Sounds like Trey got knocked a little silly!

Spreads persuaded me to get the new outfit for her.

Pretty in pink

and then Wizwen wanted to try it too.

Original version - no dyes

She's keeping it, if you haven't the bewbs to flaunt, show off your legs! (Wizwen can't understand Unna).

Cat Man Dhou is eagerly awaiting the Outfit system, as he currently has his magnificent spots hidden under the Altmer armour he's wearing - which is 140% Veiled Heritance set. We'll show him later.

In other news, Unna just found a second piece of the Precursor stuff, so she wants to go to Clockwork City and find out about them. I'll likely indulge that whim. She's gathered all the Stonefalss shards, and done a good part of the Deshaan quests, as well as most of the MQ, so she deserves a change of scenery.

Those are nice looking outfits. If Khajiit had a crew member whose style fit that, he’d definitely grab one from the CS.

So after resting up from either too much combat (or too much Surile grape juice)--- Trey added a nicely tattered banner to his abode. (Like jeans- the torn up ones are MUCH more expensive than a new one).

And then it was off to Rivenspire for more questing and more sharding... He kind of stumbled into a job of helping recruit some poor saps likely prospects for the Rivenspire Home Guard. He is rather ambivalent about anything smacking of hierarchy- or taking orders- or being anything except insubordinate, independent, insolent, etc. But... well, he can't fight ALL the trolls by himself--- and those trolls have made him almost nostalgic for the bloodfiends, to be honest.

Also- before I forget- crate number 5- Experience Scroll (good), Lethal Poison (converted), Centurion Field Armor (an outfit- but he's keeping it just to see the look on Athlain's face), Spellcaster Elixir (converted). So, overall another "meh" crate- but it was free, so there's that.

Spreads looks wonderful- and anyone who calls her "Lizard Legs" is likely in for a beating...

Considering adding a Khajiit to my crew- she will be named some variation of "Nepeta Something or Other".

Khajiit are always a good decision.

Unna is wandering around Deshaan looking for Plague Doctor items for the slots not occupied by her Death's Wind gear. So she's done a few quests out of sequence, which makes the dialog amusing, referring to baddies she's already killed as having "just left here". Of course every piece she gets wants a slot that's in use. I suspect there's a slot bias for bosses that UESP doesn't document. She wants helm, amulets and rings, she gets belts, gauntlets and sabatons, just like she gets Orichalcum, Leather, and Cotton the crafters can't use.

She did visit the Clockwork City and drop off the hands of the Precursor, which frees a couple of inventory slots, as well as sating her tourist urge for a while.

Blossom and Laurie Craft have each collected some more skyshards, and killed at least the past version of Faolchu. One of them also got the contemporary one. They're also grinding up their crafting - being limited by the flow of Steel ingots, and Oak. Even with the whole crew collecting, they often can't fill the daily writs.

Wizwen has learned to hate archers. She's finding she can't always kill them off before another enemy gets in between, and draws her fire, and attracts her summons, too. Then she gets volleyed to death. Too much of her offence is targeted by the game, and hits the wrong target, from her point of view. She is close to completing the Auridon Skyshard set.

The others just did some writs, and went back to their rooms.

Edit: It looks like Unna's going to have to do more dolmen closing. They seem to be the only source of the jewels. Helms will be the hardest, as the bosses dropping them have other stuff as well.

ghastley, I find that waist and foot set pieces are the easiest to collect, as they drop from delve bosses. When I’m crafting a set I usually make head, shoulders, chest, hands, and legs, and count on getting waist and feet plus jewelry from whatever dropped sets I’m trying out. If I can be extravagant with materials, I’ll craft a complete set so that no matter which dropped set pieces I find, I’ll have five from the crafted set to go with it. (I confess that looks play a strong role in which dropped pieces get used, especially weapons.) I and I’m sure many other have stacks of low tier materials lying around with no purpose other than a friend some day using them. I’d love to send you some for your writs.

Wizwen and Spreads look awesome in their new outfits! My crew has that one, too, and is considering the other one for Steams-Many-Mudcrabs. I love that the halter top shows off Steams’ back markings. Elke is using hers as a bathing suit. The Nordic bathing towel top is not reliable on Elke.

treydog, Trey’s adventures through Rivenspire make me smile. That is one of my favorite zones and questlines. Jerric changed his mind about some things there.

Jerric and Elke have been treasure hunting and supply gathering. The houses are slowly looking inhabited as Pog builds and buys furnishings. Jerric’s see-which-way-the-wind-blows approach to adventuring leaves plenty of unexplored places behind, so it’s fun to follow a map and jump into whatever chaos he finds on the way.

Oh! The other day Jerric finished The Lion’s Den on his own. Highly recommend for solo Public Dungeon adventurers. Even the Group Event is doable. (And the dungeon memento is super cool!)

Unna will undoubtedly craft some more pieces, so she can swap in some Plague Doctor, but she needs to complete the research first. That's as limiting as the mats, as she never seems to get the right researchable pieces. Traits all seem to be on greaves! Blossom and Laurie Craft are helping where they can, but the downside to the craft bag and bank is that they're all short of mats/researchables together.

Since you can't craft jewels, those are the target for the found set. She can also control the style of what she crafts, so prefers to make the visible. Belt, helm, amulet, rings are either invisible, or have little visual effect. That wouldn't be an issue with a costume, but "Bear Rider" hasn't been seen in the Store yet!

I should decide who's going to make furnishings at some point, and free up some bank slots by learning or selling the designs/patterns/... We're also saving too many greaves, because they're not getting used up for research. There are probably a lot of items with duplicate traits we don't need, too.

So I have one (1) thing going on at my end and it's Fjotreid finally hitting 50 in Enchanting. Since his horse has been the best horse that it can horse for about a month now, it means his "maintenance" is finally complete. :v I can't wait to do it all over again in about a month with a new character. I still remember making him back when Morrowind was near release. Has it really been over half a year? Holy hell.

Khajiit is finally getting into Feng-Do’s playstyle. We made a few tweaks to his armor configuration and now he is wrecking fools left and right! We are now running 5 Hundings Rage medium armor with the divines trait and the Lover Mundus Stone for strong DPS. Feng is currently ripping through the Grahtwood side quests, working to get the Grahtwood Adventurer achievement while also working on getting to lvl50.

Would a full set of gear with the training trait on each piece make a big difference in how fast a pre lvl50 character pops through levels?

Trey arrived to find that the most excellent Pog had gifted him some shelves and an additional light source, welcome additions to his cosy inn room.

In a fit of sentimentality, he added a new kitteh to his collection- the half-price (but full-sized) Moonlight Senche Tiger. Cats are indeed like potato chips- you can't stop at just one....

Final crate was- Gold Coast Warrior Elixir (turned in for gems), Crown Lesson Riding Speed (used immediately), Clockwork Face Print (had it- turned in to gems), and a Gold Coast Experience scroll. In sum, the free crates provided some nice collectibles and a start on gems for later use.

In adventuring news, Trey finished off a Glenumbra quest involving discord between the Red Rook and Bloodthorn factions, then returned to Rivenspire to see about an odd (as opposed to Wyrd) tree. While doing so, he ran across a troll named Garden Gulp, who was sadly NOT a vegetarian. A few writs later, he called it a day. He is, after all, pretty darned old to be doing all this stuff....

Wizwen has just about done the primary quest line in Grahtwood, and we decided to reward her with Snugpod - paid for with team gold. I left her there at about midnight (real time) pondering how she'd like the place decorated. I reminded her that the only designs/patterns we'd managed to construct were a bedroll, a chair and a stool, and none of those were Bosmer style. I think the only Bosmer item we can make is "Wood Elf Cup, chipped"!

She'll wait. The Khajiit who shares the Inn room in Vulkhel Guard doesn't trash the place, so that will suffice for now. But Laurie Craft can expect some heavy hints flying in her direction. She'll maybe just get a bedroll there, so she can park between Skyshard hunts, which is next on her agenda.

She got another piece of Veiled Heritance gear for Cat Man Dhou's collection. That makes about a round dozen, I think. The range of levels means he can upgrade without change, if that makes sense. He's trying to find a second set to combine it with, and thinking about crafted ones.

The rest did dailies, foraged a bit for mats, and went home. Cat Man Dhou and Spreads are wondering if they can get houses, too, since the pre-requisite quests are done. Unna, Blossom and Laurie are content to wait until they get to what they'd consider home.

Saw someone riding a Snow Bear outside Elden Root. My research says that was available from Dec 10th to 14th 2016 only. Four or five days in how many years? And never in the crates. Unna is depressed.

Feng is still doing side quests in Grahtwood! Man, it’s like he did the bare minimum when he was there for the Dominion campaign. Right now he’s after an Orc chieftain’s Brother who poisoned the stronghold’s well. He thought it feels strange allying with such a strong Orc faction within Dominion territory, but then again, he just helped a sizable (well, sizable until the end of the quest anyway) tribe of Argonians join the Dominion, so it’s not really that odd.

Wizwen expects she'll meet Feng soon, as she's doing the same thing! (Plus finding the Skyshards).

Unna is still trying to collect Plague Doctor helm, amulet, rings, and is mostly getting the other two overland sets - Night Mother's and Mother's Sorrow, which are Medium/Stamina and Light/Magicka, rather than the Heavy/Health she wants. But that's why we have other characters to inherit them, if only she gets enough of the other set. Someone that uses a costume can have the PD "visible" pieces she finds, too.

I get the impression that five pieces of Crafted set, augmented by parts of an overland set, is the way to go, as the overland ones are regional, but the crafting stations appear at the same level in each alliance's zones.

I need to plan the combos for the rest of the team. Wizwen already has five Queen's Elegance, Cat Man Dhou has a dozen Veiled Heritance to choose from, but the others have mixed randoms. Blossom's using mostly Heavy, and Laurie Medium, and both are leaning to Stamina, with health provided by equipment. Spreads is trying to become a Healer, but I haven't figured out her equipment strategy yet.

Feng-Do finally wrapped up the Grahtwood side quests and earned the Grahtwood Adventurer achievement. He moved on the Greenshade and the second or third quest there he had to do something repugnant: he was forced to wipe out a clan of Bosmer who had tried to settle in a protected area of some importance to Valenwood as a whole.

Oh, I remember that one. Buffy chose the other option and it turned out fine - and felt better.

Feng was reluctant to allow Valenwood to come to any harm, and the Hollow leader gave him no reason to suspect he was lying about the danger the Bosmeri presence posed. And to be fair, the Bosmer themselves had a choice. They could’ve left in peace but instead chose the path of destruction by attacking Feng. In the end, Feng was saddened by the Bosmeri deaths, but will not worry himself over it.

Still, some specifics on why the Bosmer couldn’t settle there besides “because the Wilderking said so” would’ve been nice.

It's been a while since I've done the quests in Greenshade, but I think some of the surrounding quests might shed a light on that? Not that it helps any, because chances are you'd to that quest before finding them.

Greenshade is probably one of my favorite zones, tbh. It's probably because of how DENSE it is with quests, but it has a lot of my favorites, and a few that I still have some mixed feeling about (one of which even led to Jo'zira's birth, and the outcome of which he still thinks about). It's also my favorite Valenwood zone in terms of visuals (the first half anyways). The province tends to be very samey.

It’s possible the explanation for that particular quest was tied in with the Wilderqueen quests from the Dominion campaign in that region. It’s been a while since Feng did those and may have forgotten.

Blossom went skyshard and material foraging last night and accidentally ran into Graufang. Ouch!

She did a few delves and was unsurprised when the others running through with her all disappeared for the boss. She can generally handle those without help now, but only just. I guess they're levelled, and we've outfitted her at the expected level, plus I'm getting the hang of which attacks and buffs to use.

Most of the deaths we get seem to attribute to other players running from a fight leading extra mobs over to ours. There's the occasional impromptu cooperation, but usually it's "I don't want these, you have 'em". Then you get hit from behind by extras you didn't count on.

Unna went hunting for plans for low-level furnishings, and mostly got duplicate recipes for her efforts. The crew may have to use crates as tables for a while (if we can even find a crate plan). Most of the materials she gets are beyond Blossom or Laurie's capabilities, too.

Wizwen will be going back over the Auridon and Grahtwood zones and completing some achievements. She has decent gear these days (five Queen's Elegance and three Twin Sisters) but might swap one out if she finds better.

Laurie is busy learning all the plans, recipes, etc. that she can, and grinding up her crafting skills.

All the crew except Unna, who actually rides the bear and trains for speed, have the mount enabled and are training capacity, as they get to use that themselves. Anything that's not a set piece is dumped in the bank, for Blossom and Laurie to deconstruct, so this is an alternative to bag upgrades all round.

The Squad Doesn't Do Much These Days

Lazy squad!

I went through my first year in the game with "funny" friends who we did this to each other back and forth all the time. I died a lot when it was done to me, but they never died when it was done to them, lol.





I love this, you really capture your characters so well!

Laying down the flats in preparation to maybe adding shading reminded me I need to work on their dyes in the game or maybe play dress up so I can't wait for the next update to come so I can fill a storage chest with clothes. :v

Feng went up a tier level so, of course, he got new armor.

Armor with mask

Feng grew his hair out!

Laurie went Skyshard hunting in a few delves, searching every container in the hope of finding furnishing plans or Recipes. So she found recipes she already knew, and got the plan for a "Common Basket, Lid" which is of course, just the lid, and not a basket with a lid. She does not know the plan for the basket that the lid would fit.

However, she did gain another level, and pick up a couple of skill points, so she can soon put those into Woodworking, and use some of the Patterns that were beyond her reach before. She just needs a little more woodworking experience, so naturally we're not finding enough Oak for her writs (because we're spending too much time in delves looking for everything else). It's a conspiracy, I tell you!

Every one just did their basic writs, learned a bit of Riding Capacity, and went back to sleep.

------

I'm considering buying Moonmirth House for Cat Man Dhou, and using it initially as a showroom for the furnishings Laurie learns to make. She can put one of everything in there for the others to grab if it suits their own home. It helps a lot if you can actually see how an item looks.

Unna also knows a few, as she's learned them to make room in her inventory a couple of times. Normally we'd bank that kind of loot for the crafters, but out in the dungeons ...

Feng's new armor and doo look great!

Ghastley, you can preview items (that you know how to make) in the crafting process - a button to do so at the bottom of the screen while in the crafting menu.

The crafter can see them, but the requestor/recipient can't. And I forget who can make what, even this early in building up the portfolio.

Gaaah! Feng with hair around his face! I may have trouble recognizing him now!

Nice armor, but all the drooling you may see forming on this comment are coming from that Palomino Horse in the background!!! I'll bet you got that in a crate!!! *drool, drool*






Aw, I missed these! How cute, and it really looks good dyed!

That outfit seems to be very popular, and I've seen a lot of dye combo's - something plus white is the most common. However, Spreads may be the only Argonian wearing it!

That was two different shades of pink, but I can't remember which ones. Obviously not rare ones at her level!

Nope, got the Palomino because we bought the “Gold Edition” of the game.

Oh, Mira looked Awesome today! I couldn't stop because I was in the middle of trying to do Master Writs and kept coming up short for items needed to do them,

Lol, we were trying different armor looks (not really for Mira herself) to get an idea of how some of those early armors look mixed together. Really should’ve been working on Feng but he is getting a ton of attention right now (though Khajiit feels that Feng has been somewhat neglected overall), and hopefully he will be up to Mira and Brenna’s level when the new update drops and we start our two new combat characters.

I'm pretty sure we have a thread with images of Misa modeling all the early armors; we were going to keep up with it, but Tamriel Fashions already had them all, so we kind of stopped our thread at the first level of armors, lol.





Here is a link to it:

https://imgur.com/a/aMjZ7

Yeah Khajiit usually looks at ESO Fashion when he needs a general idea of what a motif looks like. Unfortunately, they don’t show what the individual pieces look like by themselves (though they are starting to add this for some of the motifs), so you can’t really tell where the chest piece ends and the pants begin. Not to mention it’s nice to see how parts of a motif look when mixed in with other motifs. For this, you pretty much have to model them in game.

Because I wanted to experiment with the character class, I created a new Altmer sorcerer today---

Jonas Psmith

And as my dad liked to say, "The 'P' is silent- as in 'swimming'."

Khajiit, one thing I find can help work the finer points to decide which pieces of which motif for final (CP160) armors is to make unimproved pieces of what I think I want in level CP150. The appearance is identical to CP160 but the pieces cost a fraction of the mats that 160 stuff does. Then you try on, mix/match, even see how they take dyes before you commit and make a big gurlcat set.

Yeah Khajiit usually does this with higher level armors. What he was doing the other day with Mira was looking at how lower level racial motifs (rawhide, iron, homespun), that look so radically different from their higher level versions, look when mixed with other motifs. For instance, the rawhide Bosmer chest piece mixed with various other leg pieces. This was mainly in preparation for the new update for outfits.

Loggin in today I learned that the Squad is on their final piece of research for the crafts they don't specialize in. In about a month, they'll be master crafters! ...well, motifs aside anyways. They don't even have the recent motifs for their main craft skills

Feng finished the side quest requirements in Greenshade and got the Greenshade Adventurer achievement. Now he is sitting squarely in the middle of lvl41 and still has the Dominion Campaign to finish and all of the side quests in Malabal Tor and Reaper’s March. Next stop, Malabal Tor.

Meanwhile, Razak is getting lots of stuff to grind up and research thanks to Feng’s escapades through the AD.

With the impending release of the Outfit system, we're more attentive to dyes than before. I've been looking through the potential completionist achievements that reward with dyes, and deciding what shades of mud we like, and which aren't worth the effort.

Indoril Blue was worthwhile, and Spreads would like a different shade of pink to improve the contrast on her costume. The two in use are too close. So we're looking for that. On the other hand, the baby netch blue for the Bleakrock/Bal Foyen one probably won't tempt us.

Blossom is using Unna's Red Diamond Red on her costume at present, but the brighter ones all seem to be end-game shades we won't be seeing for a long time. (Or they're crowns-only die-stamps).

Most of our meagre selection have come without conscious collection, but now we're looking for them. Does any more experienced player have any suggestions? Especially for metallics, as Unna's looking to wear plate.

---

Unna has just moved into Shadowfen, but not done anything but report in, and get the first quest. Blossom has finished off Angof, but not left Glenumbra. She'll do the side-quests first. Laurie is catching up to her, and has already done many of the side-quests that Blossom hasn't as she gets caught up in them while foraging for materials. Wizwen has done the Grahtwood main line quests, and is back-filling, too. Cat Man Dhou and Spreads still have to complete their second-tier zones, but are keeping up their daily writs and riding lessons. All may be pressed into dye-earning campaigns, along with their constant hunt for furniture plans.

Laurie has started to get the minor achievements for knowing all traits of an Alchemy ingredient, but wormwood and blessed thistle keep disappearing for writs before she can use them. The wiki says the writs will want "a random reagent" by those two are in heavy rotation. We saw corn flower once, but no others.

I completely forgot to say that I want to pet his face-fur but I think that's probably more inappropriate to say to a Khajiit than a human people :v

-

Anyways, I'm glad I finished my motifs a while back because trying to get some of them now will cost you about 5-10k more than they should be selling lmao (My experience with Morag Tong Boots so far, so Jo'zira can complete a writ. Probably going to give it to the crafting monkey tbh, because why would Jo'zira need the motif anyways)

Khajiit just spent 59k on Mazzatun legs D:

Need to find a way to make more gold.

I don't think Unna will be doing that!

Lol, gee this one wonders why?
The motif chapter we bought is basically a skirt across all classes of armor. Very handy.

Mazzatun is the very last motif the Squad bought to learn themselves before I decided that RP wasn't enough of a reason to blow hundreds of thousands of gold on motifs the Crafting Monkey already learned. The Outfit system backs up my decision, as does how stupid-rare Buoyant Armiger is. Good thing that Crown Crate dropped a full motif. Still think it's the best drop I've ever had.

Also grabbed a Telvanni sword chapter for around 10k. Khajiit loves the look of this sword!

Today I also decided Xochitl and Jo'zira needed to have all the green recipes. There's at least 240 of them. They both have around half. :v

Lol, so many recipes it makes Khajiit’s head spin!

I have become convinced that ZOS's random number generator is broken. Unna now has four instances of the Ring of the Night Mother, and every heavy helm the entire crew possesses is either Reinforced, or has no trait.

She did finally get three pieces of Plague Doctor she can wear; two rings and an amulet. She also has the sash, but can't use it until she makes herself another piece of the Death's Wind set. That would be the helm, if every helm in the games wasn't Reinforced, and she could learn a second trait!

Of course, we'd have no problem making greaves...