Pyre of Ambition
Blackwood drops you into a piece of Tamriel history that sits just before the powder keg of the Oblivion Crisis, and the Pyre of Ambition quest is where that fuse shows most clearly. Set along the border between Cyrodiil and Black Marsh, the chapter follows disappearing Imperial councillors, strange vaults surfacing from the marsh and a string of cult activity that all point back to Mehrunes Dagon and a bargain struck with the Reachmen Longhouse Emperors.
The Ambitions themselves are at the heart of that deal. Rather than simple relics, they are living vessels shaped by Dagon’s power and by the Tagh Droiloch cult on behalf of emperors Durcorach, Moricar and Leovic, intended as pieces on the board for the day when the Prince of Destruction came to collect. In Blackwood’s present, those Ambitions – Sombren, Calia and Destron, with a fourth still unaccounted for – are emerging from hiding as their vaults crack open, drawing the attention of Dagon’s modern cult, the Order of the Waking Flame, and of anyone else who understands what they represent.
“Pyre of Ambition” is the point where the main plot stops circling that threat and runs straight into it. After tracking Vandacia, Leovic’s former steward and High Priest of the Waking Flame, to Fort Redmane on the Niben, you arrive with Eveli Sharp‑Arrow and allies from the Ivory Brigade and Black Fin Legion to find the fort under siege and the Ambitions in danger. What follows is a layered assault: defending the courtyard, clearing the guardhouse, fighting your way through the keep to reach Sombren, Calia and Destron, and then pushing back Vandacia’s attempt to use them as fuel for a ritual that would let Dagon manifest fully over Blackwood.
The “pyre” itself is not a single static object so much as the culmination of that ritual, a convergence of Ambition power and Daedric intent that threatens to tear Fort Redmane – and, by extension, Gideon and the surrounding marsh – open into the Deadlands. During the fight, Dagon’s presence presses in hard enough that you see and hear him directly, boasting about how easily he will crush this opposition as reality starts to warp around the battlefield. When Vandacia falls and the connection is severed, Sombren takes the remaining Ambitions back to the temple in Gideon, fully aware that Dagon will not simply give up after so much planning.
Blackwood’s wider structure reinforces the idea that this is a rehearsal for a later, larger catastrophe. Oblivion Portals that tear open across the zone serve as early experiments in gatecraft, leading into small pockets of the Deadlands rather than the full towers and siege engines of the later Oblivion Crisis. The Longhouse Emperors’ backstory – their use of Dagon to seize the Ruby Throne, their work to create and hide the Four Ambitions and their ultimate overthrow in the Colovian Rebellion – fills in why these vessels exist at all and why the Prince is so invested in reclaiming them now.
Around the main thread, companions and side characters help ground the stakes. Eveli Sharp‑Arrow, drawn into the plot by letters and promises of adventure she barely understands at first, becomes one of the Ambitions’ staunchest defenders, her optimism and inexperience both strengths and weaknesses as the truth comes out. Other figures, such as Councilor Levic or Elam Drals, hint at the fractured state of Imperial politics in the years between the Longhouse dynasty and Varen Aquilarios, underscoring how easy it has been for Dagon’s followers to move through the cracks.
By the time the credits on Blackwood’s story roll, the immediate crisis at Fort Redmane and Gideon has been averted, but the edges of the setting feel thinner. You have seen how little it can take for Daedric power to spill into the world when mortals are prepared to build the mechanisms and make the deals, and how ambiguous a victory can be when living weapons like the Ambitions are still out there, waiting to be claimed.
