Ah yes, bunkbeds. That's what I was forgetting earlier.

That´s a neat place but geez, it´s a very long time since Lothran was there!


Nice to see Cyrodilic Buffy again btw

Agreed with seeing Cyrodiilic Buffy! Actually, I was in Fort Rayles just a few months back. It is a really enjoyable dungeon.

Lady Saga and I just witnessed Erthor walking from the Skingrad Mage's Guild back to Bleak Flats Cave. Saga did the quest to fetch him long ago, so it's funny to see him return to BFC.

I agree. Even though we have him recruited via CSR and have told him to remain at the guild, sometimes he still wanders back to BFC. I may be wrong, but I think he actually comes and goes between BFC and the guild on a weekly schedule - not sure on that though. It just seems that sometimes he's in BFC and sometimes he's at the guild when we visit Skingrad.

Yes, it's definitely true that after completing the quest, Erthor has a schedule in which he spends some days in the guild and some in the cave. I remember this because my former character Raven thought that he could use the cave for himself once Erthor is gone. Then one day when he woke up in the cave, wearing only his loincloth, he heard a rather annoying voice close to him saying "Well met!". I found this situation so funny back then that I wrote a story about it.

Ah, Raven! Those were the days, when Raven was around. That's funny how that story showed up right after Leydenne reopened that thread, too!

After all these years I have finally found some wild tinder polypore mushrooms, growing on a tree. I thought these are like oranges: we can buy them, but not harvest.

Black horses owned by the Black Horse Couriers will not just walk away if we dismount them, since they haven't got a 'home' to return to.

Wow, I knew that stolen bay horses (including Legion ones) would not walk away when dismounted, but this is a neat and new find (about the black BHC horses) for me too, Renee! It does makes sense though for, as you say, they have no home.

Yah, it's pretty cool, Kahreem has his own black horse! .. I think the BHC lady got killed or something, I don't think it's considered stealing if he rides her horse then. Not sure though, he hasn't mounted this horse in front of anybody else yet.

The only problem is I think legion horses respawn. They will eventually disappear, even if their riders (guards) get killed.

I know (on the Legion horses). Buffy still casts a low level/high duration command creature spell on the horses of fallen Legion soldiers and escorts them to the nearest stable. Even though we know they'll just respawn anyway. I can't recall if riding the black horse of a fallen courier is stealing or not though.

Edit: Trivia from Buffy lore. In the game, there are four BHC riders, all Breton women. In Buffy's world, we have taken the liberty of adding the following details:
Three of them ride stallions - Miliele (featured in Episode 49 of Buffy's Journal), Surani (featured in Episode 94), and Lielle. The fourth courier (Rianele) rides a mare.

I would believe that riding a horse from a dead Courier is still considered stealing. Though I don´t have anything to back that up, it´s just a feeling I have.


Better be careful, Kahreem...

One thing I have noticed is that a few NPCs have always something new to say if you click Rumors. Most say the usual guff and never change from the generic, but Narina Carvain in Bruma and Fadus Calidius in Skingrad usually have something original to say. It cycles too of course but I haven´t heard anyone else say what they´ve said.

Just yesterday I heard Fadus say "No thanks. Wandering the wilderness waiting for something to eat me, looking for gold in a hole. You think I´m a dope?"


Btw sorry for not putting that in the appropriate thread but I thought to put the example here

Wow, that must be really a neat surprise when Lothran hears something new in the rumors category. Does he ever, once in a great while, still discover new locations or have they all been found? I've thought numerous times that Buffy had found all locations, then sure enough, she gets the delightful surprise of a new discovery!

That's awesome crow!

Wow.

So I just encountered M'aiq the Liar, simply standing on the docks of Anvil. Every time I've ever seen him, if I managed to see him at all, he's always running. You don't know how weird it is to finally speak to this khajiit.

He was standing on the docks? I always only see him outside the front gate.

What you described is like with the Black Horse Couriers; sometimes they just stand there and unless you talk to them and thus make them ride away, I guess they could stand there forever!

I have often times seen Maiq standing outside Anvil's northern gate. But I don't think I have ever seen him at the docks.

He must have been on those docks because RG3's game has Open Cities, which means he can now enter town. But even so, it was weird to see him not running, for once. And actually, after my character spoke to him, he began walking away, instead of running.

He´s finally become tired after all that running

Just last night I found, or more accurately was directed to, a dungeon I'm pretty sure I hadn't been in before - Outlaw Endre's Cave. I downloaded some of Nicorishi's custom bows yesterday, and that's where one of them was placed. It's doubly surprising because it's not particularly remote - it's between the Orange and Red Roads, north/northwest of Aleswell. It's actually just a bit east/southeast (though quite a bit downhill) from a cabin I built near the Orange Road, but I guess I've just never gone through that particular stretch of forest before.

Kind of a neat bandit cave, though no Endre, Outlaw or otherwise.

I've been keeping yet another Notepad page of all the places Lady Saga has been (since she's my primary explorer) and Outlaw Endre's is not on there. That name's ringing a bell though; so one of mine must have been there in the past.

I saw, or more accurately heard, something I'd never seen/heard before last night.

I was traveling with Belladonna. She was auto-walking through the IC, on her way to the AU to deliver the Dwemer artifacts to Bothiel. As she came through the door from the Talos Plaza district to the Temple district- literally at the moment that she was between cells - I heard someone say, "Huh... must've been the wind."

When I got my bearings on the other side of the door, I saw that Audens Avidius was standing there.

All I can figure is that he was primed to "detect" her when he moved into the next cell, but she moved out of that cell just as he was about to move into it. So he lost track of her and switched to one of the failed detection messages. 'Least that's my guess.

Just to finish the story off - he didn't respond at all at first, and since Belladonna was auto-walking, and in universe, she likely didn't recognize him, she just walked past him. He just stood there for a moment, then suddenly drew his dagger, took one step toward her, then turned around and attacked the guard at the door. So she stopped and watched, naturally, and I'm assuming that she didn't even know who it was until it was all over.

You mean you heard it at the loading screen? Never encountered that before.

What cause him to attack the guard? Had Belladonna done the quest or did it happen anyway?

No - it wasn't a long enough break that there even was a loading screen. It was just a normal door transition - maybe... I don't know... two seconds? Three? It couldn't have been much more than that, if even that.

When I heard the voice, she was definitely in "limbo" between the cells, but I would assume that that means that it was actually triggered right as she activated the door and just played while she was "in" the door. At least that makes sense to me. The way it happened from my point of view - just bang, bang, bang, right in a row - is she activated the door, then I heard the voice and had just enough time to wonder about it, then she appeared in the Temple cell and there was Audens, in front of her and a little to the right, and facing her. And since she was auto walking, she just walked right past him while I digested all of that. Then I stopped her and turned her around and Audens was just standing there, still in the same spot, still facing the door. Then he suddenly started moving - turned around, took a step or two toward her and pulled his dagger, then just as suddenly turned back around and started fighting the guard.

I assume he attacked the guard because the guard pulled his sword. He wasn't more than a couple of paces away from the guard (I think he was literally still on the steps), so though I didn't note it for certain, I'm sure the guard pulled his sword immediately after Audens pulled his dagger.

Belladonna (and I) just stood there and watched.

And yeah - it was the scheduled visit from Audens. It was just a particularly strange variation on it.

Ahh, so to avoid giving out any spoilers, Audens was no longer acting in an official capacity at that time then? That makes a lot more sense. I think the game just spawns him wherever you are at the appropriate time, and that just happened to be at that spot when Bella went through the area transition. That is some timing though!

Audens will stalk you even inside your home once that quest ends + 10 days or something. But because he is an escaped prisoner intent on murdering the Player, the guards chase him down if you are in town, and will attack him. Since he is not armored and only carries a dagger, it doesn't take much to kill him.

Since he stalks you everywhere no matter where you go, I like to take him to really vile places or Oblivion worlds, get in chameleon and stay just a bit in front of him so he has to fight every beast that would normally attack you. Or if you have a high agility you can climb a mountainside and he will slide off trying to catch you, lol.

Oh, how I love having a stalker in the game, they are so much fun!

Yeah - I've had some odd encounters with Audens over the years. My favorite was when he came after a character in an Ayleid ruin with poison traps in it. I heard him coming, grunting and groaning as he took poison damage. He made it to the character, but had just a sliver of health left.

This one though - it wasn't so much that it was Audens - it was just that precise timing and the result. Like I said in the first post, all I can assume is that the game was tracking Audens' detection of Belladonna and had moved him up to the next stage, preparing him to fully detect her, when she went through the door, and the cell change broke the detection, and that's why he did the "Must've been the wind" line, just like any other NPC does when they almost but not quite detect the PC. And it was just weird that it was triggered at just the right moment so that I heard it while she was between cells..

Traveling with Lemdel the Altmer barbarian this morning and I saw something I don't recall seeing before. It wasn't really bizarre - just a bit odd and amusing.

He had been to Frostfire Glade and came pretty much straight down out of the mountains, so he came out on the Ring Road, northeast of the IC, between the Roxey Inn and Fort Chalman. He was making his way around to the east and south, and planning on taking the east bridge in to the IC (one of the additional bridges from Roads of Cyrodiil - it lines up with the road to Cheydinhal). So, he'd made it around past Fort Chalman and was heading south, when a sheep came down out of the hills to his left and ran across the road in front of him.

I was trying to figure out where a sheep would've come from and what it was doing - my first thought was that it was trying to catch up with the rest of its flock (like you sometimes see them doing outside Skingrad), but there's no flock out in that field and... and then a Clannfear came down out of the hills after it. So the sheep was running away from a Clannfear.

So what else could I do? Lemdel started chasing the Clannfear, just to see what happened. It was sort of funny-looking too - like Pepe LePew in the old Warner Bros. cartoons - the sheep running as hard as it could, little legs just churning away, and the Clannfear doing that long, slow, ground-eating stride after it. The Clannfear never did catch up to it though, and it finally lost track of it and stopped. So Lemdel waited a while to make sure it was over, then killed it and that was that.

Like I said, just sort of odd and amusing...

Isn´t it fun when odd things like that happen?

If they are stalking you, even in full 100% chameleon, they can "see you." During loading screens, your character is disabled, but the NPC's chasing you are not. They can attack you during a loading screen, but unless it takes an inordinate amount of time (or you were injured going through the door) - you normally don't die from it.

I had the 6 Bleak Mine guards stalking my character through Oblivion worlds, and was on the second one and there were still 6 guards - they are really tough in combat!

When that gate was crashing and my controls disabled I heard a sword leave its sheath. When the gate finished crashing and I came out on the other side, my health was WAY down. I ended up running for my life because they spawned right around me, and even though I was in full chameleon they targeted me. I ran into Skingrad and let the guards take them down.

The Bleak Mine guards are 6 levels above the Player, and for me to be doing Oblivion gates I was at least level 17 because I wait till then to start them for the better sigil stones. The Bleak Mine guards stalking me fought through 2 Oblivion gates and were still pursuing me when I ran into Skingrad; they hadn't lost a man.

I really enjoy the stalkers, it adds so much fun to the game - one of the things I like so much about Fallout 3, the Talon Company Mercs showing up with those Writs of Assassination in their inventory; and they show up with 3-6 men to surprise attack you as soon as you step out of a dungeon - I love that! It makes the game more fun, I think.

My first experience with stalker NPCs was in Skyrim. I'll never forget seeing my second character's name (Thor a'Zaene) printed up on some Assassination writs!

Until today I never knew that there's a chest in the tutorial dungeon with an average-level lock on it. Sal decided he wanted to have a look in a particular area, and there it was. Very cool.

Is that the one that is tucked into a hole in the wall, in the room with all the rats, and the iron warhammer in the center?

Yup, over on the left. Because it's away from the stairs none of my characters ever looked over there.

1)I didn't know about a narrow underwater "path" located south of Amelion's tomb, connecting East Niben coast and the small island north of the Coast Guard Station. It's not much of a shortcut, but still. UESP says that an Oblivion Gate appears on this point during the MQ.

2)When doing the White Stallion questline, I usually waited for Black Brugo inside Telepe, I thought that he's scripted to appear there after midnight. However, this time I was waiting outside and spotted three figures approaching from the north. Turns out it was Black Brugo and his two bandits, so they must have a spawn point elsewhere.

3)I heard one of the NPCs say "Hooray" in conversation but I don't know what were they talking about and to what was this "Hooray" directed. Maybe I heard this reply before and I forgot about it, but it's definitely rare in my game.

I did have an oblivion gate at #1 in one of my games. Here is a pic of Artemisia on the little bridge that forms with the gate.

^ Aww. *blush* ^

My elf has (or had) 40-something lockpics. She carries some lockpicks around, but she hardly uses them. Most of the time, she simply does not pick them up. She can open Average locks, so it's rare she needs to have anything better than this to help her unlock things.

She finds a chest with a Hard lock on it. She decides she's going to pick this lock, but since she doesn't know exactly how to pick locks, she winds up breaking a lot of these (while I press Auto-pick over and over).

My new thing of the day: it took about 30 attempts, and 30 broken lockpicks, before the Auto thingie finally worked! I was astounded!

.. And what was inside? An iron helmet, 3 gold, and an onion. X(

Wait, there is an underwater path there? I've never found it!

(but I have had that Oblivion gate there in all my games, I think it is one of the 10 fixed gates).

Yup, that little gate failed to open twice in all my OB playthroughs. That's why it's a featured part of Julian's story.

I don't know if this is anything of merit, but as I'm gaming with Kahreem tonight, I noticed that after he sat down in his pirate ship, and I began typing, he kept raising his hand to his mouth, as though he was stifling yawns. I realized it had been awhile since he had gotten any sleep.

... could be coincidence, but now that he's in the Bloated Float (next day, after much sleep) he's not yawning anymore.

He could have been eating, but I think yawning is a valid idle for NPC's. It may have a condition of "hours since slept" or time of day. If you use Personality Idles version 4 your Player character will also yawn or eat at appropriate times.

A mod?



Boy, that question was never an issue with Renee in ye ol days

Buffy will very rarely raise one hand to her mouth to stifle a yawn if left unattended for a time. Just a rarely seen vanilla idle.

As Acadian says, this animation is completely vanilla. Just like patting a horse and another animation which I can't properly describe in English but it's something like checking whether a weapon is buckled or not.

I'm guessing those rare idle animations only occur when certain conditions are met. Here's my theory:

Petting your horse. When you are on a horse (duh) and the horse is stopped. I do use a small mod that increases the frequency of all horse related animations, so horses are more active and Buffy pets Superian quite often.

Suppressing a yawn. Only when you are seated.

Checking the handle of your melee weapon. Standing with a melee weapon equipped. I think that explains why Buffy has never done this one (no melee weapons, evah). She does sometimes see guards doing it while they are standing around.

I've seen Jerric check his sword hilt, but it's rare. He doesn't stand still very much.

Are you sure he's not just adjusting his privates?

Well, he’s only using one hand…