By –Shalani

The vanilla WICourierQuest in Skyrim is actually very extensible – meaning anyone can use it to start their quest with a note read by the player. If you want a simple start to your quest in this manner, there is no need to go to all the trouble of attempting to recreate the WICourierQuest from scratch, unfuzz / refuzz dialogue, make new couriers, create new Papyrus scripts, and etc. There is nothing wrong with that if you want your own unique courier with a unique voice and appearance, but for most modders the vanilla quest is more than adequate! I used the Bethesda Wolf Queen Rising quest as a model – it kicks off with a letter brought to you by the courier which tells you to talk to Falk Firebeard in the Blue Palace in Solitude to start the quest. Thanks to MannyGT, Sundance, and Sigil79 for their comments and assistance.

…

FIRST, create your quest in the CK Quest section and give it a name. For our purposes I will use YourQuest as the name.

Select Priority, 60; Type, Side Quest; Event, NONE; Run Once; Do NOT select start game enabled.

Select Ok button, close and save.

I will assume you have a book (Note) and an NPC which will be giving the Quest to the Player via the note delivered by the vanilla courier.

Reopen YourQuest.

Create stages: 0, 20, 30, 40, 50 and whatever stages you want after that.

I create an empty stage 0. We’ll come back to the stages in a minute.

Create Aliases for YourGiver and YourNote:

For YourGiver, create with fill type Unique Actor and select the NPC you want to be the giver of the note (YourNote) to the Player via the Courier.

For YourNote, create with checked items (at the top): Uses Stored Text, Quest Object, and Initially Disabled.

For Fill Type, select Create Reference to Object (select your note to be delivered) Level keep as Easy, and Create In the name of your NPC created to be the quest giver (Same as YourGiver).

Add two scripts from vanilla scripts to YourNote:

Defaultsetstageonplayeraquire. For its properties, select MyQST and select YourQuest. For StageToSet, enter 40. [Note: I do this because the Courier will give you the letter, but there is no notification that you actually get it unless you add stage 40 and the notification there.]

Defaultsetstageonclosebook. For its properties, enter 50 for StageToSet. [Note: Any defaultsetstagealias script set to update to 50 on reading the note alias will do.]

..

Back to the Quest Stages:

Add to the Papyrus fragment area of the indicated Quest Stages (don’t forget to compile):

20

SetStage(30)

;set up to pass YourNote to Courier quest.

30

Alias_YourNote.GetRef().Enable()

Debug.Notification("Letter moved to Courier!")

(CourierQuest as WICourierScript).AddItemToContainer(Alias_YourNote.GetRef())

40

Debug.Notification("The Courier has given you a letter - YourNote!")

50

;Player has read note

SetObjectiveDisplayed(50)

[Note: Set up objective for 50 as “Talk to QuestGiver at place name.” in Quest Objective tab.]

… whatever else is in your Quest for additional Stages.

Note: any comments prefaced by “;” above are optional, replace alias names above as required with actual name of your aliases, etc. In fact, before you publish your mod, add a “;” before the Debug.Notification in stage 30 – it is for testing and you don’t want the players to see it.

At Stage 50, you probably want to add a log entry, such as “I received a note telling me to talk to QuestGiver at placename.”

..

Go to the Scripts tab: add the following to the one named QF_YourQuestName_####### (unique number s for your quest script) and the following and then save (compile)by doing the following:

Select QF_YourQuestName_#######

Select the Properties button.

Select the Add Property button.

In the pop-up, select Quest from the dropdown for Type.

Enter CourierQuest for Name.

Select OK to close the pop-up.

The new quest Property should show in your list of properties as “CourierQuest.” Select it.

To the right, pick object WICourier from the drop down.

You are now done with the Quest modifications, so select OK and SAVE YOUR MOD esp.!!

…

Now go to the cell you want to set a trigger to kick the courier quest (and your quest) off with. Note: You will want to trigger the start of the courierquest in enough time for him to reach the player before the player arrives in the desired destination. For example when my quest kicks off, the player is urged to talk to a NPC in Dragonsreach. I have the trigger to load the courier with a letter at the bridge in Riverwood. Doing so means the player will probably be met by the courier before entering Whiterun if they stop to talk to the Companions where they kill the giant. I also add some bandits on the road to Whiterun to slow the player up.

I picked a bridge as the chokepoint location, you might want to set an intersection, or a door, etc. Set up a trigger box (type= defaultBlankTrigger ) size it so that it is tall enough that the player will be able to enter the whole box. When the triggerbox is added to your desired chokepoint, open its reference and I recommend naming it something distinctive like “YourQuestCallCourierTriggerbox01.” Add a vanilla script to the Scripts tab of your triggerbox reference named defaultSetStageOnEnter. For its properties, set Disablewhendone to checked (it will be used only once); For MyQuest, select YourQuest from the dropdown; for stage, enter 20; and for TriggerActor1, select Player. Then select OK. Select OK to close the reference.

Save your Mod esp and test. When you enter the triggerbox, you should receive a notification that the letter has been given to the Courier. When you approach the next town, you should expect the courier to run up to you and give you the letter, and a notification will appear that he has given you the letter. When you read the letter from your inventory, it should kick off your quest and tell the player to talk to the questgiver NPC.

Enjoy!

For peer review, gang!

Let me have it

Then I will post it to the wiki!