Today, Khajiit started Brenna’s story in Skyrim for real.

Brenna: Bandit Witch- Brenna, who was working as the healer/War Witch for a bandit clan headquartered out of White River Watch, decided that it was time to give up the bandit life. She went about the cave gathering some supplies she’d need for the road, and then went up to the cave exit higher up the mountain. This exit opened onto a sort of natural balcony that offered an amazing view of Whiterun and beyond. “Can’t go that way.” she thought, as she gazed at the city of Whiterun sprawled out beneath her. After taking the view in one last time, Brenna turned and went back inside the cave. The leader of the White River Watch Gang suspected that she was leaving, but said nothing as he watched her disappear into the darkness of the cave’s mouth. Having gathered everything she needed, Brenna made her way to the lower exit. “Falkreath”, the word formed in her head and then transformed into a gloomy village nestled within a pine forest. “If I can avoid the Whiterun guards, Falkreath might be ideal.”. Now that she knew where she wanted to go, she put White River Watch behind her and made her way forward to her new life.

Last Look

Hail Brenna! Good look in Falls Church, Falls Creek, Falkirk, Falkreath!

The Stranger that Came to Falkreath -
Having dodged the Whiterun guards and some bandits, and getting into countless fights with wolves and mudcrabs, Brenna finally arrived within sight of Falkreath. Before going in, she found a pool by a spooky looking door that she thought must be a crypt of some kind. “I’ll check that out later.”, she thought and went over to the pool. There, she changed into some common clothes, and washed the dirt and most of the war paint off her face, leaving just a bit on her lips and around her eyes. Thus freshened up, she entered the town through the main entrance and headed straight for the tavern. The guards eyed her warily but did not stop her from going about her business. Once at the tavern, Brenna warmed up and dried off by the fire, then she secured a room for the night. After that she ordered a meal, that she ate with gusto, and then went to sleep in a proper bed for the first time since she left the Reach.

The Dead Man’s Drink: surprisingly comfy!

Brenna awoke the next morning feeling refreshed and ready to explore Falkreath and the surrounding area. She ordered a sweet roll and a few other small items for breakfast and headed out the tavern’s door. The first stop on Brenna’s tour was the graveyard. Falkreath is famous for its large graveyard, and she considered it a must see. While she was strolling amongst the headstones, she came across a funeral in process, and watched for a bit at a respectful distance. After the priest finished his words, Brenna noticed a bunch of nightshade plants nearby and went to collect some specimens. When she was finished with the graveyard, she went to find the town’s alchemist. Brenna found her at the shop called “Grave Concoctions”, and they chatted for a bit. The shopkeeper, Zaria, allowed Brenna the use of her alchemy equipment, which Brenna took immediate advantage of, creating several potions and a few poisons. Having finished what she wanted to do, she bid Zaria good day and headed back outside, deciding what to do next.

Grief and nightshade.

Foot in the grave (concoctions).

Bewitching Lopov

This post has been edited by TheCheshireKhajiit: May 6 2021, 10:54 PM

Nice, these are fun to read! And Brenna is quite a doll too. Sounds like she has been living at White River Watch. Bad girl, she is!

Yep I was right. White River Watch.

I see you have Frostfall's Player Animation toggled on. I like how she changes her outfit before going into Falkreath. So she can blend in.

Gosh, she's awesome. Love that shot of her standing in Concoctions.

You are inspiring me, Khajiit. Here is my latest Skyrim character update.

I've been gaming with Claire Voyance on and off for the last three months. Claire is a cleric who I originally rolled on PS3 way back in 2011, she was my third character. Lately I've been gaming with the PC 'version' of Claire. She is Imperial, and fought on the Imperials' side during the Civil War. But the Stormcloaks won (in my gameworld, Sir Vyvoor + the Stormies won).

Despite this, Claire has come to love being in Skyrim. She began looking for other things she can do, especially since she's a devout follower of the Eight. Over time, being around lots of real Nords, she's accepted that Talos should also be included along with Stendarr, Mara, Akatosh, Arkay, Zenithar, Julianos, Kynareth, and whomever else I am forgetting. Basically she agrees with the Nods. There indeed are Nine.

She eventually joined the Vigilants of Stendarr, which is a mod of course, since we cannot join the VoS in the base game. The Vigil has been a perfect fit for her.

Today, Morndas, 7th of Heartfire, Claire leads her group of four others toward Silverdrift Lair, which is rumored to be infested with vampires!

Praying

Conversing (Claire is on left)

Bathe in the light, miscreant!



This post has been edited by Renee: May 8 2021, 08:17 PM

Khajiit - Falkreath is a foreboding place and seems to suit a daughter of the Reach.

Renee - Happy vampire hunting to Claire!

TheCheshireKhajiit: What an awesome Lopov!


Renee: Nice to hear from Claire after all this time. Glad to see she is still Voyancing. That is some light she bathes the unbelievers in!

Thanks, yes, she bathes unbelievers in 'the light', even if she has to drag them to it.

Claire is like a soccer mom, come to life in Medieval times. "Come on, you can do it! Go! Go Go! Get that troll!" and so on. Annoying her followers with all her religious talk at times. She's fun to game with though, because most of how she survives is to heal the others around her. Restoration 100, and so on.

Thank y’all for the kind words!

@Renee- glad Brenna and I could be some inspiration for you! Claire looks right at home in Skyrim! I like that last pic where that character is burninating!

@Acadian- I love Falkreath. It is second in my book only to The Reach, which is my absolute favorite hold.

@ Subbie- thanks! I love that pic!

Here's something that's been bothering me about Skyrim - perhaps one of you wise people can explain it. You go into a crypt, you find most draugr lying quietly in their alcoves, you run into a few that are up and about, you fight, you kill them again. They fall and are now lying on the floor. Ok.

A month later you enter the same crypt and find most draugr lying quietly in their alcoves - including the ones that were walking around last time, yes, the ones that you had struck down and they fell on the floor.

Question: how do they get from the floor and back into their alcoves? You supposedly killed them - that is, drained their energy, so who puts them back into place? There's no priest of Arkay walking around there like in the Halls of the Dead... or is there?

If you ever play Elder Scrolls Online you'll have even more questions! In that game, you kill something, and literally seconds later it comes right back.

My answer to your Q (because I've thought about it too) is that the draugr somehow retrieve whatever lifeforce or energy they had within them when we ended their unlife the first time. Either that, or there are some unseen wizards who bring them back to life. The same happens with the undead in earlier games, too.

This post has been edited by Renee: May 24 2021, 05:25 PM

Well, the general question as to where do undead come from in Tamriel, is an easy one: it's the magic of the land. It's like a magnetic field - always there, so this infuses dead bodies and after a thousand years or so they rise naturally. All perfectly normal. Then you kill them - release that energy, and depending on how big a hole you made in their shell, more or less of that energy dissipates (I recommend decapitations). Then depending on how much energy they had in the first place, they will rise sooner or later, but they will always rise again, which is why undead guard makes so much sense.

BUT: while they are down, they cannot crawl over the floor to put themselves nicely into their alcoves! This is not a Borg recharging station!

I think there must be a wondering priest of Arkay. Like a maintenance team visiting crypts regularly to tuck draugrs back into their alcoves.

This post has been edited by Lena_Wolf: May 24 2021, 05:40 PM

The driving item here is critical mass. When enough dead are gathered together there may enough magical residue between them to re-animate one of their number, who will feel obliged to return the favour to the others who made it possible. It takes time, but that's the one thing they do have in abundance.

Things go faster when the first revenant is a mage, as he'd know how to use the opportunity, and likely have a greater regenerative rate because of the former life's training. So the Dragon Priests of Skyrim were probably the catalysts for the draugr hordes wherever they were preserved.

If the alcoves are unintended concentrators of the re-absorption process, then the draugr would be helping each other back to the source whenever they could.

My take on Stalhrim has always been that the ice is slowly transformed by the magicka residues in the corpses, and that this was a deliberate ploy by those who used the ice lids for the coffins, to make it harder for the graugr to rise. The seal just gets stronger over time.

The mainland crypts just don't have the perma-frost conditions to do that, so the draugr are more active.

No wonder the real-life Nords liked funeral pyres, and burning ships.

Ghastly - that's brilliant, totally makes sense. Critical mass. Of course.

You should read the Skyrim book “Amongst the Draugr” by Bernadette Bantien (yes, probably a relation to the Bantiens in TES4).

In the book she postulates the Draugr come to life in work shifts, to clean and maintain the tomb for their Dragonpriest master. If this is true, then killed draugr are simply put back in place by the next cleaning crew that awaken.

This does not however, explain why draugr awaken in tombs with no Dragonpriest….or why skeletons in various location are wandering around!

Perhaps draugr still clean their tombs whether having Dragonpriest to please or not….they are just naturally tidy in death! Skeletons have always had a penchant for wandering in all TES locations of course….so maybe an unrelated magical mechanic going on there huh!

Oh and finally, I can’t remember who says it….but we learn that the dead have begun to rise since Alduin returned…But I think this is one of Bethesda’s ‘red herrings’….Since we also realise undead draugr have been a tomb feature since long before Alduin came back!

As usual, Bethesda it seems purposely make the answers unclear. However, to answer the basic question here…I think my para two is your solution….the unawakened do eventually come to life when it is their shift start, and they tidy up your mess, including disturbed clutter and tending the fire bowls etc.
Adella

Me….naughty double poster, but this is not part of my response above…although the idea came from it.

Killing draugr!
Notice using soul trap pulls a soul from them right! ….but later upon reanimation you can do it again! How many souls do these things have?
Ostensibly they were people once…i.e. single souled. When we die the religious view point is we have a soul which leaves our dead vessel, but in a draugr’s case their souls never departed upon death…..Probably some fiendish Dragon cult ritual binds their soul…and in any case, while some draugr were wrapped, others were not, but I am betting all were sealed in….alive!

But wait….souls of the dead trapped in soul gems….go to the Soul Cairn right? Therefore unrecoverable! Once a draugr is stripped of their soul…it should remain permanently…dead!

So what exactly IS going on here?

Well, bad writing by Bethesda of course, but we can still make sense of it. IF we accept it is not a “soul” we release with Soul Trap….but simply Magicka.
This makes more sense considering enchantments are magicka, and filled soul gems are just disposable magicka batteries. A necromancer uses their magic to infuse the dead with some magicka which animates them (note I am not saying brings them back to life). Removing their magicka power source switches off the animated corpse and you get the unused energy back in a soul gem.

Here’s where Bethesda should have been cleverer…..killing a Draugr without a soul gem should really leave the magicka inside them, allowing a natural reawakening later on…..Whilst soul trapping the energy should leave them permanently switched off…UNLESS a wizardy type turns up and reinfuses the corpse with fresh magicka from a resurrect spell.

Ah….but…perhaps there is that weak magicka field across all Nirn…as suggested in posts above (All life on Nirn naturally has some amount of magicka, even Lydia has 50 )…Well maybe, but that is a conjecture. We DO know from TES4 that starlight contains weak magicka….but there are no stars visible in a tomb!

Dragons / Dragonsouls: Well Alduin is clearly an advanced necromancer…BUT resurrected Dragons are sentient, not simply zombies like draugr. So dragons it seems do have a single soul which can be put back into a dead dragon to resurrect it over and over again (hence immortal)….Until a Dragonborn strips it out and incorporates it into themselves…thus preventing the dragon’s physical resurrection.

Enough for now…I need a tea!
Adella

This post has been edited by Adella: Jun 11 2021, 02:53 PM

Bethesda? Who's that? Sounds Dunmer... No, wait - Dwemer. Was that an old philosopher of sorts? Dwemer were crazy, you know that, what with all the steam blowing their brains out. Look how they turned out. No, never mind them. It's up to us to figure it out now.

So, what happens to the souls? Well, that depends. Not all souls are equal, and not all "souls" that power the draugr (and others) are actual souls. Sithis will have you - he eats souls for tea, then spits out soul substitutes. Good enough to power a weapon to send him more souls for tea. A perfect solution. Real souls are rare these days, even less common than fair maidens of the innocent kind.

I do remember reading that book. It explains why in the Fallout games there is garbage everywhere, and skeletons still laying around where they died 200 years before in the Great War. There are no draugr to clean things up!






A number of us came to the similar conclusion that a soul gem only traps the magicka within a person or creature, rather than their actual soul. When you think about it, it is kind of repulsive to destroy the souls of people to make a +5 magic sword. It also makes one wonder what happens after all the souls in existence are used up making rings of waterbreathing + waterwalking. I even created small mod for my game that renamed them magicka gems.

I agree. In Buffy's world, soul gems simply capture the residual magicka given off upon death that all life forms possess. More specifically, the magicka that gives beings physical animation. As evidence, she simply points out that she can easily fill a soul gem by destroying a skeleton which, as an animated bag of bones, certainly possesses no 'soul'. She views harvesting this residual magicka as no more or less than harvesting the meat or pelt of an animal. In fact, upon killing a prey animal to sustain herself, she says a prayer to wish its spirit a safe journey until it once again walks Nirn.

She views black soul gems as an entirely different matter. In her world, those really do capture the spiritual essence of a being as it dies.

With some minor adjustments, Buffy’s world view of black and white soul gems would fit into the Jandaga’s world.

Since the objective of at least two quests important to Jandaga’s story is to rescue captured souls from their imprisonment there would need to be some mechanism for actual soul capture. Limiting soul capture to black soul gems and defining white soul gems as magica traps as SubRosa does, sound good.

Now for a my minor adjustment. In the Lost Spires, the Horn of Zyyr in which the goddess Luminai is imprisoned is a glowing blue sword blade. This would suggest that a black soul gem need not be restricted to black crystalline gems shapes.

A different question. Today, while exploring Dwelmer ruins, we came across strange objects in falmer huts. I don't remember seeing them before - I was either not paying attention or they are new to Special Edition. Can someone tell me what they are? Falmer shisha?