[WIPz] A Brotherhood Renewed (2024)

I don't normally do WiP threads, but the situation with this one is a bit different. Be advised that this entire subject is likely to be considered a spoiler for those who have not completed the DB questline. And for obvious reasons, this will only appeal to folks who play through that guild. Like me

At the end of the Dark Brotherhood quest line, once all of the other members have been killed and it's just you, Arquen, and some random assassin, I always felt things just got left hanging there. You go to Bravil once a week to talk to the Night Mother, then back to Arquen to deliver the message. Woopie. How utterly unexciting. Wouldn't it make more sense to turn your focus back on to rebuilding the guild? Haven't you been told one way or another than there was once a sanctuary in every city? Well shouldn't Arquen know all this? Why not have her prompt you into doing something about it! You can of course continue to go about collecting your measly pittance of a sum of money each week, but surely it might be a bit more interesting to pile that into a Brotherhood account and have it spent on rebuilding your guild's former glory. So that's more or less the plan. You, Arquen, and random assassin guy are going to rebuild your guild.

Each sanctuary will exist the whole time during the game but will not be populated with anything but junk until after it's been officially reclaimed. If at all possible the existence of them will be concealed until Arquen reveals their former locations as needed. Each one should be doable individually, or in parallel, doesn't matter. Restoring them will mean finding them at first, making sure they've been cleared of nasties, the Sithis altars consecrated, and then recruiting some assassins to handle the day to day in each one. Each one will have the standard living quarters, training areas, and altar to Sithis type stuff. Vampires welcome in locations reasonably able to support them, such as below the IC - there will be a couple of new vamps roaming the sewers.

The locations chosen so far:

1. Sideways Cave. That place is awesome and would be a perfect base for an IC location. And a good excuse to mix DB with the always cool Ayleid ruin set

The new sanctuary will be connected to the bottom level of Sideways Cave on one side, and to the Arena Bloodworks sewers on the other. Both of these are sufficiently removed from civilization that it's reasonable to say nobody remembers the place is down there. The sewer side will be inaccessible until the sanctuary is reclaimed, the gate can be opened from the back side. Sideways Cave provides a cool ready-made dungeon crawl protecting the back entrance, and the player will have to complete most of the crawl to find the sanctuary.

2. Leyawiin. An abandoned sanctuary lies under the Greyland Estate house. The drug dealers who moved in have no idea it even exists and have therefore not disturbed it. They've apparently been too busy producing Skooma. If the player has already gotten rid of them, then this part will be fairly quick. The now abandoned house provides cover as we presume the city guards won't allow anyone near the place. If the player has not yet removed the drug dealers, Arquen will prompt him to do so so the sanctuary can be reclaimed. She'll even go so far as to suggest speaking with the legion guard who handles it, since you may as well get paid for the effort.

Special case: If you spared the Argonian Shadowscale, Scar-Tail, you will be able to recruit him to head this sanctuary once it's reclaimed. The game does not kill him off if he's spared, but he could die from incidental exposure to spawns in the area.

3. Bravil. Always seems stupid that the citizens openly display the Night Mother and that the current listener lives there, but there's no sanctuary? I think that tavern on the south side of town serves as good cover for a DB base underground. This one can operate more openly and won't require killing people in town, and won't be infested with monsters. It will however have been hidden and the door not activated until the player is officially on the quest to restore this one. Simulates the populace not wanting to give it away, etc.

4. Anvil. The sanctuary here is largely unknown, save for the warehouse operator who tends the entrance. Once sent to reclaim it though, it is discovered that the former Speaker performed a purification of his own. Something for which Sithis was not pleased at all and it's up to you to settle his wrath and get things back into place.

One might notice these are being built with avoiding direct access to the city cells. It's easier to deal with compatibility issues when you're not having to fiddle with rock method hacks. Also, there will be an attempt to tie in with the mod Whispered Warning. If that mod is in use and the player chose to leave any of the previous sanctuary people alive, they will be the prime choices to run the reclaimed sanctuaries. It seems only fitting if you went out of your way to warn them that you'd probably trust them with such duties. Since these people are dead otherwise, well, they won't be available. Have to find someone else.

There may or may not be more built. I figured 4 was enough of a burden to go on for now. I am also fully aware that other people have made sanctuary mods but they don't fit what I wanted and are usually openly available despite the obvious fact that the DB is in very serious trouble in the game.

I'm willing to accept a sanctuary built by someone else as well, provided it follows the same conditions of being concealed within another building, dungeon, cave, hole, whatever. No touching the city worldspaces directly. Would be highly preferable to not touch anything on the surface land at all even. Also, bending lore is ok, but I'd really rather anyone who wants to provide a spot not utterly break it with things that don't fit. Preferable to stick with vanilla content, and restrict use of 3rd party meshes and textures to a minimum. The only custom model+texture it would be nice to have is something to use as an altar of Sithis since we can't gank the one from Vile Lair without raising copyright issues.

Undecided as to whether SI content would be acceptable or not. Lots of people have SI these days, and SI surely has some neat stuff that could be incorporated. it just tends to limit the audience too much for some reason, despite SI's penetration lately.

The plan is to have any additional submissions merged via Gecko once done. Shouldn't be overly difficult to do that as long as nobody touches the outdoors.

Anyone who wishes to submit a module is free to build the quest and the stuff needing to be cleared out from the sanctuary being reclaimed. The quests all need to be hooked up so that Arquen is the one who delivers it.

Any questions, suggestions, etc, just ask.

Assigned Areas

Chorrol: Dwip [Done]

Leyawiin: the-manta [Done]

Anvil: Cliffworms [Done]

Imperial City: Arthmoor [Done]

Bravil: Arthmoor [Done]

Bruma: Manni

Skingrad: Manni

Kvatch: Not planned, but will accept something if offered so long as it doesn't require editing exterior worldspace cells. Would also be best to avoid it being attached directly to the city since several mods rebuild it and don't use the original worldspace to do s.