Dragonstar West - The Sealed Love Letter

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Rakanishu
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Dragonstar West - The Sealed Love Letter

Post by Rakanishu »

(tentative quest name)

Player encounters a male Breton/Redguard NPC in Dragonstar West and is asked to deliver a sealed love letter to a female Redguard NPC In DSE. It seems like a simple delivery quest, but if the player breaks the seal (similar to how the Treasury Orders in the Hlaalu quests are sealed) they see that the letter is suspiciously encrypted with a cipher. The player can then deliver the letter to the intended NPC in DSW or take it to Jarla Jona (or her adviser) for a more substantial reward.

Fail States:
1) Player kills DSE NPC during quest.
2) Player kills DSW NPC during quest.

Rewards:
1) Player delivers the letter without breaking the seal: +15 disposition with DSW NPC, 50 gold.
2) Player breaks the seal and delivers the letter to DSW NPC: -5 disposition with DSW NPC, 25 gold.
3) Player breaks the seal and delivers the letter to Jarla Jona (or her adviser): +15 disposition with Jarla Jona (or adviser), 100 gold, DSE NPC appears in the dungeon.

Yeti
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Post by Yeti »

Looks like a good quest plan to me. How would the player know he or she should consider taking the letter to Jarl Jona or her adviser? Perhaps they could send the player to investigate the DSE NPC to start off and then the player can choose which side to take?

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Rakanishu
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Post by Rakanishu »

That's a good idea, too. I can't decide between having this quest be part of a Jarl Jona quest chain and having it be more of a "reward the player for being aware of the political situation of DS" thing. In either case, there could be a "latest rumors" or "little secret" entry informing the player that "Jarl Jona is cracking down on dissent in Dragonstar East. She has made it no secret that she will reward those who have information on resistance activity."

It'd serve as a good first quest for a Jarl Jona chain, but then you'd lose some of the (possible) surprise of seeing the encrypted text since you'd be expecting something shady. But if it's an independent quest, then the player might never try the Jarl Jona reward route if they haven't been paying attention to the political situation in DS.

Regardless, I'd like to see a quest chain where the player can help Jarl Jona clamp down on dissent in DSE.

My original idea was that there'd be another one or two quests "hidden" around DSE that'd highlight some resistance activity, such as finding a suspicious tunnel or weapons cache. It'd be up to the player to decide to do nothing, report them to Jarl Jona, or seek out the resistance in DSW via clues scattered around the sites. Maybe these occurrences would all be lumped under a single quest entry in the journal? The quest would essentially remain unfinished until the player decides to help Jarl Jona or the DSW-based resistance groups.

It all depends on the degree of involvement in the DSE/DSW situation that SHOTN wants to offer the player.

Sidenote: Player involvement in a Jarl Jona quest chain wouldn't break the Karthwasten Thieves Guild quest chain as the resistance groups in DS and KW are separate cells and presumably have no idea who has been working for each.

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roerich
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Post by roerich »

My - currently very loose - idea for the Dragonstar MQ, is to have it split up into three possible directions. Align yourself with 1. Jarla Jona/Kingdom of the Reach, 2. The Crowns of Hammerfell or 3. The Blades. If only one of these, I suggest the last. Legion troops are being pulled from the area, but the Imperials try to control the situation with covert operations. Spy on both sides, and try your best to make sure that the situation doesn't blow up into fullscale warfare again.

In general, agent/thief/assassin quests should be abundant in DS.
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- Taniquetil

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Rakanishu
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Post by Rakanishu »

The advantage of that Blades idea, if it came down to that, is that the Blades could potentially have the player do quests for both the KotR and the Crowns (or people loyal to them) in the process. So you get the benefit of having three different "sets" of quests while only having to develop one quest chain.

Plus, full-scale warfare isn't really depicted that well (at all?) in Morrowind, unless you scripted a ton of stuff. A temporary defusing of DS hostilities would fit pretty nicely.

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