Main Quest - Helseth Ideas

[Vrenir]

In the Main Quest thread, KuKulzA said that he wanted to do some ideas about Helseth sparking the House War, so here?s my first take on it for critique.

What is the key resource of Vvardenfell? The answer it seems to me is Ebony. In TESIII, the mines were strictly controlled by the Imperials with some minor illegal smuggling going on in groups like the Cammona Tong. With the Imperial forces greatly reduced in our revision, the Ebony trade seems the most likely explosion point for the rising House tensions. Picture the following?.

The Imperials have been forced to withdraw from Caldera, handing it over to the Redoran, whose traditional borders include the mines and settlement. Recognizing that elements within the Hlallu have long been trying to get their hands on the Ebony trade, House Redoran wastes no time fortifying their new source of wealth. Large contingents of guards are moved in, the city is gated, security at the mines is stepped up. The Hlallu perhaps try a few small things that only result in confirming the fears of the Redoran that their rivals will try to gain control of the trade. Of course the Empire isn?t happy to give up their corner on the Ebony market, especially to the anti-Imperial House Redoran. They would much rather have Caldera and its mines in the hands of the Hlallu, who would guarantee an Imperial supply. (Assuming that with the Temple?s reduced role, we use some means other than Vivec to get the PC to Vvardenfell and the Main Quest), the local Blades agents send a message to the mainland requesting additional men and resources. The request is conveyed to the PC after he wraps up the Oblivion MQ, as this is obviously a less-pressing matter than saving the Empire itself. The PC travels to Vvardenfell if he has not done so already, and makes contact with one of the local Blades, who briefs him on the House situation and specifically on the Caldera dispute.

The trouble shouldn?t begin until about the third quest, at which point, the Redoran in Caldera discover an Ebony smuggling ring. The incident also reveals that the operation is tied to Helseth, the Imperialized king of Morrowind and supporter of House Hlallu. The Redoran demand compensation, but Helseth insists that he is above the law. The Redoran declare that they will not suffer interference in their House affairs by an Imperial puppet and that further incidents will be met with retribution to those responsible, a not-so-subtle threat to the local Hlallu to the south of Caldera. (NOTE: if we want, we could also have this in the past by the time the PC arrives, either that or we could have it as a set of events which are occurring the first time the PC arrives in Caldera on assignment for the Blades.)

Needless to say, Helseth doesn?t take the threat well; he is king after all. A small group of Royal guards are sent to Vvardenfell as a visible show of force. They are stationed in Caldera itself, and allow traffic from Balmora to regularly go through the settlement. Smuggling and mutual distrust grow as a result. The Redoran are angry but cannot really do anything directly against Helseth, though the contingent isn?t really all that big in Caldera itself (it?s more the thought of what would happen as a result of doing something). Finally, an undisciplined Redoran guard gets in a fight with one of the Helseth guards. In the resulting brawl, the Redoran garrison arrests the Helseth contingent and locks down the city. Hlallu are expelled from Caldera and the area declared a no-travel zone for non-Redoran members.

The small faction within the Temple (possibly tied to the Nereverine) tries to send envoys to negotiate a settlement, but nobody cares. The Hlallu, backed by Helseth and their Imperial trading partners, are enraged and close their borders to the Redoran, trusting that their growing military will be enough to deter their more warlike rivals. Tensions build, other minor disputes between Hlallu and Redoran get brought into this and accusations get tossed around. Vivec is probably one of the hot spots, though the Temple Ordinators keep it from erupting into full-scale fighting. (You just don?t see a lot of people in other cantons, and if the PC has joined one of the Houses, he won?t get a lot of love in certain areas of the city.)

With the tension rising, something suddenly comes up on the mainland that persuades Helseth that he is better off being uninvolved. Perhaps a new supply of Ebony is found near Mournhold or the Hlallu city we plan to mod eventually in that area, thus lessening the value of Caldera in the eyes of the mainland. Unfortunately, things have progressed too far for the Vvardenfell Houses to care. War is all but inevitable.

So how does the PC fit into this whole mess? Well, under the Blades idea, he?d be sent in to verify the situation and bring back intelligence perhaps to someone operating in Balmora. To do this, perhaps the PC should be sent in under the guise of a Royal Guard. As soon as he arrives, however, the brawl breaks out and he is arrested, unless he is foolish enough to fight, at which point her automatically becomes a fugitive just as if he had resisted arrest in any other context. In the transition between arrest and jail, several things occur: the Redoran discover that you are not a Dunmer like all the other Royal Guards and interrogate you. Perhaps they discover that you are a Blade through mind-reading or intense torture or something. I think that the PC should be released with a warning since the Redoran don?t want to fight the Empire itself. The fallout though for the PC is that the Blades? involvement has been exposed, maybe even some of their members in Vvardenfell have been identified. The result is that the agents are crippled in their abilities, perhaps even forced to evacuate, leaving the PC on his own in the hotbed situation. The Nereverine is of course still there, but due to a conflict of interest, I think that the Blades no longer regard him as one of their own and he is left out of the loop. He?s probably one of the only ex-Blades to ever be allowed to live.

So what do people think? There are three areas to critique here: the set-up with Helseth, the Redoran and the Hlallu, the involvement of the Blades and the spying on Caldera as a Royal Guard until getting caught, and the idea of the Blades being exposed (in this or some other way) and being absent from the game either because of arrest or a return to the mainland and the PC being left to his own devices on how to handle the House conflict (gives him reason to choose sides, stay uninvolved, whatever he wants). This is an idea thread, so let?s here some alternative ideas too.

[Vrenir]

A follow up on several intersecting matters.

1) Batman wants to use the Helseth thing in Caldera as an early Redoran quest, and the more I think about it, I like the idea. The events should happen no matter what. Maybe if you join Hlallu, you can get something to tie in here as well. But the Blade PC infiltration angle should go.

2) As a replacement, how about this. We need a reason for the Blades to send the PC to Vvardenfell right (unless we keep the Temple/Vivec invitation thing)? What if the Blades tried to get the Nereverine to use the Temple to help them support Hlallu's military buildup. The Nereverine refused, saying that he/she will not help to divide the Dunmer Houses further. The Nereverine then decides to take action against this threat to the peace by having all Blades agents on Vvardenfell (all of which he/she knows) expelled or arrested. With all of their operatives compromised, a message is sent to Cyrodill from Elone saying that they need someone unknown to the Nereverine in Vvardenfell right away as the situation on the island needs Imperial attention. You get this message as soon as the Oblivion MQ is over. Since transportation will need to be set up with Blacklight or some such place, perhaps we could even have the PC meet Elone in a bar there, having nothing else to complicate their mod. (If that arrangement is at all acceptable; if it's not, we could put the meeting somewhere in Northeast Cyrodill) After the meeting, the PC goes to Vvardenfell with basically a free hand but the assignment to guard Imperial interests. If the PC joins the Sixth House MQ, then they've pretty well forfeited their old life anyway, but if they join one of the others and follow all the way through the Temple MQ then they are congratulated by Elone for helping to diffuse a potentially disastrous situation. The PC should probably get a really cool reward too.

3) I'd like some follow-up Blades quest too about Helseth and his alternative Ebony mine on the mainland, sort of like Tribunal for TESIV: Vvardenfell. I don't really have an idea yet for it, but it could center in the hypothetical Hlallu town that was discussed, Helseth could have a massive new mine (think a dungeon-crawler's dream come true), and he himself could show up to oversee something there. It would form a nice inclusio with Helseth's attempts to control Caldera sparking the war, and it'd give the PC the chance to infiltrate as a Royal Guard like I initially proposed for the Caldera plot.

[batman]

the caldera quest will be a mid/high level redoran quest that begins with the discovery of a hlaalu spy, and escalates from there. maybe if you want to do a Hlaalu quest that enables you to be the spy and gain contacts and steal/smuggle ebony.

i would be careful with using the blades, they're MAJOR players, so we don't want to make a wrong turn with them. I would suggest making your plans as easily adaptable as possible, to fit with the profile of the blades in the actual game.

as for #3 we'll see about the viability of that, i think it'd have to be placed in an already existing ebony mine that was in morrowind, and i'm not sure what hypothetical town you're talking about...

[Vrenir]

The problem with it being mid-to-high level Redoran is that Caldera is supposed to be the powder-keg for the House War, which is supposed to be at least half of the House quests in some way or another. I guess if it was toward the early middle, or just have the Helseth incident in the early middle...

Also, with the Blades, I know that they're someone we don't want to write a ton for. That's why I don't advise using Caius or having Blade quests. But the PC will become a Blade member in the MQ of TESIV and an open-ended, long-term assignment seems like the easiest way to force him to visit Vvardenfell and play our mod. The faction's identity is already established and unless they kill them all off, I don't really see how they could mess us up with this in the new game.

[batman]

first, it's not the powder keg though, the entirety of Vvardenfell is the keg, this just one of the events that makes it bigger and bigger. And the build-up to the house war is going to be involved in the main quest isn't it? Wouldn't it be way too hard to integrate the half of all the house quests with the main quest?

second, oh, i thought you were saying that the blades would be involved with the Helseth ebony mine thing, not just that they were the excuse for getting us to Vvardenfell.

[Vrenir]

Initially I was, but not anymore.

With the Main Quest / House Quest thing, as I understand it, this is how it is intended to go.

1) The PC arrives and finds tensions high (covert ops for each house, Helseth interfering, Cammona Tong and Sixth House taking advantage of things, the Imperial Union trying to hold their side of things together)

2) The PC joins a faction that will be a part of the House War (Hlallu/Imperials/Nords, Redoran/Indoril/Dres, Telvani/Betmer/Ashlanders/Daedric Cultists). Each of these subfactions (the joinable ones anyway) are joined seperately. When the player reaches a certain point though, the subfactions' quest-lines merge into faction quest-lines (these still fall under the general House qests). In this latter section of the House quests, the war takes place.

3) The Temple organizes a cease fire/treaty and the formerly warring factions merge into a single new quest-line, the Temple Alliance (or a cooler sounding name that we have yet to develop). This leads to a final set of quests in which the Temple faces off against the Sixth House.

So, short answer, the House quests in the latter half are the House War and should be considered part of the Main Quest. There should, of course, be smaller things in the first half/lower ranks for each House and sub-faction, but they shouldn't be hugely differentiated and the main theme should be the rising tensions and the outbreak of war.

[batman]

oh... see

the House quests in the latter half are the House War and should be considered part of the Main Quest,

thats what i was thinking as well, that the begining of the great house war plays different depending on the faction you're in. Remember, theres not just quests, theres faction and main, which are supposed to be separete and independent.

[Ebonyknight]

Maybe a Leader or counciler from each faction will be against the war and they will say


We are foolish to fight Dagoth Ur may be dead BUT his followers arent we are waisting supplies men and everything else under the sky we should make an alliance together and wipe the sixth house from the face of nirn permantly.

[batman]

well the 6th house aren't operating that openly at all anymore, now only the bouyant armigers know anywhere near their true threat level...

[Vrenir]

Yeah, they are more or less the Main Quest, but since they fall on the same faction lines, they need to be fully integrated with what comes before for each House. The line should be seamless as the player is drawn from piddly House missions to House and alliance politics to skirmishes with other Houses and finally to one or two battles that threaten to bring about full-scale war.