EDIT 4: trailer's here! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRkqNuSa0Uc&feature=youtu.be

Right now, myself and a friend were kicking around ideas on creating a mod for when the CK comes out, and we had both decided on a questline involving the Silver Hand, because as a Companion, you only see the fact that they are werewolf hunters and are apparently "no better than bandits", to paraphrase UESP's article on them. This is the rough sketch on where the mod is going to go.


Any ideas, comments, thoughts, or offers of help would be great, as while this would be our first mod, we're ambitious and have high hopes. We are throwing this out here to see the response a mod like this would get, so anything you guys could offer would be appreciated.

EDIT: New information since we've begun.

Spoiler

-Approx. 10 fully voice-acted NPCs; 6 fully fleshed out individuals, with 4 fully voiced supporting characters (this last number could increase)
-15 brand new quests; 10 main, 4 side, 1 repeatable radiant
-6 brand new locations; the main base of the Silver Hand will be the biggest

EDIT 2: NOW WITH SOME PICTURES. JUST A TEASER, NOTHING ELSE. ENJOY!


EDIT 3: Per the request of Wolcik (and also because it makes the most sense to do so), I'm now going to make a progression list to show where we are on the mod thus far:


Currently, we have two major areas we could use assistance in if anyone is willing to contribute:

~Actually writing the scripts for the quests. We have very little experience in doing this, as well as little knowledge of scripting languages in general (what knowledge we do have stems from the tutorial on the Creation Kit wiki). We have some pretty big ideas for our Silver Hand mod, including drastically altering the ability to join the Companions after joining the Silver Hand, and changing up some of the events that happen in the Companions questline. We don't want to break our games, so if you're an experienced scripter, that would be awesome.

~We're also looking for voice actors to do dialogue for our characters. I have a few of my friends who's voices were in my head when writing specific characters, but we do need a lot more folks who could contribute. Currently, I'm looking for someone who could do a convincing voice for a Nord, Dark Elf, and Khajiit. If you're interested in any of these, message me and I'll give more details about that race's character/personality/what have you.

sounds great. when i first bumped into the silver hand i thought you could join them. needless to say i was disappointed that you could not join them. looking forward to this mod.

Good to know that I wasn't the only one who felt this way. A missed opportunity is what I'd call it.

If anyone else has any ideas that could help us out, that'd be awesome.

Hi all,

most excellent, can`t wait to sign on for the Silver Hand.

I`ve heard that they may, with high probability, be infiltrated by vampires. It would be good to have a PoD in the quest line where you have to decide between trying to purge the organisation from the vampires or side with them(becoming one) and use it to bleed Skyrim white.

Rgds, Haldir

We hadn't thought about the idea of vampires being included in a questline, but it's something to look at, considering none of the other questlines have it implemented in any form. Interesting suggestion though.

Hi,

in an earlier thread an observation was reported that not a few Silver Hand members dropped vampire dust. IIRC the player in question reloaded and looked up inventories of said Silver Hands through pickpocketing. No dust there... Most intriguing...

Rgds, Haldir

I think the Silver hand drop vampire dust because it has a cure disease effect, not because they're vampires. According to the UESP, Silver Hand members tend to drop several alchemy ingredients with a cure disease effect, not just vampire dust. They may be under the incorrect impression that Skyrim's lycanthropy can be cured via a cure disease effect--possibly a nod to older Elder Scrolls games where applying a cure disease effect after being bitten would in fact avert the disease.

In other words, I suspect it's supposed to show how much they worry about being bitten.

Hi,

the player who checked this said there was no dust in the inventories of living Silver Hands he met. It only appeared after they died.

So this is an interesting twist IMO.

Rgds, Haldir

Sounds highly interesting, but how would you join them. Would there be a Silver Hand spy standing around the Jorrvaskr/Whiterun? And, what would those powerful weapons be, empowered Silver Swords?

You probably haven't planned out that yet, but its worth asking.

Hi,

there is already an alternate start mod where you begin playing as a Silver Hand member. But no quests in that mod.

Rgds, Haldir

If you mean http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1311644-alternative-game-start/, that's not a mod. All it does is add you to the silver hand faction through console commands.

Anyway, I am happy to see that such a mod is being planned. I have no interest in becoming a werewolf, but I think it would be fun to eradicate them ;D

On a related note, I've been waiting for my main character to become a vampire...

The reason they are said to be "no better than bandits" is because they act, talk and dress just like bandits. They attack everyone they see on sight and keep prisoners whom they obviously enjoy torturing, not all of which seem to be werewolfs. One of their leaders is called "Krev the Skinner" for Pete's sake.

Do you plan to play down all that evil stuff and make them a bit more morally grey, perhaps even sympathetic? Or do you plan to embrace it and make their questline as wicked as the Dark Brotherhood? Making them more sympathetic I think could add a bit to the Companions questline, I was uncomfortable at first with murdering werewolf hunters since that's not necessarily an evil profession ... but then all the silver hand members proved to be so blatantly evil that I felt no guilt slaughtering them. Making them a bit more noble would really make the player question themselves and add a lot of weight to Kodlak's objections that this cycle of revenge is wrong and will only lead to more suffering.

Regardless of how you choose to portray them, I hope you will flesh out their feud with the companions some more, add some more werewolf npcs to the game so they have something to hunt other than the companions, and explain why they hate werewolfs so much and how they found out the secret of the companions.

Oh, and some branching questlines would be cool. Being able to eradicate the companions, or end the feud and make peace between them. (Obviously the Silver Hand and the Companions should be mutually exclusive factions).

I think its rather odd that they torture and imprison humans, and kill everyone on sight, acting on a "He might be a werewolf, kill him just to make sure" basis. I believe they also actively hunt for Vampires, but not too sure on that. Also, the Skinner obviously refers to the fact his favorite hobby is to kill werewolves and torture their dead bodies. Anyways, I feel they should've been at least slightly more righteous, and this is a mod, so why not.

Sounds good this and the Vigilants of Stendarr are two groups I was suprised had no quest lines. I agree they should be made morrally grey and less plain evil. I would like that maybe after you kill all the werewolves in the Companions you can join them and possibly merge the two groups?

That is something that also desperately needs to be added to the game, give werewolfs their own lootable hides and let the player craft unique wereworld fur armor out of it. That would be so awesome.

I wouldn't turn the faction into a bunch of shining knights. They hunt and torture werewolves for sport. It would be interesting exploring their psychology. A few might have a sob story about how someone dear to them was ripped apart by werewolves and on their path of vengeance they have become twisted and sadistic themselves. You could even add a twist with their secret leaders being followers of Hircine who is playing the Silver Hand against the Werewolves in the game of the Hunt. So everyone is being manipulated and toyed with by the daedric prince behind the scenes.

The opening quest will involve going to the Bannered Mare, and being approached by a man who asks you to help him kill a werewolf in a nearby cave outside Whiterun (so chosen to receive the quest because its a central location, as well as being the home of the Companions). From there, the quest line will unravel and that is all I'm willing to say at the moment. As for weapons and armor, we hope that by the time we've played with the CK enough that I or my friend will be able to create new textures or models, but if anybody is willing to lend a hand at that, that would be great.

As for the vampire dust, I did see that on the UESP, but I'm under the assumption that its for the cure disease property only due to their paranoia. These guys by no means will be shining knights either, though I do hope to portray them in a more sympathetic light due to the very little that is shown of them in the game (my buddy is at work right now, so once hes off, this whole topic will be things to take into consideration, as well as registering on these forums).

What is certain is that while we will both give each other input, I'm primarily going to be in charge of designing quests, creating NPCs, writing dialogue, getting the voice actors, etc while my friend will primarily work with designing and building locations and basically using the CK (he's the one with the PC version, I'm on Xbox, but I hope to change this soon). I've been a writer for a good part of my life (written various fanfiction pieces, started working on my first novel, and have recorded and written hip-hop lyrics for 9 years), so I feel I have a penchant for creating good dialogue, characters, and especially plot twists. That's what I hope to bring to the table in terms of telling this tale.

I think it would be cool if one of the lower ranked Companions turned out to be a double agent working for the Silver Hand, that would help explain how they managed to sneak a small army into Jorrvaskr to ambush Kodrak, and it could also give you a hook for an alternate questline for the companions where you become a double-agent yourself and help take them down from the inside. A possible diverence point: During the quest "The Silver Hand", afer Aela and Skjor offer to transform you into a werewolf and welcome you into the circle. If you refuse and leave the underforge, the Silver Hand double agent will approach you and try to recruit you to his cause. If you accept you start a new questline where you are tasked with destroying the companions similar to the quest to destroy the Dark Brotherhood. You must steal information and shards of Wuuthrad from the Companions and help lead other members into Silver Hand ambushes without them realizing you've betrayed them. This culminates with you having a final showdown where you face off against an enraged wolf-form Kodrak in a one-on-one battle to the death.

Hello all,

I am the friend that @ohsorryoldhorse is referring to. I'm glad to see that all of you are on board with this mod. To be quite honest i'm not sure what sort of project i've signed myself up for, but i'm willing to work at it. All feedback is greatly appreciated and from time to time we may even call on many of you to help us out. Its my computer that will be doing all the heavy lifting as far as the mod creation goes so i will try to update my progress from time to time. Thanks for the support.

Alot of good ideas here, though. Now all that needs to happen is for Beth to release the damn CK


well damn, you came out of nowhere dude haha. though to clarify, it was your idea to start with lol.

This sounds very sweet. If y'all are able to pull this off, I would definitely dl and play it.

I think you should be handed "Silver hand armor" when you enter them, and a free silver sword, and you should be able to craft (not receive) stronger silver equipment with large material cost. Also there should be a silver sword with +damage against werewolves (and maybe vampires) {if possible}

That's a good idea, I always thought it was weird that they all carried silver swords when elder scrolls werewolfs aren't weak to silver.

Someone on their team obviously screwed that up; we'll remedy this in our own way. haha

Being barred from joining the Companions is fine, though I hope you keep an open mind about players being werewolves. A werewolf hunting werewolves would open up a number of interesting character possibilities, and there will no doubt be mods that add "normal" lycanthropy (that you get by being infected by wild werewolves, without touching the Companions quest line). Obviously the Silver Hand wouldn't tolerate it if they found out, but if a player can hide it, it would add a nice dynamic to the quests. Perhaps they could also offer a cure... once you get high enough in rank that they wouldn't just as soon lock you up for experiments/torture.

Lycanthropy in TES can be cured within 3 days if you get scratched or bitten (more precisely, Sanies Lupinus can be cured before it progresses to full-blown Lycanthropy). Directly ingesting the blood of a werewolf skips the Sanies Lupinus stage... either that, or the ritualistic nature of your induction into the Circle, and/or the special nature of the Circle's "curse", gives you full-blown Lycanthropy without the Sanies Lupinus stage.

The Silver Hand already tend to carry Cure Disease potions, in case they get bitten. I don't think the Vampire Dust is for the cure disease property, especially if it's only added after death. I think it's rather clear that they were vampires (I really wish Bethesda made vampires turn into ash piles on death by default... they already have the animation and effect for it with raised zombies, and it's supposed to happen according to lore; I smell another mod). Of course, whether or not they were known to be vampires is a different thing. I could definitely see other members not knowing they have some vampires in their ranks.