Lothran the Nordic Dunmer, A recap Options

[mirocu]

Hello and welcome!

First of all I would like to point out that this is not a fanfic in any traditional sense. I merely write this down for myself as a reminder of what Lothran and I have been through. I'm not detailing too much or adding dialogue.
If anyone would like to comment here that's very much ok, I welcome it. Though again this is mostly for myself and obviously Lothran, who I feel deserves some recognition other than in the Update thread. So, without further ado...


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Lothran in prison (at the very start of our journey)
First look
Current look

Lothran's wiki page


When Lothran and I first met in February 2007, he rigorously followed quest after quest and did very little of the free exploration and collecting he's been doing for the last few years. But he was happy, we both were. By doing them we learned how Cyrodiil worked and we got to know many people through those quests. Seeking Your Roots was one of the very first quests we got after having picked up a Nirnroot though oddly enough, Sinderion was one of the last people we got to know. So many other things got in the way, like Unfriendly Competition, Imperial Corruption and the Arena questline. We had so much to see, so much to do and so many people to talk to and at times it felt overwhelming, but in a good way.
In the beginning Lothran felt so weak that at one point he booked a room at The Foaming Flask and focused on summoning a skeleton to fight so he could get some practice. It was intense but quite fun, and at one of those training sessions Audens Avidius comes barging in with a dagger. Needless to say he didn't last long. After all, Lothran was already in full combat gear with sword in hand. Audens was just another sparring partner.

It was a very, very interesting time for both of us and I can sometimes miss that. But it's all in the initial experience, it can never be duplicated 100% by creating a new character and I don't intend to either. It happened then and there and I am happy with those memories. By re-living them I think they would be tainted and I don't want that. I prefer to just move on.

Now years later, Lothran never goes on official quests anymore. He makes up his own though, like collecting one shield and cuirass of every town, and he may do the occasional follow-up on an old quest, but other than that the official quests are all long gone. He hasn't got the time for them anyway. He has so many places and people to re-visit and we cannot forget his duties up in Bruma. Neither of us can imagine a winter coming and going without him being there. It's his home, plain and simple. And he takes great pride in being one of the guards protecting Bruma even if times are calm and no real threat is around. He still wants to help out once in awhile by pulling graveyard shifts by the North gate which usually only has one guard.

And when spring comes he can't wait to go down to Chorrol. This is a tradition from 2009 (roughly) and at times when I've had him go to the Imperial City to offload first he's murmured, and I could tell it was not what he wanted. So Chorrol it is, you can't change what works and who am I to disregard my own character's wishes?
Lothran usually visits western Cyrodiil before mid-summer and the eastern parts after that. Again, at times I have tried to make him do the opposite but it has felt so wrong to be in Cheydinhal in May instead of Skingrad and Anvil. But it's all good, it all feels new and fresh when we get to those places (provided we do it at the right time) and it doesn't get boring. As I write this we're of course planning for Bruma once again and I am sure it'll feel as good as ever once we get there in late November.




Lothran the Nordic Dunmer's story is far from over!

This post has been edited by mirocu: Oct 6 2016, 01:11 PM

[Lopov]

I think you're right - Lohtran definitely deserves more than just being mentioned in the Updates thread.

I enjoyed reading about his beginnings and seeing how differently he looked like back then. And just looking at him tells its own tale - Hide of the Savior, for instance, so it's safe to assume that the unicorn in his world is long gone by now.

My favorite part is the one where he was practicing on a summoned skeleton and Avidius barged in, I don't remember reading this one before. That's why I'm looking forward to more such adventures which we don't know yet.

[Acadian]

How fun that Lothran has his own thread now to share some of his thoughts and adventures. I think you are wise that he has a bit of a routine to his travels - that ensures when he gets back to a place it does indeed feel sort of new again because he hasn't been there for a time.

I love how his look has evolved and, as you well know, Buffy simply adores his white hair - especially with snowflakes dancing in it.

[SubRosa]

I can always tell when it's winter, because that is when Lothran migrates to Bruma.

[mALX]

Oh, I didn't see this yesterday, I only "see" what comes in my email notices unless I get a nudge. This is a wonderful glimpse into Lothran's life!

Aw, that is so cool that you are still on your first game! I actually did that with my first Maxical too, but then my 360 got the RROD. When I had to start over on the replacement console, doing all those quests again was so fun that I ended up playing and completing 18 more games (including all the aftermath stuff) on the 360; and several more on the PC.

I'm really glad you showed Lothran's early pictures; I hadn't seen those before! This was Awesome!

[Grits]

We can mark the seasons by following Lothran’s travels. I’m so glad you’ve given him his own thread!

Love the pictures, and now I know where I can always find them.

[mirocu]

I enjoyed reading about his beginnings and seeing how differently he looked like back then. And just looking at him tells its own tale - Hide of the Savior, for instance, so it's safe to assume that the unicorn in his world is long gone by now.

Unfortunately, yeah He was young at the time and didn´t stop to think that maybe it would be best to leave the beautiful creature alone. Like Buffy with the Border Watch incident, Lothran has his regrets...

My favorite part is the one where he was practicing on a summoned skeleton and Avidius barged in, I don't remember reading this one before. That's why I'm looking forward to more such adventures which we don't know yet.

Oh, that happened long before our introduction to the forums so that´s why I haven´t written about it.

How fun that Lothran has his own thread now to share some of his thoughts and adventures.

I have thought about making a thread for him in a long time but never really found a good reason to do it. But as I was thinking back I sort of noticed some of the memories fading away and we can´t have that, can we? So I figured the best way to preserve those memories would be in his very own fanfic thread

I love how his look has evolved and, as you well know, Buffy simply adores his white hair - especially with snowflakes dancing in it.

Yes, I do know of her fascination with his white hair There is a good reason as to why the colour changed, I have written about it but I will definitely mention it here too

I can always tell when it's winter, because that is when Lothran migrates to Bruma.

Indeed. A winter without Lothran in Bruma is like a piña colada without an umbrella

I'm really glad you showed Lothran's early pictures; I hadn't seen those before! This was Awesome!

That´s his pre-internet look!

I´ll probably add more later

We can mark the seasons by following Lothran’s travels. I’m so glad you’ve given him his own thread!

He kept pestering me about it and I finally caved

This post has been edited by mirocu: Oct 18 2015, 08:45 PM

[mirocu]

Lothran's white hair

As years went by and I was still wandering Cyrodiil with my beloved character, I felt his experience grow immensely. Long gone were the days when he was cautious about even showing himself in the Imperial City because he thought he'd get thrown back in jail. Gone were also the days when he sparred with his summoned skeleton in a rented room to gain strength and work on his skills. He was now a Master in many things, not least in the magical arts, and I wanted that to show but how? We both liked his outfit and neither of us wanted to change it so what could we do?

Well, the most visible part on him besides his clothes was of course his long hair. Pretty quick came the decision to change it to white and I got the idea from the end of the first X-Men movie where part of the girl's hair changed to white when she strained herself in the fight using her powers. That was the perfect excuse to a Warlock roaming in Cyrodiil and thus I learned how to make that change without screwing up any skill. While changing the colour of Lothran's hair I also made him a bit chubbier to simulate getting a lower metabolism as part of getting older.
Lothran is of course an elf and thus does not have the human traits I speak of here, but for me it simulated his many years and ever-growing experience and it was important even if not 100% lore accurate.

This all happened when Lothran was in the Mages Guild´s basement in Chorrol but the year escapes me. I can look it up but it requires me to load up an entire different batch of saves and I don´t think it´s relevent enough to warrant that. I can also look through some screenshots and maybe get the date from that. If so I´ll post it in the OP.

This post has been edited by mirocu: Apr 29 2017, 09:15 PM

[Acadian]

Aww, I knew what Lothie's white hair represented, but it was wonderful hearing of the wise warlock's experience-based changes again.

[Lopov]

I remember reading about the reason for his hair color change but I didn't recall it until now. I also didn't know about Lothran getting chubbier.

[mirocu]

I also didn't know about Lothran getting chubbier.

It´s barely noticable, I´m told....

[mALX]

OMG, I just saw the WIKI page! How cool!

[mirocu]

OMG, I just saw the WIKI page! How cool!

Yeah, it was fun making that page and it wasn´t hard at all. I wrote the whole thing right away


Thanks to Diamandis who came up with the idea for a wiki about our characters!

[mALX]

OMG, I just saw the WIKI page! How cool!

Yeah, it was fun making that page and it wasn´t hard at all. I wrote the whole thing right away


Thanks to Diamandis who came up with the idea for a wiki about our characters!

That is really Awesome!

[Darkness Eternal]

The wiki page is great Mirocu, and so is Lothran's. I confess I am no big fan of dark elves but you made him quite different in a way. Maybe it is the white hair

[mirocu]

Thank you!

I´ve grown quite fond of Dunmers and elves in general. They are an interesting bunch, I think.

[mirocu]

The Amulet

Lothran´s approach to the emperor´s request was in the vicinity of "What? I didn´t ask for this assignment" and while he could have done what the emperor had asked him to, too many personal things got in the way. Though not wanting it to fall into the wrong hands he decided to keep it rather than throw it away. As long as he himself had it, albeit he wasn´t its rightful keeper, he knew where it was and could at least honour the emperor´s wish to keep the evil forces at bay as they seemed to need it for what they intended. And seeing as years has went by and no daedra invasion has occured, I´d say his tactic has been rather successful.


On my level, there are two reasons why Lothran never handed the amulet to Jauffre. One reason is the same as why we didn´t meet Sinderion for so long even though we got his quest very early; we simply got distracted by the sheer amount of things to do, people to talk to etc. This I consider to be the main reason, I actually fully intended to do the MQ at first since I wasn´t used to free-roaming and side-quests. It´s when I learned about all those things that the MQ´s appeal dropped like a rock.
The other reason is because of the artwork on the game box where you could see Kvatch in ruins. Knowing how games work (that by doing something it triggers events) I feared that could happen to Bruma, a town I quickly fell in love with. I didn´t know it was Kvatch that was displayed on the box. By the time I had gotten to know Bruma and its citizens I was dead set on that no matter what I did, Jauffre could not get the amulet. He should have it, but again I feared what would happen if I did let him have it, and so I decided to just ignore it in Lothran´s inventory.

As time went by I understood that giving Jauffre the amulet doesn´t do much, it´s when you start to deal with Martin that triggers events. At least that´s my understanding, I might be wrong. In any way, after all the time that had passed it just felt wrong to suddenly give it to him. If I should have I should have done it then and there. I did however look up how to unmark it as a quest item so Lothran could drop it. It now resides in his home in Bruma, among his other gems and trinkets. Why I reveal this is simple; the whole town guard keeps a close eye on his home when he´s not there and the reason behind that will come to light in my next post.



Thanks for reading

[Acadian]

Well, the wise warlock has a pretty sound point - he hung on to the amulet and there was no daedric invasion - aside from that bit of nastiness at Kvatch. Besides, I've heard that if you give the amulet to Jeffrey (lol) that he simply loses it anyway. Much safer with dear Lothie methinks!

[SubRosa]

I love the idea of Lothran wearing a tracksuit and showing off his Amulet of Kings bling like Run-DMC!

[mirocu]

I love the idea of Lothran wearing a tracksuit and showing off his Amulet of Kings bling like Run-DMC!

-Yo, yo! Where my bling at!?