Introducing: Ancus Maurard - Necromancer

So... My final Character.

And a Breton.

So, what to do with a Breton. They have a natural resistance to Magic, suffering 15% less damage from spells. They can also absorb magicka from spells cast ON them once per day. I could create a warrior with magic resistances, or a more diverse mage? I favoured the latter, but really with two other quite specific Mages already in my Character Bank what would really make this one's style of play different? What would  actually justify them?

An afternoon of Bethesda's Elder Scrolls forum prompted my choice. Why not make a Necromancer?

In the past Necromancy has often figured in Elder Scrolls games. Usually as a very BAD thing. The Mages Guild in Oblivion, for example, were obsessed with telling you how it had been BANNED and how WRONG it was, at pretty much every opportunity. If you played through that questline you'd eventually have to eradicate every last Necromancer you could find. It was a big deal. It also led to odd conversations like this:

Really? You honestly cannot think what he might have against it!? Just stop and think about it for a second,
you dazy mage! Because if you can't work out what problem a person might plausibly HAVE with the
descration of graves and the using of people's decaying bodies as puppets to be commanded by a third party's will I don't think the problem is with Arch-Mage Traven. I thing the problem is probably with you.

For the uninitiated that's exactly what a Necromancer does - They raise the dead and command them to do stuff for them. In this case mostly to fight on their behalf. This seemed like pretty mental way of playing the game. I mean effectively your only ever attacking anything passively, through another person. Another DEAD person.

Was that even possible? I mean if you walked into a room full of enemies who are all ALIVE you've not got any dead guys to fight them on your behalf. But then again, all Bretons come with the ability 'Conjure Familiar' which summons a familiar to fight for you. Job DONE! In... theory.

Would it actually work? I had to find out...

So, off to Helgen and the Character Creator.

Introducing Ancus Maurard, your friendly Bretonian Necromancer. :)

Yeah. I know. A little over the top maybe, with his eyes are whited-out and his largely having been painted up like Baron Samedi... But he might as well LOOK the part. And it's not like I've used whited out eyes on any of my other characters to date. Something a bit different.

As a Breton I had him follow Hadvar, the Imperial who is concerned that your name is not on his Execution list, through Helgen. For this early part I had no Necromancy spell, so I had to resort to conjuring my familiar (A spectral Wolf as it turns out), to do my dirty work, whilst keeping my distance. To be honest the Imperials in this section are more than capable of killing of the Stormcloaks you face escaping Helgen. The
Frostbite Spiders and Bear are a little trickier. Though once you've looted Frostbite Venom off the spiders a single arrow coated in that poison, and fire into the Bears body will be enough to kill it. :)

As you can see I opted for the Novice Mage Robes that you'll find on the dead mage in the Torture Room. A boost delivered to regenerating Magicka. Very much needed.

I did however find one distinct disadvantage of using 'Conjure Familiar'.

Okay, so I caught Ancus mid-blink when I took this photo. But it could just as easily have been that his eyes were closed in frustration, from the suffering the near constant howl delivered by that ghost Wolf, over and over, every few seconds. Seriously, it's beyond MADDENING.

The familiar is not terribly hardy, either. He can only take a few hits and doesn't dish out much damage either. Clearly if I was going to make this work in the long run I was either going to require a more powerful Summon (Flame or Frost Atronach for example) or I'd need a sturdy Follower to do my bidding.

As a Necromancer of course there was one very key detail still missing from my arsenal. Ancus couldn't actually raise the dead...

Easily fixed. One trip to The Riverwood Trader later and Ancus had a Spell Tome of 'Raise Zombie'. I picked up 'Clairvoyance' and 'Okaflesh' while I was there, also. I don't want Ancus to really have access to a lot of offensive spells, because using destruction magic rather defeats the point of what I'm trying to do, but Illusion and Alteration magic is fine. I also went across the way to sell my loot from Helgen to Alvor the
Blacksmith, and bought some steel gauntlets and boots to give him some kind of armour value.

No weapons though. I did debate acquiring an enchanted dagger for him or something. But at this point that just felt like cheating...

As you can see I opted to take Sven up to Bleak Falls Barrow, with the intention of using him as a damage dealer. I didn't much care what he wore, but whatever weapons I could find he'd use those. I was sick of
spending money on equipping followers by this playthrough, so just left him in his ridiculous Bard attire. I let him and my 'familiar' take care of the first bandit to attack and then got to work with my Necromancer duties...

Not bad, eh.

Only one flaw to the plan. If you choose to loot your Zombie Thrall before raising them, then they're not quite so effective.

Because they have no weapons. And they're fighting in their pants...

An early teething problem though. Nothing more. :)

Raise Zombie is a particularly useful spell, with far less in the way of limitations than I expected. I mean you can use it on Bandits.

You can use it on Skeevers.

Once you've killed it you can even use it to raise that giant Frostbite Spider from the dead.

Although you can't actually get it through the doors to leave the room... :)

Excepting the Draugr Boss at the end of the Barrow (Who is too high a level to be raised with that spell) anybody else is fair game. Even Arvel the Swift, the annoying Dunmer thief who stole The Golden Claw you were sent to seek out.

And it seems that once conjured you actually gain Conjuration skill for your zombie thralls attacking things for you. I managed to level up very quickly through this picking perks from the Conjuration and Illusion trees. And as Bleak Falls Barrow has corpses and enemies in such numbers it's incredibly easy to get a chain going from, one Zombie thrall to the next, from the dead Bandit in the first chamber, the the Skeevers next to him, right through to the last but one area.

The only drawback is the mess which your blue-tinted warriors leave behind when the spell wears of...

Although, given that you wont have looted them first those little blue ash piles do make it easier to go back and find prospective ill-gotten gains once your thrall has collapsed...

I was actually incredibly impressed with how much fun this all was. Granted, I'm going to need to find a higher powered version of the spell to command some Boss level creatures it seems, and I have no idea how I'll be able to kill Dragon this way, but by and large this is a really interesting play style to use. And certainly a challenge.

Upon returning to Riverwood I traded in the loot for a Novice Robe of Conjuration, to lower the cost of my conjuring the dead. Not cheap, but it'll come in handy. Now I've just got to decide what to do next. The Mage College at Winterhold is one possibility. I also really aught to hunt down The Ritual Stone, which allows you to raise every corpse in the room, once per day. If I remember rightly from my first playthrough of Skyrim it was located on a mountain overlooking Whiterun. I'm pretty sure that it was guarded by a Necromancer too - I must go kill him, and steal his robes!

I love it when a plan comes together.  :)

Introducing J'Ram-Dar - The Complicated Thief

Moving on, we reach another race to have been given a bit of a more dramatic overhaul in Skyrim. The Argonians - the Natives Race of Black Marsh.

Argonians are one of the two 'Beast Races' of the Elder Scrolls world, along with the cat-like Khajiits. As I mentioned in my Khajiit Thief piece a lot of long term Elder Scrolls players felt that both races really got short changed in Oblivion. The Argonians probably moreso, in fact. At least with the Khajiits there was a clearer ( Well slightly more obvious, anyway ) distinction between Male and Female faces... :)

The Argonians in Oblivion really were pretty limited, with a very small selection of Horns to differentiate one from another. Which didn't really work. Because there were so few. For example, really the only clear distinctions between, say, Teekeeus the Head of the Chorrol Mages Guild, one of the Pirates on The Marie Elena, Amusei of the Thieves Guild or even Mach-Na of Mach-Na's books in Cheydinhal were their clothing and/or noticing that one of them was actually female...

There are a lot more options in Skyrim, varying from a number of different scale colours as a base, using faders normally reserved for things like eye shadow or cheek blush adding highlight scale colours and markings, and to adding spikes and ridges to a face instead of hair or facial hair.

There's a lot you can do.

Here's what I achieved:

This is J'Ram-Dar. My rather complicated Argonian Thief. A little disappointing that there are no red Argonian eyes types on Skyrim (The ONLY option available in Oblivion I believe) but as you can see I've gone to the greatest effort to get MAXIMUM horn/spike coverage on his head. :)

Argonian's are MADE for sneaking so I would be rather daft not to make use of that. I say 'complicated thief' because what I intend to do with him is concentrate not only on Sneaking skills, but also Illusion Magic. This will allow me to make regular use of spells like Invisibility and Muffle to hide his presence, while sneaking up to back-stab the enemy or attack at range with a well-aimed bow or projectile spell.

This will, of course, take quite a lot of work...

J'Ram-Dar departed Helgen with the help of Ralof, and upon leaving the exit cave looked a little like this...

I was originally going to stick him in light armour, but when I reached the Torturer's Room I picked up these Novice Mage Robes. Usually they're not of a lot of use to me (But raise a fair bit of early gold in their selling) but I thought I'd give them a try. The Robes help regenerate Magicka quicker, which in turn could aid my speedy use of Illusion Spells to level up. And if I'm going sneak around, what better way to do so than in a robe with such a small weight. I won't make a sound... :)

I also made use of the Novice mage Hood, which provides an extra 30 Magicka points.

But... well...

It looks a little daft on an Argonian.

See. :)

Although, I had to wonder if I was already using some kind of Illusion magic, passively, with that Hood. It's the only way I could explain as to where all the frickin' Horns disappeared to...

Well, at least they don't clip through, I suppose.

Anyway... the predictable bit. Bleak Falls Barrow. And differing weather conditions...

Talk to Faendal? I can barely bloody SEE him in THIS!

As you can see, I opted to take Faendal with J'Ram-Dar - as the stealthier option of the two first followers. In Leather Armour. The majority of money from my Helgen loot was held in reserve for better Robes from The Riverwood Trader,  but Leather is cheap and quiet. Pure Leather Armour is also the hardiest for this point in the game. So, wins all around.

As you can see J'Ram-Dar does had an Imperial Sword on hand. I also had a Huntsman Bow in reserve. Having purchased a Spell Tome of 'Clairvoyance' in town, I used that wherever I could in order to raise my Illusion score, before switching into stealth whenever I knew I was approaching the enemy. And now having done this area of the game SO many times I pretty much know every place to sneak for maximum effect. :)

I found myself alternating quite a bit between Swords and Archery throughout Bleak Falls, although I found it much easier to switch to using the 'Flames' spell when encountering Draugrs. I did have J'Ram-Dar wearing Leather gauntlets and boots to add SOME kind of armour value, but if the Draugrs got too close they could do me so serious damage. Flames seemed to take them down fairly quickly, with either a sword slash to finish them off, or wait for Faendal to shoot them down with his bow. And of course the Mage Robes helped regenerate the Magicka back a little quicker afterwards. It all fitted together pretty well. :)

Job done.

On the way back from the Barrow we had our first random on road encounter.

J'Ram-Dar and Faendal were stopped by a man who rather gave away his role in the world somewhat, by being named 'Fugitive'.

Fugitive didn't really stick around to chat for long. Instead he just shoved this shield into J'Ram-Dar's
hands, and insisted we held on to it, or so help him, he'd hunt us down! (Be afraid. Or something).

After which he made a pretty quick exit, insisting he'd come back for it.

I took a look over it. It was a Hide Shield of Waning Shock - defence against electrical damage. Not really of any use to J'Ram-Dar or Faendal though, as neither were using shields. But either way this was clearly a
little bit dodgy. Sure enough, further down the road, a Nord Hunter ran up behind us, asking if we'd seen a Fugitive who'd run off with his Shield.

Now what do you do in that situation? Frankly the Shield is worth more than any reward he'd be
likely to give us. Odds on the Hunter would catch up with the Fugitive, and kill him, anyway. But on the off-chance he lived we might be able to barter a higher price with him, or, you know, kill him and keep it?

I had J'Ram-Dar lie to the Hunter, and keep the shield. We'll see how that pans out in time, I guess. :)

This playthrough was a bit of strange one, really. The first thing I bought when I traded in my loot I back in Riverwood was a Novice Robe of Illusion. Much the same as what I had previously been wearing, but with a secondary enchantment making Illusion spells cost less... But up to this point I wasn't really in place to make the best of that Illusion bonus. Because aside from Clairvoyance I had no illusion Spells. I picked up an Oakflesh Spell Tome while I was there, to add a little protection to my armour-less robes, but when it came to Spells there wasn't much on sale. Maybe there'd be more down the road, in Whiterun?

J'Ram-Dar's best bet though, remained in a pretty unusual place for a Thief to be going. The Mage College up in Winterhold. He'd already had it mentioned to him by owner of the Riverwood Trader, and it would give access to training and spells for illusion magic. Oddly J'Ram-Dar could well be a the character I've created with the most potential factions to join. He wouldn't really fit in with The Companions but I think the
Thieves Guild is a given. I wouldn't write off The Dark Brotherhood either.

And yet despite all this potential, and oddly actually having made a bit more cash than my other characters by this point in the game, I think he may well be the least well-formed in terms of long-term plans.

That said, if I can get him where he needs to be he could be pretty awesome.

Next Time: I try to make a High Elf Pure Mage. No armour. No weapons. Just magic. Come back and see how it goes...

Introducing: Karlirah the Swordstress

Moving from a campaign based on Magic to a whole Race very much not.

Redguards, by and large, don't DO magic. There's a whole belief that spellcasting steals souls and meddles with minds, that the average Redguard just doesn't trust. There was 'Trayvond the Redguard' at the Mages' Guild in Cheydinhal, back in Oblivion, but the reason he was there in the first place was because he was hounded out of Hammerfell for practicing magic...

Yup. Magic is not so popular...

The Reguards are another race which appear to have undergone a bit of a revamp in Skyrim. You don't notice it quite so much whilst creating a character of your own, but when you start to encounter Hammerfell Native Redguards, turning up as NPCs, you certainly notice the difference. Granted I have not played every Elder Scrolls title out there, so maybe things have been different in the past, but certainly in Morrowind and Oblivion other than the obvious natural differince in ethnicity the aesthetic style of NPCs was not radically different from the rest of Tamriel's residents. They still dressed in the same clothes and armours.

But now, in Skrim, we have gone from this:

To this:

Yes, Redguards certainly appear to have become a bit more... well, Arabian. Right down to the use of Scimitars. It is kind of logical in some ways, I suppose. These guys are Alik'r warriors from the Alik'r desert region of Hammerfell. That kind of clothing for use in a desert environment is not an entirely implausible design choice. But it certainly feels a little bit jarring compared to what I've seen of the Redguard in previous games. You're likely to meet an Arabian styled troop of Redguard at some point, probably while you're in Whiterun, and then have to suffer City Guards all OVER Skyrim commenting on their 'Curved Swords'.

It becomes a little wearing...

As with previous versions of the game Redguards make some of the best out and out warriors you can have at your disposal. Great starting stats for using one handed weapons, and Adrenaline Rush to keep slashing at the hardier enemies for longer. Their resistance to poisons certainly comes in handy too.

I decided to take advantage of the higher one-handed starting stat by creating a character who would be dual wielding weapons from the start, and with Magic not playing a part I could split my focus on upgrading
Stamina and Health as I progressed through the levels.

This is Karlirah. Redguards don't tend to have surnames, unless acquired through marriage, so I haven't given her one. I figured it was time I did another female character, so why not a kick-ass female sword-mistress? A little bit frustrating producing a satisfactory result with the character creator, though. The Skyrim  character creator is nowhere near as detailed as Oblivion's for adjusting head meshes, and there doesn't appear to be any way of creating a female Redguard without tired looking circles underneath their eyes. It's nowhere near as bad as trying to make a pretty looking Dark Elf Female, but a tiny bit frustrating nonetheless.

I've also tried to get the hair and skin tint as close to the Redguards in Oblivion as I could.

As with last time, I had Karlirah follow Hadvar out of Helgen, and take refuge in Alvor and Sigrid's house in Riverwood. My intention had been to kit her out in Heavy Armour, creating a Knight style character. But once again I forgot that in choosing to side with The Imperials I wasn't going to be picking up any Heavy Armour at Helgen. Just Imperial Light Armour. Not quite what I needed...

On reflection this choice also didn't make the greatest amount of sense either, based on Race and Lore.

If this was Oblivion a Redguard wouldn't have much trouble helping out the Imperials. But in the two centuries between games things have changed. The Thalmor tried to seize parts of southern Hammerfell during their war with The Empire, and although The Imperial Army did send forces to fight them off, when it came to the END of the war it was a very different story. In signing the White-Gold Concordat (the peace treaty refered to so frequently in Skyrim) the new Emperor gave in and and gave The Thalmor the land they wanted.

The Redguards, not unreasonably, were pretty pissed off about that, and refused to acknowledge the treaty. They forced the Thalmor out of Hammerfell themselves, and since that point Hammerfell has remained a fully
independent State.

Now when you place all of THAT in the background... would a Redguard, who had just escaped execution at the hands of The Empire (Dragon attack or No) decide to follow an Imperial Officer? Or would they decide to run, with the aid of the guy from the Stormcloaks? Now that I've opted for the former I actually think they might be more likely to go with the latter.

Oh, well. Too late now.

To be honest, I don't think Karlirah will be likely to go down the Civil War path for either side specifically, though. She has no real common ground with The Nords, and as you can't really join the Imperial Army as an infiltrator... so I think neutral is the way to go. :)

So... a trip to the Forge later, I got Karlirah kitted out in Banded Iron Armour and two Imperial Swords. I had her smith the armour herself, up to 'Fine' quality. Mostly for the levelling, it has to be said. While it is
usefull for Heavy Armour wearers to have smithing skill, in this playthrough I think the focus needs to be on using the armour and weapons better, rather than being able to make them. Picking up smithing perks
would give me access to more impressive weapons and armours QUICKER, but at the cost of picking up those perks which best take advantage of this fighting style.

That's not a good trade off.

As you can see I picked Faendal again this time. Almost decided to go it alone, but decided a bit of back-up can't do any harm. This time, to make sure he didn't keep switching weapons, I insisted upon ONLY giving him bows and light armours to carry. It meant I came out of the Barrow carrying slightly less loot, but did mean that Faendal only used a bow throughout, as intended. An acient Nord Bow by the end, but a Bow nonetheless.

Oh, and in case any of you WERE curious as to what Faendal's 'Fake Letter' about Sven looked like, well, here you go...

Subtle. Clever. You see, Sven. You DON'T have to resort to racism... :)

Fighting with two swords was as enjoyable as when I was doing it with J'Vari. No Stealth this time obviously, but the damage dealt was good. Once again the Power attacks look awesome in Third Person, and with Adrenaline Rush active you get to do a bit more of that. Did kind of waste it though, by activating it for fighting the giant spider. Karlirah took out thespider far quicker than I expected, and then it ran out by the time I found any suitable number of enemies to continue using it on. Oh well. It is useful though.

Loot from the Barrow was sold off. No magical items which were of use to me, sadly. I was hoping that the end Draugr might be spawned with a one-handed Frost weapon. No such luck. Not really much use for a Battleaxe. Still, selling it all allowed me to purchase a full suit of Steel Armour and the ingots to upgrade it to 'Fine'. Unfortunately that also wiped out my finances a little. I can see where most of my future income is likely to be going already...

I dunno, though. While there were parts of this playthrough I definitely enjoyed , it did feel that in many ways they were just elements which I'd enjoyed through other characters already. I'm sure that, as I advance through the levels, this character could become an awesome fighting MACHINE. Possibly the best actual warrior character I'd have at my disposal. But I've just not quite gotten into playing as Karlirah as much
as my other characters. With the others I've been able to pitch where they'd be based out of, and what factions they'd associate with.

Karlirah's not quite THERE yet.

Given the trouble I had with carry weight, and therefore loot, I think I might opt for dropping the Warrior Stone and hunting down the Steed Stone instead. 100 more points of carry weight and no penalty of carry weight on movement.

We'll see.

Any recommendations or suggestions would be more than welcome. :)

Next Time: Argonians and Thievery. With a little bit of Magic. Come back and see...

Introducing: Cassius Loran - Imperial Battlemage.

Ah, The Empire...

It's not what it once was.

Long gone are the days of The Septim Bloodline, glory of The Blades and ceaselessly committed Guards who'd follow you to unbelievable lengths to maintain the law...

No. In Skyrim, effectively, The Empire have become The Thalmor's bitch...

As the Thalmor Justicer in Markarth takes such pleasure in telling you 'The Empire only exist because The Thalmor allows it to be so'. Who'd have thought that as you helped force back The Daedra in Oblivion you were NOT actually ending The Empire's problems, but merely helping start 200 Years of new ones.

This is what happens when a Legendary Bloodline of Emperors comes to an end. The Elves get their way...

Still, the Imperials ARE still here. They look pretty much the same, and Redguards and Nords fill their ranks in Skyrim, if the tutorial sequence is anything to go by.

You see, I've never done a playthrough siding with The Empire. It was about time I did.

The boring option, and plainly obvious option for an Imperial, what have been to have created a character who was purely a soldier. But I'd kind of had enough of that. All of my new characters so far had been warriors or thieves, and all of them exclusively using weapons as their only attacking option. I wanted to use magic for a change. But I did also want to play along the Imperial side of the Civil War quests. So, I struck upon a compromise...

This is Cassius Loran, an Imperial Battlemage. 

My plan from the outset was to build a magic user, but one which could actually hold their own in a fight. As a Battlemage I was going to tank Cassius out in Heavy Armour but principally have him wielding Magic, occasionally supplemented by a Sword (Enchanted if possible) or a Staff to conjure a particular spell, if necessary. A magical Hood would be okay, but this guy wasn't going to be wearing actual robes, that was certain.

And as you can see from this post-Helgen image that approach went REALLY well...

Because what I did not take into account was that if you follow Hadvar The Imperial out of Helgen, as opposed to Ralof the Stormcloak, then you only fight Stormcloaks along the way.

Stormcloaks do not wear Heavy Armour. At least none of those in the Tutorial sequence. Plenty Heavy Weapons to loot. No Heavy Armour.

So that was the first order of the day upon reaching Riverwood. Hadvar tells me that as far as he's concerned my actions at Helgen have more than gained me a pardon, but until I he can speak with General Tullius up in Solitude I'm going to have to lay low. Luckily, while Hadvar may be with The Imperial Army he is actually a Nord, and his Uncle is Alvor the Blacksmith (Of 'Strong and Simple' fame...) . I at least have a roof over my head for a while, and access to the Forge outside.

Which resulted in this:

Iron Banded Armour and a Novice Mage's Hood. It's the best armour I can Smith myself, right now, and the Hood gives me 30 extra Magicka points. But the majority of money raised by selling my Helgen loot went on buying Spell Tomes at the Riverwood Trader. Every character starts the game with at least the spells 'Flames' and 'Healing'. There's also a Spell Tome of 'Sparks' to be found in the Torturer's Chambers in Helgen. Having chosen the Mage Stone and having been dual wielding fire and electrical damage since leaving the Tutorial I shelled out for the defensive spell 'Oakflesh,' destruction spell 'Frostbite,' and illusion spell 'Clairvoyance'.

A lot of longer term Elder Scrolls players dislike Clairvoyance intensely. It is, after all, a magic spell which creates a stream of light covered mist which guides you to your next objective. They consider that to be far too much hand-holding for their liking. But frankly, by now, I know exactly where I'm going. Far too well, in fact. And Clairvoyance is a really useful early way of raising your illusion skill level, with pretty much minimum effort. Just follow the trail... :)

My follower choice this time around was Sven, having now had enough time and space from the idiot to have forgotten quite how annoying he was. I had no money left after purchasing those spell tomes to get him any specific armour, so I just let him use whatever random loot I stripped off Bandits on root, and left him to do his own thing.

But as I found, leaving Sven to DO his own thing is not always a good idea.

I had a pretty solid magic combination going - Flames in one hand, Frostbite in the other. Eventually I got the spell perk giving me a dual casting Bonus for doing that. It was actually quite potent. I could take down a Draugr, providing it was only one at a time. It would pretty much wipe out all my Magicka to kill one Draugr in a row. Clearly I was going to be going through a LOT of Magicka potions in the long run.

The problem was that every time I started throwing Magical attacks AT an enemy NPC, Sven (in his infinite LACK of wisdom) would engage the enemy by standing directly IN my line of fire! Seriously, 8 times out of 10 Sven would end up deliberately (Or so I'm, calling it) getting himself set on fire while I tried to take down our foe. 

And he'd complain about it.

Constantly.

"I'm supposed to be on YOUR side!" he'd say.

Yes, Sven. You ARE. So why do you keep standing IN MY WAY?!! :)

Granted, playing the game without weapons DID feel really alien at first. I kept wanting to go for my back-up Sword. But once I got properly into it, I got over that hurdle, and into using magic as intended. Going through the Ranks of Destruction magic should be more effective now that I'll actually be specialising, and if I can enchant some of that Armour or some jewellery with enchantments which lower the cost of certain schools of magic I'm sure I'll be able to strike a pretty solid balance.

For now, I've upgraded Cassius' armour to Steel and am getting ready to head into Whiterun. It'll be interesting to see how he fares up against the challenge of a Dragon. I suspect he'll get his ass kicked, but who knows...?

From there, it'll be a bit of a toss-up as to which direction he'll head - Up to Solitude to join the Army or over and up to Whitehold to the Mage College. Decision, decisions. But it's nice to have some choices to make which my other characters won't logically be having to make. I think I'll be sticking with this one for that reason.

Next Time: Redguards and Swordsplay. A natural mix?

Introducing: Olda the Warrior

I seem to have a strange affinity with The Nords. Despite my bold intention with each new Elder Scrolls title to opt for a bit of variation, I always seems to end up doing my first campaign as a Nord. Even in Oblivion, where the Nord weakness for Fire was a distinct disadvantage, I still opted for the Nord option first.

Why? Well, sad to admit, but it was an aesthetic choice. Back in the early 2000s ( And holy crap it really HAS been that long ) when I first came in contact with The Elder Scroll franchise, I was a long-haired blond male, with a fairly substantial beard. Playing as a Nord was the quickest and easiest way to get my likeness into the game.

Yes, in Oblivion the Daedra MAY have kicked my character's ass from the planes of Oblivion back to Cyrodiil. But at least he had my likeness on his face... ;)

That certainly wasn't the case by 2011, of course. These days I'm a balding ( but mostly shaven-headed ) male, with a ( mostly ) clean shaven chin. I'd love to say that choosing to do my first Skyrim playthrough as a
Nord was a choice based purely on a respect for Lore and the Native Race of the game itself and not, you know... Hair and Beard envy. But, yeah. It's a distinct subconscious possibility... :(

In choosing to play through the game as a Sword and Board fighter, playing as a Nord seemed a natural choice. As a race they have good solid starting stats for that style of play. For two-handed weapons also, granted, but I already have that covered. Still, the main stumbling block in my head was that I'd already DONE a playthrough as a Nord. I had him based out of Whiterun, holding the post of Harbinger of The Companions and married off to Aela the Huntress. Playing as a Nord had been fun, but wouldn't I just be retreading over old ground?

So, in starting a new Nord character I needed to build something different. Last time out I made a Heavily Armoured male Nord - a character I tried to make as much of an all-rounder as possible. I tried where
possible to remain as neutral in the Civil War as possible, until I had no choice but to pick a side, and I had him illogically join every faction he could, despite it being pretty illogical for the character.

So what would be the antithesis of that?

How about lightly armoured female Nord, taking clear and obvious sides with The Stormcloaks and only getting involved with the one logical Warrior Guild - The Companions?

At face value that may sound a little daft, but after a bit of digging online I realised that by the stats it actually made some sense. Unlike previous iterations of The Elder Scrolls, for better or worse, gender has no effect on the starting stats for a character. A female Nord is just as hardy at the start of the game as a male. They are in fact, beyond the obvious aesthetic detail, identical.

The Nord starting values for armour are also actually loaded towards Light Armour ahead of Heavy Armour. I suppose, because Nords generally tend to wear more fur and leather based armours, reinforced by metals for sturdiness. That kind of makes sense. Yes, Nords are generally spotted wearing Heavy Iron Helmets, and wielding Heavy Weapons, but frequently they're not wearing much more than furs as central armour.

So, with that in mind, I came up with the following:

Olda Wolf-Runner, Nord Warrior Maiden, to be armoured with Light Armour and armed with as heavy duty a Sword and Shield combination as I can find her.

Naturally ( Although by now I'm getting somewhat tired of playing through it... ) I had Olda side with the Stormcloaks, and follow Ralof out of Helgen.

My initial decision was to keep her in the Stormcloak garb for as long as possible. She would join up with the Stormcloaks, and probably be based out of Windhelm as well - Ulfric's seat of power.

Even though Ulfric is clearly a dick. :)

(But that's a discussion for another day...)

The thing is, and I know it's intended to be starting armour, but the Stormcloak Cuirass is actually one of the weakest armours in the game. Even after smithing improvements to it it's never going to compete with sticking your character in hide armour even. It makes sense for any Nord to have some basic smithing ability, so that's where I decided to start, once again converting Wolf and Bear skins into leather and from leather into Leather Armour. I bought some varying metal ingots off Alvor the Riverwood blacksmith and also smithed myself a Banded Iron Shield. I figure if I'm going to wear Iron armour I may as well have some Heavy Armour back up - letting both skills rise over time.

Oddly, for a weapon available in your first fight of the game, the Imperial Sword remains the best quality sword you can have for quite some time. It seemed a little incongruous for a Nord to hang onto it, but it is made of Steel, and unless an enchanted one-handed Sword turns up (Which in this playthrough it did not) it seemed daft to change it.

A lot of the basic comings and goings in Riverwood have, to be fair, been covered in my past three articles. I'll try to retread as little as possible here, for that reason. This being the most Nord playthrough I have ever attempted I was originally going to have Sven accompany Olda up to Bleak Falls Barrow. But, frankly, after last time I was still pretty hacked of with Sven, and had Olda respond to his stalker-style comments about Camilla Valerius with extreme sarcasm. Oddly, despite how well that went down with him he still gave me a 'fake letter' to deliver to Camilla, and claim it was from Faendal...

I hate Sven. I hate him so much.

But so, of course, does Faendal. So I decided to go and have Olda vent a little aggression, by bitching about Sven to him. With Faendal's opening line of 'What's that Blow Hard up to now?' I knew we were all  on the same wavelength...

Hearing of Sven's dastardly (And clearly misguided plan) he seized the letter and gave me a 'fake letter' of his own to hand to Camilla. I have no idea what it actually said (I forgot to read it before handing it over) but given Camilla's response to reading it I gather Faendal's poisoned pen had her believe that Sven's future plans for her involved a life of cooking in and cleaning the hovel he currently lives in with his mother.

And as she points out, he already HAS a mother. She's a crazy lady who stands on her porch squawking all day about Dragons. And seriously, what type of self respecting Nord stil lives with his Mother...?

I DO however now know what Sven's 'fake letter' said. Faendal still had that on his person after he officially became a follower, so I cast an eye out of it.

So Sven's plan was to basically cast Faendal as MASSIVE racist? Underhand, Mr Sven! Clever. But underhand. I almost found myself gaining a bit more respect for the guy.

Almost.

But only almost.

Right! So, once again time for Bleak Falls Barrow. Some proper fighting, and getting to grips with my new chosen style. At this early stage I wanted to raise my Block level as quickly as possible. My overall target was the Power Bash perk in that skill tree, but it required Level 30. I had quite some way to go.

The basic tactic I decided to employ was raise my shield, run into battle, and let the enemy get a few hits in on my shield. I'd then butt them with my shield, staggering them briefly, before hacking away at them with my sword. This proved a pretty efficient tactic, raising my Block skill and my One-Handed at the same time. At first this proved a little tricky. I was taking a fair amount of damage even while blocking. But having Faendal as back up, raining steel arrows down o the target, ensured that I never actually fell. And sticking him in Studded Armour, and the toughest boots and gauntlets I had looted, made sure he never fell either. Even despite his fequently walking into traps like an idiot.

However, the downside of using your follower as a pack-mule became apparent in this playthrough. Of the loot you get them to carry, your follower will always equip what they consider to be the 'best'.

For 'best' read a very simple system of 'whatever has the highest weapon and armour score' rather than what would be the best weapon for this situation

I may have gone into Bleak Falls Barrow with an archer in light armour, but I came out with this patchwork pillock.

Great! I'm lucky that the ebemies later into the Crypt were always one on one fights, because Faendal certainly wasn't a fat lot of use for ranged warfare any more. But I was damned if I was going to drop any of the loot, so I had to make do...

I was eventually able to pick up a Block perk which thankfully lowered the damage I was taking while blocking, along with another from the One-Handed skill tree making me hit that little bit harder, which made Olda a fair bit hardier as we progressed further into Draugr territory. Annoyingly though, I actually only acquired Power Bash AFTER I'd killed the Boss Draugr. So I've know way of know how effectively it works in combat. It LOOKS good. A nice big sweep of the shield, will will hopefully knock an enemy or to the ground, allowing me to follow up with a sword.

But it's all theory, for now.

Oddly, given that for the most part this was a very defensive playthrough, this was quite a satisfying experience. I'm definitely interested in continuing with it. The next step will probably to replace that Iron Banded Shield with a Steel or Enchanted one, and to decide whether I head to Whiterun first or make my way up to Windhelm to join the Stormcloaks. Either way it has some scope. Far more than I thought it
would.

Next Time: Imperials. And Mages. Yes, no more Stormcloaks for a bit. Why not come back at see how that works out?

Introducing: Ogrul gro-Khadba the Mercenary

In setting up character number 3 I had my first... incident with the Skyrim save system. You see, I initially created all 10 of these characters in one large session, saving each after exiting the Character Creator, and then starting again with the next. The save system for Skyrim is the same as the system for Oblivion, to be honest, but it's not exactly friendly in terms of trying to manage multiple characters. It's just one long list of every save ever made on your console, in a chronological order, starting with the most recent save at the top and the earliest saves at the bottom.

Most modern RPGs and adventure titles (Most of Bioware's as an obvious example) have moved away from this system in the past few years, splitting up saved games into separate folders - grouping all of the saved games produced for each character as separate from the whole. This makes sure that you don't accidentally save over the top of one character's progress with that of another...

Not so with Skyrim though. When I came back to start proper work on my Orc character I discovered that he was no longer there... Bugger. Yes. I'd saved over him.

So, despairing at my own stupidity, I started again. And this was the end result...

And to be honest I think I actually prefer it to my original Orc, which had no hair and looked a little bit more apologetic in his expression. I fixed THAT second time around. To me, an Orc should never look apologetic, or friendly, or charming in pretty much any way. My chief grumble about the Orcs in Oblivion was that even in the grimmest of situations they always looked and sounded as if they were feeling so damned cheerful! :)

It probably didn't help that they all appeared to be voiced by the same cheerful guy, and granted some of them were intended to provide comic relief, but by and large the Orcs of Cyrodill really did seem to be incapable of delivering any true kind of menace. Even the one who was Grand Champion in the Imperial City's Arena. Or the guy from the Fighter's Guild who insisted on ever addressing me as 'Meat'.

(A term which if I'm brutally honest, from the expression on his face as he delivered it, made me wonder far less if he was trying to threaten me and far more if he was trying to make some kind aggressive sexual advance upon me. I didn't care HOW much I wanted to progress in the Fighters Guild. I wasn't going to do it by becoming his 'Bitch'. :) )

So, yes. In my book Orcs should look menacing and/or aggressively grumpy. They are after all a simple but aggressive folk, governed by a very tribal mindset, with a penchant for hitting things over the head with heavy weaponry, and for frequent in-fighting with each other - usually started by a tremedous overreaction to something fundamentally trivial in the beginning.

(I suspect that this may be the true reason as to why the Orc Capital of Orsinium has been sacked quite so many times. It probably gets trashed far more frequently by its own native residents than the forces of High Rock or Hammerfell. :) )

If you ever DID see an Orc smiling it should truly be a reason to worry. Because that would be a smile brought on by the overwhelming sense of achievement they were feeling as they were about to bring an axe or warhammer down on your head...

I named my Orc 'Ogrul'. Ogrul gro-Khadba.

Orcs in Elder Scrolls games are named in a very similar way to how the Welsh used to name themselves - a First Name followed by a Surname which was created using the First Name of one of their Parents. And always the parent of the same gender.

If the Orc is male the Surname has the prefix of 'gro-' followed by the name of their Father, and if they are female they use the prefix 'gra-' followed by the name of their Mother. Very Tribal, no?

My intention with Ogrul was pretty simple, to play him as a Mercenary, and to suit him out in the heaviest armour and the heaviest two-handed weapons I could find. No subtlety, no sneaking. I was building a very intentional 'Tank'. I'd never played an Elder Scrolls title in that manner before. The idea of not using magic and just... hitting things hard seemed a bit basic to me. But what the Hell... why not? Maybe I'd learn something :)

I had Ogrul escape Helgen with Ralof, and make use of the heaviest arms and armour on hand in doing so, In this case an Iron Greatsword and some Heavy Imperial Armour, which he'd looted off an Imperial Captain, who I'd had him club to death at the earliest possible juncture. But hardy though that armour WAS it did leave us with a little bit of a problem. After all, it had belonged TO an Imperial Captain, and walking around in a quite specific set of a dead man's clothes was not exactly the most inconspicuous way to travel for an Orc who'd just escaped his own execution, and was now 'on the run' from the Imperial Army.

It was time for a change of attire... :)

It has to be said that probably the main drawback of limiting yourself to Heavy arms and armour is the price tag attached to that. They cost a lot more than the Light alternative. It is slightly cheaper though to Smith your own. If I was going to have Ogrul wearing the Heaviest kit I could find relying purely on stumbling across that kind of armour out in-the-wild could be very time consuming and very random in the results. If I was going to get my hands on full sets of high end armour, such as Orcish, Ebony or even Dragonbone, the only truly reliable way of doing that would be to get Ogrul to learn Smithing as a secondary Skill-set.

And here are the early results...

At this point Iron Armour was the best Ogrul could smith. And only to 'Fine' quality. But the main armour is 'Banded Iron,' with a slightly higher armour value. It's a good start. It'll certainly be sufficient for this part of the game, anyway. It also helped me level up in the process of crafting this armour, allowing me to take first 'Juggernaut' perk. No Bandits were going to be kicking this Orsimer's ass.

With my previous two characters stealth had very much been the order of the day. I needed the element of surprise, and therefore the idea of having a follower with me as I crept around Bleak Falls Barrow seemed a bit self-defeating. Well, given that Ogrul was wearing enough Heavy Armour to alert pretty much everybody to his oncoming presence, that was not an issue this time... So I thought 'sod it' let's go and find him a suitable lackey. :)

There are two Favour Followers available to characters entering Riverwood. You can, however, only acquire one or the other, and this is achieved as the reward for completing a small side quest. A side quest which to some degree intersects with 'The Golden Claw', as it involves one of the Valerius siblings. The guys who run The Riverwood Trader.

Ah, Camilla Valerius. The subject of obsession for so many of Riverwood's male residents. Although, if we're being brutally honest, this is a very SMALL town, and there really isn't that much in the way of competition. The others female residents are either married, exceptionally old, or somebody else's mother. Nevertheless there does seem to be some competition for her, and two very specific rivals for her affections. Both of whom, to listen to them, sound utterly unsuitable for ANY woman alive (or dead) and whose statements about their intentions towards Camilla sound worryingly obsessive, and as if they both may in fact have deep psychological problems.

First off there is Faendal, the Wood Elf (And Heathen murderer of Trees - if we go back to the revelations of last time's Blog).

Faendal's pastimes include being rather fond of stroking his own chin, and telling people how much they should NOT BE TALKING to somebody called 'Sven'. Even if they haven't actually met anybody called 'Sven' yet. In general he seems quite hostile and more than a little bit whiny.

And of course, he's also an ELF. >:(

Ogrul may be a Mercenary, he may even have done some very questionable things in his past to have resulted in his being taken to Helgen for execution, but associating with Elves was not one of them!

(Yes, yes... I know technically that Orcs and Elves are from the same stock! Altmer, Bosmer, Dunmer, Orsimer - even Falmer and Dwemer - they're ALL Merfolk if we go back far enough. But don't pose that concept to an Orc. You won't enjoy their response...)

So what about this 'Sven'? Faendal tells Ogrul that he's always off drinking mead instead of doing his job at the mill. Well, an Orc can see merit in any man that can hold his Ale! Maybe he's a better candidate?

Or... maybe not.

Sven may be a mead-swilling Nord, but he also still lives with his Mother. And if you thought Faendal sounded like an aggressive stalker Sven will tell you at length of how he's already told Faendal just how Camilla Valerius is already 'HIS,' 'HIS' he tells you!

He also likes writing poetry, and doing a lot of this

And this

Which doesn't exactly put him in Ogrul's highest regard.

But still. He's not an ELF.

Whichever prospective follower you choose they will give your character a 'Fake Letter' claiming to be from the other. You will then take said letter to wherever in town Camilla Valerius currently is, she'll read it, and proclaim never to have anything to do with the person she believes to have written the letter. You can of course tell her the truth, dropping your guy in it. Camilla is a marryable NPC when you reach that point, later on in the game. But doing so will mean you don't have the option of using that guy as a follower.

I had Ogrul opt to side with Sven. I have no idea what he wrote in that letter, but passing Faendal in town afterwards it was clear to see he was not a happy bunny, and he refused to talk to us '...after what YOU'VE DONE'. :)

But enough prattling. It's time for ADVENTURE. That Golden Claw won't find itself, you know? And I really NEED the reward money the other Valerius sibling is promising. So, off to Bleak Falls Barrow...

And you know what? I actually found hacking at foes en route, with my two-handed sword, to be fairly enjoyable. I had certain concerns at the outset. Two-handed weapons in Oblivion just seemed to be slow and inefficient. Here I was able to finish my foes by actually skewering them with my greatsword and letting them drop. That was relatively entertaining to watch :)

However, it should be pointed out that the journey to Bleak Falls was not without incidents of another nature.

There MAY have been some debate (Okay, so there WASN'T really, but just... go with it for now.) over just what IS suitable attire for going questing in Draugr crypts. And for not looking 'Flouncy'. The debate MAY (Again, just... go with it.) have been punctuated with a Greatsword. And it MAY have concluded with concept that a certain individual might look 'LESS Flouncy' if they were to actually put on some sodding armour.

Or maybe NOT. As the sad armoured truth might have revealed to be so...

There is no winning with Sven, it would appear.

Still, he did have his uses whilst fighting Giant Spiders and Draugrs. Mostly, it has to be said, with a bow and arrow. But also because the definite advantage of taking a follower along with you on your travels is that you can effectively use them as a pack-mule for loot which you find along the way. Being able to carry twice as much loot obviously means that you can coin in twice as much money when you reach the nearest town, to sell all of it. There was plenty loot to be had this time around also, and with far more items found which were actively useful to my style of play. Battleaxes, Warhammers and Greatswords. In the end I settled on this Steel Battleaxe, to keep as my primary weapon.

Clubbing things with Heavy Weapons may not be as pretty as setting your foes on fire, or besting then in sword to sword combat. But I have to say there is something terribly satisfying in watching your character finish off the enemy by first kneecapping them, before bringing an axe or warhammer down on their head. It's hard to beat that... :)

My perks for Ogrul so far have gone on Juggernaut, Champion's Stance, and two on Barbarian. He now deals more damage, takes a little more damage, and doesn't use up quite so much stamina in swinging that axe for power attacks. Basic tweaks, yes. But effective. As far as what will happen next goes? Well, with this style of play I think it's probably a bit of a foregone conclusion that he should join up with The Champions faction in Whiterun, and I think I might consider setting his permanent City of dwelling as Markarth. The feel of that place somehow seems to match his character.

We'll see. But I've certainly enjoyed playing as Ogrul far more than I ever expected to. He may be my current favourite, in fact. But there's plenty more time for that to change. For now, it's time to move on...

Next Time: Women. And Nords. Yes. A winning combination? Come back and find out...