Bookworm Quests.
No Quest stages, no quest notes, no quest markers, just a book, casually picked up.

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I have always dreamed about "Bookworm Quests", where there would not be quest stages, quests notes, and quest markers, just me and a book, which for instance I accidentally find in a book store, that contained the story of a dead adventurer's trek through a land that he was not familiar with, but wrote what he did and what he saw, like this:

*Note, someone with more knowledge of elder English, would surely write this in a more fitting style for TES games.*

You are browsing through the books on the shelves of the library at Solitude, and suddenly a title catches your eyes, and you think that it should be an interesting read, so you pay the price to the elderly Orc librarian, with a twisted sense of humor.

You return to your residence place, decide to take a vacation from your endless battles with Alduin's Minions, so you sit by the table in your living room, and open the book, and start to read:


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"The unbelievable adventures of a dead adventurer." By a dead adventurer.

This text was apparently the diary of a long dead adventurer, which was found beside his remains, by another dead adventurer, who happened to find it while raiding a burial barrow west of SnowHawk for hidden treasure.

He did not survive the dangers resident in that barrow, but managed to return to Markarth Side with the diary, and passed away, while trying to get into the city via the sewers.

Before that within the sewers, he met one of his shady friends, which inherited the diary, and told him about his adventures in that barrow, and how he found the diary, and how he was ambushed by some monsters, and how he escaped, which sadly is not known to me, but fortunately the shady friend, knew a friend of mine and decided that he can sell the diary to him if he related to him how it was found, and my friend bought it and then sold it to me, with interest of-course.

Now I have the diary of first deceased adventurer, but do not know the adventures befallen to the diary itself, but it is still fortunate that I have the diary itself, as it is quite interesting.

I'm a collector of such items, and sometimes I find out that the diary, tale or fiction too good to keep only to myself, so I make copies of them and sell or lend them to libraries.

This is a real diary and is one of the most interesting ones, so I would not waste no more time and let it speak for itself.

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I will eventually Write the diary of the adventures befallen the first of the dead adventurers, but let me get to the point.

This can be a diary that the dead adventurer started when he first began his trek from Solitude, toward Markarth tp reach Hammerfell, but in the middle of the way, after passing Dragonbridge was waylaid by some bandits and lost his mount and other belongs to them, but managed to save his life, and a backpack which contained some food, a knife, some potions, his diary, some ink and a feather.

He had decided to stealthily follow the bandits to find a way to take back his belongings and entered some burial barrows after them, and from then on things happened to him that otherwise he would have thought would not be possible.

The diary would graphically describe the route that he took before the raid by bandits, and after that to the barrows, and the events that befallen inside the barrows, thus if a player decided to test if it was actually to relive the adventures, he could fallow the described route to the actual place of the burial barrows, and could fallow the footsteps of the dead adventurer.

But no doubt there would be different situations in the described places, because of the long time passed from those adventures, and all would not be written down.

But if we read the diary, and take note of the descriptions, we could find places that would otherwise be real hard to stumble upon, or would not be able solve the puzzles without reading the book, and it would help us reach places in that dungeon that would not be possible to reach otherwise.

This can result in some nice traps, treasures, and some great adventures.

But there would be no quest stages, with pop-ups, quest notes, and markers.

Technically there would actually be no quests, but the players can follow some descriptions written in a book, to be able to reach treasures, otherwise unreachable.

If I would have the time, I would makes some such quests for Skyrim, but first I have to become familiar with some parts of the province and its dungeons to be able to do that.

Suggestions, would be greatly appreciated.

I really like the idea. It kinda reminds me of treasure hunting in Red Dead Redemption where all you've got is a map with a few "landmarks" that you need to follow. :foodndrink:

I'd imagine the "Knightfall" quest in Oblivion could have been implemented like this, but they elected to give it to you via that Khajiit collector.

This could be an interesting way to find dome of the unique items in the game. (Not all, but a few) along with other books like Tamrielic Lore.

Reading a book about an adventurer barely crawling away with his life from a powerful necromancer with a staff made from bones and a skull on top leading you to find the Staff of Worms would be pretty cool.

This is something I have been thinking of alot. How cool couldn't it be if there were lots of these like the thing with the treasure and the silver sword described on a note in an old fort ruin. Anyone remember that one?
New to modding, (still not good at it) I had an idea of planting a bandit network in the Imperial Sewers, with hints to the player for some custom made dungeons and caves. In those again, I places big bandit encampments, with some unique enchanted stuff. My stupid computer wouldn't save it though, even if it said it had. Believing it worked, I made and worked alot on the project.
In the end I had to give up when I couldn't make the caves look natural since I could see the cracks between the models. I couldn't make the fireplaces illuminate the cave either so...

Well, back on track. It is a great idea, and if it's not in I will make it.

I like the idea, but that was a lot to take in and process.

:dead:

...So, an unmarked quest?

This reminds me of that quest in Oblivion where a rich woman ends you to this snow valley to retrieve some stuff and all you had was the book of a messenger.

Like FO:NV 's notes?

Well, it did kind of take the fun out of looking for the location mentioned in "Fingers of the Mountain"

Quest markers, while useful, took alot of the fun out of the game for me (just my personal opinion)

Some skill books in Morrowind could point you towards various master trainers. It's something I thought was a nice touch. I'm all for it.

Never played Morrowind, but that seems like a great idea. It could briefly reference the trainer and say that he hasn't been seen in years, but some say he went here. Then if you went to the specified place and looked hard enough you might find him. I think that would be better than the master trainer asking you to go get 20 bear pelts before they teach you.

Thanks, and I have not played RDR, but the treasure hunting seem interesting.


Yes, really interesting. :tops:


Yes, instead of a quest giver, you could read the book, and become interested, and follow the descriptions and,... the rest. Right.


There is no need to make whole new dungeons for such a quest, and you can use an available one and add parts that would require descriptions from the book to be able to proceed, and place a final reward some place like that.

By the way, adding parts of dungeons, requires you to set grids of 64, 128 or 256 for the editor and set the items to snap to the grids, and no cracks would remain.


This is one of my shortest OPs.


Technically no quest at all, just a book with a lot of descriptions and instructions, and your ingenuity.

Tears of Savior, (Book of Knightfall).


I do not know, so what are they?


Mine too.


Yes, every aspect of that game had some inbred genius of some degree.


Yes, it would be a lot better to find the master trainer himself via a book, as well.

I like the basics of the idea but if the book is available in every store, or a store for that matter, chances are that the treasure is long gone. It would be more realistic if you found the book in some heavily guarded mage tower or in some rich guy's library. What would be funny though is if you buy such a book from a shopkeep and after you finished all the instructions the place is already robbed. But I'm a bit masochistic that way.

If I recall correctly, there were a few quest like this in Morrowind. A book described a location of a special item and there may or may not have been a person/quest marker attached to it but you could go and retrieve it regardless. I think this would be a treasured edition to Skyrim. Having to actually work for a cool item again by looking for landmarks and following trails and directions will be a boon for those of us that believe the fast travel system is noobish and easy.

The most valuable rewards can be obtained with books found in hard to reach places.

But I hope we would have some such books found in easy to reach places, maybe not library, but for instance in the personal library of a collector, or placed over the drawer of an inn's guest room, and so on...

This way, you are encouraged to, and rewarded by inspecting such books as well.


The aforementioned skills books come to mind, but I hope that some of those books would help us solve complex puzzles and avoid nasty traps and the like to reach places that was not possible to reach otherwise.