Dark Brotherhood Chronicles: Awakening

Download: http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=41090
Download: http://tesalliance.org/forums/index.php?/files/file/1059-dark-brotherhood-chronicles-awakening/

Introduction

Once upon a time, our name was whispered in the dark corners of the deepest caves and feared in the highest towers. Once upon a time, we bore the blood of emperors on our hands. Once upon a time, we were mystery, and secret, and the greatest in the Empire would gather our rituals to be allowed to grovel at our feet. Once upon a time, we scorned Mephala Herself, stole Her treasures, and found a master far beyond what She ever was.

But now...

Now, we are scattered, the Sanctuaries sealed. Now, the blood you have on your hands is that of your own family. Now, our secrets are broken, for we never saw the traitor in our midst. Now, the body of your master and mentor hangs in Applewatch, and the Night Mother herself scorns us for our failure.

Where is the power of Sithis now?


In the aftermath of the traitor's destruction, the Listener of the Dark Brotherhood now faces new challenges. Shadowy threats from without and little trust from within. The Sanctuaries have been locked, the Dark Family hidden. But still, someone has found them. Someone seeks to wipe the weakened assassins from the face of Tamriel. The greatest secrets of the Black Hand must be unearthed if the Listener is to save the Dark Brotherhood from extinction. Or perhaps he will aid the Brotherhood's greatest enemy.

The Dark Brotherhood Chronicles is a large-scale quest mod. It boasts many new NPCs, locations, and both a large main questline and sidequests, delving deep into the shadowed history of the Dark Brotherhood.

Features:

• Choice. REAL choice. You have the power to decide not only how to perform within quests, but whether or not to accept them in the first place! If you turn down some quests, they are no longer available. Save your game before talking to an NPC.
  
• Interaction! In some quests, the clothes you wear can affect an NPC's reaction. Yes, some characters will call you out on wearing your armour in public!
  
• Decision. Some of our quests are disturbing. These aren't your morally ambiguous, or even justified, assassination missions. In tDBC, you are a heartless assassin, and will be called upon to perform reprehensible and grotesque acts. However, there are alternatives to these reprehensible acts: you can choose the path your character takes rather than being shoehorned into a purely villainous role.
  
• Several new exterior locations and dungeons, including several new sanctuaries.
  
• A wide variety of NPCs, with their own distinct character traits.
  
• Lots of books and notes that enhance the lore and expand on the recent events in the Brotherhood.

Quest Notes:

The quests that comprise the main quest are neutral until the end. Then you will be forced to make a choice that will earn you fame or infamy. Some of the side quests will earn infamy points. However, they are optional, so you can turn them down if you don't wish to do them.

If you wish to complete all the side quests, do so before starting the final quest. You will be asked to retrieve a dagger. Finish all the side quests before handing the dagger over. Awakening will end once the final quest is finished and the side quests will no longer be available.

tDBC is aimed at characters level 15 and over. Companions and enemies are scaled, but quests are meant to be hard so higher level characters are recommended.

Requirements

http://obse.silverlock.org/ version 20 or newer
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16622 (until voice acting completed)

Important Note on Updates:

We are releasing at this time because the main quest is complete and we have three of the side quests done. However not all of the side quests are done, so there will be more updates as we complete the side quests.

Patches

Arthmoor has created a patch for Open Cities and Vorians has done a patch for Better Cities.

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=32925
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16513

Vorians will be creating patches for Unique Landscapes.

Compatibility

Awakening is incompatible with:

• Unique Landscapes - Cloud Top, UL Ancient Yews, UL Chorrol Hinterland, UL The Heath, UL Lush Woodlands, UL River Ethe, UL Blackwood Forest (land tears - patches in development)
  
• Anvil Bay Expansion
  
• Shezrie's Woodland Village
  
• Duke Patricks - Fresh Kills Now Alert The NPCs (this one breaks the final quest in Awakening)
  
• A Brotherhood Renewed (AI package conflicts - both mods are too similar to be run at the same time)

Minor cosmetic issues with:

• Ayleid Steps (one step is elevated off ground)
  
• Reclaiming Sancre Tor (road passes under one of our locations - can go around)
  
• Verona House Bloodlines - Waterfront shack (minor collision of two shacks)

Project Site

The project is being hosted at http://www.darkcreations.org.

Gallery

We are still in the process of restoring the gallery, but some screenshots and concept drawings for the project have been posted: http://www.darkcreations.org/forums/gallery/album/2-dark-brotherhood-chronicles/

Soundtrack

Listen to the music for tDBC created by Xae http://danielran.com/dbc/.

Special thanks to:

Arthmoor for being at our beck and call to answer at least 10,000 questions for the last year and for stepping up and giving us a new home when we needed it most.

Our beta testers for playing through the entire mod at least 47 times. They are never going to want to see Awakening ever again. And a special call-out to omeletted for her thoroughness, being a royal nitpicker, breaking it in ways we never thought it could be broken, and methodically killing every single one of our NPCs at least twice.

Team Members

Amadaun - Team Lead, Modelling, Texturing, Level Design, Site Administration
AndalayBay - Team Lead, Scripting, Quest Building, Level Design, Site Owner
Xae (Xaeaix) - Sound Engineering, Soundtrack, Site Administration and Design
'Drea - Writing, Beta Testing, Voice Acting
Elec0 - Modelling, Beta Testing
fg109 (RandomNoob) - Scripting, Quest Building
Ibsen's Ghost (Ibsen3) - Voice Acting
Koniption - Modelling, Texturing
Lareneg - Writing, Beta Testing
Morrigain - Writing
omeletted - Texturing, Beta Testing
Rahvin - Writing
Silencer (Cotillion) - Site Administration
Silver - Modelling
Siulil - Beta Testing
theinfamouskat (thechickwhopwn3dyou) - Writing

Arthmoor - Technical Consultant

Voice Acting

All voice acting has been removed from the initial release. We need to get some missing lines recorded.

Previous Team Members

We are still compiling the list of previous team members and will update this section once that work is completed.

Credits

• Bethesda for creating Oblivion
  
• shadeMe for the CSE and Conscribe
  
• scruggsywuggsy the ferret for OBSE
  
• mr_siika for the Sanctum meshes
  
• Helborne for the Chitin armour and weapons
  
• Xiamara for the chair and sofa meshes
  
• Gildur and Demonmaster for the Anima Cyrodiili tileset
  
• Meo for the ceremonial dagger mesh
  
• Ren for the blindfold mesh
  
• Phoenix Amon for some of the book covers
  
• Emillia for various meshes and textures
  
• InsanitySorrow for various meshes and textures
  
• Qarl for his spider web meshes and textures
  
• TheTalkieToaster for the Spider Draedra NPC
  
• elveon, Malo, mikal33 and AlienSlof for the spider resources
  
• LHammonds, Sita and Jerros for the Paladin armour
  
• Klaus for his UI topic fixes
  
• Unofficial TESA Clutterer's Guild for various meshes

Thanks to http://modcraft.net/ for hosting the Dark Brotherhood Chronicles for many years.

:banana: :twirl: :rock: :dance: :celebrate: :celebration: :goodjob: :foodndrink: :intergalactic:

Always wanted an excuse to use those emoticons.

The most terrifying thing about the whole mod? Beyond even the dungeons that creeped me out to clutter and the sound effects that haunted my nightmares?

...my mother wants to play it.

*hides in the corner*

Wait Skyrim ... wait DB ... Wait Skyrim ... wait DB.

Well when I want a break from the cold this is high on the list.

Congrats on release.

Decisions... decisions... what do we do?

Yay! Congratulations on release!!!

Thanx mucho.

Will add this to my list for next play through. :thumbsup:

While I personally don't find it sacrilegious to see CSE placed before OBSE, there are probably others who'd take issue with it. You best fix that (and mention the entire OBSE team while you are at it).

That said, woohoo! :celebration: Heh, I actually remember subscribing to project's WiP thread back in 2008 in hopes of trying it out after its eventual release

I've been waiting a long time for this mod

Thank you for this mod

Congratulations to the release!

Oh good heavens - I didn't realize it would be any kind of a problem. *first mod release for me* I'll let Andalay chime in on that, since she knows how stuff works.

And I know what you mean! :celebration: I've been on the dev team since the very first dev team (though I was mostly just a community moderator on the first one), and I'm so glad my mule-headed stubbornness finally paid off! I mean, so many people worked on this thing. I'd feel awful if that went to waste.

:rofl: You get me the list and we'll list them...

And if this mod could actually get you to play Oblivion, I might die from shock.



Ama, you've just been introduced to shadeMe's sense of humour. Welcome to the forums

Well its about time

Will bookmark this for when I have finally completed everything A Brotherhood Renewed has to offer (that is when I stop getting distracted with other hugely awaited mod releases along the lines of Sutch and Reclaimig Sancre Tor and T.I.E and SDR ... Tis a mod users heaven recently, like a dog with two tails ). Oh yeah there's that TESV thing too :twirl:

On the compatability front (not a request for change or anything just picking brains) - Khettienna's http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=22135. I know Khet' and Arthmoor worked closely on aspects with A Brotherhood Renewed installed, and Arthmoor being a technical consultant on this mod I should imagine any potential problems will have been considered; But could it be given a mention in the OP?

Congrats on release!

A pity about the incompatibilities (particularly the ULs), that means I won't get to enjoy this on my new playthrough. Perhaps on my next one... Expect feedback in 2020!

:facepalm:

We don't conflict with Better Dark Brotherhood Sanctuary! Yeah, there is actually a mod we don't conflict with...

Having fun so far. Minor issue...

Interesting. No, we didn't really make any changes there, so we didn't think to check the quest markers. Probably an oversight on my part. I'll let him know. We'll wait until people have played through all of it to make sure we got them all before another round of fixes.

Thanks Hanaisse

Is there a walkthrough somewhere?

I seem to be lost/stuck...

Yeah, it gets confusing there. Only advice is keep referring to the map so that you can keep track of where you've been.

Oh believe me, I rely on the map constantly in mazes.

Yes, we do have maps for that area. I didn't want to start right off with hints and maps, but we have both. I'll upload the maps to Nexus now.

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=41090

Ooo, ok, thank you, that helped. Didn't get far though....

That's odd. Could you post your load order? I need to go through what we've got on that level and see if something is missing. I did have some problems when I PyFFI'd the meshes, so perhaps there's a mesh that it's not happy with.