History Headscratchers / TheElderscrollsIVOblivion

** It's not that destroying a random city in Cyrodiil is going to bring about the downfall of the Empire, it's that allowing the Mythic Dawn to kill Martin would. It could be that Martin reasons if a combined alliance of every city-state, plus his champion (who may or may not be a god/reincarnated legend/head of an NGO superpower/etc) can't stop the enemy here, then they're handily doomed regardless.

* The PC starts out in the imperial prison, presumably locked up for a crime(anything from murder to picking up some random object- Cyrodill's justice system is pretty strict) and almost promptly escapes when the emperor opens the hidden passage. How come no one is looking for this escaped prisoner? Given that every crime you commit, even with no witnesses, is immediately reported to every guard in the game, it seems funny that your prior crime and subsequent escape are practically written off by the legal system. Obviously if you ''save the world from being destroyed by Oblivion'' they would pardon you, but even if you completely ignore the main quest and just do you're own thing they never try to send you back to prison. Were you assumed dead? Did Baurus tell everyone the emperor chose you for a task? Or are crimes automatically pardoned through an "escape prison" loophole?
** Uriel could have been right about the gods placing you in that cell(it was supposed to stay empty, after all). Alternatively, the presumed dead thing is viable. Baurus might have reported you as dead or the cell as empty or had records falsified to cover your mission. Then again, a Dark Brotherhood mission states the prison escape is known and hints that Vincente the questgiver knows you're the escaped prisoner.
** It might have been something really minor - heck, you could have been put in for sleeping in the streets of the imperial city, yet fate put you in there. Or maybe [[Literature/PercyJacksonAndTheOlympians Azura put you there and wiped everyone's memories about you]].
** Given the characters' dialogue, this seems the most likely. You never commited a crime; the Divines placed you in that cell so you can meet the Emperor and do your duty of saving the world.
** There's an in-game book in Skyrim about the Oblivion Crisis that states that Uriel pardoned the player character for their crimes. While we know that didn't explicitly happen, it could be that by allowing the Prisoner to follow him and his guard, Uriel was implicitly pardoning them for whatever they did, so Baurus relayed that to the authorities when he reported in. Or it could be conjecture on the part of whoever wrote the book in universe.


* I somehow racked up 3 murders during the Shivering Isles main quest series (I think fighting any of the Apostles counts as murder if you're wearing their robes) and got a visit from Lucien. I didn't want to do the DB quests (my character resurrected the Knights Of The Nine and defeated Umaril, rose to the rank of Fighter's Guild master, and became Sheogorath in a heroic victory, so was more or less noble) but since it can't be turned down, I cheated by attacking him. I was in the Fighter's Guild main hall in Chorrol so 3 FG members ended up wiping the floor with him. Now then, here's what I don't get- the DB supposedly sees you when you first commit murder but if you choose to end the DB quest by killing Lucien, then they... do nothing. Don't they notice you offing one of their higher-ranking men if they can see any murder? I would've thought they'd retaliate but in the game, killing Lucien ends the DB quest and no more is heard. Attacking him isn't even considered assault by the game's crime system. It just seems odd the DB literally doesn't care if you kill one of their speakers when he offers you a place in their group.
** It's possible that getting murdered by potential recruits is simply considered an occupational hazard for Speakers. They're sent after sociopaths all the time, it's probable they're attacked as often as not.
** Alternatively, Lucien was the one watching you in the first place. So when you kill him, the Dark Brotherhood is not observing you, and you get away scot-free.
** Even if the Dark Brotherhood was aware of you, do you really think they're going to keep messing with someone who was so insulted by an invitation to join them that they slaughtered a Speaker, one of their most elite members, in response? If I was on the Black Hand at that point, I would have told everyone else in the Brotherhood to stay away from that person so we wouldn't lose any more perfectly good assassins!


* When you do the "Breaking the Siege of Kvatch", it's either made clear or implied that the Kvatch guards you see are the only ones remaining after the initial attack. So...where does Mattius manage to get two extra guards to send to Bruma later in the game when you're gathering up troops for its defense? They don't look like the civilians in the camp or the ones you rescued from the chapel. Where did these two extra guards come from?
** Perhaps he recruited them. Personally, Oblivion being Oblivion, I wouldn't look too much into why people look, well, different.
** He may also have found survivors holed up in a burned out house or something. We only see a small bit of Kvatch, so it's possible that a few other guards got away, hunkered down somewhere, and held the line until aid arrived.

--> Martin: ...Unlike Daedric lords, the gods don't manifest themselves into our world. How then, to obtain the blood of the gods? But Jauffre solved it. [[spoiler: The blood of Tiber Septim himself, who became one of the Divines.]] This is a secret passed down only by the blades from one Grandmaster to the next.
:My issue is the last line. According to lore, the first emperor ascended and became the god [[spoiler: Talos]]. Now, Martin is a priest. He obviously worshipped the Nine. So how could he not have figured it out for himself? It would take only two minutes at best: "Hey, we need the blood of the Divines. Now, out of all the gods, which one used to be a living person? Ah! Of course! [[spoiler: Tiber]]! I wonder if his armor is still around, and if there's some of his blood left on it?" I swear, I think Martin was being unusually stupid there... Don't tell me 'Martin may well have done that' because Martin's dialogue implies he knew next to nothing about [[spoiler: Tiber becoming Talos]].
** The ''intended'' implication was probably that the secret passed down was that Tiber Septim's armor is still around, and they know exactly where it is, so Jauffre's solution is providing the second part of your proposed reasoning - Martin doesn't have ''that'' much of a reason to think Tiber's armor is still around and still has his blood on it. The dialogue doesn't really make that clear, though, so...
*** (OP here) Ah, so basically the implication is that Martin did ask himself "Which god was once a human being?", then went to Jaufre and asked, "Hey, um, is there any relics of Tiber Septim lying around per chance, still?"
*** That's the idea. Mind, the game doesn't give one much to work with, but at least it is a better implication than 'Martin is either unusually stupid at the time or doesn't even have a basic knowledge of the faith he is a priest of'.


* How the hell does the Mages' Guild get away with using the protagonist as a mercenary to hunt down all the necromancers? Their rules forbid necromancy, yes, but they explicitly mention that Imperial Law doesn't. It's like if the Fighter's Guild made a law against using poisoned arrows, and so they sent you to kill all the people who use them in spite of its legality.
** They don't. You join the Mages' Guild, so you aren't a mercenary, and the Mages' Guild ''doesn't'' send you to hunt down all the necromancers. They send you to attack the Order of the Black Worm, who (beyond the Guild's banning of necromancy by Guild members, which, while misguided, was within the rights of the Council of Mages) had struck first and are led by a known criminal.
** Actually, they probably '''can''' explicitly authorize the killing of Necromancers. In a feudal/Imperial context "Guild" translates "Organization Granted the exclusive right to regulate an activity"; Typically a Royally sanctioned Monopoly. It may very well be that the Mages Guild is ''entirely'' within its rights to have not only Necromancers, but ''any'' unaffiliated Mage executed. However unlike say, the Telvanni or the College, Necromancers are one of the few groups sufficiently despised by so much of the magical community that they can sanction in this fashion and have a reasonable expectation that it will actually happen. It may well be the ''political'' backlash of executing hedge mages and healers that are not guild members that prevents it.
*** Consistent dialogue in ''Morrowind'', backed up what little ''Oblivion'' indicates, suggests the Mages Guild does ''not'' have exclusive right to regulate individual magery. They do, however, have the authority (unless overriden by a treaty like the Armistice) to enforce Imperial laws regarding magic and maintain monopolies and licensing rights on some activities related to magic, like organised teaching, as well as enforcing Mages Guild rules for Mages Guild members. So the Guild can't go after all necromancers... but they ''can'' go after anyone teaching necromancy.
** Most of the quests have you going after people in caves and dungeons. So presumably the Imperial Province is okay with you going after these people who most likely are immoral anyway. If the Guild started killing citizens then they might object.


* During the main Quest, Martin [[spoiler: tells you that the last item he needs is a Great Sigil Stone, which would anchor a Great Gate. In his words, "The kind of gate the Mythic Dawn opened at Kvatch". Except you CLOSED the gate at Kvatch, and presumably took THAT great sigil stone with you.]] Assuming you hadn't used, sold, or misplaced it, is the PC simply too dense to say, "Actually, we have one of those - it's right here in my back pocket"?
** The [[spoiler: Kvatch gate you closed WASN'T a Great Gate. The survivors at the Kvatch camp will mention that a much larger gate was opened first (the Great Gate mentioned by Martin), but later closed by the daedra themselves. The one you close when you arrive was opened later (probably to block access to the city) and is simply a normal Oblivion gate]]. You can even see the remnants of the actual [[spoiler: Kvatch Great Gate]] if you look closely enough near the city's entrance, and they are very similar to the remains left after you close the one at [[spoiler: Bruma]].


* So during Martin's speech just before the [[spoiler: Battle for Bruma]], he helpfully says, "The Empire will stand or fall by what we do here today." How would the entire Empire fall if [[spoiler: Bruma]] fell? Last I checked, the Septim Empire is pretty big, so one more smoking ruin of a city isn't exactly going to kill the Empire. Was this his way of saying, "Look, if I die we're all basically screwed"?
** Basically, yes. Martin is literally the only person who can relight the Dragonfires and stop the invasion permanently, but to get the Amulet of Kings to allow him to do so requires that you let the Great Gate open (to get the Great Sigil Stone). The Mythic Dawn/daedra picked Bruma to attack because it's closest to where Martin is, same as Kvatch. It's not that destroying a random city in Cyrodiil is going to bring about the downfall of the Empire, it's that allowing the Mythic Dawn to kill Martin would.
** Also, maybe he just said it for dramatic purposes.
** It could be that Martin sees that, if a combined alliance of every city-state, plus his champion (who may or may not be a God/reincarnated legend/head of an NGO superpower/etc) can't stop the enemy there, then they're handily doomed regardless.

* At the end of the Thieve's Guild questline, Countess Carona of Anvil yells out to [[spoiler: The Grey Fox, who is actually her husband]] that: ‘I'll deny it to the Emperor if I have to!’ [[spoiler: with regards to the Grey Fox's true identity.]] Um...she ''is'' aware the Emperor's dead, right?
** Force of habit. The Emperor wasn't dead for too long, and usually people will continue referring to folk they knew as if they were still alive for a while after their passing.
** Plus, consider even atheists will say things like "Oh my god!" in RealLife. Mentioning things by the Emperor might just be an idiomatic thing.

* Why is Umaril the Unfeathered called that? Was it supposed to be "Unfettered" and someone made a mistake? What do feathers have to do with anything?

* This is kinda gross, but why can't female characters smuggle in more than one lockpick when they go to jail (you can probably figure out why)?

* The quest, The Elven Maiden, doesn't make sense. How did the Thieves Guild find out that [[spoiler:Myvryna was the infiltrator?]] And since [[spoiler:Myvryna already knew you were the one hired to do the theft, why aren't the guards trying to arrest you instead of Armand Christophe?]] And why is it that when you tell Lex [[spoiler:the bust is in her cupboard, he doesn't suspect the least that you were the one who planted it there? If someone told me, "Hey, I found the missing bust in someone's cupboard," I would've been like, "How do you know that? For all I know, you were the one who planted it."]] For a Guard Captain obsessed with catching the Thieves Guildmaster, Lex doesn't appear to be very bright.

* Why do Peryite and Boethiah's planes of Oblivion look identical to Mehrunes Dagon's? Also, why, being the Daedric Prince and serving as the embodiment of his own plane, can't Peryite kick the souls of his followers out of his plane AND kill Dremoras who aren't happy to see neither you, nor the souls of worshippers. In fact, he acts very happy and relieved when you find his shrine. Can't he control his plane?
** Boethia(h) apparently has influence over several planes of Oblivion; he says in his quest dialogue that "I shall open a portal for you to '''one''' of my realms," implying that he controls more than one.
** Taking a WildMassGuessing route, I'd say that Dagon tried to get other Daedric lords follow his dark crusade against Nirn. Peryite refused and Dagon's forces invaded his plane to the point of changing its general view to that of Dagon's (like Jyggalag and his Forces of Order change the aspects of Sheogorath's realm). That's why dremora want to kill you and torture souls, and Peryite is hardly holding his realm in one piece to actively help you.
** Peryite never says his followers are in his plane of oblivion, and makes a point of saying "I will transport you to the plane of oblivion where their souls are trapped". It's possible that because they did the ritual during Dagon's invasion, the Deadlands were simply "closer" to Tamriel than the Quagmire, so that's where their souls landed.
** Its possible that its a perception thing, I.E. you are going to a deadric princes area so you expect to see a hellscape (One NPC in a Deadric hell realm thought it looked like a beautiful landscape) or the PC just assumed that this place is Peryite's, which explains the fog of war you have on all of them until you explore, Peryite sends you to a Deadric plane and your guy naturally marks it down on his map as Peryite's realm.

** [[WildMassGuessing It's a non-washable paste. It only emulsifies in blood.]]
*** But blood is 92% water so that still doesn't fit.
*** Perhaps it only reacts to the 8% that makes it blood.


* How was Lord Lovidicus locked away for so long? The only thing trapping him for those several decades was a locked wooden door. A thick wooden door admittedly, but you'd thick with his vampiric enhanced strength and nothing else to do with his time he'd have eventually broken it down. And didn't he have any other servants who could have let him out? His mistress locks him in his bedroom, and no one else ever thinks to come check on him, despite being a noble?
** Given that he was a vampire having an interspecies relationship with an Orc, I don't think it would be too much of a stretch to believe he doesn't have any other servants. I imagine he needed privacy. The door itself was half a foot think and showed no signs of decay. No man could break that down, no matter how strong.
** I got the impression that the specific place you find him wasn't actually his main manor; that wasn't where he tended the nobles and held court. That was his little spot out in the country he'd take his she-orc for their alone time. The door leads directly into the crypt; the place is literally a tomb. It is somewhat strange that he didn't get through the door as he did have items inside he could have broken apart and used to chisel his way through, but in all likelihood after so long without blood he was too feral to even register that the door was his way out, instead just blindly wandering around searching for blood.


* How exactly does the fighter's guild operate? I'm picking up contracts in Cheydinhal that take me down south of Bravil, and even towards Leyawinn. I'm being called to go down to Bravil from Chorral to fix up Maglir's mess. You can write it off with the Bravil guild either being too busy/stretched too thin to take care of it, but it's a plot point that the guild as a whole and Leyawiin especially is losing work to the Blackwood company; wouldn't it make sense for them to get the contracts down there, or at least for the player to pick up contracts from those halls instead of having to go to Cheydinhal or Anvil?
** The way it appears to me is that somebody with a contract brings it to a guildhall. If everybody there passes on the contract for whatever reason, then it gets sent along to another city. Repeat until the contract is withdrawn or somebody does the job.
*** Still, a lot of it makes less than sense. When Maglir defaults the second time, Oryen knows about it in Chorral while he's down in Bravil. Ok, fine, except the lady hiring for the job never reported that Maglir didn't make contact, she makes it fairly clear that she's been waiting for the first guy to show up and doesn't realize you're a replacement. The last contract you get, in Anvil, to go retrieve the Stone of Alessia, is worse. The guy incharge in Anvil says that it's been on the books for a little while. When you get to Bruma, which is no short distance away, the priest acts as if it has been stolen maybe a night ago, and that there's still a good chance of catching the bandits out on the road(which you do, the lone survivor is insanely close to the city gates). It boggles the mind why I'm getting this quest in Anvil as opposed to Bruma, and indeed, you don't have to go into or interact with any guildhall except for Anvil, Cheydinhal, and Chorral. Maybe this was done to contrast with the Mage's Guild questline that requires you interact with every single one, but that does make sense. The end result is you taking control of the guild. Would make sense for you to have a working history and relationship with the people under you.


* Was Reynald Jemane the only resident of Chorrol that wasn't in Cheydenhal last week?
** Moreover, it wasn't exactly secret that Papa Jemane had twin boys and that one was believed dead. Seems somewhat odd that no one thought the town drunk randomly being in another town for no apparent reason, without at all smelling of booze or talking with the slightest slur, might actually be the long lost kid.
*** Well, everybody else from Chorrol was there, no reason for them to think Reynald wasn't there too.


* Was your character just recently tossed in the IC jail? In the beginning of the game, Valen Dreth's dialogue implies that this is the first time he's seen you in his eleven years of being in jail (Got that from a certain quest). If you play as a male Dumner, he implies it when he says he hasn't seen "another Dunmer in here in I don't know how long". But if you're roleplaying that your character was in jail for a long time, wouldn't it clash with Valen's dialogue?
** Your character might have just been transferred to the Imperial City's specific dungeon from another dungeon-there's one in every major city in Cyrodiil, after all. When Captain Renault questions why there's a prisoner in the cell, Glenroy says that it was probably due to a "usual mixup at the watch." Uriel Septim implies that you might have ended up in this specific cell due to direct intervention from the Nine Divines. Point is, you could have been in prison for a long time before the game started without necessarily having been in ''this'' specific prison all the while.
** Then again maybe you were thrown in the dungeon for trying to talk to someone [[AllCrimesAreEqual and accidentally stealing all the items they keep in front of them.]]
** Not all roleplay decisions are equally viable in an Elder Scrolls game. In Morrowind you can't be a native even if you're a Dunmer, in Oblivion you weren't in prison that long, in Skyrim all content points to you being a new arrival in the province. You aren't totally free to do whatever you want with your backstory if the game disagreeing with it is going to bother you.


* Going off of the Fighter's Guild question above, I have two specific things about the questline that leave me scratching my head.
** First is the Stone of Saint Alessia contract. Now, ignoring the things about it that don't make sense as mentioned above (Anvil to Bruma, and the quest's timeline), what exactly where the ogres doing with the stone? It's mentioned they steal it because they like shiny things...then they place it carefully on a pedestal, behind a carefully locked gate, with carefully placed traps, and general behavior that seems very un-ogre like. Were they worshiping the stone? Was there some darker purpose that just went unresolved? Was this an aborted arch that was supposed to go somewhere and got lost in the shuffle?
** Second is Maglir. I'm not getting why he defected and defaulted beyond being the token traitor. The first job, ok, that was fairly dangerous. Zombies were involved and I can't fault anyone for not wanting to get involved with zombies. The second one however was as bare simple a job as a member of the fighter's guild can get...and he runs to Blackwood Company, citing more work and more pay...but if his problem was danger, cowardice, and what not, wouldn't the idea of more serious, dangerous work be a turn-off for him? Hist-sap not withstanding? Also felt like it was a waste of a perfectly good plot; Maglir turning traitor had no emotional value at all. From the beginning you know this is a character with no redeeming qualities who's going to jump ship. No one can be surprised by this except by simply not caring enough about the character to notice the signs flashing. There's no emotional weight to it, and even when you kill him it's not so much kick the son of a bitch as it's...well, no different from swatting another bug.
*** I got the feeling that was the point, he's kind of TheScrappy of the Fighters Guild missions. There's not supposed to be any emotional weight there, he exists just to be another pest you get to swat (except you've probably wanted to swat this one since you met him but weren't allowed to by guild law). As for why he kept blowing off his missions, he was probably too much of a coward to do them, but used the "I don't get paid enough to do this" excuse. His greed probably lead him to join Blackwood, ignoring the likely danger (assuming they don't just abandon all their dangerous missions like they did with Azani Blackheart). It's likely Blackwood Company would've scrapped him (or worse) before long (assuming the Hist-sap wasn't actually making him useful).


* What happened to the guy who voiced the Dunmer characters in Morrowind? His voice was heard in one of Oblivion's developer diaries but in the actual game all male elves use the same voice-actor. (Then again, considering all the other things that were shown in the developer diaries only to be left out...)
** Jeff Baker? He voices [[DeadpanSnarker Haskill!]]
** Considering how wildly different the Morrowind Dunmer voice is from his normal voice, it doesn't take much guessing to figure out why he might not have been able to do it for a more thoroughly voiced game.


* Why do people hate the Adoring Fan so much? He's a hilariously useless joke character! I might understand the hatred if he were the subject of an EscortMission but as is you can just ignore him and never have him follow you. If nothing else, people seem to enjoy using him as an expendable punching bag who never calls the guards or fights back, so he does add some entertainment value to the game.
** They 'hate' him for the same reason that they 'hate' Fargoth. It's more Memetic Mutation than actual hate.


* Why doesn't finishing the Fighter's Guild quest provide you with a follower? Both the Dark Brotherhood and the Mage's Guild have followers available after completion. In the Allies For Bruma/Defense of Bruma quests I'm not seeing a logical reason why as Guildmaster I can't just go and order all the Guild Halls to reinforce Bruma. The only answer I can think of being you can't do that for the others, but at least you can get followers from the other factions to act as backup.
** Most Fighter's Guild members are not there out of loyalty to the guild; they're mercenaries, they fight for gold. And the average Fighter's Guild jobs pay about 600 gold per job at the highest level, plus more has to go to the Guild itself. (For things such as the Master's cut of the profits.) You'd have to pay each fighter you recruited to help, probably extra, considering that journeying with the PC or standing with an army to face an impending invasion of numberless demons are probably more difficult and dangerous than clearing rats out of somebody's basement or hunting down a couple of ogres. Still, I have to agree that you should be able to hire Fighters Guild members, even if it costed money.


* So the entire plot for Oblivion centers around the barriers of Oblivion fading because there is no heir to the empire who wields the Amulet of Kings. According to pretty much every NPC in the game, this is the first time this has happened. My problem being that it has happened before. During the rule of the Akaviri potentates there was no Emperor, and during the Interregnum, the Amulet of Kings was in Sancre Tor. That's 900 years of history in which the dragonfires would not be lit, the entirety of the second era. Was ol' Mehrunes just sleeping during this period? Am I missing some explanation? Also, during the time of Oblivion, this was about 500 years ago, so why does no one know about it? There would be elves that lived through the entire period!
** Even within the third era there were periods of several weeks between the death of an emperor and the coronation of an heir. Since Dagon can invade even though Martin's alive, he should have been able to do so during those periods as well.
** It's possible that the Akaviri potentates were Dragonborn like the Septims and thus could light the Dragonfires. No idea about the Interregnum.
** It's not that White-Gold Tower and the Amulet of Kings were the only things keeping the Daedra out. They're simply the last, and perhaps the best known. The towers and the stones, of which there are many, were constructed to allow the world to exist without a god having to stick around every but as a side effect served as a barrier to daedric intrusion. As interpreted from WordOfDante text, [[http://www.imperial-library.info/content/nu-mantia-intercept Nu-Mantia Intercept]].
*** But those things are still as intact as they were in the Interregnum, so the total level of protection should be the same.
*** Ah, but not all those ''are'' still intact: Red Mountain was shut-down in ''Morrowind'' and Walk-Brass (Numidium, that is) may have been 'destroyed' in ''Daggerfall''.
*** Looking back through history, the first time Mehrunes Dagon invaded was at the end of the first era, at the start of the Interregnum, when, you guessed it, there was no Dragonborn emperor (but an Akaviri potentate). However, this raises another question: Why was Mehrunes Dagon the only daedric prince to invade during the Interregnum? Most daedric lords don't seem to have any interest in mortal affairs, but there are a few who it seems would relish at the opportunity. Azura could finally face the tribunal. Hircine would dig a chance to hunt people. Molag Bal would love to do some unspeakable things to the locals. Meridia could get a chance to finally destroy all the undead. Namira would love to om-nom-nom some mortals.
*** Given that Mehrunes Dagon is associated with Destruction, Ambition and Change, it may be that his invasions are the most ambitious and extensive ones - the other mortal affairs-interested lords may well have done things but because Mehrunes Dagon was doing this loud, noisy thing, the histories of the time failed to record them. Azura and Hircine might also have other reasons for being more low-key - openly facing her enemies isn't really Azura's style, she's more of a manipulator, and while Hircine does love himself some mortal-hunting, he relishes the sport of the thing - if the prey has ''no'' chance, where's the fun? - so limiting himself to restricted avatars and nabbing the Big Guys of the age (as he did in ''Bloodmoon'') is perfectly in character even if he theoretically could go for a more extensive presence on Mundus.
*** Not all daedric lords were cursed by Alduin for hiding parts of Mundus in earlier kalpas to prevent the eternal turning of them. Dagon is cursed to destroy the parts of Mundus from earlier kalpas that his previous form glommed onto the current and future ones. While the other lords would probably love to occupy and control Nirn, only Dagon has a reason to physically show up and start smashing everything.
** Prior to Martin's Sacrifice Daedra could cross into Nirn whenever summoned or even on their own at times, however Daedra are not as powerful in Nirn as they are in their own realms. Azura could not take on the Tribunal and she knew it, it would have been one out of her element Daedric Prince vs Three Living Gods. Furthermore Dagon invaded Nirn a couple of times, during the war between Morrowind and the Empire back in Tiber Septim's day, Dagon was summoned by a sorcerer in Mournhould and ended up destroying the city in one of the worst Daedric attacks in Tamrielic histoy, but Amsivi were able to banish him back to oblivion. Dagon was trying to not just invade and destroy Nirn in Oblivion but take it over entirely, in essence merging his sphere with Nirn, which was far more ambitious and required the barriers between realms to be weakened. Plus by the time of Oblivion Red Mountain was gone, as was the Numidium and the Tribunal, Alduin was asleep and the Psijic Order had phased out of reality again, as Dagon wanted all of Nirn these are all things he would have had to deal with and may have been too much to overcome.
** Note in Elder Scrolls Online Molag Bal does actually invade during the interregnum, though he does require a ritual involving the Dragonfires and Amulet of Kings to be performed first.

* The quest, A Lonely Wanderer, doesn't make sense. [[spoiler:So what if Faelian is killed with no witnesses? Eventually, someone will discover his corpse and might suspect that the Dark Brotherhood was involved.]]
** No evidence means the guards can't do anything, even if they all suspect it.
** He's a skooma addict who you can kill inside his personal drug den. Not really so sinister and odd that the Dark Brotherhood need be implicated.
** In addition to that, why would the guards care about one dead skooma addict? Now if he were of nobility (which he isn't) they'd devote more time and attention to, but as it stands? All he gets is a 'meh'.


* Why doesn't Lucien [[spoiler:tag along with you to Anvil after he confronts you in Bravil? Since you are both looking for the real traitor at this point, it seems to be a safe bet to travel together.]] On that note, how does [[spoiler:the Black Hand find Lucien at Applewatch? Like, how did they know that he was going to be there?]]
** Remember, Dark Brotherhood agents often act alone so him tagging along with you to Anvil would be against the norm. He's likely been raised and indoctrinated into this group long enough that this makes ''more'' sense. Also, [[spoiler: he's trying to hide while you're out in the open doing all the things you do. Even if they knew you weren't the traitor, they still think Lucien is, so all they have to do is follow you to intercept him. As for how they found him at Applewatch? Sithis told them, I guess?]]
** [[spoiler:So Sithis wanted Lachance to be his martyr? How would have that message reached them? The Listener and his replacement are dead, unless Sithis communicated to a member of the Black Hand via dreams.]]

** It's very easy for mortals to enter the daedric realms, but very hard for daedra to enter Nirn. Daedra have to be let in by conjurers, while a mortal can enter a daedric realm without invitation. See [[http://www.imperial-library.info/content/oblivion-doors-oblivion "The Doors of oblivion"]] and [[http://www.imperial-library.info/content/oblivion-liminal-bridges "Liminal Bridges"]] So in short, Peryite's only problem was his worshipers being stupid.
*** What? Sheogorath and Sanguine can go back and forth whenever they feel like it. In human form no less. Barbas is technically a Daedra being Clavicus's familiar. And he had no problem. (After Oblivion was closed off mind you) and they have no problem communicating and messing with people still.
*** Mentioned over on the ''Skyrim'' Headscratchers page: the barrier prevents the Daedra from threatening Nirn, not from manifesting in it. Sheogorath, Sanguine and Barbas (and Hircine, and Nocturnal) are just hanging out, relaxing and doing their thing and not putting the world in peril, so they get to stick around.
** Peryite is the Daedric Lord of pestilence and plague, which war naturally spreads. I doubt he'd take action to stop something that would support his realm and possibly further his influence.
*** Another possibility is that certain Daedra can manifest more easily based on the prevalence of their aspects. Clavicus Vile (Bargains and wishes), Nocturnal (Night and all it hides), Sanguine (hedonism and self indulgence), and Sheogorath (madness and creativity) can all manifest fairly well, because those aspects exist within EVERY person in Nirn.

* If Sheogorath can instantly kill anyone who lays hands on him, why doesn't [[spoiler:Jyggalag do the same? They're the same guy.]]
** [[spoiler:Maybe that specific power is unique to Sheogorath?]]
** If you mean during the [[spoiler:final battle of Shivering Isles, because at that point, YOU are Sheogorath. You and Jyggalag are on similar levels of strength.]]
** Also because it happens in Sheogorath's REALM; in there, Sheogorath is literally a living god ([[spoiler: you can manipulate the weather and auto-teleport to the castle when near death after becoming Sheogorath yourself]]), and Jyggalag is not. If he could do that, it would be the same as someone walking into another persons house and legally throwing them out.
** Seems in-character to me. Mentally, Jyggalag is basically a computer (explicitly stated to have zero creativity and even less willingness to deviate from a task), so it makes sense he literally would've never thought of anything other than the most blunt (or, since he uses a sword, Bladed) possible manner to defend himself.


* [[spoiler:Your demotion after the Troll quest]] in the Fighters Guild. I can understand the guildmaster being upset [[spoiler:since she just found out her son is dead]], but she seems to consider it ''your'' fault despite the fact that [[spoiler:her son was long dead by the time you found him]].

* If you become Sheogorath via the SI questline, when you needed the blood of a daedra lord couldn't you have just told Martin [[spoiler:"Blood of a daedra lord? Sure, no problem, just let me open a vein. I'm Sheogorath you know."]]
** [[spoiler: You're ''not'' really Sheogorath, or a daedra lord. You have power over a daedric sphere, yes, but you're still only a mortal from mundas. Elder Scrolls games are rather ambiguous in this regard.]]
*** How could the Shivering Isles even exist if you weren't actually a Daedric Prince? That's why you can control the weather, you ARE the Shivering Isles! Besides, it's made clear that Jyggalag would keep his realm Orderly, so it can't exist within himself. And a Daedric Plane CAN'T exist outside a Prince (been stated in-game and in game literature, one of the few things that the lore seems 100% sure on).
** Even if you did attempt to give him your blood with the "I'm a Daedric Lord!" excuse, he'd think you were a nutjob. If you honestly tell someone that you're Sheogorath, you're a nutjob whether it's true or not. If Martin is savvy enough, he may just discount the relevance of your sanity.
*** Even if you aren't a Daedric Lord or you couldn't tell Martin about it, a cup filled from the Font of Madness should have done fine.
** You are still a mortal for a while after taking over the Shivering Isles, as shown by Sheogorath's appearance in Skyrim and the fact that you need the ability to transport back to the castle when near death, true death explicitly stated in game to not affect even Dremora. It takes quite a while for the whole Lord of the Shivering Isles thing to make you a Daedric Prince.
** One possibility is requisite cost. Note that any Daedric artifact you give Martin is GONE. Completely and utterly. Maybe you could offer your blood as Sheogorath, but that could possibly end up with you being incapacitated with a terminal case of NOT HAVING ANY BLOOD. Keeping the most powerful piece in the game is a big factor to consider.

* Why is there only one bookstore in the whole Imperial City. I would chalk it up to SpaceCompression, but [=NPCs=] comment about how they miss the "personal feel of the smaller bookstores," so it's apparently intentional. Given how big the Imperial City supposedly is, and given that it's the Empire's center of learning, this seems really improbable. Even then, the First Edition Bookstore doesn't exactly seem like a huge megacorporation driving out all the competition; it seems like a small shop run by one friendly man.
** All of the stores in the Market District seem to be monitored by a committee (the Society of Concerned Merchants) of some kind, to ensure that there is little competition - it may be that there is an enforced monopoly on bookstores. Bear in mind that while it may not be enormous, the First Edition has its proximity to the Arcane University in its favour, and it apparently has the capacity to procure rarer books like the Mythic Dawn Commentaries for its clients.

** Possibly, the smaller stores have closed down due to competition from First Edition, which is better connected and has money behind it.

** Perhaps it's based off of the fact that no one has reported the massive, inexplicable surges in income the Grey Fox would logically have?
** Knowing him he's probably BOASTED about it at some point. Besides He's the damn Grey Fox. If you hit him with something other than murder chances are he [[spoiler: or his predecessors and the newest [[PlayerCharacter Fox]]]] has done it.
** Given we've seen Hieronymous Lex arrest his own informant for allegedly performing the crime ''she informed him was going to be committed'', I think we can safely say that he issues arrest warrants on a seriously woolly definition of 'probable cause'.

** Since Sheogorath was running the show, maybe he used his powers to pull the wool over their eyes (noses?) and keep them from detecting. Or maybe cheese cooking is a regular occurrence in Border Watch and they didn't think anything of an especially strong smelling example. Or maybe they did smell it, but they were too concerned with the rats and the prophecy to think about who put the cheese in the pot...
** Given how strong-smelling the stuff is supposed to be, maybe the scent has just permeated the local atmosphere so much that they don't notice it anymore? The shaman does mention how the smell of their cooking "travels for miles," so apparently stinky food is just a staple of Khajiit culture.
*** But then why is the village not absolutely full of rats in the first place?
*** Because then they just use regular cheese, or cook non-cheese foods, which doesn't draw the rats any more than usual. The Khajiit who owns the cheese museum says that it's the especially pungent cheese that would draw the rats, hence why you can't just put any cheese in the pot and fulfill the prophecy. And besides, their priest absolutely hates rats, mentions that he carries rat poison with him everywhere just to be safe, and immediately massacres the swarm of rats once you do draw them in. So even if the village was full of rats before, it wouldn't stay that way with Ri'Bassa acting as village exterminator.


* No one has bothered to clean up abandoned forts that are in plain sight of the Imperial City in ''Oblivion'' (you would think the Empire would try to clean up the countryside in its capital province).
*** Considering how utterly crappy the Imperial guard is and how stretched thin it is, it's no wonder that they don't bother cleaning up the forts. Besides, they just lost their emperor, some unholy thing is running around the country gaining control of all the guilds, the city guard, and is probably the most loved thing in the country and could most likely take over the country with a word, and there's a demonic invasion from Oblivion that was spearheaded by killing their emperor. They simply have more important crap to worry about.
** Most of the forts are not particularly ugly and are off the beaten trail, so I doubt there is any huge incentive by the public to tidy them up. Like a real-life government the Council only has limited funds collected through taxes - maintaining a continent-spanning Empire is not cheap - and there are presumably more pressing uses for taxpayers' money.
*** If the forts were just out in the back-country, I would agree, however this is just ridiculous. A number of bandit/goblin/undead infested ruins are right next to roads, with Fort Ash being right on top of a road. And judging by the states of those fortresses, they have been abandoned for a loooong time. It's just weird that this empire, whose entire shtick is having the most powerful, organized military in the world, has apparently not held a single location for a hundred years or more. For that matter, where was this army during the oblivion crisis? Sure, there were the city guards, but that can't be the only members of the army, right?
*** Fridge Brilliance: Yes, the Empire DOES have an expansive army; we've seen them. However, we have NOT seen them in Cyrodiil, we've seen them in Morrowind, and according to in-game books, they're also present in the "wild" provinces such as Black Marsh, and Elsweyr. Because these discontent and untamed border provinces are where the Imperial Legion is needed; NOT in the centrally located, relatively peaceful home province of the Imperials. The Legion we see in Oblivion is a skeleton crew; a very minimal force for the few internal affairs that would pop up. The forts that dot Cyrodiil are relics from bygone eras when the Imperials where beset by enemies on all sides and needed those forts just to hold their own borders. By the time of the Oblivion Crisis, the only major threat is the internal one of the provinces. Any remote chance of an outside invasion, say by the Akaviri, would also be better repelled by forces in those provinces as well, rather than in centrally located Cyrodiil. The reason there are so many long abandoned forts, unoccupied forts is the same reason why the heartland of the greatest empire in Tamriel had to resort to militia to fend off an invasion of demons. Cyrodiil HAS no army any longer. The Legion is in the Empire's provinces, not its capitol.
** SpaceCompression What appears to be a mere half-mile or less in-game might be, lore-wise, a hundred miles.

** Camoran describes how his speech started to be like fire, which is pretty similar to descriptions of Thu'um. In Skyrim it's mentioned that mastering Thu'um (through being Dragonborn or just practice) allows you to wear Amulet. Also, that's the way Tiber Septim was qualified too.


* The Gray Prince is the son of an orc and a human vampire. However, vampirism is a disease in this game, so there is no reason why he should even have the pale skin inherited from his father.
** Maybe vampirism is just an (partially?) inheritable disease? Plus, unless you heal yourself via that hard-to-find potion, it does cause permanent bodily changes in the infected, so maybe it also somehow alters their genetic seed or something. Either way, it's a stable rule in fiction that, unless vampires are sterile, their offspring are also partially vampiric.
*** What bothers me is that after he learns he's part-vampire, he gets all angsty and lets you kill him dead in the battle for the title of Grand Champion. Yes, to everyone else, vampires are evil, but he's proven himself to be the greatest fighter ever. Surely if they learnt that HE was part-vampire, they wouldn't do a HeelFaceTurn and order his immediate death. They'd probably go "Well, as long as he's not killing folks and/or sucking their blood, he's ok in our book." Also, why did it take a complete stranger handing over his father's journal to learn that he was part-vampire? He never had any desire to suck blood out of people?
*** Bigotry runs wild in Cyrodiil - the general population won't care whether he was a good man, he was a vampire and that's as much as they care to know. Think of it how, years ago, any esteemed member of the aristocracy may have found themselves shunned and stripped of their power if they were discovered to be an illegitimate child - there's no logical reason behind it, but that prejudice runs deep. The Gray Prince, having based his entire persona on his "noble" lineage, can't face the shame that comes from being the son of a vampire - the prejudice seems common, it's probable that Agronok himself shared this bias.
*** Keep in mind, the mind is a tricky thing. If someone told you you were part (or full) vampire, and gave complete conclusive evidence that can't possibly deny it. Despite being fake all along. Chances are you would start craving blood because your mind is so ingrained that you are a vampire. It is pure psychology, and if he thought he was surely one. He would very likely start acting the part due to said delusions.
*** I don't think he inherited much from his vampire dad other than the paleness. As was stated above, vampirism is a disease in the Elder Scrolls-verse, but the Grey Prince was conceived sexually. So he probably is even less than a half-vampire. It's unlikely he ever even had the urge to drink blood or suffered under the sun. But yeah, vampires are generally considered evil, so I believe he thought himself incurably tainted by his heritage, that he practically inherited the sins of his father, or something. Also, he said that he was always bragging about his noble heritage and fighting for glory because he wanted to be acknowledged properly as a person of valor, whom he believed himself to be due to his noble heritage alone. So in a way, it was what gave him hope and a reason to fight. So finding out that what he had been so proud of earlier actually had a dark secret behind it probably was a big shock.
*** In addition, vampirism in the Elder Scrolls universe is ridiculously easy to diagnose and prevent (got vampire blood in an open wound and now you're suffering from horrible nightmares? Get yourself to a church and pray within 3 days. Bam, cured.), so only the most depraved of people would allow themselves to turn. Basically, vampirism doesn't turn you evil, but people who are willing to become vampires generally are evil already, so their reputation is deserved and his families responses are understandable.
** I was under the impression that he wasn't pale because his father was a vampire; he was pale because his father was human, and thus his skin tone is closer to that of a human's than other orcs.


* Okay, end game spoilers: [[spoiler: Why do we not get more credit? We busted our ass from ''literal'' hell and back trying to save the world and all we get is a statue in a city and a lousy set of armor. Martin, on the other hand, has done nothing up to the Battle of Bruma but sit in Cloud Ruler Temple reading a book. I'm not saying make the PC an emperor, but at least make it so that s/he isn't playing second fiddle to Martin!]]
** [[spoiler: But you ARE Martin's second fiddle. Without him reading that book, you would have NO chance of succeeding at all. He was the emperor, you were his Knight.]]
** [[spoiler: There's the simple fact that, comparatively, our mark in mythology would be rather small. Yes, we're an insanely capable knight, but that's our main trait. We're strong. Nerevar is the Mantled reincarnation of Morrowind's most fabled hero, and the Dohvahkiin is a figure sung about in legend for eons. The Champion is just a powerful fighter next to a man who became a LITERAL DRACONIC AVATAR OF AKATOSH, so we're a bit overshadowed in the history]].
*** While we might not get the full credit we deserve, Shivering Isles more than makes up for it by having us become Sheogorath themself and having an entire realm to rule over with our own personal army and citizens, not to mention the power to exert our will in Nirn by having worshippers that pray to us.

* A later quest in the main storyline, Blood of the Divines. Jauffree says to get blood that's on the armor of [[spoiler: Tiber Septim who became the god Talos.]] Question is, how long could blood last on armor? It makes no sense for blood to still be on the armor CENTURIES after the owner died!
** A case of [[RealityisUnrealistic reality being unrealistic]]. Blood residue has been recovered from 100,000 year-old stone tools in real life, and that's just plain ol' mortal blood!
** The owner became a god, retroactively making anything with his blood a holy relic, and thus [[AWizardDidIt magic]].


* Okay, complete the Arena and become Grand Champion. Then go talk to the Blue Team Gladiator and he'll be very sad/disappointed that the Grey Prince is dead and bitterly tells you "Congratulations, Grand Champion. Hope it was worth it!" Um, excuse me? He should've known that sooner or later, someone was going to kill his friend in battle, and if he progressed far enough, he'd have to end up killing his buddy himself.

*** It still doesn't make sense. So you're Champion. The only way anyone's getting that title is if they killed you. Agronak is the ''unbeatable Grand Champion'', meaning no one else but you were able to kill him. With this in mind, if anyone wanted to become the Grand Champion, they had to a) Kill you, then b) Kill the Grand Champion. Agronak's pretty much safe now since there's no way in hell you're gonna be killed by some lowlife Hero (and you're the PC).
*** When you become the Champion, just leave it as that. Some actually do want to kill the orc and become Grand Champion.
** It wasn't something to take for granted that someone would eventually kill his friend. No one had had the courage to actually challenge the Prince for the title in years; whenever he preformed it was against monsters for exhibition. Its perfectly reasonable to assume that the Prince would one day simply retire. He's not a slave; he's there by his own choice. And he could leave by his own choice. Secondly, just to repeat the point, he doesn't have to be happy about the fact someone killed his friend. He had apparently gotten so used to the idea that no one had the balls to challenge the Prince, let alone the skill to do it. That reality being shattered likely shocked him.


* The assassination of Uriel Septim: you, the player, are the ''sole survivor'' of said assassination - barring one Blade who ''does not leave the scene'' - but once you leave the sewers, you can travel anywhere in Tamriel, including right there in the Imperial City, and discover that the news of the Emperor's death has preceded you. How did they know? Taking the Amulet of Kings to Weynon Priory would have felt more realistic if you'd been given a line like, "Hey, the Emperor's dead. Here's his necklace."
** The assassin's put word out for some reason?
** I imagined that someone from the blades walked out and then walked back in.
** Remember this is a fantasy setting - assuming Baurus (or even the Emperor himself) didn't use some kind of spell to alert the Council, the Dragonfires extinguishing certainly would. Also, SpaceCompression - just because you can travel from the sewer exit to the Imperial City in a matter of minutes, in-universe the trip might take at least an hour (looking at the supposed size of the Imperial City isle) - plenty of time for word to spread. As a Council-funded endeavour, the ''Black Horse Courier'' would be able to publish any details almost as soon as the Council knew.
** The Mythic Dawn had killed the Emperor's sons and Uriel Septim knew he was next, so the Elder Council knew his life is at risk. And when the Emperor dies, the Dragonfires extinguish. Knowing that the Emperor's life is at risk, Elder Council, or Okato alone probably have spent some time in Temple of the One and when the Dragonfires extinguished, he, as the head of the Elder Council, ordered Black Horse Courier to print the "Emperor's Dead" issue.
*** In fact, some of the material around ''Arena'' state that one of the main reasons why Tharn put Uriel in Oblivion instead of killing him was that there are enchantments in place that alert the Elder Council when the Emperor dies, so Ocato may not even have have had to have been in the Temple of the One to immediately find out that the Emperor is dead. Of course, knowledge of ''how'' the Emperor died preceding you is another matter.

** Population of the UK in the 2013 census: 64.1 million. Population of Cyrodil in Oblivion: 855. It makes sense the UK would have a lot more heirs; taking into account heirs per population Cyrodil's 3 legitimate and 1 illegitimate heirs is more than the UK.
** Note the heirs, AND the Emperor, spent several years imprisoned by Jagar Tharn's agents during the Imperial Simulacrum. Given that there were, as recently as Morrowind's timeframe, rumors that they weren't the REAL heirs (Enman and Ebel were the only ones named in Morrowind, implying the possibility that Geldall hadn't been rescued yet or that the writers just forgot about him) and were actually Daedric imposters were rampant. Being that they're the heirs to the Empire, they can't just marry some commoner. And the nobility was dragging their feet until their True Septim Status was confirmed.
*** Another possibility could be that Geldall was already out of succession short of extraordinary circumstances (perhaps illegitimacy or infirmity had knocked him out of being a likely heir, so he wasn't closely looked at)

* Why is there a giant sized chair, club, hourglass and crystal ball in the basement of the imperial palace? They're at least 20x normal size and under guard by the imperial watch in a restricted area, which would lead one to think they're some kind of special artifacts, but I can't find any explanation for them in the game or on the internet.
** The Imperial Palace is housed inside of White Gold Tower, which is part of the Towers like the Adamantine Tower in Sumerset that keeps the Aedra creation of Nirn in place. They exist in both the physical and the spiritual plane [[http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Nu-Mantia_Intercept,_Letter_4]] The physical towers themselves were built by the ancient Mer races and populated with statues dedicated to the '10 ancestors' [[http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/White-Gold_Tower]] , most of which were removed and destroyed by Alessia and her people when they first took White Gold Tower after overthrowing the Ayleids. More then likely these giant artifacts are parts of one of these statues that they did not get around to destroying and modern Imperials, lacking the hatred for the Ayleids Alessia and her slave rebellion fostered decided to store and preserve them.
** Alternatively, they're trophies from one Septim or another. Maybe they went out to Skyrim and slew a Giant, then brought those back as trophiesc of how absolutely badass they were. Put them up on display every now and again, then put em back in strorage until the next occasion.


* Thieves Guild Spoilers!! [[spoiler: It is revealed in a very late TG quest that anyone who reads the Elder Scrolls start to progressively go blind. So when your character sees this scroll, reads it (as you do before you take it, like with any book/scroll), why is s/he not stricken with blindness? Does it require that one continually read the scroll, not just scan it like your character seemed to do?]]
** [[spoiler: ''Seeing'' an Elder Scroll and ''reading'' an Elder Scroll are two different things. Your character most likely saw the scroll and had the same reaction you probably did: "WTF is this squiggly writing?"]]
** Considering the context, your character also doesn't have time to waste [[spoiler: trying to read the scroll. They're in the Imperial Palace surrounded by guards and blind priests who would not hesitate to kill him/her upon discovery. It's get in, grab the thing and get the hell out.]]
** From Skyrim, [[spoiler: a book explaining the Scrolls claims that there are different types of Elder Scroll readers depending on how well the reader understands the Scrolls' nature. The character doesn't understand what they are, so only sees meaningless symbols. The priests have some understanding, which is why they get driven blind.]]

* The quest, The Elven Maiden, doesn't make sense. How did the Thieves Guild find out that Myvryna was the infiltrator? And since Myvryna already knew you were the one hired to do the theft, why aren't the guards trying to arrest you instead of Armand Christophe? And why is it that when you tell Lex the bust is in her cupboard, he doesn't suspect the least that you were the one who planted it there? If someone told me, "Hey, I found the missing bust in someone's cupboard," I would've been like, "How do you know that? For all I know, you were the one who planted it." For a Guard Captain obsessed with catching the Thieves Guildmaster, Lex doesn't appear to be very bright.

* The quest, A Lonely Wanderer, doesn't make sense. [[spoiler:So what if Faelian is killed with no witnesses? Eventually someone will discover his corpse and might suspect that the Dark Brotherhood was involved.]]

*** What? Sheogorath and Sanguine can go back and forth whenever they feel like it. In human form no less. Barbas is techincally a Daedra being Clavicus's familiar. And he had no problem. (After Oblivion was closed off mind you) and they have no problem communicating and messing with people still.

** Plus, consider even athiests will say things like "Oh my god!" in RealLife. Mentioning things by the Emperor might just be an idiomatic thing.

** Antoinetta Marie implies that the imperial guard sexually assaulted her when she was their prisoner. It's not much of a stretch to assume that they're only too eager to give female convicts a very "thorough" search, but are too disgusted to check the back door.

** [[spolier: There's the simple fact that, comparatively, our mark in mythology would be rather small. Yes, we're an insanely capable knight, but that's our main trait. We're strong. Nerevar is the Mantled reincarnation of Morrowind's most fabled hero, and the Dohvahkiin is a figure sung about in legend for eons. The Champion is just a powerful fighter next to a man who became a LITERAL DRACONIC AVATAR OF AKATOSH, so we're a bit overshadowed in the history]].

** Another thing, it is actually very easy for mortals to enter the daedric realms, but very hard for daedra to enter Nirn. In fact, Daedra have to be let in by conjurers, while a mortal can enter a daedric realm without invitation. See [[http://www.imperial-library.info/content/oblivion-doors-oblivion "The Doors of oblivion"]] and [[http://www.imperial-library.info/content/oblivion-liminal-bridges "Liminal Bridges"]] So, in short, Peryite's only problem was his worshipers being stupid.

*** They're very underpowered when they do so.
*** Additionally, Sheogorath was technically not in Mundus during Skyrim. He was hanging out in the mind of a mad ghost, where he has every right to be. In other words, he was cheating.

** If you mean during the [[spoiler:final battle of Shivering Isles, because at that point, YOU are Sheogorath. You and Jyggalag are on similar levels of strength. That strength doesn't carry over to normal gameplay, though, since it wouldn't just break the game, it would shatter it into so many pieces that they could legitimately have a fetch quest in a later game about fixing it. Adventuring gods and the mortal world wouldn't mix well.]]
** This is also because it happen in Sheogorath's REALM. In there, Sheogorath is literally a living god ([[spoiler: you can even manipulate the weather and auto-teleport to the castle when near death after becoming Sheogorath yourself]]), and Jyggalag is not. If he could do that, it would be the same as someone walking into another persons house, and legally throwing them out.

* If they remembered to have the Shivering Isles expansion overwrite Sheogorath's original voice files with the SI version for the Sheogorath daedric quest in Oblivion, and even remembered to have Haskill be the voice-over [[spoiler:if you waited until after you had become Sheogorath to start that quest]], then why couldn't they remember to also patch the main quest line when you needed the blood of a daedra lord? Couldn't you have just told Martin [[spoiler:"Blood of a daedra lord? Sure, no problem, just let me open a vein. I'm Sheogorath you know."]]
** [[spoiler: well, you're ''not'' really Sheogorath, or a daedra lord. You have power over a daedric sphere, yes, but that doesn't change the fact that you're a mortal from mundas, and mortals aren't daedra... unless, of course, you buy the Mythic Dawn's theory that mundas is simply Lorkhan's sphere and mortals are actually the equivalent of dremora, in which case you are a daedra lord, and this is still a plot hole. Either you just don't think of it, or your inability to use your own blood objectively proves that the Mythic Dawn was mistaken-- whichever answer you prefer. Elder Scrolls games like being ambiguous.]]
*** The Mythic Dawn theory is based off of the knowledge that a Daedric Realm exists WITHIN the Prince. How could the Shivering Isles even exist if you Weren't actually [[spoiler: a DAEDRIC PRINCE]]!? That's why you can control the weather (and should be able to dojust about anything), [[spoiler: you ARE the Shivering Isles!]]! Besides, it's made clear that Jyggalag would keep his realm, well...Orderly, so it can't exist within himself. And a Daedric Plane CAN'T exist outside a Prince (been stated in-game and in game literature, one of the few things that the lore seems 100% sure on), which is why the Mythic Dawn suspect Mundus is a Daedris Realm.
*** The Mythic Dawn theory makes humans minor daedra, not Princes whose blood would suffice for the ritual, otherwise you could have just found a daedra heart/elemental salts/scamp skin.
** Actually.. [[spoiler: You do get mantled into Sheogorath. It's heavily implied this happens every 1,000 years, plus... [[AllThereInTheManual it says on the box in addition to Haskill's dialogue if you happen to do the quest for Wabbajack after you complete Shivering Isles.]]]]
*** No it's not, it's only said after the thousand years [[spoiler: Jyggalag takes over Sheogorath, and then he turns back. It's never even a tad implied that a mortal takes the mantle every thousand years]].
*** And even if you did attempt to give him your blood with the "I'm a Daedric Lord!" excuse, he'd think you were a nutjob.
*** If you honestly tell someone that you're Sheogorath, you're a nutjob whether it's true or not. If Martin is savvy enough, he may just discount the relevance of your sanity.
*** Plus, it'd make for the lamest quest ever if all you did was travel to the nearest city and asked the city's doctor (Let's pretend its the person selling potions) to bleed you, then go back to Martin with a small cup of your own blood. I'd much rather do it the game's way.
*** Except it can already be literally that easy already. If you do one of the daedric shrine quests before this point in the main quest, it's basically "Oh, hey Martin, I sort of already have this thing...". Considering you'd have to have completed all of Shivering Isles before the hypothetical presented here is an option, it would actually require considerably more effort.

*** Having just replayed that section, I can tell you all to pay more attention. You need a) a Daedric artifact, and b) the blood of a God. Not the blood of a Daedric prince, the blood of one of the Nine. Unless Sheogorath was recently canonized by the Empire, you would not be able to bypass that quest. You might be able to bypass the "Daedric Artifact" quest, but the only artifact would be Sheogorath's staff.
*** You're missing the point . Yes, the mission was to get a daedric artifact in-game, but that wasn't the point. The explicit purpose driving the magic behind the ritual was to get the blood of a daedric lord, AND the blood of a divine/God. That was the point, getting a piece of the essence from one member of each opposing pantheon, the daedra and the divines. The reason you were sent after a daedric artifact is because an artifact of a daedric prince is formed from their essence, and is the only thing in Nirn that could qualify as the "blood" of a daedra prince. Sure, you wouldn't have been able to complete the "blood of the divines" requirement with anything from Sheogorath's power, but anything from Sheogorath's essence, or the Font of Madness, the heart of the realm, should have completed the "blood of the daedra" requirement.
*** Actually, you have that backwards. The Daedric Artifact wasn't a substitute for Daedric Blood, the Divine blood was a substitute for a Divine Artifact - because there's no such thing as a Divine Artifact. Martin literally says this - that the closest thing that exists on Tamriel to a Divine Artifact, is the blood of Tiber Septim - because he was, at one point, mortal.
*** The Daedric Artifact ''is'' Daedric Blood. Martin says as much; the reason you go after an artifact is because they're formed from the essence of the associated Daedric Prince. The other part of the ritual--the Blood of the Divines--has nothing whatsoever to do with the player character being Sheogorath and completing the ritual in a new way.
** Just wanted to point out as well that you are still a mortal for a while after taking over the Shivering Isles, as shown by Sheogorath's appearance in Skyrim and the fact that you need the ability to transport back to the castle when near death, true death explicitly stated in game to not affect even Dremora, it takes quite a while for the whole Lord of the Shivering Isles thing to make you a Daedric Prince.
*** some of Sheogoraths' dialog states that the one you encounter in Skyrim is[[spoiler: the PC from Oblivion, and that his time as Seogorath has made him as insane as his previous incarnation.]]
** One possibility is requisite cost. Note that any Daedric artifact you give Martin is GONE. Completely and utterly. Maybe you could offer your blood as Sheogorath, but that could possibly end up with you being incapacitated with a terminal case of NOT HAVING ANY BLOOD. Keeping the most powerful piece in the game is a big factor to consider.

** Also, it'a game set in Medieval times. Maybe a lot of people are illiterate so there'no need for that many stores?

** Knowing him he's probably BOASTED about it at some point. Besides He's the damn Grey Fox. If you hit him with something other than murder chances are he [[spoiler: or his predecessors and the newest [[PlayerCharacter Fox]]]] has.
** Given that we've seen Hieronymous Lex arrest his own informant for allegedly performing the crime ''she informed him was going to be committed'', I think we can safely say that he issues arrest warrants on a seriously woolly definition of 'probable cause'.

** Since Sheogorath was running the show, maybe he used his powers to pull the wool over their eyes (noses?) and keep them from detecting. Or maybe cheese cooking is a regular occurrence in Border Watch and they didn't think anything of an especially strong smelling example. Or maybe they did smell it, but they were too concerned with the rats and the prophecy to think about who put the cheese in the pot . . .

* No one has bothered to clean up abandoned forts that are in plain sight of the Imperial City in ''Oblivion'' (you would think the Empire would try to clean up the countryside in its capital province). And how is Mankar Camoran wearing the Amulet of Kings?
** The Camoran line shares descent with the Septims, going back to the first half of the Third Era. It's AllThereInTheManual.
*** Anyone got a source for the above? I keep seeing people saying this, but not where it's from.
*** Considering how utterly crappy the imperial guard is and how stretched thin it is, it's no wonder that they don't bother cleaning up the forts. Besides, they just lost their emperor, and some unholy thing is running around the country gaining control of all the guilds, the city guard, and is probably the most loved thing in the country and could most likely take over the country with a word. Oh, [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking and there's a demonic invasion from Oblivion that was spearheaded by killing their emperor.]] They simply have more important crap to worry about.

*** Actually, this is something I have asked myself before and came up with a bit of Fridge Brilliance. Yes, the Empire DOES have an expansive army; we've seen them. However, we have NOT seen them in Cyrodiil, we've seen them in Morrowind. In Morrowind and the other provinces, according to in-game books, especially the "wild" provinces such as Morrowind, Black Marsh, and Elsweyr, there is a strong Imperial presence because these discontent and untamed border provinces are where the Imperial Legion is needed; NOT in the centrally located, relatively peaceful home province of the Imperials. The Legion we see in Oblivion is a skeleton crew; a very minimal force for the few internal affairs that would pop up. The forts that dot Cyrodiil are relics from bygone eras when the Imperials where beset by enemies on all sides and needed those forts just to hold their own borders. By the time of the Oblivion Crisis, the only major threat is the internal one of the provinces. Any remote chance of an outside invasion, say by the Akaviri, would also be better repelled by forces in the provinces as well, rather than in centrally located Cyrodiil. The reason there are so many long abandoned forts, unoccupied forts is the same reason why the heartland of the greatest empire in Tamriel had to resort to militia to fend off an invasion of demons. Cyrodiil HAS no army any longer. The Legion is in the Empire's provinces, not its capitol.
** I wouldn't take in-game distance too seriously. It's mostly an abstraction since the lore states the lands of Tamriel to be much bigger than they actually are in most of the games. What appears to be a mere half-mile or less in-game might be, lore-wise, a hundred miles.
** Camoran describes how his speech started to be like fire, which is pretty similar to descriptions of Thu'ums. In Skyrim it's mentioned that mastering Thu'um (through being Dragonborn or just practice) allows you to wear Amulet. Also, that's the way Tiber Septim was qualified too.

** Well, maybe vampirism is just an (partially?) inheritable disease? Plus, unless you heal yourself via that hard-to-find potion, it does cause permanent bodily changes in the infected, so maybe it also somehow alters their genetic seed or something. Either way, it's a stable rule in fiction that, unless vampires are sterile, their offspring are also partially vampiric.

*** Become a vampire. Now go for a while without sucking blood. People try to kill you. And they know you're a vampire who DOESN'T suck blood. Now then, if people figured out he was part vampire but didn't know he had no desire to suck blood, then they would probably kill him because they think he NIGHTLY sucks blood.

*** Well, I don't think he inherited much from his vampire dad other than the paleness. As was stated above, vampirism is a disease in the Elder Scrolls-verse, but the Grey Prince was conceived sexually. So he probably is even less than a half-vampire. It's unlikely he ever even had the urge to drink blood or suffered under the sun. But yeah, vampires are generally considered evil, so I believe he thought himself incurably tainted by his heritage, that he practically inherited the sins of his father, or something. Also, he said that he was always bragging about his noble heritage and fighting for glory because he wanted to be acknowledged properly as a person of valor, whom he believed himself to be due to his noble heritage alone. So in a way, it was what gave him hope and a reason to fight. So finding out that what he had been so proud of earlier actually had a dark secret behind it probably was a big shock.
** Exactly. It was the shock. It's like if all you knew was that your dad fought in WWII and that he was a great fighter, a hero to his country, blahblahblah....only to discover that he was also part of the Gestapo agency and really admired Hitler. One doesn't recover from something like that without a lot of help.
*** Except Lovidicus was a GOOD man. The journal shows he was a decent fellow, if vampiric, and only became a ravenous monster when his bigoted mistress cut him off from sustenance.
*** True enough, but still, bigotry runs wild in Cyrodiil - the general population won't care whether Lovidicus was a good man, he was a vampire and that's as much as they care to know. Think of it how, years ago, any esteemed member of the aristocracy may have found themselves shunned and stripped of their power if they were discovered to be an illegitimate child - there's no logical reason behind it, but that prejudice runs deep. The Gray Prince, having based his entire persona on his "noble" lineage, can't face the shame that comes from being the son of a vampire - the prejudice seems common, it's probable that Agronok himself shared this bias.
*** Assuming we can trust his journal, Lovidicus did seem to be a genuinely good person despite his disease. However, judging by the fact that virtually every other vampire you ever meet or hear about is an evil, sadistic and conniving psychopath or a ravenous, feral beast, he may have been unique in this manner. The extreme reactions of his mistress and son upon learning of his condition support this conclusion. In addition, vampirism in the Elder Scrolls universe is ridiculously easy to diagnose and prevent (got vampire blood in an open wound and now you're suffering from horrible nightmares? Get yourself to a church and pray within 3 days. Bam, cured.), so only the most depraved of people would allow themselves to turn. Basically, vampirism doesn't turn you evil, but people who are willing to become vampires generally are evil already, so their reputation is deserved and his families responses are understandable.
*** Understandable my ass. The Prince's mother turned Lovidicus from a decent, if ailed, man into a ravenous beast whose home fell into disrepair, later being infested by bandits and vampires. And then there's also the chance that Lovidicus simply didn't realize he had the disease. You don't start receiving your vampire nightmares until after you turn, anyway...
** Going back to the original topic, I was under the impression that he wasn't pale because his father was a vampire; he was pale because his father was human, and thus his skin tone is closer to that of a human's than other orcs.
* Okay, end game spoilers: [[spoiler: Why do we not get credit? We busted our ass from ''literal'' hell and back trying to save the world and all we get is a statue in a city and a lousy set of armor. Martin, on the other hand, has done nothing up to the Battle of Bruma but sit in Cloud Ruler Temple reading a book. I'm not saying make the PC an emperor, but at least make it so that he/she isn't playing second fiddle to Martin!]]

*** When I got to that point, I imagined my Character saying: "Glad to be of service"
** [[spolier: Also, there's the simple fact that, comparatively, our mark in mythology would be rather small. Yes, we're an insanely capable knight, but that's our main trait. We're strong. Nerevar is the Mantled reincarnation of Morrowind's most fabled hero, and the Dohvahkiin is a figure sung about in legend for eons. The Champion, though, is just a powerful fighter next to a man who became a LITERAL DRACONIC AVATAR OF AKATOSH, so we're a bit overshadowed in the history]]
* A later quest in the main storyline, blood of the Divines. Jauffree says to get blood that's on the armor of [[spoiler: Tiber Septim who became the god Talos.]] Question is, how long could blood last on armor? It makes no sense for blood to still be on the armor CENTURIES after the owner died!

** Maybe for the same reason you can enter an old fort that's been abandoned for a thousand years and find perfectly edible food inside a treasure chest that was locked for centuries?
* Okay, complete the Arena and become Grand Champion. Then go talk to the Blue Team Gladiator and he'll be very sad/disappointed that the Grey Prince is dead and bitterly tells you "Congratulations, Grand Champion. Hope it was worth it!" Um, excuse me? He should've known that sooner or later, someone was going to kill his friend in battle, and if he progressed far enough, he'd have to end up killing his buddy himself. What, they were going to talk to the Bladesmaster and say "I don't want the Grand Champion to fight anymore." and Owyn just says "sure"? It's the bleeding ARENA, you stupid Gladiator! Sorry I killed the man. Should've told me before I challenged him!
** Sure, he almost certainly knew someone would eventually kill his friend, but that doesn't mean he has to be happy about it...
*** It still doesn't make sense. OK, so you're Champion, right? The only way anyone's getting that title is if they killed you. Agronak is the ''unbeatable Grand Champion'', meaning no one else but you were able to kill him. With this in mind, if anyone wanted to become the Grand Champion, they had to a) Kill you, then b) Kill the Grand Champion. Agronak's pretty much safe now since there's no way in hell you're gonna be killed by some lowlife Hero (and you're the PC).
*** Okay, well, when you become the Champion, just leave it as that. Some actually do want to kill the orc and become Grand Champion.
*** Firstly, no, it isn't something to take for granted that someone would eventually kill his friend. No one had had the courage to actually challenge the Prince for the title in years; whenever he preformed it was against monsters for exhibition. Its perfectly reasonable to assume that the Prince would one day simply retire. He's not a slave; he's there by his own choice. And he could leave by his own choice. Secondly, just to repeat the point, he doesn't have to be happy about the fact someone killed his friend. He had apparently gotten so used to the idea that no one had the balls to challenge the Prince, let alone the skill to do it. That reality being shattered likely shocked him.
* The assassination of Uriel Septim bugs me for one reason: you, the player, are the ''sole survivor'' of said assassination--barring one Blade who ''does not leave the scene''--but once you leave the sewers, you can travel anywhere in Tamriel, including right there in the Imperial City, and discover that the news of the Emperor's death has preceded you. How hard would it have been to script in a little delay? Taking the Amulet of Kings to Weynon Priory would have felt more realistic if you'd been given a line like, "Hey, the Emperor's dead. Here's his necklace."

** Remember that this is a fantasy setting - assuming Baurus (or even the Emperor himself) didn't use some kind of spell to alert the Council, the Dragonfires extinguising certainly would. Also, SpaceCompression - just because you can travel from the sewer exit to the Imperial City in a matter of minutes, in-universe the trip might take at least an hour (looking at the supposed size of the Imperial City isle) - plenty of time for word to spread. As a Council-funded endeavour, the ''Black Horse Courier'' would be able to publish any details almost as soon as the Council knew.
** The fact that the Emperor's sons are dead and that Blades were escorting the Emperor from Palace to Prison suggests that Mythic Dawn was attacking for quite some time, so Elder Council knew his life is at risk. And when the Emperor dies, the Dragonfires extinguish. Knowing that the Emperor's life is at risk, Elder Council, or Okato alone probably have spent some time in Temple of the One and when the Dragonfires extinguished, he, as the head of the Elder Council, ordered Black Horse Courier to print the "Emperor's Dead" issue.
** This is an RPG - news travels at the speed of light. This is a setting where I accidentally steal a bowl trying to talk to someone and my crime is reported to the guards three towns over.
* Why is there only Martin as a heir? None of the three sons(who were in their 50s) of Uriel VII had sons or daughters of their own? Even in the rare event that happens, any cousins of the emperor would still be heirs, just distantly. For example, the UK has 52 listed successors to the Queen. That would be a lot of heirs for the Mythic Dawn to kill off.
** Population of the UK in the 2013 census: 64.1 billion. Population of Cyrodil in Oblivion: 855. It makes sense the UK would have a lot more heirs, and even with a population density that high they only have 52 listed, Cyrodil's 3 legitimate and 1 illegitimate heirs would leave them with a higher ratio of heirs to population.
** It is worth noting (space compression aside) that the heirs, AND the Emperor, spent several years imprisoned by Jagar Tharn's agents during the Imperial Simulacrum. Given that there were, as recently as Morrowind's timeframe, rumors that they weren't the REAL heirs (Enman and Ebel were the only ones named in Morrowind, implying the possibility that Geldall hadn't been rescued yet or that the writers just forgot about him) and were actually Daedric imposters were rampant. Being that they're the heirs to the Empire, they can't just marry some commoner. And the nobility was dragging their feet until their True Septim Status was confirmed.
* Why is there a giant sized chair, club, hourglass and crystal ball in the basement of the imperial palace? They're at least 20x normal size and under guard by the imperial watch in a restricted area, which would lead one to think they're some kind of special artifacts, but I can't find any explanation for them in the game or on the internet. This is really bugging me!
** I would probably say they were just Easter Eggs. Or, if you wanna stretch it, the giant chair is the Throne of the Emperor himself...
*** I would agree that they're probably just silly eater eggs, were it not for the fact that the giant hourglass is integral to the final thieves guild quest, and thus you ''must'' visit and interact with these strange and unexplained gigantic items to finish that quest.

* It always bothered me how some people believe you never did anything to deserve the title of Champion of Cyrodiil and that Martin did all the work. This is simply not true. [[spoiler:''You'' liberated Kvatch and made recovery a possibility. ''You'' destroyed one of the Mythic Dawn's main strongholds. ''You'' stymied the invasion by destroying hundreds of Oblivion Gates. ''You'' saved Bruma from a Daedra attack before it even occurred. ''You'' destroyed Dagon's best weapon (the Siege Engine). ''You'' killed Mankar Camoran and wiped out the Mythic Dawn once and for all. ''You'' retrieved the Amulet of Kings.]] Yes, Martin's ultimately the one who saves the day, but none of it would have been possible without your efforts.
** Probably because it's easier for the writers to just say "Martin saved the day" since there is no list of names to choose from and there is a ''shitton'' of possible combinations that might all conflict each other - you'll notice that they actually tried to make it seem like a bunch of ''Daggerfall'''s endings were canonical and that Uriel has never mentioned that he was trapped in Oblivion for awhile during the events of ''Arena''.
** Nah, a couple years after the events of ''Oblivion'', you [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyTactics killed a religious figure who turned into a demon and was declared a heretic and likewise was erased from history.]]
** Part of the issue is that the champion of Cyrodiil, unlike all of the other elder scrolls characters, is pretty much blindly following orders. The eternal champion worked with barely any guidance, the agent chose the destiny of the entire province, Cyrus and the apprentice had to figure out everything on the fly, the nerevarine had to do a whole honking lot of diplomacy and the dragonborn was the key to a civil war. Meanwhile, the champion of Cyrodiil is pretty much just doing what he's told. Plus, compared to the nerevarine, dovahkiin, Cyrus and maybe even the agent, there really isn't a lot you could say about the champion. He didn't get any prophecies or any backstory.
** Let's not forget that eventually [[VideoGame/TheElderscrollsVSkyrim Elves practically write you out of the history books]] Not that it matters because you're Sheogorath now and have better things to do.
* Thieves Guild Spoilers!! [[spoiler: It is revealed in a very late TG quest that anyone who reads the Elder Scrolls start to progressively go blind. So when your character sees this scroll, reads it (as you do before you take it, like with any book/scroll), why is he/she not stricken with blindness? Does it require that one continually read the scroll, not just scan it like your character seemed to do?]]
** Pretty much. [[spoiler: ''Seeing'' an Elder Scroll and ''reading'' an Elder Scroll are two different things. Your character most likely saw the scroll and had the same reaction you probably did: "WTF is this squiggly writing? I can't read it, but whatever it is this sucker's mine now. YOINK!"]]
** Considering the quest you're talking about, your character also doesn't have time to waste [[spoiler: trying to read the scroll. They're in the Imperial Palace surrounded by guards and blind priests who would not hesitate to kill him/her upon discovery. It's get in, grab the thing and get the hell out.]]

* Why do Peryite and Boethiah's planes of Oblivion look identical to Mehrunes Dagon's?
** Well, Boethia(h) apparently has influence over several planes of Oblivion; he says in his quest dialogue that "I shall open a portal for you to '''one''' of my realms," implying that he controls more than one. As for Peryite, you just get told that his followers are trapped in ''a'' plane of Oblivion, not necessarily ''his'' plane of Oblivion.
** If you check the quest markers, the location is actually called the Realm of Peryite. It raises strange questions:
-->1) Why does Peryite has Dremora-styled towers in his plane?
-->2) Why are there Dremoras walking around his plane?
-->3) Why, being the Daedric Prince and serving as the embodiment of his own plane, can't Peryite kick the souls of his followers out of his plane AND kill Dremoras who aren't happy to see neither you, nor the souls of worshippers. In fact, he acts very happy and relieved when you find his shrine. Can't he control his plane?
** Taking a WildMassGuessing route, I'd say that Dagon tried to get other Daedric lords follow his dark crusade against Nirn. Peryite refused and Dagon's forces invaded his plane to the point of changing it's general view to that of the Dagon's (like Jyggalag and his Forces of Order change the aspects of Sheogorath's realm). That's why dremoras want to kill you and torture souls, and Peryite is hardly holding his realm in one piece to actively help you.
** Because the level devs didn't care anything about the lore. You may as well ask why Cyrodiil wasn't a temperate rain forest and Imperial City didn't fill the entire island.
*** But, believe it or not, Cyrodiil ''is'' a '''Temperate''' Rain Forest outside of Colovia (Long-established as plains anyway). While there is some deforestation around the cities, most of the landmass is rather heavily forested, and it rains extremely frequently. What it isn't, though, is a '''tropical''' rainforest. People don't know the difference between temperate and tropical rainforests.
*** Actually, there are a number of sources that refer to it as a jungle as well (like ''before the ages of men''( which, oddly enough, first appeared in oblivion)
*** Fun > Accuracy. Sometimes WillingSuspensionOfDisbelief is needed unless you want "I can't find my way through all these stupid trees and it's also lagging like hell simulator 2006".
*** Don't forget Cyrodiil originally only had the Imperial City. So it'll also be "uninteresting nature walk simulator 2006". Besides, Bethesda already tried to explain it instead of just going "we [[RetCon retconned]] it, deal with it", do people have a weird jungle fetish or something?
** To repeat, Peryite never says his followers are in his plane of oblivion, and makes a point of saying "I will transport you to the plane of oblivion where their souls are trapped". It's possible that because they did the ritual during Dagon's invasion, the Deadlands were simply "closer" to Tamriel than the Quagmire, so that's where their souls landed.
*** its possible that its a perception thing, I.E you are going to a deadric princes area so you expect to see a hellscape (I think one NPC in a Deadric hell realm thought it looked like a beautiful landscape) or the PC just Assumes that this place is Peryites, I assumed that the maps you look at in the menu are all drawn/wrote by the PC hence explaining the fog of war you have on all of them until you explore, he marks landmarks as he sees them on his map for convience, so Peryite sends you to a Deadric place and your guy naturally marks it down as Peryites realm.

* How was Lord Lovidicus locked away for so long? The only thing trapping him for those several decades was a locked wooden door. A thick wooden door admittedly, but you'd thick with his vampiric enhanced strength and nothing else to do with his time he'd have eventually broken it down. And didn't he have any other servants who could have let him out? His mistress locks him in his bedroom, and no one else ever thinks to come check on him, despite him being, ya know, a noble?

** I got the impression that the specific place you find him wasn't actually his main manor; that wasn't where he tended the nobles and held court. That was his little spot out in the country he'd take his she-orc for their alone time. I mean, the door leads directly into the crypt; the place is literally a tomb. It is somewhat strange that he didn't get through the door as he did have items inside that he could have broken apart and used to chisels his way through given enough time, but in all likelihood after so long without blood he was too feral to even register that the door was his way out, instead just blindly wandering around searching for blood.

* Was Reynald Jemane the only resident of Chorral that wasn't in Cheydenhal last week?

*** Well, everybody else from Chorral was there, no reason for them to think Reynald wasn't there too.

** Your character might have just been transferred to the Imperial City's specific dungeon from another dungeon-there's one in every major city in Cyrodiil, after all. When Captain Renault questions why there's a prisoner in the cell, Glenroy says that it was probably due to a "usual mixup at the watch." Uriel Septim implies that you might have ended up in this specific cell due to direct intervention from the Nine Divines. Point is, you could have been in prison for a long time before the game started without necessarily having been in ''this'' specific prison all the while.]]

*** I got the feeling that was the point. He's kind of TheScrappy of the Fighters Guild missions. There's not supposed to be any emotional weight there, he exists just to be another pest you get to swat (except you've probably wanted to swat this one since you met him but weren't allowed to by guild law). As for why he kept blowing off his missions, he was probably too much of a coward to do them, but used the "I don't get paid enough to do this" excuse. His greed probably lead him to join Blackwood, ignoring the likely danger (assuming they don't just abandon all their dangerous missions like they did with Azani Blackheart). It's likely Blackwood Company would've scrapped him (or worse) before long (assuming the Hist-sap wasn't actually making him useful).

** And considering how wildly different the Morrowind Dunmer voice is from his normal voice, it doesn't take much guessing to figure out why he might not have been able to do it for a more thoroughly voiced game.

* Why doesn't finishing the Fighter's Guild quest provide you with a follower? Both the Dark Brotherhood and the Mage's Guild have followers available after completion. I'm mainly bringing this up because in the Allies For Bruma/Defense of Bruma quests, I'm not seeing a logical reason why as Guildmaster I can't just go and order all the Guild Halls to reinforce Bruma. The only answer I can think of being you can't do that for the others, but at least you can get followers from the other factions to act as backup.
** Most Fighters Guild members are not there out of loyalty to the guild; they're mercenaries, they fight for gold. And the average Fighters Guild jobs pay about 600 gold per job at the highest levels, plus more than has to go to the Guild itself. (For things such as the Master's cut of the profits.) You'd have to pay each fighter you recruited to help, probably extra, considering that journeying with the PC or standing with an army to face an impending invasion of numberless demons are probably more difficult and dangerous than clearing rats out of somebody's basement or hunting down a couple of ogres. Still, I have to agree that you should be able to hire Fighters Guild members, even if it costed money.
* So the entire plot for oblivion centers around the barriers of oblivion fading because there is no heir to the empire who wields the amulet of kings. According to pretty much every NPC in the game, this is the first time this has happened. My problem being that it has happened before. During the rule of the akaviri potentates, there was no emperor, and during the interregnum, the amulet of kings was in sancre tor. That's 900 years of history in which the dragonfires would not be lit, the entirety of the second era. So, was ol' Mehrunes just sleeping during this period? Am I missing some explanation? Also, note that during the time of oblivion, this was about 500 years ago, so why does no one know about it? There would be elves that lived through the entire period!
** You know, I was just wondering the same thing. Even within the third era there were periods of several weeks between the death of an emperor and the coronation of an heir. Since Dagon can invade even though Martin's alive, he should have been able to do so during those periods as well.

*** But those things are still as intact as they were in the interregnum, so the total level of protection should be the same.

*** Actually, looking back through history, the first time Mehrunes Dagon invaded was at the end of the first era, at the start of the interregnum, when, you guessed it, there was no dragonborn emperor (but an akaviri potentate). However, this raises another question: Why was Mehrunes Dagon the only daedric prince to invade during the interregnum? Most daedric lords don't seem to have any interest in mortal affairs, but there are a few who it seems would relish at the opportunity. Azura could finally face the tribunal. Hircine would dig a chance to hunt people. Molag Bal would love to do some unspeakable things to the locals. Meridia could get a chance to finally destroy all the undead. Namira would love to om-nom-nom some mortals.
*** Given that Mehrunes Dagon is associated with Destruction, Ambition and Change, it may be that his invasions are the most ambitious and extensive ones - the other mortal affairs-interested lords may well have done things... but because Mehrunes Dagon was doing this loud, noisy thing, the histories of the time failed to record them. Azura and Hircine might also have other reasons for being more low-key - openly facing her enemies isn't really Azura's style, she's more of a manipulator, and while Hircine does love himself some mortal-hunting, he relishes the sport of the thing - if the prey has ''no'' chance, where's the fun? - so limiting himself to restricted avatars and nabbing the Big Guys of the age (as he did in ''Bloodmoon'') is perfectly in character even if he theoretically could go for a more extensive presence on Mundus.

*** You're all forgetting that literally none of the shenanigans about Alduin and kalpas are confirmed by the games. They may be mentioned in some books, but those books could easily be wrong, and the guy who wrote all of this hasn't worked at Bethesda for years; he's basically been writing fan fiction since he left. Until the developers directly acknowledge and state it to be true, it's just conjecture and WMG.
** Prior to Martin's Sacrifice Daedra could cross into Nirn whenever summoned or even on their own at times, however Daedra are not as powerful in Nirn as they are in their own realms. Azura could not take on the Tribunal and she knew it, it would have been one out of her element Daedric Prince vs Three Living Gods. Further Dagon invaded Nirn a couple of times, during the war between Morrowind and the Empire back in Tiber Septim's day, Dagon was summoned by a sorcerer in Mournhould and ended up destroying the city in one of the worst Daedric attacks in Tamrielic histoy, but Amsivi were able to banish him back to oblivion. Dagon was trying to not just invade and destroy Nirn in Oblivion but take it over entirely, in essence merging his sphere with Nirn, which was far more ambitious and required the barriers between realms to be weakened. Plus by the time of Oblivion Red Mountain was gone, as was the Numidium and the Tribunal, Alduin was asleep and the Psijic Order had phased out of reality again, as Dagon wanted all of Nirn these are all things he would have had to deal with and may have been too much to overcome.
** It's worth noting that in Elder Scrolls Online Molag Bal does actually invade during the interregnum, though he does require a ritual involving the Dragonfires and Amulet of Kings to be performed first.
* Here's a major one- the PC starts out in the imperial prison, presumably locked up for a crime(anything from murder to picking up some random object- Cyrodill's justice system is pretty strict) and almost promptly escapes when the emperor opens the hidden passage. How come no one is looking for this escaped prisoner? Given that every crime you commit, even with no witnesses, is immediately reported to every guard in the game, it seems funny that your prior crime and subsequent escape are practically written off by the legal system. Obviously if you ''save the world from being destroyed by Oblivion'' they would pardon you, but even if you completely ignore the main quest and just do you're own thing they never try to send you back to prison. Were you assumed dead? Did Baurus tell everyone the emperor chose you for a task? Or are crimes automatically pardoned through an "escape prison" loophole?
** Well, there's a certain degree of gameplay and story segregation there with how instantly your crimes are reported, but yea, that kind of struck me as odd that your past criminal record, whatever it may have been, is completely unknown/ignored. For a fantastic explanation, Uriel could have been right about the gods placing you in that cell(it was supposed to stay empty, after all). Alternatively, the presumed dead thing is viable. Baurus might have reported you as dead or the cell as empty or had records falsified to cover your mission. Then again, as I write that I seem to recall a Dark Brotherhood mission that states the prisoner escape is known, and hints that the questgiver(the vampire who's name escapes me) knows you're the escaped prisoner.
** I agree. Vincente implies that he knew you were the one who escaped as he discusses with you the contract to eliminate [[spoiler: Valen Dreth]]. This is confirmed with the two guards that have a conversation, particularly the line, "...Since that other one [you] got away, he's the only one rotting down here."

*** Given the characters' dialogue, this seems the most likely. You never commited a crime; the Divines placed you in that cell so you can meet the Emperor and do your duty of saving the world.

* Another one- I somehow racked up 3 murders during the Shivering Isles main quest series(I think that fighting any of the Apostles counts as murder if you're wearing their robes) and got a visit from Lucien. I didn't want to do the DB quests(my character resurrected the Knights Of The Nine and defeated Umaril, rose to the rank of Fighter's Guild master, and became Sheogorath in a heroic victory, so was more or less noble) but since it can't be turned down, I cheated by attacking him. I was in the Fighter's Guild main hall in Chorrol so 3 FG members ended up wiping the floor with him. Now then, here's what I don't get- the DB supposedly sees you when you first commit murder but if you choose to end the DB quest by killing Lucien, then they... do nothing. Don't they notice you offing one of their higher-ranking men if they can see any murder? I would've thought they'd retaliate but in the game, killing Lucien ends the DB quest and no more is heard. Attacking him isn't even considered assault by the game's crime system. It just seems odd to me that the DB literally just doesn't care if you kill one of their speakers when he offers you a place in their group.
** ...Good question.
** It's possible that getting murdered by potential recruits is simply considered an occupational hazard for Speakers. They're sent after sociopaths all the time, it's probable that they're attacked as often as not.

** Even if the Dark Brotherhood was aware of you, do you really think that they're going to keep messing with someone who was so insulted by an invitation to join them that he or she slaughtered a Speaker, one of their most elite members, in response? Honestly, if I was on the Black Hand at that point, I would have told everyone else in the Brotherhood to stay away from that person so we wouldn't lose any more perfectly good assassins!
* Help me with this. When you do the "Breaking the Siege of Kvatch", it's either made clear or implied that the Kvatch guards you see are the only ones remaining after the initial attack. So...where does Mattius manage to get two extra guards to send to Bruma later in the game when you're gathering up troops for its defense? They don't look like the civilians in the camp or the ones you rescued from the chapel. Where did these two extra guards come from?

* I may have missed something here. Basically, here's the gist of what Martin tells you about the quest "Blood of the Divines"

My issue is the last line. Basically, according to lore, the first emperor ascended and became the god [[spoiler: Talos]]. Now, Martin is a priest. He obviously worshipped the Nine. So how could he not have figured it out for himself? It would take only two minutes at best: "Hey, we need the [[spoiler: blood of the Divines.]] Now, out of all the gods, which one used to be a living person? Ah! Of course! [[spoiler: Tiber]]! I wonder if his armor is still around, and if there's some of his blood left on it?" I swear, I think Martin was being unusually stupid there... Don't tell me 'Martin may well have done that' because Martin's dialogue implies he knew next to nothing about [[spoiler: Tiber becoming Talos]].

** (OP here) Ah, so basically the implication is that Martin did ask himself "Which god was once a human being?", then went to Jaufre and asked, "Hey, um, is there any relics of Tiber Septim lying around per chance, still?"
*** That's the idea. Mind, the game doesn't give one much to work with, but at least it is a better implication than 'Martin is either unusually stupid at the time or doesn't even have a basic knowledge of the faith he is a priest of', so...

** I might be remembering wrong, but most of the quests have you going after people in caves and dungeons. So presumably the Imperial Province is okay with you going after these people who most likely are immoral anyway. If the Guild started killing citizens then they might object.

* OK, so during Martin's speech just before the [[spoiler: Battle for Bruma]], he helpfully says, "The Empire will stand or fall by what we do here today." Um, anyone mind explaining to me how the entire Empire would fall if [[spoiler: Bruma]] fell? Last I checked, the Septim Empire is pretty big, so one more smoking ruin of a city isn't exactly going to kill the Empire. Was this his way of saying, "Look, if I die we're all basically screwed"?

* OK, this is kinda gross, but why can't female characters smuggle in more than one lockpick when they go to jail (you can probably figure out why)?

* Here's a major one- the PC starts out in the imperial prison, presumably locked up for a crime(anything from murder to picking up some random object- Cyrodill's justice system is pretty strict) and almost promptly escapes when the emperor opens the hidden passage. How come no one is looking for this escaped prisoner? Given that every crime you commit, even with no witnesses, is immediately reported to every guard in the game, it seems funny that your prior crime and subsequent escape are practically written off by the legal system. Were you assumed dead? Did Baurus tell everyone the emperor chose you for a task? Or are crimes automatically pardoned through an "escape prison" loophole?

** Antoinetta Marie implies that the imperial guard sexually assaulted her when she was their prisoner. It's not much of a stretch to assume that they're only too eager to give female convicts a very "thorough" search, but are too disgusted to check the back door.
* How come, once your character is released from the Imperial prison, your just automatically absolved of whatever crime you did to go there? Ok, obviously if you ''save the world from being destroyed by Oblivion'' they would pardon you, but even if you completely ignore the main quest and just do you're own thing they never try to send you back to prison. Why?
** Perhaps you either were counted as "escaped" (same as if you break out via lockpick), or you had served your time

* How come, once your character is released from the Imperial prison, your just automatically absolved of whatever crime you did to go there? Ok, obviously if you ''save the world from being destroyed by Oblivion'' they would pardon you, but even if you completely ignore the main quest and just do you're own thing they never try to send you back to prison. Why?

* How come, once your character is released from the Imperial prison, you're just automatically absolved of whatever crime you did to go there? Ok, obviously if you ''save the world from being destroyed by Oblivion'' they would pardon you, but even if you completely ignore the main quest and just do you're own thing they never try to send you back to prison. Why?

** Antoinetta Marie implies that the imperial guard sexually assaulted her when she was their prisoner. It's not much of a stretch to assume that they're only too eager to give female convicts a very "thorough" search, but are too disgusted to check the back door.