Register    Calendar    Members    ST Team    Forum Search    FAQ    Portal    Overview Silgrad Tower: Oblivion » Beyond Cyrodiil » Skyrim for Oblivion » Skyrim Quests » Riften side quests - Smugglers & Merchants » Hello You Last Post | First Unread Post Print Page | Recommend to a Friend | Add Thread to Favorites Riften side quests - Smugglers & Merchants Author Post « Previous Thread | Next Thread » Zarkis Viscount Registration Date: 01.12.2002 Posts: 650 Riften side quests - Smugglers & Merchants        This is a complete side story for Riften, featuring the war between merchants and smugglers over ebony. Setup Riften merchants The merchants of Riften are lead by the Imperial Gaius Volpius, the richest merchant in the city. He is one of only a few merchants (beside the East Empire Company) who have an Imperial charter to trade with ebony, that is shipped from the ebony mines on Vvardenfell through Silgrad Tower and Riften to Cyrodiil. Gaius will give out quests which only have one goal: to destroy the smugglers. Riften Smugglers The Riften Smugglers are lead by Zalrine Vedelle (a beautiful Breton women and deadly with the rapier). Second in command is the Nord Haki Sledgehammer. The smugglers have two hideouts: One in the upper level of the Riften Catacombs (where Haki resides), the other in a cave in the Velothi mountains (the headquarters of Zalrina). The smugglers smuggle mainly ebony, but also artefacts and drugs. The only bridge over the Gorge of Riften is controlled by the imperial garrison, but some of the legionnaires are bribed by the smugglers. There is a another smuggling route running from the cave to the gorge (Note to Galrina: a subterranean waterway from the mountains to the Gorge could be used here), along a path through the Gorge and up through the Riften catacombs into the city, but this one is dangerous because of the beasts living in the gorge. The smugglers have a tavern associated with them: the Slumbering Raven. The tavern also hosts some regular members of the thieves guild, so the player can buy and sell stuff there if he's a guild member. There is a secret entrance to the Riften Catacombs in the cellar of the tavern. You can find Haki at times in a backroom of the tavern. Merchant/Smuggler relationship The merchants and the smugglers are bitter enemies. There is a special connection between Gaius Volpius and Zalrine (they were once lovers), which the player may become aware of through gossip. Fame The player will get fame points when doing quests. You can win fame with the merchants and the smugglers. Fame will determine how some of the NPCs (both factions have sympathisers in the townsfolk) react to you. Fame with the merchants will give you better prices. However many of the Nords in and around Riften sympathize with the smugglers, so fame with the smugglers will help you with some other quests there. You can get fame with both. Quests Related Quests The Ambush This is the first quests the player will stumble over. The way from Cyrodiil to Riften leads to a narrow pass. The player will meet a merchant with a orc and a wood elf mercenary as guards. The wood elf has spotted some bandits which lie in ambush ahead of them. The merchant asks the player to help clear the path and offers some money as reward. - If player accepts, the mercenaries and the merchant will start to attack the bandits. - If he doesn't accept to help the merchants and continues his way to Riften, he will meet the bandits. They will ask him to help overcome the mercenaries and plunder the merchant. If he agrees, they will start attack the small caravan. If he doesn't agree they will leave him alone and proceed attacking the merchants. possible outcomes: - if player accepted to help merchant + merchant alive + all bandits dead: get reward from merchant; +5 fame merchants; - if player helps bandits + merchant is dead + one bandit alive: + 5 fame smugglers; player can loot the mercenaries but not the merchant - if player stays neutral: bandits are set up to kill the caravan and disappear later; no valuables left on corpses; no fame - if player kills survivors any after fight: no consequences (no witness) Gaius Volpius Quests (work in progress) Note: I may not allow this quests if the player is a high ranking member of the thieves guild. (1) Semi random quest (can be repeated): accompany a merchant you meet in a tavern from Riften to Cyrodiil or to the Velothi mountains (semi random merchants will wait in taverns in Riften). The merchant is scripted so at some point during the travel an attack may happen. Reward: some money and +1 fame with merchants. If one merchant gets killed, you will take a fame hit, but get another chance. If two merchants get killed, you won't get another random quest and your fame with the merchants drops to 0. However you can still get quests from Gaius. The smugglers will notice that you work for the merchants. They will warn you to end your relationship with Gaius. Note: Have to make it that the merchant stays with you but can't fast travel with you. Note: If you become a criminal at any point during your stay in Riften and you get caught by the guards, your fame with the merchants will be set to 0 and the semi random first quest will no longer be available. However Gaius will continue to give you quests if you already did the second quest (unlike the other merchants he doesn't care if you are a criminal as long as you do his work). (2) Given by Gaius: Find out, which legion members are bribed by the smugglers. This quest is done by observing a suspected legion sergeant and eavesdropping his meeting with Haki in the Slumbering Raven. After doing this quest all smugglers will become hostile and attack you on sight (in the catacombs, the gorge and Zalrine's cave) or refuse to talk to you (in the city). Your fame with the smugglers gets set to 0. (3) Given by Gaius: Find Haki Sledgehammer in the Riften Catacombs or the Slumbering Raven and kill him; bring his hammer as a proof to Gaius. Haki has a note on him with some hints how to find Zalrine. After this quest the smugglers will hire a Dark Brotherhood assassin to kill you. However, if you are a member of the DB yourself, you will get a notice that the Brotherhood assassin refused their request. (4) Given by Gaius: Find Zalrine Vedelle and kill her; bring her amulet of luck (which Gaius bought her years ago) back as a proof. Smuggler Quests (work in progress) (1) Semi random quest (can be repeated): Given by Haki in the Slumbering Raven (he will stay mainly in the catacombs, but in the evening you will find him in the Raven...thanks to RAI). Avoid the guards and smuggle a package to a receiver in Cyrodiil. Riften guards are scripted to randomly search you if you meet any. Will also add some guard in Cyrodiil or along the road through scripts, if you have the mentioned package in your inventory. Reward: some money and +1 fame with smugglers Note: I have to temporarily disable fast travel for this. Nobody knows yet if this is possible. Otherwise I change this quests. (2) Given by Haki: Bribe another member of the legion.(must have done the random quest at least once) (3) Given by Haki: Accompany a Nord smuggler, who is wanted by the guards in Riften trough the catacombs and the Gorge to Zalrine's cave. You will get directions to the cave by Haki. (4) Given by Zalrine: Steal a ebony shipment plan out of the house of Gaius Volpius and bring it to Zalrine. The house is heavily guarded. Getting caught will set your fame with the merchants to 0 and Gaius will not talk to you. (5) Given by Zalrine: The smugglers observed that Gaius hired a DB assassin to kill Haki. Hurry to Riften and kill the assassin, who stays in a tavern there. If you are a member of the DB, you can talk with the assassin, so he won't do the job. Getting caught killing the assassin will set your fame with the merchants to 0 and Gaius will refuse to talk to you. Note: Until here you can still change sides, if nobody witnessed stealing the shipment plan or killing the assassin. (6) Given by Zalrine: Gaius went to far trying to kill Haki, now kill him! If you are member of the DB and you talked with the assassin, who should kill Haki, you can hire or order him (depends on your rank in the DB) to kill Gaius. You will get a note a day later, that he did the job quite fine... __________________ Squirrel, squirrel, canst thou see? There?s a Snow Elf behind thee! 12.03.2006 17:58 -Sulan- Chieftain of Skyrim Registration Date: 06.03.2006 Posts: 443 Location: Sweden Sounds very nice!!! I like that you?d be able to choose sides, the quests seam nice and varying also 12.03.2006 18:59 Galrina Seigneur Registration Date: 18.09.2005 Posts: 210 Location: SW IN I love it!! And yes, the underground river would be an excellent secondary route for the smugglers. I could also see them having storehouses along it, guarded by who knows what kind of nasty critters! __________________ aka Lacey or Mrs. Danath_in. hehe 12.03.2006 19:40 Krisi-_ Archduke Registration Date: 27.06.2006 Posts: 1,532 Location: Norway RE: Riften side quests - Smugglers & Merchants        a nice and lovely questline __________________ The meaning of life is 'Bucket'. 28.06.2006 20:27 Tree Structure | Board Structure Silgrad Tower: Oblivion » Beyond Cyrodiil » Skyrim for Oblivion » Skyrim Quests » Riften side quests - Smugglers & Merchants This is an archived forum section of Silgrad Tower Forum.