Silgrad Tower from the Ashes

The village of Moonmarch is under attack from an Oblivion Gate that's opened in their town center. Creatures keep pouring out and there's some kind of barrier around it that prevents anybody from counterattacking.

Clearly, somebody in the village is keeping it open, but who? The player has to interrogate the villagers and find the traitor, whilst fending off a constant stream of Daedra. It's no easy task, because everyone seems to have a motive! The townsfolk are bitterly divided into factions, any one of which has good reason to want revenge on the others. The gate automatically closes when you find the traitor and kill them in the Dagon shrine in their basement (this saves us having to make a boring interior for it).

(NB. If the player has already finished the vanilla MQ and shut all the gates, then the quest continues to find out who did it, even though it's closed).

That's a good point.

Also a good idea.

I'm a bit 50-50 on this one. I'm not a fan of Oblivion gates but I do like the 'small-town politics' aspect and I guess an Oblivion realm wouldn't be hard to set up.

Ah, but that's the beauty of it. Because of the barrier, there's no need to make a Realm. So the Gate is basically just a big flashy prop for the story.

No, because the normal oblivion realms are boring, and anyway being able to do that would negate the point of the quest, which is to solve a mystery.

Hmm, it might be useful to employ some FG member to go hunting for the sigil stone as you go looking for the traitor. This may impose a time limit on the quest which could be quite fun...or you could arrange to meet the FG member on the other side of a dungeon/interior. Alternatively, skip all of that and then, when you leave, it can be said that an Argonian war party will clear up the realm for you as part of their normal hunting practice... =)

I like the hunting party idea... Anything that makes it clear the Daedra are losing this one badly.