The Elder Scrolls Online: Greymoor hasn’t just added a whole swathe of new land to adventure through and a revamp of the vampire skill tree – though it has done that. It’s also added an entirely new way of exploring, gathering story information, and earning gold.
Antiquities takes you on a tour of Tamriel searching out the dark secrets buried underground. It’s a brilliant way to take you back to places you may have already adventured through, exploring the world in new ways. Even if that doesn’t interest you; it’s extremely lucrative.
Where to Start
Once you’ve purchased ESO Greymoor you’ll have access to the new area of Western Skyrim. The city of Solitude is your destination, in particular the Antiquarians Circle where you’ll speak to Verita Numida. She’ll give you a short quest and the tools you need to start investigating antiquities.
How Do Antiquities Work?
Now you’ve been inducted into the Antiquarians Circle it’s time to start combing the world. Roughly speaking, finding and digging up an antiquity requires two new skills, each of which have their own sections in the skills menu.
These are:
- Scrying – Locating an area where you’ll be excavating.
- Excavating – Digging up your antiquity.
Here’s how they work:
Scrying
To start scrying you’ll need a lead on an antiquity. Most areas have one automatically unlocked but as you play you’ll find more valuable ones around the world in almost any container or on the corpse of any monster.
In your journal you’ll find your unlocked leads. Clicking on one of these opens the scrying window, a minigame where your goal is to connect the lit up points on an area covered in hexes. You do this by combining symbols to form paths between them, from your starting point at the bottom of the screen. You’ll unlock more tools to be able to help you with this as you proceed down the scrying skill path.
Once you’ve successfully connected the points on the scrying window you’ll be off to an area on your map, once there you’ll be…
Excavating
Once in the area where your antiquity is, use the Antiquarian’s Eye, a tool that will point the way to the excavation point. Find that and you’ll be in another minigame.
This is a game where you’ll use the augur to ping the location of the buried treasure on a grid. As you ping the grid it’ll give you a traffic-light colour code to how near you are, with red being farthest from the treasure and green meaning you’re on top of it.
Use your other tools such as the hand brush to dig down and uncover your reward.There you go, you’ve just got your first antiquity! It’ll be sent off for analysis giving you a bit of in-game lore, and you can even sell it for a pretty penny.
Top Tips
Still need a few tips? We’ve got your back:
- Quickslot your Antiquarian’s Eye for easy access when out and about.
- Be wary of using stronger excavation tools haphazardly, you can damage your antiquity.
- Use the advanced scrying tools to make scrying much easier and narrow down locations.
- Once you’ve found your antiquity, keep digging – you may find bonus treasure.
- Don’t save up your leads – they expire after 30 days!
- Artaeum is your friend – this small island makes levelling up your skills much quicker. It’ll probably be full of other people doing the same thing, but don’t worry, they can’t affect your hunt.
There you have it, everything you need to become a veritable Indiana Jones of Tamriel. If you need to pick up ESO Greymoor to begin your archaeological journey, don’t forget you can head over here and grab it today.
