As previous people have said, you can rationalize it all away or accept it for what it is. One thing I find interesting though is that there is a suggestion that the reason the Draconis family was targetted was due to the actions of Matthias. I don't know why the whole family had to go, but if you click on Matthias' head stone after you've done the quest, his epitaph suggests he was in a far amount of trouble. Also, I believe you get some other references to Matt's troubles if you ask around about him. Maybe enough for someone to want revenge on the whole family...

Mass murder doesn't do it for me. :rolleyes:

Lucien came on a night-time visit to one of my characters yesterday. She's a Nord Barbarian, who had accidentally hit one of her allies with the backswing of a claymore during the Battle of Bruma.

Her answer to Lucien? She stuck his Blade of Woe in his ear.

You're paid to kill, not think.

To me their is no good or evil in Oblivion their is only power. The Dark Brotherhood you could consider them evil but hey you have to save Cryodill from Dagon and the rest of his demonic group so you gotta do whats neccessary to make sure that Cryodills safe.

Most of the targets probably DID do something to harm someone else, because most people don't want to pay money for someone to be killed just because they felt like it. Then again, it's the very subjective view of the person who ordered the killing. Some of the people killed probably didn't even think they did anything, but still - enough for someone to want them dead.

As an assassin, you can't really justify the killing of everyone you need to kill, and if you really need to be able to justify it the Db isn't good for your character.

Does anybody actually like Lucien Lachance? The first impulse any of my characters have had is to knock the smile off the smarmy dude's face. :stare:

I looove Lucien Lachance! He's like the best NPC in all of Cyrodiil! :wub:

Yes, because he had a personality of sorts... I like the npcs with personalities...

I think I remember him from High School. He was one of the guys who use to hang out in the bathroom during math class.

:wink_smile:

Dude, you're asking this in a fourm where the minor majority will say "I LOVE LUCIEN!!!"

Why? What's there to like it? His silk-like, sixy voice?

I agree with the poster who said, "If you are having moral qualms about this quest, then you shouldn't have gotten involved."

It has to do with what your character wants to do and mine will not do the Dark Brotherhood.

I think it's the silky, sixy voice that does it.

Nail, meet head. I don't care for Lucien much myself, but even I could listen to that voice all day long.

The problem is that you can "get involved" without doing anything to get involved. The AI is stupid in battle situations, and killing by accident counts as murder in the game. Whack! "Your killing has been observed by forces unknown...."

So then you have no choice but to stick the Blade of Woe in Lucien's ear.

I'm pretty sure an Imperial guard put a price on that whatshisface Dunmer who insulted you at the beginning of the game. Considering the bonus is earned by not killing guards, and dialogue reveals that he's about to get out of jail.

here are some of my rationales:
you don't know the warlord roderick is evil - or worth killing, maybe he's a mercenary for hire. doesn't matter, you don't have to kill him. it says place poison in his cupboard. so i do. quest is complete - then i take the poison OUT and put his meds BACK, so if he dies, it's because someone else killed him, not me.

baenlin has a bodyguard who is ordered to kill me if i don't leave. this is excessive force - if i trespass, you should be calling the guard, not trying to kill me. my self defense is not a crime - his attempt to kill me after his bodyguard tries also makes both cases self defense. same with the greedy bastards in the mansion.

sometimes i don't kill them - they kill themselves. what kind of an idiot wears a helm they suddenly find on their person? and what kind of a bigger idiot keeps wearing that helm while they are set on fire from wearing that helm?

regardless, however, innocent lives -are- sacrificed, indirectly or directly. so essentially, your character is a double agent. you have to convince the dark brotherhood to trust you - and that means sacrificing a few to save many. once you kill the few innocents, you kill the entire brotherhood - once you lead the brotherhood, you stop taking contracts and end the entire murder line. for example, the united states has a double agent in iraq. this double agent might have to kill americans. this is a necessary evil to convince the enemy that he's their friend - so that when he reports on their position later, he'll ultimately save many more lives than he took.

this is also true of a war. if you are a general, and you see an army coming, you take your military to stop them. your front lines will die, and you know it. however, you ultimately save the city.

on a side note, this is true of mephala - i have to calm everyone until they stop fighting, sometimes with invisibility.