A draft for the main story

[Haplo]

Ok, sorry for being so eager RW I just got a little carried away in helping.

The fact that I have yet to see the forest or hear mention of it beyond this thread might have something to do with me misjudging it's size

And the Bosmer are interested in buying timber, because of the Greenleaf Pact or whatever it's called - they cannot chop down their own wood, or harm any living plant. They can, however, use any other source of wood. The other provinces were quick to realize this, and started selling timber straight-away. The Bosmer have a great need for it, you know!

[Razorwing]

Originally posted by Haplo12345
Ok, sorry for being so eager RW I just got a little carried away in helping.

The fact that I have yet to see the forest or hear mention of it beyond this thread might have something to do with me misjudging it's size

And the Bosmer are interested in buying timber, because of the Greenleaf Pact or whatever it's called - they cannot chop down their own wood, or harm any living plant. They can, however, use any other source of wood. The other provinces were quick to realize this, and started selling timber straight-away. The Bosmer have a great need for it, you know!

My bad, I didn't know that about the Bosmer. Very amusing But still, I think there'd just be room for five or six trees in the patch of forest. I think I mentioned in my post that the forest is where the Temple park used to be, but that short reference I made is very easy to miss, I'm sure. Especially if you're unfamiliar with the city.

But you could always start a new conflict around a bigger forest area outside the city? That way you could set it up as you like without problems, and the forest could be as big as you like. Something which always annoyed me with the TES3 mod was that Silgrad City was situated in the bottom-left corner, when in fact mainland Morrowind stretched on several cells to the west of Silgrad City. As Oblivion's landmass will presumably end right on Morrowind's southwest border, we'll have a rather big gap to the west of Silgrad that will have to be filled with new content. That might be a good location for the forest, if you're interested in that idea.

I think it's great that you're getting involved in ST, and I'm very much looking forward to your next draft. I get the feeling you'll do wonderful work for the group in the future. Quests with multiple endings are the coolest; Lord knows that wasn't easy to pull off in Morrowind, but the new quest system is sure to let modders focus on adding content rather than bughunting and trial-and-error.

[Haplo]

Well in that case - even though it'll probably confuse the socks off of you - here's that second chapter that I mentioned(as far as I've gotten. I haven't divided it up yet into sections) Just for kicks and giggles.

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Chapter 2:
Outlaws, Treachery, & Deceit
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*Nice little idea for a cutscene here*
-Begin Cutscene

"These are turbulent times. Bands of outlaws are roaming the streets. The Houses are almost at odds again. The citizens of Silgrad are missing the support of the Legion. Unthinkable crimes are being commited. People are looking for answeres, adn blame is being laid upon the leaders. An assassination has been attempted upon Valderon's life. He barely escaped with his life. He is being kept at the Tower now, night and day. Before he fainted, Valderon mentioned your name, %NPCName, and called you, 'the Hero'. We look you now, Hero. Will you help us?"

-End Cutscene. -
-Your journal gets an entry tellign you to go visit Valderon. He explains the sitaution. You start off tracking a dangerous group of rogue Telvanni outside of the tower, angry that their leader could even consider an alliance or peace with Hlaalu, let aone attempt to make one.

There are 7 of them. One of them has a note from a man leading a group of thieves and vagabonds, outside the city, giving them directions to their hideout. It looks like these Telvanni were going to join up with this Thief group.

You report back inside to Valderon, who asks you to infiltrate the hideout, kill only the guards, and wait for 1 day. Then you are to assassinate their leader. After you kill the guards on duty, you wait 24 hours, and enter the caves.

All of the members are out on a raid apparently, but you hear two voices deep within. You investigate, and the head of outlaw band is talking quietly with what looks like the new Head of Hlaalu, dressed in Telvanni clothing. You are spotted immediately, and the Hlaalu man escapes via an Almisive Intervention scroll. The thug attacks you.

Once you kill him, you see Plans with Telvanni architecture, entertwined with an elaborite system of caves, and yet...the signature...it's signed 'House Hlaalu. This disturbes you greatly. You take the note back to Valderon who worries even more than you. He says that recently the Telvanni have been complainingabout Hlaalu blaming the Telvanni for all of the raids, thefts, and fights that have been breaking out everywhere.

The Telvanni have even gone as far as to threaten to raid the Hlaalu supply wagons and trade roads. They threatened once to summon a Hearne, to wreak havoc in the Hlaalu areas. The Hlaalu, having seen the devastating effects of a Hearne enough at Port Telvannis, back down slightly. (If anyone is wondering about this, when I made the MQ for Telvanni for TR, it included summoning a Hearne at Port Telvannis(PT). I thought this tie-in between ST and TR would be a nice little easter egg for those who notice it.)

After this news, however, Valderon blieves he msut speak his mind. Just recently, a spy in Vladeron's service caught the new Hlaalu leader consorting with, and taking oders from, the old self-exiled Hlaalu leader, who has returned, and is using some kind of mental control over the young leader.

Valderon gives you a truth serum to slip into the young man's drink, to help him reveal their dirty secrets to you and he. You pay him a visit, use the vial of serum on his simmering cauldron, wait 1 hour, and then take to him.

You ask him about 'Ex-Hlaalu Leader', 'Telvanni', 'Taking Orders', and 'Outlaws'. He writes it all down for you - The orders he's taking from the exiled Hlaalu leader, the outlaws he's working with, the plot to undermine the Telvanni again, and even the location of the ex-Hlaalu leader. You take this confession to Valderon, who takes the notes from you and reads them.

You can see his face and eyes grow older and more etched with sorrow by each passing second. He finally speaks - 'Young Hero, I was afraid this was going to happen. My worst fears of such treachery and hatred were confirmed as I saw the assassin aim the bow at my throat. I have been doing some serious thinking.

We are going to need to bring about some incredible changes to Silgrad if it is to continue it's existance peacefully. The Hlaalu leaders will need to be rounded up, exiled, or even killed, possibly.
The Telvanni, The Redoran, Fighter's Guild, and Temple must all sign a treaty, and the Hlaalu as well, once we can find some suitable new leaders for it. Leaders that we know will not try to undermine anyone, at least not for a few centuries.
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That's as far as I've gotten so far. I was planning on at least 7 -10 more paragraphs, for this chapter but, my sleepy sleepy time came upon me fast once again, and I went to slumber...er...sleep.
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So, I'm glad to be here, and I'm interested in adding more forest. I think that's something that's generally overlooked with most mods out there, even with TR. People are so afraid of lagging the game down so much, they don't even try to make more than a little park. It can be pulled off however, I know, I've done it. Just use a little ingenuity(or a lot), and you've put together one of the most unique places in modding history.

- Oh and I saw your comment on the park, I just didn't know how big it would be. It might be like one of the parks in my city, which is about the size of half an acre almost, or it might be the size of that park in New York, the name of it escapes me at the moment.

About quests with multiple endings - I think if we worked on it, we could pull that off for the MQ, of course, I think we should poll the folks at the ES Forums on their opinions of it. Most people just want to
be able to know all there is about the quest from playing it. Only a few people will actually be upset and have to go back and start new characters just to follow that second path. Or so I believe. However, I'd love to be proven wrong here, so help me out :-P.

Also, I notice a lot of the time I'm the only one on, and I'm on a lot(especially now, during my spring break). I'm thinking about a little plan to help get ST a draft of new members to help out, and basically bring life back into the forums. I'm not making any promises, just hints

[Razorwing]

- Oh and I saw your comment on the park, I just didn't know how big it would be. It might be like one of the parks in my city, which is about the size of half an acre almost, or it might be the size of that park in New York, the name of it escapes me at the moment.

About quests with multiple endings - I think if we worked on it, we could pull that off for the MQ, of course, I think we should poll the folks at the ES Forums on their opinions of it. Most people just want to
be able to know all there is about the quest from playing it. Only a few people will actually be upset and have to go back and start new characters just to follow that second path. Or so I believe. However, I'd love to be proven wrong here, so help me out :-P.

Also, I notice a lot of the time I'm the only one on, and I'm on a lot(especially now, during my spring break). I'm thinking about a little plan to help get ST a draft of new members to help out, and basically bring life back into the forums. I'm not making any promises, just hints

The patch of forest will be as big as the park north of the Temple in the TES3 version of the mod. If you want there's a [url="http://www.silgrad.com/silgrad/maps.htm"]couple of maps[/url] in the [url="http://www.silgrad.com/silgrad/screenshots.htm"]Screenshots[/url] section of the site you can check out to get a sense of the size of the park. It's not very big. We probably won't recreate Silgrad City as an exact replica, but the closer it gets to the TES3 version the better, in my opinion, with a couple of reservations. I'm all for making it even larger, as well as adding more parks and open spaces to ease the frame rate (as needed). It was built really tight in TES3, which also meant it was kindof dull since we couldn't have very many NPCs walking about. I'd love for that to change.

Yes, assuming the new core ratifies my suggestion there will be five endings to the main quest. It will probably be tooled and modified as the core discusses it. But until a new core is formed, it's anyone's guess how the main quest will turn out to be, if indeed we'll have one at all.

I appreciate the offer but right now we don't need to draft new members, we need to get a core together so we can make certain decisions for the group.

[Haplo]

ah excellent! I don't want to pressure you or anyone, I completely spaced out about the missing core.

[Valderon]

First of all my congratulations for this massive amount of work. :goodjob:

I will read it thoroughly within the next few hours or this evening, depends on my time but anyway I?m very impressed yet.

[Razorwing]

Originally posted by Valderon
First of all my congratulations for this massive amount of work. :goodjob:

I will read it thoroughly within the next few hours or this evening, depends on my time but anyway I?m very impressed yet.

Thankyou
It was quite fun to speculate how the changes outlined in Oblivion's main story would affect the city, throwing the player into an escalating situation, but then giving him the option of following the Council of Elders path and restoring Silgrad City to its former glory. I like the general idea of the player being able to decide the destiny of the city, and I think that through rather simple means - like Hlaalu guards patrolling the city if the player follows and wins that path of the main story - one can create five versions of the city which feel very much differently from each other. It wouldn't be earth-shattering things, since the city has to be coherent in the CS. It'd be a really fun project to sink my teeth in, if the new core thinks the draft is worth pursuing.

But I'm the first to say that it's not that fun to be told what to mod; it can kill creativity in a modder. It has in me a couple of time, when I was coaxed into assignments I didn't really want to do. So, I hope other modders find openings for their own quest ideas within the frame of the main story, because I couldn't possibly do it alone

If you find the time to read the text, the one linked from the website is a bit tidier and slightly updated, though not enough to warrant a re-read I think.

[Razorwing]

In response to the post in this thread.

Originally posted by Cheese
@Razorwing

WOW Razorwing, nice story m8 I just read it, its great I love the idea that you can choose a couple of different paths. I'd love to help in the quest department, what kind of quests would you want me to write?

Thankyou

I'd like to focus on the Redoran path, since they're close to my heart. I think Haplo wants to do the Telvanni path, but I'm not quite sure. So the Valderon, Hlaalu and Temple paths could sure use a steward, if you feel like taking a look at any of them.

The end result of the Valderon path would be Silgrad returning to the way it was in the TES3 mod, with people living in harmony. The way I thought about it was that the player who pursues that path would act as a cop in many ways. He'd pursue violent factionists, solve crimes, promote cooperation by aiding moderate elements in different factions. About the last one I was thinking something like, this or that mine owned by a moderate factionist have been taken over by rogues - take them out, so the moderate factionist can start making money again, thereby growing more powerful than his intolerant competitors. Later on, more direct means might be necessary, like leading a band of saboteurs to a radical's farm and destroying it, which would help the good guy in that scenario (the one who wants peace among the factions). A challenge would be to keep those quests heroic, so the player doesn't feel he's tormenting people to keep a tyrant in power.

The role of the oppressor might be better suited for the Temple, which I've always seen as championing Morrowind's theocratic rule by the Tribunal. I didn't play through that expansion so I'm not really sure what role the Temple has in Oblivion's timeline, but I think Almalexia and Sotha Sil are now dead, while Vivec is still alive in his palace? Does the Temple still worship him, or are they just worshipping the Aedra now? I'll have to research that in the lore forum on elderscrolls.com I think. But quests like: killing vampires in an ancestral tomb, chasing down heretics, killing daedra worshippers, aiding the poor, retrieve stolen icons, et cetera might be something they would want the player to do? Although I'm very open for any suggestions.

House Hlaalu wants control of Silgrad City (as do Redoran and Telvanni), and the path would end with them having a firm grip on it. They have justified fears that without Imperial protection, House Redoran would muscle them out of Silgrad and they'd all have to retreat back to Verarchen Hall. The best defense is a strong offense, so to speak, and they wouldn't waste time in striking at the other Houses. They enjoy power through money, often derived from trade and taxation, but they're not above extortion and thievery if it'll serve their purpose. They don't mind being deceitful to gain favor, and may even try to create temporary alliances, which they'll betray when they've manouvered into the right position. Typical thief quests (including spying and assassinations) would be very appropriate, I think, and it can be supplemented with diplomacy and straight-forward killings in the latter stages. If you can take a quest and twist it so it's detrimental to a competing faction, any type of quest would be appropriate, really.

I don't want to set a specific number of path quests; there can be as many as one wants, but a minimum of five might be good I think, so it'll be a decent-sized adventure. While each successive path quest should be more challenging than the previous, the paths doesn't have to be equally challenging. Diversity in that respect might be good, I think. The Telvanni path would be the most challenging for the player, while Hlaalu could be a bit easier, meaning it'd be suited for fresher player characters. That's just my opinion though.

Since the player can only pursue one path per game, there won't be any problems with writing quests from more than one perspective. Quests from paths the player isn't on will never become active, so to the Hlaalu player, the home which is a murder scene in the Redoran path will appear to be just another home. The cave which houses a band of rogues in the Valderon path will just be filled with animals until that quest becomes active, if it ever does for that player. So when we make a path quest it's important that the quest can be masked when it's not active.

[Haplo]

that's actually pretty smart to divide it up that way! I never would've thought of that

As for me taking charge of the Telvanni, I'd be honored to do them justice, and it'll be easier now that I'm not writing all views at once I'm not very good at that . However, one side of a quest is great for me, and I've laid down plenty of ideas in my little quest spurts on the first page for thievery, assassination, and the like.

Also - For some info for you on the Temple and the Tribunal...

By the end of the main quest of Tribunal, Almalexia is dead, Sotha Sil is dead, and most people go ahead and kill Vivec in the Main game anyway, either for fun/boredom/wanting his soul/back door out of the Main Quest. So this leaves the whole Tribunal dead basically. The Temple followers and sympathizers do not believe that Almalexia is dead, by your hands or anyone's. They don't really care about Sotha Sil, because no one's heard from him forever, and they don't really know him enough to care. With Vivecs death, there are no dialogue entries about you killing him, even from the Ordinators, or the Office of the Watch, Inquisition, or even War. So no one knows about him either.

With the death of Dagoth Ur, and the destruction of the Heart of Lorkhan, the Tribunal, ALMSIVI, Ayem, Seht, and Vehk(Almalexia, Sotha Sil, and Vivec) are mortal, thus allowing them to die by mortal hands, or by mortal causes, such as age.

As a P.S. about Sotha Sil, he's already 98-99% dead when you find him. He's all hooked up to machinery. You just hear a recording and flip a switch to shut the power now that he's a vegetable.

[Razorwing]

Cool, I'm sure you'll do wonders with the Telvanni quests. There's probably a bunch of material you can use from your earlier post, which can be tweaked into Telvanni quests. By the way, did you know that there's just one Telvanni building in the TES3 mod? The way it was laid out was that the Telvanni were invited to come to Silgrad, so the city could be run jointly between the Houses and certain important factions. The pod house belongs to their representative on the Council of Elders, which is called Vort I believe, I don't know if he ever got added. Silgrad is a long way away from the nearest Telvanni territory (eastern Vvardenfell), so they're definetely the outsiders in the equation. If you have need for more Telvanni NPCs it'd just be a matter of building on that pod; it can be as huge as you like. Or, I guess they could live in a normal home if you don't think we should import the pod houses from Morrowind.

Thanks for the explanation, I didn't know that about Sotha Sil. Most of all I need to know if the official history considers Vivec dead or not (I know Almalexia and Sotha Sil are considered dead), because of the way that affects the Temple. I always killed Vivec myself, I think most players did, but it's the official version of what happened that is important, since that history sets the starting positions for a lot of things in our mod. It's a lore thing.

The weird responses about Vivec, added by the Tribunal expansion, is probably due to the construction set's limitations.