The Nine Divines.
Powerful and absolute deities reigning benevolently over the man and mer
of Tamriel. Akatosh, Mara, Stendarr,
Julianos, Dibella, Kynareth, Arkay, Zenithar, and Talos.
Together, their pantheon is the official
pantheon of the Empire. Are they real?
Well, most seem to think so, though their acts are not as prolific as those of
the Daedra.
I mean, except for that real
big one at the end of the main Questline of Oblivion…but, er…never mind that…
Once, long ago, the Eight (as they were known before the
ascension of Talos) saw their need of a champion against a vicious elven
sorcerer who threatened to become much as they were themselves. Thus, they gifted a lone individual with the
garments befitting a Knight...a…Knight of
the Eight, if you will. And thus, Pelinal
Whitestrake slayed the dread Umaril…but did not finish the job. Umaril’s spirit remained intact and waited
for the day that he would return...and return he has, for some reason using
Dwemer runes to mark his return upon the altars of the Nine, in the blood of
their very priests.
Apparently Umaril is royally pissed about something.
Luckily, the player character who may or may not be the
Champion of Cyrodiil by this point (as well as the Master of the Fighters’
Guild, Gray Fox of the Thieves’ Guild, Listener of the Dark Brotherhood, and
the Archmage of the Mages’ Guild) can speak to a crazy old man living outside
the chapel in Anvil, who will set him upon the path to becoming the Avatar…I
mean, the Divine Crusader, the only being worthy to recover the Relics of the
Knights of the Nine and defeat Umaril once and for all.
This, during the first bits of your quest, means you’re
going to traverse the length and breadth of Cyrodiil looking for the wayshrines
of the Nine scattered about the wilderness in order to receive the status of
Pilgrim within the Church of the Nine Divines.
This, once completed, will purify your character. Or, in game terms, will see that all your
points of Infamy you have gathered from working for the Thieves’ Guild or the
Dark Brotherhood (or all around just running around killing people…it happens
more often than you think) will be reset to zero, giving you a clean slate.
Of course, once you’ve become
the Divine Crusader, you pretty much have to tow the line and be a good boy (or
girl) or you will be unable to use the Relics and will have to go through the
Pilgrimage all over again. And trust me,
anything worth doing once is making sure you only have to do once. Hence, top tip, if you’re planning on going
the Dark Brotherhood or Thieves’ Guild routes, go right ahead and do it before
you take on the mantel of the Divine.
Thus, you get all the perks of those without any of the dirtied
hands. Fun fun.
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| The map given to you by the Prophet. |
KoTN actually adds
in a fair amount of new content and expounds on a few areas that already
existed within the game. It has its own
storyline which, albeit short is pretty good for an expansion. Most of your time is going to be spent in
going from place to place, because nobody save those who take the long-running
joke about the Elder Scrolls being nothing but a hiking sim and have literally
traversed the entire length and breadth of the map will be able to fast-travel
anywhere near some of the locations.
That being said, the suit of armor and weapons you receive of the
Crusaders set is very nice and there’s even a nice rack (stop laughing!) you can set everything
in to bring it up to your level if you got it at a lower level, as well as
instantly repair and reload all the magical charges in the sword and mace. Fantastic!
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| This is the skin of a paladin, Bella! |
That being said, really, my only criticisms for it (besides
those that come with vanilla Oblivion)
is that it’s just rather short when you take out all the padding from the
travel. But I can’t really complain too
much about that, since what we get is fairly good for what we are promised by
it. Unlike, say, being promised we could
fly around on dragons and getting a merry go round that shoots fireballs
instead.
But alas, even now, our journey back to the earlier half of
the 2000s is not done yet. Next time,
we’re going to take a trip to somewhere in the neighborhood of crazy. Pack your
straitjackets, folks, we’re off for the Shivering Isles…
Knights of the Nine is available for Xbox 360, Playstation 3, and PC from Bethesda Softworks.
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