LE Make the "Destroy the Dark Brotherhood" quest more interesting

[immortalfrieza]

When I tried the Destroy the Dark Brotherhood quest I found it quite underwhelming. All one does is go to the Dark Brotherhood sanctuary, kill everybody there, and then report back to Commander Maro for a paltry gold reward. There's no traps set for the player, no sneaky ways of taking the targets out, there's no epic battle, the player doesn't have to search up and down Skyrim to complete it, and so on. Quite simply, the Destroy the Dark Brotherhood quest is terrible, nowhere near as enjoyable or has as much to do as the Dark Brotherhood questline that it's supposed to be an alternative to, not to mention gives nowhere near as good the rewards for doing it.

 

For this reason I am making this request for anyone interested. In short, what I'd like to see is the Destroy the Dark Brotherhood quest turned into a full on questline with some side stuff to do, just like the Dark Brotherhood questline itself. For some more specific ideas I had continue reading.

 

Killing Astrid as a first step and then going to Commander Maro is fine as it is, as for the rest... First, the player goes to the Brotherhood Sanctuary as normal, but once there they find the place deserted, except for a single scrap of paper left behind for any Brotherhood members. In the paper it says that the Brotherhood had gotten wind of the fact that the player was coming to kill them so they fled, with of course the exception of Lis the Frostbite Spider who's still there. The paper has a vague hint leading to the location of one of the targets that the player must figure out, head there, and kill the target, who then has another piece of paper on their corpse which has a hint to the next target, and so on. The targets would be hiding at various dungeons throughout Skyrim, (create new dungeons or put them in ones that are already there, up to you) surrounded by traps, generic Dark Brotherhood assassins, and whatever else the modder can think of to keep killing each target from getting repetivitive. Each killing would count as a quest in and of itself with rewards at each completion. As for the rewards, some gold and some nice equipment like usual, but somewhere along the line I'd like to see the player be given a glowing white unicorn with glowing blue eyes (in short, the opposite of Shadowmere in every way) as a reward so the player doesn't really miss out on anything by choosing this questline.

 

I had a couple ideas for repeatable side missions that the player could get from Commander Maro. One was protect an NPC from some Dark Brotherhood assassins, and the other was that a Dark Brotherhood assassin hiding among the populace in one of the main holds or villages somewhere as a guard or NPC with a random name. The player would have to figure out who this assassin is and kill them based on the information given prior, while avoiding killing any innocent people in the process. Any other ideas would be welcome.

 

Anyway, that's all I got for now. Thanks in advance to anyone who helps out.

Edited July 21, 2014 by immortalfrieza

[trold]

Following this.

My biggest issue with that quest, was that it didn't let me murder the hell out of Cicero.

[reyzark]

it whould be nice if somehow the extras from the db quest shows up, the wedding, the emperor ship and the emperor himself.

[LOL50015]

I see a problems with the story:

 

-running away from you despite being famed assasins? kind of unrealistic since it will hurt their self-esteem and reputation alot.

-if they're going to run from you, why make notes to help you find them?

-if they're scared of you, why segregate themselves to all across skyrim for you to pick off 1 by 1?

[immortalfrieza]

I see a problems with the story:

 

-running away from you despite being famed assasins? kind of unrealistic since it will hurt their self-esteem and reputation a lot.

-if they're going to run from you, why make notes to help you find them?

-if they're scared of you, why segregate themselves to all across skyrim for you to pick off 1 by 1?

-It's quite in character for the Dark Brotherhood leadership. The Dark Brotherhood is supposed to be a sort of myth where important people sort of just mysteriously end up dead while the killers are never found, and they vanish if they do anyway. Besides, the Dark Brotherhood is a secret order of assassins, not warriors, so taking off if their hideout has been discovered makes more sense then them standing and fighting.

-That's why I said vague notes. The idea is they're trying to hide while to get a force together to take the player out instead, so they're passing vague coded notes to each other to help other Dark Brotherhood members find them. Vague as in the player would probably have to already have been there before to have any idea where it is the note is talking about. I was trying to make this questline into something of a detective story.

-Any number of reasons really. Maybe they wanted to ensure that at least one of them survives by splitting up. Maybe they all hope that they'll be the sole survivor and thus can take over when the heat goes down. Maybe the just panicked and took off, who knows?

 

Besides, what I put was only a suggestion. The idea is to switch things around on the Dark Brotherhood and assassinate them instead. That was the best idea I could come up with to stretch the existing quest into something comparable to the actual Dark Brotherhood quest. If the modder has any better ideas I'll support it as long as it's something comparable to the other questline.

Edited July 22, 2014 by immortalfrieza

[Kestrellius]

I like this idea. A lot. Especially anti-Shadowmere. Because glowy white unicorns, yes. Another concept I think I've seen batted around (as in, Bethesda was planning to do this but it was cut) was to have the player actually join the Penitus Oculatus. So maybe...do your detective thing, take out about half the DB members, but meanwhile, they're plotting the assassination of the Emperor behind the scenes. At the end of the questline (perhaps with variations depending on how quickly you tracked down the other members? And multiple permutations of agent locations, so you can't just go to where they are immediately during later playthroughs/with a walkthrough), the remaining Brotherhood basically does what it does if you're there: they set up the plot, get tricked, and make a desperate last stand at the Katariah. Except they lose, this time.

 

I don't know.

[immortalfrieza]

I like this idea. A lot. Especially anti-Shadowmere. Because glowy white unicorns, yes. Another concept I think I've seen batted around (as in, Bethesda was planning to do this but it was cut) was to have the player actually join the Penitus Oculatus. So maybe...do your detective thing, take out about half the DB members, but meanwhile, they're plotting the assassination of the Emperor behind the scenes. At the end of the questline (perhaps with variations depending on how quickly you tracked down the other members? And multiple permutations of agent locations, so you can't just go to where they are immediately during later playthroughs/with a walkthrough), the remaining Brotherhood basically does what it does if you're there: they set up the plot, get tricked, and make a desperate last stand at the Katariah. Except they lose, this time.

 

I don't know.

Not a bad idea. More productive posts like this please!

Edited July 24, 2014 by immortalfrieza

[IrishSpyral]

I like this idea. A lot. Especially anti-Shadowmere. Because glowy white unicorns, yes. Another concept I think I've seen batted around (as in, Bethesda was planning to do this but it was cut) was to have the player actually join the Penitus Oculatus. So maybe...do your detective thing, take out about half the DB members, but meanwhile, they're plotting the assassination of the Emperor behind the scenes. At the end of the questline (perhaps with variations depending on how quickly you tracked down the other members? And multiple permutations of agent locations, so you can't just go to where they are immediately during later playthroughs/with a walkthrough), the remaining Brotherhood basically does what it does if you're there: they set up the plot, get tricked, and make a desperate last stand at the Katariah. Except they lose, this time.

 

I don't know.

 

I have been looking to no avail. Essentially joining the PO would allow you to destroy the dark brotherhood as well as play a more 'behind the scenes' role in the civil war in addition to any other cloak&dagger work the empire needs doing (including spying on the thalmor?)