Oblivion is really a game about the Imperial Watch. Forget all the Mehrunes Dagon stuff and that Hero of Kvatch – the real stars of the show are the stupid guards who pop out of the ether to tell you it’s time to pay the fine for your long list of misdeeds or head off to jail.
One Oblivion Remastered modder clearly feels the same way, as they’ve just fleshed out the Imperial Watch and Forestry divisions into joinable factions, via the addition of some new radiant quests and systems. These kinds of mods have become a bit of a hobby for the modder in question, ColdTyrant, and I spoke to them about it pretty recently.
The latest project in their ‘Infinitum’ series of faction mods focuses on the Imperial Legion, and it looks like it offers a roleplaying experience I’ve been craving for years. You’re offered the choice by an NPC called Field Officer Leveilleur of becoming one of the potato-faced Imperial guards that patrol Cyrodiil or one of the rangers that help keep the wilderness in check.
The former is the option I’m most interested in, as it means you can earn gold and promotions by completing radiant arrest warrant quests. These task you with hunting down wanted criminals, stopping them in their criminal scummy ways, and demanding they make the infamous decision that’s usually facing your character – come quietly or resist arrest. Hilariously, the wording of what you say to them is exactly the same, so you can properly embrace the memeiness of your new vocation.
Meanwhile, folks who choose forestry are tasked with hunting down bandits at randomly selected camps. The mod doesn’t leave it there, also giving you the chance to go a bit bad and abuse your guardly powers. Both branches render you able to impose fines on the regular citizens of Cyrodiil, and if you want, you can extort them for money like a certain Ulrich of Cheydinhal.
ColdTyrant’s created a system to track this, which I’ll let them explain: “If you choose to do this, your Corruption Level will increase by 10 for each illegally-demanded fine, and the game will inform you of your current Corruption level whenever it increases or decreases.
“If you really go out of control, and manage to reach a Corruption Level of 100, you will be permanently expelled from The Imperial Legion. This will remove any pending warrants or bounties, strip you of your ranks, and remove all Imperial Legion Infinitum content from the game, as well as slam you with an extremely heavy bounty.” So yup, another stat to try and max out if you’re a morally ambiguous completionist.
Don’t worry, though, the modder adds that you can gradually get back on the good path by going back to lawfully arresting and bounty hunting. If you want to give the mod a go, you’ll need to grab UE4SS and the TesSyncMapInjector.
