Think of an NPC!

[Lud]

Right, I thought that this would be lots of fun
Map1 currently has loads of regional dialogue, and a number of NPCs that have been given pretty much completely unique responses. I'd love to expand the number of these NPCs.
I find that the most time-consuming part of doing this is to think of a good general idea for an NPC's personality.
That's where you come in

Simply give a general description of an NPC that you think would be fun to have in the game, and I'll write dialogue for them and put it into map1. All you have to do is think of a few things that they would have an opinion on and what those opinions are, and I'll do the rest, providing them with alternative versions of the standard replies, along with new topics, etc, fitted to the character you thought of. You can make your descriptions as specific as you like. Feel free to specify a particular named NPC to be given this character.
This could be a really rewarding way to see your ideas put into TR, and there's huge scope here for creativity, so just go wild!

[El Scumbago]

An undercover spambot that has taken the form of a Telvanni councilor and preaches that everyone visits 'teh Damela pamerson hot pr0n!11!1'.

Classic types of personalities I can think of are fanatics (militarists, religious guys), alcoholics and workaholics (does shopaholicism exist in MW?), obsessed guys (a miner certain that gold exists below his house etc), paranoids (i.e. Glarthir -"The whole Skingrad conspires against me), Rathra's Fan Club members, invastigators that try to uncover the secrets of hidden orders (like Dark Brotherhood), wanabbe adventurers, I can't think of more, my mind is stuck, I should stop typing then, I stopped typing.

[Andres Indoril]

Maybe a guy that lies and lies and lies and never tells the truth But he could tell some truth about the MQ So he'd be really confusing. Maybe he could tell the player that there is a huge Dwemer ruin towards west (underwater), which actually doesn't exist. And of course more lies!

[Theo]

Why not make some Orc mercenaries camps, where you could pick a companion to join you and fight on your side for a fee.
Great variability of different mercenaries could be available - archers, spearman, scouts, healers... and they could have some advice or comment on special location (or quest) if you took them there, like:
"I hoped never to return to Port Telvannis again. This city stinks of Telvanni magic."
That would give your travels nice touch.
You could use mercenary script of Tribunal or much simpler follow script with no messing with equipment. NPC would follow you for some time and after it is over and it is not in fight it stops and says: "Contract is ended, now I shall return to my camp - Goodbye" and teleports there once Player changes the cell.

[Morgoth]

Old codger that is a conspiracy theorist. Imperial or Brenton, I'd say, maybe an old Nord. Has a story for anything an everything. E.g.:

"You know X trader's shop? It's stocked full of hot merchandise. Especially in the way of fine table wares. I just know they stole it all from that Imperial caravan that disappeared not too long ago. Stole the silverware, and disposed of the bodies. Mark my words!"

And he goes on and on, on loads of topics. I think he should be a noble, but very eccentric. Wanders around all day telling people about his suspicions. Either that, or the extreme opposite of a poor, homeless guy that does the same.

[Morden]

Guy was on a pilgrimage in Hammerfell. Stumbled into a deserted town on the edge of the Alik'r, took a sip of water from the well and woke up in Morrowind. He has no memory of the journey, but now he finds himself in this alien land.

[Gnomey]

Well, there's always my old idea that I had meant to incorpartate into the Ranyon Ruhn dialogue when I claimed it:

"... has a tendancy to state the obvious in a slightly demeaning way."

Maybe you could expand a bit so that he is, though only very slightly, a recluse and reluctant to meet any people, but nothing too special.

[Lud]

Well, there's always my old idea that I had meant to incorpartate into the Ranyon Ruhn dialogue when I claimed it:

"... has a tendancy to state the obvious in a slightly demeaning way."

Maybe you could expand a bit so that he is, though only very slightly, a recluse and reluctant to meet any people, but nothing too special.

Not exactly sure what you mean....patronising Telvanni wizard? That would be fun. Would be good for one of the retainers in the the main hall of Tel Thenim (PT)

Guy was on a pilgrimage in Hammerfell. Stumbled into a deserted town on the edge of the Alik'r, took a sip of water from the well and woke up in Morrowind. He has no memory of the journey, but now he finds himself in this alien land.

Ha, ha
That'd be a nice touch. I think there's a Redguard in the PT docks that I could use for this.
Isn't there a dunmer in the mine in Stirk? What's his name, and what does he look like? I could make a new NPC, hanging around a set of docks somewhere that talks about how he is going to leave Morrowind, ever since he got caught for petty thievery,(of course, he won't admit that, he'll just allude to it) he can't find work.......

Maybe a guy that lies and lies and lies and never tells the truth But he could tell some truth about the MQ So he'd be really confusing. Maybe he could tell the player that there is a huge Dwemer ruin towards west (underwater), which actually doesn't exist. And of course more lies!

Passive compulsive liar? Has to be done.
I can add stuff about him to the local dialogue too, so people know that he's completely unreliable. I'll probably put this dialogue on an NPC in Bal Oyra.

An undercover spambot that has taken the form of a Telvanni councilor and preaches that everyone visits 'teh Damela pamerson hot pr0n!11!1'.

Classic types of personalities I can think of are fanatics (militarists, religious guys), alcoholics and workaholics (does shopaholicism exist in MW?), obsessed guys (a miner certain that gold exists below his house etc), paranoids (i.e. Glarthir -"The whole Skingrad conspires against me), Rathra's Fan Club members, invastigators that try to uncover the secrets of hidden orders (like Dark Brotherhood), wanabbe adventurers, I can't think of more, my mind is stuck, I should stop typing then, I stopped typing.

Fanatic: a bible-bashing priest in the Firewatch Imperial Cult would be great.
Alcoholic: Your Hasilius Brahn in Ranyon-ruhn fits that pretty well.
Workaholic: Obsessed mage in PT? Add loads of messy potions and spellbooks to his house.
Paranoid: Well, pretty much the whole of Firewatch is paranoid about the Telvanni How about a Gah Ouadaruhn merchant who is insanely paranoid about his slaves escaping?
Wannabe adventurers: You've given me two different ideas here:
1)A sycophant in Bahrammu who admires you to a ridiculous extent because you're an adventurer
2)A laborer who is going to quit and go to claim back the woman/womer (is womer a word? ) he loves "any day now"

Old codger that is a conspiracy theorist. Imperial or Brenton, I'd say, maybe an old Nord. Has a story for anything an everything. E.g.:

"You know X trader's shop? It's stocked full of hot merchandise. Especially in the way of fine table wares. I just know they stole it all from that Imperial caravan that disappeared not too long ago. Stole the silverware, and disposed of the bodies. Mark my words!"

And he goes on and on, on loads of topics. I think he should be a noble, but very eccentric. Wanders around all day telling people about his suspicions. Either that, or the extreme opposite of a poor, homeless guy that does the same.

Has to be done. I've already written a load of dialogue for the noble in the Firewatch Audience chambers, but adding an extra one would be fun, it'd fit the dialogue that I already put in Firewatch.
On top of that, an old Imperial guard in Bal Oyra who blames the Telvanni for everything would be good craic. (By everything, I mean the weather, the way kids (those invisible kids) don't treat you with respect, etc)

Why not make some Orc mercenaries camps, where you could pick a companion to join you and fight on your side for a fee.
Great variability of different mercenaries could be available - archers, spearman, scouts, healers... and they could have some advice or comment on special location (or quest) if you took them there, like:
"I hoped never to return to Port Telvannis again. This city stinks of Telvanni magic."
That would give your travels nice touch.
You could use mercenary script of Tribunal or much simpler follow script with no messing with equipment. NPC would follow you for some time and after it is over and it is not in fight it stops and says: "Contract is ended, now I shall return to my camp - Goodbye" and teleports there once Player changes the cell.

Incorporating a fully companion into TR is a long-term ambition of mine. Scumbago had a good idea on the subject, whereby one of Rathra's retainers who helps you out during the MQ becomes a permanent companion after you complete the Telvanni side. When doing this though, I'd make sure to do it right, I'd want it to be at the level of something like "Julan, Ashlander Companion", with hundreds of unique responses depending on what's going on, where you are, what you're wearing, etc, etc. Something I'd like to do in the long-term. As in, after the MQ is implemented.

The ideas so far have been great, keep 'em coming.
Everybody is welcome to suggest an idea for an NPC, whether they're a modder here or a random forum-lurker. This is your chance to see your ideas put into TR!

[Gnomey]

I meant any commoner, someone who's in the middle-to-poor class. I feel that that area isn't getting any flavour. By the way, I still don't know why Master Mithras didn't wear any clothing when I was doing the dialogue, only a glass cuirass and maybe some glass boots or something. Has this been changed, or can this still be exploited as a small eccentricy? (When he was little he nearly got poisoned by _____ for _____ reason, the poison was hidden in Mithras' clothes. Ever since then he hasn't worn anything with sponge-like characteristics. (Cloth and leather might soak up some poison, while metal wouldn't)). Something like that.

[Lud]

Mithras is now clothed.
(I don't know why all Telvanni Mouths and Masters were naked in the version I started working on back in May, but there you go :p )

And, there is quite a bit of commoner dialogue there already. I put in some commoner-specific dialogue, and slaves have their own responses for all the local topics.
A condescending commoner would be good though. How about in Gah Sadrith?

[Haplo]

Mithras is now clothed.
(I don't know why all Telvanni Mouths and Masters were naked in the version I started working on back in May, but there you go :p )

Majra and I thought it would be funny to have them all running around naked and crazy-like at different spots before you started the main quest. As you can see we didn't quite finish that plan due to me not having access to Admin or Map 1 at that time and Majra's departure. 'Twas a good idea though.

[Vrenir]

An ex-Ordinator who came to disbelieve in the Tribunal and was forced to flee to Telvani holdings. He might still have a piece of armor hidden in his house, and he's a formitable warrrior, but he's working as a normal "joe." Perhaps there could be a misc quest later on in Map 2 or 3 that involves his pious Indoril family trying to find out what happened to him (either to kill him and remove the disgrace or to reconnect and reconcile, maybe both depending on what family member the PC talks to).

An old retired Imperial who remembers some of the events of previous TES games and tells stories about them to anyone who'll listen. The time when he was stationed in... and a stranger came into town asking about.... That sort of thing.

A man who fled Vvardenfell after the quarantine was issued and who doesn't want anyone to find out that he made it out. Perhaps he's hiding a family member who has corpus and hopes that one of the Telvani wizards can help them. (this could also easily turn into a misc quest at some point either to help him find out about Fyr and send him on his way, maybe getting a free house in return, or betraying him to the local authorities.)

A retired slave trader who expresses extreme racism.

A young Imperial Guard who recently arrived in the "untamed wilds" of Morrowind seeking adventure in the service of his Emperor. Other guards stationed in the same area could be annoyed by his naivette and go-get-em attitude.

A peasant who once worked for a Telvani wizard of some stature before messing up an important affair. For a number of reasons, he was able to avoid execution, but he's been reduced to poverty instead. He believes that someday he'll be able to reclaim his position of prominence and tries to curry favor with the local magistrates in order to do so. (Think Machiavelli when he was writing The Prince.)

A father (or mother) who worries about his (her) child who went out and joined the local guards. There's not anything especially dangerous going on, but parents will be parents, and this one frets constantly.

A non-beast-race ex-slave who agrees with the enslavement of beast races but thinks it an atrocity that the mainland Telvani would imprison their fellow man and mer like common animals. Perhaps he even speaks about going back to find his old master whom he escaped from and teach him a thing or two about respect.

A woman searching for a long lost family heirloom that was left behind when her grandfather moved from the area centuries ago. She believes it may still be around, and is intent on finding it. (No such artifact need even exist, but it could be a cool misc quest if one did.)

A man who believes in a true conspiracy, something about Helseth offing the previous king or some such thing. Very paranoid, will only talk about it openly if his disposition is very high.

More may come to mind later.

[CleverClothe]

- A cronic depressive.

- Someone who is extremely bored all of the time, and tries to come up with "interesting" amusements.

- A narcoleptic.

- Someone with a really bad stutter.

- Someone who talks too quietly, so you only hear part of the message. Perhaps you can ask them to "repeat" and you hear different parts.

[Haplo]

- A narcoleptic.

Moulin Rouge did not pull that off very well, IMHO.

[lb003g0676]

A woman really conscious of what she says and it's impact on you.

E.G

"I despise ratmeat!"

Then as she considers eating rat meat may make her come across as poor

"Not that I ever have to eat it ofcourse, never would touch the stuff... but"

Then she ponders whether you eat ratmeat

"ofcourse it isn't that bad if you have to eat it.

Do you eat ratmeat?"





An old man who mishears everything you say


E.G you click Rumours

he says

"Humours? I have jokes if you want! Like... well, why did the Khajit cross the river?"



A very pretty woman who is obviously infatuated with all cliffracers, like a TES version of an animal activist. By pretty woman I mean a Breton, so she's poetic and pretentious.

E.G

"Dear me! They fly like birds, and sing like.... well the creatures are amazing and unique. I don't see what all the fuss is about, they are misunderstood! I wish they were more common round here"




A hallucinating character.

E.G

"Netches don't talk, WHY ARE YOU TALKING!? Quick though, no matter what you are, run before the Homunculus gets here, I can see him right oevr there, he's coming!"

[Theo]

Well, the companion character you have in mind would be totally awesome, but it is a lot of work indeed.
Perhaps I could make the simpler mercenary idea part of my GS quests. Arellis Lloran, the inquisitor in Gah Sadrith, offers such potential. He could join you if you have payed him or did some quest for him. Or there could be a mercenary fare on the market
Well, some other ideas for you...

- Handful of beggars on several places that are asking you to give them gold again and again and you can choose to give them some or tell them to go to hell (both choices just result in a little change in didposition)

- A young low-level middle-class dunmer commoner, who wants to become an adventurer badly, admires you, tries to join you in your quests and stalks you until you persuade him to go away or until he is killed by some pest.

- Some guys who want to play nutshells or dices with you and will try to trick you of your money (but this has been in Tribunal already, right?)

- A guar farmer who sells you his Guar (or possibly the plainstrider on the road to Aranyon Pass?), which follows you then. Pretty for nothing.

- A poor guy who offers to brush your boots for a fee (place a stool, chair, brush and stuff near him), but if you pay him he has a chance (depending on your agility) to steal them from you and run away.

- A drunken Bard in a pub who sings somehow obscene songs.

No scripts and journals needed for these little jokes.

[Morgoth]

This should be in the PT or Tavern. It's a useful topic, and it does have to do with the project.

[Sload]

Isn't there a dunmer in the mine in Stirk? What's his name, and what does he look like? I could make a new NPC, hanging around a set of docks somewhere that talks about how he is going to leave Morrowind, ever since he got caught for petty thievery,(of course, he won't admit that, he'll just allude to it) he can't find work.......

Sernas.

[Lud]

A load of great ideas there, thanks everybody. I'll be starting on a "character pack" of these NPCs once I'm finished with the current round of fixing and creature adjustments on Map1.
I would like to put 50 personalities into this "character pack", so keep 'em coming.
I'm compiling all these into a a format that makes it easy for me to write the dialogue, and I'll start on an esp for these NPCs soon.

[Hemitheon]

How bout an exiled Imperial who is super racist and super ignorant. You know, his dialogue can be all about calling some of the races mongrels and animals. And if you want him to be extremist, then he can rant on and on about how the world would be better if the Dunmer were annhilated and how the Tribunal is a primitive religion for savages who eat babies.

Or how bout an old kook who goes on and on about plant life or something else that's totally boring. He can talk to himself and everything. Or if scripting is a possibilty, he can walk plant to plant and start talking to them.

And how bout in one of the alleys, there is a drug addict who can give you info on anyone in town for a price or skooma. And his dialogue could be real erratic as though he's coming down from his high. The twist for this one is: since he's always drugged, he remembers things that didn't happen.

There should be more variety and not the same old fashioned conservative Tribunal lovers. Where the heck are all the sinners?

[Gez]

- Handful of beggars on several places that are asking you to give them gold again and again and you can choose to give them some or tell them to go to hell (both choices just result in a little change in didposition)

It's possible to use the local "control" var for greater control over that. So that they could remember if they were given gold or not, how much, etc.

- A young low-level middle-class dunmer commoner, who wants to become an adventurer badly, admires you, tries to join you in your quests and stalks you until you persuade him to go away or until he is killed by some pest.

Could even be a full-fledged companion. (I mean with companion share and warping script.)

- A guar farmer who sells you his Guar (or possibly the plainstrider on the road to Aranyon Pass?), which follows you then. Pretty for nothing.

I think the Tel Ouada Guar Farm should sell guars -- including pack guars. Look at the Tribunal pets (scrib, rat, and pack rat) and adapt that to guars and pack guars. Except these critters should use a warping script (see Grumpy's pack guar).

[Nomadic1]

- A cross-dresser (could be hell funny)

- Someone who is lost but won't take directions

- Telvanni bugherders who roam the plains with their bugs

- A Dunmer who just ate his horse

- A Zoophile who wants to marry his guar

- Someone who is blatantly an easter egg for Firefly

[Graff]

IIRC there is an NPC in the Firewatch Palace, Guards Barracks who was sort of a little joke between stalker and I, he was either a transvestite or impossibly camp (hence the bugmusk stash under one of the guard's beds), it'd be nice to see some dialogue for him.

[Nanu]

This is TR related.

[The Old Ye Bard]

*A Redoran spie, who believes that he is being followed.

*An Argonian slave who enjoys labour becuase he thinks it is a high social-status exersize to do.

*A Khajjit who is high on Moon sugar and believes you to be a green guar, filled with Skooma.

*A Televani noblemen who thinks there is alot of profit to be made from the untapped market of Slave clothing.

[Gez]

A Fighters' Guild agent in Gah Ouadaruhn, negociating with Bal Gernak for the possibility of opening a branch there. He's heard the rumors about Bal Gernak being quite angry because he's not in the Telvanni Council, and he thinks he can use this resentment to obtain the permission.

An "entrepreneur" looking for the fabled Balsincag diamond mine, and willing to recruit scouts to find it and miners to exploit it. He's actually a daedra cultist, and he wants to find it because there's a daedric shrine inside. This can be discovered by asking questions about the legality of claiming a mine, he has strictly no clues about the administrative technicalities, if asked about the wages the miners would have, he gives a disproportionate number, etc. If the player guesses there's something fishy (could be filtered by Intelligence, like the vanilla Hides-His-Eyes), then he can get the truth by threatening him, and the "entrepreneur" will admit he planned on sacrificing the miners and scouts to his "dark prince Clavicus Vile"...


Some easter eggs:

Someone in the Firewatch library is searching for informations about the Eye of Argonia.

A naked nord in the wilderness (preferably the Bosran beach) complain about the bad weather, saying he tries to suntan. For extra bonus point, he could also complain about "that witch that hasn't brought his clothing back" (the witch's his wife, and she took the clothes to wash them 'cause they needed laundry).

[The Old Ye Bard]

A Dunmer woman on the sea shore, selling sea shells.

A drunk Redguard Pirate who had his crew mutiny(sp) on him.

[Vrenir]

A surly man who complains about his noisy neighbors with their incessant lute-playing at all ungodly hours of the night.

A Temple devotee who annoys the people in his largely impious town with his open do-goodiness and prosletizing. Basically, a well-intentioned religious outsider who gets on peoples' nerves.

An anti-intellectual woman who complains that her husband is too busy reading all day in the library to ever be of any help with anything important.

A peasant who claims that he once had a great fortune as a travelling merchant, but that his fiesty guars stole all of his goods one day and sold them to the Indoril. They were always a couple of rather unsavory beasts, those guars. (This could surprisingly be turned into a misc quest later on when a soceror of some sort actually has periodically bewitched guars to run away to him while loaded down with goods, great just because nobody would believe the peasant and then it'd turn out to be true.)

[Orix]

The author of "True Delicacies of Tamriel"

[i.e. Argonian cannibal who always has somthing interesting to say about the respective races... and their respective body parts she uses in respective dishes. Sees Tamriel as one big buffet.]

[herennow]

A hypochondriac convinced that because you came from the mainland, they will catch Blight from you. Greeting conversation would be very similar to conventional 'you've got blight disease' greeting.

'Oh they say you just have to drink a potion to get cured of blight, but I heard there's some kinds of blight that just get in your skin, your blood, and can't be cured, no how. They just keep eating away at you, eating, eating...oh Almalexia protect me...'

An unusually tall Bosmer named Low-Pockets (Tribunal based egg).

Someone on one of the higher areas of Port Telvannis with vertigo.

[kapuhy]

1.Someone like Malaclypse from "Discworld Noir" - an walking encyclopedia, having an answer to even most difficult questions in game - the problem is, his answers are always unbelievable misleading or in some way true, but completely useless. For example, such person, asked about Fargoth, would tell you that he knows Fargoth is the last remaining son of the Bosmer king, and he fled from assasins to Morrowind, carrying only his extremely powerful artifact: an engraved ring that instantly heals all ilnesses and wounds. Including corprus.
In Morrowind, maybe such a person could only answer questions relevant to the city where he lives (otherwise he would be too hard to make...)

2.I haven't played enough to check if there is such a person in game already, but I always wanted to meet a slave that is perfectly happy with his fate, and strongly protests if you try to talk to him about "go free" topic. He would explain that he has food, shelter, doesn't have to make his own living, is always told what to do and he likes that more than making tough decisions himself.

3.A pacifist (may be an ex-Redoran, who fled from his family to avoid being pulled into military). If you approach him carrying any weapons, he will be very unfriendly, and he'll try to persuade you that every problem in life can be resolved without killing, and that everyone should throw away all the tools of war, and so on. Should be very convincing. Like John Lennon in "Imagine", only not singing.
If you approach him without weapons, he should greet you as a brother, who understood the truth and is now free.

[sirwootalot123]

A bitter and scathingly racist Dres noble whose wasp steed has died of a local disease; leaving him stranded in Port Telvannis. Can serve as an "example" of house dres in map 1.

In a small-town temple, a devout monk who used to be a bandit but was "saved" by a temple priest he nearly killed on the highway. The priest is also working at that temple; he is very old and locally revered.

In a cave, an old hermit who refuses to speak anything but Dunmeri. Translating his words would reveal his dialogue to be horribly odd and full of eggs.

[Psyborg]

A healer who is constantly trying to bleed out people's "bad humours" with leeches/scribs.

An ex-thief who now designs locks for storekeepers but continues to do a bit of stealing on the side.

A Bosmer who was lost and eventually had to succumb to eating fresh fruits and veggies, ripe off the tree.

[Haplo]

Psyborg! Get back to TR! *Haplo waves*

[-Saddistic_Angel-]

-A character like Adrian Monk. Is obsessed with his house being clean, and everything being straight.
-Someone like Thurunir.
-A mage whose spells always backfire. (eg: Fire damage on target turns into Fire damage on self.)
-A group of people who are obsessed with ratting out anyone who has ever done skooma in their life. They like to accuse the whole village/district of it.
-A supernatural fanatic/wannabe ghost hunter.
-Someone like that guy from Tribunal who asks you for money, and when you don't give it to him, cracks it and leaves. Returns in a suit of armor he's not skilled in, low strength, and a Huuuuuuuuge axe.
That's all I can think of. A few of these people probably exist if not mentioned.

[Morgoth]

Someone on one of the higher areas of Port Telvannis with vertigo.

Absolutely! (I love this.)

[Morgoth Bauglir]

The Nerevarine perhaps?

[-Saddistic_Angel-]

According to the NPCS of Cyrodill, the Nerevarine disappeared somewhere in Akaviri. At least, I think that happened.

[Morgoth Bauglir]

too bad, I liked him in morrowind

[Andres Indoril]

You do know that this thread is about Morrowind?