Skyrim

As I started a new character, I have naturally run into Deadric quests. I start to think and discovered they are... immoral? What do you think?

That coming from you means it's serious.

Jad.3 wrote:

That coming from you means it's serious.

Well, murdering innocent priests, eating people alive, sacrificing a wife to Beotiah... Sorta heavy stuff, no?

OK ALREADY I WILL PLAY!!!

I haven't done all of them yet, but honestly, I myself might find some of them disgusting, though I'm not doing any of it. The character's I play do.

Might be spoiling some of them.

Jeune is in the middle of doing Namira and Molag Bal's quests. For Molag's, it's fairly simple. She is already annoyed with the Viligant, and when Molag says CRUSH HIM, she isn't going to hesitate. Most of my other characters have not either. For Namira's, well, I'd say she might have been somewhat like a Nagaraja in the past, so it isn't really a problem.

Azura and Merida's are probably the lightest, since in both you are doing something rather good - unless you go back to Nelacar with the Black Star. Which I haven't done with any of the characters who've done the quest.

With Boethia, I've just sacrificed one of the hire-able mercenaries. No, I would not choose Lydia. Hmm...maybe Delphine after the MQ...either way....Dreh Ni fus, BAH.

Feral wrote:

Jad.3 wrote:

That coming from you means it's serious.

Well, murdering innocent priests, eating people alive, sacrificing a wife to Beotiah... Sorta heavy stuff, no?

For the Boetiah quest I always run over to Windhelm and hire a mercenary in the tavern. And yes, Daedric quests tend to be morally dubious at best and downright evil at worst. That's sort of the point.

Dragatus wrote:

Feral wrote:

Jad.3 wrote:

That coming from you means it's serious.

Well, murdering innocent priests, eating people alive, sacrificing a wife to Beotiah... Sorta heavy stuff, no?

For the Boetiah quest I always run over to Windhelm and hire a mercenary in the tavern. And yes, Daedric quests tend to be morally dubious at best and downright evil at worst. That's sort of the point.

I got an idea for Beotiah Quest. Whay not to marry the "strong, Nord women" from Whiterun, and then... Two birds with one stone...

Unless you have a mod for it you can only ever marry once, so if you actually want to marry someone else later on you may have problems. But if you want to stay single, then go ahead.

Dragatus wrote:

Unless you have a mod for it you can only ever marry once, so if you actually want to marry someone else later on you may have problems. But if you want to stay single, then go ahead.

May characters never marry in Skyrim as a rule. Sometimes they do adopt, but again no girls. #Boys are better.

Sorry for no translation.

Jad.3 wrote:

*picture*

Sorry for no translation.

What on Earth is that?

A bassoon.

Jad.3 wrote:

A bassoon.

*tilts head and licks snout in confusion*

Here.

Anyway, has anyone managed to install some HD mod?

The Slovene name for that instrument is the same as the Czech one. Made me laugh.

Dragatus wrote:

The Slovene name for that instrument is the same as the Czech one. Made me laugh.

Polish one too... Jad, you darn homophobe!!!!

I should have guessed it will be something like an evil prank... Oh, my hurt gender identity!

My poor belly aches now...

Let's see...Silver Hand, Dawnguard, Vigilant Of Stendarr...annoying. Why? Because all they consider, would be what something is. Werewolf, Vampire, etc. Doesn't matter at all that the individual in question isn't attacking towns, isn't killing innocent people...no, all that matters is that they are a Vampire or Werewolf.

One of the reasons why I CANNOT bring myself to play the Dawnguard side of the DLC. I would not want to stand to hear Isran call Serana "It". I even shut off Gopher's Let's Play soon after I heard that part. I did finish the rest(more so the last Chapter where he finishes the MQ, but not the DG playthrough with Richard).

Also, lovely Havok physics. Aela

I'm actually done with that quest(eh, more like standing outside Dustman's), and with the mod, It's 8 more radiant quests until she gets the Beast Blood. Meh. Might reduce that number a bit.

Well, Maxus... After what I have been doing as a werewolf I think Isran could be right
No Thalmor were hurt during my meals. OK, maybe a few...

@Jad:

On a more serious note:







What do you think?

Feral wrote:

Well, Maxus... After what I have been doing as a werewolf I think Isran could be right
No Thalmor were hurt during my meals. OK, maybe a few...

Maybe. But then again, the first location you might come across as a Vampire Lord is Northwatch Keep, full of Thalmor. I don't think I would have any characters who wouldn't kill them on sight. Even Circe, who is a Thalmor herself. She literally started as one with Live Another Life, which actually puts your character into the Thalmor Faction(until you visit Helgen). But I don't think I'll be starting the MQ with her for a while. But for Dawnguard, I have her last save standing near the Carriage in Solitude, about to take it to Riften. As for Werewolves, I didn't really try and kill that many of the Guards with Claudia, but she didn't go after anyone else. The only issue I had was with how short a duration you have for the transformation before feeding a lot and getting more perks. Plus, I even had a Frost Dragon attack before I even went into Gallows Rock.

As for the Stormcloaks/Imperials, most of my characters would stay out of it. Though they would still think that the overall problem is the Thalmor, nothing else. Hence why most(all) of them have not let Elenwen stay during Season Unending.

Also, something I'm rather curious about - while it isn't a real problem, I wonder why some act like Mod Organizer isn't worth it. I can understand mod pages on the Nexus not mentioning that using MO means you don't have to worry so much about overwriting files(at least to the end that removing a mod that does so means reinstalling another mod), but those that make it seem like either manually installing mods or using NMM is better might not be wrong, but I've had very few issues with MO, mostly things easily fixed.

Feral wrote:

On a more serious note:
[youtube]
What do you think?

I did not finish the first video, as it was incredibly naive. The other was quite the opposite, but builds on that one fact alone. Fortunately for me that fact matters for me the most  Haven't the Nords watch The Batman - don't they know what they should do? What would Alfred say?

As for the coughy video, here's the first comment: "Dude, don't title your video "Stormcloaks or Imperials" if you're biased to the Stormcloaks, just call it "why I support the Stormcloaks"." (Seriously though, the cough's bugging me, I ain't watching).

The fact is, if we took poll amongst the Skyrim players, most would be pro Stormcloak. Well...


Sidenote edit: Arwel was not so swift with an arrow in his back. Good lord that was fun!

I don't feel like wasting 20 minutes on those videos. Instead I'll finally deliver the post I promised.

As we all know Ulfric Stormcloak is a controversial figure. To some he is a hero, to others a rebel. But to everybody he is a pretty straightforward guy. He may be right or wrong, but either way his intentions are honest and transparent, right?

Wrong.

What Ulfric Stormcloak really is, is a master manipulator. He played the Empire, he played the people of Skyrim, and he even played the Thalmor, all for his own ends.

It probably didn't start out like that. The story starts with him getting captured by the Thalmor and interrogated. That almost certainly wasn't part of any plan of his. At this point of the story the information we have about him is most likely still straightforward.

Thalmor dossier:

The dossier mention that the Thalmor established contact with him after the war and specifically mentions the Markarth incident. Then it states that he later became uncooperative, implying that before the incident he cooperated with them. Most likely they blackmailed him, threatening to reveal that he betrayed the Empire during the war by giving them crucial information. Ulfric complied (or so it seemed) and the Thalmor felt good about themselves, not realizing they were about to get played.

So what was the Markath incident? My necromancer character recently had a chat with the Jarl of Markarth about that very subject. After the Reachmen had recaptured their land and establsihed their own kingdom the Nords got desperate and enlisted a miltia under Ulfric's leadership to recapture the city, promising free worship of Talos in return. I asked the jarl why they did so, knowing that it was against the white-gold concordat. His answer? "We hoped the elves wouldn't find out." But they did find out and they demanded the arrest Ulfric and his men. The jarl concluded the story by saying that was where the Civil War actually started.

Now look back at the dossier: "After the war, contact was established and he has proven his worth as an asset.The so-called Markarth Incident was particularly valuable from the point of view of our strategic goals in Skyrim"

Ulfric personally told the Thalmor about the deal he made with the jarl. But why? Because he knew how they would react. And he knew how the Nords would react to what the Thalmor would do.

Alvor's words on the banning of Thalos:

After the Great War Talos worship was banned, but the Empire didn't bother to actually enforce the ban. The Markarth incident changed that. It brought the Thalmor into Skyrim. People started disappearing in the middle of the night. And the Nords got angry. They began to hate the Thalmor for what they were doing and the Empire for allowing it.

Meanwhile Ulfric became jarl of Windhelm and made it possible for people there to freely worship Talos. Soon many Nords flocked to his banner. He got his army, which he needed in order to fulfill his real ambition: to become high king of Skyrim. Sure, he probably wants to be able to freely worship Talos as well. But if that was all he wanted he wouldn't have needed to killed Torygg.


If you talk to Sybille Stentor she has quite a few things to say about that sorry affair. Torygg's father managed to keep the peace for 25 years after the Great War. Then the jarls gathered at the moot to elect a new king and Ulfric used the opportunity to advocate for independence. Torygg wasn't ready to take the step just yet, but he greatly admired Ulfric for it. Sybille suggest that if Ulfric wanted to, he could've persuaded Torygg to declare independence. This is further reinforced by the reasons she gave for them allowing Ulfric to enter the city on that fateful day. "We thought he was here to ask Torygg to declare independence."

Note how if you fight on the Stormcloak side the Civil War ends as soon as the Stormcloaks control all the holds and take over Solitude. Apparently that's enough for the Empire to pack up and leave. Now imagine if the high king of a united Skyrim declared independence. There would be no war. Instead the Empire would've been forced to just accept the hard facts. Hundreds or even thousands of lives would've been saved. But there would be one crucial difference. Torygg would've been high king, not Ulfric. So Ulfric decided to kill Torygg instead and make out of him a symbol.

He showed up and challenged him to a duel. It was indeed done by law and custom, but that doesn't mean the fight was fair or right. Torygg had no choice, it would've been shameful to refuse (he was a stereotypical Nord, dumb and fearless). So he fought. A young man, barely adult, with some combat training, but no experience. And on the other side Ulfirc Stormcloak, a legion veteran wielding the thu'um. The outcome of the duel was predetermined and that's what makes it murder, albeit a legal one.

Of course Elisif could not support the man who murdered her husband. So she turned to the Empire for help. She didn't really have any other choice. And that's why we have a Civil War. A Civil War. Even on the Imperial side most soldiers are Nords. And many worship Talos. Torygg did and so do jarl Balgruuf and legate Rikke. This is not the Empire trying to despotically hang on to a province that no longer wants to be part of it. This is brothers killing brothers, when instead they could've stood side by side against the Aldmeri Dominion.


To sum up, if Ulfric just wanted a free Skyrim he could've convinced Torygg to declare independence and got it pretty much without bloodshed. But he also wanted to be high king. So he manipulated the jarl of Markarth into promising free worship, then informed the Thalmor about the deal. Their inevitable crackdown on Talos worship lead to mass recruitment into his army, which he needed so he could fight off the Empire which Elisif was bound to call for help after he murdered high king Torygg.

Ulfric is daring. Several parts of the plan were highly risky. First he risked when he informed the Thalmor (and he actually did get arrested). Then he risked when he rode into Solitude alone to challenge Torygg. Finally he risked by starting a war that would pit him against the Imperial Legion. But all that doesn't mean he isn't a master manipulator. It just means he is a master manipulator with balls of steel.

And my stance on the war? I still think that by far the most important thing is to end the war as quickly as possible, regardless which side wins. It doesn't matter if it ends in an Imperial or Stromcloak victory as long as the victory is quick and decisive. But I for one don't want to reward Ulfric for starting the whole bloody affair in the first place and that's why I would choose to fight for the Empire.

Jad.3 wrote:

Sidenote edit: Arwel was not so swift with an arrow in his back. Good lord that was fun!

Arvel the Swift was kind of slow with a blade between his shoulders, too... But the spider was a problem. Conjure Familiar FTW


EDIT: Aw, we posted at the same time... I will respond to your well thought essay as soon as time permits.

Dragatus wrote:

Something awesome.

Based on cold facts. Like a childrens puzzle, connecting the dots. I love you so much right now I could cook for you. Speechless of the marvelousness of your magnificent posting.

Thanks. I'm happy the 2 hours I spent writing that post weren't entirely wasted.