WIP - The Last Anticipation: The Consulate

A while ago I was working on my Quest mod The Last Tear, which revolved around the Player's interactions with the Estate of Lord Dres and the circumstances of his mysterious illness. Since then, the Dragonborn DLC was released and since then I embarked upon the Consulate, a prequel to the Last Tear. Three months into development, this is the WIP thread for it at these forums.

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The Consulate is the diplomatic representative of Lord Dres to House Redoran, which, for reasons presented during the story, rests upon the hill over-looking Raven Rock. This will serve as your Quest hub, where Quests and the story will revolve around the Consulate's Consul: Fathos.

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Dynamic Character Relations

Your interactions with Fathos will be important. How Fathos feels (whether or not he trusts you, specifically) about you will determine his dialogue, his willingness to offer you extra assistance on your Quests with the Consulate, his rewards, his willingness to offer to you his services, his effectiveness as a (temporary: i.e. during a Quest only) companion, the about or type of information that you receive in the story, and the outcome of your final reward for partaking in this mod. This relationship also has an affect upon certain Quests. For instance, if Fathos does not trust you, he will not allow you to take a diplomatic approach to completing one Quest, but he will be perfectly fine with a mercenarial approach in dispatching those who get in the way with violance.

But Fathos is not the only NPC that functions in this way. Although to a shallower degree, most important characters that you interact with will take active use of the Relationship system. Certain friendships will certainly change the course of certain quests, but making enemies has its uses.

Determining these things will be done primarily through your dialogue choices, your choices in how to complete quests and your actions toward characters (pickpocketing that key won't win you any favours, but putting Fathos' servant into line might).

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Replayability

With that in mind, I've kept replayability as an important factor, without any cost to the story. Outside of how your relationship with Fathos affects the Questline, you very often have a degree of freedom in each Quest. Certain Quests will allow you to turn them in half complete, but which will come at a cost. Other Quests will involve deductive reasoning and it will be up to you to determine their conclusion. Although the story is a big directive, I've tried to keep some form of variation in each Quest so that a second play through is completely viable; although this, unavoidably, becomes less and less so as the story sweeps you through the Quests.

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So what exactly is the story of the Consulate? Well, it is one that I have tailored in order to fit seamlessly into the lore, whilst also utilising it and offering some place for past characters, without contradicting it in any way.

Practical Details

In any case, let's take a look at the technical details. At this stage, the mod is an active Work in Progress with no conceivable reason to believe that it will not be completed. I cannot give precise details to when it will be finished, of course, but I will try to keep this post updated. I am the sole operator on this mod (apart from the use of a few community resources to speed up development), so it will take time.

To date, the Main Quest is divided into three Acts, consisting of about five Quests each.
It also includes an assortment of Misc Quests in order to offer you a chance to develop your relationship with Fathos, as well as to earn rewards.
There are, where appropriate, a few new Weapons, Armours, Potions, Enchantments, Recipes and Spells, as well as books that I have written and ones brought over from Morrowind; though, again, only where appropriate. Key moments will also feature new musical compositions to enhance their feel.

That's it.

Thank you for reading this post; assuming you did just that and I hope, if you are interested in this mod as it stands, that you will support my endeavour with feedback.

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