Oblivion DLC – Spell Tomes

This post will be about the Spell Tomes official plugin for Oblivion.

This plugin adds a large amount of new books to the game. These books are called tomes, and opening them will give you the option of learning a spell specific to that book. It’s cheaper than buying them off spell merchants, but the tomes can only be found as random loot. A tome has a 25% chance of replacing a scroll, so you can find them anywhere you would find a scroll: chests in dungeons, mage enemies, etc. The only guaranteed place you can find a tome is on the body of a conjurer who is added by the plugin. He appears outside Fort Cedrian at the start of the game, and tracks down the player until he finds you and attacks. Killing him will yield a random spell tome.

The new tomes not only teach you hundreds of pre-existing spells (such as the Summon Dremora Lord spell, which usually becomes unavailable after a certain point in the Mages Guild questline), they also offer new spells which have some interesting effects. These effects, which were not previously available as spells, include Summon Bear (only available to spriggans), Stunted Magicka (usually only caused by disease or the Atronach birthsign), Sun Damage (an effect normally caused by vampirism), Fortify Skill and Resist Frost/Disease/Poison/Paralysis. A few tomes also teach spells which were only listen in the construction set, and weren’t available in-game.

The idea behind this plugin was to make dungeon diving more beneficial to mage characters. Fighter characters could get new armour and weapons in dungeons, and now mages can get new spells. After learning the spell, you can sell the tome to a merchant for some gold. I think that this mod makes a significant change to the game, and while it isn’t as obvious as a huge tower on top of a mountain it still makes a big difference. Other than the conjurer showing up in the middle of the night and trying to kill me and a slight bug which sometimes gives the player a spell upon loading, this plugin is great.

A spell tome (click to enlarge picture).

The next post will be about the Fighter’s Stronghold DLC. 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
• The Vile Lair

-legoless

Oblivion DLC – Wizard’s Tower

This plug-in adds Frostcrag Spire, a home built for a mage character. Located in the snowy Jerall Mountains (a.k.a. the middle of nowhere), this tower has everything a magic-oriented player needs.

Upon loading you recieve – you’ll never guess – a note from a long-lost relative. He decided to build a giant tower up the side of a mountain, but now he’s dead so it’s yours. Inside you’ll find a unique summoning altar (which you can use to create permanent atronach familiars), a large garden which includes many rare plants (perfect for alchemy), the highest viewpoint in Cyrodiil which offers an amazing view if it’s not cloudy (shame it usually is) and transport pads to every Mages Guild Hall in the game as well as the Arcane University.

But that’s all there is. There’s not even a bed. You must buy these upgrades from Aurelinwae, a new merchant added to the Mystic Emporium in the Imperial City Market District. She can sell you a bed, a library, an alchemy lab (which will increase your alchemy skill by 15 points when standing near it) and an upgrade to the vault. The vault is an underground ice cave accessed by a teleport pad in the main room. Once you buy the upgrade it will be filled with many chests, barrels and crates for storing your items in. It also comes with an impressive collection of wine (including the quest-related Shadowbanish Wine), friendly imps called Vault Guardians who protect your treasure, and two hidden tombstones. One of the tombstones gives you a daily blessing which fortifies your personality, mercantile and speechcraft, while the other adds a bottle of Daedric Lava Whiskey to your inventory. This whiskey burns you, heals you, paralyze you and summon a Dremora to fight by your side – all at the same time! However you will only get one bottle, so you might want to think twice about drinking it.

Aurelinwae also sells two boxes of Magetallow candles, which are needed to activate the spellmaking and enchanting altars. Without this plugin, the only way to use these altars is to become a member of the Mages Guild. Once you’ve bought all the upgrades a small jewelery box will appear in the room with the bed. Inside you’ll find the Pentamagic Loop, an enchanted ring.

Screenshots (click to enlarge):

Frostcrag Spire.

Aurelinwae.

The entrance room, with the main room in the background.

The alchemy lab.

The alchemy garden.

The viewing platform on a clear day.

Vault Guardians in the underground vault.

The jewellery box which contains the Pentamagic Loop.

The next post will be about the Thieves Den official DLC. Remember to read my Oblivion, Horse Armour and Orrery posts as well, if you haven’t already.

-legoless

Oblivion DLC – Horse Armour Pack

The next few posts will be about the 9 official plug-ins released for Oblivion. These plug-ins can be bought off Bethesda’s online store (or Xbox Live for 360 players). PS3 players cannot get any other plug-ins other than Knights of the Nine, which is included in the PS3 version. All plug-ins (excluding Battlehorn Castle) were also released for PC in a retail box version. The first post is about the Horse Armour Pack.

This was the first DLC released for Oblivion. Upon loading the game, a note from Snak gra-Bura of the Chestnut Handy Stables appears in your inventory. If you present the note to her, she will armour your horse for free. There are two types of armour available – Elven and Steel. They offer an equal amount of protection, so it really only depends on looks. If you don’t have a horse or don’t want it armoured, you can get an “old nag” for free, armoured in steel. It’s the worst horse in the game though – even with armour it’s still weaker than the weakest breed. But if you want all the horses, you might as well add it to your collection.

From now on you can get any horse you legally own armoured for 500 coins. But I highly recommend not armouring Shadowmere – she will lose her essential status and instead of returning to Fort Farragut she will stand around indefinitely. Besides, she won’t recieve any bonus from armour. All the armour does is increase a horses health, but Shadowmere’s is already maxed. Also, you can’t armour the unicorn.

Be careful when deactivating this plug-in, as any horse you have armoured will be removed from the game, with no way to get them back (other than console commands). The plug-in also adds a bugged chest to the Cursed Mine, an old mine near Skingrad. Inside is a book entitled ‘Horse Armor Plans’. It has no icon and inside it simply says ‘I am a set of plans. Bring me to the Chestnut Handy Stables.‘ The book is a quest item and cannot be removed from your inventory, so it’s not a good idea to pick it up. Best thing to do is leave the chest alone (or disable it).

Screenshots (click to enlarge):

Two white horses modelling the new armour.

Snak gra-Bura.

Sorry for the short post, but there’s not much else to write about this mod. The next post will be about the Orrery plug-in.

In other news: As you can see, I’ve figured out how to take screenshots in Oblivion (just had to edit the ‘.ini’ file) so I’ll probably be updating my first Oblivion post with some pictures soon.

-legoless