Those Coldharbor Daedra look neat! Too bad I don't see me playing a character that would ever want to summon them.

They are really neat. Nephiah summoned them when she became Champion of Molag Bal. I kept the mod in case I ever had a vampire, since only Bal’s buddies can summon them. It looks like Zanimal isn’t interested, though. D’oh!

He did get Revenant at the College. He also emptied his pockets buying Expert Destruction spells from Faralda. Yay!! He headed across the snow to test Incinerate and Icy Spear. They are awesome, but it’s easy to miss at distance. Too bad the “Wall Of” spells are not follower-friendly.

While they were playing around on the ice Asrael offered up one of his favorite dialog topics. He says this one a lot, but I’m sure their location made him repeat it continuously.

Asrael: Have you seen that Shrine to Azura? They say the dark elves built it after they fled from Morrowind.

Zanimal: Yeah, I’ve seen it. Thanks for the reminder of a very crappy year.

Asrael: Have you seen that Shrine to Azura? They say the dark elves…

Zanimal: The word is Dunmer. And I’ve seen it.

Asrael: Have you seen that Shrine to Azura? They say…

Zanimal: Az, it’s right fetching there. See it? See the big statue? FFS.

Az: Have you seen—

Zan: Oh for the love of Bal. Let’s go.

So they walked up to see the damned Shrine to Azura. Captain Zanimal was mistaken for someone else by the priestess there. He was certainly too old for her to have seen a vision of him before he was born, unless she is also immortal or undead. He declined to take part in her religious issues.

From the shrine they saw a dragon in the sky so they hunted it for its treasure. One flawless garnet. Must be the only dragon lair in the realm with no dragon treasure. Serana looked cute running up to the grounded beast with her hand out, casting her little Vampiric Drain spell. Zanimal sent her home after he dug through the dragon bones for loot. He has no time for that kind of nonsense. Seasoned fighters only in his crew. Earlier after they killed a Dawnguard patrol she raised a goat zombie to fight a frost troll. Three dead warriors scattered at her feet and she picked the goat. Probably couldn’t find herself a dead bunny.

Anyway the good times gave Zanimal an idea. Screw the Volkihar business. The Zanimal is going to hunt some dragons.

I'm enjoying the dark adventures of Zee Animal! That sounds like a neat mod to make followers talk more.

*

Buffy's still in Solstheim, and her wardrobe has grown! It it not a place for simple exploration. As Skyrim is wont to do, anything you touch tries to suck you into the DLC's MQ. The hook for Buffy was the Skaal. They are pretty affected by the main questline there. Once she began to help them however, things really opened up and the island became a neat place to explore.

She's picked away at its MQ, but now is near the end of it - and it causes her quite the dilemma regarding how to proceed. Bad consequences for the Skaal whether she continues or not. She's doing other fun things on the island right now as she mulls over her choice. I figure she knows the right answer about what is in the long term best interest of her friends, the Skaal; it'll just take some time for her to come to terms with it.

It sounds like Serana is planning on giving the Chickenmancer of The Rift some competition!

I tried to steam through the Dragonborn mq once so that I could sleep and do other things on Solstheim, with the idea of pretending some other character did it all afterward. I did not much like what it forces on you either. That is why I now use console commands to run through it all when my characters arrive there. I can just RP that it was that way all along.

This post has been edited by SubRosa: Sep 24 2014, 09:25 PM

Best wishes to Buffy as she struggles with her decision. I happily used SubRosa’s commands to skip the whole thing with Zanimal, but I want some of my characters to have to face the hard choices. Jerric will be one of them.


Here’s a brief report on the romantic life of Marius, Thieves Guild Master and Nightingale. So far Marius has been all business and has not expressed any interest other than friendship in anyone. He and Rune are best buddies and he’s also pals with Arissa, but that’s it. Until a few sessions ago on the road outside Rorikstead he saw a blonde woman fighting some bandits (various mods interacting). Marius rather uncharacteristically dismounted and rushed up to her aid, hoping that his guess was accurate and the blonde was not also a bandit. They prevailed, she introduced herself as Mira (at least that’s how we interpret him suddenly knowing her name), and they went their separate ways.

He’s met her on the road since then, and during their chat she offered to travel with him. (She’s from Immersive Followers and only has the “Follow Me” dialog topic.) Marius was traveling with Rune and Arissa at the time on some urgent business for Arissa so he had to say no thank you to Mira’s offer.

THEN today Marius returned to Riften. He got his horse Mist settled at the stable and strolled over to chat with the Khajiit caravan. Now that he has kicked his skooma habit he has a better relationship with them. Anyway he traded a few items and turned around to walk into the city.

Mira was right there! He ran up and tried to recruit her, but she told him he already had someone with him. Dangit, I forgot he doesn’t have a multiple follower mod! So he dashed back and had an urgent word with Rune who understood completely and said he’d see him around or something. Rune is a good guy. He did not take offense at the abrupt dismissal. Then Marius scooted through the gate and suggested to Arissa that they meet up later. This is my favorite thing about Arissa. She does her own thing in the cities. Arissa headed for the tavern and Marius looked around for Mira.

She was gone. He saw her walk into the city, so she had to be somewhere. Marius made a dash around the market and didn’t see her. Checked the tavern and then the boarding house, no blonde in scaled armor to be found.

By then it had started to rain, and it was a downpour. Marius had taken off his hood as is his habit when speaking to people so that he doesn’t appear to be a shady character. The man ran out the opposite city gate and down past Snow-Shod Farm almost to the bridge by Largashbur without his hood and without his horse. He sprinted until he ran out of stamina three times looking for her. Marius does not run unless something big is chasing him.

No sign of her. I left him dejected in the market standing in the rain after he checked the Ragged Flagon in the hope that she was a new recruit that he hadn’t met yet.

Then I totally cheated and looked at the mod’s page. Mira is described as a Paladin who travels to the Temple of Mara every Sundas. There is no way he will ever think to look there. A Paladin!! Poor Marius!

Mira's a blonde and a paladin! Does it get any better than that?!? Well, maybe for Marius it does.

Lol, Buffy's introduction to Arissa was quite a shock to the trusting little elf.

Poor lovelorn Marius, fallen for the chapel-going paladin!

Good lord that's quite a story Grits! .. It actually sounds like the guy quit drugs too; oftentimes when users quit they find themselves going bananas over things that never used to bug them before.

And it's also interesting; I know that feeling when you try to recruit somebody (or have somebody already recruited try to follow) and they say 'no way'. It's nothing but computer coding, but sometimes the rejection actually is felt on some level.

Mycharonna is headed to Solitude, where she is supposed to meet the real Titus Mede. He's supposed to be on a boat or something, although I expect there will be some sort of plot-twist. Like maybe Titus Mede is the Night Mother or something silly.

This post has been edited by Renee Gade IV: Sep 25 2014, 11:27 PM

Renee - tell Mycharonna to say hi to the Emperor!

*

Buffy's back in Skyrim now (from Solstheim and the Dragonborne DLC). Loved the Skaal and Raven Rock stuff, disliked the BigBadDragonborne stuff. Buffy did the MQ up until it came time to bargain with Jabba the Hutt Hermosa Mora and betray the Skaal. Clever elf that she is, she and the shaman figured out a way to cleanse the final All-Maker stone for the Skaal and then seal the BigBad up in his temple without dealing with Hermora. (Okay, in reality, she did 5 1/2 of the 7 quests that make up the DB MQ, then walked away calling it good.)

She earned the following titles while there:
- Littlest Skaal.
- Wizard to the Redoran Court of Raven Rock.

And she made friends with both a real Telvanni Wizard and a silt strider!

Solstheim sounds fun Acadian, nice to see Buffy made some new friends and gained some new titles.

--

Ravos is travelling across Skyrim with Erik the Slayer, tying up some loose ends and searching for a flawless sapphire so that he can build a shrine to Kynareth in Lakeview Manor.

Most recently they travelled from Nightgate Inn to Winterhold, where Ravos was able to sell his elder scroll to Urag (probably a bad idea... but it was annoying me) and spend some time in the Arcanaeum. From there they cut across the northern snowy plains to Dawnstar and then turned south to Morthal. They cleared every dungeon they passed but found no flawless sapphires. This is frustrating as I'm pretty sure Ravos sold one recently and the only guaranteed locations to find one require starting the civil war questline or stealing from the temple of Dibella, both things that Ravos won't be doing.

Anyway, Ravos has a few misc. quests to wrap up in Haarfingar and then he'll be ready to settle down in Lakeview Manor, at least for a while....

I know where you are coming from, and I do agree. But what I do not like about quests like the DB MQ that force you into a certain course of action is that they do not give you the option of finding another solution, especially by being creative and thinking outside the box. Like Alexander and the Gordian Knot. Without giving away too many spoilers, I think there should have been a way to trick Jabba and save the Skaal guy, not to mention to defeat the bad guy without having to become Jabba's bitch in the process (whom I see as the Bigger Bad guy). The only way to win is not to play. That is all well and good with nuclear war, but not when I paid for a game!



Good on you if you saved the day! Solsthem is a fun place to explore once you get its main quest out of the way.


My characters who have done Dawnguard get sick of that Elder Scroll stuck in their inventory too. I usually use the console to just remove it, since most of them never joined the college.

This post has been edited by SubRosa: Sep 26 2014, 04:41 PM

Good hunting to Mycharonna!

I can imagine the tiny Skaal coat they must have made for her! Congrats to Buffy on her new friends in Solstheim. I love the very Buffy solution to the Jabba the Mora mess. Both of my characters who did the deed Bethesda’s way were forever changed by it, and not for the better. Isn’t Dusty the silt strider wonderful? I got chills when I heard her call.

Vital, I feel your pain with the flawless sapphire search. Jensa had a quest in her log for about 160 hours waiting for one. Argh.

SubRosa, I agree. There should be an outcome available that doesn’t make you feel like you’ve been had, especially since the game starts Solstheim already in a mess and pretty much forces all characters to do the questline or leave. Even simply avoiding the whole thing isn’t an option. Your batch file has a permanent home in my Skyrim directory.

Sofie Mikkesdaughter got to go out and play a little before her scheduled time. First she stopped in at the neighbors to pick up her best friend Braith. As soon as Sofe walked in Braith said she was glad they were friends and gave her a silver sapphire necklace. Then Braith’s mom started talking about her books so they rolled their eyes at each other and left.

Here’s a shot of the girls of Whiterun out on the tundra. And here’s the trouble they got into just walking down the road. I think these two are going to be fun.

Fun indeed. Nothing wrong with slightly diminishing the Thalmor's forces eh?

Briath has good taste! Oh no, not books though! No wonder they fled for the wilds!

Well, I guess a Nord and a Redguard would know what to do with elves that get uppity!

Lopov – Thanks! Buffy likes Erik the Hoepusher as well! Hope things continue to go well for Ravos.

SubRosa - It took some creativity to counter the game’s intentions in Solstheim, but then, Skyrim proper is like that too. I honestly can’t think of a single questline bigger than the three Mara quests that fully work for Buffy. Good thing we all have fertile imaginations and are not afraid to change what doesn’t work for us. Dawnguard was pretty good, but we quite suffered from Serana fatigue by the end of it. Serana’s a great companion but just too much of a good thing.

Grits - Thanks for the kind words about Buffy. I figure those giant Skaal could have easily made full outfits for both Buffy and Lil from what it would take to make one outfit for a Skaal . Ever so appropriate for the blizzardy stuff though. Wow, Sofie and Braith . . . grew up . . . and now they take one's braith away *groan* The girls of Whiterun! I love it! Yup, the only good Thalmer is a dead Thalmer.

*

Buffy’s happily back in northern Skyrim. After a visit to the College, she took a bandit hunting bounty for Whiterun and reveled in a very welcome bandit dungeon crawl. Not surprisingly, she’s next headed south to the land of the Girls of Whiterun. Then she’ll likely sweep across the south of Skyrim enjoying the lack of snow (and ash) for a change.

Acadian, I hope Buffy enjoys the change of scenery. I'm sure most non-Nord adventurers would agree that Skyrim's cold climate can get tiring after a while.

--

Ravos and Erik continued their adventure, travelling from Morthal to Dragon Bridge bearing a letter from the Jarl's housecarl Gorm for Captain Aldis in Solitude. They used Dragon's Bridge as a base for a few days of adventuring in the northern regions of Haafingar. During that time they cleared out Pinemoon cave for Sybille, uncovered a drunken villager's mead stash for his wife and recovered Noster's old legion helmet, among other things.

From Dragon's Bridge they hauled their loot into Solitude where they were able to sell most of it. Ravos also found some time for prayer in the Temple of the Divines.

Next they'll be headed into the Reach where Ravos will be hoping to find a flawless sapphire. There's one he could steal in Markarth, but that's not really his style...

Sounds like Ravos and Erik have been busy. Busy paid a visit to Eldergleam Sanctuary, warmed up in the hot springs, then settled in by the river at Darkwater Crossing for a couple days to enjoy the lack of ice for a change. While there, she linked up with Anekke Crag-Jumper and they went off to find a missing local Argonian. Anekke picked up quite a few falmer bruises, cuts and scrapes, but they were successful. Buffy thinks the little adventure helped Anekke realize why she traded in adventuring for mining and marriage.

For her part, although Buffy enjoys occasionally traveling with a two-legger, it makes her appreciate that her best friends have four legs.

Turdas, 800 PM , 13th of Last Seed 4E 202 -- Onward to Mede




An ashen-skinned lady in dark clothes arrives to the hamlet of Rorikstead. The lady is unsure how long she's going to want to stay here. Could be for just an hour, or it could be for an entire night and day. This is strategy. If things go right, she'll stay longer than an hour. If they go wrong, she'll be forced to leave.

A Whiterun Hold guard keeps solid patrol of the road that runs straight through Rorikstead. This guard (or another just like him) is here at all times. Keeping things safe and under control. Back and forth he walks, up and down his hill. He touches the sword which hangs from his belt proudly, wondering when he'll be able to really use it again. It's been awhile. Almost three weeks.

The guard carries a torch, and sees a lady in dark clothes approaching from a distance. Gazes at her. The lady decides to play it safe it seems. She lights a torch of her own. This way, the guard can see her plainly. The lady has nothing to hide, and proves it by lighting her own torch.

The guard turns away, edgy yet satisfied. Pumped on mead, raw energy, and his belief of The Eight. Confident he is that he does the right thing, always. He spies the lady from a distance of several yards, and shrugs. She shall pass through. Just an old woman, out here, late at night. He thinks this, and shrugs and turns his back. But just for a second, there was something.... something? Naah. Nothing. Just an old woman, in dark clothes.

The lady smiles as the guard turns away. She grins like a wolf, baring fangs. Rorikstead is made up of about seven or eight cabins, she knows very well, and she is hungry.

She chooses the first cabin to her right.




This post has been edited by Renee Gade IV: Oct 4 2014, 12:52 AM

Yikes, a vampire in Rorikstead! I've heard it's a nice enough little hamlet, but a boring posting for a guard.


Sofie Mikkesdaughter and Braith had quite an eventful trip to Markarth. They got into lots of trouble. Big surprise.

After the skirmish with two Thalmor patrols outside Rorikstead (mods colliding) they headed over the hills for a shortcut. Well it didn’t work out that way. First they stumbled into a nest of Forsworn. That went well considering their youth and inexperience, probably because they were able to pick up Forsworn weapons and use them for the second part of the fight. (Of course they went through the caves and killed everyone. Community service.) Then the Girls of Whiterun tripped over some vampires in a nearby camp. They managed to finish them off without getting infected thanks to Braith cleverly using the Flames staff that Sofe forgot she was carrying. All of this within sight of Rorikstead.

On the road they met an assassin and a Thalmor death squad, both carrying orders for Sofie’s execution. Sofie is aware that as the Dragonborn’s daughter people have certain expectations of her, but this seemed excessive. Braith reminded her of their earlier excitement with the Thalmor. Sofe admitted that perhaps the Thalmor death squad was justified in hunting her. Braith was a little put out that her name was not also on the execution order.

Also Sofie got a letter from Jarl Siddgeir of Falkreath Hold. He had some nice things to say about her. Sofe knows what empty flattery sounds like, so she was unmoved. She does plan to stop by and meet him, though. A parcel of land that has nothing to do with her mother sounds tempting. Um, and there’s also a guy looking for her in Whiterun, she’s heard. Seems like everyone wants a hero. Sofie hopes that they will be willing to pay.

Aaand, the icing on the sweetroll is that our dynamic duo managed to piss off three Daedric princes in two days. THREE of them. Lol. These girls are not boring.

Sofie and Braith seem like quite the klutzes, what with all this stumbling and tripping! I guess that is what happens when they remove the Dexterity stat...

It sounds like you have been having an eventful time playing Grown up Sofie. Now what other grown up kids can we play as NPCs? Given how she looks in your game, I'd say Braith is a real contender!