</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="3" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by Rowan:
<strong> Dos anyone else find the fighters' guild porter to be annoying? Even though I am now his boss he still hovers around me watching my every move - as if I were going to steal something.

Tonight I'm trying two of the mods. The first is BTmod, does a lot of stuff including making more of your inventory on screen at once and making the map larger as well. The other is a fix for female elf type voices. I've been thinking my character made some awfully low pitched sounds when fighting. Someone has replaced the male voice with a female one from Morrowind.

I still hope most of the bugs will get a patch one of these days. It'll be big though, many small things have come to light.

Hah,! That porter wouldn't survive long in the Dark Brotherhood. Now that I'm in charge they're fawning all over me, veritably tripping over their own feet to make me happy, stammering when they talk to me because I. Am. The Boss.

And don't get me started on the Thieves. They're polite enough, but when I don my Cowl, they practically fall to their knees in awe.

If only real life was like that.

Hi all,

Ingie....you will have to close the gates near all of the towns when you do the Allies for Bruma quest. Those are the ones you will get credit for closing and you will collect soldiers from each town to help later on in the game.

There will be about 50 or more other gates opening up and you can either close them or not.

They do have good stuff like rare plant life or goodies in those funny looking flesh pods and the Sigil Stone can be used to enchant armor or weapons.

Each gate will have a different path to reach the Sigil Stone Tower. This is the one that has a stream of fire shooting up with the stone at the top of it.

There will be 3 Towers in each gate and how to get to the Sigil Tower if different in each gate.

You may have to open bridges from 2 Towers to get to the Sigil Tower or you may have to go through caves to get to it and so on.

I would suggest you practice how to get to the Sigil Stone because the main quest has a really tricky Gate Quest and you have to get through it to continue the game to the end.

thanks Magic
...I was definitely informed wrong..
I did go into the one outside of Burma and didn't find anything...should search a bit harder now that I know..

Ingie

Ok, got the ectoplasm and can finally continue on my fighters guild quest.

But can someone please just "spell" it out for me, what spells do I need to get the pillar down? Fire and snow work. I've tried reversing the order of the others, that didn't matter. But I didn't touch it. Do I need damage magica and fortify magicia? If so, I don't have those exact spells. I was trying some others that sound similar. Having trouble finding them, and wanted to know if that's what I need before I run all over the country looking for them.

I've only closed one gate so far. But I will get to some soon. It seems like good experience and I can use some money. I have no house and I'm tired of carrying everything!

Tamia, in the area just before the pillar room is a NPC and near him is a chest which contains all kinds of spells including the four you need to lower the pillar. Make sure you have DAMAGE magica (not drain magica).

Now cast your distance spells from the corridor:
1) fire
2) frost

Then go up close to the pillar and touch the pillar while casting:
3) damage magica
4) fortify magica

Thank you. That's what I needed to see. Uhm, the chest had lots of spells, but not those two in particular. Maybe a bug? But now that I know what I'm looking for, that will help! Thanks!!

The spells are there. They may have another name but the description should match. Check those pop out flyers when you highlight them. That gives the description.

Hi all,

Well I finally got through the Thieves Guild and am now the Gray Fox or whatever. My infamy just went up higher than my fame though and I can't pray at any chapels.

I've searched through the manual and can find no mention of fame or infamy. So does anyone know what you have to do to raise your fame or lower your infamy?

I would assume good deeds etc but are there any shortcuts? Or am I just to live in infamy because I'm now the Gray Fox?

Oldman, to change your fame/infamy ratings all you have to do is take off the cowl. You now have a dual personality. From now on do all your crimes while wearing the cowl and the Gray Fox part of you gets all the bounties. Take it off and you will be as pure as the driven snow. I've just let all my bounties accumulate under Gray Owl without paying any off since there is no point. You will always have a minimum of 500 bounty. You can still pray at altars without the cowl. Check that whitish box on p.183 of your SG.

Thanks guys! You were right. I looked closely at the discriptions and found what I needed in the chest. Then I touched the pillar. I wasn't doing that either. I'm currently in the depths of this haunted place. Now I'm finding plenty of ectoplasm!

Is anyone trying to be good here? I suddenly discovered I had a bounty of 40 and was horrified so I went back to a saved game. It seems I had struck a count- he got in the way! I haven't joined the theives guild yet or the brotherhood. That duel personality sounds pretty good, but I'll probably look in to the thieves guild when I'm further along. There is so much to do!

Oh, woe! I am well and truly trapped in the Dagon Shrine. I have killed almost everyone, but I need a key to get out and I can't find who has it! There are only about 4 little jittery acolytes hiding in a passage and in another save I had killed them but they didn't have it. I'm afraid this is a stuck spot for me. It surely is a long part of the game to replay the whole thing.

I'm doing the "Lifting the Veil" quest out of Bruma for the Countess to get the Draconian Madstone. I've made it all the way to the Pale Pass and fought my way through a bunch of trolls to the bottom. But I can't find the elven ruins! Can anyone point me in the right direction? When I go to the end of the valley I see some ruins near a frozen pond, but no entrance. The picture in the SG looks like there's an archway. I haven't seen it anywhere.

Jean

Hi all,

As for your answer Tamia....all you have to do to find these spell scrolls is go to the guy standing nearby and take all the spell scrolls in the chest there. It will contain the ones you need to use.

Use a fire spell (any one will do).
Next a cold spell (any one)
Next Damage Magic
Next Fortify Magic

For the on touch spells you have to have your nose against the pillar to make sure it works.

That was my mistake until I found out I was not close enough to the pillar while casting the spell.

Jean, that is a difficult door to find. It does not look like those white pillars lying on the ground. It is actually a brown door with an arch and it is fairly well camouphlaged. If I remember correctly it is not near the centre pond. It is NW of it ... I think.

Peggy, I checked my SG and the only reference to keys is doorkeeper in the first level called Lake Arrius Cavern. If you are playng it safe you can give him the proper countersign and he will open the door for you, or, you can kill him and take the key. If you are in the Dagon Shrine level the exit is in the NE corner of the room. If you are in the Living Quarters level the exit is at the southern end. Hope that helps.

Oblivion improves on Morrowind insofar as it's far more difficult to kill someone you'll need for a quest later on simply by walking into the the wrong cave at the wrong time.

In Morrowind I squelched a couple of quests by doing just that - venturing into a cave, being attacked, and killing everything in sight. In Oblivion they've made it so that the characters you need aren't in the cave or ruin until you have the quest in your log. So you can explore caves and ruin to your heart's content in Oblivion. And so long as I have carrying capacity I will go in and explore just about any place that takes my fancy.

I did get out of the shrine using lockpick. Just kept reloading until I got it right. I missed the guy at the front gate, or the key at any rate. I killed my way through. Just couldn't get into pretending to be one of those guys!

Haven't played any yet so may give it an hour or so before bed. Nipomo, I go in if I am not in the midst of a quest. So some I have found but not explored which has created a bit of a problem because I should have marked (with a blue arrow) the ones I did complete so I don't keep going back to the same ones, or skipping some I have missed.

AARGH!! I returned to the game for a little play before bed and guess what? I am still stuck in the shrine. The lock I was so proud to have picked was on a hard chest and there I stood becoming more and more claustrophobic in these caves.

I went back to an old save and re-entered the Mystic Dawn area and replayed the entire shrine section but still have not found the key. Maybe tomorrow!! Or I'll just back out of this for now and wait til I'm a powerful enough mage to blast through that rock wall! (By the way, is there a secret to that,perhaps)? I am too weary to pursue that thought tonight.

PeggyH has mentioned placing a blue arrow on the map. Way back I did that by holding down left shift and clicking left mouse on the map. Would you believe it will not work that way now - in fact haven't been able to place a blue arrow for a loooong time.

Help appreciated please.

Alice - way behind everyone else, as usual.

I read in the old post about a great sword connected to the Umbra quest. Where can I find someone to mark the place for "Clavicus Vile shrine" on my map?

I have spent two days looking for the secret to that blasted exit and suddenly found it by accident. What a ding-a-ling. My advice when looking for the exit from Dagon Shrine is slow down, keep your eyes open and use a torch!

Skyros, no one tells you about the Clavicus Vile shrine. However, it is not far SW of the Imperial City. The Gold Road and the Red Road make a loop and the shrine is in that loop.

Man am I behind - I haven't played all week. I just made level 5 and have a bunch of stuff I stole so I can fence my 50 gold worth of items for the Thieves Guild quest. Other than that I haven't accomplished a whole lot.

Threads - I had a terrible time in a couple of places getting my blue flag to work also. I found I can't move it if I'm standing on the location I want to place it - I either have to move the flag over or move me over.

Hi all,

Well I've completed all the Guilds and am now the honcho of all of them. I'm now working on the Daedric Quests and have just gotten the Goldbrand (which was my weapon of choice in Morrowind).

I got a message from the game that there was a stone that restored the magic in magicical weapons but I forgot which stone it was. Does anyone know what the stone is and where they can be found?

Oldman, you must have your info mixed up. You're not the head honcho - I am!

The stones for enchanting are called varla stones and can be found in ruins. They are not that plentiful. Since they enchant all your weapons at once it is only worthwhile to use them when you are stuck inside a dungeon and have ran out of enchantment on most of your weapons. Once the stones are used they are gone. If you are on the surface and if you have enough money (as any honcho should) then it is more worthwhile to pay for the enchanting services offered by mages.

I am only the head of the Dark Brotherhood (soon to be renamed the Dark Sisterhood ) but will soon work my way to the top of another guild or 3.

I have used 2 Varla stones and have 8 in my inventory. A hint, if you are doing The Collector quest, every ruin that has a statue in it has 1 or 2 Varla stones. Hmm, I have retrieved 5 statues - therefore I'm definitely finding 2 Varla in each ruin. And The Collector quest is worth 10,000 gold if you complete it. All up, a worthy miscellaneous quest.