Oblivion Adventures; Episode 1

    I have the Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion on the computer, so fittingly it is pretty well modded. I don't have any entire game overhauls, but enough that the game doesn't really play the same as it did on Xbox. I played through and beat the game a few times on the console version around the time it came out. So now, in anticipation for Skyrim to come, I'm spinning up a new game. I'm almost entirely unsure of what mods I actually have, so playing it through is surprising. Here is the beginning of my journey.

    One of the mods I was aware of altered the intro to the game, and replaced the dungeon crawl with a boat entry into Tamriel. I was greeted with the ugly stock human face of the vanilla game that would soon be my character. I got a mod that adds new races to the game, looking to spice up the whole roleplaying aspect from the all-too-familiar vanilla experience. I cycled through the new races, taking note of the oh-so-slight differences between the male and female renditions of the characters. It turns out the lips are the same succulent soup coolers on both models. And the hair looked like it came straight from a Norwegian black metal band. Not at all what I was familiar with. I was reading the descriptions included with each race until I got to "Night Elves" with purple eyes and it said something about Azeroth. This made me question the originality of the author and I abandon reading them. Now I planned on my character being a vampire because I got a mod that overhauls and optimizes the vanilla vampirism system. I eventually decided on the race of Void Walker, a pale being with a scarred face and earrings. The hair didn't shed much light onto the state of my character's alleged sexuality but it wasn't entirely bad. After a few clicks of the random button I was able to get semi masculine looking features. Next was the hair. All were either long or girly fashion. I picked what I thought to be a good median between the two. Lastly was the name. I dubbed him Zalgo, as this creature has plain bright white eyes.

    I was then relinquished from the creation screen and was in a windowless room on what I presumed to be the intro boat. When trying to exit through the door, I was told I should probably rest first. But before resting, I spun all the way around and took two steps forward in my cell of a room and found a desk with pots and bowls and Immigration papers. I opened the papers and was able to change my race again(god no) choose my birth sign, Class, and prior history. I picked the mage or similar for birth sign, and the predefined class of battle mage. My prior history revolved around me being of nobility and immigrating to Tamriel in order to explore and adventure new lands. I had the choice to start off inflicted with the vampire disease whose Latin name escapes me. I then chose to arrive in the Imperial City, to reflect some withstanding of the vanilla game. On completion I drifted into the bed beside me and "woke up" in the harbor district of the Imperial City.

   The harbor was just as I remembered it. The Nirnroot at the end of the dock, the posters for the grey fox. Everything. I picked up my things from the bag beside my feet. I had no armor but instead posh clothing and jewelry and a sword for nobility purposes I guessed. The main item of import was not the Amulet of Kings, which wasn't in the bag, but instead a whopping 4500 gold right off the bat. That made me pretty happy. Immediately I went to the left side of the dock when facing away from the city. I remembered the rag-tag group that loitered around their boat down that way and was thirsting for blood. I jumped like a leopard with wings onto their boat and combat was initiated upon the intrusion. After several parries, I cut them down and looted their corpses without a single glance from any of the locals walking by.
 
    Next up I read my available quests and was interested in the mainline. Or what resembled the main line. It said i had dreamed of Uriel Septim and thought I might find some sort of amulet in a rat in the sewers. I had to run around the perimeter of the city because I didn't know I could only fast travel at night now. I stopped at the Chestnut Stables outside the gates of the city and inquired the female orc owner about horse armor. After some obscure dialog choices I was able to get a free albeit slow horse with armor out of the lady. Woohoo free horse. I rode this the short distance to the sewers and entered them. I slaughtered a rat and looted the Amulet of Kings from its small intestine. Woohoo, the fate of Tamriel is now in my hands! I knew from the dream that I had to take the amulet to Geoffry or whoever so I did so and got the quest to go into Kvatch.

   Nearby the residence of the Geoffry, there was another quest concerning a castle of some sort. The description basically said if I kill the marauders, the castle will be mine. I rode my trusty old nag north a bit and encountered several marauders. I ended their lives with a mixture of magic and a broadsword to their respective faces. I entered the gates and found the previous lord dead on the ground. I felt no pity, because now his clothes, armor, weapons, and deed to the castle were now mine. I took them and pranced like a gazelle on steriods to examine my spoils. The entire estate was empty, or rather not filled with anything useful or valuable. I learned that now the keep was mine, I had to furnish it on my own funds. So alas the spoils were more of a burden. But I did however get an awesome suit of armor from the previous lord. I looted the rest of the dead guards and bid my remaining though near-dead guards good morrow as I pranced down the hill towards my horse.

   By the time I had finished fiddling around in the castle, the sun had fallen below the horizon. I could fast travel now! So I read through some more of my quests and found another about a hostile takeover of some more property. It had to do with pirates or something so I fast traveled over to Anvil and started splashing around in the waters surrounding the castle looking for the cave entrance so I could claim my second abode. I found a door with some rare flowers outside at the base of the south-eastern cliff of the castle, semi submerged in water. I went in there and learned that the castle actually has a secret escape route through that door from the kings chambers. I followed the other path and sure enough came upon an ex pirate ship now torn asunder in a large cavern. There were skeletons walking around aimlessly here, and they were entitled (not exactly) crew members of the ship. I parried, slashed, cast, and ran around in circles until their health points were at zero. A pity I only found bonemeal on them. Anyway I proceeded into what used to be the ship's captain's quarters to find a rather tough skeleton that was not very easy to confront in the small room. I exited that room and ran around in circles hacking and slashing until he was a heap of bones. I then went back into the room and read the journals of the once human skeleton captain. I don't quite remember his name, but I learned that he was a great pirate and was thwarted by mages and trapped down there forever and eventually became a skeleton. My quest updated, stating I could now use these caves as a base of operations, but would again have to purchase with my own gold furnishings and things. God dammit!

    While in anvil I decided I needed a new horse and bought one of the white mares there with the 4000 of the gold I came with and was left with 1000. I had gotten 500 from just randomly jumping around and picking up gold I suppose.
   And that leads me up to where I am currently.

Holy crap that is a mega post and really no one is going to read it. But alas, I was bored. Expect more periodic episodes, probably not in as much detail as this. But if you actually read it I'm sure it was pretty fun. I did have fun writing it.

You know what to do below the post. Thanks if you actually made it this far.