Faction Brainstorming Session 3 - Sotho

[Deeza]

Another idea of KuKulza's, Sotho is the mythical crime lord of Black Marsh. He practically runs the black market of the province, having squeezed out the Thieves' Guild and defeated the Camonna Tong in a bloody turf war. He is also the principal supplier of weapons and funds to the Khanaten Liberation Army, though he doesn't necessarily sympathise with all their objectives.

Basically, this guy is the equivalent of the Gray Fox in Cyrodiil or Gold Cat in Elseweyr, only he's considerably more badass. More than just a crime lord, he's also a mystic and shaman, consummate master of Bhuru magic and with enough alternate identities to populate a small town. It is said that Sotho can shapeshift or enter buildings as a breeze of air, or creep through the marsh as a wave of water. Given his background and interests, he's probably also a close friend of Ibsen's Bhuru-practicing redguard Marrowmir.

The first rumours of Sotho began hundreds of years ago after the Imperial conquest, and some say that he is not mortal, the reincarnation of an ancient Marsh spirit. Of course, skeptics say that many Argonians have taken up the mantle of Sotho over the years, but nobody ever let that get in the way of a good story. Sotho has supposedly been, at various times, a slave in the markets of Tear, leader of the Black Marsh resistance to Imperial rule, a priest of the Nine Divines, a Shadowscale and trainer of Shadowscales, the shadowy financial backer of the Black Marsh Arena, and last but not least his current incarnation as a crime lord.

The organisation which Sotho supposedly leads is the Sotha Tren, a federal organisation of gangs, the two largest of which are the Nodo Tren, a weapons-smuggling ring, and the Fog-hi Tren, who specialise in drug-running across the sea from Elseweyr. Kukulza came up with a series of inventive and challenging missions for this organisation, some of which are too difficult to implement and others invalidated by later lore changes or features that were planned but cannot be implemented due to lack of time or their being too much effort.

So I leave the floor open to you, what kind of missions could the player do for Sotho?

I suggest a breakout from Blackrose Prison, supposedly the worst and hardest to escape from in the world, as one of the later missions. Any other ideas?

[Koniption]

Here's my idea for a quest:

For Sotho to have gangs, he needs to recruit. And seeing as how there is probably quick turnover of gang members (gangs members get in fights or trouble and die, etc), he needs to find new members on occasion.

So Sotho sends the player on a "recruitment" quest , to find him some more members. This quest can be staged after a fight scene where Sotho can lose three or more members, or not have a fight scene at all.

To weed out the baddies from the good guys (Sotho wanting the baddies, of course), the player can find them in the game through one or more ways, and convince (or blackmail) them to join Sotho:

1) The player finds out which seemingly normal Argonian NPC's have skeletons in their closet or who otherwise had criminal activity not related to that of Sotho's gangs,( a) through hidden incriminating notes in their houses, (b) by them owning an illegal or stolen item, © by the player seeing that NPC commit a crime (without the other NPC's around knowing of course). Of course, I think Sotho would want only the burly and strong to be members, so the player can catch an unaggressive female Argonian doing something wrong, and try to offer her a recruitment option to Sotho, only for Sotho to get mad at the player for offering such a wimpy choice.

2) The player makes him or herself as a bait target and strays into shady areas of various towns. Whoever attacks the player in those areas, would be considered a burly baddy, and therefore a recruitment option.

***Also, the player might find more recruits than what the Sotho needs. In that case, Sotho can send the player on a mission to,

(a) kill the excess weaker recruits, since they know too much (the Player as bad guy), or

(b) convince Sotho that the recruits and the excess recruits should be pitted against each other in a sort of "fight to the death" to see who is stronger (player as neutral, in a bad sort of way).

© An option to the "fight to the death" option, would be the player having pity on the not so bad recruits, and to secretly give them a "Fortify Strength" potion or something poured/placed in their food, so that even granny could win the match. Sotho would be impressed at their strength and, upon their pleas to go back to normal living, agrees to let them go back to their normal lives, swearing them to secrecy. Of course, the baddies defeated by the more good guys would not have actually died, but were only knocked unconscious, and mistaken for dead. Sotho accepts them as recruits anyway, being impressed by their durability and defense to not having been killed after all, and considers the quest to find recruits a success. (the real player as good guy ending).

Koniption

[Deeza]

Very nice, I like it. Presumably the player would start out getting recruited in a similar manner?

One addition I'd like to make, presumably for an organisation this size Sotho needs brains as well as brawn to keep it all organised. You could, for example, get sent to recruit a wimpy accountant who's secretly been defrauding the Empire and persuade him to join.

Also, on an interesting side-note, apparently Argonians can change sex like some real-world amphibians (either at will or at various stages of their life cycle), so I'm guessing their concept of gender relations in the workplace is probably quite flexible!

[Ibsen's Ghost]

All good! :yes: I think KP's ideas need to go into a log for potential quests so I've PM'd RW about a new thread set up for the ideas. And they're nice ideas, btw....although the player would need to gain some small position of authority with the Sotha Tren in order to do this. And hey, the sex change option really fills me with ideas....I'll summarise some of this once we get the Sotha Tren thread set up.

However, what KP has outlined is a beta-compatible set of ideas. There's nothing stopping us looking beyond the beta regions but most of the real planning needs to focus on the regions we outlined for the time being. That's my biggest gripe with KK and the old team....they talked but their ideas far outstripped their commitment to mod them and were way too ambitious considering the amount of real progress they made. It wasn't practical.

Anyway, thanks for bringing together so much, Deeza (especially Anaster Marrowmir). Sotho himself might favour strength but yes, he's into crime in general so no need to restrict the quests, just emphasise Sotho's prejudices. In the meantime, we certainly have some intriguing drug-running/smuggling options open to us once Soulrest is done. =)

[Koniption]

Argonians can change sex??! Whoa!

Makes for a rather "awkward" night at the Serpentine Emmanuel, me thinks, and possible related story fodder, hehehehe.

Yeah, you guys can alter my quest idea as you see fit. I'm no lore monkey.

Koniption

[Ibsen's Ghost]

....and the Lusty Argonian, er, Butler might give his/her employer some cause for concern..... =)

This makes me think of one of favourite books, Ursula Le Guin's 'The Left Hand of Darkness'. I could take some inspiration from it....

[jucklesjenk]

Originally posted by Deeza
The organisation which Sotho supposedly leads is the Sotha Tren, a federal organisation of gangs, the two largest of which are the Nodo Tren, a weapons-smuggling ring, and the Fog-hi Tren, who specialise in drug-running across the sea from Elseweyr.

I think we should incorporate this idea of organisations within the Sotho Tren. So basically, I imagine it as a kind of Mafia-style system (which is supposedly run in southern Manhattan in RL) where there are several "Families" in this case Nodo Tren etc. which all have a mutual alliance under Sotho - the leader, even if it isn't in the Underbosses' (the ones in charge of these smaller syndicates) best business interests, so they aren't always best friends with one another.

Now, it says in the quote "the two largest of which", so they aren't the only ones, meaning we can expand the lore and think of the other "Trens" (perhaps Tren could mean "Gang" or "Family").

Also, we need to consider where each "Tren" might be based. An immediate no-brainer for me is that the Fog-hi Tren are based in Soulrest - the prime location. Perhaps a moon sugar plantation could be set up near Soulrest under the cover of a Saltrice plantation and a refinery could be set up in Soulrest in the basement of a Tavern.

I'm not sure about where the Nodo Tren could be - perhaps deeper into the marsh at Blackrose or Helstrom where they have shorter supply routes to the Khanaten Liberation Army.

An organisation is being set up by myself in Stormhold's Hole-In-The-Wall bar which is where they base their slaving operations - smuggling slaves across the Morrowind border to sell at Tear, and perhaps to a warehouse in Soulrest where they store them before shipping them out to Elsweyr (perhaps there could be a bit of conflict there between them and the Fog-hi Tren). I still need a name for that one, though.

I believe a good idea for one (possibly Gideon) would be a protection racket.

Another important issue is Sotho himself. Where he might be based and his physical involvement in it all is something we need to think about.


Any thoughts or ideas about the Trens and where they might be based would be greatly appreciated.

[Ibsen's Ghost]

I'd definitely choose Gideon. :yes: Other places would probably be around the fringes of the jungle regions to the North like Alten Corimont, Chasecreek, Riverwalk, Thorn. Basically, anywhere along the line of the river where non-Argonians might see their way clear to passing relatively safely to the East.

The southern settlements might also bear evidence of such activity, but not Central Argonia where the beast races hold sway.

Just a quick point: any slavery in the Black Marshes, although possibly not alien to the Tren is mainly presided over by the Trillium Magnata, the network of ex-slavemasters (one of their bases is Tenmar Wall). This Faction have some powerful allies in those Dunmer who are not loyal to Helseth and, as such, do not support the 'no-slavery' policy. If the Tren attempted such a racket as this, the TM would regard it as invading their 'patch' and take action. Theoretically, the Tren could unite and retaliate but it's more likely that the different families would try to work against one another so that if one Tren family found out about this 'little earner', they would alert the TM themselves about the other family's activities. The TM would then be likely to pretend to close down the bar in accordance with the wishes of the Embassy...but might just re-open it again on the sly...

[jucklesjenk]

Perhaps a questline for the Sotho Tren in Stormhold could involve a war of sorts against the Trilium Magnata. The Tren would still do anything that could grant them more profit, and would probably take their chances against the TM.
Perhaps the other Trens could take action against the boss of that racket and "close him down", and perhaps instate the player there.
Only ideas though.

[Ibsen's Ghost]

Indeed, the PC will need to pick his friends wisely in that sense. The Magnata will be too strong for one Tren family alone though.