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THE ELDER SCROLLS III: MORROWIND (Game of the Year)
BEGINNER'S GUIDE
Ver 4.0
Algus Sadalfus
Endlessinstant@gmail.com
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BULLETIN
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My email address HAS changed! Learn it, live it, love it, and feel free to send
me your questions, comments, concerns, or outright flames.
No matter how out of date this guide is, I will be available to answer questions
for this game! Check my contributor page on GameFAQs.com to ensure you have my
newest email address. It will always be listed there.
This guide is intended for the Xbox edition of Morrowind. Someday I shall have
to see about it getting relisted on GameFAQs. I cannot answer technical
questions about getting the game to run on your PC. Sorry.
For posterity's sake I've begun to note the revision dates of the guide, though
I only have copies of 2.0, 3.5, and 4.0
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VERSION INFO
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01/07/06 4.0 - Special thanks to the GameFAQs message boards for all the help
they provided in this massive update! New tips, strategies, spelling
improvements, all around a much better guide then past editions. Implemented
character test at the top to conform to GameFAQs standard. Also added one s
earch key, may add more as guide continues to be overhauled. Expect another
version soon!
Revision work began on 01/04/06
01/18/04 3.5 - Expanded info on Thirsk, was getting a lot of questions
3.3 - Change of contact information
3.2 – Various typos and errors corrected
3.0 - Updated to include Morrowind: GOTY content
2.5 - Assorted things updated
07/06/03 2.0 – Tons of typo fixes, content of guide overhauled. Much less
spoilers.
1.0 – Initial Release
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INTRODUCTION
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Welcome to Morrowind, ahh yes it is a good game. By now you have played around
in Seyda Neen and probably been killed by the Imperials after seeing what would
happen if you went on a murderous rampage. You don't have a clue what to do
and you need some help.
So what do you do?
Well, you went to GameFAQs, you stared at the FAQs and you said "What the
crap?!" because you didn't know where to begin. Not that the other FAQs are
bad, they're actually very good, but many of them aren't "newbie" friendly.
The goal of this guide is to teach you how to survive in Morrowind. There are
a few spoilers that I mention, nothing major I hope, I've tried to eliminate
most from past installments of the guide, but I only bring them up because
it is important information that you will need without ruining your gaming
experience.
Stop reading at any time. You don't need to use this guide as a pure
walkthrough. Heck, you don't even really need to beat the game with the
character I'm going to tell you to create. The best part of Morrowind is
exploration, hard to do by following a guide. This is just to help you out and
learn about Vvardenfell. Actually, the character I'm going to discuss you
using isn't the greatest build in the world, but it will serve for our
purposes.
Further, you may have played and "know" about cheating such as killing
ordinators etc.... this guide is going to tell you how to be "ligit" without
abusing bugs. This includes stealing crap items while avoiding punishment.
Although I have written an appendix at the end of the guide that lists some of
the more amusing things you can do to give yourself a huge advantage.
I have made some foolish assumptions. I have assumed that
- You'll explore new towns somewhat
- You'll read what people tell you
- You'll pay attention to names of people and places
If you can't handle this on your own then I'm sorry. It is very important to
talk to and listen to people in this game. They can add story, color, and
give important information. The beauty of Morrowind is not in the telling
of the main plot but in exploring a world crafted to be as realistic as
possible. Morrowind, Vvardenfel, and the Elder Scrolls World as a whole has a
history and life running through it. Bethesda has truly created a masterpiece
and I hope that by the time you finish this guide you will be able to explore
Morrowind on your own. Sometimes it's the journey that matters most and
nothing truer could be said of this game.
Also, be sure to check the Game of the Year section of the FAQ. It comes at the
end of the guide after I've run through exploring the game. It will tell you
how to get to the expansion areas: the island of Solstheim and the city of
Mournhold. These are typically very frequent questions so you'll want to make
sure to read through that so you know what to do.
Lastly if my little walkthrough seems much to basic to you. (Can already
handle quests? Great!) Make sure to at least check the tips section. Through
contributions from the GameFAQs message boards and my own experience I've
assembled some information that ought to be very helpful to any player, not
just new ones.
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CONTENTS
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Chapter Zero: The Basics
- Terms you should know
Chapter One: A Hero is Born
- Developing a decent character
- Getting around Seyda Neen
Chapter Two: Friendship in Balmora
- Joining Guilds, building friendships
Chapter Three: Home is Where the Hearth is
- Getting a house
- Doing those introductory quests
Chapter Four: The Grand Finale
- Being a Blades spy
- Doing your job the thief's way
WHAT TO DO NOW?
- Advice on the future
Appendix A: Seyda Neen fun
- All those neat things to do in your first town
Appendix B: Magic fun
- Useful beginning spells
Appendix C: So you want a real edge?
- Morrowind, the cheaters way!
Appendix D: Game of the Year Content
- How do I get to Mournhold?!
- How do I get to Solstheim?!
- Now What?
Chapter Zero: The Basics
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First thing first. When you get into the game, hit start, scroll down to
options and select it. If you're playing the GOTY version (I assume you
are) then you will find a difficulty selector. Unlike many games this is a
very precise tool with 200 selectable difficulties ranging from -100 to 100.
0 is the standard difficulty the original Morrowind played it, while 100 is
pretty hard and -100 is very easy. Obviously settings like -98 and -99 aren't
very different from one another but at any rate you can use this to set the
game to a difficulty reflective of your skills.
Just a brief rundown of terms you will see both in the game and me using
Gold - money :)
Septims - When I, or characters in the game say septims they mean gold.
Drakes - The same with septims, just another word referring to gold in the
game.
Trainers - these people can improve your various skills by one point if you
pay them to do so. Each trainer typically has three different skills they can
teach you however there is a cap on how high they can train you. There are, of
course, 'master' trainers that can train you all the way to 100 in their
respective skill, assuming you have the gold and your attributes are high
enough.
Dunmer - Dark Elves, the green skinned ones
Altmer - High Elves, the yellow skinned ones
Bosmer - Wild Elves, Fargoth's race
Guild Guide - these are mages that hang out in the Mage's Guild. Each Guide
offers transportation to each of the other Mage's Guild scattered across
Morrowind. Their prices fluctuate depending on their disposition. Joining the
Mage's Guild and advancing through the ranks is a great way to get a huge
increase in the Guide's disposition which results in transportation costs of
only a few gold pieces per trip.
Silt Strider - similar to the Guild Guides, Silt Striders are a transportation
service. You'll actually be talking to whoever runs the local transportation
outfit as a Silt Strider is a giant bug. These offer transportation to many
towns on the west side of Morrowind.
Ferry - Im sure you know what a ferry is, but since I've detailed the other two
forms of transportation, Ferrys appear in most towns that are connected to the
Ocean, except for Seyda Neen. Sometimes they take the form of very large ships
and other times just a tiny rowboat, but whoever the Ferry Captain is will
offer transportation to several other towns along the coast.
Ashlanders - The native Dunmer tribes of Morrowind, kind of like Indians,
generally they hate Outlanders (you) You'll have plenty of dealings with
them.
Outlander - People that aren't native to Morrowind, you
Vvardenfel - For your purposes, another name for Morrowind, there's more to it
then that. If you're really interested in more then just the basics read some
of the in-game books, they provide for very enjoyable reading as well as
explain the history of the world Morrowind exists in.
Chapter One: A Hero is born
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After dreaming of a nice pleasant female voice you wake up next to good old
Jiub. Enjoy your time with Jiub as best as you can, you won’t be hanging out
with him for much longer.
Yes yes… no doubt you're eager to get on your way. But that nasty character
creation process is in your way. Well, let’s get to it, ehh?
As far as race I myself suggest an Imperial or Dunmer, why? Imperials have
good personality bonus, Dunmer get disposition bonuses. Redguard is also a
good choice because of his incredible long blade bonus.
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Let me explain a bit more in detail about what I'm talking about with
personality and disposition. If you don't care then search for "DC00" to
jump out of this section.
Many things effect how characters in Morrowind react to you, personality, race,
reputation. But all of these things come down to one single thing,
disposition. While the other factors and things such as guild allegience effect
an NPC's disposition rating, with the right bribe or persuasion, you can get
even the most ardent Dagoth Ur supporter to be at least somewhat friendly
with you. Now I mentioned Imperials and Dunmer get decent bonuses here, let
me explain.
Imperials have a very nice bonus to their personality score. If you combine
this with personality as a class attribute and the sign of The Lady you get
a huge starting personality score. This makes persuasion and bribing much
easier and also helps starting disposition. Basically, it can help you get
those disposition scores much higher much more easily.
Dunmer have a 'race bonus' actually this isn't much of a special bonus, any NPC
generally has a better initial impression of a member of their own race so
Imperials get it too but just for other Imperials. Dunmer likewise get this
disposition bonus when meeting other Dunmer. Now consider Morrowind is the
home of the Dark Elves as you might imagine most NPCs in this game are, in fact,
Dunmer. This is why I recommend either of these two races. Plus, without
trying to spoil the story TOO much a male Dunmer really fits in with the plot
of the main game
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DC00
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As far as class goes, this may be a little confusing, but you should do a
custom class. Name it what you want, and take stealth as specialization. Make
sure you get short blade, long blade, light armor, speechcraft and possibly
mercantile mixed into your skill set. Stay away from athletics and acrobatics
(actually... speechcraft can also cause some gains, I'll explain in a moment)
Take some other stuff that sounds good. Make sure though your main
weapon (either short or long blade, I prefer short) and armor is in "major"
skill, you get a better bonus. You also might want to take restoration. I
suggest the following
Major:
Long Blade
Light Armor
Short Blade
Restoration
Security
Minor:
Sneak
Speechcraft
Mercantile
Conjuration
Mysticism
For attributes take personality and either endurance, strength, or speed. When
you choose sign, take the Lady (for Lady Azura right?)
Why did I tell you all this? Simple, this character will have
great personality (especially if you're an Imperial) pretty good endurance
(important for hp) and can handle short sword and/or long sword, the two most
common weapons in Morrowind.
Be aware also that good personality and speechcraft scores will allow you to use
the taunt command. Taunt basically gets whoever you are talking to to attack
you. You need to be successful with it a few times in a row, three, to get
them to go after you. If you do taunt them into attacking then you can kill
them without any drawbacks. This can be very useful, especially when you get
strong enough to fight Ordinators.
~Thanks to RPGNick for reminding me to mention this~
I make no claims that this is the best or ultimate character. In fact, this
class needs some work but it will have some skills for some of the guilds I
tell you to join and can handle itself well enough. It gives you the skills
you'll need when learning things.
Alright as for the 'unnecessary gains' I mentioned earlier, let me go into a
brief explanation. This mostly has to do with my personal playstyle. In fact
a lot of people will tell you athletics and acrobatics are the two best skills
to take with a custom build.
Here's how it works, athletics and acrobatics are increased whenever you walk
(athletics) or jump (acrobatics) so you can see where these stats end up
building up much more quickly then others in the game. Now when you gain a
level if you have increased a certain type of stat (for instance one governed
by personality) enough times you get a multiplier such as x2 which lets you
increase that stat much higher then you could otherwise. Normally at level
up you get three dots to assign to three seperate stats to increase them by
one point. But with the right multipliers you can theoretically increase three
stats by five points with each level up! This of course takes some delicate
planning and the use of trainers (likely a result of you wanting to get an
unglitched character with maxed attributes.) However regular wear and tear
(assuming you're leveling through combat, basically your main weapon as well
as your armor stat) you should still gain some reasonable stat boosts at level
up. With athletics though you can end up gaining many levels with little to
no multipliers and as such will gain stats very slowly, which can weaken you
in the end. So basically it boils down to do you want to craft a character
that can level up very quickly but with weaker stats or do you want to take
the time to strategically plan which stats will get multipliers in order to
build a character with great stats.
This isn't something I can answer for you, it depends on your personal
playstyle. I will say that these days I'm pretty lazy, I haven't gone to the
trouble of maxing a character's stats in a couple years now (I've got save data
of such characters before completing any quests, so I just use them :p)
Phew, sorry for the long winded deviation, but hopefully you've been a little
enlightened on the character building process.
When you're done chatting with Ergalla, grab your paperwork. Head through the
door, take the firsr right you see and welcome to loot city. You really don't
need anything in here (you can get a good 100 septims or so for selling it
though) I would suggest taking the lock-pick especially if you have security
as a skill (as a stealth based it's useful) You can pick the chest for 30
gold, handy. Nothing else is of importance... there is a letter to Hrisskar,
you'll meet him later but the letter is useless.
When you go into the courtyard, you can't leave until you raid the barrel,
alas, you have to steal at least one thing. Get the healing ring. One more
door, chat up the guard, hand over your paper and get Caius's package. Caius
you will quickly discover can be a good friend and a brutal taskmaster. Your
first mission is to meet him. He can be found in Balmora though we shall get
to that a little later. There are some things to do first.
Welcome to Seyda Neen. Save your game now, you don't want to have to go
through all of that again and it can freeze here. (So damn annoying...) Your
first goal will be to find a fellow named Fargoth, he's usually hanging out
near the entrance. Strike up a conversation and fork over the ring you had to
steal, it's his anyway. His disposition goes up (big deal) and more
importantly he says he'll talk to the trader Arille (good for you.)
Arille's tradehouse is before the first wooden bridge. You'll have to go up
the stairs to find the door. Step inside, the rather lanky fellow behind the
counter is Arille. You should see he has quite a high disposition. Get into
some verbalization with him and choose barter. Depending on your race and
personality this can fluctuate, I've seen it as low as 75ish to as high as 100.
Sell off any stuff you looted (except the lockpick and maybe the dagger) Make
sure you don't go crazy and sell Caius's package. Now you want to buy some
stuff. Choose apparel and get the chitin gear. Why? This is light armor
(which you have as a major skill) only missing the greaves and helm, so you
have almost a full suit already. You can also take either an iron long sword
or possibly a short sword of some sort. You may not have enough gold for this
though... so you're going to need to do some jobs. Don't worry, you can walk
away from this town with over 800 septims.
If you go up the stairs you'll meet Flat-Foot himself, he's the Nord fellow
right at the top in the strapping leather armor that the fellow on the prison
ship wore. A chat with him will find him offering to let you help him out in
shaking down your new friend Fargoth. Welcome to Morrowind. You should take
him up on his offer though.
He'll tell you to go to the lighthouse. Do so. Rest until around 9 or 10 at
night. Then just watch, it can be hard to distinguish Fargoth from the
Imperials (he has a torch like them) but eventually you'll see the little
fellow head into the swampy green lake in the middle of the shacks on the west
side of the town. When he departs get down from the light house top and head
over there. Check the stump, you'll get yourself another lockpick (and better
then the one you have) 300 gold and your ring of healing.
You can go back to Hrisskar but he'll take 200 septims from you. My advice is,
don’t complete the quest and keep the money for yourself. It’s cheap, true,
but you need the money more then he does anyway.
There is still one more thing you can do in Seyda Neen. You may have chatted
with some of the locals and they'll have mentioned that the esteemed tax
collector has gone missing. Well, the Imperials just let you out of jail so
you might as well help them back, right?
The body of the tax collecter is northwest of the town. Head out of town all
the way north, then west a bit and follow the trail. You should pass a small
peninsula and come to some rocks where you may see a fearsome scrib and
forager. The scrib wont attack, but you can kill it anyway. The forager
however will molest you. Slay him with your new sword. You'll see the tax
collecter has seen better days as he is now dead. Search his body to take the
gold and tax record (and his duds if you must)
You now have two options. You can "cheat" again and keep the 200 drakes you
just liberated or you can return it to Ergalla. For our purposes I'm going to
tell you how to do it without cheating as that is taking abuse of a bug and
that isn't what the guide is about. (I explain this exploit in that cheater's
appendix I mentioned if you're interested)
Report to Ergalla with the record and hand over the 200 gold. He'll commission
you to get the murderer (strangely though he says he likes you his disposition
doesn't go up) If you talk around you may learn the murder is a fellow named
Foryn Gilnith. He has a shack in the little cluster where Fargoth's stump is.
Enter, but first make sure you have full fatigue. Chat up Foryn and talk about
the tax collecter, tell him nothing is an excuse for murder and slay his
fetcher arse. When leaving claim the ring from his corpse and possibly the
book.
You now have two stops.
Stop One. Head to the light house and talk to the woman inside. It seems she
was going with the tax collecter, give her his ring and she'll reward you with
two healing potions. Very useful, since your health score probably isn't that
high.
Stop Two. Return to Ergalla, he'll give you 500 septims. You now have a small
fortune which may well exceed 1000 gold if you played your cards right and did
a bit of cheating. You'll have considerably less if you decided to report back
to Flat-foot.
There is more to do in Seyda but that is for the appendix. For now you are
done.
What you should have accomplished by the end of this chapter
- A decent character with good personality
- A set of chitin armor
- A weapon of some sort
- 600-1000 gold
- Caius's package
If you have all this you're looking good.
See that large ugly looking bug? That's a Silt Strider. They are very handy
indeed. Chat with the fellow standing near it, you'll have to cross the first
bridge and go up the hill to find him. Transport and off to Balmora.
End of Chapter One.
If any of this has confused you... take time and follow it a couple of times.
Seyda is a great learning area. There are still many things to do. For more
Seyda Neen fun check the end of the guide.
Chapter Two: Friendship in Balmora
The first time you get to Balmora, its ok to gasp. It may be raining, you'll
get to experience weather. Balmora is an incredible town upon first entering
and you will likely be totally lost. Don't worry though, you have some spending
money, armor, and weapon. You aren't doing to bad.
You're immediate goals now are going to be establishing sources of income and
forming alliances. Since you are stealthy, you may also want to find some
stealthy friends. Balmora IS the place for you.
If you've been paying attention to the dialogue and reading your notes, you
know that the guards suggested you begin your search for Caius at South Wall.
You could just listen to me tell you how to find Caius, but we need to head to
South Wall anyway.
Walk down the steps of the strider and go to you're right. You'll see a river
and some bridges, cross the bridge.
On the other side of Balmora is a row of houses, pass under the arch to the
next row of stuff. A small building with an entrance to the right and some
steps in front of you should greet you. That building is South Wall. Step
inside.
Chatting with Bocola Closicus will give you decent directions to Caius but
before you head off for spymaster you should make some friends. Head
down the hall and you'll find a Khajit (one of those cat things you read about
in the instruction book) wearing the same sort of armor as you, that is if you
took my advice about getting the Chitin gear. Strike up a conversation and you
will quickly find an invitation to join the thieves guild. Take it.
Joining the guild will have many benefits for your character in the long run.
For one, stealing stuff will give you a bounty. Paying your guild will remove
this bounty. Very good. Also good, the early quests for thieves are easy and
rewarding. In fact, it's entirely possible to complete the bulk of the
missions with a level 1 character. Though you won't have the rank you deserve.
Well you're now a toad, oh joy. You can find Caius now, it's best to set
yourself up before you go on missions for your new bosses. You can
follow your new friends' directions or mine, I care not. Head out of South
Wall and up the stairs next to it.
Turn left and head all the way down, Caius's locker is at the end of the row of
houses. Step inside and whoah! Put a shirt on! Ahem... chat with Caius, he
thinks you're crazy, then he finds out you're to be his new lacky. Let him
induct you into the Blades. You can ask him about the Blades Trainers
(remember Trainers from the glossary) Talking about them will get directions
to each one in your journal. This could be useful for future reference.
Asking him about orders will net you 200 drakes since you look like a noob.
Thanks Caius! (If you've gain a couple levels he will forego giving you the
gold so it's best to get here as soon as possible. He cuts you off at level 4
I do believe.)
You're done with Caius now, after all he told you to buy stuff before he gives
you your first mission as an imperial spy. You may be thinking, between
the Blades and the Thieves, I have lots of friends. And yes, yes you do have
lots of friends. But you'll want a few more.
From Caius's cross the river again, head up the stairs and through the alley.
To your right is the Dunmer Temple and your left the Fighters and Mages guild
(contained in a nice little archway) and some shops. Go left and into the
little corner thing where the fighters and mages guild are. The doors will name
them if you haven't figured that out yet. Step inside the mage's guild.
A rather snide looking creature will offer to allow you to join. Do so. Wait
you say, I'm not a mage! True, but the mage's quests are fairly light, even
later on, and you will gain some very useful rewards. Not to mention cheaper
transportation expenses by having a high disposition with the guild guides.
You can also join the fighter's guild if you want to, but you don't need to.
At most you'll have two easy to complete quests, and they may not be so easy.
The Fighter's Guild also has some seedy connections and a somewhat hostile
relationship with the Thieve's Guild. For the sake of this character avoiding
them is likely for the best. Though I certainly encourage you to investigate
the Guild when you're done with this guide ;) Caius might be able to shed some
light on who to speak to in the guild. Just ask him about it.
There is however, one more thing to do. With your membership in the Mage's
Guild you have two places to rest (the guild and Caius's) and a place to stash
stuff (the chest in the Mage's Guild for items is good for this) and some
friends. Their dispositions will increase as you gain ranks.
You may have, in your run around Balmora seen some yellow armored fellows that
look pretty mean. Those are the local Hlaalu thugs. Great House Hlaalu will
also prove to be a useful association for you to join. Each of the three houses
(you may have heard of them if you like talking) is keyed to a certain type of
character: combat, stealth, or magic. Hlaalu happens to be stealth. You'll
want to join them. Doing so means that Redoran and Telvanni wont accept you,
but the benefits are much greater the drawbacks.
Exit the guild area and find some stairs that lead to all the big mansions.
They should be north of where you came up into this area. The big building
where Hlaalu hangs out is in the middle left of Balmora if that helps. Once
inside, speak to the Dunmer lady in front of you. She'll try to get you to buy
some book, feel free to refuse her (the book may be useful later but is easily
obtainable.) Eventually, you can get her to talk about business and she'll
offer to let you join Hlaalu. Do so, she will warn you to consider it, but
just plunge ahead.
Now stop, save your game if you want. You've actually done a lot, though you
don't know it. Balmora is now your base essentially. All your friends are
here and even some of your enemies. You're actually looking pretty good,
especially if you have more then 1000 drakes. You'll find you are going to need
a lot of that money for expenses however so try not to splurge to much. If you
go to your status screen you can scroll down and find a list of the guilds
you've joined, highlighting the guilds and holding Y will bring up a chart that
details the attribute requirements you need for promotion in the guild you've
chosen. You can use this to guide which attributes you want to raise. I
recommend sticking to either the Blades Skills or the Thieve's Guild skills, the
Mage skills aren't essential and can be raised fairly easily without a trainer.
Alright, let's review what's happened so far
So far you should have
- Become a Toad of the Thieves Guild
- An Apprentice in the Blades
- An Associate in the Mage's Guild
- An Associate in the Fighter's Guild (not necessary)
- A hireling of Great House Hlaalu
Once you've got yourself set up nicely, you're looking good. Congratulations
you've made some strong ties. You may want to do a little bit of exploring but
don't venture to far from Balmora, we've got some work to do here.
Chapter Three: Home Is Where The Hearth Is
********************************************
Now that you're set up, you're first job is going to be to get a home. A home
will let you store equipment and hang out in your free time. Unfortunately to
be "ligit" the only way to get a home is to complete a Great House quest line
and build a stronghold but the fact of the matter is you are going to steal a
home. You need one, that's all there is to it. You do have a couple of
choices.
I prefer to "take" an unoccupied home. They are smaller, but you won't have to
kill anyone. Get your lockpick (preferably Fargoth's) and head back across the
river. A couple of the homes have some complicated locks but if you took
security and have Fargoth's pick, you should be able to get it eventually. The
locked homes represent the homes of people outside. Since they never go in
their homes, everything is free for the taking. Technically you are a thief,
so you should have nothing against stealing stuff ;). Beware, if you are seen
by the Hlaalu guards (try sneaking) they will get mad. They may even attack
you. They will kill you in two hits, plain and simple. If one gets pissed off,
take shelter in your home and rest for 3-4 days, it'll tame them down.
Empty the home if you want and drop any of your extra stuff. This is going to
be your base and your loot storage facility. You can also sleep in the bed to
rest. By the way, don’t bother with Tsiya’s house. Even though it’s locked,
Tsiya is inside.
I recommend you try to keep items in baskets or containers if possible. So if
you have a small house, try not to horde to much junk. If you just leave lots
of stuff lying around you're bound to spawn overflow loot bags. These things
basically round up all the items you drop on the ground and have a real nasty
tendancy to eat them.
There are a couple other options for "taking" a home, one of which is quite
useful insofar as you will have a container that can be filled with as many
items as you want. The other is just a large place with lots of shelving if
you like to put things on display.
If you head back up to the central area where the Hlaalu Manor is you'll also
notice there are several mansions here, as I said two are of interest to us.
One is Nerano Manor and the other is Hlaalo Manor. I'll talk about Hlaalo
Manor first.
Alright, here's a tiny, small, meager spoiler. Someone has murdered Raylen
Hlaalo. Tragic yes, and the scoundrel is sure to get his comeupance at the
hands of some House Hlaalu Agent someday however, there is one fringe benefit.
See, since Raylen Hlaalo is already dead, his corpse isn't just a regular corpse
buta perma-corpse. That means that it will never rot or go away. So you can
just dump whatever you want in it and never run out of storage. Though I've
had it act a little glitchy after dumping a lot of stuff into him. But I am
a packrat. You'll have to break through the lock, but should be able to do
it with Fargoth's pick. Just stick to the body on the first floor as upstairs
is his maid and you don't want to let her out to see you running about the
first floor looting stuff. Also you may notice a bottle of rather expensive
brandy on the shelves. Leave it. It's used in a quest later on.
But you want to display your weapons and armor you say? Fine, if you don't
mind large file sizes for your saves (that can depressingly cause crashes)
or the risk of leaving to much stuff in the open and spawning a loot bag. You
can help yourself to Nerano Manor. There are a couple things you should be
aware of if you choose Nerano Manor as your new residence however.
You are going to have to kill the current occupent, Ondres Nerano. Not a
problem really, he's just a defenseless noble. However his, erm, well being
is needed for a pair of quests. One such quest requires him to be alive and
involves Great House Redoran. The said quest is of such importance that you
will be unable to advance to the Highest ranks of Redoran without Nerano. So
in the future when you presumably return with a better character if you choose
to play as a Redoran Retainer do not kill Nerano. The second quest does not
require him to be alive and involves the Thieve's Guild. Essentially you will
not receive as good a reward if he is dead (However completing that quest with
him alive is somewhat more complicated so it works both ways I suppose. We will
be doing that quest so I will discuss it more later.)
The key on Nerano's body will get you into the bedroom upstairs and also through
the door on the second floor (which just leads outside, its locked from both
ends though so make sure to unlock both sides with the key before you get rid
of it. Coincidently you need that key for a quest in a bit so do hang onto it
until then.) The other chests and cabinets you will have to open with a lock
pick or spell or somesuch.
You can clear out all the junk lying around and make a tidy profit (around
400-500g perhaps) which is not so bad at this stage of the game. Then you
can display items you want on the shelves and tables. Be aware of the overflow
loot bag but I must also mention that you will really have to leave a lot of
garbage just lying around to make one. I had all the shelves filled, the tables
completely covered and huge piles of equipment lying around before I finally
had one spring up. You don't want one as once it appears it is there for good
and can screw the whole area up. However if you exercise some caution then you
should be fine.
Alright, you should be just fine, but if for some reason you do have a bounty
you may want to head to the Thieve's Guild and have it removed. Or you could
just wait as you'll be able to have any bounty problems taken care of fairly
soon.
Alright, have you got a house? Does it have storage? Good, drop any excess items
such as clothing you're not equipped with or junk like 'Directions to Caius
Cosados' and meet me down below.
Note(10/09/03): I recently received an email from a fellow who had killed
Nerano and later joined Redoran. To my knowledge a late stage Redoran quest
can *not* be completed if you kill Nerano. Have a care with characters you
might make that you plan to join Redoran with. I recommend using as a base the
Redoran Hostile in the Redoran Council Chambers, it's a luxurious two room
apartment with no one in it that you can help yourself too and being that it's
in the Council Chambers it's suitably located near the Redoran councilers and
Neminda (Redoran's first questmistress).
Your first stop? Nileno Dorvayn. If you've been keeping up then you know she
is the Hlaalu Questmistress. Talk to her about business, she'll tell you to
say that again, when you say that again (note the option say that again) she'll
tell you that you sound like some Redoran punk. Then she'll give you a Redoran
Helm.
Your mission? Don the helm, go to Ald'ruhn and pretend you're some slimy
Redoran guy (note he is slimy... he's dead) You may ask where the hell is
Ald'ruhn? Don't worry, it's just a silt strider away! You could take the Guild
Guide as well if you wanted to.
Go back to the silt strider and talk to the caravaner. Tell him you want to go
to Ald'ruhn. Away you go! There may be a sand storm on arrival, don't flip
out, it can't hurt you, but it is annoying. Go down the ramp, to your right
you'll see some stairs, go up those, keep going up the next set into the
GIGANTIC building. This building actually houses several mansions making
Redoran probably the most impressive House if you measure impressivity by
square inches of floor space.
Go inside and find the Redguard lady in the extravagant garb. This is
Neminda. Where you Redoran she'd be your questmistress. Lucky for you, you
belong to Great House Hlaalu. Chat with her and give her the code word Nileno
told you. She'll take you for that Redoran fellow and hand over some message
telling you to go to Maar Gan. Alas, if you want to double cross Hlaalu you
can't (believe me, I tried). Get out of Redoran (and take off that smelly helm
if you want) and get back to Nileno. Chat her up and hand over the plans.
She'll let you keep the helm (joy!). You can also ask for a promotion if you
want. I'd say junk the helm (it's medium and not very good for your build) but
you can keep it if you like. Either way, you're done with Hlaalu for now.
(It isn't that the next quest is hard, it just takes you to Vivec, Vivec can
be...unsettling for beginners)
When you're ready, report post-haste to the Mage's Guild. Head down the hall,
down the stairs, and to the back room. You'll find a Khajit. Talk to her,
she's your new boss. You're no wizard, but you'll serve her, and her
disposition will get quite high thanks to you.
Your first task is to hunt down four varieties of mushrooms. (Mmm... mushroom)
These things actually grow around Seyda Neen, so it'll be like going home sort
of. Back to the Silt Strider (this guy is useful huh?) and you're off to Seyda
Neen.
What you're looking for is one type of mushroom that grows in the green icky
lakes, two that grow on trees, and one that grows randomly.
If you sniff around you should find all of them. Go to the green lake first
and get that 'shroom. There are many to choose from. Then you'll want to grab
a shroom from the blue that grows out of the ground. Just stare at the ground.
I'm not joking when I say they are all over. It may sound ambiguous but when
you see it you'll realize it isn't. The last two grow on the side of trees.
They look similar but there is a difference, just try not to stray to far away
unless you must, and you should quickly find one of each type. Now, report
back to Ajira with her shrooms. She'll thank ye kindly.
If you're having trouble - three of the mushrooms can be found in the area
around the tax collector's body and all four can be found in the area around
the light house.
Your next mission is going to get you involved in a little mage drama. It seems
that Galbedir and Ajira have made a bet to see who will get promoted first and
you're going to help Ajira take the upper hand. Galbedir is the wood elf on
the top floor of the Mage's Guild, notable for wearing an exquisite robe. Where
did she get the cash for that if she's just a lowly apprentice anyway?
Ajira will give you a fake soul gem and tell you that Galbedir is going to be
distracted. Sure enough as you head to Galbedir's quarters you'll see her
walking into the guild proper. Head up to her office and check the desk, slide
in the fake gem. You COULD take stuff (the grand soul gem is damn tempting)
but you really want Galbedir as a friend, I advise leaving everything alone.
Report back to Ajira your success.
Note that there are plenty of other enchanters besides Galbedir in the game
so in the future if you repeat this mission you may want to help yourself
to the gem if you can remember that Galbedir will from then on be useless
as an enchanter. I'll just throw in that I prefer not to take it (the coin
acquired from pawning the gem can be easily acquired later on in the game and
I enjoy the convenience of being able to use an Enchanter in Balmora, one of
the major towns of the game.) At any rate, let us continue on with the guild
assignments.
Your next goal is even more fun, get flowers! This is easy... but it can be
annoying. Actually, it can be real annoying for a beginner. Ajira will say
something about going to Lake Amaya, you'll probably be thinking WHAT THE
HELL?! And no, you don't need to go to Lake Amaya to succeed.
Here is what you need
- Gold Kanet
- Stoneflower
- Willow anther
- Heather
You may want to save to. This wont kill you, but it may take some time. It's
an easy quest but requires some exploring. Head south out of Balmora and you
should be able to find Gold Kanet Willow Anther and Heather. Once you have
three of the samples, head back north. The stoneflower is a different matter.
Nalcaya of White Heaven might have some. Her shop is behind Nerano Manor.
Check misc stock to see if she has it. If not, you're out of luck. You could
check EACH and EVERY container in Balmora and you'll probably find one,
otherwise you may want to head to Suran.
Darkpho66 writes:
“In the clothier store next to the alchemy shop in Balmora, to the left of the
door is a flower pot. Inside is a stoneflower.”
If you go there, that will definitely make picking up the stoneflower much
easier.
I've received several other locations for acquiring the flowers in my inbox,
there are lots of them mind you because they grow all over the Ascadian Isles
region and that's a pretty big region. The locations that have been pointed
out, near Balmora and in the Clothier's shop are as good as anywhere and I
would appreciate if, in the future, my inbox wasn't flooded with flower
locations. Thanks for the thought though :).
You can Silt Strider there (thank god) If you head east out of Suran, (you can
jump down from the strider) and check the plantations. You should be
relatively unmolested although sometimes a Nix-Hound or Kagouti could lurk
about (at the relatively low level of 1 you tend to be safe from these beasts
as the game wont spawn them in this area) When you finally get your hands on
a stoneflower report back to Ajira and look on the bright side: this is an easy
quest for someone with more knowledge of Vvardenfell.
Asking again for a job will have her babble about a bowl or something
(optionally you can just leave and come back to skip the bowl quest)
If you get the bowl quest it's quite simple, Ajira forks over 10 septims and
tells you to go buy a bowl. Go to one of the traders and get said bowl. By
the time you return, Ajira won't be concerned with the bowl anymore. She
barely even acknowledges your success, she has other problems. Oh, mage drama!
Alas, Galdebir got revenge and stole Ajira's reports. Talk to Ajira about the
reports then go find them. One is under the closet in the "rest area" just
outside of Ajira's room the other is in the small enclave of barrels just below
Galdebir's area. Return to Ajira with reports in hand and you are... DONE!
Yes truly, Ajira has only one quest left and it isn't really a quest per-say.
But she won't hand it over unless you are high ranking. You should have done
enough quests for Ajira to get at least two promotions but you may not have the
skills to get them all. Advance as much as you can (it helps with disposition
and what not. You want your mage friends to like you) Then save. You are
done! And the best part is not the ranks but the several some items Ajira gave
you. In addition, her disposition is surely 100 and you can buy some stuff
from her. Ajira might mention that she has some good information, but she
won't cough it up until you are considerably higher ranked in the guild. Don't
worry about this now, the item in question is more useful for a mage character
anyway. But you may want to make a mental note in case you decide to play
a mage. They are quite fun.
Now finally you will go work for your good thief friends. Actually, the
thieves are a pretty moral lot all things considered. And they aren't jerks
like the Cammona Tong (the native counter-part).
Go to Sugar-Lips (she inducted you Toad *GRIBBIT!*) Discuss some jobs with her
and she'll whine about not having diamonds. You can go back to your friend
Nalcarya to correct Sugar-Lips diamond deficiency. You can squander gold
buying them from Nalcarya or you can do it the true thief way by thieving them!
But don't be stupid and steal the ones right in front of you, steal the ones
in Nalcarya's private stash. Her shop also serves at her house. If you go up
the stairs and over to the bed, you'll see a chest on a shelf over the bed.
You can pick the lock (you might also buy some lock picking scrolls from your
mage friends) and take not one but three diamonds. One for Sugar-Lips. Two
for you. Note that selling items to shopkeepers you stole from them is a bad
idea. So just keep the diamonds for now. Or pawn them at one of the other
stores. Report back to Sugar-Lips with diamonds in hand and get an advancement
to get away from the horribly stupid rank of Toad.
At last we're going to revist Ondres Nerano. If you've killed him hopefully you
know where that key is. Sugar-Lips mentions the key is exactly what she wants
so if you have it, give it to her. She'll be a bit annoyed that Nerano is dead
and won't give you a reward, but at least you didn't have to go to any trouble.
Now if you don't have the key you're going to have to get one. You can either
steal it from Nerano (hard) or kill Nerano (easy) to get it. Or you can pay
a visit to the Balmora Corner Club to find his servant.
His servant is a Cammona Tong thug and you may have learned from conversation
that the Cammona Tong hang out in the Corner Club. And you as a thief's guild
member aren't their favorite person. The Corner Club is just inside the
southern entrance to Balmora, right at the foot of the silt strider ramp
(NOTE: not the Lucky Lock-up) Go inside, take note of the guy standing right
next to you (you'll get to play with this fellow in a Hlaalu quest) and go down
the stairs.
Nerano's lacky is actually a rather well-dressed Dunmer chap. Talk to him and
he'll spill some Cammona Tong mantra at you. Discuss Nerano Manor and he'll
likely give you the cold shoulder. What to do? You need to get his
disposition up.
You can try persuasion and fail, your speechcraft is probably too low and
though your personality is so-so, the Cammona Tong just don't like you. Bribing
works nicely (100 gold bribes) though he may still be a jerk, in which you'll
have real problems. If you do knock his disposition up to 70 or so, you can
talk to him about Nerano Manor and he says he'll hook you up for another 100
gold. With the incentive you have the key. Optionally you can try to steal it
and be slaughtered by the Tong.
My recommendation? Save before you do this quest, if you find yourself simply
spending too much gold for your taste then whack Nerano and take his key.
Remember, your goal right now is to figure out what the hell you are doing, not
to complete the quests perfectly.
Either way, once you figure out how to take care of this report to Sugar-Lips.
And the end of this chapter is nigh.
What you have completed
- A Hlaalu mission
- All of Ajira's mage's guild missions
- The first two thieves guild missions.
Things are going to get a heck of a lot harder with the next quest, so you'll
want to prepare yourself. If the mage's guild overwhelmed you, you might want
to retrace some steps. You've actually dealt with a lot of you've survived
this far.
As far as your condition goes? You should have somewhat good disposition with
the mages, some nice prizes from Ajira, and perhaps 1500 gold. Along with the
two diamonds you got from Nalcaya. The Nerano mission is a real pain only
because of the cost, but deal with it. This is why you've been stock-piling
gold, for emergencies. Take a rest if you must, I'll meet you in the next
chapter.
Chapter Four: The Grand Finale
********************************
Much you have learned, yes. You have learned how to make friends. You
have explored some not-so-exotic lands. You have stolen. You have been
rewarded. Your missions now are going to be difficult, but should you succeed
you will be more then prepared to survive on your own.
Sugar-Lips isn't done with you just yet. Her next mission is to go collect
some dwemer artifacts from a fellow who hasn't paid up. They’re in Hla Oad.
WHOAH! What the heck is Hla Oad? You can't silt strider there... (alas) So
that means you'll get to walk.
Let's take just a quick moment here to chat about equipment:
The armorer can sell you all of the chitin stuff, which you may want. It's
good lowbie armor. You also have a couple of weapon choices. A shop in the
northern part of town sells a variety of weapons including the Steel Katana and
Steel Wakizashi, take your pick. These are both somewhat powerful non-magical
weapons. Steel is the best weapon type you can get at this point in the game.
There is also a very potent short sword that you can acquire that is completely
legit, if you have the coin for it. Again, I have been encouraging you to
save. The weapon I speak of is called 'Last Wish' it is a Dwemer Shortsword,
which gives it moderate strength, that is enchanted with a potent poison spell.
This poison spell hits whenever the blade strikes for added damage making it a
pretty powerful weapon, for a short blade. As far the main quest goes, it is
helpful up through Kogohruhn at which point it begins to get a tad underpowered.
Assuming you are playing on a lower difficulty setting however, you will find
the weapon even more potent. 'But how do I get this weapon?' you might ask.
Your destination is Ald-Ruhn.
Remember the giant complex you had to go to to find Neminda? Head there, but
don't go into the Redoran Council Chambers. You'll note that on the floor of
the shell are several shops. On the northeast side is an enchanter's shop.
Inside is where you want to be. I am almost 100% certain that Last Wish is
stocked here 100% of the time. However, the Last Wish in this store has seen
better days so you will have to get it repaired. Good in that you can buy it
cheaply, bad in that it will be ~expensive~ to repair it. If you have the coin
I recommend getting it. Again its price will fluctuate based on your
disposition with the shopkeeper.
One final note, check out the GOTY section if you want, it has some more
specifics on how to acquire a POTENT long blade very easily at level one. And
by potent, I mean good enough to be your weapon of choice through the main
quest if you so desire.
Enough about eq... back to the Hla Oad journey. It's actually VERY easy to get
to Hla Oad if you know what you're doing.
Make sure you have a lockpick or perhaps some scrolls from your mage friends
then head south out of Balmora. Keep heading south, past the mine and miners
and you should see a path up into the hills. You'll be heading up into an area
called Odai Plateau. From the middle of the plateau you can head right (facing
south) and skid, slide, whatever, down the slopes. Beware, there may be a
creature of some sort to deal with, however you should be able to deal with it.
As long as you have a semi-decent weapon (such as the steel katana/wakizashi).
Hla Oad is nearby. You should find it easy enough, it's along the west close
quite close to the plateau.
When you get to the shanty-town, you're looking for a place named Fatleg's Drop
Off. Inside are two fellows A Khajit and another chap. The Khajit is the one
you come in search of, but he plays stupid. You may notice a trap door, this
heads to Cammona Tong territory, best to avoid it for now. The chest is what
you are looking for. There are actually two, the one BEHIND the Khajit is the
one you want. Pop the lock (try to sneak... you MAY not get caught) and grab
all three dwemer things, then run like hell. The odds of not getting caught
are slim and the two fellows are good fighters.
Once outside with the three dwemer artifacts retrace your steps back to Balmora
and Sugar-Lips. Surrender the artifacts and complete this annoying quest.
Remember how I said to leave the vintage brandy alone in Ralen Hlaalo's house?
Well guess what your next quest is! Yep, to retrieve the brandy. So hopefully
you did as I said, because you need it. So go fetch it and give it to
Sugar-Lips. Cake! Especially if you've already been in Hlaalo's house.
You actually only have two more quests to do in the Balmora branch of the Thief
Guild. The next one though, unfortunately, is annoying. If you've been
advancing as much as possible, you may have been stopped by a lack of skill
though. You should still finish out the Balmora quests though, you could use
the final "reward" for completing this string of quests. And Sugar-lips will
give you a really good prize when you finish.
Talk to Sugar-Lips about jobs. She wants you to go to Pelegaid. Great another
town you can't silt strider to. Something about rescuing a prisoner or
something. You actually don't have to escort anyone (you'll learn more of
annoying escort quests later) though, which is good.
The quickest way to get to Pelegiad is to silt strider to Seyda Neen.
Fortunately, the roads are farely clear. From the Silt Strider head right,
also known as east along the road. There should be signs to point your way.
The road will eventually spin around west and cut between some hills. Beware,
Nels Lendo may be near. Nels will try to extort money from you (or just
smoochy up if you happen to be a fair maiden) and if you don't pay him he will
kill you (he's actually not that great but tough for a level 1-2 character
which you probably are.)
The road will head back west, just keep following it and eventually Pelegiad
will come up on your right. You should see the buildings or at least the road.
Head on in.
You want to go to Mister Mebestian Ence, the trader. In his shop you can buy a
Dwemer coherer. You see trading Dwemer (note: Morrowind word for Dwarf) stuff
is very much bad. But the local imperials don't seem to mind. Now let’s go to
Pelegiad base. An orc lady inside is the chief. Sugar-Lips will have
mentioned her name: Shadbak gra-Burbug. Talk to Shadbak about the coherer and
say something about how you got your hands on it. Choose the intelligent
answer or be attacked.
She'll agree to let your thief friend go and you're done. Feel free to report
back Sugar-Lips now. Note: The true thief would steal the coherer, it's
upstairs in a chest in Ence's small place.
Fortunately the next quest is disgustingly easy compared to the two
"side-trips" you had to make. Sugar-Lips knows there is a security expert in
Balmora but isn't sure who. She does have some clues for you. I have the best
clue for you however, it's Hecerinde. His house is in town and you may have
noted it earlier while looking for a house to claim. It's on your side of the
river in the first row of homes.
Speak with him, he'll agree to help you and your buddies out. Here's the best
part, he is the security expert meaning you can train security to 100 with him.
This is good news for you. Get back to Sugar-Lips to report a job well done.
Get your last promotion, if you can. Guess what? You've finished Sugar-Lips
quests! Her big reward? She removes any bounty you've incurred... for free!
Aengoth and Big Helende will also do this when you finish their quest strings
She'll tell you to go visit Aengoth or Big Helende. You certainly can tackle
these quests but instead we'll turn to Caius.
Caius is going to offer you your first real challenge. Exploring a dungeon.
If you've managed to get Last Wish (or Shadowsting) this won't be too hard.
You may need some healing potions though. Go to the Spymaster and he'll tell
you he wants info on the Nereverine Cult and the Sixth House cult. He says
that a chap in the Fighter's Guild is a big expert in this field. So head
there.
Go down the stairs, around the hall, through the last door to find an Imperial
and his female companion. Talk with him and he'll recognize you as a friend of
Caius. He says he can give you what you need but first you need a Dwemer
Puzzle Box. He says that box is in a nearby dwemer ruin. Finding the ruin
isn't the hard part though.
When done learning what you must do, get out and go out the south exit. Head
across the bridges to the east and follow the path. You'll come to a
crossroads, one leads up around the Fort Moonmoth, the other leads to it. Take
the left path. Another crossroads almost immedietly and not quite clear needs
you to take the right path. You should be heading up now with Fort Moonmoth to
your right. You'll get to a bridge. And you've got trouble
Snowy Granius. Why is it that guys without shirts are bad dudes? Your first
encounter with him might lead you to say to me "What the HELL is wrong with
you? I can't take this guy!" And yes he is quite difficult for a low-level
character. He's a battle mage. Upon approaching he'll dispatch a skeleton
after you. Run backwards, keep him in view. Dodge his spells he tosses at you
and keep from the skeleton. He'll actually expend his magicka this way and you
won't have to deal with his conjured beasties.
The problem is, as a battle mage, his weapons also pack a punch. He'll have a
spear or axe or both. If he hits you with them you could see much of your life
taken from you. This is where heals come in handy. Last Wish makes this real
easy, as does being a redguard with a katana. Either way, you will need to
deal with him. I've read stuff about running past him, but this can be more
dangerous then just outright battle with him. If/when you do get him though,
you can finish the mission. If you have light armor as a major skill and the
chitin eq then this will be easier. Granius hits hard though, even without his
magic expect to see a good 1/3 of your health taken, and he can hit even harder.
When Granius falls you can move on. All he has is his crap iron armor which
isn't even good for you since you use light armor. Cross the bridge and keep
your eyes glued to the left. A small stretch of pipe has a crank on it, spin
the crank and you can open the door before you. Just run ahead and get through
the door before it closes.
As a special note, if you are having a lot of trouble with Granius and happen
to own the GOTY edition, you may want to consider lowering the difficulty
slider.
I received an email recently from a fellow (I forget his name unfortunately)
commenting on how his warrior took down Snowy Granius without any problems etc
etc. Well... yes... Snowy isn’t that difficult for a character strapped to the
bejeezus with armor and weapons... but the whole point here is that you are
using a stealth character who isn’t as strong at straight combat. Anyway...
where was I? Oh yes.
Welcome to your first Dwemer ruin. And don't worry, Snowy was the only tough
thug. The idiots around her only have daggers. Feel free to take the clothes
off their back (actually not such a bad idea, the black clothes which are hard
to come by in shops can be ill-gotten gained here and they look kind of cool.)
The parts with tough monsters are locked up tight however. You actually
don’t even need to deal with most of the thugs at all. Following the path you
should see a giant area in front of you with two levels. If you sniff around
you'll find the way to the upper level. The single door here leads to the
boss's room. He's no tougher then his other thugs (And Snowy was the lacky
they put as the guard?) End his existence then glance over at the shelf closest
to the door. At the very bottom left corner is Hasphat's box. Snatch it and
return post-haste.
The hardest part of this quest is Snowy, honestly. Once you find the dungeon,
things are easy. Just dont pop any locks. You probably wont be able to, but
to get to the box you don't need to. There are some real nasty baddies in the
dungeon's lower depths so just stay away and you'll do fine.
Did you enjoy the dungeon crawl? Yes? Good, cuz there’s a few more ;) Once
you have Hasphat's notes give them to Caius and you can get the next quest from
him. Go chat with an orc in the mage's guild.
You may have talked with Caius's orc friend before, she's pretty nasty but when
she finds out your Caius's friend she warms up to you. She'll gladly help, but
she needs the skull of a fellow that's rather dead. She says the skull is in a
tomb in the Pelegiad area. You should know that area well! She even gives you
a magical short sword (which will look like a joke if you’ve gone to the
trouble of procuring Last Wish or Shadowsting) and some scrolls. If for whatever
reason your short sword skill is lousy and you don't have a decent long sword
that is enchanted, you might want to guy buy a silver longsword from somewhere.
The next area does have creatures that can only be hit by magic or silver
weapons. At any rate, Silt Strider to Seyda and head back towards Pelegiad.
Keep your eyes open for the tomb which is on the left as you head west towards
Pelegiad. The skellies can be annoying, so some heals will serve you well,
nothing in this dungeon should be any harder then Snowy was. The skull is
in the deeper parts of the tomb. When you find it head on back to the orc
and get her info for Caius. Now you get some real fun! Disturbing dreams
and the sleepers will chat you up about Dagoth Ur. Actually, you're doing
really well.
That brings this unit to a close
You should have
- Finished up the Balmora Thieves Guild Quests
- Got a foot-hold into the main quest
- Obtained a couple of useful items
That's it! That's all I have to offer you as a walkthrough! If you've made it
this far you've sampled a wide variety of different quests and hopefully you
have a good idea of the kinds of services and transportation available in
getting around Morrowind. Good luck, and good adventures!
WHAT DO I DO NOW?
*****************
As I mentioned before the character build I gave at the beginning of the guide
is not the best build in the game. You have plenty of options if you would
like to continue using it, after all you have completed quite a few quests
and made some headway into the game. Or you can recreate and hopefully build
a character more suited to your tastes. Either way, hopefully you have a much
better idea of handling quests in Morrowind and have a good idea of what you
need to do from this point on.
Make sure to check out Dao Jones Character Creation Guide at GameFAQs.com. It
is tailored to new players and should give you a good look at the different
options you have for building a character. Not to mention you can run through
some of the things I told you in this guide again to get a feel for how
different sets of skills work in relation to the quests you can expect.
gritta also has a Character Creation FAQ that might put a slightly different
spin on things that you can look at if you want some more character creation
advice.
If you wish to continue using this character then you have several options.
Caius's next quest takes you to Vivec, although he will not give it to you
until you have reached level4. It is ideal however since you can get a
foothold on your Hlaalu questing. The other Thieves' Guild quests are
pretty easy, even though you may not be able to get your promotions. Try
Aengoth in Ald'ruhn since you've already been there and probably had to explore
a bit to find Under-Skar.
You can do the first couple of Fighter's Guild quests which involve squishing
some baddies. But don't go crazy with the Fighter's Guild. Remember what I
said earlier about their shady dealings. If you're hell bent on joining the
Fighter's Guild then make sure to talk to Caius about them first. Or just make
a warrior type and forget you ever had any allegiance to the Thieve's Guild at
all ;)
You can also go talk to Edwinna Elbert in Ald'ruhn Mages Guild. She will offer
some easy quests to start you off and you can get rewarded with magical
pendants enchanted with divine intervention and almsivi intervention. See
Appendix B for more details.
Now that you're familiar with some guilds you should a new character, more
tailored to the guilds you'll be a part of. Go through this again to get an
even better feel for Morrowind or go with who you've got now. It would mean a
lot to me honestly. Though I admit, I made about four characters before I was
finally satisfied. The most important thing is to explore. Probably the best
part of Morrowind is taking in it's breath-taking landscapes.
RPGNick of the Morrowind message board at GameFAQs described the character I
designed as a "throw away" character. Personally I think that's a really
accurate description. Learn what sort of skills and abilities you like and
build something according to your own tastes. Don't like swords? Don't use
'em! I recently made a very cool 'Dragoon' type character out of an Argonian
that uses spears. Quite fun. Or use a pre-built, or check some FAQs for tips
on a custom build, or try that answer questions to determine class session, its
interesting.
Your worst problem honestly is money. You need money, and alot of it, for most
things you want to do. Although at this point you may have enough gold to
train your skills and gain a couple of levels. The extra hp will help.
Consult the Great House Hlaalu FAQ on GameFAQs along with the Thief Guild FAQ
for more guidance if you intend to develop this character more.
You have friends in the Mage's and Thieve's Guilds (probably the two most useful
guilds in the game) and you have the knowledge to survive. All you need now is
to continue to explore. Oh, and about that short sword. Todwendy, in the
Lucky Lockup is the Short Sword Master Trainer. So that makes Short Sword and
Security that you can max out in Balmora.
There are plenty of guides out there for the game as well as a community that
is still very active so any questions or concerns you have about a quest you
should be able to find an answer to. GameFAQs has guides that cover all the
individual factions by themselves which is great since it's much easier to
find information on what you're looking for.
However, if you do have a Gameplay question that you can't seem to find an
answer for, feel free to shoot me an email. If its something I think I can
help you with, I'll be glad to send a response.
Other tips
**********
Looking to sell things? I Can Explode of the GameFAQs message boards reminded
me that you would probably like to know where to go to do just that! If you
use the Guild Guide and travel to Caldera then you can go to Ghorak Manor,
near the South Entrance of the town. Inside are a bunch of Orcs milling about
and you should hear a very odd sound coming from...somewhere. That's Creeper.
He's a scamp. He also runs a little merchant business on the side. He also
has 5,000 gold in his inventory. Anyway, head all the way up to the top floor
to find him. Don't kill him, just talk to him. Note that he doesn't have
a disposition rating. What does this mean?
Whatever you sell he always pays for at FULL PRICE! The only reason he would
pay less then full price for a piece of equipment is if it is damaged (repair
it for pittance and sell it for that much more coin!) Great you say, but what
if the item I want to sell is worth more then 5,000g. Do I have to take a
loss?
No you do not! You just have to know how to do business with the Creeper. Make
sure to sell him a few items that are valued at right around 5,000 gold. Now
say you have a sword worth 15,000 gold. Sell the sword and buy enough items
from his inventory that are worth 10,000 gold. Do this all in the same
transaction and confirm. Now you have 5,000 gold, some items, and he has your
sword and 0 gold.
Just rest for 24 hours. You can pass the time right in front of him. Now he
has 5,000 gold again. So start selling the junk you took from him. Rest when
his gold is exhausted. Repeat until you are rid of all your unwanted items and
enjoy your 15,000 gold. Ordinator Equipment is especially good to sell to the
creeper. You can make around 32,000 gold just by killing one Ordinator! Of
course, killing an Ordinator isn't an easy task for a level 1 character.
Redoran is probably the most painful of the Houses. They give you few rewards
for your service.
Telvanni isn't as difficult as it sounds and you get some awesome magic items
for being a Telvanni.
Save up about 3000G then buy a common shirt that has a red shirt and black
vest. Buy five cyrodillic brandies then go to Ebonheart. Join the Imperial
Cult and speak to the head of the almoners. He doesn't actually make you do
his quests so as long as you have the gold and items he asks for he'll reward
you. Tell him you've doubled his goals and he gets real happy, you can get
some nifty items this way, including a glove with constant effect fortify luck.
You can also advance real fast this way. It's cheap but it can help if you
have the gold to spare
Escort Quests? They’re a pain, basically someone follows you until you lead
them to their destination. They move slowly and are very weak. They will
attack your enemies but will likely get killed. In fact, the only really good
companion you can get is during a Fighter’s Guild quest with an Imperial
Legionaire that is mildly strong.
As an interesting tidbit, a Cyrodil with personality as a main skill and the
sign of the Lady can start with an 85 personality. You may recall me bringing
this up way back when we were discussing character building. This is the
highest starting attribute that can be made without all sorts of hacks from the
Construction Set. If you have speechcraft as a main skill (say if you are an
Imperial Agent, heh) then from the get go you'll have virtually all the
personality you need to be almost always succesful in your bribes and can do
pretty will with admire.
Make sure to check Raug's Helpful Tips - The Evil FAQ on the GameFAQs message
board, especially if you decide to start posting there! He's got some great
information. At the time of this update, the topic has been stickied and
can be found through this link:
http://boards.gamefaqs.com/gfaqs/genmessage.php?board=915084&topic=20928509
Raug also goes into selling to Creeper if my explanation confused you. He
also points you in the right direction to find the Talking Mudcrab Merchant,
though personally I'm to lazy to go to the mudcrab.
Besides boosting my ego by telling me my guide helped him when he was a new
player to Morrowind, chaos striker, another GameFAQs board user, wanted me to
make sure to mention that there is a full set of alchemy equipment in the
Caldera Mage's Guild. If you Guild Guide there then you'll spot two doors on
the first floor, one leads outside and the other leads to the back of the
Guild. No one is in the back area of the guild so this alchemy equipment is
free for the taking! Actually, it might be best to leave it be. The stuff is
pretty heavy but you could stop by anytime you need to use it. Or relocate it
to wherever you're storing your extra loot. Whatever is most convenient.
More useful help from chaos striker, "I know that when I was new to gamefaqs
I never ever ever ever looked at message boards." The moral of this experience?
Check 'em! There are some great people on the boards that can offer some
excellent advice.
And a link chaos striker suggests:
http://www.quanze13.com/morrowind/index.html
x Shadow describes Quanze's site: "Quanze's site. Has an insane amount of things
on it. Look here if you want locations of items, spells, etc. Also has some
info about other, unrelated things."
Was there something I didn't explain properly? Is there a concept you'd like
enlightenment about? Always feel free to email me!
Appendix A: Seyda Neen fun
**************************
Being that this is a beginner's guide and being that Seyda Neen is the first
town, this section will be a comprehensive index all that can be done in Seyda
Neen.
Three Quests are offered, two of which you have done.
The third is offered by an Imperial fellow named Vodunius Nuccius. Talk to him
and he'll tell you to mention him to the silt strider caravaner. Go talk to
the caravaner about Nuccius and the caravaner will speak of Nuccius's woes.
Talk to Nuccius again and he'll boohoo about being on Vvardenfell. Fork over
100 septims and he'll hand you a crap ring that drains health but boosts
athletics. Actually not very productive unless you like being a nice guy.
Myself, I'd rather have the 100 septims.
Eldafire, the local female high elf, also whines about some bandits holed up in
a cave. This isn't an actual assigned quest, just a bit of info. Apparently
the Imperials don't seem to care and aren't doing anything. The cave is right
near the Silt Strider and you may have seen the door. Inside you'll encounter
a person with a crap melee weapon to slay. Grab the key and go through the
door. To your left will be slaves to free. To your right will be an annoying
mage that can probably kill you with his magic. If you're fortified a bit
though and can manage to dodge the spells you can take him out. The last thug
throws missile weapons at you. Do the slayer thing then you can loot the cave.
It doesn't have very many goodies but it'll be your first taste of bandit cave
action. Bandit Caves are all over the place and later on will be a prime
supplier of some important items like soul gems.
Another elf is play some magic tricks. Head about northwest of Seyda Neen,
along the road and you'll see a book in the road. As you approach the book the
owner comes at you, plummeting to his death from the sky. Careful his body can
hurt ya ;) He's actually got a pretty nice sword on him for a level one person
in need of a long blade. He's got on an extravagant robe (people like you if
you have expensive clothes on) one of those stupid looking yellow hats, and
some icarian flight scrolls. What is Icarian Flight? use it and find
out,just save first heheh. You can get the fellow's journal too. Technically it
is a rare book. One other dungeon is near Seyda Neen. It's a tomb so have a
magic item, it's along the coast a bit to the north of Seyda Neen. Not much of
value inside though, but it can be fun to explore and it might net you a skill
point in your weapon or armor.
A tree-stump near the light house has a magical axe. And with that, you've
pretty much scoured Seyda Neen of everything. You've righted wrongs and taken
care of the Imperials dirty work. And no one will really care. But it can be
a good place to learn some stuff. The chaps hanging out at Arville's can give
you all kind of info, just stay away from Flat-Foot if you plan to cheat him
out of his gold.
Appendix B: That Magic Stuff
****************************
I've already talked about some magic, so let's talk about some other magic
stuff.
Important Spells:
Bound
Bound stuff is really handy. I use Bound Longsword frequently myself. It'll
give you armor or a weapon and fortify some skill. It only lasts a minute but
it's still handy. These are worth picking up, at least bound longsword and
maybe the cuirass.
Soul Trap
You need this to get souls which you use for enchantments. A handy spell to
pick up for later on. You can get it from the local mages.
Hearth Heal
Take restoration as one of your major skills and you start with this. A useful
healing spell, multiple healing spells exist, you can also get one from the orc
mage in the Mage's Guild, a healing spell that is.
Ondusi's Open Door
Pretty hand, pops open anything up to level 50, can be bought in spell and
scroll form. Also keep on the look out for Locksplitter Scrolls which can open
level 100 locks
Divine Intervention
You can pick this up in some Imperial Shrines, NOTE: not in Fort Moonmoth. It
warps you instantly to the nearest Imperial Shrine. VERY useful. Edwinna
Elbert gives you a magic pendant with this spell as a reward for one of her
early quests. Most of these quests involve stealing stuff which is just your
department.
Almsivi Intervention
The tribunal counterpart. Edwinna also gives this as an award for the same
quest. Warps you to the nearest tribunal temple, most major towns have one.
You should be able to get this in Balmora's Temple along with...
Recall
Warps you to your marked destination. You can get a pendant of recall in
Caldera (warp there with the 'Guild Guide' in the Balmora Mage's Guild) from
the pawnbroker. Recall is useless without mark
Mark
Marks a destination for recall
Restore
Many enemies, including most stuff in the main quest can drain attributes,
restore and a good restore skill is a necessity for any character,
potions are simply to unconventional. These spells are scattered but a
priestess outside High Fane in Vivec has most of them
*As a rule stay away from fortify health/magicka/fatigue spells, when they
fade, it'll sap it from your current numbers. For instance say you have 50 max
hp, fortified by 20, when the fortification goes away, say your at 19....
you'll die. Yes, it is annoying. The fortify skill powers on the other hand
are pretty useful.
As another note, with the advent of the GOTY edition it is now possible to buy
magic that can fortify skills, also very useful if you can make some constant
effect items. Previously, the only way to get such a spell was to complete the
Threads of the Webspinner subquest for the Morag Tong, now it’s as easy as
going to Mournhold or Solstheim and picking up the spell (granted, that isn’t
necessarily EASY for a new character).
Appendix C: So you want a real edge?
************************************
I just couldn't feel right without imparting the ways of the bugs unto you, my
faithful reader.
If you steal stuff in the Census Office before you complete the sequence
(exiting and getting Caius's package) then you wont go to jail. Grab
something, quickly drop it. The guard will yell at you then you can pick it up
and go away. This is good in two ways.
You can get the limeware platter value: 650g in the first room. This
translates to around 597g from Arille.
In the last room you can get the wherehouse key. If the Imperial Officer is
near you, you can swing behind him and grab the key, try to get as far away as
possible. If he is towards the back wall, right next to the key, then you
might need to distract him by grabbing a candlestick or something.
There's also another interesting trick. If you attack someone in the Census
Office (say with your new dagger) before you exit it it, then they yell at you
but don't do anything. You can actually kill(!!!) all three characters in here
and take their stuff. Ergalla is the only one who is used in a quest later on
to my knowledge. This means you could theoretically get the hard to find
templar armor from the beginning of the game.
Once you have the key you can go in the census wherehouse, the door right in
front of you when you exit the Census building. Inside is a real guard you
must avoid but you can loot a nice collection of items including 150(!) arrows,
possibly a magic item, and some skooma.
If you go kill Gilnith without first reporting to Ergalla then he wont take the
200g from you and will just give you the reward of 500g.
Someone wrote in about the above, evidently they didn't read this far ;) Mind
you, it is a bug with the quest.
These are just some of the things you can do early on to "cheat" There are
also more tricks but I shall leave those for other guides. Of special note is
the "ordinator" trick. Have fun.
Appendix D: Game of the Year
****************************
With the release of the Game of the Year edition of Morrowind, Xbox players
finally have the opportunity to explore Mournhold and the Island of Solstheim.
While I will leave the details of Bloodmoon and Tribunal to other guides, there
are a few important things I would like to note about the expansions.
1. It is now possible to have armor forged.
2. The acquisition of ridiculously powerful items at level 1.
Armor Being Forged
******************
Six types of armor can be forged:
-Ebony
-Glass
-Adamantium
-Snow Wolf Armor
-Snow Bear Armor
-Ice/Stalhrim armor
The first three can forged at the Craftsman's Hall in Mournhold (located in
Godsreach). The first time you speak to the smith he will provide you with a
list of what he can forge, how much raw material he needs and how much each
item will cost. The same holds true for the other smith in Thirsk, the
difference being that you will need to collect pelts of snow wolves and snow
bears instead of searching for raw ore.
Stalhrim is a bit trickier to get forged. You are going to have to join the
East Empire Company and when forced to choose between Falco and Carnius, you’ll
want to select Falco. I do believe you can acquire some pieces from Carnius as
well, but it pays off to help out Falco more.
(Yes, I did forget to mention Stalhrim armor in the first version of the GOTY
update...jeez you people got on my case about that one fast)
Getting to the Expansion Areas
******************************
1. Mournhold
You can not get to Mournhold until you are attacked by a Dark Brotherhood
Assassin. This attack typically comes at around level 6 though it can happen
at any time. Once you are attacked by the Assassin report to the nearest
town guard. He will tell you what to do.
It is worth noting that Assassins will continue to harrass you until you deal
with them so you may have to take a quick break from the main quest and pop
over to Mournhold for a bit regardless.
2. Solstheim
if you talk about Solstheim to anyone, ask about latest rumors and then
Solstheim and you'll usually get what you're looking for. Basically they
explain that to get to Solstheim you need to travel through Khuul. If you
use the Silt Strider you can travel to Khuul, but only from Gnisis. You can
get to Gnisis via the Silt Strider at Seyda Neen (as well as some other places)
so with that knowledge in hand you should be set.
Once in Khuul head over to the docks, you'll recognize the ferry to Solstheim
immedietly as the individual in question has some unusual clothing on (items
from Solstheim.)
Ridiculously Powerful Items
***************************
Before you even begin to read this section let me make ONE THING CLEAR. YOU
CAN ONLY GET TO THIRSK IF YOU HAVE BLOODMOON OR THE GOTY EDITION OF MORROWIND.
I have gotten an upsurd amount of questions asking about this from people who
have neither. If you don't have either of the above, you CAN NOT get to Thirsk.
There exists outside of Thirsk, along the back wall a hollow treestump. Within
the treestump are five ebony arrows of slaying capable of doing 5000 damage
(yes, 5000, that is not a typo). Needless to say, these arrows are assured of
killing anything in one hit. Use them well. Along with said arrows are two
gloves, treachery and deceit, both of which fortify your sneak and security
skills respectively. A ring called Raven's Eye has fortify marksman 20 and
nighteye 20, also very useful. Finally, there is a blade called Shadowsting
which does 10-50 base damage and casts poison 5 pts for 20 seconds and
chameleon when it hits. While it might seem strange for it to cast chameleon,
it is pretty cool to watch the enemy go invisible then reappear moments later,
dead. The chameleon effect makes the weapon a bit strange, but other then that
it is very powerful. If you can use long blade, I recommend picking this up as
soon as possible, it is much better then Last Wish which I have often
recommended.
The run can be pretty dangerous at level 1 however. Enemies on Solstheim don't
fool around and they will KILL you if you try to fight them. I have only been
successful at fighting enemies at such a low level with the difficulty slider
set to -100 and that was with a fully armed warrior type. Save frequently, use
a map, and be cautious and you should be able to make it though.
GOTY: FAQ
*********
Q: How do I get to Mournhold?
A: You need to be attacked by an agent of the Dark Brotherhood. This can
happen any time but seems to be most common once you are about level 6. At this
point you need to report the attack to a guard. They will explain what to do
and where to go.
Q: Help! I can’t find Mournhold on the map!
A: The only way to get to Mournhold is to be transported there by a mage at
Ebonheart. This can only be done after a Dark Brotherhood member attacks you
while you sleep.
Q: Are there any new factions?
A: Just the East Empire Company, find Carnius in the Shrine at Fort Frostmoth
on Solstheim
Q: What are some new good weapons?
A: Trueflame/Hopesfire which come at the end of the Tribunal main quest are
very nice. Other neat toys in Tribunal include the Dagger of Symmachius, and
King’s Oath. As far as Bloodmoon goes, you’ll want to look at Shadowsting and
the Mace of Aevar Stone-Singer (terribly enchantment but amazing raw damage
score.)
Q: What about armor?
A: Ehh...while daedric is still your best bet (you can now find pauldrons!)
Nordic Mail Armor which is worn by the Skaal Honor guards and High Ordinator
Her Hand’s Armor is very nice. Check out the enchanted variety which you can
acquire off an Ordinator you have to kill in Godsreach. (Ask him about his
splendid armor then tell him you’re not mocking him, honest...be warned he is
not an easy opponent but as mentioned, killing him is part of the main Tribunal
quest) As always, speaking to Ordinators/High Ordinators with Ordinator helms
and cuirasses results in very bad things happening to you (so don’t do it!)
Q: What the **** is Gaenor and why did it kill me?
A: Heh...perhaps revenge for all the humiliating deaths Fargoth has suffered?
Don’t give him money (i.e. don’t talk to him about ‘favor’) and you won’t have
any problems. Other then that, just build up. His luck attribute is through
the roof, but if you can slay him a full set of ebony armor is yours.
Q: How do I become a werewolf?
A: You will be infected during the main quest
Q: But when?
A: This is a Beginner's Guide...not a Bloodmoon walkthrough
Q: [unrelated question having nothing to do with my brief walkthrough]
A: Oooo! Look at the delete key! It's all shiney!
Q: Where is Thirsk?
A: Do you have Bloodmoon or GOTY?
Q: Yes
A: Alright, try using this map, it should help
http://www.uhs-hints.com/uhsweb/hints/bloodmn/21.php
Once more, with feeling!
~EOF
*******
CREDITS
*******
Bethesda - I have a home for my imagination thanks to the greatest RPG series
ever created.
CJayC - creating GameFAQs, etc.
RPGNick - Good advice, yep, thanks for the comments
I Can Explode - Where should I go to sell things anyway? ;)
Raug the Evil Dwarf - his sticky topic makes my job that much easier for
anyone who checks the Morrowind Message Boards!
chaos striker - the alchemy set is handy!
All the other contributers and people who have emailed me. Even if I don't
respond it's good to know my work is appreciated!
***************
ADDITIONAL FAQS
***************
SaGa Frontier Debug FAQ
Final Fantasy Tactics NPC Class FAQ
Hunter the Reckoning: Redeemer Secrets FAQ
Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold Plot Guide
The content of this guide is copyright 2003-2006 Curtis Mitchell. You may
distribute this guide freely so long as it remains unmodified. You may not
distribute this guide for profit of any sort.
~Oblivion comes soon! Hope you've got your copy reserved! :)
