Redoran quests

[Razorwing]

As some of you know, awhile back I completed the palace for Great House Redoran's leader in Soluthis, both modelling- and modding-wise. It was a hell of a lot of work hehe, if you count the first six weeks I spent modelling just to be able to mod the location - but for the most part I had great fun while doing it. You need to be an ST Modder or core member to see it in-game.

Now that the Redoran questgiver is in place I thought we could talk about what kind of quests we'd like to see for House Redoran. I wrote a story arc quite a long time ago, and I'd still like most of it to form the quests' backbone, but there can and should be quests inbetween of a more freeform nature. Perhaps a good analogy would be the Spies in Bruma quest in Oblivion's main story, although I don't believe that quest is optional like these quests would be.

It's very easy to add quests to House Redoran because the way it's set up the player can collect 'faction points' for completing quests. The faction points alone decide if the player can advance to the next rank and thus access more quests. So, completing any quest is likely to help the player's career in House Redoran, which I like to think adds an incentive for a high-level character to take on a simple and low-key quest.

Let's say the player has Rank 5 in Great House Redoran and he really don't want to do the big quest for that rank level, the quest that will garner him enough points to advance to the next rank - let's say 15 points. The reason could be as simple as that he's playing our mod for the second time and has already done the quest. Maybe he strolls out of Soluthis in search of other adventure and leaves the Redoran questline behind - or so he thinks. Then he comes across a trader under attack by highwaymen and saves his life (5 points), helps a farmer fight off a pack of bear that's been prowling around their house (5 points) and finally tracks down and kills a necromancer that's been snatching people from their homes in their sleep (5 points)*. And presto, the game tells him he has enough points to advance. When he sees the character whom handles advancements - Rathan Semi in the palace - he's informed someone else completed the quest he didn't do, and the player can opt to go on a new big quest.
(* these are just theoretical quest ideas I pulled out of my head in a few minutes)

So to make a long story short it will be very easy to mod quests for Great House Redoran, given that all you need to worry about in regards to the main story is that you add a line of code to your result script at the quest's completion. Having said that, I'm looking forward to hearing your quest ideas =)

[Atreides]

Perhaps you could point out a general concept of what Redoran's main quest revolves around? I understand if you don't want to be very specific, however getting a feel on Redoran's quests would be helpful to make interconnected and completely independent quests that don't contradict what you have in mind for Redoran.

Also I think it would be helpful if you could give an overview as to the political/theological/tactical standing on Redoran:

What is their relationship like with the other Houses?

What is their relationship with the Empire? Has it changed any since the events of Morrowind and now with the events in Oblivion? Does Redoran have a stronger need of independence for some reason or have the events switched their views towards unification? After all, the Empire would benefit from allies like Redoran who are honorable as opposed to the Hlaalu who have secret agendas behind their actions.

What about the Temple and the Imperial Cult? An actual manifestation of an avatar of Akatosh defeating one of the house of troubles (Mehrunes Dagon) and sealing off Oblivion certainly must have a serious impact in Dunmer beliefs about Daedra/Divines. Is Redoran still the Temple's strongest supporter/guardians? Or did the Temple's utter failure of protecting Morrowind from Dagon's invasion switch them to another faith?

How much of an impact did the Oblivion invasion have on House Redoran? Was Ald'ruhn the extent of their losses or are they much more severe such as Indoril who have virtually collapsed as a House?

I know these are big questions, perhaps stuff you might not consider too important or relevant to what you're interested in for the mod. However this type of info, at least for me, would certainly help to create ideas for Redoran quests.

[Cuthalion]

Quoting from UESP.net Wiki:

"House Redoran [of Morrowind] prizes the virtues of duty, gravity, and piety. Duty is to one's own honor and to one's family and clan. Gravity is the essential seriousness of life. Life is hard, and events must be judged, endured, and reflected upon with due care and earnestness. Piety is respect for the gods and the virtues they represent. A light, careless life is not worth living.

The Great House Redoran is one of the five remaining Great Houses. Its council seat is in Ald'ruhn and all councilors live there in the hollowed shell of an ancient Emperor Crab; the district is known as Under-Skar. Other Redoran-dominated towns include: Khuul, Maar Gan and Ald Velothi.

The main focus of House Redoran is maintaining the traditions of the settled Dunmer and, more specifically, the way of the warrior. Due to this focus, the Tribunal Temple is a natural ally. There is also mutual respect between them and the Imperial Fighters Guild and Imperial Legion. They have less respect for the other Imperial Guilds (i.e. Mages Guild and Thieves Guild) and the Imperial Cult religion.


Conflicts often arise with the other Great Houses. The most obvious conflict is about the town of Caldera that was founded by the Imperial Caldera Mining Company with the support of House Hlaalu, but there is also bickering with the Telvanni concerning the foundation of certain new settlements in the Ashlands.

House Redoran's current leader, Bolvyn Venim, is somewhat unscrupulous for a Redoran. Few among the rest of the hierarchy actually like him, but the Redoran respect for strong leadership (which few Redoran leaders have displayed in recent history, hence the current weakness of the house) and prowess in arms ensures that he nevertheless retains his position."

I think that covers Redoran...

[Atreides]

Hi Cuthalion, thank you for the information you provided. However I was referring to an overview of the House's standing in the current timeline as far as the mod portrays them.

A lot has changed between the Nerevarine's arrival to Seyda Neen to the Champion's fateful battle at the Temple of the One. And everything from the fall of Dagoth Ur to Martin's ascension into the avatar of Akatosh would have undoubtedly had a profound impact on all races and provinces. I believe there should be at least some degree of changes occuring within Morrowind, if not major changes.

That's why I aksed about Redoran's status in all aspects: political, financial, tactical, spiritual, philosophical, in this actual timeline. And of course the nature of Redoran's main quests. which is tied into those aspects.

[Razorwing]

Here is a brief synopsis of what I have in mind.

[blockquote]In the beginning of House Redoran's main quest everything is basically fine and the player is sent on two unimportant but hopefully interesting starter-type quests. In the third quest the Nord component of the main quest kicks in with full force, as the player is sent to investigate an ancient Velothi stronghold on the border to Skyrim - which he finds to be overrun by Nords. He slays the invaders and return to the palace. House Redoran realizes they need to build up their power to face the threat from Skyrim, so the player is sent on two-three quests I haven't decided on yet to further House Redoran's strength.

After that, the Nords strike again, this time further into Morrowind and burn a whole village to the ground. Don't worry TID, I promise it won't be Ald Nium The player is sent to investigate the village, following reports from scouts of a band of Nords prowling the countryside, and finds them in the midst of the village ruins.

However House Redoran is more powerful this time, since the player went on those quests inbetween the Nord strikes, and have the means to strike back. So now comes the time to take the battle to Skyrim, as the player crosses the border to find a Nord village on which to wreak vengeance on. The player will retain a moral choice of whether to simply burn down the village, or burn it down and kill the villagers (like the Nords did). Either way counts as a victory so it's just a matter of whether one is a good or evil player. The village is situated in its own, small worldspace and accessed through a cave or similar.

I haven't decided on the finale yet. Perhaps the Nords invade Soluthis, or perhaps a large battle is fought outside town, or perhaps something else. But either way it ends with the war between House Redoran and the Nord warlords coming to an end. Interesting ideas about the finale are very welcome (as long as they are doable) [/blockquote]

Originally posted by Atreides
Also I think it would be helpful if you could give an overview as to the political/theological/tactical standing on Redoran:

What is their relationship like with the other Houses?

What is their relationship with the Empire? Has it changed any since the events of Morrowind and now with the events in Oblivion? Does Redoran have a stronger need of independence for some reason or have the events switched their views towards unification? After all, the Empire would benefit from allies like Redoran who are honorable as opposed to the Hlaalu who have secret agendas behind their actions.

What about the Temple and the Imperial Cult? An actual manifestation of an avatar of Akatosh defeating one of the house of troubles (Mehrunes Dagon) and sealing off Oblivion certainly must have a serious impact in Dunmer beliefs about Daedra/Divines. Is Redoran still the Temple's strongest supporter/guardians? Or did the Temple's utter failure of protecting Morrowind from Dagon's invasion switch them to another faith?

How much of an impact did the Oblivion invasion have on House Redoran? Was Ald'ruhn the extent of their losses or are they much more severe such as Indoril who have virtually collapsed as a House?

House Redoran is beset by both Nords and House Hlaalu, albeit in different ways. The conflict with House Hlaalu is more of squabbling, competing for resources and the odd murder now and then while the threat from Skyrim is much direr. They don't want to steal Imperial contracts or cause the house to loose face, they want to burn their lands to the ground and loot everything they can get their hands on. So more than anything House Redoran is desperate to even survive, and given that it's a game it seems logical to me that the player will get to play the role of saviour. Seeing the kind of opposition House Redoran faces, saving them will definitely be a challenge and only something a very high-level character can hope to do. Though the player can opt to postpone the finale until he's reached a sufficient level by simply reloading a save made before the finale quest began.

Our mod is independant of Oblivion's main quest, so if that has an impact on Dunmer belief it's best to just leave it unsaid. If someone wants to do a job around that I'd be all for it, but I don't see it as a big concern myself.

I find your other questions intriguing, but I also think that if one delves too deeply into those concepts it could get complicated quickly. If a concept can't be represented in-game and made obvious to the player then I don't think it's really worth exploring it, since it'd just add complexity needlessly rather than adding it for the player's benefit. Don't get me wrong, I don't believe we should dumb it down for the player and I've always loved lore. But when it boils down to it it's a game and concepts has to be made apparant to the player, and some concepts are just really hard to make apparant in-game.

[Atreides]

Thank you very much for the explanations Razorwing. I find the premise of a Dunmer vs Nord struggle very promising.

As far as I can recall from my Oblivion rumors, the Nords are in a current state of flux as clans are warring amongst themselves in a vie for power. In a way, the situation in Skyrim is the same one in Morrowind, albeit less cloak and dagger and more direct confrontation. So a factor that is relevant is whether the attacking Nords are part of the Nordic government, sponsored by the Imperials, or one of the marauder clans that is perhaps attempting to gain new ground away from Skyrim's internal struggles and building a base in an equally troubled and to a degree more vulnerable place which is Morrowind, undoubtedly the most troubled province in recent years.

I certainly don't want to overcomplicate the work for you guys, nor confuse the player. I admit, my favorite book is the original Dune as my name would suggest so I may be too into complex plots of political, philosophical and theological nature. Sorry about that

The question I asked about the Empire at least is because as an Imperial player, I was curious for some insight as to how House Redoran might treat me in the mod; from this I can come up with better suggestions for quests. Of all the Morrowind Houses, I like Redoran the best and I wish there was some way to gap the differences between Redoran and the Empire, particulalry after the events of ES 3-4. I always found it somewhat unrealistic that my extremely Imperial Nerevarine which was both head of the Legion and Imperial Cult was so readily accepted by House Redoran who supports independece and the Temple; same with isolationist Telvanni.

Here are some of the very preliminary ideas for possible quests:
Main Quest:
1) You could have a quest perhaps earlier on while investigating the attacks where the player uses contacts within the Blades to confirm or hear rumors of who might have slaughtered the original village. This character could also provide insight into the volatile situation in Skyrim and info on the warring clans which might be the aggressors.

A twist you might also want to throw into this quest is involvement from House Hlaalu. Hlaalu benefits from a weakening Redoran, further gaining their own momentum for a possible internal shakeup of Morrowind's political structure. It would be within Hlaalu's best interest for the Nords to wreak as much havoc as possible to Redoran (Though they publicly oppose it of course). So perhaps Hlaalu agents or Dark Brotherhood assassins are dispatched to kill the Blades informant or the player.

2) Here is a moral dilema quest. Redoran spies have learned that the Nord raiders plan to destroy one of the smaller outlying villages. This is of course after it has been confirmed that the Nord raiders are responsible for the attacks on Redoran. This is an advanced strike force, not the main group of invaders which are elsewhere.

Redoran isn't yet prepared to move against this advanced camp, still setting the stage for their assaults or counterattacks; not to mention collecting intelligence on the main invasion force. If Redoran and the player intervene in the attack, the Nords will know they have been been compromised and worse the main battle force will move ahead their invasion, making Redoran fight on different fronts against much stronger forces; if they don't intervene and allow the destruction of the village, the Nords will remain in their current bases confident of their position; allowing Redoran to move its forces where they can strike at the aggressors unprepared.

So the choice is to intervene and save the small village, then making the later missions much harder as the Nords attack in full force and lose many similar villages; or deliberaely allow the destruction of the small village but not tiping off the Nords, thereby averting the huge assault which leads to many more deaths and allowing the Redoran forces a chance to get into place.

3) As Skyrim is suffering from infighting, another quest could be tied to an alliance with rival clans of the attacking Nords. This could be setting the stage for the finale, while Redoran conducts its attacks on their targets, the Nord allies destroy the enemy Nord's base back in Skyrim. This could be any Nord clan really, or several clans who are enemies of the attackers; perhaps even the Nords currently in power in Skyrim's capital.

Side Quests:
1) As Redoran grows more desperate, one of Redoran's hgihly decorated leaders begins to use increasingly brutal methods. Everything this leader does is in the name of saving Redoran, but so brutal it begins to stray from Redoran's code of honor. This leader's quests begin to spiral more and more downwards until this person has to be taken out themselves. This warrior chief duels the player as he/she will not relinquish their position of power; and even at death the person believes that the evils they commited/ordered were necessary and correct for the survival of House Redoran.

This person can be a hugely popular person within Redoran, perhaps a hero of Red Mountain and a symbol of what Redoran is supposed to represent. In the end, the truth can be agreed upon to be covered up; not to protect the atrocities of this character, but all the hope and the strong beliefs that were held by the people. Thus, the leader is buried still as a Redoran hero instead of a monster.

2) A Redoran leader has died and a replacement is coming in from another province. The Redoran coming to replace the dead leader has received the position via inheretence because of bloodline, not specific achievements.

This new leader is not really known to Morrowind's Redoran, so Hlaalu orchestrates an assassination before the leader arrives in Morrowind and replaces the leader with a Hlaalu double agent. The point is the long term infiltration of House Redoran and destabilizing of Redoran's infrastructure from the inside.

Obviously the player's job is to find out about this double agent and eventually dispose of him. This can be a couple or so quests between finding out about the replacement of the real leader and the removal of the double agent.

I hope this can be the least useful to you guys for some quests.

[SACarrow]

After that, the Nords strike again, this time further into Morrowind and burn a whole village to the ground.

I would propose that that village (unlike Kvatch) be fully modded. It may seem a waste, but I feel that it adds a degree of realism and pathos when NPCs that the PC "knows" die in war. I know it affected me when Baurus went to the clearing at the end of the path during the Battle of Bruma; in fact I replayed that a couple of times to try to save him with no success. I even retrieved his sword for Jauffre.

Got a touch misty right there,
Steve

[Shakes]

Hi guys. Great idea with the points system Razorwing. I think anything to sweeten the deal for doing a main questline again is a good thing.

1) A nice early quest (perhaps one of the couple before the villiage is raised) would be to take down a Nord raiding party that have been ambushing traders /caravans on a particular route between towns, somewhere near the border in an attempt to disrupt the economy. Make the player dress in plain clothes and act as a trader, riding a horse (or a cart would be even better) along the road between the two towns, at which point they are ambushed and must defeat the raiding parties.

If you wanted to draw the quest out a bit, you could give the player a set route between say 3 or 4 towns and have 2 or 3 random ambushes happen. This would encourage the player to explore the region a bit early in the game, much like the temple quests or the flower/mushroom picking quests did in morrowind, whilst keeping with the redoran warrior feel.

One of the ambushes could involve running into a larger group of ambushers who have already set upon a couple of traders and their cart - fighting alongside people you can potentially save is always good.

2) Another 'hit back at them' mission could be to take out a Nord scout ship and its crew (as they are known sea-dogs) that is moored somewhere up near blacklight, where the player finds a message on the ships captain containing some kind of intelligence pertaining to the invasion. this can be taken back to the quest giver and lead on to the next quest - perhaps the 'wreak vengeance on nord village' quest, with the note suggesting garrisoned forces have left the village to join the main battle group.

[bob196045]

Howdy Shakes

Welcome to Silgrad


This is a nice Idea, I think we can use this. If you'd like to help with the fun you are welcome to work out the details and post such

let me know

Look forward to more of your ideas


Enjoy
Diet Bob
(Now with a splash of Lemon)

[Shakes]

Thanks bob.

As it happens ive just finished uni exams for the year and would definitely like to help out with quests as much as i can. Im a programming student so give me a couple of days to refamiliarise with the construction set and scripting language and i can help out with implementation/testing too if you'd like.

Ive visited these forums a few times over the last few months but havent even had much time to play oblivion (let alone mod it), but I really love all of your work here and would like to contribute as much as i can.

Ill work on some dialouge/planning for these two quests and come up with some more ideas. Are there any late stage quest plans that would be a good template to work with?