all shipped themselves to Vvardenfell to help deal with Dagoth Ur. Mainland Redoran then focuses on surviving from other threats to the House while cut off from leadership and resources.
• Due to the ideas on Redoran rank progression, the Redoran questline should probably not be tied to rank advancement like other questline concepts. The player should be able to play the Redoran questline normally, or as the faction leader, and when playing it normally the player might only advance to a certain rank before needing to go to Vvardenfell and get Sarethi as a patron to advance further via the Vvardenfell quests.
• Telvanni: Gothren took over the Telvanni Council when TR’s Dral locked himself away in his pocket realm and neglected his duties as Archmagister. The player will eventually have to go to Dral to be named Archmagister.

Faction Strongholds

As with Nav Andaram that is essentially replacing the Hlaalu player’s main stronghold, a discussion was held about how it would work for the other factions. Gnomey’s blog post served as a starting point. It was suggested that each Great House get one major stronghold (for Telvanni, Hlaalu, and Redoran, these would be the vanilla strongholds) and one minor stronghold, as follows:

Telvanni major: vanilla stronghold
Telvanni minor: a pocket realm similar to Dral’s, perhaps that even IS Dral’s after getting rid of him.  

Hlaalu major/minor: vanilla and Nav Andaram, not quite sure which is supposed to be which. Changing Nav Andaram to be the questline stronghold will be a considerable amount of work (shared global stronghold variables, “shank the other stronghold leaders” quests, the usual dialogue problems)

Redoran major: vanilla stronghold
Redoran minor: a Nordic-themed fort or mead hall, wrested from the Nail Knock Reavers, maybe the Dunkreath Mead Hall or a new fort in Ystralond

Dres major: Dres Yengrith, the clanstead of the lost clan, possibly built up from a Chap’Thil encampment
Dres minor: a Skyrender hive or a Chap’Thil encampment

Indoril major: Id Vano (already exists in Indoril-Thirr using the global Stronghold variables) (EDIT: has been moved to a design claim here)
Indoril minor: a Velothi settlement added around Id Vano’s MH style fortress eventually encompassing the entire island, or possibly a family/Saint shrine the player restores or a small chapel in a Velothi village somewhere (future shrine to a Saint Nerevarine??)