Many of my characters will not loot the Nord Tombs. Or will only do so to a certain extent. For example, Hrafngoelir would not take the things in urns or sitting out and such. But she would take things off of the Draugr that she killed. The way she saw it, that was not robbing the dead, but hers by right of honorable battle.

Persephone takes it even further. She won't kill the Draugr while they 'sleep'. She walks up to them, nudges them, and waits for them to get up and pull their weapons out before she will strike a blow.

Thanks for all the tips for my Valkyrie guys

Curse my imagination I've another idea for a character! This one would only be a relatively short play thorough, even if it did manage to stay alive long enough to complete its purpose. Basically, a young student of alchemy in Cyrodiil comes north to Skyrim to trace down Sinderion and rumors of the fables , Crimson Nirnroot. (for those who haven't been to Blackreach, this is a plant discovered down there). His/her purpose is to master the art of alchemy (lvl 100) and locate Sinderion and the secrets of his work.

The alchemist won't use anything except novice and some apprentice level spells and won't use any weapons. I doubt they will own property or marry. They may join the college of winterhold, but not as an active student.

I'll probably do this play through after Ravos goes into semi-retirement (at some point he will emerge again to do the db expansion) alongside my other character Mavrys. Both will be short llaythroughs followed by my valkyrie which will be longer (first non-DiD character on Skyirm)

The Valkyrie idea is a good one for Oblivion too. The Golden Saint armor would be perfect.


I think the Alchemist Shack would be a perfect place for the Skyrim Alchemist to live.

They could wear the generic blue robe? (I think that is the one the dead Alchemists you find always wear. Or is it the black robe?). Then again, that might be a good reason to wear something else!

This is so true! SubRosa and I have talked before about the uncanny similarities in appearance and abilities between the 'summon Golden Saint' power in Oblivion and the 'summon Valkyrie' ability possessed by Amazons in Diablo II.

Subrosa, based on your advice the alchemist may stick to robes that do not possess the colour blue. He intends on living a long and healthy life

You are right that the Valkyrie would be good for oblivion too. It'll probably come down to what game I feel like playing when I feel like creating the Valkyrie. The golden saint armour would be absolutely perfect! All the armours in skyrim are a bit dull and gritty. The Valkyrie has to glow!

Here’s an idea I’ve been working on for Skyrim. I’ve never had a vampire complete the Dawnguard questline. I’ve had two that tried and died, one vampire that cured herself, and another who lived in Raven Rock in a blood-starved state until she retired. So far I have taken the stealthy Illusion/Conjuration route with One-Handed as a backup when I try to make a vampire. This results in a character who does not possess the preternatural strength that I associate with vampires. So inspired by another one of Dan Mason’s awesome builds (The Volkihar), I went a different way this time.

Serafíne Serrano was an Agent of Dibella working as an infiltrator for the Imperial Legion. She had her greatest success gathering intelligence on the Thalmor. Then something happened in the far north.

The Volkihar clan under Lord Harkon began creating chaos throughout Tamriel’s vampire world. The Vigilants of Stendarr and the newly reformed Dawnguard did not seem to be up to the task of containing them, much less foiling the unknown Nefarious Plan. Serafíne was pulled from her role in the Legion to address this new threat. Oh yeah, she had infiltrated the Legion from another organization. (Inspired by McB! )The one she really works for. The Knights of the Nine have not entirely faded into obscurity.

Anyway she was asked to do the unthinkable. Put her very soul in the claws of Molag Bal. Become a vampire herself. Bring down the Volkihar from the inside.

Serafíne’s skills are Destruction, Alteration, One-Handed, and Enchanting. Restoration is a skill she’ll use until she turns. I’m not going the Necromage perk/vampire player exploit route. She’s unarmored for speed and badassery. Plus her background as a spy has not given her armor skills. She is not Dragonborn but will use Become Ethereal like Mycharonna’s Gaseous Form, Slow Time to represent her vampire speed, and the frost Shouts as Volkihar ice magic. The Volkihar are supposed to be able to freeze the blood in a mortal’s veins and reach through solid ice to ensnare their victims. That sounds pretty neat.

Destruction perks will go toward enhancing her frost spells and enchantments. I’m not sure about which Standing Stone to use for her. The Steed would give her a large encumbrance allowance which would make her seem unnaturally strong, but going without armor kind of wastes half of that Stone. Unless she switches to Heavy Armor with the Steed Stone to remove the armor penalties after she turns. Hmm. That would kind of make her a vampire ice knight. In that case I’d put points evenly between magicka and health with every fifth level going to stamina. That sounds like a plan!

So for a follower I’m thinking Nelacar since he hates all Daedra. That will take some console trickery, but it should be a nice twist. He’s a sorcerer and clearly willing to risk the player’s soul in the Azura quest, so he might be the only mortal in Skyrim who would think Serafíne is not an idiot for going along with the plan. Say, maybe he’s her contact with the KotN. Yeah, that’s it!

Depending how things go I might try some vampire mods. I’d like her to be hated at Stage Four so she has to feed, and Dawnguard took that away. I think Dawnguard vampires can summon gargoyles as a power but I’m not quite sure how that works. Since Serafíne is not skilled in Conjuration that should be a treat.

Beautiful!

So if we join the vampire's side of Dawnguard, does this mean random vampires no longer attack us? .. I've been curious about this for awhile because I've never done DG on the vamp's side. I'm saving that for PC so I can mod Stage 4 to make NPCs frightful.



That's smart. Once she switches from mortal to vampire, she'll be able to use Drain Health. Mych often summons an ice atronach or revives a dead enemy, and then stands back and drains health from her victims while they are busy fighting her summon.



I've been using a 3/2/1.5 strategy (roughly) with Mycharonna, so she has over 300 Magicka, over 200 Health, and about 150 Stamina so far. Lots of Magicka means lots of spells, of course, and the extra Stamina comes in handy when Mych has to flee (vampiric speed, just like in Anne Rice books).



I love the hatred that comes at Stage 4. Burrrn the vampire! So epic! .. So yeah, that's a great mod to have. When I get a vamp on PC, I might also look into any sort of sunlights mods, ya know, so sunlight can actually kills our characters.

Anyways, looking forward to this one for sure Grits.

I’m not sure if random vampires keep attacking, but I know that if you’re on the vampire side you get random Dawnguard attacks. That should give Serafíne’s journey some real darkness. The Dawnguard is not in on the plan, so she’ll have to kill them. Collateral damage.

Also I forgot Whirlwind Sprint, at least the two words that are not in the Main Quest. And sun damage, that was the other thing I’d need a mod for. Give me back my sun damage! There should be big risks and big rewards for Bal’s children.

There’s a mod called Better Vampires that looks popular. It seems very customizable. I’ll report in the mods area if I use it.

I need to remember to have Serafíne buy some summoning scrolls for emergencies. That’s something she would do but I keep forgetting!

Neat background idea. She sounds a bit like the Black Widow! You might consider her being a Blades agent. They would have good reason to infiltrate the Legion and work against the Thalmor.

I used the Better Vampires mod when I played Helregin. The best thing about it is that it has a built in customization feature, so you can pick and choose what you want from the mod, and even how things work. For example I set it so that vampires became more powerful by feeding, rather than less. And that at the highest stage you were automatically attacked.

I believe the vanilla gargoyle summoning is part of the Vampire Lord form. You have to take one of the Vamp Lord perks to be able to do it, and I think it is only doable in Lord Form. But I might be wrong, as I never liked the Vampire Lord form, so never used it. I just made a little mod that makes gargoyle summoning a regular spell, along with death hounds, trolls and huskies. I can email it to you if you like.

Renee, if you do the Vampire Side of Dawnguard, there won't be random vampires attacking you. Instead you get random Dawnguard members attacking you for the rest of the game. I cannot remember if you get the vampire attacks on cities or not. I have a mod that disables them, since I like having living NPCs in my game.

For followers, if you go the Volkihar side, you can recruit two unique Death Hounds for sidekicks. Use my gargoyle summoning mod as well, and you will have a small army without even using any companion NPCs. Or maybe just create a new NPC to be her familiar, and name him Renfield?

Yeah, VL just sounds a bit over-the-top, I'm not sure I'd be interested in that either. That's just Bethesda getting silly. I like the idea of only one vampire (Lord Volkihar himself) having this power, but not my Mycharonna.

Dammit I just said it, didn't I? ... My Mycharonna ... my my my Mycharonna. *facepalm*



Oh good! .. I'm definitely doing the vamp's side of DG then.

Sounds like you got the knack!

When it comes to the song, I always find myself singing "Yorba Linda" instead.

I have been doing the unarmored greatsword type character with Inanna for several days now, and it is working out really well. She started out wearing an unenchanted college robe, and only magiced it up last night to help with restoration and magicka regen. She used the starting Flames spell for long distance fighting, now traded up to the Apprentice level Firebolt spell. Her only defense is a Ward, which is helpful against enemy archers and spellcasters. She does not use the mage armor spells at all.

So far her biggest difficulty has been fighting melee and missile opponents at once. She cannot use the ward and her sword at the same time. If she keeps the ward and uses a fire attack on the melee guy, she runs out of magicka by the time he is dead. Those wards eat up the blue! If she switches to the sword, that leaves her open to the archer. The best she can do is try to retreat around corners to get the melee opponents alone. It makes for very challenging situations.

Inanna is an Altmer, and combined with no armor, she is very fast! Sometimes I find myself surprised at how quickly she can move. I am not used to a melee-fighter being so quick on her feet.

Inanna sounds like a lot of fun. On consoles I found that a two-handed weapon was much friendlier to battlemages than one-handed since one click on the hot-key button swapped the sword for the two pre-loaded spells. I never got smooth with the switch for poor Jerric. He always ended up with a shield and an ice spike when he needed his sword and a healing spell.


I checked out Better Vampires and it has a lot of features that I’m going to use. My vampire will have immunity to poison and disease but potions and food’s effects won’t work on her. She’ll be vulnerable to fire and somewhat resistant to frost. Sun really does hurt her. Those NPC vampires who are running for cover in the daytime? She has to run too, and she better not have to go far or she’ll die. However rain and snow clouds cover the sun and reduce the damage she takes. (Or possibly eliminate it, I haven’t played much other than testing.) At Stage Four she will be hated and attacked! Random groups of vampire hunters will come after her at any stage without warning. Also there is a power that lets you call creepy animals to fight for you. I really like that it’s a power and not a Conjuration spell, since I don’t want Serafíne to become another summoner like so many of my characters before her.

The neatest thing so far is force feeding during combat. This character is not going to go running around in Vampire Lord form. She loathes herself as a vampire. But she also revels in the new power. So biting an enemy during a fight and bleeding them dry is a big guilty pleasure.

Also she will not cooperate with the switch to heavy armor and Steed Stone. So I restyled Nelacar as a Knight of Akatosh and made him a follower for her, plus she has Vorstag as a Knight of Arkay at her back. I’m probably going to take away Nelacar’s high level fire spells since he wouldn’t be stupid enough to blow up his fellow knight/ vampire like he does in the game. She hasn’t spent much time with these guys but they’ve been an awesome team for fighting dragons. They chose their Divine allegiances by equipping those amulets when she gave them a selection. Much to my surprise during a test they strolled right into Castle Volkihar while following her. That was odd looking but made me think. Now I’m working on a plan where she might turn Vorstag and pass Nelacar off as her thrall, but that’s all story and subject to change without notice by character. It will be much easier to keep her alive if she can keep running behind Vorstag to renew her mage armor spells.

I never had trouble with the sword/shield and sword/spell combo. D'Eon did that a lot. You can hotkey both shield and sword to different keys (for me it was 2 and 3 respectively), and they automatically come up in the correct hands. All of your spells come up in the left hand first. So she would typically only use one-handed spells. Like trading out her shield for a fast healing spell (1 is always my healing spell hotkey) in the middle of combat, then switching back to the shield to be ready for the next attack. So I would just hit 1 to ready the healing spell. Use it. Then hit 2 to get the shield back. I liked it because it always kept her sword in hand, so she could always smack something at any moment if need be.

I also liked the feeding off of fresh corpses as a vampire, rather than people who were sleeping. It made the whole thing much more immersive. Helregin would typically feed off everyone she killed. Though back when I had the mod (earlier version), you could not do it to someone who was still alive and fighting. It had to be a corpse.

It sounds like Serafine is carting quite an army around with her! You might consider ditching the followers. Sera may have been holy once, but she's Bal's Babe now. Having an army of paladins following her around seems, weird. Maybe go with some more vampire-centric ones? Like Njall the Unliving Santa. This would seem like the perfect situation to resurrect him *all puns intended* as a follower. Sera will end up with Serana in no time anyhow, and she is nothing to sneeze at either.

I had a roleplaying idea this morning. What about playing the children of one of your current characters? I got the idea from Persephone's game, where she has adopted Lucia and Sofie. I was thinking of playing one or both of the girls as grown-ups. I could play one and make the other a follower. Or just play both separately. Lucia would probably make a great mage, and Sofie your standard Nord warrior. Of course given their upbringing, I am sure both would have some necromancy in their backgrounds. Like being able to summon uncle Darryl.

I could even add Mom and the uncle Darryl's as NPCs. Though then I would have to figure out what do about the family house. Persephone lives in Helajarchen Hall. So I suppose I could try building it Out Of Character, and the populate it with Mommy Persephone and Darryl, his brother Darryl, and his other brother Darryl. Though I don't think either Sofie or Lucia would want to live there as adults. They would probably want to find their own homes for a little privacy. "Mo-om, the draugr are staring at me again!"

Or maybe I could RP that Helajarchen was flattened by giants, and Persephone has moved on to a new house? That would be easier, especially if it is a mod-added home, and would give me NPC Persephone and the Darryl's right off the bat. Winterhold would be a really easy place to put up a new house, given all the empty space in town.

I think this is a great idea. I have three of Jerric’s crew’s children pretty well fleshed out as far as adult temperament, personality, skills and appearance. Bannor’s appearance (when he’s not Hulked out ) is modeled after one of them. Of course I don’t want to play them until they’re at least in the story, so they’ll probably be my characters for TES 14.

A modded house in Winterhold would be a natural fit for Persephone. She may end up wanting a house there in her own game if she doesn’t enjoy dorm life at the College. You could also have Mom Persephone living with the uncles in Winterhold while Sofie and/or Lucia restore Heljarchen Hall after the incident with the neighbors. Building Lakeview was definitely an OOC experience in my Jerric characters’ games since it’s Aravi and Kharjo’s house in their world. After Abiene’s Smithing hit 45 I decided to just give nails and stuff to Lil. Those things really should be for sale.

I love having my own characters as NPCs in each other’s games. It will be easy to make Persephone as an NPC in a dozen or so years – you won’t have to age her! I think you should go for it!

I’ve also thought about how Mikke and Roggi’s kids might have turned out. Their personalities were part of Mikke’s game through the letters Roggi wrote to her. (Mostly while she was in Solstheim saving the world Part 3 and having an affair with Torvar.) Sofie was unsurprisingly quite the little warrior always hanging around Jorrvaskr, and Alesan was a natural salesman and deal-broker. I imagine he turned out not unlike Marius.

How funny that you should come up with this RP idea, Sage Rose, since I've been looking at this mod for the past week or so. I think it sounds intriguing enough, but as it's still a WIP, I'm only tracking it for now.

Besides, I prefer playing older character with a bit of history. I like showing what they do with the consequences of what has happened to them rather than showing what happened to them and how they dealt with it. Sort of like Julian coming to us as a character with tons of baggage that we learn about throughout the course of a 400,000 word story!

Also it's funny that you would bring up an RP from the viewpoint of an NPC - in Alise's game, Alise is not talking nearly as much as her constant companion. He's the one telling me what happened and how it happened!

haute, I find that happens to me a lot when I play with one of my own NPCs as a follower. Darnand’s internal monologue is the most accessible when he’s a follower in Jerric’s game.

So I tried playing a member of the Forsworn. I added a storage chest to Draudach Redoubt and made Kaie, Odvan, and Borkul the Beast into potential followers. I added my character Eiven to the Forsworn faction after the Cidna Mine quest so that everyone would hate him. I even liked the way he looked in his bath towel and body paint. The thing is I just didn’t enjoy slaughtering guards and farmers. By level 5, game over.

The concept worked, though. I’ll try it again someday if I get a better idea for a character. In Eiven’s case I spent a lot of time wishing he and the Nords could just get along.

I was anticipating the same problem when I played Morigu. That is why I didn't put her in the Forsworn faction, leaving them hostile to her, and regular people friendly by default. As a renegade Forsworn, she was very playable. She could fight the regular Forsworn all day long. Then she could still kill Nord farmers and innkeepers, but only if they pissed her off: like by bragging about how Tiber Septim stayed in their inn while conquering The Reach. Or by being a Silverblood.

I enjoyed reading this thread, especially when I saw that some of you already realized your ideas.

I'm leaning towards a new playthrough, namely a Nord barbarian / marauder. I'd use the default start, roleplay wise he'd be captured by the Legion because of killing Imperial soldiers in the Jeralls. He'd escape Helgen and then fight against the Legion & Thalmor on his own, which means he'd attack their patrols and forts.

With time he'd create his own gang of bandits and they'd attack together, with Jasonx Renamer it's possible to rename NPCs so I could give some personality to his gang members. I'd make him friendly to bandits so it'd be possible to recruit them. He would avoid towns and rest in bandit camps / ruins / caves. His bounty would probably become very high with time, so bounty hunters would be on his tail. In the long run he might join Stormcloaks or fight against the Empire on his own.

He would have a threatening name, something like Sigfried the Beast or Sigfried the Butcher.

ow ! I mean oh, I love that idea! DEFINITLEY create this guy... it's so neat being friendly with bandits, especially. I got this tingling feeling when Snaat Rayag went in his first bandit lair. I'm so used to having them attack my pc, but with Snaaty, all they did was greet him normally. It was weird!

I like Sigfried the Butcher. Like maybe he's actually a butcher, like that's his job in bandit camps, but he gets a reputation for 'butchering' enemies as well.

I wanted to test all my mods together, so my latest is a two-handed Orc barbarian, who's just become Arch-mage and wields a Bound Battleaxe, except while riding a bear. I may have to tweak something so she can do the last two at the same time.

I'd post a picture, but the last time I saw her, she was only wearing the amulet. She does have a set of mage apprentice clothes, but nobody knows she's Arch-mage if her amulet's covered.

*cough* Blur Tool *cough*

She complains that the airbrush tickles. I can't imagine how she'd react if I start rubbing those bits with the blur tool!

Love this idea, Lopov! Yet another reason for me to be jealous of you PC players. I had a Nord character awhile back that I dubbed Beinir Blood-Axe who would have been perfect in this role. I always liked the name, but the character was a non starter for me. Feel free to run with it. Also, here's one of my go to pages when it comes to finding good Nord names.

Destri sort of beat me to it. I was going to suggest going with a RL Norse name and/or nickname. Like Harald Hardrada (Hard-Counsel). Or Sigurd Snake-In-The-Eye. Eyjolf Saur (Saur means feces, or filth, obviously what people thought of Eyjolf). Holmgang Hrafn (Holmgang means 'island-going'. Duels were often fought on small islands, so it means a duelist. Hrafn of course means raven. So Holmgnang Hrafn comes out to mean Duel Raven.

Thank you for suggestions. I created him a few days ago but I stuck with the intended name - Sigfried the Butcher, because he used to be a butcher. And he was a cook as well, so there'll be a lot of cooking going on in his game. The name "Sigfried" supposedly has Old Norse origins and he's partially based on some character from my old comic book whose name was Sigfried and he was an evil viking.

Sigfried will at first travel around Skyrim and recruit some prominent bandits, the first on his to-recruit list is Ghunzul from the Cracked Tusk Keep and the next one'll probably be Alain Dufont. I roleplay that Sigfried, Ghunzul, Alain and other bandits that'll join them, used to plunder together in the past before parting ways. So he'll sort of create his small anti-Empire army, composed of his former friends.

Each of his friends will have an unofficial quest which Sigfried will have to do to convince them to join, they might demand money, weapons, fresh horses, someone to be killed, etc...

ghastley’s Argonian Hearthfires mod made me start a game for one of Oblivion’s most charming NPCs, Dar-Ma.

In Oblivion she’s a Sharpshooter, though I suppose she’s mostly untapped potential during the events of that game. Sharpshooter class puts her in light armor with a bow, Destruction, Restoration, and Sneak. Athletics and Acrobatics put her on the left side of the slider. Favored attributes are Agility and Intelligence. I have a wind and water destruction mod installed, so she should be splashing the bad guys to death as soon as she buys the tomes in Whiterun.

Here’s a picture of Dar-Ma walking with Camilla. She has been very sweet testing ghastley’s mod. Eventually I will make a NPC of her for Jerric’s world, but first I’d like to get to know her a little better.

I LOVE Darma!

I agree with mALX - it is so nice to see dear Dar-Ma in Skyrim!

Dar-Ma! She is one of my favoritest characters from Oblivion. I think she might be a little too nice for Skyrim though. Though playing her as a pacifist illusionist would seem appropriate, and quite a challenge.

Since she's already made a start at it, she could become Skyrim's first professional bottle-miner!

Ha! She certainly has the bottle-mining experience!

SubRosa, a pacifist illusionist with restoration to heal her friends was my first thought. That’s how I play Abiene.