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+---- Thread: Shadowscales discussion (/Thread-Shadowscales-discussion)
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Shadowscales discussion - KuKulzA - 09-18-2006
this is open to all to give input but also to the Dark Brotherhood folks who have agreed to help us out with the Shadowscales since Dark Brothers of all sorts are what they specialize in. Anyhow, they will soon join us to help develope the Shadowscales and I am sure we will all give them due respect and they respect us as modders of Black marsh.
cool, formalities done with....
I think the Royal Court secretly allows the training of Dark Brothers in Black marsh, nearly all of whom are Shadowscales... they would be slightly shorter than most People of the Root and be dark-scaled but have gone through intense and rigorous training. I dunno if having suction-feet like geckos is pushing it, but it would be cool. They are hired mostly by the Royal Court to take out Archeins that get out of hand or local officials who go renegade and try to start their own rogue slave-state. Shadowscales are feared and people are generally disgusted with them, but they tend to live a simple lifestyle in their secret barracks, mostly training or on a job. Perhaps Shadowscales could also be used as counter-assassins that help protect the Royal Clan (the royal family of the Royal Court) from assassins... mostly by tracking down assassins and assassinating them before the assassins can do their work.
but those are my thoughts...
I'm not sure yet whether they should be joinable, or linked to mainquest or just Dark Brotherhood, but we'll see
RE: Shadowscales discussion - Krisi-_ - 09-18-2006
Quote:Originally posted by KuKulzA
Snip
Shadowscales are assassins for the royal court of Black Marsh.. (didnt even know they had a royal court before hearing about the Shadowscales..) there name is probably just because it's a recuirement tto be born under the Shadow.. Shadow for the Birthsign Scale for Argonian.. they should probably not be joinable as is Argogians only as far as I can get from the Dialugues of it. It's the DB who train the Shadowscales.. Any argonian born under the Shadow, is supposed to be a Shadowscale.. Shadowscales cant kill each other.. they join the DB after having served the court, when reaching a sertain age, who is unknown.. I would even belive Argoians offered their children, born under the shadow, freewilling.. since having the manpoweer to gather children, all over Black Marsh would take on other tasks...
Nothing indicates them to be any different from normal Argonians.. unsept being born under the shadow..
- Deeza - 08-29-2011
This is actually something we seriously need to discuss, as it goes right to the heart of the relationship between the Hist and the more conventional Tamrielic pantheons. However, I think that it would be better to have this discussion in the lore forum, not here.
- Ibsen's Ghost - 08-30-2011
Under Hist lore as I understand it, the practices of the Shadowscales (i.e. assassination) would be understood as a kind of 'pruning'. Bearing in mind that the Hist perceive reality as a tree with its many branches, some of the branches would be more potent than others.
Given that some people's influence is felt in certain realities to varying degrees of effect, the Shadowscales would be reluctant to trim away those who would have any effect on realities that might blossom and, especially, benefit the Hist, whether intentionally or not.
This would have the effect of making the Shadowscales somewhat mercurial since although they would be reluctant to kill on demand, their preternatural sense in being connected to these different realities, by deign of the Hist, would make their senses especially acute towards stalking, finding, knowing and killing their prey.
In this line of thinking, the Shadowscales special connection with the Hist would mean that they would therefore be privy to those whose potency in this sense (their potential to alter reality in the Hist's benefit) is reduced. In other words, they would be regarded as 'redundant'.
This itself offers opportunities for providing esoteric patterns of speech for the Shadowscales. A target whose time has come is therefore "a barren root" whereas those Shadowscales who perceive one who can benefit the Hist is spoken of thusly: "I will not stunt this one's root before it's time".
One particular dilemma here (and a potential quest) is to have a character who both kills Shadowscales and those known to be 'of the Hist' and yet remains "a fecund root". Such a character is a lost soul, powerful and yet unaware of their destiny (kind of like a loose cannon). The Shadowscales would curse them even whilst steering clear from killing them off. To the outside, this would be perplexing at first and yet later lead the PC towards a greater understanding of not only the Shadowscales but the Hist themselves.
- Deeza - 08-31-2011
I think that we could pick this up and run with it. Perhaps the Shadowscales you encounter in vanilla OB (the ones who work for the DB) only do so because they're acting on higher orders, rather than because they necessarily support the Brotherhood's goals?
- Ibsen's Ghost - 08-31-2011
Yes, that was my thinking exactly. It just so happens that the will of Sithis is likely to be inextricably intertwined with the Hist. That statement, particularly, is something I would like to test out on the DBC mod.
Additionally, I had figured that, although in lore it may mention the Shadowscales acting on the orders of the Royal Court, it is much more likely that there is a departure from this tradition beginning to emerge as the King becomes more and more estranged from Helstrom.
- Deeza - 08-31-2011
This is something I think we really need to sort out, so I've gone through all the available Shadowscales information with a fine tooth comb. The quest in question is here:
http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Scar-Tail
With some additional information here:
http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Shadowscales
What's great about it is that I had always genuinely believed that KuKulza had just made up the Royal Court from scratch, but here we have actual in-game evidence that it (a) exists, and (b) is up to its neck in really shady dealings. It seems pretty unambiguous to me that the Shadowscales are a state-run institution (though some of them are released to the DB cult when they "come of age", whatever that means). Let me know if you disagree, but I think it pretty much rules out our previous ideas about them being sent to the DB as part of the Hist's schemings.
BUT it would be much more interesting if we went beyond this. I had a similar idea to what you just suggested, namely that the practice of consecrating Argonians hatched under the Sign of the Shadow to Sithis may actually be a much older tribal tradition, that has only in recent centuries been converted into a DB recruiting program with the collaboration of the Royal Court.
It all depends on what it means to "serve" Sithis. Because to beings as metaphysically sophisticated as the Hist, it's unlikely to be simple worship as we understand it. Although the DB like to speak as though Sithis is a person, I think it's pretty clear from the lore that he's more of an impersonal deity, so speaking of "the will" or "the wrath of Sithis" is more of a metaphor than anything else. Of course, given that the being in question is magical, even metaphors referring to it have power. The DB's Sithis is real enough to them.
What I'm getting at is that the traditional Argonian concept of "serving Sithis" may be a more philosophical commitment than the DB's more mercenary attitude. It might be interesting to encounter some of these "orthodox" Shadowscales, and explore their attitudes towards their modern derivatives.
- Ibsen's Ghost - 09-01-2011
Certainly. I agree entirely.
But might I suggest that the reason the 'recruiting program' came about at all was to grant the Shadowscales the sort of freedom they craved at a time when the power of the Royal Court was waning? Therefore, the Royal Court felt the need to appease them in the hope that the Shadowscales would not seek their independence and thereby break away from under their power entirely? However, with the Hist growing steadily more active, the Shadowscales may decide that the compulsions of the sap are too strong to resist...
- Deeza - 09-01-2011
That's one possibility. We don't want to end up re-hashing the vanilla DB, with all its infighting and backstabbing, though. We should instead make this a conflict of principle - between radically different visions of what the Shadowscales stand for. It will require some careful plot writing, though I think between you, me and Xae we should be up to the job.
- Ibsen's Ghost - 09-01-2011
Sure. :yes: