Lorkhan's Trickery

[krimzin]

so I made a mod the other day with lamoyja's armored mask mod and applied an altered version of the gray cowl script to it. then I got this awesome idea. So apparently, the mischevious god, lorkhan made two masks, well before he was hunted down and mutilated by the other gods. anyway, these masks have within them the very fabric of destiny woven into them. One possesses the courage, honor, and might of a noble hero. The other, the greed, bloodlust, and deceit of an evil villain. When donned, these masks give the player immense power, and in turn, transforms them into one of these warriors. While wearing the mask, the player takes on a completely different identity and their choices influence the masks power. If the player wears the heroes mask and does good deeds, the masks power and potential increases, however, if the player is evil in spirit while wearing the mask, their power wanes and eventually, the mask cannot be worn and must be cleansed by a priest. The opposite would work for the villains mask, where evil deeds generates power and good deeds result in lack of power and eventual rejection in which the player must corrupt the mask through a daedra worshipper. The masks will come with their own questlines where the players actions will either generate fame or infamy based on the way they solve the problems. Eventually, the player will reach a point where the masks power is at it's peak and threatens to forever bind itself to the wearer. The player can then opt to destroy the mask, or embrace it's power and forever wield it as the hero or the villain.

This mod would be fairly easy, but would require a lot of planning and quest-making to make it flow evenly and believeably. I hope to use voice acting when necessary. I'm not a fan of mods without voice acting as it sort of ruins the believablilty and makes the experience weaker. Also, I wonder how the game would continue to progress as far as completing other quests, as you would have a permanant mask and therefore a permanant alter ego. Also, I'm wondering what the mask should do if it is permanantly bound and the player is excessively good/bad and would normally render the mask unusable until cleansed/corrupted. My thought is that the mask would just be destroyed. but if you could think of something more creative, feel free to say so.

[grmblf]

hey that's a good idea, but from my point of view trying to add some thing that tracks the player actions in that dual good/evil behaviour may be tricky. If you only consider decisions and actions made within the course of the quest, this may allow the player to be the saint here and then act as the most evil villain in some other place, so it lacks of consistency. On the other hand, trying to track his deeds everywhere may be tricky too. For the evil choice it's easy, you may count kills, assaults, pickpocketing, trespassing, etc. But for the good deeds... you can count yields and prays at chappels but I guess that's not enought.

 

So in conclusion IMO the best solution is to move the player in an enclosed 'world' and don't release him until the quest is done and all the coices are done. ie, entering a dungeon you can't exit thought the door you've entered or literaly being teleported to another world... This way you can effectively track ALL his actions and decisions that are relevant to the quest.

 

And yeah if you choose to get stick to one role for life and afterwards you betray the mask, it should shatter into pieces and even hurt you, cast a curse on you or something like this, it'd be quite lame trying to 'confort' it with deeds that pleased it once it no longer trust you.

[kieranfoy]

Oblivion itself keeps track of player deeds with the fame and infamy chareteristics. I assume the mod will just use those.

[kieranfoy]

Oblivion itself keeps track of player deeds with the fame and infamy chareteristics. I assume the mod will just use those.

[Slawter500]

Sounds like a good plan but there is a very similar mod here

[krimzin]

no, no thats the trick you see. the infamy and fame is the masks fame and infamy. the player's infamy has no impact at all. the masks themselves will give you a completely different identity like the gray cowl. if you commit good/bad deeds wearing the masks it will become stronger/useless and you will just have an unequippable mask until you get it cleansed/corrupted. but I really like the idea of the mask shattering if you betrray it. The quest is for the masks. not the player. you could even do vanilla quests to increase fame and infamy.