Oblivion talk:Books

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Just as a heads up, I'm currently in the process of consolidating all books in the world of Tamriel into the Tamriel namespace. This may take some time... -- EndarethTalk 03:40, 4 May 2006 (EDT)

Are you going to delete the Oblivion:Books and Morrowind:Books pages? Or just collect all the data together? I think there is some use for the game-specific pages on books simply because some have special uses in each game. --Thehankerchief 04:06, 4 May 2006 (EDT)
The game specific book pages will remain, though probably reformated, but will be linked/transcluded through to the Tamriel master pages. -- EndarethTalk 05:14, 4 May 2006 (EDT)

Magic?[edit]

Does this list really belong to 'Magic' submenu?

IMHO barbarian warriors and thieves don't like to read much. So I placed Magic Trail template here for role-playing reasons. I believe books are a kind of mage class weapons like swords for warriors. Surely, I'm open for discussion. User MXI 00:01, 16 May 2006 (EDT)
Hey, what would a wizard be doing reading books about Heavy Armor and Lock Picking? Surely this is a general category that applies to everyone? -- TheRealLurlock 00:36, 2 June 2006 (EDT)
P.S.: Well, I guess it'll be better to create {{Oblivion Items Trail}} templete and organize all items pages using it. I'm still going to keep Magic trail here, though. I can do it myself if needed. User MXI 00:10, 16 May 2006 (EDT)
Go ahead and place the Oblivion : Items trails.--Thehankerchief 01:12, 16 May 2006 (EDT)
I also don't see why Books should be in the magic category, or have a magic bread crumb trail. Most of the books are completely non-magical. And by my understanding even the skill books don't work using magic: they just provide characters with new information on various skills. Finally, the skill books do cover all of the various skills, not just magical ones. Since I'm trying to clean up pages with two bread crumb trails right now, I'm opting to remove the {{Oblivion Magic Trail}} from this page. And note that if someone wants to put the magic trail back in here, it has to be done manually, rather than using the templates, to avoid the double-bread-crumb problem (see, for example, Oblivion:Staves). --Nephele 20:36, 18 August 2006 (EDT)

Header in wrong place[edit]

The header about "Marker Books" along with its descriptive sentence appears above the chart for skill books, instead of below it where it should. I can't figure out how to fix it, however, as the Skill Books section appears to be cross-referenced from somewhere else somehow. Can someone fix? -- TheRealLurlock 17:49, 31 May 2006 (EDT)

Also, the Skill Books header appears above the wrong section. This page is all screwy and I don't know how to edit it. Can somebody please fix? -- TheRealLurlock 00:34, 2 June 2006 (EDT)

Figured it out. For some reason, the system insisted on placing the headers of the transcluded pages in their listed order (Nonmagic, Skill, Marker), but their actual charts in alphabetical order. (Marker, Nonmagic, Skill) I don't know how to override this, so I just made their listed order alphabetical, and now the headers appear over the correct charts. If any sections get added to this for any reason, it would be wise to keep them in that order to avoid screwing it up again. -- TheRealLurlock 20:45, 7 June 2006 (EDT)

I just fixed the real underlying problem here: the table in the skill books section was not being closed (no "|}" tag). It was also messing with the placement of the table's notes. So I reordered the sections to the original order. In part just to prove to myself that it had caused the earlier problem; also it does seem to make more sense to have the marker books, that most people aren't as interested in, at the bottom. But if anyone wants to reorganize the sections, it is now possible. --Nephele 20:50, 7 August 2006 (EDT)
Wow, yeah, that one just had me stumped. It insisted on putting things in one particular order, so I just re-ordered the page so that at least the headers would be in the right places. Thanks for looking into that one. Pretty strange... --TheRealLurlock 22:47, 7 August 2006 (EDT)

Multi-Volume Books[edit]

I've put the text for all the single-volume books in. The multi-volume books are another matter, I'm afraid. Since the text for these books is all combined on a single page rather than split into volumes, I was thinking to use redirects to link the entries on this page directly to the proper volume within the page. My efforts have been met with less than a rousing success however. Look at "The Wolf Queen, v.8", the last entry in the non-magical books section. If somebody can get that to work properly, let me know how you did it, and I'll apply the same technique to the rest of the multi-volume books. Until then, I'm going to leave this alone for now. --TheRealLurlock 11:57, 25 June 2006 (EDT)

While learning about redirects, I noticed a blurb specfically stating that redirects to anchors do not work [1], and that it's unlikely to be implemented either. So a different approach might be necessary: split the book up with separate pages for each volume, then transclude them all into a combined page? (I'm kind of on a kick trying to learn all these fancy terms and techniques at the moment!)--Nephele 17:49, 3 July 2006 (EDT)
I just took on the shortest multivolume book, Palla. I split the content up into separate pages for the two volumes, Palla, volume 1 and Palla, volume 2; those pages are now transcluded into the Palla page. And I set up some navigation, so hopefully readers can start from any point and access the rest easily. So there's one possible way to address the multivolume books. --Nephele 22:44, 7 August 2006 (EDT)
Only thing is, if the book exists as seperate chapters each on their own page, I don't think there needs to be another page that has all of the text in one place. Just seems wasteful. Particularly on the really long ones like "2920" or "36 Lessons of Vivec". Even less long ones like "A Dance in Fire" or "The Real Barenziah", there's still no need to have everything up there twice. I for one prefer keeping them on seperate pages, and said that before, particularly since you might want to add information on the book page that says "This book teaches you about Alteration" or something. (Might have to specify which game, as some books appear in more than one game, and are a skill book in one and not another.) Maybe even a little info on where to find the book in each of their respective games. A lot of the skill books in Oblivion are very difficult to find, more so than they were in Morrowind. We may look into that. --TheRealLurlock 22:53, 7 August 2006 (EDT)
Oh wait, I just realized you did that full page with transcludes. That might work, I guess. Maybe that extra info could be put on the individual book pages with a "noinclude" to make those not transclude, but only appear on the individual pages... Also you don't need the author and title on every chapter on the main page, but you do on the individual chapters, so that'd be a good way to do that. --TheRealLurlock 22:55, 7 August 2006 (EDT)
Yep, I used transcludes, and noinclude tags to stop the volume-specific stuff from showing up on the main page. I'm not sure whether a combined main page needs to be done in all cases. In this case, since there already was a Palla page with the complete text, I just recreated it from the separate pages. --Nephele 23:33, 7 August 2006 (EDT)

Unsearchable[edit]

Has anyone else noticed that you almost can not find this page in a search? If i narrow the search down to just Oblivion it is about the 4th or 5th link down, but come on, is there any way to make it a little higher up? For the longest time I thought it was fundamentally broken until i tried unchecking EVERY box in the advanced search except Oblivion.

You can just click on Oblivion on the side bar, then items, then Books. If thats what you mean? Mor'tar'iit 02:36, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Non-Books[edit]

Has anyone compiled a page with all of the non-book readable items? By which I mean scrolls and pages like handbills, recipes and notes/letters from NPC's that can be found all over. A page containing a list of these documents and where to find them as well as individual pages containing all of the text along with which NPC(s) they pertain to and whether or not they pertain to a quest? Mebestien 15:38, 18 March 2007 (EDT)

No, there isn't such a list, although someone could put it together if they want to. However, I don't think each of these individual items need their own page, especially not a page under Tamriel:Books, because they're generally not that interesting. For example, there's no need to have a whole page just to state "Apples, Onions, Lard, Cheese, Milk", which is the entire contents of ClutterShoppingList03. The text of any short notes that are quest-related would be most useful on the quest page (i.e., the suicide note on Permanent Retirement, Lorgren's notes on Oblivion:Where Spirits Have Lease). I'd suggest that if someone wanted to assemble a table of these notes, the table could either link to a place where the text is provided, or just include the text right in the table. --Nephele 13:56, 21 March 2007 (EDT)
On the other hand, these books (the recipes, shopping lists and love notes) do (unless I am mistaken) add to the total number of books read for the player, and thus do merit some mention for those trying to create a well-read character. — Unsigned comment by Alaston (talkcontribs)
One problem with responding to year-old conversations is that they tend to be, well, out-of-date ;) There is now an article providing all of the Notes in the game, including all of your favorite recipes and shopping lists. --NepheleTalk 00:25, 16 February 2008 (EST)
I wasn't aware of that. Since the do count as books, perhaps this entry should be updated to link to those pages then, since anyone inspecting the page for that reason will come to the discussions and only see this conversation that until now, had no mention of it. Bear in mind most folks won't look at the "discussion" pages though.
The Notes page is already linked from the Books page - it's the second of the two bullet points just above the Table of Contents... or am I misunderstanding you? –RpehTCE 04:42, 18 February 2008 (EST)
No, you're not misunderstanding me. I had to go look twice but now I see it. You're right. It's there. I stand corrected. My bad.

The Wild Elves?[edit]

There is a book called The Wild Elves in the Aylied Ruin Vahtacen (Mages Guild Quest). Why is that book not in this article?--70.210.101.74 15:51, 20 March 2007 (EDT)

Because it was overlooked ;) It's been added now... thanks for pointing that out. --Nephele 22:25, 20 March 2007 (EDT)

Hanging Gardens[edit]

Once again, I have found a missing book. This time it's Hanging Gardens, which I found in Azani Blackheart's private chambers in Atatar.--Divine Crusader 17:55, 24 March 2007 (EDT)

Edit: In the same place I just found The Third Door, and Palla, Volume 2 which are also missing--Divine Crusader 17:55, 24 March 2007 (EDT)

Done, done, and done :) If you continue to find more missing books, you might also want to experiment with adding them to the page yourself. In all of these cases, the book has already been added to the site; all that was missing was the link on this page. Looking through Lore:Books will let you know whether the book exists. If so, all you need to do is add the missing line to Oblivion:Books (if you don't know the ID, just put a ? and someone will fill it in later). --Nephele 19:03, 24 March 2007 (EDT)

Feyfolken I, II, III[edit]

This entire series of books is missing. I don't remember if they are skill books or not, nor do I know where I found them originally. In addition, Feyfolken III may have been added with Shivering Isles, as that is where I found it.Xeagle51 21:05, 30 May 2007 (EDT)xeagle51

I don't think they exist in the game. They are skill books though, and can be obtained from the test merchant in Hawkhaven. - Saruuk
Ummm, not sure where you're getting your information from. None of the Feyfolken books are skill books. Their internal ID names suggest that they're "valuable" books, but at 10 gold each they're not even particularly valuable. And all three can be found in game without installing any mods or going to test cells. All three are in the imperial palace library; FF1 is also in Herminia Cinna's house and FF2 is in First Edition bookstore and in Vilena Donton's house. In any case, they do all need to be added to the page so I'll go ahead and take care of that. --NepheleTalk 23:40, 30 May 2007 (EDT)

The Mysterium Xarxes[edit]

Seems to have been overlooked. --62.163.51.178 09:24, 2 June 2007 (EDT)

its here Oblivion:Mysterium_Xarxes not sure how to add it and noticed the commentaries on the mysterium xarxes is also not here the text for it is on bethesda's webpage http://www.elderscrolls.com/codex/fiction_xarxes_book1.htm — Unsigned comment by Iamthefritch (talkcontribs)
Both books exist right here on UESP:
It's also a safe guess that comments made nearly a year ago are probably somewhat out of date... --NepheleTalk 02:08, 21 March 2008 (EDT)
i dont see Mysterium Xarxes on the Books page though is it cuz its just pictures? — Unsigned comment by Iamthefritch (talkcontribs)

Sacred Witness[edit]

It is stated that the book Sacred Witness is only found in Lake Arrius Caverns, and that it is only accessible during the Dagon Shrine quest. Isn't it possible to go back to the cave again for the book? CRACK-A-BACK 18:12, 23 July 2007 (EDT)

Yes, it is possible to go back into the Shrine Quarters after the quest is over. I've reworded the entry accordingly. --NepheleTalk 00:41, 24 July 2007 (EDT)

Non-Magic Books Need Attention[edit]

I'm going to be doing a lot of work on the Non-Magic Books section, the whole of information has been omitted from this section, depsite the spaces allotted. If anyone wants to help out, I'd be glad for the extra hands. I'm going to go ahead and mark this page as needing cleanup. Also, some of the books in the Non-Magic section are so common that it would be too cumbersome to list all of their locations, so I'm just going to list one location that I have confirmed each book to be in. If anyone else wants to add additional places they are more than welcome to. There are also quite a few books omitted, but I'll try and take care of that. SubtleCynicism 16:54, 27 July 2007 (EDT)

Just noticed something: Because multiple volumes are consolidated in the "Tamriel Books" section, I can't put individual descriptions on them. That's a problem. Do we really think that the volume texts should be compiled under one entry?
Nevermind, just found the templates at the bottom of the edit page. — Unsigned comment by SubtleCynicism (talkcontribs)
Thanks for tackling this! It looks like you figured out how the multi-volume books are organized :) Feel free to ask if you have any other questions. --NepheleTalk 00:07, 28 July 2007 (EDT)
Haha, my pleasure. I do have a small problem, though. What I've decided to tackle first are the books that are not listed at all; I want to find the missing ones and list them in the appropriate pages. Finding the missing entries isn't the problem--so far, I've managed to locate a large amount of missing books by crossreferencing my collection in-game with the Oblivion:Books section (after which I plan to take that list and cross-reference it with the Tamriel:Books section so that I can grab templates that are already there, just not present in the Oblivion section). However, once I have them all listed and am ready to implement them, I will have a problem because I am on the 360 version and, as such, cannot check the category of the book (I'm sure I have picked up a large amount of skill books, and I know that I won't be able to remember with 100% accuracy which books are skill or marker books and which aren't). So, I wanted to know that if I list the books that I'm not completely positive about (it will probably be done by tomorrow), will someone with access to the construction set check and confirm the category of these books for me? Would anyone be willing to do this? SubtleCynicism 04:40, 28 July 2007 (EDT)
As far as I know, the only missing skill books are the four volumes of the Mysterium Xarxes (the internal editor IDs for all the other skill books clearly identify them as skill books, so its unlikely any other skill books would have been overlooked when the skill books were originally listed). So you should be safe just listing any other missing books in the Nonmagic section. As for the form IDs, someone else can definitely come along and fill those in at somt point. --NepheleTalk 15:50, 28 July 2007 (EDT)
Pardon me for asking, but what exactly does this page need? UESPWiki:Task List says the page is in need of formatting, but I'm not sure what formatting is missing. This discussion says that there are books missing from the list, but it's pretty old. Is that still true? At any rate it seems SubtleCynicism has forgotten about the page.--Enterprise2001 22:50, 10 April 2008 (EDT)
The entry on the Task List is actually about the individual books to which this article links, not the overview article itself. And as mentioned on the Task List, more details of the task are provided in the Tamriel section of the task list.
As for the cleanup tag on this article, it is relatively old, and a lot of the requested work has been done in the meantime (for example, significant expansion of the Normal Books part of the page). However, a handful of books still do not have any listed locations. Also, it's not clear that anyone has checked to make sure the page is complete (for example, Mysterium Xarxes is still missing from the page). Until those tasks are done, it would seem premature to delete the cleanup tag. The fact that SubtleCynicism apparently hasn't had the opportunity to finish those details is no reason to ignore the work that needs to be done. Nor is it even a reason to criticize SubtleCynicism. We all contribute only when we have the time, and demanding that editors meet some arbitrary expectations is counterproductive and unnecessary. --NepheleTalk 22:38, 18 April 2008 (EDT)
Okay, I've gone through the Oblivion-Books category and we now have everything from there on here too. All the books have at least one location and all have ids. I'm taking the cleanup tag off because I believe that's everything done! –RpehTCE 06:58, 6 June 2008 (EDT)

Fingers of the Mountain[edit]

Need to add the book, "Fingers of the Mountain" found at Cloud Top that is related to the quest Fingers of the Mountain. --RobertDB 12:30, 5 September 2007 (EDT)

That's not actually a book. You can't read it, and I think it is actually classed as a miscellaneous item. --Gaebrial 02:39, 6 September 2007 (EDT)
Doing a little research, I believe you COULD translate the back part of that book. It's in the same runic as the aylid stones are carved in. --BrianDP 08:34, 11 September 2011 (EDT)
Yes, but what Gaebrial means is that regardless of whether we could translate it, we can't. It's unreadable.--Kalis AgeaYes? Contrib E-mail 00:42, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

Linkable Entries[edit]

I was looking into making these linkable entries so they could be linked from pages like Oblivion:Southern Books, but I can't seem to do it without messing things up. Does anyone know a way to make this work? Would it be better if the books just linked to the Tamriel: book pages? --Eshe 20:55, 9 September 2007 (EDT)

It would be best actually to just wait a few days until I can start in on completely reorganizing all of the books (see UESPWiki:Community Portal# Reorganizing Tamriel Books). At that point there will be pages for every book in the Oblivion namespace, and all links will be changed into links that point to those Oblivion versions. --NepheleTalk 02:05, 10 September 2007 (EDT)
Sounds like a plan. Thanks ;). --Eshe 11:02, 10 September 2007 (EDT)


NonMagic to Regular[edit]

I think that the nonmagic book category should be changed to regular or something along those lines since the other books don't work in magic eg If you read the book Heavy Armor Repair you have learnt more about Repairing Heavy armor and the game recognizes this by adding a Skillpoint i would change it myself if i could but i can't.--Platypodge 08:43, 13 January 2008 (EST)

Actually, you could have made the change yourself. All editors are free to edit this article. However, doing the job thoroughly also includes some page moves (still possible for any editor, but requires a few more wiki skills). So I went ahead and took care of renaming everything :) I chose "Normal Books" instead of "Regular Books" primarily because that's how they've already been identified in the template Book Normal. --NepheleTalk 03:44, 18 January 2008 (EST)

Messenger's Diary[edit]

The book "Messenger's Diary" is in a display case near the Countess of Bruma...I have no idea what it is, but it is listed in the "books" section of my inventory. Is that an oversight on this page, or am I missing something?

It's used during the Oblivion:Lifting the Vale quest. There aren't any words in it - two images only - so it's not really worth listing. –RpehTCE 02:31, 5 March 2008 (EST)
Are the images shown anywhere on this site? I would suggest that it is probably worth listing somewhere, just as the unreadable books in Morrowind are (e.g. The Egg of Time). --Gaebrial 03:25, 5 March 2008 (EST)
Yes, the images really should be added to the site at some point, because they provide some really good examples of Daedric (?) handwriting. --NepheleTalk 12:55, 5 March 2008 (EST)
Okay. Your wish is my command! –RpehTCE 13:38, 5 March 2008 (EST)
The same text is used for Daedric, Dwemer/Deep One, and Akaviri books. By the way, can someone include a symbolreader/translated version of the Bible of the Deep Ones; like a miniquest with Tarmeena who helps you decipher the mythic dawn commentaries? Defender of Lainlyn 02:08, 14 January 2010 (UTC)
Well as far as I can tell the book already has a translation in its page. Not sure if that's what you're looking for, though. --S'drassa T2M 02:22, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Missing book[edit]

I found a book looting a house in Leyawiin, that lists and tells shortly about various "mythical" unique magical/enchanted items 'wandering' tamriel from person to person, whereas i can remember finding several of them. I'll see about making an article for it later if nobody else has read it, unless I just can't find it on the list? — Unsigned comment by 84.202.5.105 (talk)

What exactly was it called (I.E. when you move the cursor over it, what does it say?) --Volanaro 11:45, 20 May 2008 (EDT)
Sounds like Tamrielic Lore, in which case it's not missing. --NepheleTalk 12:01, 20 May 2008 (EDT)

Ahh, yeah. Sorry about that, I went up and down the list several times without seeing it. — Unsigned comment by 84.202.5.105 (talk)

Book Locations[edit]

Should there be "as reward for [[quest]]" in the Locations part of each book page? Such info is useful, but there are some books where this is not shown. Lukish_ Tlk Cnt 22:28, 11 November 2008 (EST)

question![edit]

This may not be the appropriate venue, but it's the one with least barrier to entry... Can a book's text be controlled via a script? If so, how? All I need is a simple setter - not even a getter.

I have an idea for a useful in-game tool that would need to dump a lot of text to the user, and I think a book would be the most elegant interface. I know titles can be controlled programmatically, but I'd love an actual interaction with a Feyfolkien text... ;-) Thanks!

Biography of Barenziah[edit]

The book Biography of Barenziah, v 3 was added twice in the list of normal books. I think both listed the same ID number, and I wanted to know if this was an accident, or on purpose.Grand Champ 15:18, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Their IDs are different. This is likely just a mistake in development. There are really only 3 volumes. --Timenn-<talk> 11:52, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Father of the Niben[edit]

I found "Father of the Niben" on the same wall as the entrance to the bedroom Castle Bravil's Lord Manor North Wing. The current listing says it's on the wall opposite. [--Excellar--] — Unsigned comment by Excellar (talkcontribs) at 18:21 on 13 June 2011

No, the article says "the room opposite the entrance", which, if you look on the map, is correct. --Krusty 11:58, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Delete this after adding Ionith book[edit]

I can't edit the "Books" page but the the book "Report: Disaster at Ionith" says it can only be found at the bookstore in Chorrol, however it can also be found on the table right when you walk in the fighter's guild in chorrol as well. ;) — Unsigned comment by 99.52.243.85 (talk) on 22 August 2011

For "normal" books, we just give one or two locations rather than a full list. In fact there are 65 guaranteed copies of the book, including the one you mention. rpeh •TCE 09:41, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

Amount[edit]

How many books are there in total in Oblivion? Vos 05:53, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Collect ALL the Books.[edit]

I wish to collect all of the books in Oblivion and store them in my house in Skingrad, are there any books that can become unnattainable or destroyed in some other way? The only issue I've encountered so far is that the Mysterium Xarxes loses the ability to be picked up once given to Martin. — Unsigned comment by Lawson the Knight (talkcontribs)

From memory, I recall that Fingers of the Mountain gets destroyed in one of the quests you need to join the Mages Guild, which could be a problem as you need to join the Guild in order to find some of the books. Also, the Oghma Infinium can only be read once before it disappears, but you can keep it indefinitely provided you don't ever read it. Been a while since I played Oblivion, so I don't know what else. Of course, if you're playing on the PC, you can always use the console to give yourself any books you want... — TheRealLurlock (talk) 03:27, 19 March 2014 (GMT)