Firstly motifs can ONLY be found in household containers such as wardrobes ,chests and cupboards etc. that mean they can NOT be found in barrels and crates.
Basically any containers that hold lockpicks and racial crafting ingredients like 'corundum' will have a chance to spawn motif but containers that hold provisioning ingredients will NOT spawn motif.
Here's what I mean:
There are 9 motifs that are needed for this achievement
- Redguard
- Orc
- Dunmer
- Breton
- Wood Elves
- Argonian
- Khajiit
- Nord
- Altmer
Bare in mind you will already have a motif for free of your character race.
This achievement is completely dependance on luck but here are a few ways you can get it:
- Farming them in containers in places with few guards
- Buying them off the guild stores around the world
- Buying them with crown (which I highly not recommend)
Now you could try and find these as you play but the chance of doing that is exorbitantly low so best is to farm them each day. ( apparently update 1.0.0.5 increased the spawn rate)
I play on the Daggerfall Covenant so I only know a place to farm there. If you're in the Daggerfall Covenant then there is a locked house to the left of the Mage guild in Shornhelm. There are a number of containers there and there are no one inside so you won't get caught.
Now run around looting every household containers. After each run, relog and everything should respawn.
For Ebonheart, there is a house in Davon's Watch (Stonefalls) that has a backpack, a trunk, and a dresser. Immediately west of Artisan's Row on your map are two unmarked brown houses. The second one is Sadreno's house. ( thanks to Boozor )
I recommend picking up stolen goods and fence them at a criminal refuge so your effort is not completely wasted if you don't find a motif.
If you do find duplicate of a motif then join a guild and sell them for 4000 gold.
Now there is another way to get motif. That's through the guild merchants. There are guild merchants around cities and small settlements with a symbol that looks like a scale.
Occasionally there will be one on sale but don't buy them for more than 4000 gold, they're not worth it.
Finally, if you're rich in real life then buy crown and get motif there but I recommend not to do so as they're a waste of money.
Those are the 3 ways you can get alliance motifs. Remember the chance of finding one is rather rare so don't give up if you don't find any.
If anyone knows a good farming place for Aldmeri Dominion then let me know.