This has been discussed before but I believe it's been months if not over a year since the last thread dedicated to this particular topic, so I bring it up again.

I recently finished the Fighters Guild quest line for Oblivion yet again. I've finished this quest line six or seven times total since Oblivion first came out, but I keep noticing new things every time. Little details, mainly. For instance, this is the first time I bothered to talk to any of the other Blackwood Company members during the brief time I joined (just before the quest at Waterfront) so I managed to learn some new terms like "jihaat" and "Pakseech" which were interesting. But the thing I noticed or really paid attention to for the very first time is a possible inconsistency in the lore.

After the quest, where your character obviously can't handle the Hist Sap, Oreyn informs you that it must have extreme effects on non-Argonians. And yet he says this whether your character is an Argonian or not. In fact, one of the three nameless Blackwood enforcers who accompanies you on this quest IS an Argonian and he seems to see Goblins, too.

What's the consensus on this? Is it possible that the Hist is so badly deformed and corrupted by artificial magic that the sap even has a hallucinogenic effect on Argonians? If so, why do you think nobody in the Blackwood Company seems to have noticed or cared about the extreme lapses in judgment and lucidity that its members doubtless have suffered? Ri'Zakar and the other leaders don't seem to view this as an issue or as a concern at all. It just seems like an extreme oversight for a supposedly experienced and battle hardened group.

Any thoughts?

it was an exiled hist, it's roots didn't connect with those of the other hist, otherwise there would have ben no way to remove it from the ground originally. So basically, It was crazy to begin-with. Perhaps it wanted argonians to go around killing people, and was using it hist-mindcontrol powers that the book describes to force the argonians into doing stuff.

The leaders were probably high on Hist Sap too.

I think they're aware of the collateral damage they cause, but they consider it a worthy tradeoff so long as they don't get caught.

It was a pretty gross oversight, though. I'm disappointed in Ri'Zakar. By reputation he was an experienced mercenary lord but in the end his stupidity undid him. The ending was a little anti-climactic too, now that I think of it. A single Fighter wipes out the entire leadership of a rival guild. It would have been more epic if there had been more people involved..maybe direct attacks on the Fighters Guild, the way the Necromancers did to the Mages Guild.

Also, I'm sure there was no intended racial or social undertone to the quest, but I noticed a similarity in both Morrowind's and Oblivion's quest line for the Fighters Guild. Both stories involve destroying a foreign threat to an Imperial guild. In Morrowind it was the Commona Tong, a traditional Dunmer crime syndicate. In Cyrodill it was the Blackwood Company, a mixture of Khajiit and Argonians leading them. I think perhaps the cultural element was emphasized more so than the racial one. All three organizations were multi racial and didn't seem to discriminate. It's more Imperial culture protecting itself from hostile foreign culture. Also, in Morrowind every single quest giver for the Fighters Guild was a human of some sort. No Elves. In Cyrodill you have two humans, an Orc and a Dunmer giving out quests, which is a bit more cosmopolitan.

Lorbumol gro-Aglakh, the Fighters Guild Champion, was an orc and he gave out quests (mostly morally ambiguous ones, to nobody's surprise)
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I completely forgot about him. But he wasn't actually a loyal Guildie. He was Commona Tong. I guess the reason I dismiss him is I actually never did his quests, except with my very first character who didn't know any better. I unwittingly aided the Commona Tong on my first play through, to my eventual shame and regret. I had no idea you could choose different paths at that point. That's one thing I enjoyed about Morrowind that they could have implemented in Oblivion. Maybe not for the main quest but for the guilds. Branching quest lines. Different possible endings.

They tried that once. But with their design philosophy they had to make time nonlinear in order to resolve the issues.

I'm perfectly happy accepting a linear main quest, but the quests such as the Fighters Guild and Mages Guild could definitely be more flexible. These can be glossed over, ignored or whatever in upcoming games. It's left to the imagination.

For instance you could choose to oppose the Commona Tong in Morrowind, but we find out in later lore they ended up wiping out the Thieves' Guild anyway. You could imagine that was because the Nerevarine helped the Commona Tong, or you could imagine this happened after he or she left for Akavir. If it's worded ambiguously enough, you can fill in the blanks and it doesn't have to contradict the way you played. It could really happen regardless of whose side you were on, because the character you played disappeared from Morrowind after a while and left a power vacuum.

Similarly, I felt the lack of political choices in Oblivion was an unfortunate choice compared to Morrowind, where you could choose a Great House. It would have been nice to ally yourself with a particular Count or group of Counts and ally yourselves against others - perhaps Nibenese vs. Colovians. That's an actual rivalry supported by lore. Regardless of which side won, it would have been a moot point as the Empire fell apart shortly afterward anyway.

This actually makes you think of the possibilities Oblivion had. Since the Empire was going to fall apart like the second you stop playing your main quest character you could have added loads of stuff which may have looked big and revolutionizing when you played it and was all "epic and awesome" and with multiple choices and stuff... Which would then when the next game came dissapear in the general chaos following the fall of the Empire.

Like working for Count Leyawiin, making sure he and his wife inherits County Chorrol when Arriana is dead (or kill her and let him try to get the County in some more troubling ways), getting Bravil under your control by staging some coup or something. Since Caro is the closest Count he can easily take control of Country Bravil and consolidate his grip of it while the Elder Council decides that its best just to give him official control.
Such a thing would be pretty nice and wouldnt bring too many immediate changes in the game, when the Empire crashes together Caro′s plans crashes together them too, making all your actions there pretty useless...

I agree. Todd Howard's comments on the subject made me cringe and feel a sense of regret. They had a political main quest planned, but they scrapped the political part to, supposedly, prevent the story's focus, the Daedric invasion, from being pushed into the background. :swear:

semi-on topic: I've always assumed that Blackwood was allegory for Blackwater. Is this true?

I highly doubt it. They have very little in common except for being mercenaries and having the word "Black" in their title.

I think it's just a huge coincidence.

They're not even the only organization in Oblivion that has that going for them...there's Black Bow Bandits, the Black Hand, etc. It's fairly common.

Not to mention Blackwood was an actual geographical region well established in lore as early as Arena days, well before the group Blackwater became widely publicly known. You're just grasping at straws.