Want to be a famous Bard? This mod allows you to play the bard and earn money performing ballads in taverns and elsewhere. Also, join The Bards Guild and get involved in some epic adventures.
WHAT THIS MOD DOES:
This mod adds a whole series of bardic quests to the game, including two from random commoners that point to a local tavern that needs a bard to perform a ballad... each giving your PC the chance to randomly perform one of three different ballads. Also includes some similar quests available from the Bards Guild that again provide the chance to randomly perform one of two-to-three different ballads, but this time in local taverns, regional taverns, regional palaces and even regional strongholds. The Bards Guild will also offer more adventurous quests that don't involve performing at all, ranging from retrieving stolen or lost rare ballads to finding missing bards or helping Imperial Talent Scouts finding a potential new Imperial Bard.
The quality of a ballad's performance will be judged by your audience and depend on a mix of chance and your PC's Personality level (that being the prime attribute for bards)... and will be suitably rewarded with the appropriate monetary gain or a barrage of boos and a face-full of rotten tomatoes. Although Bard characters will have an easier time with this mod, being a Bard is not necessary. A good Personality score will be handy though, and will allow you to make a steady alternative income for your character by performing ballads. Ask around any new town you come to and you will soon be pointed to a tavern in need of bardic entertainment or to the guild itself.
The 24 ballads included in this mod (with a few very slight edits by me) were originally intended for the bards in the game but never used. I thought it would be nice to make them available so made this mod to do just that. A numbered copy of the ballads performed by your PC will be added to their inventory on completion of most quests. Obviously, all of these quests will have to be done numerous times to get a copy of each ballad available through them. NB: they are also all available from shops and lootpiles etc... the hunt is on. Can you get a full set of 24?
THE BARDS GUILD:
Faction Data:
Social Group = Commoner
Parent faction = The Bards
Allies = The Fighters Guild and The Mages Guild (rep with these guilds will increase slightly with every successful Bards Guild quest)
Enemies = None
Minimum Personality: Ranks: Benefits:
PER-NA: N: Wannabe: access none member quest.
PER-45: 0: Apprentice: access Guild quests and training.
PER-50: 1: Journeyman: access the library.
PER-55: 2: Fellow: access the guild at any time and be able to rest within the guild.
PER-60: 3: Bard: get free magicka recharge.
PER-65: 4: Balladeer: able to buy spells.
PER-70: 5: Master: able to make spells.
PER-75: 6: Professor: access spy master.
PER-80: 7: Prefect: identify magic items for a fee.
PER-85: 8: Dean: buy magic items.
PER-90: 9: Grand Master: identify magic items for free.
List of preferred skills for ranking and also those that can be trained at The Bards Guild:
Streetwise,
Etiquette,
Jumping,
Climbing,
Stealth,
Dodging,
Lockpicking,
Pickpocket,
HandToHand,
ShortBlade,
Alteration,
Destruction,
Thaumaturgy,
Illusion.
The Bards Guild can be found in many large towns and cities. I'm using two buildings present in two of the fighters guild blocks (one just north-east for the Fighters Guild and one east of the Fighter Trainers in the desert regions) so should be fairly common and easy to find. Although they look like houses, they have been converted to a guild hall and have new guild signs outside (front and back - with thanks to Zoran and King of Worms - HD versions available with the latest DREAM textures mod if you use it).
QUESTS:
name, group, membership, minReq, flag, notes:
BARDS000, Commoners, N, 0, 0, a local tavern is looking for a bard to perform ballads one two or three
BARDS001, Commoners, N, 0, 0, a local tavern is looking for a bard to perform ballads four five or six
BARDS002, GGroup12, N, 0, 0, help a local bard find a rare original ballad stolen by a rival
BARDS003, GGroup12, M, 0, 0, a local tavern is looking for a bard to perform ballads seven eight or nine
BARDS004, GGroup12, M, 0, 0, a regional tavern is looking for a bard to perform ballads ten eleven or twelve
BARDS005, GGroup12, M, 1, 0, a regional palace noble is looking for a bard to perform ballads thirteen fourteen or fifteen
BARDS006, GGroup12, M, 1, 0, a tavern is hosting a party of adventurers/orcs and needs a bard to perform ballads sixteen or seventeen
BARDS007, GGroup12, M, 2, 0, fill in for a regionally famous bard by performing ballad eighteen or find rare original stolen by a rival
BARDS008, GGroup12, M, 2, 0, a regional Stronghold warlord is looking for a bard to perform ballads nineteen or twenty
BARDS009, GGroup12, M, 3, 0, help a regionally famous bard by finding one of two possible legendary original ballads lost in a dungeon
BARDS010, GGroup12, M, 4, 0, try out for a famous balladeer with ballads twenty one or twenty two or find a bard who can
BARDS011, GGroup12, M, 5, 0, try out for an imperial talent scout with ballads twenty three or twenty four or find a missing bard who can
Most of these quests have randomized elements making them eminently re-playable. A couple of them are fairly epic in scale... and involve a lot of searching, traveling, dialog and adventuring. One of the quests features a very special guest-starring role for the supernatural being called The Fey (another asset intended for the original game, but never used). The most successful performances will provide a substantial though temporary boost to your REP in the region for one or two days (mainly with certain commoners, merchants and sometimes nobles and other Groups (+20) - plus a smaller legal REP boost (+10) to hopefully make Guards slightly more forgiving during the brief afterglow of your stellar performance). 10% of each of these boosts (+2 to Group REPs and +1 to Legal REP) will have permanent affect however. This makes Personality a much more viable Attribute in which to invest your valuable leveling up points.
VERSION HISTORY:
Version 1.0: Initial release for play-testing.
Version 1.1: Expands the Bards Guild in Hammerfell by adding a new guildhall east of the Fighter Trainers in some desert towns. Successful performances now give a REP boost in the region. Plus other quest refinements.
DOWNLOAD: from Nexus https://www.nexusmods.com/daggerfallunity/mods/561! The Soldier's Luxury compatibility file is NOT needed for v1.1.
HOW TO INSTALL & PLAY:
Unzip the downloaded file directly into your "StreamingAssets" folder (Vortex should do this automatically) or paste the unzipped "Books" "Mods" "Questpacks" and "WorldData" folders manually into the "StreamingAssets" folder.
The file paths should end up as...
"StreamingAssets/Books",
"StreamingAssets/Books/Mapping".
"StreamingAssets/Mods",
"StreamingAssets/QuestPacks/Harbinger451/BardsAndBaladeers Quests",
"StreamingAssets/WorldData",
NB: If you are updating from v1.0 just overwrite when requested and DELETE one file that is no longer needed, namely FIGHAA00.RMB.json in the "StreamingAssets/WorldData" folder.
The commoner quests are added to the pool of quests that come up naturally when talking to commoner NPCs... the taverns and inns are probably a good place to start. Talk to everyone. The books will randomly appear in the usual shops and in loot piles, as well as through the quests. The Guild quests become available when you join (though there is one none member guild quest) and rank up as with any other guild
FUTURE PLANS:
I plan to add a few more quests at some point, and I'm hoping to integrate various new Bard NPCs and musical instruments that will be introduced in a soon to be released Daggerfall Expanded Textures update... so this mod will then require that one to run.
PROBLEMS & CONFLICTS:
At the moment, this will conflict with the Cities Overhaul mod. Compatibility files for use with that mod might be provided at a later date if enough people request it. In the meantime, make sure this mod loads after that one. As far as I can tell there should be no compatibility problems with the Fixed Desert Architecture mod, if I'm wrong please let me know. I may have to look at compatibility with the Transparent Windows mod too, but I have no experience with that mod atm so bare with me regards making it compatible with that if needed.
Any other guild/faction mod that uses the guild group emun GGroup12 and/or the faction emums 1310-1316 inclusively will conflict with this one... though no current mods are known to do so.
The only other guild mods out there at the moment are the Archaeologists mod, The Red Lantern Guild and the Love And Lust mod... all of which should be fully compatible with this one.
If you come across any problems or mistakes please leave a comment on the appropriate Nexus or Daggerfall Workshop Forums page. Ask yourself whether it can be considered a feature before reporting it as a bug.
NOTE: The placement of NPCs by the quests in this mod is beyond my control. When going to a tavern to talk to an NPC placed by this mod remember that they could be anywhere in the tavern - in the the bar, in a room or in the attic space. The location is random and dictated by the vanilla quest system so the placement is not always logical - just go with it.
Comments and suggestions are welcome.
SCREENSHOTS:
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