The Silent Prisoner - Questmod concept

[Zetsumi_Nihilus]

Just wanted to run the concept I've been putting together past a couple people, get a little feedback on the idea itself, and any consistancy/inconsistancy issues with existing TES lore.

 

Basic idea is this: The player, through whatever macguffin, inevitably ends up exploring a very 'vertical' dungeon. A ruin consisting of large, long drops, and very narrow, unforgiving ledge passages down. At the lowest depth of this dungeon, they encounter a man: Bound, gagged, and seemingly having been there for quite some time. Working on some pretty intensive backstory, but I won't go into detail - the gist of it is, this man, the 'Silent Prisoner', is another Dovahkin, ancient beyond comphrension. The prisoner speaks only in the dragon tongue, as it is the only language he knows, and as such, the player's interactions with him will consist mostly of nonverbal cues, and rely on their ability to interpret his facial expressions. He won't actually speak at all in conversations, or ever, apart from his use of Shouts later in the storyline.

 

Bear in mind, at this point, the player is unaware of his ability to shout, his dovahkin status, or anything beyond him being a mute prisoner. He will join them as an essential follower, though has severely limited combat ability, and will not use shouts yet. If the player attempts to converse with him during this time, they can discover hints and titbits about his past. Occasionally, when in towns, settlements, or safe areas, he will force conversation with the player in an attempt to communicate to them that he wishes to travel to a certain location.

 

This location is another ruin, this time much more religious and ritualistic in design. Immediatly upon entering, the prisoner will leave the player, running off ahead through a path that collapses after he passes, forcing the player to find an alternate route to follow him. They will move through the ruin, dealing with lesser dragon priests and their minions, until they encounter a live dragon, wounded and incapable of flight. The dragon recognises the player as dovahkin and begs his/her mercy, explaining that she holds no ill will against the dovahkin, no love for Alduin, and wishes only to be left alone with her soon-to-hatch eggs. The player is presented with a choice, to take mercy on the dragon, to support her, or to proclaim their intent to take her soul, but all choices result in the same action: The arrival of the prisoner, who unleashes an earth-shuddering shout (One much more visually POWERFUL then the vanillia ones), killing the dragon and absorbing her soul, whilst crushing her eggs, also claiming the souls of her unborn young. The player disagrees with this, for whatever reason he/she indicated during their conversation with the dragon (That dragon was peaceful, you monster/hey, that was my dragon soul, you ass!)

 

It quickly becomes apparent that the prisoner harbours a fanatical hatred for the dovah, and his mastery of the Voice surpasses even that of common dragons. Deciding the player to be a threat, he turns on them, resulting in the first of a series of heavily scripted boss battles. While the Prisoner is physically weak, he possesses a series of powerful situational shouts, and will use them to keep the player confined within the battle 'arena' whilst he moves between four elevated platforms around the sides of the player's 'pit'. The battle will be designed so the most viable way to fight him is with the player's own shouts: Knocking him down to leave him vulnerable to attack without risking the scripted FusRhoDah-style counterattack he'll use to blast the player away from him if they approach while he isn't stunned or knocked down.

 

When the player manages to defeat the prisoner... He'll merely stand up again, completly refreshed, and unleash a new shout on the player, one that can't be avoided. The same effect as absorbing a dragon soul will appear linking the player to him, indicating he is trying to tear their soul from their body with his Voice, but instead, he will only tear the knowledge of FusRhoDah from them, removing it from the player's Shout list completly. Additionally, if they have completed the main quest up to the point of attaining Dragonrend, he will also absorb that. At this point, the Prisoner will flee. leaving the player weakened, nearly dead, and without access to either one or two of their main shouts.

 

The next part of the questline I havn't quite finished planning yet, but the overall idea is that the player will undertake a series of minor quests based around uncovering the prisoner's past: Searching libraries for historic texts relating to him. Any information gleaned from the prisoner while he was a follower will come in great help at this stage, significantly cutting down the number of quests they'll have to follow to attain the information they need.

 

Eventually, the player will discover that the Prisoner is neither Dovahkin, nor Dovah, but has made himself into something in-between the two, replacing his own heart with that of a dragon, and consuming both the blood and flesh of his scaly adversaries. As a result, his soul is split into two halves: Dragon, and Human. The Dragon soul refuses to allow the human soul to leave the Prisoner's body, making him doubly a prisoner: Of the ruin from which the player rescues him, and also of his own body, unable to die. This means the only way to 'kill' him is to destroy the dragon half of his soul. The player inevitably learns a shout which will allow them to force their own spirit into his body.

 

The Dovahkin and the Prisoner meet for a final confrontation: This time, he has reclaimed the power he once held before his centuries-long imprisonment, and has forced his will upon numerous dragon-priests. He awaits in the throne room of his former castle's ruin, protected and served by the priests he has subjugated. He is no longer physically weak, and clad in dragon plate as opposed to the rags he wore during his first fight with the player. He has also built on the knowledge of Dragonrend he took from the player in their first encounter, if he did indeed take it, creating a varient which works in inverse, forcing a Dovahkin to experience immortality from a dragon's point of view. This shout will paralyse the player, while draining their magicka and stamina into him, accompanied by some visual effects.

 

They do battle, the player's Spirit Force shout proving ineffective until he is below 10% health. Killing him will merely result in him ressurecting with full life, forcing the player to fight him down to 10% health a second time. Upon hitting him with the shout while he is under 10% health, the player will be transported to an abstract, linear world, representing the major events, in chronological order, of the prisoner's life. They will travel through this world, witnessing the prisoner's memories of his birth, life, and eventually even encountering the prisoner's mental impression of themselves, which will be different depending on how they interacted with him. (If the player was generally evil and selfish during their conversations with him, the 'mental impression' will be wearing darker-looking armour, will be surrounded by evil looking effects, and will generally act towards the player as they did towards the prisoner himself.)

 

After dealing with the alternate view of themself, the player will at last reach the centre of the prisoner's metaphysical existance, featuring the human soul, gagged and chained exactly as the prisoner himself was at the start, and the dragon soul, which, after a brief conversation, will do battle with the player, the battleground a series of floating ruins above an endless drop, meaning a single careless dodge will result in the player plummeting to his/her death. The goal is not to fight the dragon, but rather, to move around the arena destroying mostly static NPC's which represent the prisoner's reasons for his continued existance: His anger, his loneliness, his longing, all of which serve to fuel the dragon half of his soul, their destruction consequently weakening it to the point that it can be fought conventionally. With it's defeat, the player will absorb it's soul, regaining the shouts which were taken from them earlier. Here they are presented with a final choice: Unbind the prisoner, releasing him from his unlife, in which case he will thank the player before fading away, or destroy the human part of his soul too, which allows them to absorb several less powerful, balanced playable versions of his more unique shouts. Both actions will result in the player returning to the throne room of the Prisoner's castle, which will from then on serve as a player house. The skeletal remains of the prisoner will be before them, containing an as-of-yet indeterminate reward if the player chose to free him.