The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion/Mages Guild

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Mages Guild

Overview
Branches of the Mages Guild can be found in Anvil, Bravil, Bruma, Cheydinhal, Chorrol, Leyawiin and Skingrad. The guild headquarters is the Arcane University in the Imperial City. However this is not accessible until you have joined the guild.

Joining
To join the guild and get quests you must get a recommendation from the head of each of the guild branches. You cannot join if you have a bounty on your head.

Recommendations
Anvil

Carahil in the Anvill guild will tell you about some murders and kidnappings on the Gold Coast Road. You are asked to act as a lure to draw out the culprit.

Go to the Brina Cross Inn north of Anvil and speak to Arielle. Pose as a merchant and spend a night at the inn. In the morning travel on the Gold Coast Road towards Kvatch, with a mages guild escort surreptitiously following you. Along the way, a familiar face from the inn will attack and your escort will intervene. When Caminalda is dead, you can return to Carahil to get your recommendation.

Note: you can get a key from the Caminalda's corpse which will unlock her room at the inn. If an Imperial patrol sees your escort attack Caminalda he may intervene and kill them. This does not affect completion of the quest.

Bravil

Bruma

Cheydinhal

Chorrol

Leyawiin

Skingrad

After you have all the recommendations, travel to the Arcane University and speak to Raminus Polus to become an Apprentice mage.

Mage's Staff
You aren't a proper mage without a staff! To be sent in search of one, ask Raminus Polus for your first quest as a member of the mages guild.

Raminus will tell you to visit Wellspring cave and find Elette or Zahrasha. Your first problem is that just inside the cave Zahrasha is lying dead Search her body and get the Wellspring Key. Setting the pattern for your mages guild quests, several necromancers await you in the cave. Go through the cave and use the Wellspring key ro exit from the other side. A few more necromancers are lurking outside. Kill them.

When all the necromancers are dead, get the wood for your staff from the Stone Chest at the center of the island. Retun to Raminus, who will direct you to Delmar in the Chironasium to continue your staff creation. You will be able to chose your staff's effects through this dialogue  After 24 hours your finished staff will be in the cupboard at the back of the room.

A plot revealed
Hannibal Traven asks you to go to Bruma and speak to Jeanne Frasoric at the Mages Guild as he hasn't heard from her recently.

When you step inside the guild building, you'll find that it has been attacked and left to burn. Your job now is to look for survivors. Head downstairs initially, fending off the undead as you go. If you find the undead tricky to deal with, lure them outside to get some help from the guards and local citizenry. Eventually you will work your way to a necromancer who has remained behind. Kill her to reveal the sole survivor of the Bruma Guild massacre and hear what he has to say about the King of Worms.

Once you've got J'Skar's information, head back to Hannibal Traven to give him the bad news. After three days to think about things he will ask you to get the Necromancer's Amulet and Bloodworm Helm, quests 8A and 8B below. You can get the items in either order.

The Necromancer's Amulet
Travel to Fort Ontus. Once inside the fort, any of the mages you speak to will tell you to see Caranya. Find Caranya in the fort understreets (use the lever to open the gate to the room she's in) and talk to her.

Alas Caranya is a traitor and planning to give the amulet to the King of Worms. So kill her and take the amulet. She uses a lot of heal spells so you might like to try a magica draining effect on her to shorten the fight. The amulet is a decent item, but you don't get to keep it if you want to finish the guild quests.

All the mages you passed on the way in are necromancers. So once you have the amulet fight your way out and either take it to Traven, or go and get the Bloodworm Helm as preferred.

The Bloodworm Helm
Go to Fort Teleman and fight your way through the first level which is full of Necromancers. Enter the Order of the Black Rose area. Here there are both Necromancers and Daedra fighting each other. If you can keep out of the way they will make your job easier by killing each other, allowing you to cut a swathe through the winners (probably the Daedra). Its all too late for Irlav Jarol who took the helm. Pry it from his cold dead fingers and exit Fort Teleman.

Either return to Traven or get the Necromancer's Amulet if you don't have it yet.

Once both objects are delivered to Hannibal Traven go and get a promotion to Master Wizard.

Ambush
Your penultimate task for the guild is to acquire a black soul gem needed to defeat the King of Worms. After getting the quest, travel to the Ruins of Silorn to lead some battle mages in an attack. Unfortunately the enemy have barricaded themselves behind a sealed door, so you'll have to wait for them to emerge. Direct your troops to their ambush positions and shortly afterwards the necromancers will emerge, led by Falcar. The battle mages can take care of them quite easily. A word of warning: the battlemages are very sensitive to stray blows and will turn on you quite easily, so be careful how you swing!

If Falcar, makes it back inside Silorn you will have to trek through the ruins to find him. The dungeon is large and has plenty of Necromancers. Detour through Silorn Sedorseli to hit the switch which opens the gates keeping you from Falcar in the Silorn Buroseli area

Once Falcar is dead, get the gem, take the shortcut out, and retun to Traven.

10 - Confront the King