The Elder Scrolls IV ------------------------------------------------------------------------ _______ ______ _ _________ _________ _______ _ ( ___ )( ___ \ ( \ \__ __/|\ /|\__ __/( ___ )( ( /| | ( ) || ( ) )| ( ) ( | ) ( | ) ( | ( ) || \ ( | | | | || (__/ / | | | | | | | | | | | | | || \ | | | | | || __ ( | | | | ( ( ) ) | | | | | || (\ \) | | | | || ( \ \ | | | | \ \_/ / | | | | | || | \ | | (___) || )___) )| (____/\___) (___ \ / ___) (___| (___) || ) \ | (_______)|/ \___/ (_______/\_______/ \_/ \_______/(_______)|/ )_) #################################### ##################################### ################################## ############## ########### ########### ########## ########## ######### ########### ######### ######### ######### ######### ######### ######### # ######## ######## ###### ######## ######## ######## ######## ######## ####### ####### ####### ##### ####### ###### ## ####### ####### ####### ###### ####### ###### ####### ##### ###### ##### ###### ##### ###### #### ###### #### ##### ### ##### ## #### ### ## FAQ/Walkthrough (for PC & XBox 360) v3.00 2006-06-12 Copyright 2006 Barry Scott "PapaGamer" Will A premium version of this Walkthrough is available. It includes maps, screenshots, hyperlinked cross-references and more. See http://www.papagamer.com/ for more information. **THIS IS NOW A FULL AND COMPLETE WALKTHROUGH FOR ES4:OBLIVION. EVERY QUEST THAT APPEARS IN THE GAME--INCLUDING THE OFFICIAL PLUGINS--IS INCLUDED IN THIS GUIDE.** The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion was developed by Bethesda Game Studios, published by Bethesda Softworks and 2K Games and is copyright 2006 Bethesda Softworks. This guide is not endorsed by, nor is the author associated with, Bethesda Game Studios, Bethesda Softworks or 2K Games. This FAQ/Walkthrough does not include a Character Guide. You can find my Character Build Guide at: http://www.papagamer.com/faqs/oblivion_character.txt The Character Build Guide includes a complete rundown of all the skills, races, attributes and birthsigns in Oblivion, as well as many class templates for your amusement. **Bethesda has released the v1.1 patch for both PC and XBox 360. You should download and install this patch as it fixes a number of quest-related bugs. XBox 360 users can download the patch via XBox Live. PC users can download the patch here: http://elderscrolls.com/downloads/updates_patches.htm *SPOILER WARNING* This guide contains plot spoilers. You have been warned. <~~~~~~ CONTACT INFORMATION ~~~~~~> To contact me about the guide, send email to: barry@papagamer.com Please include "Oblivion FAQ" in your subject line so I don't auto-discard the message. Also, please read the FAQ carefully prior to asking for help on any part of the game. If you send me additional suggestions or hints for the game and I find them useful, you will be acknowledged in the Credits. If you found this guide useful and would like to contribute a small token for my efforts, you may send money through PayPal by using the Donate link found on my Web site: http://www.papagamer.com/ Thank you, and enjoy the guide! <~~~~~~ TABLE OF CONTENTS ~~~~~~> Front Matter Contact Information Table of Contents How to Use This Guide Gameplay.............................................................GP00 Controls & Icons..................................................GP01 Game Mechanics....................................................GP02 Radiant AI...................................................GP02-A The Leveled System...........................................GP02-B Time, Waiting & Resting......................................GP02-C Travel, Horses & Quest Markers...............................GP02-D Mini-games: Lockpicking & Persuasion.........................GP02-E Enchanting, Spellmaking & Soul Gems..........................GP02-F Combat............................................................GP03 Tips & Tricks.....................................................GP04 Frequently Asked Questions........................................GP05 Main Story...........................................................MS00 Tutorial..........................................................MS01 Deliver the Amulet................................................MS02 Find the Heir.....................................................MS03 Breaking the Siege of Kvatch......................................MS04 Weynon Priory.....................................................MS05 The Path of Dawn..................................................MS06 Dagon Shrine......................................................MS07 Spies.............................................................MS08 Blood of the Daedra...............................................MS09 Blood of the Divines..............................................MS10 Miscarcand........................................................MS11 Bruma Gate........................................................MS12 Allies for Bruma..................................................MS13 The Wayward Knight (Cheydinhal)..............................MS13-A Bravil.......................................................MS13-B Anvil........................................................MS13-C Chorrol......................................................MS13-D The Battle for Castle Kvatch.................................MS13-E Leyawiin.....................................................MS13-F Skingrad.....................................................MS13-G Defense of Bruma..................................................MS14 Great Gate........................................................MS15 Paradise..........................................................MS16 Light the Dragonfires.............................................MS17 Imperial Dragon Armor.............................................MS18 Fighters Guild.......................................................FG00 A Rat Problem.....................................................FG01 The Unfortunate Shopkeeper........................................FG02 The Desolate Mine.................................................FG03 Unfinished Business...............................................FG04 Drunk and Disorderly..............................................FG05 Den of Thieves....................................................FG06 Amelion's Debt....................................................FG07 The Master's Son..................................................FG08 More Unfinished Business..........................................FG09 Azani Blackheart..................................................FG10 The Wandering Scholar.............................................FG11 The Fugitives.....................................................FG12 Trolls of Forsaken Mine...........................................FG13 The Stone of St. Alessia..........................................FG14 The Noble's Daughter..............................................FG15 Mystery at Harlun's Watch.........................................FG16 Information Gathering.............................................FG17 Infiltration......................................................FG18 The Hist..........................................................FG19 Expelled From the Fighters Guild..................................FG20 Mages Guild..........................................................MG00 Anvil Recommendation..............................................MG01 Bravil Recommendation.............................................MG02 Bruma Recommendation..............................................MG03 Cheydinhal Recommendation.........................................MG04 Chorrol Recommendation............................................MG05 Fingers of the Mountain......................................MG05-A Fingers of the Mountain, Part II.............................MG05-B Leyawiin Recommendation...........................................MG06 Skingrad Recommendation...........................................MG07 A Mage's Staff....................................................MG08 Ulterior Motives..................................................MG09 Vahtacen's Secret.................................................MG10 Necromancer's Moon................................................MG11 Liberation or Apprehension?.......................................MG12 Information at a Price............................................MG13 A Plot Revealed...................................................MG14 The Bloodworm Helm................................................MG15 The Necromancer's Amulet..........................................MG16 Ambush............................................................MG17 Confront the King.................................................MG18 Mages Guild Suspension............................................MG19 Thieves Guild........................................................TG00 May the Best Thief Win............................................TG01 Independent Thievery..............................................TG02 Untaxing the Poor.................................................TG03 The Elven Maiden..................................................TG04 Ahdarji's Heirloom................................................TG05 Misdirection......................................................TG06 Lost Histories....................................................TG07 Taking Care of Lex................................................TG08 Turning a Blind Eye...............................................TG09 Arrow of Extrication..............................................TG10 Boots of Springheel Jak...........................................TG11 The Ultimate Heist................................................TG12 Cast Out of the Thieves Guild.....................................TG13 Dark Brotherhood.....................................................DB00 A Knife in the Dark...............................................DB01 A Watery Grave....................................................DB02 Accidents Happen..................................................DB03 Scheduled for Execution...........................................DB04 The Renegade Shadowscale..........................................DB05 The Assassinated Man..............................................DB06 The Lonely Wanderer...............................................DB07 Bad Medicine......................................................DB08 Whodunit?.........................................................DB09 Permanent Retirement..............................................DB10 Of Secret and Shadow..............................................DB11 The Purification..................................................DB12 Affairs of a Wizard...............................................DB13 Next of Kin.......................................................DB14 Broken Vows.......................................................DB15 Final Justice.....................................................DB16 A Matter of Honor.................................................DB17 The Coldest Sleep.................................................DB18 A Kiss Before Dying...............................................DB19 Following a Lead..................................................DB20 Honor Thy Mother..................................................DB21 Whispers of Death.................................................DB22 Dark Exile........................................................DB23 Side Quests..........................................................SQ00 Quest Index..........................................................QL00 Alphabetical Index................................................QL01 City/Region Index.................................................QL02 Miscellaneous Adventures.............................................MA00 Home Ownership....................................................MA01 Skill Training....................................................MA02 Vampirism.........................................................MA03 Expanding Your Game..................................................XP00 PC Optimization...................................................XP01 PC Console Commands...............................................XP02 Mods..............................................................XP03 Version History & Credits To quickly jump to a section, copy the section code, press CTRL-F and paste the section code in the search box. <~~~~~~ HOW TO USE THIS GUIDE ~~~~~~> Oblivion is a huge game, and very much free-form. You can spend 100 hours playing the game and never touch the main quest. You can play through the main quest a half-dozen times and never do the same side quests twice. In addition, some dungeons and quests are randomly generated. There's no way to write a typical linear walkthrough for this game. So here's how the walkthroughs are organized: * Main Story: First up is a step-by-step walkthrough of the main story quests. The main story does advance in a fairly linear manner, so each step along the journey will be laid out. Of course, you do not have to complete the main story in any sort of time limit and you can take your time and do lots of side quests during the main story. However, the Main Story walkthrough will concern itself only with the quests that are directly connected to the main story. * Guild Quests: There are four guilds in Oblivion--Fighters, Mages, Thieves and the Dark Brotherhood (assassins). Each guild has numerous quests associated with it, and each has its own section in this part of the guide. * Side Quests: Everything that doesn't fit into the previous categories is organized here in alphabetical order by quest name. Before all the walkthroughs is a rundown of basic gameplay in Oblivion, including the controls, how the Radiant AI works, combat hints and frequently asked questions. At the end of the walkthroughs is an index of every quest in the game, with the section number where you can find the mini-walkthrough for that quest. The index is organized both alphabetically and by city/region. A complete breakdown of the character system in Oblivion, including all the skills, races, signs, etc. is in a separate document, located at: http://www.papagamer.com/faqs/oblivion_character.txt After the quest walkthroughs is Miscellaneous Adventures, which covers buying and furnishing houses, vampirism and training your skills (including the Master Training quests). The guide wraps up with Expanding Your Game, which covers optimizing your PC to run Oblivion well, using console commands (on the PC) for that extra edge and mods (mostly for PC, but some for X360 as well). The main point of Oblivion is to explore, have fun and immerse yourself in the world. The game simply cannot be adequately covered in words, you have to experience it for yourself. But, if you get stuck, feel like you're in over your head, or just can't figure out how to do that one little thing...then this guide is here for you. [GP00] ~~The Elder Scrolls IV~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ GAMEPLAY ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~OBLIVION~~ [GP01] <~~~~~~ CONTROLS & ICONS ~~~~~~> These are the default controls for the game: +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | ACTION | PC (keyboard/mouse)+ | XBOX 360* | |------------------------+------------------------+------------------------| | Movement | W, A, S, D | Left stick | |------------------------+------------------------+------------------------| | Camera | Move mouse | Right stick | |------------------------+------------------------+------------------------| | Activate | SPACE | A button | |------------------------+------------------------+------------------------| | Jump | E | Y button | |------------------------+------------------------+------------------------| | Run | Left SHIFT | Movement speed is | |------------------------+------------------------| controlled by the | | Always Run (toggle) | CAPS LOCK | force on the left stick| |------------------------+------------------------+------------------------| | Ready/Sheath Weapon | F | X button | |------------------------+------------------------+------------------------| | Attack | Left mouse button | R trigger | |------------------------+------------------------+------------------------| | Power Attack | Hold left mouse button | Hold R trigger + | | | + movement key | move left stick | |------------------------+------------------------+------------------------| | Shoot Arrow | Hold left mouse button | Hold R trigger to aim, | | | to aim, release to fire| release to fire | |------------------------+------------------------+------------------------| | Block/Bow Zoom | Right mouse button | L trigger | |------------------------+------------------------+------------------------| | Cast Spell | C | R button | |------------------------+------------------------+------------------------| | Grab | Z press-and-hold | L button press-and-hold| |------------------------+------------------------+------------------------| | Sneak | Left CTRL | Press left stick | |------------------------+------------------------+------------------------| | Journal | TAB; You can also open | B button | | | a journal tab directly | | | | F1 - Stats | | | | F2 - Inventory | | | | F3 - Spells | | | | F4 - Map/Quests | | |------------------------+------------------------+------------------------| | Hotkeys | 1 - 8 | D-pad | |------------------------+------------------------+------------------------| | Assign Hotkeys | Press-and-hold 1 - 8 | Press-and-hold D-pad | | w/Inventory Open | and click item | and select item (A) | |------------------------+------------------------+------------------------| | Game Menu | ESC | Start | |------------------------+------------------------+------------------------| | Wait | T | Back | |------------------------+------------------------+------------------------| | Switch View (1st/3rd) | R | Press right stick | |------------------------+------------------------+------------------------| | Vanity Mode | Press-and-hold R | Press-and-hold rt stick| |------------------------+------------------------+------------------------| | Quicksave | F5 | | |------------------------+------------------------+------------------------| | Quickload | F9 | | +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ * XBox 360 Controls list courtesy of Styck and GOSFreak from GameFAQs. + The PC version does support gamepads; however, there are some problems with the default control setup. Find your Oblivion.ini file (typically in My Documents\My Games\Oblivion) and open this file in a *text* editor such as Notepad. (Don't use Word or Wordpad or other word processing program. Stick with a simple, plain text editor.) Find these lines in the section headed [Controls]: fMouseSensitivity=0.0020 ;X = 1, Y = 2, Z = 3, XRot = 4, YRot = 5, ZRot = 6 iJoystickMoveFrontBack=2 iJoystickMoveLeftRight=1 fJoystickMoveFBMult=1.0000 fJoystickMoveLRMult=1.0000 iJoystickLookUpDown=6 iJoystickLookLeftRight=3 fJoystickLookUDMult=0.0020 fJoystickLookLRMult=0.0020 These are the default movement (left analog stick) and camera (right analog stick) controls. Specifically, the Look (i.e. camera) controls may not be set properly for your joystick. If moving the right analog stick has no effect on the camera, change these two lines: fJoystickLookUDMult=0.0020 fJoystickLookLRMult=0.0020 Increase the value of 0.0020 to something significantly larger, such as 0.5000. If the camera still does not respond or is sluggish, increase to 1.0000 and so on until the camera responds to the right joystick in a way that works for you. Additionally, you may find the camera movement does not correspond correctly to the joystick movement: i.e. the camera moves up and down as you move the stick left and right. In that case, switch these values: iJoystickLookUpDown=6 iJoystickLookLeftRight=3 so that you have: iJoystickLookUpDown=3 iJoystickLookLeftRight=6 You may also need to change some of these values completely depending on your controller and your controller's drivers. You can set the buttons within the Controls Options of the game. | Icons +------- When in first-person perspective, the center of the screen is occupied by a crosshair. When you move over a target, the crosshair changes depending on the target. * Face: NPC, Activate the NPC to talk to him or her * Crown: plot critical NPC, Activate the NPC to talk to him or her * Open hand: a loose item, press Activate to take the item * Closed fist: something that can be manipulated (such as a door or switch), press Activate to...well...activate the item * Pottery jar: container, press Activate to open the container * Door: a door, Activating may open the door or take you to another area depending on the door * Lock: this icon appears in the lower right corner of the screen when a door or container is locked. * Moon and stars: a bed, Activate to sleep in the bed * Book: a book or note, Activate it to read the item * Stool: a chair, bench, etc., Activate it to sit down, press Activate again while not targeting anything to stand up * Horseshoe: a horse, press Activate to mount the horse, press Activate again while not targeting anything to dismount * Bat: NPC, Activate the NPC to feed on him or her (can only be used when you are a vampire) * Eye: indicates you are in Sneak mode Sometimes icons display in red. When you see a red icon, don't touch the item or you'll be accused of a crime. Unless, of course, you're trying to commit a crime, then go ahead and touch away... [GP02] <~~~~~~ GAME MECHANICS ~~~~~~> Most of the basic gameplay elements are dealt with during the tutorial. How to pick things up, how to drop them, how to equip weapons and spells, how to Sneak, etc. But, there are a lot of things going on under the hood that the tutorial never mentions. This section covers all those extra game mechanics. | Radiant AI [GP02-A] +--------------------- Radiant AI is Bethesda's name for its NPC scripts. NPCs in Oblivion are supposed to "act like real people". At first, this really seems to be the case. After a few hours invested in a city, you'll see it's just another bunch of scripts strung together with some pseudo-random events to give the feel of actual intelligence. Here are some of the things the Radiant AI does: * NPCs keep a schedule. Their schedule is occasionally randomized, but, for the most part, these characters move around eating, working, sleeping and other activities at different times of the day on a regular schedule. * NPCs react to crimes. Enter one's house uninvited and they'll call for the gendarmes. Hit someone and they'll scream, "Assault!" Etc. * NPCs talk to one another as they pass on the street. After spending a couple hours in a city, you'll have heard every variation on conversation there is. (Since everything in Oblivion is voice acted, the number of conversations is quite limited.) Sometimes, hearing these conversations opens up a new topic for you, often leading to a quest. Here are some things the Radiant AI does not do: * Force you to keep a schedule. For the most part, if someone tells you to meet them at midnight tonight or else, you can show up at midnight three weeks later and they'll be there waiting patiently for you. There are very, very few quests in Oblivion that actually require you to act within time constraints. * React to assaults on allies. The vision/hearing of every NPC in Oblivion must be impaired. If you have two enemy mages on opposite sides of a large room, you can blow one of them to smithereens while the other wonders aloud about the rats. This does help with combat since you don't want lots of bad guys swarming you, but it is kind of ridiculous. Example: right after killing the captain of a ship, two sailors barged into the cabin. The PC was hidden in the back room. Seeing the captain dead on the floor, the sailors proceeded to engage in a random conversation. The PC steps out of the back room and fires a spell at one of the sailors. That sailor charges and is dispatched. The other sailor, still behind the partition at the front of the cabin, complains about the loud noises made by the rats. That’s the Radiant AI for you! * Care much about the world around them. There are scripted instances where you can't get help from someone because of an Oblivion gate nearby, but, for the most part, while the big, bad demonic invasion is happening, most NPCs still just want you to kill (or protect, depending on the situation) the rats in their basement. So, don't get your hopes up too high over the Radiant AI. The NPCs in Oblivion pretty much act like the NPCs in every other RPG, except they don't just stand around waiting for you to show up (unless you're in the middle of a quest requiring they just stand around until you show up--in which case they'll wait for months). And, even if a quest-target NPC is moving around, the convenient objective marker on your map will always show you where he or she is. | The Leveled System [GP02-B] +----------------------------- Oblivion uses a system that matches enemy levels to your PC's level. It does this in two ways: * Changes the type or number of creatures you face. For example, at low level, the daedra you fight inside Oblivion are mostly scamps and the occasional clannfear runt. At higher levels, you'll start seeing dremora, adult clann- fear, atronachs, etc. * Increases the level of the enemy. This is mostly used on boss creatures. For example, the opponents you face in the Arena are always the same, but their level, skills and equipment increase in power as you increase in power. The leveled system means you never get in over your head. Whatever challenge you face is always scaled to your level, so you can do anything at the beginning of the game. This is also a drawback, as being able to complete any quest even at level 1 is somewhat unrealistic. The leveled system also means you never overpower your opponents. There are never any "easy" fights against overwhelmed opponents. When you encounter bandits at level 1, they are clad in fur and wield rusty daggers. If you encounter them at level 20, they are clad in mithril and wield enchanted glass short swords. Treasure and store inventories are likewise leveled. At level one, you can fight for your life through a three-level ruin, dispatching dozens of undead and come away with a grand total of 32 gold, a flawed jewel and some day-old bread. Going through the same ruin at level 10 can yield a couple hundred gold, some soul gems and an enchanted weapon. The leveled system also affects quest rewards. Finish Fingers of the Mountain at level 3 and the spell you get is, to say the least, underwhelming. Finish it at level 25 and you get one of the most powerful spells in the game (assuming you have the Magicka to cast it). A sigil stone collected at level 5 is a lot less powerful than a sigil stone collected at level 15. (*NOTE*: PC users can download a mod that corrects this problem.) The leveled system does present some problems, especially in the main story. There are a few quests where you have to defeat hordes of enemies, and you are given help; or, you have to protect someone from enemies. In these cases, having a higher level PC works against you since your allies do not similarly increase in power. The last thing you want is a dozen dremora overwhelming the guards around you, then turning all their attention on you. No matter how uber you think your gear, you're not going to survive that. There are some ways to work around this system: 1) Increase your class levels slowly. If you work mostly with minor skills, and only increase your major skills (and, thus, your class level) when you've locked in +5 modifiers for your attributes, then you'll run far ahead of the NPCs of similar level. For more info on the skill/class system, see the PapaGamer Character Build Guide at: http://www.papagamer.com/faqs/oblivion_character.txt 2) Play at a lower difficulty level. If a quest is just too hard, turn the difficulty down until you complete the quest. 3) Use a modded leveling system (see the Mods section near the end of the guide). This will allow you to level more reasonably without having to pay a lot of attention to the math. There are also mods that affect enemy leveling, which makes the game much more interesting. 4) Use the Quest Reward Leveling mod (see the Mods section near the end of the guide). This levels up quest rewards with your class level, so you'll always have a use for those special gifts. | Time, Waiting & Resting [GP02-C] +---------------------------------- Time in Oblivion passes at the rate of 30 minutes for every one real minute spent playing the game (not in Pause). So a 24-hour day takes 48 minutes of real time to play through. NPCs operate on schedules during the game day. Normal operating hours for merchants are 8am to 8pm every day. In the cities, most of the rulers hold court from 8am to 6pm every day. You can find a lot of NPCs at dinner in the local tavern or castle dining hall around 8pm to 11pm most days. Etc. If you're looking for someone and you don't have a quest marker for that person, you can assume that person will be at home, sleeping, at night. Etc. The calendar is just like the Gregorian calendar, albeit with different names: January - Morning Star July - Sun's Height February - Sun's Dawn August - Last Seed March - First Seed September - Heartfire April - Rain's Hand October - Frost Fall May - Second Seed November - Sun's Dusk June - Mid-Year December - Evening Star Sunday - Sundas Monday - Morndas Tuesday - Tirdas Wednesday - Middas Thursday - Turdas Friday - Fredas Saturday - Loredas The months have the same number of days as the Gregorian calendar, thus Last Seed has 31 days, Heartfire has only 30, etc. The game begins the 27th of Last Seed, Third Empire, year 433 (7/27/433--The in-game calendar displayed with the debug console counts the months from 0 to 11, so August/Last Seed is month 7, not 8). You can see the current date by turning on the debug console (tdt) and choosing page 0 (sdt 0). What does all this mean? Well, not much, unless you need to figure out an NPC's schedule. If a character does activity X on weekdays, you know that means Morndas, Tirdas, Middas, Turdas and Fredas. If it's currently Loredas, you've got to Wait two days to catch the NPC. And so on and so forth. At any time there are no enemies nearby and you are not trespassing you can use the Wait command (default PC key 'T', XBox 360 button 'Back'). You can Wait in one hour increments up to 24 hours (one full day). Waiting any period of time, even just one hour, fully restores your Health, Magicka and Fatigue. This is a kind of cheap way to heal yourself up while spelunking--clear out enough enemies and you can just Wait one hour. You can also sleep, if you have a bed handy. The only times you have to sleep are: 1) To increase your class level. Unless you're using a mod, or have turned on instant leveling in your INI file, you must sleep in a bed to level up. 2) Certain quests require you to sleep in a bed. E.g. "Where Spirits Have Lease" or during Dark Brotherhood quests. An easy way to have access to cheap (i.e. free) beds is to join either the Fighters Guild or Mages Guild. Just asking to join gives you a key to all the guild halls, all of which have beds to sleep in. You don't even have to perform any quests. Every city except Kvatch and Imperial City have both a Fighters Guild and Mages Guild. | Travel, Horses & Quest Markers [GP02-D] +----------------------------------------- There are three ways to travel in Cyrodiil: 1) On foot, either walking or running. 2) By horse. Faster than running (unless you have a very high Speed attribute), but somewhat unreliable. You cannot fight while you're on a horse, they're difficult to steer and they sometimes wander away while you're dungeon delving. There are seven horses or types of horses available (the Speed attributes in these lists are somewhat misleading, as horses can move a lot faster than humans, so only compare the Speed of a horse against other horses, not humanoids): * Paint: Speed 23, Combat 40, Attack Damage 10, Health 300 Available in Bruma, Leyawiin and from Prior Maborel as part of the "Find the Heir" main quest. Paint horses are the slowest, least combat-worthy horses in the game. However, they are sturdy (300 Health), cheap and you can get one free two minutes after you leave the tutorial dungeon. * Bay: Speed 26, Combat 30, Attack Damage 10, Health 250 Bay horses are sold at the stables outside Bravil and Skingrad. They are not as sturdy as Paint horses, but are faster. * Chestnut: Speed 29, Combat 20, Attack Damage 10, Health 200 Faster and not as hardy as the Bay, Chestnut horses are sold in Chorrol. * White: Speed 29, Combat 50, Attack Damage 12, Health 400 The white horses of Anvil are the sturdiest regular horses available. They're also pretty fast. * Black: Speed 33, Combat 60, Attack Damage 15, Health 325 Cheydinhal's black horses are good combat companions and the fastest regular horses in the game. * Shadowmere: Speed 33, Combat 50, Attack Damage 20, Health 500 You obtain Shadowmere during the Dark Brotherhood quests. As fast as the black horses of Cheydinhal and a better fighter, plus, he can never be killed! (He just falls unconscious.) * Unicorn: Speed 29, Combat 70, Attack Damage 45, Health 350 The unicorn is the target of a hunt instigated by the daedric lord Hircine. While a fearsome combatant, he's not particularly suited to be your regular mount. He doesn't like drawn weapons and will attack even you if you show steel in his presence. 3) Fast Travel: while outdoors, open your World Map, choose a location and click its icon. As long as there are no enemies nearby, you'll be asked if you want to Travel there. Choose yes, and hey! There you are. Some caveats about Fast Travel: * Except for the city markers and a few quest-related locations (Weynon Priory, Cloud Ruler Temple and a couple of others) you must have actually visited the location to Fast Travel there. Even though someone marks the location on your map, you must still get there by foot or horse first. Once you have "discovered" a place, you can Fast Travel there as much as you want. * If you own a horse, the horse Fast Travels with you (and is used to calculate time passed, see below) even if you aren't mounted on the horse. If you Fast Travel into a city, the horse is automatically stabled outside the walls. There's no fee for stabling your horse. * Time does pass when you Fast Travel, based on whether you're on foot or on horse. It's not a large amount of time. Traveling from Cheydinhal in the east to Anvil in the west takes only 11 hours on foot or 5 hours on a black horse. * If you use the console to turn on all map markers (tmm 1), you can Fast Travel to every marker. Of course, all these travel options don't mean jack if you don't know where to go. That's where the quest or objective marker comes in. On local maps, world maps and your HUD compass, you'll see either a green or red arrow marker--provided you have an active quest. This marker shows you the location or direction in which your current objective is located. This is why, many times in this walkthrough, you are told to go through certain steps. You could, conceivably, skip some of the interrogations and move straight to the target; however, without questioning people, you won't get the quest marker on your maps and you'll be trying to find the marble in the oatmeal. A red quest marker indicates the target is *not* in the same area as you. A green quest marker indicates the target *is* in the same area as you. ("Area" in this sense does not mean the small "areas" loaded by the game as you travel. You are in the same "area" if you are in the same world-space. This means a target that is in the world-at-large is in the same area as you if you are both outside cities and outside any building/dungeon--even if you are on opposite sides of the map.) Multiple arrows mean there are multiple targets--i.e. more than one enemy you must kill or more than one NPC who can provide you with information. Your quest journal has three tabs: active quest, open quests and completed quests. Quest markers only show for the active quest, and there can be only one active quest at a time. To change active quests, select an open quest and click it. The open quest you selected becomes the new active quest and quest markers change to reflect the new quest. If you have no active quest, and you get a new quest, it automatically becomes active. If you have an active quest, and you get a new quest, you are asked if you want to Continue or Make This My Active Quest. Continuing adds the new quest to open quests, but does not make it active. The second option, obviously, marks the quest as active. | Mini-games [GP02-E] +--------------------- LOCKPICKING ----------- Whenever you Activate a locked door or container, the lockpicking mini-game starts. You'll see a stylized rendition of the internal workings of a lock. Through the middle runs a hollow bolt into which your pick is inserted. This bolt is held in place by from one (very easy locks) to five (very hard locks) tumblers. You may attempt to automatically open the lock using the Auto Attempt button, or you may pick the lock manually. Move the pick under a tumbler and push up to push the tumbler out of the bolt. The tumblers are spring-loaded and will pop back down either immediately or after a one- or two-second delay. While the tumbler is still seated in the up position, LEFT-CLICK or press the right trigger to set the tumbler. If you click at the wrong time, the tumbler falls back into place and breaks your pick. Depending on your Security skill, other tumblers you have already set will also fall and you'll have to set them all over again. Security controls the lockpicking mini-game in three ways: * Higher Security provides a more likely chance of success if you use the Auto Attempt button to try to pick the lock. * Higher Security keeps set tumblers in place when you break a pick by failing to properly set a tumbler. (Novice: all set tumblers fall; Apprentice: up to three set tumblers fall; Journeyman: up to two set tumblers fall; Expert: only one other set tumbler will fall; Master: no other tumblers fall.) * Higher Security causes tumblers to drop back down more slowly. You can figure out when to set a tumbler into place in one of two ways: * Keep pushing it up and letting it fall and watch the pattern. On more complex locks the tumbler's patter can be quite long. For example, an easy lock might have a tumbler with a pattern of short-long-short-short. A more complex lock might have patterns like short-long-long-short-short-short-long-short-long. Once you've got the pattern, click to set on a long segment of the pattern. * Listen to the sound of the tumbler moving up. There is an extra, very quiet click when the tumbler is going to stay seated for a second or two. That's when you can set the tumbler. Once you learn how to recognize that little extra click, you can pick locks very easily. There are two ways to get around this mini-game: 1) Work on your Alteration skill and use Open Lock spells. 2) Perform Nocturnal's quest (as soon as you reach level 10) and get the Skeleton Key. This unbreakable lockpick allows you to pick any lock just by clicking Auto-Attempt until the lock opens. PERSUASION ---------- Each NPC has a Disposition score that indicates how likely they are to give you important information or Haggle with you (if a merchant). You can increase an NPC's Disposition using a Persuasion mini-game. In some cases, getting or continuing a quest requires you to get a high Disposition score with the target. *NOTE* You can also increase Disposition by using Charm spells, the Imperial ability, "Voice of the Emporer", or the vampire ability, "Vampire's Seduction". To play the Persuasion mini-game, click the Persuade button (face icon on the left of the conversation menu) during conversation. A segmented wheel opens next to the NPC. There are four segments: Admire, Boast, Joke and Coerce. During each round of play, you must perform each action once. To perform an action, select it and LEFT-CLICK or Right Trigger. Of the four actions, the NPC will love one, like one, dislike one and hate one. You can tell the NPC's reaction by examing his or her face when you select the action. Inside each action's segment of the wheel is a wedge. After each selection, the wedges "rotate", changing their position. There are four wedges: 25%, 50%, 75% and 100%. They always rotate clockwise and their order will differ from round to round. The actions the NPC loves, likes, dislikes and hates will always be the same, so you only need to test them at the beginning of the mini-game. Basic gameplay involves choosing liked or loved responses when they are filled with a medium or large wedge and choosing disliked and hated actions when they have only a small wedge in them. All the while you're deciding which action to pick, the NPC's Disposition is falling. First, get a blank sheet of paper and sketch four large X's on it: \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \/ \/ \/ \/ /\ /\ /\ /\ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ Start the Persuasion mini-game and quickly examine the NPC's reactions to each action. Pause the game and note these reactions in the appropriate section of your diagrams. In this example, the NPC (a city guard) loves Admire, likes Boast, dislikes Joke and hates Coerce: LV LV LV LV \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / LK \/ D LK \/ D LK \/ D LK \/ D /\ /\ /\ /\ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ H H H H Next, quickly examine the current position of the wedges, pause the game and note these in your first X: LV \ 25 / \ / LK \/ D 75 /\ 50 / \ /100 \ H You can now extrapolate where each wedge will be for each selection: LV LV LV LV \ 25 / \ 75 / \100 / \ 50 / \ / \ / \ / \ / LK \/ D LK \/ D LK \/ D LK \/ D 75 /\ 50 100 /\ 25 50 /\ 75 25 /\100 / \ / \ / \ / \ /100 \ / 50 \ / 25 \ / 75 \ H H H H The strategy is simple: First determine in which turn you get the 25% wedge in Hate and take that--in this example, it is the third turn. Then you want the 100% wedge in Love, or, if that's unavailable (because it occurs in the same turn as 25% in Hate), then take 75% in Love (second turn in this example). Then Dislike when it is lower--of the remaining turns (first and fourth), Dislike is lower in the first. So, the correct strategy for this round is: Dislike (50%), Love (75%), Hate (25%), Like (25%). You then start the next round and your opening looks like this: LV \100 / \ / LK \/ D 25 /\ 75 / \ / 50 \ H Planning ahead yields: Love (100%), Like (50%), Dislike (25%), Hate (25%). You'll get a greater increase in Disposition this round than the previous round. Continue until you've maxed the NPC's Disposition. Your Speechcraft skill can help with the Persuasion mini-game in several ways: * At Apprentice rank, you can get a free rotation of the wheel during the mini-game. * At Journeyman rank, the NPC's Disposition falls more slowly while you're making your decisions. * At Expert rank, there is less reduction in Disposition from the hated response. Once you get good at this mini-game, you won't need to sketch out your moves, you'll be able to do it in your head, which dramatically decreases the time it takes to sweet-talk NPCs. | Enchanting, Spellmaking & Soul Gems [GP02-F] +---------------------------------------------- Sooner, rather than later, you're going to be depending on enchanted weapons and/or armor for survival. You may also find that you want a specific type of spell that you can't find anywhere from a spell merchant--perhaps you want a stronger healing spell, but the only stronger ones sold are too high in level for you to use. Regardless, you're going to be interested in three things: * Enchanting your own items (armor, clothing, weapons and jewelry) * Recharging enchanted weapons * Making your own spells -> Spellmaking To make your own spells requires access to an Altar of Spellmaking. In the base game, Altars of Spellmaking are only available in Arcane University to Apprentices (and higher) of the Mages Guild. That means you have to complete the seven Recommendation quests. You can get an Altar of Spell- making in Frostcrag Spire if you buy the Wizard's Tower official plugin-- no guild membership necessary. Activate an Altar of Spellmaking and you'll be presented with a simple menu. At the top is a box where you enter your spell's name. On the left is a list of effects from spells currently in your spellbook. You can only create new spells using effects you already know--magnitude isn't relevant. So, if you want to create a spell that does 50 points of fire damage and you still have Flare (5 points fire damage) in your spellbook (the spell you're given in the starter dungeon), you can create your 50-point fire damage spell. When you choose an effect, you get a new window with four controls: * Range: one of Self, Touch or Target * Magnitude: strength of the spell * Area: how large of an area will be affected by the spell (if you select Self as the Range, this option disappears) * Duration: how long the spell lasts (Some of the sliders may not show depending on the effect. For example, Detect Life only shows Magnitude and Duration. Other effects may show additional controls, for example an Attribute control for picking an Attribute to Fortify or Drain.) Along the bottom of this window you will see the current number of Magicka points required to cast the spell based on your skill rank in the appropriate spell school (next to the lightning bolt icon), the cost to create the spell (next to the gold coin icon with the arrow) and the total gold you currently possess (next to the right-most coin icon). You can manipulate these sliders to get similar effects at different costs. For example, a spell causing 50 points of fire damage on Target costs 33 Magicka to cast and 99 gold to create. A spell causing 10 points of fire damage for 5 seconds (total 50 points) costs only 21 Magicka to cast and 63 gold to create. Add a 10-foot explosion to that spell, and it still only costs 32 Magicka to cast and 96 gold to create. (Magicka costs based on Destruction rank of 100.) You can combine effects, even effects from different spell schools in a single spell. The spell school under which the spell falls is determined by the first listed effect. The skill rank needed to cast the spell is determined by the spell cost. -> Enchanting In addition to finding a lot of enchanted equipment in the world, you can make your own. To do so, you need to use an Altar of Enchanting or a sigil stone (the ones you collect when you close an Oblivion gate). The only Altars of Enchanting in Cyrodiil are in Arcane University--so you'll have to complete the Mages Guild Recommendation quests to get in there. (Alternately, you can buy the Wizard's Tower official plugin and get your own Altar of Enchanting without joining the Mages Guild.) To enchant an item with a sigil stone, simple select the sigil stone in your inventory. Each sigil stone shows two effects: one defensive/buffing effect and one offensive effect. For example, a stone may show the effects of Fire Resist and Fire Damage. When you select the stone and click it (or press the A button), you get a menu showing your available weapons and worn items that have no enchantments. Select a weapon to get the offensive effect added to that weapon. Select an item of wear to get the defensive effect added to that item. You can also name your item. No altars or soul gems are needed to enchant the item. You will still need soul gems or varla stones to recharge the item. In order to enchant an item without using a sigil stone, you must have a soul gem with a captured soul. Souls and soul gems come in five sizes: petty, lesser, common, greater and grand. The enchantment ability is determined by the size of the soul, not the size of the gem. When you Activate an Altar of Enchanting, you get a menu showing a box across the top for the name of your item. On the left you can Add Item-- you can enchant any weapon or item you can wear (clothing, armor, rings or amulets). On the right you can Add Soul Gem, selecting the filled gem you want to use from your inventory. After you've selected an item, a list of effects--governed by the effects you know how to cast (i.e. have similar spells in your spell book)--shows in the left-hand box. Effects you have added to your item show in the right-hand box as you add them. ENCHANTING WEAPONS ------------------- Weapons can have multiple enchantments, but you must add all enchantments at one time. Once an enchanted weapon has been made, you cannot add enchantments to it. The size of the soul you use to enchant the weapon determines how many total charges the weapon will have: * Petty: 150 charges * Lesser: 300 charges * Common: 800 charges * Greater: 1200 charges * Grand: 1600 charges When you choose an effect to add to the weapon, you get a window with three controls: * Magnitude: strength of the effect * Area: how large of an area will be affected by the weapon * Duration: how long the effect will last (Some effects, such as Drain Skill, will show an additional control.) Below you can see (from right to left): the number of charges used per hit with the weapon, the number of uses you'll get before the weapon needs to be recharged (this is the total charges from the soul divided by the number of charges used per hit), the cost to create the weapon and the total gold you have in your pockets. As you manipulate the sliders to create the effect, the number of charges per hit will go up (or down) with corresponding dips or increases in the number of uses. To recharge any enchanted weapon: * Use a filled soul gem from your inventory, the number of charges restored from the soul is the same as the number of charges that size soul provides when enchanting (i.e. 150, 300, 800, 1200 or 1600) * Use a varla stone in your inventory. Varla stones fully recharge every enchanted weapon in your inventory. * Pay a recharger. Various merchants (most in the Mages Guild halls) will recharge your weapons. They charge one gold per charge restored. ENCHANTING ARMOR, CLOTHING AND JEWELRY --------------------------------------- Items you wear can only have one enchantment placed on them. You select the item, the soul gem and the effect. The magnitude of the effect is determined by the size of the soul in the gem. The range is always self and the duration is always constant. Enchanted wear items do not have charges associated with them. -> Soul Gems For purposes of enchanting and recharging, soul gems are highly useful. Of course, they must first be filled with a soul. You capture souls using a Soul Trap spell. Cast Soul Trap on an enemy and kill that enemy before the Trap spell wears off. The enemy's soul will go into the smallest empty gem in your inventory that is still big enough to hold the soul. For example, you have an empty lesser and an empty greater soul gems. If you capture a petty or lesser soul, it will go into the lesser gem. If you capture a common or greater soul, it will go into the greater gem. If you capture a grand soul, it will be wasted because you don't have a grand gem available. If you capture a lesser soul, then a petty soul, the lesser will go to the lesser gem and the petty will end up in the greater gem. You can only capture the souls of creatures that are not one of the ten player races (Argonian, Breton, Dark Elf, High Elf, Imperial, Khajiit, Nord, Orc, Redguard or Wood Elf). Using Soul Trap on a "sentient" race is a waste of the spell. The exception is the black soul gem. Black soul gems are grand soul gems that can be used to capture "human" souls. There are a few black soul gems that are found as treasure. You can also make your own black soul gems using a necromancer altar. To make a black soul gem, you need an empty grand soul gem and a Soul Trap spell (any level spell will do). Find a necromancer altar (there's one in front of Dark Fissure in eastern Cyrodiil). Wait until midnight. Look for a bright cone of light shining down around the altar. (It's easier to see this cone if you look up into the sky, rather than looking at the altar.) If there's no bright light, Wait 24 hours and try again. Sometime during the week, a bright cone of light will shine down on the altar. When it does, put your empty grand soul gem in the altar and cast Soul Trap on the altar. Remove your shiny new black soul gem. SOULS ------ A short list of soul sizes for commonly encountered creatures. These sizes are for the base creatures. Leveled creatures will have larger souls. * Petty: Deer, Dog, Goblin, Mud Crab, Rat, Sheep, Skeleton, Slaughterfish, Stunted Scamp, Wolf * Lesser: Boar, Clannfear Runt, Deranged Zombie, Ghost, Goblin Skirmisher, Horse, Imp, Timber Wolf, Troll, Zombie * Common: Ancient Ghost, Black Bear, Clannfear, Faded Wraith, Flame Atronach, Goblin Berserker, Goblin Shaman, Goblin Warlord, Headless Zombie, Minotaur, Mountain Lion, Ogre, Scamp, Skeleton Hero, Spriggan, Will-o-the-Wisp * Greater: Brown Bear, Daedroth, Dread Zombie, Frost Atronach, Land Dreugh, Nether Lich, Skeleton Champion, Spider Daedra, Storm Atronach, Wraith * Grand: Gloom Wraith, Lich, Minotaur Lord, Xivilai [GP03] <~~~~~~ COMBAT ~~~~~~> As would be the case in any adventure/RPG style game, there is plenty of combat in Oblivion. Combat can be generalized into three types: Melee, Ranged and Stealth. You can use magic or weapons in any of the types--yes, there are plenty of touch spells to use in an up-close-and-personal way. Before getting into specific tactics for each type of combat, there are some rules-of-thumb that apply to all combat in Oblivion: | Divide and Conquer +-------------------- The combat in Oblivion is real-time and based on simple physics: if you swing at the right time and in the right place, you hit. If you aim your arrow properly, you hit. If you don't do these things right, you miss. There are no dice rolls going on "in the background". Nobody stands around "waiting their turn". If you get surrounded by three or more enemies, you're dead. Fortunately, the developers, for the most part, spaced enemies out so you don't typically walk in on a horde that's just sat down for lunch. Most rooms have only one or two nasties in them. Larger rooms may have three or four, but widely spaced out. You need to learn to draw enemies to you one (or, at worst, two) at a time. Use arrows, ranged spells or jump up-and-down to attract the attention of the closest to you, then turn and run back a ways so your foe will foolishly charge after you, not waiting for his/her/its compatriots. Once you learn how to deal with enemies in *very small* numbers, combat becomes a lot easier. | Variety is the Spice of Survival +---------------------------------- Don't restrict yourself to a single type of combat. Have different methods (melee weapons, ranged weapons, spells) available to you. Some enemies are much more difficult to kill in certain ways. For example, the best way to deal with a mage hurling spells at you is Me Smash! Trading fireballs probably won't cut it (unless you were born under the sign of Atronach and are using the opposing spells to regenerate your own Magicka, but that's advanced tactics and you better know what you're doing...) | The Better Part of Valor +-------------------------- Sometimes, sneaking past is the best way to handle the situation, even for non Stealth characters. And, of course, you can always run away and return later when you've got new, fancier equipment (with enchantments!) | Melee Combat +-------------- If you're used to the charge-and-bash "strategy" present in many RPGs, it's time to re-think your tactics. Oblivion is much more akin to standard first-person shooters (which it emulates in gameplay) in which you must use your brains before your brawn, no matter how well you've crafted your tank. Simply charging into a battle situation is a good way to end up dead. Even as a primarily melee fighter, you need to have an arsenal of ranged weapons and spells at your disposal. They don't have to especially effective, just enough to either draw enemies to you or to put archers/mages off balance while you charge. It also doesn't hurt to have some Restoration magic handy. Use magic between battles to heal yourself, saving the potions for emergencies--i.e., when you're in the middle of combat and about to die. You do not want to neglect your inner sneak thief, either. When approaching large rooms, sneak up to the doorway and try to identify the enemies within. You may be able to single them out with well-placed arrows, thus keeping yourself from being ganged up on by three or four beasties. The watchword for fighters in Oblivion: Patience. Remember, it's a virtue. | Ranged Combat +--------------- Ranged combat can be accomplished with a bow or with magic--mostly Destruction spells, as that is the school with the most damaging ranged spells. Ranged characters depend on Agility and Speed to stay out of range of melee foes. Acrobatics is a good skill for this type of fighting as it gives you the ability to jump up out of the way of the swinging sword and pepper your foe while they futilely try to reach you. This works better outdoors than in dungeons, but even some of the bigger caverns and ruins have lots of ledges and cubbyholes where you can stand and fire away. You'll want to invest some time in leveling up your Block skill and carry a shield if using spells (archers can block with their bow). This will be your fallback if you can't get away from the big nasty with sharp, pointy claws. You'll not want to wear heavy armor, as it slows you down too much; you may even want to stick with enchanted robes. If you go pure archer, you'll tend to be at a disadvantage. You will want to consider having some melee weapons to use in case of emergency--you can't snipe everything in this game. Mages will be a little better off as there are plenty of spells that can do as much, if not more, damage than the typical melee tank. | Stealth Combat +---------------- Some players prefer getting the drop on their enemies, rather than trying to duel everyone they meet. If you attack someone undetected, you score additional damage--up to six times as much damage using an undetected melee attack. Add poison and/or enchantments to your weapon, and you can rack up a lot of one-hit kills this way. The downside? You must have a lot of patience, diligently level up your Sneak skill and take your time going through every dungeon. Stealth fighting is not for those who just want to get things over with. You can also find yourself at a disadvantage if you get into a scrap with multiple foes. Since your fighting abilities are designed for taking out one enemy as quickly as possible, being surrounded puts you in a world of hurt. In order to minimize your chances of being mobbed, you'll want to invest in some ranged Destruction spells or the Marksman skill. You can use arrows or spells to draw a single foe to you, then go into Sneak mode and take them out from hiding. You should also invest in light armor skill, so you're not totally defenseless if Sneaking fails you. [MS00] ~~The Elder Scrolls IV~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ MAIN STORY ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~OBLIVION~~ [MS01] <~~~~~~ TUTORIAL ~~~~~~> This starter dungeon is your tutorial for the game. It covers most of the basics. You start by choosing your race. Later you'll choose your birthsign and class. You'll be given the opportunity to change all of these at the end of the tutorial. | Imperial Prison +----------------- Wander around your cell, playing with the chains and listening to the Dark Elf across the way taunt you. Soon, Uriel Septim himself, accompanied by some of his Blades, will show up and give you a way out. Follow them down into the escape tunnel. You'll soon reach a place where the Emperor is attacked and Renault is killed--stay out of this fight, as you don't have a weapon or armor and you can't change the outcome anyway. Loot Renault's corpse for her sword and a torch and search the assassin bodies for miscellaneous stuff (mostly potions). From this point, you can't follow the Emperor's party, but a convenient hole in the wall to the southeast soon opens and a couple of rats run through. Kill the rats, jump through the hole and watch out for more rats. Thoroughly search this large cavern. A skeleton near the entrance has a bow and some arrows, so you can start working on your Marksman skill. There are a number of corpses--one has several lockpicks and another has a key to the exit door. The exit is to the southeast; the lock can be picked if you haven't found the key. (The body with the key is near the door.) | Imperial Substructure +----------------------- There's a zombie at the bottom of the slope leading out of the first room. This will be the strongest foe you've faced thus far. Other than that bit of excitement, you're mostly just fighting rats and collecting loot. Near the exit is a goblin early-warning system consisting of skulls hanging from the ceiling. | Natural Caverns +----------------- Soon after entering the caverns, you'll get your first lesson in sneaking. You can just sneak past the goblin, but might as well sneak up to him and give him the business end of your weapon. Around the next corner is a tripwire. You can jump the tripwire and then fight the goblin beyond it; or, try to run through the tripwire and speed past the goblin, who will then take the brunt of the swinging maces. Don't try this unless you have a Speed rating of 40 or higher. You'll then want to advance carefully through the caverns, fighting each goblin as you come upon it. Don't rush or you'll get two or three of these nasty beasts on you at once and then it's reload time. Near the end, you'll come upon a pile of logs at the top of a slope. Activate the logs to take out the two goblins at the bottom of the slope. Advance slowly down the slope to a very large cavern. There will be three or four goblins in here, one of which is a witch with a lightning staff. Use a bow or ranged spell to draw the weaker goblins to you, then bull-rush the witch. The tunnel exit from this room eventually leads into the Imperial Subteranne. | Imperial Subteranne +--------------------- You come out on a high ledge looking over Uriel Septim and his bodyguards. Jump down into the room and Septim invites you to join the party. During the conversation you'll select a birthsign. Don't worry too much about your selection, you'll get to change it later. Follow the emperor and guards, helping with the assassins as they attack. You'll eventually reach... | The Sanctum +------------- Soon after entering the Sanctum, Baurus and the other guard go to scout ahead, leaving you to guard the Emperor in a side room. Uriel Septim initiates another conversation with you, this time charging you to take his Amulet of Kings to Jauffre, who will know where to find the last remaining son of the Emperor. As soon as you have the amulet, a Mythic Dawn assassin jumps through a secret door and kills Septim. [MS02] <~~~~~~ DELIVER THE AMULET ~~~~~~> | Sewers +-------- Baurus and the other guard return in time to help you deal with the assassin. You can then talk to Baurus about Jauffre. Jauffre is the Grandmaster of the Blades--the Emperor's personal guard--and he bides his time at Weynon Priory outside Chorrol. Baurus also initiates your first chance to choose a class. Don't spend too much time on it now, you can change it later (along with your race and birthsign). He'll then point you through the door the assassin came through, saying it leads to the sewers and freedom. Follow the hall to the sewer entrance, then advance through the sewers. Soon after entering, you'll come to a large room divided by water. There are two exits. The left--north--exit leads to some loot guarded by goblins. The right--southeast--exit eventually leads to the long tunnel out of the sewers. About halfway down the tunnel you'll come to a gate. When you Activate the gate, you'll get a menu allowing you to change your race, birthsign, class or exit the sewers. *SAVE YOUR GAME* You may even want to use the console command SaveGame to create a specially-named save. Never delete this savegame. Whenever you want to start the game over with a "new" character, just load this savegame and change your race, birthsign and class, then exit the sewers. You never have to go through the starter dungeon again. (Well, unless you go through the Dark Brotherhood quests, but that's different.) When you're happy with your choice of character, exit the sewers. You find yourself looking out over a river toward some ruins. Behind you rises the Imperial Prison and, beyond that, Imperial City itself. | Imperial City +--------------- You can, if you like, immediately Fast Travel to Weynon Priory; however, you will probably want to stop in Imperial City and sell off any useless items you collected in the starter dungeon. The main story beckons, but so does the entire land of Cyrodiil. To quest, or not to quest, that is the question. There are several reasons for starting the main story right away and leaving everything else until later: 1) Several times during the main story you will be required either to protect an NPC or fight a pitched battle against hordes of daedra with the help of other NPCs. If you wait until you are higher level, the daedra you fight will also be higher level. Alas, the NPCs around you will not. Once you get into the late teens in level, the daedra you fight will have your allies for lunch and come looking for you as dessert. Fighting a mob of mid-level daedra isn't healthy. Not at all. You could wait until your power rivals the Nine (around 35th or 40th level), at which point the daedra you face simply can't keep up and you'll mow them down with ease. That doesn't necessarily help in the "protect the NPC" quests, though. At low levels, the daedra that spew forth from Oblivion are also low-level and your allies can pitch in and actually do more than contribute to some demon's indigestion. In this case, the leveled system works as intended and keeps the tasks challenging, but not impossible. 2) If you do a little bit of the main story, up to taking Martin back to Weynon Priory, you'll start the part of the game where random Oblivion gates pop up around Cyrodiil. If you get up to that point in the main story, then go side questing for a while, your way will eventually be impeded by all the daedra roaming the countryside. Better to get to the end of the main story and clear all that up. 3) When you finish the main story, you are proclaimed the Champion of Cyrodiil and everyone loves you. Literally. You get a big Disposition increase with all the NPCs, which makes all the side quests (many of which require a high Disposition score with an NPC somewhere along the way) much easier. No mucking about with the Disposition mini-game, or Charm spells or any thing like that. Just chat with the people and they'll do whatever you want or tell you anything you want to know. Makes the side quests a breeze. 4) A lot of the rewards for side quests are special enchanted items that are keyed to your level. The higher your level, the more powerful the item. If you collect all this junk at low levels, that's exactly what they will be-- junk. (PC users can download a mod that fixes this problem. See the Mods section at the end of this guide.) Better to do all these side quests later and get the uber leet gear instead of the fancy baubles. Of course, you can ignore the voice of reason and go off side questing, in which case, just skip on down to the section you want to see. For those of you with a bit more wisdom, Fast Travel to... | Weynon Priory +--------------- Weynon Priory is located southeast of Chorrol. You can Fast Travel there from the beginning of the game. Jauffre is typically found upstairs in the main priory house, usually sitting at his desk. Talk to him for a history of the kings, the dragonfires and Oblivion. He'll also point you to Septim's lone surviving heir, Martin, who serves as a priest of Akatosh in Kvatch. Jauffre will take the amulet and charge you with finding Martin and bringing him to Weynon Priory. After, ask Jauffre about assistance. He'll open his chest and you can loot it for better armor, weapons and other things. Downstairs, talk to Prior Maborel, who will offer the loan of his horse. Accept, with thanks. You now have some decent equipment and a horse, the world is yours! Or you can get on with your mission to Kvatch. Now that you have a horse, you might want to go overland to Kvatch rather than Fast Travel. You'll discover a lot of locations that will be important for later quests. [MS03] <~~~~~~ FIND THE HEIR ~~~~~~> | Outskirts of Kvatch +--------------------- When you reach the outskirts of Kvatch, you find the city in flames. To the south is a refugee camp, where you get the full story of daedra spewing forth from an Oblivion gate. Questions about Martin lead you to Savlian Matius, captain of the Kvatch guard, who is holding the line against the demons at the entrance to Kvatch. Wind your way up the hill and find Matius and a few troops fighting daedra. (The specific type of daedra depend on your class level.) Pitch in, if you wish. When the fighting is over, talk to Matius, who tells you Martin is holed up inside the chapel in the city. Your only hope is to find out how to close the Oblivion gate, so the soldiers can retake the city. [MS04] <~~~~~~ BREAKING THE SIEGE OF KVATCH ~~~~~~> | Oblivion: Kvatch Gate +----------------------- Welcome to your primary task in the main story of Oblivion. You will soon grow to hate Oblivion gates. Ah well, no better time than the present. Step up to the glowing portal and Activate it and go to hell. Literally. Fire resistance is a good thing. Fire spells--not so good. Almost everything you encounter in Oblivion is resistant to fire, but weak against shock damage. Load up on shocking spells, or shock-enchanted weapons. (Funny--you would think the weakness would be to frost. Anyway...) If you start encountering Flame Atronachs, you can use frost against them. (Similarly, use fire against Frost Atronachs. Against Storm Atronachs, use anything other than shock.) As you enter Oblivion, you'll find a Kvatch guard under attack by daedra. If the guard survives--his name is Ilend Vonius--talk to him and either send him back to Matius, or ask him to come along and watch your back. Ahead of you (north) is a bridge blocked by a gate. To the east is a dead end. Your path lies to the west. First note about Oblivion: these areas are all very linear. If you get lost, just look at your map. There's usually only one way you can go. Wind your way around the west side of this island, until you reach the northwest section. Then you head back south--and a little east--eventually reaching the large round tower in the center of the north sector of the island. This is a Sigil Keep. You'll get to know these well. This particular keep is called Blood Feast. Lovely, ain't it? All Oblivion towers follow the same basic layout: * The tower is hollow in its center, with a Sigillum Sanguis at the top. To reach the Sanguis, you have to climb through one to three side areas. * Most Sigil Keeps have two side areas: Rending Halls and Corridors of Dark Salvation. These areas are relatively small and feature a few daedra and traps. * In between the side areas, you'll climb some ramps around the central hollow core of the tower. First up in Blood Feast, as in most Sigil Keeps, is the Rending Halls. Enter and climb the ramp, which takes a 90-degree turn. At the top, kill the daedra and use the Blood Fountain for some health regeneration. Re-enter the tower core through one of the two doors to the south. Climb a ramp around the tower core to reach an entrance to the Corridors of Dark Salvation. Wind your way up the ramp to a large room and dispose of the daedra. The only unlocked exit from this room (besides the hall you just came through) is to the west. This leads to a bridge over to a smaller tower. In the small tower (Reapers Sprawl), climb the ramp and kill the Sigil Keeper. Take a key from his body. Inside a cage is another Kvatch guard--still alive! Talk to him to learn what you must do: enter the Sigillum Sanguis at the top of the tower and remove the sigil stone. That will close the gate. Go back to Blood Feast. You can now leave this room through either the north or southwest door. The southwest door eventually leads back to the tower core, but on a dead-end balcony. There is some loot here (in bloody hunks of meat called "The Punished"). The north door leads to a ramp that curves to the east. At the top of the ramp, you'll see another ramp going down to the east and a door to the south. The door goes to your objective. The ramp going down eventually leads to another small tower, with some minor loot. Leave through the south door at the top of the ramp, re-entering the core of Blood Feast. Wind your way up the ramps to what looks like a dead end. Find the round platform surrounded by spikes. It's a teleporter (only a few of the Sigil Keeps have these). Step on it, Activate one of the spikes and you'll reach the level where you can enter the Sigillum Sanguis. All the Sanguis you enter are round rooms with three levels--you always enter at the bottom of the room and the sigil stone is always at the top. Of course. Fight your way up the stairs, and then up a ramp. When you reach the sigil stone at the top, simply Activate it. Things blow up. Lots of flashing. You're back in front of Kvatch with only a burned out relic to remind you of the lovely Oblivion gate. Find and talk to Matius. He wants you to come with them as they fight through to the survivors in the chapel. | Kvatch +-------- *NOTE*: The only way to get Martin out of the chapel is to let Matius and his men go in, going with them, and kill all the daedra inside the gates. If you try to go it alone, the daedra keep respawning and you can't get the survivors (including Martin) out of the church. Charge into Kvatch with Matius and his men and kill daedra (about four or five). Once you get a message that all the daedra are dead, enter the Temple of Akatosh. Matius will get a report from one of his guards inside the temple, and the survivors will head out to the refugee camp--Martin among them. You have a couple of choices: * Buttonhole Martin now and convince him to go with you to Weynon Priory. You then leave Matius and company to their own devices (which is to stand around and do nothing). * Let Martin go on down to the refugee camp. You can find him there later, perfectly safe, and have your heart-to-heart with him then. This frees you up to do the "Battle for Castle Kvatch" sub-quest. Regardless of what you decide to do, you must talk to Matius to officially end Breaking the Siege of Kvatch. Matius will ask for your help re-taking the Castle of Kvatch and finding the count. This is an optional sub-quest that relates to the optional "Allies for Bruma" quest that comes later on. This quest is covered under "Allies for Bruma", so if you want to do it now, skip down a few sections and get the low-down on your tasks. *NOTE* It is possible to do everything in Kvatch before ever visiting Jauffre at Weynon Priory. But, if you do that, you won't be able to recognize Brother Martin (he'll be labelled as a generic priest) and you won't be able to talk to him about being the heir to the throne. If you do break the siege before talking to Jauffre, you'll have to go talk to him, return to the refugee camp, and there you will find Martin wandering about. [MS05] <~~~~~~ WEYNON PRIORY ~~~~~~> When you're ready to get on with the main quest, talk to Martin and then Fast Travel to Weynon Priory. (You do not want to walk all that way when leading someone. They never run and it will take a long, long time.) You arrive in the middle of an attack. The Priory's shepherd runs up, with a Mythic Dawn assassin on his heels, and fills you in. Maborel is dead. (Yay! His horse is, ipso facto, yours now!) Jauffre is holed up in the chapel. Kill the assassins outside (with Martin's help, Brother Piner will join in as well), then enter the chapel and kill the assassins inside. You must keep Martin and Jauffre alive, else it's reload time. Once the assassins are dead, Jauffre thinks of the Amulet of Kings. Follow him to his loft room so you can be there to witness the look of shock on his face when he finds the Amulet is gone. Yeah. Never saw that coming. Jauffre decides the safest place for Martin is the headquarters of the Blades: Cloud Ruler Temple. The temple will be marked for you on your map and you can even Fast Travel there. (Hooray!) When you arrive, Martin is introduced as the Emperor, gives a little speech and heads off to settle in. Jauffre offers you membership in the Blades. Go ahead and accept--especially if you are a heavy armor fighter. There's a full set of kit (helm, gauntlets, cuirass, greaves, boots, shield and katana) for every Blade. This equipment is the equivalent of steel armor, so it's pretty good if you're still low level. <~~~~~~ RANDOM OBLIVION GATES ~~~~~~> This isn't really a quest. You get no journal entry, and there are no rewards (beyond any normal loot you may collect). You don't even have to worry about this at all; however... Once you go to Weynon Priory, the main story advances to the point where Oblivion gates begin popping up in random spots around Cyrodiil. The further you are in the main story, the higher the chance a gate will open in whatever region you are in. These gates not only open in random places, they point to random Oblivion worlds. All Oblivion worlds are roughly the same, but there's no way to predict the exact layout you'll get when going through a gate. Enter at your own risk. You can: * Ignore them. When you finish the main story, they will close automatically. You'll still have whatever daedra came out of them to deal with, but that's just a nuisance. (Especially since the first daedra to come out will be commensurate with your level at the time the gate opened--not your level when you come back through to sweep the area clean.) * Close them. They don't stay closed. But if you want the extra experience and/or loot and/or alchemical ingredients found only in Oblivion, then you can go in and close them (temporarily). [MS06] <~~~~~~ THE PATH OF DAWN ~~~~~~> Once you've settled in, talk to Jauffre. He wants you to track down the Mythic Dawn and find the Amulet. He points you to an old friend, Baurus (the guy who failed to properly guard Uriel Septim), who is hanging out at Luther Broad's Boarding House in Imperial City. Luther Broad's is in the Elven Gardens district. You can Fast Travel there, or walk/run/ride. Your choice. During normal hours, Baurus is sitting at the bar in Luther's place, having a pint (or two or three). Check out the guy sitting over in the corner, name of Astav Wirich. This will be your target. Have a seat next to Baurus (target the stool and Activate it) and have a little chat. Baurus has been intelligence-gathering and now he's being followed. He wants you to help him pin his shadow. Baurus will get up and leave, heading down to Luther's basement. Wirich will get up and follow him. You do the same. Once down in the basement, Wirich transforms himself into a Mythic Dawn assassin. Help Baurus dispose of him. Frisk the body to find a book: Mankar Camoran's Commentaries on the Mysterium Xarxes, Book 1. (This is a skill book, and will increase your Conjuration skill by 1 when you read it.). Talk to Baurus about the book. He suggests taking it to Tar-Meena, at the Arcane University. Go to college. If you're a member in good standing of the Mages Guild (i.e. you've completed enough of their tasks to have access to the University), you'll find Tar-Meena in the library. If not, she'll be hanging around in the lobby, just in case a visitor with a strange book happens to drop in and need help. Show her the book and she'll tell you this is the first of four Commentaries. She supposes having all four commentaries will reveal the location of the Mythic Dawn's headquarters. She just happens to have Book 2 (skill, Destruction +1) and suggests the bookstore First Edition in Imperial City for the other two. Go to the Market District of Imperial City. First Edition is located on the main SW to NE street near the gate to Green Emperor Way. Talk to Phintias, the merchant about the Books. Yes, he just so happens to have Book 3, but another customer, Gwinas, has already reserved the book and Phintias is holding it for Gwinas. Gwinas is the key to both Book 3 and Book 4. He's coming to buy Book 3 and he has a note setting up a meeting at which he'll receive Book 4. You have several options: 1) (Preferred): Wait in First Edition (you won't have to wait long), for Gwinas to show up. As soon as Gwinas has bought the book, corner him and reveal to him the Mythic Dawn is the group that killed the Emperor. Gwinas will re-think his idea of joining the cult, give you Book 3 (skill, Illusion +1) and the note about the meeting. 2) Get Phintias' Disposition north of 70 and he'll sell you Book 3 without waiting for Gwinas to come get it. You'll still have to get the note from Gwinas, which you can do by confronting him as in option #1. Since Gwinas will give you Book 3 free, but Phintias won't, option #1 is better. 3) Follow Gwinas back to his hotel, and either pick-pocket Book 3 and the note from him, or kill him and take them from his corpse. *HINT* Visit Edgar's Discount Spells in the Market District and pick up a Convalescence spell. (Convalescence allows you to heal a target.) Very useful for keeping NPCs alive during the tasks ahead. Once you have Book 3 and the note, return to Baurus. He'll tell you he knows exactly where this meeting is to take place. Follow him to the Elven Gardens district and a sewer entrance. Baurus leads you on a winding path through the sewers, impeded by the occasional rat, mud crab or goblin. Finally, he'll stop and tell you the meeting is to take place just beyond a door. He suggests you go up some stairs to the left and spy on the proceedings from above. You can either acquiesce or demand to be the one who has the meeting and Baurus can be the cover. Either way works. The meeting is with Raven Camoran, Mankar's son. Not long into the meeting, a couple of assassins find whoever is handling backup duty on the upper floor and your cover is blown. It's a 3-on-2 fight, unless you let Baurus get killed, then you're in trouble. Once all the assassins are dead, loot Raven's corpse for Book 4 (skill, Mysticism +1) and a key to another exit from the sewers. Talk to Baurus (if he's still alive). He's going to Cloud Ruler Temple to take up his duties under Martin. You need to get out of the sewers. Use the key you took from Raven to go out the way he came in and loot their hideout. If you keep heading north, you'll reach the Talos Plaza sewers, which is a slightly shorter way out; but, hasn't been cleared of enemies (and you're on your own now). You can also go back the way you came in--if you can remember which turns to take. Once out of the sewers, return to Tar-Meena at Arcane University. She'll say she has to study the books in order to find the hidden message. It takes her three days to figure out the hidden message, which is "Green Emperor Way Where Tower Touches Midday Sun". (Read the first letter of each paragraph of each book.) You don't have to wait for Tar-Meena. Go to Green Emperor Way (middle section of Imperial City, where the palace is located). The palace is surrounded by a cemetery and you're looking for the tomb of Prince Camarril. His tomb is located in the southwest portion of the district. It's not marked on your map; look for a large, domed tomb and target the door to find out if it's his. Once you've found the tomb, Wait until the 11:00am hour and then sit and wait for the light show to begin. When you see a glowing map appear on the door of the tomb, step up close enough to get the message you've found the headquarters of the Mythic Dawn. Mission accomplished. [MS07] <~~~~~~ DAGON SHRINE ~~~~~~> Your next step is obvious: invade HQ and get the Amulet of Kings back. You can return to Cloud Ruler Temple if you wish, but Jauffre and Martin aren't going to tell you any different. The Lake Arrius Caverns now marked for you on your map are northwest of Cheydinhal, so Fast Travel to the city and then hoof it north. The caverns are on the north shore of Lake Arrius. When you enter, you'll meet a non-hostile Mythic Dawn member. He'll give you a pass code and you give him the reply. He then instructs you to proceed through the door and see Harrow. Now, before you actually go any further, you need to know some things. If you play this undercover, you'll be stripped of all your non-quest items such as armor, weapons, potions--*everything*. Or, you can try to bull your way through, which means fights with a *lot* of Mythic Dawn assassins. Here's the rundown for each method: 1) You're going to play it "safe", so you decide to continue the deception. This is a good choice for a very low level character. Before continuing, Fast Travel back to Cheydinhal and stow your gear. You can join the Fighter or Mages Guilds just by asking and get a free place to stash your wares-- but on the floor, not in a chest (the chests reset every few days). You can't drop gold, so use it to buy potions and other good stuff, because you don't want to just give it to Harrow. Alternately, you can drop everything on the floor of the entrance room of the caverns, but it will be hard to pick it back up when you come flying through later with a dozen assassins on your tail. Fast Travel back to the caverns and go through the door to your meeting with Harrow. Harrow will lead you to the main shrine and you'll hear Mankar Camoran himself give a little speech before disappearing into his own little "Paradise". He takes the Amulet of Kings with him (you didn't think it was going to be that easy did you?), but leaves behind the Mysterium Xarxes, which could prove useful. Harrow will lead you down and tell Remora Camoran (Mankar's daughter) that you've come to be initiated. She'll invite you up to the dais and offer to let you kill the Argonian tied to the altar. Regardless of what you do with the Argonian, you're going to end up in a fight. The wisest course of action is to agree to kill the prisoner, take the silver dagger laying next to the book, then Activate the prisoner to free him. Grab the book from the altar. Now everyone in the room has gone hostile. It's time to run, crying like a baby. You can't get out the way you came in. Your exit is up the stairs you came down, but turning to the right rather than the left. At the top is a door that leads to the Living Quarters. Head through the door and skip down to the Living Quarters section below. 2) If you're a little bit higher level, have decent kit and don't want to risk losing it, you can probably fight your way through to the shrine. Kill the guard in the entrance cavern and get a key from his body. This key will open the door into the next cave--just a tunnel, with possibly one cultist. The door at the end of the tunnel leads to the Shrine Antechamber. Read these directions carefully--you do not want to stop long enough to fight anyone, as that just brings hordes of cultists down on your head. And you can't handle hordes, no matter how high level you are. As you enter the Antechamber, you are in a large room. Your path is to the south. Book it to a tunnel and take the first left. You're going to have cultists nipping at your heals. Equip a healing spell and cast it as you need it. The key you got from the entrance guard should unlock the door here leading to the shrine. If you reach the end of the tunnel, where it turns right (east), you went too far. Good luck trying to turn around and go back. As you enter the shrine, a gate drops behind you, shutting off pursuit. You're on a high ledge looking over the altar. No one will notice your presence as you listen to Mankar Camoran's speech and watch him disappear with the Amulet of Kings. Once he's gone, you're in excellent position to snipe at the cultists below with arrows or spells. They will eventually respond, running up the stairs, but you should be able to get them one or two at a time, which is manageable. Once they are all dead, you can descend to the lower level, free the prisoner, and get the Mysterium Xarxes from the altar. You can't go back the way you came, so go up the stairs, taking a right instead of a left, and take the door at the top into the Living Quarters. | Living Quarters +----------------- Whether you're fully suited up or wearing only a red robe and carrying a dagger, there's only one way through here: running for your life. The Living Quarters are full of cultists, many of whom will use hit-and-run tactics. Stopping to fight just means getting beaten by as many as a dozen Mythic Dawn assassins at once. You can't survive that. So, running it is. Get a healing spell ready, sheathe your weapon (if you have one) and start pumping. From your entry point, run down the tunnel and take a right at the end. Take the next left and run until you can take a right turn. This leads into a room with two or more cultists. The exit is to the southwest--as you enter the room, take a hard left and hug the wall to find your way into the escape tunnel. This tunnel will turn south (left) and deposit you in a large room with at least two assassins. Take the stairs to the west (to your right as you come into the room) and run around the upper level to the exit in the southeast corner of the room. This tunnel turns south, then east and dumps you in another large room. You may find up to a dozen cultists in here having "worship services". Lucky you. The exit is in the middle of the south wall, so take a right as you come into the room and run through the middle of the mob to make your escape. This is a short tunnel that slopes up. At the top, turn left to find a door that leads back into the entrance cavern. Run down this tunnel to a small room. The exit tunnel is to your left (east). At the start of the tunnel is a turn-lever on the wall. Activate it to open the secret door just ahead and run through into the main entrance to the caverns. The exit to the outside world is straight ahead. As soon as you are outside, attempt to Fast Travel. If you were quick enough, you got out before any cultists and you'll be able to Fast Travel. If you get the "You cannot travel while enemies are near" message, then start running again in the direction of Cheydinhal. Speed is your only concern now. Once you are safe and have re-equipped yourself (if you decided on the undercover method), you can think about going back to the Caverns and methodically cleaning them out. There's a lot of loot in there. Or you can just count yourself lucky and Fast Travel to Cloud Ruler Temple. Martin wants that book you stole. [MS08] <~~~~~~ SPIES ~~~~~~> Back at Cloud Ruler Temple, find Martin (he's usually in the main hall) and give him Mysterium Xarxes. He gets pumped over getting into a little dark magic, then sends you to Jauffre, who's got some "concerns". Jauffre, indeed, is concerned. It appears strangers have been loitering about the Temple; but, despite having a huge building full of fighters, Jauffre can't spare anyone but you to check into it. Funny. Anyway, Jauffre refers you to Captain Steffan of the Blades or Captain Burd of the Bruma constabulary. Your quickest route through the task ahead is to track down Steffan. He's usually patrolling, during the day, follow your quest marker to find him. He reports some strangers hanging out around a runestone just south of the Temple. Walk down the slope to the runestone (it's kind of hard to miss, since it's big and has glowing runes on it). Take up position near the stone and Wait until dark (around 7 or 8 p.m.). You'll soon be attacked by two Mythic Dawn assassins, who shouldn't be too much trouble to take out. Search their bodies for some keys, including one labeled "Jearl's House Key". Jearl, eh? Go down to Bruma and find Jearl's house, it's in the southwest corner of town, behind the Chapel of Talos. Enter and find the trapdoor down into the basement, one of the keys you looted will open it. In the basement you will find a note outlining the Mythic Dawn's plan to open a Great Gate at Bruma in order to get to Martin. Return to Jauffre with the information, and then talk to Martin about his progress with the book. *PROGRESS NOTE* At this point in the game, you get two divergent, parallel paths. One involves collecting items for Martin to use in opening a portal to Paradise. The other involves getting Bruma ready for the opening of the Great Gate. The quests for Martin are Blood of the Daedra, Blood of the Divines and Miscarcand. The quests from Jauffre are Bruma Gate and Allies for Bruma (which includes a couple of sub-quests). You can do these in whatever order you wish. Eventually, the main story will merge in the quest Defense of Bruma. [MS09] <~~~~~~ BLOOD OF THE DAEDRA ~~~~~~> The first item on Martin's shopping list is an artifact of a daedra lord. These are, actually, fairly easy to come by. There are fifteen, total, and obtaining each one involves it's own set of tasks. These are detailed in the Side Quests section under Daedric Quests. Read through about the Daedric Quests and decide which artifact you are willing to give up, then go complete that task. The game suggests Azura, but many players like to keep her re-useable soul gem, Azura's Star. The best bet is Wabbajack. This staff from Sheogorath is: 1) easy to obtain, since the quest requires no combat, just pranks; and, 2) useless except as a novelty item. Once you have a daedric artifact, return to Martin.* He now wants the blood of a god. * A bug prevents Spell Breaker, the Peryite artifact, from being recognized by Martin. This is fixed with patch 1.1; however, why you would want to give up Spell Breaker is a mystery. [MS10] <~~~~~~ BLOOD OF THE DIVINES ~~~~~~> Martin refers you to Jauffre, who knows the location of Tiber Septim's armor. (The first emperor, Tiber eventually became the god Talos.) Speak to Jauffre. First, Jauffre wants you to go help close an Oblivion gate that's opened outside Bruma. This is the Bruma Gate quest. You can choose to do it now, or wait until later. Ask Jauffre about the armor of Tiber Septim. Jauffre directs you to Sancre Tor, which used to be a holy site for the Blades. He'll give you a key and directions, then it's up to you. Sancre Tor is west-southwest of Cloud Ruler Temple, almost due north of Chorrol. You'll need to prep for ghosts and wraiths in this dungeon. That means a magic or silver weapon or lots of spells. Suit up and hike on over. As you enter Sancre Tor, you'll find an enchanted weapon--if you don't already have one. Follow the hall to the first large room, and watch out for the dart traps surrounding the loot chests. Continue northwest and then northeast until you come to a large room. Be careful entering the room, this if the first of four boss fights you'll have in this dungeon. You may recall from Jauffre's conversation that the four greatest Blades of Tiber Septim's era lost their lives in Sancre Tor. Well, their skeletons are still prowling the corridors, and you have to kill them to release their spirits. They are each using enchanted Ancient Blades equipment. Oh. Goody. Pepper the skeletons from range first to soften them up. They move fast, so you won't get many shots in. Try to keep the fights in the large rooms where you find them, rather than retreating up hallways. You don't want to get into confined places with these guys. First up is Rielus. After he's defeated, his ghost appears and gives you the whole story. You'll need to release his "brothers" as well, so they can break the final evil enchantment on Sancre Tor. Loot his skeletal corpse for the Amulet of the Ansei. Head southeast out of this room and follow the corridor to a door that leads to the Entry Hall. There will be a couple of ghosts here. Down in the pit is a huge door that leads to the Tomb of the Reman Emperors. That's the ultimate goal, but it is inaccessible until you kill (re-kill?) the four undead Blades. Go down into the pit, near the door to the Tomb. Jump into the water to your right and find the door that's underneath the upper level of this room. This leads to the Catacombs. You'll make your way through several tunnels and two larger rooms before reaching the room with Alain, an undead Blade. Alain drops Northwind, a one-handed katana with frost damage. Behind Alain, to the northeast, is a door leading to the Hall of Judgement. In the hall, go through the first room, exiting to the northwest to find your way to Casnar, your next target. He is using Mishaxhi's Cleaver, a two-handed sword with Disintegrate Armor enchantment. (Hopefully, you remembered to bring repair hammers with you.) From Casnar's room, find the tunnel leading northeast (the exit is along the east wall of the room) and follow this back to the Entry Hall. In the Entry Hall, take the east exit to get to the Prison. When you enter the first large room, you'll fight the skeleton of Warden Kastav. He's not as tough as the Blades, but he's no patsy. There will probably be a ghost or two joining in the fight. Loot his corpse for his key, which opens the door at the top of the ramp. At the second four-way intersection, take a right and then take your third left. The next left leads to Valdemar's room. Defeat him and take his enchanted shield. That should be all four undead Blades. Return to the Entry Hall and head for the Tomb. The spirits of the four Blades should be here, and they'll take up positions to bring down the magical barriers protecting the armor of Tiber Septim. Once the barriers are down, pick up the armor and head back to Cloud Ruler Temple. (Yes, that really is it. There's no more frighting unless you left some ghosts behind you.) [MS11] <~~~~~~ MISCARCAND ~~~~~~> Upon your return, Martin reveals the third item necessary for a portal to Paradise: a great welkynd stone. If you've been exploring any Ayleid ruins prior to this point, you may have pockets full of the normal welkynd stones (they fully restore your Magicka when used). But Martin doesn't want just any old welkynd stone, so he directs you to the ancient Ayleid capital of Miscarcand. This ruin is between Skingrad and Kvatch, not far north of the main road. It is filled with mostly skeletons, zombies and goblins. The goblins are engaged in running fights with the undead. You'll frequently be able to stand by and watch them kill each other before you finish off the survivors. From the entrance, take a left and head down the long hall to a four-way intersection. The gate in front of you cannot be opened from this side. To your right, stairs go down to the large room you just passed, which is mainly a looting opportunity. To the left is a hall that leads to a raised corridor over a large room. Snipe the goblins and undead from your raised position. Eventually, you will have to jump down. After looting the room, take the exit in the northwest corner and go up the stairs. Find the button on the first landing and push it. This opens a gate leading south from the raised corridor. Go up more stairs and step on the pressure plate at the top to open the gate at the four-way intersection. Head south and enter the second level, Sel Vanua. In the first room is a varla stone under a cover. The button to lift the cover is on the east wall. (Varla stones fully recharge all enchanted weapons in your inventory.) Take the south exit from this room to reach another large room with a raised corridor crossing it. Again, you can snipe from the raised position. Eventually, you'll have to jump down. The gate leading out of this area is to the north. The button that opens that gate is in a side passage on the south side of the room. Once the gate is open, enter the third level, Morimath. Make your way through a series of halls to a large room with a platform in the middle. In the center of the platform is the great welkynd stone, ripe for the picking. Before you pick it, get ready for battle. If you have fire spells or weapons, now is the time to get them ready. Wait for one hour to fully restore your health and Magicka. Ready? Pick up the stone. Some stairs rise from the lower floor up to the platform. (All the easier for the zombies to get you.) Behind you, a door opens letting out a lich, the King of Miscarcand. Jump down to the lower floor and deal with the zombies as quickly as you can. Then you can concentrate on the lich. It's resistant to frost and magic, and weak to fire. It's primarily a spellcaster, so try to close with it and smash it good. After the lich is dead, loot its remains for a key. Go back up the platform and go north into the alcove from which the lich came. Step on the pressure plate, kill the zombies and exit to the west. The key you got from the lich will open the gate and you've got a shortcut straight back to the top level of the ruin. Another pressure plate opens the secret door leading to the main exit from Miscarcand. Return to Martin with your booty. He's still working on the final item needed for the portal. Now it's time to deal with the Oblivion gate in front of Bruma. [MS12] <~~~~~~ BRUMA GATE ~~~~~~> Assuming you've already talked to Jauffre about the Bruma gate, head down to the city and report to Captain Burd. He wants you to show the city guard how to close a gate. Agree and you'll take Burd and two of his men with you into Oblivion. The Bruma Oblivion world is semi-circular and filled with daedra. (You're supposed to be here with allies, so there are more than the usual number of demons.) You'll work your way around a semi-circular island to the north side, then head south to the Sigil Keep, this one called The Fury Spike. There are no side towers or anything here. This is a straight run up the tower to the Sigillum Sanguis. The Rending Halls is a two-level affair. When you reach the top of the first ramp, clear the room, use the Blood Fountain, then exit to the east. Climb the curving ramp. When the hall makes a sharp left, look for a lever on the wall to spring the blade trap ahead. Climb the final ramps and return to the Fury Spike core. The Corridors of Dark Salvation are next, and it's a simple loop-back climb up a couple of ramps. Then it's on to the Sanguis and the sigil stone. Activate it and get thrown (along with Burd and whoever else survived) back to Bruma. Burd now thinks he and his soldiers can handle any new gates that pop up around Bruma. Return to Jauffre at Cloud Ruler Temple. [MS13] <~~~~~~ ALLIES FOR BRUMA ~~~~~~> *NOTE* These quests are completely optional. However, if you want a chance of making it to the end of the main story, and you're not 50th level, then you probably want to enlist some help. Jauffre wants you to travel to the other cities in Cyrodiil and ask for aid for Bruma. (He suggests seeing the Elder Council in Imperial City, but you can skip them. They're not going to help.) You must travel to each of the other seven cities--or fewer if you feel you don't need as much help--close an Oblivion gate (except for Kvatch, which has a different requirement) and then ask the ruler of the city for Aid for Bruma. Cheydinhal and Bravil are your best stops. Each sends a high-level Captain; Cheydinhal also sends a soldier. Anvil and Chorrol each send two soldiers. Kvatch, Leyawiin and Skingrad send only one soldier each. At a minimum, you should get aid from Cheydinhal, Bravil, Anvil and Chorrol. If you want to make the next quest (Defense of Bruma) ridiculously easy, get aid from all seven cities. In each city, you can go speak to the count or countess first, which will mark the Oblivion gate for you. Or you can just go close the gate and speak to the ruler after. Speaking to the ruler before offers no special advantage other than the map marker. Most of these rulers hold court from 8am until 6pm. You can find the castle for each city on your world map and Fast Travel there though you've never set foot in their doors. You should also note some of these worlds use one of the seven random Oblivion worlds you can enter through the random gates that pop up here and there in the wilderness. For example, Bravil uses the #1 random world, Chorrol uses #2. You'll always get the same world when you go through those city gates, but you won't always get the same Sigil Keep since the random worlds link to random Keep interiors. | The Wayward Knight (Cheydinhal) [MS13-A] +------------------------------------------ The gate near Cheydinhal is west of the city. If you speak to the count of Cheydinhal first, or speak to one of the soldiers guarding the gate, you'll get a new quest: The Wayward Knight. It seems the count's son fancies himself a great knight, and has a group of friends who play at being knights with him. These impetuous youths charged into Oblivion when the gate opened, and the count wants you to bring his son out of there. Make sure you have a spell to restore health on a target (along with your normal Oblivion kit) before entering the gate. You'll come out at the top of a large mountain. You'll be required to jump your way down here and there, and it will be impossible to get back up. You're in this one for the long haul. Once you've reached the bottom of the mountain, you'll find Farwil, the count's son, and one other knight on the east side of the mountain, near the bridge that crosses to the Sigil Keep. Talk to Farwil and they'll agree to follow you and help you close the gate. Advance across the bridge and into the tower. This is just like any other Sigil Keep, but you have to concern yourself with keeping Farwil (at least) alive. If he does die, you can take his signet ring from the body as proof of his heroism. After the gate is closed, if Farwil survived, he makes you an honorary Knight of the Thorn and gives you an amulet with a Speechcraft enhancement. His father then will offer you the choice of a magic sword or staff. If Farwil didn't make it, the count will still give you some gold for your effort. Either way, he'll offer up the services of his captain of the guard and a soldier for the defense of Bruma. | Bravil [MS13-B] +----------------- The Bravil gate is located northwest of the city. Inside you arrive facing a bridge leading to the Sigil Keep, but a gate blocks your way. To open the gate, you must throw a switch at the top of one of the two small towers southeast (Spindle Shrine) and southwest (Blood Well) of the Sigil Keep. There are three ways to get to one of those towers. 1) Go around the long way. Begin by going west, then north, then east across a long bridge with a sunken tower in the middle, then south to the Spindle Shrine. Fight your way up the tower (it's like a mini-keep) and throw the switch at the top to open the gate across the main bridge. 2) If you have some decent Acrobatics skill, you can turn southwest from your entry point and pick your way across a series of small islands that curve to the east and then north, leading you to the Spindle Shrine. Throw the switch at the top to open the gate across the main bridge. 3) Start by going west from the gate until you come to the bridge going north. Look around for a cave entrance, then work your way through the caves to the basement of the Blood Well (southwest) tower. Work your way to the top to find the switch that opens the main gate. Once the Sigil Keep is accessible, you're all set. Note this Keep is randomly determined when you open the door. Some of the random Keeps have one side area, some two and some three. There's no telling what you're going to get. When you've got the sigil stone and have closed the Oblivion gate, see Count Terentius for your high-level soldier. | Anvil [MS13-C] +---------------- You'll find the Anvil gate northwest of the city. This Oblivion world is easy, from a pathing perspective. The Sigil Keep is on top of a mountain, you come in at the bottom. Just follow the path as it goes through several switchbacks up the face of the mountain and you're there. After the Oblivion gate is closed, visit Countess Umbranox for your promise of aid, which is two standard soldiers. | Chorrol [MS13-D] +------------------ This Oblivion gate is south of the city, in the woods just beyond the stables. You enter Oblivion on the north side of the area, facing the Sigil Keep surrounded by six towers. You enter the Sigil Keep through a connecting bridge from the east (Earthquake) or west (Hurricane) tower. To get to one of those two keeps, you have to open the gates that block your way. Pick any one of the four "corner" towers: Tsunami, Eruption, Tornado or Landslide. Ride the "corpse masher" elevator to the middle of the tower, then climb the ramp to the top and throw the switch. This opens the gate next to that tower. (You can, from the top of any of these towers, cross over to the Sigil Keep; however, you can't go anywhere inside the Keep except to one of the other four corner towers.) Go back down, exit the tower and head through the now open gate. Enter one of the two side towers and ride the elevator to the middle of the tower. There's a door right at the top of the elevator to a bridge over to the Sigil Keep. Inside the Keep you'll find the doors to the Rending Halls and you're on your way. Countess Valga spends a lot of time in the chapel, in addition to standard court hours, so you should be able to find her most any time of the day. She'll send two soldiers to the aid of Bruma. | The Battle for Castle Kvatch [MS13-E] +--------------------------------------- You may have already done this after Breaking the Siege of Kvatch. If so, you'll find Savlian Matius where you left him, in the castle of Kvatch. Speak to him about Aid for Bruma and he promises to send what he can (which is one soldier). If you haven't done this quest yet, Matius and his guards will still be in the Temple of Akatosh in Kvatch. Speak to Matius and agree to help him retake the castle. He takes off with some men through the north door of the church. Follow him outside and help cut through the daedra between the church and the castle. When you reach the castle gates, you find them locked. Matius instructs you to go through the North Guard House, under the wall, to the inside of the gates and unlock them. Berich Inian, a guard still in the church, has the key. Return to the church and talk to Inian. He tells you he'll take you through the passage. You'll also find some Imperial legionnaires. Speak to them and they agree to help out. Follow Inian down into the chapel's crypt. Take it easy through here, there are a lot of daedra. With Inian and the legionnaires, the demons shouldn't be much trouble. You'll exit the crypt and wind your way through more daedra until you reach the North Guard House. If Inian dies along the way, make sure you frisk him for the key. Once you reach the Guard House, all you have to do is drop down into the tunnel, run to the far end (no enemies) and climb up to find yourself on the inside of the castle gate. Turn the wheel to open the gate and let Matius and his men through. There's a pitched battle in the courtyard and then more fighting in the main hall of the castle. Matius now instructs you to go find the count. You'll be aided by any surviving legionnaires, so you probably won't have to fight through the castle alone. When you reach the count's quarters, you'll find his body. Get his signet ring off the body and return it to Matius. Matius, at this point, suddenly decides to retire and gives you his armor. He then spends the remainder of the game standing in the castle in his civvies. You can also ask him for Aid for Bruma and get one Kvatch soldier for your trouble. | Leyawiin [MS13-F] +------------------- The Oblivion gate is east-northeast of Leyawiin. From the entry point, go west and find a cave door. The caves, like many Oblivion things, are random. Just keep plugging along and you'll eventually reach the main island. When you finally make it out, there are Spindle Shrines to the east and west. Pick either one and climb to the top. Here you can get to a bridge that leads to one of the Blood Well towers. Throw the switch at the top of the Blood Well tower to open gates leading to the Sigil Keep. Go down to the bottom of the Blood Well, exit onto the bridge and fight your way to the Keep. Once the gate is closed, you can find Count Caro in Castle Leyawiin during normal court hours. | Skingrad [MS13-G] +------------------- The Skingrad gate is just east of Castle Skingrad, at the top of a small hill. Inside, you find yourself facing three towers. The two towers to your left and right are the Anguish Keep and the Sorrow Keep. Each is a full keep, with two side areas and a shrine at the top. Fight your way to the top of either keep and throw the switch. This will extend a bridge across to the top of the other side keep. Cross the bridge and throw a switch in the second tower. The bridge between the towers retracts, but bridges extend from each side keep to the main Sigil Keep. You'll have to fight your way down one level in the second keep in order to take the bridge over to the Sigil Keep. Entering the Sigil Keep, you're already about halfway up the tower and only have to fight your way through one side area in order to reach the Sigillum Sanguis. You know what to do by now. The peculiarity in Skingrad occurs after you've closed the gate and want to get aid from Count Hassildor. You can only talk to the count by going through an intermediary. If you are in the middle of the Mages Guild quest, "Ulterior Motives", then Hassildor will refuse to speak to you until you fully complete that quest (which means reporting in to Raminus Polus). Otherwise, if you have not done "Ulterior Motives", then you must speak to the steward, Mercator Hosidus about Aid for Bruma. If you have done "Ulterior Motives", you must speak to Hal-Liurz. [MS14] <~~~~~~ DEFENSE OF BRUMA ~~~~~~> You can open this quest any time after finishing the three "relic hunts" for Martin and the Bruma Gate quest. Talk to Martin and he'll reveal the final item he needs for a portal to Paradise: a great sigil stone. You can only get these by entering a great gate. So Martin proposes to let the enemy open a great gate next to Bruma and then send you in to get the great sigil stone before the enemy gets its siege machine out and destroys Bruma. It's goofy plans like this that make him the Emperor, see? You've no choice but to agree. Martin asks that you personally see Countess Carvain in Bruma and fill her in on the plan. So head off to Bruma and the Countess, who agrees with the plan. (Must be the royal blood that causes this idiocy.) She'll head off tho the chapel of Talos. Follow her down to the chapel and witness the meeting between Martin and Carvain. After they've chatted, talk to Carvain again. At this point you have, essentially, two choices: "Let's go" or "I'm not ready yet". (If you haven't completed all the Allies for Bruma quests, you will also have a "Recruit more soldiers" response, which is the same thing as "I'm not ready".) Save your game! Martin and Carvain will stand in the chapel until the cows come home waiting for you to get ready. So...get ready. The mission ahead is a timed run through an Oblivion world. You'll not be able to Wait at any point, so you'll need a full set of healing potions, Magicka-restoring potions, etc. Make sure your enchanted weapons are recharged and all your armor and weapons are fully repaired. Feel like you need more support? Go finish more Allies for Bruma quests. When you're ready, give Carvain the go ahead and follow Martin and company out the East Gate of Bruma. Your little army heads towards an Oblivion gate that has just opened, Martin gives a speech, then the battle is on. Your primary job is to keep Martin alive until the great gate opens. If you recruited all the available soldiers in Allies for Bruma, this is really easy. There are more than enough guards to control the daedra popping through the lesser gates. After a few minutes, you'll get the message the great gate has opened. The timer has started! Get moving through the gate... [MS15] <~~~~~~ GREAT GATE ~~~~~~> This Oblivion world is different in two ways: There's a giant siege engine moving toward the gate and you have about 15 minutes to get to the top of the Sigil Keep and get the great sigil stone. That's 15 minutes real time, but don't dawdle. Try not to spend too much time fighting. Use a potion, spell or equipment to Fortify your Speed and try just racing past most enemies. Keep a healing spell equipped and boost your health as you run. There are two towers in front of you, head to the west (left) one. Climb to the top and exit onto a north-bound bridge that leads to another tower. Go down that tower and exit onto a large bridge. There's a jump here across broken pieces of the bridge, but if you miss the jump, you fall down in front of a cave entrance that might actually be an easier path. If you decided to take the eastern route north, the jump across the broken bridge is much more difficult and drops you into lava. Plus, there's no convenient cave to take you under the fire-spitting guard towers. Your choice. Regardless, your goal is one of the two towers flanking the Sigil Keep. If you use the cave at the base of the western bridge, it takes you directing into the western guard tower. At the tops of these two towers are switches that open the gates leading to the Sigil Keep. This Keep has only one side area, the Vaults of End Times. However, you do need a Sigil Key from one of two Sigil Keepers. There's a Keeper on the ground floor, and another near the door to the Sigillum Sanguis. Kill either one, enter the Sanguis and run for the great sigil stone. Provided you got there in time, everything, including the large siege engine, blows up and Bruma is saved! Your reward is a standard sigil stone lying in front of the burned-out hulk of the siege engine (which somehow manages to blow up right outside Bruma) and the opportunity to go after Mankar Camoran. Aren't you lucky? [MS16] <~~~~~~ PARADISE ~~~~~~> After the battle for Bruma, return to Cloud Ruler Temple. Tend to your equipment and talk to Martin. He's ready to open a portal to Camoran's Paradise. The question is, are you ready? Once you enter Paradise, you can't get out until Camoran is dead. He's a high-level mage, so kit yourself out appropriately. Some Dispel scrolls or potions would be useful. Plenty of damage resistance, magic resistance, spell absorption...you know the drill. Once you're ready to live off what you can carry, tell Martin to open the portal. Enter the portal to find yourself in Paradise. Literally. Camoran's little slice of reality is a pleasant garden environment with blue skies and fluffy white clouds. Oh, and the occasional daedra ready to tear your head off...Nothing's perfect. Head off down the white brick path, listening to Camoran lecture you. Along the way, in addition to the occasional daedra, you'll find Ascended Immortals. These dead Mythic Dawn cultists are waiting in Paradise for Dagon's victory over Tamriel. You can talk to these cultists and learn some of the history of this place. You also learn the only way to Camoran is through the Forbidden Grotto. And you can only get in there if you have the Bands of the Chosen. As y