Maria Caliban

More Deadra. I've done Beothiah, Saggorath, Azura, and Melepha. A NPC drags me to the Mal Morag one. I'm walking down the road when a man asks me to escort him to location and it turns out to me... a Shrine to Peyrite. Not twenty minutes later, a courier runs up to me with an Urgent Message. I follow the instructions and end up at a Shrine to Mierida. She immediately speaks to me and demands I get something for her. :/ I'm standing there thinking "Damn, these deadra are popping up like mushrooms after it rains. Why can't I go five steps without being tossed into a deadric questline?" And then it occurs to me: radiant storytelling. I've meandered on most of the major quests, but I always immediately do the various deadra/divine quests. The game has decided to steer me to them as it's decided I like them.

I got the Molag Mal one as well last night. I was walking down the street when a dude jumped out of the shadows and dragged me into a quest chain. It seems like half the quest I've done in the last two days have ended up being Deadra sidequests. They're starting to come off as a bit desperate. I'v started doing quests for the Divines. Just finished the one for Mara and picked up the one for Diebella and Kyrothan (the one with the temple in Whiterun). The quests aren't as interesting and the reward seems to just be a permanent buff. Also, the Ebon Mail Boethiah gave me has a great visual when it's activated. I agreed to a friendly fistfight with a guy named Horse-Crusher, forgetting that I had it on. The next thing I know, he was screaming, covered in liquid darkness, and I got a death scene of my PC slamming his head against the floor until his skull broke. Oops.

The password reset doesn't have anything to do with beta testing.

Beothiah's quest isn't half bad. Though the end is more suited to Nocturnal.

Ironically enough, I was just posting to say I'm in the middle of Shegorath's quest. I don't remember the Deadra being so easy to interact with in Morrowind. I mean, I keep on tripping over them. They're like toys someone left out. Edit: After I finished quest for Azura, I met a pilgrim on the road who gave me a quest to go to the Shrine of Azura. It's a bug, but as soon as I travel, a cultist of Beothea appears to make trouble. You might remember that I found her shrine earlier, lead one of my followers there, killed him on the shrine and nothing happened. The Cultist has a book. I read it. My map is updated with the location I already have. The priestess tells me that to gain the favor of the goddess I have to... lead a follower there and kill them on the shrine.

Bullet-Sponges? I'm at 28. Trained up heavy-armor, two-handed, and smithing to 70. I just rush to any enemy and smack at them until they die. There needs to be a mod to ease the difficulty of leveling specific skills after the 60-70 level. Or two-handed leveling needs to be based on amount of damage instead of number of swings. I can go an entire long dungeon and maybe level up once.

Just so some people know: BioWare/EA sent out 75,000 beta invites to people who never signed up to be part of the beta.

According to this article: In the Late Middle Merethic Era, the Velothi Mountains were settled by the Dwemer, who created cities beneath the mountain range. Presumably these cities followed the fate of their counterparts in Morrowind and Hammerfell and now lie deserted, but no further information on the cities exists. The Dwemer, and all the elves, predate the Nords on Tamriel.

Thanks! I reloaded from an older save and went through that part again. I'll keep that handy for next time though.

I went to Windhelm, found Ulfric Stormcloak in his palace, killed him, and ran out. A guard caught me outside and fined me 40 septims. When I went back in, Ulfric was alive again. Seriously Bethesda? I don't care if it breaks the main quest. When I kill someone, they should stay dead.

Found the shrine of Boethiah. There's a Pillar of Sacrifice on the altar that lit up when I approached, but did nothing when I clicked on it. As there were a bunch of burned bodies nearby, I wondered if I was supposed to sacrifice a companion. I went back to Riverwood (the first village you visit) and picked of Fenedrel, an elf I'd helped with his love life, and brought him there. Still couldn't do anything with the Pillar. So I killed him with the Ebony Blade, and it didn't level up at all. Deadra, I am disappoint.

I finally decided to use my companion. Took her to the Shrine of Azura - she of the bad voice acting - and completed the quest for the Star of Azura. After that, I wandered around the area and stumbled upon the Sightless Pit, which is a passageway to the Temple of Xrib. Unlike the other Falmer areas I've found, this is more than holes underground with the occasional tent or hive. There's actual stone work, decorations, furnishings, pipe and steam works, etc. The aesthetic is nicely alien. Even more interesting is that parts of it mix with Dwemer trappings, and there are a few (already destroyed) Dwemer constructs. Did the Falmer trade with the Dwemer? Was this a city they co-habitated? Sadly, Lydia, my companion, just died. It's upsetting as there's no way to check her health out of battle. I thought she was well, but she apparently died to a few arrows. I quicksaved right after the fight and didn't realize she was dead until I stumbled upon her corpse (she has a tendency to get stuck on outcropping.) Anyone know a cheat code to bring her back to life? Edit: If anyone is interested in checking it out, be aware that once you go past a certain part in the Pit, you can't go back out. I assume there's an exit at the end. I hope. I am so glad you like it.

That's the ticket! Do you mostly use one-handed weapons?

So far I been given a golden claw, a sapphire claw, a ruby claw, and a coral claw. Other than the golden one, I've forgotten what claw goes with what dungeon. Also, Malphea ended up giving me an ebony katana that siphons my enemy's health to me. It starts out with 15 damage, but you can level it up by killing NPCs you've helped in the past. I might do that later on but for now, I'm using it to power level my two-handed. Between the weak damage and buffing my health, I can swipe at a cave bear dozens of times before it goes down without endangering myself.

Stress test.

A nice lady named Mephala has started whispering to me from behind a door. She wants a bit of help freeing herself from imprisonment. I just went to a mine and took one from inside. The blacksmith in Whiterun had one. They might be under Weapons or Misc, I forget.

No. I believe when you learn a spell, the book vanishes. There's a chance someone will grab it unless it's in your house. After I became a Companion, I stored items in their rest area and no one took anything. I stuck some items in a chest in a dungeon and when I returned later, a few weapons were gone.

Make sure you have a ranged weapon of some sort. Magic or a bow.

This is quickly becoming my favorite Bethesda game, though I still think Morrowind beats it for atmosphere. The Dwenmer (sp?) ruins I've come across are nice looking but seem smaller. I've started clearing dungeons, then equipping a torch and going through it again. Lots of hidden levers/secret areas. The handcrafting really shows. Picked up a quest to save a guy from a dungeon and it turned out to have a word-of-power. The dungeon was set up so you go down an incline and at the end of the room there's a chest and then that wall with the words with a floor covered in greenery between you. I snuck to, expecting an undead to pop out of one of the surrounding coffins. Just as I reached the chest, the floor gave out under my character's feet and I plunged into a water filled cave below. Immediately, a necromancer appeared and started gloating about catching yet another greedy fool. I don't recall a moment like that in previous Elder Scroll games. Okay, DRAGONS. I am starting to hate them. I can take the one's with frost breath because I'm a Nord and have that 50% resistance to cold, but the fire ones kick my butt. The last one, I shot a single arrow at it, ran up to the wall to grab the word-of-power, and then just ran back to a nearby mine instead of fighting it. Is archery part of the combat skill group, or the stealth skill group? I ask because I spent another encounter on a hard to reach ledge firing arrow after arrow into a Spiggen Matron and my archery only leveled once. I think I'm at 32 with it while my two-handed is at 56. I wish we could craft arrows as I can only find small batches of Orc, Dwemer, and Felmer arrows, so have to rely on the mass of Steel arrows I've collected. My character build is: Two-handed, archery, heavy armor, smithing, sneak, and lockpicking. Sneaking in full orcish armor is damn hard so I mostly use it to snipe one enemy with a bow, and then spring up and slaughter everything else with my sword. Edit: I stumbled upon the thieves' guild quest. Amusingly, it's supposed to be triggered by getting a specific item 'you can only get by stealing.' I found said item in the middle of a crypt, and picking it up isn't considered stealing by the game.

Take the bridge exit out of Riverwood and follow the path into the mountain. After awhile, you'll cross the snow line and hit an old tower with two or three bandits in it. That's the halfway point. Continue to follow the path until it splits, the right fork will take you further up the mountain to Bleak Fall's Barrow while the left fork will take you back down to a giant's camp, Secunda's Kiss. The snow fall can be so heavy that it's easy to miss that the road has forked. The first time I played, I went right by the barrow and didn't even notice. If you hit the Secunda's Kiss just turn around. It's maybe a minute's walk from there.

At level 15, I'm rocking full deadric armor (upgraded) and the skyforge greatsword (upgraded.) Smithing is nice once you have the coin to just buy the raw materials. I like how the loot is tailored a bit to the hero; I have picked up armor of lockpicking, archery, and two-handed, all of which I use frequently. At the same time, the difficult seems to be on an upward ramp. Even with my shiny armor and awesome sword, I'm dying to bandits in furs wielding basic steel. So did I. It kinda sucks. Sort of. I've cleared out dungeons with 15 bandits and returned much later to find all the corpses have been picked clean and there are 2-3 new enemies. It depends. Each dragon has their own 'nest' and randomly hunts around it. I was sneaking around and found one attacking mudcrabs. Later on, I went to a fort, a dragon appeared, and aimed right for me. It ignored the 4 odd archers trying firing at it. I'm going to guess they either become more aggressive the further you progress in the story, or it has something to do with the dragon's color. I thought you could only do one at a time? Will have to try that. :/ Thanks for the break down. Never did like the high elves. Yep. After dying twice, I took out my bow, found a ledge he couldn't reach, and just fired 30 arrows into him while he grumbled. Stupid frost troll.

One word: fury. Second word: sneak. If you slip behind them and sneak attack them with a greatsword, they're not so tough. Armor and smithing could be made a bit easier to level. Noticed that almost every skill tree has crappy filler.

Okay. One definite complaint so far: unmarked secret areas. I just stumbled upon a high-level area that wasn't on the map, made it only a bit in, and then ran back out because I kept on dying. If I want to get back there, I have to remember how do get there and I can't fast travel. My only hope is that these type of areas will show up later in the story line.

I'm a Companion as well. After the first dragon, they become horribly difficult to kill. Meeting a dragon is almost random, so you can be trekking happily around when one swoops over and decides to flambe you. Sadly they refuse to land and their fire attack can get you even underwater.

Much, much better than Oblivion. Runs better than Oblivion as well despite looking great. I feel as though I've missed important backstories because I never played all the way through Oblivion. Why did the elves demand the worship of Talos be outlawed during the White-Gold Treaties? It seems like a major precurser to what's going on, but the game hasn't explained it at all. And did something happen to Morrowind?