Why:

do mudcrabs carry forks?
or lockpicks?
or gold?

vampires carry silver weapons?

do Dremora carry potions of the sea? In Oblivion? (Like they're planning to "breath under lava" or something?)

What happened to that Guard's ear?

How do the psychic guards who know that a particular apple was stolen:

still miss one lockpick?
don't notice that you're the missing prisoner who was the first escapee from the Imperial Prison in 40 years?
don't notice that you're carrying the one item absolutely necessary to the survival of Tamriel, a great huge mucking ugly amulet no one could miss?

For that matter why does Harrow:

never take away the dagger that guy who turned up at your bedside and told you to assassinate some guy at a cheap hotel gave you?

I should get more sleep.

Indeed, get some sleep. :spotted owl:

Mudcrabs eat forks, gold and lock picks by mistake, that's why they are in their crab meat.

No problem in Vampires carrying silver weapons. Vampires are not allergic to silver. A silver stake through their heart might hurt but that doesn't meant they can't use silver weapons or other silver items.

Not sure why Dremora's carry water breathing potions. Maybe the do like lava diving. Or are planning a vacation on the Gold Coast. Or maybe they just picked it up off their recent kills.

You have the guards ear, citizen. That is is explained in game.

Psychic Guards know that a particular apple is stolen because they are psychic:

http://fc06.deviantart.net/fs30/f/2008/159/4/9/49022fddbbb5214f815f1c90d083f7d2.jpg

Maybe Harrow figures that if he takes that dagger he'd get woken up in the middle of the night.

See there are reasonable answers, so no need to stay awake pondering.

Now I'm going to stay awake pondering how you find some of those answers reasonable. :wink_smile:

So if you want more difficult questions to keep you up at night, how about these that have been asked on these forums since the game was released:

How are there ships in the Imperial City waterfront when the water in Lake Rumare is so shallow you could wade through it (going in both directions from the waterfront) before you get to the Niben Bay.

And on the subject of ships, how do they get past leyawiin to and from the Sea? (best answer seems to be mages guild teleportation).

And why is there Beef but no cows? (best answers seem to be either it's imported or Minotaurs)

I don't recall this being asked but why is there no bridge over he Niben Bay near the IC in the games opening animation.

Harrow in particular amuses me. Every Mythic Dawn agent in every town in Cyrodiil knows exactly who I am, no matter how I might be disguised, but I can walk into Lake Arrius in full Blades armor with Raven Camoran's blood still on my boots and he just says, "Mmm.... okay. You seem fine. Go on in there with our leader and have fun. And be sure to help yourself to coffee and donuts."

With an incompetent like that handling his security, it's no wonder Mankar loses.

Birds who sing but are never seen...
Welkynd stones on their stands in ruins that have been looted and re-looted for a thousand years...
No children or young animals of any kind...
Loot lying around in barrels, and penniless beggars...
Characters who can run around in their underwear, and carry 250 pounds of stuff in their, uh...?

But they don't reappear when YOU go back... How come only YOU are a permanent looter?

BTW beggars aren't penniless, they'd just like you to go do the gold-finding for them. That seems totally reasonable to me.

And why does a merchant I've just bought a 6000 GP axe from complain that she's being fined 5 gp for littering and she "doesn't see that much in a year?" Get real. And I personally bribed a beggar who said the same thing 15 gp five minutes before.

And the one that really keeps me awake nights:

Why do undead show up when you use a detect life spell?

You have a fully decked out Dark Brotherhood Murderer following you around having perfectly normal conversations with townsfolk, yet everyone hates the Dark Brotherhood.

And why is jumping down a well to get into the Darkbrotherhood Sanctuary--an entrance clearly marked on every city map--more discreet than going by way of the abandoned building?

And where did I get those spells that turned up in my spell list after that conversation about classes with Baurus right after the Emperor went to his reward.

Why does the Priory of the Nine, which has been abandoned for centuries, have a Life of Uriel Septim VII lying on the floor?

Because they're not really dead.

I also kind of wonder why, aside from Jauffre and Baurus, there were no Blades protecting Martin at the battle of Bruma.

Or how Mannimarco was able to get into Bruma, do his evil deeds, and then get out with out any interference from the guards. Maybe the guards were all busy dealing with Apple thieves? And why don't they put out that fire, isn't anyone concerned that it might spread?



Maybe they were dead, but then got better.

Have you looked at a zombie lately? If that's "better," I'd hate to see what "worse" looks like.

So I close an Oblivion gate threatening the entire city of Leyawiin, yet Count Caro doesn't think he likes me enough to talk about buying a house in town.

Yeah, but you already knew Count Caro was a jerk......

Beef? In all the daggerfall games I've played I've never seen any cows at all. chickens, sheep, horses but never cows. They must import it from Fallout jk jk...

As for the ship thing you can see a large lake here leading near IC. http://satgnu.net/upload/lavacroft/images/games/elderscrolls/TES_Map_Tamriel_Arena.jpg You can see this map in Arena as well as in the game Daggerfall when selecting where you come from/race although a lot lower quality. But as for why it's so shallow ya I agree that the ships must be teleported or have some kind of short levitation spell on them.

The Arcane University is located just north of, and right above, the shallows by Fatback Cave. I haven't caught them raising the boats over the shallows; I suspect that they use a heavy Alteration spell to briefly lower the river bottom and allow the ships through. You have to admit that it's a pretty good system for keeping unwanted ships from attacking the harbor area.

I believe they use a different method to get ships past Leyawiin. There, they use the built-in city-to-city Fast Travel System (I'm sure you've used it, right?) to whisk the ships to Anvil.

:wink_smile:

What? No mention of the most puzzling Oblivion question of them all? The IC has sewers, but where do all the people keep the chamber pots?

Who invented shoes for Argonians and Khajits? It must be a quite recent invention since they didn't exist 40 years before.

I still wonder how a headless zombie knows where I am. And for that matter, why it's easier to sneak up behind one than in front of it. Why does it make any difference?

And I wonder how the Thieves Guild remains a secret when every member any of my thieves meet shouts out "I can see you're a follower of the Gray Fox too!" Sheesh - there's a guard standing right there. Keep it down, wouldja?

And why can't anybody find anything? As near as I can tell, every super-secret, long-lost, carefully-hidden place in the game has a clearly marked path leading right to it. If we assume that nobody actually goes there, then how is there a path?

And seriously - just how does one go about eating a minotaur horn?

Because they were planning a dinner banquet. You were supposed to be the main dish. The fork was from the exceptionally fastidious one who is fearful that the kitchen staff didn't do a good job of cleaning up after the last banquet. The lockpick was carried by the Boy Scout just in case you decided hide from them behind a locked door and the gold was the considerate one who always feels guilty about stiffing the waiter.



Because iron and steel weapons are soooo last year. All of the really in-people are carrying silver this year.



It's actually Oblivion cocktail sauce. It just works like a water-breathing potion on Tamriel. They'd have been dipping their Oblivion shrimp at the next office get-together if you hadn't whacked the guy. You really ruined a lot of keggers by sticking your nose through those gates, you know.



The guard dropped his bling and it's looking for the dropped earring. It'll be back when it finds it.



They didn't want to fish it out of where you stuck it. Ewwww.



Because of the facial reconstruction done in your cell. The Emperor is the only one who recognized you and he's dead.



It's probably with the lockpick. You can't wear it, remember?



It, too, is with the lockpick. Freud had a few things to say about it. There is counselling available for that.

What about the fact there is like 50 seats in the council chambers, and one guy sitting there?
Some people have the same copy of "The Real Barenziah, Volume I" in five or six different places in the same bookcase?
Unless you go to Kvatch, the impending crisis never happens?

The amulet thing sounds painful.

And a new question occurred to me last night before my sleeping pill kicked in: what makes a "deranged" zombie. I mean how can you tell them from any other zombie? They don't seem to act any different, except that for some reason they don't drop mort flesh...