What if....

I personally love the concept and the idea.

I think the "parallel" approach s great, but it does burden you with making sure the necessary changes are made to the main storyline to reflect the "Primary" character moving things along.

In truth, you'd probably have to overhaul a lot of the stuff, making the current quests unavailable but adding new ones at the same time.

I could imagine something like:

- Wake up at the crash site. You search bodies and boxes and find out everyone has been ransacked. You enter the Cave and talk to the spirit of the thief who is crying in agony about being cursed. (make use of the condition that already exists in the game).

- - At Arbalahs he may send you on a mini quest, or he could even end up being your companion from the get-go. (hint hint)

- At Shrouded Hills you arrive to find Constable Owens chittering about the bridge thieves being taken care of. He talks about there being some strange murders earlier on, and a woman earlier that day, at the Inn. Head to the Inn and you find a clue that starts to unfold the half-ogre quest. THe woman has some sort of item that hints to forced captivity.

- Ristezze will analyze the item for you and give you a clue if you solve one of two quests. (minor things, you choose). After you solve either, he tells you seek a certain person in Dernholm.

- In Dernholm, you hear new of Taxes being collected from Black Root and everything going fine. You reach on of the originally unused houses and find a corpse of a man dead from poisoning and a diary making reference to "Dernholm's Tithe"….Asking the King about this gets you a very poor reaction and you better leave. Oh at the dead body you find a small poison while the letter "G" on it. Minor quests in Dernholm have to modified to reflect the Primary having done them along the way. Minor hint leads you to Black Root.

- At Black Root you talk to the mayor about the Dernholm Tithe and he seems uneasy about it, and isn't all that willing to talk unless certain assurances are made. Minor quest from him and he tells you about certain "Don't ask – don't tell" things going on long before he became mayor. He believes that the document in question is likely to be hidden in Dernholm castle. Minor quests changed fro Black Root.

- Return to Dernholm and we finally get a use for those chests in the Castle. Simple prowling and lockpicking will open the chest and reveal the Dernholm Tithe which describes a drawing of lots held every year with all women who are between the ages of 15 and 20. And how a select number are sent to Tarant for special service.

- Go to Tarant. Lots of the minor quests have to be adapted to account for the Primary. Talking to Gilbert Bates and Willoughsby will reveal that they are hiding something and as you leave they mention getting in touch with a man named Payne. From here the main quest with DeCesare and Tyron can start.

Obviously this would have to be uber-spanned to make real sense and avoid the dilution of the storyline that some have alluded to. Theoretically, you could take 40% of the minor quests and tie them loosely to the half-ogre scenario.

Anyway…I'm always here to throw out ideas friend Rroyo…let me know if you need anything concrete on a town per town level as far as alteration ideas and quest changes. I'll be more than happy to help you out.

 

Xz, Muro, FourHorsemen: Those are all good ideas except -

FourHorsemen: The concept that seems the most popular is for the second survivor to start at Doc Roberts. From there the survivor should go to the Crash Site to search for clues. Otherwise, not bad at all.

And if I ever decide for certain to do more than just talk about this, I'll give you a holler.

 

Instead of two Living Ones, there would be only one.
You.
The poor slag Virgil found was the wrong guy/girl.
You, being buried in the rubble and having to fight your way out from near death (such as from a womb or egg) were actually 'reborn from fire).
You could have actually suffered burn damage from your fiery womb.
Especially, if Doc Roberts is the one 'birthing' you from the wreckage.

 

Well you could always have the "Secondary" end up being a Molochean Hand agent who lost his memory.

Or end up being a humanoid host for Kerghan.

But to really wrap up the half-ogre deal...you could tie him to a long lost vendigroth descendant hook...if you still wanted to go down the "time traveller" idea you talked about;

And him waking up at Doc Roberts works out great too....I'll toss out a potential companion list for you when I get to work!

 

For certain, there would need to be a replacement for Virgil. Someone with healing capabilities to get the player through the early encounters.

Perhaps his back-story could be that he was going to Tarant to meet a friend, who was travelling on the Zephyr, and happened to be passing through Shrouded Hills when news of it's crash broke. He joins with you to avenge the death of his friend.

The other followers could remain stock-game, with new ones added as-needed for the new storyline.
I would suggest leaving Raven and Min Gorad out of the list just because this is a concurrent adventure and the Living One would need them. Rescript the ladies to be just a source of information.

 

Damn, this is starting to sound really interesting! DAMN YOU SCHOOL! *twitch*

I might throw ideas into the pot now and then. As much fun as this would be to work on, I just don't have the time to contribute much. I'd be happy to come up with plot points and characters and stuff, but...

Fuck you, school.

 

Didn't mean to forget you.

Virgil and the Living One are on their merry way and could be useful in the dialogs. "There was a fellow travelling with a monk who asked me that same question a few days ago."
Digging your way out would be virtually impossible to properly show. Nice thought though.
Starting with burn damage might be possible. I'll add it to possibilities list.

Xiao: Anything you want to contribute would be most welcome.

 

Definately keep Raven and Min Gorad out...but you could perhaps give LIana Del Par a "raven-like" role, as an NPC follower that only becomes available very later on in the game when the player has reached something like lvl 40 or something...which IIRC is her level in the game.

As for a healer companion at the start....if you really wanted to have a healer but be different from the original game, you could always make it so that its a female nurse-healer type charachter. Somewhat like Jayna Stiles, only with gun-slinging skill...possible related to Doc Roberts...a niece or something, who takes you to him after you are found.

Using the stock followers also makes sense as you can guarntee that the Primary would have taken those followers. Although I do think that as a baseline you should consider that primary used:

- Virgil
- Sogg
- Worthless Mutt
- Arronax
- Jayna Stiles

THe "temp follwers" like Thorvald, Cynthia, Murgo etc. you could leave alone...

Now as for replacements for the above you could have:

- A tiger who is found in a small location unconscious and being attacked by wolves who killed its original owner. Just a different take on the Mutt's story in Ashbury.

- Some other Half Ogre....maybe the guy who stole the painting and wants to redeem himself. Maybe Ogden.

- Maybe that THrowing Follower you've always wanted

The trickiest will be deciding what is supposed to be happening with the Primary while you're designing the storyline for the quest. Obviously certain "quests" can stay as they are...except of course those that are tied directly to the main storyline...those would have to be replaced to a lesser or greater extent with something to move the Half Ogre story along.

That means:

- Shorouded Hills: changing Ristezze
- Tarant: Changing P.Schuylers
- Tarant: Getting to talk to Bates
- BMC: doing something else.
- Isle of Despair: Could go there still, but change the deal with the Wheel Clan.
- Wheel Clan: Something else.
- Quintara: Probably something else.
- Caladon: Something else
- T'Sen Ang: Something else.
-Caladon: something else besdied Nasrudin's Tomb.
- Thanatos: Something else besides that.
- Vendigroth: can still be used with some "spin" towards the HO conspiracy.
- Roseborugh: Something Else.

Then it's a matter of deciding if you want to throw the Void into the mix.

On the flip side, you can pretty much leave Black Root, Ashbury, Dernholm, Stillwater, Vooriden, etc. as is...

What you might have to do in fact is maybe have Matt DeCesare play the "questmaster" role that Bates plays for the primary, sending you to investigate certain matters...or you could even bring Arthur Tyron in earlier in the game, although unless you move his location, you'll reveal Caladon a lot earlier in the game.

That's what I have for today

 

Just to clear things up, I would like to remind that Tyron was in Blackrooth before he fled to Caladon prior the Living Ones visit in that city. So your main questgivers would be Matt de Cesare in Tarant, Tyron in Blackroot and later on, Tyron in Caladon. Of course, there would be no problem to place one or both of them in any place in Arcanum on certain points in the plot, it's not like they have to be stationary.

 

Fair point.....DeCesare is really the best answer cos he's fairly acessible in Tarant and shows up realtively early.

Plus by focusing some of the quests on one character, it's probably simpler to deal with the triggers and scripts as opposed to trying base certain things happening on multiple conditions.

DeCesare could be the guy sending you different places realted to the HOC (Half-Ogre Conspiracy).

ANd as to ruining the mystique...well nothing says it can't still end as unsolved mystery and the true culprit can still be somewhat of a mystery but that doesn't mean you can't flesh it out more..and delve into some of the remifications and reach of the HOC on the rest of Arcanum...even if its on a subtle level like strange ruins and half-truths in recovered books and such.

 

FourHorsemen:

With Clarissa Shalmo taking over for Z'an Al'urin? She starts at level 47.
(Cautiously) It might work.

The gunfighter-doctor scheme is availaible. Both Faithe and Priscilla use that scheme and a slightly tech female first follower would be as far away from Virgil as you could get. As for her being a relative of Doc's, I less sure about that. I'm still partial to the revenge-minded traveller idea.

The follower suggestions: Not bad - but to replace Sogg the other half-ogre or even a tough-guy human would need to be available sooner than Tarant. Maybe find him at the Crash Site or near the Bessie Toone Mine (out-of-work miner perhaps).

The stock locations and set-ups for them need reworking for the new storyline - that much is a given.

Vendigroth and The Void: On the previous page I posted a link to a Baldur's Gate picture. Just for the hell of it I'm going to see how that device looks in Vendigroth. If it can be made to work like I hope, then another long-forgotten bit of Vendigrothian science will provide a tech way into the Void.
And yes, battling Kergan would be the climax of a reworked original quest. I'm currently leaning towards "You got there before the Living One".

That's an angle that hadn't been considered. Hmmmm.....

FourHorsemen and Muro:

Done properly, Arthur Tyron would need more time on the east side of the mountains.
Ideas from fans of Man-On-The-Run stories would be quite useful. (Hint, hint)

 

*holds up a hand* Don't forget some romance options, something sadly missing from the original game. (And no, rroyo, I haven't forgotten about the stuff for your Virgil stuff and Arronax stuff, I'm working on it...)

 

Has anyone considered the Half Ogre conspiracy from the Tarantian Council's side? Perhaps you are the one who killed De Ceasare and Tyron.

 

A "simpler" approach in terms of hooking the storyline would be to rather than have the story run in parallel with the main one, have it so the story takes place immediatly before the original game and use to a Forrest Gump type of plot where the player is actually setting up certain things that will only be addressed by the Main quest.

You can still have the HOC be the main plot point, only this time you could have Tyron anywhere you like and have the game end with you sacrificing yourself so Tyron and DeCesare could get away.

YOu could have things like in Shrouded Hills, you meet a group of squabbling young bandits who wish to make a name for themselves, so you suggest they either rob the bank or hold up the only bridge out of town. You can help Arbalah find his missing family, only for them to have been killed by the two guys and one of them gets vaporized in teh cave while the other gets away.

This means you have a nice list of things that you "could" do so that it runs as a prequel...but depending on the level of changes there'd be some serious grunt work to be done.

You could even end the whole thing with DeCesare and Tyron and your main character uncovering something significant about the HOC and prepare to blow the lid on the whole thing. Finish off with you taking the responsibility of delivering the evidence to Tarant by flying on the IFS Zephyr.

And just for kick you could add an "extra corpse" in the Main Game to connect both.

 

You could also be involved in Gladys' ring quest somehow.

 

What makes you think the second Living One is sane?

 

What about this PC takes the side against the Living One?

 

heh-heh-heh... It worked. We have a tech way into the Void.

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o314 ... iTest2.jpg

This was just placed in a large open area inside Vendrigroth. In game, there would be a proper lab set up for it. The stairs are usable but not the platform. Add a carefully placed large, glowing light at the edge of the platform for the teleport location and we're in business.

Arthgon: I'm with a couple others against showing the Living One due to what would he or she really be? Which race? What attire? And so forth and so on.

 

Rroyo, you are right, it would be very difficult to show the Living One.