TV-Oblivion

Take Your Time: With two exceptions, the Daedric invasion of Bruma and tracking down a fake vampire hunter also in Bruma, there's no quest situation that will get any worse if you ignore it entirely. This even includes major battles to defend cities. No, go ahead and play in the Wide Open Sandbox. The Legion of Doom will wait. Team Pet: The Dark Brotherhood Cheydinhal sanctuary has Schemer the rat, the blue team at the Arena has Porkchop the boar, The Anvil branch of the Fighter's Guild has a dog called Mojo, and Anvil's Mage Guild has an imp/Scamp called Sparky. Tech Demo Game: Despite being released in 2006, the game can still stress out many of the newest computers to this day. Technical Pacifist: You aren't allowed to kill people during Thieves Guild quests, but nothing says they can't die by any means that don't involve you. A good example of this is an early assignment where you need to raid a tomb with a guard. Opening the target grave will result in a ghost spawning, which isn't on the same side as the guard. If done at low levels (or in OOO) the guard won't have magic weapons or offensive spells and will easily die to the ghost. The Computer Is a Lying Bastard: "Higher willpower allows you to defend against magical attacks." The Emperor: A benevolent one. And he's played by Patrick Stewart. The Undead: Zombies. Animate skeletons. Ghosts that shriek like bats out of hell, wraiths and liches. This Is the Part Where...: You fall down and bleeeeeed to death! Timed Mission: The Great Gate outside Bruma during the main quest. To a lesser extent, the resolution to the side quest 'A Brotherhood Betrayed' (you only have a day to bring Raynil Dralas down after finding out the truth about him, or else he makes his getaway with what would have been your reward). Top-Down View: You can achieve this in free camera mode. Torture Technician: Relmyna again. Town with a Dark Secret: Cheydinhal, the place where the Dark Brotherhood's base of operations is. But of course, the Count and many others deny it. There is also Hackdirt. Translation Trainwreck: The German translation suffered from multitude of shortcomings, among them: unwieldy, misleading or incorrect item and spell names and descriptions. Even quest texts had errors. There was bad dialogue, fragments of the english orginal, widely different subtitles and so on. Neither the reviewing press nor the German fans were pleased. The latter rectified many issues with mods. The French version has it bad as well, with unvoiced bits of dialogues, some texts or names that are left in English, or some names that the translators got completely wrong, such as a scale (the tool used to measure weights) being translated as "écailles" (which is indeed the proper translation for "scales"... As in, "the scales of a reptile"), or an enchanted axe being called a "sword". Some names were also shortened due to their length once translated, leaving us with things such as a Scroll of Absorb Magicka becoming a "Roul. Absorb. Mag." Trick Shot Puzzle: In "The Ultimate Heist", you need to fire an Arrow of Extrication to open a door. Troll: Sheogorath, obviously. Unlike the other Daedric princes who either have their preferred niche roles or see mortals as beneath them, Sheogorath prefers to mess with people directly, to either drive them mad or just be a total jerkwad. Most Daedra may have made an artifact that cursed people into evil; he makes a staff that forces four harmless but annoying Scamps to follow a person around. He also helps bring about the end times prophecy of a small village, just because he thinks the village is dull and because they have such a prophecy. Sanguine is also this, but to a much lesser degree than Sheogorath. Sanguine seems to prefer harmless fun and partying hard over death, evil, or insanity. He's basically the God of Frat Boys. Clavicus Vile may also be one, but it's accidental and incidental to his actual goals. Underground Level: Lots of them. Unfortunate Name: Uuras the Shepherd, has been tirelessly mocked by fans as to the way the voice actor pronounces the name "your-ass". Un-person: Putting on the Gray Cowl of Nocturnal makes the wearer one. To clarify, the cowl actually removes all traces of the wearer from the memory of reality itself. In other words, reality freaking forgets that you exist once you put in on. This was a curse put on the cowl by its original owner, Nocturnal, as punishment for its theft. It's revealed at the end of the Thieves Guild questline that the Gray Fox's ultimate goal was to obtain an Elder Scroll so he could rewrite history and undo the curse. Afterwards you're given the cowl as a reward, with the effect still intact. Thankfully your identity is restored whenever you take it off. Unusual Euphemism: "Die, fetcher!" "Filthy s'wit!" Unwitting Pawn: The player himself, in the Dark Brotherhood quest line. Vendor Trash: Copious amounts of it. Vicious Cycle: The Greymarch. Also, the fate of the Ascended Immortals in Kamoran's Savage Garden/Forbidden Grotto. Video Game Caring Potential: Depending on how attached you become to some of the NPCs, you may reload certain battles multiple times to ensure that they survive past the time they're flagged as no longer essential, up to and including the ending. Video Game Cruelty Potential: The game allows you to kill any non-essential characters in the game (although this may result in you failing quests that you haven't even started), and essential characters can just be knocked unconscious over and over again. The sheer amount of videos on YouTube about killing certain people (or yourself) in Oblivion is astounding, but admit it, starting random rampages and mercilessly massacring the guards and citizens of Cyrodiil is fun. Number one on the list of favorite targets is the Adoring Fan, who, if killed, will respawn three days later and reappear at your side, torch in hand and smile on face. The amount of videos of killing him in various manners (including that perennial favorite, death by Dive Rock) is mind-boggling to non-fans who don't fully grasp the relationship between players of Oblivion and the Adoring Fan. When you talk to the heart-broken fisherman outside Imperial City you have two options: you help him fish, or you laugh hard at his misfortune. The Wiki notes some strategies for increasing combat skills, including "Use your horse for target practice. If you have obtained Shadowmere, she is unkillable." The game's own tips suggest killing your own summoned creatures to trap their souls for enchanting. In the "Shivering Isles" add-on, the paranoid duchess of a city gives you the task to uncover a conspiracy against her, bestows the title of "Grand Inquisitor" upon you, and lends you her torturer. Then you can either take a direct route to find the conspirators... or let your tourturer zap annoying NPCs. In the Vile Lair DLC, you can buy the Cattle Cell, which contains an unwakable, unkillable prisoner meant as a food source for those who become vampires, but is more useful for target practice. Villainous Breakdown: Kalthar in the Mages Guild questline. Vulnerable Civilians: Besides the usual fact that most NPCs are killable by the player, the game's artificial life system means that many characters (especially those who live in small settlements or commute outside the city walls) can be attacked and killed by random wandering monsters, or even in rare extreme cases starve to death or pick fights with each other. Warp Whistle: You can "Fast Travel" to any of the cities, and most other important locations. Subverted. A number of hours proportionate to the distance you travel pass in between locations. The War Sequence: Mehrunes Dagon's assault on the Imperial City at the end of the main quest. Weaksauce Weakness: One Dark Brotherhood quest requires you to assassinate a man who's allergic to honey; your handler suggests tricking him into drinking a bottle of mead, which paralyzes him, making him easier to kill. Weaponized Offspring: The Daedra Spiders send little mini-versions of themselves to attack and paralyze you. Wham Episode: Through the last three games, the Emperor has been the Big Good who the player has been doing all the missions for. In this one? He dies. At the end of the tutorial mission. Wham Line: Mankar Camoran's monologue to the player: "The Principalities have sparkled as gems in the black reaches of Oblivion since the First Morning. Many are their names and the names of their masters: the Coldharbour of Meridia, Peryite's Quagmire, the ten Moonshadows of Mephala, and... and Dawn's Beauty, the Princedom of Lorkhan... misnamed Tamriel by deluded mortals." Even after the release of Skyrim, it's still unclear if Mankar was lying or not. What Happened to the Mouse?: Jagar Tharn's child. According to an ingame book, he fathered a child with Barenziah, the queen of Morrowind, when he seduced her in order to fool her into showing him the way to the Staff of Chaos. Then this child just fades into space ace. Also, lore says that after the events of the very first game, the Staff of Chaos was put away somewhere in White Gold Tower, yet in the game it is nowhere to be found. Players finally got an answer to this in Skyrim. It wasn't actually Tharn's child; he hired a famous thief to seduce Barenziah. Finishing the Thieves Guild quest line in Skyrim gives access to the book which explains that the Dragonborn has actually been working with the grandchild of Barenziah and the thief for several missions. In-game, several quest-related NPCs are usually disabled and removed from the game once their related quest is finished. Often, this is done without any in-universe explanation whatsoever. The most egregious examples are J'Skar (the sole survivor of the attack on the Bruma Mages Guild), and Nelrene (the Dark Seducer involved in the conspiracy in the "Lady of Paranoia" quest, even though she ends up helping you in the end). Wide Open Sandbox: Larger than Morrowind note but still far smaller than Arena or Daggerfall. Worthy Opponent: While not directly stated as the reason, the Gray Fox effectively picks Sympathetic Inspector Antagonist Hieronymus Lex to serve as his head of security. Perhaps even more touching if you take this motivation is that the Gray Fox may have chosen Lex to defend his wife while he was absent. One of the reasons that Kathutet agrees to help you reach Mankar Camoran is because he considers you one of these for defeating his fellow Dremora during the siege of Kvatch. Would You Like to Hear How They Died?: Invoked by the player, of all people. When you kill Andreas Draconis, you have the option of taunting him about his mother's death by saying "Your mother bled like a pig." Wretched Hive: Thieves Den reveals that Anvil used to be this, a seedy, dangerous den of smugglers and pirates, where pretty much everyone was completely under the thumb of the leader of the single most vicious, bloodthirsty pirate group in Tamriel. Only after Admiral Umbranox defeated the pirate captain and his men did Anvil become the respectable harbor town it is today. Writers Cannot Do Math: As this articlepoints out, there is a subtle (but kind of scary) example in the Arena's method of promoting gladiators. When writing out the means for promoting the player character, Bethesda likely didn't conceive just how exponentially large the killcount would really be when the other gladiators' ranks (and thus number of victories) were considered. You All Meet in an Inn: Several side quests start at inns. (This usually makes sense, as some of the quest givers are drunks or people who have fallen on hard times.) You Are Who You Eat: Vampires. You Can't Thwart Stage One: Cutscene Incompetence stops you saving the Emperor from assassins at the start of the game. You arrive at Kvatch the day after The Daedra burn it to the ground, though thankfully Martin, the man you were sent to rescue, survived by hiding in a chapel. You take him back to the priory just as the Mythic Dawn have finished ransacking the place and taken the Amulet of Kings. You can't stop Mankar Camoran fleeing to Paradise with the amulet, you need to adventure the length and breadth of Cyrodiil looking for components to build a portal so you can follow him. And even when you finally get the amulet, Mehrunes Dagon still achieves his goal of being summoned to Tamriel. If you join the Dark Brotherhood, Lucien Lachance can't stop you murdering half of the Brotherhood, all the way up to The Listener. You can't save him when the surviving members execute him for treachery, and the only way you can expose the real traitor, Bellamont, is when he tries to kill the Night Mother, by which time only you and one other Brotherhood leader, Arquen, remain. No matter what you do, once you come out of the orc usurer's dungeon, you can't stop poor Aleron's death. And you can only delay Sheogorath's transformation into Jyggalag and the triggering of the Greymarch, not stop it completely. You Fight Like A Pregnant Cow, and apparently not as well as a mudcrab. You Fool!: In a Mages' Guild quest, a count's steward informs you that the count wishes to meet you outside of town at 2 am. The steward shows up there with a couple of necromancers, tells you that he tricked you, and tries to kill you. The count himself arrives and helps save you. Afterward, he angrily says: "You impossible fool. What possessed you to think I would suggest a meeting here, of all places?" Zip Mode: Quick travel to major cities.

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Characters / The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Awesome Characters Fridge Funny Headscratchers Heartwarming Laconic NightmareFuel Quotes TearJerker Trivia VideoGame WMG YMMV Create New open/close all folders Player Character The Prisoner (aka The Hero of Kvatch, and later Champion of Cyrodiil; ultimately Sheogorath) https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/hero_of_kvatch_default.png A prisoner in the Imperial Prison that was lucky enough to cross paths with Emperor Uriel Septim and the Blades. After escaping and witnessing the Emperor's assassination, they are tasked with delivering the Amulet of Kings to Jauffre. A God Is You: By the end of Shivering Isles. Ambiguous Gender: As Sheogorath. Daedric Princes are technically genderless and can assume whichever form they want. Anti-Hero: If played with high infamy. Skyrim further implies that the player character canonically ultimately became Sheogorath, dropping small hints that they may have been involved with the Dark Brotherhood questline (they mention a severed head) and Thieves Guild (they mention a fox). Karma Houdini/Villain with Good Publicity: Perhaps. References in Skyrim suggest the Champion may have joined both the Dark Brotherhood and Thieves Guild; despite that, they still get hailed as a hero and rewarded with near god-like power. As always, however, the truth is left ambiguous. Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: Becomes the new Daedric Prince of Madness during the events of the Shivering Isles. Badass Normal: Comes over as this compared the player characters from Morrowind and Skyrim. The player character from Morrowind is the Nerevarine, the reincarnation of an ancient legendary general, while the player character from Skyrim is the Dragonborn, a mortal with access to the reality warping ancient language of the dragons. The only peculiarity this character has, is that they happen to be at the right place at the right time to meet the emperor and set in motion the chain of events leading to the defeat of Mehrunes Dagon. Apart from this, there is nothing setting them apart from other people. However, this does not stop them from marching into Oblivion and killing hordes of Daedra. They avert this trope after becoming the new Daedric Prince of Madness, losing the "Normal" part in more ways than one. The Call Knows Where You Live: It's implied that no-one, not even the Champion, seems to know exactly why they were in that prison cell at the beginning of the game. Martin Septim believes that this was no mere coincidence. Charles Atlas Superpower: Simply using a spell/skill a lot can make the player have incredible strength, the ability to jump impossible heights, run faster than a charging bear, among many other traits. The Chooser of The One / Herald: While the Champion wasn't the one to actually choose Martin, per se, they were the one sent out to find him, inform him of his destiny and aid him in bringing it about, technically qualifying them for this role. Deity of Human Origin: Apparently the first mortal to become a Daedric Prince. note . The Dreaded: The Champion can become this to their enemies. Featureless Protagonist: Can be male, female, human, elven or even Argonian or Khajiit. It's really up to you. God Is Displeased: Per the Knights of the Nine DLC, the Champion must complete multiple tasks earning the Aedra's favor to wear the enchanted Crusader Armor. If too many crimes are committed, the Aedra remove both it and all the protective enchantments from the Champion, demanding the Champion complete the pilgrimage again to regain their favor. Harbinger of Impending Doom: The Emperor has long-since known and accepted that the day he finally meets the mysterious person from his dreams, will be the day he dies, though they are not the one who kills him. Impoverished Patrician: In the Fighter's Stronghold DLC, Castle Battlehorn is bequeathed to the Champion after defeating its would-be invaders. Lord Kelvyn, the previous owner, had sold most of the Castle's wealth to pay for its upkeep, with his will explicitly stating that he hoped that the Champion would refurbish the Castle back to its former glory. Similarly, the Wizard's Tower DLC has Frostcrag Spire being bequeathed to the Champion by a distant relative. Since it's mostly unfurnished, they're required to bring the tower back up to snuff. The Lancer: Uniquely enough for an Elder Scrolls Protagonist, they play this role to Martin. Loss of Identity: Tragically. When they assume the Mantle of Sheogorath, they become Madness, essentially losing all their mortal self (though not their memories, as their dialogue in Skyrim shows). Perhaps not completely or at all though, since their appearance in Skyrim has them requesting the Dragonborn aid them in ridding someone of their madness rather than inflicting it as Sheogorath has in the past. Named After Somebody Famous: Snooping into the game files reveal that their default name is Bendu Olo, known in the lore as a former Colovian king of Anvil. Nice Job Breaking It, Hero!: The Empire collapses sometime after the game despite all your efforts to save it and partially because of them. Previous Player-Character Cameo: Shows up again in Skyrim as the new Sheogorath. Really 700 Years Old: Over 200 years old by the time of their appearance in Skyrim. Silent Protagonist: Pretty much. Despite having the occasional line of text, your character isn't voiced aside from grunts and yells in battle. Supporting Protagonist: To Martin. Took a Level in Badass: The Flavor Text for the level up descriptions portrays this nicely. And you can go from a mortal to a God. Unwitting Pawn: During the second half of the Dark Brotherhood quest line, to Bellamont. Villain Protagonist: Depending on how you play. There's no reason why you can't go around punching everyone you see, and still save the world. And the Dark Brotherhood quest line is very much intended to let the player be a villain. Might be canon, considering, outside of Martin, they only reference the Thieves' Guild and the Dark Brotherhood questlines as Sheogorath. Empire of Tamriel Advertisement: Septim Dynasty Emperor Uriel Septim VII Voiced by: Patrick Stewart https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/968055_1321517268.jpg The Emperor of Tamriel. The player meets him at the beginning of the game, as he is escaping from a group of assassins through a secret passage in the Imperial Dungeons. His attempts to flee are futile, and he is eventually killed, but not before handing the player the Amulet of Kings, which starts the main storyline of the game. For additional details on Uriel Septim VII outside the context of Oblivion, see his entry on the series' Recurring Characters page. Barrier Emperor: The reason he and his heirs are assassinated; the Imperial line's covenant with Akatosh is what keeps the Daedra out of the mortal world. Cool Old Guy: Is kind and friendly to you even though you're a prisoner and he's the Emperor. Cursed with Awesome: He can't turn off his prophetic dreams, so when you meet him he's been having terrible nightmares of the suffering to come. Ermine Cape Effect: His time in the game is just wearing his royal robes, but the context of the game makes it clear he didn't have time to change his clothes. Face Death with Dignity: He's long since foreseen his death in his dreams and come to accept it. I'm Dying, Please Take My MacGuffin: Gives the player the Amulet of Kings after falling victim to an assassin. Nice Guy / Nice to the Waiter: He's unfailing polite to the player at all times, even rebuking his bodyguards after they insult you and suspect you of being an assassin sent to kill the Emperor. Somewhat justified however, since he's long since dreamt of your meeting, hence his inexplicable faith and trust in you, a lowly prisoner at the time. Requisite Royal Regalia: His purple, ermine-trimmed robe, and the amulet. Martin Septim Voiced by: Sean Bean https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/ssmartinwallpaperiw8.png The last surviving son of Emperor Uriel Septim, Martin was raised as a priest in the city of Kvatch. After the Emperor's death, daedra invade Kvatch in order to hunt Martin down, but he is rescued by the player. Despite being reluctant at first, he grows to suit the role of Emperor. Ascended to a Higher Plane of Existence: His fate at the end of the main quest. The Atoner: He used to be a Daedra worshipper - even a previous owner of one of their legendary artifacts - but when you meet him, he's a quiet and humble priest. Badass Bookworm: He spends most of the game at Cloud Ruler temple, poring over old tomes to help the player retrieve the Amulet of Kings, but proves himself quite a capable combatant in the Battle of Bruma. Big Good: Being the only one who can seal the gates of Oblivion and Emperor of Tamriel. Bling of War: His Dragon Armor, which is essentially a set of Imperial Legion plate reworked in solid gold. The Chosen One: The only person who can save the Empire by lighting the dragonfires and closing the gates of Oblivion. Dark and Troubled Past: In his youth, he and other dissatisfied young Mages Guild apprentices studied Daedric magic with the result of some people, including Martin's friends, getting killed. It's implied that the Sanguine Rose was involved. Doomed Hometown: He was raised in Kvatch, which is on fire and full of daedra by the time the player reaches it. The Good King: In Skyrim, he's memorialized as the greatest of the Septims. Not bad for a bastard-born priest whose reign was five minutes long. In that time, however, he defeated a Daedric Prince and saved Tamriel. The Hero: Of the story. The Hero of Kvatch is actually his Lancer. Heroic Sacrifice: Martin gives up his soul to become an avatar of Akatosh and defeat Mehrunes Dagon at the end of the main quest. Fitting for a Sean Bean character. Nice Guy: Definitely. It's a shame; he would have made a great Emperor, if he had been given more time. One-Winged Angel: Inverted this time, as Martin is the Big Good. He turns into a flaming golden dragon during the finale of the main quest and epically defeats Mehrunes Dagon. Reasonable Authority Figure: Learning he is the heir to the throne never once changes his humble behavior. He also takes an active role in researching how to stop the Daedric invasion and even goes to battle himself on several occasions. Royals Who Actually Do Something: He really shows he deserves being the heir to the Empire. Before knowing of his title, he helps the citizens of Kvatch when the Daedra assault the city. And after learning of his title, he actively tries to find a way to seal the Gates of Oblivion, even leads a few battles himself and thoughtlessly makes a Heroic Sacrifice when things looked grim. So he is a real clear example of this trope. Advertisement: The Blades The Blades in General https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/guild_miscellaneous_blades.png An order of soldiers who serves as the Emperor's personal bodyguards and spies The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: There are many of them stationed at the Cloud Ruler's Temple. Many powerful, over-trained, hardened warriors sworn to protect the Empire. So, will they help you fight off the Mythic Dawn and close the Gates of Oblivion that pop up everywhere across Cyrodiil? Yeah, no, they'll just stay at the Temple and... Well, do nothing. Only Baurus will help you from time to time but he's mostly just good at getting himself killed. Samurai: Their armor looks like a combination between the designs of a samurai and a Roman legionary. They also wield katanas instead of the traditional straight European style swords the rest of Cyrodill likes to use. Warrior Monks: An order of these. Grandmaster Jauffre Voiced by: Ralph Cosham https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/45829_2_1420974260.jpg The aging Breton leader of the Blades, who comes out of retirement during the Oblivion crisis and serves as a mentor to Martin. Badass Grandpa: He appears to be at least sixty years old, but does rather well for himself with a six-foot katana. The Confidant: Served as one to Uriel Septim VII. Mauve Shirt: He's unkillable while he's tied into story missions. After that's over, he can perish in the Oblivion Gate battle. Secret Keeper: He was the only person that Uriel VII entrusted with the knowledge of Martin's existence. Baurus Voiced by: Michael Mack https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/screen_shot_2017_12_14_at_093524.png A young Redguard Blade who served as Emperor Uriel's bodyguard during the last moments of his life. Fire-Forged Friends: At the start of the game, he is rude and distrustful of you (justified, since you were a prisoner at the time), but by the time he helps you getting a clue to find the Mythic Dawn's location, he starts to act more friendly with you. And if he survives the meeting, he even calls you friend. Historical In-Joke: His name evokes Brutus, but is trying to protect the emperor. Ink-Suit Actor: He bears a remarkable resemblance to his voice actor, Michael Mack (despite him voicing all Redguards in the game). My Greatest Failure: Blames himself for being unable to protect Uriel from death. Advertisement: Forces of Oblivion Order of the Mythic Dawn Mythic Dawn in General https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/screen_shot_2017_12_14_at_095929.png A cult dedicated to destroying boundaries between Tamriel and Oblivion. Led by the ellusive Mankar Camoran. Cult: Dedicated to Mehrunes Dagon. Unwitting Instigator of Doom: For themselves, at least. Had they not attempted to assassinate the Emperor, the Player Character would not have been freed from prison. Mankar Camoran Voiced by: Terence Stamp https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mankarcamoran.png An Altmer mage, leader of the Mythic Dawn cult, and bent on summoning Mehrunes Dagon to Tamriel. Writer of the "Commentaries on the Mysterium Xarxes". Consummate Liar: He's obviously not telling the whole truth. The real son of the Camoran Usurper was a Bosmer, and his list of Daedric realms and their rulers contradicts several other sources. His speech to the Mythic Dawn about Paradise is also more than a tad misleading. He's damned good at sounding believable, though. Don't forget his speech if you walk into Paradise after completing the Shivering Isles. He'll have no idea you're now Sheogorath. Dimension Lord: Created the Daedric Pocket Dimension of Paradise using the Mysterium Xarxes, where he receives the souls of his faithful into eternal bondage and torment. Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Implied. He has two children in the Mythic Dawn and they are the only ones other than him that aren't being tortured. The Dragon: To Mehrunes Dagon. Camoran's children, Raven and Ruma, are his Co-Dragons. Evil Brit: A villain with British accent. Faux Affably Evil: He can seem affable, but he really really isn't. Foreshadowing: In some Oblivion Gate worlds, you can find some Mythic Dawn agents dead and imprisoned, which is a hint of what awaits for members that are not him or his daughters. Hannibal Lecture: As you travel through his Paradise near the end of the main quest, you hear his voice in your head remarking on the futility of your actions and the true nature of the Daedra Lords and the Nine Divines. Apparently, Tamriel is just another plane of Oblivion, and the Nine are traitors to the Daedra Lords, the true gods of the universe. Though considering the amount of mistakes in the speech and holes in his backstory, he might just be a liar or badly informed. The Heavy: He's the most active villain in the game, until the end when Mehrunes Dagon is summoned. Manipulative Bastard: Oh, boy. He told his followers in the Mythic Dawn that they'd go to Paradise. Turns out, this Paradise is only for Camoran and his children, while his followers are tortured there and unable to die. Unreliable Expositor: His speech claiming that Lorkhan is a Daedric Prince, the Aedric gods are usurpers, and Nirn is a plane of Oblivion sounds quite plausible. It's also full of errors and inconsistencies with every other piece of lore in the Elder Scrolls universe, as well as possibly the player's own experiences, suggesting he is either lying or sorely misinformed. Eldamil Voiced by: Craig Sechler An Altmer member of the Mythic Dawn responsible for opening the Oblivion Gate at Kvatch, where he was killed. He later assists the Hero of Kvatch in Paradise. The Atoner: He comes to regret his actions and assisting Mankar. Cult Defector: Does this posthumously in the Artificial Afterlife that their leader Mankar Camoran built with a Daedric Prince's patronage. Realizing that they were being used and their "Paradise" is a trap, he helps the Player Character find and kill Camoran. Redemption Equals Death: He helps the Hero kill Mankar, which destroys Paradise and permanently kills all souls trapped there. Mehrunes Dagon Daedric Prince of Destruction and the leader of the Daedric forces invading Tamriel. Worshipped by the Mythic Dawn as a god. Appears in the flesh at the end of the Main Quest in a last ditch attempt to stop the lighting of the dragonfires, forcing Martin to perform a Heroic Sacrifice to defeat him. Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: When he manifests, it's as this. Big Bad: Of the Oblivion main quest line. Big Red Devil: Very big, very red and very demonic-looking, though not the in-universe equivalent of the devil. Curb-Stomp Battle: Do not engage. You may be destructive, but he is Destruction. Destroyer Deity: The Daedric Prince of Destruction. I'm Melting!: Should you actually kill him, which is at least theoretically possible, he ends up melting into a puddle due to not having a death animation or ragdoll skeleton for his corpse. Person of Mass Destruction: He personifies Destruction, after all. The Voiceless: Despite being the main antagonist (and being the only Daedric Prince (bar Sheogorath) that we see in the flesh), he never speaks a word in the game. Strangely, all his other appearances (Battlespire, Morrowind, Skyrim) have him speak. Kathutet Voiced by: Wes Johnson A Dremora that you encounter in Mankar Camoran's Paradise. He assists you in the quest by providing you with the Bands of the Chosen, should you agree to do a certain "favor" for him. Blood Knight: He loves fighting as much as any other Dremora. This is also why he dislikes the Ascended Immortals because they choose to flee instead of fight. Cruelty Is the Only Option: His "favor" involves freeing an Ax-Crazy Xivilai named Anaxes, who had been imprisoned by a group of Ascended Immortals, and allowing him to continue killing his captors. Deadpan Snarker: If the Player chooses to fight him for the Bands instead of doing his favor, Kathutet responds with this: Kathutet: Your mind follows the simple path ... the choice of an animal. You see an enemy and you attack it, unthinking. But you have courage, at least. To slay a bold animal like you is not without glory. Jerkass: Being a Daedra, it's only natural for him to despise mortals. Large Ham: Being a Dremora, this is to be expected, but he's surprisingly subdued... sometimes. My Species Doth Protest Too Much: He's not only the friendliest, but the least aggressive Dremora in the entire game. Noble Demon: Played straight, and since Kathutet is a Kynval (the Dremora equivalent of a knight), this is also played literally. Proud Warrior Race Guy Punch-Clock Villain: One of the reasons he agrees to help you on your quest is because he despises Mankar Camoran as much as you do, and couldn't care less if Camoran's plans succeeded or not. Voice of the Legion: He has the exact same voice as the other Dremora. Worthy Opponent: He sees the player as this, for defeating his fellow Dremora in the siege of Kvatch, and destroying their tower. This is also the other reason he agrees to help you in your quest. Kathutet: You destroyed the Sigil Tower at Ganonah. My kin say you fought well. Player: Ganonah? I've never heard of it. Kathutet: Our clan sacked your city of Kvatch... a trifling task fit for scamps. Your swift retribution earned you much respect among my people. We had not expected that a mortal would act with such resolution and honor. It is no dishonor for us to speak. Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?: If you don't want to do his favor, you can just kill him, and take the Bands of the Chosen from his corpse. This can be done, even after you do his favor for him. The Dremora A Daedric race of humanoid warriors that are native to the Deadlands. They serve as the enforcers of Mehrunes Dagon during the Oblivion Crisis. Black Knights: Their warriors tend to wear full body armor, complete with face-concealing helmets. Blood Knight: They love to fight, and are extremely aggressive towards non-Daedra. Evil Sounds Deep: The male Dremora speak with a deep, distorted voice. Genius Bruiser: In addition to being physically strong, they are among the most intelligent Daedra present in the game. Horned Humanoid: They have horns. Jerkass: How they regularly behave towards mortals. Large and in Charge: Along with the Altmer, the Dremora are consistently the tallest race (playable or otherwise) in the game. Large Ham: The male Dremora are easily among the hammiest characters present in the game. Proud Warrior Race: They have their own Viking-esque clan system, a sense of honor in combat, and are fiercely loyal to Mehrunes Dagon. Red Eyes, Take Warning The Smurfette Principle: This trope hit the Dremora race very hard. Female Dremora are extremely rare, since the few females in the entire game are: 1.) Archers, which are only found inside certain Oblivion Gates. This means they can only be encountered before the "Light the Dragonfires" quest is finished. 2.) Members of the Markyn, which is the second-highest rank in Dremora society. Thus, they will only be encountered by a high-level player. 3.) There is a chance that a Kynmarcher, Valkynaz, or even a male Markynaz archer might appear in their place instead. 4.) Due to a minor oversight in the game's production, they are all completely silent, and don't even have dialogue or even audio files assigned to them; Any attempt to converse with a female Dremora will yield the infamous "I HAVE NO GREETING" message, and will make no sounds during combat. Spikes of Villainy: The Daedric armor they wear is covered with these. Voice of the Legion: Kind of a vaguely-distorted scream/growl at the top of their lungs. Cities of Cyrodil Citizens of the Imperial City Captain Audens Avidius A Imperial Guard Captain who is extorting citizens and merchants in the city. Alliterative Name Bald of Evil Dirty Cop: The player can do a side quest to expose his corruption and get him arrested. Screw the Rules, I Make Them!: If the player confronts him without evidence and backup from Captain Itius Hayn, he will claim the player attacked him and put an 1000 gold bounty on you. Too Dumb to Live: He breaks out of prison and hunts down the player for revenge. Unfortunately for him, he is wearing prison clothes and only has a iron dagger as a weapon. Captain Hieronymus Lex A Imperial Guard Captain who has dedicated his life to hunting down and destroying the Thieves Guild. BFS: His weapon is a giant silver claymore. Big Bad: Technically for the Thieves Guild storyline, although there is never actually a confrontation with him. The Captain: His rank in the Imperial Guard, and later becomes captain of the Anvil City Guard after the Thieves Guild conspires to get him transferred to that city to get him off their backs. And also because the Gray Fox likes Lex and wants him to be his Guard Captain when he reclaims his position as Count of Anvil. Meaningful Name: "Lex" is Latin for law. Properly Paranoid: One of the few Imperial officers who believes the Thieves Guild is even real, which makes him somewhat of an annoyance to his superiors. He is also rightly convinced that the Gray Fox is behind his reassignment to Anvil, just not for the reasons he thinks. Reassigned to Antarctica: Well, not quite Antarctica, but Anvil isn't the primary city that the Thieves Guild operates out of. Since the Thieves Guild does not condone killing, doctoring some documents to invoke this is how they "deal" with Lex. Sympathetic Inspector Antagonist: He is just doing his job, and sincerely believes that the Thieves Guild is a blight on Cyrodiil. Worthy Opponent: The Gray Fox considers him one. Umbacano A wealthy Altmer who collects Ayleid artifacts. Anime Hair: Has a gravity defying haircut that resembles whipped cream. Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: He is actually gathering the Ayleid artifacts as part of his plan to become empowered with magic through a ritual in the Ayleid city of Nenalata. He then plans to revive the Ayleid empire. Karmic Death: If you switch out the Crown of Nenalata for the Crown of it's rival city Lindai, as Herminia Cinna suggests, his ritual to summon the power of Nenalata backfires and he is fried by the very forces that he tried to harness. Screw the Rules, I Have Money!: He is not exactly supposed to be collecting all of his Ayleid artifacts, and even hires the player to steal some of them, but justifies it with the large amount of money he is paying. Citizens of Skingrad Count Janus Hassildor The Count of Skingrad. He is rarely seen in public, but is known by reputation to be a powerful wizard. Blessed with Suck: He gains the standard bonuses of vampirism, like increased strength and resistance, but he has to limit his public appearances and is dependant on blood to keep his secret safe. Boomerang Bigot: He despises other vampires, and says they gave in to their bestial instincts. Friendly Neighborhood Vampire Reasonable Authority Figure: He's stated to be respected by the residents of the county and even the Mages Guild acknowledges that he has ruled Skingrad well for years without incident. Vampires Are Rich: Skingrad is probably the most prosperous city in Cyrodiil, not counting the Imperial City, and he himself has a large and extremely well-appointed castle. Younger Than They Look: Due to his affliction with vampirism, his facial features make him look much older than he actually is. Glarthir An odd Wood Elf who is widely regarded and tolerated as the 'town eccentric', who makes a point of approaching the Hero of Kvatch upon their first visit to the city. He is, in truth, a very disturbed man, and is convinced that everyone is out to get him - to the point of hiring you to follow (and possibly kill) those he suspects are guilty. Apocalyptic Log: You can find several entries of his diary in his house of his 'investigation', and a few extra entries that change depending on your actions during his quest. Either way, it showcases his Sanity Slippage quite nicely. Ax-Crazy: Depending on how you resolve his quest (the aptly titled 'Paranoia'), he may go on a killing spree of all of his suspected conspirators. The fact that he keeps his axe next to his bed wasn't a good sign. Being Watched: Or so he thinks. Beware the Silly Ones: He is noted by the townspeople as 'eccentric' and 'tolerated' by the guards. In actuality, he's a few false assurances and/or rejections away from going on a rampage. Cloud Cuckoo Lander: How he is perceived generally. The Cuckoolander Was Right: His impression of being persecuted by the other Skingrad citizens eventually proves to be nothing but the result of his paranoia. On the other hand, exploring his basement shows that he spotted the Mythic Dawn and thinks they are the most dangerous of the groups he is aware of. Conspiracy Theorist: The details are fuzzy from what he says, but it's very obvious that he believes himself the centre of it all, and it drives him mad. It's All About Me: His personal quest has you following around several townspeople all day long. If you refuse to do everything he asks, he is extremely put out by your lack of commitment. He also believes that several people are stalking him, for no apparent reason other than the fact that he is Glarthir. No Indoor Voice: Despite apparently trying to be covert, he practically yells his theories at you, even right after insisting you lower your voice. Properly Paranoid: About the Mythic dawn being the most dangerous group out of the ones he's "investigating." Even a broken clock is right twice a day. Sanity Slippage: He was already quite mad when you met, but no matter how you go about his quest, he will slip deeper into his paranoia and eventually order the deaths of his 'enemies' or he will set about doing it himself. You Have to Believe Me!: His response if you straight up tell him he's delusional. Tell him too many times, and he'll start to think you're guilty too... Dovesi Dran The Cutie: Especially in the eyes of Nels and Primo. Death by Materialism: Not as much as Matilde, but the only reason Dovesi even came to the party was to make some quick, easy money. Gold Digger: Her primary interest in Primo is largely because he's rich. So even if she doesn't find the treasure, she has a backup plan. Kill the Cutie: Enforced. She has to die in order for the player to ever leave the house. Replacement Goldfish: Nels tends to dote on her because she reminds him of his dead daughter. Star-Crossed Lovers: With Primo. Potentially subverted seeing as she can be persuaded to kill him. Matilde Petit ******* Victim: In case we haven't made it clear, Matilde's a racist, judgmental bitch. Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Appears to be a kind, sweethearted, down-on-her-luck eldery women. She's actually a snobbish, classist racist. Damsel in Distress: A rare unlikeable one. There is only one person in the entire house she will attempt to kill, Dovesi. Otherwise, Matilde will simply flee and beg for help. Death by Materialism: She only came to the party to get more money, seeing as her fortune has long been squandered. Needless to say, she won't be leaving. Death by Racism: Potentially, if the player convinces Dovesi to kill her. Dirty Old Woman: Whenever Neville comes up. The Fake Cutie: Very much plays up the innocent old lady routine, often calling the player "Sweetie" or "Dearie" even. She's also a racist and very quick to judge others. Fantastic Racism: Against Dunmer. In fact, the only guest she will ever attempt to kill is Dovesi (the only Dunmer in the house). Also against Nords, to an extent. Kick the Dog: If Dovesi Dran is killed first, rather than be frightened, saddened or unnerved like the other guests, she'll express happiness knowing there's one less Dunmer in the world. Proper Lady: She sees herself as one, at least. Rich Bitch: At one point, she was rich (though she still claims to be), and she is most definitely a bitch. Nels the Naughty Death by Materialism: Not as much as Matilde, but the only reason Nels even came to the party was to make some quick, easy money. Drowning My Sorrows: Drinks to forget the fact that his daughter was murdered by bandits. Nice Guy: By far the most friendly, sociable person at the party. Sad Clown: Referred to as one by Primo. Neville ******* Victim: Very antagonistic of the player for no real reason. Death by Materialism: Not as much as Matilde, but the only reason Neville even came to the party was to make some quick, easy money. Death by Racism: Potentially, if the player convinces Nels to kill him. Fantastic Racism: Towards Nords, seeing them as little more than barbaric brutes. Retired Badass: He is a retired member of the Legion. He even still has his armor on hand. Primo Antonius Death by Materialism: Shockingly averted. Primo only went to the party to have a fun time and couldn't care less about finding the chest of gold. Hidden Depths: Actually has a pretty good read on people, considering Primo sees right through Matilde's act and instantly recognizes that Nels is drinking away his pain. Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Downplayed. Primo is arrogant and spoiled, but other than that he's very much a Nice Guy who treats everyone with respect and passes very little judgment on others (except Matilde, who he sees right through) Rich Idiot with No Day Job: The entire reason he showed up at the mansion. Spoiled Sweet: Definitely spoiled, but still a fairly Nice Guy (especially compared to others in the mansion) Star-Crossed Lovers: With Dovesi. Potentially subverted seeing as he can be persuaded to kill her. Citizens of Bruma Bruma in General Bruma is the northern-most city of Cyrodiil. Its architecture has a distinct Nord influence, resembling towns from the northern province of Skyrim. Insurmountable Waist-Height Fence: On your initial trip to the city it is apparent that over half of the buildings in the northern section of the city are locked with quest keys. There is no way to access these buildings outside of stumbling into the relevant quest which gives you the key for them. Countess Narina Carvain The Countess of Bruma. A collector of Akarivi artifacts, Narina will proposition the player for help in locating more for her collection. Badass Bookworm: She has an almost encyclopedic knowledge of Tamrielic history, and is crucial in the defense of Bruma when it comes under siege. Reasonable Authority Figure: She readily accepts that a large Oblivion Gate has opened at her city's doorstep. She asks for help from you to gather more guards from the countryside, but is understanding if you choose to siege the Gate without additional help. Moreover, when you agree to travel the Serpent's Tail to discover the Pale Pass, she reveals that she has already sent troops ahead to scout the land for you. A little redundant given that the game uses a quest marker to direct players, but the sentiment is appreciated nonetheless. Royals Who Actually Do Something: Narina takes the initiative to find the player for quests; a switch from the traditional role most players have in seeking out potential quest-givers. Citizens of Bravil Count Regulus Terentius The Count of Bravil. A former champion of the Imperial Arena, he grew up to be a drunkard and general ne'er-do-well. He and his city are looked down upon by the other counts.—- I Gave My Word: He sends his best soldier to Bruma if you help against the Oblivion Gate. Like Father, Like Son: Regulus's vice is alcohol, while his son's is skooma. But they are both useless drug addicts. Wretched Hive: There's only one reason to visit Bravil, and that's the skooma. Citizens of Leyawiin Countess Alessia Caro The Countess of Leyawiin, recently married to Count Marius Caro. She is the daughter of Countess Ariana Valga of Chorrol and detests Argonians, Khajiit and Dark Elves. Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: She's described as a dutiful wife and pious churchgoer... but is in fact a racist who goes so far as to torture Argonian prisoners in her cellar. Butt-Monkey: Is the target of theft in one quest and subjected to having her party crashed and clothes stripped off to humor Sanguine in another. Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: She regularly visits her mother in Chorrol. No Celebrities Were Harmed: Has a lot in common with Delphine Lalaurie, though it may not have been intentional. Proper Lady: Supposed to be one. The in-game loading screens describe her as "lovely and cultivated" and she's known to pay visits to her mother and the chapel regularly. Sanguine describes her castle as a "dull, dreary place". Count Marius Caro The Count of Leyawiin and husband of Alessia Caro. He's the one that you receive quests from. Reasonable Authority Figure: He shows none of his wife's racism. He hates criminals, though, and will put out a bounty in the Black Bow Bandits for any of their bows that you bring back. Citizens of Anvil Countess Millona Umbranox The Countess of Anvil, whose husband, Corvus, vanished mysteriously ten years ago, leaving her in control of his lands. Not So Stoic: When her husband, Corvus, the Grey Fox, returns to her and breaks Nocturnal's curse. Reasonable Authority Figure: Is one of the more gentle rulers of Cyrodill. She openly admits everyone is welcome at her castle, as long as they behave and several lower class workers of Anvil even tell you the countess takes time to personally great them. Citizens of Cheydinhal Cheydinhal in General A north-eastern city in Cyrodiil located at the foot of the Jerall Mountains. Cheydinhal is the embark point for many players scouring the north-east and far eastern portions of the map. Ghost Town: Played with. Most of Cheydinhal's population comes from guilds or are locked inside buildings that are not immediately accessible to the player, making it seem like the town is nigh uninhabited. Not counting Guilds, the Dark Brotherhood, or Quest-only citizen, the town only has a population of 23. Count Andel Indarys The Count of Cheydinhal and the only non-Imperial among them. His son is something of a Miles Gloriosus who tries to close an Oblivion Gate and goes missing. He's also rumored to have had his wife killed twenty years ago. Nepotism: Accused by Countess Caro of having gotten his appointment due to his connections to King Helseth and Queen Mother Barenziah of Morrowind. Not exactly a reliable source, though, considering her racism. Screw the Rules, I Have Money!: Played with. The loading screens indicate that he's taking bribes from the Dark Brotherhood to keep quiet about their presence in his town, but knowing them they didn't give him much choice in the matter. Twofer Token Minority/Token Nonhuman: The sole non-Imperial among the counts of Cyrodiil, and a Dunmer rather than a human. Farwil Indarys Son of Andel and the leader of the Knights of the Thorne. The Hero of Kvatch has to rescue him and his companions from an Oblivion Gate that opens up outside the city. Glory Seeker Leeroy Jenkins: Charges into an Oblivion gate and promptly gets most of his friends killed. Indeed, he has very little concern for his own life if he comes with you into the tower and will almost certainly die. The least frustrating method for getting him home alive is to completely avoid him by using a water walking enchantment to cross the lava and avoid the bridge he's on. That way he stays safely on the bridge outside while you close the gate yourself. And the reward for keeping him alive is definitely worth it. Lord Error-Prone: Likes to make boasts about the great accomplishments he and the Knights of the Thorne have done, but they are all very silly or exaggerated. The townspeople note that he is never around when something big is actually going on, and that he and the other knights spend most of their time drinking. Citizens of Chorrol Chorrol in General A north-western city in Cyrodiil located between the Great Forest of west Cyrodiil and the Colovian Highlands of the Hammerfell border. Its proximity with the Weynon Priory makes it the second most likely city to be visited by a player sticking to the Main Quest, right after the Imperial City itself. Citizens of Kvatch Kvatch in General An impressive city in the hinterland of the Gold Coast of Cyrodiil, located between Anvil and Skingrad. It is built atop a large bluff, raising the city above the surrounding forests. Everybody's Dead, Dave: Only a handful of citizens and guards survived the attack. Everybody else is dead, including Jiub, who was living there at the time, and the Count Ormellius Goldwine, whom the remaining city guards were trying to save. Late to the Tragedy: Even if you sprint all the way to Kvatch as soon as you leave the Imperial Prison, the city will already be in ruins and overrun by Daedra by the time you make it there. Count Ormellius Goldwine The ruling Count of Kvatch. He gets trapped within his own castle during the Daedra attack, and rescuing him will be necessary if you want Kvatch to help you fight the Daedra when they later attack Bruma. I'm Dying, Please Take My MacGuffin: You have to take his ring from his dead body and return it to Savlian Matius to complete the quest The Battle for Castle Kvatch. Purple Is Powerful: He wears a black & burgundy outfit, which is the closest any noble other than the Emperor himself gets to playing this trope right. "Shaggy Dog" Story: After successfully storming the castle and killing every Daedra inside, you will find Count Goldwine lying dead in a pool of his own blood. If only you'd gotten here sooner... Cyrodiil Guilds and Factions Fighters Guild characters Modryn Oreyn Voiced by: Craig Sechler Champion of Chorrol's Fighters Guild. Badass Grandpa Giftedly Bad: In the art of war, he's a master. In the art of painting...not so much. Just look at this masterpiece◊ Submissive Badass: The first few times you encounter him, he essentially acts as the Guildmaster's soft-spoken, highly organized PA. Then the mace comes out... Maglir Voiced by: Craig Sechler A fellow guild member who often refuses contracts, due to their danger and low pay. Dirty Coward: Runs away from Fighters Guild contracts at first. Later on, he defects to the Blackwood Company, another band of mercenaries who use less legal means to get what they want. And he has no redeeming qualities whatsoever. Game-Breaking Bug: Oh dear... sometimes, the game doesn't remove him from the Fighters Guild properly when he joins the Blackwood Company. When you kill him at the end of the quest, you will be expelled from the guild for killing a fellow guild member, despite the fact he went hostile towards you. There are very few ways around this- either go outside and let a city guard kill him, or use the console to reset your guild murder status to avoid expulsion. It's not known what causes this... certain game mods may interfere with scripts, but it's also known to happen in an unmodded game for some players. I Have a Family: One of his excuses for defaulting on contracts. Face-Heel Turn: Joins the Blackwood Company. Vilena Donton Voiced by: Catherine Flye The Guildmaster of the Fighters Guild. A Father to His Men: A deconstruction. She's a doting and overprotective mother, which affects her judgement. Da Chief Reasonable Authority Figure: After realizing her faults in being too overprotective towards guild members, and your actions in saving the guild, she immediately names you Guildmaster and retires herself, knowing you would do a far better job in leading the guild. Viranus Donton Voiced by: Wes Johnson The Guildmaster's son. BFS: His Weapon of Choice is a two-handed sword Leeroy Jenkins: In practice and on paper. The Load: During an early Escort Mission with him, he is invincible since he as a Plotline Death to suffer later, but his tendency to get knocked out rather quickly gets old fast. My Beloved Smother: He loves his mother dearly, but expresses frustration at her refusal to send him out any missions since his older brother's death. Plotline Death: He suffers a rather unceremonious death offscreen late in the questline. Sacrificial Lion: At the hands of the Sap-Berserk Blackwood Company Men. Straight Gay: Some of his diary entries very heavily imply he and another man in the Guild are having an affair. Mages Guild characters Hannibal Traven Voiced by: Ralph Cosham The Archmage of the Mages Guild and responsible for the banning of Necromancy. The Archmage: Naturally. Big Good: Of the Mages Guild questline. Cool Old Guy: An old but badass Archmage. Fate Worse than Death: Places himself in a huge Soul Gem, which are known for this. If you've played Battlespire or the Dawnguard quests in Skyrim, you find out he'll be trapped in the Soul Cairn for all eternity. General Ripper: Has a grudge against necromancy. Turns out, he's right. Heroic Sacrifice: Places his soul in the Colossal Black Soul Gem so Mannimarco can't take The Prisoner's soul. Mentor Occupational Hazard: An Archmage who makes an Heroic Sacrifice. Non-Action Guy: He doesn't do much (at least until his Heroic Sacrifice). Jeanne Frasoric Voiced by: Catherien Flye The rather inept head of Bruma's Mages Guild. Often the victim of pranks set up by the other guild members. Pointy-Haired Boss Raminus Polus Voiced by: Wes Johnson An Imperial Master Wizard at the Arcane University in the Imperial City. He handles much of the Guild's administrative issues. Nice Guy: Never shows any animosity or condescending behavior to the player, unless the player breaks Mages Guild rules. Reasonable Authority Figure: He is Traven's second in command, but never abuses this position or acts haughtily because of it. Sole Survivor: He is the only member of the Council of Mages to survive the war with the Necromancers. Mannimarco Voiced by: Craig Sechler Villain from Daggerfall, returning as the Big Bad of the Mages Guild questline Animate Dead: The Staff of Worms reanimates fallen enemies. Naturally, this includes Mannimarco himself. Big Bad: Of the Mages Guild quest line. Informed Ability: Said to be nearly invincible, but is only slightly more powerful than the average necromancer. Necromancer: He is the leader of the Order of the Black Worms, after all. Our Liches Are Different: He is the first lich of Tamriel. The Worf Effect: When the player finally faces him, he appears to be a typical Altmer mage in some regular necromancer robes. Compare this to his appearance in Daggerfall, where he was a menacing hooded figure with Glowing Eyes of Doom. What Is Evil?: He claims that good and evil are "manifestations of the same thing". Irlav Jarole Voiced by: Wes Johnson A Imperial Master Wizard on the Council of Mages. He is a researcher specializing in Ayleid history and authored the book "Magic from the Sky". Adventurer Archaeologist: Implied to be one until he became a member of the Council Caranya Voiced by: Linda Canyon An Altmer Wizard on the Council of Mages. Insufferable Genius The Mole: She is a Necromancer and secretly serves Mannimarco. She steals the Necromancer's Amulet from the Mages Guild to give it to him, but gets killed by the Hero of Kvatch before she can deliver it. Mood-Swinger: Goes back and forth between "If you need anything, I'll be happy to help," and "I'm too important for you!" Necromancer Thieves Guild characters The Gray Fox Voiced by: Wes Johnson The mysterious head of the Thieves Guild. Awesome Mc Coolname/Meaningful Name: Corvus Umbranox roughly translates as 'Raven Shadownight'. All three are evocative of symbology of Nocturnal, Daedric Prince of night, shadow, and thieves. Catch-Phrase: "Capital!" Just Like Robin Hood: The beggars of the Imperial City are all under his protection. In return, they serve as his spies. Legacy Character: The Gray Fox is merely an identity magically assumed by the person who wears the cowl. It's stated that there were numerous other "Gray Foxes" over the years, creating the illusion of him being immortal. Ret Gone: The cursed cowl he's forced to wear makes all traces of his existence vanish, even if he goes right up and reveals his identity to someone (which he apparently did to both his wife and you, but the curse pretty much erased that from history). He's always simply "a stranger". Secret Identity: Count Corvus Umbranox. Shrouded in Myth: Mostly due to him supposedly living for over 300 years (because the cowl's curse makes it seem as if the same person has always been The Gray Fox, no matter how different each Fox is from the last). Dark Brotherhood characters Lucien Lachance Voiced by: Wes Johnson Speaker for the Dark Brotherhood. Affably Evil: For an amoral and psychotic killer, he can be quite the charmer. Alliterative Name: Lucien Lachance. Card-Carrying Villain Cruel and Unusual Death: He did not have an easy passing, judging from his corpse mutilated beyond recognition, since his genitals and jaws were removed and his ribs were exposed. What is more, its rumored that one of the Black Hand may have eaten their entrails. Dead Guy on Display: By the time you find his corpse, it has been suspended upside down for everyone to see in its macabre glory. Expy: In Skyrim he's essentially, an evil version of Obi-Wan Kenobi. He even says "I sense a great disturbance in the void!" In the Hood: Like most member of the Black Hand. Large Ham: Even in comparison to other Imperials. Laser-Guided Karma: His first quest is murdering an old man, Rufio, in his sleep. Later on, he orders you to slaughter the entire Cheydinhal Sanctuary believing one of them to be the traitor, not caring that two members see him as a father figure and gives you a scroll allowing to use the ghost of Rufio as a weapon against them. Near the end of the questline he is murdered and tortured by his fellow members of the Black Hand thinking HE is the traitor (they show no remorse or regret about it even after learning of their mistake). Skyrim then reveals that his ghost has been made into a 'spectral assassin' for promising members to use as a weapon. That the actual traitor was a man he personnally promoted to Silencer despite being violently insane and Lucien himself having carried out the assassination of the man's mother when he was a child in front of his eyes is just cold, dark icing on the poisonous cake. Reasonable Authority Figure: To you, interestingly enough. After he realizes you've been going around systematically killing his fellow members of the Black Hand, he sets off to kill you in turn, but the moment he catches up to you, Lucien quickly deduces that you've been duped as well, and instead decides to work with you in figuring out who the real traitor is. Stuffed in the Fridge: Doubling as a This example contains a YMMV entry. It should be moved to the YMMV tab.Player Punch to many. Villainous Breakdown: Has quite an epic one near the end of the Dark Brotherhood storyline when he realizes that he's been set up. The Cheydinhal Guildhall Affably Evil: Almost without exception. It's just how the Brotherhood conducts its affairs. Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Antoinetta looks like the most innocent member of the group with her appearance invoking Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold, but her blood thirst is made clear during dialogue as well as her ambitious disposition. Dark and Troubled Past: Some of its members. Before contracting vampirism, Vicente lost his father and mother at early age to a wolf that infected them with rockjoint. Taelandril's father ordered a hit on her before she arranged for Lucien to kill him in return. Antoinetta suffered a horrible life as a homeless and is said to have been abused by the city guards, possibly sexually. Dumb Muscle: Gogron, who gets a shout-out to Lenny from Of Mice and Men in his backstory. Hell, he admits to not even know who or what Sithis is, but he will obey the Five Tenets and the contracts regardless. Equal-Opportunity Evil: The lineup consists of a vampire, two Argonians, a Khajiit, an Orc, a Wood Elf (the last two of which are sleeping together) and a Breton, diversity that would make any other guild hang its head in shame. And that's all in one Sanctuary, too! Outside of there, you can find two Imperials, a High Elf, a Nord, another Khajiit, an Argonian, two Dark Elves, another Breton, and another Wood Elf, who's the leader of the whole Brotherhood. Et Tu, Brute?: They will react this way, specially Vicente, when you purge the Cheydinhal's Sanctuary. Five-Man Band: Big Bad Duumvirate: Vicente Valtieri and Ocheeva. Ocheeva's the nominal head but Vicente hands out assignments too and, being a vampire and all, is significantly more formidable. The Dragon: Teinavaa, Ocheeva's brother. Evil Genius: Mraaj-Dar. The Brute: Gogron Gro-Bolmog. Dark Chick: Antoinetta Marie. Sixth Ranger: Taelandril, who spends a lot of time on deep-cover reconnaissance. And The Prisoner, if they join. Team Pet: Schemer the rat and the Dark Guardian. Hate at First Sight: Mraaj-Dar will despise you the moment he lays his eyes on you and he won't be any kinder if you are Khajiit yourself. He does warm up just before the Purification happens. Highly Visible Ninja: Gogron's too big and clumsy for sneaking, and too unsubtle to care. He just kills anything between him and his target, even forgoing the Brotherhood's trademark Shrouded Armour to help him do so. Interspecies Romance: It's implied that Gogron and Taelandril are in a relationship. Jerkass: Mraaj-Dar, who's consistently rude to you until you enter the Sanctuary with orders to kill him. Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Antoinetta Marie had a miserable life until she was welcomed into the Brotherhood, but now she's terrifyingly chirpy about killing large numbers of people. Mathieu Bellamont Voiced by: Ralph Cosham Ax-Crazy: He kills his lover, a member of the Dark Brotherhood herself, after she learned at least part of the truth of his insanity and his attachment to his dead mother's head. In his own words, there wasn't enough left of her for any one to find. He then proceeds to kill most of the Brotherhood and has an unhealthy obsession with the color red. Big Bad: Of the Dark Brotherhood questline. Disproportionate Retribution: Killed the entire crew of the Serpent's Wake ship for an insult. Expy: To Norman Bates, since they are both deranged murderers obsessed with their long dead mothers. Even Evil Has Loved Ones: He was in love with a fellow Dark Brotherhood member named Maria and was actually hoping to build a real family with her. Tragically, she rejected him after hearing his real plans, causing him to snap and brutally murder and mutilate her beyond recognition. Its also implied he is in love with Antoinette since he might have sent the anonymous letter warning her to leave the sanctuary as the purification is about to begin. Evil vs. Evil: Seeks revenge against an amoral death cult that killed his mother, but he is not at all much better than them. Freudian Excuse: His father was an abuser who summoned the Dark Brotherhood to assassinate his wife, and had Lucien Lachance murder her before Mathieu's eyes. No wonder he is so screwed up. I'm a Humanitarian: Heavily implied, since his hideout is littered with body parts and there is nothing else left to eat. Manipulative Bastard: He arranges the deaths of several members of the Brotherhood by setting them up against the other, Pyrrhic Villainy: Though he is unable to destroy the Night Mother, he manages to get his revenge on Lucen Lachance and kill several Dark Brotherhood members. But he dies shortly after being exposed, and as it turns out, he was nothing but a pawn of the Night Mother herself who foresaw his plan from the beginning, but allowed him to carry it out in order to cull the Brotherhood of any weak members. Room Full of Crazy: Lives in one. Unwitting Pawn: In the end, he was this to the Night Mother, who allowed Bellamont to carry out his plan in order to teach the Black Hand a lesson about treachery. You Killed My Father: Motivated to destroy the Dark Brotherhood in revenge for Lucien killing his mother. The Black Hand Five-Man Band: invoked and enforced, by always having five members. Big Bad: Ungolim, the Listener. Also, the Night Mother. The Dragon: Arquen, a Speaker who leads the other Speakers toward the end of the quest line. Also, every member of the Black Hand has their own personal Silencer. Shaleez and Havilstein Hoar-Blood are two of them, as are two of the three Speakers at the end. Evil Genius: Alval Uvani, a Speaker and master of Destruction Magic. The Brute: J'Ghasta, a Speaker and Hand-To-Hand master. The Chick/Dark Chick: Belisarius Arius and Banus Alor, Speakers at endgame who are both killed without a fight. The Heart: Lucien Lachance could be an evil one; after he loses control, almost everyone ends up dying. Arena characters Owyn Voiced by: Michael Mack The Arena's Redguard Blademaster, who sorts out matches and new competitors. Badass Beard Berserk Button: He threatens to "rip your damn liver out" if you wrong Ysabel in any way. Deadpan Snarker: Tends to get very snarky at times. "I heard a rumour that you're an idiot. Any truth to that?", "Try not to die when the gate opens!". He tones it down as you advance up in ranks, however. Drill Sergeant Nasty Dude, Where's My Respect?: You could be the Champion of Cyrodiil and he will treat you like you're some overconfident civilian with no combat skill whatsoever. Justified: might be his way of pushing you to do better and impress him. Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Although he's rather abrasive to new fighters, he does show respect to you as you raise through the ranks, and he's genuinely concerned for his daughter. Scary Black Man: Early on, he's pretty mean, but becomes friendlier as you gain fame in the Arena. "Well Done, Son!" Guy: According to a note in the Bloodworks, he has an illegitimate daughter. The end of her note reads: All I want, all I ever wanted, was to make you proud. Your loving daughter, Branwyn Agronak gro-Malog aka The Gray Prince Voiced by: Jonathan Bryce The Champion of the Arena, rumored to be a "Half-Orc". Dhampyr: With an orc and an Imperial (the latter being the vampire), oddly enough. Half-Human Hybrid: It's public knowledge that only his mother was an Orc. We can learn from his quest that his father was an Imperial. He was also a vampire, less pleasantly. Nice Guy: You wouldn't expect the grand champion of a Blood Sport to be such a friendly guy, until he learns the truth about his past at least. Suicide by Cop: If you do the sidequest where he learns of his heritage, he won't even attack when you fight him for the title, and if you kill him, the Dark Brotherhood comes to you if you haven't joined yet, counting it as murder even if the rest of society doesn't. He does defend himself eventually if the fight drags on too long, saying "I don't care about my heritage! I won't die like a beast!" Undeathly Pallor: His skin is tinged grey, instead of the usual Orcish green. It seems to be the only real side effect of being a Dhampyr. Yellow Team Champion Voiced by: Lynda Carter The sub-champion of the arena and likely leader of said team. Arrogant Kung-Fu Guy: No matter in which rank you are, she will always have something menacing or condescending to say Brawnhilda: Big, strong and rough looking as expected from a nord. No Name Given: oddly enough despite being the second best fighter of the arena. Fiery Redhead: Has a bright orange mane. Flunky Boss: During your fight against her she is aided by two teammates. Jerkass The Adoring Fan Voiced by: Craig Sechler A small wood elf fan the player gains after becoming the Grand Champion of the Arena, who can follow you around and worship you. And I Must Scream: It is possible to put him through this if you take him inside an Oblivion Gate, then leave him there. His respawn script will still run, but he's trapped in whatever version of Oblivion you left him in, meaning he is trapped in a realm where Everything Is Trying to Kill You. Reviving every three days. Forever. Anime Hair: His bright yellow "Hershey Kiss" shaped hair (as the Strategy Guide describes it) is his most noticeable physical trait. Bumbling Sidekick Butt-Monkey: Many a fan has taken pleasure in tossing him off a mountain, among other deaths. Catch-Phrase: "By Azura! By Azura! By Azura!" The Chew Toy: His lack of armour, poor base HP, tendency to run away and his over-all annoying demeanour have rendered him one both in and out of universe. Cowardly Sidekick: He tends to run away at the smallest of threats (we're talking Mudcrabs, here). This example contains a TRIVIA entry. It should be moved to the TRIVIA tab.Fan Nickname: "The Annoying Fan", to the point that most videos about killing, injuring or otherwise humiliating him will label him as such. Hero-Worshipper: He says as much during his opening spiel, mentioning "worshipping the very ground you walk on". Joke Character: Though he'll follow you anywhere (even into Oblivion), he'll run away when you get into a fight. Mythology Gag: Seems to have become one for Bethesda, with an identically-voiced expy named Sticky appearing in Fallout 3. In Skyrim, a passing reference is made to a past Arena Champion who was murdered by a supposed 'Adoring Fan', in reality a member of the Dark Brotherhood. Not Completely Useless: As annoying as he can be, he does take out a torch whenever it gets dark, freeing up a hand for the player. Of course, there's still the issue of him running away, which can be remedied with a Rally spell. Sour Supporter: He can be. If you lower the Adoring Fan's disposition enough — training up your pickpocketing skill on him will do the trick — he'll constantly sneer at you. They Killed Kenny Again: He respawns if he dies, leading players to find hundreds of creative ways to kill him, only for him to reappear by the Arena in three days, still worshipping the ground you walk on. Porkchop the Boar A boar that lives in a cage in the Bloodworks. Owyn releases him into the arena to help you win the Blue Team Championship match. Beastly Bloodsports: His purpose is to fight in the gladiator Arena. Full-Boar Action: He's a boar and he fights. Pint-Sized Powerhouse: Despite being small, he's able to kill one of the enemy fighters on his own and cause some damage to the others. Minor factions Blackwood Company A mercenary company that is making competition for the Fighters Guild. Evil Counterpart: To the Fighters Guild. Expy: Most likely named after the Blackwater mercenary company. Psycho Serum: The source of their power, the Hist Sap, turns those that drink it into raging berserkers. This affects even the Argonian Blackwood mercenaries (and the player if they are also an Argonian) because the process used to transplant the Blackwood Company's Hist Tree from Black Marsh to Cyrodiil has corrupted and perverted the tree and it's Sap. Ruthless Foreign Gangsters: A mercenary company instead of a criminal syndicate, but the same sentiment is there. They're an organization rooted in Black Marsh primarily (and proudly) made up of Argonians and Khajiit in direct competition with the native Fighter's Guild, and they are known to be unscrupulous with regards to both the contracts they will accept and the methods they go about completing them. Knights of the White Stallion Bounty Hunter: Effectively what they are, given they hunt the Black Bow Bandits to bring back the bows for money. Order of the Virtuous Blood An order of Vampire Hunters set up in the Imperial city. When completing their quest, they can be a large source of gold for the player. Captain Oblivious: While claiming to be vampire hunters dedicated on protecting the Imperial City from vampires, they seem to do an awful job at it, since two vampires live among the citizenry of the Imperial City, while an entire nest of them can be found in the sewers of the Arena District of the city. There is a bit of This example contains a YMMV entry. It should be moved to the YMMV tab.Fridge Brilliance here, since this faction is formed and led by the vampire Seridur as some sort of cover operation. He is probably keeping his group members in the dark to protect his kin. Get Rich Quick Scheme: They can easily become this if you solve their quest in the best way possible. If you do, you can sell Vampire Dust to them for exactly 250 gold, which is normally valued at 50 gold, not factoring in Mercantile skill. Add the fact that Vampire Dust is easily found, which makes it very easy for players to get rich. Vampire Hunter: An organization of them, and you can join if you complete their quest. Even if you're a vampire at the time. Well-Intentioned Extremist: They do genuinely mean well, but the group (under Seridur's rule) is very pragmatic in approach. Don't even seem to consider that some vampires aren't compulsive killers; they jump on a lead, no matter how little evidence there is. You Are What You Hate: The PC can invoke this on themselves, as it is possible to join even if they're a vampire at the time. Then again, they were completely oblivious about Seridur, so it's plausible that they don't figure you out. Miscellaneous Characters Other characters M'aiq the Liar Voiced By: Jonathan Bryce A Khajiit monk who runs around Cyrodill. When spoken to, he voices the opinion of the creators towards the Unpleasable Fanbase. Mostly in a very cryptic way of talking. For more information on M'aiq outside of the context of Oblivion itself, see his entry on the Elder Scrolls Recurring Characters page. Author Avatar: He directly voices the opinion of the game's creators. Catch-Phrase: "M'aiq knows much, tells some. M'aiq knows many things others do not." Cloud Cuckoolander: He comes over as very detached from the setting. Logical, since he's something of a literal Author Avatar. His behavior is pretty odd, too: he often enters ruins and caves to search for calipers for 5 hours (which has likely startled some players), enters Valenwood along his route between Anvil and Leywiin, and has been known to occasionally chase deer. Deadpan Snarker: Some of his speeches are very sarcastic. Easter Egg: As a Meta Guy Fourth-Wall Observer who runs randomly around Cyrodiil. It's entirely possible to play for hundreds of hours without running into him, and his dialogue is mostly just for fun. Legacy Character: There was also a Khajiit with his name in Morrowind, and 200 years later in Skyrim. Though Morrowind only takes place six years before Oblivion, so it could very well be the same guy. This is strongly hinted at when he comments on how he misses the hat he wore in Morrowind. Self-Deprecation: Some of his comments mock features of previous games. Super Speed: He starts with a maxed-out Athletics stat, meaning he is nearly imp

M'aiq the Liar Voiced By: Jonathan Bryce A Khajiit monk who runs around Cyrodill. When spoken to, he voices the opinion of the creators towards the Unpleasable Fanbase. Mostly in a very cryptic way of talking. For more information on M'aiq outside of the context of Oblivion itself, see his entry on the Elder Scrolls Recurring Characters page. Author Avatar: He directly voices the opinion of the game's creators. Catch-Phrase: "M'aiq knows much, tells some. M'aiq knows many things others do not." Cloud Cuckoolander: He comes over as very detached from the setting. Logical, since he's something of a literal Author Avatar. His behavior is pretty odd, too: he often enters ruins and caves to search for calipers for 5 hours (which has likely startled some players), enters Valenwood along his route between Anvil and Leywiin, and has been known to occasionally chase deer. Deadpan Snarker: Some of his speeches are very sarcastic. Easter Egg: As a Meta Guy Fourth-Wall Observer who runs randomly around Cyrodiil. It's entirely possible to play for hundreds of hours without running into him, and his dialogue is mostly just for fun. Legacy Character: There was also a Khajiit with his name in Morrowind, and 200 years later in Skyrim. Though Morrowind only takes place six years before Oblivion, so it could very well be the same guy. This is strongly hinted at when he comments on how he misses the hat he wore in Morrowind. Self-Deprecation: Some of his comments mock features of previous games. Super Speed: He starts with a maxed-out Athletics stat, meaning he is nearly impossible to keep up with until later levels. Take That!: One of his comments is: "People always enjoy a good fable. M'aiq has yet to find one, though. Maybe some day." This is a Take That to the similar rival game, Fable. Take That, Audience!: Just about every speech he makes is a reaction the makers have about an aspect of the game fans aren't pleased about. An example is the fact throwing weapons are removed. M'aiq responds to this by saying that if people hold their weapon, they only need one. Walking the Earth: He moves along the Gold Road and Green Road (spanning the distance between Anvil and Leyawiin) constantly, only stopping at each town for a day or so before running off on his journey again. He will only eat if food is dropped nearby, and if he is the same M'aiq as the one in Morrowind, who knows how many of the provinces of Tamriel he was wandered in his lifetime. Valen Dreth Voiced by: Craig Sechler A rude Dunmer prisoner who occupies the cell opposite yours at the start of the game. Despite only appearing once (or twice, if you join the Dark Brotherhood), he sticks in many players' minds, if anything because he spends his meagre amount of screen-time slinging racist and sexist slurs at you. Dirty Coward: He will yell for help as soon as it becomes obvious you're there to kill him. Ironic Echo: You have the opportunity to throw his closing line ("You're going to die in here!") back at him when you arrive to murder him for the Dark Brotherhood. Jerkass: He is the first character met in the game, and will mock your character based on their race and sex no matter what it is (even if one is a Dark Elf like him, he will proposition you if female, or threaten to seduce your wife when he gets out if male). This makes it very satisfying to kill him during the Dark Brotherhood questline. Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: If you play as a Female Dunmer, he starts off seeming like he's genuinely complimenting you and trying to soothe you... then it veers into him basically saying he wants to cash in his favor with a guard so he can be in your cell for untoward purposes until your execution. This makes killing him in the Dark Brotherhood questline very satisfying. Smug Snake: When he first talks to you, he is very confident that he will be getting out soon, but you are here for life. Cue the Emperor's (plus elite guard) arrival, here to take a secret escape route through your cell. The fact that you are later ordered to kill him makes it even more deliciously ironic. Appearing in Oblivion Add-ons: Shivering Isles characters Sheogorath Voiced By: Wes Johnson Daedric Prince of Madness. Badass Beard: In fact, beards more badass than his are outlawed in the Shivering Isles on pain of death. Big Good: For a given level of good, of the Shivering Isles expansion. Blue and Orange Morality: Like many of the Daedric Princes, Sheogorath does not function under the typical good or evil morality most mortals live under. In particular: Being the Prince of Madness himself, he admires madness in any form and does not care whether said madness becomes dangerous to other people. He also likes to pull pranks on unsuspecting mortals on Nirn, just because he thinks it's fun. Said pranks can really make the victim's life a living hell. However, while this does sound evil, he does really care for the denizens of his realm and tries everything in his power to stop his realm and people from being destroyed during the Greymarch. Brain Food: "Care to donate?" Crazy Awesome: In-Universe. He's the god of this trope. Crazy-Prepared: If you do his daedric quest after the main story for the Shivering Isles, Haskill will reveal he had the final part of the plan to trick the town of Border Watch for a long while but couldn't find a mortal to perform the task. Elderly Immortal: Although he can change his form at will and has freely adjusted his hair color, eyes and apparent age in other portrayals. Great Gazoo: Particularly when he makes flaming dogs fall out of the sky. For the Evulz: His various pranks seen in Nirn have no motivation other than that they amuse him, despite utterly destroying the live of the victim(s). A good example is having a mortal reenact the apocalyptic K'Sharra prophecy in a small supposititious Khajiit community. Just because the idea of a settlement of hysterical Khajiit was amusing to him. Large Ham: "CHEEEESE! For everyone!" Mad God: One of his many names and his main role. Nice to the Waiter: Played with. Sheogorath happily encourages the player character to do things like repeatedly and unnecessarily summon his eternally put upon chamberlain, insisting that Haskill "loves it" and doesn't feel appreciated otherwise. On the other hand, he also regularly praises Haskill's intelligence, loyalty and fashion sense, referring to him as dear and a friend. Sheogorath is also surprisingly slow to punish another character who openly promises to betray him, and genuinely fond of his Realm and its inhabitants. Not that any of this in any way negates him also being ultimately inhuman and unspeakably dangerous. O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Sheogorath stops all joking, overreacting and non-sequiturs just before his transformation into Jyggalag. He's not Jyggalag yet, though, meaning that his despair over the fate of the Isles and his apparent failure to save them is genuine. Silver Fox: There are several characters of both sexes scattered around Cyrodiil and the Isles (but mostly the Isles) that get a little fluttery over the Madgod. Talkative Loon: Every time you talk to him to report you finished a quest, he'll just start a sequence of countless strange unrelated remarks. Tranquil Fury: If you raise your weapon against him, he stands, uses Paralysis magic on you, then teleports you away to a spot several hundred feet in the air- letting gravity finish the job - with the most terrifyingly calm expression. What Beautiful Eyes! / Hellish Pupils: By all appearances a normal-seeming and handsome older gentleman with odd fashion sense... except for his eyes, which are black with yellow irises. He shares an eye model with the Mania-side soldiers known as the Golden Saints, which may be confirmed in the game's Construction Set. Assorted hints such as the existence of dual torches for the Flame of Agnon, a loading screen referring to Mania and Dementia as factions with one or the other "currently" in favor at any given time, and Sheogorath's palace being located significantly to the Mania side of the Isles' dividing line (visible from a high enough vantage point outside the city) appear to imply that he favors his Mania side during the events of the DLC. Hence the eye color favoritism. Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: An interesting take in that Sheogorath isn't the one trying to destroy the Shivering Isle but his other self Jyggalag. The Woobie part is made very clear just before Sheogorath becomes Jyggalag and he seems very sorrowful that his beautiful isle is about to be destroyed again. It's more than a little sad to realize that Jyggalag must suffer as the god of madness, the very thing he dispises, and Sheogorath must suffer the grief of constantly seeing his home destroyed and have to rebuild it knowing that it's just going to get destroyed again. Haskill Voiced By: Jeff Baker Sheogorath's long-suffering chamberlain. Ambiguously Human: His character by all appearances is an elderly Breton with a dour fashion sense. But given hints from his dialogue and outside sources all but confirm that he's actually a daedra. The official website lists his race as "Daedric Breton". Berserk Button: Mehrunes Dagon specifically and mortals oversimplifying the politics of Oblivion in general. During the interview mentioned in the elderly immortal entry below, a question that touches both of these drives Haskill into a rant he describes as "excessive". Blue and Orange Morality: Casually refers to decency and morality as "provincial notions." It's a daedric realm, after all. Elderly Immortal: Bethesda's Interview With Two Denizens of the Shivering Isles reveals that he has been serving his master since "the beginning." Despite this he appears in the form of an aging Breton. Happiness in Slavery: Combines elements of type 1 and type 3, especially since he's generally implied to be a lesser daedra. (While Sheogorath is shown to be a troublesome, stressful and generally obnoxious creature to work for, he is never shown to outright mistreat Haskill enough to warrant a type 2 label.) Interspecies Friendship: His attitude towards the player character improves greatly over the course of the game. Although at the end of the storyline the "interspecies" part becomes questionable and rather complicated. Nerves of Steel: Considering where he lives and who he works for, likely a result of Seen It All. Not So Invincible After All: One remarkable feature about Haskill is that you cannot hurt him. Your weapons and your spells will go right through him with no effect; it appears he's immune to all damage. EXCEPT that he is vulnerable to environmental damage. So, if you were to, say, summon him right under a pile of falling rocks, he can take a hit. Subverted in that he has an insanely powerful healing spell and even if that fails, he's still tagged by the game as unkillable. Old Retainer: Though a fantasy version in which both servant and master are immortal and the "several generations" parts do not apply. Only Sane Man / Only Sane Employee / Crazy Sane: In the Realm of Madness. He bears it with a patient but long-suffering air. However, given that everyone in the Shivering Isles is insane then by that setting, Haskill would be the crazy one because he's in the minority and that reacting to the realm of personified madness with sanity could in and of itself be crazy. Shivering Isles lead designer Mark Nelson has explicitly described the character as "probably nuts too - but you're not exactly sure how or why". Servile Snarker Stiff Upper Lip: Although he can be snappy or a bit gloomy about it, and immediately after Sheogorath "dies" to become Jyggalag his script notes in the game engine state that he "Regains composure and ressumes his character." So it's not quite 100%. The Jeeves The Reliable One Undying Loyalty: To his master, behind the sarcasm. Sheogorath describes him as "Faithful like a good hound, that one." Jyggalag Daedric Prince of Order. Big Bad: Of the Shivering Isles expansion. Boring, but Practical: Befitting for him, his Daedric Artifact is this compared to the others. It's essentially a giant sword that has no enchantments whatsoever but that's all that Jyggalag really needs. Irony: Jyggalag's spheres of influence include logic and deduction, but he is not one for strategy and subterfuge compared to brute force as noted by Sheogorath. Order Versus Chaos: Actually the god of all order. His ability to maintain order at all times made him a huge threat to the other Daedric Princes, who banded together to put a curse on him, giving him the split personality of Sheogorath and thus becoming his own worst enemy. Tin Tyrant: More like Crystal Tyrant, as he looks like a giant crystal knight. Forces of Order Jyggalag is assisted by the Knights of Order, who look like faceless crystal humanoids, and the Priests of Order, who are regular humanoids wearing crystalline robes and masks. Faceless Mooks: The Knights of Order are this. Face-Heel Turn: Seeing as the Priests of Order are of races from Nirn, it can be assumed they were previous denizens of Nirn or the Isles defecting to Jyggalag. The noble you don't assassinate during the Ritual of Ascension is one of many who defect over King Mook: An inversion. They're essentially smaller and weaker versions of the prince they serve. Mook Maker: The Priests of Order can activate certain obelisks which create a constant flow of Knights of Order. Starfish Language: The Knights of Order aren't able to talk and instead communicate through sounds resembling a high pitched roar. Zerg Rush: Jyggalag's go to means of invasion is to use swarms of Knights. Golden Saints and Dark Seducers The two humanoid Daedric races that are native to the Shivering Isles. They both serve as Sheogorath's warriors, and protect the Shivering Isles from hostile forces. Amazon Brigade: The majority of both races are female, and prove to be incredibly fierce warriors. Bare Your Midriff: The Dark Seducers. Blood Knight: The Golden Saints are considerably more aggressive than the Dark Seducers, especially in combat against the latter. Can't Argue with Elves: The Golden Saints treat all mortals that inhabit the Shivering Isles, and even their own male counterparts as completely inferior beings, and make no attempt to hide this in their interactions. Dark Is Not Evil: The Dark Seducers, which are actually more polite towards mortals than the Golden Saints. Then again, considering that they serve the side of the Isles that favors secrets, cruelty and treachery, it may not be in one's best interests to take them at face value. Keystone Army: If the Wellsprings in Brellach and Pinnacle Rock, which are the only things keeping the Golden Saints and Dark Seducers respectively connected to Sheogorath's realm stop flowing, then not only are the members of that respective species unable to return to the Shivering Isles after having their souls banished, but the members that are already in that realm instantaneously fall over dead and their bodies turn to stone. However, they do come back to life if the Wellspring is restored. Light Is Not Good: Despite their name, Golden Saints are anything but saintly. More broadly, canon states that no daedric entity can truly be classed as good or evil. Proud Warrior Race: Almost as much as the Dremora. Statuesque Stunner: All of the female Saints and Seducers are not only tall and attractive, but also as physically strong in appearance as Dremora. Tiny Guy, Huge Girl: The males of both races are roughly the same height as Imperials, while the females are equivalent in height to the Altmer and Dremora, which are consistently the tallest races (playable or otherwise) in the game. Nelrene Voiced By: Betsy Ames A Dark Seducer that is found patrolling Lady Syl's court in New Sheoth. She's later revealed to be The Mole and is involved in a conspiracy to assassinate Syl. Corrupt Cop: Or at least, is the equivalent of one as far as Dark Seducer guards go. Dark Action Girl Deadpan Snarker High-Heel-Face Turn: An Enforced example. After being interrogated several times at a later point during "The Lady of Paranoia", she finally confesses to being involved in the conspiracy, and reveals that Muurine is the one behind it, but regrets that she is unable to supply any evidence of this to the Hero. Interspecies Romance: A Dummied Out interrogation session Herdir has with Nelrene implies that the former (an Imperial) has a sexual obsession with the latter (a Dark Seducer). Nelrene even accuses Herdir of fantasizing about the idea of her being trapped in his interrogation cage, despite Herdir's denial. Jerkass: Is notably much ruder towards the Player Character than the other Dark Seducers in the game, though she's not quite as nasty as the Golden Saints. Sore Loser: Even after her High-Heel-Face Turn, she still acts as snippy and rude as before, if not more so. Statuesque Stunner What Happened to the Mouse?: Once the quest "The Lady of Paranoia" is completed, she disappears from the game for no clear reason. Staada Voiced By: Bari Biern A Golden Saint (Aureal) female, and Commander of the Golden Saints of Brellach. Ascended Extra: She previously appeared in Morrowind as a Golden Saint (the only named one in that entire game, no less) you had to fight during Azura's Quest. Here, she plays a much more important role as the commander of all the Golden Saints. Action Girl Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: She, along with her fellow Aureals, dies when Order stops the flow of their Wellspring, but come back to life when you purge the Order crystals obstructing the flow. Fiery Redhead: Unlike nearly all the other Aureals, whose hair tends to be some shade of blonde. Staada's hair is more of a copper/chestnut color, but it still counts. Permanently Missable Content: You only encounter her if you choose to become the Duke/Duchess of Dementia (since Brellach ironically cannot be accessed if you become the Duke/Duchess of Mania, despite it being in that region). Statuesque Stunner Knights of the Nine characters Pelinal Whitestrake Voice By: Wes Johnson A hero from the early First Era who helped the Nedes rebel against Ayleid tyranny. Ax-Crazy: Against Elves. Mostly. God in Human Form: Of both Akatosh and Shezarr, maybe. He didn't like being called that, though. Heroic Albino: That's where Whitestrake comes from. Insane Equals Violent: Would go on violent rampages, usually against Ayleids (though sometimes he would kill Nedes) when he particularly lost it. Mad God: A maybe-God in Human Form whose connection with Akatosh turned him insane. Mood-Swinger: Comes from being mentally unstable. Sociopathic Hero: A raging psychotic who fought for Big Good Alessia. Time Travel: Was most likely from the future. He supposedly knew who Reman was thousands of years before his birth. Unstoppable Rage: Had legendary berserker rages. Umaril An Ayleid sorceror-king slain by Pelinal Whitestrake in ancient times, but returned thanks to a pact with Meridia. Big Bad: Of the Knights of the Nine expansion. Bling of War: His skin or armor is completely made of gold. The Dreaded: Everyone is terrified at the thought of him returning. Rage Against the Heavens: His motivation in the storyline, due to the Divines' role in his downfall.

Heartwarming / The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Awesome Characters Fridge Funny Headscratchers Heartwarming Laconic NightmareFuel Quotes TearJerker Trivia VideoGame WMG YMMV Create New The end of the Thieves' Guild quest line. You steal an Elder Scroll, return it to The Gray Fox, take a ring to the Countess of Anvil, and watch as he reveals himself to be the Countess's long lost husband. Oh and you get the Cowl of Nocturnal and become the new Gray Fox. The Reveal there also makes an earlier series of events a bit of a Moment Of Heart Warming as well: Captain Heironimous Lex is the Gray Fox's worst enemy, totally dedicated to hunting down and wiping out the Gray Fox and the entire Thieves' Guild. To get him off everyone's back, the Gray Fox has you forge and deliver a letter recommending him as the captain of the Anvil city guard, in charge of protecting the Countess of Anvil. So in other words, he respected his worst enemy's dedication so much that he got him instated as the head of the guard in charge of protecting his beloved wife. Chorrol's quests seem to involve heartwarming moments in some way (at least if you complete them with the correct endings). Rescuing a kidnapped girl and receiving her and her mother's undying gratitude. Recovering for the countess a painting of her late husband. Making sure that a man's two sons stay alive while trying to kill a band of goblins pillaging their farm, and seeing his relief when he hears of your success. Reuniting two brothers who had been separated since babyhood, and then helping them take back their family home. And, last but not least, nudging the captain of Chorrol's guard and an innkeeper to begin a relationship with each other. Advertisement: Dar-Ma, the kidnapped girl, will greet you with "My hero!" about half the time as well. Given her sweet disposition and gratitude, mods where marriage becomes possible almost invariably include her as a marriage candidate. If you save Jeelius from the Mythic Dawn, he'll show up in the Temple of the One during the post-game. Given that you're in the Temple of the One during the post-game in the first place, the catharsis of seeing the first person you singlehandedly saved from Dagon's forces, ultimate fate previously unknown, can be pretty overwhelming. The march to the fields of Bruma. You and Martin are finally taking the course of the crisis into your hands, and it takes a heart of stone not to soar when the townsfolk cheer you on. If the Player presents the Sanguine Rose for the Blood of the Daedra quest, Martin is awestruck. While permanently giving up almost any Daedric artifact is a great sacrifice for the Player, this gesture is particularly significant after Martin reveals in dialogue that he had once possessed the Rose during his Dark and Troubled Past. Giving Martin the opportunity to destroy a relic largely tied to the guilt and shame he felt over the sins committed in his youth is certainly one of the kinder moments in the game.

Tear Jerker / The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Awesome Characters Fridge Funny Headscratchers Heartwarming Laconic NightmareFuel Quotes TearJerker Trivia VideoGame WMG YMMV Create New General The whole game is one, albeit in a more subtle and melancholic manner. First, Uriel Septim, who was emperor during all the previous games, and whom you have helped in your various incarnations as a PC, is slain. The Septim Empire, which united the whole of Tamriel is facing a terminal decline. And to top it all off, remember all of your favourite places, people, guilds/societies and else? They will most likely be destroyed or killed in the ensuing equivalent of Wolfenstein: The New Order version of WW2 ("The Great War") against the Third Aldmeri Dominion. Advertisement: The quest A Brotherhood Betrayed. Three adventurers found an ancient amulet, but one wanted it for himself. So after many years, that traitorous adventurer murdered the other two in the guise of a vampire hunter, setting the other two up as vampires. The wife of one of the victims, shocked by what had happened, asks you to help. After the truth has been revealed and the seemingly mundane amulet retrieved, she reveals that the other two knew what the traitorous adventurer had been planning, and cursed the amulet so it becomes mundane. The secret word to lift the curse? Brotherhood. You can find a dead troll under a bridge. Funny? Yes, until you read the note on its body, confirming that, yes, all those trolls you killed for their fat are sentient. "Mee wurst troll evurr nobuddy pay brijj tole me nott sceary enuf mee gett drunc an kil sellf troll droun" Advertisement: Main Quest The beginning. When you first meet Martin in the chapel of ruined Kvatch, before he even knows who you are or he is, he just sounds so weary and disillusioned. Possibly even Harsher in Hindsight, when you know how it all turns out. "Yes. I'm a priest. Do you need a priest? I don't think I'll be much help to you. I'm having trouble understanding the gods right now. If all this is part of a divine plan, I'm not sure I want to have anything to do with it." The ultimate fate of Martin Septim, who sacrifices himself to become an Avatar for Akatosh to permanently defeat Mehrunes Dagon and seal off Oblivion forever. This counts as a tearjerker, since aside from the potential of him being a great Emperor, Martin was himself a good man, who was the real hero of the story, not the player character. It's not only heartbreaking, but frustrating that all your work protecting him from the Daedra is in vain. Perhaps the worst thing about the ending is how everyone calls you the Hero of Cyrodiil after the deed is done. Why is that so bad? Because you didn't do a damned thing. In the end, all you did was help Martin sacrifice himself. What's worst is the Harsher in Hindsight aspect, when you see the state of the world in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. It almost makes you wonder if all the struggling your Oblivion character had been through to save Tamriel from Dagon had all been for naught... Advertisement: Arena Agronak gro-Malog's discovery that his father was a vampire leads him into a severe identity crisis and ultimately suicidal depression that causes him to forfeit the Grand Championship match, allowing you to kill him without him fighting back. Up till then, the Gray Prince has been a jovial fellow, if a little worried about his past. You will feel like a bastard for causing his disillusionment with himself, and for taking advantage of his depression to become Grand Champion without a fight. It lends a very bittersweet feeling to the end of the Arena questline, especially when the Blue Team Gladiator, who had been nothing but amicable until that point, angrily calls you out on murdering Agronak in cold blood. Even worse, killing Agronak this way counts in-game as a murder. Which means that the next time you sleep, you WILL be contacted by Lucien of the Dark Brotherhood. This is often the Start of Darkness for players that were previously seen in-game as only a hero to all. Even if you decide to not reveal Agronak gro-Malog's true identity and instead kill him in a fair fight, the Blue Team Gladiator still calls you out for murdering his friend and mentor. It can really make you feel guilty about an otherwise awesome victory. "Congratulations, Grand Champion. I hope it was worth it." Dark Brotherhood It's easy to find the Dark Brotherhood missions a little heartbreaking. Why? Well, when you arrive at the Sanctuary after your initiation killing, you are quickly introduced to a rather cheerful band of murderers, whom the mission-givers encourage you to talk to for advice on your "contracts". So after a while, you've gotten to know all of them, their quirks, even the mean old shopkeeper, and the black humor surrounding the missions themselves is hilarious ("If [soon-to-be-dead guy] doesn't quit that awful drug, it'll be the death of him!"), and then you get to the halfway point. The guy who recruited you thinks there's a traitor amongst them, and in order to get the traitor, he orders you to kill everyone in the sanctuary, who have come to love you like family. All of them. And you have to, if you want to complete the mission line. The jerkass shopkeeper M'raaj-Dar chooses now of all times to start being nice to you where he decides that the two of you got off to a bad start and wants to try and be friends! Just to add insult to injury, it seems like the rumor mill chooses that moment to pick up all the rumors about all the new dead guys you had a hand in making. It's enough to make you pull a Heel-Face Turn... This is made worse by the fact that you later find out there was no traitor — at least not in the Cheydinhal Sanctuary. You killed them all for nothing. When you're too late to save Lucien, and you never get to clear his name, either. Some other Dark Brotherhood targets are fairly likeable too. Matilde, "Next of Kin" or "Honour Thy Mother" are good candidates for those that go too far. They're among the worst things you're ever asked to do in any video game in a serious context. "The Lonely Wanderer". To find Faelian, you have to ask around for info, and end up at the King and Queen Lodge in the Talos Plaza District of the Imperial City. You talk to the innkeeper there about him, and she mentions how he has a wealthy girlfriend that's apparently devoted to him. You talk to the girlfriend (possibly needing to chat her up into a friendlier level), and SHE tells you all about how even though Faelian's a penniless Skooma addict, she still loves him and hopes he manages to someday clean himself up before he gets himself killed. Fighters Guild Reading Viranus Donton's journal. He writes about how he thinks his mother doesn't think he's as good as his recently-killed brother. You find the journal when you find him dead in a mine. The final entry? "I hear trolls I'm sorry Mother". The penultimate quest of the Fighter's Guild requires you to infiltrate the Blackwood Company and learn their secrets. As part of the quest, you're required to drink a bottle of Hist Sap, a hallucinogenic drug, and help the Blackwood Company clear out a town of a goblin infestation. When you return to the town after the drug wears off, you find that in your hallucination you mistook the innocent inhabitants and their sheep for goblins and slaughtered everyone in the town, including Biene Amelion, who you helped out in a previous quest. Her father, who you freed from jail by helping cover the cost of his bail, wonders what kind of monster would do such a thing... Thieves Guild The end of the Thieves' Guild quest line when you meet the Gray Fox in Anvil and he reveals himself to be Countess Umbranox's long lost husband, Corvus. Shivering Isles The entirety of the Shivering Isles tends to be depressing, if not heartbreaking. To start, we have a realm that invites its users in with a laughing Sean Connery-like voice. Immediately after, it will either drive the "guest" insane, and spit him back out to be killed, or keep them there forever, thus cutting them off from their life. Next, for those that survive, there's the Gatekeeper's death (which isn't so bad as far as these things go) but is compounded by the fact that you can use its mother's tears to injure it further. The crying alone deserves a special mention, because that hints that the mother knows her child is going to die, and that she has seen it before, and she knows she's bound to making these things, just to see them die. Further in, we have an entire city divided into insanity, and the Dementia side is truly heart-wrenching. The people within are bound to a lifetime of sorrow and paranoia and the only way out (suicide) is punished by magical suicide cliffs that bind the souls of those who leap from them, only to be sentenced to stay there for all of eternity. To wrap this happy little party up, Sheogorath himself is depressing, as he is bound to continuously watch as his world is built up, and then see himself tear it down piece by piece, only to start again. Relmyna is established to be weeping in that very dialogue because she loves Sheogorath and he won't visit her or their "child" anymore, and being condemned to the Hill of Suicides has nothing to do with specifically throwing yourself off of or even being near them, see "Final Resting." Killing yourself anywhere in the Isles will do it. Near the end, as Sheogorath turns into Jyggalag. Hearing the wacky, crazy, eternally-cheerful Sheogorath speaking in an orderly, logical manner about his realm dying and sounding so depressed... And then he sadly tells you to get out while you can, or he'll kill you. Whether you see him as a painter forced to burn his art or he actually cares about his people either way it's pretty horrible. And to add another layer of horror to it, anyone with experience with Dementia or Alzheimers can be swiftly reminded. In Sheogorath's case you loved him with his eccentricities and insanity but you're forced to watch this person become sane and you are absolutely powerless to save him. Sheogorath: Time, Time is an artificial construct, an arbitrary system based on the idea that events occur in a linear direction at all times. Always forward, never back. Is the concept of time correct? Is time relevant? It matters not one way or another. I fear our time has run out. Later on, the consequences of this event force you to Shoot the Dog. However, this means you technically kill a GOD, so it could also double as the player character's Crowning Moment of Awesome. The 'Final Resting' quest, where you are asked to put someone out of their misery. The suicide note is just the icing on the cake. Even some minor details can provoke this. There's a cave called Dire Warren in Mania populated by elytra and gnarls. Toward the back, you will find a dead woman. She is holding a diary, which details her coming to the cave with her lover and him wishing to make the cave their home due to his finding other people stifling. She came to find the cave something of a prison since she could not leave without breaking his heart (and it having been populated by the aforementioned monsters). She planned to escape, but confronted him about it first, and he allowed her to leave. However, she broke her leg on the way out, and was unable to either leave or return, and he did not respond to her cries for help. Thus ends her story. Deeper in the cave, you come across the man himself - he is still alive but attacks you on sight. If you kill him, and read his journal, he details the same events from his perspective, including how heartbroken he was that she wanted to leave. His diary finished with him hearing her voice, but putting it down to the echoes of memory, not realizing she is genuinely in mortal peril. There is no quest relating to these two; you will only encounter the story at all if you find and choose to explore this cave.

Video Game / The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Awesome Characters Fridge Funny Headscratchers Heartwarming Laconic NightmareFuel Quotes TearJerker Trivia VideoGame WMG YMMV Create New https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/oblivion_cover_art.png Find him, and close shut the jaws of Oblivion. I was born 87 years ago. For 65 years I've ruled as Tamriel's emperor, but for all these years, I've never been the ruler of my own dreams. I have seen the gates of Oblivion, beyond which no waking eyes may see. Behold! In darkness, a doom sweeps the land. This is the 27th of Last Seed, the Year of Akatosh 433. These are the closing days of the Third Era... and the final hours of my life. — Emperor Uriel Septim VII Advertisement: The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is a Role-Playing Game developed by Bethesda Softworks and released in 2006 for PC and Xbox 360 and one year later for the PlayStation 3. The game places you in the role of a prisoner, convicted of an unknown crime and incarcerated in the dungeons of the Imperial City. Your imprisonment is cut short by the arrival of Emperor Uriel Septim (played by Patrick Stewart) and his bodyguards, the Blades, fleeing assassins who are trying to eliminate the royal family. Their escape route just happens to lead through your cell. What follows is a lengthy quest to save the province of Cyrodiil, heartland of the Empire which spans the whole continent of Tamriel, from destruction at the hands of Mehrunes Dagon, the Daedric prince of destruction. The game boasts a huge open world with sixteen square miles of terrain to explore, hundreds of dungeons, eight cities filled with NPCs that have their own daily routine and enough quests to fill hundreds of hours of play time. Advertisement: The player has the opportunity to join several factions, such as the Fighter's Guild, and all have their own storylines spanning several quests. The game received a universally positive critical response, the PC and Xbox 360 versions holding Metacritic scores of 94. The response from players was also generally positive, but the opinions of long-time fans of the series was more mixed, as many of them thought the game was too simplified compared to the previous installment in the franchise, Morrowind. In the long view, the game has also faced some pointed criticism for glaring technical issues that become very obvious during long or repeated playthroughs, as well as certain aspects of its gameplay mechanics being extremely, almost trivially-to-the-point-of-doing-so-accidentally easy to break. These criticisms are ones the game's descendants, obvious or otherwise, have tried to answer. Advertisement: The game spawned a huge and dedicated modding community that still continues to churn out content. These mods range from new items to complete overhauls of the game. For mods with their own trope pages, see Integration: The Stranded Light and Nehrim. For other recommended mods, see this page. The game launched during a turning point in the medium, and served as a guinea pig of sorts for the Xbox Live Marketplace and Downloadable Content, receiving a significant amount of new content, ranging from player homes, to a whole new story arc in the form of Knights of the Nine, which was eventually released on PC as well. The game also received full expansion called Shivering Isles, dealing with Sheogorath, the Daedric prince of madness, in 2007. This video game provides examples of: open/close all folders A-D A Load of Bull: Minotaurs can be encountered in several places. Abandoned Mine: The Player Character can enter several of these around Cyrodiil, including the Abandoned Mine. Aborted Arc: In the vicinity of the Black Horse Courier offices, you are given the new topic "Do you need couriers?", which was obviously part of an intended quest. However, the question never appears in your dialogue options. There is also a cave that can't be explored as a door is locked and there is no key in the game. Dialog indicates there was to be a quest involving a Red Queen and Black Queen- the Black Queen was to live in the cave. Cheating your way through- either by using the console to unlock the door, clipping through, or using paintbrushes to get through the secondary entrance- reveals a cave that's completed but not quite finished in terms of final content. The game quickly dispenses with plot points which had been set up in Morrowind and its expansion packs. Uriel Septim either recovered from his illness, or it hadn't progressed to a critical stage before he was assassinated. The Succession Crisis among his sons that was implied didn't end up being an issue, as the Mythic Dawn cult killed all of them before the game even began. Absurdly Spacious Sewer: The Imperial Capital is built over the ruins of an Ayleid city, so in this case it's actually justified. Adjective Animal Alehouse: The Drunken Dragon Inn. The Gray Mare Inn in Chorrol. Adoring the Pests: One of the first Fighter's Guild quests sends you to help out a woman who has a 'rat problem' in her basement. Turns out she actually likes having the rats down there; the problem is the mountain lions that keep killing them. It's also a reference to Morrowind, as a woman with a similar name asks you to kill a few rats for the first fighter's guild quest. Affably Evil Mankar Camoran. He seems to have some respect for the player at times. Most people you meet in the Dark Brotherhood as well. They're murderous, bloodthirsty sociopaths, but they're also very charming and chummy, the only one of this cabal of assassins who openly dislikes you is the resident merchant. Always Chaotic Evil: Several examples. Vampires. Since vampirism takes three days to fully take hold, and a very simple spell (or common potion) is all that's needed to arrest it, the majority of Tamrielic vampires wanted to turn into cannibalistic horrors. The Mythic Dawn. Killing the Emperor, worshipping Mehrunes Dagon, and plotting to summon him isn't a good indicator for... well, good. Amazon Brigade: The Shivering Isles are policed by two of them, no less, the Golden Saints (Auriel) and Dark Seducers (Mazken). There are males... but they're rare, subservient to the females, and statistically weaker. Additionally, due to a scripting error when you become Duke or Duchess of Mania/Dementia the two groups will greet or refer to you only in the feminine. It's "fixed" in the Unofficial Patch, for those that don't find it entertaining. Ambiguously Brown: Or perhaps Ambiguously Blue, in this case. There are a few Non Player Characters running around which either had their races incorrectly flagged in the CS, or are showing signs of mixed heritage. One noteworthy example is a guard seen in Anvil (who guards the chapel and warns people of the scene inside with KOTN installed) who is definitely a Redguard in skin tone and appearance but has an Imperial voice. Cutter, the emo Dementia blacksmith in Shivering Isles, looks to be a Dunmer, but has yellow eyes (the CS lists her race as Bosmer). There are also two female Dementia residents, both Imperial, who have blue skin tones. And then there are some who definitely belong to other races yet are programmed to be otherwise. Numeen and Mahei are a couple of wealthy Argonians who are seen as guests by the count and countess in Leyawiin. Considering the issues of the countess, it is surprising that she visits them often. Later on you realize that they are apparently also referred to as the Derics (they both share an item called Deric's Key which refers to their home, and the NPCs call them as Derics through gossip) and one could easily tell that they were probably meant to be Bretons. An Axe to Grind: Interestingly governed by the Blunt skill. The official explanation is that the act of swinging an axe is more akin to using a club than a sword, tending to cause "hack/chop" injuries that have elements of both blunt and sharp trauma and deal internal damage similar to that of a mace, flail, or war hammer. And I Must Scream: A Wizard stole from Vaermina the Daedric Prince of Nightmares. Now he's trapped within nightmares for all eternity. You have the option to Mercy Kill him. One merchant in Crucible also suggests doing this to you via Chronomancy- trapping your body in time while keeping their mind intact. Thankfully, you can't accept his offer. Mankar Camoran's followers give their lives to defend his cause and end up in his Paradise, which looks like a forested Eden... but it isn't. They're essentially trapped in a fiery Hell, being killed over and over and OVER again, and will never be free from the cycle until you kill their leader. Mehrunes Dagon himself is stuck in this situation. As the Daedric Prince of Destruction, his only purpose in life is to kill, maim, and obliterate everything in his path. The problem? He's stuck in his own plane of Oblivion, where nothing can be permanently destroyed. No matter what he does, Dagon can't eradicate Daedra or anything generated within his plane (they just keep reviving), essentially rendering him powerless in his own kingdom. That's why he's so eager to get to Cyrodil: that way, the Prince of Destruction can actually, you know, destroy things. Speaking of Daedric princes, Jyggalag and Sheogorath suffered this. The other Princes, fearful and envious of the former's power of Order and growing influence, combined their own abilities to transform him into the exact opposite of his aspect—namely, Madness. To make matters worse, they deliberately eradicated the victims' memory of this, trapping them in an endless cycle wherein Sheogorath senses the forces of Order are coming, prepares for them, remembers that he himself is Jyggalag, and transforms briefly, only for the whole routine to start up again. It isn't until the Player Character comes along and defeat Jyggalag in battle that the spell is lifted, allowing him to return to his former self. The Gray Fox specifically Emer Dareloth, the first Gray Fox stole the Cowl of Nocturnal from Nocturnal herself. As a Daedric Prince, she cursed the cowl to literally eradicate its user from history, meaning that no one can remember who he really is or even his own name. The Gray Fox is trapped in a world of people who can never know anything about him, rendering him unable to form permanent connections and separating the current one, Corvus Umbranox, the Count of Anvil, from his wife—he could stand in front of her and she wouldn't be able to recognize him. The Gray Fox earns his happy ending when, with the player's help, he figures out how to break the curse and finally rejoins the world. And Your Reward Is Clothes: Several quests. Notably, completing the central plotline awards you a custom suit of Imperial Dragon armor, which by that point is probably considerably weaker than what you are already wearing. Anime Hair: Several elven NPCs have magnificent gravity-defying 'dos. For example, Umbacano, the AdorThis example contains a YMMV entry. It should be moved to the YMMV tab.ing Fan, and Modryn Oreyn. An Interior Designer Is You: With the construction set. Announcer Chatter: Sometimes the mysterious announcer guy in the Arena can do this. Annoying Arrows: After taking a few arrows to the gut, you'll resemble a living pincushion but can still move around perfectly normally. Even with an arrow right through your crotch. If you shoot someone in the head and they don't die or see you, they'll just walk back to where they were with the arrow still sticking out of their heads. Because it "must have been the wind." Anti-Hero: You can potentially be one, if you gain a lot of infamy points by doing evil things and generally be a dick, at the same time that you're saving the empire. You can also go right past this, straight into Villain Protagonist. The game is sometimes criticized for allowing players to be the Thieves', Mages', Dark Brotherhood's, AND Fighters' guild leader while also being a vampire, god of madness, hunter of Vampires, Arena Champion, Hero of the Imperium, AND the man who serves food to prisoners for 5 gold a week. Apocalypse Cult: The Mythic Dawn seek to summon Mehrunes Dagon, the Daedric prince of destruction in order to "purify" Tamriel. To do that, they are trying to break down the barriers between Nirn and Oblivion by murdering the Emperor and all his heirs, who are essential to keeping the barriers in place. Arbitrary Mission Restriction: The Dark Brotherhood questline uses the "optional objectives" variant. Players are free to kill the targets any way they please, but with every target after Rufio and Captain Gaston Tussaud—until the player becomes Lucien Lachance's Silencer—there's a bonus added to the payment (usually a magic item) if the kill is carried out in the specified manner (e.g. to Make It Look Like an Accident in "Accidents Happen"). Arc Words: "We shall see how prepared you actually are." (Mage's guild questline.) Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: The Gray Fox's "Wanted" poster lists the charges against him as "Theft, embezzlement, forgery, pickpocketing, counterfeiting, burglary, conspiracy to commit theft, grand larceny, tax evasion, slander, fraud, perfidy and impertinence". Can also apply to the player, if you stole a pear from someone's table and got seen doing it expect that to show up on your list of charges even if you've also killed a dozen guys. Arson, Murder, and Lifesaving: Vilena Donton gives you one of these when you complete the last mission for the Fighter's Guild. Artifact Title: Averted... in a manner of speaking. It is the first Elder Scrolls game since Arena where the actual Elder Scrolls are seen, but they still don't play a part in the Main Quest, but rather in the Thieves Guild quest line. You get to steal one! Artificial Atmospheric Actions: Oh so much. In particular, procedurally generated NPC conversation can be a bit vapid. "Hello." "Hi." "I'm through talking to you." "Goodbye." "Bye." An especially amusing one can randomly occur while sneaking around in Bandit lairs. After the main quest is completed, there's a random chance that certain of the bandits might start singing a song in your honor. That won't stop them from trying to kill you once you're spotted. Lampshaded by some of the idle dialogue (which unfortunately you never hear due to an oversight. A mod that fixes that can be found here) ''"Everyone is talking, but no one has anything to say." Artificial Stupidity: The Radiant AI system is commendably ambitious, but it does fall flat very frequently and very visibly. Part of the problem is that NPC behavior is driven by motivations. One quest involving vampire hunters can be botched if the vampire hunters get too jealous of each other's inventory items, whereupon they'll start pickpocketing one another until they're all angry enough to draw weapons. In some cases "good" characters will murder unarmed innocents simply because they've been blocked into a corner. NPCs who are following you have a terrible tendency to get in your way during combat, which often results in your accidentally killing them. Which could result in other NPCs turning hostile on you, or failing a quest, if the outcome depends on a particular NPC's survival. Cue Cluster F-Bomb. Some characters have a bad habit of forgetting they need to unlock a store's front door in the morning, even if they have the appropriate key and locked it the night before. Others will end up trying to pick fights with daedra who just spawned from an Oblivion portal. Start a fight with one NPC in the marketplace or resist arrest for picking up an apple. In a matter of seconds the whole market district will erupt into one giant gang war, with Citizens attacking guards, citizens attacking each other, and guards slaughtering citizens and each other left and right. In the Caught in the Hunt dungeon, there's a pit that drops you onto a bed of spikes. If you survive, you can make your way back up into the same corridor. You can also trick enemies into chasing you and falling into this pit... and then doing it again... until they die. After a certain point in the main quest, the members of the covert Mythic Dawn cult who assassinated the Emperor have low enough disposition to attack you on sight... in broad daylight, in a city, with dozens of guards around. note Sometimes if a guard ends up killing a citizen or someone else, that same guard will comment that since the body is warm, the killer must be nearby. The aforementioned AI, while giving non-player characters a purpose besides pacing or standing in place, it can also hinder them in a number of ways. For example, NPCs that have a specific schedule set out for them will always try to fulfill it, and always walk back to their original location, even if there are benefits to gain elsewhere. Apparently, the citizens of Kvatch would rather live the rest of their days moping around their filthy makeshift tents at the doorstep of their destroyed, Daedra-infested city than accept any attempt by the player to be moved to a safer location with plentiful resources to thrive on. There are also many friendly NPCs that are found in hostile dungeons that are simply adamant about standing in a certain room and practically waiting to get themselves killed by the local bandits/undead/whatever. Players who like exploring Cyrodiil's forests will occasionally hear battlecries and the sound of arrows being shot. When they investigate the commotion, they will witness two Imperial Legion soldiers... Shooting eachother until only one of them is left standing. The reason for this is that one particular kind of guard, the Legion Forester (imperial scouts) is meant to occasionally hunt deer. For some reason, their arrows hitting a deer is considered "assault", which will turn nearby guards or Legion soldiers hostile to them. The enemies only focus on attacking a single target and hardly ever switch targets. That is, when they attack you and you turn invisible and have your allies aid you, the enemies will stand there and look for you, instead of fighting back your allies. Sometimes, for exceptionally stealthy characters, certain scripted events can lead to NPCs switching repeatedly - in mid sentence - between speaking their lines for searching for you, and giving up. The reason for this madness, is because the scripting always knows where you are, even if the AI doesn't - but the AI is in charge of actual combat. Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: Martin's fate after becoming an avatar of Akatosh to defeat Dagon. This also happens to members of the Mythic Dawn who are killed in the mortal world. Rather than actually dying, their souls are transported to Mankar Camoran's realm of Paradise where they become immortal. Of course, once you destroy Paradise near the end of the main quest, then they all die for real. At the end of Shivering Isles you become Sheogorath and eventually rule his realm of Oblivion. Though the transformation doesn't take it's full permanent form until you meet him in Skyrim. Art Shift: Cyrodiil goes from "Romans in a Rain Forest" from the last games to rather normal middle age Europe (then back to Romans for Skyrim). Also, due to the game's vibrant colors, Dunmer are suddenly not just gray-skinned, they are light blue-gray. Automaton Horses: Partially averted by the fact that horses (excluding Shadowmere) have a finite amount of health and can be killed. But, they still don't need to eat or sleep. Autosave: The game automatically saves your progress each time you enter a new location, with a small "Autosaving" notification on the upper left of the screen. This feature can be turned off, however, and some expert players even suggest it, as it has been occasionally known to produce corrupted save files for some players. Ax-Crazy: The Orc in the Dark Brotherhood. "I don't know who the Night Mother is, but she pays me to kill people! My own mother never loved me so much." "What's with all this sneaking about? I'd much rather look my target in the eye and say something scary like, 'I am the deliverer of death!' and hit them with a hammer." "Once, I had a contract to kill a little Nord girl at her birthday party. She asked me if I was the jester, so I replied: "No. I am a messenger of death". Ha! You should've seen the look on her face! She won't be reaching age six!" If you refuse to help Glarthir, he takes matters into his own hands, and starts attacking people in the street with a battleaxe! Not only that, but if you try to convince him that no-one is spying on him, he'll convince himself that you're part of the conspiracy and attack you! Big mistake. Most of the worshippers at Sheogorath's shrine. Awesome, but Impractical: The unicorn, which is supremely cool to ride around on but has such a high aggression that it will attack anyone it sees with drawn steel, including younote . Several leveled spells also count. Said spells are still fairly useful at lower levels even though they're weaker. When obtained at higher levels they become much stronger, but in turn they also cost so much magicka to use that they become extremely impractical. This includes the summonable lich, which has an area of effect spell that can demolish the player character if an enemy gets too close. Back from the Dead: The player, at the end "Knights of the Nine." You think that merely getting hit repeatedly with a magic sword and lightning bolts, then falling thousands of feet onto the ground, and being proclaimed dead by all his friends who personally saw his mangled body can keep the Divine Crusader down? Bah! In Camoran's Paradise you'll probably notice that everyone there pops up again if you kill them. Created to be a paradise for his followers, there is no lasting death there. Of course, for many of them there is a sting there. Badass Boast: Lucien Lachance. "My friend, I do not spread rumors... I create them." Badass Grandpa: Jauffre. Bad "Bad Acting": The "little show" Francois Mottiere puts on for the Dark Brotherhood assassin manages to be melodramatic and wooden at the same time. Bare-Handed Blade Block: If you try this while your block skill is less than 24, it will hurt like hell. Played straight once you reach apprentice level. Barrier Maiden: Martin Septim is a male example. Beating A Dead Player: Averted. Once you die, you can briefly see that enemies immediately stop attacking. They sheathe their weapons and walk away. Berserk Button: Most of the city guards around Cyrodiil are actually a really, really nice and friendly bunch of guys - but break any law, even by accidentally picking something up off a shopkeeper's table, and they'll immediately go nuts and kill you without hesitation. You can, however, yield to them by blocking long enough. The Guards actually do a pretty good job of keeping things running smoothly, an entire guild of professional thieves has a hard time operating in the imperial city as a result. (Not that it stops the Player and the Grey Fox from stealing an Elder Scroll right out from under their noses.) The guards are so determined to hunt you down to face justice that there was even an account of one chasing you into an Oblivion gate. That is dedication! "You won't go to jail for that apple you stole? THEN PAY WITH YOUR BLOOD!" Melus Petilius, a retired paladin, has sworn off violence, but will recant his oath if you attack him at his 'sacred place', the grave of his wife. Betting Mini-Game: Betting at the Arena. BFS: Claymores, and the Akaviri Dai-katana. Big Bad: Mehrunes Dagon. Also, Umaril in Knights of the Nine, Jyggalag in Shivering Isles, Mannimarco in the Mages Guild questline, Ri'Zakar in the Fighters Guild questline, Hieronymus Lex for most of the Thieves Guild questline and Mathieu Bellamont in the Dark Brotherhood questline. Bi the Way: Mirabelle Monet, a promiscuous innkeeper in Anvil, sleeps with each of her patrons on different nights of the week, including the one female tenant. However, the player can't rent a room from her, as she reserves her beds for seamen. During the Fighter's Guild questline, you'll encounter a journal that hints one of the guildmaster's sons was in a relationship with a male guildmate. Bittersweet Ending: Mehrunes Dagon is defeated, but the Empire now has no heir. It's clear the Empire's not out of the woods yet and this will likely lead to an interesting future. Black Eyes of Crazy: The more feral of the vampires, as well as the Dark Seducers featured in the Shivering Isles expansion pack. Subverted in the latter case: the Seducers are actually pretty nice. Blade Below the Shoulder: In the Shivering Isles expansion, we have the Gatekeeper, a sizeable Frankenstein-like monster guarding the entrance to the Isles. One of his arms is a giant blade. After killing the monster, we are tasked later on with putting him back together, using various body parts. For his arm, we can choose between the exact same blade and also an axe and a mace. The cut content suggests that there was also a regular fist to be included too... Blaming the Railroaded Player Character: Late in the Dark Brotherhood quests, you are given assassination contracts by dead drop, which a traitor intercepts to trick you into killing Dark Brotherhood members instead. Even though the change in the letters' tone is obvious and several targets have Dark Brotherhood gear in their homes, even though you can visit your boss at home for a chat between killings, Stupidity Is the Only Option: you have to kill most of your superiors, get caught by your boss, and weather his What the Hell, Hero? speech. In the Wizards storyline, you are sent as an envoy to the reclusive Count Hassildor, whose This example contains a YMMV entry. It should be moved to the YMMV tab.obvious Mole of a steward tells you he'll only meet you at a remote mine shortly after midnight. To progress, you have to walk into the steward's ambush, then let the Count "rescue you" — even if you beat your assailants yourself — and repeatedly insult you for your foolishness. Bling of War: Neon green glass armour. Not only is it perfectly valid, but it's also some of the best armour in the game. The Amber armor from Shivering Isles adds to the hilarity. Now you've got some road-sign yellow armor to go with the neon green. Blood-Stained Glass Windows: A sort of off-screen version occurs at the beginning of the "Knights Of The Nine" questline where the cathedral in Anvil is attacked and everyone inside is slaughtered. A bit more straight example would be Cadlew Chapel where the player is forced to fight necromancers who slaughtered everyone there to use as combat fodder. Really though, with all of the churches in the game, the player can invoke this dozens of times if they get bored and don't care where they pick a fight at. Blown Across the Room: Sneak attacks with a bow can send enemies flying in a ludicrous ragdoll-ballet of death. Body Horror: Worm thralls. Also the flesh pods and "the Punished" through the portals. On a more mundane side, the final fate of Lucien Lachance. What's more disturbing than a skinless mutilated corpse? How about a very fresh one? Oh, and he's completely innocent of what they killed him for. (That may be the only thing he's innocent of.) Boisterous Bruiser: Most Orcs and Nords play into this trope. Bonus Boss: This game has a few of these, and finding each one of them generally is a Guide Dang It! moment. Erandur-Vangaril (a lich). He can only be found in a specific cave that none of the game's quests lead you to, and can only be fought there once your character reaches a certain level. The giant slaughterfish, who shows up in one of the dungeons you explore in the Thieves Guild questline, but chances are you won't ever see this one if you don't fully explore the place. There's also the Uderfrykte Matron at Dive Rock. Book-Ends: The Oblivion Crisis begins with the death of a Septim, and ends with the "death" of a Septim. Booze-Based Buff: All over the place. Ale, mead, beer, wine... there are over a dozen alcoholic items for the player to drink, each with different stat buffs and debuffs. Probably the most interesting of these is Shadowbanish Wine, a special rare vintage that can only be found in a handful of forts. It grants the player a special ability when drunk, but its quest involves turning in six bottles to an innkeeper instead of actually drinking them. (They actually respawn, but most players wouldn't know that unless they like to go back to places they've been and cleared out already.) Breaching the Wall: The results are seen after the fact. Mehrunes Dagon's forces attacked Kvatch with a Daedric Siege Crawler that blasted open the city's walls. They attempt it again at Bruma later in the story, but the Player Character closes the Oblivion gate on the Crawler, destroying it before it can reach Bruma. The whole game is actually predicated on this trope, as the assassination of The Emperor Uriel Septim VII and his heirs allows the Daedric armies to breach the mystical barrier between their native Oblivion and the material plane of Nirn and to stage an invasion through hundreds of Oblivion Gates that opened across Tamriel as a result. The main quest of the game revolves around finding a way to mend the veil between Nirn and Oblivion and thus to prevent any more Gates from opening. Breaking and Bloodsucking: Once you've contracted vampirism, you can only feed on sleeping people. You can find bums sleeping around outside or you break in to homes and hope the psychic guards don't catch you with your fangs in a neck. Bring Help Back: You can do this by getting reinforcements from the other cities when Bruma is besieged by a Great Gate (but only after you close the gates threatening their cities, naturally). It's an optional quest, though, so you can just do it all yourself instead, if you prefer. Bring It: Attempt to/Fight an ogre with your bare hands and it may make this gesture. But for Me, It Was Tuesday: When Mogens Wind-Shifter killed Ra'Vindra, Mazoga the Orc swore to become a knight so she could avenge her friend. Mogens doesn't remember any of this when you and Mazoga kill him. Butlerspace: Haskill, the chamberlain to Sheogorath, can be summoned with a spell you get during the main quest. But Thou Must!: One quest in Anvil involves investigating a series of robberies for the town watch. A group of women have been luring men to a remote cabin with promises of a good time, only to take all their possessions once the men have removed their gear. If you go to a local inn soon afterwards, you will meet the women. If the player character is male, they will attempt to lure him to the cabin with the aforementioned promises. If the PC is female, however, they will offer her a place in their gang. That evening, the quest calls for you to join them at the cabin. No matter whether the PC is male or female, your only dialogue options involve revealing your status as a mole, then taking out the whole gang by yourself in combat. As a female character (who may even be a member of the Thieves Guild and/or Dark Brotherhood and whose railroaded behavior therefore makes little sense), this seems like This example contains a YMMV entry. It should be moved to the YMMV tab.a waste of a good plot. An even worse example comes in the final stages of the Dark Brotherhood missions, after becoming a Silencer. Your orders are delivered to you via dead drops, giving your the location and name of your target(s). After the first two, there's a noticable change in the sound of the writing, from Lucien's professional but polite tone to outright glee and creepy familiarity. Also, the orders start giving the player explanations of the targets' "crimes" and details of personal lives, things that Lucien had never done prior unless it had relevance in the mission (ie, a hit was placed on a necromancer who he was trying to become a lich, making conventional killing methods difficult). But the worst parts? There's a massively obvious change in the handwriting of the orders, and you can even find Dark Brotherhood robes in the possession of your newest 'targets.' It'd be one thing for the game to put evidence in front of you and let you act on it, but you have no choice but to carry out six of these clearly forged orders before being confronted by Lucien and having already served as an accessory to the conspiracy that would get him killed. There's quite a lot of this in the game. Other examples feature a prank that Volanaro wants you to play on Jeanne Frasoric, the head of the Bruma Mages Guild, where the game doesn't give you the option to tell Jeanne about the prank; and a mission that the Blackwood Company undertakes to slaughter goblins where the goblins are actually innocent humans and there's no way to stop them from being cut down in their own home once the quest begins, whether you figure out what's going on or not - you can opt to run away and it'll complete the mission, but the people who come on the mission with you don't, and end up killing everyone. Call a Hit Point a "Smeerp": They're not "magic" points, they're "magicka" points! Captain Ersatz: Spider daedra, unique to this game and Online, are essentially driders with the serial numbers filed off. Captain Obvious: There's a burglar on the loose! "By the nine divines... This person is dead!" Rarely, guards who helped you kill someone may go to the corpse and state that "The body is still warm... The murderer cannot be far away." When you're given the quest to kill the Black Bow Bandits, you're told the gang is called that because they use black bows. Catch-Phrase: The Thieves' Guild is fond of "shadow hide you". The Gray Fox is fond of "Capital!". For the Dark Brotherhood, we have, among others, "May the Night Mother wrap you in her loving embrace." "BY AZURA, BY AZURA, BY AZURA, ITS THE GRAND CHAMPION!" Citadel City: Imperial City. City Guards: The embodiment of this trope. Guard: This example contains a YMMV entry. It should be moved to the YMMV tab.Stop! You violated the law. Pay the court a fine or serve your sentence. Your stolen goods are now forfeit. Chainmail Bikini: Averted with some of the female armors, but played straight with others. If you put an actual chainmail shirt on a female character it turns into a Minidress of Power. The Chessmaster: Mankar Camoran. To A lesser degree, The Gray Fox. Chekhov's Skill: J'skar, the lovable Khajiit prankster of the Bruma Mages Guildhall, is shown to only be really good at invisibility. When Mannimarco attacks Bruma's guildhall, his invisibility mastery is what makes him the sole survivor. Or maybe not. His comments after you kill the necromancer looking for him sound like Mannimarco let him live to send a message to the rest of the guild. Clever Crows: This game features Corvus Umbranox, the Grey Fox, leader of the Thieves Guild, and former Count of Anvil. Fellow gets around. He's clever and dark-haired. Closed Circle: The quest "Whodunit?" is a classic textbook example, except you're the killer. Code Name: All of the brigands aboard "The Bloated Float" inn-boat during the quest "An Unexpected Voyage". Collector of the Strange: As you might expect, the Shivering Isles expansion contains a few characters who have collections to match their respective obsessions. The player can also go on a quest to enlarge the collection in the Museum of Oddities. Conspiracy Theorist: A sidequest concerns a Bosmer named Glarthir who is convinced that several people in town are involved in a conspiracy against him, and wants the player to help him find proof. This is apparently a VERY common trait with the Dukes and Duchesses of Dementia in Shivering Isles. Continuity Nod: The "Hero of Daggerfall" and Jagar Tharn are mentioned in passing many times, in both in-game books and by a few certain characters. The province of Morrowind has abolished slavery (according to NPC chatter). These examples are notable because most content in Oblivion is self-contained (though this is by no means an exhaustive list). Also, the Utherfrykte Matron. The Utherfrykte was an obscure Bonus Boss in the "Bloodmoon" expansion for Morrowind. In relation to this is an NPC from Bloodmoon, the foxy Svenja Snow-Song, who became your character's second in command at the Solstheim Mead Hall. In Oblivion, you can find her husband's journal at Dive Rock, detailing numerous nightmares she had regarding the creatures. Having enough of it, the two decided to venture to Cyrodiil to slay their Matron, only for Svenja to get eaten alive by the creature before getting off a shot. Her husband watches in horror, and is mortally wounded soon after, being able to make it back to their nearby camp to finish writing. You can find the husband's body and journal at the camp, and can also slay the Matron once and for all. Inside its body is Svenja's bow... along with her mostly digested corpse. One off hand but memorable downer instance of this is an NPC in the Imperial Capital who was at Raven's Rock, the ebony mining settlement from Morrowind's expansion. He left when the money dried up, meaning that the settlement canonically fails, though not entirely, as it's still (barely) populated by the time the events of Dragonborn roll around. A snippet of info you get from a random loading screen says "No one has escaped from the Imperial Prison in over 40 years, since the days of Jagar Tharn and the Imperial Simulacrum". The Eternal Champion escaped from the Imperial Prison during the late Imperial Simulacrum, just under 40 years ago. Another couple of Morrowind examples: You can overhear two Elven NPCs talking about the Nerevarine having left on an expedition to Akavir. You can also over hear mention of "St. Jiub, who drove all the This example contains a YMMV entry. It should be moved to the YMMV tab.cliff racers from Morrowind." Convection Schmonvection: Invoked and subverted. The areas of Oblivion you go to seem to be small islands in an ocean of lava, yet one NPC points out that while he'd expect it to be hot, all he feels is a deathly chill. Cosmic Retcon/Hand Wave/A Wizard Did It: A rare In-Universe one. Behold the kingdom of the Red King once jungled! Apparently, a god (or the White-Gold Tower, or the Emperor, or the Emperor using the White-Gold Tower, because canon and lore are confusing) decided that Cyrodiil should be a deciduous forest rather than a rainforest like in previous installments of the series. Uriel Septim should have a head of long, flowing silver hair, rather than the perfectly smooth and hairless scalp he sported in Daggerfall (Ironically looking more like Patrick Stewart than the version he played.) Ocato, who also sported a smooth scalp and a badass posture in Daggerfall, suddenly turned into an Altmer in Oblivion. It is implied the dungeon in Oblivion is supposed to be the same one as in Arena. Both games take place in sewers underneath the palace (Though in Oblivion it's only the very last area) not counting the one zombie in Oblivion and the "Random Thieves" in Arena. All the enemies are rats and goblins. And the mentioned thieves only appear if you stand in one place too long, where do they come from? They come out of hidden doors in the walls, which the Mythic Dawn used when assassinating the Emperor. Cruel and Unusual Death: If you attack Sheogorath at any time during Shivering Isles, he will paralyse you with magic, then teleport you to thousands of feet above ground out in the wilderness and let gravity do the work for him. Or he throws the rest of the world at you. It's not really clear which. Transformation into Worm Thrall, the fate of The Mole within the Necromancers, Mucianus Allias. You are expected (but not required) to Mercy Kill them. The many corpses seen strung up in the realm of Oblivion, along with the sacks of skin simply labelled "The Punished" have their fates left to the player's imagination, but they were no doubt very painful deaths. That is, This example contains a YMMV entry. It should be moved to the YMMV tab.assuming they're dead. Near the end of The Dark Brotherhood Questline, Lucien Lachance is cornered by members of the Black Hand and killed for his treachery... except he didn't do it. All that's left of him is a strung up husk, with its mouth ripped out. If you talk to one of the culprits, she will mention eating his intestines. Cruelty Is the Only Option: In the Mehrunes' Razor DLC, the "normal" way to finish the final puzzle and get the Razor is by eating a still living man's heart, getting you a massive infamy penalty. The only others options are to either force the gate (which requires a near maxed out strength stat), or fight This example contains a YMMV entry. It should be moved to the YMMV tab.That One Boss.note Crystal Dragon Jesus: Oddly enough, the Nine Divines, considering how previous games depicted the religion (particularly in Daggerfall) as very polytheistic Greco-Roman religion. This was also hit the hardest with the Nibenese-Cyrodiil (the Imperials who live in the east), in a very bizarre form of cultural Flanderization. Previously, the Nibenese where described as an esoteric and philosophizing, with elaborate customs and devote to various religions, cults, and ancestor worship. By the time of Oblivion though, they were described as simply chapel-going and doing religious services on Sundays, complementing the now christianity-based worshipping of Nine Divines. Culture Chop Suey: Oblivion is set in a predominantly European Fantasy Counterpart Culture. However, Cloud Ruler Temple is a Buddhist temple outside, complete with upturned roof corners. Inside, we're back in fantasy Europe. This is pointed out and explained in game: at one time, the empire was ruled by a series of Akaviri (Fantasy Counterpart Culture of Japan) stewards after a failed invasion on their part (long story). The Blades were formed, and Cloud Ruler Temple built, during this time, hence the Akaviri influences on their armor, weapons and architecture. Cursed Item: The Staff of the Everscamp is one of the artefacts of Sheogorath, Daedric Prince of Madness, and seems to exist for the sole purpose of Trolling mortals. The staff's owner is constantly followed by four Scamps that give off a horrible smell, generally make the owner's life a misery and can't be permanently killed. Furthermore, the staff's owner feels a compulsion to keep it on their person at all times, and can only get rid of it if another person willingly agrees to become the staff's owner or by leaving it at one of Sheogorath's shrines. Cut-and-Paste Environments: This can be seen a lot in outdoor areas. Cute But Psycho: Cutter, the blacksmith in Dementia is definitely cute, but tells you she tests the weapons she makes on herself, and relishes the thought of you using them on others. Cutscene Incompetence: At several points in the game, the script forces your character to freeze while you have to watch an enemy character butcher a friendly NPC. Damsel in Distress: A few, but most prominently Dar-Ma in A Shadow Over Hackdirt. Darkest Hour: Once you're far enough into the main quest, not only do members of the Mythic Dawn start openly attacking people in the city streets, but Oblivion Gates open right outside each major city. Dark Is Not Evil: The Dark Seducers in Shivering Isles are generally friendlier than their counterparts, the Golden Saints. Daywalking Vampire: Vampires can day-walk if they are well-fed, but burn otherwise. Deadly Environment Prison: The prisons in the Shivering Isles. They do confiscate your stuff, but your cell is not locked and you are free to try and brave the dungeon creatures with your bare hands and spells. Dead Drop: This is the preferred method the Dark Brotherhood uses to get in touch with and pay you. The drops get taken over by a traitor halfway through the quest line. You end up trying to kill off the Brotherhood command instead. Dead Star Walking: Patrick Stewart as the doomed Emperor. There's even a mod that replaces Uriel Septim's head with Stewart's. Deadpan Snarker: The Prophet from Knights of The Nine, believe it or not. Player: Yes, I am the hero of Kvatch. Prophet: Well then, "Hail, Hero of Kvatch!" Let me add one more voice to the neverending chorus of praise. I'm sure one of your many devotees will able to guide you on your way to find the Crusader's Relics. This lovely dialogue option sadly does not appear due to a bug (but there are bugfix mods for the PC, thank goodness): Player: Yes, I am the Arena Grand Champion. Prophet: Oh my, the Grand Champion of all of Cyrodiil! By Azura indeed! Surely there can be no better preparation for becoming a holy knight than a career spent slaughtering for the public's entertainment. Haskill, Chamberlain of Lord Sheogorath the Prince of Madness. "What a surprise. I'm summoned. Your skill in repetition is truly astounding." Kathutet, the Dremora guarding the entrance to the Forbidden Grotto, is this in contrast to the rest of the Dremora you encounter in the game. Defeat Means Respect: Your characters' role in the Battle of Kvatch earns them respect from the Dremora who were besieging the town. Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: The climax of Shivering Isles pits you against Jyggalag, the Daedric Prince of Order. Disc-One Nuke: One of the common complaints is that level scaling produces a lack of these (and Beef Gate), though some can still be found. OOO, as a result of removing level scaling, has many more, particularly if you understand the lock picking minigame enough to open very hard chests and steal them. It's relatively minor, but in the tutorial dungeon, after Blades Captain Renault is killed by some Mythic Dawn assassins, you can loot her body for her personal sword, a steel Akaviri katana. While by no means an incredibly impressive weapon, it's still an extremely good weapon for a level one character and can make mincemeat out of pretty much all the enemies in the dungeon, and could serve you well for the first few levels (and is also better than the other weapon she was holding, a steel short sword). Except that after the Emperor's death, when you talk to Baurus, he will thank you for keeping the sword and take it from you so it can be returned to Cloud Ruler Temple. And no, you can't just drop it before Baurus talks to you, because once the conversation is over, the sword simply disappears, meaning there really is no way to hold onto it. Does This Remind You of Anything?: In the Shivering Isles expansion there is a quest where Hirrus Clutumnus asks you to kill him. He's sick of being alive, but doesn't want to kill himself because suicides are punished in the Shivering Isles by having their souls stranded forever on the Hill of Suicides. He offers you a reward which you can retrieve from his house after you kill him. The reward is the Ring of Happiness, a ring which brightens things around the wearer, makes them feel lighter, and makes it easier for them to talk to people. In his will he mentions that it was given by a mage who said it would make his life bearable; but he stopped wearing it because it made him not feel like himself. Doomed Hometown: Martin's hometown of Kvatch is destroyed by Daedra at the beginning of the main quest. Unusual because it's not the player character with the Doomed Hometown. Do Not Taunt Cthulhu: Thieves love to attempt to steal things from Nocturnal, the Daedric goddess of the night (and therefore, a crucial part of their jobs). Two thieves succeed and the player recovers the artifact, the Grey Fox exists because of this, and one in a book has a fate that's not elaborated on when she gets caught past being consumed by an angry Nocturnal's shadows. Downer Beginning: Emperor Septim is attempting to escape an attempt on his life and breaks you out as he flees for his life. He doesn't make it. Drop the Hammer Drunk on the Dark Side: The Necromancers. Dual-World Gameplay: Between the mortal realm and the realm of Oblivion. Dude, Where's My Respect?: Even if you're already the Champion of Cyrodiil, the guilds will still make you do petty tasks before they let you advance. And highwaymen will still try to rob you. And nearly every boss-type character you defeat will use his last words to tell you what an unworthy opponent you are. It's even worse when you've beaten the Shivering Isles and become the new Sheogorath. Everyone and their mother still treats you the same in Cyrodiil and in Oblivion, including certain types who should know what you are now. Mankar Camoran especially should know, and if not him, certainly the Dremora. However, this would have required much more extra dialog recording and time to implement and would have heavily altered much of the game as a result, which no doubt would have pushed the expansion beyond the deadline. Voranil. In the words of the UESP Wiki: He throws the best parties every weekend, and anybody who's anybody in the city goes there. Unfortunately, that doesn't include you, and it never will. It doesn't matter if you're the Grand Champion of the Arena, the Arch-Mage of the Mages Guild, and head of every other faction in the game. It doesn't matter if you own the nicest, most beautifully-furnished house in the city, or in Cyrodiil for that matter. Justified in that he's actually a Mythic Dawn sleeper agent, so he's not exactly going to invite you in after you ruin their plans. Dummied Out: The Lock spell, mainly so as to not break NPC's scripts and such. A city, Sutch, appeared in early versions of the game's map, but does not appear in the actual game. Fort Sutch, the unmarked "Attack on Fort Sutch" quest, and a handful of leftover text are all that remain of it in the released game. It would have been located just north-west of Kvatch, and likely would have contained the Chapel of Kynareth, which is also absent in the game. But as with much anything, there's a mod that adds Sutch into the game as it was originally planned. Dungeon Bypass: In many forts and Ayleid ruins, the final door, after the boss mob and reward chest, leads to a ledge overlooking the entrance, so that you can jump down and leave immediately rather than have to backtrack through an empty dungeon. With sufficient Acrobatics skill (it can be fortified over 200 if necessary), you can jump up to the ledge and work backwards, surprising the boss from behind, and immediately claiming the most lucrative loot. A different but significantly easier one is at Fort Farragut, a.k.a. where Lucien Lachance makes his hideout. Don't want to hack through all those skeletons? Just go to the big, hollow tree on the northeastern side of the fort to drop straight down on top of Lucien himself. Dysfunction Junction: Most aren't given any background story, but several character's pasts are implied to be this. Most notably with members of the Dark Brotherhood (which is fitting because it explains how they became psychopaths to begin with). Skingrad. The blacksmith's an alcoholic, the town trader's in a loveless common-law marriage with his maid, one alchemist's a necrophiliac, the other hasn't been outside for years, and there's a paranoid wood elf convinced that half the city's population is trying to kill him. Then there's the Count and his right-hand man... Yet despite everything, Skingrad is noted as being one of the most prosperous counties in Cyrodiil. E-N Easing into the Adventure: The point of the tutorial dungeon. Element Number Five: An alchemist in Shivering Isles theorizes that each of the four classical elements corresponds to a part of the body (fire is meat, earth is bone, water is blood and air is breath), and that these elements when brought together, along with the fifth: light, create the sixth element, Flesh. Emo: Dementia blacksmith Cutter from Shivering Isles almost plays this straight. She's halfway between emo and psycho, with serious self-esteem issues and a self-cutting habit, but she also seems to like wounding others and tests all her weapons "personally". There's always fresh blood on her work floor. Empty Levels: Leveling up in a manner that is remotely intuitive - say, by choosing your main skills as those you expect to use often and leveling up when you have the option on the assumption that gaining a level will make you stronger - will result in a character's abilities increasing minutely while the enemies around you transform from annoyances to nightmares. Many people just bypass the whole aggravating "leveling up" process by never sleeping. End of an Age: The end of the Cyrodillic Empire to be exact. The Septim bloodline is gone and the empire itself in a weakened state. NPCs in the game already talk about the High Elves planning to go against the empire and, after finishing the main quest, some of the provinces plan on seceding. Turns out that in Skyrim, the High Elves formed their own Empire, slowly picking away territory. And, like the NPC's said, 2 of the other provinces did indeed secede. By the time Skyrim's story starts, the Empire is only a shadow of its former self. Enemy Chatter: Nothing special, but occasionally if you're quiet and just stand around and listen, you will hear enemy NPC's talking amongst themselves (Necromancers, bandits, marauders, vampires, guards, etc). Escort Mission: A few, but by far the most annoying one is the quest The Wayward Knight. Farwil Indarys, your escortee and complete Leeroy, will run into battle against enemies far stronger than he, and even worse will completely ignore environmental dangers. He'll even follow enemies off cliffs! The higher your level, the worse these quests become, to the point of Fake Difficulty. While monsters will level, and even get replaced by classes of newer and more powerful monsters, the people you escort... don't. Some quests are made easier by essential characters, as they don't die when the overpowered monsters beat on them, but you still have to kill everything and then wait for them to wake up to push forward into another fight. The Mages Guild quest "Liberation or Apprehension?" thankfully subverts this. You are meant to escort your fellow mage Fithragaer and find Mucianus Allias and bring them back. The former will most likely get killed by a huge trap that pushes the floor up to a spike ceiling and the latter suffered a fate worse than death. All that is required to finish the quest is explore the ruins, fight some monsters, grab some loot, and further the subplot. Even Evil Has Standards: The Dark Brotherhood might kill almost anyone, but even they seem to draw the line at the thought of killing the Emperor himself... though this might be because his death is actually quite bad as far as keeping the barriers to Oblivion in place. Even Insanity Has Standards: In the Shivering Isles, addiction to a poisonous drug and Cold-Blooded Torture are perfectly fine, but the duke of Mania and duchess of Dementia having an affair? Unthinkable! Some horrible person did the unspeakable crime of growing a beard. He was executed for his heinous crime. Which is why Sheogorath is the only person you ever see with one. Probably the dev team Leaning on the Fourth Wall there. Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": The Prophet in Knights of the Nine. The Stranger in Anvil. Justified due to the fact that he's the Gray Fox and the curse of the cowl he wears strikes the wearer's identity from history. In fact he even tells you his name a few times but thanks to the curse you still only know him as a stranger. The Adoring Fan. The player character is referred to in various ways, usually related to their prior accomplishments (Grand Champion of the Arena, Hero of Kvatch, Champion of Cyrodiil, etc.). When fighting in the Arena proper, they are allowed to select a nickname, though. Everything Fades: Without mods or using console cheats, as long as you don't leave the area corpses never disappear; even if you do leave, it takes three in-game days for the cell to reset. Can be rather troublesome since the developers didn't give the ability to remove corpses like they did in Morrowind. Evil Counterpart: The Order of the Black Worm, to Necromancy in general. The Blackwood Company is essentially what the Fighters Guild would be like if they didn't have a shred of morality or decency. Evil Is Sterile: In the Shivering Isles expansion, the amazingly creepy Knights of Order and their master Jyggalag are said to have no original thoughts whatsoever. Their fighting style reflects this - Jyggalag uses some spells, but the knights just swing swords at you until you or they die. The reason for this is that Jyggalag is the Daedric Prince of Order, anything that's wild and unpredictable is wrong in his eyes which is why he was turned into Sheogorath. Evil Weapon: Dawn/Duskfang, which grows in power for every 12 enemies it kills, although this has to be done every day and night and only affects it after dawn or dusk, hence the name. This weapon is actually four weapons in one, two of which are upgraded or "superior" versions of the "base weapons" (Dawnfang and Duskfang). The sword "morphs" into a form appropriate for the current time of day, and if you've slaughtered enough enemies before that point, it will morph into the superior version of its counterpart. For example, Dawnfang will morph into Superior Duskfang at night. Exactly What It Says on the Tin: There's a shop called Rindir's Staffs. It's owned by Rindir. He sells magical staffs. Imagine that. Face-Heel Turn: As the plot of Shivering Isles progresses, several citizens defect to the Forces of Order, including one of the two Dukes of Madness. Schrödinger's Gun: You implicitly pick which duke or duchess defects. Whether you assassinate the Duke of Mania or the Duchess of Dementia, the other, surviving ruler will defect. Faceless Goons: Dremora, Aurorans, and Knights of Order tend to wear face-concealing helmets. Fair Play Whodunit: One quest has you investigating who stole a precious painting from the Countess of Chorrol. All of the clues you need to find the culprit are available, and indeed have to be found to complete the mission with the maximum reward. However, even before you've found the pieces of evidence, there's a giveaway clue that lets you solve the case earlier: three of the four suspects' alibis refer to the rain outside the castle the night of the theft, while the fourth—and the guilty party—mentions that she was making star charts, which would have been impossible during a cloudy storm. Fake Difficulty: Dependent on the difficulty you're playing on. Fake Ultimate Hero: Raynil Dralas, who killed his old adventuring partners for a magical amulet and covered it up by planting evidence suggesting they were vampires. False Innocence Trick: In one quest you can buy a house, only to find that it's haunted. Investigation reveals the corpse of a lich (imprisoned for being evil) who claims he's turned good after having time to reflect on his crimes. Unfortunately Stupidity Is the Only Option if you want to complete the quest. Fame Gate: The Heaven Stones, which can only be activated and grant you their Greater Powers after the sum of your Fame and Infamy reaches a certain value. Also, the Knight of the Nine expansion has an inversion; it requires your character to be free of any infamy, which means (unless you've been an absolute saint for the whole game) you have to go on a pilgrimage to every single shrine in the game to receive a blessing. Fan Disservice: The Goblin Shamans show way too much veiny cleavage than is necessary. Fantastic Racism: There actually isn't too much of this in Cyrodiil; it's a very racially diverse place and most folks are very accepting. Although you do get the occasional negative comment directed towards your character's race. The bottom of this page shows that character's base disposition towards you is partly based upon what race you play. Everyone hates the poor Dunmer and the poor Orcs. Countess Alessia Caro despises the beast races. Her speech towards you if you play a Khajit or Argonian barely even tries to disguise this. She also has a secret Torture Cellar made specifically for Argonians. Which makes it so much fun to kill her over and over again.elaborate One minor NPC has a hobby of fostering discord between Argonians and Khajit. If you talk to him and you happen to belong to one of those two races, he'll tell you a member of the other race insulted you behind your back. Interesting variation in the quest Whodunit, where you're locked in a mansion with five people of various races you have to kill them, including a Breton, a Nord, a Redguard, a Dark Elf, and an Imperial. The Breton is racist against the Dark Elf, but the most extreme racism is displayed by the Redguard towards the Nord; which is to say that the worst hatred isn't between the fantasy races, but between the humans. The town of Leyawiin is actually quite racist between the Khajits and Argonians, who will actually tell racist jokes about each other. This makes sense, since the town lies directly between the borders of the respective races' homelands. The first character you meet in the game, Valen Dreth, has a different set of insults for you depending on the race you've chosen. In other words he's basically racist against everyone. So it's probably not surprising that someone put a hit on him. Even if you're a dark elf like him, he either promises to sleep with your wife (if you're male) or propositions you (if you're female). So the racism probably comes from just being a Jerkass. The developers actually programmed racism into the engine; every character has a setting for how much they like or dislike characters of a certain race. This doesn't normally appear in the game because the settings on most characters are insanely high. The mod Race Balancing Project actually tinkers with these settings, to make races that don't like each other act more snarky towards each other than the defaults. Fantasy Counterpart Culture: The Elder Scrolls loves this trope. The Nords are the obvious example. They're inspired by the Scandinavian peoples of northern Europe. The Redguards are Africans. Their Proud Warrior Race status and physical appearance were probably original inspired by the Masai, but the way their culture interacts with the Empire resembles the Sikhs' relationship with 19th-century imperial Britain. They have a bit of moors in them too. On that note, we haven't seen much of the Khajiit homeland but lore suggests they lead a tribal lifestyle similar to aborigines and pygmy peoples. Given the racism towards them, a tribal culture, a religion that differs from the Imperial norms more than a lot of others, an addiction to a liquid substance and a reputation for being thieves, one could also say they're fantasy Native-Americans (the theft part being casinos). The Imperials are mostly based on Romans (They have an Emperor, their armies are organised into Legions, their capital has a gladiator arena etc.). Bretons are French/Celts. Although we never see Akavir, it's apparently based on China and Japan. The (extinct) Dwemer become more and more like steampunk Assyrians with each game. The Dunmer have some traits from Semite people, complete with a religious exodus led by a prophet while they were still part of the Chimer race. Fantasy Kitchen Sink: Imps, unicorns, spirits, demons, vampires... Cyrodiil itself is primarily medieval Europe, owing a lot to Arthurian legend. The Empire and the Imperial Legion mix together the ancient Roman Empire with kings and knights. Asian influences exist thanks to the Akaviri. However, many of the towns and cities better resemble the Americas from the early colonial period to the 1800s, with cobblestone paved streets and raised sidewalks. Clothing also heavily mixes ancient and modern styles, from medieval clothing to things that may have been worn in the 1700s. Fast-Forward Mechanic: The act of resting allows the player to skip any amount of hours in-game. Fate Worse than Death: Relmyna's experiments, whom she kills over and over to get her methods just right. She does bring "the worthy ones" back to life for good at the end, but howtraumatized must they be? Camoran's Paradise, where his followers are killed by daedra, reborn, and killed again. Faux Action Girl: Captain Renault, who is presented as a highly-qualified no-nonsense protector of the emperor at the beginning but is always killed in the very first battle of the game. The game's fatally overconfident bandits who happen to be female could also qualify. Fetch Quest: There aren't too many of these, thankfully. However, the Cheydinhal Mages' Guild quest is rather an egregious example: you are sent to retrieve something from a well just outside the building. When you return, less than a minute later, you are informed that a heated argument took place and the guild leader abandoned his post. (It Makes Sense in Context, though.) Fire and Brimstone Hell: Mehrunes Dagon's realm of Oblivion, the Deadlands, is this in all but name. Flat-Earth Atheist: Zigzagged with Else God-Hater in Skingrad. Her involvement with the Mythic Dawn might make this seem like a subversion, but she does mention that she has no trouble believing the Daedric Princes exist, on the grounds that "they do things. Bad things, mostly, but things you can see." Yet she isn't convinced by the actions of the Nine Divines despite the consistent and measurable magical effects caused by praying at altars. Foreboding Architecture: See that giant black tower in t

Foreboding Architecture: See that giant black tower in the distance, with spikes sticking out of the top? Oh yes. You just know that whatever is in there, it will want to kill you on sight. See that smaller tower right next to you? It wants to kill you too. And it doesn't care if it sees you. Foreshadowing: Some people will talk about unrest in Summerset about an Aldmeri uprising. Skyrim expands on this with the Aldmeri Dominion. Don't forget Umbacano, who was going to gain the power of an ancient Ayleid king, solely to restore his own kind to power and subjugate everyone else... all while getting you to do all the hard work for him! It was already hinted at pretty strongly that a few Altmer wanted the old ways back. There is a piece of rather heavy foreshadowing that is possible to miss during the Dark Brotherhood Questline. If you unlock a barrel in J'Ghasta's house or the portrait safe in Alval Uvani's place, you will find a set of Black Hand robes and a copy of The Five Tenets. These are early indicators that you are being set up to kill the members of the Black Hand. Forest Ranger: The Imperial Legion has rangers roaming through the woods. Also, apparently the Bosmer are really good at this sorta thing. Forged Letter: In the Thieves Guild questline, the you are tasked to forge a letter of recommendation, in order to get rid of the troublesome Watch Captain. Free-Love Future: The Khajiit bandits, the Renrijra Krin, want this kind of future. "Life is short. If you have not made love recently, please, put down this book, and take care of that with all haste. Find a wanton lass or a frisky lad, or several, in whatever combination your wise loins direct, and do not under any circumstances play hard to get. Our struggle against the colossal forces of oppression can wait. "Good. Welcome back." Fresh Clue: Upon finding a corpse, guards will sometimes say "the body's still warm... The murderer cannot be far away." They will do this even when they are the one who killed the victim, or when you killed him in front of them. Freudian Excuse: Bellamont, the assassin who betrays the Dark Brotherhood has one in the form of his dead mother. It's a bit more justified than most Freudian excuses simply because it was, in fact, the Dark Brotherhood who killed his mother. Game-Breaking Bug: A rather well-known bug exists called Abomb which causes slow but steady and inevitable corruption to save files over time. Save files become clogged with useless data that, after so many hours of play, albeit it can take over 200 hours (though between all the side quests, guilds and extra quests from mods, this isn't too hard to accomplish). The end result is that animations become slow or outright freeze, making projectiles, magic attacks and even doors fail to work and can render the game unplayable. Several tools exist for the PC to clean save files, though console users can be all but out of luck trying to fix it - Xbox users would need to extract the save from the console and manually hex edit, and PS3 users can follow the same procedure but need the additional step of using tools to decrypt and afterwards re-encrypt the save file (See here). Bethesda is also aware of the flaw but declined to make a game patch to fix it as Oblivion was too old for them to take focus away from current game development to fix an older title. And yeah, there are probably many other bugs that will do this as Oblivion has piles of bugs, but that's the one that's probably hardest to deal with or patch out. Game Gourmet: Downplayed. Food items (both real and fantastical) are present in the game and can be eaten directly for mild effects (mostly Restore Stamina). They are treated as standard alchemical ingredients and can be used to make potions with various effects. Game Mod: Enough of them to build several whole new games. In fact, several mods are there for just that purpose. Sadly, Sturgeon's Law is in effect for many of them, and they're only useful if you run the PC version. Nehrim: At Fate's Edge by SureAIis one of the better ones, expansive enough to warrant its own page here. Integration: The Stranded Light, a sprawling quest mod larger than all the DLCs combined, involving helping a guild full of friendly (and not so friendly) daedra, Khajiit sufferage, stamping out (or aiding) the notorious Renrijra Krin, building a mushroom city, and a romance with a daedra seducer, just to scratch the very surface. Another major mod is Knights Of The Nine: Revelation, which serves as a sequel to the original KOTN, building heavily on more. You will eventually be sent back to the first era to assist in the fall of White Gold Tower, meeting St. Alessia and Pelinal Whitestrake. And, if just to add more fuel to the guessing, you get to chat with the severed head of Pelinal Whitestrake... as if Sheogorath's "a severed head" line in Skyrim didn't need even more fuel to confuse matters... Some of the more renowned mods include Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul (removes leveled enemies in favor of hand placed, as well as other tweaks), Deadly Reflex (a complex combat overhaul), Martigan's Monster Mod (adds literally hundreds of new monsters, many of which are hand made) and The Lost Spires (lengthy quest mod with a complex story about the ancient history of Tamriel). Oblivion XP replaces the skill leveling system with more traditional experience points (earned by killing monsters, completing quests, discovering locations, etc), and eliminates increasing attributes based on skills in favor of simply allocating points at every level however the player sees fit. Kvatch Rebuilt, which sees the burnt town restored and, well, rebuilt. Trade And Commerce lets the player own a shop to sell goods through rather than having to sell everything to stores. There are also mods which completely rewrite lore, such as A Path Of Dawn which lets the player join the Mythic Dawn, and many, many mods which expand on the Dark Brotherhood. Player homes, armor display mannequins, weapons and armor and even tweaks to the crime system, merchant system... beautification mods, mods to make the game run better on lower-end systems, level uncappers... if you can ask for it, there's a good chance a mod exists for it. Morroblivion which successfully converted the entire Morrowind game to the Oblivion. Skywind is a similar one which will again update Morrowind to Skyrim. Game Over: If the timer runs out on the giant daedric siege machine bearing down on Bruma, the game just has you reload. This is unusual, as most events like this in a Bethesda game would allow Bruma to be destroyed, like how you can destroy Megaton in Fallout 3. Gate Guardian: The Gatekeeper in the expansion The Shivering Isles is a giant monster created by Relmyna Verenim out of the flesh of the dead to guard the exit from the Fringe out into the rest of the Shivering Isles. The player kills it to gain access to the rest of the realm, but is later tasked by Sheogorath to create a new Gatekeeper with Relmyna's help. Get into Jail Free: A sidequest involves getting yourself imprisoned to gain the trust of an inmate, who you are told has hidden a stash of treasure somewhere. A nonstandard use is in the very beginning. "Why am I in jail?" "Perhaps the Gods have placed you here so that we may meet." Giant Mook: The Xivilai, massive daedra who wield battle axes and warhammers in one hand. The Knights of the Nine expansion also adds Aurorans, humanoid Daedra associated with Meridia, that wear golden armor and feature the same hulking body structure as the Xivilai. They act as Umaril's personal army of Smash Mooks, and wield Ayleid Battle-Axes in combat. Gladiator Subquest: The Arena. Godiva Hair: The mermaid statue in Anvil. God Was My Copilot: It's strongly implied in Knights of the Nine that the Prophet is, in fact, Tiber Septim (Talos). He even looks like Uriel and Martin Septim. Gonk: It's evident that the developers tweaked the face generator a little far to produce Kalthar and the inhabitants of Hackdirt. (Justified, though; Read H.P. Lovecraft's "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" for details.) Good Pays Better: There is a mission near the end of the game where you need to ask all the city rulers to send soldiers to protect the capital. Each ruler will assign you a mission that you need to finish first. If you go the extra mile and complete all the optional objectives, you will get more units to help fight and better rewards. The sidequest Sins of the Father has the player recover a stolen relic of Chorrol for a member of the Thieves' Guild. Giving it to him merely gives you a leveled amount of gold, while returning it to the castle rewards you the Escutcheon of Chorrol, one of, if not the best shield in the game with its high Reflect Damage enchantment. Guide Dang It!: See here. Hacking Minigame: The improved lock-picking system. The Speechcraft system as well, raising some interesting existential questions. Hammerspace Police Force The Heavy: Mankar Camoran, despite only being The Dragon, is the villains' main driving force for most of the game. Heel-Face Turn: Eldamil, a Mythic Dawn member in Mankar Camoran's Paradise who helps the player out of regret over his role in the emperor's assassination and the siege of Kvatch. Hellgate: The Oblivon Gates. Hero Antagonist: Naturally, there are a few of these in the Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood quest lines. Heroic Bastard: Martin is the bastard son of dear old Emperor Uriel, which is the reason why the assassins weren't as quick to get to him, so you had time to save his life. Yet despite the fact that almost nobody knew of his existence until now (even he wasn't aware that he was the Emperor's son until you told him), when everyone finds out they immediately kneel before him and treat him with total respect as their Emperor. This is derived from two sources; in the case of the blades, its the word of their Grand Master which convinces them. For everyone else, its most likely that Martin can wear the Amulet of Kings, something which is physically impossible to do without fulfilling certain conditions (such as being Dragonborn or descended from a Dragonborn) that amount to divine right. It probably helps that all the other candidates are dead, and without an Emperor on the throne the world is (literally) going to hell. Heroic Sacrifice: Hannibal Traven commits suicide by trapping his own soul inside of the colossal black soul gem, so the player can defeat the King of Worms. He Who Fights Monsters: There's actually nothing stopping you from going out and killing everyone that can be killed, leaving Cyrodill a desolate wasteland populated by a handful of people before Mehrunes Dagon is even mentioned. Hide Your Children High Fantasy: Very much so. Honey Trap: Like their mythological namesake, the Sirens in Anvil use one. They rob men by flirting with them, getting them to come out to a farmhouse in the middle of the night and take their clothes off, and taking everything they have while they're defenseless. The Horde: Mehrunes Dagon's army of Daedra during the assaults on Bruma and the Imperial City. Horned Humanoid: The Dremora. Horny Devils: The Dark Seducers' name implies this, but it really isn't true. " Seductive" they sure as heck ain't. 100% Heroism Rating: You have to settle for the occasional compliment ("You're the one who closed the demon gate! The Hero of Kvatch!"). Although you get these based on your actions regardless of your fame or infamy. NPCs' disposition towards you also increases as your fame rating increases. Oh, and you do get a statue of your character built (it's essentially a copy of your character model at the time the quest was completed but stone textured) which is modeled with the most valuable items you have with you when you do this. There is a very nice and thus valuable dagger you get from the Brotherhood, which will take precedence. It just looks silly - full regalia, big armour, giant shield, ramming a 3 inch dagger into the sky...although, apparently, if you have enough torches in your inventory at the time of completion, your weapon will be on fire! Oblivion tracks fame and infamy separately so you can be greeted heartily when you approach a guard and then be chastised for being a thief when you talk to him. Hungry Weapon: the warrior Umbra holes up in an Ayleid ruin mostly to isolate her sword (also called Umbra) from the souls it lusts for. Of course, you, the bastard that you are, will kill her and take this evil thing for yourself. Hunter Of Their Own Kind: A vampire PC who completes the Order of the Virtuous Blood sidequest by killing Seridur can then join the order and get paid by them to kill other vampires. Hunting the Most Dangerous Game: The quest "Caught in the Hunt". Hyperspace Arsenal: While you're not able to carry an infinite amount of stuff, you can pack several hundred pounds worth of stuff into an invisible pocket. Each item has a weight value, and based on your Strength stat, you can carry so much stuff (1 point of Strength = 5 pounds of encumbrance). Warriors who raise strength can carry more things (up to 500 pounds with a max 100 strength), and spells/effects such as Feather exist to lighten your load even further. Also, being highly skilled (Expert or Master rank) in either of the Light or Heavy armor attributes decreases the weight of armor you have equipped - at Master skill rank, heavy type armor will weigh nothing when worn. It's possible to actually have more items in your inventory than you can carry, but you will not be able to move, and negative effects such as Burden or Drain/Damage Strength can lower encumbrance. The only visible items in your total inventory are whatever you have equipped at the time. note I'm Dying, Please Take My MacGuffin: The plot that is presented to us at the beginning of the game plays out this trope to a tee. With the Amulet of Kings being the MacGuffin. I Owe You My Life: Seed-Neeus and Dar-Ma, the General Trader in Chorrol and her daughter, respectively, both say this after you save Dar-Ma from the Lovecraft-esque town of Hackdirt. It even comes with maxed out disposition in both women, some free Merchantile training from Seed-Neeus, and Dar-Ma will occasionally welcome you with "My hero!" if you talk to her afterwards. Idle Animation: If your character is equipped with a one-handed weapon and is standing still, on rare occasion you can see him/her reach for the weapon and check if it's properly attached to their waist. If You're So Evil, Eat This Kitten: The final step to being initiated into the Mythic Dawn is to murder a prisoner as as sacrifice to Mehrunes Dagon. If you try to infiltrate them, you'll be presented with an Argonian they've captured. It's up to you if you want to save him and blow your cover, or kill him to keep the ruse. Ignored Confession: During a Dark Brotherhood quest where you are required to kill 5 people in a Closed Circle ala Agatha Christie, you can straight up tell the person who greets you that you are an assassin, sent to kill everyone. She'll laugh, praise your sense of humour, and her disposition will rocket to full. I Hate You, Vampire Dad: The Grey Prince invokes this on himself. I Know You Know I Know: Both the Paranoia quest in Skingrad and being the Duchess of Dementia's "Grand Inquisitor" in the Shivering Isles. Imperfect Ritual: In one questline, Umbacano, a collector of Ayleid artefacts, asks you to aquire an Ayleid Crown of Nenelata that is in the possession of a rival collector; the second collector refuses to sell, but suggests that an Ayleid Crown from Lindai might be similar enough to fool Umbacano. Whichever crown you give him, Umbacano reveals that he wants to use it as a component in a ritual. If he has the Nenelata crown, the ritual will turn him into a lich, but if he has the Lindai crown, the ritual will kill him. Impossible Thief: The Dark Brotherhood agent that asks if you want to join will always appear when you rest, even if this rest will take you into a dream world that needs a special amulet to enter. If you're in the Shivering Isles, an entire alternate plane of Oblivion, he'll appear, smile, and say "I HAVE NO GREETING." Impossibly Mundane Explanation: Those mysterious ruins all over the Shivering Isles? They're not, as you'd expect, the ruins of some mysterious vanished civilization; they're the previous versions of New Sheoth. Sheogorath builds New Sheoth in a different spot after every Greymarch because he always forgets where the last site was. Indestructible Edible: Many of the places you visit, from caves to ancient dungeons that have been abandoned for hundreds of years, will have perfectly edible food stashed away in containers. Then again, this is a world that seems to lack any stort of refrigeration or food preservation yet all foods you find will be perfectly fresh, even stuff found on the floor. Infinity -1 Sword: Umbra. Not quite as spectacular as the Plus Ones, but is the best one-handed weapon in terms of damage and can Soul Trap, and you can get it even if you're fresh out of the tutorial... of course, killing Umbra to get her sword and gear will be nigh impossible unless you're well prepared. Infinity +1 Sword: Several, as befits the series. Some examples: Umaril's Sword: A ridiculously powerful two-handed sword that can be looted from the final boss of Knights Of the Nine. twice, if you're fast enough. And, of course, the trademark Daedra Prince Artifacts (Azura's Star, Wabbajack, etc) are available upon completing their Prince's quest. Informed Ability: The main quest contains many claims the empire is in chaos with the Emperor's assassination. The game fails to show any actual chaos outside of Kvatch. Although it is mentioned that other cities throughout Tamriel are being invaded by the Daedra, or other events like distant battles involving Nords and Orcs, or groups of wizards causing trouble in Summerset Isle, you don't get to see too much of the former and none of the latter two, since the game's boundaries confine you to Cyrodiil. An advertisement for the Red Diamond says it has the best guards, but it in fact has no guards. In fact, it's one of the easiest and most profitable places to rob, as it's the only store with inventory of any value that respawns (due to being in containers that are easily opened with the easily stolen key). In-Game Novel: Tons. Most of them aren't full length novels, but some are. In-Universe Game Clock: Defaults to "one ingame hour is equivalent to two real life minutes". Can be changed with console commands in PC version. Insistent Terminology: Mazoga the Orc insists that you call her "Sir Mazoga", even though she's a woman. You can even lampshade this. Interspecies Romance: Lord Lovidicus, an Imperial nobleman, and Luktuv gro-Malog, an Orsimer (aka Orc) woman. A few others if you count the human/ Bosmer couple in Anvil and the Fo'c'sle. "I reserve my beds for seamen." Glistel (Dunmer) and Malintus Ancrus (Imperial) in Chorrol; the townspeople are rather openly disgusted by their relationship (although some are just more surprised that a girl like her would choose a guy like him). However, it is possible that it is a front, as they're both active Thieves' Guild members. Ironic Echo: "You're going to die in here!" and "All of Tamriel will know my name"elaborate . Irony: It is revealed that Gaiden Shinji, whose "The best techniques are passed down by the survivors" quote started Arena, was not a survivor. People still think he's amazing though. During A Shadow Over Hackdirt, the villagers plan to sacrifice Seed-Neeus' daughter, Dar-Ma, an Argonian. Given the story that inspired the quest, and the fact that the Argonians are a mix between Lizard Folk and Fish People, someone on the writing team had a sense of humour. Irrelevant Importance: Once you get your hands on them, some quest items are eternally stuck in your inventory due to buggy scripts. The game will never ever let you dump quest items. Even if they've already served their purpose and the said quest has been completed. Sometimes even items without any quest relation at all get this treatment. But considering that quest items typically have a weight value of 0, it's not really a big deal anyway It's Up to You: Yes, that's right, player. The Emperor even said so himself. You alone must figure out how to stop an army of demons and batshit insane mortals from destroying the world. Jerkass: Valen Dreth, the prisoner in the Imperial dungeons you meet in the prologue. No matter what race or gender you are, Dreth will mock and insult you and assure you're going to end your days in prison. When you return to the prison, he can also be heard hurling ineffectual insults at the guards. Glenroy the Blade, also met in the prologue. He's very distrustful and rude of the player and at one point suggests killing you just in case you are working with the assassins. Then again, the Emperor's life is in danger, Glenroy knows nothing about the assassins (which means the player could really be one of them) and the source of the Emperor's trust in the Champion are the dreams of an 87 years old man. Even though the Champion is not an assassin, they still end up killing the Emperor while Glenroy himself dies trying to protect him Alval Uvani, who brushes off every attempt to speak with him by saying: "I have no time for your pathetic attempts at small talk. Now walk away, before I get nasty!" The entire skooma-dealing Orum gang in Cheydinhal save for Borba. M'raaj-Dar, the Khajiit merchant in the Cheydinhal Dark Brotherhood sanctuary is extremely rude and hostile towards the player... but he apologizes towards you just in time for the mission that demands that you kill him. Voranil, as mentioned under Dude, Where's My Respect?. Cheydinhal seems to attract these guys. Mazoga the Orc, at least when you first meet her. She takes an exceptionally rude and peremptory manner with you and Weebam-Na, and insists that you address her with her self-given style of "Sir Mazoga". The Yellow Team Champion from the Arena, who seems to delight in coming up with a new insult everytime you advance in rank. Later, she seems determined to be the one to personally kill you. Jerkass Gods: A few of the Daedra Lords, namely Mehrunes Dagon, Boethiah, Jyggalag, and Molag Bal. However, not all of them: most of them are just really weird rather than evil, and some like Azura and Meridia actually seem nice. Jerkass Realization: A minor one for Bittneld the Curse-Bringer, the captain of the guard in Chorrol. When you ask him about Chorrol, he will remark that although it's a nice place, the women there are kind of snooty and not very nice. If you then mention Emfrid, the owner of the local lower-class inn, he will remark that he goes instead to Oak & Crosier, since as the captain of the guard he should visit more upper-class places... and upon saying that, he will realize that he's acting in the exact same way he's accusing the Chorrol women of acting, and subsequently concede that he should probably start paying more attention to Emfrid. Joke Item: Lord Rugdumph's sword. First off, it's designed like a claymore and is used as a two-handed weapon, yet both its length and stats are more fit for a longsword. Additionally, it's statistically no better than an average silver longsword, which you are able to find as early as 4th level, or even 1st if you manage to take it from a guard's inventory. The enchantments aren't of much use either: Absorb Speechcraft 5 points for 5 seconds is completely worthless (it's highly unlikely you'd be able to first attack someone to absorb their Speechcraft and then start a conversation with someone else before the effect wears off, and even then, 5 points makes no notable difference whatsoever), and while Silence for 5 seconds could be potentially useful against mages, the duration is so short that you'd have to continuously hit them with this sword until they die, at which point you'd probably waste a considerable amount of the remaining charges of the enchantment. However, the joke item status seems justified, considering who gives it to you... Karmic Death: In one ending of the Umbacano questline, Umbacano is killed by the evil Ayleid powers he sought to control. In the other, you kill him. Keystone Army: Most of the named Goblin tribes (the exceptions being "Bitterfish" and "White Skin") in the game will automatically stop being hostile towards the player once they eliminate the local shaman. They'll even let you explore their lairs at your own pace and take their stuff without even attempting to stop you. However, they will resume attacking you if you decide to harm them any further. Also, summoned creatures will automatically vanish if the NPC that conjured them gets killed. Once you kill Mankar Camoran in Paradise, then Eldamil, the Camoran siblings, and all the other immortal residents will drop dead on the spot. A similar event happens to the Golden Saints and Dark Seducers when their Wellsprings are stopped by the forces of Order. Keywords Conversation: Dialogue is fully voiced, so the keywords appear in the list after they are spoken. NPCs can refuse to react to certain keywords if your Relationship Values aren't high enough, however. Kill 'em All: There are lots of scripted NPC deaths in the game. Let's leave it at that. Played straight in the Who Dun It quest. Kleptomaniac Hero: Optional for the player, but not profitable unless you either a.) join the Thieves Guild, b) have the Thieves' Den DLC installed and have bought yourself the fence at Dunbarrow Cove, or c.) use stolen ingredients to manufacture potions. Knight Templar: Jyggalag and his Forces of Order. Lady Land: The Shivering Isles' Daedric population is almost entirely female. Male Aureal/Mazken are a rare sight. Inverted with the Deadlands' population of Dremora, which are almost exclusively male, with only a few females existing anywhere (they are found as archers of the Markynaz rank) in the entire game and likely being more a result of an oversight than anything else (since they don't even have any voiced lines). Large Ham: Sheogorath is quite a captivating one. Nords and Orcs are whole races of hams. Imperial Guards. You know you're a ham when upon seeing someone swipe a grape, you shout, "Stop right there, criminal scum!" The Arena announcer is made of this trope, although in his line of work it's sort of expected. The male Dremora, in addition to being fierce warriors, are exceptionally hammy when it comes to their various battle-cries. It certainly helps that they're voiced by the same actor as the Imperial males. Averted with the rare female Dremora, which due to an oversight in the game's development, are completely silent. Unsurprisingly, all of the above, except the Nords and Orcs, are voiced by the same actor, Wes Johnson. Late to the Tragedy: When the player arrives at Kvatch and finds the city completely destroyed. And when the player arrives at the Bruma Mage's guildhall and finds almost everyone murdered and the place in ruins. Lawful Stupid: The Guards. All of them. So, so much. Trying to talk to someone, but mis-clicked and picked up an item instead? Now the law enforcement is after you for the horrendous crime of stealing an apple. Leaning on the Fourth Wall: A Dunmer alchemist in Skingrad identifies herself as being from House Hlaalu, before noting that such distinctions don't matter anymore. In the Shivering Isles expansion, there is a quest where you are tasked with finding unusual items for the local Museum of Oddities. One of the items that you can turn in is a mixing bowl: literally a bowl that you mix potions in. The item is unusual in terms of gameplay, since normally you use mortars, pestles and other alchemical apparatus in order to make potions rather than plain ol' bowls, but it's a perfectly ordinary item in terms of normal, everyday logic. The museum owner lampshades this by musing over the idea before giving in and accepting the item anyway, since she can tell you're trying. Leeroy Jenkins: Pretty much every NPC in the game, but most notably the one in the Mages' Guild quest who tells you to follow him and runs straight into a deathtrap not 30 seconds after meeting. There's also the son of the Count of Cheydinhal, who blindly ran into an Oblivion gate and got most of his men killed. The Bruma Guard in the Main Quest are guilty of this. Why can't you LIVE? Burd survives only because the game deems him necessary. When fightng in the arena, the best strategy is to stay in the starting area and pick off your enemies with a bow and arrow as they run directly toward you instead of, say, hiding behind one of the many pillars in the arena. Kathutet invokes this on the Player if he/she chooses to fight him for the Bands of the Chosen instead of doing his task. Player:"I'll take this key from your corpse." Kathutet:"Your mind follows the simple path ... the choice of an animal. You see an enemy and you attack it, unthinking. But you have courage, at least. To slay a bold animal like you is not without glory." Legacy Character: One of the characters you meet is a Redguard named Cyrus. Presumably, the Cyrus from the game Redguard has long passed on in the past just-over-400 years. Lethal Lava Land: Inside the Oblivion Gates. Level Editor: Dear god. With the Construction Set and a bit of imagination, the possibilities are endless. Level Scaling: Oblivion uses one of the most extreme examples of this where most encounters level with the player upto a certain (high) level. Light Is Not Good: Umaril and the Aurorans in Knights of the Nine. Also, Sheogorath's Golden Saints. Limited Wardrobe: Rich merchants and members of the nobility have a choice of about three distinct outfits, which somehow magically take a gender-appropriate form for the wearer. Loads and Loads of Loading: Some can experience issues with this, particularly on lower-end systems. Especially if one has a lot of mods in their game. Locked Door: Probably the most egregious example is with barrels. Just how do you lock a barrel? And even so, why can't you just take a mace to it? Locked Room Mystery: The quest A Brush With Death is one: the painter Rythe Lythandas entered his study, his wife, possessor of the only extra key, opening the door after he failed to emerge for several days to find him gone... despite the door remaining locked the whole time. As it turns out, he was still in the room. Lockpicking Minigame: You are shown the one to five pins inside the lock (depending on its complexity) and must use your lockpick to push each one up in succession, then try to set it with a button press before it falls down. The speed at which pins fall back varies, and if you're too slow, your pick breaks and some of the already set pins fall (how many depends on your Security skill). Alternatively, you can Auto Attempt to pick the lock, which either opens it or breaks the lockpick instantly, with the success chance determined by your Security skill. Lord British Postulate: Mehrunes Dagon is actually killable, he just has a ridiculous amount of health and regeneration. If you can figure out how to hit over 10000 (see GameBreaker.The Elder Scrolls), you can actually one-hit kill him. Alternatively, use Wabbajack, then wail on the poor Daedric Prince. Cue melting This example contains a YMMV entry. It should be moved to the YMMV tab.god. note Loony Laws: There are two acts punishable by death in The Shivering Isles; attacking its ruler, Sheogorath, and attempting to grow a beard. Low-Level Advantage: Many players despise the leveling system used for enemies, firstly since it prevents any real advancement and secondly because it can actually cause a character to become weaker as they level "up". At higher levels, the later effect can cause enemies to become overpowered. The same mechanic can be exploited to become a This example contains a YMMV entry. It should be moved to the YMMV tab.Game-Breaker note . Thankfully there is a difficulty slider if the game mechanic goes pathological. A popular mod, "Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul", replaces this system with objective levels for enemies and loot, making player leveling meaningful. Luck Stat: The Luck attribute. Magic Is Mental: The attributes that govern magic are "Intelligence" and "Willpower". MacGuffin: While there are certainly more, the Amulet of Kings is the most obvious one. Mad Oracle: Dagail. Mad Scientist: Relmyna Verenim is of the "monster expert" variety. Magical Society: The Mages Guild, of course. The Altmeri society in the Summerset Isles is also said to be this, because the Altmer have a strong association with magic. Magical Accessory: The Amulet of Kings. Magic Wand: Mage staffs. Magitek: The DLC player home Frostcrag Spire is a prime example of this. Also Xedilian, the order-obelisk powered adventure trapper dungeon in the Shivering Isles. Ayleid Ruins and Daedric Realms are rife with Magitek as well. The Magocracy: Pyandonea (never seen), the home of the mysterious Maormer (only appearance in The Elder Scrolls Online). Also, Summerset Isle. Malaproper: Lord Rugdumph. Malevolent Architecture: Most prevalent inside of Oblivion Gates, but can also be seen quite a lot inside of Ayleid ruins and forts around Tamriel. The Man Behind the Man: Mehrunes Dagon behind Mankar Camoran. Justified: the former is a god worshipped by the latter, who's trying to shape civilization to the tenets of his religion. Manipulative Bastard: Umbacano, Seridur and Mathieu Bellamont. Meaningful Echo: An oddly effective combination with Welcome to Corneria: " The Emperor is dead, and so are his heirs. We're a Legion without a leader. The Blades were entrusted with our Lord's protection... and they failed." It starts out as a pedestrian bit of atmospheric worldbuilding, but begins sounding more and more like a well-aimed personal accusation in two ways: gradually, and then suddenly. Medication Tampering: One of the Dark Brotherhood quests requires you to assassinate a sickly bandit leader that way. Milkman Conspiracy: All the beggars of Cyrodiil are in collusion with the Thieves Guild. Mirror Match: One of the bosses in Shivering Isles is a shadow clone of your character with all your attributes, skills, and spells. Mole in Charge: The vampire hunter organization The Order of the Virtuous Blood's own leader is a vampire using it to deflect suspicion off of himself. Money Spider: Sometimes generic enemies (rats, mudcrabs, imps, wolves) will be carrying a small amount of gold. Monster Closet: Happens in Ayleid Ruins, though this is at least handwaved by the fact that Ayleid ruins are notorious for being booby-trapped. Moral Guardians: There was a huge controversy shortly after the game was released when a nude mod was released that used textures present on the game's DVD. This prompted the ESRB to re-examine the game and re-rate it from T to M note Though the nude mod was not the reason for it; they apparently missed some of the prominently displayed burning hanging corpses and other images they deemed "disturbing." Remembering how Take-Two suffered from Hot Coffee, it's surprising they didn't take measures to prevent. note Mordor: The appropriately named Deadlands, Mehrunes Dagon's realm of Oblivion. Morally Ambiguous Doctorate: Relmyna Verenim. Morally Unpleasant Overlord - Mehrunes Dagon. Murder, Inc./Professional Killers: the Dark Brotherhood. My Grandma Can Do Better Than You: When you first join the arena, the Blademaster tells your character that his grandma could beat you. And she's dead. My Species Doth Protest Too Much: Count Janus Hassildor is pretty much the only vampire that doesn't want to kill you and drink your blood. Kathutet, who you meet in Mankar Camoran's Paradise, is the friendliest (well, the least aggressive) Dremora in the game. In reality, he's just as rude towards mortals as any other Daedra, but he sees the player as a Worthy Opponent for defeating his comrades in the siege of Kvatch, and even agrees to provide you with the means to move on through the related quest, should you agree to do a favor for him.note Of course, you can just kill him, and carry on like normal. Mythology Gag: Jiub, the Dunmer who wakes you up on the prison ship at the start of Morrowind and is promptly taken to parts unknown, has been made a saint... for This example contains a YMMV entry. It should be moved to the YMMV tab.wiping out cliff racers. His severed head can also be found in one of the ruined buildings of Kvatch, complete with eye scar, but nearly every player failed to notice who it was meant to be. It wasn't until the Skyrim expansions featured his spirit, mentioning that he was living in Kvatch at the time of the attack, that players noticed the head and realized who it was. Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Mehrunes Dagon, Malacath, Molag Bal... There is a side quest about investigating a gang of women who seduce and rob men. One of them is called Signy Home-Wrecker. The clue is in the name, chaps! Never My Fault: After the Fighters Guild guildmaster's son is murdered, she spends up until the very end of the questline putting the blame entirely on you and Oreyn. Once you complete the final quest, however, she realizes that she was wrong and has ceased to be a good leader, promptly retiring and handing you the reins. New Weapon Target Range: The Dark Brotherhood will set you optional objectives during your missions and award you magic items as a bonus if you complete all objectives successfully. One of these items is The Deceiver's Finery, a set of fancy clothes that boost your Personality trait and Speechcraft skill... and sure enough, the next mission they give you has you murdering people who are searching for treasure in a manor, and the optional objective involves using Speechcraft to convince them to split up so you can kill them without being discovered. Nice Job Breaking It, Hero!: During roughly the first half of the Fighter's Guild questline, you and another, high ranking guildmate help the Guildmaster's timid son grow in confidence to prepare him for when he inherits the guild. The good news is that it works, the bad news is that he becomes a little too confident, boldly charges into a cave full of trolls, and gets slaughtered when he gets mixed up in a fight between the trolls and a group Blackwood Company mercenaries under the effects of Hist. The Guildmaster is not pleased by this. An earlier quest has another cave full of trolls that will probably get him (and you) knocked out instantly. It's considered a better idea to go into the cave beforehand and kill them one by one first. In the "Where Spirits Have Lease" quest, you end up playing right into the monster of the sidequest's hands. Thankfully, you're able to correct your error immediately afterwards. Nice Guy: The Guards. Really, guards in Oblivion are a lovely bunch of polite, helpful guys. Just... Try not to break the law in their presence. Nobody Poops: And nobody washes themselves, either, judging by how there's not a single bathroom, outhouse or a bathtub in the entire game. No Ending: Aside from the fact you can continue playing after the game is over, the fact that the Uriel Septim line has ended, the game finishes with a major question unresolved. Who will be Emperor? No-Gear Level: Happens during Sanguine's shrine quest, where you cast a spell on the Countess of Leyawiin and her company that causes them all to be stripped naked. It also causes the player to lose their equipment and entire inventory, so you've got to face the guards unarmored and unarmed. No-Harm Requirement: The Thieves' Guild enforces a strict Thou Shalt Not Kill policy on its members; Killing anyone related to a mission for them will result in you being expelled from the guild and forced to pay a fine to one of their leaders if you want to be allowed to rejoin. Non-Lethal K.O.: NPC's that are flagged as essential will only be knocked unconscious if their health is reduced to zero, rather than killed, to prevent the player from making quests Unwinnable. Non-Mammal Mammaries: The lizard people, Argonians. The females of the three Daedric races (Dremora, Golden Saint, and Dark Seducer) and other lesser Daedra (Flame Atronachs, Spider Daedra) have breasts, despite the fact that Daedra cannot produce life. Noodle Implements: At his shrine, Sheogorath asks for an offering of a lesser soul gem, a head of lettuce and some yarn. Noodle Incident: We never find out what exactly happened to Archmage Traven to make him hate necromancy so much. It's also never revealed why the PC is in prison, with the Emperor pretty much saying "Who cares? A demon invasion is underway!" To correct for this, there's a mod where you start in the basic world, and the first crime you get arrested for in the Imperial City starts the main plot. Nothing Is Scarier: In-universe literary example: "Vralla, go give your parents a big hug." NPC Random Encounter Immunity: Averted. In the wilderness, foresters are threatened by the local wildlife, Imperial Legion soldiers face off against bandits, and townspeople visiting acquaintances in other cities sometimes meet fatal accidents. The Nudifier: There is a quest for the Daedric Prince Sanguine which requires the Player Character to cast the spell "Stark Reality" at a dinner party. The spell strips everyone in the vicinity (including the Player) to their undergarments. The Ring of Disrobing in Shivering Isles has a similar effect. O-Z Obviously Evil: Kalthar. Seriously, he has black, messy rat's nest hair, a near permanent scowl, thick eyebrows, and he's a colossal dick. Oh, and he's a Necromancer. Offscreen Moment of Awesome: It is implied that once you show them how to do it, the city guards from Bruma manage to close any Oblivion Gates that open around the city all on their own - to the point where they later have to be specifically instructed to cease doing it, so that Martin can carry out his plan on getting the Great Sigil Stone. Oh My Gods!: "By the Nines / Nine Divines!" This example contains a YMMV entry. It should be moved to the YMMV tab."By Azura! By Azura! By Azzzzura!! It's the Grand Champion!!" Older Is Better: Ancient Elven and Dwemer gear is better than most modern armors and weapons. Omnicidal Maniac: Mehrunes Dagon, the Daedra and the Mythic Dawn. Omnicidal Neutral: An option for the player. One-Time Dungeon: The Painted World area, a dream sequence that can't be returned to, and Mankar Camoran's Paradise. Also, closing an Oblivion gate destroys that instance, although it's possible (and indeed likely) to find an identical map behind another gate, but completing the main quest line permanently closes all the gates, cutting off access to Oblivion entirely. Only Mostly Dead: Umaril's main ability. You have to do this to yourself in order to kill him for good. Only the Worthy May Pass: At the end of the Mehrunes' Razor DLC. The Order: The Blades, the Dark Brotherhood, the Thieves' Guild, and the Knights of the Nine from the eponymous DLC. Order Reborn: The Knights of the Nine Order Versus Chaos: The theme of the Shivering Isles main quest. Organ Drops: Daedra hearts, imp galls, daedra venin. Our Vampires Are Different: Not drinking blood makes a vampire PC stronger, but with more weaknesses (you become more vampiric the longer it has been since you drank blood). Also, you get infected with the vampire virus if bitten by an NPC vampire, but for some reason NPCs don't get infected when you bite them. Cyrodiil vampires are different from Morrowind vampires, as they were from Daggerfall vampires. An in-game book confirms there are regional breeds of vampires. Vicente Valtieri has a severe allergy to garlic, but this trait is unique among vampires. Nonetheless, the "vampires are weakened by garlic" myth still exists in Cyrodiil. Our Zombies Are Different: You can collect their flesh. And you can This example contains a YMMV entry. It should be moved to the YMMV tab.''eat'' it. And brew it into a potion to drink. Persuasion Minigame: Each NPC has a Disposition score and will only help the PC if it is high enough. The Disposition can be raised with a minigame accessible from the dialogue screen, in which the PC must use four actions (Admire, Boast, Joke, and Coerce) in any order to gain a Disposition boost. Each NPC reacts differently to different actions (increasing or decreasing Disposition by different amounts), and the "weight" of each action shifts randomly every time one is used (higher weight increases the results, whether positive or negative). A high Speechcraft skill increases Disposition gains from liked actions and reduces losses from disliked ones. Petting Zoo People: The Khajiits and Argonians. Phlebotinum-Handling Requirements: The Divine Crusader equipment set in Knights of the Nine. To use it, you need to go on a long, annoying pilgrimage, and if your Infamy is raised to anything above 1 after you have obtained it, then you must go on said pilgrimage again. Point-and-Click Map: The world map's fast travel option allows you to skip to the end of the journey instead of hoofing it. Poor Communication Kills: The Heretics of Cann, a ruin in The Shivering Isles, kidnap people from the marshes and lock them in a dungeon, offering them fine foods, poetry-writing supplies and sensual comfort to prepare them for "The Elaborate Spectacle" (which is described as involving "loving embraces" and "public display of shared pleasure"). Unfortunately, their habit of simply assuming people would naturally think as they do instead of actually explaining their intentions led every single captive to believe that the Spectacle was actually an arena battle to the death. It never ended well. Pressure Plate: You see these a lot in forts and Ayleid ruins. Promotion, Not Punishment: The final Fighters' Guild quest has you working with a disgraced former guild-member and single-handedly bringing down the Blackwood Company by assaulting their headquarters. After you report your success to the Guildmaster, she tells you that for your reckless actions, you are to be stripped of your position as her second in command... because she will be stepping down and offering you her title Psycho Serum: Hist. The sap of the Hist Trees of the Black Marsh changes Argonians into stronger forms over time but when ingested by Non-Argonians strong hallucinogenic properties that sent them into dangerous bloodlust. The Hisy sap in game causes even Argonians to go into a frenzy but this can handwaved by the Blackwood Company messing with the sap. Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: Malacath. Is not. Popular. At parties! Randomly Generated Levels: Like Daggerfall, Bethesda built the non-quest non-Oblivion dungeons out of existing dungeons pieces and randomly spliced them into a "new" dungeon that gets used for every copy's instance of that dungeon. Unlike Daggerfall, you aren't busy getting lost, and the dungeon pieces are much more distinct looking, making it very noticeable (indeed, there were a few instance of "leftovers" from quests in some dungeons in early versions). Additionally all spawns and loot are randomly chosen from leveled lists. The terrain is also computer generated through simulated soil erosion. It sounds neat, but it is very noticeably featureless as a result. Rage Against the Heavens: This is what Umaril is supposedly intending to do in Knights of the Nine, although how exactly isn't clear. Ratstomp: Subverted. The first Fighter's Guild mission is entitled "A Rat Problem", but when you talk to the owner of the house you discover that the rats are her pets and that the "problem" is that they keep getting attacked by mountain lions. Rain of Something Unusual: In one quest, you help Sheogorath the Madgod with an elaborate prank by fulfilling stages of a prophecy, in order to convince some villagers that the world is about to end. At the end of the quest, Sheogorath summons a rain of burning dogs, the final sign that the prophecy is coming true. Rare Candy: Hermaeus Mora's ''Oghma Infinium'', and to a lesser extent Sigil Stones. Real Is Brown: Notably averted, but moreso if your system can run with HDR enabled. Red Oni, Blue Oni: Mania and Dementia in the Shivering Isles, though it's more like yellow and dark violet. Red Sky, Take Warning: When you get close to an Oblivion gate, the sky turns blood red and a thunderstorm rolls in. Provides the page image for this trope. Religion of Evil: The Dark Brotherhood and the Mythic Dawn Cult. Averted with the other Daedric cults. Sometimes. Retcon: In previous games and source material, Cyrodiil was described as a much more exotic and unique place than how it was potrayed in Oblivion, with a much more fancier and regal looking Imperial City with waterways much like Venice, singing priest clothed by moths; an esoteric, Chinese/Japanese-inspired culture in Nibenay regions; and it was overall a Fantasy Counterpart Culture for Roman Empire combined with East Asia. In Oblivion, this was mostly abandonded in favour of traditional Medieval European Fantasy with only dubiously Roman-like elements and the rest was vaguely handwaved as being outdated propaganda. This This example contains a YMMV entry. It should be moved to the YMMV tab.didn't sit well with some fans. Retirony: Grommok in the Shivering Isles quest "Baiting the Trap". Direct quote from his journal - "We're going to head north and explore the area around Niben Bay today. I hope that something else like this turns up on our adventures. Then I'm going to retire!". Depending on the players actions, he either dies or goes insane. Enforced in the Dark Brotherhood quest Permanent Retirement, which requires the player to kill a newly retired Imperial Legion commander who spent his life investigating and interfering with the Dark Brotherhood's 'operations'. Revenue-Enhancing Devices: The Horse Armor DLC. Long since made into a meme or a Running Gag, even by Bethesda itself — on April 1, 2009 the price of all Oblivion DLC was halved, except for the Horse Armor DLC, which had its price doubled. Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves: Pulled on Myvryna Arano by Hieronymus Lex in the early Thieves Guild questline; Lex had been using Myvryna to spy on the Guild, but it turns out the Grey Fox had cottoned on to her, so he creates a fake contract to have the player character steal a bust of the late Countess of Cheydinhal Lathasa Indarys from the Chapel Undercroft there. When Lex uses this as an excuse to order a crackdown on the Waterfront, the PC is directed by Methredhel to drop the bust in a cabinet in Myvryna's home and get Lex to check it out. When confronted by this evidence, Lex arrests her on the spot; if she did steal the bust, then she's been playing him, but if she's telling the truth (that the PC standing two feet away watching this is a member of the Thieves Guild and is setting her up), she's still of no use to him, because it means the Grey Fox knows about her. So either way, off to jail she goes. Rouge Angles of Satin: Anvil's resident Butt-Monkey, Norbert Lelles, is the proprietor of a shop whose sign is misspelled to read "Lelles' Quality Mercandise", which draws many amused comments from various NPCs. RPGs Equal Combat Ruins for Ruins' Sake: Outdoors, unless the woods are dense, you are rarely out of sight of one set of ruins or another. Rule 34: Notable in that there's a pack of mods that basically turn the whole game into an unapologetically adult game. Rules of the Game: In the Arena. Ruling Family Massacre: At the start of the game, the Mythic Dawn cult carries out coordinated assassinations of the entire Septim Emperor bloodline to clear the way for their Daedric master's invasion. However, The Emperor's last bastard son is saved just in the nick of time by the Player Character to lead Cyrodiil's defenders. Run, Don't Walk: Most players will find themselves doing this. Because for some reason, no matter how high leveled you are, the PC always walks extremely slowly. Even slower than NPC characters. Saving the World: From an army of apocalyptic demon monsters. You know, the usual. Scary Impractical Armor: Daedric armour. Scenery Porn: Lots and lots of it. Especially in Shivering Isles, whose titular region looks a lot like the more "unusual" areas of Morrowind, but some players even complained about seeing grass and forests everywhere. And it's too bad you can only visit Paradise once... Sealed Evil in a Can: Mehrunes Dagon. Secret Police: The Blades. Secret Test: In the end of the Dark Brotherhood quest the Night Mother reveals she knew Mathieu Bellamont was the traitor before he even knew. Instead of telling the Listener to watch out for him she decided to see if her followers were smart enough to figure it out themselves. Turns out they weren't. Secret Test of Character: During the Knights of the Nine quest chain, you have to talk to the Prophet. He fills you in on some evil that's plaguing the lands, and then talks about recovering some relics. He asks if you're worthy enough to find them, but if you say anything other than "no/not ready", he mocks you and says that you don't need his help in finding them since you're already such an awesome hero. However, if you say you're not ready, he tells you that a humble heart is the first step and allows you to continue the quest chain. Seeking Sanctuary: Each city has a church where you can go and pray and be healed of any afflictions you've picked up. Some also have beds to rest in. Sequence Breaking: A high level in acrobatics can allow you to do this in optional dungeons. Most dungeons have a Door to Before near their entrance, that's usually found in a higher place, unreachable through normal means. A high Acrobatics skill allows you to jump to these doors, essentially skipping the entire dungeon and allowing you to quickly obtain the best loot found in the dungeon. Servile Snarker: Haskill. He never shows much emotion in contrast to his lordship and when he does, it usually very dry wit. The Siege: Mehrunes Dagon's final assault on the Imperial City in the endgame. Sequel Hook: "When the next Elder Scroll is written, you will be its scribe." Set a Mook to Kill a Mook: You can use magic to summon monsters that would normally try to kill you on sight when encountered, who will fight other monsters for you, even of their own kind. There's also the Frenzy spell. Shaped Like Itself: You're in Rindir's Staffs. And I'm Rindir. I sell magical staffs. Imagine that. Shipper on Deck: Casta Scribonia from Chorrol ships the proprieter of the Gray Mare and the captain of the guard. Shoplift and Die: Oh yes. Though not as badly done as in Morrowind; normal NPCs don't immediately go apeshit, swarm attack you and try to kill you on sight if caught stealing. They do, however, start screaming like morons and any nearby guards will come running. And then if you refuse to pay gold or go to jail, they'll kill you. Each NPC in the game has an assigned "responsibility" value, which determines how strictly they follow the law and also how they will report violations of the law. While Imperial Waterfront inhabitants might steal food and cheer on a fight rather than report it to guards, shopkeepers will call for the guards if you so much as touch something without paying for it. Shout-Out: Explaining the literally split personalities in Split, a townsman says, "A Wizard Did It." The luck spell "The Dark One's own luck," is a reference to The Wheel of Time. There is a Dark Brotherhood quest in which you have to join a party with a group of strangers but only to kill all the others off without exposing your real identity, called "Whodunit?" One of the many quests involving the retrieval of an artifact from a ruin is called "Nothing You Can Possess." You might be able to guess how things play out. The quest called "A Shadow Over Hackdirt", which involves you going into a rundown and very much xenophobic village with suspicious residents who worship something called "The Deep Ones" and turns out to make human sacrifices. Heck, you even find a This example contains a TRIVIA entry. It should be moved to the TRIVIA tab.Cthulhu Bible. To enter the Shivering Isles, you have to enter the mouth of madness. One of the first Fighter's Guild missions you can get is a shout out, and Lampshade Hanging to the first Fighter's Guild mission you can get in Balmora, in Morrowind. In Morrowind, you're contracted to kill the rats in a woman's basement. In Oblivion, you're contracted to defend them. In Shivering Isles, you can find a chest labeled "The Dark Chest of Wonders," and it contains the Ring of the Oceanborn. Umbra is a black, soul-eating sword whose owner despises herself. Sound familiar? When a gang of thieves take over "The Bloated Float" inn-boat while you're aboard, you have to fight and/or talk your way past all of them. One of the dialogue options is to claim that you're the ship's cook. One wardrobe item that can be found or purchased is a pair of blue suede shoes. In one quest, you have to try and catch a man who's supplying items to merchants by stealing said items from the dead. As part of your proof, you find a book that lists the recently deceased and any items of value they own. One of the names in the list is Oford Gabings - an anagram of Frodo Baggins - and the items listed are ones that he carried in Lord of the Rings: "Travel Cloak with Silver and Green Leaf Fastener", "Enchanted Shortsword with Inlaid Writing", "Leather Bound Travel Journal", and "Gold Ring with Inscription (Cursed?)" During one of the Dark Brotherhood quests, the player must venture to a lighthouse with a basement. There player finds a decapitated head in a state of decay sitting on a plate called "Mother's Head", which is a reference to Friday the 13th Part 2. The Staff of Everscamp quest, "Whom Gods Annoy", is a Literary Allusion Title to the Star Trek: The Original Series episode "Whom Gods Destroy". In Shivering Isles, upon meeting Sheogorath for the first time, during one of the possible discussions, he makes it clear that "You wouldn't like me when I'm bored." Two of the Thieves Guild members are named Jair and Corvus. Side Quest: As per Elder Scrolls tradition, there's a hell of a lot of them. In fact, they make up the bulk of the gaming experience. Single-Use Shield: The Boots of Springheel Jak will prevent you from dying at the end one very, very long fall but are destroyed upon landing. Various exploits exist to survive said fall and still keep the Boots. Skybox: Utilized exceptionally well. And the number of mods out there to enhance Oblivion's skies even further is mind blowing. Smashing Hallway Traps of Doom: Lots of these, mostly in various Ayleid Ruins such as Nenyond Twyll. In the Mages Guild mission "Liberation or Apprehension?", Fithragaer, the NPC you're (meant to be) escorting charges straight into one and dies instantly. If he doesn't he'll just stand there, just in front of the trap as being trapped in the ruins broke his tiny Bosmer brain. When the quest is done, he'll walk slowly to the exit and will most likely die for real this time. Sniping Mission: The Dark Brotherhood quest where you are ordered to kill Adamus Phillida with a special arrow. Though even if you're standing really far away and are well hidden from view, somehow the guards will always detect you...note The Thieves Guild has a quest in which you must stand on a switch in order to open a keyhole on the other end of the room, then fire the key (which has been made into an arrowhead) into the keyhole without stepping off the switch. Sociopathic Hero: Relmyna Verenim. So much. Spell Crafting: The game grants the ability to create custom spells to players who progress to a certain point in the Mages' Guild quest line or purchase the Wizard's Tower Downloadable Content. The player chooses a spell's range (self, touch, or ranged), area of effect (single-target or Splash Damage), duration, and effects, and the game automatically assigns a Magicka cost depending on how powerful the spell is, theoretically maintaining game balance. In practice, it is hilariously easy to design This example contains a YMMV entry. It should be moved to the YMMV tab.game-breakingly powerful spells by combining synergistic effects such as Weakness to Fire + Fire Damage, or assigning a one-second duration to spells that increase the Persuasion skill (which only works in dialogue, which pauses the game clock). The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall and The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind had similar features. Spell Levels: The game had all spells divided into five difficulty levels (Novice, Apprentice, Journeyman, Expert, and Master), and you could only learn higher-level spells after raising your skill in the corresponding magical school to a certain level. Spoiler Title: Several sidequests, including but not limited to the following: One sidequest has Reynald Jemane asking you to find out why someone has been impersonating him. This quest might have been interesting if it hadn't been named "Separated at Birth". Archmage Traven sends you to retrieve a book from Count Janus Hassildor... but he has an ulterior motive. Which probably won't come as a major twist, considering that the quest is named "Ulterior Motives". Super Not-Drowning Skills: Argonians can breathe underwater. PC's can breathe under water using spells or rings. Stealth Pun: In The Shivering Isles, the first place the player visits on the Isles is called the Fringe, populated by the kind of crazy people you'll expect to meet, making it the "lunatic Fringe". Sticks to the Back: Averted completely with bladed weapons (daggers, shortswords, and longswords), although instead it becomes "sticks to the side", since the scabbard sticks to the character's hip with nothing visibly holding it in place. The same goes with maces and axes. Played completely straight, however, with two handed weapons, bows, and arrow quivers. There is an explanation for the way a one handed weapon seems to "hover" over a character's hip: armors in Oblivion are thick and padded, and most of them also have belts that are supposedly there for the sword's scabbard/blunt weapon's handle to hang on to. A character wearing nothing but mere clothing (which isn't as thick as, say, a suit of leather armor) will have his weapon "hovering" over their hip, because if they were sticking to it, they would clip through thicker armors. Stripperiffic: The Huntsman Leather shirt and pants. When equipped to females, becomes nothing but a furry bra and tight revealing pants. Stuck Items: The game won't allow you to drop quest essential items. This is to prevent you from making a quest Unwinnable by losing quest-essential items. Also, said items are weightless. Unfortunately many items will not properly have the "undroppable" tag removed long after they are no longer needed and at least once (Molag Bal's quest) an item that needs to be dropped to complete a quest may get flaged as undroppable. Most of these are unfixed as of the last official patch, requiring fan-made patches to fix. Stuff Blowing Up: Delphine Jend of the Bravil Mages Guild prides herself on the creation of the "Enemies Explode" spell, and just loves destruction magic in general. "I love my work. Fire, frost, shock, poison... Little presents for Kynareth's cute little woodland creatures." Stupid Statement Dance Mix: Here's a Glarthir one. There's one with the Imperial Guards. Stylish Protection Gear: Glass armor and weapons. As well as the amber ones from The Shivering Isles. Now you too can mix glowing yellow and lime green. Sundial Waypoint: One of the clues is only seen when the sun shines from a certain angle (at a certain time of day) on a gravestone. Suspicious Spending: Ulrich Leland lines his pockets with the extortionate fines he imposes on the citizens of Cheydinhal, raising suspicions among his men, who question how a captain's salary can pay for some of the things in his quarters. Sympathetic Inspector Antagonist: Hieronymus Lex - one of the Imperial City's Watch Captains - is the Sympathetic Inspector Antagonist to the Gray Fox, leader of the Thieves' Guild in Cyrodiil. In fact, he is one of the only members of the Imperial Watch who even believes the Thieves' Guild exists, and has dedicated himself to becoming a perpetual, overzealous thorn in its side. He mellows considerably after you inform him that he's been reassigned to the city of Anvil... although not without a brief rant about how the Gray Fox must have been behind that, too. He's right. Although for fun, once you get the Gray Fox cowl, you can put it on in front of him and have him sputter in disbelief at finally catching him. So many layers of irony were in that 'reassignment'. On one hand, Lex is now unwittingly working for the Gray Fox. On the other hand, it was the Gray Fox who, after so many years of cat-n-mouse evasion between them, hand-picked him to be his head of security. This actually reveals a huge respect for the man. Taken for Granite: Martin's ultimate fate. Take That!: The character M'aiq the Liar is a walking (well, running) take that and Lampshade Hanging of various subjects: the previous game (largely things that didn't make it into this one), This example contains a YMMV entry. It should be moved to the YMMV tab.new additions and mechanics that some fans disapproved of, memes and Fable. Take Your Time: With two exceptions, the Daedric invasion of Bruma a

Nightmare Fuel / The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Awesome Characters Fridge Funny Headscratchers Heartwarming Laconic NightmareFuel Quotes TearJerker Trivia VideoGame WMG YMMV Create New https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/es4si_gatekeeper.jpg Beware the Gatekeeper Advertisement: Mundus' equivalent of hell is called the "Deadlands" and is one of the planes of Oblivion. It's filled with demonic-looking beings, lava pits and a red sky that is deeply unsettling. The resident zombies and corpses are always intensely disturbing. And that's where you have to go to fight off an invading army. Mehrunes Dagon is (one of) the world's Daedric princes and the leader of said invading army. The Oblivion Crisis is only the last time he tried to conquer Mundus, making it even worse before then, knowing an invasion could happen at any time... what's that? Elder Scrolls Online is a prequel? The vampire dreams are creepy, and a big reason why you rarely see sleeping vampires... let's see, a normal looking woman with a child turns out to be a corpse mother and a plague bloated child, or your flesh bubbling and falling from you... or... eating at a normal banquet that turns out to be filled with larvae, which eat through your stomach; necromancers dissecting your body with scalpels, being buried alive, death by sneezing, and having your mouth sewn shut as you try to drink from a pool of blood... creepy. Thanks to engine limitations however, this is just text. Imagine if Bethesda actually decided to show the imagery being described... The penultimate quest for the Dark Brotherhood, "Following a Lead," is by all means disturbing: Advertisement: You are told to hunt down a traitor to the Brotherhood. First of all, you'll find that the traitor, in what seems to be a homage to Friday the 13th Part 2, keeps the severed head of his mother in his basement. Once he's found, you're told to return to the quest-giver, Lucien Lachance. However, by the time you return to him, your bosses (including the traitor) have killed him, skinned him, and hung him from the ceiling. Granted, you've seen rotting corpses in the game plenty of times. What makes this so unsettling is that you actually knew the deceased. This is made even worse by the fact that this was done by your allies. Who go on to talk about how fun it was. The actual basement. Everything from the lighthouse keeper's reaction when you get the key to the moment you decide to leave that pit of Hell is horrifying. Part of it's the rotting, mutilated corpses (animal and human) littering the basement. There is not a square yard of space that doesn't have something grisly in it. But mostly, it's the diary you find by the desiccated and mummified head... Advertisement: In-Universe Nightmare Fuel in the form of Vaermina's Daedric quest. A wizard has turned his fortress into a literal nightmare world, filled with upside-down rooms, dark abysses, and lots and lots of detour horror rooms, particularly one that has you standing on a pillar in the middle of a vast black space filled with caged corpses and horrible screams. Trying to leave the dungeon via the wrong exit shows it situated in the middle of what looks like Hell. After trekking through this waking nightmare, you finally come to Arkved (the wizard) lying asleep on his bed near the artifact he stole from Vaermina. There are notes scattered about that imply he was at first eager and excited to explore her realm, but the last one merely reads 'I shall lie here in the dark waiting for death.' Vaermina says when you return to her shrine that Arkved 'will live out the rest of his days in nightmare,' even if you killed him. This essentially means you've killed Arkved's physical body, but Vaermina still has his soul. If you played Oblivion on the PC and were deeply disappointed by the version of Mannimarco you meet there, a mod called "Mannimarco Revisited" is for you. With it, ol' King of Worms is back to being a scary bastard, instead of a whiny-voiced necromancer. From the same mod, Ghostly Apparitions are light blue translucent wraiths. They have no real attacks, but what they do have is enough to give any player the creeps: they rush at you making a horrible ear-piercing shriek, until they run into your character, paralyzing them and leaving them open for attacks from other enemies. The message you get when this happens, "Ghostly Apparition paralyzes you in fear!" is probably true for the player as well as the character. Also from MMM is the undead resurrection effect, which is to say the possibility of just about any undead monster to rise from the dead after being apparently killed without warning, and for apparently inert corpses and skeletons to come to life and attack. Good luck going through an undead dungeon without looking behind you every few seconds. On the east coast of Niben Bay, there's a location called the Cadlew Chapel which looks like any normal chapel out of town. The chapel has been raided by four necromancers. There's recently chopped off body parts on the altar of the chapel along with a recently dead adventurer on a bloody table. What tops that though is the decaying corpse (presumably the chapel's priest) hanging from the ceiling, over the altar. Another one from Thieves' Guild is a quest, Arrow of Extrication, where you must go to Bravil Wizard's Grotto. At the bottom of the underwater cavern, if you swim all the way down through the hole at the bottom, you'll come across a Giant Slaughterfish. It comes out of nowhere, scaring the living shit out of you. There is a quest that requires you to go on a haunted ship to release a spirit. The ship isn't so scary as it is only filled with ghosts but when you reach the end of the ship, you face a wraith as a boss which keeps wailing creepily. Since the wraith was now dead, you think nothing else scary would pop up but after you release the spirit in the back room, when it vanishes, it does a noise resembling a sudden, loud, ghastly scream. Not to mention the quest where you have to enter Tiber Septim's tomb. It had TONS of these wraiths, and a possible glitch can cause them to not fall down dead, but just float in place as if they were alive, still screaming forever. (Happy backtracking!) Anything and everything behind the Oblivion Gates. Particular mention goes to the "containers" used in place of standard treasure chests: mutilated torsos that, when you check them for items, make the same sound as when you remove meat from a roasted rat. They're labeled in-game as "The Punished." You may find the corpse of a fellow who, by the evidence, was captured and stripped by the Daedra, escaped, and finally met his end crawling over the plains. His hand is hacked off. That house opposite of the player's Skingrad mansion. Yeah, you're going around at night, breaking into some houses, stealing this and that? Well, you might want to skip said house, because it's full of ghosts and zombies. Who the hell would expect that?! It's in the middle of a freaking town! Also, if you're high enough level there will be a ****ing Ancient Lich in there! But the creepiest thing of all is that the fate of the person who originally lived there is never explained. All we know is his house is full of zombies and he's nowhere to be found. Sheogorath's transformation into Jyggalag. After saving the lives of either the Golden Saints or the Dark Seducers, you return to Sheogorath's palace triumphant and ready for more orders. But something is wrong. The normally jovial Sheogorath is suddenly downtrodden and solemn. When you talk to him, he has a chilling monologue about the concept of time, and reveals that he will transform any moment. Despite your pleas, he remains convinced that all is lost, and pleads with you to flee back to Cyrodiil. Just then, he doubles over and starts screeching in one of the shrillest, most terrifying voices ever, and begins bellowing in a deep, demonic voice that Jyggalag has returned. He then catches fire and starts growing taller and taller, finally disappearing in a burst of hellfire. Even Haskill is freaked out by it. In the Shivering Isles expansion, north of New Sheoth, there's a zealot stronghold on a tall hill; inside, you go about your business mutilating them all as usual, then you find a book, detailing that people (it never clarified if they were innocent travelers or other zealots) are thrown into a very deep pit in the center of the ruins to be sacrificed to what you can only imagine to be some kind of Eldritch horror. Thankfully (or perhaps not), the only thing down there are a few bollywogs, so either they're the things they worship, or the Eldritch Abomination is out elsewhere. Since Sheogorath's main trait is to mess with people's heads and he loves paranoia, either could be equally true. The Oblivion Thieves' Guild quest "Ahdarji's Heirloom" has your character infiltrating Castle Leyawiin to steal the Countess' ring. During the information gathering stage of this quest, it's possible to have other characters tell you about the Countess' "secret torture chamber." Turns out? Those rumors are all true. As you make your way through the dungeon, you encounter this room,◊ which is strewn with forks, sickles, and a warhammer. But it gets worse: this isn't some Necromancer lair in the middle of nowhere; this is the Countess of Leyawiin doing this in her own castle! And even worse, it's implied that the only reason this room exists is because she doesn't like Argonians. Even worse is the fact that she has an accomplice. The captain of the guard has a key to this exact room. Her husband treats you pretty well regardless of your race, meaning that he doesn't have anything to do with it and all of this is being done right under his nose by the very people he should trust most! Think of what might happen if he found out... If you become a vampire and you're playing a Khajiit or Argonian... there were no vampire eye textures created for the beast races, so you get the default vamp eyes. One of the creepiest things found in the game is the sight of those pale-pink human eyes in an animal face. It's remarkably unsettling. The Daedric quests in Oblivion in general. Vaermina is probably the scariest, but a good few of them have you doing fairly horrible things. Completing all of them results in, among other things: The Khajiit settlement of Border Watch in a panic that the world is going to end because Sheogorath (or YOU) thought it'd be a fun prank. A group of priests of Arkay murdered in the darkness by the group of people they were trying to save because Namira took it as an insult. A Dark Elf couple enslaved by Ogres because Malacath was feeling protective. Said couple having been slavers themselves, the slaves having been these very same ogres. One of the families in Bleaker's Way completely wiped out for some inexplicable reason known only to Mephala. The only unicorn in Cyrodiil murdered because Hircine thought it would be good sport. A paladin grieving for his dead wife corrupted because Molag Bal was disgusted by his virtuousness. Someone from every race in Tamriel murdered because Hermaeus Mora needed their souls to divine... something. Soul Gems. Binding a being's soul to a gem and then using that gem to drain their spiritual energy to make an enchanted item. The concept of having your soul ripped from your body and transferred to a gem, then to a weapon where your existence presumably dissolves as you power the item with your existence is bad enough. But then imagine those who don't suffer this fate and are trapped in a soul gem forever. Oblivion also introduces us to Black Soul Gems, which exist specifically to trap human souls (which is otherwise impossible). They wish it was just And I Must Scream. As the next game shows, it's somehow even worse. Mankar Camoran's "Paradise". While the dimension is actually beautiful (qualifying as Visual Effects of Awesome), the island is crawling with roaming Daedra which will randomly attack you and the Ascended Immortals, for whom this is apparently Training from Hell. If you think that's bad enough, there are "The Punished" chests absolutely everywhere - THEN you see the torture chamber, where prisoners and people repenting their actions end up being made immortal, chopped into giblets, and then dropped into lava- you can hear the nonstop screaming and at one point it almost happens to you! As if Hackdirt wasn't unsettling enough as it was, try going to sleep in the inn or going underneath the town. The Ayleid ruin of Culotte was rather eerie. You walk in to hunt for the Ayleid statue and there's no enemies at all. You find the statue and turn around to see the whole place is now covered with zombies. Cue running to the exit. Also a serious case of Mood Whiplash should the player be fluent in French: nowadays, "culotte" generally means "panty". During the Thieves Guild quest "The Ultimate Heist" the player is attacked by Ayleid statues which come to life. This can be pretty startling, especially since the guardians blend into their surroundings pretty well and seem to come from out of nowhere. A combination of nightmare fuel and squick: One of Mannimarco's followers claims to want to keep your body mostly in tact so that "Mannimarco can suck the marrow from your bones". During the Mages Guild questline, a necromancer threatens to "make your corpse dance and rip itself apart". Not a pretty mental image.

Fridge / The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Awesome Characters Fridge Funny Headscratchers Heartwarming Laconic NightmareFuel Quotes TearJerker Trivia VideoGame WMG YMMV Create New Fridge Brilliance Umaril the Unfeathered has spiky-looking things coming out of his shoulders, which are almost certainly unfeathered wings. But the name itself is reminiscent of The Unfettered, and it does make a certain sort of sense, considering the sort of things he's guilty of by the end of the questline. The idea of male and females having varied stats is for many blatant sexism, but note that the Imperials, apparently a more civilised people have less disparity between the two. Likely, the stats reflect how the people are raised. Men raised to be stronger, etc. It also may have to do with the fact men and women are in fact biologically different. Exactly, there ARE real-life differences between men and women that would reflect in the attributes of a character. For instance, it is an established fact that as a whole, men are stronger than women (+10 to strength). Women at the same time, typically have an easier time compared to men at carrying a light load for a long time, and have a higher pain tolerance (+10 to Endurance). This would reflect biology in real life and your base stats from your choice of race and gender in Oblivion. How you're raised and how you grow would be the same as how you level up and what your class is in Oblivion, and just like Oblivion, you can have a person who has a biological tendency away from one "attribute" and still be above and beyond many people who have a biological tendency toward that attribute. For example, if you looked for it, you could find a woman who is much stronger than a man and you can find a high elf who has a higher strength stat than a nord; it's just not as common. The logo of the game becomes especially appropriate if you know the Daedric alphabet. At first, you might assume that it's supposed to be a stylised Oblivion Gate, but that particular symbol happens to be the Daedric rune corresponding to the Latin letter O. Now, name a word that starts with O. Advertisement: Some editions of the box actually have the same cover as the Mysterium Xarxes, the book that the Religion of Evil uses to open a portal to "Paradise". The Artificial Atmospheric Actions and inherent Weirdness Censor in Shivering Isles actually looks a lot more... justified given that everyone in there is insane. At first it feels like PC's actions were... underappreciated. After all, the PC is The Hero, so where's the glory? Well, the PC is not The Hero, he/she is The Lancer to Martin. Which is actually refreshing, considering how we play prophecised heroes before and after. If you take the emperor's line "But in your face, I behold the sun's companion" and switch "sun" for "son," then you could take it that he is referencing Martin and how are he is the hero of the story in-universe and you just support him. But even if you are just Martin's companion in the main quest, you do plenty of things outside of that that should garner more respect. There are other signs that point toward Martin's hero status; it is his hometown (Kvatch) that is destroyed, he is the receiver of The Call (which knows where he lives), he is the one thing that can light the dragon fires and prevent the apocalypse, and ultimately, he performs a Heroic Sacrifice, sealing his status as a Messianic Archetype. Advertisement: Incidentally, the Emperor prophetically referring to Martin as 'the Sun' becomes a lot more fitting after Skyrim reveals that Martin was technically a Dragonborn, and thus an aspect of Akatosh, who is also known as Auri-El, the Sun-God. Sheogorath, the Lord of Madness, has his realm destroyed at the end of every era. Then he rebuilds it, again and again, hoping for a different result. This might be familiar to some as the definition of insanity as apocryphally attributed to Einstein. Also counts foreshadowing moment if you finish the Shivering Isles before the main game itself since the era ends when Martin dies. Quill-Weave writing her book on there being no magic in the doomstones (when really it's hinted that only certain people like the Champion can use them) perfectly explains what would otherwise be a lot of Fridge Logic - why everyone with common sense wouldn't be camped around the doomstones and picking up free bound armour. How come merchants in this game is more tolerant to Skooma sellers than in the previous game where only the Khajit will deal with you. Let's see... Imperial City have at least one Bosmer Merchant who was already doing shady business dealings. No doubt he would buy it off you to get an edge on your competitors. And the other is a pawnbroker. Advertisement: Chorrol's general merchant's an Argonian. Cheydinhal's general merchant is part of a street gang, no doubt she would be glad to buy Skooma from you to supply the gang. Bravil's general merchant already has a Skooma dealer Anvil's general merchant works at the docks, no doubt there is a market for dork workers looking for certain goods. Bruma's general merchants are lower class and a minority amongst the Nord population, no doubt they would buy Skooma to get used to living here. Skingrad's general merchant is an upper class citizen with a well regarded reputation, with his kind of money. Buying Skooma is pretty much a way to express class. Leyawiin is Khajit central, plenty of moon sugar to go around. During the Knights of the Nine quests, despite all of the Knights always speaking reverently of Pelinal Whitestrake as some kind of 'Knight in Shining Armor', a few in-game sources (as well as more included in Skyrim) reveal that Pelinal was actually a Batshit Crazy Maniac. Seems rather fitting that his reincarnation (you) would go on to become the Daedric god of Madness. Mankar Camoran, The Dragon to Mehrunes Dagon, is voiced by Terence Stamp. Lynda Carter voices the female Nords/Orcs in the game, and this includes your own character, if you choose to be a female of either race. In other words, this game makes it possible to have Wonder Woman fight General Zod. For bonus points, make your character a female Nord with light skin, long black hair, blue eyes, and give her Golden Saint armor. Haskill is completely normal and deadpan compared to the rest of the residents of Shivering Isles yet he is second in command to The Mad God, something no sane person would ever do which in a way, proves his insanity. Oblivion has a very small voice cast and at least a thousand characters to voice. The voice actors also tend to use the same voice type for all their characters with no variation. At first it may seem lazy, but it actually allows the generic dialogue to circulate better, and thus create a wide variety of things a character could say at any time. Compare this to later Bethesda games like The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and Fallout 4, which have a larger voice cast that actually put some effort into making their voices distinct per character, but the dialogue tends to get repetitive very quickly. One detail about Mankar Camoran's paradise that is very easy to miss is the fact that the sun never changes from being in the state of sunrise. Now remind yourself what the followers of Mehrunes Dagon call themselves. Fridge Horror In The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, when you first join the Dark Brotherhood, you can talk to your new "family members" to get tips for your first contract. One of them, a large, friendly Orc named Gogron, will happily recount the time he "had a contract to kill a little Nord girl at her birthday party." He ends the story with a wistful chuckle and a comment that "she won't be seeing age six." Now, that's pretty horrifying on its own. The Fridge Horror kicks in when you realize he said he had a contract to kill her. Meaning someone had to deliberately arrange for the murder of a five year old girl. Even more horrifying. The person who arranged the contract was probably the relative of a child that girl didn't invite over to the party. (Like the child came home crying because she wasn't invited to the party, relative (who probably wasn't all that sane to begin with) got pissed and arranged to have that girl killed as payback.) A step further: to put a contract on somebody, you have to assemble a complete human skeleton and perform a dark ritual. Generally, this is achieved by robbing graves. What makes more sense is that the contractor wanted the girl dead because of inheritance or ascendancy issues. It's easier to believe that an older step-sibling or bastard didn't want to lose their right to their parents' estate when they died. Granted, any reason to want a five-year-old girl dead is horrifying enough, but I doubt it had to do with another little kid having tears over not being invited to a party. Then again, people have gotten killed over much less. The Dark Brotherhood get even worse if you're familiar with Elder Scrolls backstory. It's bad enough that they willingly commit murder to appease a God of Evil...except Sithis isn't even a God of Evil. Sithis actually refers to the void - they're talking about killing people in the name of a non-sentient absence of being. If they weren't past the Moral Event Horizon already, they certainly are now. If you think The Dark Brotherhood is the most horrifying faction in Oblivion you should perhaps take a closer look at the Imperial City Arena. Consider this: every arena match is to the death, and barring special circumstance the people you fight are the same rank as you, meaning they have killed the same number of people. 22 victories is needed to become grand champion, so the bodycount goes: 22 exponentiated by 2 equals 484. That's right, nearly five hundred corpses paves the path of a Grand Champion. Why anyone would even consider signing up for this glorified slaughter is a mystery, the pay is insultingly small. Small math fix (which makes it even more unsettling): the bodycount is not 22^2, it's 2^22 (each additional level doubles the number of competitors). Thus, for one to rise to the title of a Grand Champion, over 4 million people must die. Not that it matters at those numbers, but add at least five more bodies to the Champion's tally alone. Just off the top of my head, I remember three matches where they sent more than one person against the PC (the three argonian POW's, the two elf-sisters and the penultimate battle against the Yellow Team Champion and two supports). Ouch. Dips straight into Fridge Logic territory when you consider how many deaths a year's worth of matches would imply. The logical answer would be that, like the historical Roman Gladiator Games, fights aren't supposed to always end in fatalities. Of course, gameplay offers no good way to subdue an enemy non-lethally or force them to yield, hence all fights are to the death. Also in Oblivion, joining the Mage Guild requires you to visit all seven branches of the guild across Cyrodiil and earn a recommendation from each local guildmaster, usually by performing some minor service. However, in Cheyindal, things get a little weird: first, the PC overheards snippets of conversation mentioning how odd the water tastes; then, Guildmaster Falcar gives you the job of retrieving a magic ring from the bottom of the nearby well; then, you're told by one of the other local mages that Vidkun,the last prospective guild-member who was given this job, has mysteriously vanished. Finally, you enter the well yourself, and find Vidkun's drowned corpse sunken deep in the reservoir; apparently, the ring is enchanted to weigh down the wearer to the point of immobility. Fridge Horror A: the whole mission was an attempt to murder you and Make It Look Like an Accident. Fridge Horror B: the locals have been drinking water laced with Vidkun's decaying flesh. Numerous upper-class houses in the game have mounted minotaur heads on the walls - in fact, in one of the Dark Brotherhood quests, you have to rig one to drop on its owner as he sits under it. However, the upgraded version of the minotaur enemy is called "Minotaur Lord", implying that minotaurs have some form of organisation. So, "respectable" people in Cyrodiil display the heads of sentient beings on their walls? Which ignores the sheer number of non-sentient animals that get some form of rank address, like the Ogre "Caveboss" or "Chieftan;" there's no reason that alone indicates they're sentient. And even if they are, sentient/=/ non-hostile. The Orcs spent the first game of the franchise being unreasoning barbarians fit only for slaughter until Gortwog started to lead them out of the wilderness. From the behavior of all Minotaurs in game, there's no reason to believe they've *ever* tried to avoid attacking the sentients on sight and often without provocation, ergo making it unavoidable. And once you've killed the-by all accounts rampaging and wild- beast, why not mount it? You can tell Falanu Hlaalu what the fine for necrophilia is in Cyrodiil, which implies you know what it is. You also start the game in prison... Of course you know what the fine for necrophilia is. You were in prison, you'd pick up on what the fines are for the crimes they put people in for after a while. It's very doubtful that necrophilia is such a common occurence in Cyrodiil that the PC would see someone brought in for it after a day or so in jail. Especially as Cyrodiil as a whole doesn't have even a quarter the population a modern city does. Cyrodiil's population in-game is not the population of Cyrodiil lore-wise. It's representative, like the size of the map — and if there's any prison where you would have a fair chance of seeing someone brought in for necrophilia it'd be the main prison of the largest city on the continent. Every game in the TES series is essentially about an inbound cataclysm that's averted by a champion with the help of the gods. These same gods are setting things in motion by allowing a prisoner to escape and eventually become a hero by saving the world. Let's think about this for a moment though : where does the Prisoner come from ? In every single game, no one really knows what the Prisoner is doing here, why they came to be in the first place, and why exactly they are getting released. In morrowind you just wake up on a boat and Jiub just assumes you were there for a while, in Oblivion you appear in a cell that the guards were very clearly ordered to keep empty, and in Skyrim you are caught crossing the border for no reason. In every case, you are not even considered a bad person : you have no criminal record and people won't hold a grudge against you whatsoever. So chances are the Prisoner is either created entirely by the gods and dropped off where they need a pawn to be... or you are just a poor person who had nothing to do with what's going on and who got possessed by the gods and blacked out for several days or even weeks until you are right where the Nine wanted you to be. It gets even creepier when you realize that the gods will allow anything to happen as long as it forwards their plan : in Oblivion, your final goal is to essentially allow Akatosh to come back and defeat Mehrunes Dagon. In order to accomplish this, the gods allowed the Daedra to destroy the entire city of Kvatch, just so the player-character can find Martin Septim. Speaking of which, the poor guy gets obliterated into non-existence so akatosh can come back and beat Mehrunes Dagon, effectively fixing the issue of Oblivion gates opening everywhere... and allowing the Aldmeri Dominion to walk in and almost destroy the Empire not that long after. That's a lot of sacrifice and side-effects just to beat a single Daedric Prince, the gods aren't really that good at what they do. Every single game isn't true. Arena establishes why you are in prison (Jagar Tharn arranged it, because you were a courtier in the Imperial court on the trail of him having usurped the Emperor) and how you got out (the small anti-Tharn conspiracy arranged it to give you the chance to stop him), Daggerfall doesn't have you in prison in the first place (you were sent by the Emperor because you'd gained his trust, and then got shipwrecked), and while Morrowind doesn't say how or why you got imprisoned in the first place, it does in fact spell out (if you know where to look for it) where you were before the boat (in the Imperial City's prison, after which you were sent first by carriage then by boat towards Vvardenfell. It's right there in the intro!), and why you are being released (Emperor's orders. He pays attention to prophecies, and you bear the mark of potentially being able to fulfil the Nerevarine prophecy). Morrowind also does heavily imply the involvement of a god in the arrangement of the events of the game... specifically, Azura, one of the Daedric Princes. Fridge Logic How are Argonians driven crazy by Hist Sap in the Fighter's Guild questline? According to the lore, they're immune. Supposedly the tree the sap was taken from was "sick", and by extension the sap itself was plain bad. It might also explain the names of the two Argonians that tend to the tree; Sings-Like-Thunder and Hears-Voices-In-The-Air. One NPC expresses his surprise at the end of the related quest if the PC is an Argonian that was driven mad by the Hist sap, which he or she will be. You'd make a fitting champion for Sheogorath, then. If necromancy is legal in Cyrodiil, only banned by the Mages' Guild, aren't many of the anti-necromancer quests basically murder? The enemy necromancers you see, the guys with the red skull-and-crossbones on their robes who are referred to simply as "Necromancer" when you select them, are the Order of the Black Worm, Mannimarco's followers. Presumably there are good-natured law-abiding necromancers elsewhere in Cyrodiil, you just don't deal with them in any quests. Falanu Hlaalu is heavily implied to be one. Falanu is not implied to be a necromancer, she's implied to be a necrophiliac. What I always wanted to know is why you can openly buy necromantic spells from guild mages. Because they aren't necromancy. As with most of the other conjuration spells, you're summoning the undead creatures from somewhere else, possibly from another dimension, but you aren't reanimating them. Necromancy isn't illegal anymore than owning a sword is illegal. But twatting innocents on the road with a sword and taking their money is kind of illegal, and so is killing people and raising their corpses as minions. A necromancer who murders people is still a murderer. How are ships supposed to sail up the Niben to Bravil/Imperial City? Leyawiin blocks the opening into the sea. When it's high tide? That'd have to be a really high tide. New-Atlantis style. Space compression. Oblivion has 16 square miles instead of 75,000. That river would be much wider otherwise. Did the Blades really plan to escape the assassination plot on the Emperor by escorting him through the city, across the Imperial City Isle, into the prison's cells, and through a maze of goblin-infested tunnels to a sewer exit that opens marginally closer to the edge of the island than the prison itself? Sounds to me like Refuge in Audacity, and moving openly through the city would open the Emperor up to being bow-sniped from a rooftop somewhere. In the tunnels, they only got to him because they went all crazy with a Zerg Rush. Also they may have been planning to either hide out down there until the assasins had been flushed out and eliminated, or else there was another route not open to you that went much further away from the city, remember the exit you actually take was a secret passage the guards weren't aware of. The Emperor has lost his three legitimate sons. Terrible, but according to the lore, his three sons were in their 50s, and all were unmarried and childless. Why in the world wouldn't they have gotten married and had kids by then? Possibly their children/spouses got murdered as well? I appreciate this is stretching it a bit. The Mythic Dawn would likely have been setting this one up for a while now. You don't just casually stroll into the Palace and kick the Emperor's face in. Stealing an Elder Scroll, that's another story. We're never told the circumstances of the assassinations, either-it's plausible that the Emperor's sons were all out for various reasons-celebrations, business, what have you-and were easy pickings. The Emperor, however, would have been in the Palace, which is how the Blades got to him first. Notice how in the opening, the female Blade Captain mentions a messenger. Coulda been a guy with 100 Athletics running clear across town screaming "THE EMPEROR'S HEIRS ARE UNDER ATTACK!" Also, considering the time delay I just introduced, it's likely that the messenger got their first because the Mythic Dawn were...staying behind to finish the job. The Imperial Simulacrum and associated fallout, of course. Remember, for at least a decade all three sons were held prisoner by Jagar Tharn's forces (who was actually working with Mehrunes Dagon, who apparently keeps his options open when it comes to destroying the Empire). I'd venture it took maybe a few more years to find out and free the heirs from Tharn's loyal forces. And even then for the rest of their lives Enman, Ebel and Geldall were dogged by rumors of not actually being the real deals, of being doppelgangers placed there by Tharn. And them being Princes of the Empire, they couldn't exactly marry anyone, the marriage had to be of royal stock (and more specifically, the Elder Council being what it was, human royal stock). And how many rulers would be willing to marry their daughters to not only an evil psycho, but an evil psycho who wasn't even a legitimate member of the Imperial family? I mean, yes, 'marry this brutally insane freak who happens to be the Emperor's son for the good of our family' is one thing in a feudal society, but if you can't guarantee he isn't the real deal and there's a significant chance a bloodthirsty mob will break down the door and murder everyone? Just too risky. Being born under the sign of the Apprentice adds 100 magicka points in exchange for 100% weakness to magic. You can practice spellcasting very quickly by casting cheap on-self spells, there is no faster way to do it. This means that people born under the Apprentice are the best at practicing spellcasting - the sign of the Atronarch adds 150 but makes you unable to regenerate magicka making practicing by casting spells endlessly unfeasible

Awesome / The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Awesome Characters Fridge Funny Headscratchers Heartwarming Laconic NightmareFuel Quotes TearJerker Trivia VideoGame WMG YMMV Create New The entire battle for Kvatch is one of these in spades, especially the first time you step through an Oblivion Gate. Not many games have you storming the gates of Hell and kicking demon ass at Level One. Ilend Vonius, one of the surviving guards, survived inside Oblivion by fighting off Daedra for who knows how long while the rest of his comrades were killed on the bridge to the tower. He was kicking Daedra ass for hours before you showed up. He also made it out of the city with the rest of the surviving guards, which is no small feat, either. Once you kill Mankor Camoran, his 'Paradise' starts falling to pieces and you're teleported back to Cloud Ruler Temple, the Amulet of Kings in your hand. As the portal dissolves, Jauffre says 'Blades! Pay homage to Martin's champion!' And every single one of them will bow before you. Advertisement: Stealing an Elder Scroll from the heavily guarded Imperial Palace. Martin becoming the Avatar of Akatosh, banishing Mehrunes Dagon into Oblivion, and sealing it off forever. Once he reaches the Temple of the One in the Imperial City, he shatters the Amulet of Kings, transforms into a giant flaming dragon, and sends Mehrunes Dagon back to Oblivion before turning into a statute. Oblivion 's Expansion Pack has a moment that mirrors Morrowind 's Tribunal Expansion Pack, when the player kills Jyggalag, a god even stronger than Amalexia. Of course, Jyggalag being Sheogorath, this also counts as a Tear Jerker to some. Completing Shivering Isles' Main Quest and becoming the new Sheogorath. The scope of the Shivering Isles' awesome crowning requires an elaboration. Advertisement: "This individual is not to be trifled with." The game is full of people falling all over themselves to compliment you, but there's no compliment like one passed privately between foes. Here's one for one of the Dark Brotherhood Quests fittingly called "Whodunnit?". Ever remember reading or hearing stories about people being trapped in a place with a killer hiding amongst them and killing them one by one? Given this is a Dark Brotherhood Mission, it stands to reason that you, the player, will be playing the murderer and you receive the bonus if you aren't found out. Not to mention the multiple ways you can manipulate people to be alone where you can pick them off or even turn them against each other is very delicious to play with. Let's not forget about Knights of The Nine main quest. When a powerful ayleid champion is going to resurrect from the depths of Oblivion to reinstall his tyrany over Tamriel in order to defeat him you have to get an armor set that's been constructed by the Eight divines themselves! Then when you have already defeated him, Talos bestows you with the power to literally erase his soul for good.

Funny / The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Awesome Characters Fridge Funny Headscratchers Heartwarming Laconic NightmareFuel Quotes TearJerker Trivia VideoGame WMG YMMV Create New Sometimes a character's audio will glitch, leading to you hearing the voice actor say "Wait, lemme try that again" and then repeat the line. Yes, really. Sheogorath's quest where flaming dogs fall from the sky. It's even funnier if you do it during the later half of the Shivering Isles story; Sheogorath or Haskill will lampshade how you're screwing around like this when Jyygalag and his army are on your doorstep in the Isles. On the other hand if you do it after the Shivering Isles story, Haskill will make weary comments about how you're basically just worshiping yourself like a jackass. Advertisement: During the Thieves' Guild quest "Misdirection", all the guards will run around the Waterfront, asking about the Gray Fox. Sometimes they'll even interrogate each other... and if you're standing nearby, they will look at you and simultaneously ask you the same question. Even better when they have the same voice. "Rat Ragout with Powdered Deer Penis!" In Sanguine's shrine quest, he tells you to cast a spell called "Stark Reality" on the Countess of Leyawiin and her company at her dinner party. The spell strips anyone in its range of all of their equipment, but he neglects to mention that the spell also affects the caster (you are completely stripped of all your items when you use it). Using it is also considered assault because it has a "Drain Health 1" effect, so the guards will immediately try to arrest you. So if you don't want to go to prison, (since the spell also removes all your gold so you can't pay the fine,) you're forced to run out of the city butt naked with a bunch of angry guards chasing after you. The random conversation system in Oblivion can result in a lot of hilarity when certain lines are combined. Citizen 1: "Do you think what happened to Kvatch would happen here?" Citizen 2: "Without a question."note Advertisement: Or: Mage: "Noble scholar, may I have a moment of your time? It's rather urgent." Scholar: "Good day." Here's a particularly entertaining conversation. Something which must be experienced is when two characters say the exact same thing, at the exact same time, in two different voices. Sheogorath, at one point during the Shivering Isles expansion, says, "I'm so happy I could just tear out your intestines and strangle you with them!" And later - "Then out come the intestines. And I skip rope with them!" Sheogorath's response if you choose to replace Syl: Sheogorath: A dangerous choice. I like it! "You have pleased the Mad God! I, for one, would still like to eat your eyes!" Let's not beat around the bush here, Sheogorath averages a brilliant and usually hilarious line every two minutes or so. At least until his final conversation... During a certain Mages' Guild quest (Liberation or Apprehension), you meet a Wood Elf named Fithragaer inside an Ayleid ruin (Nenyond Twyll). After a little chat, he eagerly runs deeper into the ruins to beat up some necromancers... and gets caught in a ceiling spike trap. To top that, there's a glitch that'll cause the spike trap to keep activating as long as Fithragaer's corpse is on it, meaning that the trap will continuously pummel him into the ceiling! In Skingrad, ask Falanu Hlaalu about the city. She'll ask you if you know what the fine for necrophilia is, and she'll be very happy if you give her the answer. Champion: Is it the first offense? Falanu: Let's assume... no. Champion: Then it's at least 500 gold. Falanu: That's nothing compared to Morrowind, thanks! The fact that your PC even knows what the fine is raises questions as to why he/she was in jail in the first place... Advertisement: Ask Owyn about rumors. "I heard a rumor that you're an idiot. There any truth to that?" Aldos Othran's Cliff Racer song. The Adoring Fan. Dive Rock. That is all. If Game Mods count, there's one mod that overhauls the way beggars work (so they can pickpocket you if you stand to close to them, you can contract diseases from them, et cetera) in addition to adding several new ones around the game. One of them, in Skingrad, is a skooma addict and has his own lines. The only thing he'll ever say, no matter what you ask him, is "SKOOMA!". One of your dialogue options? "Aagh, get away from me, you freak!". To which he replies "SKOOMA!" There's a woman in the Shivering Isles who's addicted to skooma, which she asks you for every time you talk to her. If you give her some, she shouts "Skooma! SKOOMA!" However, if you don't give her any, she'll be greatly upset and tell you she "hopes you trip and fall on a sword!" ...And then give the player a casual "farewell." In the Shivering Isles expansion, you can encounter Hirrus Clutumnus, who tells you that he wants to end his life. However, he can't actually kill himself, otherwise his spirit will end up trapped on the Hill of Suicides, so naturally he asks you to do it. Fortunately, he happens to visit a balcony without railings, and you have the dialogue option of pushing him off. The best part is the total non-reaction of the Dark Seducer who sees the whole thing happen. Apparently, this sort of thing happens all the time... One cavern unrelated to any quests features a dead goblin and a large beer keg. The goblin is lying on its back with its face under the spigot. One quest is given to you by a drunk who believes that there's someone in Cheydinhal that looks like him. He tells you, dead serious: Reynald Jemane: You're going to travel to Cheydinhal, and find out what sort of imposter is trying to besmirch my good name. And you're going to tell him... *hic*... You're going to tell him I am quite capable of besmirching my good name on my own. He should cease and desist immediately. Guards apparently have the memory span of a goldfish. The top comments read: "He didn't forget, it's just a very poor cover-up!" "The video is a metaphor for government." The Summon Haskill power from Shivering Isles. Haskill is Sheogorath's chamberlain and literally the Only Sane Man in the entire realm. If you haven't played the game, imagine you have the power to summon a stereotypical dry-witted British butler at will to give you helpful but snarky advice on your quests. There's a dungeon in the Shivering Isles specifically designed to lure in adventurers and screw with them. The one that takes the cake is an illusion that makes an orc see his corpse laying on the floor and see himself as a ghost. He has a debate with himself about how he can't possibly be dead because he wasn't in a fight yet there's his body and its so unfair. Imperial Legion Foresters are programmed to hunt deer. Deer are programmed to be friendly to foresters, so if the forester sees anyone else attack a deer, they'll start fighting the person. Sometimes, the foresters' patrol areas overlap, and you may come upon a scene like this... Even better, if you're playing as a lawful character, when the forester manages to kill the other forester, he can turn to you and say "It's nice to see a friendly face in these dark times." You finally get the chance to make the arrogant Yellow Team Champion in the Arena eat her words late in the questline. However, it's a three-against-one match. The Arena Blademaster decides to even the odds a little in your favor, though, by sending a boar named Porkchop up to have your back! It's even more hilarious if the Yellow Team Champion dies because the pig kills her. During one quest for the Fighter's Guild, you meet Lord Rugdumph gro-Shurgak, an Orsimer nobleman whose daughter has been kidnapped by ogres. Rugdumph tries to sound educated using big, complex words. He needs some practice (or a dictionary). I am Lord Rugdumph gro-Shurgak. How may I persist you? Horrible creatures! Replete with horror and evil. They roam freely eastward of the estate. I look forward to you exterminizing them. Anon us most soon again, for sooth. When you ask Modryn to be second-in-command, he says "I was just getting used to being retired. You can see how good my painting is getting." In the back of his house you can see an example of one of his paintings◊. In the Shivering Isles, if you kill people in the main city, they get their own unique grave in the graveyard. Almost all of said graves have hilariously snarky comments. The Argonian of Ni! Glitches in video games have jumped the shark. To kick off the Knights of the Nine questline after finding the Anvil Chapel massacred, you have to get help from the Mad Prophet outside to figure out where the first piece of the Crusader Armor is. However, the conversation forces you to invoke Humble Hero. Responding to his question of if you are a worthy knight with "Yes, I am a worthy knight/Fighters Guildmaster/Archmage/Hero of Kvatch/etc." causes him to remark that you must not need his help then, you have to tell him that you have no claim to fame. Or you can tell him that you're the Gray Fox or the Listener of the Dark Brotherhood, to which he will respond with bemusement, and then help you anyway. Guard programming allows them to pursue you through multiple areas if they catch you committing a crime, just like a real one would. That's all well and good, but due to the way it's implemented, you can sometimes end up being pursued relentlessly by a hyper-determined guard, who will literally follow you across the entire game map in a desperate chase to bring you to justice, no matter how minor your crime is. Further, this can lead to them finally catching up to you at the worst/best times imaginable; Merhunes Dagon may be demolishing the capital city, but the guard is going to take that flower stealing mother****er down! Also, remember how most guards seem to be pissing themselves in fear whenever they talk about those dreaded Oblivion Gates ? Which can be seen as the reason why nobody else in Cyrodiil can be bothered to help you close them ? Well, looks like stealing an apple is all it takes for those same guards to find the motivation to chase you through one of said Gates. Now that's dedication ! The suicidal troll Easter Egg, in a Black Comedy way. Basically a troll gets suicidal because how bad he is at making people pay a toll to cross the bridge he lives under, so he, in his own words, "get drunk and kill self". Even more darkly hilarious, judging by the state of his body when you find him, he apparently somehow killed himself by jumping off a bridge that's barely two or three feet above the water. A quest in the Shivering Isles involves an orc who's afraid of cats and is tormented by how some creepy Khajit is following him around despite the dogs he got to scare the guy off. He asks you to get rid of him and when confront the Khajit you learn he's following the orc because he likes dogs and wants to pet the orc's puppies. And than afterwards the orc rewards you by giving you one of his dogs. Specifically, his dead one, revived as a skinless Animal Abomination through necromancy. One sneaky leveling trick is to find the Shrine of Peryite but not do his quest. When you find it, his followers are all standing around frozen in place, their souls having been trapped in Oblivion. However, they are still counted as active NPCs, but don't take health damage. This makes them perfect training dummies that you can shoot full of arrows, set on fire and hack at with a sword all day long until you've maxed out your skills.