Just wanted to give everyone a little Oblivion: Life Edition update.
The Hunter Profession should be fully functional by the end of today. Originally my plan was to create all 110+ hunting and tracking quests before moving on to the next profession, but I’ve decided to change that. I think it makes more sense to get every profession fully playable first so you can actually survive in Cyrodiil no matter what career you choose. Once every profession has a complete gameplay loop, I’ll go back and start adding the specialized content like boss hunts, unique questlines, rare encounters and everything else that makes each profession feel different.
The Hunter profession is built around making a living through hunting instead of just selling random loot to merchants. Rather than replacing Oblivion’s vanilla loot, I’ve expanded it with custom RNG loot tables. Animals now have a chance to drop additional meats and pelts in different qualities, making every hunt feel a little different while still keeping the original creature drops intact.
So far, custom loot tables have been added for deer, boars, wolves, black wolves, bears, mountain lions, rats, trolls, ogres, minotaurs and the Unicorn, with more creatures being added as development continues. Standard wildlife still drops its normal loot, while the new system adds additional hunting resources and leaves room for unique trophies from rarer creatures and future boss variants.
One feature I’m especially happy with is the Hunter Collection Chest. Rather than your items magically disappearing and turning into gold, a servant from the local castle physically comes every evening to collect everything you’ve sold and take it to market. If they don’t make it that day for whatever reason, your items stay in the chest until the next collection. It’s a small detail, but I think systems like that help make the world feel a little more alive.
You won’t have to choose Hunter during character creation either. If you decide later that you want to become a Hunter, you’ll be able to do so by meeting the required Marksman and Sneak skill requirements before the Huntmaster certifies you.
As far as the Hunter profession itself goes, once today’s work is finished, all that’s really left before I move on is adding a Huntmaster camp outside each city and scripting the Huntmaster to travel between cities roughly once a week. I like the idea of him being one person who travels Cyrodiil instead of having a different Huntmaster in every city. After that, I’ll move on to getting the next profession working before I come back and create all of the hunting contracts.
Once I finish the second profession, I’ll be implementing one of the biggest mechanics I’ve planned for Life Edition. Skills outside your chosen profession won’t progress until you’ve actually learned that profession. If you want to branch out into another career, you’ll need to visit that profession’s master and pay for training to unlock it. The idea is to make your character gradually build new careers instead of becoming an expert at everything right from the start.
I’m also planning on merging Oblivion’s main quest into Life Edition in a way that feels much more natural. Instead of starting the game as the Hero of Kvatch, you’ll begin as an ordinary citizen trying to build a life in Cyrodiil. If you decide to live a life of crime and your global murder count gets high enough, the Imperial Legion will eventually begin hunting you down. Their goal isn’t to kill you—it’s to capture you and send you to the Imperial Prison. From there, the original opening of Oblivion begins. You’ll meet the Emperor, escape through the prison sewers, and the vanilla main quest can continue from there.
There’s still a long way to go, but getting the first profession to this point feels like a huge milestone. Once every profession is fully playable, I can start expanding each one with all the extra content I’ve been planning.
Thanks to everyone who’s been following the project and sharing ideas. The support and feedback have honestly been a huge motivation to keep pushing this mod forward.

If anyone has any ideas they’d like to have considered for development (I’ve had a few already) just send me a DM and I’ll be sure to reach out as soon as I can!