Morrowind:Siege at Firemoth

The UESPWiki – Your source for The Elder Scrolls since 1995

1 Quick Walkthough
2 Detailed Walkthrough
3 Quest Stages
4 Ward of Akavir
5 Creatures
6 Maps

Battle an army of skeletons to recover an ancient shield.^edit

Quest Giver: Sellus Gravius at the Census and Excise office in Seyda Neen
Location(s): Firemoth
Reward: 3000 gold (or the Ward of Akavir)
Disp./Rep.: +2 Rep.
ID: ms_firemoth

Your allies wait on the quay at Seyda Neen

Siege at Firemoth is a plug-in that adds a small island chain southwest of Seyda Neen, and a small quest involving taking out a large army of skeletons. Unlike most areas in the game, this place is very combat-oriented - you may find yourself facing dozens of enemies at one time. At the end, you will face Grurn, the leader of this army of the undead, and a powerful skeleton wizard. You will be rewarded with the Ward of Akavir, a shield with a constant effect Fortify Luck enchantment.

Download it here

[edit] Quick Walkthough

Meet Sellus Gravius in Seyda Neen for your orders.
Team up with Aronil, Hjrondir, and Mara and take a ship to the island.
Fight your way through hordes of skeletons to the tomb deep below the fort.
Defeat the Lich Grurn, and retrieve the Ward of Akavir.
Return the shield to Sellus Gravius for your reward. (Or just keep it.)

[edit] Detailed Walkthrough

[edit] Starting the Quest

To start, talk to Sellus Gravius at the Census and Excise office in Seyda Neen. (You may remember him as the man who gave you your first orders at the beginning of the game.) Ask him about "Firemoth", and he will set you up with a ship and a crew to sail there and re-take the fort. Then head out to the docks, where you will meet Aronil - a male Altmer Battlemage, Hjrondir - a male Nord Warrior, and Mara - a female Bosmer Archer. Don't get too attached to them, as the odds are pretty good that they won't survive this mission. Once you've introduced yourself, talk to Silm-Dar, the Argonian shipmaster there, and he will take you to the island. (Or you could just swim, water walk or levitate there and start on your own - probably the best way to keep the other fighters alive if you want to do that.)

[edit] The Islands

When you arrive, you'll find yourself on the northern edge of a circular ring of islands. Go either direction, and you'll soon start running into hordes of skeletons. If you brought the three companions with you, they will follow the usual strategy of diving headlong into battle without any thought for strategy or self-preservation instincts. Aronil will probably last the longest, given that he is a spellcaster and won't get into direct combat right away. Mara is technically an archer, but she is only armed with an Ebony Longsword. If you pickpocket a bow and some arrows onto her before you start, she may have a better chance of lasting through the mission. There's not much you can do about Hjrondir other than try and keep up. Might be a good idea to have some Restore Health on Touch/Target effects available through spells or items. There are lots of skeletons (half of them archers) on these islands, and more in the Keep, so you'll need to pack a good supply to last through them all (high area spells can take out a large number of archers at one time). The Keep is on the southern edge of the ring, so either direction you go will work. If you take the western side of the ring, you might find a secret entrance which skips half of the dungeon, but you're also missing out on a lot of good loot, so it's your choice.

[edit] The Keep

The Keep itself is relatively straightforward. If you approached from the east, you'll first see two Guard Towers out front. There's very little of value in them, though they do provide a good respite from fighting if you need to rest, as there are no enemies inside. The exterior of the Keep is guarded by many archers on the walls, so you'll want to run in fast to take them down. You could try archery or magic to shoot them from the ground, but there's a lot of them, and they have advantage of high-ground as well as numbers, plus you've got three relatively stupid warriors to protect if they haven't gotten themselves killed already, so the direct approach is most likely to keep everyone alive.

Once you've secured the area, you can either enter via the front doors, or through one of the doors in the two towers in front. They both lead to the same general area, but you can avoid most of the enemies via the tower entrances. From the main room here, you can go to the stairs at the back of the hall to reach the Upper Chambers. Inside is a corpse carrying a key which helps to gain access to the lower areas. (It's not required if you can open a 50 point lock on your own.) Or if you want to avoid fighting, enter through the towers and just go down the stairs as low as you can go, avoiding the hallway that leads to the main room. The stairs to the Great Hall are at the bottom.

The Great Hall is just like it says, a very large, open rectangular room with lots of saber-wielding skeletons. There's nothing of real value here, but it's pretty hard to avoid having to fight every single one of them getting to the other side, and the doors to the Guard Quarters.

The Guard Quarters are something of a rest from the fighting. (Not entirely, of course, but there's only 5 skeletons here, compared to the 9 and 15 in the two previous areas.) One thing not to miss is just before the stairs leading to the next section, turn around to your right and examine the wall behind where you came in. You'll find a secret door and a passageway that leads to a room with a bunch of nice treasure in it. The door to the next section, the Dungeon, is locked. It's a 50 point lock, or you can use the key if you got it before from the Upper Chambers.

Once you enter the Dungeon, the first thing you'll see is, at last, a break from all the skeletons. Instead, you'll be fighting rats. Lots of them. Not very difficult, except that there's over 30 of them, and all carrying diseases. Unless you're a disease-resistant race, or you've already been cured of Corprus, you most likely will catch something here. Make sure you've got a means to cure yourself, and you should probably wait until you've killed them all first, or you may just get re-infected. This room appears straightforward, but instead of going straight through, look at the prison cell to the right of the stairs downward. You'll find a second secret entrance to the next section which gives you access to some more help.

[edit] The Caves

Either door from the Dungeon will lead to the Mine. If you took the secret door, you'll be in a passage with LOTS of Violet Coprinus and Luminous Russula, and at the end, you'll find some reinforcements - a Khajiit Archer named J'Hanir. Like Mara, he has a sword instead of a bow and arrows, so you might want to pickpocket him to give him some. A short drop from this section will lead to the main part of the Mine, which is where you'd have ended up if you took the other door. There are some Raw Ebony rocks here, and more below, so if you've got the strength to carry it without being encumbered, feel free to load up.

Past the Mine are the Upper Caverns - a pretty much linear path leading down to the next section. Three skeletons here, and a whole pile of Raw Ebony you might want to come back later for. Not much else.

The Lower Caverns are next. More Ebony, more mushrooms, more skeletons, and you'll notice as soon as you enter the door you would have come in through if you'd taken the secret entrance from the outside of the Fort. This is yet another linear dungeon crawl leading to the final section:

[edit] The Tomb

The last area of this place is a tomb in the Velothi style, swarming with skeletons, and all led by Grurn, a powerful Lich. His primary attack is a wicked area-effect Shock Damage spell, and he regenerates Magicka so fast that he can keep it up forever. His health also regenerates, so you need to kill him quickly or he'll just heal up again. If any of your companions have managed to make it this far, this is where they will almost certainly die. His spell does 100 points of damage over 5 feet, enough to kill all but Hjrondir (due to his natural Nord resistance to Shock) in just 2 hits, and Hjrondir will probably get himself killed fighting the other skeletons if he hasn't already. In addition, Grurn has a shield which gives him a constant effect Luck boost (the very shield you came down here to get), which will make him somewhat hard to hit. Once you kill him, claim your prize, the Ward of Akavir. Return home with your spoils. If you don't like the shield, you can give it to Sellus Gravius for a 3000 gold reward and 2 points of Reputation. Or you could sell it to somebody else for more money - it's worth 5000. Otherwise, just keep it, nobody will care.

[edit] Quest Stages

These Codes can be used along with the Journal Console Command and Quest ID given above the chart(s) to update the quest to a certain point.
Note: Because this plug-in was created before the Tribunal expansion was released, it does not have "Quest Name" or "Finish" flags set up, and thus the quest does not show up as an active quest in your Journal, and it never officially "finishes" either.

ms_firemoth
Index	Journal Entry
10	Sellus Gravius of Seyda Neen has tasked me with leading a band of adventurers out to the overrun fort of Firemoth. It is there that we will fight the skeleton army of Grurn and return with the Ward of Akavir.
100	I have returned the Ward of Akavir to Sellus Gravius in exchange for 3000 gold.

[edit] Ward of Akavir

This is the only new item added by the plug-in, it looks the same as an imperial dragon scale shield.

Name				Enchantment
Ward of Akavir Ward of Akavir	10.0 (Medium)	200	5000	Constant Effect Fortify Luck 25pts

[edit] Creatures

Creature	Drops						Attacks	Soul
Skeleton Archer Skeleton_FM_Archer Only found outside	Iron Saber Long Bow 60 Iron Arrows	10	100	100	50	100	3-9pts melee, plus weapons	30 (Petty)
Skeleton Warrior Skeleton_FM_grunt	Steel Saber Iron Shield	20	100	100	50	100	5-15pts melee, plus weapon	30 (Petty)
Grurn Skeleton_FM_king Found in the Tomb	Steel Saber Ward of Akavir	2000	100	100	50	100	5-15pts melee, plus weapon Shockball - Shock Damage 100pts in 5ft for 1sec on Target Regenerate Health Ability - Constant Effect Restore Health 10pts Regenerate Magicka Ability - Constant Effect Restore Magicka 10pts	300 (Grand)