Oblivion:Frostcrag Spire (place)

Fort: Frostcrag Spire (view on map) (lore page)
Added by	Wizard's Tower
Console Location Code(s)
FrostcragSpireExterior, FrostcragSpire01, FrostcragSpire02, FrostcragSpire03
Region
Jerall Mountains
Location
East of Bruma at the end of an unmarked road

Frostcrag Spire

Frostcrag Spire is a tower east of Bruma that serves as a home for magic-oriented characters (download-specific).

The tower is added by the Wizard's Tower official download. It can be reached by fast travel or by following an unmarked road from Bruma to Cheydinhal. It becomes your property when the download is installed or when you exit the sewers after the tutorial, whichever is later. The accompanying quest is simply to buy upgrades.

The house has three zones: Frostcrag Spire Main Level, Frostcrag Spire Living Area, and Frostcrag Spire Vault.

Upgrades

Without upgrading, you have Cyrodiil's highest altitude alchemy garden and portals to all Mages Guild halls. The tower's real benefits only become available when you can afford some of the upgrades (which will cost more than the base prices once haggling is taken into account).

More details are available on the Houses page.

The living area with the alchemy lab on the right

Alchemy Lab

• Base Cost: 1500
• Description: Alchemy table that provides a +15 Fortify Alchemy enchantment.

The Altar of Alchemy is located upstairs in the living area. The altar was created by the spire's original owner, Taris Rendil, and Sinderion, the master alchemist of Skingrad. It grants you the ability Alchemical Brilliance, which temporarily boosts your Alchemy skill by 15 points when you are near it. This is the only Fortify Alchemy effect in the entire game that actually works, i.e., it really does allow you to produce more powerful potions and poisons. (The difference between this effect and all other effects is that it is implemented as an ability rather than a spell effect; abilities modify a skill's base value, not just its current value). Even with Alchemical Brilliance, your maximum effective Alchemy skill level is 100 (i.e., although your skills page may say 115, the potions will be identical to those that you brew when your skills page says 100). It also grants you the next mastery perk if the buff happens to spill over (i.e., with an alchemy skill of 85, Alchemical Brilliance will raise your Alchemy skill to 100, and grant you the corresponding mastery perk). If it raises you up to or beyond 100, you will receive no experience for any potions you create. The Altar also contains Apprentice-level alchemy apparatus, which can be very useful for low-level characters. In addition, a small bookshelf is added in the living area with a copy of A Game at Dinner, one of the Alchemy skill books.

Bedroom Area

• Base Cost: 1000
• Description: A bed and better lighting, plus a chest, jewelry box and cupboard (all safe).

Bookcases around the walls of the entry hall

Library Area

• Base Cost: 1000
• Description: Large collection of books and their accompanying shelves, tables and stands in the main level.

Purchasing the library upgrade will provide you with a large collection of books located in the main level.

Vault Area

The vault

• Base Cost: 1000
• Description: Fills vault with containers, vault guardians, and rare wines.

The vault is a nice place to store your valuable equipment; it is accessed using a portal in the main room. Once you purchase the vault upgrade, it contains chests, barrels, and crates (all safe), as well as a collection of fine wines, including one bottle of Surilie Brothers Vintage 399, two bottles of Tamika Vintage 399, and a bottle of Shadowbanish Wine. Your treasure is guarded by seven friendly Imps known as Vault Guardians.

Magetallow Candles Box

• Base Cost: (2x2000)
• Description: Used to activate the spellmaking and enchanting altars.

Features

The Alchemy Garden

Alchemy Garden

This garden, located in an upstairs room adjacent to the living area, is present even without buying any upgrades. Many kinds of flora from Tamriel and Oblivion grow here and can be harvested for their Alchemy ingredients. Several particularly rare specimens are present:

• Seven Mana Bloom flowers, which produce the very rare ingredients Ambrosia (from the four reddish-purple plants) and Lichor (from the three bluish-purple plants).
• One Nirnroot plant. It will not grow back after it is harvested.
• Several Rice Plants that yield Rice. Although rice is readily found in food sacks, these are the only rice plants in the game.
• The Oblivion flora is all domesticated, in particular the Domesticated Spiddal Stick (yielding Spiddal Stick) will not poison you, unlike the wild variety. The Harrada Root (yielding Harrada) is also all of the non-dangerous variety. However, the domestication process was apparently unable to improve the harvesting probability.
• As with all plants, the garden's plants will respawn.
• The complete list of available ingredients is:

2 Aloe Vera Leaves 4 Ambrosia 8 Bloodgrass 4 Cairn Bolete Cap 7 Dragon's Tongue 4 Elf Cup Cap 3 Emetic Russula Cap 4 Flax Seeds 6 Ginseng 9 Harrada

3 Lichor 1 Lady's Mantle Leaves 4 Lady's Smock Leaves 2 Mandrake Root 6 Milk Thistle Seeds 1 Morning Glory Root Pulp 4 Nightshade 1 Nirnroot 2 Pumpkin 5 Rice

10 Spiddal Stick 5 Steel Blue Entoloma Cap 6 Strawberry 4 Stinkhorn Cap 6 Tiger Lily Nectar (from Lily of the Valley) 5 Tinder Polypore Cap 8 Tobacco 2 White Seed Pod (from Goldenrod) 4 Wisp Stalk Caps 7 Wormwood Leaves

The portals to the guild halls

Portals

On an outside balcony, accessed from a door in the upstairs living area, you will find teleportation portals to all the Mages Guild halls in Cyrodiil including the Arcane University. These portals will transport you to the first floor inside each Mages Guild. The trip is instantaneous in game time, allowing much faster traveling to places throughout Cyrodiil. Be aware that the guild halls do not have portals back to Frostcrag Spire, so returning will require standard travel methods. Your current horse, if you have one, is transported to the destination city's stables at the same time.

A portal to the Kvatch guild hall exists but is inoperable, since that hall was destroyed. If you try to use the Kvatch portal, a message will appear saying, The Kvatch guild hall is no more.

Altars

Your altars at Frostcrag Spire

Altar of Spellmaking

This altar is found in the main room on the first floor. To make it functional, you must first buy a box of Magetallow Candles and add them to the altar. It is then equivalent in function to any of the Altars of Spellmaking at the Arcane University.

Altar of Enchanting

This altar is found in the main room on the first floor. To make it functional, you must first buy a box of Magetallow Candles and add them to the altar. It is then equivalent in function to any of the Altars of Enchanting at the Arcane University.

Atronach Altar

This altar is found in the main room on the first floor. It allows you to summon a permanent companion atronach, who will listen to your commands. You can summon a Flame, Frost, or Storm Atronach, by sacrificing three Fire, Frost, or Void Salts, respectively.

Creature							Attacks	Soul
Flame Atronach Familiar xx001254	Lvl×22 (Lvl=1-12)	100		-50	100	15	Fire Damage 5/12/20pts on target (level 1-3; 4-7; 8+) Fire Damage 5/10/20pts on touch (level 1-3; 4-7; 8+) 3pts melee, unarmed	Common
Frost Atronach Familiar xx000D26	Lvl×22 (Lvl=1-18)	-50		100	100	15	Frost Damage 5/15/25/40pts on target (level 1-3; 4-9; 10-14; 15+) Frost Damage 5/10/20/30pts on touch (level 1-3; 4-9; 10-14; 15+) 33pts melee, unarmed	Common
Storm Atronach Familiar xx000D27	Lvl×21 (Lvl=1-22)		100		100	15	Shock Damage 5/15/25/40pts on target (level 1-3; 4-9; 10-14; 15+) Shock Damage 5/10/20/30pts on touch (level 1-3; 4-9; 10-14; 15+) 17pts melee, unarmed	Greater

The viewing platform at the very top of the spire

Hard-to-Find Items

Daedric Lava Whiskey

After purchasing the vault upgrade you will find two gravestones in the vault. They are located side by side, against the outer wall on the southwest side of the room. In that area there is a circular alcove containing a winerack and seven barrels. Exit from that alcove and continue clockwise around the vault; you will immediately come across a metal strut. Follow that strut to the outer wall and tucked into a corner between the wine alcove and the outer wall you will find the two gravestones.

• Lennasaan's Gravestone casts Lennasaan's Touch on you, which fortifies Personality by 10, Mercantile by 15, and Speechcraft by 15 all for 800 seconds.
• The second one is Rindsey's Gravestone. When you activate it you will receive a message about Rindsey: "Here lies Rindsey, acclaimed archer and celebrated aficionado of Tamrielic ales. We honor him for his bravery and for his famous Daedric Lava Whiskey discovered during his perilous expedition to Dagon's Realm." You then receive a single bottle of Daedric Lava Whiskey; reactivating the stone will not give you another.

Do not miss the jewelry box! It is located in the living area on top of the small bookcase. You have to buy everything to get the jewelry box, including the candles. However, once you do, you'll be pleased to see the ring Pentamagic Loop.

	Name			Effects
	Daedric Lava Whiskey xx008C37	1	0	Fire Damage 1pt for 10 secs on self Paralyze for 10 secs on self Restore Health 20pts for 20 secs on self Summon Dremora Lord for 60 secs on self
	Pentamagic Loop xx005E36	0.1	2640	Fortify Conjuration 5pts Fortify Destruction 5pts Fortify Illusion 5pts Fortify Mysticism 5pts Fortify Restoration 5pts

Notes

• You can summon a creature using a spell in addition to the atronach summoned by the altar. This enables you to have two summoned creatures active at the same time, which is not otherwise possible.
• Casting a fire spell at the base or surrounding area of the hand by the front door will cause a weird effect and allow temporary glimpses of the rest of the hand's body: a large Frost Atronach buried in ice.
• The download gives non-PC users a method of accessing a special test cell for infinite profit. (PC users can already access it.)
• Players with the download can utilize an exploitable glitch to permanently summon friendly Dremora Markynaz. See further details on the Exploitable Glitches page.

Bugs

• You can summon an atronach from the altar in the main hall. If you leave it waiting too long, it may become lost and then you will not be able to summon a new one or dismiss the old one, eliminating one of the benefits of this download. Most commonly it seems that this happens when you leave it waiting in the vault or in the first room. The atronach actually stays in Frostcrag Spire and is part of it; the problem is re-releasing it.
  • The Unofficial Oblivion DLC Patches fixes this bug.
  • This can also be fixed if you revert to an earlier save where you still have your lost atronach. Open the console and click on the atronach. The particular (and apparently randomly generated) reference ID for your lost atronach will appear at the top of the screen. Go back to your new save and type player.moveto <refid>. It should take you right to it.
• If you get expelled from the Mages Guild while in the Anvil guild hall with Wizard's Tower active, you will be transported to the Anvil teleportation portal at Frostcrag Spire, instead of just outside the Anvil guild hall (as the destination portal in the guild hall added by the Wizard's Tower download wasn't set up properly).
  • The Unofficial Oblivion DLC Patches, version 12, fixes this bug.
• The atronachs are marked as quest items, and so will remain in place indefinitely if killed. The only way to remove their corpses is to load an earlier save.
  • The Unofficial Oblivion DLC Patches, version 1, fixes this bug.
• The installation of the Fighter's Stronghold official download will cause problems when you try to buy the upgrades for this area. Read the Mystic Emporium bug section for more details.
  • The Unofficial Oblivion DLC Patches, version 12, fixes this bug.
• The items taken by the Atronach Altar can be subject to the Separate Stack Removal glitch.
  • The Unofficial Oblivion DLC Patches fixes this bug.
• If you leave the tower before the large wall slides open it will be permanently closed for the rest of the game, unless you reload.

Gallery

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  View from the top of Frostcrag Spire