[NPC] Valga Family

[Dwip]

Valga Family - Chorrol, Bruma1. Petrius Valga (Imperial male) – Husband, cousin of Charus Valga2. Elenora Valga (Imperial female) – wife of Petrius3. Karn Silveraxe (Nord male) – Rustic chieftain type, helps out in the Charus quest.

Also' date=' thinking we need at least one husband/wife set, although I have no idea what they’d do. Boring salt of the earth farmer types, irritate Ariana Valga in Chorrol by their very presence due to dead husband? Something.[/quote']

Or perhaps he/she/dad/somebody was a cousin/relative of the dead Count' date=' so she keeps them because they reminder her of him, despite the fact that it’s painful for her.[/quote']

Petrius and Elenora Valga' date=' the cousins in Chorrol. Imperials. Petrius is the blood relative of Charus the former Count. The cousins come to visit near the anniversary of Charus’ death. Plans are in the making for a memorial ceremony. Petrius has always been envious of his cousin and walks around like he owns the place as if it should have all been his. Elenora is very aware of Arriana’s bitterness toward their presence and wants to make peace. She enlists the players aid to find a long lost artifact belonging to the Count. A sword would make sense since he died in battle. Go to a remote northern location (possibly in Skyrim or close because that’s where he died) to retrieve it. Also with it is a letter he wrote to his wife reminding her of their love which breaks down Arriana’s bitterness and everyone’s happy. Follow-up with a display case for the sword (make it worthless so the player doesn’t want to keep it, giving it to the Countess when the player gives her the letter) and a dedication plaque to Charus (seriously, why isn’t there one already?). Petrius is humbled by his cousins bravery in battle if you talk to him afterward.[/quote']

Karn Silveraxe – Nord male – Bruma. Older' date=' rustic chieftan on a diplomatic pilgrimage at Bruma court. Talks of old battles as if they were greater than the daedric crisis. Works both pre and post-MQ I think. I have no quest for him, but even if he doesn’t have one I think he’ll be great for atmosphere.[/quote']

This could also work. Random idea – involve him in the Charus rescue thing? Maybe he knows the story or knows where Charus fell or something? Pure atmosphere also works' date=' since we have a fairly full slate of quests already.[/quote']

Maybe rustic Nord chieftain has $THING and one needs to convince him returning it would be good for relations. Of course' date=' this change in storyline removes the sappy letter to Arriana bit. Maybe needs a whole new story.[/quote']

Brainstorming a bit' date=' what if we do the battlefield thing, and also have a random Nord camp there for whatever (or no apparent) reason. If the player just shows up, the Nords will be hostile, and there will be a big fight. Alternately, speechcraft or taking Karn along lets the player avoid the fight and go right to wherever Charus is – some kind of shallow “we buried him really quickly so we could bug out” grave, thinking.[/quote']

I’d far prefer the scour the battlefield idea' date=' but I was trying to come up with an alternative that was plausible. After all, it was very common for local folk who’d been put out by the coming of war to their fields to rummage through the aftermath of a large battle for whatever salvages they could find and profit in any way from.[/quote']

Now' date=' as to the Chorrol business.As I understand our quest so far, Arriana Valga, Countess of Chorrol, is distraught at the death of her husband, Charus Valga, the former Count. This is straining her relationship with Petrius Valga, Charus’ cousin and look-alike, and Elenora Valga, Petrius’ wife.Somehow or another that I don’t think we’ve figured out yet, the player gets sent to get $THING from Charus’ body to comfort Arriana so that she’ll have something else to remember Charus by and get her to lay off Petrius and Elenora. That doesn’t entirely make sense to me, but it’ll do.The thought has been to involve Karn Silveraxe, our rustic Nord chieftain in Bruma, either by having him possess $THING, or by having him guide the player to the battlefield where Charus was struck down, where he can possibly help the player deal with a Nord clan that’s taken up residence there for an undetermined reason.Several bits of lore come in to play here.To quote Alessia Ottus in the Guide to Chorrol:

Her husband' date=' Count Charus Valga, was a staunch Defender of the Faith and follower of Stendarr, and his death in battle against the heathen Nord clansmen of Skyrim was greatly lamented by his people.[/quote']That’s as much info as we have on how and where Charus died. As best I can figure out, he doesn’t have a tomb anywhere one way or the other.The vanilla quest Canvasing the Castle is pretty much all about how distraght Arriana is about her dead husband, and how she was obsessed with a painting of him that Chanel stole. Chanel’s also totally in love with the guy, although there’s no evidence per se that there was any fooling around on Charus’ part.The quotes are pretty inconclusive, but suggest to me that all of this was either relatively recent, or or far enough in the past that Arriana’s having relapses. Whatever works, I guess.In any event, that’s where the battlefield thing is coming from – my idea that instead of retrieving $THING from Karn, the player goes on a quest to the actual battlefield in Skyrim where this took place. I’m having it occupied by Nords to provide some sort of flavor obstacle that isn’t fighting a bunch of undead.It also occurs to me that instead of inventing a $THING, $THING could in fact be the body of Charus, which could be brought back for burial, possible love note to Arriana, revelation of secret love babies with Chanel, or evidence of skooma-filled debauched revels with Gellius Terentius included therein.

I actually like the search for $THING where $THING isn’t so much a bauble or gear as much as it is a note that maybe even Arriana had written to Charus before he left and maybe he had written something in reply on his way to the battle' date=' but didn’t get a chance to send it back before he got ganked.But I also like the body thing, except you’d think that would have happened by now unless the battle was last week.But I definitely feel like a sword, shield, amulet, ring, etc is overly cliche. YMMV.[/quote']

Now unless Charus died at some ripe old age well into his hundreds' date=' you’re going to be hard pressed to find anything in lore that would fit in the last 33 years. The Empire hasn’t been at war with Skyrim for ages.So either Alessia Ottus sucks at research, or she’s referring to some off the books skirmish that took place along the border with Nordic barbarians. Given the complete lack of information, I’d say just make some shit up that sounds plausible and it’s all good.[/quote']

FWIW' date=' Chanel is all of 22, while Arriana is like 65+. Which sort of suggests that this happened sometime in the last couple years, since as court mage Chanel probably wasn’t at court during her teenage years, meaning no creepy girlhood crush business.Too, I’d think this is some kind of off the books skirmish with some random bitty Nordic tribe.Also FWIW, I was angling at the body + note thing. Maybe they go for the body but also find the note, or whatever.[/quote']