q2-8-Mis

[MMMowSkwoz]

This was originally part of the East Empire Company line, but I decided it doesn't really have anything to do with the EEC so it's probably better as a misc. It's just a simple fetch quest, but I'd like it to have a fair amount of enjoyable banter to really flesh out these two characters and add to the feel of Helnim. I put some brief character descriptions at the end.

Finds-Men, one of the EEC employees, bemoans the lack of quality goods in Helnim and paints a very rosy picture of Cyrodiil, but becomes very awkward if you ask him why he left. After a bit of rambling, he asks you to go and get him a book from Edheldur the bookseller, who lives in the Rookery/tower thing. He gives you 60 gold to cover the cost. Edheldur will know Finds-Men and will poke a bit of fun at him for being grumpy (make it a little humorous, but not silly). He'll then recommend three books: one cheap (25), one reasonably priced (50), and one expensive (75), all of which you can buy the normal way (makes sure Edheldur has them). If you return with the cheap one, Finds-Men will complain he's read it before: slight disposition drop and keep the change. If you return with the reasonably priced one, he's still grumpy, but satisfied: keep the change. If you return with the expensive one, he's pleasantly surprised and gives you another book in return (quester's choice, nothing special).

The books aren't unique, so if you already have them you don't actually have to go to see Edheldur.

NPC: Finds-Men (EEC HQ, downstairs)
An agent for the EEC, monitors imports and exports. Moved here from Cyrodiil, where he worked for customs and excise (hint that this move was possibly not entirely voluntary?). He dislikes living in Helnim because he feels it's uncultured and drab. He likes books. Should be very grumpy. (maybe modify some of his existing dialogue slightly to reflect this?)

NPC: Edheldur (Edheldur's Rookery)
Upbeat bookseller. Chatty. Read his existing dialogue to get a feel for him.

[Why]

bam necromancy.

Posting this here because I can't seem to find a more appropriate place. Feel free to move it somewhere else if it's necessary.

I think that, before continuing, we should figure out what to do with Lud's plan [url=http://tamriel-rebuilt.org/old_forum/viewtopic.php?t=18323&highlight=darconis](link)[/url]. In a nutshell:

We have five different story variables, defining:
-Crime levels
-Public respect for the player
-Public support for the imperials
-Public support for the Telvanni
-Power balance between the Telvanni and the Imperials

These will be affected by the following things:
-Quests: each quest will have an effect on these. If the player gets a quest to free people from an imperial prison but gets caught in the process, this will increase the crime levels, switch the power balance over towards the Telvanni but also cause respect for the player to drop.
-Various small events. An example would be to make it so that the death of each NPC affects the story variables.
-Things that are somewhere between the two. These would be semi-quests that would be ntohing more than actions suggested to the player to cause some effect.

In turn, the variables will define:
-Major events happening in the area. These would include things like being challenged to a duel by an NPC, the citizens rioting, etc.
-What quests are available to the player
-Nearly all of the dialogue in the area. (After all, many of these variables would be about public opinion)

A plan like this would affect many quest claims. This one, the [url=http://tamriel-rebuilt.org/old_forum/viewtopic.php?t=21654]q2-19-Imp[/url] EEC, the [url=http://tamriel-rebuilt.org/old_forum/viewtopic.php?t=21655]q2-20-Imp[/url] Fighters Guild, the [url=http://tamriel-rebuilt.org/old_forum/viewtopic.php?t=21656]q2-21-Imp[/url] Thieves Guild, the finished [url=http://tamriel-rebuilt.org/old_forum/viewtopic.php?t=21657]q2-22-Imp[/url] Imperial Cult and the [url=http://tamriel-rebuilt.org/old_forum/viewtopic.php?t=21751]q2-23-Tel[/url] Helnim Gambit come to mind.

Personally, I really like the idea of basing the reactions of the townsfolk and who is in control of the city on variables changed by quests. As Lud put it, "the system would allow us a huge amount of freedom". It would be easy to write entries for latest rumors, local area and greetings based on Globals influenced by the actions of the player, and it would give a great feeling of immersion. However, I think five variables to be determined by your actions to be a bit excessive. Also, there are some limits to the practical implementation of this idea. People have suggested repeatable actions that influence the variables, and visual effects that are determined by the variables. I am particularly aversed to the idea of repeatable tasks. Why? Imagine:

• My character is in House Telvanni. I have finished the Helnim Gambit, the Imperials have just had their asses handed to them. Now each day I give a poor Imperial legionnaire a spare coin, for a couple of months. Suddenly Helnim is under firm Imperial rule again.

Yes, I know my example is a bit extreme, but what I'm trying to illustrate however, is that small repeatables should never be allowed to have the same impact as major quests. That, and repeatables are not the way the original games handled things. Moreover, in combination with the visual representation of whichever faction is currently dominant, things like fungi shouldn't shoot back into the ground when the Imperials regains momentum. Any visual representation of dominance should be permanent (except for maybe the occasional banner or guard).

My idea is to cut down the variables to at most four:
- The balance of power (Imperial being negative and Telvanni being positive {or the other way around, whatever})
- The loyalty of the populace (same as above)
- The level of crime, corruption and general misery in the Imperial part. (zero to something, probably should start halfway?)
- possibly the respect of the public towards the player. Possibly because in my opinion, we have disposition for that, though it might be easier to change the responses of so many NPCs with a global variable, or control their disposition with a global script.

I'd like to limit the things that change these variables to quests and small events only. I'd like to stay away from repeatables per the reasons outlined above. I don't believe we should add any mushrooms that grow when the Telvanni are in control, though I think I could agree with some banners if they're really necessary. We could possibly have a few quards patrolling differently (simple enable/disable on cell change would suffice I believe). If we go by this plan, we'd have to add the Global variables, write some dialogue depending on them, make it so that a couple of quests in the IC questline for Helnim alter the globals (the last two quests would be good candidates for these, and possibly a couple of the earlier as well).

Wow, turned out I wrote quite a wall of text. My apologies. Feel free to comment on Lud's plan, my interpretation, agree with me, shoot me down, whatever, any discussion is good. I hope I'm not overstepping my boundaries here, as I'm new, but I want to get this discussion moving again.

[Bloodthirsty Crustacean]

My only concern would be that it sounds like an awful lot of work, especially given the fact that Helnim was dialogued to LGNPC standards in terms of every character having majority unique dialogue, so making changes would require a lot of new dialogue, and possibly enough to cause severe lag in the system in-game.

Otherwise you do make the whole thing seem a lot more practical. What is your opinion on the extent of new dialogue that would have to be written?

[Why]

I've thought about it, and while I hadn't considered the unique dialogue in my first post, I still believe it is something we could do. To what extent, well, I think each NPC should have at least two variable dialogue topics, be it their greeting, local area, Helnim, latest rumors, Imperial, House Telvanni or little secret, but preferrably more, like four or five for residents of the Imperial part. According to the wiki [url=http://uesp.net/wiki/Tes3Mod:Tamriel_Rebuilt/People_in_Helnim](link)[/url] there are about 150 people in all of Helnim (is that correct?), let's assume we'll have to write additional dialogue for all of them, average of three topics, two new entries in each topic? Sounds like a hell of a lot of work, but it'll be about the same amount of effort as any large NPC claim. I think it's doable and would gladly write it. I don't think it would cause lag by the way, perhaps in cells with a lot of unique NPCs in them, but they seem to be nicely spread through interior cells and the streets of helnim aren't too full of unique NPCs.

I might be too much of an optimist though, what do you think?

[Bloodthirsty Crustacean]

If you're willing to write it, no one's gonna stop you!

The lag I was referring is in the in-game dialogue system. Whilst having Helnim and all the LGNPC mods running simultaneously has been completely fine for me, there are reports of dialogue-extensive mods causing the system to slow down. My only experience of this has been with the Julan companion mod, because the guy has like 100 greetings +, and there is noticable lag when selecting dialogue options, but only with him. It's possible in this case that the lag is caused when the game has many applicable filters it has to search through, so only two more entries per NPC shouldn't be too much trouble.

But yes, if you want to have a crack at this, you have the all clear. It would be very interesting to see it done if it can be done to a sufficient standard. Just remember to make sure new dialogue is in character for any NPCs who already have distinctive personalities!

And then there's the small manner of actually planning and making the suitable quests.

[Why]

Alright, I can start working on it once all Christmas parties here are over.

A couple of things I was still thinking about though. Should this plan apply to the Imperial side of Helnim only, or to the Telvanni as well? I'm thinking we should limit this to the Imperial part, since the Telvanni would try to gain control of it, and the Imperials merely try to maintain their position in the Telvanni district, but I'd very much like to hear your opinion. Also, should a new claim be made for this, and what should I call the globals?

[Bloodthirsty Crustacean]

I agree with you on leaving it to the Imperials. It's more realistic to have effects there, as Telvanni don't really care about what anyone else is doing, and also allows us to put more focus and effort on doing the Imperials properly.

Make an .esp that will be part of this claim. Seperate claims would confuse things. Due to the nature of the dialogue, it shouldn't be necessary that it be part of the same .esp as the quests, but it might be simpler if it were.

The globals should be TR_m2_Helnim_[OneWord] (two if necessary)

[Why]

Sorry BC, but I'm going to drop this idea. My progress is way too slow, and I'm worried.

I suggest we hold on to this variable driven idea for a town that isn't NPC'd to LGNPC standards. It's nice, but it doesn't work for Helnim. To do it in a plausible way that actually gets noticed by the average player, I believe we'd need at least three edited topics per NPC, and four new entries for each topic (say for when the global is on -10, -5, 5 and 10). Doing this for each NPC in Helnim and taking their personalities in account is quite undoable, at least for me. Add to that I don't know exactly what quests will happen here, so all I can currently do is write very generic lines, which doesn't help at all.

Instead, I think it's best when we let the larger quests that will take place here influence some dialogue. The logical, and more generic stuff.

I'll get to collecting the ideas for the misc quests and sorting those out soon.

[Bloodthirsty Crustacean]

Okay, sounds fair enough. My apologies for the dialogue: it seems it did indeed come back to haunt me in the end.

[Why]

I still really like Lud's plan and would love to salvage it though. Today I tried a different approach, merging all the globals into one and using the "Helnim" topic for responses, but that turned out to be rather implausible.

Here's what I think. If we're still doing Lud's plan (even to a lesser extent) we should clean up the "local rumors" section. Or integrate the current static rumors within the common rumor system as I hate to throw away hard work. We could have the more generic latest rumors like in other places, and add to that Global-specific rumors. Perhaps even use the control variable of many NPCs to make sure they tell their specific rumor only once, if that makes sense. This is easier because of the random way local rumors usually works. We can put all sorts of entries in there, be it the ones depending on crime rates, faction control or whatever. We might even throw in some quest-specific things when those are made.

But first, so that we know what the actual effects of your actions on Helnim are, I think we need to determine which quests we're gonna write for the town. In fact, I think it's better if we leave any further implementation of the variable driven system (if we're gonna do it) to after the misc, faction and Helnim Gambit quests have been completed. Because we can't write about what we don't know yet, can we? Obviously we should write a couple of these so that they can have different outcomes, so that the player can affect the variables in different ways should we implement Lud's plan. But that's easy and something we'd probably do anyway.

Aaaanyway. I took a look at the proposed misc quests! I don't really like TheGooch's proposals, since we, as you said BC, already have quite enough imperial bigwigs in town, and I don't know what's the general opinion on player houses, but personally I'm against it. The two Aeven wrote sound very good, do they need to be elaborated? I especially like them because they could be used as a prerequisite for an alternative ending in a possible Imperial Legion conflict line for the Helnim Gambit.

[Bloodthirsty Crustacean]

I think using control or some other kind of variable (perhaps the 'Hello marker') to create one-off variables that don't need to be unique for each character could be a good solution, although the problem would be resetting that variable to allow for a new rumour without repeating the rumours already heard, and also preventing it happening so that you'd have to go through the same rumour the first time you spoke to each new NPC.

The idea of consolidating the variables (perhaps by having one variable that is created by adding all the other variables together) might also be a good one.

But like you say, I think focussing on getting quests written first is better. I agree with your verdicts on existing quests. If you want to elaborate on Aeven's, you can, although they are functional as they stand, although I'm sure they could be improved if you're of a mind.

[Aeven]

Just to get this going again: should any more quests be designed? I believe a reasonable amount of miscs has been created, and I know BC and I brainstormed about a coup quest in December.

[Bloodthirsty Crustacean]

There definitely need to be more quests. I can't remember the details of that discussion? Maybe you're thinking about Gambit?

In any case, if you or anyone else has ideas for Helnim miscs, throw 'em up.

[immortal_pigs]

I've designed 3 misc. quests for Helnim. Are these any good?


Alchemic Errand
Goren Daranith [Helnim, Daranith Residence] is sick. His dialog reflects this as he often coughs. Goren will ask the player to go to Cyertil [Helnim, Cyertil: Apothecary] to fetch a cure disease potion for him. Goren gives 100 gold, keep the change. Go to Cyertil, get the potion. When exiting the building, the player will be confronted by [mysterious NPC]. This NPC is masked, and forcegreets.

The NPC will shortly tell the player: "Go to Goren. Give him this potion. Here's the gold." The NPC gives the player "Suspicious Potion" (it is poisoned).
A. Give the real cure disease potion to Goren.
B. Give the poisoned potion. Goren dies.

The player will have absolutely no clue as to who, what and why.
If the player drinks the potion themselves, they die.


Beers are a boys best friend
Feravil Meran [Helnim, Diamond Mine] wants a beer. Talk to him and he will promiss something worthwhile if the player will fetch him a beer. Return to Feravil with a beer and he will give the player a diamond.

A. Report this to the guards, give them the diamond, Feravil will be found in the Helnim jail.
B. Walk away.


Complicated Competition
The Telvanni district of Helnim has both an Alchemist [Nisirel] and a Healer [Drithnil Virith].

Talking to Drithnil will start the quest off. Drithnil is annoyed with Nisirel; she has been coming to his shop often lately trying to make conversation. Drithnil suspects she is planning to steal some of his alchemic formulas, he wants the player to confront her.

Confronting Nisirel, she will vehemently denie planning anything like that, but she will refuse to explain why she keeps going over to Drithnil's shop. Go back to Drithnil. He doesn't believe Nisirel and wants the player to check out her store for clues. For some reason Nisirel is gone out of town for a day.

Go to her shop, you will find her diary upstairs. After reading it the player will learn that Nisirel is infatuated with Drithnil, but has difficulty expressing her feelings (or something like that ). This prompts a journal update!

However, upon leaving her shop, the player will be met by Ervul Dranoth, the enchanter. He will forcegreet the player and explain that he already knows about Nisirel's love for Drithnil, and that he anticipates Drithnil would be willing to kill her if he thought she were planning a theft. Ervul prefers the latter to happen, because he owes Nisirel a lot of money.

A. [Lie] Tell Drithnil that Nisirel was planning a theft. He will arrange for Nisirel to be killed (the player will find her corpse and a clannfear in her shop). Both Drithnil and Ervul will reward.
B. Tell Drithnil the truth. He is pleasantly surprised. Drithnil and Nisirel will enter in a relationship, Drithnil will give a greater reward then he would have for A. Ervul will get a big disp. drop.

[immortal_pigs]

[No Edit]

For Dremil Seniran, the jeweler in Helnim.

Gathering Intelligence
Dremil Seniran [the jeweler in Helnim] has unspecified connections to the blades. He will never explicitly say this; he will never explicitly say anything, but his quests are along the lines of what an agent might do.

These quests require a high dispositon.

1. Message for Areanne Vera [Helnim, Crystal Flower Inn]
Dremil Seniran has an urgent message for Areanne Vera. He can't leave the shop for risk of theft, etc... The message is something about the recent supply of [jewelry] that arrived. It said in such a way that it might as well just be Dremil reminding Areanne that her order has arrived.
Tell Areanne Vera the message, return to Dremil, he will give you an expensive ring.

2. Drop Off. Dremil has a sealed package for the player to take. He explains it's an expensive rare item, and he's afraid organized crime will try to steal it from him. He asks the player to hide it for him. The player cannot open the sealed package. The player has to go to [Helnim, North-Western Storage Tower] and place the sealed package in the "Wooden Chest" at the top of the tower. (There is only one wooden chest).

3. Special delivery. Dremil tells the player he ordered a [cake/bread/cookies]. He wants the player to go to [Helnim, Helnim hall]. Go to the cooking place and find Hurgun gro-Martag. He will give the player a [cake/bread/cookie] to take back to Dremil.

[Why]

This is quality stuff. Throw in the two quests that were made up for the Governor's wife earlier and we have enough designs to make this town shine, I believe.

I'd like the Blade guy's quests to become available after the player joins the blades. He'd know, and while he is unwilling to share his involvement in the organisation he'd trust the player. Perhaps he payed a pauper to direct the player to his store with promises of discount on jewelery.

[MMMowSkwoz]

Nice plans. A few points:

I think several Helnim NPCs are sick - it was meant to be a larger quest. Doesn't mean this has to be discounted though.

Also, I have a problem with being greeted "when exiting the building", which you use twice - the player doesn't need to exit the building the obvious way (by the door) and it would be a bit weird (although possible) for the NPC to just randomly turn up wherever the player did go.

I'd also veto "Beers are a boys best friend" as a title, because it doesn't feel very Morrowindy.

With Blade dude: if you were a member of the Blades, he could hint cryptically that he was a Blade when he gave you the quests (references to the Emporer or somesuch) and then explicitly tell you once you'd completed them all.

[immortal_pigs]

1. For the quest where you get a potion and are forcegreeted by a masked NPC; the NPC will be inside the alchemists shop. After getting the potion, you get a journal update, which prompts this NPC to forcegreet.

2. I've noticed now there are indeed lots of sick NPCs all over Helnim, but I can't see what quest they were intended for.

3. For the quest where you are forcegreeted by the enchanter Ervul, I think I'll have to leave it the way it is. Only if the player happens to use mark&recall a lot it would be a problem.

4. Changed the bad title .

5. Put in your suggestion for the Blades.

====

So here's the PDF with a total of 8 quests. It now also has a quest for the smuggler Aarlen Lleranoth.

[The Greatness]

These are awesome, although I feel 'Alchemical Errand' would be annoyingly inconclusive for the player and 'A Book for a Book' is just a bit wierd (I know you didn't write it). I love 'Complicated Competition' and 'Gathering Intelligence' though.

[Why]

I thought the sick people were meant to be part of the Helnim Gambit, either the sickness was caused by some Telvanni curse or that's just a rumor, I'm not sure.

[Bloodthirsty Crustacean]

Alchemic Errand gets in the way of the wider illness theme, and is also just a bit off. Scrap it.

'Beers' seems too basic, and in any event would require nightmarish amounts of dialogue for each individual type of booze you could give him. Unless it can be developed further, I'd avoid this one too.

Complicated Competition is good, but you seem to have an unhealthy penchant for killing off random civvies. No deaths, please.

Gathering Intelligence is a good premise, but the final result is way too mundane. As he will not explicitly reveal his Blades contacts, these quests will just look a bit underthought and random; and even for the Blades, it's all a bit cliché. They're cooler than that. Build on this with something more developed, if possible. Maybe have the quests take you outside of Helnim? That is not forbidden.

[immortal_pigs]

Generic civvies have no right to life! (6)
... but she will now be "exiled" rather then killed by a clannfear.

Here's a new version for Gathering Intelligence, and an altogether new quest to replace Alchemic Errand.

Gathering Intelligence
Dremil Seniran [the jeweler in Helnim] has unspecified connections to the blades. He will never explicitly say this; he will never explicitly say anything, but his quests are along the lines of what an agent might do.

These quests require a high dispositon.

Mirar Galsic (Cliff Racer's Rest)
Areanne Vera (Crystal Flower Inn)
Ramin Maderan (Helnim, Slums)

1. Mundane Errands.
Dremil Seniran wants the player to deliver a few messages to Mirar Galsic, Areanne Vera and Ramin Maderan. The messages are along the lines of "The gold turned out to weigh more then anticipated, it will come in two shipments rather then one", "The diamond you requested me to study is fake, you should contact your supplier". Basically, Galsic, Vera and Maderan are all sources of Dremil Seniran, though their information is unspecified.

Dremil thanks the player, gives some piece of jewelry. Aks the player if he considers himelf to be "observant". Yes > Quest 2.

2. Observing Prospects.
Dremil tells the player he likes to study potential clients, to assess their wealth before he contacts them with an offer. He wants the player to do a little prospecting, see what's what, so Dremil can use the information. (Both A. and B. are parallel)

A. Go to "Helnim, Telvanni Armory" and find out what kind of armor they have there (mixture of light, medium and heavy), how many weapons they have (about 20-25), and of what quality they are (silver). He presumably wants to know this to assess the "taste" of the captain of the guard, hoping he'd be interested in some jewelry.

B. Go to "Helnim, Helnim Hall" and find Hafinsil an Altmer. Hafinsil is a savant, probably an advisor on Flavius' court. He feels unappreciated (which is the real reason Dremil wants to contact him; he needs an informant on the court).

Dremil wants the player to take a look at the books Hafinsil has, to "assess his personality".
The books are:

Defense of Morrowind Volume I
Reflections on Cult Worship
True Telvanni Nobility
Minerals of Morrowind

Go back to Dremil, you don't name the books one by one, you name the general classifcation:

- Hafinsil has a large collection of adventure books
- Hafinsil is interested in the geo-politics of Morrowind
- Hafinsil has a collection of complicated magic-related books

The general feel I'm trying to give about the blades is that they're fairly passive, but know a great deal of what's going on. They have informants in the slums, Telvanni Helnim and Helnim proper, they observe the military strength of the Telvanni and they likely know about the rampant corruption in Helnim. But their job is only to observe and report, so that the Emperor himself can decide when taking action is necessary.
___________________________________________________________

The Hlaalu Prisoner
In Helnim the player is force greeted by a Fadave Veleth. Fadave tells the player that she needs players help in freeing an imprisoned Hlaalu merchant. The location of the prison is not disclosed for safety measures. It is hinted the merchant has been captured by the Telvanni.

Fadave will say that she is the servant of the merchant and was told to look for an outlander/new guy to help him get out of prison. The merchant was imprisoned under the *false* charge of theft [this is kept ambigious to the player], but before he was arrested he hid all the money he had on him in a secret area. The sum would be around 3000 gold.

The servant makes a deal with the player that, if he helps free the merchant, he will get half of the hidden money. The aforementioned ambiguity serves to make the 50% offer more believable.

Now first the servant will ask the player for 100 gold so the servant can buy the rights to speak with the merchant.
The PC will have the option to
a.Refuse,
b.Comply,
c.Comply, under the condition that the PC will be refunded,

When complying the PC is told to wait a day and to meet up with the servant later on in "The Red Drake Inn".
Once they meet the servant will ask for 200 gold in order to bribe the guards and will tell the PC they are being heartely thanked by the merchant.
The player gets the same options as before. (refuse/comply).

Now the next day Fadave will meet again and say the guards are demanding more money; she needs another 100 gold. Also, she needs 350 gold in order to pay for the smugglers. The servant will promise to bring a refund the next day.
[Same options as above] The player can also ask for more information "Why is it taking so long?", "Where is the merchant exactly?"

The next day the servant brings a refund of 150 gold, presumably payed via the hidden stash of money. The servant himself will not have done so, but it is the merchants daughter who has. The PC is told to wait another day.

Upon returning, the player will meet the merchant's daughter and the servant, this time something bad has happened. The guards have betrayed their bribers and the merchant has now been moved to a new cell with new guards. He has written a thankyou note to the player in which he is very grateful for what the PC has done and that he is terribly sorry.

Next the daughter will say that there is still a chance to save her dad, but that she will need 700 gold in order to do so. The PC now has the following options:
a.Pay the gold, meet at the Helnim Docks in 2 days.
b.Decline, the PC will be refunded for all their expenses at the Helnim Docks in 2 days.

Of course, 2 days later there will be no-one around and the PC will get a journal message hinting at them having been conned.

In total the PC will have lost 600-1300 gold.

It's supposed to follow the natural progression of a scam; the amounts payed are steadily increasing, so the player becomes more and more invested in the scam and so increasingly less willing to back out. It's basically a playable translation of the common scam known as "The Spanish Prisoner".

[Bloodthirsty Crustacean]

I'd rather not have a services NPC just dissapear. There can be some kind of altercation between her and the other guy, but no loss of the healer service.

Gathering Intelligence is very good now, I like this a lot. (Although is 'checking out the Telvanni guardhouse' too obvious and not exactly worthwhile for a Blade?)

On the scam thing there already is an actual Hlaalu merchant in town; also I'm not particularly fond of it's 'non-quest' status. It could work as a flavour quest, but the Hlaalu element just makes it seem disconnected. But if others like it it could stay.

[The Greatness]

My thoughts on a claim that really needs to be worked on for our next release:

-I quite like Lud's idea for global variables, but the idea that each quest would influence them turns Helnim's quests from misc quests into a mini quest line in a way. Why not give the archmage in the tower a questline, perhaps have a questline that the imperials give you, and base dialogue on the players progress through those, as you could stop them from doing the Telvanni one if they had stated the Imperial one and vice versa.
-I don't think that much dialogue would be required to show the dominence of one faction. The greetings people use generally just tell you about them personally, so those could be left untouched. However, you could add plenty of topics to 'Helnim', 'latest rumours', 'little advice' etc without creating too much work. Even with 4 or 5 replies to each it's not that bad at all.
-I like ICs quests a lot and some seem fine now. These could be left as the quests that do not affect Telvanni or Imperial standing. Any left over quests could be integrated into the short quest lines I talked about earlier.

[The Greatness]

I have quests! I've looked at all the quests made so far and added a couple of my own, so we now have 8 that I personally think would make a good claim.

I realise you didn't like Complicated Competition and Beers so much BC but I think Complicated Competition is a really well planned quests, one of the best in fact. Aren't we allowed to kill just one civillian? Pwease?

[Haplo]

Either offer a chance to turn it down and close the quest until the player can stomach it, or offer another way to do it in addition to killing a civilian.

[The Greatness]

Either offer a chance to turn it down and close the quest until the player can stomach it, or offer another way to do it in addition to killing a civilian.

The player doesn't kill the civilian. They might be killed depending on what the player does at the end of one of the quests. It's quest 2: complicated competition. I think BC was a bit reluctant about it because the civilian in question offers services. And I've just realised, one of my quests might kill another civvy, although it's an unimportant one this time.

[Bloodthirsty Crustacean]

I seem to remember there was no real call for killing this civilian when there could just be dialogue indicating a falling out. Random deaths = not good.

[MSam]

^On that happy note, I've come up with a misc murder investigation quest.

I've read through Lud's original concept and I think this quest, if made, could be an influence on a number of variables. If it doesn't fit, it can be reworked for another town.
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The player is walking around town, and eventually walks behind/next Vodunius Harmevus' House (so it's between the wall and the building). Behind there, you find a panicking Imperial (Marcille Ferian? - he'd have to be moved from the Crystal Inn) and a body of a dead Dunmer woman ('Dead Body'). You talk to Ferian and he tells you that he came across the girl and found her dead on the ground. He comments on how 'bad this would look for him', so he gives you 100 gold pieces and tells you not to tell the guards (force goodbye, and then refuse to talk to the player anymore). You duly take note of what she is wearing

Obviously you would talk to a guard about this, but if you're feeling obliged to do as he says, you can just not tell anyone. If you talk to anyone around the town, they will mention that (Goren Daranith's?) daughter hasn't come home and he is looking for her (the guards also refer you to Daranith). You can tell Daranith that you've potentially found his daughter, and based on what she was wearing he tearfully admits it probably is her. You then have the option of telling him that Ferian found her, or keeping it silent.

Go back and talk to Ferian:
-If you told Daranith about Ferian, Daranith will ask you to confirm and corroborate your claim with Ferian. Ferian will stick to his claim that he had never met the girl before, and assert that he did not bribe you. Afterall, 'who would believe an Outlander over a resident, even if it is Imperial swill'?
-If you didn't tell Daranith about Ferian, and your disposition is high enough, Ferian will admit he followed her and when she refused his advances 'he had to hit her'. He gives you another 200 gold and asks you not to divulge the information to anyone else, telling you that keeping it quiet will gain the favour of his wealthy Imperial friends, and possibly their influence.

Quest ends if you agree to keep the crime covered up - report back to Daranith to report your failure.

You now need some more evidence to prove/cover up the crime. Either way, Daranith is undecided if he should believe you, and demands that you bring him more evidence. Bringing the murderer to justice will greatly improve your influence over House Telvanni. Daranith tells you that his daughter worked in the Mining industry, and was a good employee. Heading over to the Mining Bunker, everyone else will be all like "wtf?", but her friend (Llera Danmil?) will tell you that Ferian did know the daughters name, and made several unsuccessful advances on Danmil before moving on to her. (She could be lying).

Asking around town you'll find out the murder has been spread as a rumor, on top townsfolk confirm that Ferian has a bad reputation despite his wealth and sphere of influence in the Imperial area. The last little piece of evidence is that the daughter died of a (dagger?) wound, and Ferian is fond of them. (Coincidence).

Once you have enough 'evidence', you can report to (Roljir) your evidence, and you can sensationalise what Ferian said to make him sound more guilty. This is the defining thing, because Roljir is bias to the words of the Imperials, so if you don't lie, and just speak truthfully, Roljir doesn't believe your evidence and suggests that it is all purely circumstantial, and Ferian is dismissed.

If you lie and get Ferian turned in, he will be in prison (after a few days), and you will receive his dagger (which is AWESOMEEE), and the Telvanni greatly admire your efforts to condemn Imperial swill, the residents of Helnim will be all like "%PCName I love you, you're a paragon of veracity etc etc", and the crime level is 'reduced'. If you tell the truth and he gets off, you can find his body in the water outside Ferian (Daranith and Danmil implie they got their revenge).

I was thinking about letting the player get blamed too but that adds another dimension that is too complicated so schenh. Pretty simple quest to do, what do you guys think?

[The Greatness]

Sounds like a pretty good quest but it does kind of go against the original idea of the aims of the main parties involved in Helnim: the Imperials are trying to reduce crime while the Telvanni are trying to disrupt the Imperial area of Helnim to weaken the Imperial influence. So maybe you should switch it round and make it an Imperial daughter murdered by a high-ranking Telvanni. Also, it seems a bit unlikely that Ferian would just stand there throughout the whole thing, and that he would stab someone 'because she refused his advances'. The general gist of this one sounds quiet fun to play though, and gives the player the interesting choice of accepting bribes or telling the truth...

I've reworked IP's Complicated Competition to avoid killing civilians. Instead Ervul asks you to frame Nisiril and if you do so and lie to Drithnil Nisiril will be fined and they fall out.

2. Complicated Competition
The Telvanni district of Helnim has both an Alchemist [Nisirel] and a Healer [Drithnil Virith].
Talking to Drithnil will start the quest off. Drithnil is annoyed with Nisirel; she has been coming to his shop often lately trying to make conversation. Drithnil suspects she is planning to steal some of his alchemic formulas, he wants the player to confront her.
Confronting Nisirel, she will vehemently deny planning anything like that, but she will refuse to explain why she keeps going over to Drithnil's shop. Go back to Drithnil. He doesn't believe Nisirel and wants the player to check out her store for clues.
Go to her shop, you will find her diary upstairs. After reading it the player will learn that Nisirel is infatuated with Drithnil, but has difficulty expressing her feelings (or something like that). This prompts a journal update!
However, upon leaving her shop, the player will be met by Ervul Dranoth, the enchanter. He will forcegreet the player and explain that he already knows about Nisirel's love for Drithnil, but explains that Nisirel's shop is taking bussiness away from his own. For this reason, he asks the player to frame Nisirel in the hope that Drithnil will fine or imprison her, and her shop would fall into disgrace. He provides the player with a small sheet of formulas he stole from Drithnil, and asks them to place it in Nisirel's desk.
A. Do what Ervul asks. Return to Drithnil and tell him that Nisirel was stealing (although they will still have the option to tell the truth, as B). He tells the player he will inform the guards, and rewards them with a small amount of gold. Ervul will also reward the player with a bit more gold.
B. Tell Drithnil the truth. He is pleasantly surprised. Drithnil and Nisirel will enter in a relationship, Drithnil will give the player an enchanted item or similar, and both will get a big disp rise. Ervul will get a big Disp. drop.

Could you also have a look at the two plans I made BC. If you like those we should have more than enough to complete these plans.

[MSam]

I'm all for turning it round - I wasn't sure if it was the Imperials scrambling for power since they're living in the ghetto. It could be reversed and tug and the players ethics if it's a poor Imperial that we feel pity for too. There are many possible variant, and it can cater to pretty much any faction

With regards to Ferian (or the person to replace him) standing there, it would have been they just hit her down and killed her. I've been researching some American trials (The Frank Case, to be specific on this) for Modern History, where the culprits have followed their victims, made advances on them, and when they're rejected they lash out. So he would have become very worried since if word had gotten out he was making unsavoury advances and hit her, he would have been arrested and his reputation ruined - he'd kill her to keep her quiet in a moment of passion.

Then the player walks up and Ferian is all like "[Stares in disbelief]...OMG, LOOK WHAT I JUST FOUND!"

Regardless, it's just an idea that can be moved pretty much anywhere else in the mod.

[Bloodthirsty Crustacean]

Okay, here's a new .doc based on Greatness' one up above. I have reinstated some of the more detailed descriptions for quests like the two Duchess ones; I have removed the 'check out the Telvanni guards' segment from the Blades questline because it was too obvious, and I have removed 'Big Profit' which was very very boring and hard to implement for such a small payoff.

For now I have reimplemented MowSkwoz' EEC books quest, because it did good work with existing characters, and involved Edheldur who's a personal favourite of mine. It is similar to the Duchess quest in its premise though, so perhaps one more plan could be provided?

Sam, I don't like your murder quest at present, but you could try and refine it. Same goes for any other quest already in this thread but not in this file.

[The Greatness]

Sounds good to me. Are we done here?

[Bloodthirsty Crustacean]

Well like I said, I'd still consider there to be room for one more quest, but there's more than enough here for modders to sink their teeth into, so if necessary that can come later.

Opening for claiming.

Caveat!

This claim is now for quests 1-4 in my document, 5-8 will have their own claim later. Hypothetical quest 9 will however become part of this claim.

(So only do quests 1-4, thanks)

[The Greatness]

Claimination. I've had my eyes on this lot for a while and after I made those last few quests I definitely want to see this through.

[Bloodthirsty Crustacean]

I don't think any of the quests you made come under 1-4, you are aware of that? Please confirm before I grant this. I am just about to open up quests 5-8 for claiming.

[The Greatness]

This is true. I though when you said you'd open quests 5-8 later I thought you meant after this one was done or something, so I was going to do this one first. Having said that, quests 1-4 actually sound more interesting, so I'll do this claim.

[Bloodthirsty Crustacean]

Granting, happy modding.

[The Greatness]

Quick progress report, A Learned Reader is pretty much done, I'll bump up the progress after this post.

More importantly I have a plan for Quest 9. This plan was originaly going to be used as a side-quest for IAS members, but I've realised it's the sort of quest that could be open to anyone.

Quest 9- A Peice of the Past

Maera Rarian [Helnim, Imperial Archeological Society] asks the player if they could bring back a dwemer shortsword she was letting a friend borrow. She says she gave it to Feliwan [that Bosmer standing around Helnim] so that he could study it briefly, but now she needs it back but is a little busy in her research.

Feliwan won't be too hard to find. He tells the player (nervously) that he intended to return it but on his way home recently he was attacked by a drunk Aljef Guar-Leg, he pushed him over, bullied him etc (you know, he's a Bosmer) and stole the sword. He hasn't had the courage to tell Maera or the guards that he lost it.

The player can try to talk to Aljef Guar-Leg but as you may know he's very grumpy and won't listen to the player, telling them to leave (perhaps alter his greeting so he goodbyes). Talking to people around Helnim will tell the player that Aljef often visits Mjornir's Alehouse (is that a reference to Mjolnir whoever NPCed Helnim?) and returns late at night, often drunk.

Anyone in the Alehouse can tell the player that Aljef frequently comes to drink the Nordic Mead which isn't available anywhere else in Helnim. Mjornir will tell the player that the best way to talk with Aljef is to take some mead for him. The player can buy Nordic Mead from Mjornir and upon return to Aljef's house he will accept the mead as a gift and grumply resign to answering any of the player's questions.

When the player talks about the shortsword Aljef will become rather nervous too. He tells the player he intended to use the sword to make a name for himself, and took it to Mzank, the Dwemer ruins just North-East of Helnim. However, he was attacked by a group of Dwemer Cunturions, and dropped the sword accidently as he fled. He asks the player to retrieve the sword and not tell anyone what happened.

The player now has to fight their way through Mzank and retrieve the sword- it shouldn't be too hard, Mzank is a very big ruin. When they return to Maera they have two choices:
A- tell the truth about what happened. Maera will thank the player for the trouble that they went through and reward them well (perhaps another artifact or magic item). Aljef will become even more grumpy.
B- lie and tell Maera that Feliwan had it and had forgotten to return it. Maera will give the player a small amount (50 or so) gold for their trouble, but Aljef will reward the player quite well too.
Feliwan doesn't really care either way.

[Bloodthirsty Crustacean]

I like the quest a lot, but there are a couple of problems with the premise.

a) Maeva Rarian, as indicated by her dialogue, is a specialist in Dunmer archaeology, not Dwemer.

b) I don't think it would really be appropriate for an IAS member to just be handing out Dwemer goods (which are contraband) randomly to misc civilians for 'study'.


However, both the quest giver and the item in question are very easy to change. Perhaps one of the towns' armorers (why not the Orcish one? Allows for some nice buddy-movie dialogue where he gets protective of Feliwan) gave Feliwan a weapon to practise with.

Mjornir is just a reference to 'let's make up a Nordic sounding name'.