Hi All,

Just started playing Oblivion again with the near release of Skyrim...odd things keep happening at Skingrad that I can't explain :banghead:, so I'm hoping someone else can.

Took up the main quest, grabbed one of the horses offered at Weynon Priory and stopped in at Skingrad on my way to Kvatch to buy / repair a few things and join the Mages Guild...I go back out to continue on to Kvatch, jump on my horse and get accused of stealing it!! Tried again after reloading an autosave while the guard is around the corner chasing some thief but the stable owner cracks it and they're onto me again, so I just reloaded the autosave again....somehow it doesnt seem to have reset the fact that I "stole" my own horse, get as far as a dungeon on foot and lo and behold one of the guards tracked me down and demands I pay the fine still - WTF!

I ended up just paying it and getting on with the main quest....I break the siege on Kvatch, grab Martin and go to drop into Skingrad again on my way past. Guards accost me asking for a 1000 fine which I can't pay so only option it to go to jail or resist arrest... seriously WTF???

Is there something I'm missing?

Another random thing, got attacked once...after defeating the bandit or whatever it was I saw a message "dark forces are watching you" or something, didnt think anything of it at the time...take a nap at Kvatch and wake up to some dude from the Dark Brotherhood claiming I murdered someone and the great mother was watching. Check my stats and sure enough I've got a murder against my name with no idea where it came from. He proceeds to give me a dagger to murder someone else with for initiation which I intend to drop in a lake somewhere.

Someone please help explain where these random events are coming from, is it something to do with the AI system?

Thanks,

Craig

Edit: is there any easy way to get back on the good side of Skingrad? Because I'm not going back through hours worth of gameplay :brokencomputer:

You only get to own a specific horse after the priory is attacked. So if you aren't that far yet, you did steal it. Add omniscient guards and you can't escape the long, all-knowing, all-seeing hand of the law :lmao:

The murdering thing is sometimes a bit buggy. Just ignore mr. Lachance.

That's odd as when you ask one of the other brothers at Weynon priory for assistance (pre finding Martin), he says to take one of the horses, so I did and no one went screaming "thief" or anything :confused:...I am only up to the priory attack now when I get there with Martin

And yeah thats the fellow I woke up to...the game loves freaking you out that way LOL

Thanks,

Craig

Did you sneak attack kill a vampire at any point? I know that got me tagged with a murder once a while back, which seemed a bit silly (though I'm pretty sure there was no fine levied against me for it).

No and I couldn't sneak up on a tree at the moment my sneak skills are that low. Not sure exactly why the guards are still after me...is it related to when I paid the dodgy fine before? As I agreed to pay it which then transported me to outside the Skingrad castle...was I supposed to go in and stand before the court or something, because I assumed it had all been taken care of and continued onto Kvatch.

Thanks,

Craig

Edit: actually I remember a part where I was passing Hackdirt, knew nothing about it at the time and looked abandoned. Try going down a trap door which was locked, picked the lock and entered upon which I ran into some Hackdirt youths or something who promptly attacked me...guess I had it coming after "breaking and entering" but couldn't they have asked me to leave first or something :facepalm:...every non friendly person / thing I come across always attacks first without even seeing if we can get along :tongue:

In any event I only killed the bare chested ones that attacked me, some of the other towns people turned up (must have been 20+ people in Hackdirt all of a sudden, where were they all hiding LOL...wouldnt have entered the trap door if I'd known it was a town with people living there) and asked me to leave so I did after checking out the rest of their cave system. Could this be the trigger maybe for Skingrad? I can't remember if it was pre or post my first visit to Skingrad though, may have been on the way to Weynon Priory for the first time..... :confused:

If the horse is not "Prior Maborel's Paint Horse" then it is stolen. You'd have got the red horseshoe warning when you mounted any of the others.

Maybe that's it as I grabbed the dark brown one (not sure who's it was) when I thought he said just to grab a horse (must have said his, maybe my whole plight is down to not paying attention :whistling:)...but I will say I never saw any red warning indication not to mount it...I don't seem to see it for any items either that would be considered stolen if I picked them up, such as shop items...maybe a glitch in the game? I haven't patched the game yet.

But why would this then translate into the $1000 fine after I've already paid the other one? Plus the guards only nabbed me the first time AFTER coming out of Skingrad and mounting the priory horse...they wouldn't if I didn't mount, except after I had reloaded the autosave after a couple of attempts which for some reason didnt happen straight away but after I had walked quite a ways off from Skingrad...just hadn't computed yet? :confused:

It's probably to convoluted to try and work out now, so I guess the question I should be asking is how to get back on the good side of Skingrad? Do I simply have to go to jail and loose all my belongings (thats what happens when you go to jail yeah?)...or I guess try and raise the $1000 to pay ANOTHER fine which may come back again next time I revisit Skingrad :banghead:

Thanks,

Craig

Yep, that is indeed your problem. Prior Maborel will give you only HIS horse. If you took any one other than his .. then yup, it's stolen and there started your problem.

If you paid the other fine, did you get back on the stolen horse? If so, it's considered stolen again.

There maybe a console command that wipes your bounty? Look here. http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Console. I don't know for sure, I don't really use these so I have no clue if it will hurt later on or what.

Damn! :shrug:....definitely didn't get back on, what I did try though was map travelling back to the priory and grabbing another horse (still thinking at the time he had said grab any). This time Eronor or whatever his name was that hangs around the stables cracked it and accused me of stealing (still didnt see the red warning against the horse name :blink:). So I just reloaded the autosave from after paying the fine and went to Kvatch from there....it seems both instances don't get wiped from your record / stats when reverting to an earlier saved game :pinch:

Oh well, will see if I can pay the fine and be done with it :down:....done the deed, time do cop it on the chin and move on.

Thanks everyone for your help and advice :tops:

Cheers,

Craig

LOL you poor guy. I have to admit, I'm sitting here giggling :whistling: Not at your plight, but this stuff reminds me of me! LOL

Ha ha....Oblivion shenanigans :teehee:

that's nothing.during one of my character playthroughs,just as i got out of the sewers.i was walking towards weynon priory,when i happened upon a poor unfortunate (deceased) imperial guard (i didn't do it! honest guv :hubbahubba: his horse was alive and well,so thinking nothing of it i started to ride the horse.anyhoo sometime later,whilst arriving at the small town of kavatch,i found that i was starting to be hassled by all the townfolk.i just didn't understand why they were attacking me (after all i hadn't done anything to them).i suddenly clicked,that they were accusing me of common theft (the bounders :swear: well i can assure you ,a few words were spoken under my breath (which i will not mention here to you good folk i duly sought the guard and paid my debt (even though i theoretically didn't steal the horse) by the nine do the folk of oblivion hold grudges :biggrin: