Oblivion: Knights of the Nine

The good men and women of Bethesda Games have done it again. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is, all by itself, an excercise in video game excellence. Then, as with Morrowind, Bethesda added two wildly different expansions: The Shivering Isles and Knights of the Nine. I recently completed the latter, and had a great time doing so.

Knights of the Nine is a very Arthurian tale of taking the place of fallen holy crusader Pelinal Whitestrake and re-building his order of knights to fight the return of the Nine Divines' worst enemy. It's straightforward, sure, but well-designed, though some of the eight quests for the crusader's relics (as well as the final battle) could have been a bit longer or more challenging - only one of them had me seriously baffled, and finally had me admitting it was a great puzzle. Overall, Knights has a good flavour and tone, though some may find it a bit too easy and occasionally anticlimactic. To be fair, I built a character specifically for this expansion - a heavy armor-wearing, claymore-wielding, very strong Nord with cranked restoration skills - and started the quests at level 13 (enemies and bonuses scaling max out at 26). But to be fair in another way, what else would you build for an Arthurian crusade? A battlemage with heavy armor skill would also do nicely here, and probably work enemies over just as easily. It's almost as if the enemies weren't scaled, and I was superior to whatever level they were set at. On a completely different gripe, the ending of the quest was also a little disturbing for me as a Christian, what with all the knights assembled in the priory courtyard shouting, "The Crusader has risen! All hail the risen Crusader!" Kind of creepy.

At the end of it all, though, you get the rebuilt Priory of the Nine (southeast of Skingrad), complete with a bed, a chest that doesn't seem to delete items, an altar, and the ability to get every wayshrine blessing in one location. You also get as many knights as you recruited before the battle and kept alive during (I kept all of 'em), plus a few random extras, and you can ask any of them to follow you at any time. You also get to keep all the relics of the crusader, that being a full set of constant-effect heavy armor including a shield, as well as a sword and mace, and not only are the starting stats excellent, but you can level them up with you, a feature unique to this quest as far as I can tell.

You can ask any knight in the priory to follow you at any time, however, they are not invincible. I'm still going to bring them to the Siege of Bruma at the end of the game, and see what happens.