Video Game / Interesting NPCs

Interesting NPCs

Interesting NPCs is an NPC-related mod for Skyrim. It is authored by Kris Takahashi with a sizable group of other users contributing in the form of quests, dialogue and voice acting.

At present time the mod contains over 100 complete characters with extensive dialogue, over eighty of which have been fitted with voices by amateur voice actors. Approximately 300,000 words of dialogue are currently included in the mod, making the majority of the new characters more talkative than original Skyrim NPCs, and the total amount about half that of the vanilla edition.

Quite a few quests are currently included as well, some of which further NPC interaction and other are extensive storylines with quite a bit of detailed backstory and a lot of combat.

Provides examples of:

• Adaptational Badass: A few NPCs in the base game got this treatment through anecdotes given by the new NPCs. The scary thing is that it's actually seamless.
• Aerith and Bob: Among the many fantastical and uncommon names are few more real-life sounding names like Jolene and Darcy.
• Affably Evil:
  • Jerulith is a former Thalmor Justiciar who has no problem murdering children who worship Talos; yet unlike most Thalmor, she somehow doesn't come off as a complete Jerkass.
  • Nelos is unfailingly soft-spoken and polite despite being the de facto leader of the morally-questionable Radiant Dark.
  • J'Sharr is very friendly with you even after drugging and forcing you to fight in pit fights, seemingly not even realizing that it is a bad thing.
  • Korrilan is a pretty nice guy for someone who kills and body-snatches innocent people.
• A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Relic, ancient robotic remnant of Dwemer artificing may turn evil and rather nutty when improperly repaired.
• All There in the Manual: The mod's website contains a map with the locations of all current NPC's as well as lists on which ones have voices and the rather arcane pre-requisites of some quests; none of this is available in-game.
• Antagonistic Offspring: Orenius Scilus is hunting down his daughter, a famous thief.
• Aristocrats Are Evil: Gabania the villainous Imperial nobleman, and his daughter (who is even called The Baroness, sharing some traits of this trope) play this straight. As the man whose home village Gabania razed (after hiding its existence from the outside world), puts it:
  Kill every nobleman you see.
• Ascended Extra: Drelas and his cottage existed in the vanilla game, where he was just another "kill-or-be-killed" NPC that just happened to have a name. With the mod installed, he becomes much more fleshed out, and the player will have the option of sitting down and conversing with him. He also turns out to be Nelos, the leader of the Radiant Dark, and plays a major role in the associated quest.
• Asshole Victim: The quest "Spell It Out For Me" has an Orc vampire instructing you to kill six people whose initials spell out U-L-F-R-I-C. The mod conveniently spawns six named bandits who fulfill the conditions for this very reason. You may also notice that the quest giver himself has a name starting with "C", allowing you to pull this on him.
• Blood Knight: Gorr relishes battle, especially against intelligent enemies. He admits that he left the Arena in the Imperial City because when he ran out of sapient enemies willing to fight him, they started bringing in beasts like sabrecats, bears, and minotaurs to face him. As far as he's concerned, he only wants to fight enemies who made the choice to enter the Arena, and animals and beasts couldn't make that choice.
• Brown Note: The last Ester Maroux painting, created with help from Clavicus Vile. It's an ending so conclusive you actually die just from looking at it.
• Conspiracy Theorist: Godrod the Hammer. This isn't helped by the fact he's both significantly misinformed and a tad insane.
• Cannot Tell a Joke: Iria, who is completely deadpan (and not in a good way) as she cracks jokes.
• Close-Enough Timeline: The ending of the Blood of Kings quest. You still fought Gren, met the characters and did every side-activity between the time you started the quest and the time you finished. The difference is you prevented a lot of people from dying, including yourself.
• Cute and Psycho: Felena, a vampire with about the sweetest, most girlish voice you can imagine and a borderline unhealthy obsession with death, who keeps a zombie Orc called Sweetroll as a pet and is strongly implied to be a necrophile.
• Deadpan Snarker: Nearly all of Rumarin's dialogue options lead to some kind of sarcastic one-liner.
  • Skjel the Gray, who's pretty much a walking Take That! towards the limited speech options of the vanilla game NPCs. His accent just underlines the snarkiness.
• Driven to Suicide: Dar'Rakki will lose all faith in the world if you tell him that the Seven Thousand Steps are really only seven hundred, due to his already massive, crippling trust issues, and then poison himself. In this case, telling him that either you can't tell how many there are or lie and say that there are exactly seven thousand steps will reassure him and give him enough faith to move on and try to continue living.
• Embarrassing First Name: Hagravi Gray-wave, picked on for the similarity of his name to Hagraven, a harpy-like species of creatures.
• Enemy Mine: In the questline starting with "The Aldmeri Prisoner", Daenlyn Oakhollow and Jerulith, who shares the Thalmor ideology Daenlyn hates need to work together to kill a common enemy. Some rather tense Hilarity Ensues.
• Entertainingly Wrong: Gorod the Hammer doesn't have his facts about the politics of Skyrim quite straight.
  Gorod: I follow the one true king of Skyrim. Not that harlot widow, what's-her-face, General Tullius. What kind of name is that for a Jarl? Or a woman? "General." Sounds like something I'd name a store, or the assortment of crap that collects under my foot.
• Erudite Stoner: Beatrice, a skooma addict and former Forsworn who has a magical amulet that makes her extremely smart and eloquent.
• Even Evil Has Standards: At least one Thalmor officer is stated to have been disgusted by Jerulith's brutality when she was a Justiciar.
• Everyone Has Standards: Griffith, a dark brotherhood assassin, left the brotherhood after one contract took it too far; A pedophile hired him to kill a child because she rejected his advances.
• Evil Sounds Deep: Dagri'Lon.
• Fake Ultimate Mook: Tusky the horker is about the size of a dragon, and even gets the dragon fight music. But it too slow and clumsy to be an especially dangerous foe, even if it takes some slicing.
• Faux Affably Evil: Gren, one of Ysgramor's descendants in the "Blood of Kings" questline. He acts friendly at first, but will threaten to horribly injure you or your loved ones the second you annoy him.
• Friendly Neighborhood Vampire: Dunmer vampire Rinori Imaryn, contrary to the blood-sucking fiends you typically encounter, is a harmless Shrinking Violet who would just like to be left alone to fight the urges caused by her condition.
• Fur Against Fang: Largely Played for Laughs with the rivalry of two pompous bard-poets, Skjarn and Edwayne; the former is a werewolf, while the latter is a vampire.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation: It doesn't matter how much poison resistance or armor you have; when you get that poisonous pat on the back during the "Pit Dogs" quest, you go down.
• Guide Dang It!: Some of the quests in this mod are not easy to find. In order to start the two main questlines, you have to fulfill several prerequisites including having the right followers, completing certain quests in both the vanilla game and the mod, and speaking to certain NPCs found around the map.
  • For example, starting the "Radiant Dark" questline requires you to have not only completed an earlier mod quest, "Forgotten Lore," but also to have completed "Dragon Rising" and "The Black Star" from the vanilla game.
• Hate Sink: Marigoth the Witch in Zora's personal quest "The Children Fair". She's a wicked-tongued old hag who seems to be one step away from being a Hagraven, and she does nothing but insult Zora during the whole quest.
• Hellhole Prison: Dragonsreach. Both Larkspur and Gorr were imprisoned there. Larkspur was tortured and healed to survive more torture while he was imprisoned.
• Heroic Comedic Sociopath: Dagri'Lon's Blue-and-Orange Morality typically results in "evil", because he believes anything that decays ought to be destroyed (so it will be evermore remembered as beautiful) before the decay can overtake it. His dialogue is thus a mixture of snark and bluntly proposing the destruction of the impermanent (i.e. pretty much everything). For instance, he suggests dealing with the Riverwood Love Triangle by killing Camilla just to teach her suitors a lesson about hesitation. Still, he doesn't personally carry out any of his brutal suggestions and gets some great lines.
  Dagri'Lon: Thane of Whiterun. You save an entire city from a dragon and your reward is a title that is emptier than this Jarl's skull.
• Honor Before Reason: In the quest Honor's Calling, that's Dalum-Ei's motivation for killing off former members of his company, as a punishment for an incident in which they inadvertently ended up killing innocents.
• Intrepid Merchant: Al'Hassan, a former Alik'r who left Kematu's squad to become a blacksmith in Morthal.
• Insult to Rocks: Hjoromir in Riverwood at one point complains about how the town's rats are as bothersome as the Thalmor presence in Skyrim. Your character can then chide him for thinking rats are worse than the Thalmor.
• Jerkass: Quite a few, but Brelas in the Riften Watchtower stands out. Even Dravos, a Dremora, thinks he needs to mellow out. Granted, Dravos is a minion of Sanguine, not Dagon.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Olivia Meronin, the Arcane University professor in the College Arcaneum. She's involved in the Radiant Dark, and is the morally "good" side of the quest's conflict.
• Knight in Sour Armor: After Erevan realizes, with the help of his old friend, that he can still behave in a truly knightly manner, even after he was framed for attempted murder, he becomes halfway between this trope and straightforward Knight in Shining Armor.
  • Anum-La also has shades of this trope.
• Lampshade Hanging / Leaning on the Fourth Wall: More than a few characters will do this. Anum-La, for example, will point out how nice it is that bandits frequently trap themselves in enclosed spaces with no back exits, and Eldawyn mentions how she crafts, enchants, and sells tons of necklaces to Farengar for easy money.
  Eldawyn: I don't know what he wants all those necklaces for.
• Laughably Evil: Relic's initial and improperly repaired states have a disturbing fascination with the insides of organic beings.
• Literal-Minded: Ylgyne does not understand metaphors in the least; insulting him by saying he's "two loaves short of a sandwich" just results in a confused "what does bread have to do with this?"
• Lost Technology: Relic is a remnant of the Dwemer.
• Manly Facial Hair: You can have a very thoughtful conversation with Frik on the greatness of a beard.
• Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: It's never revealed during the quest "The Teleportation Machine" if Two-Tails disabled said machine with his "Machine Hand" or if Two-Tails just thinks he disabled it and the machine was already that way when he found it.
• Mind Screw: Blood of Kings questline has a whiff of it, with a sorcerer sending you into an alternate immediate-future timeline in which two new pretenders for the title of High King appear in Skyrim. It ends with your death. He then brings you back and you have to prevent this timeline from happening the same bad way it had happened in the alternate universe. The fact that during the questline you have a strange dream in which you kill the Dragonborn from Bethesda trailer contributes to this even more.
  • Two smaller examples are the quests "The Teleportation Machine" and "The House On the Hill". In the former you track down a machine that will supposedly take you to the location of the Dwemer only for the whole thing to be hijacked by an Argonian of questionable sanity claiming to be the "Dwarvenborn". And in the latter, you are tasked with finding two missing explorers who were last seen near a creepy old house where it turns out they stole a possibly fake Elder Scroll from three strange men calling themselves Wolf, Horker, and Skeever.
• My Species Doth Protest Too Much: Arilwaen, an Altmer who leads a secret group of Talos worshippers in order to prevent the Thalmor from reaching their apocaliptico-genocidal goals. Her brother also qualifies, though his motivation is more pragmatic then hers. Somewhat downplayed by vanilla game already including some Altmer who don't want anything to do with the Thalmor.
  • The orc mercenary Duraz also qualifies. Although she does seem to fit into the Proud Warrior Race Guy trope, she also has a very vocal dislike of the Orc Strongholds and their laws.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: At the end of the Blood of Kings quest you are told that you saved the prisoners and pretty much fixed everything that went wrong in the previous timeline, but you don't get to play it.
• Obsessed with Food: Gorr loves to talk about food, especially Horker stew.
• One Last Job: Orenius Scilus is semi-retired, seeking to catch one last thief.
• Orgy of Evidence: Hiram and the other Knights of the White Rose (formerly the Knights of The Thorn in Oblivion) don't believe the contrivance of evidence that was against their commander, Erevan, when he allegedly attempted to murder the Countess.
• Papa Wolf: Griffith is a former member of The Dark Brotherhood who goes rogue to protect a girl named Morrigan who is being targeted by the Brotherhood.
• Parental Incest: Rongeir has a less than savoury relationship with his daughter, Shelur. Arguably worse, he genuinely seems to believe that she's not actually his daughter, but just the reincarnation of his wife (this is actually a real ancient Scandinavian belief that people can be reincarnated through their children). He does seem a bit shaken when you explain why his relationship with Shelur counts as incestuous.
  You: There must be something about her that comes from you.
  Rongeir: Huh, maybe you're right. A few days a ago she stubbed her toe on a bucket, and then nearly took an axe to brook. Same thing I would do. I need some time to think about this; people don't break off a whole relationship just 'cause a stranger had something smart to say...
• Pint-Size Powerhouse: Zora Fair-child is a diminutive breton girl... who is a Barbarian-class fighter. She favors light armor and a twohander sword that's about as tall as she is.
• Put on a Bus: Virayana the Vigilant as of the Dawnguard update. Considering what happens to the Hall of the Vigilant in Dawnguard, it's understandable.
  • The Bus Came Back: Recent updates have her relocate to Stendarr's Beacon after the Hall is attacked.
• Raised by Orcs: Bergrisar, raised by giants.
• Really Gets Around: One of the Dibellan priestesses in Markarth will hit on you. Man, woman, other races. Talking to her reveals that she has slept with everyone but her parents - even the girl who had skin like mammoth cheese.
• Real Men Eat Meat: Gorr really likes horker meat. (He also strongly dislikes vegetables.)
• Retired Monster: Dravos the Dremora was once a loyal servant of Mehrunes Dagon, but now has devoted himself to Sanguine.
• Riches to Rags: Lady Veralene Ashwood, an aristocratic landowner whose large farm was destroyed by the dragon at Helgen. She still wears noble clothing, as befits an Impoverished Patrician, and desires to marry someone rich in order to restore her wealth, though her abrasive personality makes such a prospect unlikely.
• Robot Buddy: Relic, a Centurion Spider found in Blackreach's War Quarter. He initially starts out as a Third-Person Person Jerkass, but depending on your actions he can become either a Nice Guy or an HK-47 Expy.
• Sad Clown: Rumarin, by the Nine, Rumarin. Every word out of his mouth is a wry comment, a joke, or some other form of deflection, because he does not want to think about what's gone wrong with his life.
• Secretly Dying: Nelos. However, he's not planning to just kick the bucket until he's carried out the prophecy of the Long Night.
• Self-Proclaimed Knight: Anum-La the Swamp Knight, who first declared herself to be a knight just because she thought it sounded impressive. Nevertheless, she's a heroic version of this trope.
• Servile Snarker: Amsien, Khajiit who the player can potentially take on a servant, ends up being quite sarcastic towards you in almost every line of dialog.
• Shout-Out: It takes a while for it to become apparent, but the House On The Hill quest ends up being loosely based on Reservoir Dogs. A few criminals, with themed aliases, carrying through a botched heist, and killing each other in the end.
• Some of My Best Friends Are X: Invoked by Sadrin Reloro, a Dunmer in Riften, who specifically points out that he has real friends of other races, as opposed to non-existent friends bigots invent to defend themselves from accusations.
• So Unfunny, It's Funny: In universe: Larkspur mentions that only Gorr can laugh at the jokes he makes.
  • Most of the jokes from the stoic mage girl in Whiterun are only found amusing (as amused as she can) by herself.
• Sociopathic Soldier: Haakon Iron Fist, who was imprisoned in the Windhelm dungeons and more or less court martialled and dishonourably discharged by Ulfric Stormcloak himself. Interestingly enough, he actually straddles the line between this an Well-Intentioned Extremist if you talk with him. So, type 4. Just wants to get things done in a way he sees as pragmatic. Emphasis on he sees as pragmatic.
• That Makes Me Feel Angry: Iria, who sounds like (and probably is) an Emo Teen, has to tell you, deadpan, that she is amused, or finds things funny.
• Those Two Guys: Geel-Jah and Torveld, two treasure hunters who show up in a number of different locations arguing about their latest treasure hunt, but are never involved with a quest.
• Token Evil Teammate: Jerulith during the Gabania quest-line. While Daenlyn, Raynes, and Griffith aren't ideal heroes, she's the only one who would advocate child murder.
• Token Good Teammate: Orondil, the Justiciar who shares the basic Thalmor goals, but believes that Nord customs should be respected, as long as they don't involve Talos. He is generally polite to the player and plays a helpful role in a quest.
• Tongue Trauma: Defied by Raynes. It's the one brutality he won't inflict. If they can't talk, they can't spread word of his deeds.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: A few quests pair unlikely allies together.
  • Daenlyn, a bard who hates the Thalmor with a passion, and Jerulith, a former Thalmor who still supports their ideals.
  • Griffith, a former member of the Dark Brotherhood, and Raynes, a vigilante who despises all lawbreakers.
• Urban Legend of Zelda: Invoked and discussed; Dar’Rakki is a Khajiit in Ivarstead who wants to know if there's really 7,000 steps to High Hrothgar. You can either tell him the truth — that it's roughly seven hundred, though it's hard to say for certain given how many are broken and buried — or tell him a white lie and say it is seven thousand to try and restore his faith in the world.
• Video Game Caring Potential: The quest "Spell It Out For Me" has Cassock selecting Fironet as his final target. Depending on your actions, you can derail the quest (and lose a potential follower) by killing him before he kills her; there's no real reward for doing this, aside from Fironet's thanks.
  • Similarly, at the end of the quest "Stolen Property" you can kill Vardath and save the slave he was contracted to kill. Although, you're given a reward from the slave for taking this path, you lose Vardath as a follower.
• Vigilante Man: Raynes, a Dunmer who disposes of law-breakers in excessively brutal ways.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Dalum-Ei, former leader of the Honorable Eight, began hunting and killing his former guild-mates after the loss of their honor in his eyes. Bodan and Anum-La, the two other members that you encounter, are conflicted on whether it was the right thing but they do but they still mourn their brother/father-figure.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: During the "Darkened Steel" questline, Gancielo disappears halfway through and never comes back. The disappearance is never elaborated on, either.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Should the Imperials win the Civil War, a drunkard in Winterhold will bitterly remind you that you've changed nothing and that the Thalmor are still a threat.
• Wide-Eyed Idealist: Cassius, who can be found in Fort Greymoor's dungeon, and believes that he can just teach bandits to not be bandits with books on math, farming, reading, etc, and that once they have some form of gainful employment then they'll stop being bandits. He gets a cold slap in the face when he finds that the bandits just burned all of his books. Even if you tell him to not get discouraged, he'll admit that his ideals blinded him and he should try a "less controversial cause, like helping orphans"... only for the player to later meet a former bandit at Rorikstead who decided he might have been on to something after all with his ill-advised ideals, while Cassius himself remains oblivious.
• Wolfpack Boss: The Akaviri ghosts in The Way of the Nine, whom you have to defeat in order to pass the test given you by Garett, the ghost of a Blade. Worse, Garett participates in a battle with you himself, but he is essential, and he will judge you worthy and end the battle only once you defeat all his ghost companions.
• Would Hurt a Child: Jerulith, a former Thalmor (who was formally expelled by Ondolemar due to tactical convenience, and who still believes in Thalmor ideology) proclaims to you that, unlike another colleague of hers, she advocates killing children who worship Talos.
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Hiram and the Dragonborn (assuming you don't go for a "The Reason You Suck" Speech) try to pull Erevan out of his funk with this. It works.

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