In Which Nona Has a Long and Bumpy Start

I hadn’t meant to start a new Skyrim playthrough quite yet–but I decided to change my mind, on general grounds of “well, everything sucks and dammit I want to play some fresh new Skyrim.”

So here you go! Brand new playthrough starting, featuring the Tuxborn modpack. I will have a lot of commentary about Tuxborn and everything in it! This initial post is covering the general action in this first session, but I have a related post up as well, with commentary about the modpack in general.

Play by play

Play date: 11/12/2024
Session number in this run: 1
Deleted prior test saves and restarted the character for real, using previously saved RaceMenu preset
In Alternate Start, chose the “I was left for dead” option on the Mara statue
Woke up near Steamcrag Camp in Eastmarch
Found the wrecked wagon I’m used to seeing there, and the dead horse–but this time there was also a living Khajiit, Tanita, who begged me for help
I agreed to take her to Windhelm–at which point she cackled “You adventurers are so gullible” and leapt up to attack me
She proceeded to hand me my ass half a dozen times
Then came up with a strategy: let the nearby giant and mammoth take Tanita out for me
This worked like a charm
Let the giant and mammoth stomp off out of range, then looted everything off of Tanita and went on my merry way
Initially tried to go west across Eastmarch, but got killed by a bear
Thrown back to just after Tanita got giant-stomped
New plan! Go to Kynesgrove!
Found what appeared to be a note to Tanita, from someone called Lajjan, and got an objective to follow up on that
Passed what appeared to be dead revelers killed by some wild creatures; they had a note lying around about late-night partying
Talked with Iddra the innkeeper and picked up various quest objectives, including going to Helgen, a bandit bounty, talking to Roggi, and going to the College of Winterhold
Had long conversation with an Altmer named Fareloth but did not get a quest objective off of him
Had another conversation with a Dunmer named Rudin Filaro who did give me a quest, escorting him to a nearby Shrine of Mara
Agreed to do this (even though this was highly ill-advised, LOL, see below), and headed out to go past Windhelm’s stables, the farms, and Traitor’s Post
Bandits at Traitor’s Post threw warnings at us but I didn’t get close enough to engage
A wolf did get close enough to engage, though–and so did the Frightened Woman NPC who babbles about Mistwatch; she marked my map
Pointed her back at Windhelm
Then derped my way through the dark to try to find my way to the shrine, which was, of course, what I thought it was: the Sacellum of Boethiah
Got ambushed by some kind of a rune, at which point, Rudin Filaro totes attacked me
Woke up at the Pillar of Sacrifice, surrounded by a bunch of dead cultists
Searched several of them and nabbed items off of them, including a few Blades of Sacrifice
Finally found a guy who wasn’t dead yet, and started to ask him WTF had just happened
But we were rudely interrupted by an attacking bear, which promptly killed me
And I was thrown all the way back to the inn in Kynesgrove, AUGH
New plan! Go to Windhelm!
But first, rented a room from Iddra and stayed the night, so that this time I could actually go out in broad daylight
I still had the side quests I’d picked up from her, but did not have the quest from Rudin, so this must have thrown me back to a point just after I’d talked to her at the inn’s counter?
Headed out to walk to Windhelm
Arrived in the city, saw usual “assholes harassing Suvaris” encounter
Sold stuff to Oengul and Niranye
Took the carriage to Whiterun–and then managed to kick myself all the way back to Kynesgrove’s inn again, AUGH, WTF?! I think I accidentally hit the button on the Deck that I have mapped to F9 😓
So talked to Iddra again and rented a room again, and this time found a note from Inigo on the counter, LOL
Got up in the morning and walked to Windhelm, but this time I went looking for the Wild Horse I know spawns in the area–only to remember the horses don’t spawn until you have the map for them, oops
Then went into Windhelm again
Talked to Suvaris this time after the assholes hassled her, and assured her I did not hate the Dark Elves
Sold stuff again to Oengul and Niranye
Once more took the carriage to Whiterun, and this time actually got there safely
Sold a bunch of things to various vendors, and picked up various side quests to start making coin (see below)
Once done with all the Whiterun things, took the carriage to Solitude
Cue Roggvir’s execution! But it was pretty damned dark because nighttime, so I didn’t really see anything very well, including what Solitude looks like with this modpack
Went to the Dragonborn Gallery to talk to Auryen and got his initial quests
Then tried to go to the Winking Skeever to rent a room–aaaaaaand the game locked up
So I had to hard reboot the Deck, and that threw me all the way back to Whiterun, AUGH
New plan! Time to go to Helgen!
So I walked all the way to Riverwood, and went into the Sleeping Giant to rent a room there–which also let me see how Delphine looks in this makeover
Rented a room from Delphine (although conversation with her was a bit bumpy in this regard)
Met Gorr, a former arena fighter from Cyrodiil, and he offered to be my companion, so I let him
Slept the night at the inn and headed out with Gorr the following morning to go to Helgen
And OHNOEZ HELGEN HAS BEEN DESTROYED BY A HUGE BLACK DRAGON ohnoez
Rescued Hadvar from the cave and returned to Riverwood
Talked to Alvor and got the objective to return to Whiterun to warn the Jarl
Passed mead revelers on the way and got a bottle of Honningbrew mead from them
Made it back to Whiterun, checked in at Dragonsreach, and told Balgruuf what was going on
Talked to Farengar and got objective to go to Bleak Falls Barrow
Slept at the Bannered Mare, then headed out in the morning to go to the barrow
Stopped in Riverwood to pick up the Golden Claw quest
Got Carlotta to guide me over to where to approach the barrow
Headed up that way with Gorr
Looked for the steps up to the shrine I’d noted in Kendeshel’s run but could not find the right path up
So aimed for the watchtower with the bandits
Gorr took a while to catch up, and I didn’t want to engage them all by myself
Gorr and I took them out, and I mostly let Gorr do the work on that, while throwing flames in bandit faces
This got me a sword and a dagger and a bow, yay!
Proceeded on around to the barrow
Noted that sneaking blew hard through my Stamina regen
Took out exterior bandits at the temple
Got in and started running the place, but was killed by the first two bandits inside
Thrown back to coming out of Dragonsreach in Whiterun, so finally stopped there

Left for dead in Eastmarch

I was very, very curious about how the “left for dead” option was going to work on the Mara statue in Alternate Start. Tuxborn cuts down on the number of options usually available that way, because they were weeding out some of the ones known to cause issues on the Steam Deck, I think.

So of the ones remaining, “left for dead” seemed like the best one for how I want to start playing Nona. Anybody who’s read Nona the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir, you’ll know that the Nona in that book is a very sunny-natured young woman who has a very cloudy past prior to the events of the story. And I wanted to work that same idea into this Skyrim run!

I therefore figured, if she was left for dead somewhere, that would be the perfect excuse to have her wake up somewhere completely amnesiac. And one other thing I’ll note as part of Nona’s initial character state: I deliberately gave her heterochromia, since that was a thing I could do in the character setup, ha! This will be me doing the trope of a character with two different eye colors being a trifle otherworldly, and maybe even having a touch of the Sight. Nona will discover that she knows things, you see.

But not quite yet.

So I played through the initial encounter with the Khajiit Tanita–and can’t say I was surprised at all when she turned out to be faking being injured, and attacked me.

Which of course raises a damn good question about who the hell Tanita actually is. If I was one of the people on that cart that got wrecked, where was I going? Was Tanita part of the attack on the cart? Why was she hanging around if she and any compatriots she had already carried out their attack? Did she think maybe I wasn’t dead? But if she thought that, why didn’t she just, well, kill me?

Heh. This is definitely one of those “you should really just relax” situations, but hey. I’m a writer. Making up narratives is my jam. Especially on this blog.

Anyway, once I woke up, I discovered first of all that I had basic mining clothes on me, and a couple of food items. So I imagine Nona was in a state of panic at this point, wondering what the fuck happened, and maybe being even too shellshocked to think about such tricky questions like oh, say, who she is.

I got prompted by Wintersun to follow one of the Divines, which is the default behavior for Imperials. I declined to follow one for now, because again, amnesiac. I need to think real hard about how Nona’s inclinations are going to go as this game proceeds.

And oh no! Look, here’s an injured Khajiit! And she asks so nicely about taking her to Windhelm and I’m not entirely sure I know where that is, but okay sure why not, let’s go–

Oh noez. Dead, half a dozen times, when Tanita proceeds to hand me my level 1 ass. Even after I looted the nearby cart and found an iron warhammer. I couldn’t kill Tanita with it, or with the Flames spell I had in my arsenal of magic by default.

I was going to be frustrated by this–until I remembered that hey, Steamcrag Camp means there’s a giant camp right over there. I could, in fact, see the giant and a mammoth within visual range.

So I thought, if I can piss off that giant, maybe he’ll kill Tanita for me.

We shall assume for the sake of narrative, however, that that’s not what Nona was thinking. She was more thinking aaaaaaaah why does the Khajiit want to kill me, immediately followed by oh shit giant he’s very big he’s very mad OH SHIT HE’S COMING THIS WAY AAAAAAAAAAH.

Worked like a charm. I ran like hell towards the giant and the mammoth, which did indeed piss off the giant. Then I turned around and ran off in a completely different direction.

Turned once more to find Tanita engaging the giant, who then proceeded to flatten her into the dirt.

Take that, you stupid Khajiit! That’s what you get for being mean to a fellow traveler! And just for that, I’m going to take all your stuff.

She was wearing orange and green Moon Monk robes, in fact, which looked pretty bitchin’. And she was wielding two steel axes. Not really a fan of axes per se, I tend to prefer sword or dagger. But I figured the axes would do me until I could get something better!

And I did make sure that I got all the loot off the wrecked wagon, after that final encounter. It included a treasure map (called “Treasure Map – Tower Stone”)! I noted with satisfaction as well that all the various items were marked correctly with the icons that showed which ones could be displayed in the museum, too!

Kynesgrove and the Braidwood Inn

With that unpleasant encounter over with, I then had to decide where to go next.

I first thought I’d just head west across Eastmarch, halfway thinking I’d maybe aim for Gallows Hall, since I have yet to actually check that place out in a playthrough. And my intention of having Nona be amnesiac and a latent necromancer might be served by her not encountering civilization too soon.

The only problem with this: level 1 character. I was able to take out attacking wolves, but I was not able to bring down the bear that killed me.

So I got thrown back to just after Tanita got stomped on by the giant.

New plan! Maybe go to that “Windhelm” that mean Khajiit mentioned! How far away can it be, hmm?

Only Nona, bless her amnesiac little head, had no real idea where she was going. She followed the road until she actually finally wound up in Kynesgrove. Partly because I am not generally pro-Windhelm, and also, I just wanted to see if I could do anything interesting in Kynesgrove with this modpack.

I reached the Braidwood Inn, talked to the innkeeper and got the rumor about things going down in Helgen, and then got other pointers from her such as “convince Roggi he doesn’t have to worry about his debt” or “hey, the Jarl’s men left this bounty letter” or “if you really insist on learning magic, try the College of Winterhold”. Standard “talk to the innkeeper” type stuff (with the added bonus of the hook for actually getting to Helgen if you ran Alternate Start).

It’s only as of this playthrough that I realized Iddra has an odd line, when it comes to getting the side quest to help Roggi. She says: “If you’re feeling charitable, buy the Nord a mead. He’s good for it.”

And I’m all… but, Iddra herself is a Nord. So calling Roggi a Nord as well seems an odd way to phrase it. And I doublechecked; this is her vanilla line, too. So this isn’t a change added by any of the Tuxborn mods. But I don’t play often in Kynesgrove, so not terribly surprised I haven’t noticed this before now.

I did not find Roggi in the inn. But there were several unfamiliar NPCs around, characters I’m assuming got added in by Interesting NPCs, or any of the other hundreds of mods in this load order. So I started talking to them, just to see what they had to say.

Fareloth the Altmer

I liked this guy right out of the gate, in no small part because he had a very friendly demeanor that was immediately soothing to Nona–who is herself very sunny and perky and innocent. He had an intriguing tale to tell of his life story, and how he’d left the Thalmor to start a spice business when his wife gave birth to their son.

But he apparently also had a doppelganger of some kind wandering around Skyrim, a guy who never actually left the Thalmor. And he spoke of wanting to find this guy and learn more about him, and in particular where their life choices might have diverged.

Once I got pretty deep into his story, I was thinking “okay and why exactly does this guy have a double wandering around Skyrim?” I also kept waiting for him to give me a quest prompt, but he never did. So not sure if he was just there for atmosphere, or what?

I do kinda like the idea of NPCs just hanging around in inns and being ready to tell their stories. It does make visiting inns more interesting, that’s for sure.

Rudin Filaro and the alleged shrine of Mara

After talking with Fareloth, I then chatted with a much more shady-looking Dunmer nearby, Rudin Filaro.

This guy had the same voice lines as the priest Erandur in the Dawnstar nightmare plot–and he was dressed fairly similarly. And he gave me a spiel about wanting to visit a nearby shrine of Mara, but being wary of the dangers of the road.

Now, I saw when he marked my map that the area he marked was pretty much right where I knew damn well from previous playthroughs was the location of the Shrine of Boethiah. So that right there was enough for me to think, this guy is totally going to sell me out to the Boethiah cult, isn’t he?

Also, I knew from past experience that the one known good path to get over there was going to take me right past Traitor’s Post, which would be inhabited by hostile bandits. And as a starting character, I was very dubious about my chances of making it safely past there.

And the icing on the cake was, it was getting late game time, I had no source of light yet, and I knew it was going to be pretty fucking dark if I escorted this guy off to the shrine.

But I did it anyway. LOL. Because as a player, I was curious. And I figured that Nona, as a character, is pretty much going to expect the best of everybody. That needs to be her defining characteristic.

So sure, ominous-looking Dark Elf, I’ll walk you over to the shrine! Right now! Let’s go!

I was right, of course. Well, about the ambush at the Shrine of Boethiah part, anyway. I was not right about not making it past the bandits at Traitor’s Post–I actually managed to keep far enough away from them that they didn’t come charging at us!

I’m pretty sure a wolf or something did charge at us–but I didn’t have a chance to engage it. Because the Frightened Woman NPC that you can encounter in the wild, the woman who tells you she’d been kidnapped by bandits and locked up at Mistwatch, spawned and asked me for help. So while I was talking to her, I think I heard what must have been Rudin attacking the wolf in the background.

Then I tried to find my way to the alleged Shrine of Mara. Which, of course, turned out to be exactly what I was expecting: the Sacellum of Boethiah. And I tripped across some kind of paralysis rune, had lines to yell about it, and got promptly attacked by Rudin.

I am shocked, shocked I say, that this guy wasn’t on the level! As for Nona, I think she was just sad. Insert tragic puppy-eyed Nona face here.

Now, since I’d never really played anything at the Sacellum of Boethiah before, I ran with this just to see what would happen. Answer: I got knocked out, and I woke up at the Pillar of Sacrifice. The scene around me was surprisingly quiet… in no small part because I saw a lot of dead bodies around me.

I think this must have been the extended version of the Boethiah quest that Tuxborn includes, and which I’m definitely interested in playing, since it’s supposed to give you a way to satisfy that quest without having to sacrifice a loyal follower. And heh. It amuses me deeply that this thing started off with an NPC trying to pull that same damn trick on me.

Which raises the question, of course, of how exactly I got off the rune and over to the pillar. I suspect the answer to this was, Rudin hit me with some kind of whammy that enthralled me, or Boethiah herself did.

I checked out some of the bodies, noting that they all had a Blade of Sacrifice (which was marked as a displayable item for LotD, yep), and finally found a guy who wasn’t dead, Nort. After I gave Nort a healing potion, he started telling me what had happened. And from what he said, yeah, I’m pretty sure that what happened was a round of what would normally happen if the player runs this plot in vanilla Skyrim–i.e., bringing a willing person to the site, putting them on the pillar, having to fight all of the cultists. Nort described feeling compelled to fight, in fact.

And I had to kinda LOL that he kept trying to swear to me that he hadn’t meant to participate in any of this, and how Rudin was a horrible person responsible for the deaths of countless innocents. As a player, I must certainly go at this point, “My dude, you’re a Boethiah worshipper, part of a cult worshipping the Daedric Prince of Murder. I’m pretty damn sure you don’t have any room to throw stones here.”

But again, Nona just probably looked very sadly at this guy. She has no earthly clue who Boethiah is, right now. 😀

However, I did not actually get to finish my conversation with Nort, or see what happened next.

Because a bear showed up, rudely interrupted us, and proceeded to kill me.

And I got thrown all the way back to the inn in Kynesgrove. AUGH.

Going to Windhelm, and then trying to go to Whiterun

So I took a room at the inn this time, and slept until morning. I daresay that brightened Nona’s spirits considerably, and she cheerfully picked every flower she saw, because pretty.

I got to Windhelm, saw the asshole twins hassling Suvaris, and sold stuff to Oengul and Niranye. Once I had enough gold to do so, I went out to book the carriage to go to Whiterun. Two reasons for this:

Nona now knew something was going down in Helgen, and I think whatever gift of visions she may have was nagging at her that it was important that she go there, never mind if she didn’t really understand why.
Since I was still a level 1 character, I wanted to get the hell out of Eastmarch and into easier territory for a starting character!

So I made to Whiterun, long enough to note with surprise and pleasure that Ri’saad’s caravan actually had a location marker. But I didn’t make it into the city.

Something I did, I have no idea what, threw me all the way back to the inn at Kynesgrove. This was not Tuxborn’s fault, I think. I’m pretty damned sure that I must have hit the button on the back of my Deck that I have mapped to F9–i.e., Quick Load. So that’s on me.

But it did mean I had to replay going to Windhelm.

Note from a Smart Blue Cat

And this time through, yet again talking to Iddra, I spotted a note on the counter that I hadn’t read. This turned out to be from Inigo, LOL.

Those of you who’ve been following my blog know that my previous attempt to have Inigo as a follower mostly pleased me immensely–except for the part where he bitched at me about absorbing dragon souls. My opinion on this hasn’t changed, so I’m unlikely to pick Inigo up in this run.

Which is fine, because there are plenty of other followers available that I haven’t tried yet–and Nona found one! More on him to come.

Still though, I was amused to see the note.

Going to Windhelm and Whiterun, take two

This time, before heading into Windhelm, I walked past the farms again–but this time, I was hoping to maybe find the Wild Horse that hangs out in the woods near there.

I did not find that horse. The Wild Horses content is in the Tuxborn load order. But I think this must have just been because I hadn’t actually acquired the map to where to find the Wild Horses yet! So they haven’t yet spawned!

Getting a horse ASAP is definitely on the agenda, though.

While on this walk, I re-marked the locations for the three farms. And also located Yngol’s Barrow, for that matter. Nona did not go in there. I think her visions told her it isn’t time yet. ;D By which I mean, I didn’t want to go in there as a level 1 character!

So visited Windhelm again and sold stuff again.

This time, though, I also went into the White Phial to see about using the alchemy table. Because I had picked up a lot of flowers! And I wanted to get going on learning how to make potions with them. I did not take the White Phial quest from Nurelion yet, though. Because again, level 1 character. Way too soon to take that on.

And I took the carriage to Whiterun again, and this time I actually got there safely.

Snerk. I’ll take this as maybe a symptom of leftover trauma for poor Nona, from getting attacked and left for dead and all! Or maybe her visions getting stronger because of that. Or both? 😀 This whole seeing your life play out in loops thing is exhausting!

Finally, Whiterun!

From Kendeshel’s run, I knew that I’d be able to head into Whiterun unchallenged, because the attack on Helgen hadn’t played out yet.

So into Whiterun I went. Cue initial convo between Adrianne and Idolaf! Also cue my looking around and going “yep this sure is Whiterun and everything sure does look different”!

And I started selling things, and seeing about picking up side quests as well just to start making some coin:

Chopped firewood for Hulda (though I had to pick up the Woodcutter’s Axe at the woodpile to do it, since I hadn’t gotten my own axe yet, and that triggered a line from Anoriath, LOL)
Ran the “intro to forging” quest with Adrianne at Warmaiden’s
Took her quest to take the sword up to her father at Dragonsreach
And while up there, took the quest from Farengar to take frost salts to Arcadia
Went back into the Bannered Mare and picked up the Pets of Skyrim note, and got objective to go buy a goat
Got rumor about the Shrine of Azura from Hulda
Got Ysolda’s quest to bring her a mammoth tusk

I tried to talk to Carlotta to get her to tell me about Mikael’s unwanted attentions, but could not trigger that quest with her. Presumably there will be some other way to trigger this instead? I’ll need to be on the look out for that.

I also had additional conversational options with Ysolda–which indicated that she was totes crushing on Mikael, LOL. And I had a line which would have let me ask Ysolda if she’d prefer my company. I did not take that option, that seemed way too forward for Nona! But I am amused it was there. Also rather wondering if this was a route to the Mikael quest.

Found another unfamiliar NPC in the Bannered Mare, an old guy called Arghus, who was wearing a robe. I talked to him just to see what he had to say. Answer: a lot of mystical ramblings, mostly, LOL. Like Fareloth in the Braidwood, he did not actually give me a quest of any kind. This guy had some Septimus-grade ramblings, heh. He was old enough that he could maybe have even been a colleague of Septimus’, for all I know!

And also, while in the Bannered Mare, I found a notice signed by a familiar name: Auryen! A-ha, there’s how to kick off Legacy of the Dragonborn! And the quest to go speak to Auryen in Solitude did, indeed, launch.

I tried to see about finding M’Sharra’s note in the Bannered Mare as well–but this is another thing that appears to have been adjusted by Tuxborn, because there was no sign of it in the place where I expected it. So I’ll be on the lookout for how to launch that.

Shopped around just to see if I could get anything interesting at all into my inventory. At this point, not so much. Because I also noticed that everybody had more expensive prices than I was accustomed to! This, I think, was the work of another mod I’d already identified as interesting, and which is indeed in Tuxborn’s load order: Trade and Barter.

Once I got done doing all the things in Whiterun I wanted to do, I then decided to try to head to Solitude and follow up on that note of Auryen’s! So back out to the cart.

Attempted arrival in Solitude

Got to Solitude quite late, so when I arrived everything was quite dark. Again, a problem I’m going to need to address by getting a lantern, if I can’t figure out how to adjust the overall lighting balance.

This also meant though that I did not get a really good look at the overall changes in Solitude.

And of course, walking into Solitude for the first time meant seeing Roggvir’s execution. That, I feel, didn’t go over well with my Nona. She hurried right along to get out of the range of that unpleasantness!

I went to the Dragonborn Gallery to talk to Auryen–and I gotta say, not really a fan of how he looks in this makeover? He looks a lot older and quite worn. Which may be in keeping with his history, I grant! But it was not a good look on him.

I did at least get his initial “go get me these relics” quests. And I then tried to go rent a room at the Winking Skeever.

But as soon as I walked through the door, the game hung hard. I wound up having to hard reboot the Deck.

And when I came back, that had thrown me all the way back to Whiterun. So nothing I did in Solitude was still preserved. AUGH.

Okay fine so let’s go to Riverwood instead! And oh hi, Gorr!

Since Solitude was a wash, I decided to try for Helgen instead, since Nona now already had a reason to go there. And since I still don’t have a horse, I walked from Whiterun to Riverwood, and marked the various expected places for my map: the Pelagia farm, Honningbrew Meadery, etc.

And since it was late, I stopped in Riverwood to try to get a room at the Sleeping Giant. Which of course let me get a look at how Tuxborn overhauls Delphine. I have extended commentary about this in the post I’ve put up to go with this one. Short form: I think I do like her new look.

Getting a room at the Sleeping Giant though let me make another Tuxborn discovery: namely, the follower Gorr, who happened to be hanging out right in the very room I’d just rented from Delphine.

I started chatting with this guy and quickly learned that he was a former arena fighter from Cyrodiil, that he’d bailed on the arena because he couldn’t stand the idea of fighting captured beasts, and that he is a great lover of food. I also found one bumpy bit of dialogue which clearly assumed I’d already been to Helgen, because it mentioned the attack on the place and the dragon sighted there. But I hadn’t been to Helgen yet–I was on my way there.

So I suppose I’ll just have to assume for narrative purposes that Nona sensed something dragon-related was going to happen there? 😀

And Gorr offered immediately to be my companion, LOL. Easiest follower pickup ever.

So I went ahead and asked him to follow me. Because I did need his help! Nona was only level 2 at this point, and feeling rather at sea, and hoping she could find somebody to help her navigate the world.

(And an important note here–this is Gorr with two r’s, a character put in by Interesting NPCs. Not to be confused with Gore, who is also available in Tuxborn.)

At this point, I saw Nether’s Follower Framework kick in, with a message that Gorr had been added to “the 1st slot”. This is the first time I’ve run NFF, so I’ll have some practice to do with picking up how it works and what it’ll let followers do.

I slept the night at the inn, then got up the next morning to walk to Helgen.

Going to Helgen, and Gorr as follower

Coming to Helgen basically played out the same way it did when I ran this scenario as Kendeshel–only this time I didn’t have the excuse of coming in to look for relics for Auryen. I was just there because Nona felt like she ought to be there.

But I did find the Adventurer’s Journal, and got the prompt to check out the cave, just as Kendeshel had done. And I chose to go rescue Hadvar.

Cue walking with Hadvar back to Riverwood, because we had to warn them! And I had the by now familiar omissions from Hadvar’s travel banter, since of course I hadn’t been a prisoner in Helgen.

I did stop at the Guardian Stones as well, to pick up one of those. I chose Mage, since that seemed to best fit my intentions for this character.

During all of this, I noticed that Gorr was not following me as quickly as I was used to. He lagged behind me a lot, a thing which persisted for the rest of the session. This appears to be related to NFF settings, so I’m going to need to adjust those.

And once we returned to Riverwood, I did not get the vanilla scene of Hadvar leading me to his uncle Alvor. I did have a quest prompt on Alvor, though, who was working at his forge. So I went over to talk to him, and got a shortened version of the same overall idea: that why yes, he was willing to help any friend of Hadvar’s, and oh shit dragon? Then you need to go to Whiterun and warn the Jarl, girl!

I agreed to do this, and asked him for supplies, but he didn’t have much I actually wanted: namely, nothing to offer in terms of useful weapons.

So then, back off to Whiterun yet again!

Hey Balgruuf, guess what, I saw the dragon!

This was also familiar territory, since I’d done this as Kendeshel, too. Returned to Whiterun to check in with Dragonsreach, and reported that Riverwood was in danger from the dragon attack, too.

So cue all the familiar responses from Irileth, Balgruuf, and Proventus! None of the exchanges were different, just the appearances of all the characters. I rather like Proventus’ look, but not a fan of Balgruuf’s. Irileth I’m ambivalent about; she looks too pretty, and I’m not sure I like her being in chitin armor.

Had the talk with Farengar as per usual, and got the objective to go to Bleak Falls Barrow.

Which I did legit try to do, including sleeping the night at the Bannered Mare, and then proceeding to Riverwood in the morning to pick up the Golden Claw quest. I even made it as far as Bleak Falls Barrow itself and took out several of the initial bandits, with Gorr’s help.

But the first two bandits inside the temple took me out. AUGH.

And that threw me all the way back to coming out of Dragonsreach in Whiterun, which was a lot of progress to lose.

Next time

Before I do anything else with this character, I’m definitely going to have to adjust her auto-saves. As I’ve noticed in past playthroughs, not only of Skyrim but also of Morrowind and Oblivion, I am not good at remembering to save manually.

So at the very least, I’m going to need to turn on saves when I change zones. I can live without them on menus and waiting, but I definitely need them when changing zones.

And I’m going to need to finesse the follower framework settings. If I’m going into an active combat situation, I do not want my follower lagging several yards behind me!

Once I finish tweaking settings, I’ll need to think about whether to make another run at Bleak Falls Barrow. I’m not sure I should yet. Better gear and a bit of training may be called for. And that, in turn, suggests I may need to do some of the side quests I picked up in Whiterun first.

Screenshots

I took over three hundred screenshots doing all this playing, but whittled them down hard, because that was way too many screenshots to include in a single post! I got rid of a bunch of things that got retconned out of existence by being thrown back to prior saves. And I mostly deleted character shots from inns where the exteriors were too damned dark for me to sell well. But I’ve kept a few of the most major characters, and a bunch of scenery shots as well.

Here’s an assortment of the screenshots that remained after the cull!