Treasure Troves
Finding a room packed with treasure and valuable items is a great way to improve the effectiveness of your character, and there are plenty of areas where
there are large amounts of nifty kit just waiting to be stolen or taken.
The Great House Vaults:
One of, if not the best way to steal good items is to invade the three house vaults. Go to Vivec, and in the Canton for each house, go to the Vaults section. You
generally have to go through several other administrative sections first, but you should be able to find them. Note that the Telvanni Vaults can only be
accessed through the tower in the plaza, rather than the waistworks, like the other houses, and also has active guards, in the shape of two hostile storm
atronachs. Once you reach the vault area, you typically have to go through two doors, locked at level 90, and with guards watching you. You can either pick the
lock or find the keys.
Hlaalu Keys: Key One: Baren Alen, by the first door in the vaults.
Key Two: The Ordinator in the corridor between the two doors.
Redoran Keys: Lower Vault: Chest of drawers, upstairs in Dralor Manor, Redoran Plaza in Vivec.
Upper Vault: Beldrose Dralor, right by the upper vault door.
Telvanni Keys: The Ordinator past the unlocked door, before the two locked doors.
Vaults and Merchants at Ghostgate
Ghostgate is a great place to obtain a variety of items, including glass armour and weapons, indoril armour, and even a few pieces of daedric armour. There is
a vault in each tower, the key to the Tower of Dawn Vault being on a desk just before you enter it, and the Tower of Dusk key is on Mertis Falandas, a guard
outside the vault wearing nearly full glass armour. The vaults have the usual piles of ebony and glass items, as well as piles of gold and gems. Galdal Omayn in
the Tower of Dusk Upper Level, has a daedric helm and almost full glass armour, as does Enar Dralor in the lower level.. There is almost full glass armour in
Dronos Llervu's room in the Tower of Dusk Lower level, where you can also buy glass armour.
Dren Plantation
The plantation has some very high level equipment on it. Dren's Villa has daedric greaves and an ebony cuirass for the taking on the shelves by Orvas Dren.
Galos Farethi, downstairs in the Villa, has a daedric shield and katana. Llaro Llethri in the guard tower has a daedric dai-katana.
Tel Fyr
AKA Raiding the Corprusarium. Divayth Fyr encourages you to try and rob his dungeon, without killing any of his patients or 'daughters' (failing in this
can damage the main quest if you cannot cast the right spells). There are two ways of doing this. Firstly, you can follow a complex key trail, beginning with the
key on Divayth's desk, and opening each chest in the Corprusarium, getting one key at a time to open the next chest. Eventually, you will get the final key, which
unlocks the chests and cabinets in Divayth's tower, which will give you access to Scourge, the
Crescent Blade and the Cuirass of Saviour's Hide.
Alternatively, you can just unlock or pick the chests and closets to begin with, and so avoid the lengthy key trail.
Shrines
Daedric shrines, which are almost all marked on your paper map, are always a great source of equipment. Dremora and Dremora Lords always drop good
weapons, and golden saints can have weapons and rare daedric shields. Also, many of the shrines contain either a shrine quest, or a unique artifact item. Once
you hit about twentieth level, you should be good enough to destroy whatever these shrines may throw at you, so at this stage, never pass up a daedric
shrine.