The new adventures begin with the appearance of a small island in Nibben Bay off the coast of Bravil. Once you've installed Shivering Isles on your PC or Xbox 360, you'll need to rest your character for 24 hours before the island pops up, at which point you'll receive a notice to investigate. Upon reaching the island we found a large stone gate in the shape of several twisted faces that frame a glowing portal. According to a nearby guard, people keep heading through only to return as batty, violent versions of their former selves. Naturally, we proceeded forward into the portal.
What we immediately found on the other side isn't the Shivering Isles, but an antechamber where a character named Haskill, Sheogorath's assistant, was seated. After seating ourselves on the opposite side of the table, he informed us that Sheogorath seeks a mortal champion to save his realm. Asking why wouldn't be appropriate, since apparently the Shivering Isles are a product of Sheogorath's fantasies, and their existential qualities are therefore beyond questioning. Whatever Sheogorath's fancies may be, it seems at the end of every era, a destructive force known as the Greymarch pummels the realm, forcing Sheogorath to rebuild from scratch. We soon found out someone named Jyggalag is ultimately responsible and, along with his Knights of the Order, becomes the main antagonists for the story.
The lands themselves are split into two halves: the bright and cheerfully warped Mania and the more somber, shadowy lands of Dementia. As Sheogorath will later describe them, The Isles are, "A wonderful place! Except when it's horrible!" But before we can proceed there, we need to take down a Gatekeeper in the first town of Passwall which you step foot in right after accepting Haskill's charge. A towering foe with a menacing blade for an arm, the Gatekeeper wiped out an entire group of well-armed and armored adventurers the first time we set eyes on him. Since he's got the key that allows access to the Shivering Isles buried inside him, we absolutely had to take him down to proceed. After a few attempts, it became clear a solo direct attack was sure death, so we instead wandered around Passwall looking for an alternate method of dispatching the monstrosity.
We first came upon Jayred Ice-Veins, an archer with a plan. If we raided the nearby Gardens of Flesh and Bone, we could fashion bone arrows of the same aspect as the Guardian's, and therefore do more damage, somehow. To the Garden we headed, picked the lock on the front gate, and had a battle against some fierce skeletal guardians to procure the arrows. With the new ammunition in hand, we headed through Passwall again and found another villager who, after a sufficient amount of bribery, spilled that the Guardian was especially vulnerable to the tears of his mother, who allegedly visits the monster every midnight. Sure enough, she showed up right on time and wept beside her horrific child, and, luckily, dropped a soaked handkerchief. We darted in, snatched the handkerchief, and applied it as a poison to our sword. The ensuing battle with the guardian was over pretty quickly, and with the keys to Dementia and Mania in hand, we proceeded into the world of the Shivering Isles.
Just like with Oblivion, it's an open world. You can head to the main city of New Sheoth where Sheogorath sits on his throne to follow the main quest or simply wander about, discovering hidden caves, ruins, and towns. The lands look significantly different from Cyrodiil. Dementia, for instance, is populated with mists, oversized spiked mushrooms, and jutting knuckles of rock. We chose to trek to the capital and check out one of the main quests from a little further on in the game, which involved a substance called Felldew.
It began in Sheogorath's throne room, a stone chamber ringed with pedestals on which trophies from previous quests were placed, like the Guardian's head. Talking to Sheogorath even briefly reveals he's completely insane, but definitely one of the most vibrant characters so far in both The Shivering Isles and Oblivion. To start this quest out, he gives us a Summon Haskill spell, which, like the name leads you to believe, summons Haskill to your side so he can provide information on a variety of topics. Sheogorath orders you to try it out and is so amused he declares you should do it again, much to Haskill's chagrin.
Sheogorath then informs you that before Jyggalag can be thwarted, the Duke of Mania and Duchess of Dementia need to be consulted. It seems you need to curry favor with those who oversee the halves of the land before you can aid the land as a whole. We headed over to Thadon, Duke of Mania, whose chambers were right next to Sheogorath's throne room. He'd lost something known as a Chalice of Reversal, which was required for him to be able to properly ingest the odiously named Felldew. To try and discover the Chalice's location, we headed over to Syl, the Duchess of Dementia for help. Instead, she gave us the task of finding out who was conspiring to kill her. A member of her court was more informative after a few rounds of bribery, and told us the Chalice was buried in something called Dunroot Burrow. Wandering around the palace in New Sheoth gave us a chance to check out the personal guard of Syl and Thadon, the Dark Seducers and Golden Saints respectively. These just so happen to be the two new summons available in The Shivering Isles, and though we didn't battle either of them, the heavily armored female guards looked as though they could do some damage.
Our descent into Dunroot Burrow wasn't without a catch. In order to even get in, we had to ingest a serving of Felldew, which acts like a drug. It gives you a temporary boost, then plunges your character into various stages of withdrawal. The reason Thadon wants the Chalice of Reversal so badly is so he can experience the euphoria of Felldew consumption without the negatives, which the Chalice was designed to remove. We got the initial serving of Felldew off an Elytra, a fearsome insect with a glowing posterior. Throughout the rest of the Burrows, which were a collaboration of pocked dirt walls, phosphorescent fungi, and spiny exposed roots, we had to continue to find Elytra outlined in green, which indicated they were carrying another sample of Felldew. If we went too long without eating the drug, we'd be given a warning, then get hit with willpower, speed, and endurance debuffs, followed by random periods of unconsciousness. We eventually came upon a stone door in the depths of the Burrows, which led to the Chalice's chamber. Unfortunately, the Chalice was surrounded by Felldew addicts, who were presumably so numbed by the drug's effects that they could absorb a superhuman amount of damage. Instead of trying to take them all out, we just took the Chalice and ran.
While slaughtering Elytra and gorging on Felldew we had the opportunity to wield one of The Shivering Isles' new weapons, called either Dawnfang or Duskfang. Its name depends on what time of day it is, and it will shift every 12 hours. With a large reflective jewel adorning its lavish hilt, the 'fang is one of the more attractive weapons in the game. Even better, it can be powered up to a degree by getting 12 kills during the duration of either of its forms. Examples such as the sword and the Felldew quest give us hope that the realm of the Shivering Isles is just as detailed and complex as that of Oblivion. Keep reading for impressions from Erik Brudvig of IGN Xbox.
Erik's Impressions
I spent my morning seeing how far I could get on the Xbox 360 iteration of The Shivering Isles expansion. There aren't any gameplay differences between the console and PC versions, but there are a couple of distinctions to note. The first is that the 360 version will be only available through a download. That means if you don't have an internet connection and Xbox Live, you're out of luck. The second is that playing through the expansion will net you an additional 250 achievement points. There are 10 new achievements which all look to be centered on the new main quest to aid Sheogorath. In nearly four hours of play time, I was able to unlock three of them.
After taking down the Gatekeeper and making it into the Shivering Isles, I found myself on the Dementia side of the map with my compass telling me to head for New Sheoth for a meeting with Sheogorath himself. Without any health potions and only a weak spell of healing, I wasn't exactly up for many fights so I just bee lined it across the gnarled countryside until I found the target city. It was nighttime during my travels, which didn't allow for much sight seeing, but it did reveal the beautiful night sky, painted with bright pinks and blues, with stars and galaxy clouds strewn across it.
I spent a small amount of time exploring New Sheoth, the capital city of Shivering Isles, before heading on to speak with Sheogorath. This city straddles the border between Dementia and Mania and has three major districts: Crucible, Bliss, and the Palace. Crucible is the Dementia side of town. It's a nice place, if you enjoy open-air raw sewage, rundown houses, and a generally depressing atmosphere. Each person we talked to had something interesting to say, which isn't too surprising given the fact that every character in Shivering Isles has their own set of unique dialogue and personality. Bliss, as the name implies, is a much more inviting town in appearance. Unfortunately, all of the residents are quite insane.
Talking to the residents netted quite a few side quests, some of which were particularly cool. In both Bliss and Crucible, I found a special blacksmith that can make new armor and weapons, provided you have the right ingredients. Bliss specializes in light armor and weapons and the material of choice here is amber. Crucible's blacksmith prefers to work with madness ore and can make you some powerful weapons or heavy armor. From my experience, collecting these materials doesn't take very long at all. Both materials will randomly appear in chests and can be found from enemy drops. To get amber, you'll want to hunt down one of the new enemies called a Gnarl Tree. Likewise, madness ore is very often carried by the amphibious Grummites.
Creating items requires anywhere between one and five pieces of one of the ingredients and can be further bolstered if you find a matrix stone to use during the creation process. I found a claymore matrix that added a drain health effect to our newly crafted weapon of doom. Even though I was playing a thief character with hardly any strength, I was still able to take down just about every enemy I saw in a few swings. The sword wasn't just strong though -- it looked just as cool as it performed with a sweet red outer glow.
One other cool side quest worth mentioning is the museum of oddities. This building in Crucible is actually mostly empty of treasures, but that's where you come in. The caretaker will give you a tour of the few bits of odd things she has collected, such as the ring that will give its bearer the ability to both walk on water and breath water. Nice coupling, eh? There were roughly ten empty cases there that looked like they needed filling which will surely net some interesting rewards.
Once I had my fill of exploring the capital city, I set off to complete Sheogorath's first quest. He didn't tell me much about why he wanted the quest done, but insisted that I find three crystals and put them back on their pedestals and then activate the resonator to get a special temple up-and-running again. This dungeon started out as a standard Oblivion tomb where I fought a series of enemies down a snaking tunnel -- in this case the enemies were Grummites with various equipment. Once the resonator was operational, things got interesting. I won't spoil what happens, but let's just say you get to hold the fate of several men in the palm of your hand.
Sheogorath seemed pretty pleased when I returned with news of success, but informed me that I'd need to get to know the land I was working toward saving if I wanted to actually save it. That meant completing quests for the Duke and Duchess of the land. I went to talk to the lady who headed up the Dementia side of things and found she felt people were plotting against her. At first I thought this was just another standard Oblivion quest where I would ask enough people questions until finding the answer and then return for the reward. This being the land of Dementia, we had a new tool to grease the wheels - torture. To be honest, I spent the next half of an hour walking around town having my henchman shoot lightning bolts at random citizens whether they knew anything or not.
I only spent a small amount of time on the Mania side of the Shivering Isles, but the difference in appearance between the two lands is night and day. Both have a great new look that was a complete breath of fresh air after spending more than 200 hours playing Oblivion. The new art style felt decidedly more like Morrowind where everything looks organic with a fantastical feel to it. It's a great direction to take for the expansion, especially for those that have already put in a ton of time with Oblivion.
