Oblivion DLC - The Vile Lair

This post will be about The Vile Lair official plugin, which adds a player home suited for a vampire character.

When you load up the game, a ‘bloodstained note’ will be added to your inventory. It’s from a murderous stalker who has been following you. He is dying and wants to leave his home, Deepscorn Hollow, to you. All he asks in return is for you to kill people. Creepy. Deepscorn Hollow is located on a marshy island in Topal Bay. Above ground it looks like a burned-out house sinking into the swamp, but  there’s a hollow tree trunk underwater with a secret door inside it. Entering the door, you’ll end up in a cave-like room. At the water’s edge you’ll find a dead slaughterfish, a pearl and the stalker’s journal.

The stalker, Greywyn, was once a member of the Crimson Scars. It was originally a subsection of the Dark Brotherhood, only for vampires. They had planned to purge the Brotherhood of all non-vampires, but were betrayed and killed or driven away. Greywyn survived, and he retreated to Deepscorn Hollow. He prayed to Sithis (the Dark Brotherhood’s deity), and eventually learns that he has offended Sithis with his vampirism. So he sought the cure, and discovers that Purgeblood Salts are the answer. The journal ends there. Apart from historical information, it reveals the location of another Crimson Scar, a man named Rowley Eardwulf at the Wawnet Inn. He helped Greywyn fix up Deepscorn before, and he’ll sell you the upgrades to the lair.

Without upgrades, the lair has a Font of Renewal, Purgeblood Salt veins, an ‘Unusual Box’ beside the shrine to Sithis which contains a unique Daedric dagger – the ‘Crimson Eviscerator’, a bed, Greywyn’s four caches (sacks which are full of gems, gold and enchanted items), a pair of rare wrist irons, a bucket of gold hanging from the roof in the entrance area (you need an arrow or spell to knock the gold down), and a handy second entrance through a trap door.

The upgrades for this player home are, in my opinion, the best in the game:

• A bedroom area, which replaces the bed with a unique sleeping coffin and adds a respawning sample of Nirnroot (a rare ingredient needed for a quest, which never respawns normally).
• A Garden of Venomgrowth underneath the bucket of gold. It’s similar to the alchemy garden in Frostcrag Spire, but it includes only poisonous plants. It also has a unique plant found nowhere else – chokeberry vines. You can harvest chokeberries from the three vines, which are small berries which instantly kill anyone who eats them – including the player. They are similar to poison apples, but aren’t weightless so they can’t be reverse-pickpocketed.
• A dining area which adds better lighting, a small table of food and a few cupboards.
• A cattle cell which contains human cattle. The cattle is an unwakable man who can be used for feeding by vampire characters.
• A Dark Minion, a Dunmer vampire who you can order to murder people and take their treasure. He can fail his task, in which case he won’t bring home any treasure. If he succeeds he places the loot in a chest in his quarters. Either way you get one infamy point. When at home he can be found sleeping, painting with the blood from a decomposing torso, raking the garden of venomgrowth, eating, praying to Sithis and stealing your books.
• A study area which adds a large collection of books, including five skill books and two unique books added by the plugin (Manifesto Cyrodiil Vampyrum and Opusculus Lamae Bal ta Mezzamortie).
• A storage area, which adds a lot of chests and crates for storing items. It also adds ‘Greywyn’s Poison Supply’, a chest filled with a large collection of poisons.
• The ‘Ichor of Sithis’, an item needed to activate the Shrine to Sithis. Once you pour the ichor into the basin, you can pray to Sithis and receive blessings. This shrine is the equivalent to Chapel altars for infamous characters. Good characters won’t get a blessing. Your infamy must exceed your fame for the altar to work. The higher your infamy, the better the blessing, ending at 90+ infamy.

The Font of Renewal adds an easy way to cure yourself of vampirism. Usually you need to do a very long quest to obtain the cure. I like to do the quest anyway, but this cure is much simpler. All you need to do is take some purgeblood salt (an ingredient added by the plugin) from the nearby ‘purgeblood salt veins’, and activate the Shrine of Renewal in the pool below. Simple as that.

Once you’ve purchased all upgrades for Deepscorn Hollow, a cupboard called ‘Greywyn’s Armoire’ will appear in the bedroom area. Inside you’ll find the Raiment of the Crimson Scar, a unique set of Dark Brotherhood shrouded armour.

Screenshots (click to enlarge):

The underwater entrance.

The Garden of Venomgrowth.

The Dark Minion.

The coffin bed.

The prisoner.

The Font of Renewal.

Rowley Eardwulf in the Wawnet Inn, scaring off customers with his weird smile.

The Shrine to Sithis. You can see the Dark Minion praying at the bottom.

Greywyn’s Armoire.

The next post will be about the Spell Tomes plugin. To make sure you keep up-to-date on any new posts, you can follow me on Twitter or get notified by email by subscribing using the widget on the sidebar.

Other Oblivion Posts:

• Oblivion
• Horse Armour
• Orrery
• Wizard’s Tower
• Thieves Den
• Mehrunes’ Razor

-legoless