I've been running around with Lin Jiaolong the Bosmer courier. It's nice to play a character without many attachments. I loaded up his game today after a long break, at Valtheim Towers, and we just looked around and went: "East? Yeah, east." And now Adonanto wants us to dash over to Solitude to deliver his book...the life of a courier, (sigh).

Lol that's awesome, Rohirrim. "Let's go east. Just because."

Lord Haaf-Mersey and Rayya the Over-killer are on their way to Darkfall Cave, which is the next step to Dawnguard's questline. Unfortunately, Serana had to go on her own for this portion of the quest, which I find odd. I know that we're only allowed to have one follower at a time, but for awhile LHM was able to have both Serana and Rayya with him.

Since this area (where Darkfall Cave is) has not been explored by LHM, there are tons of new places to discover; mostly draugr barrows. So once again, I and LHM are getting distracted over and over as we explore and plunder all these new places. I'll "beat" Dawnguard one of these days, but probably not for another couple of months!

I've parked Ra'vish, now that he's become Arch-mage and developed a reasonable tank-follower/summon play-style. He'll get revived when I make progress on the mod, and he can recruit for the Riders.

I started a Bosmer Archer, Silwen, to get a feel for that sneak/poison/ranged play-style. She's been going around with Lydia, but the woman is a complete Kamikaze who's always getting a fatal arrow in her back (requiring a reload) because she runs into the line of fire every time. I'm likely to replace her with an atronach as soon as she has the levels and magicka to sustain it. Skyrim doesn't have the command/frenzy spells to use your enemies as involuntary allies, only a raise zombie to use them once they're dead. Unfortunately, the atronachs require higher levels to get the spells in the first place, and the magicka costs are too high for the lower-level characters, especially if they're not mages, and are putting their points into health and stamina.

Sneak bow attacks have lower multipliers than Oblivion, but her Archery skills add to her damage fairly quickly, so a one-shot take-out of the weaker members of a group is still as likely. I haven't yet figured out if the others are more or less likely to guess where the arrow came from in Skyrim versus Oblivion. I don't like the way the sneak attack perk bonuses are in the same branch of the tree, so you have to take the close-up 6x perk for one-handed before you can get only 3x for bows. She won't want the 15x dagger perk beyond it.

And she's shopping for an outfit like this one I made for Oblivion. - I think I can patch it together in Nifskope - if I can find the sleeve part!

Inanna had some Skyrim wackiness today. She was walking down the road south of Dawnstar when she saw a roadside thief lurking ahead. So she armored up with her Oakflesh, and then the thief went darting the other way with daggers out!?! Inanna raced after her, and found a Khajiit caravan slugging it out with some Ice Wolves. The Thief jumped into the fray, and then moment later Innana leaped in after the Thief. She killed the Thief, and the Khajiit killed the wolves. Afterward one of the Khajiit sees the Thief's corpse and says "What happened here!" *facepalm*

I have been playing Hervor again lately, and over the past few days she has explorated the south eastern corner of the Rift: Shor's Stone, Fort Greenwall, Forelhost, Broken-Helm Hollow, Faldar's Tooth, and so on.

I am debating whether or not to try the Dawnguard questline with her. On one hand she looks good in the red Dawnguard armor. But I am not sure if a questline with so much magic stuff is really suitable for her. After all, she is a very down-to-nirn character, whose only magic use is a healing spell. Still, the Atronach stone does give her a certain funkiness when it comes to dealing with magic.

Created a new character to play through the Dark Brotherhood line. He's a scrawny Dunmer who was horrified at the way his kin were treated in Windhelm. When he discovered the kid that was sent off to an orphanage from the same city, it took him over the edge into revenge on the Nord society, and especially Ulfric. Not being a bulky guy, he's opted for stealth and especially backstabbing with a dagger. Heading for the x15 perk on daggers, boosted by DB equipment for even more damage. The Blade of Woe should become awesome when all the ducks line up.

He's hired Jenassa from Whiterun as an assistant, and risen rapidly in the DB ranks. He declined to help the Jarl of Whiterun with his dragon problem; he'd had enough of them at Helgen. Dragons are a Nord's problem, not a Dunmer's. Jenassa is equipped for dual-wielding with the Windshear as her off-hand weapon, and we're looking for a nice bow to round her out.

While he was in the Solitude area doing a major job for the DB, he discovered a location for a home, and he's busy building it right now. It helps his smithing build up, as he rather wants the Arcane Blacksmith perk to improve his enchanted armour and weapons. It's also not too long a commute to the Dawnstar Sanctuary, which is a bit bare for his tastes. He doesn't want to live there, but it's a reasonable place to work.

He chose the bedrooms option, so the place has a lot of space for a family. He hasn't found an Amulet yet (any of them, let alone that one!) so Jenassa's just a follower at present. The way he's looking at her, it won't stay that way for long!

ETA:

Just had a ceremony in Riften. Not surprisingly, nobody else turned up to witness, as everyone else he's met is now dead (or has too high a bounty to be seen in public). Now he needs to recruit a steward for his property. Jenassa's not eligible, so he's thinking about that Brelyna Maryon he met at the College, when he went to pick up some spells. He'd also like to leave the wife at home and put a different companion in harm's way, so it might be Aranea Irenith again. She's only allowed to be a follower, so that kinda determines her job!

Wot no Dunmer kids to adopt? I might have to fix that! I suspect the multitude of facial morphs required is the primary reason for their non-existence, but there may be a way to bulk-convert the human ones if I preserve the vertices of the base head.

That sounds like a fun RP, ghastly. ghastley. My computer's got an auto-correct feature that makes ghastley spelled like ghastly, unless I retype your name over and over. I like that approach: "dragons are the Nord's problem." Is his game dragon-free, then?




Ha ha I just read this! There definitely are some wacky moments here and there where everybody goes ape[censored]!

Lord Haaf-Mersey is in um...Glacial Crevice, a section of Forgotten Vale (Dawnguard stuff). I didn't think I'd enjoy this part of the questline, but I figured out a way to make it fun, by writing down each area LHM and Serana have visited so far.

They are supposed to visit five different places in this huge valley, basically, but I was having trouble keeping track of how many places they have been to. So I started all over again, this time writing each place he visited. This made the entire process so much easier. I used to do stuff like this (write strategies down) in Oblivion sometimes, but I've fallen out of the habit.

Bla bla bla...

I loved the Forgotten Vale. It really is a huge place, and there is a lot of little nooks and crannies you can miss. I recall there are some special items you have to find in order to active a gate in it that takes you to different places depending on what items you have. I think Auriel's Shield is in one of those. I loved the view from the top of Vyrthur's castle.

I think the Atronach Stone provides excellent incentive for a mundane warrior to target magic-users such as vampires and necromancers. Actually you’ve given me an idea for an orc paladin who uses magic only for defense. Stendarr’s Aura and healing spells. Hmmm…

Plus, Hervor looks great in the uniform! And we know what’s most important.

ghastley, congrats to Jenassa and the Dunmer! What’s his name?

That would be AWESOME.

Renee, that’s a great idea for Forgotten Vale. I’m saving that for when I really can commit to a long adventure. I loved that place when I went through with Mikke!

Oops, Added: Jerric and friends have helped restore Helgen thanks to a mod. I won’t spoil any details, but he did surprise me at the end. It was clear that there would be a difficult situation, and I thought he would bring Darnand along for moral support. He brought Abiene.

He's in the habit of only giving that to the judge at his trial. Then he's surprisingly honest - just in case that counts for something - and tells him it's Galen Vhoth. That could be just be an alias, of course, but it is the one he used at his wedding.

I downloaded the "Slave Leia" outfit to see how the "harem" looked wearing it, but it has issues with clipping the legs, and a weird problem where it looks like it's lit from below, instead of above. I suspected a normals issue, but it was more trouble than it was worth to fix it. So no screen-shot after all. Must do some soon.

Definitely. There's a lot to explore. I was dreading it to be honest, but I've found some rare things (books mostly) in FV that I did not expect to find. Fighting falmer is pretty fun, too. Occasionally there'll be one way up high on a bridge, and he'll fall right off as he gets too excited and the computer makes this NPC over-react somehow.



There's an Atronach stone?

That does sound fun, the orc paladin idea.

Galen and his harem of ladies have adopted some kids. I made a modified head, with adjusted ears, chin, and a head shape change that's too subtle to see! The skin shade is a work in progress, currently just a tint over the human one, but will be replaced with an elf base when I start on Altmer and Bosmer. In that first shot, the girl looks like she just got a retexture, because the hair choices all cover her ears, so I'm making more child hair now. This one is getting close.

To keep it simple, I just replaced Sofie and Alesan with Dunmer kids. If I release a mod, it will be extra urchins around the map. Those two make sense as Dunmer, so those changes could stay.

The head shape alterations were minimal to avoid the need for extra expression morphs. The deltas for the human child heads work OK. But I believe there's only one set for adults, so maybe more change can be tolerated before it looks odd.

I'm trying out Amazing Follower Tweaks to provide clothing at home, so Jenassa doesn't sleep in her armour, etc. I may have to check off Dragonborn, and go fetch some Dunmer outfits from Solstheim. Then I'll see if I can shrink one to kid size - especially for the boys, where the standard outfit is too baggy, and needs a belt.

Oh my gosh, ghastley! Elf children, how awesome! I love the hairstyle you’re working on for the little redhead. It shows her ears nicely like you said. Those Dunmer outfits would look great! Wow, this is very exciting!!

Renee, I put my orc paladin news in the Spoilers thread as there are minor spoilers about the Atronach Stone, but nothing too major. I know how exciting it is to discover something, and I don’t want to ruin it!

New game started! Technically was started a few days ago in Skyrim and I hadn't got round to updating until today, but new game! Hush!

Anywho, after extensive modding, I booted up Skyrim on the new machine, and started a game as Theudebald Gro-Chenniere, Breton mercenary with alteration spells and a big hammer. My gameplay strategy boils down to using the 'skin' spells to beef up his armour before a fight (and, thanks to the Character Creation Overhaul mod, I've got an extra +50 armour from the Lord sign aw well), softening the enemy up with some archery and the closing to dish out some hurt with his warhammer. I'm investing points in magicka, so he hasn't quite got the same offensive capabilities as a pure warrior (fewer power attacks, for one), but the tradeoff is that his spells make him way more resilient, which is worth it in my books.

Things that have been done so far:
-Woke up in a cave full of Falmer thanks to the Random Alternate Start mod (I don't know why, but half the time I start new games I end up in Falmer caves with that mod)
-Nabbed the Dragonstone from Bleak Falls Barrow
-Killed a dragon
-Slain many, many bandits (I started out chasing bounties for Jarls as a moneyspinner before I decided to go and do the main quest)
-Got Uthgerd the Unbroken as a follower
-Just begun the pilgrimage up High Hrothgar

Today in Skyrim I started using headphones, and oh my gosh audio really brings the awesome. Now I can hear everything that people say. And people are hilarious.

“I wonder if we’ll come across some bandits who just finished roasting a rabbit on a spit. Maybe they’ll have a keg of ale, too.”

Yeah, maybe.

Mead mead mead. I'd pay to get some skooma up here in this stinking hovel.

I was meaning to ask you, what kind of headphones do you use? I started playing Dragon Age: Origins, and I often have trouble hearing what the companions say to one another. Of course none of their dialogue with each other is subtitled either. I tried it with some earbuds from old walkman, and I was amazed at how much clearer the sound was. But they are so old the foam is falling apart, so I was thinking of buying a pair of actual computer headphones. The wireless ones look pricey, but they would make things a lot easier.

Sennheiser HD 280 PRO. They’re cheaper on Amazon. I’ve waited over a year to get these, and I absolutely LOVE them. I have a big, square head and they still fit me. The Skyrim music sounds incredible. And the wind! Skyrim has a lot of different kinds of wind.

Wow. I have a Sennheiser HDR120 that I use for watching television. I got them about a year ago because half the time with blu-ray movies I cannot hear what the people are saying because the music and sound effects drown out the dialogue. And if I turn up the volume to hear the dialogue better, that just makes everything else louder too. But when I watch with headphones on, I can hear everything just fine. Also, Freya does not like the sound of the tv. She usually leaves the room when I turn it on. Except when I use the headphones.

I tried playing Dragon Age with my tv headhones. Wow, what a difference. Like you said, I can suddenly hear what everyone is saying, even the people off in corners. I think I will go out tomorrow and look for a second pair of headhones. It is just too much trouble to move the base unit back and forth from the tv and computer all the time.

Since we're talking headsets, here's my new one:

Turtle Beach Ear Force PX-22

And let me tell you, WOW. Incredible sound quality, a built in microphone, independently adjustable controls for master volume, treble, bass, mic input and mic output. Corded this time so no need for batteries.

I bought this headset for my PC gaming needs, had evolved to the point of requiring a mic. I was using a cheap one, but it broke fairly quickly (because it was cheap, whodathunkit). So I decided to kill two birds with one stone and get a proper gaming headset to replace it, one that would be exclusive to the PC. My older TB headset is now relegated to being my console audio (which means it is also my movie headset). Being wireless, it makes an excellent "relax and enjoy" sound solution, while the PC set provides the more hardcore needs.

Yup, I take my hobby very seriously.

You people really went all out. I bought a cheaper $50 Turtle Beach X12 today. So far so good. I can actually hear what everyone is saying! This one is wired one too. Like you TK, I am using my wireless Sennheiser headset for watching tv. It doesn't have batteries though. It charges up on its little docking station, which is also what plugs into the tv. The Turtle Beach gets its power from a usb cable to the PC, and the cord is long enough for me to reach my second PC, so I can still look things up on the web while I am playing on the first. I like the adjustable sound on the cord too, it is a lot easier than having to fiddle around with the audio levels my games.

Right? you should celebrate your find by reading the newest chapter of my story.XD

In all seriousness, my husband has our xBox plugged into our stereo, and has his headphones plugged into that. The cord he uses is super long, but they work super well, and you can also hear the sound outside of the headphones through the television if you want.

me too!

I've tried headphones with other games, and if (for some reason) I absolutely have to use them I will, but I usually wind up with a headache within an hour or so. Instead of headphones, I'm thinking of getting some sort of surround sound in my room. Friend of mine has several speakers in his gaming room, good lord, it's like being in a theatre.

Today in Skyrim I got a complete shock.

My homemade NPCs are in all of my games, but they’re placed out of the way so I tend to forget about them. I have a new character who’s joining the Companions since Jensa can’t be bothered with them this time around and I want to see what happens after the end. Hopefully she’ll live. Anyway she’s a whelp, so Farkas gave her a task.

I was kind of crossing my fingers that it wouldn’t be a vampire quest, since that’s what killed Brynja two years ago and this character is level 2. It wasn’t a vampire quest.

Grits, that's priceless! But, by Azura, I sure wouldn't want the task of trying to 'intimidate' Lildereth! Think I'd rather face down vamps than get on the bad side of Lil!

That is amazing that the game would pick Lildreth. Not to mention hilarious!

I'm glad it didn't choose Aravi!

Wow, that's amazing Grits, it's really too much! Must really make you feel like your gameworld is 'yours', too.

Radiant quests are great at incorporating mod-added content into the rest of the game world. I've had one of my characters find Unna's lost amulet, before anyone even told her it was missing. That was gratifying proof that my own mod conforms to the rules, too.

I’m guessing that since I added Lil to the Whiterun Town faction (to keep her out of trouble if she stole something in Dragonsreach) that made her a candidate for Radiant Quests? I didn’t expect that to happen! I suppose that also makes my NPCs potential kidnapping victims. I wonder if adding NPC Jerric to the Companions faction would cause trouble or keep him out of it. I can just see him being ordered to beat himself up in his own game. Or Abiene! Yikes.

Here’s a picture of Channah meeting Lil. She does not look too intimidated. (Also Peasant Fashion put her in a really ugly dress!) Channah is very lucky that she didn’t have to brawl with Aravi. She would never be able to beat her!

She did get an assignment to rescue Heimskr from some bandits. I was hoping he’d get killed in the process, but it didn’t turn out that way.

I'm still tickled how the game put Lil into that quest! I do disagree on the dress however. I mean Lil could toss on a burlap sack and make it look good.

Aawww. In her game Lil hasn’t been wearing much at all lately. She’s still wandering in the Falkreath Hold forests with Jerric, and he never puts down his sword and shield. Between her Resist Frost necklace and potions and with the Nord watching her back she’s as free as a little tree spirit these days. And of course they have plenty of thistle stems on hand to chew if anyone feels a chill. Her only complaint is that my camping kit mod makes a really big fire, and Lil is not one to waste wood.

Lil does not look very intimidated at all!

Rescue Heimskr from bandits? By Talos what is the world coming to! I wonder which of Whiterun's residents hired the bandits to kidnap him?

I would be really surprised if Aravi appeared in any of those radiant quests; the only faction she belongs to is the Khajiit caravans.

Some of mine eat those red berries (snowberries, I think) to warm them up with Resist Fire.

I always bring snowberries or potions of resist frost to keep warm when I'm heading north. I once had a battlemage who used a flame cloak spell for the same purpose though

Ha! Interesting. I once had a character who did not use light spells, and if her torch died she would strategically cast the default healing spell (this is Oblivion now, not Skyirm) because this spell casts a bit of light for a second or two. She would cast this spell, try to figure out where to go next, etc.

I've used non-light spells for light before too, that default healing one in oblivion is quite useful for that purpose...

Don't know what my current character would do if he's stuck in the dark and his torch dyes, no magic for him! At least being khajiit he has a night-eye power.

My Snow Elf Mielikki used a Frost Cloak to keep cool in the blistering Skyrim heat.

Wicked!!

Omg that´s so friggin awesome!

I've been playing a bit of skyrim recently but haven't been posting my activity. Here's a little recap:

Ravos has been searching for aetherium shards and doing some general dungeon diving and misc objectives. He has also been on a few hunting trips around Falkreath, even venturing into the Rift, which he is much less familiar with. Also, Ravos has done some work on Lakeview Manor. He's nearly finished his library and the main hall is now fully furnished, soon he'll have somewhere to store all his books. I'm thinking he'll get back onto the main quest after the aetherium quest is done, but we'll see.


Recently I was looking through my old saves and found that I still had one for Mavrys, a dunmer mercenary. He had died a long time ago in a dungeon at level 15, but I had an old save of him at level 3, just having reached Whiterun. He was one of my most interesting characters, regarding backstory and personality, and I'd had some great ideas for him in-game that never came about. So I fired his game up and made a bit of progress.


He, and his buddy Faendal, (for some reason he always had Faendal with him) have established themselves as mercenaries for hire in Whiterun. They've completed a few jobs for the townsfolk, and collected some bounties for the Jarl. They plan to stay in Whiterun for quite a while, and as such a room at the Bannered Mare is not very cost effective. Luckily they found themselves a place to stay. A bit of meta-gaming helped them discover Uthgerd's house could be rented if she was beaten in a brawl. Mavrys bashed her up a bit, took the key and left her a deposit of 50 septims. Their weekly rent will be 20 septims. They didn't take long to make themselves comfortable; Mavrys has his desk, where he can sort bounties and other contracts, and Faendal has his area , to store his stuff.


I won't be playing Mavry's game much right now, Do'Shakir and Ravos have most of my time. He'll just be there to freshen things up. However once Ravos has completed the MQ his story will be done for a while, until he has to come out of retirement to venture to Solstheim, and that's when I will focus more on Mavrys. He's possibly my favorite character I created for Skyrim, and I have a lot in store for him

Wow, how many characters do you have in Skyrim? Sounds like a few. .. Mavrys looks like a bad-ass! Wow, I had no idea we could rent Uthred's house like that..

Master Baytor is currently in Dragonsreach, where I am RPing he stays when he's not adventuring. He and Lydia just got back from Solitude, where MB joined the Imperials and did a lot of assorted adventuring. He's trying to save money to buy the house in Whiterun, something none of my others have ever done.

He's got a lot ahead of him in the next few days: he and Lydia are to visit Valtheim Bridge to see what's going on with some bandits who have been harassing the locals. Then he is to go to a barrow called Korvanjund to aid the Imperials retrieve an item before the Stormcloaks get there. And finally, he is supposed to go to High Hrothgar to meet up with the Greybeards.

Baytor has been working on his Enchanting, One-handed, Destruction, Alteration, and Conjuration skills most of all. I am looking forward to the next few days in his life.

OH, and there's hardly any dragons in his game. I feared the Main Quest would pack a dragon-an-hour or something, but so far he's seen a total of three random non-quest dragons, and one of these merely flew very high overhead and never attacked Baytor and Lydia.

Usually it is about once every three days you get a dragon. Many people say they seem to be more frequent when you fast travel, but that is only because most people forget that time passes when you FT.

By the time you get to Ravos' stage in the MQ (over 2/3 of the way in) the dragon attacks get very frequent. It builds up over time. The other thing is being a ranger, Ravos spends lots of time off the road, where attacks seem to be more frequent. It's a bit inconsistent though, some days you'll see 3, sometimes you won't see one for a week.

Renee, I have skyrim character attention issues Currently I have Ravos as active, Mavrys as sort-of active, and three characters as dormant/retired plus multiple dead or started but never really played characters...

Ugh. Dang. Well maybe Baytor will work his way around this somehow. I like dragon-fighting to be a rather 'special' experience you see. Don't want it to become an everyday thing. That would get old quick, imo.


You sound like glargg, this gamer over at Beth's forums. I made a 'how many characters' thread awhile back, and I believe he couldn't pinpoint an exact number, he guesstimated 200 or so.

I probably have around 100. But only really played 30 of them...

Sir Magul gro-Bash finally scraped together enough gold to get follower Valdi a horse. They’re on the road between Dragon Bridge and Morthal. Sir Magul’s self-given purpose is to seek out and destroy undead and their creators wherever they may be found in Skyrim. He gets up close and personal with his silver greatsword, and while he carries a bow he isn’t much use with it. Much to my surprise now that he’s seen one he also wants to seek out and destroy dragons.

This could become a problem. Squire Valdi (he still hasn’t figured out how much it pisses her off when he calls her that) uses sun damage spells for her ranged attack. That does absolutely nothing to dragons. I’m curious to see what Sir Magul does about this. Dragons were not in my plan.

Also Sir Magul has picked up Meeko and Vigilance. Now he has two war dogs in his entourage. The plan is that his war dogs will stay outside of dungeons and guard the horses and also deal with the occasional wolf and mudcrab attack on the road. We’ll see how that goes.

It also concerns me that Sir Magul’s armor is unimproved since he does not do forge work. He likes the way his cloak flares out when he gets a power-attack kill-cam, but a holy glow would make him look even better. I’m thinking he might use some Oakflesh type spells to achieve the glow and also possibly save his vain ass. His thinking is that the Atronach blessed him to use the magicka of enemies to heal himself and others and not be tempted by its foul uses. (I changed the Doom Stone to give zero magicka regen.) My thinking is that a dead noble knight is dead. Since those Alteration spells are kind of passive magic maybe he’ll come around to my way of seeing things.

Master Baytor is working his way slowly towards Solitude, to bring a VII (very important item) to General Tullius. As he travels the countryside, he's been looting & plundering, and hopes that by the time he returns to Whiterun he'll have enough to buy the house that's for sale there.

He still travels with Lydia. Since he's a spellsword and mostly relies on magic, it's good having a warrior type to balance out their fighting styles.

He just left Dawnstar, a village he's vowing never to return to EVER.

EDIT: wow, I just snagged Post #1,000.