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About this mod
A simple backport of SSE mod Save the Icerunner - Lights Out Alternate Routes. All credit goes to the original creator - Parapets.
- Permissions and credits
- Changelogs
Jaree-Ra in Solitude has a plan to set up a shipwreck. The ship is said to be full of weapons and riches, ripe for the taking. What will you do?
Disclaimer: I do not claim credit for the creation of this mod. All credit goes to Parapets. Thank you for the open permissions.
This mod does as it is written on the box, it allows you to complete the quest "Lights Out!" by making your own choices, according to your character's (or your) judgement.
The mod was playtested by me, and I haven't run into any problems. However, if you do encounter an issue let me know in the comment section. BUT theoretically, there shouldn't be any, as the mod consists of purely an esp and scripts.
ORIGINAL DESCRIPTION
Overview
The Lights Out! side quest in Solitude is one of the most annoying sequences of events for many long-time Skyrim players like myself. It is a 100% linear sequence that leads you to getting "tricked" into causing a bunch of innocent people to die, and if you don't want to do it, you either have to have Jaree-Ra calling out to you in Solitude all the time or a quest stuck in your journal that you don't want to do.
If you're familiar with Lights Out!, you may have asked yourself some of these questions:
- Why does insinuating that I report to the guards loop back into agreeing to take the job anyway?
- Why can't I actually talk to the guards about this?
- Why doesn't Jaree-Ra ever do his job at the docks?
- Why can't I kill Jaree-Ra and just forget about this?
- Why can I find clear evidence of Jaree-Ra's fraudulent activity and still do nothing about it?
- Why, after going through all this trouble, does the "Icerunner Chest" have pocket change in it?
- Why can't we be friends?
Well, once you install this mod, you never have to ask these questions anymore!
How to save the Icerunner
The Icerunner will return if any of these things happen:
- Jaere-Ra or Deeja dies before you have heard Jaree-Ra's offer (quest doesn't start).
- Jaree-Ra dies before you put out the Lighthouse fire (quest failed).
- You convince Jaree-Ra to give up.
- The guards arrest Jaree-Ra and put him in jail.
How to get Jaree-Ra as a follower
There is exactly one quest route where Jaree-Ra and Deeja become friendly with you. It requires crashing the Icerunner and is therefore mutually exclusive with saving it. Upon completing that route, you can have Jaree-Ra as a follower or either Jaree-Ra or Deeja as a spouse. Jaree-Ra is a Rogue and his max level is 50.
Not sure what to do?
The alternate routes are not made to be trivial to find. The key to unlocking more routes is to find some evidence which can either be used as leverage against Jaree-Ra or reported to Captain Aldis. Talk to Ahtar, the headsman. He has a quest for you that should point you in the right direction. (Specifically, he should send you to Broken Oar Grotto. Other mods may potentially interfere with this.)
Detailed walkthrough (spoilers)
See the attached article.
F.A.Q
Q: Can this be installed on an existing save?
A: The short answer is yes, I have put some measures in place to make the mod function when installed on an existing save, and in my testing, it works. In principle, Skyrim does not actually like it when you try to add or remove things from a running quest (Lights Out! is start-enabled), but it seems that with some Papyrus magic, we can force it to work anyway.
Q: Does this mod restore any cut content?
A: Simply put, no, this mod does not restore the cut content from this quest. It looks like there was originally going to be a route where you ally with Ma'zaka (the Lighthouse keeper) and Captain Aldis to defeat the Blackblood Marauders, but it wasn't complete enough to be reconstructed. Some lines are also voiced by the wrong character, which makes them very hard to replace. The new routes ultimately added by the mod are based on the vanilla events. However, this mod did benefit from being able to repurpose some of the cut dialogue lines for the new routes.
Q: I have a mod that changes the Solitude Docks, which conflicts with where you put the Icerunner. Can you make a patch for it?
A: I have provided an option to simply disable the return of the Icerunner with the global variable STIReturnEnabled. If you set this to 0, you can still benefit from the rest of the mod's changes. I'm afraid I don't have much experience with moving things around worldspaces when navmeshes are involved, nor do I want to invest time into fixing problems in other people's load orders. If you want to make a patch to move the ship somewhere else, I'm happy to host it.
Q: What happens if the Stormcloaks take Haafingar?
A: Istar Cairn-Breaker should be able to substitute for Captain Aldis's role in the quest.
Q: Should I clean the ITM records?
A: No, they are needed for compatibility with other mods.
Q: Can I flag the plugin as ESL?
A: To be safe, I would say no. I have been informed that the game engine does not resolve ESL CELL FormIDs correctly and loads the forms as FE000 regardless of the actual slot of the plugin. It should be fine if the plugin is actually in the FE000 slot, but otherwise there could be unexpected issues.