Stemin Posted August 5, 2012 Share Posted August 5, 2012 (edited) Am I the only one spending like hours IRL just walking around this place? The scenery is so awesome. I kept hearing about how awesome Blackreach is, but it never lived up to the hype for me when I first got there, but this place.. man, it's so... like... gothic wild west or something. I just keep looking around wanting to cover every inch before I go on with the quest. I'm actually in danger of being overencumbered here real soon. It's also kinda cool trying to figure out the rules for the place, like those giant soul gems that suck your health or the gates that are triggered with magic. Did anyone else find the lightning rod that turns soul gems into black soul gems? Unfortunately it only appears to work once, but I've found two of them so far. There was a misc quest that popped up to find some guy's horse too. I found a unique spellbook that summons bonemen, and a book that describes mistmen (I haven't seen yet) and wrathmen, which I have encountered a few times. EDIT: Found the guy's horse. He taught me a spell so I could summon the thing and ride around the soul cairn. Also found the mistmen. They were guarding the horse's skull. And apparently a soul husk farmer. At least the soul/guy had two cows with him and appeared to be digging. Some NPC warned me about a soul destroying dragon, but it wasn't Alduin. I have found dragon skeletons but no dragon yet. I kinda wonder if we're going to be allowed to go back to this place after the mission. I don't know if this one is available if you choose the vampire lord, but I highly recommend you do the dawnguard if it isn't. Edited August 5, 2012 by Stemin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stemin Posted August 5, 2012 Author Share Posted August 5, 2012 So there's this floating island.... and it has like this glowing pool under it like the ones that are all over the place and lightning flashes all around you... and if you step in the pool, your character looks like he explodes into some kind of black liquid, but it actually teleports you onto the island where there's this giant called "the keeper" and he's wearing dragonbone armor and armed with a dragonbone bow and arrows. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pentigan Posted August 5, 2012 Share Posted August 5, 2012 The tombstones with the green glow in the hole are activated by any ranged attack, not just magic. I've found three of the lightning rods so far, they actually appear a little out of place with the aesthetic. There's an NPC from Morrowind wandering around near the Soul Husk farmer. There's three spellbooks in the Soul Cairn, one for each monster type. The soul-destroying dragon the NPCs talk about appears for a battle once you deal with a problem involving Serana's mother. Said problem also involves the Keeper you found. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stemin Posted August 5, 2012 Author Share Posted August 5, 2012 Wow. All that time spent in there and I still missed a lot. I didn't find the third lightning rod and I didn't find Juib although I found about 3-4 pages of his manuscript which I later found out was a quest item when I tried to put it in a drawer. I didn't find the other 2 spell books. The good news is you can re-enter the Soul Cairn. At least right now while the quest is open. Once its complete, I have no idea what happens. (yet) I would hope Bethesda has the foresight to Let you go back in and talk to Serana's mother (or maybe even free her) once the father is vanquished Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pentigan Posted August 5, 2012 Share Posted August 5, 2012 Indeed you can, the Soul Cairn remains open. There's even a convenient map marker for the balcony one room away from the portal room so you don't have to trek through the entire tower ruins to get there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blu02 Posted August 6, 2012 Share Posted August 6, 2012 This place was quite awesome indeed. Took as much time as possible to explore the place before hitting the actual quest. I'm using basic needs though, so I only had limited amounts of food and water with me, and the place kinda lacked beds for sleep :P Oh well, I found most of the things you mentioned here, as well as the trader with his wagon who would trade 25 soul-plant-things for an item of your choice. A bit disappointed in the amount of unique items there, but at least you got to keep the horse skull as a memory for your home :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stemin Posted August 6, 2012 Author Share Posted August 6, 2012 This place was quite awesome indeed. Took as much time as possible to explore the place before hitting the actual quest. I'm using basic needs though, so I only had limited amounts of food and water with me, and the place kinda lacked beds for sleep :P Oh well, I found most of the things you mentioned here, as well as the trader with his wagon who would trade 25 soul-plant-things for an item of your choice. A bit disappointed in the amount of unique items there, but at least you got to keep the horse skull as a memory for your home :D Yeah, I found the wagon guy, but I saved and then bought a sword from him and all it was was an enchanted iron sword, so I didn't bother with him again. I realized when I got back to breezehome that I had well over 100 Soul Husks and a second trip revealed at least some of them respawn, so I could probably buy everything he had to offer in one shot. The wikia page seems to indicate these items are random, but whether or not they're level capped, I don't know. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
channel0 Posted October 28, 2012 Share Posted October 28, 2012 it seems that the soul cairn is dawnguard's dark gem like blackreach was in the vanilla skyrim. a thoroughly enjoyable place to wander around :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stemin Posted October 28, 2012 Author Share Posted October 28, 2012 it seems that the soul cairn is dawnguard's dark gem like blackreach was in the vanilla skyrim. a thoroughly enjoyable place to wander around :D I thought Blackreach was highly overrated. I had heard so much about it from fellow gamers and it didn't really live up to the hype visually, and lore wise, there's so much down there that doesn't have any explanation or background. The creatures are so random too. There's a colony of frost spiders, a frost troll, a Giant, a Wisp Mother, a dragon, all without explanation. There's no explanation for the human slaves, why they serve the Falmer.. And that's ignoring all the dwemer areas. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Riper187 Posted October 28, 2012 Share Posted October 28, 2012 This place was quite awesome indeed. Took as much time as possible to explore the place before hitting the actual quest. I'm using basic needs though, so I only had limited amounts of food and water with me, and the place kinda lacked beds for sleep :P Oh well, I found most of the things you mentioned here, as well as the trader with his wagon who would trade 25 soul-plant-things for an item of your choice. A bit disappointed in the amount of unique items there, but at least you got to keep the horse skull as a memory for your home :D I bought every Item on his list, but was not too impressed with what I got, But FYI, you can keep trading with him 25 soul husks at a time and go through the list again. I bought three swards, just seems to be some random dice roll on what you get. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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