I'd rather not have to work with the blades. They are far from being bastions of morality.

The player LEADS the Blades, in a fashion (as in the way the Emperors lead the Blades. Blades are their own organization, but they are wholly and devoutly loyal to you and will serve you as spies, bodyguards, etc.)

Resolving the Blades/Paarthurnax dispute is necessary to this mod. The player MUST get the organization with history, training, and respect on his side, along with their top-secret base. If he cannot convince Delphine or Esbern to go along with it peacefully, and wants to keep Paarthurnax alive, you will have to forcibly 'coup' the Blades and put your own people (designed to be followers and such) in charge.

I don't think building a town around Sky Haven is the focal point of this mod, or my lore-based approach. The Blades, even at full strength, couldn't hold off the Thalmor. So they're not going to reveal their top-secret base location to anyone.

I really love this idea especially since it allows me to be in control of the blades with Paarthurnax's survival... Hes been good for thousands of years... He has nothing to prove.... I can't believe that [censored] Delphine... I'm not welcome in the temple? Oh you mean the temple I found? The temple I worked to get to? The puzzles I solved? The temple of which you wouldn't have access to were it not for my blood? You mean MY TEMPLE?!!?!?! I want to kill that [censored] so bad but the game wont allow me.... I can't wait for this! It sounds incredible!!!!!

Idea sounds awsome!!

I cant wait to kill Esbern, anoying bugger....!



And ofcourse dominate all of tamriel

Yes! You could scour the war-torn land, finding people fed up with both the Imperial and Stormcloak shenanigans, and forge them into an army to return sanity to Skyrim! From lowly farmers to alienated nobles, you can gradually build yourself a base from which to unify the province! Maybe repurpose Labyrinthian as a home base, or some defensible dwemer ruin to use as a stage for your rebellion, and watch it develop as you recruit more and more to your cause!


Gather the 108 stars of de... um... nevermind. XD Forget I said that. ^^

Seriously, though... this civil war needs a third faction possibility of YOU. ^^

Cool stuff.


// On a sidenote i'd be pleased if Ulfric, Tullius and every other damn leader in Skyrim actually acknowledged all you've done for em. Given that you basically single-handedly hand over everything to them on a silver-platter, or otherwise save a bunch of Jarl behinds not to mention even more epic wins. Kinda tired of having lowly guards disrespect my characters to, given that they tend to be Harbingers, Archmages and whatnot, show some damn respect cannon-fodder!! I slay dragons daily, and the only thing you manage to slay is a steak and some mead!! Bah, milk-drinkers...

Haha I agree with this. I find myself killing guards daily because they run their mouth. Maybe all the arrows to the knees leeched some iron into their brains.

I absolutely love the idea.

I was so annoyed by being locked out of a portion of the game because I decided to trust Paarthurnax. I'm the god-damned Dragonborn and they swore that their duty is to protect me and then refuse to do so when I make my own decision? I'd be happy to kill those two to establish my own Blades.

Hmm. The Dragonborn will need an army. Fortunately, I can think of a group, large in numbers, that already has one hold soiling their trousers at the thought of them.

What I'm saying is, how about recruiting the Forsworn? Put right what was done to them by both the Empire and the Stormcloaks... or betray them yet again, your call.

Great idea man, and you really should contact they guy who's making the Reforging the Blades mod. If you're still keen on doing this, I'd be happy to help. Just drop me a PM when you're ready to start work. I can do all kinds of CK stuff, and basic (very basic) model editing.

Fantastic idea mate! Good luck.

This is a great idea. Since my MC wants to support the Stormcloaks to de-stabilize Skyrim and seize power afterwards, it is perfect, actually

Very nice idea.
I'll be keeping an eye on this project. Keep it up!

Sounds like a great idea! This is exactly what I was hoping that would be included in the game. Good luck!

The Forsworn don't care about anything beyond the Reach, unfortunately.

I am planning to try and include multiple Jarl options for each town- in the interest of quest compatibility, you can pick the Imperial Jarl or Stormcloak Jarl (so, for example, you can keep Balgruuf in his position), a third option for some towns (an example of this would be allying with the Forsworn and putting Madanach or some other person in charge, thus making the Forsworn 'friendly' with your faction but really, REALLY angering the Nords across Skyrim, and hitting the player with pretty substantial penalties everywhere else). The 'third options' will have very tangible effects upon the game- if the player wants to place a crusader in charge of Riften to clean up the blatant corruption there, increasing tax income from the city, he will have to meet it with assassination attempts and such from the powers that be.

Then, last, there's the Fourth Option, which is placing one of your Followers in charge of the city. For example, placing Kharjo as Jarl of Windhelm.

I've also been doing some in-game experimenting with script commands, and I can say, quite pleased, that the script language is MUCH more powerful than anything Oblivion offered for this mod. The original Oblivion plan would allow the player to completely customize his army down to the races of troops- the player could, for example, make his armies Legionaries and Auxiliaries, with only Imperials being Legionaries but allowing a mix of other races to be Auxiliaries. Now, the problem with Oblivion was that in order to gain the proper variety, I would have to hand-place exact duplicates of a soldier at each place, except a different race for each one. No more! SetRace appears to work- somewhat- hopefully it works better in the CK. But that should decrease the workload substantially.

Naturally, everything is on pause until the CK itself comes out, which should be fairly soon. But I am eager and anxious to get to work.

Don't rule out voicing so quickly. There aren't a whole lot of VA's in Skyrim (though definitely more than Oblivion had). I think it would be very possible to re-voice those characters that need it so that they could comment on the new third faction in the war and whatever else the quest line might lead them to say.

You mean they say other things besides arrow and knee?

While I would agree, I'm a hard-core purist. For completely new characters, I would be fine with getting new voice actors. But the problem is, by the very nature of this mod, I don't want to have to create any new characters beyond generic soldiers. Most of the major characters will be filling in with existing characters- your followers. I would hate it if my characters suddenly switched between voices.

Also, as a modder since the days of Morrowind, I firmly and utterly believe that dialogue can be non-voiced and still be immersive. For generic "Hello" type dialogue, I intend to cut together various audio clips to make it work (if I had a converter, I'd be doing that now). But for long, detailed conversations, with pre-existing characters, I, as my own person, cannot do that.

Don't know if I posted here yet. The premise of this mod sounds great. I haven't beaten the mq in Skyrim yet. But I was disappointed, when I found out I couldn't become High King in vanilla skyrim..

First off, let me say I love the idea of this mod and wanted a third option in the civil war right from the first playthrough.

I really like the idea of multiple options for capturing each hold, allowing for variations in play style and previous actions in the game.

Just as a starting point for discussion, a three option mechanic might work out here: diplomacy, subterfuge or conquest.

For diplomacy, the quest could be a negotiated change of allegience to the dragonborn, either through performing some grand task for the Jarl (such as "solve the Forsworn problem" in the Reach), persuasion or bribery (such as buying off the Jarl of poor holds like Falkreath or the Pale once you have Markath's silver mines under your control). The existing Jarl would keep his post in this case.

For subterfuge, the approach here could be to ally with the local Disgruntled Faction in each hold (such as allying with the Forsworn, or siding with the deposed uncle in Falkreath) and supporting them in a coup to overthrough the Jarl. In that case the head of the local DF would be appointed the new Jarl. An additional spin on subterfuge could come into play in cases where the Dragonborn was already head of one of the guilds. In that instance the Dragbonborn could recruit the guild followers to infiltrate the local keep and use them to lauch a coup. The means could be in keeping the flavour of each guild, with the Thieves usurping power through blackmail/intimidation, the Dark Brotherhood by assination, the Mages by magic or the Companions by force. If the guilds are used to usurp power, then the head of the guild (or the guild's number 2 if the Dragonborn is in charge) becomes the new Jarl.

And for conquest, you could use a variation on the existing civil war mechanic of conquer the local fort and force the Jarl to capitulate. In this case the existing Jarl would stay if he surrenders, or is replaced by a follower if forcing execution.

For the final battles to take Solitude and Windhelm, then the existing civil war mechanic could be used with the Dragonborn leading generic NPCs in Blades armour.

Just some thoughts.

i am loving this idea. one piece of advice though. something i really hated with the civil war questline, was that the enemy never fought back. ever. i was playing stormcloaks and i was taking hold after hold, and the empire did nothing to stop me. well, they fought me. but they never tried to take anything back. and i think that is what defines a war. cities and holds changing hands several times during the war. lets say that sometime during your conquest, your enemies attack one of your holds and take it from you, and you have to take it back. now that is something i would want to do! but it shouldnt be too frequent, or else it would just be annoying. great idea, hope you get it through

Seems very ambitious. But it would kill me knowing this would mess up the lore.

Consider it a "what-if" scenario . Mods are non-canon anyways, so why not make it big non-canon?

Nice idea! I know some scripting, and when the Creation Kit comes out i'll be glad to help

another thing i wanna mention is the fact that in the civil war, when you replaced a jarl, and you asked the new jarl what he was going to do to make the city better. and he would mention all sorts of things. but he never fulfills any of them! if i take whiterun for the stormcloaks, i wanna be sure they get a new talos temple, or else! is it possible that, when you win the war, changes will be made to some/ all of the cities. klike, new buildings, repairs, stuff like that. is my idea even possible?