Brainstorming Time

[Da_venom]

sounds interesting:P

what about the invisible ones or how they call them forgot it 
the mind flayer in the sewers i always wanted to know what was about that

maybe they could be related to the twisted rune since both might be powerful hidden factions

or something like that

[NiGHTMARE]

The slavers are going to be heavily expanded upon in the Lands of Intrigue mod, and in fact there will be two seperate paths in the quest: either working for them, or against them.  The Hidden and the sewer mind flayers will also be involved in a couple of quests in the mod.  We're not doing much with the Twisted Rune in SoA, other than to add a couple of vague hints about their involvement in certain things, and to have someone ask the PC to go and kill them.  They will, however, make a re-appearance in the ToB portion of the mod .

For more info, see the quest & storyling altering mod list .  It goes without saying if you dislike spoilers, don't visit this page!

[Caedwyr]

@Da Venom: I was actually hoping to reduce the number of things that the Twisted Rune is involved in, since "The twisted rune is behind everything" tends to end up being a bit lame.  That's why I wanted you to only be able to figure out their involvement after the fact, and if possible, to eliminate the connection with the Skinner.  The nice thing about a limited infiltration of the Slavers that you only find out after the fact, is that it allows for major quests involving the Slavers in other mods without ruining them, or the modified Twisted Rune content. 

[SimDing0™]

Yeh, I like those ideas, although I'm not sure how some of the details could be made apparent to the player (I'm not too keen on overuse of letters as plot devices). I'm also not sure if somebody's interested in putting the Twisted Rune stuff in UB, since it is kinda Bioware restoration.

[Caedwyr]

What you could do is alter one of the items you loot off the body of the player, so it's identified description may note something about a possible tie-in with the twisted rune.  Another option could be to have a note in the Twisted Rune area which lists a set of unique equipment that a certain infiltrator is using, has been issued and have those items show up on one of the enemies in the Slavers compound.  More on this later.

Now is later:  I recall that one of the fighters in the Twisted Rune encounter doesn't have very good gear.  If there was some way to allude to the fact that some of his normal gear is being used by one of the infiltrators, such as the guy weilding the Celestial Fury that could be the tie-in.  That may be a bit too heavy handed, so you could also have some sort of item requisition list keeping inventory of what types of items have been issued.  Another thing that could be done, is have one of the Twisted Rune members make a comment about how when this is done, they'll have to make sure that their agent didn't allow them to be traced back there.  I don't really like this one, since normally Twisted Rune agents don't even know that they are working for the Twisted Rune.

Another idea, would be to do something with the empty potion bottles.  Perhaps there could be some empty potion bottles found in the Twisted Rune chamber, as well as some full ones of the same type.  It could be some sort of drug which is used to give the slaves more energy so they can work harder, while depressing their spirits so they consider their situation more hopeless (idea stolen from Robin Hobb's Farseer novels).  You could add the description to the bottle(s) found in the Slaver's Compound, possibly add some sort of dialogue, or clue that the agent had recently 'obtained' some of this drug, and find that the source of the drug is with the Twisted Rune who are supplying their infiltrator.

Another thing that could be done, is to have the person who meets you ask you who you got that rogue stone from, with possible responses including the one which provides the linkage.  Perhaps have the response to the "I got it from the guy in the Guarded Compound" answer be something like "I see....", (or another response which hints at a connection with the guy who drops the rogue stone there) while the response to the other answers are something like "Just a random fool blundering where they have no business being".

[Caedwyr]

Updated previous post..

[Da_venom]

hmm sounds like a good idea but still...shouldn't it be a major quest to find out what the twisted rune is?
if mean you could tie link up some sort of stuff but it doesn't give a motive to what the twisted rune is..

would be much more fun if you would find out what the twisted rune is and does and why it effects so many in amn

else you would have a quest with no luggage a broken end to my opninion

[Xaos_Bob]

What about the black lotus situation hinted at in the back rooms at the Coronet and that one odd-duck encounter at the Gate? Shadow Thief doings, slavers, Bodhi, or some fourth power group? There's potential to expand that.

Too, there is the Temple of Oghma in the Docks. The puzzling thing about it, the only other place where one finds a temple of the god of knowledge and glyphs is in Candlekeep, in BG1. Yet, here, nothing is unusual, not really.

And, though it has potential to be more humorous than serious, it would make sense for Volo to make an appearance somewhere, since he has a knack of being where the action is (as he demonstrated in BG1).

[GoblinZ]

2. When sent off to find Jaylos and Caehan, could you be accepted by Gracen, see J + C get taken away by vampires for mysterious purposes, and then fight off Gracen/vampires?

I actually implemented something whereby you convince Gracen that you're the defectors, and meet him down in Bodhi's lair, by which point Bodhi's told him who you are, so he just attacks you. Seeing as it just extended what should have been the best path to be more tiresome and involve more area changing, it didn't receive terribly positive responses from testers, and so the code's commented out.

Why not have Gracen take you to the middle of the vampire HQ, only to be noticed by one of the higher-up vampires, then having a tough mass fight clearing the area without visiting Aran in between the quests?
If only some more stakes were available at Bodhi's... *wink* *wink*

Of course it´d be necessary to have the option to blow your cover after managing the intitial encounter with Gracele at the Flagons-5, just in case you don´t feel like getting vampirized to oblivion at the point and time.
However for an experienced party it´d provide a nice way of clearing the quests faster and with a touch more of an challenge.