The Elder Scrolls Online » Discussions


Tenebrous' Tamriel Travels #1

  • Member
    May 15, 2017

    After logging off for a bit to wait for my bounty to clear, I popped by the Harborage to do the next Main Quest, seeing as how I'd reached Level 10. Upon arrival, the Prophet, who rambles for a bit before telling you to rescue Lyris Titanborn, who is working at some forge in Coldharbour called the Foundry of Woe. There, find Lyris, who seems waaaay nuttier than when you last met; justified, seeing as how the Daedra apparently broke her brain somehow, scattering her memories and feelings. The first thing you have to help Lyris with is her regret, caused by her abandoning her daddy (no, he's not the one that shagged a Giant) when she was young. Then, fight off the Daedra impersonating the assassin. It's worthy of note that Lyris, despite having her mind defiled by Daedra, will fight it unarmored and with her bare fists.

     

    100% BRUTAL!

     

    Then, go talk to the daddy's ghost, who will then talk to Lyris. He basically tells her to get ahold of herself before vanishing. Also, apparently giant-blood kills women who get pregnant with it, which sucks and raises lots of weird questions.

     

    It's better to not think about such things, I guess.

     

    Then, go kill some Imperials, who apparently bullied Lyris during her mercenary days, because they're tools. Also, grab her armor, which is hidden here for some reason. Molly B. remains the master of security, ladies and gentlemen. Whack some more Daedra, and then watch the projection of Abnur Tharn, who is currently serving Mannimarco out of neccesity. Not caring about this, Lyris gets pissed off, even when Abnur summons her weapon (though it is guarded by a boss). You'll also fight some Ogrim, which is a cool nod to ESIII: Morrowind and have gut jiggle-physics.

     

    'Cause I'm, I'm fat, I'm really really fat!

     

    Then, watch Lyris talk with Sai Sahan, who she totally has the hots for but never says as much.

     

    Suuuuure you're just friends...

     

    Finally, walk past the random statue of Molly B., which gives Lyris PTSD flashbacks for a little bit, and go fight the Lovecraftian Daedra-thing (it's called a Watcher). Once it's nice and dead, the Prophet opens a portal back to Tamriel, right next to a bunch of Soul Shriven slaves who don't go through for whatever reason.

     

    Uh, guys? Don't you want freedom? Hello?

     

    Finally, talk to the Prophet, who says he'll find Sai Sahan, and ramble a bit more. He's just as confused as I am about why Molly let Lyris escape at all, but oh well. Also, if you talk to him after the quest is complete, he continues to be creepily omniscent.

     

    How exactly do you know me so well...?

     

    That's all for this post! Thanks for reading.

  • May 15, 2017

    I mean to jump in for each update but I find myself really enjoying just binge-reading this Tenebrous, might have to stick to a drop in once a month, read it all and make big comments kind of thing.

    so you can get some armor and weapons of your preferred type. Do this early in the morning, so that no one gets to the various random treasure chests littered about before you. WhyMolly B. feels the need to store gear in highly-conspicuous treasure chests, I'll never know.

    Bloody hell, I wish there was ever a time where I could go on and get the loot. As an NA player who lives in basically the opposite time zone, I always manage to stumble my way into a crowded dungeon (I assume either filled with Australians, which is terrifying or just at a shitty time) so I don't think I've ever got more than one chest out of thae whole deal...And I think I'm destined to never get the weapon type I need (or, at least not with my characters that 'No can't use greatswords even though they use Two-Handed). 

    I do find enchanted weapons and armour though, a strange amount of them in Coldharbour (even if they're the opposite of what I need). 

    Next step is to find Cadwell, one of the cooler characters in the game IMO. Dude is crazy, but the nice kind of crazy, not the mother-in-law crazy. Also, his song when you first meet him is hilarious. Bonus points in that it's a parody of a Monty Python song; his voice actor was a member.

    Hell yeah Cadwell is in the top five for sure, I mean, he's no Lyris, Abnur or Sai but he's definitely pretty great. 

    Right-o. So, in theory, the first thing you do upon waking up is go outside, talk to a Khajiit called Razum-dar, and commence your questing. However, in grand Elder Scrolls tradition, I tend to completely ignore his quest at first, or indeed any quest, so I can make myself some gear from scavenged materials. Which is what I did with Rahzam, making him a mace, shield, and most slots of heavy armor, missing only the helm (because who needs to protect their head, right?) and girdle.

    You know, now that I think about I don't think I've ever c

    ompleted the Dominion starting area/tutorial... I mean, I've played it but I don't think I've ever played a character all the way to the end of Khenarthi's Roost. I am pretty sure that it used to be set up so you could skip it if you wanted and head straight to some Altmer city (because I've been in Altmer City) but I could be wrong...maybe I have completed it, anyway, point is I don't remember completing it and I'd be interested in reading all the quests.

    To get inside the place, you need to disable two wards, which basically means running around to both ends of the courtyard. After, you're faced with a puzzle. It's pretty easy, just activate the first, third, fourth and second pillars in that order. Such a spectacular feat of logic, am I right? 

    You know, at this point I think if someone were to design a puzzle in an RPG and the levers/activation pillars/whatever were the two right by the entrance we'd never figure it out. There always has to be some pattern that 'is tottally hard to figure out' (he says sarcastically, with sarcasm dripping from his sarcastic voice) but if it was the easiest solution possible...Well we'd be collectively fucked and never figure it out :P That said, TES games need better puzzles in general, I don't remember anything that couldn't be figured out within a couple minutes, but the Ancient Peoples were crazy, why not have an entire dungeon that acts as a solution to a door on the other side of the country/province.

    Moving on, puzzles just annoy me. 

    He will say that Uldor can't be killed, but he can't posess the player character, so he offers himself to be trapped with Uldor. But then Gathwen shows up, wanting to take her master's place! I chose Rurelion anyways; Gathwen's young, Rurelion not so much. As he rightfully says, Gathwen has more time to accomplish stuff. Then, Rurelion goes to Uldor's tomb, and gives a shining example of BS.

    If this was a smaller game you just know that Gathwen would be the second last boss of the game. Where your supposed to be all surprised that because you let them live earlier in the game, they turn to the 'Dark Side' and try and murder you because gosh-darn your just so evil with your...saving the wrong people thing. 

    It was at this point I fought in, and won, a random duel, and then my chat randomly failed.

    Man, I do love duels. They just add a fun little element to the game when some random person decides... "Hey this guy is supposed to be saving the world (or whatever), but I want to save the world. DIEEEE" or at least that's what I'm pretty sure is the in-game logic behind duels. Regardless, I've had a lot of fun accepting random duels, turns out that I'm not terrible at them, just at...regular PvP where I die within 23 seconds of a fight starting (though for me, shitty horse owning Deeb, it takes 23 minutes to get to a fight)

    So, my first order of business after dealing with the invasion was deciding that the population of sheep on the Roost could use some culling. Cue the stabbings.

    That's it...kill the sheep and you shall become more powerful than you've ever imagined *insert evil laughter*

    And Mannimarco. Yes, the Worm King, the first lich, the super-necromancer. How did he fall in with this lot!? Needless to say, he's actually a bad guy, and the ritual he suggested actually tore the barrier between Nirn and Oblivion, allowing our old friend Molly B. to invade Tamriel. Because apparently they're in cahoots.

    I have to be honest... does it surprise anyone that Mannimarco is evil? I mean, he just feels evil, it's like being surprised that Chancellor Palpatine isn't a good guy or that hey what, are you saying that...that Grima Wormtongue can't be trusted? He's so...well evil henchmen looking so. Anyway, I seriously have to question everyone who didn't take a look at Mannimarco and say "Yep he's evil, and we can't trust him".

    ----------------------------

    Cool updates this page Tenebrous (but bloody hell mate, slow down a tad or I'll never catch up :P) I'll read the next couple of pages in the next coupl e of hours, it's a real fun travel-log thingy and I'm having a blast reading it. Might have to do something like this whenever I get off my lazy ass and play more ESO (It's just hard to fit it in with Mass Effect: Andromeda, Skyrim and Morrowind) which is probably going to be June or July, basically whenever I get Morrowind which all depends on how much I want that really cool Dwemer Statue thing to sit on my desk...

    Anyway, yeah I'll keep reading soon, awesome updates mate :D

  • Member
    May 15, 2017

    Dragonborn1721 said:

    Bloody hell, I wish there was ever a time where I could go on and get the loot. As an NA player who lives in basically the opposite time zone, I always manage to stumble my way into a crowded dungeon (I assume either filled with Australians, which is terrifying or just at a shitty time) so I don't think I've ever got more than one chest out of thae whole deal...And I think I'm destined to never get the weapon type I need (or, at least not with my characters that 'No can't use greatswords even though they use Two-Handed).

     

    As someone who used to RP in the PC EU server (I live in Puerto Rico, which is basically the US), I found it helpful to use Google to figure out what time it was over at the target server, then math until I knew when people would be on. Same principle should apply here.

     

    Dragonborn1721 said:

    Hell yeah Cadwell is in the top five for sure, I mean, he's no Lyris, Abnur or Sai but he's definitely pretty great.

     

    The moment when they allowed player characters to wear his "hat" was a day when the Gods smiled.

     

    Dragonborn1721 said:

    You know, now that I think about I don't think I've ever c

    ompleted the Dominion starting area/tutorial... I mean, I've played it but I don't think I've ever played a character all the way to the end of Khenarthi's Roost. I am pretty sure that it used to be set up so you could skip it if you wanted and head straight to some Altmer city (because I've been in Altmer City) but I could be wrong...maybe I have completed it, anyway, point is I don't remember completing it and I'd be interested in reading all the quests.

     

    You can still skip the starter zones, for the record. Just talk to the NPC labeled as the Boatswain. I just chose not to, so I could snark my way through the island.

     

    Dragonborn1721 said:

    You know, at this point I think if someone were to design a puzzle in an RPG and the levers/activation pillars/whatever were the two right by the entrance we'd never figure it out. There always has to be some pattern that 'is tottally hard to figure out' (he says sarcastically, with sarcasm dripping from his sarcastic voice) but if it was the easiest solution possible...Well we'd be collectively fucked and never figure it out :P That said, TES games need better puzzles in general, I don't remember anything that couldn't be figured out within a couple minutes, but the Ancient Peoples were crazy, why not have an entire dungeon that acts as a solution to a door on the other side of the country/province.

    Moving on, puzzles just annoy me.

     

    Well, it's a bit of a stretch admittedly, but the newest Legend of Zelda, Breath of the Wild (a.k.a the Nintendo masterpiece of the modern era) has challenging and fun puzzles. Then again, it is Zelda.

     

    Dragonborn1721 said:

    If this was a smaller game you just know that Gathwen would be the second last boss of the game. Where your supposed to be all surprised that because you let them live earlier in the game, they turn to the 'Dark Side' and try and murder you because gosh-darn your just so evil with your...saving the wrong people thing.

     

    I could see Gathwen trying to murder the PC for some reason. She does pop up in Grahtwood at a library (with Ealcil), but there isn't a quest involved, so we don't know if she's become a Sith Lord yet.

     

    Dragonborn1721 said:

    Man, I do love duels. They just add a fun little element to the game when some random person decides... "Hey this guy is supposed to be saving the world (or whatever), but I want to save the world. DIEEEE" or at least that's what I'm pretty sure is the in-game logic behind duels. Regardless, I've had a lot of fun accepting random duels, turns out that I'm not terrible at them, just at...regular PvP where I die within 23 seconds of a fight starting (though for me, shitty horse owning Deeb, it takes 23 minutes to get to a fight)

     

    I'm in the same boat. I like duels, and am decent at them, but get slaughtered as soon as I step foot in Cyrodill combat. I've learned to avoid other players there, when possible (fun fact: I once got ambushed by a few enemy players, but stealthed my way out of it).

     

    Dragonborn1721 said:

    I have to be honest... does it surprise anyone that Mannimarco is evil? I mean, he just feels evil, it's like being surprised that Chancellor Palpatine isn't a good guy or that hey what, are you saying that...that Grima Wormtongue can't be trusted? He's so...well evil henchmen looking so. Anyway, I seriously have to question everyone who didn't take a look at Mannimarco and say "Yep he's evil, and we can't trust him".

     

    Doesn't help that anyone who's played Oblivion (or Daggerfall) knows he's evil...

     

    Dragonborn1721 said:

    Cool updates this page Tenebrous (but bloody hell mate, slow down a tad or I'll never catch up :P) I'll read the next couple of pages in the next coupl e of hours, it's a real fun travel-log thingy and I'm having a blast reading it. Might have to do something like this whenever I get off my lazy ass and play more ESO (It's just hard to fit it in with Mass Effect: Andromeda, Skyrim and Morrowind) which is probably going to be June or July, basically whenever I get Morrowind which all depends on how much I want that really cool Dwemer Statue thing to sit on my desk...

    Anyway, yeah I'll keep reading soon, awesome updates mate :D

     

    Thanks, DB! It's a bit hard to go slow, seeing as how I write as I play (and with all the free time I'm having, I play a lot), but I'll try and pace myself. Glad you're liking it so far! It's a blast to write.

     

     

  • Member
    May 16, 2017

    I'm skipping over the Shattered Grove quest, partially because it's boring but also partially because my screenshots of it got deleted somehow. So, I proceed to Skywatch, which is where Razum-dar sent you after Mathiisen. Note that the guy you talk to is Tendil, who also appeared back at Silsailen, which is cool. Also, outside the city, you'll find people from Phaer, who you can tell to get back to their town. And, to top it off, the city's currently smack in the middle of a festival! Talk to the Celebrants as you run around, some of the dialogue is great.

     

    Kinky.

     

    Also, this happened.

     

     

    Then, I found a fountain I'd never seen before, where you could throw monies. Normally, I'm loathe to part with gold, but this was... Intriguing. So I threw some in, aaaaand nothing happened. CRAP. I took my frustrations out on Cirantille, a racist conspiracy theorist. This of course got me a bounty, but her crowd didn't seem to care that she was dead. Moreover, she continued to talk beyond the grave.

     

    Now this is worthy of a conspiracy theory!

     

    Still, she shut up once her corpse despawned, allowing Rahzam to spread the true word of Sheggorath, the Skooma Cat, known to the not-Khajiit of Tamriel as Sheogorath the Madgod. But the title of Skooma Cat is infinitely cooler.

     

    "And on the third day, Sheggorath said, 'Bring forth ye catnip, that I may get higher than the Two Moons!'. And his word was law." -Rahzam-do

     

    Once I was done screwing off, and I paid off my bounty, I found Razum-dar, disguised with a magic earring that makes him look like a bald Altmer with an impressive beard. He tasks you with investigating the Heritance activity here in the city, and gives you the magic earring. This has the same effect on you, which is doubly amusing if your character is female because you'll still be bald and bearded.

     

     

    Go to the Barbed Hook, and talk to the Heritance recruiter, identifiable by him blatantly wearing their armor. He tells you to whack a Royal Guard (which aren't really guards, game-wise) and nab their sword. Tempting though it may be to do this, you need to leave them alive and instead convince them to part with their sword. Bummer. This is a part where those perks from the Guilds come in handy; I managed to Persuade the guard to part with her sword free of bribery.

     

    Isn't that illegal? Oh well.

     

    Then, go back to Palomir, who roofies you and takes you to the Veiled Isle or whatever. There, you must pledge your soul to the Heritance, which is actually a really great way of avoiding traitors... Except we don't have a soul, thanks to Molly B.

     

    Trolololol

     

    Then, start your trials. The riddles are pretty easy, so I won't go over them. The race, on the other hand, is a royal pain in the ass. Don't fight the imps on the path, just run like hell and pray you make it in time. Then, go whack some Heritanct recruits for your final test, and then you're in! Moreover, the Veiled Queen will be making a speech in the keep, so head over there. But upon entering, your disguise fails, and they find you out! At this point, it becomes clear that the Veiled Queen is actually Estre, Naemon's wife, which would have more impact if she were actually important before now.

     

    A twist worthy of Shakespeare, am I right?

     

    Then, go fight the council. Since there's three of them, this is actually a very tough fight. I managed to not die by focusing on one at a time and abusing my Defensive Posture skill, which reflects magic. After they're all dead, fight your way across the island, hop on the boat and return to Raz. He's surprisingly quick to believe Estre is evil (by his own later admission, he never liked her), and the fact that she teleports away as soon as you tell Ayrenn is proof enough to her. She then sends you to Dawnbreak to make sure everything is alright. Naturally, everything is not alright, but we'll get to that later. 

     

    I then went to the Fighters Guild, where I saw something equal parts exciting and infuriating.

     

    They're using spears!? With custom animations!?

     

    That's all for this post! Thanks for reading.

  • Member
    May 17, 2017

    Just outside of Skywatch, you'll probably run by the ruins of Ezduiin, where a rather famous mage called Telenger is doing some research. He initially thinks you're there to give him some supplies, before realizing a dude in plate armor probably isn't a delivery boy. He tells you that he's looking for a doohickey called the Mallari-Mora, which is responsible for binding the spirits to the ruins. He never explains why though, which is a touch alarming. Also, his top Mages Guild scholar team is missing (doubly alarming), and he asks you to go looking for them. Also, talk to the guy next to him, who tells the story of the ruins and has the hots for Telenger, all without moving his mouth at all.

    Probably communicating with psychic powers like Mewtwo or something.

     

    According to him, a mer named Essanyon Duure (noteworthy because he has a last name, something High Elves usually lack) was a priest of some sort, before he started to hear the gods talk to him and form a cult, who decided Magnus wanted some nobles dead. This may sound crazy, and it is, but it's really one of the more realistic portrayals of a cult in ES. I mean, most real life cults don't worship X deity/person "just because" like 90% of Daedric cults in ES, they worship because a charismatic madman like Mr. Duure convinced them that their faith is the only true path for redemption/apotheosis/whatever. Of course, it's a bit more complicated than that, involving psychological manipulation and such, but generally the tale of Essanyon seems pretty believable. Anyways, he used the Mallari-Mora to kill everyone. Bummer.

     

    Also, I found a lorebook in the camp that was basically Heritance propaganda. Extremely suspicious.

     

    Why isn't the Skywatch Guard looking into this!? You can't trust the system, man.

     

    Now, in the ruin's exterior, you'll find another questgiver. I'm pretty sure her quest is also part of the Ezduiin objective, so go and talk to her. She gives you a crystal and tells you to wail on ghosts until they're weakened enough for the crystal to free their souls. You can do this pretty easily by attacking the ghosts on the way to the scholar team, who tell you some of their group were kidnapped by ghosts, for reasons that are explained. Go nab some runes to get inside the main ruins, but once you have the runes, you'll probably have freed 10 spirits by now. This make another ghost appear, and tell you to go to some other ruins, and I recommend doing that first.

     

    This ghost, who is actually another Duure family member, tells you to retrieve a spell lattice to free all the spirits. To do this, you have to activate the four correct constellation stones, with failure meaning impalement on spikes (which surprisingly doesn't kill you). If you manage to Persuade the ghost, he tells you that three of them are the Guardian constellations (The Warrior, Mage and Thief), so that's three down. And I'm here to tell you the last stone is the Serpent. So that's solved. Then, go outside and watch the spirits get freed! And then read the nearby book on the Companions from Skyrim, which is found here for whatever reason.

     

    Skyrim for the NORDS! Or Altmer, I guess.

     

    Then, go into the main ruins, where a wounded dude reveals an ex-student of Telenger's called Uricantar is torturing the students to use the Mallari-Mora. Now, there's two ways to stop him: Free the students, which makes you fight an enemy, or just kill them. Whatever you do (I won't judge if you kill them), watch out for the glowing spirits; if you step into their aura, you'll get transported to a spirit realm where the enemies live.

     

    Sounds like Taco Tuesday

     

    Then, go whack Uricantar and his buddy, retrieve the relic, and bam! You're done. For the record, I only rescued three out of four students, mostly because I got bored of the enemies. Nobody really cares.

     

    That's all for this post! Thanks for reading.

     

  • Member
    May 18, 2017

    I then popped by Quendeluun, where you'll find a questgiver just by the wayshrine. It's actually a bit out of the way, so here's a map to get there.

     

     

    Once you talk to the Marine dude, he tells you to rescue his daughter, and hands you an invisibility potion to sneak her out. On the way in, you'll probably notice the ruins of Wansalen, which is really weird if you stop and think about it. Ruins inside of ruins? Ruin-ception! And on the way inside, you'll probably see that the Heritance is in cahoots with the Ebonheart Pact, another Alliance. Which, alarmingly enough, apparently hires necromancers, which raises lots of questions left unanswered.

     

    Who needs morals in a war, huh?

     

    Once the boss of Wansalen (a surprisingly tough Altmer necromancer) is whacked, go and find the daughter. She somehow assumed I was with the Heritance or Pact, despite being a Khajiit. Apparently, they captured her to manipulate her brother, so we have to go rescue him next. Except... He doesn't really seem too distressed about his situation.

     

    U wot m8

     

    Turns out, he was with the Heritance anyways, and they captured the sister just because. He gave some plans to the Pact, which is no good, but he offers to help you get them back at least. Also, he offers you a disguise to get past the troops. Disguises in ESO make most enemies in an area non-hostile, except of course for sentries. If the sentries spot you, your disguise fails, so try and avoid that. Though how anyone thought Rahzam was a Veiled Heritance member is beyond me.

     

    "Hello, fellow Altmer! Great day to kill some lowborn scum, eh?" -Rahzam-do

     

    Then, go kill the bosses. This fight is actually really tough; focus on the archer, though be sure to block when the warrior Dark Elf tries to bash you. When they're whacked, nab the plans and talk to Eranamo, who craps himself on realizing his dad is here.  He tells you to go on ahead, which is suspicious, but he does keep his word and shows up. Unfortunately, the Marine dad goes apeshit on realizing his son's a traitor, and tries to kill him! You decide the fate of the kid. Now normally, I'm all for justice and murder, but I don't think it's really healthy for the dad to kill his son, so I spared him. Noteworthy that a bug in early versions of ESO made it so that he'd kill him regardless of your decision, which was a bit silly.

     

    I then went back to Ezduiin, mostly to chill with the now-peaceful spirits.

     

     

    That's all for this post! Thanks for reading.

  • Member
    May 19, 2017

    The bit involving the Calambar subzone of Auridon has been PDF'd for your reading pleasure! Featuring spellchecking and titles for the individual entries, as well as being able to download for offline viewing and/or sharing. Here you go!

  • May 19, 2017

    Huh, very strange about half of the pictures on page 2 have been removed from the log...

    Anyway, love the updates on Page 2 (been going at it for 20 minutes or so) and I'm starting to see the cool stuff that you can do in Alinor a little more. I'm pretty sure now that at some point I have skipped Khenarthi's Roost because I remember a hell of a lot more about all the stuff afterwards compared to the island's quests. Anyway, great updates, I won't waffle on with my comment like last time but yeah, really had fun and I like the idea of turning them all into PDF's, that's pretty great.

  • Member
    May 19, 2017
    Hmm. I can see the images on page 2 just fine. That's weird. Anyhoo, thanks DB! I figured it might be a good idea to PDF the parts.
  • Member
    May 20, 2017

    I love the style, humour, and Khajiit - who doesn't love pussy? It must be a real slog to do, but I think it's an awesome way of telling a story. Good stuff, Ian, keep it going as long as you can as it has become a highlight of my site visits :)