The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion - Shivering Isles
"The difference between a madman and myself is that I am not mad." - Salvador Dali
Our afternoon spent sojourning in the Shivering Isles was like stepping into the mind of a manic depressive who has renounced lithium. Nurse, prepare a syringe of Thorazine: we're going in.
You'll begin your questing on an Oz-like journey to see the Wizard, or should we say Sheogorath, the delightfully demented Daedric Prince of the Shivering Isles. But rather than following the yellow brick road to the Emerald City, you wander through the psychedelic briar-patch of Mania and Dementia to Sheogorath's palace. Like the lobotomized brain of an incurable schizophrenic, the Shivering Isles have been divided into two halves to better represent the exquisite agony of madness.
Mania is a Technicolor freakshow where, alas, there are no Munchkins (if there were they would carry severed heads on sticks instead of lollipops and dance in the slurry of sacrificial entrails). Dementia, on the other hand, is fetid with the reek of paranoia and despair. The little doggies here won't cower in your picnic basket - they're skinless hellbeasts with glowing red eyes who'd prefer to chew your face off and drink from your jugular. The one thing both sides have in common is that everything thirsts for your blood.
So who will you side with, the Duke of Mania or the Duchess of Dementia? This is just one of the many choices you'll make during your 30+ hours in the Shivering asylum. Your ultimate goal is to become Sheogorath's mortal champion and help him save the realm from the Greymarch, a cataclysm of logic that periodically destroys the Isles.
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