Does this thread belong here?, pieces of quest Options

[ghastley]

Most of the threads in this forum are naturally about "my character's adventures in a TES world", and the rest are meta-threads about writing them.

I'm coming from a completely different direction, or maybe not. I'm trying to create quest mods for Oblivion with a whole lot of NPC's who have linked stories, and I need all the help I can get with those. It's not entirely a different problem from writing the support cast in a regular FF, but it does leave out the central character, who will be the player, and I don't want to write that one.

I like to build a character in Oblivion and play it for a while before making an NPC from it, as this helps to give me some idea of how a pure mage thinks, or an archer, or an axe-wielding Orc, and I can make the NPC more credible that way. I'm currently playing a stereotypical big dumb blonde Nord called Hidy Heidi, who aspires to joining the Imperial Mountain Riders and patrolling the Jerrals on a white bear. I started her off trying to use poisoned daggers and stealth, but found that it's not too viable at low levels, because the damage she could inflict was never enough for a one-hit kill, and using a dagger put her too close for comfort in the remainder of the encounter. So she switched to a Claymore to better use her Blade skill, although she still tries a sneak attack with a dagger first, some of the time. She'd probably use the Claymore if she got a bear to ride, so maybe it's for the best.

This experience now has to be distilled down to some dialog for the NPC in-game, and that of her colleagues, and that's the sort of thing I'd want to post here for criticism and advice. And the content of books, notes, journal entries for the quests. Many of you have experience of rewriting bits of lore for your narratives, or fitting a new piece into the incomplete jigsaw puzzle Betheda provided, so I know it will help me if it works.

Heidi is intended to become part of this mod, of which only the first two quests have been released as a beta. I have another dozen or so in development, including an arc of quests that happen after the player is both CoC and Madgod, based on the idea of Dagon taking revenge on the player by opening gates in his/her new realm.

[ghastley]

OK, time to try my hand at a bit of what the forum's about. This short piece is based on the first quest of my mod, and I'm intending to do a few more for the other quests. Because the tales will have a different NPC character at the focus each time, I've made it all third-person, and the Hero of Kvatch is Bendu Olo (the default player character), who deliberately gets little or no character development, and could be anything from Saintly Mage to Axe-murderer. He's closed the Kvatch gate, so he's probably not too evil, but that's as far as I'm taking him.

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Unna's tale

Thor sniffed the air, and his rider, Unna, could feel his muscles tense at the smell of something dangerous ahead.

"What is it?" she asked, as if expecting him to talk to her. She hoped it wasn't Daedra again.

She'd only had Thor for a month, after Grendeline had been killed by a Flame Atronach's fireball, in the same fight that had left her with a patch over her left eye. She wasn't sure if it was the shock spell that did it, or the inexperienced Khajiit that healed her, but she had permanent night-eye now, and needed the patch to stop the constant glare of the daylight.

The Daedra had come pouring out of that Oblivion Gate by the trail when the stranger went in. There had often been one or two around it before, but suddenly it was four or five at once, and that was more than she could handle. If she hadn't rolled down the mountainside when the shock spell hit her, she'd be dead just like Grendeline.

She remembered coming round and wondering why they hadn't finished her, before she realised that she'd come to rest behind a boulder, and she couldn't see the Gate, and so they probably couldn't see her. She'd crept back up the slope, watching for Daedra, and sipping a health potion, so as not to reveal herself by casting a spell. She didn't like using them up, as the ingredients to make them were scarce up here in the Jerall Mountains, but she needed something right then.

Then she'd dropped the bottle, and stood up in amazement. The sky wasn't red! The Gate had gone! Well, there was still a jagged scar on the mountainside where it had been, and the bare patch where the snow had melted, but no fiery arch, and most importantly, No Daedra!! She'd stood there for several minutes, staring at the rubble in total disbelief.

That was all a month ago. She'd seen the stranger once more a few days after that, and he'd bought a bottle of Peppermint Schnapps from her. He didn't appear to be the type to drink it himself, so she guessed that Dumner woman at the Hermaeus Mora shrine, (Norasa, wasn't it?) had asked him to get her another.

He'd shown her the Sigil Stone he got from the Oblivion Gate, and explained how it was those that kept the Gates open. He'd even offered to use its magic to enchant her Silver Claymore, but she'd turned that down. She didn't deserve that, and anyway she'd not be able to recharge it up here so far from any Mages Guild. Her armor was already enchanted, with Frost Shield to keep out the cold of the high mountains as well as defense. He'd smiled at that, and she'd known what he was thinking. Nobody could believe how much skin the Riders' uniform exposed. She'd wondered if her uniform had influenced that generous offer.

He'd noticed the eye-patch, but she'd reassured him that the night-eye was as useful in the dark as it was a problem in the day, and she didn't regret getting it, except that it reminded her of Grendeline.

But now she had Thor, and he was stopping to let her dismount. That meant he could see the danger ahead, and they should get ready to meet it. She pulled her Claymore from her back and broke into a run.

One day, she'd get there first, but of course Thor was faster than she was. By the time she reached the Ogre, Thor was already attacking it, and it soon went down for good.

"Only an Ogre this time", she thought. "No match for a bear like mine!" She bent to see if the Ogre was carrying anything, as they often kept shiny things they'd taken from a luckless traveller, only to straighten up abruptly. "Thor," she complained,."you have a really cold, wet nose!"

This post has been edited by ghastley: Mar 7 2011, 08:52 PM