Quest Idea - On the Trail of the Blasphemous Prophet

[Deeza]

One of the finest (and longest!) works to be submitted to the literature forum over the years is the magisterial book series Confessions of a Blasphemous Prophet. It details the life of Jiub, the guy the Nerevarine met in the prison ship during TES3. The original plan was to have a series of quests centred around it in Vvardenfell, but since that project went down the tubes I have decided as Editor to transfer the quest to the Morrowind mainland.

The books were secretly written by Jiub when he was alive and hidden in his cell, from where they were taken by one of the Temple cleaners in Vivec. The race is now on to find them, as the information within is potentially highly damaging to the reformed Temple.

There are many people who badly want to get hold of the diaries:

1. The Temple, so that they can destroy them.
2. King Helseth (via his agents) so that he can use them to weaken the power of the Temple.
3. House Redoran/House Hlaalu, so they can use them to blackmail the Temple into helping them battle the other Houses for influence.
4. The Imperial Church, who are anxious to use it to cast doubt on the Temple and increase their conversion rate in Morrowind.
5. The Jiubine Cult, who just want the world to learn the truth about the man whose teachings they follow.

It's the task of the player to track down each volume (with proof that they're genuine) and decide who to give them to.

Initial thoughts?

[jucklesjenk]

I've just read that book. It's very interesting. I always wondered what happened to Jiub after TES3, and more intrigued after I heard that rumor about him in Oblivion.

The idea of choosing sides and having different outcomes appeals to me. It increases the roleplayability. :yes:

Would the Redoran actually try and blackmail the Temple, though. They are a warrior tribe, so honour is at the top of their priorities, so them trying to use blackmail doesn't seem to make sense to me. Also, they are known to be firm supporters of the Temple anyway, so they wouldn't even need to blackmail them, would they?
However, I can certainly understand Hlaalu using blackmail, because that fits in with their ways.

[Deeza]

Good point. Maybe the Redoran would prefer to use it against House Hlaalu, since it also suggests that the King (who's head of the Hlaalu) was in on the deception.

[bob196045]

Jiub

Good Quest Idea

Rumored to be dead, no proof of this, its possible he is still roaming the lands or in hiding

Though their is not much said about him, it is highly likely he was a criminal at some point in his life, for what we do not know

Joe's book is a good writing, I think it would make for several good quests

I like the idea of the books and having other Factions, Houses and Cults
looking for them, for whatever reason they do.

How many books are you proposing?
How does the quest begin?


Those would be my first 2 questions


Enjoy
Bob

[Deeza]

That's a very good question, because the full story is loooooooooong.

I personally prefer to keep books reasonably short, otherwise people tend to get bored whilst reading them. For this reason I have split a lot of the longer works in the archive into several volumes.

We could easily make eight or nine out of this one, which would make it an epic quest to find them all. Perhaps too epic. What do you think?

As for the start...

I was originally thinking of having it follow on from a series of quests I'm developing in Ebeddin for a rare book collector there. However, I now think that it should perhaps be something more obvious. Book-collecting isn't everyone's cup of tea, even if it's well rewarded, whereas the quest to find Jiub's testament has a more mainstream appeal I think.

Possibly you hear a rumour about some person being imprisoned by the Temple, and the Imperials being angry about it. You go to one of the Temples and find one of Jiub's followers locked in the basement, where they are trying to interrogate him. Turns out he really doesn't know anything, but it clues the player in to the existence of the books and introduces the first faction who want to get hold of them.

Thoughts?