Oblivion:Hermaeus Mora

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Contents 1 Quick Walkthrough 2 Detailed Walkthrough 2.1 Requirements 2.2 The Shrine 2.3 Souls of all Races 3 Notes 4 Bugs 5 Journal Entries

Capture one soul from each of the ten races of Tamriel.  edit Quest Giver: Casta Flavus at Hermaeus Mora's Shrine (map) Location(s): Cyrodiil Prerequisite Quest: All 14 other Daedric Quests Reward: Oghma Infinium Fame/Infamy: Fame +1 ID: DAHermaeusMora Required Level: 20

The Shrine of Hermaeus Mora

[edit] Quick Walkthrough

1. Once you've met the requirements, speak with Casta Flavus, or activate the shrine directly.
2. Hermaeus Mora will instruct you to collect one soul of each race.
3. You will receive Hermaeus Mora's Soul Gem and the Mora's Soul Trap spell to complete this task.
4. Once all souls have been collected, return to the shrine and activate it.
5. You are rewarded with the Oghma Infinium which will permanently boost a series of stats that you must choose from a list.

[edit] Detailed Walkthrough

[edit] Requirements

Before you can activate the shrine and start this quest, you must meet the following requirements:

• You must have completed all 14 of the other Daedric Shrine quests.
• You must be level 20 or higher.
• You must have at least started the Blood of the Daedra quest (the point in the main quest where Martin asks you for a daedric artifact). It is possible to have finished the quest, but that is not a requirement (in other words, it is possible to use this quest's reward, the Oghma Infinium, as Martin's daedric artifact).
• You can do this quest even if you keep Umbra in Clavicus Vile's quest (although you must visit Clavicus Vile's shrine and tell him that you will not give him Umbra, thus completing the quest).

If you have not yet met the requirements, you will be told by Ri'Jirr: "You have not yet followed the path required to speak with the Lord Hermaeus Mora". Unlike all other shrines, you will not be given any clues as to what is required, nor will a quest be added to your journal.

[edit] The Shrine

See the oblivion map for the location of this shrine. Once you have met the requirements, you can head directly to the shrine if you already know from reading this article that you have met them. Otherwise, Casta Flavus will appear the next time you sleep and inform you that you are now ready to start Hermaeus' quest.

The Shrine itself is located on a remote plateau deep within the northwestern portion of the Jerall Mountains. It is due west of Cloud Ruler Temple and due north of Sancre Tor. Northwest of Sancre Tor, at the top of the long flight of stone steps, there is an unmarked road that leads straight to the shrine. The road's stairs and bridges make it possible to easily traverse the mountains, but several enemies will be found along the road. You must find the shrine on your own; no one will tell you where it is.

Once you have found the shrine, activate the statue. Hermaeus Mora's statue is probably by far the most disturbing and mystifying of all the Daedric princes. He is depicted as a rotund bulbous mass; with four scorpion-like claws as well as several tentacles and eyeballs. He speaks in an alarming, almost guttural voice:

I see you have served my brethren, and now you come to serve me. I am Hermaeus Mora. Past, present, and future are as one to me. My followers seek to perform a divination. For this, they need souls, one of each of the sentient races. You will provide these. I give you a spell to trap these souls. Return to me when you have finished. When you do, I will further your journey on your true path.

[edit] Souls of all Races

Hermaeus Mora will ask you to capture one soul for each of the 10 races of Tamriel. He will give you a Hermaeus Mora's Soul Gem and the Mora's Soul Trap spell. The soul gem will only work for this quest and it can only capture souls that are trapped with this unique spell. This spell is cheap to cast and lasts 120 seconds.

One way to complete this quest if you don't want to murder innocent people is go vampire hunting: Vampires are not undead, and are classified as NPCs, therefore their souls count. However, Argonian and Khajiiti vampires do not exist. Try the Vampire Dungeon page for a list of places where you can find vampires to steal the souls of.

Some places where you can find NPCs of multiple races include:

• Each questline of the four Major Guilds will provide opportunities to capture the souls of most, if not all, of the races.
• Arena: If you do the Arena quests from start to end, you will have killed at least one member of each race.
• Daedric Shrines: Representatives of each race can be found at the various Daedric shrines, and they are generally easy kills, since most have no armor and/or weak weapons. Other than Olyn Seran at Molag Bal's shrine (who is the master trainer of Conjuration), the Daedra Worshippers no longer serve any purpose in the game.
• Skooma Den: Between the inhabitants and weekly visitors, there is a good mix of races at the Skooma Den in Bravil. What's more, murdering them won't incur a bounty and the others in the room won't start fighting you.
• Anga, the Ayleid Ruin associated with the Namira quest, is occupied by The Forgotten Ones, which include every race except Argonian, Dunmer, and Khajiit.
• Rockmilk Cave between Bravil and Leyawiin. The large number and different types of bandits and marauders fighting likely results in all races, except for Bretons, being present.

Each of the following links leads to a page listing all named NPCs of that race in the game; also provided are generic NPC enemies that can be of each race.

• Altmer: Necromancers, conjurers, and marauder battlemages.
• Argonian: Marauder archers. Also, Veyond Cave (north of Bravil) is filled with hostile Argonian tribesmen.
• Bosmer: Bandit bowmen.
• Breton: Necromancers, conjurers, and bandit hedge wizards.
• Dunmer: Bandit bowmen and ringleaders.
• Imperial: Marauder archers, warlords, and the Hackdirt Brethren.
• Khajiit: Bandits and highwaymen.
• Nord: Marauders.
• Orc: Marauders.
• Redguard: Bandits.

Once you gather all of the souls and activate the shrine again, Hermaeus Mora gives you a special book as a reward and says:

You have served me well, and I am pleased. I give you this, the Oghma Infinium. Knowledge given by me to Xarxes is recorded within. Read it, and gain knowledge of yourself. Go now. Learn, and remember.

The book that Hermaeus Mora gives you, the Oghma Infinium, is a book that when read will permanently boost a series of stats for your character, based on a list of choices that you must choose one of.

[edit] Notes

• It is possible to trigger this quest without receiving Daedric Artifacts from each of the other 14 Daedric quests; officially failing a Daedric quest also counts. For example, if Melus Petilius dies, Molag Bal's quest immediately ends without any chance of a reward; however, Molag Bal's quest still counts as far as Hermaeus Mora is concerned. In general, as long as the Daedric quest is in your list of completed quests, it will count. The two exceptions are Malacath's and Namira's quests, which must be finished correctly (see those quests for details).
• Your Quest log will update for each soul you capture; if it doesn't update when you are sure you had soul trapped a new race then your game has become bugged.
• The Oghma Infinium is a Quest Item and cannot be removed from your inventory until you use it.
• Another strategy for capturing the needed souls is to raise nearby guards dispositions above 90 and then to use summoned creatures or followers to kill the person whose soul you wish to capture. If the followers kill the target you will only receive a bounty for your assault on the target since it was your followers that killed the person. If you then speak to a guard who has his disposition towards you higher than 90, he will happily pay off the meager bounty for you.
• Unlike normal Soul Trap spells, which are the school of Mysticism, Mora's Soul Trap is the school of Alteration, and will give you Alteration skill points when used.

[edit] Bugs

• Do not cast the soultrap spell on two different beings (or twice on the same being) within the 120 second time-frame of the spell. This will cause the spell to stop functioning correctly on all future casts regardless of whether you kill the NPCs that you double-cast on or not.
  • On the PC, a fixing mod can be downloaded (Hermaeus Mora Daedric Quest Fix).
  • This bug is fixed by the Unofficial Oblivion Patch.
  • A workaround is possible on PC, Xbox 360, and PS3. Cast the soul trap on an unwanted NPC and then cast it again (within 120 seconds) on the NPC you actually want to trap (at this point, if everything was well a pop-up message would appear telling you that you can only soul trap one person at a time). Now kill the second NPC and you should trap their soul successfully (assuming you needed their soul in the first place!). If this does not work, cast the spell on an invalid target (e.g. a crate, barrel, horse) and then on your desired target. All ten races can be collected this way, without having to revert to an older save.

• Occasionally you will not be able to soul trap one of the races.
  • Saving your game to a new save (be sure to not overwrite the last save made before the start of the quest), quitting out of the game entirely, restarting, and reloading can fix this problem.
  • Another method is possible. Cast Hermaeus Mora's Soul Trap spell on an NPC two times within 120 seconds, and within the same time period, cast the spell again on the NPC you wish to capture. You will not get a message stating that you "You cannot cast this spell on multiple targets", but the 2nd NPC is now able to be trapped.
  • If saving and reloading does not work then you may have to load a game that was saved prior to the start of Hermaeus Mora quest and redo the quest.
  • On the PC, you can use console commands to bypass the rest of the quest. The command player.setstage 000146AF 40 gives you automatic credit for capturing all 10 souls.
  • A reliable fix to the bug rather than keep reloading a prior save is to cast the spell on two separate NPCs until you are interrupted by a message saying "You cannot cast the spell on two separate souls at once." Once you've gotten that message, do not cast the spell again and find a safe place to wait(select button). After that, the spell will work as it is supposed to without any bug or glitch. ^{[verification needed — Tested on PS3 version, should work on other platforms as well, but needs to be confirmed.]}

• There are a couple of bugs associated with this quest's reward. These bugs are detailed on the article about the Oghma Infinium.

[edit] Journal Entries

Hermaeus Mora (DAHermaeusMora)
Stage	Finishes Quest	Journal Entry
10		A man has told me that Hermaeus Mora wishes for me to visit his shrine.
20		Hermaeus Mora wishes for me to gather for him ten souls, one of each of the races.
30		I've captured the soul of an Argonian.
31		I've captured the soul of a Breton.
32		I've captured the soul of a Bosmer.
33		I've captured the soul of an Imperial.
34		I've captured the soul of a Khajiit.
35		I've captured the soul of a Dunmer.
36		I've captured the soul of an Altmer.
37		I've captured the soul of a Nord.
38		I've captured the soul of a Redguard.
39		I've captured the soul of an Orc.
40		I have gathered a soul from each of the ten races for Hermaeus Mora. I should return to his shrine.
100		Hermaeus Mora was pleased with the souls I brought him. He has rewarded me with the Oghma Infinium.

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 DAHermaeusMora stage. Where 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.