A Khajiit's Tale: Episode #2 - Stoney Broke

Times were tough for J'Vari. Having shelled out on armour for his newly acquired companion, Faendal, to money was running low. A quick chat around town revealed very little in the way of profitable work in Riverwood. Other than standing around chopping wood until you we bored beyond all hope...

Or you could enquire if there was any work on offer locally, at The Sleeping Giant in. Orgnar, the guy behind the bar, tells us that the Jarl of Whiterun's men were looking for somebody to clear out a camp for them, which had been overrun by bandits.

That seemed reasonable enough.

Until we found Halted Stream Camp on the map.

Well... that was going to be a bit of a hike.

But money IS money. And loot was there to be had...

Time to spring into action, armed with only a sword, a frosty war axe and an Elf who frequently breaks his own system of beliefs (As discussed previously...).

What could possibly go wrong?

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...

Introducing: Fimmion the Hunter

For the second new character I created I made the decision to pick a fighting style which I hadn't really gotten on with in my first playthrough.

Archery.

Now, don't get me wrong here. I have nothing against Archery. Quite the opposite, actually. While I was still at school, in fact, I used to have weekly Archery Lessons. Loved it. I was pretty good at it, too.

Without a doubt my favourite Oblivion playthrough was as a Dark Elf Archer. I Mastered the bow in that game, zooming in and doing some serious sniping. I could one-shot kill almost anybody I encountered whilst dungeon crawling around Cyrodiil or on the Planes of Oblivion.

Which may have been part of the problem I guess, because when I started my original Nord playthrough I began wielding a bow just as soon as I could get my hands on one. In my mind I was going to kick ass just as effectively as I had in Oblivion. In practice... this was not the case. Archery was tough to get into. I  found the targeting a bit hit and miss, the range a bit limited, and the actual damage done by bows to be incredibly frustrating. I could pick up a Sword and take on a Bear, felling it with four swipes, yet with a bow it seemed that I could empty half the arrows in Skyrim into a Frostbite Spider, and STILL it wouldn't go down.

I was disappointed. I still kept a bow with me, in case I had a change of heart, butI gave up using it for regular combat very early on.

But like I say, I love Archery in concept, and once I had decided on creating new characters based on specific disciplines I figured that I really aught to give Archery a second go. It was a no-brainer. I owed it that.

The obvious choice of Race in an Elder Scrolls game when considering the creation of an Archer character is that of the Wood Elves - or 'Bosmer' as the more pedantic TES fans will probably insist. Natural Hunters and Bowslingers, who come from the Forests of Valenwood. They have a starting bonus for Archery, and the ability to call upon (And command) woodland creatures once per day.

Not bad.

There have been a few changes made to the Wood Elves in Skyrim. In Oblivion, to my mind, the only central difference between Wood Elves and their High Elf cousins seemed to most frequently be based purely on physical Height. Wood Elf NPCs tended to be shorter, squatter, and frequently just a little more irritating to talk to. Such as Thoronir, the smug merchant in The Imperial City, or Glarthir the paranoid loon who kept on asking you to stalk people on his behalf, in Skingrad. It was hard to see these often chubby and diminutive characters as being part of the supposedly excellent Hunter Race they were apparently part of.

(And it didn't really help that it those two Wood Elf NPCs mentioned above were involved with possibly the two most tedious quests in the game...)

Bethesda have given the three Elven races a collective aesthetic makeover for Skyrim, and I think that out of the three it's the Wood Elves who have probably benefited the most from it. Their faces are now more angular and features more pinched, resembling something far more akin to a forest sprite than a human being. And that's a good thing in my book. Their eyes being black, and their their hair options looking quite so ragged also helps. Not so many mirrors to primp in front of in the middle of a Forest. Nation, obviously... :)

So this is what I ended up opting for. I've called him Fimmion, and opted for a Mohawk haircut and a knotted beard. The warpaint was also intentionally designed to match up with the hair colour. This is going to be one camouflaged and coordinated frickin' Elf.

The other major Elven development worth commenting on in Elder Scrolls lore has been that of The Thalmor. You'll see these guys wandering around in several areas of the game, and have dealings with them. An alliance of High and Wood Elves, which sprung up after the events at the end of Oblivion. Whereas in Cyrodiil the gates to Oblivion were closed by Martin Septim's sacrifice, in High Elf realm of the Summerset Isles The Thalmor claimed credit for ending the Oblivion Crisis at their end. And then some.

The Thalmor are, to a degree, the Elven equivalent of white supremacists. That might be labouring a point very slightly, but the racial element to their intentions seems pretty clear, and they are pretty much hell-bent on an aggressive Elf only expansion across the world. Between games they went to war with The Empire, and, to be perfectly honest, it doesn't sound like it went too well FOR The Empire by the time it was done. There was a calling of Peace, sure. A settlement was agreed upon, but frankly the number of concessions made BY The Empire certainly sound far less like a truce and far more like the acceptance of defeat, to me.

In light of this I did consider briefly in having Fimmion side with the Imperials when the Dragon attacked Helgen. But it just... didn't feel right. The Thalmor are much more of a High Elf led organisation. I get the feeling that if they ever DID succeed in their world-wide conquest then the Wood Elves would be left as the downtrodden underclass. They might even wage war against Valenwood eventually, for its not conforming to their own preferred way of life.

So, instead, I had Fimmion follow Ralof, of the Stormcloaks, out of Helgen. I don't know if I'll actually have him join up with them for future questing. It might be interesting having a Wood Elf joining the fight to 'free Skyrim'. They certainly don't have a lot of skilled ranged fighters at their disposal. He'd certainly be an asset to them, but we'll wait and see.

For now it was time to get this Elf kitted-out and ready for adventure. Off to Riverwood, and Alvor the Blacksmith.

Apparently 'By Ysmir, if it's strong and simple' he can forge it. And the words 'Strong' and 'Simple' pretty much covers all that you need to know about Alvor, in general. This is a man who leaves huge amounts of his store's inventory (Weapons, helmets and crafting materials) lying around in the open air, all day and all night.

For shits and giggles I had Fimmion wait until Alvor turned in for the night and then had him take some of Alvor's poorly guarded Iron and Steel ingots from beside the workbench, to improve the quality of the loot he'd gathered from Helgen. In the morning, when he arrived for work I sold Alvor all the loot I'd improved with his OWN ingots, and he paid us the now slightly higher price for them, none the wiser that anything had changed.

Apparently THIS is the kind of guy Fimmion is going to be...

As with J'Vari the Thief I used the Leather scavenged from Bears and Wolves encountered on the road to forge Fimmion some Leather Armour. Part of me wonders if I shouldn't go out and loot some Fur Armour, or maybe craft some Hide Armour, as the attire for a Wood Elf. It's not so much that those armours aren't quite so hardy (Although, well... they actually aren't) it's more that they have a much higher likelihood of leaving my Elf standing around semi-naked. If bandits wish to walk around semi-naked, fine. But this is Skyrim. The one predominant feature of Skyrim is that it's frickin' cold.

Fimmion is no fool in this regard. He'll wear the leather.

Upon crafting this armour I hit upon a plan. Leather is cheap. But suits of Leather Armour are worth much more than the leather on its own. Fimmion is a hunter. There's a logical combination here, just waiting to be taken advantage of. It was time to go out and hunt us some Deer!

I left Riverwood and went for a bit of a wander. It actually didn't take me too long track down what appeared to be a Stag, grazing by banks of the river. I switched into stealth, readied my bow, and lined up for the kill.

And that was where my archery let me down...

I actually managed to get two hits in on the Stag, but it was nowhere near enough to actually kill it. Just.. startle it. I also missed twice, because the arrows didn't stretch quite as far towards the deer as I expected, somewhat giving away my position in the undergrowth from the off. That... and Deers are FAST. There was no way I was going to catch up with it now. This experience dented my confidence a little. It was a reminder of the very reason that I stopped bothering with Archery in my first playthrough. But, to be fair, I was a Level 1 character. No Archery Perks had been acquired yet. Far too early to give up yet. I DO still think it's a viable way of making an income though, and it will raise my Smithing skill slowly too, in a way which is roleplay friendly.

(The number of people I see moaning online that you can max out your smith skills far too easy, just by creating Iron Daggers all day is somewhat grating...)

Back in Riverwood I bump into a friendly face. There was another Elf here!

Awesome. His name is Faendal, and he appeared to be an archery trainer. And sure, I don't have much cash available to use that training right now, but it's good to KNOW. Maybe we'll become, friends? Comrades? Maybe he can accompany on my first mission...

But wait a minute. Where's he going? What THE-!? No, Faendal. No! Leave the tree ALONE!!

You see, and I know this is the pedant in me talking, but Faendal may be the most illogical character you'll encounter in this part of the game. He's a Wood Elf. Fine. But what's his profession?

He's a Lumberjack. And while if you're a Monty Python fan then 'That's Okay,' if you happen to be a Wood Elf that's really very much NOT.

You see the Wood Elves of Valenwood have this thing called 'The Green Pact'. It's central to their culture. A deal made with the Forest Deity, or whatever, that they will never harm a plant or tree. In return the giant migratory trees of Valenwood allow them to build their cities upon then. It's a big deal. It's why Bosmer cuisine is comprised almost exclusively of meat or milk dishes, and why a lot of their weapons are crafted from bones or metal rather than wood.

In short, Faendal should not BE a Lumberjack. It logically goes against so much of what should be his culture and beliefs.

Fimmion is not going to be friends with Feandal. Because the Elf is apparently some kind of Heathen... :)

So, Helgen loot sold, armour upgraded, quest acquired from The Riverwood Trader, and I'm on my way up the mountain to get that claw back!

I'll admit, I may have had use a sword a couple of times. :) Yes. This is cheating. But faced with advancing Draugrs in Bleak Falls Crypt, with no follower to aid me, the Bow and Arrow weren't up to task to start off with. That was the downside. But the upside was that Fimmion did level up his Light Armour skill a couple of times. Mostly from Draugrs repeatedly hitting him, but it all counts.

The good news was that things did soon start to pick up, as I got used to using the Bow. A combination of sneaking, getting thumped by Draugrs, and picking the lock on the odd chest quicky started to level me up nicely. I used my first two Perks on Overdraw - the archery perk which means you do more damage with single shots from the bow. My tactic soon became to sneak into the area and fire at the enemy while they can't see me, for the Sneak Attack bonus. Most of the time I could still get enough shots in afterwards to dispatch my foe, but if they DID manage to get close enough I could use my bow to butt them, in exactly the same way that you would with a shield. This often staggered the enemy for just long enough to back up a short distance, load and fire a final arrow.

Job done.

The Draugr at the end of the Barrow, by the Word Wall, was a bit of a trial, but by and large I managed.

And you know what? I actually quite enjoyed myself too. I've only scratched the surface of Archery Perks so far, but they have already begun to make the overall archer experience far more enjoyable. And I'm already thinking of the future. For now I picked up this awesome Ancient Nord Bow. It's slightly heavier than the others on offer, but it also does slightly more damage too. And if I can keep an eye out for some enchanted bows (One for each element) I could even make up for the lack of magic being involved in my arsenal.

Still not sure where I'll base Fimmion, though. I'd love to have him a resident of Falkreath. The terrain in that area suits him down to the ground. But unfortunately there is no house for sale there. So I'll have to have a bit more of a think. Either way though, I'm quite looking forward to it.

Next Time: I turn my attention to Orcs. And hitting things with Heavy Weapons. Hard. Until they break. Why not come back and join us?

Introducing: J'Vari the Thief

So, here was how it began. The first new character I actively wanted to create was, without doubt, going to be a Khajiit. I'd played as a Khajiit Thief for a while in Oblivion, and it was definitely one of my favourite playthroughs.

Khajiits are great for any playthrough where you want stealth to be key. Ideal for Thief tasks. In Oblivion I gave my Khajiit The Shadow as his Birthsign, which granted him once a day Invisibility. I understand that locating and activating The Shadow Stone in Skyrim grants the same. They also have the Night Eye ability, which allows them to see clearly in the dark. Incredibly useful for when you're creeping around dark caves, or wandering Skyrim at night, where you don't want the light of a torch to give away your position. Unlike Oblivion there's actually no Night-Eye spell available either, which makes this a unique Khajiit skill for a change.

The main complaint with Khajiits in Oblivion (And a common complaint about Argonians also) was probably one of their appearance. By and large there was only one Khajiit likeness. You could add one of a very very limited number of hairstyles to them (None of which really looked terribly natural), you could tweak the fur colour of your own Khajiit (With varying degrees of success), but all in-game Khajiits encountered looked pretty much identical.

The first thing you'll notice about their Skyrim counterparts is that they've had a pretty massive makeover. Seriously, the scope for variation in appearance here is incredible. The faders used on most races for make-up, blemishes, skin blush and the like provide Khajiits with a hugely varied selection of stripes, spots and other details for their fur. The colour options for fur also look perfectly natural and believable, allowing you to produce some pretty believable cat-people to match the appearance of pretty much any feline from a Snow Leopard to a Tabby Cat.

In-game also, there is plenty variation in the Khajiits you encounter. Granted, they're somewhat rarer in Skyrim than they were in comparison to wandering around Cyrodiil. No Khajiits hurrying you a copy of The Black Horse Courier, or turning up to attack you on the road as a bandit. Skyrim's Khajiits are mostly travelling merchants, encountered on the road or found settled at an encampment just outside a town. There's a Khajiit at the Mages College in Winterhold, and you'll find a Skyrim version of 'M'aiq The Liar' wandering around. But that's about it. We're a long way from Elsweyr up here...

But the important detail here is that they definitely don't all look so ridiculously alike. They're actually believable as a varied community of people now. One which is looked down upon by most of the Skyrim residents (And not JUST the Nords) but a community of people nonetheless.

I wanted to create a Khajiit with big bright cat eyes, and a bit of a mane. Somewhere between a cute adorable house cat and a tiger. I've also always been rather fascinated by White Tigers - the mutant variations of the Bengal Tiger - and those whites, blacks and greys seemed such a logical colouration for blending in with Skyrim's mountain regions that I figured that I had to at least try mixing them into the colouring of my Khajiit's fur.

And this is the result (Some apologies for the slightly grainy images, by the way. I'm playing on Xbox 360, and taking these images via the wonder of the camera on my phone...). I've named him J'Vari, after my character of the same race in Oblivion, and I intend him to primarily be a Thief, based out of Riften. Well, when I eventually get there... That should, if I recall rightly, put me fairly close-by to The Shadow Stone - for that all important Invisibility talent.

(As an aesthetic note, I actually changed J'Vari's eye colour after taking this photo. From these big yellow eyes, to a light blue.)

In terms of fighting style, my plan is to have him dual weilding knives in the long run. There's a perk in the skill tree for stealth which allows Daggers to do a ridiculous 15 times their normal damage. I NEED that! But in the meantime, I'll have him dual wielding whatever swords he can get his hands on, with a Bow and Arrow in reserve for sneaky ranged attacks. No destructive magic though. Whatever J'Vari fights with, he'll be using both hands, like a traditional Rogue.

The initial tutorial sequence through Helgen yielded a plethora of light armour for me J'Vari to use. But all of it either catering for the Stormcloaks or the Empire. I'm figuring J'Vari doesn't really have any specific loyalty towards either. I had him escape from Helgen with the aid Ralof, of the Stormcloaks. But not so much out of a sense of loyalty. Moreso because the Imperials WERE about to execute him. He's hardly going to side with somebody who arrested him and placed his fuzzy head upon the chopping block...

So, instead, I had J'Vari sell off all his ill-gotten gains from Helgen to Alvor the Blacksmith, and with the Leather acquired from the hides of Bears and Wolves encountered on his way to the village of Riverwood I had him craft a suit of Leather Armour, improving its quality to 'Fine' at the same time. A good base Light Armour - Minimum creaking for stealth, and as high an armour value as is available at this point in the game.

So... one Khajiit Thief all prepped and ready to go. But to go where?

Well, it just so happened that in seeking to sell off the few items of loot which Alvor wouldn't buy I stumbled into the Riverwood Trader, and my first quest. Bandits have stolen the store-owner's Golden Nik-Nak, and he and his sister will pay me good(-ish) money to retrieve it. The sister accompanies me to the edge of town, and points me in the right direction...

Only it turns out that the direction in question is up the mountain to the big creepy Nord Burial Site which Ralof pointed out earlier, and after fighting my way through a plethora of Bandits to get up there I discover that the Bandits themselves aren't the real threat.

There's this guy also.

Ugly fella, ain't he?

Oh, and there's the walking dead, too. It seems that deep down in the crypts the Ancient Nords aren't quite as dead as folks might think. They're a joy to deal with...

The Giant Frostbite Spider above actually kicked my ass pretty badly in my first Skyrim playthrough. It kept poisoning me from a distance, and then moving in for the kill to finish me off. This time I came prepared. Having dealt with smaller Frostbite Spiders during the tutorial I was able to syphon off some of their venom. Creeping into the area I coated my arrows in the poison, shot them into the spider, and then ducked into cover while it slowly died. Poisoned by the poison of its own species. I'm sure there's some kind of pathos in that, or something.

A pretty decent plan, anyway.

Creeping through the crypts and collapsing tunnels of Bleak Falls Barrow actually brought up J'Vari's stealth levels pretty quickly, and the dual-wielding power attacks actually look pretty awesome - especially in third person view, where the sword-strokes flow from one to another very smoothly. If there's one thing I may have skimped on a little during my exploration it was in practising my archery. But that's a secondary skill for J'Vari. I've concentrated most of the available perks on quieter sneaking, and backstabbing. Well used in my opinion.

So, anyway, it turned out that the Gold Nik-Nak was actually an ornamental key, for an even more ornamental door, into a hidden room in the ruins. A room housing a huge wall covered in ancient script, which makes your vision go all blurry, causes you to learn something called a 'Shout' and then triggers a tougher member of the walking dead to attack you with his magic frosty axe!

I mean who WOULDN'T want that?

I dispatched the dead old Nord back from whence he came, and had J'Vari loot both him and the two chests located on the way to the exit. Some not bad, albeit useless to this playthrough, magical loot on offer there. The aforementioned 'frosty axe,' a magic staff of lighting stuff up, and this rather well chiselled shield...

It's a shield of Magic Resistance! It lowers the damage of all destructive spells others cast on you. As long as you equip it. Great! Only I'm dual-wielding SWORDS. Both hands in use. No room for a heavy shield like that one. Seriously, none of these things are of any actual use to me. Still, they'll sell for a fair bit more than the non-magical items I'm carrying, and J'Vari could use all the cash he could get, at this early stage.

(You'll notice that throughout this I've had J'Vari very much operating on his own. There are two followers available to you while in Riverwood. You get the services of one or the other for completing a (very) short quest. But I felt that at this point it kind of defeated the point of my style of play. Stealth doesn't really require or favour a follower clunking around behind you. It kind of gives you away. I'm sure I'll find a follower for J'Vari sooner or later. Inevitably I'll gain a Housecarl or two, at some point. But for now I thought it best to go it alone).

So, reward money acquired, and a busy day of picking up loot of absolutely no use to him, J'Vari retires to the Sleeping Giant Inn, for the night. The clientèle are the same people he's been walking amongst in town all day, and the owner and barman are surly and rude. So, you know, it's HIS kind of PLACE. And as you can tell by the photo he just LOVES the music!

Sleep can't come soon enough. But at least the Imperials haven't showed up, yet. Maybe the Dragon ate them all.

Time for some sleep. Tomorrow's a busy day, whose tasks will include a visit to the Jarl of Whiterun, to tell him about the aforementioned Dragon. I doubt that will go too well. Such is life in Skyrim, though.

Nighty Night!

Next Time: I turn my sights onto playing as a Wood Elf Archer. Come back to see how that turns out...