The Elder Council V2.3 (Cyrodiil Upgrade)

Requires = The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.
Requires = OBLIVION PATCH v1.2
Requires = Shivering Isles v1.2
Requires = Cyrodiil Upgrade Resource Pack V1.8
Link to CURP http://www.theengineeringguild.co.uk/cyrodiil-upgrade-resource-pack-curp

Download

Available from the Download area on the forum for all registered members. 

Other Documentation

The Elder Council Quest Guide

The Elder Council Mod Guide

To my Supporters.

I made this mod as a thank you to those of you who supported me during march and april 2008. I hope you enjoy the mod :)

Installation:

From version 1.9 onwards The Elder Council Mod comes in a single archive and requires Cyrodiil Upgrade Resource Pack to work. This means it is now much easier to install.

Just extract the zip in to your oblivion folder, that is the folder with the Oblivion.exe inside it.
NOT THE OBLIVION DATA FOLDER AND NOT MY DOCUMENTS!

About The Elder Council Mod (Rewritten for 1.5).

The Elder Council 1.5 is now feature complete, all original ideas planned for it have been finished and only new ideas that I will add at my leasure later have been excluded. This is as close to finished as my mods get. Enjoy.

The Elder Council mod is a lore mod and covers many different areas of Elder Scrolls lore, as many as the Empire it self touches, which is basically everything. Most of its 500+ lines of recorded dialog are given over to Lore based information you can listen too by talking to NPCs added by the mod. Even the quests tell lore based stories.

Generally speaking The Elder Council Mod does for the Empire what Origin of the mages guild did for the Arcane university. It total revamps palace, adding missing departments and extra lore based content so the palace becomes an important part of your game and a useful place to visit. It features a Lore masters office that contains audio descriptions of every septim emperor. It contains province offices that contain audio briefings on current events in other provinces, it contains a Guilds and Charters offices that will present you with audio briefings on the history of the Mages Guild, Fighters Guild, The Order of the Black worm and the Psijic Order and allow new players to get a feel for all those organizations. And that is just background information the mod provides inside the palace that teaches you about the world your playing in.

There is also a Department of Justice and Census and Excise office within the palace where you can join the legion and rise up its ranks by performing legion duties or you can collect taxes for the Empire and serve it that way. Both are these are jobs you can do for life, without ever taking on a single official quest or adventure, so yes you can role play a dry old tax collector with no personality now if you wish. Or you can walk the roads between cities on patrol keeping the citizens safe from harm as an honest legioneer. Or you can cheat and claim you did it as a corrupt legioneer.

Several of the rooms that should exist such as the throne room and emporers quarters were also added back to the palace in this mod and it was all done without me having to edit the Main plot or Heist quests, so this mod is a lot more compatible that it should be given that the whole palace is one big quest location and there for a very difficult place to mod safely. Yet this mod does it :)

The mod adds several quests including a short Main Plot that takes you on a journey though Southern Nibenay lore, Elsweyr lore and Valenwood Lore before it ends. An interesting story to be sure and one that allows you to take part in "The wild hunt" ritual (valenwood version). So before the main plot ends, you will have had an introduction to a lot of lore based material from the south of Tamriel. I personally find it all very interesting so im sure you will too.

The mod adds an Imperial rank system to the game that rates your importance to the Empire based on the quests you completed both from this mod and from the original game. Promoting you as you earn more and more points towards your next rank. But it does not insist you do beths quests to earn those points, you can do the repeatable quest in this mod and work your way up the ranks that way without EVER even starting the main plot for Oblivion. So by the time you actually save Kvatch, you might already be Duke of Colovia. It is entirely your choice how you get promoted, I simply provide several ways for you to do it.

Using the Imperial Rank system you can rise to become Duke of Colovia and even get your self a small room in the palace. Also it is possible to detect certain TEC ranks in other mods so Kvatch Aftermath for example can know when you finally become Duke of Colovia and impliment new features if I add any. Just like any true Cyrodiil Upgrade mod should work. This is actually a much cooler feature than it sounds. In fact its the one I am most excited about.

The mod also supports good and bad players via its Nobility or Corruption system. If your good, you earn Nobility points and rise up the ranks of the Empire faster and more interesting quests become available sooner, if your bad, your rise up the ranks is slower but you earn more money and jobs like Drug dealer open up to you, plus a little fraud on the side. Again it is your choice, be good, be bad, the mod rewards good role playing either way.

This system gives you secret bonuses behind the scenes without warning as a way of rewarding good replay. So if you suddenly find your self getting promoted for no reason, that is why.

A new TEC secrets idea is being explored in this mod as a way of passing on tips to players without exposing my self to the flaming that always follows supporting any players in public. TEC now gives hints about the mod that will help you get the most out of it, these tips come from my private forum guides but are not a complete set of tips. Your getting the 10cents tour version here.

These messages only appear once so pay attention or you may miss them.

The elder council mod also adds the Valenwood city of Arenthia as a bonus, complete with local clans, priests, cultists, shops, guilds and special arenthian equipement, an elven sector in the trees and an imperial sector on the ground. Fancy a swim ? Got the money to pay to get in ? Why not visit the Arenthia baths, if not theres a big dirty pond in the middle of the town you can swim in with the other peasants. Just be warned, the baths are mixed sex paths and the NPCs do remove their cloths to use the baths, so if you have any body mods installed, this feature may become X rated suddenly. Currently it is PG and safe, again your choice, install the body mods, get nude NPCs, do not install the body mods, get the PG rated version. Child friendly all the way if other mods are not installed that change these things.

Arenthia is to be my pet project and will develope more in time but right now it is fully functional and at least as developed as most of Beths cities, plus there is some unique items on sale in the shops whos capabilities may not always be on display. Using them is the only true test.

IMPORTANT:

The Second Door leading up the door is locked for a reason. Do not try and open it, behind that door is Beths original quest areas for the Heist, every door in those areas triggers stage 75 of the heist early. So if you unlock that door and explore beyond it, you will totally screw up the heist quest and will cause the guards in this mod to assume your tresspassing all the time. So do not go beyond that door unless your doing the heist quest.

Also the its best to increase the view distance for trees in your game options if you intend to use Arenthia because Arenthia has a lot of trees and some are so big you can almost touch them before they pop in to view if you do not.

Lore Issues

Titus Mede is a character that appears in the Book "The Infernal City". At the time of writing the only information we have on him is that he became Emperor after defeating Ebbar Olin. So TEC 2.3 had to use a great deal of artistic license to put him on the Imperial throne. The timing is roughly correct, he is crowned Emperor fairly early on in the 4th Era and the events Titus is worried about are also described in the book the "The Infernal City". But my source is the Imperial Library because I have not read the book at the time of writing. The Imperial City usually deals only in facts so I tend to trust the site to be Loreful at all times and not wander in to "wishful thinking land" as the wiki often does.

I also believe I got the background problems of the crowning correct and will be looking in to them in more detail in the future.

Compatibility issues.

Streamline and repeatable quests.

Streamline function Kill Corpses seems to cause a miscount for the number of dead corpses in repeatable quests so leave that function turned off. This bug will effect all my mods including Kvatch Aftermath, Fighters Guild Contracts, Origin of the mages guild, The Necromancer as well as The Elder Council, so its a bad idea to have it turned on if you use anything I have made. Reports indicate that only the kill corpses function is a problem, so if the makers of streamline fix his in the future, I would be grateful if somebody lets me know so i can update these docs. Thanks to FatGiant, EK and Hanzo The Razor for identifying this issue and finding the cure. Well done guys :)

Change log

This is where all the new features are listed along with the version they where added in.

Version 1
Changed the lighting in the Elder Council Chambers 
Corrected the spelling on various items.
Renamed some locations and NPCs to make them sound more official
Added a Monday/Wednesday/Friday Full Council Meeting between 10am and 2pm.
Added some eye candy effects for the Full Council Meeting between 10am and 2pm.
Added random council briefings between 10.30am and 1.30pm.
Fixed a few floating carpets.

Version 1.1
Fixed a few issues with carpets
Added the Join the legion quest
Added the Dishonourable discharge quest (Tec Temple of the One Mod needed)
Added a new Crook rating to gage the players corruption level to support the new corruption features.
Added several Patrol Quests for the Legion
Added some Rat Infestation Quests for the Legion
Added Promotions for the Legion with benefits at each level.
Added a new corruption system to allow the player to be corrupt and benefit from being corrupt.
Added a new Nobility points system so you can start earning points towards the Duke title right away.
Palace Armour copied and renamed to Dress Armour and awarded to the player when he reached the rank of Captain in the legion.
Added a new NPC called Judge Advocate General as the final Councilor to handle the higher rank quests within the legion.
Various clipping and spelling fixes.

Version 1.1.1
Fixed the missing join the legion trigger that seems to have been broken in the last release preventing people from joining the legion.

Version 1.2
Misc Fixes
Added new Legion and guard greetings within the palace.
Added Lore info for all Septim Emporers (over 133 mp3 files on game lore)
Added the missing Summerset Isle Office
Added the missing High Roch office.
Added Dialog about Current Events in the provinces some counsilors (game lore).
Added new Legion and Imperial Rank Faction icons
Added new Legion and Imperial Quest icons

Version 1.4 (all 1.3 beta info too)
Now Requires The Shivering Isles.
Created a new Judge Advocate General Quest and then disabled it until the Audio is done.
Created a new world space for Arenthia in Valenwood.
Created the city of Arenthia on the new worldspace.
Much work to do on the new city but the eye candy is there in this version.
Minor changes to fighters guild and mages guild.
Removed the door outside the palace.
Added the missing textures for the bathhouse
Added the missing LOD Meshes that caused the blue texture in the distance.
Arenthia additions for this release....
Created and Decorated the Fighters Guild
Created and Decorated the Mages Guild
Created and Decorated the Camoran Clan Buildings
Created and Decorated the Banchee Clan Buildings
Created and Decorated the Camoran Lodging House
Created and Decorated the Bathhouse
Created and Decorated the Arenthia Guards Barrackers
Several Misc FixesPrivate release.
Arenthia additions for this release....
Created a Weapon Smith in the imperial sector
Created a Alchemist in the imperial sector
Created a Mages shop in the imperial sector
Created the Banchee Bar
Created and Decorated several lower class homes
Created and Decorated the several medium class homes
Several Misc fixes to terrain, clipping and floating objects
Created and Decorated all the tree houses.
Created and decorated the palace.
Created new rear enterence to the palace for future expansion.
Added a day time/night time switch for the city to set up the enviroment according to the time of day.
Added the enviromental audio to the city.
Created all the banners and signs for the various shops, clans, bars and palaces in Arenthia.
Fixed the rat infestation issue with the rats spawning in the wrong area.
Added 98 New NPCs to Artenthia.
Created Banchee faction
Created the Camoran faction
Created the Necromancer Faction
Created the Dagon Shrine Faction
Created the Mages Guild Faction
Created the Fighters Guild Faction
Created a limited Thieves Guild faction.
Misc fixes and other changes, too many to mention here.
Added Undercover Skooma Quest
Added Skooma Dealer Profession (Bonus, enables only after the Quest above is completed successfully).
Adjusted the Guildhall path grid
Added lights to various teleporters
Created a New Census and Excise office Tax collection quest
The Nobility points system has been expanded to include several official quests so you can earn points from them too.
Finished off the Imperial Rank system that promotes the player based on the Nobility points they have earned.
Made various tweaks to the points awarded on TEC quests so TEC quests offer more points than Beth quests.
The Ranking and Nobility system are now fully active and designed to be expanded later, which makes this a very important release.

Version 1.5
Tweaked the Rat Quest again, if those experiencing rat spawning problems find this does not fix it, then I recommend they do a mod reset. I have not been able to duplicate the here in my game since the last fix was made to this quest. But I have added more checks to treble check the right rats are spawning in the right location.
Changed the Drunken Dragon Tax Quest target from the original NPC to a new one I created to solve a "Dark Brotherhood killed the other one before" problem.
Tweaked the Imperial Ranks quest to slowly add the player to other factions as he rises up the imperial rank. Viscount and Count are especially important ranks now.
Added Peasants are Revolting Main Plot Quest.
Added Open Revolt Main Plot Quest.
Added Going Native Main Plot Quest.
Added The Wild Hunt Main Plot Quest.
Decorated the Palace Chapel and set up NPCs to use it on Sundays.
Created the Wild Hunt Shrine.
Created the Lower levels of Arenthia for use with the new Quests.
Tweaked the Nobility system slightly to award points for good role play.
Added new a TEC Secrets feature that popup as a reward for players that play the mod properly.
Removed Palace Faction membership from the Legioneers quests.
Revamped Faction membership to allow other Cyrodiil Upgrade mods to detect specific ranks in TEC.
ImperialWatch = Barron Rank
ICFaction = Count Rank
ICPalaceFaction = Duke
By checking for the players membership in those factions, any mod can detect if the player is one of those ranks in TEC.
Added the Administrators office and NPCS and Dialog (basically created and finished it in one go).
Added misc Imperial rank based messages to the guards.
Customised the stuff on sale in Arenthia Shops.
Added special Arenthia only items to the shops.
Fixed the Normal Maps for signs and banners etc in Arenthia (Core file updated to V3)
Added Rent a bed options to both pubs in Arenthia.
Tweaked both the Banchee and Cameron Barkeepers packages so they use the bed in their own pubs spare room.

Version 1.6
Fixed Balroths Manly hair cut issue, now the guards will address him as Duke when he is a man not Duchess :)
Fixed the missing Colovian Representative room and added some flowers so its easy to spot.
Tweaked the Legion Greetings so other legioneers outside the palace may address you correctly occasionally.
Updated some of Aevens Quest Icons with new blue ones supplied by him.

Version 1.7
Fixed the Cyrodiil Upgrade support that was failing to trigger the Kvatch Aftermath 6.9 Rank Updates correctly.
Adjusted some room ownships to work better at Duch/Duchess rank.

Version 1.8
Fixed the Ocato Greeting so it should not turn the player away anymore when Kvatch Aftermath is not installed.
Added a map of Arenthia to the Map screen.
Added fenses around the raised platforms to stop NPCs falling off.
Remade the Signs Normal maps.
Remade the banners Normal maps
The above fixes stop signs and banners appearing at great distances and looking odd.
Weather was added to Arenthia so it has its own eco system now.
No Local maps generated, I did do it but it came to 500meg so i abandoned the idea.
Added a normal map to the Market place so the stalls do not appear so dark anymore.
Added Armour by Ghogiels
Added Weapons and Armour by Nicoroshi
Tweaked all the Arenthia AIs slightly to make them more believable.
Added some of the new Armour and Weapons to some AIs.
Got the Prison working so the player can be locked up inside Arenthia for breaking the law.
Added IronicEcho animated staffs
Added a Market day with new Merchants on Morndas, Middas and Fredas to see the new weapons, armour and staffs.

Version 1.9
Tec now requires the Cyrodiil Upgrade Resource Pack to work and has been reduced in size by about 80meg as a result.
Tec Armour, Weapons and Staffs now standardized and using Cyrodiil Upgrade Resource Pack versions.
Tec Banners now in the Cyrodiil Upgrade Resource Pack not TEC so they are available to other mods as well.
Tec Shops are now standardized and using the CUO settings.
Tec Necromancers now standardized and using the CUO settings.
Arenthia Palace Guards now wear Ordinator Armour.
Misc other improvements and standardizations.

Version 2.0
Added Euthers Lipsync files directly in to this mod so you no longer need the separate download, thanks Euther :)
Changed the "Legion Onduty" code so either legion helmet will qualify as part of the uniform. Previously only the horse riders helmet was recognised as part of the uniform. This is to support the CUO Leyawiin Legion Fortress features and other Legion Mods that provide the older helmet as part of their own uniform. 

Version 2.1

A Lot of work has been done in this version to support all the Imperial Uniforms of Cyrodiil including the Legion Standard Armour, the Captains Dress Uniform, the Imperial Dragon Armour and a set of Officers Standard Legion Armour that is basically the Standard Armour but with Enchantments (all lore friendly, all known to exist in side cyrodiil and all worn by Imperial forces in cyrodiil). These become available at different times during the TEC or Main Quest so depending on your progress, you will or will not have access to them. The Legion Officer that assigns you patrols in the Department of Justice has new dialog to support these new features and will tell you all about them (in game terms, nothing to break the immersion). Also the rank checks that limited which armour you could wear has been removed. So you can wear any of these if you wish. Finally new greeting for legioneers outside the palace have been added a I believe I found and fixed the missing "good day" greeting.

Version 2.2 (Curp Controller required from this version onwards)

From 2.2 onwards TEC starts to act more like a Brain file sends or recieves the following information with the CURP Controller.

CURPNobilityPoints
CURPcrooked
CURPInTecLegion
CURPTecMQEnded
CURPEmpireRank
; 1= Citizen of the Empire
; 2 = Civil Servant of the Empire
; 3 = Knight of the Realm
; 4 = Baron
; 5 = Baroness
; 6 = Viscount
; 7 = Viscountess
; 8 = Count
; 9 = Countess
; 10 = Marquis
; 11 = Marchioness
; 12 = Duke
; 13 = Duchess

Short CURPLegionRank
; 0 = Trooper or no rank
; 1 = Corporal
; 3 = Sergeant
; 4 = Lieutenant
; 5 = Captain

Removed Ren and Soyas hair from the mod, started using the CURP Controller versions.
TEC now listens for incoming Nobility points added by other mods via the new Curp Controller var CURPNobilityPoints

Version 2.3

Modders Resource Pack (MRC)

You will notice several files install in to a folder called MRCompilation, these are all modders resources either made by my or others. The necromancer also uses this folder but its meshes are placed in different locations so they appear correctly in the CS. However these files are modders resources and if you use them and keep the file structure, do not edit the files you find here. My mods use them and so will yours. So make your own versions of meshes and textures if you need to edit them, put your versions in the MRCompilation folder and you will have contributed to the resource pack idea I have started. When others see that folder they will know its safe to use those files them selves and they too will eventually contribute.

Often mods using these files will over write exiting files in the MRCompilation but as long as no mod maker edits existing files, all mods that need them should work. Thats the idea anyway. And theres not a single BSA or ESM in sight. :D

All you have to do is add them to the editor, the meshes and textures are already setup to work the moment you add the parts you need. Then distribute the parts you use with your own mod and everybody is happy. The credits for the parts used in this mod that where not made by me are below. Everything else is my work or I have forgotten to credit somebody in which case let me know so I can give that person the proper credit.

Credits

Cyrodiil Upgrade Resource Pack Resources used by this mod are Credited at the link below in full.
http://www.novazone.karoo.net/Moddersresources.htm

Modders Resource Pack (MRC) (Obselete now the Cyrodiil Upgrade Resource Pack is out)

Special thanks to the ORE which link or host to most of these.

Ore Website: http://www.moddersofore.com/index.htm

ReTextured Curtains Set1 By PhantomVoid
Mr_Siika = MR_SIIKA's RABBITS
jcd13 = Paper Lanterns on Ropes
Razorwing = RazorwingAgora
Metz = Weapon Display Resource
Raistlin2002 = ORE native Tile Set (Repack of Aezarka Resource Pack)
Raistlin2002 = ORE EL dawnwood set (Repack of Aezarka Resource Pack)
Default (no name) = THERMAE v1.1 (Roman Baths)
Ghogiels = Dwemer, Dreugh and BoneMold Armour.
Nicoroshi_Creations (also known as Nicoroshi) = The Bow of Bones, Doomshard, Spirit Blade, Nico's Dreadweave Axe, Nico's Quinga Bow, Obsidian Axe, Talon of Akatosh, Daes' Rakan Sword and Dreadweave Armor.
IronicEcho = animated staffs
Euther = Lipsync Files

All files found inside any folder named MRCompilation in my mods are Modders Resources where permission has already been given for use in other mods. My own work is to be considered a modders resource too and usable in other mods with my blessing. I have started placing my work for various mods in folders named MRCompilation but it is not that well organized. It is however easily identifyable as free to use due to the folder name. MRCompilation stands for Modders Resource Compilation btw and is my way of following the lead of Silka, Razorwing, Metz and other modders excellent example. Thanks guys :)

Voice actors

Giskard
Mack
Ibsen's Ghost
GreenWarden
Lalwende
Sidflax
Wald Woland
Nowena

Other modders resourses made for this mod.

Thanks to

Aeven = Various Quest, Faction and Rank Icons.
Jannix Quinn = Arenthia Guards Armour & Skeleton Staff
Everything else was made by me, take what you need.