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Dargar, former orc-guard turned into a bountyhunter:
-Spent the night in Riverwood and picked up a bounty from the Inn.
- Headed out to Valtheim Towers, stopped by to kill a necromancer at the Standing Stone. Discovered that Skyrim's whole wolf-population seems to have something against him. Well, he has plenty of wolf pelts for smithing and selling.
- Cleared the Towers from bandits and looted the place.

Magritte and Sinmir, Nord warriors, cleared Silent Moons Camp. Everything went fine until they entered the interior section. At some point during the fight at close quarters Sinmir was pushed into the swing of Magritte's battleaxe and killed together with the bandit he was fighting ("SINMIR! NOOOOO!"). Magritte may have got carried away a bit chopping up the other two bandits after that.

Back in Whiterun Magritte tried to wash down her self-reproach for getting the old guy killed with a few pints too many and made the bad move of challenging Uthgerd to a brawl; Uthgerd remained Unbroken, whereas Maggie may have lost a tooth or two. Up in her room she had some more mead and smashed up everything smashable in a drunk rage. In the morning she felt even worse and left 100,- septims in the end table to pay for the damage.

Magritte alone sought to numb her guilt and grief in battle against some more bandits at Redoran's Retreat and skeletons at Hamvir's Rest. It didn't work, but she found she could handle herself quite well without a follower and vowed to fight alone from now on. After a night of fasting and meditating in front of the shrine and statue of Talos and listening to Heimskr's sermon over breakfast she felt purified and leveled up, then went to clear Valtheim Towers in an epic battle that lasted through most of the day. She escaped death by the skin of her teeth a few times but was victorious. (There's a good dozen bandits there with Requiem, the line of dead bodies along the road was impressive.)

Poo the Imperial went to Soltsheim for the first time.

Interesting place. On one hand, the NPCs there really seem to appreciate your help in a way the Skyrimmers seldom do. Makes you feel at home.

On the other hand, I wince and feel bad any time I'm forced to kill Rieklings. They're just so cartoonish and silly. Sending them to the eternal dirt nap seems wrong. It's like clubbing seals.

Considering how I've never seen seals, only horkers, I hope you're not thinking THOSE things are cute. If so, I have a lovely plot of land in New Sheoth for sale for you.

Near the mountain pass above Nightgate Inn, Casandra Serein encounter three Imperial Legion 'soldiers' consisting of an Orc, Breton, and Dark Elf who then proceeded to 'fine' Cassie for interfering with Imperial business...

...at which point Casandra revealed that she was an actual member of the Imperial Legion, and they were most certainly not. Fightage ensued, followed by lots of deading.

The kicker is, Cassie was wearing a Stormcloak uniform the entire time. This was all during "A False Front" and Casandra was taking the stolen Stormcloak orders back to the Pale military camp.

I finally decided to return to playing Kas'Lei so that I could finish the Dragonborn questline... Only to find that I actually can't go any further. CTDs upon entering Tel Mithryn every time. First it was that random spot near Bloodskal Barrow and now it's Tel Mithryn. If this happens a third time I'm just going to declare Kas'Lei dead. It's getting annoying.

I've cleaned her save again. If this doesn't work... Ugh. 164 hours to get to this point.


So... Basically all I've done today is test a few mods. One was a retexture for the dragon soul effect (which I uninstalled because it really made no difference) and another is a house called Thornrock that I plan to use for Narji (who I will probably play when Kas'Lei's save quits). Oh, and there was that new rug mod as well. 2k was working fine, but I downgraded to 1k because my GPU is unhappy at the moment. I wish I could remember what driver I was using before... I'm having issues with this one.

Edit:
Well, Kas'Lei got a bit farther (back to the Skaal), but I have no idea how long this will last. I think I'm just going to finish Dragonborn and then call her done.
I was considering trying that Grey Cowl of Nocturnal mod, but I don't think that will go too well with this save. Then again, maybe this is just a Solstheim thing. I don't know.

Dargar, orcish bountyhunter:
- Arrived to Whiterun, met Jarl, cashed the bounty and sold loot.
- He spent a evening at the Bannered Mare and brawled with Uthgered. They made friends and he slept in her house.
- Next day he headed out again. Cleared an unmarked and unnamed bandit camp...run into wolves again and then cleared out Halted Stream Camp (but not before he became first orc to reach orbit, thanks to some giants), reload, try again.
- Back to Whiterun, get the reward, smith and sell loot. Then he took wagon to Falkreath.
- Gave the Jarl a bribe (bottle of Black-Briar mead), cleared the Embershard mine for the Jarl. Bought a plot of land.
- Did some odd jobs around the town, gathering crops, delivering ashes and chopping wood. It was enough to get him thaned.
- Built a nice little cottage. On his way to get more wood from the lumbermill, he ran into wolves again. Six at once, this time. Back to Falkreath to buy glass and such, spent the night in Dead Man's drink. And back to furnish the cot and make Rayya the Steward.
- Then he headed out towards the Knife Ridge. Saw lot of action on the road. Hunters, spriggans etc.

Shani, dunmer rogue, and Teldryn Sero (up until a point.)
- Delivered bear pelts to Temba Wide-Arms. After returning home, Shani fired Teldryn. She worked on expanding Heljarchen Hall.
- All alone now, she headed out to Cracked Tusk keep, it's time to reforge Mehrune's Razor.

Sylmirie and her housecarl from Markarth (because his name doesn't matter since she never bothered to learn it), were out traveling through the Skyrim wilderness only to run into her husband, Aicantar.

Okay, if you're out here, then who's watching the kid?

"You can't just leave me at home with that brat all the time." says Aicantar.

"That brat comes from your wicked seed." responds Sylmirie.

No one wants to babysit the High Elf kid. Point taken. Aicantar will never again stay home to raise his family (the nerve).

Rearranged my mods again, and added a new one, Deadly Dragons. Since it required turning on Dawnguard, which I have had disabled for a year or so, I also had to get Timing is Everything to delay vamp attacks, and that required Hearthfire. At least TIE can keep those DLC quests from triggering automatically.

All this meant I created a new character. Meet Maeva:


I'm thinking stereotypical Altmer mage, though I might go sneaky sniper. That's always fun.

I was considering getting rid of Timing is Everything. As far as I can tell, it conflicts with some of the fixes made by the USKP.
About the only thing I'm using it for is to delay the arrival of the Cultists, but I can live with them showing up during The Horn of Jurgen Windcaller. I don't usually do the main quest that early anyway.

Anyway, on PS3, Arandis is working on the civil war stuff. She traveled to Whiterun to give a message to Jarl Balgruuf and he sent her to Windhelm to deliver another message to Ulfric. It took a while because she kept running around and either harvesting ingredients or mining ore. Why? No idea. She has enough crap anyway. Nowhere near as much as Kas'Lei, but it's still a lot.

Later, I'll probably push Kas'Lei to the finish. Her save problems have existed for a while (most of the bugs I've encountered have actually been from quests I've modified with Timing is Everything), but now that she's getting older, the issues are getting worse. There's probably some bad mod issues, but since I'm planning on removing around 16 or so mods once Kas'Lei, Vulom VI, and Narji are done, I can't be bothered to do anything about it now. Eh.

Well... It's not like it matters. I'm getting bored of Kas'Lei. Very bored.

I haven't run into any problems so far. Of course, I'm only up to Dragon Rising.

Today, Maeva, sneaky Altmer mage thing...

*Had the proverbial bodily wastes scared out of her when a dragon flew right over her camp. And she thought she would be safe being near the garrison at Helgen...
*Against her better judgement, she poked around the smoking ruin, found a dead guy, saved an almost-dead guy, realized belatedly there was yet another guy who may or may not have died (he kind of disappeared...), and neatly ignored that really, really stupid suggestion about 'splitting up' on the way to...
*Riverwood:
**Played matchmaker for the lulz
**Stripped Alvor's house bare (hey, he did say she could take whatever she needed)
**Popped into some store that was randomly open in the middle of the night and sold junk to buy precious spell-tomes, then waltzed back out again while pointedly ignoring the 'help me adventurer!' vibes the owners were radiating in her general direction
*Made the two-minute journey to Whiterun, slaughtering the wildlife along the way - some of which may or may not have been hit with her favorite spell, Fury.
*Sold more junk, did a side quest for a cowardly priest, for the most underwhelming reward ever. She probably should have just kept the amulet.
*Wandered north over the plains, killing no less than ten billion wolves before she started getting into snow drifts.
*Hightailed it back south. A... premonition told her there would be valuable things in Bleak Falls Barrow; the most precious of all being saved time. So she pwned that thang.
*Not amused by Irileth. Or Proventus. Or Farengar.
*Okay, maybe a teensy bit amused by Farengar's reaction when, as he's mid-condescending lecture, she whips out the stone.
*The big panicky moment came while Maeva was fiddling with the enchanting table. Alas, Irileth stopped mid-speech and presumably glared at the Altmer's back until she paid attention.
*Farengar's boyish excitement was kind of cute. Too bad he's a Jerky McJerkface.
*Tuned out what was probably supposed to be a Big Moment because she was staring at the cobwebs on the ceiling. Eww.

It shouldn't be too much of an issue if you actually do quests before you hit level 81 (or wherever you stop leveling). I made the mistake (with Vulom VI) of insta-leveling to 81, thus locking myself out of the Wolf Queen quests in Solitude. The USKP edits that so the arrival of the courier isn't tied to leveling up. Timing is Everything seems to edit the same thing, meaning the USKP fix doesn't seem to work anymore. Even more fun was when I set the Boethiah quest to a high level to avoid starting it immediately, unaware that it can't be changed later. So... Yeah. That's why Vulom VI is level 116 instead of 81.

Edit:
Then again, I seem to have an older version (1.3 maybe?). I have no idea if the author included the USKP fix in v2.0.
I'd update it, but since I don't plan on keeping the mod around any longer... Not much point.


Kas'Lei seems to have an entirely different set of issues. The Cursed Tribe, as one example, wouldn't start despite the fact that she was well over the vanilla required level and the level I had set in Timing is Everything. Other Daedric quests had issues, too. Though at least they were more minor.
I'm actually not sure what has been causing that, so... Eh. I've just been dealing with it as it happens. Vulom definitely never had any of those issues. It's something [&@%!] up in Kas'Lei's save.


Anyway, I'm going to go and play her now... Let's see if I can actually make it through the last of the Dragonborn quests without another fixed CTD.
If I can, I'll do the last of the quests on Solstheim, head back to Skyrim briefly to recruit Inigo and check out Thornrock again, and maybe I'll try the Grey Cowl of Nocturnal mod if everything else works.

Edit:
Kas'Lei has finished the last of the Dragonborn stuff. She slaughtered Miraak (with about four dual-wield power attacks), and then proceeded to explore a tomb with an old man.

After that, she returned to Skyrim (which seems to run better than Solstheim), gave a letter to Sapphire, recruited Inigo, returned to Lakeview Manor, and had a very long conversation with that blue Khajiit.

If the main thing you're worried about with Dawnguard is the death of certain NPCs because of vampire attacks, I can recommend the simple "...When Vampires Attack!" mod, it causes all NPCs to run into their homes/nearest safe house when, well, when vampires attack. I use it in combination with "Run For Your Lives!" which does the same thing, save for dragon attacks. I don't need a random blacksmith trying to be brave and take down a dragon or other random NPC being caught in the line of (literal) fire.

I haven't notice any ill effects from either of those two.

I've used both of those before, but Deadly Dragons 'Make Important NPCs Essential' sort of made them useless.
Then again... I don't seem to get vampire attacks very frequently anymore. Which is funny because they're set to be fairly frequent and starting at low levels in Timing is Everything. I think Kas'Lei only had a couple before she completed Dawnguard.

It's more that I have to have them (the DLC) on because reasons, but I don't actually want to play them again at the moment. I still haven't done everything in vanilla, after all. (One day...!)

Heh, I haven't finished a single Elder Scrolls game yet either. Some DLC, sure, but never the main games. There's just so much enjoyment of wandering around, doing your own thing, questing your own way, and suddenly having the idea pop up for a new character, and see how you can do things differently.

Everyone disappoints Balsmelmo, including you:

The Annals of Balsmelmo - You call this barn a castle?

Dargar, orc bounty hunter:
- Cleared Knifepoint Ridge
- after the compulsory sell, craft, get reward -pause, he headed out to Moss Mother Cave.
-Helped Valdr and found Runil's journal, back to Falkreanth
- Next stop, bandits of Bilegulch Mine. After those were dealt with, Valga apparently had ran out of Bounty -quests. Seems like Dargar has decimated the bandit population of Falkreanth to the point he had to do something else.
- He remember the shopkeeper in Riverwood wanted him to retrieve a stolen item. Off to Bleak Falls Barrow.

Gbaji, have you perhaps been inspired by the Thalmor lovers thread? Also great choice of avatar in Balsmelmo's stat card (that is Lucius Malfoy, isn't it?)!

OT: Magritte, Nord warrior, finally worked up the courage to ask Kodlak if she could join the Companions and surprised herself and everyone else by giving Vilkas a hearty thrashing in the test fight. After one or two minor missions she was sent to Dustman's Cairn with Farkas to Prove her Honour by retrieving a fragment of Wuuthrad. A silver greatsword looted from one of those Silver Hand guys stood her in good stead against the draugr in the final chamber (she prefers axes, but there seems to be no silver battleaxe in the game). When they emerged from the crypt it was in the middle of the night and raining cats and dogs, so Magritte unrolled her bedroll in the shelter of the steps leading down to the main entrance and told Farkas to not be a fool but cuddle up to her. If the cuddling led to anything else both are keeping mum about it.

When they returned to Whiterun Magritte was officially made a member of the Circle and was beside herself with pride, even though she's far from sure what to think of their furry little secret she found out when she and Farkas first met the Silver Hand. She's had a private talk with Kodlak about it and agrees very much with his attitude on the matter.

She also levelled up again and received a letter from Jarl Siddgeir of Falkreath who offered to make her a thane of his hold although she's never spoken a word to him before. She was puzzled but also honoured and decided it couldn't hurt to talk to him, so she's currently on her way to Falkreath (and butchering any bandits she runs across on the road).

No, actually; I hadn't read that thread until today. I don't want to go into too much detail, but I have some plans for Balsmelmo that require a sociopathic level of arrogance that I decided only an Altmer could provide. It's somewhat relevant that Balsmelmo has been excluded from the ranks of the Thalmor; it gives him a sense of aggrieved privilege that can only be salved in a particular way.

If you don't mind my asking, Finn, do you play with the English-language edition of Skyrim? I imagine a not insignificant part of players' dislike of the Thalmor is due to how they are voiced. Have you ever played the German-language edition? I'm curious how the Thalmor sound in German.


Of course.

^I played the German language version for a long time but switched to English when I made a clean install for restarting Marilyn with Requiem. By then a lot of English-language mods had turned my game into a linguistic potpourri so I thought I might as well have it be consistent.

Most of the German voice actors match the English ones pretty closely except the accents are less varied (no cockney Dunmer etc.), and the Thalmor sound just as arrogant and bigoted as in the original.

The Altmer have a lot in common with the Malfoys, don't they? At least those in the Dominion - they're posh, racist and on a dark path, but not without hope for redemption. I suppose they think of Bosmer and Khajiit as their version of house-elves.

Is it difficult to sound arrogant in German? I would say "No". The two actually compliment each other like hand-in-glove. And before anyone picks up their poison pen with their wringing hands to post nonsense about bigotry and other crimes against humanity, know this: I am German by birth, was raised in a German household, and German is my mother tongue.

As for my character, Imperial Poo defeated Karstaag today. Along with The Ebony Knight, this not-so-friendly giant has to be one of the toughest foes in the game, at least as far as melee combat is concerned. And it doesn't help when you're locked in a playpen-sized combat arena with no form of cover.

That just about wraps up Poo's Soltsheim adventuring. Time to pack up all the loot and take the boat back home to Skyrim. Now that I have the Black Book knowledge and Ahzidal's rubbish, I can finally craft the ultimate matched sets of enchanted armor for myself and my follower. Time to put this dumpster-dive mishmash of looted enchanted armor away. It has served us well, but it's time to start looking like The Dragonborn instead of a scurrying fetcher.

Evil-i, is your character really named Imperial Poo? Because if so, that's very creative!

Sylmirie and Aicantar continued their adventure through some mage keep on a mission for the COW. They found the thief that stole the books, and Sylmirie is planning on using him as bait, but he doesn't know it yet.

Evil-i, I don't think it's difficult to sound arrogant in any language with the appropriate mindset. It's easier in some varieties of German than in others - being from the North definitely helps (thinking of a former boss of mine who could make you feel like insignificant vermin and strip paint from the wall with a raised eyebrow).

Also, pity you can't mod your game because Poo should definitely be a werebear.

OT: Magritte, Nord warrior, chopped up a lot of wolves, bears, bandits, draugr, a necromancer and a spriggan in Falkreath hold. Heavy armour + battleaxe is a rare playstyle for me, but every once in a while it's just immensely gratifying to tank through a bandit camp and cleave through everything with one or two power attacks. Simple pleasures...

I forgot to post this yesterday. Or... Today at midnight, really. Both.

1. Arandis has decided to postpone the battle for Whiterun. She figures they can wait for the Dragonborn to show up. Instead, she decided to continue running around, exploring and gathering random crap that she's probably never going to use.

2. Kas'Lei, with Inigo in tow, wandered around and also gathered random crap. She eventually checked out Thornrock and then that was it.
Kas'Lei has been deleted now as the character is complete.

3. Narji also wandered around and gathered random crap, though in her case, since she's only level 3, it actually will be used. She had a rather nasty encounter with a large mudcrab in which I realized very suddenly that I had forgotten to lower the difficulty down from legendary. Oops. The Nord berserker managed to live, though, and she continued on her way to the Lord Stone (I think...).


On another note, I don't know why Aela has to give you same response of "Well that's taken care of... No thanks to you" even if you were nowhere near the farm when the Giant is killed. Technically, Narji had no idea that was there. How was she supposed to help when she didn't know they were fighting a giant on a farm? All she discovered was the aftermath when she went to snatch some chicken eggs.