Oblivion: Paranoia

By Shamus Posted Thursday Jul 13, 2006

Filed under: Game Reviews 48 comments

The best quest so far is the “Paranoia” quest in the town of Skingrad. It’s a true freeform quest. It doesn’t have much in the way of a story, but there are many outcomes and I played through it several times trying out all the different permutations. Spoilers follow.

A Wood Elf (the annoying shorty elves, as opposed to the tall and snooty High Elves) walks up to you and pleads with you to meet him behind the church at midnight. He has a proposition for you, but he wants to meet in secret.

Oblivion: Glarthir

Unlike other missions in the game, this one has a lot of possible outcomes besides “do it” and “don’t do it”. If you agree to help Glarthir, he will give you a job: He will task you with following one of the people who have been watching him, and seeing what they do when they are not spying on him. He wants to know who they are working for and who they report to. There are three people total, and each time you report back on the activities of one of them he’ll assign you the next.

The voice acting is hilarious. Glarthir takes himself and his struggle very seriously. The facial expression system in Oblivion is good, but it isn’t up to the task of keeping up with the voice actor’s performance here. He plays Glarthir with a manic enthusiasm that make these little conversations a lot of fun.

Oblivion: Glarthir

Following these people around for an entire day can be a bit time consuming (I’ve never bothered to clock it, but I’m betting a day in the game is 24 minutes long) and dull. These people are not watching him. They are harmless people who are unluckly enough to be neighbors with this nut. Their lives are simple and routine. They get up, go to work, have a bite to eat, talk with other people in town, and generally fail to be secretive or sinister in any way.

Each night you meet him behind the church and report on the activities of the day’s target. You can either lie and say they were watching him, or tell him the truth and say that they aren’t. Either way, he pays you a nice chunk of cash for your efforts. It should also be noted that you don’t need to follow these people at all. You can just show up at midnight and tell him whatever you like.

So far I’ve found several outcomes:

  1. Refuse to help him. The first time I met him I told him to get lost, and a few days later I heard people in town gossiping about how he went nuts and killed a bunch of people with an axe before the guards put him down. I assume he killed the three “spies”.
  2. Agree to help him, and then report the truth. If you tell him that nobody is following him, then he realizes with horror that you must be in on it as well! He then attacks you and you are obliged to kill him. (Or run to the town guards and let them kill him.)
  3. Lie to him. If you agree to help and then tell him that all or some of the people on his list are in fact following him, then he will give you one last task: He will ask you to kill all of the people who you identified as spies. I don’t know what happens if you refuse this task, but if you accept he puts the job in writing along with the names of the intended victims.
  4. Do the killing. You can then kill these people on his list, and he will pay you $1,000. Early in the game, that is quite a chunk of cash. Enough that it may well be worth offing these characters if you have the mindset for such a job.
  5. Show the list to the town guards. You can show the list to the town watch. It is helpfully titled “people to kill” and has all of the names of the victims on it, so it’s a pretty solid piece of evidence that he’s gone off the deep end. If you do this, then they will go after Glarthir. He will resist arrest, and then the guards will kill him.

Hilarious. I wonder if there are any other outcomes I didn’t find?

 


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48 thoughts on “Oblivion: Paranoia

  1. Old Man Matt says:

    That really was a blast!

    After you have the hit list, try warning the victims.

  2. lplimac says:

    And after the guard smacks him down search his body for the key to his house. You can find a good chunk of coins (800) and if so inclined take everything else and sell (if you’re part of the thief’s guild, as everything is considered stolen). The guards won’t even bother you.

  3. Karen says:

    If you let the guards kill him, can you pickpocket the 1000 gold off his body anyway? *hopeful*

    Lol, I’m halfway through this quest, so far it’s been fun! ^_^ But do you think the Mages and Fighters guild will kick me out if I have a bounty?

  4. Shamus says:

    I don’t know about getting the cash after he’s dead. I don’t think so.

    No, the guilds don’t boot you for having a bounty. They don’t really care who you kill or rob, as long as it isn’t them. :)

    1. brandon says:

      i know we are talking about that idiot wood elf but on darkbrother hood on the third qest when u have to enter the sewers how you get passed the guards without being killed

  5. Karen says:

    Haha I have returned. Ooh thanks for replying Shamus, yay! Bwahahaha I’ll go murder someone then ^^

    Oh another question, does he give you 1000 gold per target you kill or is that the base price?

  6. Shamus says:

    Base price. Note also: In some quests the reward is scaled for your level, so it may be more or less depending on how high a level you are.

  7. tomk says:

    re Glarthir, Shamus I did your #5 (Show the list to the town guards), then I robbed Glarthir in every way I could and that was early in my game. Now I am confused as I have revisited Skingrad a long time later on the Mages Quest “Information at a Price” and after I killed some vampire hunters for the Count (which made guards run about searching and calling ‘murder etc’, a new “Paranoia Quest” message flashed up to say that I had just killed the woman on Glarthir’s hit list (which I hadn’t). The new quest messages now tells me to kill the rest of the listed persons then to meet Glarthir behind the chapel to get paid. Well Glarthir is definetly dead and has been lying behind the chapel since that first encounter with the guards – the plot has thickened mmm. Any comments Shamus or anyone else???

  8. Shamus says:

    No idea. I think that you’ll get that message at any time that woman is killed. Perhaps something happened between yuo / vampire hunters / the guards that led to her death?

    If not, sounds like an odd bug.

  9. journeyman says:

    Tell the guards about his hit list, then lift his house key from his corpse once they’re done, and go search his house. In his basement, you will find a few hand written notes strewn about. Most are comical ramblings about his interactions with you, but one will leave you wondering if just because he was crazy and paranoid, didn’t necessarily mean he wasn’t really on to something.

  10. Galleon says:

    Dion just killed him for me.
    if you ask him right afterwards the “Glarthir” option he totally denies killing him stating that he just turned up dead and that someone finally got tired of his crazy behaviour

  11. Justin Cray says:

    That happened with me too! For the rest of the game I kept wondering if he was crazy or not, Dion’s behaviour was just too suspicious.

  12. Phantom281 says:

    This quest is fun,
    just curious can u b really evil and kill the victims, get the cash and then alert the town guards with the note so they kill him?
    lol…its nasty, but hey, my character is a member of the dark brotherhood after all.

  13. Sumo says:

    Hehe I am doing this quest and found this site cause i was wondering if it’s worth doing lol. I broke into his house from the very beginning and found 3 notes in his basement, but unfortunately they don’t change the quest and you can’t bring it up as a discussion topic.. and I already robbed his house.

    Anyway, I was hoping that it’d be a story where he was a little crazy but was actually right. I suspected this because there was a member of the mythic dawn in town in either the inn or the lodge.

  14. Demtalin says:

    I just did this quest before finding this site, I played through it a few times and in one ending I did #2 above and in the other #5, I stuck with #5 cause it was the last one I did and gave me the final outcome.

    However when dion first approached me on the street wanting to know why I was asking about Glarthir, I said “I was just curious” – What happens if you tell dion then that you are doing something for Glarthir? Also did Dion’s actions strike anyone as suspicious, he seamed awfully keen to try and get you to stay away from Glarthir at the start…Maybe we’ve just killed an innocent man, and that he was on to something? (some of this has been said above, but I was thinking the same thing)

  15. TroyBoy says:

    did anyone actually follow the people? boring as hell

  16. James says:

    man i tried to follow a few foaks then got bord after like 10 min and started a new quest

  17. dumbego says:

    tomk i had the same glitch as you but with a different quest. if ur in the dark brotherhood, tenivva (spelt that wrong) will give you a quest to kill a renegade shadowscale in bogwater. however, i forgot about it and did the *spoiler alert* quest for lucien lachance where you kill everybody in the cheydinhal sanctuary. after that, i saw that the quest could still be activated. so i went, killed the guy, and it gave me a marker that led back to the spot in the sanctuary where i had killed tenivva! obviously, his body wasn’t there, but i couldnt finish the quest.
    also, after the first day, i went behind the chapel at midnight and glarthir didnt show up.

  18. Irra says:

    Have anyone tried to “dispell” him or any other magical spells? someone in the castle said something about him throwing a spell and it went wrong?

    I thought it was somewhat fun to follow them…bernadette was robbed by a thief (the man working in the vineyard with her) and the second suspect was taking a horseback-ride into the forrest :)

  19. Irra says:

    and by the way he has alot of books about mysticism :)

  20. Jackson says:

    I have made a video of Glarthir running around killing people with an axe. Toutius Sextius killed him with one punch!

  21. Jackson says:

    I made a video of Glarthir running around killing Bernadette Peneles. He got killed with one punch from Toutius Sextius.

  22. Lysander says:

    It sounds like you might get a different outcome if you followed this Dion character instead of the others.

  23. Hides-His-Tail says:

    I Fortifyed Glathir’s House And He Killed 2 Skingrad Guards :) He Died Soon After But It Was Fun To Loot The Guards Anyway :)

  24. Glarthirskiller says:

    I killed the people in that he told me to. Then I decided against just outright killing him. I showed the guards the evidence (people to kill) he fought the guards for a second taking one down. I decided that was enough and my invisibility was running out so I hit him with my super area effecting spell. when it was done both him and the guard were laying on the ground with Glarthir on the other guards private area. I thought it was hilarious.

  25. Glarthirskiller says:

    Oh and the items looted from the guards almost payed for the reduced fee on the casualties. Meanwhile the looted items from Glarthir’s house were just extra money including all of the mysticism books(crazy bastard).

  26. Brendan says:

    By the way Shamus, what is your character? is she a thief, fighter, mage? Breton or Imperial…

  27. jscar2000 says:

    THere is another outcome you missed. You can go and talk to the Arielle brothers, and they will kill Glathir. I tried that one, and both brothers and Glathir got killed, as well as a couple of guards. So I then had 2 houses to loot. Sadly, however, although everyone talked about what great wine makers they were, the price of their wine didn’t go up when they were no longer alive to make more. *Sigh* Guess Bethesda didn’t think to add how rarity might affect prices.

  28. Ozzy says:

    I wasn’t paying attention to Glarthir, and I ran off to some cave. When I arrived there, I saw Glarthir get eaten by a wolf. Apparently he had run after me…

  29. DS says:

    Ha, I found one more ending. I think this one’s my favorite.

    After Glarthir gives you the note, take it to the ‘ringleader’ and he will kill glarthir himself, then, when you ask him about it, he just says “Glarthir? Oh, he turned up dead. Guess someone got tired of his crazy antics.”

    Haha, it was great.

  30. Brit says:

    Also, you do not have to follow them all day, when they get to their initial destination, just walk past them and go back the way you came and take a napp until 11 pm then make your way back to the church and wait for psycho to show up

  31. Ashor says:

    I didn’t meat him on the first day he asked me to come. I tried 2 days later but i can’t find him

  32. Debaser says:

    If you look in a basket near the door in his house, there’s a fair whack of money inside it.

  33. nevo says:

    I think he was telling the truth after all… i followed that sextius dude into the castle and he talked to one of the people there and he told him “glarthir is acting really wierd, i feel like HE is following ME!”. So i think there WAS a conspiracy, and thats why i killed every 1 on the list and got 1k :D

  34. GamingWyrm says:

    if you tell him you will follow them but have no intentions of doing so.. you can use that 24 hour period to level up your magiks. i went from having a level 5 in illusions to level 44 using the 162mp i have. now tell me that i have no life and ill tell you your right…. oh and if you want to increase your acrobatics as well just jump around while casting spells. i went from level 49 to 57.
    Note: when i say level i mean in skill.

  35. GamingWyrm says:

    P.S. i pickpocked him and ransacked his house. i didnt get very much gold pieces at max. when did you steal from him?

  36. GamingWyrm says:

    p.s.s. if you break in to his house while hes sleeping you can steal his ax from the table next to him and if he attacks any one your self included it will be with his fist.

  37. aapjes says:

    If you tell him that they’re following him but that you don’t want to kill them, he says he’ll kill them himself and runs off to go and try do that.

  38. annoyingdude says:

    i think its kinda annoying that in so god-damn many quests you end up killing people or the people get killed in some other wacky way

  39. Nick C. says:

    I may just be weird, but this quest almost made me cry. Note that this was my first and only playthrough, and I didn’t know about the alternative endings. I decided to help Glarthir when he first approached me, and I watched the first person. Of course, the person was innocent, but I was worried he wouldn’t pay me or not give me any more work, and I also wanted to have a bit of fun with him (I was playing an Argonian, if that means anything to you), so I reported her guilty of spying on him.

    On the next mission, I followed around the peaceful guy, and I really got to like him as I watched him. He would go for long walks in the wood, sit down and look at the scenery, and never bother a soul. He barely talked to anyone. He endereared himself to me so much that I couldn’t report him guilty, and I was sick of lying to Glarthir. It just felt wrong, so I reported him innocent.

    The third person I also reported innocent, and I was surprised when Glarthir wanted me to kill the first person (the supposedly guilty one) for a substantive reward. I was a thief type character, and it was midnight, so I decided to go through with it and I snuck into her house. But looking at her lying down all helpless, I couldn’t go through with it, so I brought the note to a guard and turned Glarthir in.

    I went on my merry way, feeling all righteous, supposing that I might break Glarthir out of prison, but then I came across his dead body and saw what happened. I talked to the nearest guard and he said something along the lines of “Ah yes, it is a true pity it had to come to this, but at least the lives of others are now secure.”

    I felt just a smidge guilty now, but not guilty enough to not steal glarthir’s key and rummage through his house. His house was really interesting actually. A bunch of loose paintings were lying around. I made my way down to his basement and came across a bunch of scribbled notes on his table. They chronicled the whole quest from his point of view.

    The notes were in no particular order, but I read them all, and from what I did they went like this (much abbreviated), “Must find an outsider who I can trust, everyone in this city is against me”
    “I think I’ve found the friend I’ve been looking for. He accepted my task.”
    “My suspicions about person number one were correct! My friend reported his findings to me… I’m afraid I may have to do something about this”

  40. Nick C. says:

    I may just be weird, but this quest almost made me cry. Note that this was my first and only playthrough, and I didn’t know about the alternative endings. I decided to help Glarthir when he first approached me, and I watched the first person. Of course, the person was innocent, but I was worried he wouldn’t pay me or not give me any more work, and I also wanted to have a bit of fun with him (I was playing an Argonian, if that means anything to you), so I reported her guilty of spying on him.

    On the next mission, I followed around the peaceful guy, and I really got to like him as I watched him. He would go for long walks in the wood, sit down and look at the scenery, and never bother a soul. He barely talked to anyone. He endereared himself to me so much that I couldn’t report him guilty, and I was sick of lying to Glarthir. It just felt wrong, so I reported him innocent.

    The third person I also reported innocent, and I was surprised when Glarthir wanted me to kill the first person (the supposedly guilty one) for a substantive reward. I was a thief type character, and it was midnight, so I decided to go through with it and I snuck into her house. But looking at her lying down all helpless, I couldn’t go through with it, so I brought the note to a guard and turned Glarthir in.

    I went on my merry way, feeling all righteous, supposing that I might break Glarthir out of prison, but then I came across his dead body and saw what happened. I talked to the nearest guard and he said something along the lines of “Ah yes, it is a true pity it had to come to this, but at least the lives of others are now secure.”

    I felt just a smidge guilty now, but not guilty enough to not steal glarthir’s key and rummage through his house. His house was really interesting actually. A bunch of loose paintings were lying around. I made my way down to his basement and came across a bunch of scribbled notes on his table. They chronicled the whole quest from his point of view.

    The notes were in no particular order, but I read them all, and from what I did they went like this (much abbreviated), “Must find an outsider who I can trust, everyone in this city is against me”
    “I think I’ve found the friend I’ve been looking for. He accepted my task.”
    “My suspicions about person number one were correct! My friend reported his findings to me… I’m afraid I may have to do something about this”
    “It turns out that person number two is innocent. My friend gave me his report.”
    “[ditto for person number three]”
    “I’ve asked my friend to kill person number one… It must be done.”

    After reading these notes I felt like I’d betrayed an innocent yet crazy man and lead him to his death… I left Skingrad much saddened.

  41. Well *smiles* there is an outcome that lets Glarthir live…

    Kill all those ”spies”(or just one) without gettin cough, and he will be the happyiest person alive! and continue he’s life…
    (that’s how i did the quest… then recruited him…)

    Oh yea i used a mod that lets you recruit a person if they like you enough…

    glarthir is my new bowman, a FIINE archer! :D

    Glarthir: yes.. and a fine companion you’v gotten ;)

    Black *Blush* hihi

    and if you refuse to kill those poeple on the list, then Glarthir will go on ”killing spree” you can actuely folow him all the way to hes house and seing him grab the axe and go in, mumbling, the funniest things EVER!

    (example: ”the blades mayba.. they always faered me! ” xD i luaghed at that one…

    Glarthir: yea i bet you thought that was funny didn’t you?

    Black: hihihi ^_^ <3

  42. Aparkourguy injected says:

    I replaced the axe with the ebony blade and glarthir was totally beast man killed everyone
    But of course I had to get my blade back
    Lol “:~)

  43. Vidiot says:

    I vaguely remember following up on the suspect who reports Glarthir’s actions to the castle, and if I remember correctly, he’s keeping an eye on Glarthir because he’s unstable and making sure Glarthir doesn’t hurt anyone or get too unsettled.

    I found that hilarious. Glarthir is crazy and paranoid, so we’d better assign someone to follow him around and make sure he stays out of trouble. Good plan.

  44. Miriam says:

    Most amusing quest till now,level 7,playing a week :)

  45. Khaz'dar says:

    Haha, I did this quest yesterday! (Got Oblivion like 2 days ago.)
    I did actually follow I think the first few people… Man that was boring!

  46. awfulstacy says:

    Followed all of them. Told him they were guilty. Killed them all got the 1000 gold pieces. Went to his house killed & looted him. Well worth it! Enjoy!

  47. doomcup says:

    When I played this, Dion asked me about talking to Glarthir, and I told the truth, that he was having me watch people. He was like, “Okay, just so you know, he’s nuts. Play along for now, and if it gets worse, come back to me.” Sure enough, Glarthir, wants me to eventually kill, and I go tell Dion what’s up, whereupon he summons the guards and rains down on Glarthir. Afterward he said he didn’t feel great about doing it, but it’s better than more people getting killed..

    That’s how I remember it, anyway. It’s been a while. Maybe I should replay it and refresh my memory.

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