[Quest Design] - Mundrethi Plantation

Place where miscellaneous quests and NPC dialogue are written.

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sasquatch2o
Developer
Posts: 325
Joined: Tue Jul 15, 2014 1:56 pm

[Quest Design] - Mundrethi Plantation

Post by sasquatch2o »

Mundrethi Plantation:

The rather paranoid and controlling owner of the plantation has a matter that requires some discretion. Although plantation owner has been unable to prove any of his suspicions, he suspects, among other things, someone has been laying with his mistress. This may be a rogue hiding nearby or one of his own servants. Find out what it is. In this quest you must interrogate suspects, do some searching in the interior and exterior to match clues from the mistress' quarters and elsewhere. You can watch the upper apartment to see if the suspect shows themselves.

clues:
i4-511-Hla & exterior

excessive dirt tracked in her apartment -could have been anyone

Option #1 - Investigate Clues:

1.shared interest in moonsugar and skooma - maintenance

2.lockpick - maintenance

3.dropped tools and soiled clothes (add these) in nearby wooded area- obviously maintenance guy.

Picking up correct items will create journal entry

Option #2 - Creeping:

Watch the mistress' apartment from a distance at night. Once the repairman has picked the lock and snuck inside player may confront them.

Player is given option of confronting both repairman or mistress. After confronting, mistress she will cry and explain they are in love and that the master there is a violent and unpredictable dunmer and attempts to control her with skooma. In bouts of madness he often locks her in for weeks and that with any accusation of misbehavior a day might will pass without food. The repairman will tell you he initially took pity on the mistress by secreting food to her after hearing her late night cries of pain. He will ask you not report their action to allow them both to be together and escape the murderous wrath of the plantation owner.

The reward for mercy will be some quality repair hammers and a modest amount of coin. The reward to reporting the mistress and handyman will be a larger sum of gold, wrongly accusing either of the other servants will result in a much smaller sum of coin, them being beaten and leaving his service (there is lesser proof). If you report maintenance guy and mistress, the plantation owner will enter the residence and murder the handyman and mistress. The furniture in upper apartment will be overturned to show a violent struggle.

associated interior:
http://tamriel-rebuilt.org/old_forum/viewtopic.php?p=323824

FOR DISCUSSION
my opinion.
arvisrend
Lead Developer
Posts: 1971
Joined: Mon Oct 04, 2010 11:39 am
Location: substitutional world

Re: [Quest Design] - Mundrethi Plantation

Post by arvisrend »

Quoting some of what was said at http://www.tamriel-rebuilt.org/old_forum/viewtopic.php?t=24744 :

sasquatch:
Mistress was a kind word I used to replace whore. A skooma addict and entrapped whore. The woman in this quest is no princess. The player might assume that the repairman is simply indulging in his baser instincts but what makes this interesting is that he was acting out of genuine compassion. The plantation owner also has a wife he is not married to the whore which is why she is housed in an out building. The player does have the option of killing the Mundrathi at any time. In my plan it just wouldnt have any impact on the quest line. The merciful outcome would be lying or delaying long enough for them to escape. How is murder needed to improve the quest and in what way does it, at all? Murder is boring, this is dark, sordid and interesting.

arvisrend:
One question that suggests itself is why the plantation owner would reveal his affairs to an unknown outlander who could immediately use all this information against him. This needs to be explained. You should also give the player the option of disclosing it all to the wife if you proceed with this.

I originally misunderstood "mistress" as "wife". This would help with my objection, because there is nothing wrong with disclosing that you have a wife. But that would probably change a few other things. I would then add a little more ugliness to it: the wife is entrapped in the "care" of her husband by lack of money, lack of contacts in the surrounding cities and her skooma addiction (let's not make it a princess-in-the-tower quest). The player might have to help with some of these to get her out. The player should also have the option of killing the husband and seeing what follows (might and might not be good for the wife, but she likely won't be grateful to the player).
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