So after reading through the comments, I have a some ideas to share with you for the next update based on my own goals and user suggestions:
In progress: -A quest for Grelod; I got a surprising amount of requests for her to be spared. I would like to stay true to the Black Sacrament being obeyed so I liked the idea mentioned by @ProperDaveXD001 to give her a heart attack. I would also like to add a quest that explains a bit of her origins to see why she turned the way she did to add complexity. Please share your thoughts on this route and you are welcome to DM me. -Lurbuk (Orc bard); not gonna lie, I think giving Lurbuk a pep talk to go back to basics and pumping him up with confidence was funny, but kinda lacking. In the vanilla game, Chief Burgak will send you a thank you letter for killing him if you did so incognito but hired thugs if you out right offed him. Lurbuk is the son of Burguk so I can write something more interesting with this at the center. -Confronted by Nazir; eventually word gets out that you spared contracts and you should explain yourself to Nazir. This will be the spinoff where you, as the Listener, will choose the Brotherhood's new path and set things up for the next chapter.
Notable mentions -Maluril; there is not much to him as he is literally spawned into the game just to be killed in the DB side contracts. I have some ideas for him but this will take time. If you have suggestions, let me know. -Vittoria; speaking with Vittoria and getting her on your side (either through intimidation or charm) if you spared her. Regardless, whether you killed or spared her, the wedding is off.
Share you thoughts of what what you think... I apologize in advance for not getting back to comments sooner (IRL work stuff and I take time to think about the comments before I respond). In regards to patches, you have my permission to make patches for any mod that may conflict with this one... you can also do appearance overhauls and re-textures as well (See Permissions in the description).
Thank you all for your comments, suggestions and bug watching. It is very appreciated and welcome. Please keep them coming!
One that was added to load order yesterday along with another to report her to the guards which results in her fighting the guard and getting killed by them.
Sparing Grelod? Besides how would you ever get on the DB radar if you don't?
Some of this might be too intertwined to be configurable but might be nice to toggle the contracts between your updates and vanilla where possible. Killing her was about the only target in the whole questline other than the khajiit in shack I felt was justifiable. She's a child abuser.
I really love your approach to a lot of it. Especially Nilsine. That was the only choice DB vanilla gave in the contracts and it was a shitty one. You are my great hope for completely fixing the Dark Brotherhood questline.
Expected errors with an extensive mod list, so not mad about the two I found.
Couldn't get past Vittoria's non-death. Did some digging. Thought maybe CACO was interfering with the paralysis, but found an issue with this female Cicero mod instead(CiceroFemaleConversion.esp, specifically). Changed my load order to put Reformation after it, and paralysis triggered her 'death' and progressed the quest. However, when she started to fall, her outfit changed to a combination of a blue dress with a fur hat that hides her hair. Hafjorg's outfit, for an example. I went and completed the quest, then returned to her to see if it changed back. It did not. I tried disable/enable, and it didn't help either. And when speaking to her, she says she's planning the wedding. Feels like she actually was killed and replaced with a pre-wedding version of herself. With a terrible outfit. I use Pandorable's NPC so losing her appearance almost makes it not worth saving her, since she has no dialogue either.
Had to use console commands to get Muiri to speak to me the second time to reconcile with the Shatter-Shields as well. Though that's a small price to pay for fixing that awful vanilla quest. Haven't tried any others, but the resolution for Muiri's quest alone is worth an endorsement. Very much appreciated.
Appreciate you posting this. I got stuck here as well but made the change you did, and was able to proceed with the quest. If you are still enjoying skyrim I just used a mod that lets me change her clothes back and she was back to her looking as great as Pandorable made her.
I patched this myself, generally what you have to do is open the two mods in XEdit and compare the quests then forward the changes made by reformation to the FemCicero plugin and this fixes the problem. By the way you can use an outfit editor like Proteus or even a SPID outfit distributer to fix the outfit issue, the latter is preferable because it will always override any changes.
as someone whose main dragonborn is a chaotic good vigilante rogue, this mod sounds like just what i was looking for! i always thought the dark brotherhood questline could use a bit more fleshing out and i love the inclusion of the ability to spare targets for more moral characters. the idea of going after more powerful/prevalent people that issued the original contracts rather than killing the original target sounds super fun and honestly could make sense with the lore of the brotherhood, as the first tenet states "Never dishonor the Night Mother" and arguably, the way the brotherhood is being run (not adhering to the Five Tenets + going after beggars and common folk, rather than high-profile individuals) could be seen as dishonorable towards the Night Mother. funny enough, throughout the vanilla questline, Astrid breaks all of the tenets excluding #4 ("Never steal the possessions of a Dark Brother/Sister") so if this mod is still planned for updates, that could be a good point for the player to bring up during a potential confrontation. all of the ideas i've seen in the comments sound really cool and i'd love to see this mod get updated further <3
That mod affects events before you join the Brotherhood, and this one affects after, so no overlap. I took a look at both mods in Xedit and I can't see anything that would need a patch. I did let the DialogueViews/0001F350.xml file from Innocence Lost overwrite the one from this mod, since it was dialogue for the end of that quest, and I didn't see this mod touching that quest at all.
Anyone have advice regarding compatibility between this mod and Dark Brotherhood for the Good Guys? I also use Serana Dialogue Addon, which assumes DBftGG is installed.
If I recall, DBftGG just adds journals and notes that make you feel better about taking out your targets. If so, there probably wouldn't be any technical incompatibility between the mods. I think I should be able to figure out an internal storytelling logic to make them fit together. If all I get out of it is a better resolution to Mourning Never Comes, I'll be satisfied.
Any of you who have played both of these have any insight?
279 comments
In progress:
-A quest for Grelod; I got a surprising amount of requests for her to be spared. I would like to stay true to the Black Sacrament being obeyed so I liked the idea mentioned by @ProperDaveXD001 to give her a heart attack. I would also like to add a quest that explains a bit of her origins to see why she turned the way she did to add complexity. Please share your thoughts on this route and you are welcome to DM me.
-Lurbuk (Orc bard); not gonna lie, I think giving Lurbuk a pep talk to go back to basics and pumping him up with confidence was funny, but kinda lacking. In the vanilla game, Chief Burgak will send you a thank you letter for killing him if you did so incognito but hired thugs if you out right offed him. Lurbuk is the son of Burguk so I can write something more interesting with this at the center.
-Confronted by Nazir; eventually word gets out that you spared contracts and you should explain yourself to Nazir. This will be the spinoff where you, as the Listener, will choose the Brotherhood's new path and set things up for the next chapter.
Notable mentions
-Maluril; there is not much to him as he is literally spawned into the game just to be killed in the DB side contracts. I have some ideas for him but this will take time. If you have suggestions, let me know.
-Vittoria; speaking with Vittoria and getting her on your side (either through intimidation or charm) if you spared her. Regardless, whether you killed or spared her, the wedding is off.
Share you thoughts of what what you think... I apologize in advance for not getting back to comments sooner (IRL work stuff and I take time to think about the comments before I respond). In regards to patches, you have my permission to make patches for any mod that may conflict with this one... you can also do appearance overhauls and re-textures as well (See Permissions in the description).
Thank you all for your comments, suggestions and bug watching. It is very appreciated and welcome. Please keep them coming!
Some of this might be too intertwined to be configurable but might be nice to toggle the contracts between your updates and vanilla where possible. Killing her was about the only target in the whole questline other than the khajiit in shack I felt was justifiable. She's a child abuser.
I really love your approach to a lot of it. Especially Nilsine. That was the only choice DB vanilla gave in the contracts and it was a shitty one. You are my great hope for completely fixing the Dark Brotherhood questline.
The LIGHT BROTHERHOOD
Couldn't get past Vittoria's non-death. Did some digging. Thought maybe CACO was interfering with the paralysis, but found an issue with this female Cicero mod instead(CiceroFemaleConversion.esp, specifically). Changed my load order to put Reformation after it, and paralysis triggered her 'death' and progressed the quest. However, when she started to fall, her outfit changed to a combination of a blue dress with a fur hat that hides her hair. Hafjorg's outfit, for an example. I went and completed the quest, then returned to her to see if it changed back. It did not. I tried disable/enable, and it didn't help either. And when speaking to her, she says she's planning the wedding. Feels like she actually was killed and replaced with a pre-wedding version of herself. With a terrible outfit. I use Pandorable's NPC so losing her appearance almost makes it not worth saving her, since she has no dialogue either.
Had to use console commands to get Muiri to speak to me the second time to reconcile with the Shatter-Shields as well. Though that's a small price to pay for fixing that awful vanilla quest. Haven't tried any others, but the resolution for Muiri's quest alone is worth an endorsement. Very much appreciated.
And/Or an esl version
I took a look at both mods in Xedit and I can't see anything that would need a patch.
I did let the DialogueViews/0001F350.xml file from Innocence Lost overwrite the one from this mod, since it was dialogue for the end of that quest, and I didn't see this mod touching that quest at all.
If I recall, DBftGG just adds journals and notes that make you feel better about taking out your targets. If so, there probably wouldn't be any technical incompatibility between the mods. I think I should be able to figure out an internal storytelling logic to make them fit together. If all I get out of it is a better resolution to Mourning Never Comes, I'll be satisfied.
Any of you who have played both of these have any insight?
Excellent and very underrated mod, sorry to compare but the DB for good guys just feels schizophrenic compared to this mod.