The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (2006)

A premium version of this Walkthrough is available. It includes maps, screenshots, hyperlinked cross-references and more. See

This FAQ/Walkthrough does not include a Character Guide. You can find my Character Build Guide at:

The Character Build Guide includes a complete rundown of all the skills, races, attributes and birthsigns in Oblivion, as well as many class templates for your amusement.

Key features of this Guide:

• Spoiler-Free Walkthrough
• Complete Item Coverage
• Extensive Location Maps
• In-Depth Character Customization
• Full Coverage of Donwloadable Content

0. - How To Use This Guide

Oblivion is a huge game, and very much free-form. You can spend 100-hours playing the game and never touch the main quest. You can play through the main quest a half-dozen times and never do the same side quests twice. In addition, some dungeons and quests are randomly generated. There's no way to write a typical linear walkthrough for this game.

So here's how the walkthroughs are organized:

Main Story: First up is a step-by-step walkthrough of the main story quests. The main story does advance in a fairly linear manner, so each step along the journey will be laid out. Of course, you do not have to complete the main story in any sort of time limit and you can take your time and do lots of side quests during the main story. However, the Main Story walkthrough will concern itself only with the quests that are directly connected to the main story.

Guild Quests: There are four guilds in Oblivion--Fighters, Mages, Thieves and the Dark Brotherhood (assassins). Each guild has numerous quests associated with it, and each has its own section in this part of the guide.

Knights of the Nine: This mini-expansion to Oblivion includes previously released material through Bethesda's official mods store (both for PC and X360). The main KoN quest is described after the guild quests; other KoN content is scattered through the Side Quests and Expanding Your Game sections.

Side Quests: Everything that doesn't fit into the previous categories is organized here in alphabetical order by quest name.

Before all the walkthroughs is a rundown of basic gameplay in Oblivion, including the controls, how the Radiant AI works, combat hints and frequently asked questions.

At the end of the walkthroughs is an index of every quest in the game, with the section number where you can find the mini-walkthrough for that quest. The index is organized both alphabetically and by city/region.

A complete breakdown of the character system in Oblivion, including all the skills, races, birthsigns, etc. is in a separate document, located at: https://papagamer.com

After the quest walkthroughs is Miscellaneous Adventures, which covers buying and furnishing houses, vampirism and training your skills (including the Master Training quests).

The guide wraps up with Expanding Your Game, which covers optimizing your PC to run Oblivion well, using console commands (on the PC) for that extra edge and mods (mostly for PC, but some for X360 as well).

The main point of Oblivion is to explore, have fun and immerse yourself in the world. The game simply cannot be adequately covered in words; you have to experience it for yourself. But, if you get stuck, feel like you're in over your head, or just can't figure out how to do that one little thing...then this guide is here for you.

1 - Gameplay

SAVE EARLY, SAVE OFTEN, KEEP LOTS OF SAVES

Oblivion, like any major, western-style RPG, has its share of glitches and ways things can go wrong. Frequently, the only solution is to go to an earlier save. You should make a new save at least every 15 or 30 minutes and keep at least 15 to 20 savegames. The number of savegames is limited only by your hard drive capacity and many people keep hundreds of saves. (That's probably a little over-board; but, still...) It's easy to find that a decision you made three or four hours ago, playing time, was a bad one and you will want to go back and fix it. On the other hand, you don't want to go back to a several- hour-old savegame if all you need to do is get around a glitch that just happened.

SAVE EARLY, SAVE OFTEN, KEEP LOTS OF SAVES

It can't be repeated too often.

1.1 - Controls & Icons

These are the default controls for the game:

Xbox 360 Controls list courtesy of Styck and GOSFreak from GameFAQs.

The PC version does support gamepads; however, there are some problems with the default control setup. Find your Oblivion.ini file (typically in My Documents\My Games\Oblivion) and open this file in a *text* editor such as Notepad. (Don't use Word or WordPad or other word processing program. Stick with a simple, plain text editor.)

Find these lines in the section headed [Controls]:

  fMouseSensitivity=0.0020
  ;X = 1, Y = 2, Z = 3, XRot = 4, YRot = 5, ZRot = 6
  iJoystickMoveFrontBack=2
  iJoystickMoveLeftRight=1
  fJoystickMoveFBMult=1.0000
  fJoystickMoveLRMult=1.0000
  iJoystickLookUpDown=6
  iJoystickLookLeftRight=3
  fJoystickLookUDMult=0.0020
  fJoystickLookLRMult=0.0020

These are the default movement (left analog stick) and camera (right analog stick) controls. Specifically, the Look (i.e. camera) controls may not be set properly for your joystick. If moving the right analog stick has no effect on the camera, change these two lines:

  fJoystickLookUDMult=0.0020
  fJoystickLookLRMult=0.0020

Increase the value of 0.0020 to something significantly larger, such as 0.5000. If the camera still does not respond or is sluggish, increase to 1.0000 and so on until the camera responds to the right joystick in a way that works for you.

Additionally, you may find the camera movement does not correspond correctly to the joystick movement: i.e. the camera moves up and down as you move the stick left and right. In that case, switch these values:

  iJoystickLookUpDown=6
  iJoystickLookLeftRight=3

so that you have:

  iJoystickLookUpDown=3
  iJoystickLookLeftRight=6

You may also need to change some of these values completely depending on your controller and your controller's drivers. You can set the buttons within the Controls Options of the game.

When in first-person perspective, the center of the screen is occupied by a crosshair. When you mouse over a target, the crosshair changes depending on the target.

1. Face: NPC, Activate the NPC to talk to him or her
2. Crown: plot critical NPC, Activate the NPC to talk to him or her
3. Open hand: a loose item, press Activate to take the item
4. Closed fist: something that can be manipulated (such as a door or switch), press Activate to...well...activate the item
5. Pottery jar: container, press Activate to open the container
6. Door: a door, Activating may open the door or take you to another area depending on the door
7. Lock: this icon appears in the lower right corner of the screen when a door or container is locked.
8. Moon and stars: a bed, Activate to sleep in the bed
9. Book: a book or note, Activate it to read the item
10. Stool: a chair, bench, etc., Activate it to sit down, press Activate again while not targeting anything to stand up
11. Horseshoe: a horse, press Activate to mount the horse, press Activate again while not targeting anything to dismount
12. Bat: NPC, Activate the NPC to feed on him or her (can only be used when you are a vampire)
13. Eye: indicates you are in Sneak mode

Sometimes icons display in red. When you see a red icon, don't touch the item or you'll be accused of a crime. Unless, of course, you're trying to commit a crime, then go ahead and touch away...

1.2 - Game Mechanics

Most of the basic gameplay elements are dealt with during the tutorial. How to pick things up, how to drop them, how to equip weapons and spells, how to Sneak, etc. But, there are a lot of things going on under the hood that the tutorial never mentions. This section covers all those extra game mechanics.

Radiant AI : Radiant AI is Bethesda's name for its NPC scripts. NPCs in Oblivion are supposed to "act like real people". At first, this really seems to be the case. After a few hours invested in a city, you'll see it's just another bunch of scripts strung together with some pseudo-random events to give the feel of actual intelligence.

Here are some of the things the Radiant AI does:

1. NPCs keep a schedule. Their schedule is occasionally randomized, but, for the most part, these characters move around eating, working, sleeping and other activities at different times of the day on a regular schedule.
2. NPCs react to crimes. Enter one's house uninvited and they'll call for the gendarmes. Hit someone and they'll scream, "Assault!" Etc.
3. NPCs talk to one another as they pass on the street. After spending a couple hours in a city, you'll have heard every variation on conversation there is. (Since everything in Oblivion is voice acted, the number of conversations is quite limited.) Sometimes, hearing these conversations opens up a new topic for you, often leading to a quest.

Here are some things the Radiant AI does not do:

1. Force you to keep a schedule. For the most part, if someone tells you to meet them at midnight tonight or else, you can show up at midnight three weeks later and they'll be there waiting patiently for you. There are very, very few quests in Oblivion that actually require you to act within time constraints.
2. React to assaults on allies. The vision/hearing of every NPC in Oblivion must be impaired. If you have two enemy mages on opposite sides of a large room, you can blow one of them to smithereens while the other wonders aloud about the rats. This does help with combat since you don't want lots of bad guys swarming you, but it is kind of ridiculous. Example: right after killing the captain of a ship, two sailors barged into the cabin. The PC was hidden in the back room. Seeing the captain dead on the floor, the sailors proceeded to engage in a random conversation. The PC steps out of the back room and fires a spell at one of the sailors. That sailor charges and is dispatched. The other sailor, still behind the partition at the front of the cabin, complains about the loud noises made by the rats.

That's the Radiant AI for you!

3. Care much about the world around them. There are scripted instances where you can't get help from someone because of an Oblivion gate nearby, but, for the most part, while the big, bad demonic invasion is happening, most NPCs still just want you to kill (or protect, depending on the situation) the rats in their basement.

So, don't get your hopes up too high over the Radiant AI. The NPCs in Oblivion pretty much act like the NPCs in every other RPG, except they don't just stand around waiting for you to show up (unless you're in the middle of a quest requiring they just stand around until you show up--in which case they'll wait for months).

And, even if a quest-target NPC is moving around, the convenient objective marker on your map will always show you where he or she is.

The Levelled System : Oblivion uses a system that matches enemy levels to your PC's level. It does this in two ways:

1. Changes the type or number of creatures you face. For example, at low level, the daedra you fight inside Oblivion are mostly scamps and the occasional clannfear runt. At higher levels, you'll start seeing dremora, adult clannfear, atronachs, etc.
2. Increases the level of the enemy. This is mostly used on boss creatures. For example, the opponents you face in the Arena are always the same, but their level, skills and equipment increase in power as you increase in power.

The leveled system means you never get in over your head. Whatever challenge you face is always scaled to your level, so you can do anything at the beginning of the game. This is also a drawback, as being able to complete any quest even at level 1 is somewhat unrealistic.

The leveled system also means you never overpower your opponents. There are never any "easy" fights against overwhelmed opponents. When you encounter bandits at level 1, they are clad in fur and wield rusty daggers. If you encounter them at level 20, they are clad in mithril and wield enchanted glass short swords.

Treasure and store inventories are likewise leveled. At level one, you can fight for your life through a three-level ruin, dispatching dozens of undead and come away with a grand total of 32 gold, a flawed jewel and some day-old bread. Going through the same ruin at level 10 can yield a couple hundred gold, some soul gems and an enchanted weapon.

The leveled system also affects quest rewards. Finish Fingers of the Mountain at level 3 and the spell you get is, to say the least, underwhelming. Finish it at level 25 and you get one of the most powerful spells in the game (assuming you have the Magicka to cast it). A sigil stone collected at level 5 is a lot less powerful than a sigil stone collected at level 15.

The leveled system does present some problems, especially in the main story. There are a few quests where you have to defeat hordes of enemies, and you are given help; or, you have to protect someone from enemies. In these cases, having a higher level PC works against you since your allies do not similarly increase in power. The last thing you want is a dozen dremora overwhelming the guards around you, then turning all their attention on you. No matter how uber you think your gear, you're not going to survive that.

There are some ways to work around this system:

1. Increase your class levels slowly. If you work mostly with minor skills, and only increase your major skills (and, thus, your class level) when you've locked in +5 modifiers for your attributes, then you'll run far ahead of the NPCs of similar level. For more info on the skill/class system, see the PapaGamer Character Build Guide at: http://www.papagamer.com/faqs/oblivion_character.txt
2. Play at a lower difficulty level. If a quest is just too hard, turn the difficulty down until you complete the quest.
3. Use a modded leveling system (see the Mods section near the end of the guide). This will allow you to level more reasonably without having to pay a lot of attention to the math. There are also mods that affect enemy leveling, which makes the game much more interesting.
4. Use the Quest Reward Leveling mod (see the Mods section near the end of the guide). This mod levels up quest rewards with your class level, so you'll always have a use for those special gifts.

Time, Waiting & Resetting : Time in Oblivion passes at the rate of 30 minutes for every one real minute spent playing the game (not in Pause). So a 24-hour day takes 48 minutes of real time to play through.

NPCs operate on schedules during the game day. Normal operating hours for merchants are 8am to 8pm every day. In the cities, most of the rulers hold court from 8am to 6pm every day. You can find a lot of NPCs at dinner in the local tavern or castle dining hall around 8pm to 11pm most days. Etc. If you're looking for someone and you don't have a quest marker for that person, you can assume that person will be at home, sleeping, during the night. Etc.

The calendar is just like the Gregorian calendar, albeit with different names:

And the days of the week:

The months have the same number of days as the Gregorian calendar, thus Last Seed has 31 days, Heartfire has only 30, etc. The game begins the 27th of Last Seed, Third Empire, year 433 (7/27/433--The in-game calendar displayed with the debug console counts the months from 0 to 11, so August/Last Seed is month 7, not 8). You can see the current date by turning on the debug console (tdt) and choosing page 0 (sdt 0).

What does all this mean?

Well, not much, unless you need to figure out an NPC's schedule. If a character does activity X on weekdays, you know that means Morndas, Tirdas, Middas, Turdas and Fredas. If it's currently Loredas, you've got to Wait two days to catch the NPC. And so on and so forth.

At any time there are no enemies nearby and you are not trespassing you can use the Wait command (default PC key 'T', Xbox 360 button 'Back'). You can Wait in one hour increments up to 24 hours (one full day). Waiting any period of time, even just one hour, fully restores your Health, Magicka and Fatigue. This is a kind of cheap way to heal yourself up while spelunking--clear out enough enemies and you can just Wait one hour.

You can also sleep, if you have a bed handy. The only times you have to sleep are:

1. To increase your class level. Unless you're using a mod, or have turned on instant leveling in your INI file, you must sleep in a bed to level up.
2. Certain quests require you to sleep in a bed; e.g. "Where Spirits Have Lease" or during Dark Brotherhood quests.

An easy way to have access to cheap (i.e. free) beds is to join either the Fighters Guild or Mages Guild. Just asking to join gives you a key to all the guild halls, all of which have beds to sleep in. You don't even have to perform any quests. Every city except Kvatch and Imperial City have halls for both the Fighters Guild and Mages Guild.