It shouldn't be a controversial statement to say that Oblivion has an odd economy. Merchants across all Cyrodiil almost never have anything notable in their inventories, with very few unique pieces of equipment worth buying, whereas the leveled gear they sell takes way too long to catch up after random drops from enemies and dungeon chests. However, the game still has a number of money sinks, such as purchasable houses, weapon enchanting/recharging services, spell making, and naturally, skill training.

While late-game characters are destined to become rich no matter what through selling absurdly expensive enchanted gear they find during their adventures, in this guide I'd like to focus on options to make some early capital for freshly escaped prisoners - with no exploits involved!

Oddly enough, your money-making capabilities in Oblivion don't differ all that much regardless of which vocation you choose to pursue. Those who might decide to join the Mages Guild may not get paid unlike members of all other factions, but gold rewards for quest completion are usually not that high to begin with. Sneaking around as a thief and unlocking various secrets across all 8 (9 with Shivering Isles) cities can be fun on its own, but there's almost never anything exciting to steal like in Morrowind or pickpocket like in Skyrim. So what kind of character should you make?


Even he can become a high-net-worth individual!

Well, it doesn't matter a whole lot. Warriors, thieves, mages and anything in between of every race are all in the same boat. Mostly. Let's take a look at which aspects of character creation might help us with acquiring some funds, if ever-so-slightly:

1. Mercantile - sell for more and buy for less, that much is obvious (just don't forget to use the haggle option!). The less obvious are the unique perks, such as being able to sell any item to every merchant on Journeyman level (as well as buying more unique items from some of them), investing into shops on Expert level and having even more available gold in shops on Master level. Sadly, Merchantile is one of the more painful skills to level up and doing so via trainers seems a little counter-productive.

1.5. Personality/Speech - having high Personality affects the disposition NPCs will have towards the player character, while Speech can be used to raise disposition via the mini-game (it's very simple).

2. Strength/Alteration - even if you don't plan to ever get close and personal with your enemies, Strength still affects your total carry weight, which translates into how much stuff you can fit in your pockets - both for sell and your own personal use. Another way to increase your carry weight is through using Feather spells. The ones sold by various mages across Cyrodiil specifically can last from 4 to 6 minutes, meaning that you can carry a lot more items with only having to cast the spell every now and then. Conveniently, it may also boost your running speed through offsetting your equipment weight.

3. Alchemy - it's no Skyrim, but turning everything even remotely edible into Restore Fatigue ™ potions will net you a considerable sum throughout your playthrough. Contrary to Mercantile, it's actually somewhat easy to level up thanks to the abundance of ingredients, but you'll also need to find leveled alchemy equipment to maximize the effects of your potions, which is unfortunately quite rare.

4. Armorer - spend less gold on repairing your equipment by taking matters into your own hands. Journeyman level will allow you to repair enchanted gear, which you'll undoubtedly be wearing. Apparently repairing items to 125% condition with the Expert perk also allows them to be sold for more gold.

5. Mysticism - in 200 years no one will remember this school of magic, but here it can be important for soul trapping and recharging your enchanted weapons. Grab Azura's Star, get the skill high enough to comfortably cast a Soul Trap spell for a few seconds, and you're set.

6-7. Restoration (also Illusion) - beyond valid, actually utterly broken in this game. Spell making altars allow you to create custom... spells that can help you to raise certain skills (or NPC's disposition via Charm) to the maximum. To make these types of spells affordable you usually need to limit their duration to only 1 second, but because the game freezes time in all menus, it's enough to make most of what's been written above irrelevant. Highly inadvisable if you do not wish to break the game.

8. Security? - theoretically, a skill useful for just about any character due to a sheer amount of locked chests and doors in the world. Practically, even the very hard locks can be bypassed through the lockpicking mini-game easily at the minimal level of Security and then you can forget about it at all after reaching level 10, completing Nocturnal's daedric quest and obtaining the infamous unbreakable Skeleton Key. Those proficient at Alteration magic can also cast Unlock spells, or you can visit the Tower rune stone southweast of the Imperial City to grab a greater power allowing you to unlock Hard locks once a day.

Depending on which race and class you choose to play as, some of these skills can be raised to the Journeyman (50) level in the very first hours of your playthrough. Technically, Imperials start with a bonus to Personality and a greater power that allows you to Charm a target for 30 points, which should give a small boost to their haggling capabilities early on, but this won't really matter unless you decide to buy one of those unique merchant items straight out of the jail cell (which we'll talk about later!).

After completing tutorial segment the game will non-verbally suggest us to delve into our very first actual dungeon, Vilverin, by the nature of it being the first thing we see after escaping the sewers. Let's take it upon its offer.

One of the most iconic sights in whole Tamriel - straight out of sewers.

Vilverin is one of many Ayleidic ruins spread across Cyrodiil (probably the most well designed at that), for a new player it can provide a decent test for their build and a display of what to expect from future dungeons. For us, it's also going to be a kickstart of our moneymaking career, containing 3 valuable items unique to this dungeon type - Welkynd Stones, Varla Stones and Ayleid Statues.

You can't miss them, they're big and they glow!


1. Welkynd Stones - these magic blue stones are common to all Ayleid ruins on the map, they're worth 50 gold each and can be consumed to restore all (!) of your Magicka instantenously. It's not unusual to exit the ruins with at least a dozen of these in your inventory, sometimes more, though they're often located on high pedestals outside of player's reach. Use any kind of projectile to shoot them out of their pedestals, jump with high enough acrobatics or cast a telekinesis spell if you want to justify training Mysticism beyond just using soul traps and detect life in order to get them.

2. Varla Stones - much rarer and oftentimes hidden white stones worth up to 1000 gold when sold to merchants, alternatively can be used as an incredibely powerful variation of a soul gem, completely restoring the charges of your enchanted weapon. Usually they're either located in the deepest parts of the dungeons or protected by metal casings that can only be lifted by pressing a button somewhere nearby. Some enchanted weapons can be extremely costly to recharge even through Grand souls, having 9000 charge points (whereas Grand souls only restore about 1600), so an argument could be made that Varla Stones are better suited to be collected and stored for that purpose exclusively. Early in the game, however, you're very unlikely to come across such weaponry and it would be unwise to spend them on low-level enchanted equpment, while selling them to the right merchant should grant you at least 500 gold.

3. Ayleid Statues - there are only 10 of these elusive artifacts, which means they're limited to a very specific selection of Ayleid ruins. Surprisingly enough, these statues aren't worth much - only up to 250 gold - but rumor has it that some collectors will pay dearly for them... To be more specific, selling the statues to such collector will guarantee us 500 septims per one, plus 5000 gold bonus for completing the entire set. That's 10.000 gold reward for running through 10 dungeons that are otherwise no different from any other in the game, not to mention all the Welkynd and Varla stones as well as other equipment we're going to loot. Let's talk about it in more detail, as this is by far our most lucrative opportunity to make money at this stage of the game.

After clearing Vilverin and obtaining our first Ayleid Statue we can either explore a few more locations in the vicinity of Lake Rumare (more about that below) or go straight to our collector in New Veg... I mean Imperial City. This Mr. Moneybags is none other than Umbacano, a high-elf living in one of the central buildings in Talos Plaza, who seems to be a bit too invested in Ayleid culture. Entering his mansion we'll be immediately greeted by Umbacano's butler, Jollring, who's going to take us to the second floor where Umbacano spends most of his days. Talking to the man (mer?) and agreeing to become a treasure hunter for him will start the quest "The Collector".



At first we have no real direction where to look for the statues other than simply trying our luck in 50+ ruins all across the map, though delivering the second statue will make Umbacano uncover names of about half the needed locations and mark them on our map. I'm going to go a step further and reveal all of them to you right away:

1. Vilverin (plus 20 welkynd stones & 1 varla stone)
2. Culotte
3. Mackamentain (plus 5 welkynd stones & 4 varla stones)
4. Wendelbek (plus 58 welkynd stones & 3 varla stones)
5. Welke (plus 7 welkynd stones & 1 varla stone)
6. Wenyandavik (plus 24 welkynd stones & 2 varla stones)
7. Wendir (plus 25 welkynd stones)
8. Moranda (plus 16 welkynd stones & 2 varla stones)
9. Ninendava
10. Fanacas



Despite the listed order, feel free to go through these ruins in any sequence you like. Provided you don't have any mods that alter Oblivion's autoleveling system too much, all of these dungeons should be a breeze for a new character. Delivering the third statue to Umbacano will start a new quest (without any effect on "The Collector"), and finishing that will lead to the third and final one. Be careful, as progressing too much into the third quest will make Umbacano lose interest in the statues, so make sure to complete the full set before that.

Otherwise, delivering the 10th statue will result in Umbacano granting us 5500 gold and completing the quest.

The next option on our list is going to include some vampre hunting! Completing the quest "Order of the Virtuous Blood" will allow us to sell all vampire dust we "find" for 250 gold, and unlike our previous venture, this one will remain accessible to us indefinitely.

To begin this quest we first must obtain 5 points of Fame, which is typically granted for completing most quests outside the Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood in a "good" manner, plus for closing Oblivion gates too. The easiest way to obtain enough fame as a new character, however, is to simply do some fights on the Arena, as every match will grant us one point of fame. After meeting the requirements, head to the Temple District of Imperial City and wait around for some time. Soon enough a Dunmer woman should approach you and the quest will begin.



This is a pretty short and straightforward quest, so I see no point in going through it step by step. Technically we're given an opportunity to get a bad ending here, but I don't see how anyone would see it other than failing on purpose.

Skipping ahead, finish the quest by talking to Roland Jenseric in the basement of Seridur's house. We're given a pretty decent enchanted ring for dealing with the vampire threat, but the real reward hides behind talking with Roland about vampires again. Only then he will reveal us the 250 gold bounty for any vampire dust we bring him, an offer that will remain available throughout the entire game.

In actuality, Order of Virtuous Blood doesn't seem to be anything more than a book club, but sponsoring our hunt for vampires all across Cyrodiil has to count for something.

It's open season on those suckers! Once again, unless you're playing with overhauls like OOO/MOO, a typical vampire pack in Cyrodiil is but a glorified crew of bandits with some occassional invisibility or silence spell in their arsenal. Here's a list of most, if not all vampire dungeons in the game if you ever happen to be short on septims:

1. Memorial Cave
2. Bloodcrust Cavern
3. Barren Cave
4. Redwater Slough
5. Imperial City Sewers - Beneath the Bloodworks
6. Imperial City Sewers - Palace Sewers
7. Imperial City Talos Plaza District - Jakben Imbel's House - Catacombs
8. Sundercliff Watch (Mehrunes' Razor DLC)
9. Crowhaven
10. Fort Carmala
11. Fort Hastrel
12. Fort Naso
13. Fort Redman
14. Fort Redwater
15. Fort Vlastarus
16. Fanacas
17. Lipsand Tarn
18. Ninendava
19. Nornalhorst
20. Gutted Mine (locked behind Azura's quest)

Remember to watch out for Porphyric Hemophilia if you don't want to become a sucker yourself.

A quest involving going around the ruins of old Imperial forts and collecting 6 bottles of limited edition Shadowbane Wine for another high elf, featuring a total reward of 1000 gold plus 100 gold for any subsequent bottles we bring in afterwards. I wasn't sure if this quest was worth bringing up beyond "honorable mentions" type of segment, but just the other day I learnt that the bottles of Shadowbane Wine are in fact not random spawns and that instead they're pre-set to 8 specific forts, which draws even more connection to "The Collector" quest.

To start this quest we either need to talk to the owner of the Wawnet Inn, Nerussa (right across the bridge from the Imperial City) or stumble upon one of the batches of this rare wine ourselves.

"Seeking Your Roots" isn't in this guide, so thankfully this is the last fetch quest with an altmer questgiver we're going to cover.

Keep in mind that chests containing the wine will always have two bottles, which means we only need to visit three forts for quest completion. Speaking of which, here's the list of those forts:

1. Fort Magia
2. Fort Carmala
3. Fort Dirich
4. Fort Vlastarus
5. Fort Scinia
6. Fort Aurus
7. Fort Irony
8. Fort Grief (locked behind "Caught in the Hunt" quest - talk to Ursanne Loche in Bravil, who usually can be found either in her home or in the church)



Technically speaking, if you own Deluxe Edition of Oblivion with all the DLCs, you can find another two bottles in Frostcrag Spire and Battlehorn Castle. Also, apparently without Unofficial Oblivion Patch all chests containing Shadowbane Wine will respawn the bottles in a few days... but you're probably better off just playing with the patch installed.

Let's somewhat briefly review three more quick ways of enrichening your starting capital in the beginning of the playthrough:

1. Not-so Ultimate Heist

Head to the Arena District of the Imperial City. At the entrance to the coliseum there's a lockbox with 500 gold in it protected by a very hard lock and a bosmer who conveniently leaves at night. Sadly, the gold won't respawn, but it's still a very nice bonus for something that shouldn't take you more than half a minute if you know what you're doing.

To the side of the arena you should see an argonian and a redguard sparring together. A bit further away from them there's another very hard locked chest with some more gold in it and unique leather bracers, the Bands of Kwang Lao, that increase your Hand-to-hand skill by 20 points and can be fenced for a decent sum.

Watching the two spar will also permamently increase your hand-to-hand by 5 points, which is a bonus you might want to save until later if you choose to make it your main combat skill.

To fence these bracers and other potential stolen goods we're going to need, well, a fence. Technically there are some other options, but you're probably better off joining the Thieves Guild and relying on their services instead. There are several fences you unlock by progressing through the ranks, but the very first one, Ognar, should remain your best bet, as his Mercantile skill is the lowest among the Guild's fences, meaning you'll be able to get higher prices for your merchandise. He only has 600 gold available, which is lower than other fences, but as it's been mentioned before, Oblivion's NPCs have nothing valuable to steal, with Bands of Kwang Lao being a somewhat unique outlier.

Even if you don't intend to become a theif, keep in mind that you should still look out for merchants' mercantile skill level (as well as their disposition towards you). The lower their skill, the easier it's going to be to barter with them.

2. Go Fish

Across the Wawnet Inn (that we discussed earlier) lives an old fisherman, Aelwin Merowald. Talk to him and don't laugh at this tragic circumstance (this is actually important). Do the quest involving swimming around Lake Rumare and fishing... by bashing the cr@p out of fish with your own two hands.

No idea what they're feeding the fish in this lake, but they pack a PUNCH. Pro-tip: find yourself a bow and combine it with waterwalking and detect life spells and go spearfishing.

If you manage to come back to Aelwin alive with all the scales he needs, he'll reward us with a unique ring, the Jewel of Rumare, that comes with a negligible 4 point bonus to Athletics and Water Breathing - and costs over 2500 gold. The Athletics bonus might as well not be there at all, while the amount of times you need to dive underwater for longer than 10 seconds is so pitifully low in this game that it makes Water Breathing a very underwhelming effect, not to mention that it can be achieved through some other, fairly accessable means. Pawn off the ring and enjoy the 1000+ gold you're likely to get for it.

3. Unfriendly Competition

Talk to some merchants in the Market District of the Imperial City or head to Jensine at Jensine's "Good as New" Merchandise straight away to begin this quest involving some espionage, tailing, more tailing, housebreaking and more.

Here's another pro-tip: during the first stages of this quest where you need to shadow Thoronir late in the evening after he closes up his shop - don't. Go to the small garden space behind his shop and wait until approximately 1 AM. This will completely skip the tailing segment and land us in the middle of the conversation we need to hear. You can do the same for Agamir, who'll simply go to his house in Talos Plaza District regardless whether we follow him or not and then stay there until the latter half of the next day.

Skipping ahead further into the quest, we're going to end up in a masoleum and two fresh bodies before us. Loot Debaser from Agamir, a cool looking unique steel sword with some pointless enchantments, but more importantly, take a closer look to the left (from the entrance) at the grave of Calliben Trentius. Behind it is Calliben's Grim Retort, a unique elven mace with a pretty powerful enchantment and a hefty price tag. It's up to you want you what to do with it.

Unlike Agamir, nobody is going to condemn us for grave robbing.

Finally, speaking to Thoronir after getting back from masoleum will have him reward us with the third unique item in this quest - Weatherward Circlet, which is another enchanted ring with some protection against cold and fire magic. Not the worst reward, but if you don't find yourself struggling with the elements, you might as well pawn it off too. Talk to Jensine next to complete the quest and get your leveled gold reward (which will feel extremely modest regardless of your level).

Much earlier in this guide I mentioned how there are a few unique items that can only be bought from merchants that are worth buying despite them costing thousands of gold. It should be noted that some of these items may get outclassed by other equipment eventually, but remember that all of them are available for buying immediately at level one, with only a couple requiring being a Journeyman in Mercantile to show up in the trading menu.

1. Hands of the Atronach.

The absolute best in their class. Women and men want them, daedra fear them. These ebony gauntlets provide a 20% resistance against shock, fire and cold. Available for sale at Mystic Emporium in Imperial City for mere... 7000 gold. Doing all of the activities listed above should lend you a lot more than that, but putting some work into bartering is still recommended to cut down the price.

2. Tower of the Nine

A very desirable shield for any heavy armor user that can remain relevant for most, if not all of the game. It has an armor rating equvalent to a dwarven shield, but has a Shield enchantment that boosts its rating by another 5 points, with an added bonus of 5 points to Heavy Armor and Block, all at the cost of 10 point Light Armor penalty. At the base price of 4800 gold it's available for sale at Stonewall Shields in the Market District of Imperial City.

3. Birthright of Astalon

This elven cuirass is another very solid pick, but this time for light armor users. Boosts your Magicka by 50 points and Agility by 5 points. Sold by Claudette Perrick at The Gilded Carafe (same old Market District) for 8600 gold, and as she's an expert in Mercantile, you're going to have a hard time getting that price down. Unfortunately, it also requires you to be a Journeyman in Mercantile yourself, as Claudette doesn't trade in armor normally.

4. Apotheosis

Put the fear of Nine Divines into your enemies with this magic staff, dealing 33 frost, fire and shock damage all in single shot. Completely devastates high elves due to their 100% weakness to elements. Has 12 charges and 3000 charge points in total, making it pretty tricky to recharge early in the game. Loses a lot of its luster later into the playthrough due to the limited amount of charges and not having even a slight AoE effect, but it's still an absolute monster of a weapon early on. Can be bought for 3500 gold at Rindir's Staffs in the Imperial City Market District.

5. Quicksilver Boots

Glass boots that boost your Agility and Speed by considerable 10 points, but drain both Heavy and Light armor by 5 points, which realistically will only result in you losing a couple percents of your total defense at most. Available for sale for 4400 gold at Divine Elegance in... you guessed it, Market District of Imperial City. Alas, being Journeyman in Mercantile is also required for these shiny boots to appear in the catalogue.

6. Spectre Ring (only with Unnofficial Patch installed)

Ring that makes you lose 10 Strength and 5 Endurance in exchange for a powerful Chameleon effect of 25 points, slight boost to Security and Sneak (5 points), and 100 Feather effect (for a total 50 carry weight bonus due to the strength penalty). Sold by Hamlof Red-Tooth at Red Diamond Jewelry in the Imperial City Market for 8125 gold. Can be a decent choice for a pure thief/assassin type of character, but it definitely won't be everyone's pick.


7. Akaviri Warblade

One of very few dai-katanas in the game, unfortunately its damage only comparable to a steel claymore. To compensate, it comes with a pretty decent enchantment of dealing 15 health and 30 magicka/fatigue damage (33 uses and 3000 charge points total). It would've been a good weapon if recharging weapons wasn't so cumbersome early in the game. Still, if you want to decimate someone really quick it can be yours for 3236 gold at Jensine's "Good as New" Merchandise you-know-where.

8. Bow of Infernal Frost

Dwemer bow dealing bonus 10 points of Fire and another 10 points of Cold damage with its every shot. The catch is that it only has 7 charges, although its total charge capacity is truly dwarfish 200 points, meaning that it can be recharged almost instantly by soul trapping even mudcrabs. Another point against it is its price - 7000 gold, and limited availability due to it being sold by M'raaj-Dar in the Dark Brotherhood Sanctuary (if you know, you know). If I were you, I'd get Frostwyrm Bow from Uderfrykte Matron instead, a slightly less powerful bow available for free and with less strings attached, but it still might be a tempting option for some.

There are a lot more unique items available for sale from various merchants, but in my opinion, their enchantments seem either too insignficant or divisive for them to be included here, especially when contrasted against their asking price. At last, it's time to wrap things up... But hey, did you hear someone calling out to us?

"You need something... special? Check out my wares. You won't find this stuff at your local general store, that's for damn sure."

Final piece of advice for this guide: Provided you own the Deluxe Edition of Oblivion, there's one merchant in particular that stands above everyone else and his name is Rowley Eardwulf. He lives in Wawnet Inn, the same one from before, and has 2000 gold available, despite being only Apprentice in Mercantile. He'll not only buy weapons and armor from us at a very good price, but also sell random leveled enchanted gear himself and refresh his stock once in a few days. This shady guy is definitely worth visiting every now and then.

At long last, the end of the guide! This project has been on my mind for at least a year now and took a good few days to complete too. Hopefully, the information presented here will be of some use to whoever decides to revisit or pick up Oblivion for the first time in 2024 and beyond.

Two online resources in particular helped me write it:

• UESP, the Unofficial Elder Scrolls Pages wiki - providing and confirming information about loot, locations, quests, NPCs and their behaviour and just about everything else Oblivion.
  
  
• Tamrielma.ps - providing an interactive map of Oblivion which I used as a base for creating maps for locating Ayleid Statues, Shadowbane Wine and vampire lairs.

A word of thanks goes to the people who contributed, worked, still work and maintain those sites, and of course, thank you for reading this far! If I happened to miss some other moneymaking opportunities that you think could be featured in the guide, feel free to share them in the comments below.