In Which Gyllerah Fights Werewolves and Cultists

Back to catchup posts for Gyllerah in ESO. This one covers the last week of February for her playthrough, with main action in Glenumbra to move the Daggerfall Covenant plot further along, and in Wrothgar to continue the plot there.

Play by play

Play dates: 2/22-2/29/2024
Session numbers in this run: 358-359
Notable milestones:
- Joined St. Greymoor, sister guild to St. Blackwood
- Hit 4.8 million in sales! And then made back another mil after getting Southern Elsweyr
Lots of fishing and harvesting and acquisition of Perfect Roe
Lots of writ and master writ action
Donated to all three guilds I was in, also picked up helpful tip about selling Ebony and Glass style books
Also won a Saints guild lottery, awesome
Made enough gold for crowns exchange request for Dragonhold DLC! And got it! Southern Elsweyr achieved \0/
A bit of world boss action
Made additional leveled gear for Veghra
Did a run in Infinite Archive with Bastian as backup; didn’t make it past boss number three

February 24th

Main action: pushing the Cadwell’s Gold plotline further along, so more action in Glenumbra
First main bit of plot: helping the Wyrd sisters
Finished helping save Deleyn’s Mill
Had to help the Wyrd sisters by putting out fires and rescuing villagers, then had to kill assorted hostile creatures to recharge the roots of the Wyrd tree
Killed five lurchers and gave the Wyrd sisters their arms for use in a ritual to communicate with their guardian spirits
Helped four different Wyrd sisters destroy corrupted vines by keeping hostile lurchers and cultists off of them
Talked with the Guardian of Water and got sent off to talk to Wyress Gwen
That finally put me at the Wyrd Tree I’d encountered before in many prior sessions, but this time I was there to actually clear up the problem
Had to open four portals to let Wyrd sisters get in and start purifying the place, and destroy the corrupted spirits that had tainted the place while I was at it
Finally took out the main corruption in the heart of the Tree itself, hurray! The Tree is saved!
Onward: headed to Aldcroft to help them out with a werewolf problem
Had to rescue the kidnapped Duke of Camlorn
Also had to rescue Gloria Fausta who turned out to be a descendant of the head werewolf, Faolchu
She gave me an amulet to help me find werewolves trying to slip into the city undercover as refugees
Next had to help Gloria capture a werewolf and conduct a ritual
Went out into the field with a battlemage and took three tries to properly capture a werewolf
Hauled it off to Gloria (and killed a couple more werewolves en route)
Had a look into the past and saw that Faolchu was deathly afraid of fire
The werewolf pulled a fast one though and dropped the bomb that OHNOEZ! The Duke was infected with lycanthropy!
Gloria tried to get me to kill her so her blood could be used to cure the Duke
I shot that idea down and we returned to the duke, and yep, he sure was infected
Duke got pissy that I told Gloria to take him into custody rather than let him say goodbye to his wife and daughter (which IMO turned out to be the right choice, I saw on the wiki that if I’d chosen the other way, he would have killed his wife and daughter, yikes)
Headed next to join the Mages Guild forces out on the moors to try to help them figure out how Faolchu originally died, so they could kill him again
Gathered the ancient weapons of the generals of the Alessian forces still scattered on the battlefield
Talked to a mage who then used those weapons to try to scry into the past, but he actually opened some ripples in time
Investigated these ripples and was contacted by a spirit named Alana who had been there
She told me her beloved had been the one who’d killed Faolchu, and led me to his armor
Put on the armor, and that threw me backwards into the past
As that nameless soldier, I then proceeded to the point of killing Faolchu
Meanwhile, past!Alana also dropped a major hint that she was totes pregnant
Also, past!me had an encounter with Laloriaran Dynar, the Ayleid king I’d met in Coldharbour–and he could in fact tell something was off about me
He had an interesting line about “I can’t tell if you’re not truly alive or you just don’t belong”
I fessed up to not actually belonging, and he appreciated my honesty, but we didn’t get a chance to talk about it further
Got a decision point about whether to save Alana or kill Faolchu, because she got captured
I thought I’d chosen the ‘kill Faolchu’ option because I knew I was supposed to kill him, but apparently I chose ‘save Alana’–and I had to kill Faolchu anyway
When I returned to the present I discovered that the mage who’d cast the ritual was now a woman
And Alana had a living descendant by the same name who was now stationed with the Mages Guild forces, so that was kinda neat
Next up: headed on to find the Lion Guard forces, who turned out to be led by General Gautier–Darien’s father, cooooool
He wasn’t initially interested in my report that I knew how to kill Faolchu, but he sent me on to help out an Orc soldier in retaking the siege camp
This required killing a whole bunch of werewolves
General Gautier then sent me on to find his son
Darien was not going to just hand over his master key until I got him some cached arms and armor to help out his squad
At the same time, I had to help the alchemist Alinon by getting samples of werewolf blood, and rescuing civilians to get them to rendezvous at the inn
While doing this, found a journal of Darien’s just lying around in one of the damaged buildings–and of course I read it, and saw he’d written about having nightmares that were premonitions of his becoming Meridia’s knight
Alinon cobbled together a cure for the lycanthropy infecting the the citizens, and I was able to cure four of them (but see below for my thoughts on that)
Lastly, escorted a volunteer to light signal fires in the towers to alert Darien’s father that they could press their attack
Hurray! Camlorn is saved!
Left off at that point until next time and spent remaining play time working on selling stuff and inventory managing

February 27th

Main action: activated Bastian and headed to Orsinium to move that plot farther along
Talked to the king in his cornerclub
Kurog dropped some heavyhanded hints about wanting to use me to lean on the other chieftains and get them to agree to his being king
While we were talking, a couple of the shield-wives ran in and reported some Malacath-worshipping fanatics had taken over the city temple
The forge-mother showed up and had a plan: send me in to rescue the hostages, which would take the pressure off the king and keep him from being seen to take public vengeance in a fit of temper
So I headed over there with Bastian
The city guards had blocked off the front entrance, and their leader was extremely dubious about my claim that I’d shown up to help
He pointed me at Eveli Sharp-Arrow if i really wanted to help
Eveli was bubbling over with what she thought was a good idea: shooting a nearby suspicious-looking person to scatter the group he was hanging out in, at which point we could follow them
I shot that down on the grounds Gyllerah wasn’t going to let her just shoot somebody just because she thought they were evil
But also had a tip from the guard that there might be a way in through the Mages Guild, so circled around till I found the way in
Got ambushed and dispatched the attackers
Found a priest who begged for help
He gave me the key to get in and warned me that I should avoid torch-bearing guards if I wanted to keep them from having time to kill the hostages
Got in and started sneaking
Remembered I also had a bunch of invisibility potions, so started using those
Did not manage to elude all of the guards, had to kill some of them
Did alert one torch bearer, but Bastian and I killed her before she had time to warn anybody
Made it to the final hostile who had the key to the rectory
Took him out, got into the rectory, and took out more hostiles in there
Talked to another priest who pointed me at where High Priestess Solgra went
Went after her, freed everyone, and took out the final hostiles
Then had final convo with Forge-Mother Alga to finish off the quest
Didn’t actually have a quest marker about what to do next, so went out to see about finding the House of Orsimer Glories
Found Talviah, that Altmer guy who’d approached me before about talking to the king
He told me to go find the king in the keep, and said it’d be the last message he’d deliver; apparently somebody was not finding Orsinium as politically gratifying as he’d hoped, LOL
Then I did find the House of Orsimer Glories; read a notice, and then talked to the curator, Umutha
Put a shield on display for her, and she gave me a lead on a helm she wanted me to hunt down for her, which belonged to a famous ancient warrior who may have been a woman
Next stop: the palace
Went to talk to the king, who was flanked by two of his shield-wives
Kurog drafted me to go talk to the other chiefs on his behalf, and try to talk them around to his side of things
Got the objective to speak to three of the chieftains, and hints from Kurog about what the three strongholds are good at and what problems they might be needing help with
On the way out, investigated a quest marker that led down to the keep’s dungeon
Found a female Khajiit imprisoned down there, and she begged me for help
She said she’d been accused of thievery, but nobody would tell her what she stole
I agreed to help, and got her backstory and the name of a guy who’d taken advantage of her
Went out to track this guy down
Located the bank on the way out of the city to take care of selling things
While hunting down the guy I was looking for, found another side quest marker on a Dunmer
This guy was looking for an enchanted whistle so he could capture durzogs, so I agreed to help him too
And I found a city solicitor, who asked for a donation of funds to help continue Orsinium’s construction; gave her a donation, because sure why not, Gyllerah is in favor of proper city infrastructure
Finally found the camp of the guy I was trying to track down
Found his journal and evidence that he had in fact set up the Khajiit
Recovered the item he’d stolen: a very ugly mug
Got quest objectives to either sell the mug or return it to the Khajiit; chose the latter, because I am not a monster, sheesh! Also, Gyllerah does like the Khajiit!
Returned to the keep and presented the evidence to the dungeon warden, so the Khajiit could be freed
She gratefully hurried off to the Greedy Gut Inn for much nicer accommodations, and thanked me profusely

Experimenting with armor colors

During this week of play, I finally figured out a sort of autumnal color set for the backup armor I’d made for Gyllerah’s stamplar build–the light Yokuda style set I’d set up to wear when leveling companions. I tried out that color scheme since it was still kinda okay with the red Rubedite daggers, and the red Ruby Ash bow.

But that said, wow, I wish you could dye weapons. Because it’s really weird to set all your dye colors on your armor, and still have your weapons totally clash with that. All the highest tier weapons materials are red, basically. So if you want your armor to look good with that, you have to choose a color scheme to accommodate it.

Or, you have to set up an outfit. Which does let you dye weapons. All the more reason why it’s weird that you can’t dye weapons without setting up an outfit.

Joining the St. Greymoor guild, and doing crown exchanges

This was the week I signed on with St. Greymoor, another of the Saints cluster of guilds (which consists of St. Elsweyr, St. Greymoor, and St. Blackwood). Greymoor has slightly higher selling requirements than Blackwood does. But I’d quickly found that I could regularly get enough stuff to fully stock multiple traders, and I wanted to build up the amount of money I was making.

This quickly led to me hitting a high enough milestone that I was able to put in a crowns exchange request on the Saints Discord–because a thing the Saints does for their members is to conduct brokered exchanges of crowns for in-game gold. As I’ve been unemployed this entire year, buying additional crowns to spend in the game really hasn’t been an option. But with a brokered crowns exchange, I could still get content DLCs as long as I could find a player with enough crowns, and as long as I had enough gold.

The way a brokered crown exchange works is that the guild has to follow certain rules set down by Zenimax, in order to have their permission to manage crown exchanges. A player with crowns and a player with gold get a broker from guild staff to oversee the exchange and confirm that the correct things are paid and received. And the guild gets a cut of the gold off the top, of course.

As of this writing I’ve done several brokered exchanges with the Saints, which has let me get my mitts on additional game content. I’ve gotten the rest of the overland DLCs I was missing, and most of the DLC dungeons as well! It’s a lot safer to do it this way than to try to trust in random players who are sounding off all the damn time about offering crowns for sale on the zone chats.

So I’m very grateful that the Saints are able to do this, in a way that’s acceptable to ZOS. I don’t get the crowns directly, but I do get the DLCs I want. And the player who gifts me whatever I’m looking for gets my gold. And the guild gets a share to apply to expenses for paying for traders. Everybody wins. <3

Wyrd Tree action in Glenumbra

Running Deleyn’s Mill and making it to the Wyrd Tree was basically the same stuff I wrote about in Veghra’s last post. I think technically Gyllerah played through this stuff first, but this is what I get for posting stuff so late. And also for trying to keep track of the actions of multiple characters. I’m bound to post stuff a bit out of order!

A thing I want to call out as specific to how Gyllerah ran this stuff, though: the Guardian of Water’s reaction to her. She described Gyllerah as “you are mortal, yet not mortal”. Which was different from characters realizing I had no soul!

There are two interesting parts of this. One: as far as Gyllerah was subjectively concerned at this point, she did have her soul back. Meridia had returned it to her. But two: Meridia was also manipulating time and events and people’s perceptions and such so that Gyllerah came across as a native-to-them hero for both the Ebonheart Pact and the Daggerfall Covenant. So there’s a real question here of whether the Guardian thought I was missing a soul, still.

Or, was the Guardian, itself a supernatural entity, able to sense that I was in Glenumbra under less than ordinary circumstances? I think you can make a strong argument for the Vestige being something more than the average mortal by the time she kicks Molag Bal’s ass in Coldharbour, to be sure–regardless of what shenanigans Meridia is engaging in to move her around the world and let her help people all over Tamriel.

Either way, I gotta say, it was nice to finally be at the Wyrd Tree in RP circumstances. I’d been there several times already throughout my time in the game, just because there’s an Alchemy survey spot right in the immediate area. So even before I got to this part of the plot, it was already on Gyllerah’s map.

Action in Aldcroft and Camlorn

Since I didn’t get into much detail about this plotline with Veghra’s post, I’ll do it here. And one of the big things that stood out for me with the action at Camlorn is this: that several of the infected townsfolk I had to cure were apparently considered loyal to Faolchu as long as they were werewolves. And then they were magically no longer loyal to Faolchu once I cured them, and they thanked me profusely for it.

Which makes little sense to me. Because yeah sure, I know pop culture almost always depicts werewolves as driven by the hierarchy of their pack, subservient to their alpha, etc. The Elder Scrolls games are no exception. But here’s the thing: it glosses over how, even if a werewolf has strong instincts to adhere to their pack, they still are thinking beings with their own brains.

So I have a hard time buying that random Camlorn townsfolk were suddenly Faolchu flunkies once they were infected with lycanthropy, and then not once they were cured… unless magic was somehow also involved. I’ve certainly seen examples of werewolves in Elder Scrolls games that have trouble controlling their instincts to the degree that they kill innocent people–that’s the whole point of the Ill Met By Moonlight quest in Skyrim. And in ESO, in this very plotline, we see that as a problem with the Duke as well.

But that’s not the same thing as political allegiance. A loyal subject of King Emeric doesn’t instantly turn into a follower of an undead werewolf the instant they’re infected with lycanthropy unless there’s something else going on–like mind control. (Which we do also know is a thing in Elder Scrolls lore, so not out of the question. Though we usually see it involved with vampires and/or necromancers, not werewolves.)

I’d chalk this up to another thing ESO had to take narrative shortcuts with because it’s an MMO–except that I’ve seen plenty of other plots in the game that are better thought out and developed. So yeah, I wish this plot had gotten the same level of attention we see in some of the DLC stuff later, Orsinium being a shining example.

By contrast, I’ll also call out a thing I really liked: the encounter with the Ayleid King Laloriaran Dynar, in the past vision I experienced about the nameless individual who’d killed Faolchu. The king was in that vision–and he could tell that something was off about me. So apparently he totally picked up on how the soldier whose eyes I was seeing through had another consciousness temporarily riding around in him? Neat.

I also liked that the game gave me an opportunity to be honest with the king, and acknowledge that I did not belong in the time frame I was witnessing. Which he appreciated! I was a little sad though that I didn’t get to tell him he’d see me again much, much later. Though I suppose that would have required another dialogue option to be recorded, and a check for whether the player had completed Coldharbour as of having this conversation. 😀

Regardless, that was a highly interesting little detail, and a fun hint about his level of magical/supernatural sensitivity.

I’ll also call out that it took me a while to figure out that the alchemist I met during this plot, Alinon, was the same guy I also saw in Wrothgar helping with that plot! So yay for another recurring character, even though it’s hard to keep track of which recurring character I’ve met when, sometimes.

Meeting Darien again, finally

But certain recurring characters are of course unforgettable, which leads me to Darien! Because the action in Camlorn included my first encounter in this plot with Darien Gautier. Who, y’all will recall, Gyllerah first met way back in the Summerset plotline. And I think she had some strong feelings about laying eyes on that boy again, even though this was an earlier version of him that had no idea who she was.

When I found his journal lying around in Camlorn, I did of course read it, and saw that he’d written about having premonitory nightmares. I didn’t actually have the option to pick up the journal and take it back to Darien, but I wish I had! Because that would have been a perfect time for Gyllerah to drop the “it turned out all right” line that future!Darien relayed to past!Gyllerah.

I will headcanon that that totally happened. And also, Gyllerah could not quite resist a little flirting with Darien as well, and a promise to get drinks! 😉

Action in Orsinium

Speaking of recurring characters, I also jumped back over into the Orsinium plotline with the session on the 27th. And found it a refreshing change of pace that when the king and the Forge-Mother sent me over to help out with the situation at the temple, the head guard there was extremely dubious about my claim that I was there to help. Ha, an NPC that does not take the player character at face value! Which is absolutely appropriate, given that I was an Altmer in Orc territory. So of course the Orc guard should going to be side-eying the stranger showing up at a tense situation.

And here, I did get a conversational option that allowed for my having finished Coldharbour before running Orsinium: i.e., an option to identify myself as the one who’d defeated Molag Bal. I didn’t bother with that. Gyllerah doesn’t usually brag about this, I feel!

But boy howdy, she was tempted.

Got another recurring character on my radar, though I didn’t realize it at the time–i.e., Talviah. I’d forgotten I’d seen him at the very start of the Orsinium quest. And I forgot this encounter, too, later on when Talviah showed up again! This is what I get for dragging out playing plots like this. 😀

Meanwhile, I found the House of Orsimer Glories and got that plot underway. I liked the curator, Umutha, who seemed pretty neat. I quite liked that she was a “city orc”, but had gotten in good with Clan Fharun, and they’d granted her clan tattoo markings. And I very much approved of how she was another example of an interesting female Orc–the entire Wrothgar territory seems to be full of them. Which is awesome.

(And not gonna lie, I think this was an influence on how I started playing Veghra, too!)

That said, even as I was very pleased to see female Orc characters being interesting all over the Wrothgar plot, I still gotta wonder even now how feasible the idea of only the chieftains siring children can be. There are just too damned many Orcs and not enough chieftains for that to work.

Maybe it’s a thing only in the most traditional strongholds? I can’t imagine that city Orcs never have children. And since a big theme of the whole Wrothgar plot is all about how progressive King Kurog is presenting himself and how Orsinium will be a haven for the Orcish people, I can’t imagine the Orcs that settled there would just not have any children at all.

(But more on how Kurog presents himself to his people as this plotline develops, in future posts.)