Soluthis Location #009: Kanath Ancestral Tomb [Finished]

[earendil]

@Ibsen's Ghost
Thats ok. I've been getting punted back and forth like a soccer ball with RL and work lately. There's not much VA in this one, but the continuation of this will have considerable amounts possible. Which brings me to my next paragraph...

@TheImperialDragon also
I intended the quest to end as such so I could dovetail it into another more complicated quest. When I finished my draft, I only had sketches of the continuation in my mind. Now I have the plot mechanics worked though. All I need (I think!) is approval and a couple of dungeons.

I designed the quest to have multiple choices and corresponding paths to take. Here is the continuation:

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Ennbjof goes to a cave with the sword. Cave full of Nords getting ready for invasion, with a shrine to Clavicus Vile inside. Clavicus Vile wants them to get a ring from a Necromancer in another cave and promises them power to conquer Morrowind.

Other cave has a Necromancer (colleague of Arvil Kanath) who has trapped a Dremora Lord in a ring in order to leech its power to plan a takeover of Morrowind. Clavicus Vile wants this ring back to get back his servant. Necromancer needs the sword to unlock the power of the ring. He can use the soul trapped in the sword, since it is human he explains, as a catalyst to draw the soul of the Dremora Lord into himself, giving him power.

-You arrive at Ennbjof's cave to find that he has left.
-(If you talk to Clavicus Vile, he asks you to get the ring for him, and will reward you. He also tells you to visit Arvil again)

-Going back to Kanath Anc Tomb, Arvil gives you some armor (asks you to get some ingredients for it as well) to protect you from the Necromancer's power.

-Go to Necromancer's cave and he explains what he is doing and knocks you unconscious. You wake imprisoned, watching Ennbjof fighting the Necromancer and lose. Necromancer grabs the sword and gains the power. He unlocks your prison and tempts you to join him or die. Arvil gave you a (potion?) just for this event, you see all of your stuff on the table to Necromancer's right, grab the potion and drink it. You then easily defeat the Necromancer and grab the sword and ring.
You have options:
//YOU JOIN HIM WHEN HE ASKS: He tasks you to kill Arvil Kanath. He needs something from him to complete his plans (Arvil will be made non-essential here just for this part). You can do this or refuse and kill Necromancer. He'll then ask you to get him a black soul gem. Obey or refuse. Then he says he needs to make you into a proper servant so he needs to kill you, trap you in the soul gem, then resurrect you. You fight or die. QUEST ENDS.
//YOU RETURN THE RING TO CLAVICUS VILE: He gives you a gift for returning the ring; he releases the Dremora Lord from its prison. Dremora Lord thanks you for endeavoring to release him (gives you a gift) and asks you to help him return to Oblivion so he can be with his kind (you kill him).
//YOU RETURN THE RING TO ARVIL: ???

-When you return to Arvil with the sword (used up by Necromancer), he says it is still possible to retrieve Floki's spirit. He asks you to get for him several ingredients and other things (soul gems, ect...). Using this, Arvil grabs dead Kanath in entranceway to tomb, chants some mumbo jumbo and stuff and sticks Floki in the dead Kanath's body and resurrects him. Floki wakes up surprised he is alive, is pissed at Arvil for killing him, even more mad that he was resurrected into a Dunmer's body, and asks to die again. Arvil refuses. Floki asks you to kill him so he doesn't have to suffer as a despicable Dunmer.
You have a choice:
//YOU KILL HIM: He dies. Arvil says, "Oh well. I guess all this wasn't worth the effort. I think I'll go now." and leaves.
//YOU SPARE HIM: he remains pissed off (make some amusing dialogue for him ) and leaves to live another life as a Nord in a Dunmer's body. Arvil thanks you for your efforts and rewards you.
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Of course, this is whole scenario is pliable and can be molded to fit any suggestions. I don't know what to do if you return the ring to Arvil.

I also wanted to make a secret area in one of the caves which has a Dwemer puzzle in it. A set of concentric stone rings which act as a combination lock to a small chamber. Before I had joined ST, I made a pseudo-Dwemer ruin in Cyrodiil using Ayleid architecture. The ruins were a Dwemer laboratory of sorts for the study of Aedra/Daedra. I had made small doorways into different planes of Oblivion representing small representative "pockets" of the Daedra's plane. I also made one representative of the Aedric Gods. These were supposed to be used by the Dwemer for study into the principles and characteristics of the Aedra/Daedra. I thought I might try something similar here, hidden behind this quest continuation.

[TheImperialDragon]

I read your quest draft, earandil.

I suggest posting it on the quest development board so bob can give input...

I don't know what to do if you return the ring to Arvil.

Is there any reason why Arvil would want the ring?

[earendil]

I figured it might be something of interest to him (Arvil). He might be able to use it to produce a magical weapon or armor, or he may accidentally send the daedra back to oblivion while trying to release it and cursing you in the process, or it may corrupt him and turn him on you. I couldn't think of anything at the time. I just figured I'd give the player an option other than keeping it or returning it to Clavicus Vile.

[earendil]

Here is the revision. Sorry for the delay in posting. Work and RL continually usurp my time. Hope you like .

[TheImperialDragon]

Thanks for the update.

I tried playtesting the quest, but Flokki ran away from the necromancers and out of the tomb before I had a chance to talk to him. Would it be possible to make it so that he stays where he is until the player finds him and talks to him?

Other than that, a couple of minor notes:

• In the lvl1 cell, there's a StRwCobweb03 reference that is floating a bit in midair (presumably because the urn it was attached to was scaled down).
  
• If the havok is triggered for the current STEDFlokiSword mesh, the sword could fall into the water and out of reach, thus breaking the quest. It would be best to use an ACTIVATOR object NIF without any havok (I attached a re-exported sword mesh with new collision that should work), and set it up (by means of script) so that when that object is activated, the WEAPON type object is added to the player's inventory. The script that would be attached to the sword activator should behave something like this:
  
  Code:

  Begin OnActivate

if [conditions checking to see if the quest is active and/or at the right stage]
    player.additem STEDFlokiSword 1
    disable
    [anything else the script should to do once the player picks up the sword]
endif

End

Hope this helps. The folder path in the attachment is just a suggestion. I didn't put it in the ST/weapons folder because the object will not be used as a weapon. Instead it's with other dungeon NIFs in the ST/dungeons/misc folder.

Are you going to add quest targets?

[earendil]

Here is the revision. I used the activator you posted in the thread, thank you TheImperialDragon . I can't find my OB disk so I couldn't playtest it. Hopefully my changes worked.

I made Ennbjof stay put by using a similar method to the Roderick's Poison quest for the Dark Brotherhood; SetUnconscious. When you activate him, it sets the quest stage, clears the unconscious flag and activates him.

I changed the script a bit for the sword as well. The player is never meant to be able to wield the sword, only Ennbjof, so I made the activator stay put and give a little message. If the player gets a chance to take the sword, which he might be able to in the continuation, the sword will tell him that he is unworthy and deal damage to him.

Hope this looks good .

[Razorwing]

I've added the sword model to the BSA update

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black[/hr]
I checked out your work in the CS and thought I'd mention some of the things I noticed and wanted to comment on.

First, when I load your plugin I recieved these errors:
Unable to find Quest Reference (00061C51) on Topic "Assault".
Unable to find Quest Reference (00012105) on Topic "Attack".
It goes on to report maybe a hundred other similar errors.

Overall I thought your dungeon looks very impressive. There are several nice touches on the first level where your skill becomes apparant, where it really showed you took the time to mod something really nice.
[indent][/indent]I was also very impressed with the second level, which I thought looks like a really fun, cramped and claustrophobic "dungeon crawl" :goodjob:

I did think there were a few places on the first level which could use more clutter though. If I may, I would also suggest combining the addition of more clutter with contracting the layout to use fewer tileset pieces, to get an overall higher detail level. For instance here is -an example- I thought could work; moving the room I circled so it connects to the hallway below the arrow. Don't get me wrong, I think your layout is good, it just needs to be cluttered a bit more.

(01-04 from left to right.)

01:
I thought this room looked nice, but that it wasn't detailed enough. Perhaps you could add cobwebs here and there, skeleton parts cluttering the floor, maybe a few sconces of the type StLightSconce10 on the walls or perhaps a skullspear-candle standing freely on the floor (just a few ideas).

02:
I think there should be offerings next to the urns in 95% of all cases. The offerings can be any item from soul gems, clothes, armor, weapons, scrolls, ingredients and so on. In TES3 and hopefully our mod as well the offerings are low-level loot which officially was left as offerings to the guy or gal in the urn but unofficially is there as small rewards to the player for fighting the guardians of that tomb.

03:
I think this stretch of moldcave could use a few more rocks.

04:
You might already know this but I thought I'd pitch the use of the static "StInVelAltar02" to you Our Velothi tileset is a lot more cramped than TES3's tileset was, which I think is good for that claustrophobic feeling but an unfortunate effect was that the normal altar models wouldn't fit in corridors like they did in the old game. So I made a slimmer version of the altar which can fit in hallways. I think you can even fit two of them opposite each other (if you bleed them into the wall a bit) and still have room for a pathgrid inbetween.


This was very nicely done, good job man! :goodjob:


Forget I mentioned it, but just for the record if someone else wonders then there is a flickering effect here caused by overlapping tileset pieces, but I understand the player won't see both pieces at the same time Nice work! Perhaps there should be an urn and a few offerings on the altar?

[sandor]

Originally posted by Razorwing

First, when I load your plugin I recieved these errors:
Unable to find Quest Reference (00061C51) on Topic "Assault".
Unable to find Quest Reference (00012105) on Topic "Attack".
It goes on to report maybe a hundred other similar errors.

He is using SI which is fine (not for ST), I'll fix that before the merge.

[Razorwing]

Originally posted by sandor

Originally posted by Razorwing

First, when I load your plugin I recieved these errors:
Unable to find Quest Reference (00061C51) on Topic "Assault".
Unable to find Quest Reference (00012105) on Topic "Attack".
It goes on to report maybe a hundred other similar errors.

He is using SI which is fine (not for ST), I'll fix that before the merge.

Okidoki, then next time I give input I'll know I won't need to mention the popups. =)

[TheImperialDragon]

earendil, I'll try to run a quick playtest your dungeon sometime in the next few days. I hope you find your OB disk.

Originally posted by earendil
I made Ennbjof stay put by using a similar method to the Roderick's Poison quest for the Dark Brotherhood; SetUnconscious. When you activate him, it sets the quest stage, clears the unconscious flag and activates him.

I'll take a look as soon as I can, though I think maybe a better way of dealing with the problem would be to prevent the necromancers and Ennbjof from fighting in the first place.

Originally posted by Razorwing
I did think there were a few places on the first level which could use more clutter though. If I may, I would also suggest combining the addition of more clutter with contracting the layout to use fewer tileset pieces, to get an overall higher detail level. For instance here is -an example- I thought could work; moving the room I circled so it connects to the hallway below the arrow. Don't get me wrong, I think your layout is good, it just needs to be cluttered a bit more.

I agree. More clutter/detail is usually a good thing.

Originally posted by Razorwing
01:
I thought this room looked nice, but that it wasn't detailed enough. Perhaps you could add cobwebs here and there, skeleton parts cluttering the floor, maybe a few sconces of the type StLightSconce10 on the walls or perhaps a skullspear-candle standing freely on the floor (just a few ideas).

Just to throw in another idea, maybe there could be a few more altars next to the walls (with urns)?

Originally posted by Razorwing
02:
I think there should be offerings next to the urns in 95% of all cases. The offerings can be any item from soul gems, clothes, armor, weapons, scrolls, ingredients and so on. In TES3 and hopefully our mod as well the offerings are low-level loot which officially was left as offerings to the guy or gal in the urn but unofficially is there as small rewards to the player for fighting the guardians of that tomb.

There should indeed be offerings next to urns. Hm... I must have forgotten to mention that earlier because I was too busy admiring the dungeon.

Though I'm a little bit confused about 95% of the urns having clutter. Looking at many of the TES3 tombs (starting with T down to V), I would estimate that no more than 50% of the altars in most tombs have offerings on them. I think 95% of all cases might be a bit much?

Originally posted by Razorwing
03:
I think this stretch of moldcave could use a few more rocks.

I don't believe that section of the cave is accessible to the player.