Oblivion:Arena (faction)

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Pit Dog

Brawler

Bloodletter

Myrmidon

Warrior

Gladiator

Hero

Champion

Grand Champion

A poster advertising the Imperial City Arena

The Arena is located in the east district of the Imperial City, where people of Cyrodiil attend to watch brave warriors fight to the death for fame and gold. This faction was established by the first Blademaster, Gaiden Shinji, of the Order of Diagna. It was to be a place where warriors could prove their worth. Though he died shortly after its completion, the Arena owes its existence to him.

Contents 1 Membership 1.1 Joining 1.2 Advantages 1.3 Limitations and Rules of the Arena 1.4 Expulsion 2 Strategies for Fighting 2.1 Matches and Advancing 3 Titles 4 As the Grand Champion 5 Members 6 Notes 7 Bugs 8 Journal Entries

[edit] Membership

[edit] Joining

To join the gladiatorial ranks of the Arena, speak to Owyn, the Blademaster in the Bloodworks. You will automatically become a member of the Blue Team.

[edit] Advantages

• For each match won, the participant is paid according to their rank within the Arena, a range of 50 gold to 500 gold. This gold is level-independent, with virtually no affiliations with other quests, making it a good starting questline for low-level characters.

• After each fight, the Arena combatants can use the Basin of Renewal found inside the "Red Room" (so named because blood from the arena floor above is said to drip down the walls) to restore themselves.

• When you become the Blue Team Champion, you will receive a title of your choice, one that will stretch across all of Cyrodiil.

• After you defeat The Gray Prince and become the Grand Champion, you will be approached by an Adoring Fan who will want to be your "side kick," offering to carry your weapon or give you a back rub and other things of the sort (all of which are not doable).
  • See his page for the potential benefits and detriments he offers.

• Once you achieve the prestigious title of Grand Champion, you will also get a Raiment of Valor. Be sure to take Agronak's Raiment from the Gray Prince when you beat him. Once you give it to Ysabel Andronicus, she will give you your own in return - Heavy or Light.
  • Alternatively, if you decide not to hand over the armor, you can keep Agronak's Raiment, which (unlike your own raiment) is a quest item and therefore effectively has no weight. However, this is advised against, as the armor you receive from Ysabel will have the same enchantments, and you will be unable to receive the benefits of being the Grand Champion.

• Afterwards, when you manage to make it to the Grand Champion matches, you can start looting creatures. This is quite beneficial once you start fighting Minotaurs, who carry Blunt weapons and naturally hold their Minotaur Horns, which are useful in Alchemy.
  • Your reward after each fight is a level-dependent amount of gold multiplied by the number of creatures you fought^(?).

• Beyond the gold, you will gain 31 fame points for completing the entire Arena quest. You get 10 fame points for defeating The Gray Prince alone.

[edit] Limitations and Rules of the Arena

• You must wear your Heavy or Light Raiment issued to you by Owyn.
  • In the two cabinets there are replacement suits of armor (5 light and 5 heavy in each). So you can change out your armor if it gets damaged and you don't want to have to pay for a replacement.
  • You may wear any helms, shields, or jewelery of yours.
  • This rule does not apply to the Grand Champion match.

• You cannot scavenge the corpses of your foes.
  • This prohibition extends to weapons that are knocked out of an opponent's hands. The sole exception to the rule are arrows which have missed: they can be recovered during or after a match. Trying to scavenge from a corpse will not result in a penalty but a message will appear telling you that this act is not permitted.
  • This rule does not apply to the Grand Champion match.

• You can only fight from 9 A.M. to 9 P.M.
  • This is the time you request a fight. You may wait until any time to actually begin your fight.
  • The Grand Champion is not bound by the time.

• You can use any weapon or cast any spell within your matches.

[edit] Expulsion

If you remove your armor during your match, the fight will end and you will be disqualified for it (also, prompting a scold from Owyn). This is the only way you can get out of a fight without killing or getting killed yourself. If you happen to do so a second time, you will be expelled from the Arena. There is no way to get back into the Arena after being expelled.

[edit] Strategies for Fighting

• After every fight, make sure you use the basin, since it heals you and restores all your Health, Magicka and Fatigue. You can only use it after a fight.

You wash the grime of battle from your body, and feel completely rejuvenated.

• If you try to use the basin before a match it will say:

You have not yet bloodied yourself in the Arena. Return and refresh yourself after tasting battle.

• After the 4th match, Owyn will give you tips before each match from now on. Pay attention to the advice he gives you. The details he reveals can give you a heads-up on your next opponent.

• As you enter the Arena, while the announcement is being shouted, move to the right corner of the small room with the gate as you go in. Jump onto the small ledge while facing away from it, and then turn. You should be in the wall, protecting you from the opponent while still being able to attack it. You can also fall off, and then go forward so that you are below the arena. You will be teleported back into the Arena while the announcements are still being read out.

• The four pillars in the arena make a small yet effective way to guard from arrows, just make sure you know where the enemy is at all times. You can then hide behind the pillar to heal or jump out and cast a spell.

• The bug in the script that prevents you from picking up arena weapons in matches affects the enemy combatants as well, so if you are a Journeyman or higher in your combat skill you can simply disarm an opponent. They'll be forced to fight Hand to Hand with the corresponding loss of damage, perks, etc.

• Another tip is to use some of the ledges next to the Arena gates. Even with a low Acrobatics it is possible to jump on to the second layer of these ledges, out of the reach of melee opponents, whom you can then attack using ranged attacks and spells.

[edit] Matches and Advancing

Your enemies and their equipment are leveled. A detailed description of the gear used by Arena opponents can be found at the Arena Combatants page.

	Rank	Opponent(s)	Reward (Gold)
	Pit Dog	Bosmer	50
		Imperial
		Argonian*	100
	Brawler	Nord
		Bosmer (2)
		Khajiit*	150
	Bloodletter	Redguard
		Breton
		Dunmer*	200
	Myrmidon	Bosmer
		Altmer
		Orc*	250
	Warrior	Nord
		Altmer
		Orc*	300
	Gladiator	Argonians (3)
		Khajiit
		Breton*	350
	Hero	Imperial
		Altmer
		Dunmer (2), Yellow Team Champion*	500
	Champion	Agronak gro-Malog*†	1000
	Grand Champion	Creatures	Leveled

* Advancement Matches

† Agronak gro-Malog is fixed at Level 10 and will NOT level up with the player (though his weapon and shield will). Because of this, players above (or even at) Level 10 will find him to be a fairly easy opponent. Players who have reached the higher levels of the game will find him to be no challenge at all.

• If the player completes the quest Origin of the Gray Prince and informs Agronak of his "bloodline", he will become nearly suicidal and simply stand still during the match, allowing the player to attack him with no retaliation. This is considered murder and is one way to enter the Dark Brotherhood.

[edit] Titles

Once you challenge Agronak for the title of Grand Champion, Ysabel will tell you that you need an Arena name; something that, as she puts it, "the people of Cyrodiil will remember when they tell stories about your inglorious defeat!" She gives you twelve options; two specific to your character's gender and ten general names.

All Characters The Black Arrow The Messenger of Death The Butcher Shadowstep The Crimson Blade Skullcrusher The Divine Avenger The Spellslinger Dragonheart The Tamriel Terror

Females Only The Iron Maiden Lady Luck

Males Only Man o' War Sir Slaughter

[edit] As the Grand Champion

Once you kill The Gray Prince, go and talk to Ysabel Andronicus. After a well deserved congratulations, she will start talking about arranging weekly fights against varying creatures. You may choose between 3 different options of creatures to fight, once per week. As Grand Champion, you can fight with whatever weapons/armor you like and whenever you like. It is also completely optional.

The maximum reward you can get for each creature is 40+(player level-1)×50 gold. The actual amount is somewhat random as it is taken from a leveled list, thus at level 30 you can get anywhere between 40 and 1,490 gold although higher values are more likely. The gold is calculated for each creature you fight, so the maximum reward that can ever be obtained is 4,470 gold.

Details on the creatures that may be fought can be found here.

[edit] Members

• This is a list of all registered Arena members in Cyrodiil.*

Arena District Blue Team Gladiator Hundolin Owyn Yellow Team Champion Ysabel Andronicus

* Although Agronak gro-Malog is labeled as the Grand Champion, he is not in the faction within the construction set.

[edit] Notes

• Killing your arena opponents can potentially count as murder. This happens if the opponent is killed without him/her ever turning hostile, for example: you immediately cast a Demoralize spell. Although you will not gain a bounty for the murder, it will appear in your statistics and will initiate the Dark Brotherhood questline.
  • It should be noted that, even if you have 100% Chameleon, your opponent will still see you for a few moments as the gates go down.

• When you become the Grand Champion of the arena, Owyn tells you that "you killed every last one of the Yellow Team" and that "it will take them weeks to recover". However, seconds later, you can talk to Hundolin, bet on a match, and watch a Yellow Team fighter brawl.

• If you are new to the game and need arrows, a great way to get some is to go to the Bloodworks. There, a Blue Gladiator will either be shooting a target with arrows, or punching a punching bag. If he is shooting arrows, stand back. Let him fire off about 6 or 7. He will start walking to the target, presumably to get his arrows. Quickly grab them before he can. If you walk too close to the target or in his line of fire while he is shooting, he will stop. There are some cases where he practices his bow without shooting any arrows, and the arrows are pretty low-level, so there are better ways to get arrows.

• There are a couple of free weapons around the Bloodworks. It will not be stealing if you take them once you're a combatant, but they are not particularly good or valuable.

• The word "Myrmidon" derives from the Greek for "ant-warrior", making the dog-like thing depicted on the icon somewhat incongruous. In the Iliad, the soldiers ruled by Achilles and who followed him to Troy were called myrmidons because they were fabled to have been transformed from ants into men.

• It is possible that the Arena was originally intended to go in Chorrol, as the actual betting area is named in the editor "ChorrolArena" and nearly all of the parts to make the arena have the prefix Chorrol in them. There is also a cell named "AnvilArenaMain" in Anvil, it is centralized outside the walls, however no other traces of Arena can be found in Anvil. It is presumed that they decided to change this to the Imperial City because of size restrictions in Chorrol and Anvil or just because it would seem more fitting in the Imperial City.

• In random dialogue, some NPCs will claim that the Arena fights are faked:

You think those guys are getting killed? Really? It's just berry syrup and ham-acting.

• The chest next to Hundolin in the Arena entrance contains 500 gold and makes a good source of cash for enterprising thieves.

• After you defeat the Gray Prince, the commentator incorrectly states "See the Blademaster to collect your winnings..." when in fact you have to see the Battle Matron.

• The Arena poster features the pictures for the Battlemage, Mage, Knight, and Archer classes.

• Arena enemies ignore your summoned creatures and always prefer to attack you.

[edit] Bugs

• There is a commonly occurring bug that makes it impossible to become Grand Champion if you have completed the Origin of the Gray Prince side quest.

On the PC this can be resolved through use of the console.

• Go into the arena to fight gro-Malog, do not attack him, let him run up to you and beg you to kill him. Then kill him. Take his Raiment of Valor and then run the following commands in the console...
• SetStage MS52 100
• SetStage ArenaDialogue 50
• Then go downstairs and speak with Ysabel and you should be able to complete the quest.

On the Xbox 360 version it is possible to fix this by talking to Agronak gro-Malog in the arena and then killing him, but not looting his body. Wait for the announcer to stop speaking and tell you to take gro-Malog's Raiment of Valor then go to see Ysabel Andronicus. She will say to you that you have defeated him and then go get his raiment and give it to her. Now all you have to do is choose heavy or light armor.

On the Playstation 3 version this bug can be avoided by immediately approaching Agronak once the arena gates are lowered. Speak with him first and he will beg you to kill him. Then you may oblige the poor half-Orc, he will even egg you on. Once he is dead, loot the body and return to Ysabel with his raiment for your reward, status of Grand Champion, and completion of the quest.

• This may be related to another reported bug in which the game will not allow the player to leave the Arena after killing gro-Malog - again, the Gray Prince side quest seems to be at the root of everything. To get out of this problem you should be able to run the same console codes as stated earlier and continue.

• It is possible to fall through the wall in the arena, which prevents your opponent from being able to damage you, but still allows you to attack him. From the opening of the entry tunnel (e.g., where the gate drops at the beginning of a match), look back down the tunnel. On your left, between the rim of the tunnel and the wall, you should see a slight bank in the wall. First jump backwards into the wall so you are standing on the slant, facing the gate. Repeatedly jump forcing yourself back against the wall and as you do this turn to face the slant making sure you stay on top of it. You will now fall through the wall. As you fall through the wall you should notice a ledge that sticks out of the normal game boundaries right where the stairs up the tunnel start. Try to land on this ledge. Don’t worry if you miss the first couple of tries, you will simply spawn back in the arena with no damage.
  Once you are on the ledge your opponent will walk down the tunnel and try to hit you but won't be able to through the wall and will repeatedly run into it. You on the other hand will be able to hit your opponent through the wall using either your sword, magic or arrows. Once you have disposed of the enemy simply drop off the edge and spawn back in the arena.
  This appears to be the only wall in the arena where you can do this (the other three slanted walls by the tunnels don't work.)

• If you bet on the yellow team, you will be in the yellow team box. When the combatant from yellow wins and is facing you, kill someone. An Imperial Legion soldier will come. If you then kill him while the combatant is facing you, they will run towards the wall under you (this may take a few tries to work). Run outside, and in about 10 seconds, the combatant will appear outside. You can then kill them and obtain the yellow team's raiment. This technique also works with the blue team, but there is little need for this, as you can just join the arena and automatically get a Blue Team raiment. Wearing the yellow raiment will not allow you to compete in arena matches; the script for allowing that to happen exists soley on the blue raiment.
  • An alternative is to use the floating paint brush glitch to climb over the invisible barrier around the arena pit. Once inside, simply grab the raiment from a dead yellow team gladiator and climb back out using your paint brush bridge.

• There is also a bug that occurs if you have the Thieves Den Official plug-in installed. After you have beaten the Gray Prince and spoken with the battle matron, where the incomplete quest entry for 'Arena' in your journal says, "I've got everything" but can never be furthered or completed. This is because the plug-in overrides the standard quest with a set of stages of its own:

Stage	Journal Entry
10
20	Woot! I got the fletcher!
30	Stealth trainer for me!
40	Where my supplier at? Oh yeah, in my cave.
50	Security trainer and his box of locks are active!
60	Climb the fence! *groan*
100	I've got everything.

To remove this entry from your journal, run the following command in the console: CompleteQuest 0002991F or CompleteQuest Arena

• This bug is fixed by the Unofficial Official Mods Patch.

• If you kill gro-Malog without ever actually talking to him, his corpse will ask you to kill him when you attempt to loot his body. This is because the match script will resurrect gro-Malog (only once) if you kill him before speaking to him, but the game registers him as dead. You will notice that even though it looks like you're going to loot a corpse, it still shows a life-gauge with a sliver of life. You can attack him again at that point and he will permanently die.

• One use for doing this is another bug - exit the arena after he comes back to life, but before speaking with Ysabel (the gate to the Red Room will close if you do). Fast travel away - so when you re-enter the arena floor, you get a loading screen (this is important). When you come back, he will have full health, and more importantly, will regenerate health at an astounding rate (much faster than you can damage him). Instead of saying "kill me" when struck, he will shout at you for "assault".

• Do not hit him with any spell like Flare when he is in limbo on the ground. It may be impossible to kill him with it, and even though he will proceed to stand upright, he will become a ghost - you cannot interact with him at all anymore.

• Once you start fighting creatures in the Arena, Ogres and Minotaurs become an easy way to level up your targeted spells and Marksman. When they start to run at you, you can run back down the ramp you entered from and their height will not allow them to enter that part of the Arena. Increase the difficulty to its highest setting and then fire away at them. You will get loads of experience and they cannot attack you.

• If you get disqualified in your first match, you will restart the match, only when you kill him and go to Owyn for your reward, he will merely yell at you, telling you that you have a match up at the arena, even though you already won it. This bug seems to have been fixed by a Bethesda patch.

[edit] Journal Entries

Arena (ArenaDialogue)
Stage	Finishes Quest	Journal Entry
10		If I wish to join the Arena faction as a combatant, I must speak with Owyn the Blademaster in the Arena Bloodworks.
20		I am now a combatant in the Arena faction. To arrange for a match, I must speak with Owyn in the Arena Bloodworks, in the Imperial City. After every match, I must speak to Owyn again to close out the match and receive any rewards earned. While I'm involved in any active matches, I will be unable to bet on any fights.
40		I am now an Arena Champion. There are no more standard matches left to fight. Instead, I must challenge the Grand Champion, Agronak gro-Malog, for his title.
50		I have defeated the Gray Prince and have been named the new Arena Grand Champion! Ysabel Andronicus told me to return to her after I've gotten some rest, so we can discuss my future.
100		As Arena Grand Champion, I can fight in weekly matches against various creatures. All I need do is see Ysabel Andronicus in the Arena Bloodworks and tell her I'm ready for a match.

Notes

• Not all Journal Entries may appear in your journal; which entries appear and which entries do not depends on the manner in which the quest is done.
• Stages are not always in order of progress. This is usually the case with quests that have multiple possible outcomes or quests where certain tasks may be done in random order.
• If an entry is marked as "Finishes Quest" it means the quest disappears from the Active Quest list, but you may still receive new entries for that quest.
• On the PC, it is possible to use the console to advance through the quest by entering setstage quest stage. Where quest is the internal name of the quest, and stage is the number of the stage you wish to complete. It is not possible to un-complete (i.e. go back) quest stages. See SetStage for more information.
• You can remove the last journal entry by using the following console command: completequest arenadialogue. Doing this will not prevent you from participating in Arena matches.