Had a particularly interesting experience this morning with the barely-restrained hostility between the mages at the AU and the Imperial Battlemages.

I was traveling with Clive the Imperial, and he stopped by the AU before setting out for Bruma. His last stop was the Praxographical Center, and when he left, he came face-to-face with Audens Avidius.

I thought, "Ooh... this should be good."

And it was - four or five of the mages surrounded him and just blasted him with an assortment of spells, It was about the fastest I've ever seen Audens go down. But then, just because I've seen this sort of thing happen before, I just waited. Sure enough, I heard a commotion up on the upper level near the entrance, and when I went up there, there was a full scale war going between the mages and the Imperial Battlemages. Luckily, I'd saved before making spells, so I just reloaded that save, made the spells over again (and hurried a bit) then rushed out and got through the gate and over near the entrance, where there was just one lone Battlemage at that point. And sure enough, within seconds, Audens came through the door and the Battlemage took him down. Then, without even pausing, the Battlemage started attacking Clive. Then, behind us, I could hear the mages coming through the gate and the war starting up again.

I finally ended up just reloading the save and leaving immediately, so Clive could wait by himself on the bridge to the Arboretum, where he dispatched Audens handily. I half expected the Battlemage to attack Clive anyway when he want back in to finish up his spellmaking, but he just launched into that "Ah... you must be the Arcane University's newest associate" routine. Bastard. I should've let the mages kill him.

I'm sure others have some good stories of that war that bubbles just below the surface at the AU...

Other than as a result of me testing a wide-area Frenzy spell on the assembled mages listening to the daily lectures, I've never seen any spontaneous violence there. Reloaded afterwards and restored the harmony, it was just a test.

Yeah - that's how I first came to notice it, and probably the most common way it happens, since there's not a lot else to trigger it there - you need some sort of attack first to get everyone riled up. The amusing part of it then though is the direction it goes - if my character casts a spell on the apprentices, the Battlemages come swarming in and... start killing apprentices. That's why I like to interpret it as seething hostility lurking just below the surface. And that whole interpretation of it adds some spice to the AU. And provides an excuse for that "Ah... you must be the Arcane University's..." endless repetition. That's just a passive-aggressive putdown from the bitter and petulant Imperial Battlemages.

On a related note, after all of that, Clive went to Bruma to fulfill a contract, and witnessed a battle between an Imperial Forester and a Bruma guard. And I learned something interesting from that one. He didn't much care - he thought it was sort of interesting, but it was their problem. He was on his way to sell some loot at Hammer and Axe, so he just kept going, and when he went in the store, they were still going at it. When he came out of the store, they were both still alive and not fighting. Apparently their aggression reset when the cell reloaded, which makes sense in hindsight but sort of surprised me at the time.

1. Audens Avidus is a guard (SetClass doesn't seem to stick properly).

2. Guards defend other guards; whoever the guards are fighting is assumed to be committing a crime.

3. The Apprentices and scholars like you and defend you.

4. This gives them a bounty; if they kill a guard they also receive a murder bounty.

5. Guards automatically attack anything with a bounty that high.

6. Bounties aren't cleared on death, so they respawn with a bounty.