[mod request/idea] Evil Anomen. very mild spoilers
SurrealGoblin
Member Posts: 1
in BGII:EE Mods
Hello! This is my first post on the forums, if I've formatted my post incorrectly or anything like that, please let me know, so I can do better next time.
I put my time in BG as a little person, and have recently discovered both the EE and mods. I don't have even the slightest idea of how mods work, but I am really grateful for the wonderful work that so many of you have put into this game. I know most of you are probably working on your own projects, and SOD will (hopefully) take a lot of the modding energy pretty soon here, but here goes anyway.
So, I was thinking about how if you convince Anomen to become a murderer, after he fails his knighthood he is very angry and mentions wanting to kill everyone inside. He says this right outside the radiant heart building if I am remembering correctly.
Since you can't do Dorn's quest with Anomen in the party, at this point you have either rejected Dorn, haven't talked to him, did his quest before recruiting Anomen, or killed him. If you rejected him, or haven't talked to him, here he is planning how he is going to kill everyone inside the Headquarters of the Radiant Heart, and lo, some man is talking to someone he knows is a murder-child about it. Ur'Gothoz works in mysterious ways.
So at this point, Dorne interjects, and Charname is able to 1: disengage and continue the game as normal (no red wedding, Anomen is CN) 2: fight Dorn (no red wedding ever, Anomen is CN) or 3: recruit Dorn. If Dorn and Anomen remain in party after potentially needing to reform the party, then (red wedding, Anomen is CE) If Anomen is kicked out (no Anomen ever again, this is a really vulnerable time for him) Maybe some way of doing this with no Dorn.
That could be that, add in some banters with NPCs and conversations with Charname where Anomen processes his complete failure at everything that has ever mattered to him and kills the high horse he fell off of. Maybe a series of banters between Dorn and Anomen where they wax poetic about vengeance and become something like friends.
Another level of work would be adding an Anomen romance tract so that it could continue to exist, which would almost certainly include patricide
Yet another level of work would be that the Great Guard would absolutely not give a mass murdering failed knight magical powers. So Anomen loses his divine powers, and there is a side quest where he finds a new Patron to regain them (is losing cleric divine powers even a thing that can happen?). I don't like that this would happen in addition to his already existing questline, because I wouldn't want him to be too much fancier than other NPCs. I also don't like that he would unavoidably be significantly weaker for the duration. Perhaps he could take to venerating Ur'Gothoz.
Alternatively, for the most work of all, all of this could just be an aside/entry into working with Anarg and Reynald de Chatillon. The Anomen's new patron could be resolved near the beginning of this, esp if the Fallen Paladins are religious (maybe Talona or Loviatar?)
Instead of accessing the Fallen Paladins quest from the Radiant Heart, either Anarg would send someone to find the people who attacked the RH (if Dorn's quest is done with or without Anomen) or by wandering into the bridge district. It would include actually fighting through to get the cup.
This could lead into a questline where you do evil things, have a hostile take over of the Copper Cornet that opens up the store while keeping Lehtinen around, and results in a Blackguard stronghold?
Thoughts? Ideas? TLDR?
I put my time in BG as a little person, and have recently discovered both the EE and mods. I don't have even the slightest idea of how mods work, but I am really grateful for the wonderful work that so many of you have put into this game. I know most of you are probably working on your own projects, and SOD will (hopefully) take a lot of the modding energy pretty soon here, but here goes anyway.
So, I was thinking about how if you convince Anomen to become a murderer, after he fails his knighthood he is very angry and mentions wanting to kill everyone inside. He says this right outside the radiant heart building if I am remembering correctly.
Since you can't do Dorn's quest with Anomen in the party, at this point you have either rejected Dorn, haven't talked to him, did his quest before recruiting Anomen, or killed him. If you rejected him, or haven't talked to him, here he is planning how he is going to kill everyone inside the Headquarters of the Radiant Heart, and lo, some man is talking to someone he knows is a murder-child about it. Ur'Gothoz works in mysterious ways.
So at this point, Dorne interjects, and Charname is able to 1: disengage and continue the game as normal (no red wedding, Anomen is CN) 2: fight Dorn (no red wedding ever, Anomen is CN) or 3: recruit Dorn. If Dorn and Anomen remain in party after potentially needing to reform the party, then (red wedding, Anomen is CE) If Anomen is kicked out (no Anomen ever again, this is a really vulnerable time for him) Maybe some way of doing this with no Dorn.
That could be that, add in some banters with NPCs and conversations with Charname where Anomen processes his complete failure at everything that has ever mattered to him and kills the high horse he fell off of. Maybe a series of banters between Dorn and Anomen where they wax poetic about vengeance and become something like friends.
Another level of work would be adding an Anomen romance tract so that it could continue to exist, which would almost certainly include patricide
Yet another level of work would be that the Great Guard would absolutely not give a mass murdering failed knight magical powers. So Anomen loses his divine powers, and there is a side quest where he finds a new Patron to regain them (is losing cleric divine powers even a thing that can happen?). I don't like that this would happen in addition to his already existing questline, because I wouldn't want him to be too much fancier than other NPCs. I also don't like that he would unavoidably be significantly weaker for the duration. Perhaps he could take to venerating Ur'Gothoz.
Alternatively, for the most work of all, all of this could just be an aside/entry into working with Anarg and Reynald de Chatillon. The Anomen's new patron could be resolved near the beginning of this, esp if the Fallen Paladins are religious (maybe Talona or Loviatar?)
Instead of accessing the Fallen Paladins quest from the Radiant Heart, either Anarg would send someone to find the people who attacked the RH (if Dorn's quest is done with or without Anomen) or by wandering into the bridge district. It would include actually fighting through to get the cup.
This could lead into a questline where you do evil things, have a hostile take over of the Copper Cornet that opens up the store while keeping Lehtinen around, and results in a Blackguard stronghold?
Thoughts? Ideas? TLDR?
2
Comments
As for Darkside Anomen
We were thinking having him turn to Talos (since their temple is right there) once Helm abandons him. I had an option I was working on for Dorn turning him toward his patron as well, but probably better if that one never sees the light of day since when I start writing for evil characters it gets really evil and it got more disturbing than is probably good to make public.
Anyways in Darkside Anomen he'll have a friendship that will be the same as his romance without the Romance (similar to the style of the Viconia Friendship Mod). If you take him to the end of his SoA Failed Test romance/friendship we'd have an option where instead of Anomen leaving forever if you help him kill his father you can help him cover up the murder and become Lord, at which point he'd turn Neutral Evil. And then we can go from there.
Also, I do not see Anomen giving in to pure bloodlust as it would be needed to go that route of slaughtering every one in the Order, especially with Dorn together.
Anomen is angry, yes, he is frustrated and feels humiliated, yes, but he is also very sensible to other people's views on him and what they expect (I mean "sensible" not in the sense of caring, selfless, but "sensible" in the way of people who are rejected as children learn to sense what others want of them), and, even if failing his test and being angry with the whole world, deep down he still is a hurt soul that wants to do the "right" thing. The question is, what he sees as this "right thing" that he wants to do, because *that* is shifting after failing his test.
What I could imagine is that he develops a hatred against anything that has to do with the Order or clerics of Helm (he wouldn't confront Helm, though, he is not a fool to cross a god directly, but making life hard(er) for Helm's followers would be an option). I could imagine him plotting against the Order, trying to sabotate things, trying to overly spread the word of his new diety, decline any help for Helm clerics, happily supporting the fallen paladins, maybe also kill an Order knight if it's part of something he sees is necessary to achieve some "greater goal". But to go into the Order and just slaughter everyone who happens to be around - for this to happen, he would have to give in to his anger completely, to give himself up completely. After which he wouldn't be able to follow as a normal (yet evil) party member any more, imho, as it would break him.
@BCaesar I like your outline very much, because it scetches an Anomen that could come out of this with a new-found self-respect - if that is the right word. He would no longer be just a helpless, driven soul in search of his freedom, but a noble with power and and a lot of anger to drive him, if it makes sense.
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The forum edit function just *ate* my post!
I typed a long post about why I don't see Anomen going all blood-sheddy but rather evil with a barely taimed anger that would drive him to do a lot of things but not go around and kill anyone connected to his failed life plan.
Also, that I don't see Dorn and Anomen becoming buddies just because Anomen's former life goal didn't work out.
But I don't have much experience with neither CN Anomen nor Dorn, I have to admit.
@BCaesar I like your outline because it gives Anomen the possibility to come out of this with a newly found self-respect, if it's the right word. At the same time his deeds will haunt him so that he will try to mute the bad consciousness by going the evil path with no return.
So finally Anomen gets out of his father's shadow completely, finishes the job and becomes Lord of the Manor. He wouldn't be evil-evil, but he would basically be out for himself at that point (done with the order, done with his family). No more guilt, no more shame, time to be as great as he always wanted to be. We'd have to go through all his interjections, but most of the banters/interjections for him once he's failed his test would continue to fit just fine.
Helm would abandon him so he'd need a new Temple, but he wouldn't do anything particularly evil to become a priest of Talos (the high priestess says Talos is not really evil anyways, just powerful like a storm) and when he's finished with that we can give him his XP/WIS bonuses.
We could add a few minor quest things of him trying to rebuild his family's name and fortune. Nothing outwardly evil though because he'd want to stay within the Law and build the good name of his family (he'd basically be Lawful Evil, but I can't make him Lawful Evil because some of Anomen's triggers inToB I believe use his alignment: Lawful or Chaotic to determine if he passed or failed his test, and I don't want to have to find and edit them all, so I'd make him Neutral Evil).
http://gibberlings3.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=26420&page=1&#entry223743
When you create the mod be sure changing Anomen alignment to something else than Lawful Good, Lawful Neutral or Chaotic Neutral will lead to NO VALID REPLIES OR LINKS if Anomen is in the party and you have NPC Strongholds mod installed. Hope you figure out the fix for that.