The Cyrodiil Look: Cahmel’s New Travels (Let’s Play Oblivion, Part 6)

When we last left our valiant hero, he was coasting towards the nearest town with a pocket full of stolen loot and a burning desire to stick it to The Man, albeit—with regards to the The Man in question–posthumously. What can I say? I’m a rebel without a cause, or a work ethic, or a sense of basic common decency.

Of course, this does leave the issue of what I do want to do with myself.

Maybe I just multiclassed into Miss Cleo, because all of the sudden I have a prediction to make. I predict that as soon as I get into town, I’m going to be assaulted with offers to help with people’s petty problems. I guess I’ll just latch onto the first one of those that comes along. It’s like, deliver a sacred magical artifact to its rightful owner so that the kingdom might be spared a demon invasion? Pass. Your favorite pan broke and the nearest tinker’s at the bottom of a goblin cave? Oil me up!

I arrived at the town of Cheydinhal. It was dark, it was raining, and there was this miserable gloom hanging in the air like a puppy in a noose. Perhaps a gifted poet raised in the darkest neck of a swamp could capture the mood in ten stanzas of prose, but I’m just going to stick with the syllable ass and hope you get the idea.

And you know all anybody's gonna want to talk about is the weather.

I approached the gate-guard.

Immediately, a few observations occured:

1.)    I’ll go ahead and let you make the first one. Go ahead: look at that screenshot and see if you can guess what I’m about to talk about. If your guess isn’t, “his hideous countenance,” that might be because scrutinizing his features made you go blind. That would also mean you’re reading this via a text-to-speech synthesizer. Sorry about that. Tell you what, at the end of the article I’ll say something that’ll sound cool in a robot voice. Point is, NPCs in Oblivion are some kind of ugly. In the works of Lovecraft, people who lived in the town of Innsmouth tended to be warped by their fish-tainted blood and shared allegiance to Dagon, sporting strange lips, nostrils, and eyes. This shared deformity was referred to as, “the Innsmouth Look.” By the same token, every NPC in this game could be said to have the Cyrodiil Look, which is that of a spud carved into a bad caricature and left in the sun for a week.

2.)     Yes, that’s where the name of the series comes from. Yes, I’m a nerd. Next observation.

3.)    Unfortunately, this one doesn’t properly come across in a screenshot, but here’s the thing: NPCs in Elder Scrolls games tend to say something as you approach. In Morrowind, this was usually some sort of rude invitation to say something or go kill yourself, with no ambiguity as to which option they’d prefer. In Oblivion, it’s usually something like, “Hello, how are you?” The problem is that in Oblivion, when you proceed to start a conversation with that NPC, they’ll usually start off by giving you another greeting. For example, you might wander near someone, at which point they’ll say, “Can I help you?” and then you’ll hit E to talk to them and they’ll say, “What can I do for you?” Worse, sometimes they’ll just say something like, “What?” or “Yes?” which makes dialogue sound all kinds of stilted and awkward. Every NPC in the game sounds mildly confused and more than a bit stupid.

4.)    This NPC’s telling me to go visit the Fighter’s Guild. This is, I would discover, Cyrodiil’s national pastime.

Pretty much everyone I talked to, when asked for advice, immediately suggested I join the Fighter’s Guild. Nobody suggested I become a lawyer, or a baker, or a day laborer, or a professional breakdancer—everyone immediately suggested I suit up and start murdering things for a living. Either they’re racist against Redguards, they secretly do hate me and are just more subtle about implying they want to see me die, or that’s legitimately the only work to be had here. In which case, that’s one bummer of a recession, man.

Well, I guess I could get back into the Guild. Alternately, I could find something more dignified, like running a kissing booth catered specifically towards livestock.

Hey, come to think of it, you know what’s the easiest and most rewarding haul I’ve had in my entire career? That time I stole a book from an old lady. And that time I broke into a house and picked it clean didn’t suck either. How have I never considered a life of larceny before now? I mean, sure, I didn’t take the relevant skills, but I believe in myself; that’s got to be at least one tenth as useful as having practiced or something.

Well, I should start small. How about hitting the local inn?

From the people who brought you, "The New York City Next to the Subway Restaurant."

This place looks nice from the outside. Truth is, it’s actually kind of a dump. Somebody left a pumpkin lying out behind the front desk, and it’s been sitting there for so long that it’s rotted into a gnarled sphere and sprouted patches of shallow brown mold. What’s weird is that it kind of looks like somebody put a dress on it oh wait I see.

They said they provided beds to persons of quality that reside in the community. I am self evidently neither, but they gave me a room anyway. I guess they found out that basing the business model of an inn around renting rooms to people that live there wasn’t such a hot long-term strategy.

When she turned her back, I stole a clay vase and a mug off the table. She doesn’t notice. Sucker! I retreated to my room to tally up the value of my haul:

On the one hand, they appear to be entirely worthless. On the other hand, they weigh me down by a pound and a half.

I can tell this roguish living by my wits thing is going to take some work, and also, if I happen to come across any, some wits.

On the plus side, digging through my inventory uncovered a previously-disregarded fur helmet. Oh, gee, I have a hat again. I suppose it’s too much to ask that this one doesn’t make me look like a total goddamned clown?

That’s what I thought.

Next episode: The crime spree of the century.

Bow before the iron fist, foolish organics! I will lay you all to waste with my unstoppable laser eyes!