Corey Hall

Character Sheet – Gorr

Kris Takahashi Other 13 Comments

Gorr. He likes fighting and eating. And beards.

Gorr
Encounter Riverwood
Locations South of Ivarstead, Markarth, Various
Race Redguard Gender Male
Level PC×1 Class CombatWarrior2H
RefID XX02d6e7 BaseID 0202D184
Health Levels with PC Magicka Levels with PC
Stamina Levels with PC
Primary Skills Two-Handed, Heavy Armor, Block, Archery
Morality Violence Against Enemies Confidence Brave
Inventory Iron Armor, Hide Boots, Hide Gauntlets, Iron Warhammer, Horker Meat, Horker Stew
Voice Nile Zam Jones (Zammuel)

Gorr the Wanderer
Upon recruiting Gorr as a follower, you have the option of asking him where to go next. This conversation will effectively enable his wandering quest. Progressing through this quest will result in unlocking Gorr’s marriage dialogue, his personal quest, and setting him to wander.  It should also be noted that Gorr’s marriage question, It’s funny how the fates keep bringing us together, while accessible only by wearing an Amulet of Mara, is deliberately ambiguous. This way, you can hear the story while still avoiding a romantic overture by responding with That’s right. We’re great friends.

Gorr the Wanderer (DialogueGorr)
Stage Information
10 Gorr wanders to the camp south of Ivarstead. This video will show the exact location of the camp.
20 After meeting at Ivarstead and dismissing, Gorr will head to the Silver-Blood Inn in Markarth
30 This stage will unlock the above mentioned options and set Gorr to wander to the following locations:

  • Sundas – Anga’s Mill
  • Morndas – Orotheim
  • Tirdas – Hela’s Folly
  • Middas – Morthal
  • Turdas – Broken Tower Redoubt
  • Fredas – Whiterun Drunken Huntsman
  • Loredas – Clearpine Pond

Pit Dogs
After reaching stage 30 of his wander quest, Pit Dogs will be available by talking to Zora Fair-Child, or by bringing Zora to Gorr and speaking with him. The quest has two possible outcomes, as well variable rewards determined by the dialogue choices.

Pit Dogs (Gorrquest)
Stage Information
1 Help Zora find Gorr. This stage will be skipped if Zora is brought to Gorr and he is spoken to.
20 Gorr makes a reference to the Ivarstead conversation, that someone is casting aspersions on his character. Zora mentions a suspicious character headed toward Whiterun.
30 At the Drunken Huntsman, the player is introduced to J’Sharr, who is the character mentioned in Gorr’s marriage request dialogue. He mentions an underground pit fighting ring in Fort Sungard, and asks the group to attend his match.
40 J’Sharr will proceed to poison the Dragonborn. The PC will wake up in a cage, after which J’Sharr will quickly free the PC and usher him/her to the pits.
70 After watching Gorr defeat a combatant, the player has the opportunity to mingle. 3 NPCs, Valenor, Ignatius and the Fair Lady will have conversation strings. Talking to the Fair Lady will advance the quest.
75 The PC is partnered with J’Sharr and must battle 2 Alik’r Warriors in the Pit. Before the fight, J’Sharr attempts to fool the player with faulty math, at which point he/she can call him on his mistake, deny payment for the fight, or accept the amount J’Sharr says the PC will win.
100 After defeating the warriors, J’Sharr provides a key to the exit and reveals Zora can be found at Skytemple Ruins. Through Gorr’s dialogue, the option will be given to kill J’Sharr now, or prioritize rescuing Zora. This will affect the outcome of the quest.
105 Killing J’Sharr immediately will result in a delay that ends Zora’s life. Eliminating her killers will end the quest.
110 It is revealed Zora did not have a match, but was sold to a necromancer. If J’Sharr is ignored she can be saved.
135 The group returns to the Pit to find out information on J’Sharr’s whereabouts. The player can progress the quest by convincing Valenor you want to make a deal or bribing the Fair Lady.
140 J’Sharr’s location is revealed to be Orotheim. In the cave, the player finds a Khajiit and three henchmen, along with any bandits generated by the vanilla game.
200 Upon killing the Khajiit, a scene will trigger and the quest will complete.

Notes: J’Sharr is the Khajiit mentioned in Gorr’s marriage dialogue and his initial foray to Ivarstead. The Khajiit in the cave bears a striking resemblance to J’Sharr, but is unnamed for a reason. It is unlikely that J’Sharr would be careless enough to trust the player or divulge the information to the Fair Lady, and it is implied he escaped. Killing J’Sharr is possible if the PC is willing to sacrifice Zora.  Zora’s death, however, will result in breaking a number of quests with which she is involved in.

For more information about Gorr, check out his character profile here.

Quest Profiles – On Antagonists

Kris Takahashi Character Profiles 2 Comments

The Evil and the Evilish

The NPCs in the mod come from all sorts of places.  There are traditional archetypes, personal stories, specific philosophies, or just random people I’ve met in my life.  Then there’s Nelos.  Nelos was inspired by bacteria.

When we talk about drug-resistant bacteria, the word resistant is a bit of a misnomer.  There are no armies of bacteria parrying blows from white blood cells, slowly leveling up to Final Fantasy victory music as they move inexorably toward your vital organs.  No, resistance is a handful of bacteria who happened to be born with just enough of a mutation to make your medicine ineffective.  Even the term evolution implies a modicum of strength.  When in fact, it’s really just dumb luck.

You would be hard pressed to call Nelos’ resistance the same.  Inside his personal Tamrielic Petri dish, greater and greater magics are developed in order to fight off the armies of darkness.  Whether your aim is to harm or heal, the urgency is what drives progress, and there is nothing more urgent than life and death.

When crafting a villain, I find a realistic motivation to be the most important factor.  Nelos (Corey Hall) has a bit of god complex, but his objective is ultimately magnanimous:  he wants to usher in a new age.  A utopia.  Somewhere, at the end of this dark, vacuous tunnel, is a septim of light, a day when spells are made that will make all roads lead to Aetherius.  After all, we’re past the days of making baddies who are evil for evil’s sake.

Or so I thought.  Then, about a week later, I decided to make one.

Marigoth, the witch, who was voiced by Lila Paws and will be featured in v2.22, was inspired by Nelos. Or rather, she was a response to all the moral ambiguity and realism that I instilled in the previous antagonists. When I found myself traversing down a similar road with A Children Fair, I screamed a couple expletives, clicked CTRL+A and pounded my fist on the delete key before wiping the cookie crumbs from my screen.

The original Marigoth was too wise, too sympathetic, too…believable.  Just as fashion and music comes and goes in cycles, so does fiction. We may crave realistic villains now, but we are a fickle species, and tomorrow we may want bell bottoms and big hair and villains that are both irredeemable and cartoonish, just like we did before we changed our minds the first time.

As such, I made Marigoth a caricature. A Disney villain. And it turned out far better than I could have envisioned, given my only goal was to be different.

Which ultimately has been the way I’ve approached every NPC after the first one. By constantly comparing the new characters to the ones I’ve previously made, I think I’ve been able to achieve some measure of originality.  Which is all originality really is. Taking the old stuff and adding a slight mutation, and praying to Darwin the text survives the antibiotics.