Lothran is now in the Imperial City having just conducted business. He won't leave for Skingrad just yet and will spend some days in the City and the surrounding area.

Even though Lothran is quite happy with his spellbook, he actually created a new spell today; Eyes of Khajiit. And yes, it's a nightvision spell. He already has one but only at 30 secs. This one is at full 120 secs for those deep dives when good eyes is a must. He has been missing it although it hasn't been a huge problem. Today however Lothran made sure it won't be a problem at all again. He could have gone with an enchantment of course but meh. It's not THAT big of a deal


Oh, and he also attended a lecture about the runestones

Wow, a new spell for Lothran is rare indeed!

It is! I don't remember but it has to have been at least a couple of years since the last one.


He did btw decide to keep the 30 secs one for those instances when nightvision is just needed for a brief moment. 30 secs to be exact

Lothran is now travelling the Red Ring Road. It's a beautiful day and it does wonder for the elf to be on the road again a bit before his annual trip to Skingrad. Next up Roxey Inn!

Having spent some time in the Imperial City, Lothran's trip to Skingrad is coming up. In fact, this Friday he'll begin his journey to the wonderful county and town where he as usual will spend Easter picking flax in the vast wood and killing vampires close to Skingrad. Just like anyone!


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Yesterday I saw Fralav the Faker actually sit on Fathis Ules's chest! I didn't know NPCs could sit on anyting other than chairs and that sort of thing!

They can't. But it is possible to embed a stool into a chest.

It doesn't explain how he sat there. My game isn't modded to add that to a chest.

I shall check that in the CS, now I too want to know! It's Fathis Ules' chest in the back alley behind his house in the Imperial City, right? It might well be that the chair was built into the chest by Bethesda right from the start!

In my vanilla games on consoles, I've never seen anybody sit on anything which is not normally sittable, not that I remember anyway. But with mods, I have seen all sorts of funny things. An example is when an NPC lays down to sleep, yet winds up levitating (while sleeping) next to their bed, basically floating in mid-air.

I've seen them sit in funny places too. Should dig up some pictures if I can find them.

Well, in the Shivering Isles people can sit on special "sittable" rocks. Designed and implemented by Bethesda. They are not common, but they do occur, and the funny thing is that those rocks have gravity and can roll away. But the furniture marker remains in the old position, so then the NPCs start sitting on thin air... The Shivering Isles is a crazy place. I must add however that in the original game those rocks are placed in such positions where they don't roll away that easily.

Fathis Ules' chest does have a built-in chair in vanilla. See these screenshots:

Chest with a stool hidden inside it

Chest moved to reveal the stool

Amazing reveal! But how come your own character can't sit on it? Lothran tried but the chest only demanded a key

That's because the stool is hidden under the surface of the chest, so you always activate the chest. But the NPCs go directly for the stool because they know it's there... It's in their AI.

Well, I'm glad we cleared that up. Really interesting stuff!


Thanks!

Those clever NPC's!

Lothran is now on his way to Skingrad! We will try and locate that levitating rock at some point but we have to trekk a bit more away from the road to find it.

Currently resting a bit from Shadeleaf Copse.

Having spent a few days in the nice town of Skingrad, Lothran has now set up camp by the Isolated House as is his custom during Easter. The bandits have been taken care of and Lothran also documented a levitating Lady's Smock. It's quite a bit off the ground, hopefully you can see it. These things can be difficult to capture sometimes.

Here is another angle

Wow, a flying flower!

Being back from the Lost Woods near the Isolated House, Lothran is once again hunting for necrodudes at Fort Linchal. When all was said and done he counted eleven of them strewn around the "courtyard" of the fort. If there are any necrodudes left deeper within the fort they sure have a lot of material to work with now


Also; Lothran got a telepathic message saying that Toutius Sextius was unconscious but after searching quite a large area he couldn't find him

Those "telepathic messages" ... how do you roleplay those? Or do you even try to RP them? I think at one time I did attempt to explain what those are. Now I just ignore them. They're supposed to be Player Knowlege, not really Character Knowledge, unless the NPC who went unconscious is supposed to be somebody our character frequently associates with. Most of the time, it's nobody I or my character have knowlege of.

Oh, and Fort Linchal is fun.

I just imagine it's one of those things he just "knows", like when irl you get a precognition of something that happens just moments later. Simple as

Lothran is now back in the Imperial City. Before that he was last seen at the Gottlesfont Priory where he enjoyed a silent contemplation in the chapel and then instead of returning to Skingrad immediately, he opted for the Big City to offload some things. He will soon return to Skingrad and then as usual continue down south towards Anvil.


Oh, we did look for that levitating rock that's somewhere in the area but couldn't find it

It's probably in Morrowind by now. We'll keep an eye out - Hauk just disembarked in Seyda Neen. (It's Morroblivion!)

"I am amazed at your divine patience," Hauk raised a toast to Lena. "All these years..."

"My what, sorry?" Lena was sure she misheard.

"Patience. With your handler. Our handler. How do you stand it?"

"You just have to make her see things your way," Geralt grinned, nodding. "She thinks it's she who's playing the game... I beg to differ!"

"Yeah, a Blood Mage she isn't," Jowan chimed in, setting a few extra bottles on the table. "Somehow it's always me who ends up with cut up wrists."

"The real question though is what we are going to do about her," Lucien looked around the table. "I hear she has plans for me too, and I am not looking forward to it."

"Just don't let her tell you what to do," a hooded figure in desert robes joined the table. "She could never get away with anything with me."

"Not surprising, Altair," Lucien grinned at him. "You don't give her a choice."

"So do the same," Altair poured himself some wine. "Make her play by your rules, not the other way around."

The table at The Ninth Void went quiet as everyone tried to figure out what that would mean for them personally. The barman shot a glance at them, then turned to an unassuming mage at the bar.

"They are plotting against you," he said softly, leaning towards her.

"It's all right, I'm still the one with the off switch," she smiled, stroking a pet mouse on her lap.

Today when Lothran came back to Skingrad something a bit weird happened. Upon entering the gates and making his way up to the Fighters Guild, Lothran met an Imperial Legion soldier!

The soldier in question made his way down to the main road and exited through the east gate, probably to resume his patrol of the Gold Road. But how he came to be in town at all remains a mystery.

Hauk has been fishing at Gnaar Mok - battlemage style. He's pretty effective against the slaughterfish now, but kaguti are still out of his league. Well, he's only level 4!

Oh, and in case you're wondering - this is Oblivion. It's Morroblivion!

Face to face with the slaughterfish! Bet that makes for some mean fishiesticks!

It should but it doesn't! After half a day fishing, all Hauk has to show for it is a handful of slaughterfish scales. Nice for alchemy, not so nice for the empty stomach! I think I'm going to make slaughterfish drop flesh as well (fish meat - is that still meat? I never know!), so at least Hauk could grill that for dinner. And how about... yeah! on low levels it should definitely drop fishiesticks too! (And not just in Morroblivion.)

Done. (Mod released.) Thanks for the idea, Acadian!

Morroblivion sure looks really nice

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Today, being my b-day and all, Lothran thought he'd treat me to an Arena fight but since we're in Skingrad county we instead opted for something even more entertaining; offing the vampires in Bloodcrust Cave! It's always much fun to lure them out in the sunlight and then watch them fight against the Spriggan and her bear. And we don't even have to bet any Septims!

The fights never last long though; the Spriggan is quite used to fighting ogres so a vamp is really no match for her. Especially the one who decided to fight with her fists instead of using her mace

Today in Morroblivion...

Swinging a sword

Shooting cliffracers on Molag Amur (while pinned down by the Blight Disease)

Shopping at Balmora market

Looking for Caius Cosades' house somewhere in Balmora East

And finally returning home

Morroblivion is looking good. Too bad I recently finished up playing through it with January. I don't think I am up for another playthrough for a while.

I don't do proper playthroughs anymore. I just potter about

This weekend will see Lothran finally go to Anvil and Anvil county for the summer. He's spent enough time in Skingrad and is ready to move on and enjoy the ocean views and the warmth



Noteworthy regarding the highwayKhajiiti is that if they like you enough they will still hold you up and demand a ransom, but they won't actually take anything! Thing about that though is the only way to make them like you enough so they don't take your Septims, is to give them your Septims as a bribe during the Disposition minigame

I thought it was possible to max disposition without ever using the bribe option. There are a bunch of tricks, like starting off with a weapon out, so that the base is lower and raising becomes easier, then you put it away and get a boost. It was so long ago that Blossom did all that, and I forgot half of it, at least.

I've found that when Lothran encounters a highwayman, he can't use the wheel game at all. The wheel is sort of locked out and the only option left is to bribe. I guess you can use a ranged spell that raises disposition beforehand although we've never tried that.

You are most correct though that, with normal NPCs, having a weapon out and raise their disposition further that way works fine

Lothran has now reached the shores of Anvil! On the way he even managed to get some words of wisdom from M'aiq who came running in the opposite direction


This is the time of year when things will really slow down for Lothran. He will be out and about but things are going to be slow, much more than usual one might say.
No going around looking for necrodudes or bandits to play with. No deliberate searching for valuable items. No going back and forth to Imperial City. Just taking things easy and enjoying the seaside and Anvil county. Almost like a real Anvil resident, although Lothran will of course stay at the Count's Arms.


Anvil is a beautiful town and I for one look forward to staying here for the early part of the summer. I hope Lothran does too


From the wiki

I agree that Anvil is a lovely place to visit - especially during the warmer part of the year.

On a small island out the coast of Anvil it stood; a lone Nirnroot. Tucked away under a protruding rock and only inches away from the vast ocean facing west. How long it has been there is anyone's guess, but it's still there and that's all that matters. Not least to the Nirnroot itself.

This particular evening, as the sun was setting, the Nirnroot was for a moment no longer lonely. A Dunmer now stood there as well, just off to the right behind it, observing the sunset just as the Nirnroot did. The evening breeze made small ripples in the water of which there was nothing else as far as the eye could see. The horizon being the only thing seperating the ocean from the sky.

When the sun had set and night had fallen, the Dunmer was gone. Off towards Anvil to find a bed and perhaps something to eat. It was now chilly outside with stars decorating the sky. Time for the Dunmer to get inside a warm and friendly place.

Back on the little island, the Nirnroot still stood overlooking the waters. Quietly singing its song as it had done for many years. Quiet, but still loud enough to let the world know it existed.


And it kept singing through the night.

How very poetic!

Beautiful, mirocu!

Right??? I really did not expect this.

Then again, mirocu has had some odd moments of prose here and there, over the years. I can still remember Ode to the Mudcrab. Pretty sure that was one of yours, Crow.

Ode to Mudcrab is indeed one of my fine (?) works

Thank you for your kind words, friends! I really don't know what came over me here. When Lothran reached that place today and I saw that Nirnroot standing there, in a way looking at the sunset just like Lothran, I just got in the mood. And as always I wrote that piece off the top of my head when I after awhile came to it. That's how it works; my mind has to do some tinkering on its own, working in the background for a bit, but then it just flows.


Again; thanks for your kind words about my strange poetic description of one lone little Nirnroot

Thank you mirocu for giving me a peaceful ending to what has been a very hectic day.

I am very happy to have provided you with that

Having spent well over a month in Anvil, Lothran is now set to leave for the Imperial City to offload some stuff and then it's off to Bravil. Last year the time we had in Bravil county was almost non at all so I plan to rectify that now.



And the little Nirnroot still sings its song...

Say 'hi' to Guildmagister Kud-Ei in Bravil. Oh, and Daenlin. And Nilawen. And Ardaline too.

He will but not just yet. As he approached Bravil he saw two deer running from something. It wasn't a forester as Lothran thought but Jean-Pierre Lemonds. He was not hunting them with a bow but with his fists! I reckon he needed a bit more sport..



Really, I didn't know he went hunting at all. His bow must be broken, we'll see if Lothie can fix it for him later

How funny!

It's always a little bit tragic when we see somebody running around without their weapon, trying to box a mountain lion or an imp or a troll.

Did Lothran give him something to use?