[WiPz:Oblivion] Frostcrag Village

[Arthmoor]

Frostcrag is a small village situated at the base of Frostcrag Spire. I've always felt that the tower itself was far too isolated and in far too good a condition to not have had some sort of caretakers. So I hatched a plan to park a village here in order to provide those caretakers.As you might guess, it will be dependent on the official Frostcrag Spire DLC. Partly due to the landscaping requirements, and, well, because it makes little sense to put these guys up here without it. Plus I want to come up with a tie-in or two with the tower itself since that would only make sense.A screenshot of the village: http://www.iguanadons.net/gallery/Frostcrag-Village-450.htmlCurrently, the village is populated by 7 NPCs:Rayleen Windstar - who the observant might recognize from Janus' Windstar's letter in A Brotherhood Renewed. She's his wife. A nominal tie-in will be created here but nothing making either mod dependent on the other. She will be the focus of a quest to restore two frost atronach guardians for the village, which are currently standing motionless in the graveyard. She was experimenting on their control mechanisms when a "magical surge" shot forth and melted their hearts. The player's task will be to recover them and fix the situation. Once done they become guardians for the village. The quest is partially written and a minimum of dialogue exists to get things started.Cirus Genolius - The owner of the tavern. Used to be with the Blades but got kicked out of Cloud Ruler due to an incident he started with Renault. Who is of course dead now after the Emperor's assassination. Feels guilty about it since it would have been him in her place otherwise.Karel and Eyrid Wolfsbane. Karel is a retired soldier from the Skyrim militia who came to Frostcrag with his wife prior to the Oblivion Crisis. Eyrid is a monk from Winter Hold who was set to begin a pilgrimage to the Temple of the One before the crisis, only has become too old to undertake it now. She tends to the village graveyard. Where you'll find the obligatory Dread Pirate Dean reference Voruk, Ulrath, and Helga Bearslayer. Rich noble family who originally settled the village during the time of the tower's previous owner. The one the player inherits the title from. They own Frostcrag Manor, the large house.Voruk is retired from the Blackwood Company, though the BWC isn't exactly aware of that yet. Despite his age, he is still a strong warrior but would very much like to be sure the BWC aren't going to come after him in Frostcrag. I haven't figured out exactly how to go about that, but it need not require the player to be in the Fighters Guild to do so.Ulrath is Voruk's grandson. A bitter, impulsive, and rather foolish young warrior trained by the elite guard in Dawnstar. His father was killed on a campaign in Morrowind shortly after the Nerevarine departed for Akavir and took his anger out on an officer in his old unit, which contributed to the family leaving Skyrim.Helga is Ulrath's betrothed. Herself a stout warrior, she has developed an uncanny affinity for magic and is seeking opportunities for study. Something she thought was a sure thing once the family arrived at the tower. Haven't fleshed her story out just yet but I'd love for it to involve the player teaching her magic within the tower once it has been reclaimed and properly refurnished.That's pretty much it. I left off at this point and haven't come back to it yet, partly because I'm not sure exactly how I want to handle the Bearslayer clan's issues. The Wolfsbane's are largely just filler unless something pops up for them to do.

[Sigurð Stormhand]

Very nice, but my first thought was "needs a stockade".

[Arthmoor]

Why does it need a stockade?

[AnImpatientFan]

Needs services so, you know I can pop next door for a staff recharge etc,

[Conner]

I can appreciate the desire for "services" to be available even in a little mountain village, and it's not really that unreasonable given the cast within the village, small as it may be, does include folks like Rayleen Windstar, Cirus Genolius, Karel and Eyrid Wolfsbane, Voruk, Ulrath, and Helga Bearslayer. On the other hand, what services one could expect given their stated background might be a bit limited compared to what is available in the big cities... On the other hand, I didn't see a lot of mention of local crime in Samson's write up, and the big cities have dungeons, so I'm not sure why this small mountain village would need a stocks... If you really meant stockade, somewhere on Samson's blog, he and Dwip argued extensively (ok, several somewheres on his blog) about the value of walls and other such fortifications in Cyrodiil in the past. I believe Dwip argued that they serve aesthetically while Samson argued that they were fortifications that weren't good enough for most of the places they're erected. (Sorry, folks, in case anyone's trying to follow who doesn't know him or me well enough yet, Samson = Arthmoor.)

[Arthmoor]

I think you have that backward. Dwip argued the fortifications angle and I was arguing the aesthetics angle.In any case, this place is far too small and remote to bother with a full blown stockade. I don't even really see the point in having a set of stocks either. Stuff like that would be more appropriate for the big cities.It might be useful for Rayleen or Helga to offer recharges but beyond that the only services are going to be in the tavern.

[Conner]

Do I? I thought you were the one arguing that they weren't valid as fortifications while he was arguing that they still served a purpose.. maybe I did have it backwards, I guess that really is the same as saying that Dwip was claiming they're still fortifications and you were claiming they're just aesthetics at this point. :shrug:That's what I was thinking the rationale was too. Stocks, maybe, after all it's too remote to ship every misbehaving tenant off to the big city for and too small to merit a full dungeon. But even then, you're only talking a dozen or so residents anyway, right?Services I leave up to you, when I travel to the little villages in Cyrodiil I don't expect to see a McDonald's or a Starbucks on every corner like you would in the big modern cities :tongue:, but it can't be a valid village/town without a tavern since they don't have Uncle Sam's Pony Service there yet..

[Arthmoor]

Yes, he was arguing that the walls serve a defensive purpose and I was arguing that Bethesda only added them to support the closed worldspaces.

[Conner]

Yes, that sounds familiar.

[Sigurð Stormhand]

Why does it need a stockade?

Wovles, bears, take your pick. Any remote settlement needs a stockade it can close at night to protect itself from wild animals, thieves and rustlers. Such a "defence" also serves to demark the boundary of the village and thus serves a social and legal function.Just like the walls around the cities (which is to say I think both you and Dwip are right, except that the asthetic intent is in-game).

[Arthmoor]

Well if you look at the screenshot, you can see the village is laid out using natural barriers. It's surrounded on all important sides by rocks. Rather convenient, that. The whole point of the quest to get the guardians back online is so that the village HAS that protection against wildlife incursions coming from the main path.As isolated as the place is, they've got no real need to worry about social and/or legal boundaries.

[Conner]

Makes sense to me.

[Arthmoor]

Progress report:Dwip will be pleased to know that I'm at least doing rough outlines of quest flow this time instead of jumping in totally blind.First quest is about 30% done in the CS.Second quest sketched out, no CS work done yet.Don't know if there will be a 3rd quest, or if it's necessary to do a 3rd. Two otta be good enough assuming they aren't both lame.Cross-over with ABR is coded and working. Not saying more, ABR fans can probably guess at what it might be. By the power of OBSE!There's surprisingly little official lore regarding Frostcrag Spire. The DLC tells you the tower belonged to your "long lost relative" but says nothing much more. Your copy of the "will" doesn't really give much in the way of details. That's not stopped the villagers from telling you that you look awfully familiar, and you can answer based on whether or not the DLC quest stage is far enough along to have told you you own the place. Your inheritance notice obviously doesn't mention a village being part of the deal :)On that front, anyone have any ideas on what sort of long lost relative stuff could be tossed in as backstory? Either in the tower itself or as info found elsewhere while on one of the quests?

[Conner]

Sounds pretty good to me. I don't recall if Frostcrag Spire was included in my copy of the GOTY version or not, but I sure hope so, this one sounds worth having. :)As for ideas for back story regarding a long lost relative, are you looking for details about: who this relative was personally (his/her character, their actual relation to you, and such); or what they did/how they died/etc; or about the tower/village you're inheriting? Do we already have any sort of starting point with it?

[Arthmoor]

GOTY should have all the DLCs except Battlehorn.When you get the first quest pop-up for Frostcrag Spire, you're told you've inherited the place from a "long lost relative". Bethesda was pretty nebulous about who this was, why they gifted you the place, and indeed didn't even specify the guy was dead. We don't even know for certain if the former occupant was male, but odds are he was. The journal you find inside implies he's probably dead due to old age by now.Basically I was just looking to plant some extra details to spell out what relationship this person was to you (aunt/uncle, cousin, etc). Almost certainly not going to be a direct blood relative like a father, brother, or grandparent. Someone who would fit the definition of "long lost relative", although I suppose given the time period the game exists in that could be a sibling.My first inclination leaned toward an uncle who left Cyrodiil and hadn't been seen since and is only presumed dead.

[Conner]

Good deal, I'll just have to find where (I think it was Kayle) I was told on here how to get the rest of the DLCs off the CD and onto my hard drive then. :)Well, one assumes that the relative is dead if you've inherited the place normally, but otherwise, it sounds like they've left it entirely open to someone else to provide the actual lore for this one. So, we're really looking at, in all likelihood, this long lost relative is a bastard (much older) brother or, even more realistic because that'd make your parents pretty damn old when you were born, an estranged second/third cousin or Uncle once (or more) removed sort of thing. Perhaps your mother's aunt's bastard grand-step-son (this would really just be your second cousin by marriage, technically, if he's even legally related at all... but it sounds good. ) would be removed/convoluted enough to not appear on a polite family tree but would still be close enough to have heard about you all your life before they died (and maybe even watched over you from time to time somewhat covertly)?The only trouble with the only presumed dead uncle is that it leaves the door all too widely opened for someone to eventually find a way to mod in someone to show up and reclaim the whole kit and caboodle from you.

[Arthmoor]

*grumbles very loudly at the CS crash*God dammit. This isn't supposed to happen when running CSE :/Got in the groove and did a bunch of stuff with one of the quests and out of nowhere while innocently editing a chest, BLAM. Crash took out what I realized was nearly 3 hours work

[Dwip]

Doh.Saving paranoia is always a good thing, I guess.

[Hana]

Save, save, and save again. Tsk, tsk.I meant to respond to this yesterday before I was lured in by Photoshop. My first inclination when I think of Frostcrag is some great-uncle somewhere, a mad mage who created his own world for his own pleasure. Being a great-uncle adds in a sense of history to me rather than anyone closer to your own age. Of course, that could just be because that's what the quest implies, but nothing wrong with it.So, ideas for backstory, without knowing anything about the quests;- finding notes or journals written by said relative with various small tales of his life, such as a dinner with the Countess of Chorrol, or a run-in with the infamous Grey Fox. It's probably best these not be found in the tower, as I'd like to see this compatible with AFK_Frostcrag.- discover that this crazy mage relative is really the one who taught Ancotar the (failed) invisibilty spell for a little humour. Maybe your relative is just invisible somewhere?- quest idea - discover a treasure map and find a few personal artifacts of his.It's a little hard to suggest backstory ideas without wanting to impose some direct family history on the player, which would be a bad idea. Yeah, the quest already kind of does that but you don't want to go further down that road.That's about all I can think of for now.

[Arthmoor]

Yep, I usually do save with paranoid abandon, but it was one of those deals where I was on a roll and got absorbed and didn't realize how long it had been since the last save. Stuff like this usually introduces bugs as little details get forgotten. I guess we'll see. I still haven't managed to rebuild it all yet either.With our long lost relative, there's at least some indication that he is indeed really old, so the great-uncle angle probably works well. No doubt you didn't get the deed when you should have because you were in prison. There's already dialogue in the village to cast him as an old man, and the same dialogue also suggests you look a lot like him. Which might be a stretch for female characters but I've seen plenty of IRL females who look very much like their male relatives. So it probably still works.One thing stands out as needed: great-uncle needs a name. Something that could be race-neutral. It's going to rise to a level of silliness if he's only ever known as "your great-uncle".I like the Ancotar thing, there's got to be some way to work that in.I can't see how the tower can't be involved, notes containing tidbits of great-uncle's life can't just be scattered in unrelated places. The only places we even know he's been are the Arcane University and the tower. His memoir found in the tower also mentions Sinderion so maybe he'll have a scrap or two and can pass it along during his involvement in one of the village quests.I'll have to check to see if the camp the memoirs mentioned is still accessible even with Snowdale loaded because another scrap could go there for sure. Also possible to stumble on something in a ruin, since the memoirs mention scouring a few for inspiration.Aurelinwae knew him too, and given that all his belongings ended up with her, she probably knows something useful.So yeah, he's old, but not too old, because people he knew are still alive and kicking, needs a name, and a few random details floating around but not scattered too far around in pointless places.

[prettyfly]

*grumbles very loudly at the CS crash*God dammit. This isn't supposed to happen when running CSE :/Got in the groove and did a bunch of stuff with one of the quests and out of nowhere while innocently editing a chest' date=' BLAM. Crash took out what I realized was nearly 3 hours work[/quote']I can't say that I find crashes particularly unusual with the CSE, though the other benefits far outweigh that problem. As Dwip said go for saving paranoia.Also, my GOTY copy only seemed to come with SI and knights of the nine and without the other DLC. Or are they integrated into Oblivion esm?

[Arthmoor]

GOTY only comes with SI and KOTN. The other DLCs have to be purchased separately, unless you get the Steam Deluxe GOTY Edition.Bethesda is still selling them via their online store though, should $1.89 prove to be cheap enough

[Hana]

Pulled some names half out of a random name generator app that IS made, half made up;Orush BrallionDranali SericCragnor GrimmelIneld HlarysOran FernarAthello BolrinDenegor Culun

[Conner]

Yeah,my GOTY copy only installed with KOTN and SI too, but someone had said that the rest of the DLCs were included on the CD and just didn't install on their own, and I never bothered to check to see if they were right... nope, my CD's got an installer, a slew of .cab files, and some DX stuff, but no other DLCs. :(Guess I can't use Frostcrag Village unless I buy a copy of the Frostcrag DLC too.

[Dwip]

Well, that's a bummer.One thing you're going to need to keep in mind for the great uncle thing - if he's going to show up, you may need to have several versions for the several races. If you're an orc, your Redguard great uncle might be a bit strange. Too, an orc named, say, Ineld Hlarys would be a bit odd.I wonder if OBSE has the ability to, say, pull some facegen data from your character and just change the age. That would be sweet.