Thirded on display's ideas, but perhaps for the Blades idea, you could be part of the escort group that was meant to protect one of the Emperor's legitimate sons, but got knocked out and awoke to a desolate battlefield and a dead heir, though that'd be a lot of effort for a little immersion :V

As long as a duplicate of the ruined Kvatch worldspace were used, to avoid upsetting the Kvatch part of the main quest, yes it could start inside Kvatch (and once you leave through the city gates, you would not be able to return to that "starting" Kvatch location). The idea is that you would start at this location, but not meet Martin yet, as Martin and Jauffre are part of the main quest, which would all take place when you are sent back to Kvatch later. I can't see any need to edit dialogue for either of these NPCs.

Might be trouble with exiting the city however. You'd want to temporarily disable the Oblivion gate there, and also disable Savlian Matius (use a clone to give the player instructions when still in the duplicate Kvatch worldspace) and disable Hirtel, the NPC down in the refugee camp who runs up to the player and tells you to flee (since your only response is "huh? Why? What's wrong?" which you'd already know the answer to if you just came from the city). Alternatively (and I like this idea), you could extend the duplicate Kvatch worldspace so that it includes the entirety of the switchback road down the hill until it reaches the Gold Road, and have an automatic transition point which when passed through moves the player to the Tamriel worldspace. This would bypass the gate, Savlian Matius and Hirtel completely (and if the player then chooses to turn around and go back again, that's their choice, but they should be running towards the Imperial City by now to inform the emperor).

EDIT
And Hades' expansion of the Blades suggestion is also very good. You could wake up in a small fort or tower somewhere, find the heir and your Blade companions dead around you, along with a couple of dead Mythic Dawn agents, and head to the Imperial City to inform the emperor of your failure to protect his son. They're always going on about how the heirs have been killed too, let's see it for once! (and the location could remain available for players who didn't choose this alt start to find later in the game).

If you start outside at the barricades with Savlian Mattius, then the changes should be minimal. Just add dialog for Savlian.

Actually that would require more changes, see my addition to my previous comment. Better to try to avoid letting the player anywhere near that location unless they choose to go there.

See... this is kind of how I feel about allowing the player to start as someone who would obviously be hated and attacked...

If you SELECT the beginning, aren't you pretty much saying "I want to be there"? Isn't that enough to warrant starting someone off -right- where they would suddenly become involved in any associated quest?

I feel that when someone makes a decision about what they want to be... that means they're prepared to accept the consequences.

If they're not, the one who gave them the OPTION isn't the one who is responsible...

That's all fine if you're after playing an evil person and want to be associated with evil NPCs instead of attacking them. But if you're starting as someone fighting for Kvatch, then you don't yet know the emperor is dead, you haven't taken on the quest to deliver the amulet, you don't have the amulet, you haven't spoken to Jauffre, and you don't know that Martin is an heir. Also, my suggestion was that you be a Kvatch guard and that Savlian Mattius instruct you to go to the emperor. So with that in mind, you don't want to be told by Savlian to go to the emperor, and then the instant you exit the city gates to do that, you run into Savlian Mattius telling you that as a civilian you shouldn't be here. The alternate start could take things further than I suggested of course, and edit Savlian's dialogue so that instead of saying that, he orders you to help close the gate and end the siege of Kvatch before you start the main quest, but that would mean quite a bit of extra work to enable this to be playable before the main quest is started, and to ensure that the main quest can still be played smoothly afterwards once this part has already been done. Personally I feel that this goes beyond the intended scope of an alternate start mod, and it would be better to just stick to providing an alternate start and leave it at that.

Hrm...

I do see your point with that, now that I think about it. There are an -awful- lot of references which wouldn't make much sense, given the timing of the game's main quest and all. Yeah, it would definitely have to be some sort of script which disabled Savlian and the rest of the Kvatch guard outside until after you've recovered the amulet and spoken to Jauffre.

It's easy to forget, sometimes, what gets said when and where.

Anyhow, it wouldn't be too difficult to script that scene that way. It'd actually be fairly interesting... and so long as your unique cloned copies of Savlian and the guards were unique... it shouldn't actually conflict with any of the dialogue options given to you afterwards.

Showing my ignorance of the CS, of course, but wouldn't it be possible to advance the main quest to a stage right before Kvatch if that was the case?

The problem, there, I believe... is the fact that your original reason for BEING there in Kvatch is, in the vanilla game, to find Martin. Nobody knows that Kvatch has already fallen to the Daedra, as it always 'Happened Just Last Night' no matter when you arrive there. So even if you set the Quest forward... the dialogue wouldn't make any sense, as the guards of Kvatch -also- don't yet know that the Emperor is dead.

Why would they? They've been busy trying to stay alive.

So something would still need to get edited... but whenever you edit the dialogue of vanilla NPC's... you run the risk of some serious complications. And with this being just ONE alternate beginning idea in a mod which would ultimately have several others... there's a limit to how much time ought to be spent setting up just one possible beginning. Otherwise, other 'starts' might get neglected.

I like the idea of being a Blades member who is assigned to one of the heirs and survived the attack only to find him dead along with the rest of the group. Does anyone happen to know if any of the heirs were even in Cyrodiil at the time? It's never officially stated where any of them were when they died.

As far as Kvatch, as cool as those ideas all are, I'd much rather avoid the complications of messing around with anything there. There's too much to consider and far too many things that might go wrong as unintended consequences.

You know, I've always had the impression they weren't - perhaps to avoid the issue of you stumbling across the area where they were supposed to be or something. I thought I read something once that suggested where they might be, but that might have been something from another mod. Perhaps you could put one on the border to Skyrim or something - as if they were trying to escape that way or were travelling to Skyrim for some reason.

I don't see why they -couldn't- be in Cyrodiil at the time... even though it isn't ever really explained.


As for Kvatch: I tend to agree with the 'too many things to go wrong' view on this...

... but it's still awesome to think about it! This is more like an alternate beginning which ought to get it's own Mod.

For instance! Rather than what was described:

Your character begins in the smoke-filled Guard's Quarters of the Castle Kvatch, having just gotten out of bed (woken by screams in the middle of the night). Your armor is all in your personal footlocker at the end of the bed, so when a guard runs in and tells you the city is under attack by daedra, you quick grab your gear and run out of the castle to see that Kvatch is burning and swarmed with Daedra. You could fight your way to the main gates through the city alongside Savlian and the guards, collecting those few citizens who survive (including Martin even, perhaps) and help get them to the Chapel.

Then you immediately would get sent on the mission to go through the gate (along with the guy you normally meet there and his friends, maybe?) and have to figure out how to close the damned thing down yourself.

Then, while you're there, you could run into the guy sent to retrieve Martin. (The prisoner who replaces you, and witnesses the Emperor's Death?) He tells you that Martin needs to come back to Weynon Priory... and asks if you will escort them, as the roads are dangerous.

When you get back, everything unfolds just like it would have during the main quest... except that you're actually working alongside the guy who you WOULD have been, had you not changed fate.


... damn, I wish I could mod better for Oblivion. That would be epic!

The heir could have been staying in http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=37253, just over the border in one of the other provinces - Hammerfell or Morrowind?

Alright, 1.1 is up now. The main attraction being the shipwreck start. Hope folks like it

I think as far as more options I'll keep the Blades one in mind but that's going to take some thought and planning because I don't want to just toss something in at random that doesn't fit, and it almost seems like it would necessitate more detail on jump starting the main quest.

I did have a look through the Imperial Library and nothing jumped out regarding the location of the sons when they are killed. As I was reading through various articles though, I really had the impression that they wouldn't be in Cyrodiil at all. For some reason I really got the impression that the Septim family lived outside Cyrodiil and only the Emperor was in the Imperial City, but that is interpretation on my part and nothing explicitly stated. So I think you could pick any of the northern or western border areas without it standing out too much. Guess I'm going back to the Daggerfall stories...

Not even the reports of the assassination give any kind of indication as to where the three sons of Uriel Septim were or what they were doing.

That really leaves it pretty wide open, as far as decisions go.

At least that's one LESS headache you have to deal with. No matter -where- you decide to place it... nobody can say you're wrong!

Indeed. After having gone through info at UESP, the Emperor's own dialogue at the start of the game indicates that they only found out his sons were dead via messenger. So it's safe to assume they're not in the city. Which could mean anything, but I think it's pretty safe to say that means it isn't a major city in Cyrodiil.

Sweet - thanks for the shipwreck start, Arthmoor. This mod is now the best alternate start mod.

How about a start that puts the player as the actual messenger taking the message to the Emperor? Agreed that the Blades start would need some thinking and planning out, though - it would be sweet if it worked out.

In times of great crisis and danger to the Emperor and his family, Cloud Ruler Temple has served as the go-to spot for securing His Eminence and the Empress for centuries... as far as the lore goes.

If you were one of the blades tasked with securing the heir of Uriel Septim VII, that would almost assuredly be the place you were headed. No assassin has ever breached the walls and slain a member of the Imperial Family housed within Cloud Ruler. Furthermore, as the headquarters of the blades, it would be the natural destination to ensure the maximum number of guards defending the heirs at all times.

So my guess would be, wherever you consider having it set up, it might help to bear in mind where they would most-likely be headed.

Actually, your very own words deny this location as a viable place for an heir to have been. If the original game begins with all heirs assassinated, and an alternate start mod lets you be at the scene of one of these recently assassinated heirs, how can you be at a location where no assassin has ever breached the walls, why does nobody at Cloudruler mention the heir's recent assassination when you go there during the main quest, and why is Cloudruler then considered a suitable point for Martin to head his battle campaign from? He'd choose a different location from one which has already suffered infiltration not long ago. If such an alternate start were offered, I strongly believe it would belong somewhere over the Cyrodiil borders, in a location the original game doesn't include.

If you re-read my post, you will see that I never said that the 'beginning' should be set at Cloud Ruler.

What I was suggesting was to bear in mind the location to which the party would almost assuredly be traveling, in order to help Arthmoor in his careful consideration for how to make such an alternate beginning work. As a member of the Blades, it would seem almost instinctive that they would be headed for Cloud Ruler Temple. It's where they take the Imperial Family to keep them safe. The security of its location is EXACTLY why he would be being taken there.

Obviously, he never made it. Wherever it is that he was, when the assassins caught up with him and his escorts... it would almost definitely be on the way to Cloud Ruler.

I'm pretty sure he meant that if you were to start as a Blade, you would be in the process of bringing the son to the temple rather than already being there. If that's the case, then the game could start as you wake up in a camp set up along the way there from the northern border. You walk out of the tent to find the others in flames and your fellow Blades fighting off Mythic Dawn agents. The son could potentially be already dead. After you see this, maybe you could be knocked unconscious by one of the agents from behind and wake up to find the place destroyed with only one other Blade left? Just a thought.

EDIT: Nevermind, the Colonel beat me to it.

My impression is that the Mythic Dawn staged a surprise attack, so it wouldn't make a lot of sense for the Blades to be escorting anyone to Cloud Ruler since they have no credible information yet that such a move is necessary. It's not specified in lore anywhere, but I think it's reasonable to assume that the heirs were each at different locations at the beginning of the game.

So wherever you happen to be, it would need to be someplace logical, but not necessarily secure or even related to military or royal sites. The heir you were assigned to could simply have been traveling and you stopped at an inn for the night when the assassins struck. A wilderness camp would be even better since that's far less secure and wouldn't involve having to leave a permanent building behind once the chargen is done.

A messenger start would be interesting too, since we know the Emperor was notified by messenger you could even start that one with a fast horse. What I don't want to get roped into though is having to deal with an "Emperor is alive" scenario in order to initiate the main quest. The scripting hoops that would need to be jumped through in order to make that work wouldn't be pretty.

You could be a second / follow-up messenger to the first, and thus arrive after the Emperor's already been assassinated. IIRC, one of the Blades during normal chargen comments something along the lines of, "the message only said they were attacked." Makes sense that the Blades (or whoever) would send an initial messenger with time sensitive information ("there's a credible threat to the Imperial family; move the Emperor to Cloud Ruler Temple ASAP"), and then send a second once they know more details.

Would that avoid any hoop jumping scenarios?

Yes, actually that would. If you were a second courier sent to update the situation to tell command that one of the heirs has in fact been killed.