1E 242, The Rebellion of St. Alessia

[koolaid_man]

I know no one liked my first suggestion, and my second rubbed some people the wrong way, but I intend to start over here with a new, and awesome, project.

 

This project will be a massive story requiring the reworking of Cyrodill, taking place in the same place and universe, but during the First Era. The biggest aspect of this mod will be the removal of all cities from the map (except the Imperial City, which will be transformed into White Gold Tower), replacing them with basic terrain, erasing the roads, and the total rebuilding of all forts and Ayleid ruins. Now, I'll be happy with rebuilding everything and the addition of new NPCs, but my main goal is to set this during the Rebellion itself. There will be a massive main quest, involving Alessia, Pelinal Whitestrake, Umaril the Unfeathered, Morihaus, and many other historical characters. TEAM DAMAGE WILL BE DISABLED FOR THIS WHOLE MOD. if story-lined it will have many large-scale battles, and hitting your allies is hard enough to avoid with one follower, much less 15 soldiers. There is no option to kill teammates or go rouge, you are permanently allied with your side during this mod. The mod would have FULL VOICE SUPPORT. Nothing annoys me more than having a great mod with no voice acting. Ayleid language could be included or not, since the side being played is the humans, Ayleid speaking would be only between NPCs interacting, or in-battle insults. We could either go lazy and have it in English, or go all out and have our voice actors practice with this. (ctrl + f should be helpful in translating, depending on your browser.) There should not be a lot of Ayleid speaking. If the quest calls for interaction between sides, we pull the bilingual card and have Ayleids speak English, broken or not is to be decided, as well as how heavily accented, probably based on the Ayleid in question. Voice actors should use higher quality equipment to ensure believable audio, no one likes the "canned" sound most audio recording devices produce, as well as background noise. We can also pull the Bethesda card and have only 2 voice actors per side if needed, one male, one female. Being this far back in history, it is understandable if the Cyrodillic dialect is different than standard Oblivion. The voice actors should be:

 

-Imperial - Strong, authoritative voice. Preferably not higher pitched, but not too deep. Should not sound African or Asian. (not to sound racist, but it's just how it sounds.)

 

-Nord- As close to vanilla Oblivion as possible, deep, grated, strong tone. (Female can sound like almost anything.)

 

-Ayleid- I'm open to suggestions here, I don't know how they sound, I would imagine somewhat like the elves of oblivion, but as you can see by Morrowind's elven voices, that is varied. Anything should do here, as long as it does not sound too plain, they should have some accent. Probably not African. Maybe *slightly* Irish? Should be able to roll tongue, as it seems some Ayleid dialect calls for it. Should definitely sound more natural speaking Ayleid than English, if it can or needs to be faked, so be it.

 

-Individual characters-

 

-Alessia- She should definitely have some degree of attractiveness (sexiness even), as she will be one of the more common quest-givers (as long as she doesn't sound downright slutty :ermm: ).

 

-Pelinal Whitestrake- The Knights of the Nine version is quite distorted, so almost any voice should work. MUST be able to sound believably insane.

 

-Morihaus- Only has one line, not even a line but a roar. Can be almost any male voice, it will need to be heavily modified and filtered to sound right. The roar should be full of anger and regret, and believable. Without getting spoilerish, this roar is when a close friend and ally dies, keep that in mind. More regret and sadness than anger. Don't be scared to freak out your neighbors with this one, make it good.

 

This will probably be the hardest part to recruit for. Even if none of the direct modders contribute in this way, ask your friends, parents, significant others, as long as you can get them (and they wont make fun of you for being a nerd). Finding the right fit for the characters would be more important than just finding anyone who will do it. Hold auditions or something, I dunno, tape a paper to a telephone pole, "Looking for voice actors, will pay in Mtn Dew and tortilla chips".

 

Getting some help from the person who did or helped with Bladesong's voice acting would be GODLEY, by far the best voices and voice acting I've seen, better than almost all of Bethesda's even.

 

The Aesthetics:

 

-All cities, and traces of them, will be removed. The ground will be forested again if applicable, and re textured to have no trace of settlement. With exception to the Imperial city, which is Ayleid territory, and should have houses redesigned as such.

 

-All main roads will be removed where applicable, i.e. roads that go to cities will be removed. Instead, the roads will lead to Ayleid cities and forts, (forts not being as well used or paved). The road that will likely remain unchanged is the ring around the Imperial City.

 

-All forts will be completely fixed. They will be textured if needed to look like new, and ALL dents, nicks, crumbly bits, and broken sections will be repaired. (unless a quest calls for it being destroyed) Limited rebuilt fort pieces. (Modder's resource, credit to Meo)

 

-All Ayleid ruins will likewise be restored, not just re textured, but also rebuilt in the same fashion as forts. No caved-in passages, no broken pavement, and no welkynd stones growing out of the walls. Also, this may take much more work than forts, as lots of Ayleid ruins have above-ground portions as well. These places will be completely rebuilt, all the arches repaired, roofs applied when necessary, and pave stones leveled out and repaired. This may take some terrain editing as well, as many of the sites look like they were level, but out of earthquakes, time, or some other means have become displaced. Some of the larger ones like Atatar seem to have had above-ground buildings, maybe shops (these were cities after all). Bawn even appears to have had a harbor! Retexture resource (Pending Permission)

 

-I may be mistaken, but Daedric Shrines may not have been in place at these times, and will probably be removed.

 

-All weapons and armors need not be redone unless you feel you want to, the elven armor and weapons seem to be in good condition. Humans would have probably worn Blades-style armor, this design being Akaviri in origin.

 

-ChaironDeCeleste has graciously contributed his Ayleid race.

 

-Humans would be imperials, maybe some Nords, as Skyrim was a contributor to the Rebellion. Not likely many Redguards, as they were largely uninvolved. Bretons had yet to be created by elven / human cross-breeding, and would be illogical to exist in this time (although they may still be used simply as a "uniquely accented person" if you must).

 

SPOILER BELOW

-DO NOT READ UNLESS YOU INTEND TO HELP MOD (or don't care)-

 

Storyline -Lore Resource-

 

1. Modern Cyrodillic Player Introduction

2. Rebellion Introduction

3. General "Trash" Quests

4. Introduction of the First Champion

5. Introduction of the Second Champion

6. The assault on White Gold Tower

 

1. The player gets a new quest upon installation of the mod, with this dialogue: While exploring the ruins of Fort Horunn, some Mages Guild battlemages found an ancient copy of a book written by one of St. Alessia's soldiers during the Rebellion.It is currently being held at the Arcane University's Mystic Archives.

 

The player would receive the quest marker pointing to the Arcane University, and need to talk to Tar-Meena about this book. (She will be made an essential character permanently, if the mod is installed after she has died, she will be alive again.) Tar-Meena is usually found in the Mystic Archives if the player has access to the University, but in the lobby is the player does not (I think). When asked about the book she will have dialogue explaining that the book was written by one of St. Alessia's soldiers, and tells of his days in the rebellion first-hand. She will ofer the player the chance to read the book in exchange for a "safe deposit insurance" of 5k coins, to insure the book against damage while reading, as it is thousands of years old and somehow preserved. This provides some sort of prerequisite for the player to begin this story. Upon leaving the story each time the player will receive the gold back, but need to repay to continue reading. Opening the book prompts a menu to come up asking if the player wants to play the storyline. The text visible on the main page is as such: I awoke in my barracks to the sound of fighting above the fort, my comrade... . Just to have something on the page. Accepting the option to play the story transports the player to the barracks, and begins the story as detailed below. The player takes absolutely no possessions with them, and is equipped with a full set of blades armor, which will be renamed something more appropriate. At any time while playing the story the player can use the "my journal" item in their backpack, which is a quest item, to return to modern Cyrodill

 

2. The quest would start abruptly, preferably with some sort of opening cinematic. It could be player controlled with NPC involvement if not. The character is sleeping, and is awoken by a fellow in full armor, geared and ready for battle (at this point whether it is a character or a trash mob is undecided). He hurriedly explains that the fort is under attack, and that all men are needed to help fight off the raid. This introduction would be similar to the one at the beginning of the "Knights of the Old Republic" game, where the player has no idea whats going on, but through introductory dialogue finds out he is a part of this rebellion, and is a common foot soldier in the army stationed at a fort (probably Fort Horunn, as this is the northernmost fort in Cyrodill, and this fort would be the main base. Soldiers hailing from Skyrim would find it most easily).

 

Side note: Fort Horunn would be decorated as fitting for the headquarters of Alessia's rebellion, with lots of soldiers garrisoned inside, plenty of furniture, and a room designated for a war-quarters. Also, the cells of this fort would be merged, taking out the doors between them and replacing them with non-teleporting ones, and a hallway extended between the Legate Assembly zone and the Horunn zone to connect them.

 

The player then gets out of bed (rolls over and gets a helmet off the bed stand if a cinematic) and follows his fellow soldier up through the fort, all the while fellow soldiers are joining them. (For comic relief, one in pajamas with a war hammer). As they get out of the underground part of the fort, they emerge into the above-ground portion. Which will be rebuilt and look like new, albeit with barricades (the ones outside Kvatch) pointing toward the entrance. Battlemages from the fort are on the upper levels, casting down at the invaders, and very few soldiers seem to be already there. (enable playability at this point if cinematic). The attackers are obviously Ayleid, probably about 15 of them, the defenders being about 10 including the player. Two already above the fort, two casters in the higher tiers, and five plus the player emerging from the fort. They fend off the invaders, at least 3 soldiers must survive, make them essential in order to make the battle feel like a victory. (One of them must be pajama-man, I have decided to make him essential. For future reference, Pajama-man will be used multiple times, but will be unnamed, unless all NPCs are given names, but just be there for comic relief of some situations. Maybe unique dialogue of some sort, he is not a funny guy by nature, but is just in the wrong place at the wrong time, or doing something unintentionally odd. Let's call him Sam the dude [not his real name] for developing purposes.)

 

*side tangent alert* A plan I have for Sam at this moment, is some time during the course of the game, in some quest, some fellow soldiers are captured by Ayleids and imprisoned, Sam is there. Upon reaching his cell he says, "You've got to get us out of here, the jailer took my pants!". He will be fully armored, but without greaves. I think I found his name, he's a Nord named "Irlav the Cursed" *tangent over*

 

After the battle, Alessia rides into the fort from the outside with her two bodyguards. She begins scripted dialogue and tells two of the surviving soldiers to ride to the other forts and warn them of increased Ayleid activity in the nearest ruin (city). I don't know what that is yet, but I will find out. After the soldiers mount up, she opens dialogue with the player and asks for a report. After reporting you are given the normal "WTF is going on?" dialogue, to which she will respond with the standard, "you know this already you idiot" dialogue. She will give you some more quests, in this mod you are almost never alone, you almost always with your predetermined squad. I think there should be a way for the player to pick his own squad, Sam probably won't be a choice, as he is needed for outside things later. The choices woks have a semi developed backstory, as well as skills that are very noticeable, maybe "special attributes", like a Nordic squad mate may have a higher than possible blunt skill, that makes almost all of his power attacks trigger the special effect, the Mage would be so conjuration heavy she could summon a clone of another squad mate, and so on.

 

3. After the player picks their squad, they may walk around and freely talk to anyone. The mod would still be open world, but straying too close to Ayleid ruins will provoke an attack, there will always be at least two patrols, both leveled at least 15 higher than the player. Basically, unless it's a quest, stay away from the ruins, you will die. This allows it to technically be open world, but encourage players to play the story line, as you cannot go solo all the enemy bases. If a player somehow gets past all outer guards, all Ayleid cities have VERY potent traps in the immediate entrance, and if the player gets even deeper than that, there will be a dead-bolted door that needs a key. Other forts won't be very interesting. They will have a garrison of around 8 troops each, with one fort commander. The commanders would have some basic dialogue, and probably share the voice actor. The player can take quests from assorted fort commanders, maybe Alessia has a mage's guild type quest layout where the player would have to get troops from each fort for a big attack. Alessia will have many quests the player can take at a time. They will be broken into recon missions, raid missions, and other assorted missions. Recon missions will have the squad scout out a certain number of enemy cities to assess the defenses. The raid missions would involve the player clearing out the city with their squad and a few other soldiers. If they recon the cities first, they might get an advantage of less traps or lower leveled guards. Cities that are being attacked as a quest will have normal level NPCs, not the 15 higher "champion" guards.

 

4. This stage should begin after at least six cities have been raided. Alessia's first champion to come was the demigod Morihaus. He is told as a bull-man, for the sake of the mod, creative liberty, fluff, and a little description taken from the book The Song of Pelinal in the game he simply portrays as a tall, broad, deeply cloaked individual. Similar in appearance to a grim reaper or hooded specter, none of his flesh is visible, his hood and robes are voluminous and deep. He has large, bat like wings and horns. Wings resource (Modder's Resource, credit to guardian01). When he requires the use of his hands, they will be gauntlet clad. Main look (Permission Pending). These look like his clothes, although his character will be tall and broad shouldered, with horns and bat wings. The lore description of him looks like this in essence, but not giant, or as bulky, and less angry. (Yes I know what this is a picture of.) Think of this mod as just having him wear robes. Some of Alessia's dialogue up to this point should contain references of council with the eight divines. Morihaus is said to be a champion of Kynareth. After the player's sixth raid, upon returning to camp, one of the soldiers comes up to the player and asks if he could help. He saus that Alessia has been meditating for days without food or water, and asks you to come into the fort to check on her. Upon entering the mess hall, Alessia comes in from the opposite direction, followed by the mysterious and intimidating Morihaus. Sam is eating at the table, and upon seeing Morihaus, gets up from the table quickly and throws a tomato at Morihaus, while simultaneously shouting at Alessia to watch out. Morihaus easily catches and crushes the tomato. Alessia calms Sam and explains that Morihaus is a champion sent by the divines to aid her in their quest. Sam simply says "oh", then resumes eating at the table as if nothing happened. Morihaus does not talk, and has no dialogue. He simply follows Alessia around. Alessia explains that Morihaus is to be her champion and main general. Whenever Morihaus needs to communicate with the player, it will open chat, but messages will go something along the line of: "Morihaus looks at you directly, you immediately receive a vision of Ayleid scouts outside the fort." Alessia will then talk to you, and tell you that Morihaus has informed her of scouts outside the fort, and sends you to deal with them. The raid and recon quests will continue here. After about 10 more raids, the main story will continue to the next stage.

 

5. Alessia proposes that the player, her, and the squad go to Bawn to sabotage the harbor. Morihaus will not accompany them here. This quest starts with the player traveling to a hill above Bawn to set up for the sabotage. The player will automatically travel there, and wake up in a small camp, like the ones found in Cyrodill, with Alessia and the squad there sitting around the fire. Talking to Alessia will come up with something like this: "The City of Bawn is one of the Ayleid's main harbors, if we take this out, we can severely impact their naval operations. First, I need you... wait... did you hear that?" At this point, the conversation ends, and a raving and blood-soaked Pelinal Whitestrake comes up from the direction of Bawn, brandishing a blood soaked mace (crusader's mace) and sword (crusader's sword). Pelinal, according to the books in TES games, dual wielded these weapons. ("Shields are for noobs" -Pelinal) Possible dual wield resource (Pending Permission). He laughs maniacally, and says something along the lines of "The entire city! dead by my hands! *maniacal laughter*" He seems to come out of his rage, and stares confusedly at the people around the fire. He then addresses the people, somewhat along the lines of: "I am Pelinal Whitestrake, also called Pelinal the Bloody, for I am the greatest enemy of the Ayleids, their eastern chieftains talk no more thanks to me." Alessia then recruits him as her second champion. Pelinal is frequently absent from her side, although he does stand by her as Morihaus does. Alessia may have some dialogue describing Pelinal's slightly insane nature, and his moments of lucidity are punctured by fits of blood thirst, which he takes out on Ayleid cities. (all this lore about both Morihaus and Pelinal is outlined in books and on the lore pages of uesp.net with references. I know, not many people think of "knights of the nine dude" as a raving bloodthirsty schizophrenic with a touch of Khorne. :huh: )

 

6. After 10 more raid quests, Alessia calls a war council. The player, the squad, an assortment of Fort Commanders, Morihaus, and Pelinal are all present. She talks of gathering forces for an assault on White Gold Tower. She references the efforts of the squad and Pelinal for the weakening of Ayleid forces. Morihaus sends a mental image to everyone present of all the elven kings, along with Umaril and many Ayleid soldiers waiting at white gold tower. Pelinal argues that he himself has slain more than that, and that with this many forces the attack should begin immediatley. Alessia says that Morihaus is right, and that more cities should be exterminated and more forces gathered before such an assault. Pelinal is angry, and says that despite Morihaus' and his close freindship, he will go in and destroy white gold tower himself before letting them go for one more day. Alessia is adamant that the attack shall not begin. Pelinal then storms out of the room with weapons in hand, saying that Umaril and the rest of the Ayleid ilk die today. Alessia commands all the fort commanders to gather their troops and meet outside the main bridge to white gold tower in three hours. She asks the player when he's ready, when they say yes, they are transported outside the main bridge to the imperial city. There are about 30 soldiers present. Morihaus and Alessia are "talking", when Morihaus falls to his knees and, in his only vocal action of the game, roars into the sky. It is a very deep voice, with a touch of animalism to it. after doing this, he turns to the player in dialogue, the text reads something like: "You are overcome with a deep sense of sadness, and picture Pelinal's body being divided into eight pieces by Ayleid kings. Umaril's broken form and many Ayleid soldiers, litter the battlefield." Alessia then opens dialogue with the player: "Oh no! Pelinal has been slain! those bastards will pay, Umaril and his guards may lie defeated, but we must carry out eradication of the Ayleids as Pelinal fought for. The army then charges across the bridge (which is littered with the corpses of Ayleid solders) and into White Gold Tower's city district. the "Talos Plaza" part is the only part available, no doors link to other parts aside from the one leading to "green emperor way" and the army charges in to find one king that was too slow to escape, and have a battle with him. Ayleid kings are described to have had "Demons", probably aurorans. The battle will be more of a slaughter, with 15 aurorans and the king, at least 10 lvs higher than the player.

 

----------END SPOILER----------

 

Looking for talented people to help with this mod!!! I know there are real great people out there from my forum stalking, L33, Ub3r, I'd love to have some of you skilled people here with me!

 

Contact me at [email protected], or MSN instant messenger with the same tag. I'm also in Warhammer online under the same name of koolaiddude on Iron Rock, am frequent user of the WAR forums under the tag koolaidman, and have an xbox live account named koolaidude (notice the 1 D in between words). I also use mIRC under the tag koolaiddude as well, normally in the #ironrock channel of sorcery.net Using the combination of these methods, you should be able to reach me at absolutely any time of the day ever unless I'm in town or sleeping.

 

MAKE THIS HAPPEN PLOX! -contribute please! I need a 1337 team of peoples to do this.

 

If you read all of this, you get the "Readinator" achievement for life.

[koolaid_man]

I will finish this post as I get the time. Please post your feedback, or better yet, volunteer to help!

[Zephyr2011]

Hmmm, one thing I might suggest is that rather than a TC (total Conversion) as it appears you are aiming for is to do something akin to the Assassin's Creed series. Where the player must complete a small quest to gain access to a spell or Doomstone of some sort that allows them to travel back in time or relive the memories of one of their ancestors during the time period. For this you need only copy the world spaces then delete and rebuild the objects you want rather than obliterating all of Vanilla you could offer an extra or alternative storyline. This method would add much more of an experience to players as it keeps Vanilla in tact and it wouldn't take much more work than your original idea. I didn't read the entire post so at this time I can't offer as much advice as normal. Good luck with this endeavor, whoever decides to take it up.

[koolaid_man]

Yeah, you're right, I know some of my terminology may be off, I meant more of an overhaul of the oblivion world, rather than the mod term overhaul meaning remaking the game.

 

If you read my post you will see that I was tired, coming down off two Monsters and fabricating everything about this mod on the spot the very moment I was typing it. I had a moment of inspiration, I will probably end up better consolidating this post after its completion.

 

To those who didn't read the end of the post due to my spoiler alert warning, the last three paragraphs deal with contact and recruiting, please read those.

 

P.S. The iPad is hard to type on, but it's the only thing available at this 4th of July "party" I'm at...

[koolaid_man]

A full list of "staff" I need:

 

-Model Editors, to restore ruins, make objects if needed,, and perhaps texture some objects.

 

-Voice actors, detailed more at the end of my second paragraph of the main post.

 

-Research team, to help gather specific events and lore to include in the main quest, that occurred in the year 1e242, or are simply referenced as happening "during the rebellion".

 

-Mod creators willing to contribute weapons, armor, races, places, or other things to this mod, if not work on it directly. (one of the elven race mods specifically would be great.)

 

-Voice actors.

 

-Cheerleaders / stalkers to follow this project and bug us a bout it to keep us motivated.

 

-Voice actors.

 

-Quest and cinematic scripters.

 

-Animators (there will probably be minimal animation outside the cinematic related things).

 

And voice actors.

 

Contact me using one of the methods listed on the end of my main post, if you can't contact me using any of those methods, I am not on the planet at the moment...

[koolaid_man]

Updated contact info and added to the storyline some more, I will post some resources later.

[koolaid_man]

I'm done, pretty much. Here is the whole main story, obviously without side quests. Yes, the lore, even down the the strange sounding dialogue, is backed up by books from the game, mostly The Song of Pelinal.

 

The Morihaus character is vastly different than the lore-ascribed version however. There is no mention of him having "psychicish" communication abilities, but it seems possible with his link to the divines, and being a demigod himself. While there are lots of gray areas around this character, there is nothing here that directly conflicts or violates lore, and a lot of his actions and a portion of appearances come from lore.

 

If you want to refine the main story or contribute side quests please do, although I would advise a spoiler warning before anything spoilery.

[TehBuddha]

I could do some texture work if you want :sweat:

I'm quite busy at the moment, but Im sure I could make some time for this. it sounds fun ^-^

[koolaid_man]

Updated the cast list

 

Sweet, and grats on being the first volunteer :tongue:

 

One of the main texture related things we need is a map of Cyrodill without cities, but still with the Imperial City. This may be trickier than it sounds, we may have to wait till we map out the new roads as well, and maybe even map some of the biggest cities. I've seen your colored map and this looks right up your alley, whether this one is also colored or not is up to you. Depending on the results of my permission request to the maker of those Ayleid textures, we may need to redo some new looking Ayleid textures as well.

 

If you could send me some contact info that would be great, I'm on MSN messenger at all times when I'm on the computer, which is almost all the time.

 

Thanks for helping, and I look forward to making this mod with ya!

[ub3rman123]

You could do it Tribunal style. Just blockade the doors and force the player to stay within the city. Would save you a ton of work trying to overhaul the entire world to make it look younger.

 

For the bits outside of the city, you might have a problem. Try some story-related thing explaining that you can't venture far from Alessia due to the book's magic or something..

 

Speaking of the book, you need a good reason as to why the player has to go back in time, otherwise it's just another trans-dimensional romp. Here's some well known going back in time things and their purpose.

 

Assassin's Creed: To get training to defeat something (Sorry, never played it myself)

WoW, Caverns of Time: The Infinite Dragonflight are trying to destroy the past, and you have to prevent it.

FO3, Operation Anchorage: The vault will only open if you complete the simulation.

 

The Ayleid ruin retextures should be (sort of) easy, because almost all the pieces of the ruins have a 'nondestroyed' variant, with no chunks missing, just the textures. You can copy the ruins, and edit-replace the broken bits with new shiny stuff, then add on to them.