Just playing Skyrim… in 2022

Shocking, I know. Funny thing that, I never finished any of the Elder Scrolls games, and I’ve been playing this series since Morrowind came out “OMG, it’s a computer game, but in 3D” times. I’ve probably played collectively thousands of hours in Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim, but I was always allergic to the idea of following the main quest line. In Morrowind, I walked around the Red Mountain and explored Dwemer ruins all over the place and didn’t even get to the point where I get to be declared the Nerevarine (and then my saves got corrupted). In Oblivion, I kept on farming Oblivion sigil stones and all I did for the main plot was to find Martin and get him relatively safely to the Blades or something. And I think I also got the Amulet, but I’m not sure, it was long ago (and then my saves got corrupted). 

157h, at least that’s how much Steam is reporting.

 

Me? Hoarding armor I will never use? How dare you, sir! How dare you I say!

It was a similar story with Skyrim, I think I didn’t get too far in any of the main plots, I think I just joined the Stormcloaks and never bothered to get to Delphine after the first quest with her, but I was swimming in dwemerium bars and rocking that maxed out dragonscale armor. And then, my saves got corrupted. Ok, maybe not, they’re probably safe somewhere, but I just got bored with the game before even starting the main quest. Weird, I know. But hey, that’s just me. 

Over the last couple of weeks I had most of my weekends occupied by work-related stuff with long periods of standby, so naturally, instead of playing any of the new games I own, I just powered up my old Skyrim and… remembered there probably were some expansions released for it over the last, what was it, 11 years? I mean, I knew Bethesda was releasing it on everything including a smart fridge, but I was hoping the old version would still work. And it does, but, well, it was far less painful to just buy the Special Edition with all the patches, expansions, and a couple of mods baked in. And this version apparently doesn’t randomly corrupt your saves, so there’s that. 

I’m not saying it was necessary to prepare this much for the start of the main quest line, but it won’t hurt either.


So after all that said, I’m 157 hours in, I didn’t even join any side in the civil war and Delphine is waiting for me under the Riverwood inn, but I have 3 homes I built myself on top of Breezehome, Honeyside, Vlindrel Hall and Proudspire Manor, I’m the Archmage of Winterhold College and a bard. I rock that legendary dragonscale armor with every possible enchantment and a flaming daedric sword, but as far as being the famous dragonborn savior of Skyrim, yeah, let me get back to that in a moment. Oh, and I stumbled upon an elder scroll somewhere. I’m kinda annoyed by that fact too, that thing takes a lot of my junk-carrying capacity. 

Look at her purrrty little face. (it’s not cruel to make her walk around in this skimpy armor, it’s magical! She’s not cold, she is, in fact, very hot.)

And I also played with some mods including the most adorable catgirl waifu, but I’m hesitant to install too much since the game, while legendary in its modding capability, is also legendary in its lack of stability (remember all those corrupted saves?). But if you have any suggestions and recommendations, feel free to send them my way. 

I was trying to get into any of the main quests, but every time I think I did my preparations something new popped up and I wasted a day or two chasing side quests, being mildly annoyed by the flying lizards distracting the NPCs I wanted to talk to. 

Meet Raven, The Archmage of Winterhold, Thane of pretty much every hold in Skyrim, a Dragonborn dragon slayer ordained by the Greybeards and a total nobody as far as Tullius and Ulfric is concerned.

I wanted to play a charismatic destruction mage somewhat based on one of the NPCs from my D&D campaign, but as with all Elder Scrolls games I ever played, I ended up as a magical artificer with a big bag of enchanted items for every occasion with at least five daedric princes promising to drag my soul to their little corner of oblivion after I die (well, at least that part of that NPC’s background is somewhat true). I admire people who can commit to role playing in TES games. 

So anyway, if you’re wondering what was going on with me, that’s about it. Between work, planning new and interesting ways to mentally abuse my D&D players and Skyrim there wasn’t really much going on in my life. On the D&D note, I was planning to write a followup to the previous post on the subject, but I didn’t really know how to start. I now have an idea of an “interview” with my players’ characters, but I want to wait a bit longer before I do that. I’m pretty sure they are close to figuring out the big thing behind their very presence in the world of the setting I concocted. 

I’ll try to draw something (not Skyrim-related) by the end of the week to keep up the one pic per month minimum, I’ve had the sketch ready since last month 😀 

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