LE Refuse to join the Dark Brotherhood-- without killing Astrid

[ghoulrainbow]

Spoilers ahead for the Dark Brotherhood questlines.


I feel like the options presented to you during "Innocence Lost" and "With Friends Like These" are pretty limited. You can become a murderer for hire... or you can completely wipe out any chances of joining the Brotherhood later if you change your mind. They're all dead, after all. Or of course you can have yet another quest that you have no intention of completing dangling around in your journal.

Let's say that you were so riled up by Grelod's abuse that you did the deed-- or maybe you just wanted Aventus Aretino to go back somewhere where he's under adult supervision (he probably needs it)-- but you acknowledge the Brotherhood's importance at keeping difficult situations under control. Or you're Thieves Guild, respect the Brotherhood as being nothing to do with you, and you'd rather leave it at that. Bring down one criminal organisation and the law might get ambitious, after all, and death is bad for business. Or you just wanted to steal Astrid's things and get a free shack.

What I would really love to see is a mod that just lets you work it out peacefully with Astrid. Perhaps it could contain some or any of the following options--

• she would simply ask you to forfeit the payment Aventus Aretino gave you, or the equivalent sum in gold if you don't have it with you, in return for being allowed to walk free with your life. She might then tell you about the Sanctuary anyway, saying that she likes you and she thinks you could make it as an assassin. (Given that the Dark Brotherhood consists of eight people and a spider, they probably can't afford to be overly fussy with their recruits. Plus, she says herself during the Brotherhood questline that they've abandoned the tenets by now, and all she cares about is the money, so not being able to complete the contract with Grelod wouldn't be a matter of honor.) Alternatively, a courier might arrive later with a note telling you that despite your actions, you seem like you would make a promising assassin and she's willing to give you a chance. The note would contain the location of the Falkreath sanctuary and the password.
  
• if you were a Nightingale and/or the master of the Thieves Guild, you could point out that it'd be better to just let you go as you don't want to join. Astrid's friends with a few of the members, or at least with Delvin, and it'd be a shame to make bad blood between the two organisations. Once again, she could tell you about the sanctuary anyway or send you a letter giving you the option of joining.
  
• if you were the Harbinger of the Companions/a member of the Circle, you could threaten her with bringing the Companions down on the Brotherhood (they make it their job to aid the law after all, and it's pretty clear that the law would reward them for destroying the Brotherhood), thus forcing her to let you go. She then sends assassins after you from then on. But if you're not in the Brotherhood, you quite possibly have an assassin problem anyway, right?
  
• ​if you were over a certain level (35? 40? Something sufficiently high), you could intimidate her into letting you go, once again at the cost of having assassins coming after you from then on (you got personal with the lady, after all-- but hell, those outsourced assassins are really incompetent). If your intimidation attempt failed and you refused to give her Aventus' payment, she would become hostile and the quest would proceed with the option of reporting her death to a guard, thus starting "Destroy the Dark Brotherhood".
  
• If you refused to give her the payment point blank then she could become hostile once again, saying that she can't let you leave here alive if you won't make amends for your mistake.
  
• the unpickable lock could become a master-level pickable one. If you ever returned there you'd simply find no trace of Astrid or her prisoners, if all you wanted was to pickpocket those sweet gloves or the Blade of Woe off of her so that you could have a unique weapon or the 2x backstab active effect without becoming an assassin yourself. (But maybe she'd leave you a note, telling you that you did a good job on Grelod and it was impressive the way you slipped out without her noticing-- the mark of a promising assassin-- and if you ever change your mind then the Dark Brotherhood will be open to you, giving you the option of joining them later?)

Really I would just like to see something in between the vanilla game's offered choices of "evil murderer" and "avenging paladin (who mysteriously murdered an old lady for money)".

Come to it, it would be good to have the option of telling Grelod to just get out of the orphanage, leave Skyrim, and never let you see her again. She then runs out and vanishes from the game. You go back, tell Aventus that the orphanage is safe now (or lie and say you killed Grelod), he gives you the heirloom, and returns to Honorhall. The Dark Brotherhood then gets on your back about fudging up their contract.

This would also be nice for good characters who just thought someone should check up on that poor kid in the cursed house! In this case Astrid could just not give you the Sanctuary location and password unless you killed one of her prisoners as payment for the contract you ruined (thus proceeding straight to the "join" ending of "With Friends Like These"). Alternatively, if/when the number of murders you had committed was greater than a certain amount (5? 10?), maybe she could send you a "remember me?" letter by courier?

Of course, this would leave you with no payment (heck, it's only worth 40 gold or less anyway) and no options to destroy the Dark Brotherhood (which you wouldn't have anyway if you followed Astrid's instructions), but you would at least get the option of adopting children from Honorhall (with Hearthfire), one less dangling quest objective, and a satisfying workaround for peaceful Dragonborns who just aren't into murder.


I'm happy to try to make this mod myself, but I was just wondering if anyone more skilled than me likes the idea?

Edited May 19, 2013 by ghoulrainbow

[dragonslayer2k12]

The lady at the orphanage could just be told off and forced to leave through dialogue no need to punch an old lady to death who wrote that into the game anyway?

 

I wouldn't mind joining the dark brotherhood except I don't want to kill the emperors relative and I don't want to kill the huntsmans brother either. Also the night mother is too creepy for me and so is cicero.

[croix444]

Good idea. Just give us an intimidate speech check with Grelod, and a Persuade speech check with Astrid. Very low speech checks.