:coffee:

I've been a beta tester ever since Daggerfall was released.

In my real life job we called it Release Candidate testing or Regression Testing. I loved that job and I was good at finding issues. It feels so good when you find a bug and you can tell the high and mighty programmers that their stuff stinks. Of course I was most diplomatic about it unless they tried to push back.

It is always user error, Macole!

Thanks for the coffee, Lena.

I switched from Claire Voyance to Sir Vyvoor. The main difference between these two (other than gender) is Claire is much more of a healer. She keeps the rest of her party alive, while she herself only raises her axe or mace only occasionally. She is also really good against Undead, being a devotee of the Nine.

Vyvoor is more of a rogue. More of a fighter. And he uses Shouts. He's my guy who did the Main Quest, and the Stormcloak side of the Civil War. So as I fire up his game tonight, I find him chilling in Helgen. I've got Helgen Reborn in his game. Really great mod. Helgen gets slowly rebuilt over time, and so Vyvoor spends a lot of time recruiting talent, training Helgen's new soldiers (for real, not just imagination/roleplay), and doing quests.



This sounds really neat.

"I am a monster."

Kaia watches the Vampire Thrall. She's scrabbling weakly on the dusty floor of the cave, fingers waving ineffectually at the crossbow bolt protruding from her armor maybe 3 inches below her navel.
"Help..." Damp eyes turn pleadingly to her.
Kaia kneels down.
"...help..."
Some gold, a garnet, a health potion.

"...Help me..."

"I am a monster."

This reminds me of my old Mycharonna posts, Phon. Uh, this is Mycharonna by the way. Anyway... no story. No roleplay. No update. Just some creepy poetry (which was inspired by me getting into HER head.

You go, girl.

"Vampires!" Ysolda climbed into the bed and pulled the furs over them both. "In Whiterun. Thank Mara you were here."
Kaia smiled ruefully.
"It's because of me being here that they are here, Yz."
"But you'll fix it."

It wasn't a question, it was a statement and it was accompanied by an expression of such wide-eyed and naive trust and certainty that Kaia was for just an instant unsure how to react.
"I'll try."
Ysolda slid her arms around Kaia.
"Are you eating? You seem even thinner than normal..."

Kaia lay staring at the roof, watching the twinkling of stars through the gaps in the slats.
In truth she wasn't. What she was doing was drinking an awful lot. Not that it helped; probably made things worse but it took the edge off at least.
One of Ysolda's legs slid over hers.
"It's good to have you back, even if only for a little bit." Ysolda's voice was sleepy, muffled slightly where her face was pressed against Kaia.

Somewhere outside a wolf howled; quiet footsteps trip-tripped past the door of Breezehome; the quickly-muted jingle of armor.
It was only a guard, but Kaia felt her breath catch in her throat, had to force herself to not reach for a weapon.

"You and the girls need to move from here. Whiterun isn't safe."
She felt Ysolda stiffen and pull away, looking round she saw the other woman staring at her, eyes wide and twinkling in the gloom.
"You need to move away."

"It's not safe."

Even behind walls, Whiterun is never safe. Even though those poor folks have a woll.

I did some gaming with Sir Davor Vyvoor last night, going through the Helgen Reborn mod. Very well done, so far. Vyvoor also gathered a writ to get rid of the chieftain of White River Watch. Took some really good pictures! I'll post 'em tomorrow, perhaps.

She didn't want to be a vampire. She had enough problems with the wolf in her head; Mara, she had doubts about herself when it was just her.

But no, no vampire.

So Serana had partially soul-trapped her for the trip to the Soul Cairn. It felt... strange, but still better than the alternative.

That wasn't the problem though, no, not by a long shot.

Ysolda was what she needed.

Serana was what she WANTED.

Just introduced Mrs. Khajiit to her first TES game! Khajiit decided to let her try Skyrim on Xbox 360 since this one feels it’s the easiest to jump right into. For her first ever character? She rolled a big ol’ Orc gal named Narshul who likes heavy armor and hitting things with warhammers!

Well-done, Khajiit! That is your Chorroliotic duty, introducing family to TES.

We’d probably still be playing but the game crashed and we realized we needed to go to the grocery store!

Don't let anyone steal your sweetrolls!

A new acolyte joins the ranks of TES! Whack them all, girl - way to go! Fits with Skyrim.

Come to think of it, my first Skyrim character Scylla was an orc as well, but she used a Battleaxe.

Khajiit, I hope Mrs. Khajiit does not also suffer from restartitis! If not, perhaps you can learn a thing or two from her.

Scylla looks mean! Rawr!

"Flubbadah, uffleeby?"

The bandit looked up at Kaia, his eyes almost comically wide, as she crouched above him on the rise, calmly reloading the crossbow. She ratchetted the weapon and watched him in a disinterested way, head cocked to one side, as his hands made their way up to the top of his head, groping fingers exploring his scalp until they located the crossbow bolt sticking more or less out of the center of his head, right at the top.

"Flibberfoo!" He exclaimed. "Ffaberme?"

His expression became one of extreme puzzlement as he tottered sideways a couple of paces and fell to his knees.

"Ug."

His mouth dropped open, a thin line of drool extending from it as his arms fell limply to his sides and he collapsed onto his face on the grass.
Kaia fired again into the back of his head just to be sure, and nodded in satisfaction as his legs momentarily stiffened and then relaxed.

Then she got up and looked around for Serana.

PhonAntiPhon does have a way with dark and suspenseful writings that leaves me wanting more.

A way with words, indeed! Ffoho!

I'm the Joe Abercrombie of Skyrim fanfics lol...

Fribble! Just fribble!

I was in Halted Stream Camp with Saryn today and shot the pot in the main room to burn the two bandits by the mammoth. It killed one of them but Saryn failed at sneaking and the chief and the last subordinate bandit came after her. She ran back to the entrance with the two bandits in hot pursuit, and set off the rock trap. Lol, it killed the chief out right and Saryn turned on the remaining bandit and dispatched him easily.

Nice, I love moments like that.

Some of my characters will specifically make sure enemies get caught into traps. One of my favorites are those swinging blade traps in draugr ruins. It's fun to get draugr to follow my character, and then they run straight into the trap. "BRAWWKKKSHSSHH!!!!"

I do not normally think to expound my Skyrim woas, but the latest demise of my likeness was particularly irksome…almost unfair.

Killed by a Greybeard over a piece of stupid Moss!
.
We had just finished my initial Greybeard Training when my inept host spotted a piece of Hanging Moss…Which we didn’t even need since I had already achieved ‘Snakeblood’ in Alchemy.
Buuuut I was asked to take it…and was spotted. Since it was technically theft…a Greybeard turned hostile.
He chased me outside, then shouted me down the slope near Shrine ten…it wasn’t far, but sliding down the gradient counts as a “drop” and my likeness died right there!
.
56 Hours progress lost.
I was fuming!
My host rightly deserved a good kicking inside.

As for the Greybeards, well we feel less amiable toward them now….kinda soured the waters a bit. I survived a Frost Form shout and an icy blast breath and still got outside the front steps with minimal harm done, but that short downhill slide - which doesn’t even look particularly bad….was lethal. .
Kinda stupid too…imagine as a kid when you go down those snow covered hills on a sledge….You wouldn’t expect to inexplicably wind up dead on your toboggan by the bottom eh! Skyrim physics is perplexing….scratch that….infuriating.

So why was I doing this at all? Well, this is my ‘Plutonium Challenge” in which I aim to complete all nine major questlines, get all 14 Dragonpriest masks plus various of the longer worthy quests all with a single likeness without dying even once (i.e. Dead is Dead).
This must be accomplished, on Legendary with no followers or Ai helpers including animal ones, no potions or poisons period and no spells of any type that use magicka or come from scrolls or staves.
In short….as difficult as it is thrilling.
I do have a carefully constructed rule set to eliminate anything even mildly ‘cheaty’ including those naughty Slow Time effects, OP equipment that outperforms vanilla, shields (because they provide upto 97% protection) and certain overly advantageous game features like those absorb and paralyse enchantments.

Anyhow, time to dust off one’s pride and get back in the saddle…(except yeah, can’t have horses Lol)

A.

Good lord, Adella - what an ordeal! Personally I always found the Greybeards rather shady... I mean, start with getting there. "Oh the only thing to worry about on your way to the top is the ice on the ground and may be a stray wolf." Yeah, right! FROST TROLL!! I am convinced they put it there on purpose just for the Dragonborn. Sanguine thought so - he had to come to Lena's rescue before she got squashed... He refused to go in though, something about getting drunk and disorderly and shouting them down... oops... wasn't suposed to, but he's a Daedric Prince after all, also when drunk...

Anyway, give your handler a good kicking and STAY AWAY FROM HANGING MOSS!

I can’t play “Dead is Dead” in Bethesda games. They’re too janky. For instance, Saryn jumped off a rock near the little bandit camp in the hills near Riverwood (we use that as an early base until she gets a proper home). It was a good little fall but didn’t kill her, only did some damage. She healed herself with a spell, and then jumped off a rock with a shorter fall than before. Died upon impact. WTF?!

Sharp rocks, I'd say.

Well it was the ground she landed on, but honestly, it actually goes back further to Fallout3. On multiple occasions I had characters fall to their deaths through what should’ve been a solid overpass. There were absolutely no visible holes in the overpass where my characters stepped, but they still fell to their doom as though they stepped into thin air. Janky.

That is a stiff challenge run, Adella.

The only TES game that I played Dead-is-Dead was Daggerfall. Need I explain why??? Ok, when you die in Daggerfall you get a funeral and pailbearers carry your body into a crypt. Can't get much deader than that so I always started over. Besides I like making characters in Daggerfall. Roll dem die till the numbers are right. Ah, yes.

Using Dawnbreaker as an undead character is really interesting. When it triggers its Turn Undead explosion, it affects me as well. It does not make me run away, or even do much damage. But for half a minute I get this sizzling and hissing aura around me. Eventually it got annoying, so I stopped using it.

I am not playing a vampire this time, not technically. I do not like how the ES games do vampirism. So instead I used my Deadwalker mod to create Blood Raven. It does not really do a lot. It just adds the Undead keyword to the player character, and a bunch of passive abilities like water breathing, a resistance to frost, a weakness to fire, etc..., that I thought an undead person should have.

Morndas, early eveninig, 16th of Last Seed -- Lord Haaf-Mersey is in Bannered Mare, and will tomorrow be heading off to Dawnstar.




That sounds cool. I agree ES games don't do vampirism well. Not dramatic enough! I liked Oblivion's method better than Skyrim's.

I use Better Vampires, which includes a long list of stuff, most of which we can turn on or off. I use it for its night vision (which can be toggled on and off in real time), and more dramatic feeding stuff. Drain spell is more comprehensive. Sun Damage works in a similar way as it does in Oblivion, I got rid of Beth's Dragon Lord stuff, instead NPCs fear my character when she's Stage 4.

Best of all though is there is some sort of flying ability. I forget how it works.

It's 5 years on.

Alduin is dead and gone, the Civil War is over and the Imperials now control most of Skyrim.

The assassination game beckons...

Empire thanks you, Citizen!

And that's all it did. Not that she expected more but, all of the drama and it's eventual climax has left a gap.

In another universe, an Orc General would have noted: "You did what needed to be done." Case closed.

But I hear the Empire will soon be needing a new Emperor... Let's hope his name is neither Pelagius nor Jargar.

Good to hear, Phon. Not sure if you've defeated Alduin in the past, but it took me many years to also finish Skyrim's Main Quest.

And here's what I've been up to. While writing Laprima's story these past 4 months I've been occasionally switching to Claire Voyance to get my actual gaming fixes. There's a difference of 5 mods I have to turn on and off between each of these gals, so it's not too bad.

Claire's game is very action-oriented. She is a cleric, which means she spends just over half her time healing up her 3 party members rather than in direct combat. She just finished a set of mod-added Vigilants of Stendarr quests.

Well right now, she's in Riften. And I got this idea to make a quest for the Temple of Mara. Basically, if one of my characters walks into the temple, there's a chance he or she will be approached to join the temple. One of the people in there will basically walk up to the PC and ask if they'd like to join. Yes means they get their own bedroll, and also get access to any food and items which are not used. An answer of No means they will never get bothered again to join.

So of course, Claire joins. She's all about the Eight (now, the Nine). And this really made the difference in her game lately. I can't explain it really. It's the "Yin" she's needed in her mostly-Yang, action-oriented existence.

Been playing some Skyrim here and there, just feel weird being the only one talking in this forum! But anyway, today I switched from Lord Haaf-Mersey (Xbox) to Sir Vyvoor (PC). Vyvoor's got Helgen Reborn in his game, which takes a lot of time to build up the opening mess we first land in, making it into a true town.

I wanna get to a certain point in his game (Messing around in the CK here and there) and then I'll get back with Laprima. Maybe.

So many games; so little time!

Oh my, it's nice to know someone's still playing Skyrim!

I'm backing off my ESO gaming for a bit (fourteen toons, it's a never-ending grind LOL) and got to feeling pretty nostalgic.

Even though the new Apple Silicon series chips don't support BootCamp (which lets you boot an Intel Mac into Windows), I was able to get it playing through Parallels. And with a couple of hiccups along the way, I was able to build a mod load out based roughly on STEP's protocols, minus the LOD tweaks. I couldn't get one of the needed programs that regenerates/rebuilds the LOD billboards to work properly, so decided to go without.

I have to say I'm nearly 35 hours in with this play through, and it's bringing back so many memories, even though I haven't yet started the main quest.

Aw, shucks! Yeah when it gets really wintry I get inspired for some Skyrim.

Wow, fourteen roleplays in ESO! And you're playing on a Mac, very nice. What is your Skyrim character's name?

Morndas, mid-afternoon, 28th of Evening Star, Year 202 Sir Vyvoor is in Windpeak Inn, listening to the awful bard wail over in the next room. Blaagh!!! He got paid for taking down a dragon at Shearpoint Rock or whatever. Next, he's headed to Fellglow Keep to get rid of The Warden, which is one of my homemade quests. After that, off to Helgen.

Helgen Reborn is an incredible mod. They're rebuilding the place. 🏰

Oh yes, Helgen Reborn is an awesome mod - I’ve been playing it almost from my first playthrough in 2014!

Another I really enjoyed is Falskaar. It adds a different world space that is reminiscent of Falkreath Hold.

My Skyrim character’s name is Larethia Nightshade!

Sir Davor Vyvoor, meet Larethia Nightshade.

Cool, I will check out Falskaar.

Vyvoor is pwning the necromancers of Fellglow Keep as we speak. Rawr!

Hmm, Morningstar something, Year 203 Sir Vyvoor is in the Fight Cave, near Falkreath, and just defeated a warrior. This warrior threw all he could at my Dragonborn'd nord, including a storm atronach and a clever mix of magics and warfare. But in the end, he succumbed, just like many others.

The Fight Cave is fun, but I really hope matches don't continue on and on. Really eager to see Helgen progress & build even further. Right now it's just a burg. More soldiers and more commoners. But not really built to a full-fledged destination yet.

Loredas, 9th of Morning Star, Year 203 Dead of winter in Sir Vyvoor's game. Finally he's done what needs to be done. This supplier guy in Falkreath has promised to begin allowing to sell lumber at a discounted rate or something, which means more extensive construction of Helgen can finally begin!

Of course, the way Helgen Reborn works, the player's home is what they start on first. It's a tower in the middle of town, right across from where it all began with arriving to town with wrists bound. 🐉 The home is fully done and has all sorts of storage and the usual niceties, while the rest of the town has waited and waited, still half in ruins.

Neat! Never tried the Helgen rebuilding mod.

Helgen Reborn is really well done. Promise I'll take some pictures when it's starting to look like a real town. But for now...

Morndas, mid-morning, 8th of Sun's Dusk: Start of the work week in Laprima's game. She's headed to the Skeever! (and I am abnormally psyched about this... all she's going is going to work!) I've got the first chapter of her story written pretty solidly, and a couple other chapters half-baked. As I'm gaming I'll begin to add some 'triggers' here and there, which will lead to quests.

I discovered something interesting just now. The Mistwatch Bandits do not appear to be in the same faction as the regular Bandits of Skyrim. I was just fighting some Mistwatch Bandits outside of Mistwatch, when some regular Bandits showed up, and started fighting the Mistwatch Bandits. That made things a lot easier for me!

Sweet! It's sort of like Fort Nikel (I think...) in Cyrodiil. There's two warring factions in there, I believe bandits and marauders. The Mistwatch situation sounds different though, since we'd assume all bandits are going to get along.

A turf war at Mistwatch. Can you sit back and watch as it goes on?

Is is that fort, where there's a quest associated with it? You're approached by some young man, looking for his GF, but in reality she's one of the bandits?