Faction Idea: Imperial Legion

[crepe100]

I was thinking we could do some sort of legion faction like what they did in morrowind. The quests could involve dispatching bandits, clearingup mines, bolstering garrisons and other things along the line, what do you's think?

[morcroft]

The Imperial Legion seems very much in retreat in Black Marsh, what with the abandonment of Fort Swampmoth and the situation back home.
Any quests should have an air of desperation about them - finding and rescuing lost patrols and re-establishing contact with outposts, that sot of thing. The legion should basically be losing.

[jucklesjenk]

My initial thought would be yes, however the legion's presence in Black Marsh would probably be minimal, since they were forced to retreat because of the Oblivion crisis, and they had to abandon Fort Swampmoth etc. I would have thought that they would only really be found around Stormhold and Gideon. Deeza would probably be the most knowledgeable about that.

That said, I have always liked the idea of being part of the authority, and it improves roleplayability, and even if there isn't enough substance or support to make a full joinable faction with ranks etc. there could still always be some misc. quests that you could do for them. My personal opinion is a yes, plus I like morcroft's thoughts about reconnecting with outposts and such. If we were to make the legion joinable, I would suggest making it so that you cannot be a member of both the legion and the Sotho Tren, for instance, both because it makes sense (why would the legion accept a criminal into their ranks?) and to add the possibility of choices into quests, so you could choose to retake an outpost for the legion, or help the Sotho Tren set up an ambush for them etc.

[Ibsen's Ghost]

This links with discussions on Fort Swampmoth. Yes, there is a Morrowind-style Legion in Stormhold although they don't feature much in our plans.

[crepe100]

Later, I realised it could be called the following: Black Marsh Rangers

It could be styled around the Rangers trying to restablish the Legion in Black Marsh, here's an idea for a quest:

Bolstering Rockspring:

I was thinking for this one you should have to go to one of the border crossings to persuade the captain to lend 3 legionaires to Rockspring, the captain then says he will lend the legionaires only if you perform an errand for him (for this i'm hoping your still including cyrodiil), possibly having to go to Leyawiin and hunting down and eliminating a rogue imperial watchman.

Then when you get back to the border-cross the captain says the troops will arrive in a couple of days, go back to rockspring and the captain of the rangers will reward you with the following: 200 Gold and/or some Armour.

Here are the ranks I was thinking of:

Recruit
Forester
Watchmen
Legionaire
Hall Guard
Captain
Champion
Knight
High Knight

Here are the following quests I propose for the first few ranks

Rockspring Quests (Provided by a Champion)

Quest-01 (Available Rank: Recruit) - Bandit Troubles

The Champion tells you your first duty for the Rangers, is to clear out a local mine of bandits. When your down there you kill the ringleader and discover he was working for Sotho Tren. When you report back to the Champion he will thank you, then the quest will end.

Quest-02 (Available Rank: Recruit) - Spywork

Go to a nearby cave where a ranger spy will be waiting for you. The cave is inhabitated by bandits (that will only attack you once you have finished collecting the documents from the spy.

The spy will help you fight your way out of the cave (he'll have trouble dying as he has to be a moderatly high level), then go back to the champion who will thank you for rescuing the spy, and he says if your lucky he'll raise your rank.

More to come later?

[jucklesjenk]

Originally posted by crepe100
... (for this i'm hoping your still including cyrodiil)

We will be modding Cyrodiil as little as possible so that we're compatible with as many other mods as possible.

Those quests sound alright to me. Nice and simple ones to start off with. Those easy to make quests are the important ones, because they make up most of the quests, and having lots of little quests is more interesting than a few big ones IMO.

Also, maybe this is me just being a bit pedantic, but I would have thought that Champion would be higher than Knight and High Knight. Champion sounds like the best, y'know and Knight sounds elite but not quite as good.

[crepe100]

After this brainstorm should I make a Black Marsh Rangers summary, like quests, ranks, specific weapons, places and all that, here are new ranks by the way:

Recruit - N/A
Forester - Forester Bow
Watchmen - Legionaire Helm, Gauntlets, Boots
Legionaire - Legionaire Cuirass, Greaves, Shield
Hall Guard - Legion Chain Coif, Gloves, Boots
Captain - Legion Chain Cuirass, Greaves, Legion Scout Shield
Knight - Legion Templar Helm, Gauntlets, Boots
Knight Champion - Legion Templar Cuirass, Greaves, Shield

What do you think? I was also thinking they could do what they did in Morrowind and give you new legion armour as you rank up, i've written down what I think the armour rewards should be (except for forester, where you only get a Forester Bow (I'll explain later).

Here are the armour and weapon stats I thought of:

All the Legion Chain stuff is the same as chainmail, but the shield is the same as Mithril (The wood covers the hidden hard inside), but aestheticaly I was thinking the chainmail for the legion could look a mix between steel and chain, the chain having the occasional steel pad over the top.

The Templar stuff could be the same as Orcish/Ebony, but aesthetically I think it should look like the palace guard armour, just a bit more dull.

The Forester Bow could have the same stats as Black Bows, and look like them as well, except I was thinkig the bow could be predominately made out of metal as in the conditions of the black marsh, wood would rot easily.

So what do you say?

[jucklesjenk]

To be honest - I'm really liking the return of the classic legion from Morrowind, but we should definitely hear what IG and Deeza have to say. With any ideas of this sort you cannot progress without their opinions and input.

[crepe100]

I was also thinking to do more quests you should have to move around the ranger bases, will you guys be able to suggest more bases for the ranger bases so far, i've only got: Rockspring, Gideon and Stormhold. I was also thinking for gameplay purposes that there could be the occasional Ranger camp out in the wilderness for random ranger quests, here's an example:

Rockspring Quests - 5
Camp Quests (Only one quest per camp, there is about 4 camps) - 4
Gideon Quests - 5
Stormhold Quests -6

I'll write them myself

[Ibsen's Ghost]

I don't want to quench your enthusiasm, crepe100 but without a quest modder, these ideas are likely to be dead in the water.

We're only working towards the Factions we've already outlined so far and we won't be having a Ranger Faction and we certainly won't be developing another person's ideas that don't fit with our plans.

However, all is not lost. Some of the ideas you develop might be worked into questlines involving the current selection of Factions: List of Factions . The Sotho Tren or Trillium Magnata may be possible options here but I'd take care with developing a story arc as the person taking over the modding of the overall questline is extremely likely to do their own thing.

My advice is to restrict yourself to individual quests that can be taken and adapted as and when which leads me to the other option: individual quests involving members of the Legion would be fine!

Of course, with modding skills, I'd welcome you tackling whole Faction questlines but doing so now is impractical and against the guidelines outlined in the Pledge.