Sorry - I tend to sound abrupt sometimes. I don't mean it.

If it helps any, I'm even more awkward in real life.

I do appreciate the suggestion - I just really hated Arthmoor's alternate start mod for Oblivion and don't want to risk having a similar bad experience with his Skyrim one.

I actually will likely use some sort of alternate start mod sooner or later. I use one for Oblivion - not often, but sometimes, when I want to start a character some other specific place. I don't know enough about Skyrim yet to know if or when I'd want to do that anyway though.

Yeah - the trip up to Northwatch Keep was pretty impressive. That bandit fort straddling the road was an especially nice touch, and the bit of background with the threatened mutiny and the hidden treasure was a good detail.

Broadly, one of the things that does impress me about this game is the sheer number of interesting things stuck all over the place. I love finding the little out-of-the-way shacks and hunting camps and things like that, and there were a bunch of things like that along that trip.

---

So I'm taking a break from a sort of irritating situation with Valri and Erik right at the moment.

They went to Morthal and poked around and got sucked into the scandal there, so they ended up going up to the target dungeon with a mob of villagers.

Oh... wait - on the way to Morthal, they went through the pass near Dustman's Cairn, so discovered Labrinthian, which I can only hope is going to be as interesting to explore as it looks like it should be. That was more than they wanted to get into right at the moment though.

So anyway - Morthal - tragedy - scandal - angry villagers.

The first time through was a rough fight, but Valri came out of it all right. Erik died along the way though. I considered just letting it go, but I just couldn't - he deserves better than that. So I reloaded and tried it again, and that time Valri died. So I reloaded and tried it again and they both made it through, but then when they went outside, the villagers were still there and still on alert and wouldn't leave. I looked it up and discovered that if you don't talk to them after arriving at the dungeon, that's what they do, and there's at least a chance that they'll eventually respawn en masse at Fort Greymoor. So I reloaded yet again, talked to the villagers so that the one joined Valri and Erik and the rest dispersed, then went back in yet again. And Valri died, yet again. And I turned it off then and decided I'd do something else for a while, so here I am.

The biggest problem is that she's not really prepared - not enough healing potions to get through a fight with tough magic-users. And magic users in general are a problem, which is a new thing for me. The only problem with them in Oblivion is that it was irritating when they ran away and you had to chase them down, but in Skyrim, they can kill a warrior before she even gets close enough to take a swing at them. It's really sort of fascinating and exciting - it's been a while since I've had to actually consider and work out new strategies. I'm sure the time will come when I've figured out how to deal with them and they'll potentially even be sort of dull, but for the time being...

But after four times through the same fight, they were just irritating.

You can make your own Alternate Start. It is not difficult at all. Though it does come with some unique 'Features', thanks to the way Bethesda makes many trivial things dependent upon the main quest. I created This topic with all the details. It really is extremely easy. I have been doing it with all my characters for years now.

This post has been edited by SubRosa: Feb 14 2017, 03:48 AM

Mmm... yeah. That's a lot of "features." That might be the best approach though, rather than submitting to somebody else's "features" instead of or even in addition to Beth's. Thanks.

Still traveling with Valri, and starting to get into the meat of things.

Let's see... they dealt with the rest of the stuff in Morthal, then took a radiant quest that took them high into the mountains to a bandit den, where Valri scored a full set of plate steel from the boss. While they were up in the mountains, they ran into a couple of gargoyles - that was a surprise for all of us. We also (Valri and I) got tired of dealing with Erik. He's a good guy and a competent if unexceptional fighter, but he doesn't keep up well while traveling and then he's overeager and always jumping out in front of her in combat. When they came down out of the mountains (following an easier route than the one they took on the way up), they came out almost due west of Rorikstead, so Valri sent him on his way and hiked back to Whiterun to drop off her Wolf armor and replenish supplies. Then she went back up past Morthal and out into the marshes to recover the Horn.

That's an awesome dungeon. That's another thing I'll credit this game for - I love the dungeons with enormous, multi-leveled chambers.

Of course, the horn wasn't there, so she had to set out for Riverwood. Since she was out on the eastern edge of the marshes, she first went further east to pick up the road there, then south toward Whiterun. It was a bit easier than going back through the marshes would've been, and more to the point, it was a road she hadn't traveled before.

Found a couple of interesting things - what appeared to be an Orc stronghold (she didn't get close enough to be certain, since the guards looked like they were spoiling for a fight and she had no cause to fight them) and an interesting, and annoying, self-styled jester, broken down by the side of the road. She got some help for him from a nearby farmer, then continued on her way.

Things are starting to look sketchy around Whiterun. She ran into a fair number of soldiers - both Imperial and Stormcloak. It looks like things are coming to a head soon.

While she was in Whiterun, she spent a bit of time doing some enchanting. There were two downsides to her new plate steel armor - she had to give up the awesome enchanted nordic steel gauntlets she'd been using (+15% to two-handed) and the set weighed much more than her wolf armor. So she bought a couple of filled grand soul gems, sacrificed the gauntlets and a charmed necklace she'd picked up along the way, then spent a while enchanting a bunch of trinkets with simple and cheap effects to get some experience with it, then enchanted her new gauntlets with a two-handed bonus and her new boots with the increase carry weight effect she learned from the charmed necklace.

Then she set out for Riverwood.

That was... interesting.

And it strikes me here that I should move this to the spoilers section, so I don't have to be careful about what I post.

Suffice to say - Valri found the whole situation to be odd, but completed the quest surprisingly easily. And learned a few things she'd been wondering about.

Then, since she was in the area, she hiked the rest of the way up to Windhelm to unload loot and replenish supplies, and that was interesting too. Bluntly, that place is a dump. Say what you like about Balgruuf - at least he runs a clean and prosperous city. The legendary Ulfric Stormcloak, on the other hand, squats in the middle of a broken-down slum. Valri was quite a bit less than impressed. She still opposes the Empire, and even more so the Thalmor, but she's backed off of her plan to actually cast her lot with the Stormcloaks. While something certainly needs to be done about the Empire, she can't believe that any good would come from helping that self-absorbed and neglectful tyrant rise to power.

Right at the moment though, she's gotten roped into a murder investigation...

If you want them, I will email you the mods I made to fix all those 'features' caused by doing your own alternate start.

Besides knocking out the main quest, what I really love about doing your own start is that I can tailor it specifically to every character I play. The last time I played Persephone in Skyrim it was after she did Morrowind. So I created a start with her at the Eastmarch-Morrowind border. Le Chevalier D'Eon came to Skyrim via a ship. So she started her game on the Solitude docks.

Sorry - I moved Valri's story over to the spoilers forum and just happened back by here.

I'll let you know. I'm not sure yet if I'll even do alternate starts, much less how I'll do it if I do. In all my years and all my characters in Oblivion, I've only done alternate starts with I think three of them, and I've never liked doing it - given the choice, I'd rather work around things in-game than try to alter the way the game works and invite unforeseen complications. But I appreciate the offer, and if I decide to do it, I'll know where to find you.

Grelod the Vile

On one of his night adventures Sheshko was spotted by a patrolling guard. Only for a second, though, because the Khajiit immediately rolled in the nearest house which turned out to be the orphanage.

“Must have been my imagination”, the guard outside muttered but the Khajiit no longer heard him.

Once inside, Sheshko quickly realized that children are tormented by their cruel headmistress Grelod the Kind. Conveniently, this one just snatched two valuable rings from Marise Aravel down by the canal so why not give them to children as gifts?

As Grelod went to her room, Sheshko entered the main bedroom where orphans were sleeping. “For you, missy, this shining ring of sneaking,” Sheshko whispered to Runa Fair Shield, waking her up. “Shhh, don’t talk too loud or the old hag will wake up. Beautiful ring, isn’t it? Wearing it will make you hard to see so if your mistress is after you, put it on and hide, then the old hag will have hard time finding you. But don’t be stingy, missy – share the ring with others because you might all need it.”

“Wow, it’s beautiful, Khajiit,” said Runa, the smile on her face made Sheshko happy. “Who are you? I’ve never seen you before..”

“That’s because this one is hard to see. Maybe one day, if you sneak around a lot like this one does, you’ll be hard to see as well, missy. Good night.”

Moving on to the next bed Sheshko gave the ring of alteration to Samuel. “Maybe you won’t find much use of it now but this one sees that you’ll be a great mage once and that alteration is the path you will follow. Or…if you feel like you won’t be a mage, sell it. It’s worth a lot, this one knows.”

“Thanks, Khajiit. I’ll keep it. I…I rarely get any gifts here.”

“Don’t worry, mister. This one was an orphan too. But life turns for good at some point. Look at this one now – it lives like a king! Tell others that Sheshko will bring them more gifts as he finds…buys them! And now… time to give a gift to your mistress.”

“You brought Grelod a gift too?” was surprised Samuel.

“Oh, indeed. But she’s not going to like it.”

A minute later a sweetroll was thrown straight to Grelod’s face. Shocked, she sat up in her bed and removed cream for her eyes, only to see the grinning Khajiit, jumping on her bed like mad.

“Blasted cat!” By the time Grelod got up from the bed, Sheshko was already out of the orphanage.

This post has been edited by Lopov: Feb 18 2017, 02:30 PM

"this one lives like king!" .... yet he doesn't even have his own hay pile! I get it though. He means he lives like a king because he is rich on the inside...

I like when he says "good night" to the girl. It seems so unnecessary; that little detail made me smile though. I hope she doesn't lose her ring, or have it taken away by Grelod.

Grelod meets her match! I should think that Grelod could be an endless source of pranks for Sheshko!

Had a bit of a laugh today with my Morrowind-style Dunmer Battlemage, Endar Verano.

Riverwood was the site of his first vampire attack; One Vampire Master and two Death Hounds. The tally of the fallen, in order of death:

Stump
A cow
A chicken
A Whiterun Guard

I'm still not sure if it was an actual attack, or if the Vampire Master just needed to feed his pets.

Yay! Khajiit likes Sheshko!

They just wanted to hang out with you guys but everybody started attacking them!

Well, today was fairly interesting. Endar Verano has endured many deaths on his trek to High Hrothgar, mostly courtesy of the mages in Fort Amol(I'm sure those mages were more powerful than Endar). He's not really much of a Battlemage in all honesty, either that or having a spell in one hand and a sword in the other isn't particularly effective. Either way at this point he's mostly summoning a flame atronach or blasting enemies with dual-cast firebolts. Having Lydia back him up helps, though she'd be more useful if she'd put down the bow.

The actual climb from Ivarstead was surprisingly easy, but the emblems along the way kept it from being boring. I'm getting the impression that Endar really isn't the Dragonborn, so it looks like I might not be seeing any more of the MQ with him.

The Greybeards were interesting, had some pretty funky robes too, and that new Shout is pretty amusing.

Wait till you can shout folks off mountains!

"Oh what's that Snow Bear? You're going to eat my face? FUS ROH DAH!"
*Snow bear is forced off the mountain and plummets to its death.

I think I saw a comic strip like that a while back lol.

Yes, it's quite the problem solver

Having scrapped my Dunmer Battlemage(Useless at melee combat, probably my fault) and created a Dunmer Shieldmage instead. His name is Arvyn Drenim, and I've been having some fun with him today.

Having reached Whiterun and spent all his money on spells, he set out on some bounty-hunting work, clearing out Redoran's Retreat, Silent Moon's Camp, and Halted Stream Camp in quick succession, each time making far more gold from the loot than from the meagre bounties offered.

He's now level 10 has gotten hold of some decent gear, as well as all the apprentice spells he needs, and is about to enter Bleak Falls Barrow.

What were the skills for Dunmer Battlemage again?

Alchemy, Alteration, Conjuration, Destruction, Heavy Armour, One Handed, and technically Enchanting(though it didn't really get used).

He was using bound blade as a weapon, with the mystic binding perk.

My Shieldmage swaps Alchemy and One Handed for Block and Restoration. He's ridiculously tough to kill. He's blitzed Bleak Falls Barrow, pausing to use a couple of restless draugr as training buddies to get his block, heavy armour, and restoration skills above 30, and has killed his first dragon.

Restoration was probably the key skill, as I find I need that with any build. The Skyrim regeneration of magicka means you can always self-heal, given a bit of time to recover, unlike earlier games where you needed to actually rest.

I've done the "bound weapon" thing with a few characters that also went unarmoured and looked totally defenceless. When attacked, they'd conjure helper + weapon and clean up. The shieldmage always shows a shield, which spoils the effect. Again, that's a change from Oblivion, where you'd only see a shield with an equipped weapon. Morrowind was a bit odd, in hiding the weapon when sheathed, but not the shield.

It's definitely restoration that's the key, it just makes him so absurdly sustainable. And once he gets the respite perk he'll be able to shield bash for days at a time

Arvyn Drenim has just completed his first Daedric quest. Seeing Sanguine turn up in Daedric armour made quite the impression. he now wants a set of his own