In Which Shenner Goes to High Hrothgar

Not much in the way of new action in this session, mostly because doinking around with mods and seeing if I could improve my frame rate performance on my ancient PC took up most of the time. But I did clear Silent Moons Camp, have a look at one of the new homes in the Anniversary Edition, and make it to High Hrothgar!

Highlights

• Play date: 5/21/2022
• Session number in this run: 5
• New plan, since I had trouble going after the Saints bandits: go after the bandits at Silent Moons Camp instead!
• Lydia and I basically mopped up the place
• Returned to Whiterun and slept at the inn
• Collected bounty from Proventus the next morning (noted that he did have a new conversational prompt to buy Tundra Homestead)
• Did a small amount of shopping, then set out from Whiterun to head for the Greybeards
• Went over and had a look at Tundra Homestead since it was right there, right across the road from Battle-Born Farm, even if I don’t have the money to buy it yet
• After that, headed on towards the Greybeards
• Passed a scavenger who was looting dead Imperials and Stormcloaks; didn’t bother to engage
• Killed a bunch of wolves, both before and after Valtheim Towers
• Valtheim Towers bandit actually relented when I tried the Intimidate check! Yeah, lady, Shenner has no time for your bullshit, and neither does her housecarl
• Lydia, bless her aggressive heart, charged across the river once we reached it and killed a frostbite spider on the other side
• Once I was almost to the long zigzag of trail, passed a Vigilant of Stendarr who’d killed a couple of wolves; yeah, buddy, have fun being sanctimonious about daedra worshippers, shit, you people are almost as bad as the Thalmor
• Once across the next river, after I mined an iron vein, finally cornered by the troll I was expecting once Lyds and I were a little ways up the hill! And I killed the bastard, shield-bashing on it was helpful 😉
• Made it into Ivarstead
• Passed Boti the farmer who was bitchy; yeah yeah lady, I’ll pass on right through here as soon as I get some sleep, okay?
• Headed into the inn and saved

Commentary

First notable new thing about this run: actually seeing what the outside of Tundra Homestead looks like. I couldn’t not investigate it, since it was right there next to Battle-Born Farm, in the stretch of open land between that farm and the path that leads over to Fellglow Keep and Shearpoint.

It looks like a nice place, designed to match the overall architectural styles of Whiterun and its surrounding buildings. And I will probably buy it when I can just for the sake of trying a new thing! But that’ll be a while yet, I suspect. I need to build up this alt’s stock of gold.

(One big caveat with this, though: from what I’m seeing looking up those cottage on the wiki, there is buggy behavior associated with it. Most notably, you apparently can’t safely move your spouse and children there. But also, for a location that’s supposedly set up to let you display a lot of your more unusual treasures, it seems like it has trouble actually reliably showing those treasures. So I’ll have to see what happens with that.)

It is always deeply satisfying to pass an Intimidate check with the Valtheim Towers toll bandit. Because fuck you, lady!

And I think this was possibly the first time I’d ever gotten Boti’s line in Ivarstead snarking at you about moving right on through. Geez, antisocial much?

Next time

Next on the docket: getting Shenner introduced to the Greybeards. And since this is an Adept level playthrough, I’ll take her back down to Ivarstead, at which point I should also have my first encounter with the Miraak cultists! Then I can run Shroud Hearth Barrow.

Once I do that, I’ll head back to Whiterun. And see about running the quest that’ll get me access to the Silver Armor. Because with so many new armor options around now, I may find Shenner becomes a Heavy Armor type of warrior! And I suspect she’s going to need the added protection to go tackle the Saints bandits.

Screenshots

Editing to add

• 11/22/2023: Restored missing gallery, and added play date and session number markers.