Oblivion's Most VILE High Elf - Umbacano's Entire Questline 

The elves in oblivion always seemed to be more crazy than in other entries in the series

"Humans BRUTALLY sacked the Ayleid capital." Damn bro, why'd they do that Umbacano? Why. Did. They. Do. That.

It's just beautiful how throughout the whole video the NPCs always blame the character for not adhering to the Holy Crusader's principles. Pure comedy gold.

Just wanna let everyone know that in Portuguese Um bacano is literally “a cool guy” “a nice dude”

I remember doing this quest for the first time and how I thought it was so cool. I have the guidebook for oblivion on Xbox 360 and it told where to find the correct ruins, I love that guidebook it covers everything in the base game and uses Witty humor as well.

So many questions.... 1) Why did Umbacano want to resurrect the Ayeid empire? 2) Is Umbacano secretly part of the Thalmor plot? 3) Why did the liches turn on him? 4) Is the crown haunted? 5) How did Umbacano get wealthy so fast? 6) Who in their right mind writes a list of questions about a side quest?

First one I ever found was in Vilverin. Exited the Imperial Sewers for the first time and saw the ruin across the water and could not resist. I swept the place clean.

Glad to see Oblivion content is still being produced. You and Dark Lore Dash scratch the itch!

"Oblivion's most VILE High Elf" Please, we all know the most vile High Elf in Cyrodiil is Voranil of Cheydinhal. He adamantly refuses to give you an invitation to one of his "super parties", on the grounds that you're not a "somebody", even if you're the Grand Champion, Guildmaster of the Fighter's Guild, Archmage of the Mage's Guild, Hero of Kvatch, etc. In all seriousness though, this Questline has always been a personal favorite of mine. I've always found the idea of treasure-hunting to be really cool (to the point where I went out of my way to download a "more immersive loot" mod in Skyrim). And in Oblivion, Ayleid ruins were always my favorite ruins to explore; I just _love_ how bizarre and somewhat twisted their design is. A lot of people seem to dislike this quest, as you're given no directions (at least, not at first). But as someone who loves exploring Ayleid ruins just for the sake of it, the fact that this quest practically requires one to explore a bunch of them was just a bonus. Although I will admit that most of Oblivion's Ayleid ruins look pretty much identical, so if you're not a fan of them, this quest can get on your nerves pretty quickly. And even in my case, I only do them in short bursts (around two or three dungeons), simply because after a while, they start to feel a bit "samey" (for lack of a better term). Side note: That's something I'm *REALLY* looking forward to in Skyblivion, as they've gone on record stating that they don't want a single area to feel generic. And as an Ayelid ruin aficionado, I'm quite looking forward to it :D I've always killed Claude and his mercenaries the instant they demanded the carving. *ALWAYS.* Largely because I always assumed you'd simply fail the quest altogether if he got away with the carving. So, I never even realized that you could simply surrender the carving and continue on. I still don't see myself ever actually doing so, but it's still an interesting tidbit. I especially love the idea of him being forced to fight alongside you, all while awkwardly trying to apologize for trying to kill you. As for Umbacano himself, the most charitable interpretation of his actions at the end of "Secrets of the Ayleids" is that he has a very romanticized view of the Ayleid Empire (Especially seeing as he described the fall of the White-Gold Tower as "brutal"). As such, for all his education and intellect, he's basically a delusional idiot who's blinded himself to the truth of how utterly abhorrent many of the Ayleid kingdoms were. And when he sits down on the throne while wearing the crown, he gets possessed by the spirit of the evil Ayleid King, and his old personality gets destroyed. This is evidenced by his name becoming "King of Nenalata". Not "King Umbacano", or even "Umbacano of Nenalata", _just_ the "King of Nenalata". Sort of like what eventually happens to the poor shmucks who wield Umbra for too long. That being said, he still voices an interest in restoring the glory of the Ayleid Empire, so even if everything had gone according to plan, you still would've had to kill him. P.S. I rarely experience serious issues with inventory management. I always go out of my way to only take things I absolutely need, in case I find some epic loot or something. I learned that lesson the hard way as a kid, after having to leave behind one too many rare items due to my god-awful inventory management. On top of that, I always play on Survival Mode when I play Skyrim, which cuts your Weight Limit _in half._ So, instead of starting out with a Weight Limit of 300 or so, you start off with _150._

This is why I prefer Oblivion to Skyrim. The quality of the quests was just on another level

I really like the theory that Umbacano was decended from The Ayleids. After the fall of the Ayleid Empire,most of the one's who didn't go the remaining city states in Cyrodiil either fled into Valenwood and assimilated into the Bosmer and their culture over several generations,some fled to High Rock and likewise interbred and assimilated into Direnni and Breton cultures and it is speculated some went back to Alinor. This would make sense and it would be interesting to have some modern Altmer be decended from said Ayleid refugees and in the case of Umbacano,he became fascinated with Aylieds and their culture and eventually developed ambitions beyond mere historical collecting and documentation and had a dream of ressurecting the Aylied Empire

Umbacano was just pissed because he failed as a landscape painter in Anvil. The significant Wood Elf and Redguard population no doubt drove him over the edge. It's no wonder he turned to the Ary--, I mean Nordic butler, to fulfill his dreams.

You would think a High Elf of his intellect would respect the Decisions of the Gods that High Elves claim to be directly descended from. They helped Humanity several times. I don't remember anyone helping high Elves besides themselves and the Daedra.

People in cyridil are mad. No wonder sheo could open the door there

Also it’s really neat to give him the right crown that way it activates it’s true power, and then get the other crown as well just to have your own collection after this quest. Not to mention the Nenalata(?) one looks really really cool

Such a good quest that doesn't hold your hand. More quests should have structured like this. If you already the book of the Hige Fane you can tell him and he'll be glad you already know and wouldn't talk to the competitor. He holds your hand but only if you didn't already know. Again this is something that should have been done much mkre often.

Did you know that you get a different type of crown depending on which one he wears when he sits at the throne? The special effects get enhanced, depending on which crown he wears. Because these crowns have different enchantments, it makes a slight difference in whether or not you give him the right crown or not.

The worst thing about this quest is that it's only triggered if you sell what looks like a quest item of some sort. Even if you find more than one of them, you'll be convinced that they're needed for something and will probably hold/store them and never think to sell one. They're just too unique.

Dude I’m so glad I found your channel. I’m in love. This game shaped who I am today and it still makes me feel like I can be a better person or be anything no matter what age. *FAREWELL*

I don't know why I always, loved these quest. I think it has to do with having the player explore old ruins and dives into the lore. Anyways great video.

One of my favourite quests. I tried so hard to keep Umbacano alive from the undead but he just always ☠️. Also, your character is on fleek 💅

For someone who never played Oblivion im really grateful you make such in-depth videos. Its a shame you only got 7.9k Subscribers because the content is such good quality. Keep up the good work :)

Loving the longform videos! Tysm! ❤

Instead of abruptly ending the quest once you gave him the crown, they should have done it so after you gave him the crown and escaped the ruins. Undead would begin spawning around the area near Nenelatha. And after a couple of ingame days have past the player would recieve another quest to return to the ruins and kill Umbancano who by this point had turned into a full Lich. The undead around Nenelatha would comtinually respawn untill he was killed. That is if you gave him the right crown.

i mean, mankar camoran was pretty vile too, supposedly he wasnt even born a highelf, he made deals with dagon to swap his race, then his blood so he could be dragonborn as well

*ThE LeSSeR RaCeS*

I am glad you covered this Questline my friend. I remember doing it and the ending is crazy

YOUR THE GOAT FOR DOING THIS QUESTLINE!!!

FYI the Lindai crown gets destroyed if you give it to him and he does the ritual with it thus becoming a paperweight, that's why it's best to get both crowns and give him the real one that way you get both.

Having an Atronach Sign character in oblivion atm really highlights the need to get easy magicka top-ups with my currently low level alchemy; Welkynd Stones. Aedra bless the Welkynd Stonoes.

Man, this really takes me back!!! Great video!

I remember first doing this quest. My character had encountered Rigmor and her mates in the Roxey Inn before and wondered who all those mysterious bruisers were. and so all through the game I kept popping in for a drink and engaging them with the Speech minigame. When I finally encountered them under the employ of Claude Meric, I yielded to them and they all 'remembered' me from the pub and refused to fight! I think Claude rode off or ran away. And Rigmor and her guys went back to the Roxey and lived to fight another day. I loved this game for that sort of depth, such great memories!

Oh wow I remember doing this quest when i first dicovered it! Pretty much raided my first Ayleid ruins after leaving the prison starting zone, found a secret path that took me to find the statue. Didn't think much of it in the past as I thought it was just another trinket you sell like in Morrowind for extra cash. imagine to my surprise when I got approach by Jollring that led me to one hell of a goose chase across Cyrodiil XD

I am an elf apologist for most fantasy realms. Warhammer, I get it. Shit's complicated, and things are murky with the elves. Lord of the Rings, their interests extended beyond the physical realm, and they wanted to save their people's culture, history, and entire way of life. DnD? You bet your ass I am on that grind trying to call out the unnecessary racism that Men lob at Wood Elves, High Elves, and non-Lolth Drow alike. Elder Scrolls? Don't say shit about Dark Elves, and we're good. Wood Elves are weird cannibal people, but also leave em alone they just like trees. Valenwood seems cool, I'd like to go there in one of the games, the description reminds me of Kashyyyk from Star Wars and that shit was dope. Snow Elves or Falmer, fucking tragic. The Nords destroyed those people, and the Dwarves fucking experimented on the survivors. Completely fucked up. High Elves? Genocide is bad. As a rule. And that applies to every High Elf that has consistently tried to commit genocide because of "bloodline superiority" and shit. So when Umbacano, another high elf aspirant to the "glory days" of the Ayleid tries to restore that regime? Thalmor? History deniers, actually manipulated the story to omit the Hero of Kvatch to claim that the Thalmor stopped Mehrunes Dagon... in order to consolidate power and used the crisis to assassinate political opposition (blaming it on demons... which the Thalmor were also summoning) and then started a religious war with the Empire with the goal of enslaving every race that isn't a High Elf. And they're also racist to Dark Elves, which I don't fuck with. Dark Elves are hands down the best race in Elder Scrolls and their lore is so much more interesting. Maaaaybe Bretons with their link to magical bloodlines and chivalric culture, and the Forsworn in Skyrim (very Arthurian kind of stuff going on there between knights, druids, magic bloodlines and shit) WHICH THE HIGH ELVES ALSO HATE. Fuck the High Elves.

Just found your channel and wanted to say awesome work man! it's so good to see quality oblivion content out there still since the game is sadly neglected.

Is it me, or oblivion has way more unique items that Skyrim?

I only found out about this questline about a year ago from a random funny moments video when Umbacano was blabbering that random Ayleid language nonsense before he tried to became Ayleid king :D. I was like wth, this is in original game and I somehow missed it? Thanks for covering it!

Had never heard of your channel before, RU-vid algorithm did me well introducing you to me.

If you spare Claude Maric, he'll join you in the final quest and can be great help in holding back the liches for you to escape

Thank you. Loving these videos. Perfect presentation. I'd watch more let's plays if other creators did it this wag.

That questline is wild. I'm glad that you covered it because I never actually focused on getting them all. What a ride

These were my favorite quests. I could see something similar to this being the main plotline of a game, with a wealthy patron guiding you across the land for various treasures, and a few double crosses along the way.

The fact you didn’t go to the ruins directly across from the sewers when you exit the into is absolutely bonkers, bro. My hands are shook.

I just love listening to content like this. Gives me intense nostalgia.

Blimey, i never expected to be hooked on this video ahha, the thousands of hours i spend on oblivion, i never actually completed this questline, very good video look forward to seeing more

It’s a shame you can’t wear The Crown of Nentala. After, the high elf’s vile transformation.

love this game..played it so many times and keep returning, now I'm playing with the oblivion xp mod and having a real blast❤

“The Aylieds did nothing wrong.” “Gut gardens.”

Funny enough I decided to give Umbacano the right crown so that when the quest was over I could keep both of the crowns. The character I did the quest with uses heavy armor though, so maybe I’ll do it again in my magic or stealth characters so that I can actually use them. Another thing of note is that after completing the questline I noticed that the carved panel was still in my inventory and marked as stolen for some reason. I haven’t see any documentation of this bug online and I’ve got idea how it happened, but I’m tempted to go back to an old save and see if I can prevent it from happening

I love these videos man. I wish I had the know-how and was as good at story telling. I guess I just need to try

Man! You said you’d do it, but I wasn’t expecting it to be THAT quick!

I love the Indiana Jones refrence from this quest (which Wilburgr also made a custom voiceline for)

Great video as always! By the way if you don’t kill Claud he will join up with you and Umbacano during the final dungeon crawl during the questline. If he survives all that, you two part ways after the finale. I’m writing this during the dialogue to go get crown from the rival collector so not sure if you talk about it yet or not 😅

Every playthrough I do I always just swim across to Vilverin and grab the statue in there. I also liked how it wasn't just a typical fetch quest. It added in other characters and different plot points like having to convince the one scholar and meeting Claude Maric. I could never save Claude Maric at the end though.

Great video. I love this game and have put quite some time into it including mods. I never completed this quest, thanks for covering it.

Seeing him with the other crown on and get blasted to bits is pretty amusing.

Great video! I never did this quest because i always held on to the statues when i came across them. Nice job!

The crowns are intesting. The Crown of Lindai has fortify alteration, fortify illusion and resist magic. The Crown of Nenalata has fortify alteration, fortify conjuration and reflect spell. Reflect is a much more interesting enchantment.

Just a tip, conjured summons are not affected by the difficulty damage nerf. They also don't take extra damage.

Wow I had no idea this was such an in depth quest and storyline. Like most I'm sure, I was just never bothered to find the Ayleid Statues in order to progress the story further.

4:57 the only way to play a game where you create your character is to make them as WILD as possible, well done

I’ve never seen a chad garden gnome as the Hero of Kvatch

Loving your oblivion content

Fond memories from the first time discovering this quest line.

“Peering back over our shoulder” …Your character looks easy to draw 🤣

The moment I saw your characters face I nearly choked to death on my breakfast omfg lol

Fun fact (or maybe my game was bugged) about the crown of Lindai, you can repair it an infinite amount of times so it’s a great exploit to increase your armorer skill. At least after looting it off of Umbacano in Nenalata. (That’s the ending I chose) I’m unsure if it’s able to be repaired if he didn’t die due to the quest, since upon picking it up, it had the ‘broke’ icon next to it, but for anyone wanting to try, it’s worth it! I’ll have to go take the crown from herminia and see if it’s possible on that one as well. 🤔

In all my Oblivion playthroughs, I’m not sure I ever gave Umbacano the right crown! 😂😂😂

Drakes the type of guy that becomes the opposite of Chuck Norris jokes.

I always thought Umbarcano was a cool High Elf who payed well and was fascinated of the Aeylid Ancestors. But then, I got to see the dark side of him.

29:05 "and one to grow on!" 🤣

I am super curious that there was no reference in this video to Umbacano’s actions in the novels.

Would have been cool to see Umbacano survive, become a new Alyid king, awaken the ruin and restore it, and begin a campaign against the Empire. That the player then takes part in on either side

Finding the statues is very similar to no stone unturned in skyrim

I did interpret ending of the quest as Umbacano willingly turning evil and summoning the undead. I think he imagined his ritual would resurrect the ayleids and then the crown or the spirit of the king possessed him. He's a recless fool rather than an evil maniac

"It's a pity these people don't know you like I know you, Belloch." "Perhaps you might warn them, eh? If only you spoke Xovitos. Heheh. And so you see, Doctor Jones, there is nothing you can possess which I cannot take away." (Also, it's a-LESS-IA, not a-LEE-sia. Why can no one ever pronounce this correctly? It's written right there!)

One of the best quests in the Elder Scrolls.

Oh the sweet nostalgia!!!

I swear i keep hearing "alien statue" instead of "aylied"...

I always do this questline in endgame. Even though I always do it like every playthrough, some of those statues are really tricky to find yo! Getting about 13000 Gold is certainly always worth it though. Basically the most gold you can make from any quest etc.

Did Umbacano actually not know what that "High Fane" is? Since his hobby is linked to Ayleid stuff and there is a Book called "the cleansing of the fane". Did he just not do his research or was he lying to the Player on purpose when he said he doesn't know?

28:36 this gave me flashbacks lol I did this quest with a redguard 2 hand build, I got through this part but I burnt through 3 glass claymores and an ungodly amount of mutton (I ran out of healing potions doing something on the way there and was too lazy to fast travel into town)

Is the crown worn by the last ayleid king stuck in coldharbour ? I loved that dude. RIP 😢

I love this questline, the Gold for one, the leveled items are pretty nuts for two and for 3 I just enjoy this quest ❤ hearing the lore and exploring my options calling it a "mere" 1000 gold to acquire the crown is insulting btw, this questline is one of the most handsomely paying in the game since saving the World(main quest) Pays nearly nothing, and no Thieves guild questline or fighters guild quest pays half as much as 11k while taking longer to complete as well to simplyfy, its easy money, and belittling it is the same as saying every quest reward in oblivion has terrible rewards 😂

Lucky for us this character happens to be proficient in destruction magic and zombies (undead) have a weakness to fire. Not to mention the magic he uses to cast said spells happens to be infinite.

Interesting,i'm done this quest (but i choose to give Umbacano the Crown of Lindai instead)

Will umbacano have different dialogue if you read on beforehand cleansing of the fane? Or is it not obtainable before after the dialouge?

Missread and though this was 5 minutes long 😂 clicked on it during smoke break. i'm not complaining tho

Rigmor Is the ancestor of Rigmor of Bruma from the Mod Trilogy

4:58 a look only a mother could love XD

I think the crown and spell made the spirits think he was lalorion dynar the king if nenelata and champion of meridia but when they saw umbacano they realised it wasn't him so they turned on him. And how did your one get her hands on his crown you'd think he would've been buried with it. it also makes me think os umbacano an alyeid probably not but it would he cool anyway great video

Never got around to this quest so its so cool to see how this plays out. Great video man!

4:58 Oh my, what a handsome young lad

9:56 ouch, Jollring. Ouch.

Unpopular opinion but I wish the Crown of Nenelata had better and more unique abilities than the + to alteration, Conjuration, reflect spell. Because lore wise it’s a very cool helm that grants anyone the power of the king of Nenelata and it has a royal glyph infused into it. Like why not give the helm/crown mind control abilities, or the ability to see event stats, or predict enemy attacks, or VATS like powers or something. Like the freaking Nocturnals Cowl has cooler abilities (basically TES version of Dr. Jekyl Mr Hyde in that you become the gray fox) why the hell couldn’t they do the same with the crown?

Damn I missed the upload, but hey NICE another video

Was he truly mad or was he up to no good?

I think the obvious question is: what the Hell was Laloriaran Dynar, ostensibly a Meridia worshiper (and thus not a fan of the undead) and honestly a better *person* than most Meridia worshipers (which isn't exactly hard, because Meridia), doing with a crown specifically designed to raise an undead army? Like we aren't even talking the "wink wink nudge nudge TECHNICALLY I just made you a daedra" cheat Meridia used on Umaril, but outright undead.

Have you heard of the high elves?

"we must enter inside of an ayleid ruin" did an AI write this script good god