My Dunmer assassin Galen just reached 60 in Smithing , and added the Arcane perk to his tree. He only has the pre-requisite Steel one otherwise. Imagine his surprise when he not only was able to temper his Blade of Woe (Steel) but also an Elven sword of Leeching - without the Elven perk! It appears that Arcane trumps the material requirements.

Even though the sword has more health absorption and base damage than the Blade of Woe, he still prefers a dagger, as he's working his sneak up to get the x15 bonus of Assassin's Blade (almost there!)

Hmm... Silwen has a Nightingale bow (ebony) that she's been ignoring because she didn't invest in Smithing on that branch. Maybe Arcane is all she needs, too!

This post has been edited by ghastley: Dec 11 2013, 07:50 PM

You will get to upgrade it some based on your character's smithing skill, but getting the appropriate material perks will allow you to upgrade it more.

I came across something new (to me) today playing the Dawnguard questline. Hervor returned to Fort Dawnguard with the 3 elder scrolls you have to get, and found that there are four refugees outside the fort! Apparently they stole their tents from the Imperial Legion as well, since they all have the legion insignia on their posts. Or maybe they are spies, who are not doing a very good job staying undercover?

Serana also made a joke. It was in the Reach. She said something like: "This land is so twisted. I'm surprised my father didn't want to live here."

Oh, neat! I turn the subtitles on when I have an unfamiliar follower so I don’t miss anything. Sometimes I can only hear them speak but can’t make out the words. Teldryn Sero (the merc from Dragonborn) has some nice remarks, and I love his voice.

That's beautiful, SR. I haven't seen that one about the refugees.

I also have a new thing to share: Prisoners. I had no idea they can wield a weapon while they are still captive. Master Baytor is travelling with a group of Thalmor agents. It's fun! Just have to remember that technically Thalmor can become immediately aggressive if MB does one wrong thing during combat. Anyways, at one point the group got attacked by a group of bandits. And I noticed that their prisoner managed to free his hands, and that he actually carries a sword he can use.

He managed to live during this huge bandit raid, while two of the Thalmor died.

This post has been edited by Renee Gade IV: Dec 22 2013, 04:07 AM

Jensa’s PS3 game is a relic of the early days before even the first patch, so I’m quite used to odd happenings. However this is a new one. You know those drug dealers that hang around the crossroads? Yesterday Jensa met a Khajiit. That’s not the strange part, the girl loves her sugar and so is no stranger to these guys. The weirdness was that along with the usual recreational offerings he had Halldir’s Staff for sale.

Now Jensa has been cleaning out her closets and surely sold off one of her Halldir’s Staffs (a glitch gave her two) before donating the other to the College of Winterhold, but I know it was not to this guy. They’re random world encounters, right? Well anyway some time later she met another Khajiit roadside and after a quick chat bought out his supply as well. And she noticed that he also had Halldir’s Staff for sale. Hmm.

After a few more (game) hours, dragon rides, and mostly world encounters of Legion soldiers with prisoners (even though the Stormcloaks won the war a long time ago, sigh), who should appear by the road but another drug dealer. This one was an Argonian. After an exchange of pleasantries she shored up her sugar supply and checked out his other merchandise. The Argonian had TWO Halldir’s Staffs for sale.

Maybe she’s eating too much of that sugar.

Another new thing was inside a small cave near Riften. A bunch of animals were in there beating the crap out of each other, so Stenvar and Jensa pretty much stood back until it was time to pick off the last spider. They discovered a dead Bosmer who in life appeared to have been a Kynareth devotee. This cave was his home. At his side was his named Staff of Charming – only the enchantment on the staff was a Fury enchantment. Jensa and Stenvar stood around for a moment putting together what must have happened to this poor fetcher. Jensa would like to get her hands on whoever sold him that staff!

Also he seemed to have had a real taste for leeks.

YEah, that is weird.



Lolwut?? Damn. Are you able to RP this at all somehow? That's what I would do; that's how I would explain such weird happenings. Like perhaps somebody in the Mage's College has found the correct process for making this nearly-unique staff, and is selling them to the underworld.



Yeah, no doubt!

Years ago on the PS3 (before all the patches) Crystal Beth or Thor a'Zaene was doing the 'tree' quest, the one that we get in Whiterun where we have to revive the dying tree. Anyways, my character met up with this mage who could summon up this ghostly-woman-looking enemy (I don't know what she's called). Only problem was that the game started respawning this woman somehow. She kept duplicating all along the road as my character fled the mage. There were literally hundreds of these 'duplications' all over the road back to Helgen.

I'm having a hard time explaing what I mean, damn I wish I took a pic.

Thankfully Jensa is not among Skyrim’s great thinkers, so she tends to shrug and move on. Also she does not expect a skooma sales rep to offer a completely honest description of his goods. “Did I say they were both Halldir’s Staff? I meant this one is Akatosh’s Back Scratcher. No wait, it’s Talos’ Toenail… Where are you going?”

Funny about the wildly respawning ghostly woman-thing. Running away was an excellent RP response!

That actually is a good way to approach the situation RP-wise. You know there's something fishy going on, but Jensa won't notice such things. She's into skooma and moonsugar, why should she care if some drug dealers start carrying staves?

This post has been edited by Renee Gade IV: Dec 24 2013, 04:12 PM

Here’s a new thing I just saw: An Altmer impersonating a Stormcloak officer. I’ll skip the quest-related spoilers and go straight to the only way Jensa, Stenvar, and I could respond to that situation: Link. Even my iron-clad immersion and wild imagination couldn’t explain that one away!

There's a giant stomping around in Blackreach. I have no idea how or why. Just the giant, nothing else. Very confused.

I think he'll have some Dwemer shrapnel in his head if you look.

I think I know which quest that is too.

It's the one you're thinking of. There was a fairly recent Aravi video there.

Lord Haaf-Mersey just picked up a kettle, ya know, one of those big, black kettles. He wanted to move it because it was sitting on top of a table in his home, which is kinda awkward. So he picks it up and carries it across the room to a more appropriate spot.

The new thing: His wife, Motormouth Mjoll, snaps "PUT THAT DOWN!"

Cracked me up because he's in his own home when she says this.

Found a skeleton floating right underneath the bridge in Dragonsreach. Don't know why it's there. Do not know.

WHY ARE ALL THE NEW THINGS I FIND SO CONFUSING?!

that killed me, Mustard!

Lord Haaf-Mersey just found a woman hiding in some grass. She crouched down into the grass, so I assumed she's some sort of captive who's just escaped or something. There happened to be a couple of dark, menacing figures standing several yards away.

Turns out, these guys were just the two Redguards (the ones who are scripted to say "she doesn't have the scar" "We've made a mistake..." ) and the lady is the Redguard female who they are looking for. I have only seen this trio of Redguards speaking to this young lady, I've never seen the lady go off on her own and crouch down in some grass before.

This post has been edited by Renee Gade IV: Dec 31 2013, 12:01 AM

Most likely someone was fighting or aggro nearby. Some characters are set to cower like that whenever combat is taking place nearby. If you click on them to try to talk to them, you will get a message back saying: "This character is busy".

This post has been edited by SubRosa: Dec 31 2013, 01:38 AM

Just came across Ulfr's book - not even Braille!

Here’s something that was new to me.

My Xbox and PS3 games still exist mostly for the pursuit of dragons. I find that dragon hunting and dragon riding are tremendous fun. Today I got to do both.

My dragon hunter went to Autumnwatch Tower, a place where we knew we’d find a live one. My Dovahkiin exerted his will upon the dragon, but sadly he flubbed the mount. Dragon took off without him.

Then it got interesting. The dragon came back pissed off and attacked with frost. Then another dragon came out of the sky and attacked dragon #1! Also with frost. So we had Dragon and Frost Dragon battling it out in the sky. My best guess is that the attacking dragon came from the ruin on the other side of the mountain, and the second one was the Autumnwatch Tower dragon riderless but still under command.

It occurred to me to get Odahviing in on the action, but my Dovahkiin had a better idea. He waited until one of them (Dragon) got low enough and used Bend Will on it again. This time he got on board.

Aerial battle against the Frost Dragon!! They ended up near the Throat of the World, and a third dragon took to the sky! It never got in on the fight, though. My guy eventually had to land Dragon because Frost Dragon was getting too close to Ivarstead. Dragon put him down right on top of the chicken necromancer! Chicken-mancer had a whole lot of blue swirling around. I’m sure he did not imagine that scene when he woke up and started tending his dead chickens that morning.

Eventually Dragon died and Dovahkiin used Bend Will on Frost Dragon. (It took two attempts.) Then he and Frost Dragon wiped out a Thalmor patrol from the air. And also one Imperial guard. Oops. We had watched the noble he was guarding (and his horse) get eaten earlier. It was quite a fight.

Here’s a horrendous picture of my TV taken during the action with my crappy iPhone. The third dragon is barely visible above the mountain.