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About this mod
This is a fully voiced quest mod that provides the player options to spare most of the NPCs you have to assassinate. Each choice will result in an alternative quest to help them instead of killing them. In a nutshell, this mod allows you to spare 14 NPCs, adds a new weapon and several followers.
- Requirements
- Permissions and credits
- Changelogs
Introduction
Hello everyone! This is my first ever mod which took me down the creation kit rabbit hole. I present a mod that provides alternative choices to the Dark Brotherhood quest line. What was initially aimed to spare some NPCs (NPCs whom I felt were not deserving of assassination), turned into a mod allowing the player to make alternative choices to send more deserving NPCs to the void. This mod adds 14(ish) alternative quests to spare all NPCs in the Side Contracts given to you by Nazir, and most NPCs in the main Dark Brotherhood missions. There are some NPCs who I have not offered an alternative choice but this may be subject to change depending on the reception of the mod and what people think... I will explain these reasons further on in the description.
Motivation
The motivation to put this mod together was for a few reasons. Firstly, I couldn't bring myself to killing Narfi... Just couldn't do it. What bothered me more is that I couldn't even help him after the "Straw that broke" quest. Then I thought, "Well, if I am going to make a mod to spare one character, it would probably make sense to spare (almost) everyone". If I was going to do that, there would have to be a reason/justification to spare this person, bringing me to my second reason. Evil is complex and people do bad things for many reasons, one of which can be on a material basis. Thus, I tried to explain why these characters were selected to be killed. So, what if I can offer an explanation to as why these NPCs were marked for death (or most) and you can resolve the conflict in some way to ensure their safety. I wanted to add some kind of intrigue that is more tangible other than “I iz du b@d things”... that is up to you find out. There are a few followers you can get that I added in addition to spared NPCs (like Safia). The final reason is that I have plans for this mod; as of right now, the mod does what it is supposed to do, spare contracts... but I do plan to give these spared NPCs a purpose in a future update.
Is this lore friendly?
Well... that is up to interpretation... If you want an explanation that can help you into role-playing and maintaining some type of purity to the assassin caricature, maybe think about yourself as a more "conscientious" assassin/character. Maybe a character that is looking at how dysfunctional your new "family" is and figuring out that maybe this is not the direction the Dark Brotherhood should go. Why be an organization that puts fear in the innocent, when you can be a power for good and go after the people who are not so innocent? Why not focus your attention on nobility, instead of the beggars, miners, hunters, old ladies, etc.? What if you can turn the Dark Brotherhood into a group that brings power to the less fortunate instead of the powerful? You can be the counterbalance Skyrim needs. I just wanted to just one little layer of complexity to the contracts.
Now, if you want to spare some NPCs but kill others, that is fine too. You don't have to spare all of them. You can pick and choose whom you want alive or dead. Even if you start the modded quest and decide you'll just go with the vanilla NPC, the modded quest will fail and you can just go collect your bounty from Nazir. I made this mod so you can have a choice.
Implementation
I made this mod with compatibility in mind meaning... I did my very best to not touch vanilla quests. This is why, for example, Nazir still gives you your reward for "completing" the contract as if you did kill your target. This was both an implementation and story choice (for a future update). I also added a new house outside of Ivarstead which should not affect most town overhauls (it worked fine when I tried it with JKs and the great cities mods).
The core of mod is done. So, feel free to play it and not worry about whether to wait for the update. For now, it is a simple voiced, alternative mod for the Dark Brotherhood quest. You can literally have his mod in your load order and it will not impact anything until you start your quest.
For the voice work, I did my very best to make the audio play nice and not be as robotic. I am not an audio wizard but a lot of the quests sound pretty good. If it’s too robotic for some users, I can polish it more in a future update.
Spared NPCs
Here is the list of NPCs you can spare with a brief description on how to initiate the quest to spare them. All NPCs whom you are supposed to kill in the side contract missions given to you by Nazir can be activated by selecting the 4th dialogue option when you talk to them to "taunt" them.
Side Contracts:
Narfi -> Before getting this dialogue option you first need to complete the quest "The Straw that Broke or FreeFormIvarstead02 set to stage 200".
Ennodius
Beitild
Hern
Lurbuk
Deekus
Ma'randru-jo
Anoriath
Agnis
Maluril
Helvard
Safia
Main Contract:
Nilsine -> Complete Muiri's contract WITHOUT killing Nilsine. Once you have completed her contract and after she is disappointed with you for not killing Nilsine, talk to her again which will initiate another dialogue option to start he quest. Make sure you got Aegisbane from Alain. When you complete the quest, Muiri will give you her ring and become a marriage candidate as if you killed Nilsine in the vanilla quest. To sweeten the deal, Nilsine also becomes a marriage candidate for helping her family.
Vittoria Vici -> So thre is no quest to initiate here but rather, I attached a script to the "Bound Until Death" quest where if you paralyze her instead of killing her, it will give the illusion that Vittoria was murdered to make sense for the emperor to still come to Skyrim. I left a bow that does "0" damage, a practice arrow and a paralysis potion. You can also use a paralysis spell as well (assuming it does no damage) and it will trigger her death scene as if you killed her. Like the vanilla quest, after you paralyzed her... Get out of there! I have plans for Vittoria, but for those who did not want to kill her for whatever reason, this is your chance.
Anton, the Gourmet, and Gianna -> This is a package deal. I debated if I wanted to spare them, but thought why not? In the vanilla game, Gianna is disabled after the quest but is kinda blamed for killing the decoy emperor so I thought "well... I guess we should help her too".
Anton -> To start this quest, while talking with Anton during the "Recipe for Disaster" quest, Anton will ask if you will let him go in the vanilla dialogue. You will have the three vanilla dialogue options of: "Of course, Anton. Thank you. (Lie)", "I'm afraid not. Loose ends, and all that" or "(Remain Silent)"... do not pick the second option unless you want Anton running around too afraid to talk to you. Instead pick, "Of course, Anton", wait a few seconds, and talk to him again. This will start the quest to spare him and his cohorts. Note: This requires a speech check! Next is the gourmet:
The Gourmet-> Once you convinced Anton to leave town for a bit, go to the Gourmet and talk to him as if you are going to taunt him. The 4th dialogue option will appear to spare him. Convince him to leave town like Anton (Another speech check) and continue the dialogue so you can get the writ of passage.
Gianna -> Nothing. Once you start the modded quest, and after you release both Anton and the Gourmet from the Abandoned Shack, we will be enabled and to finish the guess, just talk to her to make it up to her.
Future Plans
I definitely plan to add more to the mod with a 2.0 release for a final quest if you spared enough NPCs and depending on WHO you spared. I did add new NPCs that can be followers and I am currently fleshing out their stories for a later version. Each NPC will have an impact on how they can help you in the later version like Vittoria, Vira (added NPC), Ongakr (added NPC) etc. Lurbuk and Maluril for now, have just one quest stage where you just get them to leave town. In truth, I was running out of ideas for them because real life needed me to do less game writing and more job writing. They are done, but I'd like to add more to them. I am open to suggestions from the community and what you would like to see in a story... constructive feedback is always welcome!
Depending on feedback, downloads, appearance overhauls etc., it will really motivate me to update the mod a lot faster. I encourage you to share your ideas for story directions (if you want) and I can credit you as well for the idea. I like discussing story ideas with others because it brings my ideas down to Earth (or Nirn, in this case). I want to make the Dark Brotherhood a more complex faction than a typical cartoon caricature of what "evil" is.
Permissions
Patches, NPC appearance overhauls, House replacement (Narfi's new home), Weapon replacement (Bow of Subtle Mercy) is encouraged! Just let me know and we can make it happen. Please do not upload/redistribute this mod elsewhere.
Credit
I would like to thank the Beyond Skyrim team and server for pointing me in the right direction to start modding and giving guidance. These guys are awesome and thank you so much. Here are their links if you want in on the fun:
https://beyondskyrim.org/
https://discord.gg/c8GjNFxbDk
Also, this mod would not be fully voiced if it was not for lazy voice finder, xVAsynth and Yakitori Audio Converter apps. Seriously, these programs changed the modding game and deserve a lot of praise. Here are their nexus links:
https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/82482
https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/73100
https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/44184
And of course, all of you! To everyone in this community, modders, creators and users alike being a constant source of inspiration.
Hello everyone! This is my first ever mod which took me down the creation kit rabbit hole. I present a mod that provides alternative choices to the Dark Brotherhood quest line. What was initially aimed to spare some NPCs (NPCs whom I felt were not deserving of assassination), turned into a mod allowing the player to make alternative choices to send more deserving NPCs to the void. This mod adds 14(ish) alternative quests to spare all NPCs in the Side Contracts given to you by Nazir, and most NPCs in the main Dark Brotherhood missions. There are some NPCs who I have not offered an alternative choice but this may be subject to change depending on the reception of the mod and what people think... I will explain these reasons further on in the description.
Motivation
The motivation to put this mod together was for a few reasons. Firstly, I couldn't bring myself to killing Narfi... Just couldn't do it. What bothered me more is that I couldn't even help him after the "Straw that broke" quest. Then I thought, "Well, if I am going to make a mod to spare one character, it would probably make sense to spare (almost) everyone". If I was going to do that, there would have to be a reason/justification to spare this person, bringing me to my second reason. Evil is complex and people do bad things for many reasons, one of which can be on a material basis. Thus, I tried to explain why these characters were selected to be killed. So, what if I can offer an explanation to as why these NPCs were marked for death (or most) and you can resolve the conflict in some way to ensure their safety. I wanted to add some kind of intrigue that is more tangible other than “I iz du b@d things”... that is up to you find out. There are a few followers you can get that I added in addition to spared NPCs (like Safia). The final reason is that I have plans for this mod; as of right now, the mod does what it is supposed to do, spare contracts... but I do plan to give these spared NPCs a purpose in a future update.
Is this lore friendly?
Well... that is up to interpretation... If you want an explanation that can help you into role-playing and maintaining some type of purity to the assassin caricature, maybe think about yourself as a more "conscientious" assassin/character. Maybe a character that is looking at how dysfunctional your new "family" is and figuring out that maybe this is not the direction the Dark Brotherhood should go. Why be an organization that puts fear in the innocent, when you can be a power for good and go after the people who are not so innocent? Why not focus your attention on nobility, instead of the beggars, miners, hunters, old ladies, etc.? What if you can turn the Dark Brotherhood into a group that brings power to the less fortunate instead of the powerful? You can be the counterbalance Skyrim needs. I just wanted to just one little layer of complexity to the contracts.
Now, if you want to spare some NPCs but kill others, that is fine too. You don't have to spare all of them. You can pick and choose whom you want alive or dead. Even if you start the modded quest and decide you'll just go with the vanilla NPC, the modded quest will fail and you can just go collect your bounty from Nazir. I made this mod so you can have a choice.
Implementation
I made this mod with compatibility in mind meaning... I did my very best to not touch vanilla quests. This is why, for example, Nazir still gives you your reward for "completing" the contract as if you did kill your target. This was both an implementation and story choice (for a future update). I also added a new house outside of Ivarstead which should not affect most town overhauls (it worked fine when I tried it with JKs and the great cities mods).
The core of mod is done. So, feel free to play it and not worry about whether to wait for the update. For now, it is a simple voiced, alternative mod for the Dark Brotherhood quest. You can literally have his mod in your load order and it will not impact anything until you start your quest.
For the voice work, I did my very best to make the audio play nice and not be as robotic. I am not an audio wizard but a lot of the quests sound pretty good. If it’s too robotic for some users, I can polish it more in a future update.
Spared NPCs
Here is the list of NPCs you can spare with a brief description on how to initiate the quest to spare them. All NPCs whom you are supposed to kill in the side contract missions given to you by Nazir can be activated by selecting the 4th dialogue option when you talk to them to "taunt" them.
Side Contracts:
Narfi -> Before getting this dialogue option you first need to complete the quest "The Straw that Broke or FreeFormIvarstead02 set to stage 200".
Ennodius
Beitild
Hern
Lurbuk
Deekus
Ma'randru-jo
Anoriath
Agnis
Maluril
Helvard
Safia
Main Contract:
Nilsine -> Complete Muiri's contract WITHOUT killing Nilsine. Once you have completed her contract and after she is disappointed with you for not killing Nilsine, talk to her again which will initiate another dialogue option to start he quest. Make sure you got Aegisbane from Alain. When you complete the quest, Muiri will give you her ring and become a marriage candidate as if you killed Nilsine in the vanilla quest. To sweeten the deal, Nilsine also becomes a marriage candidate for helping her family.
Vittoria Vici -> So thre is no quest to initiate here but rather, I attached a script to the "Bound Until Death" quest where if you paralyze her instead of killing her, it will give the illusion that Vittoria was murdered to make sense for the emperor to still come to Skyrim. I left a bow that does "0" damage, a practice arrow and a paralysis potion. You can also use a paralysis spell as well (assuming it does no damage) and it will trigger her death scene as if you killed her. Like the vanilla quest, after you paralyzed her... Get out of there! I have plans for Vittoria, but for those who did not want to kill her for whatever reason, this is your chance.
Anton, the Gourmet, and Gianna -> This is a package deal. I debated if I wanted to spare them, but thought why not? In the vanilla game, Gianna is disabled after the quest but is kinda blamed for killing the decoy emperor so I thought "well... I guess we should help her too".
Anton -> To start this quest, while talking with Anton during the "Recipe for Disaster" quest, Anton will ask if you will let him go in the vanilla dialogue. You will have the three vanilla dialogue options of: "Of course, Anton. Thank you. (Lie)", "I'm afraid not. Loose ends, and all that" or "(Remain Silent)"... do not pick the second option unless you want Anton running around too afraid to talk to you. Instead pick, "Of course, Anton", wait a few seconds, and talk to him again. This will start the quest to spare him and his cohorts. Note: This requires a speech check! Next is the gourmet:
The Gourmet-> Once you convinced Anton to leave town for a bit, go to the Gourmet and talk to him as if you are going to taunt him. The 4th dialogue option will appear to spare him. Convince him to leave town like Anton (Another speech check) and continue the dialogue so you can get the writ of passage.
Gianna -> Nothing. Once you start the modded quest, and after you release both Anton and the Gourmet from the Abandoned Shack, we will be enabled and to finish the guess, just talk to her to make it up to her.
Future Plans
I definitely plan to add more to the mod with a 2.0 release for a final quest if you spared enough NPCs and depending on WHO you spared. I did add new NPCs that can be followers and I am currently fleshing out their stories for a later version. Each NPC will have an impact on how they can help you in the later version like Vittoria, Vira (added NPC), Ongakr (added NPC) etc. Lurbuk and Maluril for now, have just one quest stage where you just get them to leave town. In truth, I was running out of ideas for them because real life needed me to do less game writing and more job writing. They are done, but I'd like to add more to them. I am open to suggestions from the community and what you would like to see in a story... constructive feedback is always welcome!
Depending on feedback, downloads, appearance overhauls etc., it will really motivate me to update the mod a lot faster. I encourage you to share your ideas for story directions (if you want) and I can credit you as well for the idea. I like discussing story ideas with others because it brings my ideas down to Earth (or Nirn, in this case). I want to make the Dark Brotherhood a more complex faction than a typical cartoon caricature of what "evil" is.
Permissions
Patches, NPC appearance overhauls, House replacement (Narfi's new home), Weapon replacement (Bow of Subtle Mercy) is encouraged! Just let me know and we can make it happen. Please do not upload/redistribute this mod elsewhere.
Credit
I would like to thank the Beyond Skyrim team and server for pointing me in the right direction to start modding and giving guidance. These guys are awesome and thank you so much. Here are their links if you want in on the fun:
https://beyondskyrim.org/
https://discord.gg/c8GjNFxbDk
Also, this mod would not be fully voiced if it was not for lazy voice finder, xVAsynth and Yakitori Audio Converter apps. Seriously, these programs changed the modding game and deserve a lot of praise. Here are their nexus links:
https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/82482
https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/73100
https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/44184
And of course, all of you! To everyone in this community, modders, creators and users alike being a constant source of inspiration.