Markarth Side Dark Brotherhood Questline

All topics related to NPCs, Quests and Dialogue
Post Reply
Violet
Lead Dev
Posts: 273
Joined: Mon Apr 30, 2018 11:07 am

Markarth Side Dark Brotherhood Questline

Post by Violet »

Markarth Side, Dark Brotherhood Questline
Quest structure
The Dark Brotherhood as a faction is structured within Networks. Each Networks have their own Sanctuaries (usually 2-3) that feature Dark Brothers & Sisters (Rank 8s) within those Sanctuaries. They are your primary questgivers for the local quests. The Network that Markarth Side is under contains both The Reach and Haafinheim Hold, with Sanctuaries in Markarth Side, Haafingar, and near Morthal, with the Nightside Asylum – where the Network’s Night Mother (Rank 9) presides, being located in the Kilkreath Mountains wilderness. As opposed to the Network that makes up Falkreath, Hrothgar, and White Holds, and the Network that makes up Winterhold, Eastmarch, and The Rift Holds. This questline below, the Markarth Side questline, will be the first in TR/PT of a joinable Dark Brotherhood. So it should be made to give an impact, and to showcase what all goes into being a member of the Brotherhood and what kind of quests you might find therein.




Quest 1 “Farmhouse Slaughter”

Your first contract is with a farmer just outside the city of Markarth Side. Apparently, the client is a rival farmer in the area, and whose daughter is betrothed to the target. Your instructions are to get the farmer alone and kill him, you will get a lesser reward if you receive a bounty during this and any future Contract. While you will receive a lesser reward if you get a bounty, you will receive no reward if you kill the client’s daughter. You can either:
A. Convince the farmer that there’s someone messing with your crops, so that he will go out there with you while his fiancé stays inside.
B. Convince the fiancé that her father has become injured, causing her to return to her farmstead while you kill the target.

Quest 2 “Getting to Know Her”

You are tasked with the murder of one Tangrid within the (Imperial Tavern) here at Markarth Side. This is another entry level quest. Naturally, you aren’t supposed to kill her in plain sight. If you are male, you are free to flirt with her and convince her to come to “your house”, which is the same farmhouse outside the city from your first Contract. If you are female, or if you would rather not seduce her, you can take her to that field in Markarth Side and kill her there in the bushes. You’re also free to just Command Humanoid her out of sight or taunt her into attacking you first, as is the case with most contracts. If you choose the two main options, however, then you might get a special rumor about a neighbor finding corpses in the farmhouse and/or a corpse in the bushes.

Quest 3 “Marital Troubles in Karthwasten”

Your first contract outside of Markarth Side, your client is a member of the Boar Snout clan, and your target is a farmer between the clanhouse and the city. Your target has been harassing them for some time, trying to get the guards to investigate the clan, as he still holds an intense distrust of the orcish people (remember, it’s only been a decade since Orcs were considered “people too” in the eyes of the Empire and the vast majority of its citizens). The clan Chieftain has urged her not to retaliate just yet, so she has reached out to your lovely little guild to clean up the problem. The farmer in question tends to remain in his house for most of the day, so it shouldn’t be much of an issue removing him from the world. The Dark Brother of the Network has also suggested you visit the contact in Karthwasten if you run into any other troubles with the contract.

Upon entering the building, you are greeted with the farmer’s wife standing over his body. Apparently, they had gotten into an argument prior, and she killed him in a rage. She refuses to speak to you at first, meaning you’ll have to speak with the contact, who will warn you that, if you wish to receive payment for this contract – you must either kill her as well or convince her to join the Brotherhood, as she must pay in blood or allegiance for taking what was the Brotherhood’s. You also have the option to simply return to the Dark Brother, who will finish the quest with you receiving nothing, and she will be killed by another member. If you choose to speak with the client, then they will simply claim they’re happy with the target’s death regardless of how it happened.

Quest 4 “Revenge For A Ring”

The daughter of the quest 2 client found out about her father sending the Brotherhood out to her fiancé, and now she herself has contacted the Brotherhood for a contract of her own: Her father’s head. This will be a simple killing, no need to lure anyone away, in fact, quite the opposite. The daughter has given an unusual request: She wants to be there with you. Meet her inside the (Dockside Tavern) and escort her to her father’s home, where she will aide you in her father’s murder. He will put up a decent fight, but it shouldn’t be anything you can’t handle (try to aim for level 5 as far as required level, level 5 without min/maxing I mean, in terms of difficulty, like that Dwemer ruin in the first quest of the vanilla’s Main Quest). One more stipulation, however, is you CANNOT let your client die. And she is weaker than her father. If she dies then you have failed the quest and will return with no reward. Once her father is dead, she will tell you that she had already sent the payment to the guild, and she will offer to let you sleep at her farm if you wish, as she will be gone by the morning.

Quest 5 “A Contract Gone Wrong”

A fellow Brotherhood member, an Argonian female named Inue, has been captured during a job in Beorinhal, and has been interrogated by the jailor there. You are to help her escape, and find out what Inue said and/or what the jailor knows. If she gave any information on the Brotherhood, you must execute her. You find out that the Inue failed her contract, and had burned another member of the guild. Your options of completing the quest are:
A. Kill her and return to the Dark Brother in Markarth.
B. Don’t kill her, instead, leave her in the wilderness (lying to the Dark Brother about killing her).
C. Bring her back to the Sanctuary, lying to the Dark Brother about him saying anything.
The rewards for this quest are determined by the outcome. With Option A getting the best rewards and option C getting the worst rewards.

Quest 6 “Cleaning Up A Mess”
While the burned Brotherhood member flees (if completed Quest 5 in options A or B) or is off on another job and is about to get killed, if completed Quest 5 in option C), you are tasked with finishing the contract Inue fumbled. Your target is a friend that has been visiting the ruler of Beorinhal, a friend of minor nobility from Hrothgar Hold. Your client is unknown, but surely one with considerable influence given the target. They are to leave in three day’s time, that’s your window. While your target has not been made aware of the attempt on their life, as the ruler of Beorinhal would rather he didn’t look like his city was so dangerous that you can’t visit without being in danger, security has been tightened, and it will be much more difficult to get to them. You’re given a suggestion to wear a disguise, which a contact in Beorinhal will provide for you. Get into the local guard’s uniform and enter the palace at night, at which point the guest will be in the guest bedroom. Locate and close the door behind you, kill them, put back on the guard’s uniform, and escape – you will be given a special Scroll of Locking when you accept the job, which you will use here after killing them. The last thing you want is for a guard to open the door to find the body while you’re still in the building.
Return to the contact and hand them back the uniform, then return to the Dark Brother to accept your reward.

Quest 7 “A Clever Statement For The Brotherhood”

As much as the Dark Brother would like to kill off the ruler of Beorinhal, he is much too powerful to do so at the moment (read: He’s important to the Reach MQ and so off-limits). However, your questgiver still wants you to send the ruler a message, so instead, you are to kill off one of his advisors as a personal errand for the Dark Brother. This is not a contract the Brotherhood is taking on, but rather it’s a contract he personally is giving to you. His advisor is a Nordic man named Eran Fog-Breath, and he is a clever-man. The task is simple; kill him. The easiest method is to get him alone, though doing so will be difficult, as Eran is immune to Command Humanoid. Eran will challenge you to a game, as he suspects you are an assassin already.

He is surrounded by three guards. He will ask you three riddles (NOTE: Someone should write a book of Nordic riddles for use in this quest OR use something from the Book of Riddles book from vanilla. Alternatively, you could use either the Fortress of Ice or Labyrinthian riddles from Arena as an unnecessary-but-nice touch). You will only get one chance for each riddle, for each successful answer, he will excuse one guard. Once the final riddle is given, regardless of how many you got right or wrong, he will accept your challenge of combat. Speak to him again to begin the fight (attacking him right there would also be fine, but if you got any right – you’ll want to give his guards time to leave (this will need scripting) so they don’t all swarm you anyways. Kill him. Killing his guards is not required to complete the quest, but you’re free to do so anyways (perhaps you get a bonus if you kill all three after getting all three riddles correct?). Return to the Dark Brother to get a very handsome reward, as well as the location of this Network’s Nightside Asylum – where the Network’s Night Mother stays.

User avatar
Rakanishu
Lead Dev
Posts: 886
Joined: Thu Sep 15, 2016 9:16 pm

Post by Rakanishu »

Since this is the first DB faction questline in PTR, it'd be helpful to first figure out the background and mechanics of the faction to get a stronger foundation. Vanilla doesn't provide much, but I think we should look to sources like "The Brothers of Darkness" which lay out some conclusive themes. We can figure out what the DB should be by comparing it against the Morag Tong, since the former arose out of the latter. Some general thoughts about the DB, not necessarily this proposal in particular:

Background:
The Morag Tong maintains public order, honor, and the status quo through state-sanctioned killings that follow established processes and traditions. The Dark Brotherhood upends a balance of power through illegal killings for profit. The Morag Tong prevents and/or ends open conflict (see House Wars never developing into open conflict) with legal contracts, while the Dark Brotherhood's actions create and/or prolong conflict by giving one side an extralegal advantage.

Clients:
In both cases, contracts are generally created by people with notable political or economic power. The DB specifically is called upon by rulers, wealthy merchants, and desperate individuals (who can pay). It's not a cheap service, and the majority of the executions should be influential people or their close acquaintances.

Values and beliefs:
Both groups worship Mephala. While the Morag Tong views certain murders as more pleasing to Mephala over others, the Dark Brotherhood solely weighs the value of a killing in gold as Mephala enjoys all murders. Following from above, the Dark Brotherhood is also generally receptive to Mehrunes Dagon due to his associations with change; this is seen in vanilla quests and a blurb about Mehrunes' Razor in "Tamrielic Lore." I'm not sure who else influences the Morag Tong other than Vivec.

I think the Mehrunes Dagon influence angle could set up a nice conflict story or series of quests in one of the provinces.

Joining the faction:
The Morag Tong requires the player to find their sanctuary. Dark Brotherhood: Same thing?

Possible SHOTN clients (non-exhaustive):
Kingdom of the Reach (possibly a thane)
Nobles (misc manors in KW/DS/MK)
Minor clans
Bear Clan
Rural estate holders
Fire-Hand Clan
Rolic Gilded-Shield

I think focusing on influential targets (outside of intro contracts) could bring more attention to the minor nobles and clans we have in the Reach.

Handling bounties:
This is a major gameplay question which forces us to decide if the player should even be allowed to incur a bounty while killing the target. Both vanilla "Thief"-aligned factions--the MT and TG--have mechanics to avoid or clear a bounty. The Morag Tong allows the player to avoid incurring a bounty by using writs. The TG has "price on your head." The DB is only "quasi-legal" like the TG ("While they are officially considered an unlawful organization in every corner of the Empire, like the Thieves Guild, they are almost as universally tolerated.").

#1 - No bounties allowed:
This is the easiest option and likely makes the most sense since being quasi-legal still means you're committing a major crime. This would raise the issue of gatekeeping as the vast majority of faction quests allow players to fail and still proceed to the next quest, albeit without any faction rep gain. One could, however, consider the DB as a unique case since it's the most "illegal" of the joinable factions so far.

#2 - Bounties allowed:
This is a more gameplay-friendly option, but it'd possibly require us to create a new bounty-clearing mechanic (or we don't as it can be considered a unique faction). "The Brothers of Darkness" says that the DB essentially can't be touched by rulers because it provides essential services. Maybe there's a connected NPC in the nearest court to a DB sanctuary that can clear a bounty. This might be too similar to "price on your head" though.

Misc.:
- "accounting" should be used in dialogue to get contracts ("The Brothers of Darkness")
- Tribunal's bk_dbcontract provides a workable template for execution contracts if we choose to include these.
- I’d like to see a few quests where you can kill a target through ancillary means. Something like the quest where you poison Balyn Omavel's food, but without the wonky detection scripting. Blackmail, bribery, etc.
- It seems likely that Jona would have been either a client or target of the DB by now. One interesting twist would be a hint that the assassins who killed her husband were the DB rather than Sogat Dur-Gada.

Post Reply

Return to “SHotN Characters & Questing”