I gave up looking for Arvak's skull because Soul Cairn is way to difficult.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6FCqWweVJA Video walkthrough for you.

This is actually one reason why I love the Soul Cairn. Makes it harder to explore and makes things more random and scary, if you ask me.

I knew that place reminded me of something (dream realm of Dragon Age: Origins). I thought it had a surreal look that was kind of spooky but I was ready enough to get out of there. I was running around every where and never found all of Jiubs pages.

It felt like I wondered around in there for day's but I know it was only an hour or so, maybe 2, I don't know. I got the horse skull pretty fast as I had talked to the guy and there was a marker. Didn't find all the tomes, didn't get all the pages.... Did kill the Reaper, almost didn't as I "lost" the right building, was in the last building I planned on looking in before I got out. But all that wondering around meant I probably hit every fissure and filled all my soul gems. I may go back, IF I can before I get the rest of my soul back.

I turned the brightness up almost as far as it can go, didn't help with the look of the place, but at least I could see where I was going. But yeah it pretty much svcked.

Im a archer with almost no spell capabilities. So how does one make the teleporters work. I agree this place is nuts. I found someone to sell husks to but now I will probably never see them again.

The easyiest way I can explain it is go back to the staircase, follow the path strait through the umm wall/gate... the trader was not to far away from there on the right hand side, along the path.. It's easy to spot once you get near because of the cart.

Edit: just jump on the teleporter, worked for me.

You jump into them (pretty pink circles/fountains all over the place), no magic on your part is required. Not all the dormant ones will teleport you somewhere, but they are all safe to jump into so you are not losing anything by trying. I jumped into the first I saw, just to see, and nothing happened, I jumped into one of the active ones, nothing happened, so I lost interest. I jumped in one trying to get up higher, whoosh!!!!!!

Put an entirely different perspective on things.

Some of the active ones will restore health or at least I am pretty sure they do. I was trying to get some space between me and a Keeper and jumped into one ( meaning to jump over it and keep going) and noticed my health bar was zooming up. I tried it again after going to one of the large floating soul gem's ( the one's that drain health ) and again my health bar zoomed up. So I am pretty sure they do restore health, I just won't say I know they do until someone else tries it and confirm's that they do.

My health bar was always full, so I would not have noticed if the active ones restored health.

Area is just WAY to huge for the little content in it. It's mostly wasted space that looks the same. Some of the small ruins were cool, but that about it. Not much to look forward to.

The soul cairn might not have been that bad if bethesda put a couple of interesting side quests in. What I hate is when a they try to make dlc longer by putting in find a bunch of items quests. Running around trying to find a bunch of paper for hours with no real great reward is just lazy quest design, and I wish game developers would stop doing it.

They put it in for the people that like stuff like that and little bits of lore, that way they can still say it's an RPG.

Jeepers, I am definitely not looking foward to this nightmare when I get to the Soul Cairn.

You can put lore in quests without using one of the most tired and boring quest designs. I've read most everything in the game from books, journals, notes, etc. Lots of lore in the game.

Skyrim is a better RPG than Dark Souls and Fable.... And the whole paper-quest thing is prolly only there cause Jiub is the most famous Dunmer you will see in the TES series, and that is why I like it.

Also, TES has A LOT of lore.. Just need to look for it.

So, Soul Cairn is Skyrim equivalent to Oblivion Sigil Towers?

I've played through Dawnguard three times now. After finding all reaper gems and jiub pages I've got the soul cairn nailed down. I hated it the first time I went there, but I can navigate it as easily as black reach now.

I collect books, try to get every single one in the game. Gives me my lore fill.

I didn't play morrowind, but figured that easter egg was too obvious. I agree with everyone here, this map was very frustrating with very littlle reward.

It might be kinda of boring now but it has a lot of potential if it could be updated. Has anyone played Battle Spire? According to the lore, there is a very interesting building in the Soul Cairn called the chapel of love which housed the emerald gates which could be used to reach the other outer realms of Oblivion. Mehrunes Dagon used it as way station to invade the other realms in Battle Spire.
This would make a perfect setting in a future DLC to allow access to a Daedric realm or possibly more.

EDIT: Though on second thoughts. Any future DLC would then require Dawnguard on top so I guess that idea is a bust. Shame, it would be a good way to allow daedra back into the world.

Actually, I wouldn't mind a DLC requiring Dawnguard if it means they can finally add in DAEDRA... Skyrim lacks Daedra and rly need a DLC focused around it.

Same, I miss my lil scamps.