LE Improving the Blades

[Drytor]

The idea of the town was to try and keep away orying eyes as I mentioned the clearing of the Forsworn. Since they've got no Emperor they can be public with they have to do everything secretly and having a town as a front seemed to be the best way to do it and maybe the town could be affiliated with Markarth seeing as they still want to worship Talos and have a Thalmor presence (so it's implied the Blades are helping them in secret). I understand your point though.

 

Yes, Real Time Settler was an awesome mod and was actually kind of where I was coming from. Anything that can be ripped from that could probably help with the whole Thalmor - Blades fight in terms of taking control of Forts and such

[gofortheko]

Would also be cool if they can become a third faction for war after you recruit enough members to go against both imperial and stormcloaks. I mean they were the elite for the emperor a long time ago, why not make quests with getting the septium line back into power.

[JibstaMan]

Quite a lot of work, reading all pages. Great idea's so far. Far to interesting... it's late :/

 

I would like to take part in this project, although I'm not very skilled atm and might have little time.

Things I would like to do/participate in are: Dungeons, Quests, NPC's to Recruit, NPC story design, rebuilding of SHT.

 

My idea about this mod would be the following:

 

About rebuilding Sky Haven Temple:

I have doubts about the timing of the rebuilding. Somehow I think the sooner the better, although fitting the story is always better...

The idea I had before reading all the post was: The option to rebuild should start at the very beginning. Creating the option from when you first enter the temple. This is the Base of Operations for the Blades, you do it for the Blades. You build a guild base and the Grandmaster's quarters, nothing specifically for you. Until you finished the main quest and do the stuff in "A New Hope", then you are Grandmaster and the quarters you build are actually yours!

 

I kinda dislike the idea of the different building stages depending on the recruitments, maybe make some quests on how to get all the tools. Like buy or do something for College of Winterhold for an Enchantment table... stuff like that. Some things could be linear of course, things that are hard to make an interesting quest for.

There can be a lot of idea's build around this. Like making the forge a "Haven Forge" (Sky Forge exists already :P) the only forge that allows to make Akaviri weaponry and blades armor. Getting this forge could be a hard quest, that the player could do instead of an easier quest of a normal forge. The blacksmith is then just the blacksmith. We need to make the arrangements for the tools he requires for his job. Most things can be done different ways, do something for someone specific or just throw (a lot of) money at it. I believe there are quite a lot of players who have lots of money with little ways to spend it, by making it like this, they could afford doing it the easy way instead of the hard or at least (a little) time consuming way.

 

About recruitment:

I think a more free approach about the recruitment would be nice. I think we should make some NPC's and use some existing ones that when they like you, could join the Blades. The idea of NPC spots are fine. You can make a selection of the recruited NPC's for those specific spots. The other recruitments are just members. They protect, follow order, serve and obey. They Guard the temple. Maybe some errand boys for fletching purposes, like getting leather, ores and fill soul gems (just spitting idea's).

This adds a lot of dimension to the recruitment and expansion of the Blades. You decide who is what and who is dependable and trustworthy.

(Haven't played Mass Effect 2, so don't know about the recruitment missions in there. Also haven't completed main quest, so got no info about what already happens with the Blades, besides what I've read here)

I would make a suggestion about the Sharpshooter: Angi, her home is South East of Falkreath. she would make a good Bow trainer for NPC's.

 

Blades allegiance in the war: Neutral.

Although. For the sake of idea's. The Blades could be supportive of the Empire in a general way. Maybe I am incorrect about the lore, but the Thalmor are the problem. With the Thalmor gone (and their pursuit after Talos Worshippers), the Empire might recognize Talos as one of the Nine again and thus be in line with the believes of the Blades. Civil War solved I guess... (again, haven't done anything in the civil war yet, it's for the sake of idea's)

 

I also would like to point out the mod in my signature... I believe some idea's that come up here are considered there too, and maybe this mod could benefit from that one and vice versa.

 

Cheers, Jibsta-Man

 

EDIT: I checked whether the Blades only support the Emporer and not the Empire, this is not the case (when you believe the Unofficial Elder Scroll Pages). "To be named in the Blades by the Emperor is a great honor, and publicly acknowledged members serve openly in noble courts and diplomatic posts. Privately, many Blades members act as the Empire's intelligence agency. Such agents conceal themselves with secret identities, operating in disguise as couriers, observers, spies and bodyguards throughout the Empire."

Edited December 2, 2011 by JibstaMan

[Kairo29]

Incorporating situations that dont exactly go according to plan is a muuust. I like how u used Firefly as an example (loved that show). if possible, there should be decision making going on inside of the quest. Maybe only minor things to keep things simple. Things like being able to choose candidate x as our blacksmith over y because u like his resume better lol, jk, but u know what i mean.

 

Itd even be cool if there were multiple options for recruitment missions so we could decide what NPC we like the most. Maybe if all of em could share the same dialogue script once uve chosen the option to "recruit". Maybe that would be for minor roles tho. If u were to create companion missions like in ME2 the multiple options could be difficult cuz u wouldnt want several NPCs to share the same personal story mission.

 

I think having quests that showed some betrayal or related to the "bad intel"/walking into a trap idea would be rly fun to experience. Maybe scripting some recruit deaths if certain prereqs werent fulfilled b4 a specific story pt like in ME2...

[Chainsgore]

I had a thought regarding the Dragon Ally idea. As I mentioned earlier in the thread I think it would be interesting to have possible dialouge options to have the Blades settle thier differences with the Greybeards. Seeing as (at least the way I've been reading it) the idea is to expand on the Blades post main questline and the Greybeards go basically inactive it wouldn't interfere with anything else. It would be cool to have a set of quests done through the Blades for the Greybeards that leads to having a dragon (maybe 2) at SHT. Could maybe script them to actively kill the nearby Forsworn. If you think about it nearby settlements know there is a Mountain with a Dragon or 2 living there. These Dragons kill the nearby bandit/murderer douches that most everyone hates, but don't seem to bother the local citizens. Now ask yourself who's gonna go to that mountain and make those Dragons reconsider? Dragon infested Mountain that no one goes near...can't think of a safer hiding spot.

 

Basically you do some quests and either Paarthunaxx or the Greybeards introduce you to this/these Dragon(s) who offer to serve as a sort of Fedaykin to the Dragonborn guarding his home, in this case SHT. This could solve the issue of the Forsworn nearby and gives an alternative to summoning dragons cuz seriously how many dragons do we need at once to fight a few Ice Trolls? Could even have seperate quests to "Upgrade" your Dragon Guards. Like start off with just 1 basic Dragon and work your way up towards Elder or even Ancient. If it was a really long series of quests could have the end reward be a pretty badass named Dragon.

[JibstaMan]

I would like to ask what the boundaries are when it comes to voice acting.

I could think of cool recruitment stories, but those stories uses existing NPCs, which could be a problem with voice acting. A mod like this requires voice acting, otherwise it would drop in value rapidly.

[NotCras]

I would like to ask what the boundaries are when it comes to voice acting.

I could think of cool recruitment stories, but those stories uses existing NPCs, which could be a problem with voice acting. A mod like this requires voice acting, otherwise it would drop in value rapidly.

 

for sure, thats why i think we need to make specific characters for recruitment so we can have more say in what they say. Why cant we make our own npcs? or we just dont use the stories and it just goes from the stock npc characters. This would be SOOOO much work, but maybe someone could assign every follower skills. From there, when you want to recruit your follower, Delphine will also prompt you to choose a specific task that your follower would do, and with the assigned skills it now matters who you choose.

 

And a thought on Jibstaman's first post, i like the idea of building it in the beginning, and earning it in the end, but maybe Delphine will use it first, and then once she's gone (either dead, or you just outrank her now) you take it.

 

 

Chainsgore thats an awesome idea for dragon ally's btw. I totally agree, but its got to be hard to get the dragons to follow you in the first place, plus i think there should always be at least some hostile dragons, A) to keep the challenge up (we dont want it to get too easy for us lol) and B) i think it would be pretty awesome at least just once to see two dragons fighting it out without anyone meddling.

[JibstaMan]

Well, I think I made the wrong impression with "uses existing NPCs". I thought about a possible story for a blacksmith recruit:

There is a young Imperial man. Like all Imperials, he is greedy for money. He has made his decisions and has chosen the art of Blacksmith. Now he is greedy to learn this art.

This boy is somewhere in ... (some city or village) and maybe you could help him out to be useful for the Blades.

Once you've found the boy, he'll say he's eager to learn and will do anything to learn from a good master.

You might know some good blacksmiths, Eorlund Gray-Mane might be in good term with you because you're the Harbinger of the Companions.

Maybe Balimund owes you for saving his forge and thinks it might be fun teaching the lad. Well, of course Ghorza gra-Bagol will help out when you're married to her!

Make the boy promise he will serve as blacksmith once he learned the craft (persuade) or just throw a lot of money at him until his eyes will twinkle. Maybe, after he has had the training, intimidate him, make him know, or even feel, that he owes this to you.

If one of the options is succesful, you have a possible recruit to serve as a blacksmith for the Blades!

In this case, we use existing blacksmiths as teachers and create the actual recruit as a new NPC. This way we don't take an existing NPC out of his town/city, but stories like this require adding dialogues to existing NPCs. So indirectly, my question was, avoid using existing NPCs when thinking of stories?

Edited December 2, 2011 by JibstaMan

[NotCras]

oooooh ok i see yes then i totally agree, we could even use some generic dialogue with the voices of the actors i think... itll depend i guess.but yeah i see now thats perfect i think!

[Chainsgore]

I by no means meant to imply that there would be no more hostile Dragons, this was mentioned to suggest a possible ally through the Greybeards/Paarthunaxx. As Paarthunaxx stated at the end of the Main quest he was going to try and sway support from the other Dragons towards his philosophy of The Way of the Voice. Said allies could be recent converts also why I suggested as you progess in that paticular chain of quests you could "Upgrade" your Dragon guard for SHT. As time goes on and Paarthunaxx is able to gain more followers possibly by way of support from the Dragonborn a.k.a. slayer of Alduin / the one with the Strongest Thu'um.

 

If Paarthunaxx is dead this could just be slid over directly to the Greybeards explainable in that they are masters of the voice know the majority of the Dragon language and since the return of the Dragons have been trying to actively communicate with them. Upon learning of Alduin's defeat some weaker Dragons may have approached them knowing they are in contact with the Dragonborn either to ensure they wouldn't be hunted/challenge the Dragonborn/or just out of curiosity. Some might require you to defeat them before they will aid you, or perhaps send you on a quest to kill a Dragonpriest. Some may just cry and say please please don't kill me Dragonborn.

Edited December 2, 2011 by Chainsgore