Compendium

A reference for how OblivionScape works on Ember, the live realm: your account and your character, the shared world, merchants and crime, death and raising the fallen, playing with others, chat, and the O window. If you find the game doing something this page does not describe, tell us: press O, open the Help tab and use Report.

Your account

One account holds up to three characters on each realm. You make it on the registration page with an email address, a display name and a password, and the launcher signs in with it. The display name is your account's name; each character has a name of its own. Your characters belong to your account, so nobody can claim one by knowing its name.

Accounts per round

Accounts open in rounds. Each round admits a fixed number of accounts, first come first served. The front page shows how many are left in the current round, how long the round has to run and how many open in the next one, and the registration page says so when a round is full. An account counts from the moment it is registered.

Characters

The launcher's Play screen lists your characters on the realm you have chosen and is where you make a new one or delete one. A character belongs to the realm it is made on. Deleting asks you to type DELETE and cannot be undone; the slot and the name are free again afterwards.

Passwords and sessions

Passwords are stored only as a salted hash; nobody can read them back. If you forget yours, ask for a link on the password page: it is emailed to the account's address, works once and for 1 hour, and lets you choose a new password. Your account page lists your characters, every signed-in launcher and browser and every live play session, and has a button that logs out everywhere at once. The launcher starts a play session each time it starts the game, and a play session lasts 12 hours.

Your character

A new character

A new character begins in the game's own opening. When you press Play for a character that has not been made yet, the game starts a new game, and you make the character in its own menus: race, face, birthsign and class, as the opening asks for them. The character's name is the one you gave it in the launcher, whatever the game's name box shows.

The Imperial Prison and the tunnels under it, down to the sewer exit, are a private copy for each character. You meet other players once you leave the sewers. If you leave the game before that, your character is back in their own copy of the tunnels at the next login.

What the realm keeps

The realm keeps your character's level, experience, attributes, skills and spells, the items and gold you carry, your quests and journal, your appearance, where you stand, and your health, magicka and fatigue. At each login the game is set to the realm's record, so you have the same character on any PC. Other players see your face and body as you made them and what you wear.

Levels, points and skills

Experience comes from kills. Killing a creature or a person the realm runs gives 10 experience plus 15 for each of its levels, so a level 5 bandit gives 85. Each level gives 3 attribute points and 5 skill points, which you spend on the Sheet tab of the O window: each attribute and skill has a +1 button while you have points. The game's own level-up, which needs a bed, is not used.

Skills also rise with use: a weapon's skill when your blow does damage, a school of magic when you cast its spells, Mercantile when you trade with a merchant, and Restoration when you raise a fallen player by hand. Each use adds less the further the skill already is above what points and training gave it. Trainers sell sessions too (Merchants and services).

The world

Other players

You see the other players in the cell you are in, and outdoors in the cells around you. Their swings, blocks, bow shots, casts and jumps play on your screen, their arrows and spell bolts fly across it, and a player who falls goes down and rises again on everyone's screen. A player appears once their game has finished loading the world around them.

Townspeople

The game's townspeople, guards and named characters are the realm's: they keep their days by the game's own schedules, eat, sleep, work and talk to each other, and every player sees each one in the same place doing the same thing. A person you talk to, trade with or train with stops and faces you until you are done.

Creatures and enemies

The creatures, bandits and other enemies that the game picks from its lists for each place are the realm's. Every player in the area sees the same ones, and they fight everyone the same way: people fight with the weapons they carry, archers shoot and mages cast.

In the open world, how dangerous the creatures are depends on the region, not on your level. Everyone in a region meets the same level of creature.

Dungeons and Oblivion gates

Every cave, mine, fort, ruin and Oblivion plane is a private copy for you, or for your party when you are in one. Other players and parties are in their own copies of the same place. All the rooms of one dungeon belong to the same copy.

• The enemies inside are picked at the level of the highest-level player in your copy.
• A copy empties and starts fresh 60 seconds after the last player in it leaves.

Each copy has a difficulty, set on the Instances tab of the O menu before you go in: by you when you are alone, by the leader for a party. It cannot be changed while you, or anyone in your party, is inside a dungeon.

• On Hard and Elite, enemies that would leave you alone attack.
• Enemies have more health the more players are inside when they appear: x1.3 for two, x1.6 for three, x1.9 for four, at every difficulty.
• Killing a dungeon's boss locks that boss for you and everyone in your copy, at that difficulty, for 720 game hours (one real day). It does not appear in a copy where everyone is locked. The same boss on another difficulty is not locked. The Instances tab lists your lockouts and your party's, with the time left.

• A creature killed while players stay nearby is replaced about 5 minutes later.
• When nobody has been near an area for 2 minutes, its creatures are gone, and new ones appear when a player comes back.

Blows and spells, yours and theirs, do what Oblivion's own rules make them do: the weapon, Strength and skill, a power attack, a sneak attack, the target's armour, resistances and reflection. A blow that staggers or knocks down plays the same on every screen.

Bodies and what lies around

A body the realm killed holds what it carried, and every player sees the same contents. Open it as in single-player; whoever takes an item first has it. A body and anything left on it are gone when its area empties.

Items lying in the world and the contents of the game's containers are shared too: what one player takes from a shelf, a chest or the ground is gone for everyone, and it does not come back. Taking what belongs to someone is theft (Crime and guards).

Quests

The game's quests run on the realm, one story for each character. You start, follow and finish them as in single-player: the same people, the same lines and the same journal, with the game's own notices when a quest starts or moves on. Rewards go into your pack. Your quests are kept with your character, so they are the same at your next login.

What your quests do to the world is yours alone. When one of your quests moves a person, sends them somewhere, kills them or brings someone in, you see it; other players still see that person as the world has them, and their own quests do the same for them. A party does not share quest progress: each member's quests are their own.

Time, weather and rest

The realm keeps one clock for everyone. A game hour passes every 2 real minutes, so a game day is 48 real minutes, as in single-player. The weather is the same for every player in a place and changes every few game hours. Inside buildings and dungeons there is no weather.

Sleeping and waiting are closed, because the clock belongs to everyone. The bed or the wait menu closes again with "You cannot sleep here - the world's time belongs to the realm." or "You cannot wait here - the world's time belongs to the realm." Fast travel works as in single-player, to the places you have found.

Merchants and services

Merchants

The game's merchants trade through their own barter menu, at Oblivion's prices: your Mercantile and Luck, the merchant's disposition toward you, and haggling all count. Each merchant has one stock for the whole realm, so what one player sells another can buy. Stolen goods sell only to a fence.

A merchant's gold is counted for each character: what you sell is paid from your purse at that merchant, and what you buy pays into it.

Training, spells, repair and recharge

Trainers, spell sellers, smiths and enchanters offer their services through the game's own menus, at Oblivion's own prices. The gold paid for a service is gone; it does not go to the person.

Spells of your own

At an altar of the Arcane University you can shape the effects you know into a spell of your own. Up to four effects, each once per range (on yourself, by touch, at a target); magnitude 3 to 100, duration 1 to 120 seconds, and an area of 10 to 100 feet or none. The realm prices it as Oblivion does - three times its magicka cost - and takes the gold when you make it.

You may hold ten spells of your own at a time, and Forget gives no gold back. A spell made above your mastery is made anyway, with a warning, and refused when you try to cast it until your school's skill has risen. Your spells follow your character to any PC, as everything else does.

Who a spell reaches is the realm's to decide. A healing or fortifying area reaches your party, your guild, and any player who cannot be harmed where you stand; it never reaches the realm's own people. A harmful area spares your party and reaches the players that player-against-player allows. A healing spell at someone wanted by the guards is no crime. Of the spells you have made, only the strongest of each effect holds on a person at a time, and Restore Magicka works on nobody but yourself.

Alchemy, a profession

Alchemy is a profession of the realm rather than the game's mixing menu: you learn recipes, you make them, and what you make raises your standing until the next rank teaches you more. Your recipes are in the O window, with what each one takes, what it makes, and whether you are carrying the ingredients.

Every character begins a Novice alchemist and is taught the Novice recipes. Making something you know earns experience towards the next rank, and reaching a rank teaches every recipe up to it at once. The recipes above your rank are listed too, so you can see what you are working towards.

A harder recipe earns more: 10 for a Novice's, 400 for a Master's. There are 174 recipes, every one of them a potion Oblivion itself ships, made from ingredients Oblivion itself grows - the weakest of an effect is a Novice's recipe and the strongest is a Master's, so the potions you know get better as you climb rather than merely more numerous.

A potion you make is a real item of the realm: it can be sold, mailed, traded and stashed, and it carries your name and your skill at the moment of making, for as long as it exists. Your Alchemy skill itself rises as you work, so a later potion of the same recipe is the better made.

The game's own alchemy menu does not open while you are on the realm. It brews a potion the game invents on the spot, which no other player could ever hold - so the realm makes yours instead, from its own records.

Crime and guards

Theft, assault and murder bring a bounty, as in Oblivion, when someone sees them. Taking an item that belongs to someone, or from a container they own, is theft, and the item is marked stolen. The bounty stays with your character when you log out, and the Sheet tab of the O window shows it.

A guard comes for a player they see committing a crime, or one with a bounty of 500 gold or more, and gives the game's choices:

Talking to a guard while you have a bounty turns you in.

Health and death

Health, magicka and fatigue

The realm keeps your health, magicka and fatigue, and they are the same when you log back in. Magicka and fatigue come back over time, as in Oblivion. Health does not come back by itself; with sleeping and waiting closed, potions, spells and other healing bring it back.

Dying

When your health reaches 0 the death screen opens with a countdown of 45 seconds. Other players can raise you before it ends (Raising the fallen); while someone is raising you by hand, the countdown waits for them. Press R to go to a chapel at once instead of waiting. When the countdown ends you go to the chapel on your own.

You come back in the chapel nearest to where you fell, at full health. If you fall indoors or in a plane of Oblivion, the chapel nearest to the last place you stood outdoors is used. Dying costs nothing: you keep your items, gold and skills. The game's own "load your last save" menu does not appear.

These are the realm's Halls of the Dead. The chapel at Kvatch is not used, and the Imperial City has none: a death there sends you to the nearest of the chapels above.

Raising the fallen

By hand

Anyone can raise a fallen player. Put the crosshair on their body, press E and choose Revive. The raise takes 60 seconds of standing at the body; walking away, taking a blow or pressing Esc breaks it, and what you have done is kept for 30 seconds if you start again. When it completes, the fallen player is offered the raise on their death screen: Y accepts and N declines, and the offer lasts 60 seconds. A player raised by hand stands up at their body with 10% of their health and magicka.

Arkay's Mercy

Arkay's Mercy is a healer's spell that raises a fallen player faster. Choose Resurrect on the body's menu. It is learned at one of the Halls of the Dead above by typing /learn resurrection once you have:

The raise is offered to the fallen player as a raise by hand is. Typing /learn alone shows how far you are toward the spell.

Playing with others

The player menu

Put the crosshair on another player and press E. The menu offers Trade, Mute or Unmute, and Give an item; on a fallen player, Revive, and Resurrect if you know Arkay's Mercy. Choose with the mouse, or with the arrow keys and Enter; Esc closes it. A name in the chat or on the Players tab of the O window opens the same choices, with Invite to party.

An invitation from another player, to a party, a guild or a trade, opens a window: Enter accepts and Esc declines.

Parties

A party holds up to 4 players. Anyone who is not in a party can invite, and in a party only its leader can. Each member's level, health and place show on the party frames and on the Party tab of the O window. The leader can remove a member or disband the party. You stay in the party when you log out; when the leader leaves, another member leads, and a party left with one player ends. /p talks to your party.

Guilds

Found a guild on the Guild tab of the O window with a name of 3 to 32 characters and a tag of 2 to 5 letters or digits, both unique on the realm. A guild holds up to 100 members, ranked leader, officers and members. Officers and the leader invite and remove members, and set the guild's message of the day; the leader promotes and demotes officers, and disbands the guild. When the leader has not been seen for 30 days, the lead passes to the officer seen most recently. /g talks to your guild.

Trading

Choose Trade on another player's menu; when they accept, the trade window opens for both of you. Add items from your pack and gold to your offer. When both of you accept, everything changes hands at once; any change to either offer takes both acceptances back, and Enter on your own acceptance takes it back too. Cancel ends the trade and nothing moves.

Giving and mail

Give an item hands a stack to the player you are standing next to. Stolen items and quest items cannot be given.

Mail reaches a player by name, online or not, from the Mail tab of the O window. A letter holds up to 500 characters, gold, and up to 8 stacks of items; what you put in it leaves your pack at once. The other player takes it from their Mail tab into their pack. A mailbox holds up to 20 unread letters.

Friends

Add a player to your friends by name on the Players tab of the O window, up to 100. The list shows whether each friend is in the world, their level and where they are, and you are told when one comes into the world or leaves it.

Muting

Muting a player hides their chat lines, silences their voice and drops their invitations, on your own screen. The list is kept on your PC by name. Choose Unmute on their menu to undo it.

Fighting other players

Outside cities, players can fight each other. Inside a city, blows and spells against another player do no damage. Nor inside a dungeon or an Oblivion gate: each party, or each player alone, is in its own copy of those, so the only people there are your own party.

Ember is a softcore realm. A player killed by another player loses nothing: there is no body to loot, and no gold or gear is taken.

Chat and voice

Press Enter to open the chat line, Enter again to send, and Esc to close it. The chat window sorts lines into tabs by channel.

Hold V to talk. Voice carries 1,500 units and fades with distance. Your microphone is the Windows default communications device, and the voice volume does not follow the game's volume slider. Voice is passed on as you speak and is not recorded or stored anywhere.

The O window

Press O to open it, and O or Esc to close it.

Report a player sends what you write to the moderators. Unstuck moves you to the nearest Hall of the Dead, once every 5 minutes, and not while you are fallen or in jail. The game's menus do not pause the world: while your inventory or map is open, the world goes on around you.

Joining the realm

The launcher starts the game and signs your character in. A game started any other way plays as your single-player game and does not join the realm. One character can be in the world from one place at a time: signing in again from another PC drops the first.

When the realm cannot let a game in, a box says why, such as "start the game from the OblivionScape launcher", and the game closes. Start it again from the launcher, which installs the client that matches the realm. If the connection drops, the game tries again by itself and says "disconnected - reconnecting" until it is back.

Commands