Gpstr – Interesting character evolution with Tina. Shetcombe Farm is indeed a neat spot. Nice little place with a pond, crops and even a little stable. Since she’s helping with Kvatch, it sounds great.

CT – An old Telvanni wizard going through new recruit recommendation quests. Heh, that’ll be fun.

Mirocu – Eeep! Sorry about the bug problems. I hope Lothran’s world returns to spinning smoothly!

Just can't stop fiddling with my game.

Tina actually got out and did a bit of stuff, but even that was related to fiddling with my game - I was trying out Sneaking Detection Recalibrated, and took her up to Fort Linchal to sneak around and kill necromancers. The mod was pretty good with her, and she had a good time in the fort. Then she went to Gottshaw (Arthmoor's village there) and sold loot, and while she was there, she met a refugee from Kvatch and fell into a quest that took her to and from another Arthmoor village - Vergayun, just north of Bravil. Then I parked her back at Shetcombe and fiddled some more with that, and it's now to the point that I think it's done, but I'm leery of moving her in there quite yet, since I might want to change something.

Then I took Belladonna out just to see what effect SDR had on archers, and that led to LOTS of tinkering with the mod, and eventually, after I did some more testing with Clive and command and summon spells, to disabling it, regretfully. And though both of them ended up going through dungeons (Belladonna actually went through two, and the second one about a dozen times total), neither one of them have any saves from any of it, so they're still where they were when it all started.

Then, tired of messing with that sort of stuff, I cast about for a character to just play - one I hadn't visited in a long time - and decided to spend some time with Jibran the Redguard swordsman. And the first thing I was reminded of when I started his game was how much I disliked the way his clothes looked, with his blocky and miscolored vanilla arms sticking out of his sleeves and attached to his nicely shaped and colored Roberts hands. So that meant that it was time to finally get around to downloading and installing and testing and, because it's what I do, tweaking the replacement clothes and armors for Roberts. So I spent most of today in Blender and Gimp, with occasional quick loads of the game just to check things out.

But then, once I was mostly satisfied (I still need to tweak my Redguard textures a bit), since Jibran was at his shack on Niben Bay, I took him down a ways and cleaned out Fort Aurus, so he at least got out and did something.

At some point here, I'm going to actually play the game some more...

Sounds like my last two sessions...

I feel your pain gpstr. I have often spent more time modding games than actually playing them!

[Magneto voice]
You PC gamers and your mods
[/Magneto voice]

[Darth Vader Voice]
You do not know the power of the mod side!
[/Darth Vader Voice]

Today Lothran went to Cheydinhal in his quest to obtain one town cuirass from all the towns. On the way, as always, he stopped by Morcant´s to say hi, purchase some ingredients and charge up his weapon.




What do you say, guys? Enough to start a fanfic with?

[Obi Wan Kenobi voice]
She's more modder now than gamer
[/Obi Wan Voice]

Why not? Go for it!

Meh, I think this thread is good enough for me


And Lothran, who in fact spent some time at the University tonight. It was time to change some spells after extensive tests out in the field. Primarily it was a matter of reducing unnecessary high effects and/or prolonging time. Also, some spells needed a new name

So Lothran's working on a collection of cuirasses from each city guard force! Sounds neat. And updating his spells - always a worthwhile endeavor and he has the whole previous winter to plan out new spellmaking refinements.

That´s exactly what he´s been doing ever since he began to spend his winters in Bruma


I think this highlights why it´s so important to slow down once in awhile and think things through. Lothran always has new ideas for his spells after a winter in Bruma

That's cool that he's re-arranging some spells. Always good to keep fresh ideas with a longer-lasting character, I would imagine.

mirocu, how is Lothran getting cuirasses for his collection? It’s neat to hear about his interests. I once tried a mod to delete spells from my spellbooks, but I accidentally removed a large chunk of Chorrol in the process. (This was in Abiene’s game. Needless to say she made me reload.) I am too much of a klutz with the mouse to be trusted with such a thing.

Well, he doesn´t sneak in and steal them from the shelves or from a guard if no spare cuirass is found, that´s for sure. Don´t care about the evil rumors in the Black Horse Courier..



How did you delete chunks of Chorrol with a delete spell mod?

If I see a naked guard when Darnand gets to Leyawiin, I’m taking a screenshot!

Best guess I must have missed the spell on the screen and clicked the horizon. I really don’t know how I managed it, but when I went back and read the mod’s fine print I realized that the warnings were there for a reason. So now I use the console to clean up spellbooks. I’m less dangerous when I have a chance to proofread.

Okay... let's see...

Tina's still parked at Shetcombe Farm. I think I'm pretty much done with the renovations, but I'm letting it go a while just in case.

I spent quite a while with Clive the scumbag. He was tracking down the Draconis family, plus doing a few other things along the way, all of which took up a few weeks his time. Since he started in Bruma and was going to end up going to Leyawiin eventually, he swung by Frostfire Glade and retrieved the Tears. Then on the way down the mountain from the Glade, he came across the shrine of Mephala, so he ended up doing that quest, which was right up his alley. He spent a couple of days in the IC before he tracked down Matthias, but dealt with him pretty easily when he did, since all he had to do was taunt him a bit (talk to him with his staff drawn) and Matthias attacked him, so he could kill him in "self defense." Then he made the long trip down to the Drunken Dragon and found that all he had to do was talk to Andreas to enrage him, then stand back while the Imperial soldier killed him. Then it was on to Leyawiin and Caelia, which turned out to be very complicated. He finally got her with the death hood, and luckily enough she survived long enough to leave the barracks and die outside, so he could retrieve it. And while he was in Leyawiin, he also settled the matter with Mazoga the so-called knight. He really did not like Mazoga at all, and was sort of relieved when she died fighting Black Brugo. Then he made his way back up to Muck Valley Cavern to deal with the last of the Draconis family, then made the trip out to Skingrad to collect his reward and his next mission. He's now parked at his house in the Elven Gardens.

Then I spent a little while with Lemdel the Altmer barbarian. He's not doing much of anything though - fighting a few bouts in the Arena and gritting his teeth every time one of the guards launches into that insipid "All hail the champion of Cyrodiil" nonsense. Oh, and he's been adding notches to his bedpost. That last - way back when Lemdel was still sort of early in the MQ, he infiltrated the Mythic Dawn and fought what was, at that point, the first really dominating fight he had. As an Altmer trying to be a barbarian, he really struggled just to survive, but that running battle in the Mythic Dawn hideout was the turning point - that was when he was finally strong enough to move through the world with some confidence. When it was all over, he made his way back to Cheydinhal, and to the Newlands Lodge for the night. And when he was talking to Dervera Romalen, it just clicked. He was proud and confident and he was going to seduce her. Then that just became a part of his characterization - everywhere he goes, he's keeping an eye out for new conquests. I just play whether he succeeds or not by how it seems to fit with the character he's pursuing. So for instance, he did manage to seduce Countess Carvain (and is quite proud of that, though he understands the benefits of discretion, so no one else knows) but he's still pursuing Dynari Amnis. In-game, of course, nothing happens at all - it's just a bit of roleplaying flavor.

Then I spent a bit of time starting and restarting Elenin, the new Altmer. I'm still struggling a bit with her character, but broadly, she's some sort of paladin. I keep envisioning her with a claymore, but I'm sort of fighting against that, since I've done it with so many characters now. I don't see her using a bow, so she'd either be a pure claymore fighter (like Kyla) or a claymore battlemage (like Dawn). But really, at this point, whatever she uses will be the same as someone else anyway, so I'm probably going to just go for it. And I already know of a sword that'll fit her well, and I can just do what I've done with some others (Dawn most notably) - make a mod for her and use that to give her a series of ever more powerful versions of the same sword, so it'll be as if she has the same sword all the way through, but it won't be either overpowered early in the game or underpowered late. I haven't worked out the cause of her sadness (and it's possible I never will) but it's certainly rooted in a loss of someone important to her. And I ran across an odd bit of flavor already - when she was browsing spells at Edgar's on her first attempt at the world, I got the impression that Absorb spells disturbed her - that they seemed sort of vampiric. At the moment, she's parked in the Market District, midday on the first full day after her escape. She has her sword, and I'm trying to sort out what sort of armor, if any, she's going to wear. I'm leaning a bit toward a robe and sandals actually, but we'll see...

On another note, I redid my Altmer male textures and got rid of the greenish cast that bothered me and dealt with a couple of things that had always bothered me. First, I did a set of Altmer ear textures, so they now have ears that are gold instead of pink, then I tracked down the cause of the shiny stripes on the sleeves of some of the robes and fixed that. Those stripes have annoyed me since I was playing Bogmok, and it's so nice to have them gone.

And with that, it's back to Elenin...

Whoa, why is Clive a scumbag?



This is cute. I occasionally get the sense that some of mine have little flings, or whatever. Kahreem once had two elves at the same time, down on the Waterfront. I am like you, in the sense that I don't need to know too many details at moments like this.



Do you ever try any weapons mods? I found a whip mod (though I haven't tired it yet), and also one which adds spears. But the spears one is weird because we can't throw these, nor can we poke. We can only slash. So it's a little weird, but at least it is different (to me).

Renee Gade III has her own chakram (which is like a circular boomerang), and Lady Saga has a silver crossbow. Both of those work really well. I found a mod which adds thrown weapons too, although I haven't used this one yet. When I make my druid, I'm going to really want a quarterstaff mod, although I doubt the animations in Oblivion will allow this to work.

Why is Clive a scumbag?

He just is. I mean - he REALLY is. He's thoroughly and completely vile. He always has been.

His bare bones backstory is that he's from a wealthy family fallen on hard times. He's very conscious of his reputation and goes out of his way to curry favor, particularly with the upper classes. And he loathes doing it - it causes him a lot of stress to keep up appearances. He vents that stress by torturing and killing people, and he was doing that long before the DB started paying him to murder. I can feel it when I'm playing him - every time that someone demands something of him, it gets under his skin, but he can't turn them down because then what would people think? They have to believe that he's a fine, upstanding man-about-town. So he just buries it and smiles and does whatever he needs to do, and privately fumes. And when he can't take it any longer, he slips out at night and finds a safe target and slowly and methodically kills her. Or him, but usually her.

He actually has a torture chamber in the basement of his house in the Elven Gardens. Seriously. Of course, it doesn't actually "work" in-game, and I doubt I'd actually use it even if it did, but in-universe, he's used it a couple of times in the time I've played him (in reality, he's just killed NPCs, then I've console disabled their corpses, but in his story, he's drugged them and taken them home and slowly tortured them to death).

Seriously. He's a scumbag.

Regarding weapons: I use lots of mods for existing weapon types, but I've never been satisfied with any that add entirely new types of weapons, since they can't add the necessary animations to go with them. As you mentioned, spears have to use the two handed melee animations (or I guess they could use the staff animations, but then all you'd do is point them at enemies).

I actually briefly considered giving Elenin a staff - there's a particularly nice bo staff that's a part of Marco's Samurai set - but the only animation that works with it is the two-hand melee, and then it's not really a staff. It's more like a really long baseball bat.

As it's turned out though, the sword I gave her is working very well. Yes - Elenin is out in the world, living a life.

The problem, more than anything else, was the weapon. I had no idea who she was going to be really, but that's fine - I usually don't. That all comes as I play the character. But I needed to have some idea of what she was going to do when something attacked her, and I just didn't know. With most characters, it's either fairly obvious or not terribly important - either I know right off what they're going to want to do or I just pick something on a whim and that then gets folded into their stories. But with her, the choice had to fit in context since she's obviously going to be a deep character, but I couldn't figure out any reason to pick any one thing - nothing seemed to fit the little bit of an impression I got about her. I saw her as a fairly unwilling fighter, but not a pacifist necessarily. Just not terribly eager to fight, or particularly well-suited for it either. I kept coming back to one particular claymore that I thought could fit her well, but as I mentioned, I was a bit lukewarm about playing yet another claymore fighter. But nothing else really jumped out.

After a few false starts, she finally got going yesterday, and it's already clicking into place.

She is - or at least was - a healer. Maybe a priestess of some sort. She has that sword because it belonged to... someone. A sibling? Parent? Partner? I'm not sure yet, but someone very important to her, and someone who's now dead, or worse. She's on a sort of private quest related to that and that's why she carries the sword, even though she's frankly terrible at fighting with it, but I'm not sure yet what her quest actually is. I tend not to think it's simple vengeance, but I'm just not sure yet.

Here she is on the Imperial Isle. That gives a sense of the scale of that blade. It's Trollf's Empire Greatsword, which I've had knocking around for years now, just waiting for a character who could use it. The robes are the Worn Healer's robes from Tegeal's Extra Robes.

She spent the first few days in those robes, just exploring the Imperial Isle. Between a couple of different mods, I've got a bunch of really simple beginner quests around the Isle, and she was doing a few of those and just getting out a bit. She wasn't fighting much, which was a good thing - even with that enormous blade (which is currently set to duplicate the damage of a steel claymore - I'll edit it as the game goes on to keep it current with whatever's common in the game world), it took her four hits just to kill a mudcrab. Luckily, she didn't run into anything else for a while.

Here's another shot from that time.

On about her fourth day, she ran into two nearly identical (sisters?) Redguard bandits by a cave on the north side of the Isle, and that was her first taste of real combat. She struggled a bit, but managed to beat them and was feeling pretty proud of herself. And in a twist I didn't expect at all, she was sort of impressed by their armor. I had been presuming that she was going to stay in clothes, and probably robes, but I could feel her being drawn to the armor, and between the two of them, she got a full set right there. As it turned out, she wasn't much impressed with the Fur cuirass (who is?) so she swapped that for a Leather one from Maro Rufus, and now she's in light armor.

Out and about in her armor.

Over the next couple of days, she did Unfriendly Competition and handled that battle quite well - she's been expanding into some destruction to offset her still meager blade skills. Then she went back and went through Sideways Cave - she'd discovered it on the second day out, but wasn't feeling confident enough yet to explore it. She didn't find any notable loot, but loved just looking around in there. And when she came out, she waded across to check out the rest of the Ayleid ruins she could see on the opposite shore there, so discovered Vilverin, and she's now in the early stages of exploring that.

I haven't worked out what I'm going to do with her and the main quest. In my own mind, right now, nothing has happened yet - she doesn't even have the Amulet (which is how she can spend her time wandering around the Imperial Isle - she has her own private quest, whatever it might be, but she's nothing close to prepared to actually undertake that yet, so she's biding her time and learning how to survive in the world. Her past as a healer/priestess/whatever-she-was left her poorly equipped for a rough life, so this is all new to her). Her adventure started on the first morning after she left the sewer exit, when she woke up in Luther Broad's Boarding House, having just arrived in the IC from... wherever she's from. When I sort out what to do about the MQ, I'll retcon whatever I need to to fit it into her story.

And I'll try to work up an actual story to post...

Things I've learned about Elenin so far:

The sword belonged to a lover who's not an Altmer, and is dead, or maybe worse. He might've been a Redguard - in any case, he had an aversion to profaning and manipulative forms of magic, which she shares. They met due to their common interest in... something... vampires? Necromancy? Anyway - some threatening practice/beings that she was dealing with as a healer and he was hunting. Whatever it was killed him, or worse. I've backed off from the idea that she's on a private quest related to that, though it's still possible. But it's also possible that she's just lost and alone.

She has no family - I don't know if they're dead or she's estranged from them, but they're not in her life.

She generally likes people so long as they're decent and honorable, and that pretty much regardless of race or class or station. She doesn't like manipulative, deceitful or cruel people, and that again pretty much regardless of race or class or station. She's awkward with people though - too locked in her own thoughts. I don't know if that's just her current situation or a deeper personality trait, but I tend to think it's the latter.

She's relatively pious and a bit defensive about it. When she met Umbacano after going through Vilverin, he made some condescending remark about the people having a "simple faith in the nine," and it made her mad. She considers their, and her, "simple faith" to be much better than his smug pretensions. And it was significant that he's an Altmer.

She's kind of interested in bows, but hasn't tried one yet. I don't know if she will - she's really trying to learn how to fight with this blade and doesn't want to divide her attention. She backs that up with magic - mostly restoration and destruction - but that comes naturally to her.

I think she's beautiful.

Wow, Clive really is an scumbag! I don't usually play characters like that. It ultimately makes me depressed, because I just don't like them. The nearest I got was Lilith. She he was the daughter of Claudius Arcadia, and was raped and left for dead by Rufio. That is what led her father to try to hire the Dark Brotherhood. Consumed by the need for revenge, she became an assassin. Killing made her feel powerful, and the more she did it, the more she liked it.

Elenin sounds a whole lot more my speed. She's the kind of character I like, and whom I like playing.

I remember Lilith well.

I created Clive years ago, but didn't play him much, largely because I just couldn't grasp his character. I was pretty clear on who and what he was generally, but I couldn't get inside his head and sort out his motivations. The thing that finally gave me a good insight was figuring out how to deal with side quests. My first inclination was that he just didn't care, so he'd tend to refuse quests. I can't remember now which one it was - one of the earliest ones - I had him refuse it, and the questgiver was visibly upset by that, and I realized that Clive couldn't have that. He has an appearance to maintain. That meant he had to accept the quest. But he sincerely doesn't care - if anything, he wants people to suffer. But he's backed into helping them. And that's when it all clicked. It grates on him that these grinning idiots beg for his help, but he's too conscious of his image to let it show, so it just festers. It's the conflict between the appearance he has to maintain and the fact that he's actually cruelly uncaring that drives him. Once I got that, it was easier to get inside his head - now I can feel it when he's starting to feel put-upon, and is going to have to relieve his stress.

It's still uncomfortable to play him, and I can only do it for a while, but it's been interesting now that I have some insight into what drives him, rather than him just being a two-dimensional "evil" character.

Clive's part of the reason too that my recent Argonian Mu-teel ended up the way she is. She's unapologetically vicious, but she's not cruel or heartless. She's just very practical and straightforward. She was sort of a counter to Clive's disturbing motivations - she feels clean by comparison.

But yeah - all in all, I'm more comfortable with "good" characters. Elenin's actually shaping up to be the best yet - she couldn't even bring herself to pick up any of the valuable stuff lying around the Chorrol mages guild hall - it obviously belongs to someone else.

And who knows - after playing her for a while, the goodness might get so cloying that I'll have to switch to Clive for a break from it all.

Lothran just took a trip back to Bleak Flats Cave. He hasn´t been there in years - literally! And wouldn´t you know it; Erthor had gone back. After all the whining about getting back to Skingrad...

Gpstr – Sounds like great fun as you move comfortably among your characters. And what a variety! I agree with you that Elenin is beautiful.

Mirocu – Sounds like Lothie needs to assign a keeper for Erthor. Maybe Thaurron over in Anvil can get him an imp familiar like Sparky. From what I’ve seen, Erthor seems to base himself at the guildhall, but visits Bleak Flats Cave on sort of a weekly schedule. When he’s not at the guild, I know he’s visiting his cave. I (and I think Renee) have actually found Erthor to be a pretty good follower using Companion Share and Recruit because he is a sorcerer (great class). Anyway, great to hear of Lothran’s warm season adventures.

Yes, now I agree. Clive is a scumbag. No need to convince me further on that! ... It's the way you said "Clive the scumbag" that made me blink. I've never heard anybody say something like that about their character so blatantly. And I've been gaming RPGs since the 1980s.



Crossbows of Cyrodiil works pretty good, and so does the chakram Renee Gade III uses. I want you to understand, I gamed on PS3 / Xbox for 5+ years, so on PC I have a tendency to look for anything new, just to see what's out there. Some of it is meh, but some of it great.


Keep an eye out for a vampire named Eradi~Kate. She's rumored to have lived in that cave.

I find Elenin pretty fascinating. I look forward to learning more about her.

I rather suspect that being Altmer, Elenin's family cut her off if she had a Redguard lover. Racial purity, and all that.

I have never seen him again in any guildhall, he must live in that cave.

In any case he´s now coronated...


Never saw even a rat or...

Oooh..

gpstr, I’d love to see some pictures of Shetcombe farm when Tina is ready for guests. My Bosmer Lildereth lived there for a long time, and it’s a favorite spot of mine. Lil dragged over a couple of dead slaughterfish from the nearby ruin and used them as safe storage.

It’s interesting to read about Clive the Scumbag’s creative killing. I remember my DB character getting really involved with her fellow assassins, but she was never very good at murder. There was usually a fight.

Elenin sounds like she is revealing herself to you at a pace one might expect from her, as she is locked inside herself so much. She is already a fascinating character. I think she’s beautiful, too.

mirocu, it’s nice to hear that Erthor is up to his same routine. I’m a big Erthor fan. I love to hear his battle taunts after he was so fearful in that cave.

I love Shetcombe Farm, for new Player Characters it is almost the only really workable option till they get enough money up to buy a house of their own.

I also redecorated Shetcombe Farm for my new characters - but did it right there inside the original house. I just moved the clue the Player finds to a side table; and I've played through the quest many games with the set up, it hasn't hurt the quest at all - and is lore friendly.


According to the quest, the owner just left the house after Kvatch was attacked, so it made no sense the house was in such disarray. I straightened it up and decorated it to suit all the uppity High Elves in game; the furniture is all still the lower class (just retextured); added respawning food to the table and a lot of safe storage for the new Player. The quest is not interfered with at all by my mod:



(not sure why this photo is not showing up, I can see it on the Photobucket! Oh well, lol.)



Here is a top view looking down on the whole house as it is in my game now. Everything you see is safe storage except the food, it respawns so the Player will never go hungry (if you roleplay) or the Player can sell off the food for money:







View from another angle:








Added a custom horse for the new Player they can choose to use or not (just leave in the stables). It has speed just over the mounted Legion horse; fighting ability just over Shadowmere (but less than the Unicorn); and is essential like Shadowmere:







Added feed and water for horse; a bed for followers on the right; and in the center a small still operation where the new player can create some income other than from the garden

(Shetcombe Farm has a huge respawning garden; the early Player can make money either selling off the produce or making healing potions from the garden and selling them - the still just supplements that income, or gives the Player some fun side effects from drinking the "Kvatch Kickapoo Sloe White Lightning") :








Close-up of still making set up; note the bedroll for followers on the right:







Added exterior basement door and basement:







Peek at the basement:








*

Wow, that’s beautiful mALX! Kvatch White Lightning, nice. How fun that the player can actually make it!

It has some pretty wild side effects if the player drinks it instead of selling it; and there is a small mini-quest added where the Player can find the previous owner's former clients to sell it to, but truthfully any vendor will buy it from the Player.

Wow, that is beautiful! And corn whiskey!

Or as they say in ETN, "corn squeezins'"

@Renee - that was part of my conception of Clive right from the beginning - that and that he only uses magic, and (as much as possible) only manipulative magic - conjuration and illusion. I didn't want him to be just a superficially contrarian "evil" character - I wanted him to be thoroughly despicable, all the way to the core.

@haute ecole rider - that was exactly my first inclination - that her lover was a Redguard and her family has cut her off over it. It would likely fit, and would provide some context for her discomfort with absorbing magic and conjuration and necromancy and the like (though I'm tending to think that she already had that attitude, which is part of what put her in the position where she met this unknown sword-wielding Redguard, and part of what made her receptive to him). I'm not ready to commit to that yet though, since it's also possible that her lover, like her, was sort of an outsider, and that's part of why they bonded. For that matter, he might even have been an Altmer, and just a fairly unusual one. And she must be cut off one way or another from her family - she's too lost and too lonely and too poorly equipped for this life, and if she could run to the safety of home, I'm certain she would have. It's not that she's so determined that she simply won't - she's more fragile than that. It can only be that she can't. I don't know whether they're alive or dead though.

@Acadian & Grits re: beautiful - it's sort of odd really. My characters all tend to be attractive, and particularly the female ones. I'm just that shallow. But there's something about Elenin that goes far beyond most of the others. The others might be cute or pretty or charming or attractive or whatever, but Elenin really strikes me as beautiful, in the fullest sense of the word.

And she appreciates your kind words.

------------

Elenin is currently in Skingrad.

The way it played out - she spent a few more days knocking around the Imperial Isle, then went to sleep one night and inexplicably woke up in the Imperial Prison, then all of that happened and she ended up with the Amulet and a mission to accomplish - to deliver it to Jauffre. So she set out for Chorrol - her first time past the Ring Road (in-universe, she came to the IC by ship). The trip was relatively uneventful, which was a welcome relief - she was terrified. And in-universe, Jauffre just accepted the Amulet and thanked her for her service to the Empire and that was that. And the turn-off to Kvatch just won't exist in her world.

With nothing else much to do, she went into town. She felt a bit let down by it all - she'd actually met the emperor and seen him die and heard all that stuff about her destiny, then she dropped off the amulet with some old guy and that was that. She wasn't sure what all this destiny business was about.

She went to the mages guild to join up - she needs access to their resources. She considered the fighters guild, but the whole place just seemed rough and violent and the Dunmer in the lobby scared the hell out of her, and she scuttled back out of there. She's just going to have to sort out this swordfighting stuff on her own. She couldn't find this Earana anywhere, so following a lead from one of the locals, she went to the Gray Mare to see if she was there. And she not only found Earana, but ended up running into two different people who both needed her help. And she started to realize what her destiny might be. Granted, the Amulet certainly needed to make it safely out of the sewers, but anyone could've done that. But left to her own devices, she might never have gotten off the Imperial Isle - she might never have made that terrifying trip to Chorrol, or more accurately, would've continued to believe it was rightly terrifying and never discovered that it wasn't really all that bad. And most notably, she would've never found these people who need her. She would've just stayed locked inside her own unhappiness. Now, thanks to that bizarre chain of events, she's out in the world, where people need her. Maybe that was the point.

After a night at the Oak and Crosier, she made her way up to Cloudtop, entirely uneventfully. She was on edge all the way up, but more relaxed coming back down and took her time. Nature is a bit foreign to her, but she loved the peace and quiet and the sun slanting through the leaves.

She spent the rest of that day and that night at the guild hall, learning spells and reading, then sleeping soundly.

The next morning, she helped the Odiil boys with the goblins on their farm. She was scared stiff. She's fought more in the past few weeks than she ever dreamed she would, but she's not at all comfortable with it. And usually it just happens, and all she has time to do is react. This was the first time that she consciously set out to fight. That walk down the hill to the farm was an eternity and she had to fight the urge to run away every step of the way.

The battle itself though went just like the others. After all that strain, when it finally started, it just happened and she reacted and it was all a blur, and the next thing she knew it was over and they were all still alive.

She was really touched by Valus Odiil and gratefully accepted his reward. She has no use for the blade - no use for any blade but her own - but she'll cherish it anyway. And with that, she set off for the Imperial City, just to find a place to keep it safe. And so that I could do some stuff.

Meta note: I've finally been learning to get around in Blender, so now I'm fiddling with meshes too. I didn't really care for the enormous H-cups (or whatever they are) on her robe (she's a C), so I redid the mesh last night, and while I was at it, I added a bunch of polys so I could smooth it out a bit, and shifted things around so the seams lined up better and so on.

I was pretty pleased with the results.

Then, after a night's sleep at Luther's, she set out for Skingrad. She ran into four Imps along the way, but other than that, it was a safe and scenic journey.

And she qualified for her first level up along the way. She's just past 16 hours in, which is great. Her build is a bit different than what I normally use, since she relies on a fairly disparate set of skills, few of which come naturally to her. I normally use Kobu's 1.5x skill slowing mod, just because I'm familiar with the rates of everything with that and know how to work around things. But she needed more used majors than I'd normally prefer, so needed to be slowed down more, so I switched to the one that's included with Fundament, which scales from 3x to 6x through the course of the game. I was afraid it might be too slow, but she's advanced about right (it likely would be too slow for another character, but her lack of skill is part of her characterization). She eagerly took a +5 to strength, had to settle for a +3 to endurance (I don't think she'll gain a whole lot of endurance, and that's as it should be) and then took a +5 to intelligence.

Oh and, when she got into Skingrad, she sold the bow and arrows she'd been carrying since she got them out of Jauffre's supply chest. She's still sort of interested in the whole concept, but she never actually used them.

Looks pretty neat, mALX. Nice job I like Shetcombe Farm too and if Lothran needed a new place in the summertime that would be perfect. Not sure I´d let him drink from the still though...


--------------------------


Lothran has explored yet another previously unexplored location; Trumbe. He really makes an effort this year, it has been long since he explored this many new locations, and he even re-explores some. Like Brittlerock Cave, he went through it tonight as well. He actually found a custom-named silver axe with no enchantment. I seem to recall it from long ago, have to look it up. It´s not a quest item anyway.


Now he´s heading over to Fort Sutch and then it´s on to Anvil again


Edit: War Axe of Depletion is the weapon´s name and the wiki says it´s supposed to be enchanted but isn´t.

MALX - Nice job with Shetcombe. I agree that it is a very nice little farm with a nice pond and stable.

Gpstr - I think it makes wonderful sense that Jauffre takes the amulet from you, then thanks you and sends you on your way. He has Blades to take it from there after all. So Elenin seems to be gravitating toward magic - not surprising I think. And it seems like her calling might be helping those in need! How nice.

Mirocu - Great to hear of Lothies 'ventures. Ask him to say hi to Sparky the imp in Anvil. Buffy still fondly recalls the time she and Lothie spent hunting there and sharing sunset on the beach.

mALX: is that Shetcombe available on Nexus or somewhere else? I am interested. Some of mine stay at Shetcombe on occasion, would be nice to sort of RP that at least one of them has done the place up.

gpster: Now, thanks to that bizarre chain of events, she's out in the world, where people need her. Maybe that was the point. -- Sure, very much so.

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Tirdas, 7:59 am, Morning Star 8, 3rd Era 434

Bounty: 778

Kahreem is still running from the law. He found a small camp where he had once habituated with bandits long ago, but did not recognize anybody, and the people who were staying at this place weren't too keen on seeing a Redguard show up wearing legionnaire's armor. So he could not stay there.

He needed a place to stay the night before, but the Gottshaw is constantly staffed by a guard, so my Redguard had to leave. He'd been up for hours. Finally he found a small encampment of people near Kvatch. They seemed distracted about something, and some of them were initially rude to him, but he talked his way into getting a place to sleep. Good thing, because it rained all night.

In the morning, an elf came running up to him, claiming that Kvatch was under some sort of attack. This elf told Kahreem that "daedra were coming", and advised everyone to run, but nobody did so, so neither did Kahreem. The elf did mention that a horde of guards were up the hill though, and since he is wanted by the law, he did not want to stay too long with the refugees. Besides, they had also echoed the elf in their own ways; something had happened up at Kvatch. Not a place to be right now, by the sound of it.

As Kahreem mounted "his" horse, he was forced to suddenly leave at a much quicker pace. The locals had determined that this horse was not owned by him, and a few of them even made their attacks as Kahreem fled, once again.

Couldn´t Kahreem have helped out at Kvatch and maybe redeemed himself?

Ha ha ha noooo. I don't get this sense. He doesn't want to help anybody but himself. He hears the word "GUARDs" and thinks he'd rather be somewhere else.

Good question though, and thanks for asking.

Urgh. found an old magazine I picked up years ago, because it had a review of Oblivion in it. The reviewer basically tells a few short stories of his characters adventures in Cyrodiil. He played as an Argonian character, and after reading the review, an old friend of mine decided to make an appearance.

So later today, Sal the Argonian's going to find his way back to Cyrodiil again, this time as a Mystic Archer.

Well, Sal's gotten started. I haven't created him fully yet, trying to figure out his class setup, though I already know what he'll look like, his face is always pretty much the same. Since he doesn't use armour or melee weapons, I don't want him leveling too high. I think his class might just boil down to conjuration, illusion, marksman, and restoration, with the rest as filler. Unlike most of my characters he's not very skilled with destruction, it seems like he's got nothing beyond the novice touch spells for the elements, not counting flare, but he'll be using drain speed eventually for shenanigans.

He's even shown me something new already. Until today I'd never found the chest with an average-level lock in the tutorial dungeon, so him pointing it out to me was a nice surprise!

And I'd forgotten just how atmospheric Oblivion could be; sneaking through the tutorial dungeon, bow in hand, in almost complete darkness, looking for any sign of movement to aim for. It was awesome, and Sal's actually a pretty good shot with a bow, better than my characters usually are. He made a shot on a half-visible moving goblin that the other archers I've played in the past wouldn't have attempted, let alone hit.

Edit: *Facepalms, with planet-shattering force* Of all the things to forget, how did I manage to overlook mysticism as a skill for a MYSTIC archer?

I like the fact that you aren't planning on leveling him too high. Whoa, there's a 3-tumbler chest in the beginning dungeon?

Between him being unarmoured and my track record at keeping characters alive, I can't afford to



Yup, surprised me too. I mentioned it in the "New Things" thread. I think Sal has a nose for treasure

I hope so. I like your stories.

The effects are pretty wild, lol. I love Shetcombe for my early characters.




Thanks!



I just made that for my own game; but have considered a few times the thought of posting some of my Oblivion mods some day. It wouldn't take much bundling for that one, but would need some permission MEO for the dinner plates on the table and probably beta testing the Kickapoo effect.

Good thing I'm in the mood to write

Firstly though, a note: Dranos' game has been scrapped. Since he was thought up for the 4th era, there was the nagging sense that everything that happened in his game was conflicting with his already established backstory for his actions during the Oblivion Crisis. Really ruined his game.

Anyway, now for a little something to get Sal the Argonian going:

The Imperial City Prison

Sal the Argonian awoke, hissing as even that slight movement pulled at the bruises the guards had given him. The Legion did not take kindly to stowaways, especially in the Imperial City, but Sal had had no choice.

The compartment was cramped, and the smell was almost overwhelming, but Sal endured. He had to. This was his only way out. He couldn't risk going back to the Twin Lamps. Slavery may have been outlawed, but everyone knew the Telvanni were a law unto themselves, and so of course they would ignore it. So the Twin Lamps had been moving against them wherever possible, dangerous though it was, because officially no-one could enforce the law where the Telvanni were concerned.

The raid on Tel Uvirith had gone well at first, with half of the slaves freed before the alarm had been raised, but once alerted, the guards had been more than they'd prepared for. Sal had drawn off one group, poisoned arrows and a summoned skeleton more than enough reason for the guards to pursue him. He'd led them on a chase towards the water, where several boats had been left against such an event. But the boats had already been taken, and not even an Argonian could outswim Telvanni guards, for whom water was no obstacle.

A knife to the throat of the ferryman ensured his co-operation, and got Sal as far as Sadrith Mora, no safer than Tel Uvirith had been, and he'd gone over the side rather than sailing all the way in. He'd pulled himself up the side of the first ship he'd reached, not knowing where it was bound for. Cyrodiil had not been a pleasant surprise, not when he'd been discovered before the ship had sailed halfway there. If the Legion didn't pay a reward for turning over stowaways entering the Imperial City, they'd have thrown Sal into the sea as soon as they'd found him.

Footsteps and voices echoed down the steps, and Sal hauled himself to his feet, wincing with every movement. Three figures descended the stairs and stopped outside of his cell. The torch had burned down before Sal had passed out from the pain, so he could see nothing of the figures but vague outlines. "Stand back prisoner." A voice growled at him. "Over there by the window. Stay out of the way and you won't get hurt."

Sal backed away until his shoulder-blades met stone, and with a squeal of rusted metal the cell door opened. The figure held a naked sword in one hand, its gently curved blade caught the merest amount of light and gleamed. The other hand reached into a pouch at his belt, and took out a small vial. "Take this, prisoner. Sit in the corner, on the floor, and drink it." Sal hesitated, and the voice continued. "Drink the potion, or I'll slit your throat prisoner, I don't give a damn what happens to you, not tonight." Sal shrugged and took the vial, sat on the floor in the corner of his cell, and drank. The cell began to spin around him, his scales tingled, and what little he could see took on a purple tint as the cell slid out of focus. Everything went black, and Sal knew no more.


He awoke to a throbbing headache. For a moment he had to wonder if that potion was still affecting him, because while the cell door was closed, one of the walls was open. Not the outside one, unfortunately, but one that led underground, beneath the Imperial City? Sal rubbed the scales between his spines as he tried to focus and think, before shrugging and entering the passage. A short stretch of rough rock gave way to old, well crafted stone walls, though age had taken its toll on them. He was so confused by his surroundings and the aftereffects of the potion he'd been given that he didn't notice the bodies until he tripped over one. The shock forced clarity of thought into his mind, drowning out the haziness.

The body was that of an Altmer, his head lolling at an angle that no living neck could reproduce, and there was no other mark on him. Sal thought for a moment before stripping the body of its dark red robe, replacing it with his prisoner's garb for the sake of decency. Wandering around looking like he just escaped from prison would only lead to trouble. There were four more bodies, three robed men and one woman in armour, but a search of them turned up nothing but a couple of potions and a short sword. Sal had never been one for fighting up close, so he left the sword but pocketed the potions. The only door leading out was locked, but a section of the wall had collapsed somehow, providing Sal with a path to another room, this one far cruder.

There he found another body, this one long dead, but possessed of an old and battered bow with a quiver of arrows, which Sal appropriated, muttering thanks to Stendarr, before pressing onwards. Rats and goblins stalked the rough passages, which eventually led back to the old stone section again. This time there were even more bodies, but none of them armoured. Sal began to wonder if taking this robe had been a mistake. He looked around the room, noticing several other exits. They were too high for whomever had passed through to have used, but perhaps they had been used by the robed figures? But Men and Mer could not climb as well as Argonians or Khajiit, and Sal was able to scale the ancient walls, and found another way out, free of bodies.

The corridors led him to an entrance to what his nose told him would be the sewers, and Sal drew his bow before continuing onwards, once more having to deal with rats and goblins in the dark. He wandered the tunnels for hours, eventually stumbling across a usable ladder leading to the surface.

Renee – With all those guards and soldiers at Kvatch, Kahreem was probably wise to leave. Using a stolen horse to do so – mebbe not so much.


CT – Sorry about Dranos; that 200 year mistake by the devs can indeed be a challenge for roleplayers and fic writers. In the end, it is often best to ignore that artificial barrier between Cyrodiil and Skyrim for those of us who play long-term characters.

Welcome back to Sal! I remember him. Nice twist on the opening of Oblivion. It would appear that Sal is not ‘The Chosen One’. Therefore, drugging him and leaving him behind makes perfect sense for those guards who passed through his cell.

Obviously Uriel VII didn't know him as the one from his dreams, as all Argonians look the same to him.

Yes, that is a clever take on the beginning of the game, bravo! ... Don't worry if all the details don't make 100% sense.

Argh, now I'm going back over it all. It pretty much turned up in one big rush as I wrote it, especially this incarnation of Sal's backstory.