This idea came to me when, after conquering Windhelm, and supposedly vanquishing the stormcloaks, I discovered a rebel camp right outside of the imperial capital at Solitude. Not only did it contain an unkillable commander, but the lesser soldiers even respawned periodically whenever I would return after a few days.

So once Bethesda releases the CK in January, I'm going to fiddle around with my game and mod in a series of basic quests to eliminate these camps. I was thinking that the player would receive these quests from reading notices in Imperial-controlled cities that place a bounty on the head of the stormcloak commander of that region's rebel camp. These would appear after the quest "Join the Imperial Legion" is completed. After killing said NPC, who is now non-essential, of course, you'd receive a levelled gold-based reward from the Jarl's steward (who already has dialogue for bounty quests, making my job easier). I haven't decided what exactly to do with the camps after this point yet. Right now I'm leaning towards wiping them from the map after their respective commanders are dead.

I'm also tossing around the idea of adding in a series of quests to take over the major forts in the originally Imperial half of skyrim, which in the vanilla game remain occupied by bandits, necromancers, and whathaveyou even though they're labelled as 'imperial' on civil war maps. For these quests, I was thinking of spawning a new legate at Solitude who will use Galmar Stone-Fist's dialogue to order you to meet up with waiting groups of imperial soldiers and help them take over the various forts that you would've (had you joined the stormcloaks originally). For these quests, you won't be fighting stormcloaks, but rather whatever enemy groups, e.g. Forsworn, happens to occupy the fort in question. This of course means there'll be some enemies inside, and your allies by default won't follow you into the interiors, judging from their behaviour in the vanilla civil war quests, so in the first few releases that'll be up to you to clear out, until I figure out how to make them do so.

If I'm feeling ambitious, maybe I'll also add in regular patrols on the roads between cities and friendly forts as well (once you've taken them over, of course) à la Oblivion, to bring a sense of restored order to Skyrim. So would you guys like to eventually see this as a public release? Right now this is still very much at the drawing board stage, so your suggestions/ideas are welcome

This is a great idea. Those unkillable commanders bother the heck out of me.

Just a note, one encounters a similar problem when doing the Stormcloak side of the war (with Legion camps, and unkillable Legates), so you might want to consider doing another seperate line of quests, etc. for this alternative (if it interests you).

Otherwise, love your concept of it, would definitely like to see this as a public release

I think it's one of those campments for each hold. Not sure if both factions have one in each or only in enemy holds.

It will be pretty easy to make a version for the Stormcloaks too, once I've got the basic groundwork laid down. Fortunately, Rikke happens to be a Nord, so her audio files should be fine for re-use. I'm still debating on what to do for the additional 'rescue' missions, though. I may add those to the main civil war questline as it wouldn't make sense for the opposite faction to suddenly conquer a fort within your faction's territory, and hold your allies hostage, except in the early stages of the war. So then both factions will have the Rescue From Fort Neugrad and Rescue From Fort Kastav missions (edited, of course).

Further ideas for core mod (up for discussion/debate):

-Blacksmiths, same as the ones you encounter in your faction's camps during the vanilla quests, will move in as well once you've taken over a fort.
-Your allies will no longer say e.g."damned stormcloak rebels" once you've eradicated the other faction, but will instead use cheers from the vanilla game like "hooray!", "we did it!", etc.
-If you approach your faction's fortress out of uniform, you will be treated as a trespasser and potentially attacked. Conversely, you can disguise yourself with the other faction's armour and walk right into an enemy-controlled camp or fortress. Just mind the commander- if you get too close, he'll recognise you as a spy and order his men to kill you.
-Each faction's gear will scale up to a maximum of ebony/glass quality for their armours, and ebony for their respective weapons, with perhaps a lag of 3-4 levels or so for the standard gear. Heavy armour will become more common for legionnaires at higher levels. Officers' armour for both sides will always have slightly higher ratings than the standard apparel, but never as high as dragonscale/dragonplate. At very high levels, Penitus Oculatus gear will be equivalent to dragonscale. After all, these are supposed to be battle-hardened professional assassins (plus, the armor looks incredible). Not quite sure how to balance this with the low requirements for forging faction armour/weapons, may have to remove these as smithing options.


Potential ideas for future expansions:

-Once you've secured Skyrim for your faction (completed all related quests) your faction will begin solidifying its control of its scattered possessions. Patrols will frequent the roads between your faction's holdings and project security over the war-torn province.
-Your faction will gradually renovate Skyrim's ruined fortresses to better accomodate permanent garrisons.
-Ever said to yourself, "I completed my faction's entire questline, and all I got was this lousy sword"? I know I did! In Morrowind, you could build your own faction-themed stronghold once you attained a high rank in any of the three great houses. Now, once you have wiped out the opposing faction, you will be granted the option to finance the construction of your very own personal fort, and given the option to have any one of the soldiers in it follow you!

Please post your suggestions or criticisms

This sounds amazing! It's been bothering me that wearing Stormcloak/Imperial armor has no effect on my ability to sneak into enemy camps. At the very least it should change NPC reactions toward the PC. SO, I think all you ideas are great. The only one I'm hesitant about it the strength of Penitus Oculatus armor. I just don't think it should be that good. At the end of the day it's still leather based, so it shouldn't be that much better than Imperial or leather armor IMHO. I'm really looking forward to progress on this mod!

Looks very interesting, I added it to my to watch list.

I would definitely be interested in this mod. It would make random Stormcloak harassment much more fun. And anything that extends the stock questlines is good by me.


These two I am not so sure about. I don't know if I still have my uniform. I might have to go kill an ally and take his. Plus, would either of these groups really attack the citizens they think they fight for? Maybe Stormcloaks would attack someone who is visibly an elf, but I would expect the Legion to be more hesitant. When you wander into Stormcloak/Legion camps before choosing a side, they are both pretty friendly and invite you to join them. But on the other hand, I have been wondering if I could sneak into an enemy camp disguised as one of them. That seems like it should be in the game, and I guess the two reactions to uniforms should go together. (Also, what happens if I approach the Legion wearing the guard armor of a Stormcloak-sympathetic hold that had its guards replaced with Legionaires? Sometimes I find one such guard fighting a legion soldier.)

Maybe they should only willingly let you in the walls if you have your armor on, and only eventually attack trespassers who actually get into the fort interiors? idk, just an idea. I don't know where you were planning to draw the line. Anyway I do like the idea about the commander being the one to spot a spy.

Ebony/glass seems excessive quality for something that's being produced quickly and in bulk. The Stormcloaks especially, they're just a bunch of rebels who look like they're wearing guard armor because it's what they have lying around. So it would be weird for their armor to potentially be as good as that of someone who can afford glass or ebony. But I would not mind seeing it more upgradable than it is, so that if I want to play a devoted Stormcloak/Legionaire, the game doesn't necessarily punish me for it with a poor armor rating. It should be possible to make faction armor harder to "earn" for smithing, but if it's so hard to make, how's a whole army wearing it? Penitus Oculatus should be good stuff though, I agree there.

Neither of these things would stop me from using the mod, and I love all your other ideas.

You could always craft a new set of your faction's armor, though I can see how it would be a pain to drag around everywhere. That's why I was thinking of adding higher-quality versions of the armor, so it would still be useful at higher levels. For realisticity's sake, what if I made the normal soldier armor scale on, say, tiers 1-2 (hide-leather for both, iron-steel for heavy imperial) and made the officers' armor go from 3-4 (elven-scaled for stormcloaks, dwarven-orcish for imperials)? Then, for balance, I'd have to make the officers' armor uncraftable and instead, say, a quest reward. As for the Penitus Oculatus gear, I'm thinking of giving it the DB shrouded armor's rating and similar stealth enchantments (they are professional spies/assassins too, after all). There was someone on here proposing to flesh out an entire PO questline, so I may be overstepping my bounds a bit here, but you get the idea. Their equipment will definitely be useful for stealth-oriented characters.


As for this, I was thinking of making the fort interiors a restricted zone for anybody out-of-uniform, regardless of which side you're on. I'll leave the exterior accessible just like it is now, unless you're wearing the opposing faction's garb, of course. In that situation, I could have them behave like bandits do when you're approaching their base ("go away!" "this is your last warning!" "that's close enough") followed by an attack if the trespasser gets too close.


Interesting... I hadn't thought of that. I guess I'll have them treat anybody wearing the former guard's armor as a stormcloak (with the above reactions).

Oh, about spawning a new legate to order you to take bandit/necromancer forts.... I'm considering scrapping that. Rikke already talks about clearing Skyrim's forts of vagabonds during the Hraggstad quest, so at that point I'll just have her give the player the quests for Ft. Sungard, Neugrad, and Snowhawk as well (these quests already exist in case the player gives these holds away during Season Unending). Not sure if I'll be able to work in a verbal cue like that for the Stormcloaks, though.

You could also use an alternative method with the above, where you instead get a badge or a token; perhaps you could explain it as something given to you so you can prove you are of their faction while still staying "undercover" to the outside world. The story reasons would be up to you, but it's less of a hassle to carry around a little token with minimal weight for long periods of game-time.

Edit: Forgot to say that I think this is a wonderful idea, and will be eagerly watching to see how it develops.

Love this idea. When you're given your faction's gear, you'll also get that amulet and a note explaining what it's for. I could even have enemy officers drop their own faction's amulet, which would let you infiltrate even more easily. You could even roleplay a double agent this way, wearing one faction's outfit, and having the other faction's badge.

IIRC, some of the forts do get taken over by their respective factions when you clear them out, and the going in the interiors is considered as tresspassing. Fort Greymoor for example. Dunno if this is the only fort that changs hands though.

Also works for Fort Amol if you're helping out the Stormcloaks, I think.

The double-agent thing is neat.

I suppose making the faction armor better does help address the problem with not having my armor anymore. I hadn't been thinking about those as related things.

Sneaky Penitus Occulatus would be cool. After all, they're sort of counter-assassins.

Suggestion for the whole "enter fort, get attacked thing" - consider making it so that it happens if you, say, take your weapon out - perhaps even ask you to put it away when you approach. The vanilla game has dialogue for some characters if you go into a camp when neutral (or all the time?), and it seems like it would be bad for either side if their armies were ordered to just kill anyone who approaches on sight - after all, where's the sense in that?

Also, in regards to scaling - different types of armour seem like they'd be a better solution instead of just making the armour take more damage over the course of the game. Give places closer to the Imperial/Stormcloak centres better equipment, instead of just magically scaling it up over time.

One problem with that, of course, is the issue of the fort commanders - if their armour is really good, a player could just take it, use it, and become terribly powerful themselves from the onset. Personally, I reckon giving them their own special armour is a bad idea - better to just have them wear the same and be stronger, like the current bandit leaders. That said, I reckon having skill-limited armour could be useful in this situation... but would likely be out of place and pointless to code.