Those vampire hunters certainly are persistent if they follow you into the Soul Cairn! Maybe they are Necromancer Vampire Hunters?

It’s been a lot of fun to play Zanimal as a modded vampire with sun damage and the like. As hard as I tried to get him interested in the Dawnguard vampire questline, he just won’t go for it. He has only changed into a Vampire Lord once, and that was with Lord Harkon right after he got the pure-blood upgrade. I guess he has enough of his own business to attend to instead of running errands for some other boss.

When the Zanimal gets a clear night with full moons he’s going to go wreck diving in the Sea of Ghosts and visit the bones of his past friends and foes. Even with night vision it’s been a little too dark to see much under water at night.

Go into your SkyrimPrefs.ini and find this line:

bDoDepthOfField=

Set it to 0, and it should make things a lot easier to see underwater.

Yeah no doubt. Just when you think all you've got to deal with are soul cairn inhabitants.

This post has been edited by Renee Gade IV: Aug 18 2014, 05:57 PM

I re-created Diablita as her own daughter Elys, to try an experiment. I'd run Diablita as a pure mage, as I didn't want to try making armour to fit her. But the pure mage build is what I'd just done with Vicuña, so it got a bit repetitive. Elys will attempt to combine Two-handed sword with mage armour (Alterations spells). Has anyone else done this and can offer any advice? So far she's done up to visiting High Hrothgar on the MQ, and it seems to work, but I'm concerned that she'll run out of defence at higher levels.

I'll post a picture or two once I've got the texture on her tail right. It took all weekend to get it rigged!

This post has been edited by ghastley: Aug 18 2014, 06:27 PM

I don’t remember playing a two-handed fighter with Alteration armor, but I’ve played one-handed ones. I would think dual-casting armor with a two-handed weapon would be easier since just one hotkey will switch between the weapon and spells. It’s a lot of fun to play unencumbered by armor, but it’s a problem when you get surprised and don’t have time to cast it or run out of magicka and need to cast it during a long fight. One of mine died in a blade trap and another died when he walked into spikes. Also if memory serves another died when he couldn’t cast healing during a fight. He would have been better off using potions to heal.

Good luck with Elys! I can’t wait to see her tail.

This is the problem so far. The root of the tail where it blends with the buttocks is OK, but there's an obvious seam to the main part, which just doesn't light correctly. I've probably got an inverted normal map or something inherited from the Khajiit tail that provided the skeleton and animations. This is a screenshot, but it looks like it was painted into the picture badly.

Aha, I see. Well, the rest of her looks awesome! I hope the middle part cooperates for you.

Marius managed to pickpocket the Copper and Moonstone Circlet from NPC Jerric without getting his nose ring yanked out or otherwise being mangled by the Nord. He’s presently headed to Eastmarch in pursuit of another Stone of Barenziah. He has 17 so far. We’re using the uesp list as a page from Mercer’s Plan.

I have to wonder what NPC Jerric was doing with a Copper and Moonstone Circlet in his pocket. Was it supposed to be a gift for someone? I don’t recall Jerric ever wearing one. It gave me an idea for more loot for the Thieves Guild quests. “Pickpocket Ysolda’s Panties from Jerric of Kvatch in Whiterun.”

Now if it turns out that Jerric had that circlet with plans to have it enchanted with resist frost for Lil, Marius is gonna be in big trouble!

Marius had an exceptionally difficult day in Sunderstone Gorge. That place is full of oil traps and fire mages, and Marius has not focused on magical defense. At the beginning of the biggest fight one of the enemy mages lit the oil patch that Arissa and Rune were sneaking through. They both took a knee. Even with his resist fire potion Marius had a hell of a time. There was a lot of cover for the mages and he was pretty much blinded by fire so he couldn’t get a shot. Fortunately he could also use the cover to take them down one by one with his blades. He had pre-poisoned one with ravage magicka poison, but it didn’t seem to do much.

Now he’s back home in Riften. After he cashes out his latest haul he’s going to buy some more paralysis poison and then go pick some canis root. Hopefully Brand-Shei will have some netch jelly in stock. What a trip!

Oh, I remember those fire mages and oil traps! Buffy's Breton blood, Lord stone, Agent of Mara and a couple alteration perks max out her magic resist. And since her bow hits very hard, she can trade arrows for fireballs and win at range. That makes her pretty skilled vs mages (or dragons). Her nightmare (as ever) is big dudes with big weapons at melee range.

Anyway, glad Marius and his little gang made it through the fire.

Buffy's experimenting with followers too. Anduniel, Inigo and, now thanks to Grits, Arissa. There's something fantastic about the sounds and animations of having three or four of those big horses around.

AFT + CH is magnificent.

Edit: AFT = Amazing Follower Tweaks / CH = Convenient Horses.

This post has been edited by Acadian: Aug 23 2014, 06:38 PM

I remember that place too. It is a death trap. Not an easy dungeon for Persephone, with her 50% Weakness to Fire.

Acadian, I’m so glad you’re having fun with Arissa! Marius seems to have lost her. Valdi had Inigo in her first game. I really liked that guy. BTW, I did a little test with Convenient Horses and was able to bring a horse to Solstheim using the horn. Yay! (Though the Zanimal and crew are on foot until I come up with a good reason why a horse would let a vampire ride it. )

SubRosa, that would also be a bad place for a vampire. I was thinking of Capt. Z while Marius was dancing around on fire. Also his bunny Shadow had a bad time. I don’t think he takes damage but the little guy was hopping very fast through the flames. I was shrieking too much to take a screen shot!

It took some doing but Capt. Z was able to sail his ship to Raven Rock. He is presently standing in the ash next to the Earth Stone wondering what the heck is going on. Due to a mod conflict he will be unable to pursue the Dragonborn main quest, so things could get quickly fatal for him. But he wanted to go here. Fingers crossed that he does not go wandering in daylight. One of his mods gives him sun damage.

He plans to take Stenvar and Asrael up the coast hunting for reavers. Eventually he may check in with the authorities in town. He’s in no hurry to receive a blessing on his activities from House Redoran, or as he puts it, “that stuck-up cluster of pricks.”

I’m pretty nervous about the next adventure.

Good luck to the Z-man. Hope he doesn't get kilt - oh. . . wait. . . undead. . . . Well, I hope he doesn't get dusted or sunburned.

Methinks an undead horse like Avrak would not be too picky about a bloodsucker rider.



There is a way to get around doing the Dragonborn MQ, and sort of set things to normal on Solstheim. Open the console and enter these lines. Or better yet, save it as a text file in your Skyrim\Data\ folder. Then open the console and run it by typing bat {Filename}



This will advance the game through all the stages of the Dragonborn MQ, without having to actually do any of it. Since I never play dragonborn characters, I do this with everyone who goes to Solstheim. That way I can sleep in the beds. The downside is that a few MQ dungeons will be blocked off, like the Temple of Miraak and Nchardak. Freia and her dad will be missing from the game as well. There are a few bugs you might encounter because of it however.

If the combat music won't stop playing after finishing the Dragonborn Main Quest, open the console and enter the following:



The appearance of the All-Maker Stones is not changed however (they still have the partially built Miraak buildings around them), and activating one will start the Miraak-worshiper building animation. The only way to change them back to normal is through the Bend Will Shout. You can use the console to gain the shout with the following commands:



I have found I enjoy cleansing the stones. I just roleplay that instead of a Dragon Shout, it is a regular spell. The fights with the Creepy-Crawly guys it spawns are a lot of fun.



Neloth might walk into Nchardak and remain there for the rest of the game. To fix this use the following console command to bring him to you:

xx is the prefix id of Dragonborn. You will have to use TES Mod Manager or Wyre Bash to find out what that is.

This will move him to you. Now open the console again, click on him, and type in:


This will remove him from the game. Now add him once more with the following command:


This should put him back in the game with him following his normal routines.

This post has been edited by SubRosa: Aug 26 2014, 09:04 PM

Somebody needs an Arvak! Or a whole bunch of Arvak clones, so the whole crew can have one each!

And there are mods for various other rideables; my bears were derived from the ones in Like a Boss.

This post has been edited by ghastley: Aug 26 2014, 09:12 PM

Dusted, lol Acadian. When he dies the mod Better Vampires will actually turn him to dust!

Thank you so much, SubRosa! I ran the file this morning for Zanimal. That will also open up Solstheim for my non-heros. I love the Dragonborn main quest for a very few characters, but it was a huge mistake for the game to start it (by screwing up Solstheim) without the character’s input. I got the battle music and resolved it immediately with your info. I appreciate your help so much!

ghastley, now I want a chaurus mount! If I make a Falmer character it will be your fault!! I think the giant ice wraith would be a good mount for the Zanimal, if perhaps a bit conspicuous. He doesn’t need to worry about chilling his delicates.


In character news I popped into Marius’s world this morning to test a mod, and Arissa showed up. She has an urgent personal matter she needs help with. She sweetened her words with a nice pile of coins first. This is not her first day as a rogue.

Marius is fresh from the victory of restoring the Crown of Barenziah so he was more than happy to offer his help. And Rune’s help of course. Rune is just so nice it’s hard to leave him behind. Marius has occasionally freaked out a little after a particularly close call, and Rune always has a quiet word in those situations. Actually Rune is pretty steady at all times. Anyway as soon as they re-provision they’re off to kick the tail of someone who seems to deserve it. At least that’s how Arissa made it sound. She could certainly be lying, but that would not be much of a problem for Marius. He is also a fan of not telling the truth.

Nice to hear that you're not neglecting Marius. How neat that Arissa had a quest for him!

Buffy's making lots of friends. She ran across a Nordic Spellsword named Sofia who seems a great complement to Buffy's skillset so the two are traveling together at the moment. They ran across Arissa and Inigo in Riverwood and, like Marius' game, Arissa had a quest she wanted help with.

It involves traveling to the Solitude area so Buffy and Sofia said sure. Buffy's gotten very good at escorting horse-mounted parties all over Skyrim. Sometimes those groups have gotten as large as half a dozen two-leggers - all with horses - and at least one or two other critters. Anyway, while in Solitude, she hopes to see Jordis and Anduniel again somewhere between Proudspire and Winking Skeever we figure.

A few nights ago I picked up Persephone's game. She had just finished clearing out Forsaken Cave, except for the bears at the beginning, which she left alone.

Along with my Animal Friend mod, and Kyne's Peace spells, I also created a mod that adds a Standing Stone power called The Wildling that makes animals friendly, the same with Amulets of Kynareth. Given that Persephone is undead, she cannot wear Amulets of the Divines. I roleplay that they burn her, especially Arkay's. So she uses the Wildling to avoid having to kill every animal she comes across. She also has a Kyne's Peace spell to make them play nice with one another, and other travelers.

Persephone made her way back toward Helajarchen Hall, and stopped off at Ironbind Barrow along the way. It is the one with the young Redguard wannabe adventurer and her traitorous Argonian mage mentor. Persephone got the Redguard through it alive. But the Argonian lost his head.

Afterward she found a stair in the back of the barrow that took her up on top of the mountain east of the barrow, overlooking Wayward Pass. From there she headed east along the mountain top, and eventually down to the Word Wall at Mount Anthor. She found a couple of folks there who needed killing.

Afterward she spent the night visiting an old friend whose bier sits over the Sightless Pit. At dawn she headed to Winterhold to sell off some of her loot. While she was there she made her Enchanting and Smithing Skills to Legendary. Afterward she finally headed back toward Helajarchen Hall again, stopping off to clear out Duskglow Crevice along the way.

With that was done, Persephone has now cleared out all of the northern half of the map east of Morthal. That includes all of Whiterun's Hold. She has done all of Eastmarch as well. Only Geirmund's Hall remains in the Rift. I have held off on that because I am not sure if I want to do the Mages College with Persephone. I think she might be doing that soon though. Going to college might be just the thing for this next phase in her life.

She has also explored almost all of Solitude's Hold, but has never been in the city itself. That, and some parts of The Reach and Falkreath Hold are all that is left for her to explore. There is also Solstheim, which she has yet to venture to. I checked her stats, and it says she has discovered 309 locations, and killed more people than small pox. I have been playing her for so long that many of the locations she has explored have respawned more than once. For me that is a record. She is Level 59, which is another record for me.

Anyways, after returning to Helajarchen Hall she spent a few days with the Sofia and Lucia, got her hair done, and puttered around in the garden. She went down in basement where she stores her horde of gold, silver, and jewels and started smithing. In no time at all she got her skill back up into the 90s. Even after all that, she still has a pile of gems. Her stash of Filled Grand Soul Gems also went to training her Enchanting skill back up as well, though it is only up to around 50 or 60.

This post has been edited by SubRosa: Aug 28 2014, 08:35 PM

SubRosa, great shots and explanations. I enjoy that Ironbind Barrow quest as well. Top of the mountain is a pretty spectacular shot!