[WIP] Skyrim: Race Matters

[1011daxman]

Sounds awesome, can't wait!

[mike19956]

Cool! I can't wait for this to be actually finished.

[Lupus1451]

Has there been any progress lately, or is this mod dead?

[griefmyst]

There has been progress :) I'm putting all my time towards the next Arissa update which is due out very soon. After that, I should be able to get something playable/testable for RM. Edited December 22, 2014 by griefmyst

[TWarrior]

awesome! nice to hear about arissa and of course about race matters. :)

[Lupus1451]

Great! The mod sounds so cool, it would have been a huge shame if it was abandoned!

[Sacremas]

Hey this mod sounds like a great idea, I'm looking forward to it regardless fo what it ends up as.

 

Some input however if I may;

 

Windhelm has one Altmer merchant in the markedplace and is pre-Thieves Guild being harried by a gang of all-altmer thieves, thieves just wouldn't be able to operate in Windhelm if they got attacked so much regardless and had problems doing buisness. During that quest with Linwe and his gang it's specifically said that the thieves didn't kill the nord there, just robbed her corpse, so they don't sound like the kind of bloodthirsty gang that we've seen in real life among threatened minorities. My suggestion is to make Nords slightly likely to attack elves in general (dark elves in Windhelm especially going by the first encounter there, Bosmer less so), more likely to attack altmer in particular, and a near guarantee to attack altmer wearing elven armor (including mod added armor with the elven keywords), using elven weapons or wearing thalmor robes. However these attacks should only happen outside cities, and in Windhelm at night, some semblance of order must be held and the guards should at least pretend like they're doing their jobs. Be an Altmer and wear Elven armor infront of a Windhelm guard though and he might just toss you out of the city for being a likely source of contention... where you'll soon get attacked. If possible however an elf wearing an amulet of Talos should get the race relations swapped around and get attacked by Thalmor and negate the Nord/Stormcloak attacks, but otherwise have no other issues. An Altmer who's managed to join the Companions likewise might get better responses, and an Altmer using either the Shield of Ysgramor or Wuuthrad migt even get treated as a Nord considering at that point you're known as the Harbinger of the Companions.

 

However to make up for the elven penalties how about making Altmer capable of demanding aid from city guards and legionarries under the White-Gold Concordant excuses? Turns out there's actually some benefits to being basically Nazis in occupied territory. Make it an Intimidate check for 'presenting proper authority' and lasting for an hour or two while rooting out Talos worshippers or whatever you were doing. Doing so should get you a big to the point of being auto-attacked bounty in Stormcloak territories however, so make sure to watch your battle lines in the civil war...

 

Altmer and elves in general should have a hard time to join the Companions considering their history and that Athiss had problems joining. One idea is to require them to rescue Thoralf Gray-Mane from the Thalmor first to prove their allegiance. On the other hand elves and bretons should be welcomed with open arms at the College, and might skip by Faralda quicker (minor issue), but Nords and Orcs are disciminated against and might face harder entry requirements than tossing an apprentice spell at the floor. Dunmer, Kajiit and Argonians should either have no penalties if they normally have penalties or bonuses when dealing with Thieves Guild members and merchants, but brutish orcs are probably not welcomed among the thieves guild. What with the Morag Tong being a recent memory Dunmer might ave problems at the Dark Brotherhood, but none others are treated different among murderers, but considering that includes a single vanilla merchant you might ignore it. One idea that I'm not sure if is viable at all considering the main quest is to let a Nord Dohvakiin in particular get benefits that those of other races wouldn't, considering Nord Tongues and all that, such as Nord NPCs becoming friendly if you demonstrate the Thuum near them and might give you gifts like NPCs give to friends. An Altmer Dohvakiin might be targeted by assassins and bounty hunters much more frequently however, and shouting in cities might incur an automatic low bounty rather than the normal warning, Nords refusing to accept that their folk hero could be of the hated ones.

 

Nords will be hard to balance because on the one hand it's Skyrim so they should have bonuses, but as pointed out aside from blacksmiths there's actually very few Nord merchants. And while the idea of freebies to Nords is a nice one, considering what would happen to the echonmy if say every WASP in America got that treatment just for being in America, I don't think it'll work or be realistic. At the very least those blacksmiths should give very good prices however, including if possible Eorlund giving you more training in Smithing than normal, especially so if you saved his son. Kajiit, Argonians and Elves should all demand more money from Nords otoh, figuring all nords in SKyrim that aren't bandits are rich probably, as should Bretons in Markarth for obvious reasons, but bretons outside Forsworn areas shouldn't care, Belethor doesn't give a skeever's butt about it. And that Nazeem comment made me smile. Nords might skip the whole initiation quest for joining the Stormcloaks, its' a Nord and he survived Helgen (regardless if you're playing Live Another Life...), put some armor on his back and send him on his way to kill elves. Nords might be able to request help from Nord members of both the Stormcloaks and Legion and related Hold guards, up until joining either side. Pick a side 'against your people' in any country and you'll probably be more hated than the ethnic miniorities depending on who you're talking to, the Civil War shoudld be felt especially strong as a Nord once you pick a side and and hit up an enemy hold.

 

Orcs should have the same problems as Kajiit and Argonians, except with Blacksmiths and Imperial aligned merchants, due to the Orc's skils and long history in the Legion, where they are actually welcomed with open arms. Orcs also have a fearsome reputation (see berserker rage) so some might discriminate against them not because they're disgusted by them, but because they're actually afraid of them... but the end result is pretty much the same. Elves should discriminate against orcs in particular. Despite technically being Mer, Stormcloaks shouldn't care that much beyond general price switches and bad comments, and a Orc Stormcloak should be viable from the get-go aside from dirty comments initially by Galmar.

 

Dark Elves should have a lot of the same penalties but to a lesser degree as Kajiit, Argonians and Orcs, hell even Altmer hate Dunmer (see Ancano vs Brelyna). Dunmer should get worse prices from everyone but dark elf merchants (who give cheaper wares) and College of Winterhold trainers (who's got a Dunmer Archmage). Dark Elves should have a higher chance of getting attacked at night than anyone but altmer wearing thalmor/elven armor in Windhelm and Eastmarch. I don't know if it's possible but considering how the Nord-dominant guards of Windhelm feels about Dunmer you might have them get much higher bounties in Windhelm. However for that first encounter on entering Windhelm, note "And you refuse to help the Stormcloaks", indicating they wouldn't actually mind a Dunmer to actually join the Stormcloaks. Dunmer who have joined the Stormcloaks might even (if possible) get the whole race thing swapped around in Windhelm, possibly making it contingent on them actually wearing stormcloak armor, if so then just cancel out all the negatives and make random attacks impossible. Also one simple idea that's easy tio implement is to simply give Dark Elves an automatic 50 gold bounty in Eastmarch from character creation, it's not enough to attack and can be considered instead 'entry fees' to Windhelm who thinks they got enough dunmer already, and as a bonus the guard will automatiacally confiscate stolen goods and illicit materilas the suspect dark elf may be carrying.

 

Wood Elves and Nords actually have a bit of a kinship in most lore, the elven discrimination should be lower towards them than Altmer or Dunmer. Hunters might give Bosmer better prices. I'd suggest making all hunter's sites open to Bsomer but they're alraedy open to everyone, one idea instead is to have Hunters be able to sell Bosmer (and those with high Archery) the location of hunter's stashes and to mark hunter's camps in the hold on your map if asked. Altmer should consider Bosmer as basically a slave race, considering the Malborn comments and how hard the Thalmor hit Valenwood. The few Bosmer merchants might give Altmer bad prices just like Nords.

 

Yes Altmer actually dislike all the other Mer races, and all the other mer races dislike them, in truth they're only out to prove the superiority of Altmer over everyone else.

 

Speaking of slave races, thats basically what the Dominion has turned the Kajiit into; Kajiit should be extra hostile towards Altmer and might even attack them, if caravans refuse to trade with anyone it's Altmer, not Nords. Otherwise your Kajiit notes are great.

 

Argonians on the other hand shoudl give Dunmer bad prices and comments, and vice-versa, the two races have been against each other for a long time culminating in the Argonians actually chasing the Dunmer out of their homeland. Hatred of Argonians is probably one of the few things that unite the Dunmer and Nords of Windhelm. Argonians in exterior areas might assault Dunmer, and the other way around. Exterior specifically to keep the Bee and Barb couple from attacking a dunmer thief and make joining the thieves guild impossible.

 

Imperials... might be the neutral thing actually, no positive or negative qualites, sure the Stormcloaks are fighting the Empire but they're actually fighting the Thalmor, who the Imperials dislike even stronger than the Stormcloaks do considering what they did to the Imperial City. Actually this one I'm not sure about at all, considering Heimskrr's speeches and the strong positive/negative sentiments. Howevr Imperials might be able to skip the joining quest for joining the Legion, an Imperial in the Legion should be obvious. Imperials might be able to use a Persuade option to get help from Legion and Solitutide forces, like Altmer can demand with Intimidate. Traditionally Imperials are seen as very charming and cosmoplitan, they might get bonuses in cities, with Windlhelm being a likely exception.

 

For Bretons the big issue is the Forsworn thing, being a Breton in those areas should be very interesting, a Breton wearing Forsworn gear might even get ignored and no longer attacked by the Forsworn, and if you're using the Old Gods set given by the King in Rags, might even have some nice benefits. Weariing such gear in sight of Nords in that area however should lead to automatic attack and bounty from guards. Anywhere but Markarth and environments however, Bretons should be pretty neutral, maybe a minor bonus for dealing with their own kind and a minor penalty for dealing with Nords. There's the Manmer issue of course but I don't remember anywhere in lore where Bretons and Elves had good or negative relations.

 

Redguards... is an interesting issue. There's redguard NPCs like Nazeem and Amren being natural parts of the landscape (swap those two to Nords and you'd never notice the difference if you never met them before aside from names), and then there's the fascination with curved swords. Historically however Hammerfell and the Dominion is actually still at war, the redguards never gave up, and actually chased the Dominion out of Hammerfell. Hence redguards and altmer should be on knife's edges. Considering the scarcity of Redguard NPCs in the game however aside from randomly generated bandits, I'm not sure how much effort should be spent on them. Traditionally Redguards are considered Tamriel's finest warriors (1H at least), so the Companions and Legion might be positively inclined towards them, but not much more than just a basic attitude adjustments. Nazeem should be very friendly towards Redguards however... and Saadia automatically disgusted in her fear that you're there looking for her, unless you help her. Other than that there's really just Nazir and Isran in the game of named NPCs of any impact, and considering both of them have unique voices I doubt they can be changed much.

 

In all cases of attacks, no Essential flagged character should ever become hostile obviously, and keep in mind that Essential flag gets added around a lot by mods. so don't rely on it only being those who are essential in the vanilla game. If identifying said essentials becomes impossible with that criteria, have attacks spawn random hostile unnamed NPCs of the triggering race rather than make the actual NPC hostile, and put a timer on the respawn of those to keep armies from showing up (obvious you'd think but I have fought armies added by other mods before...).

 

Finally for those of us using custom races, such as several different Nord related races (Temptress, Ningheim, etc), how about a script that fires once on changing race and checks if you're a non-standard race, if so pop up a dialogue box and ask if any of the vanilla races resembles your race strongly, if you pick No then you don't get any adjustments from this mod at all, but if you pick Nord for example then the mod treats you as a Nord. For big bonus brownie points making this mod a near must for any custom race users, make NPCs think you're that race in dilalogues as well, with Galmar being happy about that Nord (Temptress) joining the Stormcloaks for example. No idea if that's possible however.

Edited January 13, 2015 by Sacremas

[TenshiNi]

Hi, I was just wondering, is Race Matters still being developed? It's a fantastic concept! One of the many things that should have been in the base game from the beginning!

Edited February 16, 2019 by TenshiNi