@Acadian - rumors must be spread at all costs! Everyone should avoid mudcrabs and goblins!

@Renee - well, rumors just like what they are - rumors. They could be true but perhaps the story of Paralinque is just as real as dangerous mudcrabs. Who can tell?

@SubRosa - that reminds me of the game Theme Hospital where patients with bloaty heads came for treatment and the only option to help them was to deinflate their heads by poking a needle in them. If the procedure wasn't successful, they burst just like the guy in the video and you had to pay for cleaning of the room.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Surprisingly, Jes' boat was still where he had left it in Bravil docks a few days ago. Jes was convinced that someone would steal it by now. Well in a way he stole it too but it belonged to necromancers from the Cadlew Chapel and since they were dead, Jes guessed that it no longer counted as stealing.

He took a boat to the Niben and was hoping to enter the sunken ruin but the door was sealed. So he rowed further down south and discovered another Ayleid ruin - Bawn. Lots of gold and welkynd stones he found and after selling them he could afford some training from Dro'Shanji and Luciana Galena in Bravil.

He spent the night in his makeshift camp by the Niben.

A couple of things worthy of mentioning:


1. While clearing out Plundered Mine, in the final room of the cave, Lothran as per usual let his Spriggan and her bear do most of the fighting. But when the spell timed out and there were still goblins left, no one came to Lothran to fight. So he went after them and saw that they was actually fighting each other! I don't think there were another tribe involved; there must have been a case of friendly fire in the narrow corridor leading up to the room. Quite fun anyway.

2. Capstone Cave had another one of those friendly Khajiit bandits and while encountering one of them isn't as rare as the infighting, it's still worth mentioning as Lothran both sweet-talked her as well as bribed her up to 100

Lopov - Nice that Jes still has his boat. Ayleid ruin crawling is a living. . . albeit a dangerous one. Hope the training helps.

Mirocu - Always nice to hear of Lothie's adventures in his winter wonderland around Bruma. Friendly fire among goblins - hilarious!

Love it when it happens


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

Lothran's guard shift has started. He donned his official armor in the morning and after feeding Jorundr, he took to the streets. Nothing special to report and as evening fell he manned his post at the North gate, awaiting the New Year.

@Acadian - the training was expensive but in the long run it will pay off.

@mirocu - if Kahreem visits Bruma tonight, he better enters through the South gate.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

After delivering sad news of her husband’s passing to Ursanne Loche, Jeston Spetra, called Jes by most, decided to leave Bravil. In time, he began to like the town and appreciate its few friendly locals, mostly from the Mages Guild, while avoiding crude folks whose lives seemed to revolve around insults and provocations. Events at Fort Grief yet again proved of how cruel a man’s soul can be and though Jes tried to avoid violence if possible, he enjoyed killing Kurdan, the Orc in charge of bloody hunting games at Fort Grief. That’s why he now needed some peace and he was bound to find it among fauna and flora of the West Weald. His destination is Skingrad where some alchemist interested in nirnroots lives but on a way there Jes is planning to search the forest for ingredients of all kinds.

Oh good, he's going to West Weald. Yes. Lots of nightshade, lots of flax too. He's going to wind up with SOoo much flaxseed, Lopov.

Yes, I know what you mean about friendly fire in this game, mirocu. Has Lothran seen any foresters going at it yet?

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

Sundas, 11:35 pm, Morning Star 6, 3rd Era 435

Joan of Arkay spends this entire day in Skingrad's Chapel. Tomorrow she will do some buying and selling (because we can't do these things on Sundas, right?) and then head toward the Kvatch area. She will turn her hooved beast in a northerly direction then and try to find Camp Ales, a place north of Kvatch. There, she is supposed to retrieve some Dwemer artifacts from some bandits who somehow stole these items from the Arcane University.

Wow. My update is shorter than mirocus!

As they're both members of the same guild I don't think Kahreem has much to be afraid of. Not from Lothran anyway. No guarantees given with regards to the other guards


Long time ago now. At least seven or eight years I would say. There has been a forester around for the last few years but he's been alone and is not one of those fighting each other.

No, I meant has he seen some foresters going at it during the time he's been in Bruma these last few weeks?

Whew, I feel safer already knowing Lothie is on the job patrolling Bruma.

I agree with Jes – killing Kurdan was. . . enjoyable.

I hope that Joan is suitably impressed with the Orrery once it is all back up and running.

Oh, no. Like I said we haven't even seen that around Bruma at all for many years, including the last few weeks

Joan is doing the Orrery quest - nice! I did it in Raven's playthrough, though he rarely used "quest rewards", it was nice having a functional orrery in the Arcane University.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Master Sinderion now has a new apprentice - Jes. The young Breton agreed to bring nirnroot samples to the elder alchemist so he'll be able to brew elixirs of exploration. Jes doesn't particularly care about the elixirs but he likes to collect nirnroots. "Search by the water," was the only but also the best advice from Sinderion about where to seek nirnroots.

~ ~ ~ ~~

I use a mod that makes nirnroots grow back in time because I don't want them to disappear permanently when picked up.

I approve of that mod. It would suck if Nirnroots never grew back, and their song is therefor absent because Jes has picked them all.

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

Mornings Star 8, 3rd Era 435, mid-day

Joan of Arkay discovers Shetcombe Farm as she was headed toward Camp Ales. She searches around the place, looking to see if anybody's home, so she can buy some food, perhaps. But nobody is there. Because of her Lawful Good nature, she won't just loot the place. So there's no real reason for her to stay there.

As she gets back on her horse though, the wind picks up, and a huge rainstorm ensues. There is no further point looking for Ales, then, with visibility cut way down.

Maybe it's better to stay at the mysterious Shetcombe Farm after all.

Aah, the infamous Shetcombe Farm. Why infamous? It's because it was at that place the ugly Abomb showed its face for the first time, ruining my gaming experience since I didn't know what the frack was happening.


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

Guard shift is over and Lothran is now resting at Jerall View. I think next adventure will be to travel to Azura's shrine.


Edit: But it wasn't! Instead he took to the west and visited Mr Mora's shrine. Very boring trip, btw. Only one ogre bothered to show up and then it was just bears.

Now however is Lothran at the shrine to Azura. No Buffy, sadly, but a night in the tent makes wonders to an elf and as morning raises over Cyrodiil, he will soon make his way back home to Bruma. Previous evening was spent inside Silver Tooth with the usual shenanigans

The Shrine of Azura is a beautiful spot to camp!

Sundas, 4:35 pm, Morning Star 13, 3rd Era 435

Days Passed: 140
Level: 7

Since this is Sundas, and she's in Skingrad (which has its own chapel) this means Joan of Arkay does absolutely nothing, other than visit the chapel, and space out while entertaining visions of .... whatever visions she garners from the Gods. All of this in real-time, too. No wait button.

Her goal lately is to find a place called Camp Ales, but she keeps getting distracted. On Fredas for instance, she was on her way out to the West Weald but noticed a purple beacon of light shining down from the sky at one point. She knew what it was. Since Joanie will be my main character in Morrowind, she knows quite a lot about matters such as this.

And she just couldn't resist a plunder into Fort Istrius. Those necromancers fought for their right to practice their dark arts, but Joan prevailed over all. And now they have to answer to Arkay, in their fatalistic doom.

Fort Istrius...the very same fort which played a very importnat role in Sarah Phimm's game. Looks like necromancers under leadership of Tayka Byte came after Joan cleared the fort.

My decrepit avatar and his ward are about to exit Bravil - where they only stopped long enough to deliver Merchants Guild package and grab a quick meal at Silverhome on the Water - and resume their patrol of the Green to Leyawiin. (For once Vil was neither hungry nor thirsty. My avatar gobbled a ham & cheddar sammich and muffin, washed down with Dragon Fire Lager.}

The ride between Weye and Bravil was fairly uneventful. They encountered one bandit at a bridge early on, then nothing aside from three bears.

They got off a bit late, due to my avatar's indecision over what to do with the day. He originally thought to inspect a cave on the Imperial Isle, cleansing it of miscreants if necessary. They ought to have done so. But stuck in a rut as it tends to be, it just didn't sit well with him. (I swear he sometimes seems as dedicated to routine as I am.) In the end cave disinfection went by the wayside and two rode instead so the Imperial City to gather the Leyawiin patrol and associated tasks.

As luck would have it, their upcoming tax gathering assignment is to Drunken Dragon Inn, perfect for this patrol.

Whether or not he cleanses Rockmilk this trip remains to be seen. I suspect he will. But I'm not the final say.

(I swear I observed them travel the Green from Bravil to fairly near Leyawiin. Then POOF, the world went dark. It must have been a dream.)

Yay! An update from The Tireless Crusader™ and Gang®!


I wonder if Hamfat can resist a Rockmilk dive, considering they usually get pretty decent loot from there if memory serves me right

Okay, THAT's what been wrong lately. Phew. I knew something was a little off in Cyrodiil lately. It's because there's no Decrepit Avatar wandering around. Well, good thing he's back in action.

Renee Gade III did get up to Bruma lately, but it's a Bruma maybe 15 years in the future (compared to Lothran's Bruma) so she didn't see any platinum-haired elf pulling guard duty. RG3 did meet Dyan phor a'Cauz though. Dyan lives in the Bruma House For Sale, and has been living there for the past 20+ years, since she bought the place after Knights of the Nine was done. Since Dyan knew RG3's mother, she's been some help in guiding Renee to find her mother's grave.

But first, she must go to Underpall Cave, where yet another vampire menace has been afoot.

It all exists simultaneously, yet in different times

No way! Kahreem saw Lothran a couple times (year 433-434) but we have yet to see your elf in 4th Era Year 21. Granted, he may simply be out goblin-hunting and we keep missing him ...

Just now he took a tour to the west, killing ogres until he reached Mr. Mora's shrine. He went past and continued up the stairs and killed off the Storm Atronach who was there, collecting void salts afterwards, and then he went back to Rielle where he's patiently awaiting my return. Better not be away for too long, I think he wants to go to the Tap and Tack


Playing like this is interesting. I have it constantly snowing to get that full winter feel and because of that, the rest of Cyrodiil can't be seen. It's like it doesn't even exist! This is what allows me to get that "new car smell game feel" again when Lothran leaves Bruma in spring

Current project: Getting the Ruined Akaviri shield down to 100% instead of 125%

This task is a bit complicated. Since Lothran is a Master in Block, no damage is taken to the shield so he can't just walk up to any foe and let them hit him to bring it down. No, this requires a bit of strategy.

While fighting a bandit when out trekking, Lothran found a Daedric warhammer that does damage to Armor. This is great, but since he can't use it on himself he will have to find someone that can. So firstly he will have to find a bandit who can use weapons.
But in order to make them pick it up he will either have to wait until the bandit's weapon is down to zero, which will take quite awhile, or wait until the knockback effect happens that in turn could disarm them. Both these options take time and a bit of luck, and since we both are a bit impatient we will have to use an item that Lothran has back home to quicken things up; a staff that damages weapons. Now we only needed to find a bandit.

Capstone Cave has bandits, but since that place was recently cleared, a better option would be the camp to the east of Dragonclaw Rock. There was one bandit there. Lothran initiated the battle with the Damage Weapon staff and when the bandit's Elven mace was done with, Lothran dropped the warhammer and she picked it up and began whacking. After a short while it was apparent that the enchantment had worn off and so the one starting the fight, ended it.

And it worked fine; the shield was down to 107%. Not quite there, but a recharge and another "volunteer" and the quest is accomplished!

Thing is, I know exactly what Lothie was doing.

One mission Buffy assigned herself was to take Umbra's sword from Umbra without killing her so Lenwin would be free of Umbra's curse. To shorten a long story, this involved damaging Umbra down to zero (by spells, not letting her hit Buffy!) so Umbra would stick it in her pack (she won't drop it) and start fisticuffs. Then run away and pickpocket the sword from her pack (can't pickpocket it if Umbra still has it equipped). So Buffy can sort of identify with this mission that Lothie did.

Yeah, it seems Buffy did what Lothran is doing. Except the getting hit part

Cripes, look at all that text! Oh man, I gotta sit down for this. Brew some tea.



Who are you and what have you done to mirocu?

Project Akaviri shield 125% to 100% update


The second part of this needed a bit more work. Lothran checked out Capstone Cave after a good night's sleep and sure, there were a few of them inside again. First bandit got lured out with a blast from the Staff of Ruin but once outside, even with both his dagger and bow completely destroyed, he wouldn't pick up the Daedric weapon with the Disintegrate Armor enchantment. He just wouldn't and instead opted for his fists. And by now the Staff of Ruin was depleted so Lothran had to go back to Bruma to recharge it before having another go.

Second attempt involved the Dunmer doing his usual routine; running through the cave with full light on, attract all the bandits and summon his Spriggan. After running up to where he had his back to a wall, one of the bandits attacked him so Lothran focused on him. And this attempt was successful. The bandit got his weapon ruined whereupon he picked up the warhammer Lothran had dropped. And when the fight was all over, the Akaviri shield was down to 71% - yay!

So upon coming back to Bruma, all that was needed was having it repaired up to 100% by the Fighters Guild porter and the quest was done!



-Sorry, Renee. I hope your tea didn't get cold.....

No, don't apologize, I think it's great! My brain is smoking though,. Still not sure if that's mirocu on the other end.

Well I spent yesterday dealing with a crisis, which I'll describe over in TK's Modding thread (wherever he is). I'd describe it here, but I'm not sure if the guy who's been writing Lothran updates lately is cool with going off-topic in the Today thread. [AHEM]. It took me frickin' 6 hours to fix my game yesterday though. Actually more than that.

Once it was fixed, Renee's game was back in action. She was in Chorrol, where she did a quest to take care of the bandits located in Crumbling Mine. This is a quest I wrote, and it revolves, so that every 3 days, there's a potential Talasma will tell her the bandits have returned, and something must be done! But the cool thing about this quest it it's not given every 3 days just like that. The dialog which leads to the quest shows up randomly. It's like... .my new thing with quest-writing. This dialog leads to a visit up to the castle, where an agent eventually pays RG3's party 300 gold once the job is done.

Dang. Off-topic. Oh well. Once the bandits of Crumbling Mine were taken care of, and some loot sold, *Wow* ... RG3 now had close to 3,000 gold on her person. Which is rare. Time to head to the Imperial City, where she'll try not to blow it all at Goddess Store, and other such ventures.

mirocu - Yay! Persistence paid off. And using goblins as practice dummies was a nice bonus.

Renee - Whew! Glad you found the prob and got your game sorted!

Today Lothran focused on brewing some potions. Well, potions and poisons to be exact. Five different recipes yielded many bottles, most of which were added to the travel chest to be brought along later when Lothran leaves Bruma. They will then be placed in the Dunmer's Imperial City and Bravil homes.

Lothran doesn't use potions and poisons all that much, but somehow they never really seem to overflow the storage either. Dunno what happens to them

That is good to know he is keeping busy. Cheers.

I can't seem to get enough of Renee Gade III. It is Frost Fall in her game, but she's been in Blackwood where it's eternally warm. Lately, she's been slowly traveling up the Panther River in search of yet another vampire lair. With her, she's got four other people, and a horse. Going into wilderness is easy for Lady Saga, since she can literally live off the land, but RG3 always needs to plan ahead. Going into wild areas is like taking an army on some sort of long trek; food, water, and other supplies really need to be stocked up. Her horse always carries several suits of armor + about 10 swords, potions, poisons, changes of clothes. It really gets intense sometimes!

Ms Gade the Third sounds like my sister when it comes to packing for a travel

Existential crisis update


It's already March, innit? Blimey. We're still in the dead of winter and Lothran is in Bruma. But since Easter comes early this year, by the end of the month he's supposed to be in Skingrad, having spent time in Chorrol prior! How we will make this work is beyond me

Yeah, totally. What's up with that?

Lothran has now cleared the road past Hermaeus Mora, prolly last time for the season. A couple ogres and a Spider Daedra played the roles of opposition and now the journey back to Bruma and a warm evening at Olav's awaits!

Oh no, winter is over already? I do wonder where the Lothman will go first? We all await with bated breath.

Meanwhile, it's Morndas, late in the evening of Morning Star 28, year of 435, and Joan of Arkay has just left the Fighters Guild of Anvil to rent herself a nice room at The Count's Arms. She's been trying to collect these dwarven cog things from various areas in the Imperial Reserve area. All of this is to repair the Orrery, whatever that is. Obviously some sort of Dwemer technology though.

She's here in Anvil mostly to get her gear repaired, and stock up on this and that. And visit the chapel. Ohhh. Yes, the chapel in Anvil. It's all burned up! Joan doesn't know this, yet.

Not quite, but it is soon the middle of March and with early Easter fast approaching...


No need for that bated breath. He'll go to Chorrol first as he always do. Well, at least eight times out of ten. I've tried to make him go to the Imperial City first but that never felt right for some reason.


I sure regret ever installing KotN. Not to mention, Lothran has never been interested in doing its questline anyway.


Bah? Humbug?


Yes

Oh. sorry. Didn't realize he always goes to Chorrol, I thought that part was random. I can see how overwhelming it would be though, if it were random to have the entire province to choose from.

No need to be sorry


I am the kind of bird who likes traditions i.e re-occurring events, thus my fondness of going to Bruma in late November and to Chorrol some time in March. Dates are not written in stone though and with regards to Chorrol, often it's how I feel that determines when Lothran leaves Bruma. Like you, this is mostly determined by the weather.

I saw this and thought how fitting it was to Elise.

Elise's quest for fame has been going okay. She started out in Anvil, but quickly realized the place is too slow and too far from the Imperial City to be of much use to her.

At the very least she learned a spell to help her with the negative effects of her wombburn there. She needed to study the School of Restoration a little more to actually use it, but now she's able to regenerate magicka so long as she remembers to conserve a bit of her own to actually cast the spell. Otherwise she'll have to go back to the painful grind of preparing weak magicka potions before every single outing.

Having made enough gold to use the guild guide, she found herself first in Skingrad and then in Bravil.

The former was lush with alchemy reagents and adventure...so long as she stayed outside the city. Unfortunately there wasn't much in the way of Ayleid ruins and the only Ayleid well was far from the city itself. Probably not sustainable, so she moved on after a few days.

It was in Bravil when things started to go her way. There's both an Ayleid ruin and a well outside the city gates, the spells the Mages Guild members there teach aren't beyond her current ability, and Marz got her to where she wanted to be with Restoration magic. If only the place wasn't Cyrodiil's Cloaca. Made worse by Better Cities, mostly because of annoying added NPCs

If her fame could be measured by a number, it's most definitely a 3 now. It only took teleporting halfway across the Province. Not sure where she's headed next, but something tells me it's Leyawiin and that it'll be pretty eventful.

Ha ha ... "Bards are Mages who don't shut up!" Cute.

Sounds like you are having fun. What is "wombburn?"

Be careful with Better Cities / Bravil NPCs. Some of them can railroad you into some ridiculously long "conversations" that lead to forced quests, or at least forced notions. I found this annoying because as these conversations ensue, all I can think is "that's not what my character would say!" yet there's no option to back out. BC people can do this in any town, but Bravil seems to be the worst.

"Wombburn" - i.e. afflicted by birth - was Morrowind's term for racial negatives, especially the lowered resistance of an Altmer to magic.

In the context of Oblivion, it refers to the Atronach's blessing. Large magicka pool in exchange for absolutely no magicka regen. 1 point of magicka per second for 270 seconds isn't exactly a cure, but at least it's something.



Yeah, I know what you mean. I deliberately avoid added NPCs because I'm sick of being stuck in an unskippable conversation with less than adequate dialogue options. I've had the mod for a while so at least I know where to shop to avoid the worst ones. Might be breaking character a bit here, but like you said, the convos do it anyways

We have now arrived at the second to last weekend in Bruma for the season. Tonight was spent at Olav's with very little to report about, and tomorrow's gonna be spent in the mountains.

Next weekend we change the clock and by golly, we cannot stay up here any longer! We have already exceeded our stay with at least two weeks, now Chorrol awaits and then a speedy run to Skingrad just in time for Easter

Whew! Glad to see the Lothranian calendar is lining itself back up so we know what season it is!

No wonder winter has been lingering in Maryland, it's because we're synched with Scandinavia.



Middas, 8:22 am, Morning Star 30, 3rd Era 435

Days Passed: 157
Level: 7

Joan of Arkay awakes in her rented room, on the second story of The Counts Arms. She undresses, eats some bread, and then leaves the set of clothes she'd just removed on the floor. She arranges them carefully, an obvious sign to others who might rent this room that these clothes belong to somebody.* She then slowly equips her shiny steel armor. This takes awhile, since she hasn't any assistance in lacing things up.

To lace her gauntlets up for instance, Joan must use her teeth, as well as whichever hand is free. Greaves go on first, gauntlets go on last.

Though she's a member of the Fighters Guild, and therefore she could just sleep in a guild for free, she does not always stay in one of these. Too hectic in Fighters Guilds. When you 're there, you are on their schedule, whether you like it or not. Sleeping in, late into the morning? Good luck with that, once everybody gets up, and begins sparring in the next room!

It takes her awhile, until finally, she's finished. She leaves The Counts Arms, says goodbye to Wilbur, that nosey innkeeper from Hammerfell. She leaves Anvil next, and gets upon her favorite steed for rough-country riding, a lowly paint she'd bought several months before up in Bruma. Though she can easily afford something faster nowadays, Joan prefers her Bruma paint, especially when it comes to riding through rough terrain. And today, she'll be riding through some rough terrain. Yes, any other horse, a white or a black especially, is much faster on a nicely-tamped road. But when trying to navigate around boulders, or dancing from crag to crag, a slower animal is actually better.

So opines Joan of Arkay, anyway.

The day is pleasant, as she heads north into County Kvatch, leaving the road for golden fields, just before she gets to Gottshaw Inn.


* Joan has this weird habit of leaving clothes in every town's inn. Since she wears bulky, heavy armor, she likes the option to change into a pre-bought set of clothes, in every town she visits.

Oh, nice to hear that Joan's not sleeping in her armor. On the guilds yeah, Buffy normally slept in the MG guild halls but not in Skingrad - few things worse than waking up to Vigge staring at you!

Honestly, some inns are far nicer than the Guild Halls anyways. In my game all the beds in the halls tend to be taken up by added NPCs like Knights of the Lamp, too. Along with that, with how often NPCs seem to swap beds, I doubt they're any cleaner. :v

I always envision characters that have to put their own armor on using long doodads like hooks and the like. It really does sound like a pain lol