House Telvanni is not particularly well-disposed toward anyone, but don't let that put you off. If you like reaching the stratospheric heights of power by climbing over the corpses of those who stand in your way, House Telvanni is definitely the place you want to be. These are the Mages of the Great Houses. You may read about House Telvanni in "The Affairs of Wizards". There are 47 copies just laying around, most Booksellers will have a copy or two in their inventories and I snagged one just so you wouldn't have to do the legwork.
Members of factions receive different types of welcomes from members of other factions, depending on how they get along. The formula is (Faction Reaction * 5)*(0.5 +(Faction Rank *0.5)). In plain terms, this means that as you attain higher ranks in your faction, people with negative modifiers will like you less and people with positive modifiers will like you more. This does not mean that everyone will start attacking you on sight, nor does it mean that they are going to fall all over themselves to be helpful. It does, however, modify their initial disposition toward you. This initial disposition will be further modified by your Personality, your overall reputation, your Criminal Status, whether or not you are Diseased, what kinds of favors you have done for the faction you're dealing with, etc. The other person may wind up liking you a lot or not liking you at all, but your faction and rank can impose a serious modifier.
| House Telvanni Reaction toward Other Factions | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hated Enemy (-3) |
Enemy (-2) |
Hostile (-1) |
Indifferent (0) |
Friendly (+1) |
Ally (+2) |
Beloved Ally (+3) |
| Mages Guild | Imperial Cult Temple House Hlaalu House Redoran Vampires Ashlanders Imperial Legion |
Fighters Guild Thieves Guild |
House Telvanni | |||
These guys don't like anyone except themselves, do they?
Advancement within House Telvanni will depend upon your skill level in three of the following skills:
House Telvanni's rank structure:
| Rank | Willpower | Intelligence | One required Skill at | Two other required Skills at | Minimum Faction Reputation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 - Hireling | 30 | 30 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2 - Retainer | 30 | 30 | 10 | 0 | 5 |
| 3 - Oathman | 30 | 30 | 20 | 0 | 10 |
| 4 - Lawman | 30 | 30 | 30 | 5 | 20 |
| 5 - Mouth | 30 | 30 | 40 | 10 | 30 |
| 6 - Spellwright | 31 | 31 | 50 | 15 | 45 |
| 7 - Wizard | 32 | 32 | 60 | 20 | 60 |
| 8 - Master | 33 | 33 | 70 | 25 | 80 |
| 9 - Magister | 34 | 34 | 80 | 30 | 100 |
| 10 - Archmagister | 35 | 35 | 90 | 35 | 125 |
Of course, these promotions don't come just based on your skills. You must perform quests to gain reputation and rank within the House. You will typically receive 5 points of faction reputation for each successfully completed quest. Just ask about "chores" to anyone who has it in their conversation threads and you'll either be given a task to perform or pointed toward someone else. In no particular order because most of them are all in the same room, the House Telvanni quest givers are (talk to any of the first five to join House Telvanni):
Typically, each rank requires two or three successfully completed quests in addition to the minimum stat and skills requirements. When you are promoted to Rank 5 (Mouth), you will be given a minor magic item called the "Silver Staff of Peace". Don't lose it. You will need it when it comes time to recruit your own Mouth.
When it comes time to advance beyond Rank 7, you must decide whether you want to be the Archmagister or just remain a councilor. If you choose the "Master" option, that's it. You will not be able to advance beyond that rank. If you choose the "Magister" option you can advance to rank 10, but the current Archmagister is going to know that you're after his job and will not be too happy with you.
To advance beyond rank 7, you must build a stronghold. Once you advance to rank 8 you can improve your stronghold and turn it into a true Telvanni wizard's tower. You can start construction after reaching rank 5, but you'll start getting hints at rank 4.
As with all Stronghold quests, it goes through several phases, but it starts with talking to the person who can arrange for the construction. In this case, you must talk to Llunela Hleran in the Hermitage below the Council Chambers (Levitate would be very handy, but you can get there and back on foot).
Hleran cannot start construction without a construction contract and two strong souls for the foundation.
The construction contract is very straightforward. Go talk to Duke Vedam Dren in the Grand Council Chamber in Ebonheart. Ask for the contract, promise that you'll help his people and it's a done deal. Finding the Duke is the hardest part of this little chore.
The souls are a slightly different matter. Follow up on the "strong souls" thread and she'll give you a couple of Grand Soul Gems and suggest that Storm Atronachs are good, but Winged Twilights and Golden Saints are better. Time for a quick lesson on Enchanting.
All enchanted items (the ones that you make, anyway), require the soul of something to provide the power that makes it work. To take care of that, you have a nifty little spell called "Soul Trap". In order for the spell to work, you have to have a soul gem in your inventory. Just cast the spell on something and then kill that something before the spell wears off (60 seconds is normal). There are a couple of problems with that, though.
First, everything living thing has a soul. But due to the laws of the Empire and the constraints of the game, you cannot soul trap humanoids (those are the various NPCs running around) and you cannot soul trap Dagoth Ur (I've tried -- no dice). Anything else is fair game. Simple enough?
Second, souls are the tools that you use to make various magical items. Each item requires a certain amount of power to make it work and souls provide that power, though some souls have more power than others. You're not going to make the mother-of-all-items with the soul of a Rat. But by the same token, you wouldn't want to use one of the more powerful souls to power a flashlight. The right tool for the job is the way to go. So you have to decide how much of a bang you're going to need and then go out and get it.
Storm Atronachs have souls that carry 150 units of power (if that's a good enough analogy). So what you're looking for is something that packs at least that much of a punch. So here's a quick list of everything that you can grab that has at least 150 soul points:
I don't know whether anything except the Daedras will work, but it might be worth a try.
(6/27/02) OK, I tried. Nothing except Storm Atronachs, Golden Saints and Winged Twilights will work for the stronghold. Second, the souls MUST be in a Grand Soul Gem. Even though Greater Soul Gems will hold them, Hleran won't accept anything except Grand Soul Gems.
OK, so now that you know what you're looking for, where do you find it? Option One might be to simply pop down to your local Enchanter and see what's in stock. Expensive, but doable. Galbedir at the Balmora Mages Guild usually has a couple that can do the job. If she got stuck at the foot of the stairs while you were swapping soul gems on her, you might even be able to just walk upstairs and take it.
Option Two is to just go out and find it. There are Daedric Ruins and Sixth House shrines/bases all over the place. Once your level is high enough, it seems like you can't go two steps without stumbling into something that will work.
Option Three (and this is so sneaky) is to summon something. You can buy spells to summon Golden Saints, Hungers, Winged Twilights and Daedroths. Just summon, soul trap and wade in. The nice part about this is that the summon spell will wear off before the soul trap will, so you won't have to worry about your time running out.
Anyway, when you have your contract and two filled soul gems, report back to Hleran and you'll be off and running. A few days later you'll get one of those unexplained "Your Journal Has Been Updated" messages. Go check back in with Hleran and she'll send you out for an update on the progress of your tower.
Your tower is going to be located on a rather unimpressive real estate called "Uvirith's Grave," and located just east of Galom Daeus (the Berne Vampire clan hideout -- how's that for a neighborhood Welcome Wagon?). No, you can't soul trap Vampires -- sheesh! Talk to Gashnak Gra-Mughol (why are the construction foremen always Orcs?), who tells you that it should be done in about a week and report back to Hleran.
Cool your heels. Knock off a few quests. Terrorize something. Occupy your time until the next journal update message appears and then go check out your new digs. Pretty cool, huh? OK, it's a little on the small side, but it has potential. Kind of the Telvanni equivalent of a "Handyman special." Bring a Levitate with you. It's sometimes a little difficult to maneuver around these Telvanni Towers without one.
Now things start getting expensive. Hleran needs 5000 golds and a Dwemer Schematic to complete the next phase. What?!? You thought this was going to be freebies or something?
You can find the Schematic in the Mzanchend ruins kind of northwest of your new tower. Wouldn't you know it? It's about as far in as you can get. Couldn't stick it next to the door or anything, could they? But look on the bright side. There are only seven leveled dwarven critters in there and only half of them are higher level than you. But it's a pretty short excursion. Just bear right when you come in and keep going until you find the schematic laying on a bookshelf in the last room. It's next to a chest with a Dwarven Crossbow and a few bolts in it. Take the schematic and the golds back to Hleran and she'll issue the necessary orders.
The last phase is the most difficult. Hleran needs a copy of a book called "The Secrets of Dwemer Animunculi." The problem with this is that there is only one copy in the game and it's at the far end of Galom Daeus (which is a vampire lair, if you missed that part earlier) and it's guarded by the baddest of the Berne vampires, Raxle Berne. It's in the Observatory on a table. While you're there, grab the copy of "Galur Rithari's Papers," the Daedric Shield and the potion of Feather up on the ledge near the top of the room. You don't need them for this quest, but Skink-in-Tree's Shade at the Sadrith Mora Mages Guild will want the Galur Rithari book. Edwina Elbert in the Ald'ruhn Mages Guild will want a peek at "Secrets" before you turn it over to Hleran and you can always sell the other two for a chunk of change.
Report back to Hleran to have the necessary orders issued an in a few days your Tower will be complete. Instead of guards, you now have Dwemer Centurions guarding your new home (more mouths to feed). You even have your very own dungeon with your very own dead body in it. In a perverse sort of way, it's typically Telvanni.
Oh, in case you didn't notice, reading "Secrets" added the "Summon Centurion Sphere" spell to your spellbook. This is the only way you can get it short of using the console.