Unorthodox Roleplays.

[Velvet LeChance]

I've decided that I'm going to get back into playing Skyrim (we'll see for how long), and to do that I'm going to need to decide on some sort of roleplay: last time I played I can remember going for some unusual archtypes, which were fun, so I decided to go with the same sort of thing again. The problem, and that's why this thread is being made, is that I've no ideas coming to me. I'm looking for novelty here, but at the same time something that might actually be fun to play: I don't have the patience to play, say, a goat-herder based out of some isolated ranch; I want to get some action in here.

At the moment, I'm leaning towards playing an archaeologist: focus on primarily defensive and self-case spells, and bring a follower around with me for actual protection. Though, I'm hoping that people here might have some better suggestions. If people also have suggestions for mods that might improve the experience (I'll be playing Skyrim), then I'd be happy to hear here at the same time.

[Dohva.]

We have a few of these roleplay threads around here, especially in Skyrim General. But as for your archaeologist, have you thought of making him specific to one subject? Draugr dungeons, Dwemer ruins, maybe giants? Or what if he's researching the history of deathbells used for poisons by the Dragon Cult? I think narrowing it down would also help you immerse more into your character's research and story.

[Velvet LeChance]

We have a few of these roleplay threads around here, especially in Skyrim General.

I was hoping that this wouldn't be categorised as a duplicate because I was going for niche stuff in particular. I was hoping it'd function as an area to ponder ideas than ask for help myself, too.

Though, feel free to merge it if you consider it a duplicate.

But as for your archaeologist, have you thought of making him specific to one subject?

Yup.

She'll be delving into Dwemer ruins in particular, because that gives me an excuse to do all those great quests that such might entail (see: Lost to the Ages). I'm considering casting her as Calcermo's niece if I do roll with what I've got in mind. Though, narrowing it down further into a certain area of the Dwemer would certainly make it feel more immersive: maybe its automations? I'll have to think of something now, anyway. It'd need to be broad enough that I can get at least a few dozen hours out of it.

[Minor Edits]

If you were a cartographer, that would be a great reason to explore Skyrim. And get in all sorts of trouble along the way.

[p-sto]

One the roleplay ideas that I most regret not playing through was Dunmer revolutionary. Basically a Dunmer living in the Grey Quarter who gets sick of the situation and decides to stir things up. The idea of how I was going to play her was basically raid ruins and the houses of the wealthy to get funds to help people. In addition go barracks and steal weapons frequently in order to arm the people of the Grey Quarter in case they need it. Plus do anything you can to undermine both the Stormcloaks and the Empire because frankly neither have done much for the Dunmer. I think the main problem with this idea is that there's very few quests directly supporting it so you may need spend a fair amount of time thinking about motivation.

Interesting NPCs mod seems to add a lot of depth to both the Thalmor and Talos worship, so it would be pretty easy to go with either side of that. Even if you don't I still recommend the mod if you don't have it. I installed it yesterday and have been having a ton of fun with it since. It's quickly become my favourite mod.

Or I suppose you could play an unconventional race to switch things up. A snow elf going in deep caves trying to find evidence if any of her people still exist. There may be better now but this was my favourite Snow Elf playable race mod. It's notably stupid looking because the author used Bretons as the base race so head shapes and ears are wrong. Though if you know the creation kit (and I know it pretty marginally) it's not much trouble to tweak the mod to fix that. I tried others but they all seem to have difficulty with getting skin textures to match, though not much of an issue if you're the sort who doesn't like to look at his characters.

I also once considered playing a daedra trapped on Mundus but gave up on the idea because I couldn't find a decent playable Dremora mod and I really wanted the character to have a Dremora form.

[Dohva.]

The Dwemer ruins is one that can span a while. My Altmer mage also does research on the Dwemer and is family now with Calcelmo. She's almost level 50 now and I have yet to do Winterhold college questline with her yet, meaning she has spent most of her time going into Dwemer ruins (and also draugr dungeons because she has an interest in the undead). So yes, its possible to do archaeology and expand that for a while. One idea I'm probably going to follow through with is reincarnating my assassin into a bard and having her do one handed, illusion, staffs for destruction, flesh spells instead of armor, and speech.

Also, Minor Edit's cartographer idea sounds rad.

[Musicman247]

Moved to Skyrim General since you're talking about making a character for Skyrim.

[Mattbott]

I have a nord archaeologist studying the Dwemer. He's maybe 30th level and just scratching the surface so if you feel interested in dwarf ruins, the game gives a lot of content and most of it is amongst the best in the game imo. The aetherium wars story, developing the dwarf crossbow from dawnguard and of course Blackreach were high points for me.

I was intrigued by a forsworn character thread on this site and will do this after my mega wizard has saved the world - wonderful low tech way to live for a while

[p-sto]

The more I think about it UFO's capacity for taking multiple followers would fit in great with an archaeologist type build. Go to the College of Winterhold and possibly other places to recruit research assistants and go from city to city to hire muscle to protect the team. Set the researchers to be less aggressive in combat. Possibly set them to be completely unaggressive and stand back and chat with them while the meat shields do the fighting.

[Velvet LeChance]

Playing a Cartographer does sound like it would be interesting.

I'd be lost in terms of specifics though: like, thinking about it, I can justify most archtypes in the name of cartography: I'd imagine that I'd probably head more towards bard-y type build, though.

---

That's an interesting idea too, p-sto. If I wanted to set someone non-aggressive would I need to delve into the creation kit or is there a mod that allows me to do it quick? I've never actually used the creation kit, I don't think I even have it, so the former being the case might present itself as a bit of a challenge.

I also like the revolutionary character idea, might try that some other time, though right now I'm aiming more for a character who's not combat-orientated.

[VirtualWeasel]

Someone once suggested the idea of a bandit to me.
That is, a full commitment to a bandit, where you add yourself via console command to the bandit faction and remove yourself from any others. I haven't tried it yet, but it sounds like it could be some good fun.
Obviously it wouldn't last too long in terms of play time, but still.

[p-sto]

That's an interesting idea too, p-sto. If I wanted to set someone non-aggressive would I need to delve into the creation kit or is there a mod that allows me to do it quick? I've never actually used the creation kit, I don't think I even have it, so the former being the case might present itself as a bit of a challenge.

It's actually a part of UFO, you can have a conversation with your followers about how they behave in combat.

[Finn Wolfshorn]

I was intrigued by a forsworn character thread on this site and will do this after my mega wizard has saved the world - wonderful low tech way to live for a while

I had a Forsworn witch in my last finished playthrough and had a total blast with her; there are some very well thought-out mods on the Nexus that flesh the Forsworn experience wonderfully.

One idea I've had on my mind for a while but never got around to actually playing was a Thalmor undercover agent on a mission to ferret out and eliminate the last two surviving Blades; also undermine the Imperial and Stormcloak forces to make sure neither side wins the war (converging with p-sto's Dunmer revolutionary here, which is a great idea btw) - but as you'd nominally be bound to the White Gold Concordate all actions against the Empire would have to be stealthy ones.

Or what about a merchant travelling between Windhelm and Solstheim, trading with the Dunmer at Raven Rock and the Skaal?

[rcbecker123]

Playing a Cartographer does sound like it would be interesting.

I'd be lost in terms of specifics though: like, thinking about it, I can justify most archtypes in the name of cartography: I'd imagine that I'd probably head more towards bard-y type build, though.

---

That's an interesting idea too, p-sto. If I wanted to set someone non-aggressive would I need to delve into the creation kit or is there a mod that allows me to do it quick? I've never actually used the creation kit, I don't think I even have it, so the former being the case might present itself as a bit of a challenge.

I also like the revolutionary character idea, might try that some other time, though right now I'm aiming more for a character who's not combat-orientated.

You could do the Indiana Jones type of thing also hunting artifacts and important dwemer items this ties into what your talking about with the dwemer.

[Nord85]

How about a mine prospector? Skyrim is full of ore veins, both on surface and in the caves, so extensive wandering even in remote locations would fit to the roleplay. Plus, all the gear you need is a pickaxe and maybe a torch for seeing those veins in caves. You could combine smithing with this to make some money. For a potential magical slant, alchemy and/or Alteration could fit into the roleplay. After all, the prospector needs means both to travel safely (waterbreathing, X-skin spells, light), heal and buff himself in case of a fight and be able to carry all the ore samples(potions). Plus, he needs some means to fend off beasts and bandits, so a combat skill or two wouldn't be far-fetched to have. EDIT: Or, for a non-combat type, Illusion would work as well.

One twist to this could also be that your character is also trying to unravel the mystery of Dwemer metal. So, in addition to his/her prospecting, he'll also delve into Dwarven ruins to obtain samples. Smelting and smithing with other ores could be explained as experiments to determine the formula for Dwemer metal.

[VirtualWeasel]

^Being a fully dedicated blacksmith is actually one you could try that's similar to this. I'd done it for a while, but it is hard work, and pays [&@%!] money in the beginning.

[Snail's Pace]

Playing a Cartographer does sound like it would be interesting.

I'd be lost in terms of specifics though: like, thinking about it, I can justify most archtypes in the name of cartography: I'd imagine that I'd probably head more towards bard-y type build, though.

I think I read in another thread where someone did a cartographer character by printing a blank map of Skyrim and then creating their own map by discovering locations and marking them, using landmarks to pinpoint locations. You would never use the in-game map, of course. It would be especially awesome to do that with your first character, when you're more ignorant of the geography, but it could still be viable if there are still a lot of minor locations in the game you had not discovered before. You could also combine that with other character ideas - play a prospector mapping ore veins, a botanist/zoologist mapping the distribution of certain types of plants/creatures... etc.

[Dark Spark]

Back in Oblivion my characters would always try to provide relief for the refuge camp below Kvatch. Providing weapons and the like, just in case of a wolf attack or somesuch. A Skyrim variation could be acting as a relief worker or food supplier to Dawnstar, Winterhold, or some other relatively inhospitable locale.

[DarkEastwood]

I've done the Dunmer rebel before. It involved him coming in from Morrowind, making his living as a sellsword around Windhelm (but slowly gaining hatred toward the local Nords). Then one of the local Dunmer was killed by Rolff Stone-Fist (I frenzied the Dunmer) and he got off without murder penalties, so my character flew into an outrage and left the city to join the Legion. This involved a pilgrimmage to Solitude, and the rest is kinda just the questline. Most of his choices were based on his bias against Nords (or more so, the "Skyrim is for the Nords" type of Nords).

[AnnaMolly]

Rolff Stone-Fist

I was going to kill him until I saw he was essential, now I plant poisons on him when I see him. Paralysis poisons are my greatest form of entertainment.

As I said above, I was trying to kill Rolff, reason being that my character fought for the legion to take Windhelm and became a Thane of Eastmarch, I'm trying to rid the capital of the extreme racists. I don't really roleplay, but I gave her a backstory in my head.

Basically, she awoke with amnesia en route to Helgen, ended up joining the Legion and ultimately gained the title of Thane of Eastmarch, hating the racism within Windhelm, she left her home and joined the Dawnguard, soon after vanquishing the Vokihar threat, she started to feel ill, finding that she had contracted Sanguinare Vampiris, she allowed a vampiric ally, Serana, to bite her and become a vampire by her rather than some anonymous pawn from the cursed castle. It was with that she left the Dawnguard. Eventually having to kill someone when caught feeding she was found by the Dark Brotherhood and became an assassin, studying magic, alchemy, and various other things before eventually retiring. She decided to return to Windhelm and put her new skills to use, eliminating many of the radical and racist citizens. She now lives in Hjerim, making poisons as a hobby, reading books and drinking as a pastime. She'd like to buy The White Phial one day and even succeed Brunwulf as Jarl because "This is my city now."

I like to call my class "Arch-Battlemage." I wear Arch-Mage's robes, the matching boots, and a Diadem of the Savant. I wield Chillrend as a signature weapon with a spell in my left hand, occasionally swapping to dual-cast spells, a staff of Incinerate, or a bow. I also have a set of Royal Vampire armor I use occasionally when not in the city. My character is lv 252 so has all perks. >.>

[Tor Eden]

You could play Skyrim as a wandering chef where you travel Skyrim cooking and selling food for your income. The skills would be:-

Major
One handed - as a chef your going to be familar with knives
Alchemy - for health potions and herbs/spices for roleplay
Alteration - for the flesh spells as your apparel will be the chefs hat and tunic from Radient raiment (its upto you if you want armoured boots or not)
Speech - for selling your wares
Minor
Destruction - fire spells only for starting fire to cook on
Archery - for a bit of big game hunting

[Khali]

One mod that will help you with your idea is Alternate Start - Live Another Life. There are several starts in that mod that would place you in different factions and start in different places. Some are set to certain races and others are not.

One of my favorites is Shipwrecked off the Coast. You have to make your way out of a capsized ship collecting equipment along the way and then swim to shore to the east of Dawnstar. You could be any one that was traveling to Skyrim from some where else for what ever reason you like. Just take your role play story line from there.

A Dunmer refugee on the Winterhold docks or in Ravenrock, assuming you have Dragonborn DLC, is another option among many.

The archeologist is a good idea. Another might be an anthropologist that has come to study the Orc villages, going to be lacking in related quests though. I do variations on the roaming miner idea a lot myself.

If you have not tried it yet you might give Helgen Reborn a run through. You basically help rebuild the town with a ton a related quests added in by the mod. You could have all kinds of back stories related to the mod.