The Elder Council
From Oblivion Mod Wiki
| Author: | giskard |
| Thread(s): | http://www.theengineeringguild.co.uk/showthread.php?299-The-Elder-Council |
| Version: | 2.5 |
| Last Updated: | May 19 2010 |
| Requires: | Oblivion 1.2.416, CURP V2.2, Shivering Isles |
| Download(s): | The Guild (http://www.theengineeringguild.co.uk/downloads.php?do=file&id=22) |
[edit] To my Supporters.
I made this mod as a thank you to those of you who supported me during march and april 2008. I hope you enjoy the mod :)
[edit] About The Elder Council Mod (Rewritten for 1.5).
The Elder Council 1.5 is now feature complete, all original ideas planned for it have been finished and only new ideas that I will add at my leisure later have been excluded. This is as close to finished as my mods get. Enjoy.
The Elder Council mod is a lore mod and covers many different areas of Elder Scrolls lore, as many as the Empire it self touches, which is basically everything. Most of its 500+ lines of recorded dialog are given over to Lore based information you can listen too by talking to NPCs added by the mod. Even the quests tell lore based stories.
Generally speaking The Elder Council Mod does for the Empire what Origin of the mages guild did for the Arcane university. It total revamps palace, adding missing departments and extra lore based content so the palace becomes an important part of your game and a useful place to visit. It features a Lore masters office that contains audio descriptions of every Septim emperor. It contains province offices that contain audio briefings on current events in other provinces, it contains a Guilds and Charters offices that will present you with audio briefings on the history of the Mages Guild, Fighters Guild, The Order of the Black worm and the Psijic Order and allow new players to get a feel for all those organizations. And that is just background information the mod provides inside the palace that teaches you about the world your playing in.
There is also a Department of Justice and Census and Excise office within the palace where you can join the legion and rise up its ranks by performing legion duties or you can collect taxes for the Empire and serve it that way. Both are these are jobs you can do for life, without ever taking on a single official quest or adventure, so yes you can role play a dry old tax collector with no personality now if you wish. Or you can walk the roads between cities on patrol keeping the citizens safe from harm as an honest legioneer. Or you can cheat and claim you did it as a corrupt legioneer.
Several of the rooms that should exist such as the throne room and emperors quarters were also added back to the palace in this mod and it was all done without me having to edit the Main plot or Heist quests, so this mod is a lot more compatible that it should be given that the whole palace is one big quest location and there for a very difficult place to mod safely. Yet this mod does it :)
The mod adds several quests including a short Main Plot that takes you on a journey though Southern Nibenay lore, Elsweyr lore and Valenwood Lore before it ends. An interesting story to be sure and one that allows you to take part in "The wild hunt" ritual (valenwood version). So before the main plot ends, you will have had an introduction to a lot of lore based material from the south of Tamriel. I personally find it all very interesting so I'm sure you will too.
The mod adds an Imperial rank system to the game that rates your importance to the Empire based on the quests you completed both from this mod and from the original game. Promoting you as you earn more and more points towards your next rank. But it does not insist you do beths quests to earn those points, you can do the repeatable quest in this mod and work your way up the ranks that way without EVER even starting the main plot for Oblivion. So by the time you actually save Kvatch, you might already be Duke of Colovia. It is entirely your choice how you get promoted, I simply provide several ways for you to do it.
Using the Imperial Rank system you can rise to become Duke of Colovia and even get your self a small room in the palace. Also it is possible to detect certain TEC ranks in other mods so Kvatch Aftermath for example can know when you finally become Duke of Colovia and implement new features if I add any. Just like any true Cyrodiil Upgrade mod should work. This is actually a much cooler feature than it sounds. In fact its the one I am most excited about.
The mod also supports good and bad players via its Nobility or Corruption system. If your good, you earn Nobility points and rise up the ranks of the Empire faster and more interesting quests become available sooner, if your bad, your rise up the ranks is slower but you earn more money and jobs like Drug dealer open up to you, plus a little fraud on the side. Again it is your choice, be good, be bad, the mod rewards good role playing either way.
This system gives you secret bonuses behind the scenes without warning as a way of rewarding good replay. So if you suddenly find your self getting promoted for no reason, that is why.
A new TEC secrets idea is being explored in this mod as a way of passing on tips to players without exposing my self to the flaming that always follows supporting any players in public. TEC now gives hints about the mod that will help you get the most out of it, these tips come from my private forum guides but are not a complete set of tips. Your getting the 10cents tour version here.
These messages only appear once so pay attention or you may miss them.
The elder council mod also adds the Valenwood city of Arenthia as a bonus, complete with local clans, priests, cultists, shops, guilds and special arenthian equipment, an elven sector in the trees and an imperial sector on the ground. Fancy a swim ? Got the money to pay to get in ? Why not visit the Arenthia baths, if not there's a big dirty pond in the middle of the town you can swim in with the other peasants. Just be warned, the baths are mixed sex paths and the NPCs do remove their cloths to use the baths, so if you have any body mods installed, this feature may become X rated suddenly. Currently it is PG and safe, again your choice, install the body mods, get nude NPCs, do not install the body mods, get the PG rated version. Child friendly all the way if other mods are not installed that change these things.
Arenthia is to be my pet project and will develop more in time but right now it is fully functional and at least as developed as most of Beths cities, plus there is some unique items on sale in the shops whose capabilities may not always be on display. Using them is the only true test.
[edit] IMPORTANT:
The Second Door leading up the door is locked for a reason. Do not try and open it, behind that door is Beths original quest areas for the Heist, every door in those areas triggers stage 75 of the heist early. So if you unlock that door and explore beyond it, you will totally screw up the heist quest and will cause the guards in this mod to assume your trespassing all the time. So do not go beyond that door unless your doing the heist quest.
Also the its best to increase the view distance for trees in your game options if you intend to use Arenthia because Arenthia has a lot of trees and some are so big you can almost touch them before they pop in to view if you do not.
[edit] Lore Issues
Titus Mede is a character that appears in the Book "The Infernal City". At the time of writing the only information we have on him is that he became Emperor after defeating Ebbar Olin. So TEC 2.3 had to use a great deal of artistic license to put him on the Imperial throne. The timing is roughly correct, he is crowned Emperor fairly early on in the 4th Era and the events Titus is worried about are also described in the book the "The Infernal City". But my source is the Imperial Library because I have not read the book at the time of writing. The Imperial City usually deals only in facts so I tend to trust the site to be Loreful at all times and not wander in to "wishful thinking land" as the wiki often does.
I also believe I got the background problems of the crowning correct and will be looking in to them in more detail in the future. Compatibility issues.
[edit] Streamline and repeatable quests.
Streamline function Kill Corpses seems to cause a miscount for the number of dead corpses in repeatable quests so leave that function turned off. This bug will effect all my mods including Kvatch Aftermath, Fighters Guild Contracts, Origin of the mages guild, The Necromancer as well as The Elder Council, so its a bad idea to have it turned on if you use anything I have made. Reports indicate that only the kill corpses function is a problem, so if the makers of streamline fix his in the future, I would be grateful if somebody lets me know so i can update these docs. Thanks to FatGiant, EK and Hanzo The Razor for identifying this issue and finding the cure. Well done guys :)
