Background: someone is gathering the remaining forces of evil. As it seems, Dagoth Morth (think of a better name? please post it here!), Dagoth Ur's left-hand "man", is with his forces in an unknown location, a vast underground lair. Also, he supposedly has sided with two goblin kings and a faction of imperial knights that have come to worship (insert evil daedra), to ontinue to pursue his late master's plan to seize and cleanse morrowind.
Any guard that you talk to will give you the information. There seems to be new trouble and since you are the revered st.nerevar reborn, the duke of morrowind is seeking you. go to ebonheart and speak with him. This also triggers the events. After all, this quest will be TIME RESTRICTED!!
Duke Vren wants you to both gather intelligence about the new evil threat and help him put together a fore to hold the evil hordes off. Since the empire is disintegrating and he is without true power outside ebonheart and the imperial garrisons (and even those are not 100% loyal anymore), it is your job to unite the people of morrowind under one banner, as st.nerevar did in the battle of red mountain.
For that, you gain control of the dukes intelligence network, that will collect data and if you will perform minor quests in your stead (meaning: you get a companion, an agent, that you can send on sidequests. The outcome then is descided randomly, and we will have to write two reports, for either failure or success, he delivers with you, triggering the eventy instead of you).
You then have to visit each faction and ask them for assistance. Some (like a house you are archmaster of, or any guild you lead), will happily dnate troops to your effort, others will want you to stuff for them, others will have to be blackmailed or bullied into submission, and whatever. Also, some factiosn will leave your alliance if others join, such as the thieves guild/camorra tong, houses indoril and hlaalu, or the imperials and telvanni. In other words, you will have to do a lot of diplomacy (normal and gunboat-style) to create an alliance in the time given.
Also, you will have to send out spies and hear their reports. This should however be doable without the PC embarking on each mission him/herself. Maybe we give the Character's stronghold a new NPC, the spymaster, that you can give requests, which will be fulfilled in some time? After all, the PC has better things to do.
I repeat, THERE IS A TIME LIMIT. You cannot hope to convonce everyone. However, you will at one point automatically find out where the evils' lair lies (even though automatically finding out should cost the player dearly, to fore him/her to actually follow the spy storyline as well). And after maybe 50odd days, the final battle is due! A mage of Eobonheart appears before you, automatically speaks to you (urgent news, naster nerevar! the enemy is moving! all troops of the alliance have assembled, and you must come now, to lead them into battle!), then automatically teleports you to the army command post.
There, yopu will be able to see *and control* your troops! Rather than being just another battle, this should be a minigame of sorts; you will be able to give the troops orders, like fall back, charge, hold ground, flee, but you will _not_ participate in the battle against the evil hordes! (instead, when - if - your troops win, you will face the evil master himself, who should be a tough critter, maybe leveled so that he always is somewhat ahead of you).
I imagine this 'minigame' to work like this:
From your command post, you see the whiole battle field. it is mostly empty plain, but on it, you see the contingents of every faction you made join your alliance. facing them, there is evil's army. Beside you are each fryactions commander and war trumpeter. You can talk to the commanders and give orders, which then will be translated into actions taken by the men on the field.
The battle itself should be done not with the regular npc's, but scaled down low-poly critters, and attacking not be determined by standard scripts, but somehow simpler (just have them make a few hack animations at one another and die (hp=0)?), to not kill the game engine. It should look good from far away, not nescessarily from close range (you won't be able to close in ther anyway, by some reason I yet have to make up). Depending on what factions joined you, and how good you command them, you should win or lose.
After the battle, you and the commanders enter the battlefield, looking for dagoth Morth, and you will have to kill that fellow for yourself. But the main point is the strategy battle mini-game here.
Can that be done? I'm not too much into scripting. It would be vital for that quest.
Now, like it? hate it? give me some feedback
