Bloodmoon Bug (Castle Karstaag)

[CerebroDragon]

I played Bloodmoon for a solid six or seven hours last night and already feel I'm getting close to the end. I can't say I'm much impressed with it really, but there's more exploration to be found than in Tribunal it seems.

Some spoilers in this bug description!

After completing the Ristaag quest, I was sent to investigate the death of all the horkers near Castle Karstaag, which I'd already walked past before in my travels, noticing that it was impossible to enter at the time. Entering the caverns to the north from the water, I came to the surface and saw in the distance what I thought to be a Rickling. I picked it off with my Daedric longbow but saw that in fact, it was a character named "Krish". However, I didn't receive the notorious "Yellow Box" to tell me that I'd killed an important character, so I continued on oblivious.

I went on to clear out the area of its deadly grahl and found an entrance to the 'banquet hall' of the castle. Problem is, I can't enter! The game tells me I need some kind of 'permission' from its master in order to do so. Sounds dubious if its master is inside. So I left, did a full circle of the castle (and found out that I can't enter through the front door anyway after killing a horde of ricklings)
I then tried levitating into the tower (finding a nice bit of daedric armour in the process) but left after discovering only one room. In annoyance, I went back to the Skaal, then came back to the caverns to try the banquet room entrance again. This time, I can hit the space bar to my hearts content but nothing happens!

Thus the question is - how do I get into the castle from here?
Or is this bug going to force me to reload way back before the Ristaag?
I hope there is another solution, as I should be able to enter here regardless of one minor character which is logically by the game, 'killable'.

My quick searchings on gamebanshee have revealed that this Krish character is in fact 'semi-important' and provides a quest to rid the caverns of the deadly grahl as well as leading on to another character.
Its a shame he was made to look like a rickling!
After killing so many of the little sods that charge at you, I feel quite justified in shooting one on sight.

[ 04-15-2005, 08:24 AM: Message edited by: CerebroDragon ]

[Kakero]

Reload, Krish must be alive for this quest to finish.

[CerebroDragon]

I would normally say ok, fair enough, but why wasn't there a yellow box for him? Ridiculous and annoying.
Turns out Morrowind isn't quite as open ended as we'd all like to think.


Fortunately, my last autosave was from resting just before the Ristaag, so its not as far back as I expected. Still, the fate of the prophecy of the bloodmoon shouldn't hinge upon the life of one little pesky rickling. [img]tongue.gif[/img]

[ 04-15-2005, 09:25 AM: Message edited by: CerebroDragon ]

[Kakero]

There was some named creatures back in Morrowind and Tribunal that is important to their related quests. Killing them will hamper the progress of the quest. To prevent this unnecessary thing from happenning again, just don't attack any creature that don't attack you.

[TheCrimsomBlade]

S-P-O-I-L-E-R Alert

The Castle quest and the bug cure

Castle Karstaag

Travel to the Castle which is at the top of the island near the shore. It can be easily missed since it is an ice castle and looks like part of the landscape. Look for a tall pillar of ice near the shore and check your local map for the entrance locations. You can also follow the trail of dead Horker carcasses along shoreline. There are two entrances on the land (to the Tower and Throne Room) and one underneath the water (to the Caverns of Karstaag). Note that the underwater entrance was blocked previous to this quest. The Tower entrance is accessible only with a Leviatation spell and the Throne Room entrance appears to be blocked, so the underwater entrance is the most obvious way in.

Caverns of Karstaag

You enter the underwater entrance to the Caverns which, fortunately, is short enough that you don't need any form of Water Breathing. Shortly inside you'll encounter a Rickling named Krish who speaks to you. He says that the Horker massacre is not their doing and that Karstaad has disappeared. A Rickling named Dulk has been running the place since, at least until some Grahls (Ice Trolls) they 'hired' turned and ate most of them, with poor old Krish being the last one left. The path upstairs has since been blocked. Krish makes a deal with you to help him get back upstairs. He knows the way and he figures that you can take care of the Grahls for him.

Exploring the Caverns

You are now exploring the caverns along with the Rickle named Krish. There are a number of Grahls patroling the place and, fortunately, they are less powerful than the Grahl you meet on the previous quest to restore the Gift of Sun. Be warned that although Krish is relatively fast, he will not last particularily long in a fight, so guard him well (although you can probably finish the quest without him if need be). Once you've killed all the Grahls (about 6 or so) Krish will speak to you again saying it is safe to enter the castle. Continue on and enter to the Banquet Hall of the Castle.

THE BUG

Note that for some reason, Krish became stuck or frozen once the last Grahl was killed. You cannot enter the Banquet Hall unless Krish is nearby, thus I couldn't continue. I had to actually use the console and summon Krish to my location in order to continue. Open t
he console and click on Krish and then travel to the entrance of the Banquet Hall and enter the three commands:

• setpos, x, 370
• setpos, y, -178
• setpos, z, -117

I'm unsure if this is a common problem or not, though several people have reported encountering it. It may be related to the game thinking that the fight with the last Grahl is not over, even though the Grahl is dead. A quicker fix is to attempt to rest (press the 'T' button) and then cancel it, or even to rest for a bit. Krish should become unstuck once you do this without having to reposition him manually.

Exploring the Castle

The Banquet Hall area is small and has a number of Ricklings in it, which can be confusing to fight since they look exactly like poor old Krish. Continue onto the Throne Room area where you'll meet Dulk, the leader of the castle since Karstaag's disappearance. Speak to him to learn that the Werewolves took the Frost Giant several days ago and that they had nothing to do with the Horkers.

Return to Korst

[ 04-15-2005, 09:51 PM: Message edited by: TheCrimsomBlade ]