Cyrodiil/Murder and Mayhem: A Practical Guide

f you've picked up this book, you've got a problem with authority. Good. I don't care how you got hold of it - whether you bought it, borrowed it, stole it - you've taken your first steps towards seizing your freedom. I'm going to show you how to do it. This isn't a guide to getting your friends together, on how to orchestrate a plot or take down a government; this is something far simpler. 

This is a guide showing you how to attack, maim and kill, using common items from your own home. Read it, learn it, and pass it on to the next person with a fire in their heart.

Your most basic tools are your knives, your clubs and your hunting bows. These can be found in any home in Tamriel and aren't going to stop a charging Legionnaire. So, when the revolution comes and you're on the front lines, what do you do? Smash a bottle over a table? Tie a knife to the end of a pole? Or do you turn to your kitchen pantry and brew poisons that could blind, corrode and kill with a mere flick of the wrist? Knights and heroes may call the art of alchemy underhanded, the practice of knaves, but that's only because it's bloody effective at killing idiots in armor.

As an example: go to your local fish market. Buy a few pounds of   and some  .  Don't worry about descaling them, just slit them open right down the middle. See the liver? Cut it out and set it to the side. Don't put your fingers anywhere near your mouth. The liver may not be particularly poisonous yet but there's a reason people are careful when filleting those bastards. When you've plucked as much liver as you can get your hands on (around a quarter of a pound is usually sufficient), drop them in your pestle. Now mash them all up, until they have the consistency of a fine paste. The bacteria from the two distinct organs should now be starting to react, but we need to speed the process up a bit. Add a little water, just enough to get a thick, viscous goop and begin to heat the whole thing over the fire. Leave it for twelve hours and your paste is now loaded with a very nasty Tetrodotoxin. Dab a bit of that on the end of your knife before you gut someone, stick it in some busybody's potatoes, or fling it at the Emperor and if it so much as a thimbleful of it finds its way into the body - they're dealing with respiratory failure, utterly ravaging their health.

Now, what if you're already out in the street and you want to target a particularly impenetrable looking suit of armor? There's no way you'll find a chink in those plates with your butter knife before you're cut nine ways from the Divines. So, how do you take him down? Simple. Grab a bottle of rum, or brandy - the more distilled, the better - and stuff a rag or a piece of linen into the neck. Tear a piece off of your shirt if you have to, the Revolution will thank you for it. Light the tip of the rag on fire and fling it at your hunk of metal. The bottle will shatter, the alcohol catches and the soldier goes up in flames. Enjoy the sweet smell of freedom.

Obviously, being sneaky about such matters is often the right way of going about things. Sometimes you can do more damage to the system by hitting one man instead of an entire army. A poisoned official is a far more elegant and subtle method of murder than a wild assault, and adds a touch of sophistication to any revolutionary endeavour. Of course, other times you just want to blow people up. The Renrija Krin are notorious for their love of making things explode and now I'm are going to reveal their secret. Take several gallons of cat urine and filter it through the ashes of burned plants...

(The rest of the text is badly burned.)