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...
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