Oblivion talk:A Stranger

Redirect?

As far as I know, Stranger is just the Gray Fox. So wouldn't it make more sense for this page to redirect to Oblivion:Gray Fox and have all of the information be provided there? --Nephele 12:03, 21 January 2007 (EST)

You do encounter The Stranger way before the Grey Fox though, indeed i found him efore even starting the Thieves Quest line. From the point of view of searching all the Grey Fox stuff should probably go here instead ;o) Jadrax 12:05, 21 January 2007 (EST)

I'm not sure if a redirect would be the best option. I know the UESP isn't supposed to care about revealing spoilers, but I think that making this page redirect directly to the Gray Fox page would be giving them a spoiler that they might not want have been searching for. Still, I think the Gray Fox should make reference to him being the stranger (it doesn't do this currently). --Ratwar 13:13, 21 January 2007 (EST)

Wait, Our Countly friend is leading a double-triple life?!? -m'aiq the liar 16:54, 26 January 2007 (EST)

OK, sounds like we should keep the page. I've moved it to "A Stranger" (but keeping "Stranger" as a permanent redirect) because that is the character's actual name. And I've done some formatting and added some links to the page. I agree that probably some information should be added to the Gray Fox page, but there's probably a fair bit that needs to be added to that page, and I need to finish the Thieves Guild quests myself before I would dare to tackle it :) --Nephele 13:58, 21 January 2007 (EST)

Un-Needed Spoiler

Does anyone else think that The Stranger's class should be changed to Theif or Rouge instead of Gray Fox? That's going to tell who he really is with no spoiler warning. — Unsigned comment by 12.5.123.222 (talk)

The class does definitely give away who the Stranger really is. But the name of the Stranger's class is really "Gray Fox" and to change it to anything else would be to falsify the information. Since the whole purpose of UESP is to provide information, facts shouldn't be falsified just to prevent a few readers from finding out the truth, IMHO. --Nephele 11:55, 1 April 2007 (EDT)

Pronunciation

[Ahy Strahne-jer] Is it really necessary to add pronunciation to this? How many different ways can you pronounce the word "A"? Maybe a dozen different ways... -Saruuk 07:14, 4 July 2007 (EDT)

Guild Rank

ok I have played the game and I well know that he is not a cat-burgler he is the Gray Fox himself and that is listed as a rank for the Thieves guild and after the TG questline is leaves the thieves guild altogether. I would suggest that he is either listed as Gray Fox.--Most Honored Listener 03:12, 5 July 2007 (EDT)

That's as may be, but if the construction set says cat-burglar then cat-burglar he is. I'm not reverting Obliv4PS3's edit until I (or someone else) can check it, but I imagine Nephele's data - and therefore Eshe's edit - was correct. --Rpeh^Talk 04:21, 5 July 2007 (EDT)

I also made some relevant comments at Oblivion talk:The Gray Fox. In terms of the facts here I double checked that the Stranger's faction really is listed as Cat Burglar (Thieves Guild rank = 4). And searching through all of the scripts in the game, that rank is never altered. I don't know for sure how a NPC's rank affects their behaviour, although I've seen comments suggesting that the faction disposition modifiers are multiplied by rank. But I don't think we should be providing false information on these pages.

There are reasons why the developers created multiple different NPCs for the Gray Fox (there's also a third NPC, Oblivion:Corvus Umbranox). If they had wanted the Gray Fox's statistics to be identical at all times, they wouldn't have set up three different NPCs. For comparison, Brother Martin only has one single NPC throughout the game, even though his name is changed from Brother Martin to Martin to Martin Septim (and his factions, equipment, etc are also all changed a few times). If we're going to say that the NPCs should be identical just because they represent the same person, we might as well just change all the pages into redirects. --Nephele^Talk 12:13, 5 July 2007 (EDT)

You beat me to it, Nephele. I'm changing the rank on the Stranger back to Cat-Burglar and I'm also adding some extra stuff to the Gray Fox's page to describe the transition between the Gray Fox and Corvus Umbranox. If you think about it, this makes sense. I think we can assume there's more chat going on than we actually see and it's likely that the Stranger would pretend to be of a lower rank than he really is. I think his saying "Nah, I'm Gray Fox rank mate" might be a bit of a give away. --Rpeh^Talk 14:10, 5 July 2007 (EDT)

Confusion

Why wouldn't the Gray Fox himself forge the letter? --Matthewest ^{•T•C•E•} 04:13, 30 April 2008 (EDT)

He does forge it - the stranger is the Gray Fox. Evidently he doesn't want you to know that, though. –Rpeh^{•T•C•E•} 04:19, 30 April 2008 (EDT)

I don't see the point of him telling you to meet himself somewhere when he could just forge it in front of you with the cowl on... --Matthewest ^{•T•C•E•} 04:20, 30 April 2008 (EDT)

He doesn't. You get the quest from S'Krivva. –Rpeh^{•T•C•E•} 04:24, 30 April 2008 (EDT)

Oh I see. Haven't done that quest for a while now so my memory is scratchy. Thanks! --Matthewest ^{•T•C•E•} 04:33, 30 April 2008 (EDT)

That sill doesn't explain why you have to find the Stranger instead of turning the recommendation list into S'Krivva so the Gray Fox can forge the new one. --Debatra 19:01, 21 June 2008 (EDT)

It adds to the mystery and excitement when you find out who the Gray Fox really is. I remember the first time I did the Thieves Guild and the Gray Fox told me about the true power of the Gray Cowl of Nocturnal and that I had already met him before. It was very interesting. Although, Mr. Stranger doesn't need to be such a prick to you when you do the forgery quest. -- --Mebestien 14:45, 13 October 2008 (EDT)

Agreed. What I'm curious about is the reasons he has for reassigning Lex. I guess he wants Lex out of the city and into Anvil where he keep an eye on him, possibly even rub it in his face. Lex would go nuts if he knew his boss Count Umbranox was actually his arch-nemesis! I bet there are fancier reasons we aren't given of course. — Unsigned comment by 89.100.38.132 (talk) on 8 March 2009

That's pretty much made clear in the game. If you ask S'Krivva "Why not just kill Lex?", she will reply "For reasons unknown to this one, the Gray Fox has extended his protection to the Umbranox family and Lady Umbranox in particular." Basically, the GF admires Lex's dedication to duty and wants that same dedication extended to the protection of his wife. –Rpeh^{•T•C•E•} 06:13, 8 March 2009 (EDT)

Is he the gray fox?

Hey I'm just wondering are a stranger and the gray fox the same people? That's what the outcome of "The Ultimate Heist" led me to believe but I didn't pay close enough attention to be positive.

Yes. He's also Count of Anvil.--Ghurhak gro-Demril _{or TAO}^Yes? 15:56, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

I was going to answer that, but TAO got me and I got an edit conflict. :) --Rigas Papadopoulos • Talk • Deeds • 15:58, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

I have to add though: he's not the same NPC when you look at it CS-wise. That's information which is not so extremely obvious, although most people even know that... ~ Dwarfmp 20:57, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Yeah... It would have been nice if they'd used a script to change his name back or something.--Ghurhak gro-Demril _{or TAO}^Yes? 22:51, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

So he is on a normal schedule in Anvil until...

You start doing quests where you actually meet the gray fox? Does he ever actually travel? Or when you start meeting the gray fox, in bruma for example, and start the quest, the stranger is simply deleted and the gray fox is created. How about between quests for the gray fox, is the stranger back in Anvil? The main page wasn't too clear and I haven't started the thieves guild questline on my new character atm. dtm 10:11, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

While a Gray Fox quest is running, The Stranger is disabled and The Gray Fox is enabled. It is handled in the quest stages, so for example, when Amusei contacts the player and updates the Quest, The Stranger is disabled and the Gray Fox is moved to the meeting point and enabled. When the quest is officially ended, the opposite happens. The Stranger does not have to move. --DKong27 ^{Talk Cont} 15:19, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Moved note.

• Note: if you level up during the 24 hours wait, an error will occur in wich the Stranger keeps saying: why are you bothering me? he won't give you the reccomendation.

Can anyone confirm this ? JackTurbo95 09:03, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

I have looked at that script before. It is a simple timer that checks that at least 24 hours have gone by in-game. There is absolutely no reason why a level up would alter this. --DKong27 ^{Talk Cont} 13:03, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Anvil Castle

Just to verify the Stranger will not ask for the letter of recommendation while he is in the castle. Catch him back at home for this. (Lmstearn (talk) 10:05, 8 October 2013 (GMT))