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Went to explore Angarvunde with Cosnach and the girls (=Aranea + Madena) and totally forgot that it was going to be a full moon night. First time I was surprised by a lunar transformation inside an ancient Nord ruin, and I must say that even though Draugr aren't edible it's still hugely satisfying to sink your fangs & claws into a deathlord.

In other news we paid a visit to the witch coven at Snapleg Cave for instruction and the local hagraven's blessing. It was Nea's and Maddy's first encounter with the witch cult on its own turf, and their reactions differed quite a bit - Nea seemed eager to learn all there was to learn, whereas Maddy was much more reluctant and balked outright at sacrificing a caged spriggan, telling me "I can't do that";
probably to do with her vow against using destruction magic. A pity, but I like her too much to get rid of her even if she's not perfect witch material; probably going to train her as the healer of our group, that role should fit her well.

I spent a couple of hours dragon hunting with Felzii Raan. I set the assault timer to 6 hours and only enabled three Dragon spawns. That way, I would get three Dragons attacking every six hours. Plus the fourth from Word Walls since I was fast traveling between the Dragon Lairs. I don't know how many Souls I got in that time, but it's enough for now. I know she's got over twenty. Maybe thirty. I've disabled assaults for a while so I can do some dungeon diving without interruptions.

Decided against doing dungeon diving today, though, and then went to play Vulom for a while. I was originally going to go and take care of an issue at Kolbjorn Barrow, but got sidetracked and decided to do the Kagrumez Trials. Went through that Dwemer Ruin that starts with an F, then went through Kagrumez. I was considering taking that Dwarven Sphere as a follower, but decided against it. I'm more likely to craft a set of Stalhrim gear and give it to that nice looking Dunmer man I created and placed in the Retching Netch.

Fram suffers doubts about his quest, Serana fails to impress Lydia, and everyone loves Bristleback Stew:

17th of Sun's Dawn, 4E 202 - Serana's Diary
18th of Sun's Dawn, 4E 202 - Lydia's Log
18th of Sun's Dawn, 4E 202 - Serana's Diary
19th of Sun's Dawn, 4E 202 - Fram's Journal
20th of Sun's Dawn, 4E 202 - Serana's Diary
20th of Sun's Dawn, 4E 202 - Fram's Journal

I got bored and started a Khajiit hunter character that I could mess around with.
I decided to wear the Princess of the Woods armor and dual-wield an Ebony Dagger and Sword. After some tweaking, I decided I liked her appearance. I like the way the armor looks on her, so I doubt I will be switching. It's the same for Felzii Raan, though she's wearing the brown version of the armor with added fur.

So after I created that Khajiit, I ran off to the Loreius Farm to pick up my horse (one of the Swift Steeds light breed horses). Decided to pick the brown one (named Flicka after the mod author's horse) because I thought the brown color was more suited to my Khajiit hunter. After that, I ran around Whiterun with my horse and, well, hunted. For a few hours.

Then I got a bit bored of that and rode my horse up to Winterhold. I went and visited Septimus to start Discerning the Transmundane.
Only just came out of Blackreach. Didn't have my horse (was left just outside of Alftand), so I fast traveled to the Tower of Mzark from the Tower of Mzark to get it back. Even though I'm not using fast travel for this character.

What level were you when you went to Blackreach?

So, today I did missions for the Dawnguard. Started off being assigned to kill a Traveling Adviser vampire in Dragon Bridge. Left Lydia, Serana and Shadowmere near Meridia's Shrine. On the way there, I met Taron Dreth, who was interested in my Crown. I was more interested in the fact that he betrayed a ghost girl I was rather fond of. It was not a long fight, even with my self inflicted handicap, lack of back up, and his mercs.

I turned into a werewolf in Dragon Bridge to kill the vampire. Things went smoothly. Pretty sure I saw Babette on my way back to the shrine. Unfortunately, I was unable to speak to her being in my beast form at the time.

Stopped by my current family house, Heljarchen Hall, made a few upgrades in the basement, which I never finished. Mostly just wall decorations and shrines to the Nine I don't have materials for. Need to finish that up. Found that neither Mjoll, nor the kids, seem to have any comment regarding this house. I will probably move them back to Lakeview soon.

Following a few other minor missions, one of which prompted Lydia to leave my service for some odd reason, though I was immidiately able to rehire her, so I continued on, I got another my wife has been kidnapped mission. I usually find these quite fun. Though this one proved a tad challenging. Not the mission itself, but my self inflicted restrictions. Even though I find my wife's stalker annoying, I don't like to see innocents killed if I can possibly avoid it. For most of these missions, Aerin will spawn somewhere near the entrance to the dungeon, and not move deeper in, so I don't have to worry about him too much. This time, he spawned right next to Mjoll, who was right next to the Master Vampire, and he got aggressive. First time into Orotheim, I got around the bend just in time to see the Master Vampire raising him from the dead.

So, I reloaded a save I'd made just outside, just in case. Thankfully, I was immediately able to correct the problem. This time, I equipped the Slow Time shout, and both my over powered one handed weapons, my Dragon Life Sword and Dragon Spirit Mace (I've been using Bound Swords to level my Conjuration as well). With time slowed to a crawl, I was on the vampire before he could close to melee distance with Aerin, who was rather gusty with his dagger today. Slow Time wore off just after I killed the vampire, and I spent the rest of the fight dancing around him stabbing anything that got close. Serana and Lydia mopped up all the bandits I ran past. Saved my wife, and her little eternally in the friend zone lackey. Good day's hunting.

81. The Khajiit was level 81 before she even left Helgen. She will remain 81 for however long I keep her (probably not long).

Gotcha! It sounded like you were still a kitten running around in the dark.

Completed the Thieves Guild questline without registering any kills with my "pacifist" character Angrun. It was a challenge as Mercer's, Brynjolf's, and Karliah's kills all register as yours. Angrun has also completed the College of Winterhold and Civil War Stormcloak questlines without registering kills. Impossible to complete Dawnguard DLC quesline without kills - but you CAN make it to the final showdown "killless". Same with Dragonboard DLC - no kills until the Summit of A. And the Main Quest is possible to complete as a pacifist until you meet Alduin for the last time...

My other characters have thousands of kills - but my "pacifist" is the most challenging - fun too. I have a character that kills only dragons and undead, she is fun also. I am thinking of creating a khajit that only kills rabbits. Wonder how many bunnys L'mur Fud could rack up....

Well, in a sense, she is. I've only put 6 hours onto her... With three of those being today apparently.

Anyway... What did I do in Skyrim today?
I decided to give Skryim Heart Rate a test on that Khajiit character (whose name I apparently can never remember... Starts with a Z, I think). It's a different way of doing things than I've seen with other mods; it doesn't add a stamina drain while running or anything else. The mod page explains things better than I could, but so far, the mod isn't getting in the way of ordinary gameplay... Much. It's only when my poor Khajiit gets exhausted when things get a tad annoying. The more tired the character is, the slower they are.

I got a laugh out of it earlier. Fast traveled to Skyborn Altar (did I say I wasn't going to use fast travel? Hah. Silly me. But... I just wanted to fight a Dragon. And get that Ancient Black Sacrament armor stuff that was there) and found myself under attack by four Dragons at once. There was an Awakened Dragon already waiting there, but an assault event spawned a Nether Dragon, Storm Dragon, and a Mechadon along side it.
I had set my characters maximum combat heart rate to 170bpm so LTS would decrease a little faster, figuring that fighting would make you more tired than simply running (max heart rate set to 150 for running, 190 for sprinting, rate of LTS decrease kept on default, threshold heart rate set to 80). After the battle was over, I pressed the L key just to see what it would say... "Your body is screaming for rest!" Well, no [&@%!]. As it should be after fighting four freakin' Dragons. On Deadly Dragons Insane preset no less (how I managed to kill four Dragons in ten minutes on the insane preset while only doing 400 damage is beyond me. Vulom can't even kill them that fast and she also does 400 damage).

This one might be a keeper. Not interested in mods like Frostfall or Realistic Needs and Diseases, but this one isn't too bad. Won't get in the way of too many things. I just wonder how the author is going to adapt this to Vampires. In the mean time, the mod can be disabled in the MCM so I don't have to use it on all characters.

So, other than mod testing, I did more hunting. Covered the area around Bonestrewn Crest and Whiterun again. Decided to leave my horse behind and go on foot. I actually walked from Bonestrewn back to Whiterun... Wouldn't have taken so long if Skyrim's walk speed wasn't so slow. At least it gave me a chance to gather a lot of ingredients.

I also started the Main Quest. If I do keep this Khajiit character, I probably won't be doing the Civil War. She may have escaped Helgen with Ralof, but she doesn't want to support either the Imperials or the Stormcloaks. Just went with Ralof because, y'know, he was in the same situation. And he wasn't going to have her executed.

She'd definitely be doing the Companions, Thieves Guild, and Dark Brotherhood, though.
Not so sure about the College of Winterhold. She does have skill in magic, but she prefers either her crossbow or her ebony blades.

Edit:
Apparently the Khajiit's name is Z'Rykash. She looks strangely like an aunt of mine... It must be the hair.
Yep. Definitely the hair.

Z'Rykash likes relaxing. In random locations. At random times.
The Skyrim Heart Rate mod comes with a handy relax feature that lets your character sit down wherever (basically the Sit Anywhere mod). The only issue with that is that she keeps floating above the ground. Or the camera glitches afterwards, but that can be fixed by hitting U again to relax, then again to stand up.
Z'Rykash will even relax under the stars.

Stopped in Whiterun to sell stuff, then headed on home to the Reach and added two more followers to Sylvaine's budding witch coven - Eola and Muiri (both of whom were destined to become witches IMO, and they wear those black robes really well). Still looking for two more to make seven, but I'm only going to take two + Cosnach with me at a time, so I parked Aranea and Muiri at Dead Crone Rock for now and took Madena and Eola along for the ride; Maddy's been doing fine since I taught her Heal Other and Rally, mostly making herself useful from the back seat and helping out with the odd lightning bolt in an emergency every now and then. I really love AFT!

First stop was Valthume, where we foiled Hevnoraaks attempt to resurrect himself; Eola's wearing his mask now and looking damn cool with it.

Also, while we were staying at Dead Crone Rock Sylvaine was chidden by her mentor Drascua for neglecting to refine her thu'um ("Had the Reach but had one tongue to shout back at the Bear Markarth might still be ours!" [/roleplay]), which has led her to finally visit the Greybeards at level 56. Main quest, here I come!

I went from Word Wall to Word Wall killing Dragons, then decided to go hunting again. Walked across Whiterun and killed a bunch of deer, saber cats, two mammoths, and one Giant.

Usually it's the Giants who send you to the moons, but apparently I sent the Giant to the moons today. Shot him with my crossbow and he was paralyzed. The Giant shot right up into the air, spun around for a while, and then dropped back to the ground. I finished him off, had a chuckle, then continued with the hunt.

I got a Dawnguard mission to kill a traveling pilgrim in Windhelm. I left Lydia, Serana and Shadowmere next to Utter Hills Cave. I've found its a nearly ideal location, easy enough to follow the road there from Windhelm, the guards won't chase that far, and if I don't eat anyone, its a near perfect distance, I'll start changing back from my werewolf form within a minute or 2.

But on my way back from there, I had a real treat. I ran into some Thalmor with a prisoner. Since I was already in my Beast Form, there was no need to throw my religious beliefs in their face to invoke hostilities. They just jumped right into the violence. Sadly, the prisoner jumped in on the side of his captors. Didn't meant to, but I caught him with a stray claw swipe I was aiming at a Justicar. While I'm normally obsessive about keeping civilians alive, a no name prisoner isn't worth reloading over. But I did make a point of not feasting on his flesh after the fight. I did devour lots of elven flesh, though. I was serious about this being a treat.

Sadly, the bodies despawned in record time. Couldn't find a one of them to preform the ceremonial looting of the bodies afterwards, even with a Detect Dead spell.

you did fine, the only good thalmor is a dead thalmor.

Went to Ustengrav to get the Horn of Jurgen Windbreaker for the Greybeards and was highly miffed at finding... well, the thing we find there. Somehow I have a feeling that Sylvaine and a certain other Breton will not exactly get on famously.

On exiting the tomb Sylvaine met and killed her first ever Revered Dragon, and shortly thereafter an Ancient just outside of Solitude. And on the follower front Eola has qualified for the Follower With The Most Repetitive Dialogue Award (FWTMRDA), so I'm heading back towards Hag Rock to replace her - there's only so many times in a row I can stand to hear "You're now one of Namira's faithful"; I don't know, somehow she wasn't so annoying back in my Bosmer vampire's days, or was she? Anyway, goodbye to her for now.

Skyrim is finally working on our pc so I spent a bit of time last night and this morning making sure all my characters and mods were functioning properly. Sylmirie finally cleared Folguunthur, Lieth snuck into Honeyside (she has a huge fine in Riften can't recall what for) and got the Glenmoril witch's head from her chest so she can cure herself of lycanthropy. Sigh...the time has come. She also hired Marcurio as her new mage follower just in time so she could make a fast escape from the guards. Felina and Onmund stopped at Whiterun for a few ales and had to spend the night there cuz too much booze and skooma makes one lazy.

Fram becomes responsible for the death of another brave woman's father, Serana wonders if she ever truly knew Fram, and Hermaeus Mora misses his cue:

21st of Sun's Dawn, 4E 202 - Serana's Diary
21st of Sun's Dawn, 4E 202 - The Devotions of Frea
22nd of Sun's Dawn, 4E 202 - Fram's Journal

My current character committed a public murder for the Deceiving The Herd quest. Her victim was Jora in Windhelm. This is the first time I've had a character get caught killing someone. Imagine my surprise when her husband, Lortheim, tracked my character down in Whiterun and threatened to kill her if she didn't apologize. My character killed him instead, and now Windhelm has no priests.

Vulom went and got a book for Neloth, then helped out Ralis at Kolbjorn.

Then I got bored and restarted From-Blackest-Reaches the insane Argonian whirlwind.

Edit:
And I apparently just discovered that RaceMenu does not like Vampires. With it enabled, my characters will not change skin tone upon becoming a Vampire. This is only the case with versions where Vampire tint overlays are supported.
Huh.

So now I'm looking for a possible solution. It's a little messy, but I might have to either disable or drop back to an older version of RaceMenu to get Vampire tints working properly.

In order to clean herself off the skooma, Felina has settled with Onmund in Raven Rock for some time. A negative: they're away from the kids but its for a good reason. Their second trip there, so far they've only gone into Vahlok's tomb. That was...a disappointment. Not nearly the amount of treasure they thought would be in there plus it turns out it was pretty much babysitting. They are now roaming around the island in search of some hidden treasures. So far, there hasn't been any opportunity for her to get skooma on Solstheim. Which means her withdrawals are pretty strong at this point (thanks to a mod) and its rather hard playing when her powers are so limited. Sigh.

I finally tracked down Torkild and killed him. He needed to wear a bell I swear. I also took down Kaarstag. Holy crap he was tougher than legendary dragons.

Sylvaine and her current entourage (Cosnach, Aranea, Muiri) met Delphine at Kynesgrove and . After some crafting & selling in Windhelm we moved on to Winterhold and spent three lovely full moon nights there, severely decimating the local horker population at night while learning the master spells of Illusion and Conjuration during daytime. On our way back to Windhelm (and onwards to Solstheim from there) we stopped briefly at Raldbthar in order to
(Btw I feel the plot of Dragonborn ties in very nicely with this stage of the main quest, Delphine's wariness and doubts of us resonating with the cultists' talk of a 'false Dragonborn' and sowing potential self-doubt in our characters; more interesting actually than playing DB with a char who's already accomplished everything IMO.)

I completed the last few quests I needed to do with Vulom. Suffered two Microsoft Visual errors and one rather odd glitch before the end.
Once that was finished, I removed her current save and replaced it with the one I made long before these issues started occurring... Bringing Vulom back 30 hours of gameplay, right into the middle of the Dark Brotherhood questline.

Other than that, I messed with From-Blackest-Reaches for a bit and got her into the proper gear. Now she's ready to start dungeon Diving.
Felzii Raan is also in the same place. I don't know who I'll do first.

Oh, and I created a new Khajiit mage. Tazika. I'm planning on making her a Vampire, but I haven't quite gotten around to that yet. Basically using her to test a few things. Specifically the workaround I've come up with for making Vampires work properly with RaceMenu. I'm going to have to use the showracemenu command, and then edit their appearance to make them paler (to look more like a Vampire) before I change them. And then once again afterwards to edit the complexion to the one most suitable for that character.

Arrived in Solstheim today and investigated the fate of Gracian Caerellius, then got a little bored and started a new character, my first ever Imperial, who goes by the name of Cumgrano Salis. Last scion of a formerly wealthy family, he spent most of his inherited fortune buying Vlindrel Hall in Markarth (hey, Alternate Start!) and is now forced to find a way of making a living without resorting to menial labour (which would of course be way below his station; we're talking about a guy who has a principle of wearing Fine Clothes only, except maybe if I find some sufficiently fashionable-looking and horribly expensive armour for him some day, provided I play him long enough, which isn't very likely). He started by taking care of the little problem in the Hall of the Dead for Brother Verulus, next probably Calcelmo's little quest, although I think he'll need a follower for that.

Got Azura's Star today and am now being a good College mage and seeking out the Staff of Magnus. Even though I still think the Mages' Guild storyline is pretty bleh and unimpressive now I'm doing my second playthrough with it, I'm paying close attention to any lore bits I hear. I'm wondering what the Synod in Cyrodill is up to, for instance.