[Quest Discussion] Me, Myself and I

[InsanitySorrow]

Author: Koniption

"Here's a quest that might be a sidequest, or tie into the main quest somehow (maybe). I wrote this to include the talking sword, but if the sword is unusable, then maybe the persona being trapped in a gem or relic instead:

Ok, so I'm gonna take a stab at doing some creative thinking for a quest (my first one, actually, so bear with me; also there may be some background details I'm not aware of or lore I'm not aware of).

Ok, so you come across the crazy guy and take him to a sanitarium or some padded cell. And you have the talking sword in some sort of machine (or not in a machine - I'll explain both pathways later on). Well, how did the guy become crazy? How did the sword get around to talking in the first place?

See the crazy guy, in his past history, had always been crazy - he suffered from the Nirn equivalent of Split Personality Disorder, whereas two or more personas or personalities simultaneously inhabit his mind (or soul), taking turns as to which was present and dominant, of which the one that was dominant at the time interacted with the world through the crazy guy's body (talking to other people who were normal or what have you).

Somehow you find out, that the crazy guy, through some bizarre experiment or maybe just by accidentally getting too close to the machine, somehow got one of his personalities sort of "soul trapped" into the sword (this soul-trapped personality may even be the crazy guy's real self, or one of his odd ball personalities). Or, if no machine, some sort of special "soul gem" near the sword trapped his persona.

Well, you find the sword, and maybe the diary of the crazy guy says how his "genious" persona was trying to become the dominant persona over them all and the diary was written mostly by the genius persona, with some insane babble scattered here and there throughout the text when another persona took over temporarily. The genius persona was setting up the experiment in his dominant times, over time, to become sole heir of the body. But something went wrong, as the genious persona was about to throw the switch to the machine or use the gem, in a bout of bad timing, an idiot persona took over or something, and activated/chanted something wrong, so all personas were destroyed except for two personas: the insane idiot persona (is both an idiot and insane; insanity within insanity), and the persona that is the most well-rounded and that should have been in all natural occurences, the only persona of the guy's body.

So after this happens, the gem or machine breaks, pieces seen on the floor when the player get there. The insane idiot persona was left in the body, while the normal persona is in the sword.

Somehow you fix a new gem or fix the machine, and am now on a quest to help the crazy man regain his sanity. So you fix the machine or gem (find special pieces to fix it or something). Well somehow, the crazy guy got to the ruins too, from his padded cell. The insane idiot persona does something idiotic or insane, killing itself , but the player transfers the normal persona into the guy's body just in the nick of time. The machine or gem break again, but this time beyond repair. The guy gets up and is normal, thanks player, lives a normal life for the first time ever, happy ending, yay!! OR, the idiot persona is switched into the sword while the normal persona goes into the guy's body. The insane idiotic persona can also be criminally insane, and makes for a fine bloodlust sword after all!

THE END.

Koniption

PS - The crazy guy could be a different crazy guy or the same one in Main Quest.

If you want it to tie into Dwemer lore, didn't the Dwemer try to "ascend" to immortality? Maybe the machine/sword/relic capturing a persona was an early attempt to immortalize oneself, by putting oneself magically in objects that don't decay. But they found it didn't work so well or didn't work at all, and you couldn't do much being trapped in an object and all - gets rather boring, me thinks. "