This is a sub-page of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.

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To do: Finish up categorizing Early Spies

Replaced Quests

These quests at one point existed to some degree, but were replaced or altered and another quest took its place but kept its Form ID. This usually results in some weird leftovers with the old content getting tied to quest stages from the newer iteration.

MS05#

In the final game, MS05 or "Miscellaneous Quest 05" is "Through a Nightmare, Darkly". If you have not yet started the quest and ask Gilgondorin, publican of Silverhome on the Water, about town, he will tell you:

"My neighbor, Dro'shanji, has seen creatures around the house. Why don't you talk to Dro'shanji, see if you can help?"

His dialogue implies there was a quest involving Dro'shanji's home being overrun by some sort of creatures, however, no such quest exists in the final game and Dro'shanji himself is not used in any quests. The only other traces of this quest are an AI package called MS05DroshanjiStayHome which keeps Dro'shanji locked in his house inbetween quest stages 10 and 50 of Through a Nightmare, Darkly, and a marker present in the cell BravilPlaza that's named MS05DaedraMarker. This all combined seems to suggest that the original MS05 would've had Dro'shanji as its plot-relevant character, rather than Kud-Ei and Henantier.

MS12#

The innkeeper of Bruma's Jerall View Inn, Hafid Hollowleg, will offer you this line of dialogue when asking for rumors:

"Lyra Rosentia collects Akaviri artifacts. She might have a project in mind. Her house is west of the chapel."

While Lyra Rosentia does not offer you any unique dialogue at all, there is a collector of Akaviri artifacts in town, the Countess. It is very likely that Lyra's dialogue regarding the quest was repurposed for the Countess. Her herald, Tolgan, is also involved in the quest, but it is possible that once he was a servant or acquaintance of Lyra, as he owns a bed in her house without otherwise ever going to it. Insside Lyra's house, there's also a marker known as MS12TolganEscort. This marker's presence and location implies that he was to originally bring you to Lyra instead.

MS19#

While MS19 didn't make it into the final game as a Miscellaneous quest, it presumably did in another form, namely as the Mages Guild quest "Fingers of the Mountain". A couple of markers still bear this old ID, but more notably is the fact that the quest script MG05AScript still makes use of one of these old marker bearing references, Teekeeus' chest in this case. It's unlikely that the quest was changed much, as there's unused dialogue for both Earana and Teekeeus that shows it was possible to do this quest without being a member of the Mages Guild, lining up with a Miscellaneous quest.

FGD06#

In the final game, this quest is "Trolls of Forsaken Mine". However, rather than Forsaken Mine, the quest was originally tied to the now-irrelevant town of Blankenmarch and the local ruin by the name of Veyond. A single Fighters Guild rumor in the final game still makes mention of this early setting. It is conditioned to only play after completion of the quest Azani Blackheart, and before completion of Trolls of Forsaken Mine:

"I think Oreyn is planning to send Viranus out on the Blankenmarch contract. I'm betting Vilena is not happy about it... if she knows."

It seems that originally, like many previous Fighters Guild quests, you would've been sent to a town in order to speek with the populace, in this case Blankenmarch, and they would've told you about a problem they'd been facing. Likely the unique Azkhlan Trolls inhabiting the nearby Ayleid ruin of Veyond. Modryn presumably would've sent Viranus Donton and a band of fighters there, where they would meet a grizzly end, similar to the final game, as shown by the many internal markers for gates and levers inside the ruin all being prefixed with FGD06, and the last room even containing a marker called FGD06DeadViranusMARKER. Additionally, inside the ruin in Zone 2, near the entrance to Zone 3 and beyond, you will find dead Trolls, bloodstains, sacks of food and random low-level equipment strewn across the floor, similar to Forsaken Mine.

Fully Deleted Quests

Chorrol Quest #1#

A quest involving doing some sort of job for a removed Imperial with the last name "Strantus". All that remains is dialogue of the townsfolk discussing the work Strantus is offering and a refernce to him in the Chorrol NQD script, containing variables for townsfolk dialogue. scripts.

Chorrol Quest #2#

A Chorrol rumor that can be heard in-game states:

"I could be wrong, but it seems to me there's something shady going on at the Oak and Crosier."

Despite this, nothing ever leads to a quest or even a reference to these shady goings-on. The inn's basement does have a small clue though, as it plays the dungeon music when entering. Unused dialogue topics seem to imply that innkeeper Talasma was either a member of the Khajiiti crime organization Renrijra Krin, or she was associated with them. This all seems to indicate that criminal activity was at one point meant to be present in the inn's basement.

Chorrol Quest #3#

Inhabitants of Chorrol will often discuss the strange behavior of Eugal Belette. Visiting his house will reveal a basement full of humanoid skulls and Mythic Dawn paraphernalia. He, however, cannot be reported, nor will discuss the subject. Upon looking through various unused dialogue topics, one will be able to get some idea of what Bethesda had planned for Eugal Belette. It seems he was to have been in possession of a book called the "Mythic Dawn Postulates" and that you'd find it at a camp in Sancre Tor, perhaps where Eugal was staying at some point. Additionally, he was to have attacked the player and somebody was to ask you about it.

MS25#

Between Bruma and the Imperial City, there's a cave dungeon simply called "Unmarked Cave". Most of this cave is inaccessible and therefore goes unused in the final game, with only a portion of its first zone being accessible. The second zone, Unmarked Cave Mazeway, is locked behind a door which requires a unique key to open, but said key does not exist in-game or in the game's files, as it was never even properly defined. As such, there is no way to actually open the door. The third zone is called Unmarked Cave Black Queen's Hall. Within this zone there is a chest with the internal name of ChestMS25DungeonMythicEnemyRare01, with said chest's name being the only remnant we have definitively linking this dungeon to MS25.

The chest is empty, however, is empty. And other than confirming that this dungeon was related to a deleted miscellaneous quest with the internal ID of "MS25", it does not yield any other information. Based on the name of the chest, combined with the name of the cell, it can be assumed that the Black Queen would've been a "Mythic" enemy, and the leveled lists containing enemies classified as such show she could've been either an Imp, a Troll, a Will-o-the-Wisp, a Spriggan, a Minotaur, a Land Dreugh, or an Ogre. One other thing of note is that all quests with an ID in the MS20s are started from the Imperial City, so this quest presumably would've done so too. The official game guide describes this dungeon as:

"Three-level mythic enemy and beast lair* Secret doors throughout and cave-in traps on initial and “Mazeway" levels* Boss chest on entry level."

MS50#

The Kvatch quests' internal names are "MS48" and "MS49". The next quest listed in the Construction Set is "MS51". This shows that the quest "MS50" was deleted and could've potentially been another Kvatch-related quest.

Imperial Express#

Upon entering the Imperial City Market District for the first time, the game will notify you that a new topic is available for discussion with NPCs: "Do you need couriers?". There are no NPCs who will discuss this topic in the game. The topic itself is one of the few remnants of the Black Horse Courier questline that was cut from the game. Originally, the Black Horse Courier was a delivery service that employed couriers to deliver packages to people. This questline would've involved the player delivering letters to innkeeper targets in the other cities in Cyrodiil. This questline and almost all traces of it were removed however, and the Black Horse Courier itself was changed from a delivery service to a newspaper in the final game. There is also a list contained in an unused script, as well as a faction called "Eight Cities Courier Customers". The former listing the innkeeper targets, and the latter containing people requesting deliveries.

Deleted Quest Portions/Other Remnants

Blood of the Daedra#

There are traces of an earlier version of the main quest "Blood of the Daedra" (MQ08). There are two blank dialogue topics linked to a removed Ayleid ruin named Lissalda; LissaldaTopic and MQ08LissaldaTopic. Its exterior cell LissaldaExterior also still remains in the final game, placing it south of Kvatch. In retail, the player only has to acquire any Daedric artifact for Martin by completing a quest at a Daedra shrine, rather than do a dungeon crawl. Its proximity to Kvatch suggests Martin could have been familiar with the site and whatever was needed there to open a portal to Mankar Camoran's Paradise, possibly tying into Martin's backstory as a Daedric magic practitioner. An unused dialogue topic internally known as MQ08GiveBook mentions... a book, as well as an artifact called "Skeftskin". The book might refer to the book "Modern Heretics" which does still get used in the final version, but it might've been a different book. Whatever Skeftskin might've been is unknown, as it's only ever mentioned in this dialogue. It might've been another previously-unknown Daedric artifact that was once meant to be the item to be offered up, rather than just any Daedric artifact.

Legacy Lost#

This quest would've originally had the option of having Reynald Jemane die during the trek to Weatherleah. This is impossible because both brothers are essential during the quest in the final game. This variant of stage 100's journal entry goes unused as a result:

Skingrad Recommendation#

Originally, the player would've had the option to pay guild mage Sulinus Vassinus in order to basically complete the quest for them and retrieve the missing mage Erthor. All the AI packages, scripts and dialogue are in place for this event, but are deliberately commented out. These three quest stages and journal entries go unused due to this:

Radiant Quests#

Oblivion was originally meant to have radiant quests, similar to those that would eventually be seen in Skyrim. All of the parameters would be randomized and the dialogue from questgivers and related NPCs was kept deliberately vague, so as to allow it to be used within these randomized parameters. All of this dialogue was removed from the files and the radiant quest system was totally scrapped. The only remaining lines of dialogue are those of the FemaleElf voicetype. Oblivion's DLC later reused some of the lines, albeit with snippets missing sometimes. The Orrery uses three lines, Horse Armor uses one line and Fighter's Stronghold re-used another three. Nothing in the way of scripting, AI packages or anything remains of this system besides the dialogue. Based on the dialogue, there would have been n types of radiant quests that would've appeared: item fetch quests, rescue missions and treasure hunts.

Unused Quests

MS17#

MS17 is a removed miscellaneous quest that would've been started by talking to Jirolin Doran in Chorrol. MS17 is the quest's editor ID, as its actual name is left blank. Jirolin would've believed that Ogres were distantly related to his family line. He wanted to try and get close to some local Ogres and in order to do so, asked you to place an offering at Spy Rock, an old Imperial watch. The player would return in a week's time to see if Jirolin had made any progress, only to find that he went and contacted the Ogres already by himself. Jirolin and the Ogres would be found at Rock Bottom Caverns where Jirolin would be in need of rescue. The player would then need to escort Jirolin out of the caverns and back to Chorrol.

In the final game, Jirolin remains in his house all day, lacking any special AI packages and unique dialogue. Rock Bottom Caverns also makes an appearance, but does not have any Ogres inhabiting it, being filled with Goblins instead. All of Jirolin's voice files remain in the files, as well as rumor lines for the FemaleNord/FemaleOrc voicetype, which were likely going to be used for one of Chorrol's local innkeepers, Emfrid. Two player dialogue lines remain that were meant to be used at the start of the quest, either discouraging Jirolin or encouraging him to follow up with his plan. A single unique quest-related AI package is placed in Jirolin's AI list but goes unused of course, it was meant to send Jirolin back to Chorrol after being rescued from Rock Bottom Caverns. A simple script also remains which was meant to be used by Jirolin. The intended quest stages and journal entries also remain, and can be seen below:

MS17FIN#

A follow-up to the previous quest, this one goes unnamed as well. The "FIN" part of its editor ID shows that it was meant to affect something after MS17's completion. MS22 and MS38 have similar quests, they are not to be seen by the player but only serve to affect the world. In this quest's case, it was meant to change Jirolin's Chorrol topic after the completion of MS17.

Unused Questlines

These questlines were scrapped entirely and likely did not make it very far into development. Very little in-game remnants exist of them.

Nobility Questline#

At one point in development, there was to be an Elder Council questline, where players would attain ranks such as the Count of Kvatch and ultimately becoming the "Duke of Colovia". It is said by Todd Howard to have been deleted because it detracted from the main questline:

Not much is left in the final game relating to this questline. The few remnants there are include: an early Nobility faction icon for the player's Faction page in their journal, and the Nobility faction itself, which is solely used by NPCs in the final game and does little except provide them with unique rumors and disposition modifiers. It has 5 faction ranks: Knight, Baron/Baroness, Lord/Lady, Count/Countess, and Duke/Duchess. It notably contains all countess and countesses in the game, as well as a handful of members of high society. In most cases, their faction rank does not correspond to their in-game, title, hower. Only Janus Hassildor and Millona Umbranox use the 4th rank, while every other person in the faction is of the lowest (Knight) rank. Lords and Ladies like the Drads or the gro-Shargak family members aren't even in the faction. No NPC in the final game even bears the title of Baron or Duke. Interestingly, Todd refers to the Count of Kvatch as "the dead Duke". Dialogue about the count that's discussed with Savlian Matius bear the internal names of MS49DukeDeadMean and MS49DukeDeadNice, which implies that this title was in fact the case in-game to some degree at the very least.

"Talin Warhaft" Questline#

Writer Michael Kirkbride once stated that:

Nothing is known about this questline at all. Talin Warhaft was a general from the first game, Arena.

Nine Divines Questline#

While the Nine Divines faction can be joined with the Knights of the Nine DLC, you were originally meant to do so in the base game. Todd Howard stated the following in an interview:

An article written before the game's release also names the Nine Divines as a joinable faction. Like the Nobility faction, it has different ranks set up which are now only used by NPCs: Layman, Novice, Initiate, Acolyte, Adept, Disciple, Oracle, Invoker, Theurgist, and Primate.

Some more remnants of this particular faction can be found in dialogue:

• The voice budget quest references the faction not having quests to give.
• There are topics prefixed with "DivineGuidance" that imply that communicating with Akatosh once was a part of the quest to get Martin out of the chapel in Kvatch.
• Early dialogue from Bongond advices you to join the chapel as its a respectable faction.
• Some other random topics make reference to "unbelievers" and the chapel.

Most of the instances added by the Knights of the Nine DLC are also prefixed with "ND" standing for "Nine Divines". Further showing the team wanting to revisit the questline or at least the subject manner in some way.