In Which Nona Finds More Friends But Not the Horn of Jurgen Windcaller

Swinging back around to my Tuxborn 0.5.2 playthrough, featuring Nona the Imperial!

Getting a little farther in at this point, and this was a very busy session! In no small part because I picked up two more followers, bringing Nona’s group to six, hands down the most followers I’ve ever had in Skyrim.

Play by play

Play date: 11/28/2024
Session number in this run: 8
Picked up again in the Safehouse
Got Lydia and Gorr both a bit better armored
Chatted a bit with Eris and got her reactions to recent events
Took a rest in the Safehouse master bedroom
Spotted Nazeem in the Safehouse when I got up, WTF?!
Out on the streets, talked to Diane the beggar, but didn’t get any interesting info from her
Got ambushed by Berylla Sedai by Bits and Pieces, who kidnapped Aviendha! Ohnoez
Returned to the museum and triggered Auryen giving me Thornblade, since I had enough displays for that; put Thornblade up for display
Marked Katla’s Farm and the Solitude Sawmill for Nona’s map
Took out a wraith
Also marked one of the entrances into the Solitude Sewers for the map, for that matter
Leveled up to 9; took Stamina bump and Destruction Mastery perk
Headed towards Ustengrav
Encountered and slain en route:
- Dragon by Folgunthur, which I then marked for the map as well
- Two different frostbite spiders
- Something called a bogmort, which dropped Mire Flesh; don’t know what that was!
Found displayable coral, “Coral – Spiked”
Reached Ustengrav and started running the place
Interesting items found:
- Spell tome for Open Novice Lock
- Displayable book, Guide to Ald’ruhn
- Scroll of Summoning Rune
- Grass Fossil
Got Restoration skill bump from skill book
Hit the Nordic excavation site provided via Legacy; got first Archaeology perk point
Got the word for Become Ethereal off the Word Wall
Hit the corundum and silver ore veins near the Word Wall
Made it to the end and discovered OHNOEZ SOMEONE TOOK THE HORN
Boinged back to the Dragonborn Gallery
Hit the Donations box
Put assorted things on display
Continuing the theme of surprise NPCs in the museum, spotted Adrianne in the Armory!
Courier found me in Solitude’s streets, with the letter from the Jarl of Falkreath
And also a letter from Moraine, following up on the kidnapping of Aviendha; she promised to send me a Warder to meet me in Winterhold
Minus one follower, shopped at Beirand’s forge and Bits and Pieces
Returned to the museum and put more things on display
Nabbed Achievement gold out of the Achievements box
Investigated the Fate Card Collection box
Slept in the Safehouse and then did more display organizing
Picked up another side quest off of Auryen’s notes
Went back out again and found Khajiit on-site outside Solitude
Shopped with Ma’dran, and nabbed the crafting style book for the Moon Monk robes
Boinged to Whiterun
Talked to Ysolda and gave her her promised mammoth tusk
Spotted M’aiq the Liar on the way to Riverwood
Took out assorted random critters past Riverwood and heading to Falkreath
Also took out a random Argonian (who may have been a Dark Brotherhood assassin, didn’t catch that in the screenshots?)
Took out the bandits who had the Riverwood treasure map
Sighted random courier on the road
Took out a wraith and a random Orc
Passed hunter on horse
Reached Falkreath, visited Dead Man’s Drink, and rented a room
Spotted unfamiliar child, Henrietta Entius
Found notice of a former Blade rumored to be camping near Peak’s Shade Tower, and of Thalmor Justiciars getting slaughtered on the road to Falkreath
Slept at the inn
Talked to Lucien! And recruited him!
Talked to the Jarl and got objective to go take out a bandit for him, this time at Bilegulch Mine
Then headed over to Peak’s Shade Tower
Found Gore caught in a bear trap and got him out of the thing
And then got killed by the nearby Thalmor ;P
Did take two of getting Gore out of the bear trap
This time took out the nearby Thalmor
Got a bit of his backstory out of Gore, and officially recruited him, since he was grateful for my saving his life
Set out with my growing squad of friends to get to Bilegulch Mine
Passed Half-Moon Mill and marked it for the map
Accosted by a thief, and that did not go at all well for the thief
Passed the party trying to get to the wedding in Solitude
Found entrance to Bilegulch Tower en route to Bilegulch Mine
Then found the mine and started running it–which was not difficult at all coming in there with a large squad
Got Smithing bump off The Armorer’s Challenge skill book
Leveled up to 10, took Health bump, and took first of two Far Shot perks in Archery
Found a Ring of the Iron Fist in a heavy strongbox in Bilegulch Mine, and that was displayable!
Then swung back to Peak’s Shade Tower because I wanted to check out the other character I spotted in there, a Khajiit called S’vashni
Talked with her for a while, got her story, and learned she was bent on learning the Stance of Arkay, the last of a series of fighting stances based on the Divines
Got objective to ask an innkeeper for information about where to find any crypts that might house S’vashni’s dead master
Returned to Falkreath, and triggered a guard asking me if I’d seen a dog, so that kicked off A Daedra’s Best Friend
Theodyn Bienne also found me to ask me to find Lurius Liore, and that kicked off Wyrmstooth
Right behind Theodyn was the regular courier, with the letter to kick off The Rising Dead, and OHNOEZ ZOMBIES
He also had the invitation to Bloodchill Manor to kick off that plot, too
Finally returned to Dead Man’s Drink
And that gave me an opportunity to get a bit more backstory out of Gore
Reported back to the Jarl the next morning, and got permission to buy property and to help his people to become thane
Talked to Lod about the dog and got pointer to go find Barbas on the road
Then actually went and found Barbas
Discovered an Ayleid ruin called Atalatar, but did not explore yet, was trying to find Auri’s pod
Did some exploring, and killed assorted random critters
Found the Roadside Ruins for the map
Couldn’t find Auri’s pod yet so headed on over to Helgen to catch up with Barbas
Got the Mead With Juniper Berry out of Helgen
Also explored the keep for lootable stuff, and got the Book of the Dragonborn
Got back out again and resumed catching up with Barbas
But first, stopped to hit Orphan Rock for Nettlebane purposes
Cleared the place and got Nettlebane
Stopped there until next time

Eris and her oddly named weapon

I noticed, while working on upgrading equipment on my little follower squad in the Safehouse, that Eris was carrying a blade called Sunder. Its model when viewed in her inventory makes it look like a dagger–or maybe a broken sword? Because it does have an oddly jagged shape to it.

Given what I learned about Eris later (more to come on this in a later post), this has some tasty little implications.

It’s also important to note the name of this weapon, too. Because Sunder is one of the Tools of Kagrenac! But the Sunder that’s one of the Tools is a hammer, not a blade.

And now I am super curious about whether Eris is aware of that. She seems very competent and on top of things, but that doesn’t necessarily imply a knowledge of the history of Nirn. As of this writing, her weapons (because she had another named weapon show up later in Nona’s run) and their names haven’t come up in conversation with her. It’ll be interesting to see if they do.

Da HELL is Nazeem doing in my Safehouse?

After taking a nap in the Safehouse’s master bedroom, I got up again–and was surprised to see a familiar figure coming up the stairs. For values of “familiar” meaning “well, Tuxborn’s version of him, anyway, with which I am still not entirely familiar, but still familiar enough to go WTF IS NAZEEM DOING IN MY SAFEHOUSE?”

So when I looked this up, I found out that among the many changes made in version 6 of Legacy of the Dragonborn was the chance of NPCs from anywhere else in the game to show up at the museum. In general, I think this is an awesome idea. It really ups the feel of the place being a living, thriving establishment that’s getting attention all over Skyrim.

But apparently this means NPCs can show up anywhere in the museum? And I do not buy that Nazeem would have gotten into the Safehouse! Didn’t any of the museum guards see him striding up the stairs? Sheesh, why do we even have guards if they aren’t keeping random visitors from popping into the Dragonborn’s living quarters? This is what I get for not locking the damn door when I go to bed, LOL. ;D

And to be fair, I suppose I could totally see Nazeem being imperious enough to barge his way up any stairs he damn well pleased, even if they weren’t actually stairs to another public section of the museum. And also being enough of a dick to not apologize if it became clear that he’d gotten himself lost.

Nona being the sweet-natured person she is, I don’t think she yelled at Nazeem for being in her personal space.

Lydia, on the other hand, would have no such constraints. She’d absolutely clamp a hand onto Nazeem’s arm and haul him right back down to the Hall of Heroes.

Nazeem: “How dare you lay hands on me! Do you not realize who I am?”

Lydia: “I know who you are, and I don’t care. You still have no business in my thane’s quarters. I suggest you pay better attention to where you are next time you visit this gallery.”

Nazeem: “I’ll have you know I have the ear of Jarl Balgruuf!”

Lydia: “So does my thane. Who, I might add, is the Dragonborn. Which of you do you think the Jarl’s going to listen to more?”

And this would probably proceed to Nazeem raising an absolute shitfit as Lydia got him downstairs, Auryen hurrying over to defuse the situation and promising him a personal guided tour, and Lydia pointedly parking herself at the bottom of the stairs up to the Safehouse, to make sure nobody else wanders up there.

Lydia, later, to Nona: “I just want to point out how I did not actually beat Nazeem to a pulp. I feel I’ve really grown and matured as a person.”

Nona, giggling: “You are Best Housecarl and a sterling paragon of restraint.”

Diane the singing beggar

I’m not sure what mod adds a few extra beggars here and there. There are a couple new ones in Solitude in Tuxborn, and one of them is named Diane. She usually hangs out near the Bards College, and can be heard singing with a quite nice voice.

She does not, however, seem to have any interesting quest associated with her? I tried to talk to her, but didn’t have any options other than the usual “give a beggar a gold piece” option.

I do wonder if there’s some way to alert the Bards College about Diane’s presence, and maybe get a roof over her head, and let her join up and be a bard? If it’s possible to do this in Tuxborn, I haven’t figured out how yet. But I’ll be on the lookout for it.

Ambush by Berylla Sedai

In this session, the Wheel of Time plot showed up again. And I wasn’t terribly happy about what happened–because I got ambushed by the character Berylla Sedai, who then also kidnapped Aviendha.

I have the same objection to this that I did with how Project AHO started: namely, that I was ambushed in a situation where it made no goddamn plot sense whatsoever for an ambush to happen.

In Project AHO, my objection was that I had two armed warriors with me at the time, Lydia and Delphine. And I didn’t buy in the slightest that Lydia and Delphine didn’t see what happened, and that they would not have tried to intervene.

This time, I had pretty much the exact same objection, only more so. Because Berylla ambushed me on a public street in the capital of Skyrim. Right smack in front of Bits and Pieces, in fact. And there is no way whatsoever that this would not have been witnessed by a whole helluva lot of people.

At minimum, the rest of the followers I had with me at the time, Lydia, Eris, and Gorr, should absolutely have all tried to jump in and defend me. And that doesn’t even account for how each and every Solitude guard in visual range should also have seen a disturbance happening, and come running to intervene.

And if Berylla Sedai had that kind of power to publicly throw around, there’s no way that word of it wouldn’t be all over the damn place in short order. At the very least, the sighting of a powerful rogue mage assaulting citizens on her streets should have Elisif yelling for help to the College of Winterhold.

As with Project AHO, I can grudgingly see some precedent in Elder Scrolls lore to let Berylla have this kind of power. Paralysis spells are a thing. And in the College of Winterhold plot, we do see Quaranir invoking an ability to freeze time in order to talk to the player in the Arch-Mage’s quarters, without interference from the others in the room.

If Berylla pulled a similar time stop trick, throwing up a bubble that enclosed only her, Aviendha, and me, then she could have safely paralyzed me and then ported out with Aviendha with none the wiser as her bubble dissipated.

But that assumes two things I cannot actually confirm:

That it’s within Wheel of Time lore for a Darkfriend to pull that kind of time stop trick, and,
That’s what the mod creators were actually intending to happen.

Because I’d think at the very least that Berylla Sedai’s powers should be operating under what’s appropriate for Wheel of Time lore, not what’s appropriate for Elder Scrolls lore. She’s not from Nirn! So any magic she does should match up with what Robert Jordan actually established for his world. If there’s Wheel of Time precedent for her powers to be similar to those of Nirn mages, then great, go to.

But that precedent should IMO actually be there. And I just don’t know if it is, since I haven’t read the books.

Likewise, I don’t know if that’s what the mod creators were intending to happen, anyway. And I’m not sure if this is a question they could have adequately answered in the scene as it played out, regardless.

All in all, since I was already kind of surly at Aviendha about the whole Ysolda thing, I honestly wasn’t managing to muster many giveafucks about her being kidnapped. So I had a lot less of a sense of urgency about her welfare than the situation might otherwise have warranted.

And it didn’t help, either, that none of my followers responded to what was going on. Which, sure, that’s par for the course with Skyrim. The usual vanilla Skyrim situation is, you have one follower, and that person’s ability to respond to what’s going on depends on how well they’ve been written (Lydia and Serana being the best examples). My impression to date of custom followers is, if you’re running a group of them, how well they interact with each other, or respond to situations that might involve each other, very much depends on whether they’ve been set up to actually do that by their individual creators.

So while I’m not at all surprised or upset that none of my followers were in a position to go “oh shit, what happened to Aviendha”, it was not very narratively satisfying to me either.

Last but not least, Berylla took the time to sneer, “What’s the matter, Dragonborn? Can’t you move? How does it feel to be utterly powerless?” And, well, eyeroll. Mustache-twirly evil, much? I mean honestly, lady, was it necessary for you to not only blip in and steal my follower, but also to be bitchy at me in the process? Apparently so, because EEEEEEEEEVIL!

More on this to come in the post where I get to the part where I rescue Aviendha.

Spells for opening locks

Tuxborn includes spells for opening locks, it seems! I need to remember that my character has access to these, because I’m in the habit of just blowing through oodles of lockpicks. Between Aleksey’s Key in Legacy of the Dragonborn, and the various lock opening spells, it’s nice to know I have options. I just need to remember to use them.

The spell options, in particular, are courtesy of the mod called Mysticism.

Adrianne in the museum Armory

Continuing the theme of surprise NPCs visiting the museum, in this same session I also spotted Adrianne Avenicci in the Armory!

Because of course that’s the place in the museum she’d most likely want to see, LOL. And while I saw her in there, she even threw off a line with constructive criticism about the quality of the work of the items on display. HA. Honey, some of that stuff in that room is Whiterun guard armor, so it’s likely you made that. You might wanna pay closer attention. ;D

Fate Card Collection box

This appears to be another new thing added in by Legacy v6, a box that organizes your Fate Cards as you collect them, and has the capacity to auto-build decks out of them if you collect enough of the right cards.

Which seems perfectly fine! I’d say optional if you have the Stash Supplies spell, since you can chuck Fate Cards into your collection that way anyway. But as long as the box doesn’t take up any weight to speak of in my inventory, sure, why not.

And the note in the box saying who made it was a nice little touch, too. Immersive, as well as a hint to point you at who to go talk to if you want to get your mitts on more cards!

One more side note about Aviendha

Heh, despite how cranky Aviendha made me by overselling Ysolda as a romantic option, I’ll say this: returning to Whiterun to give Ysolda a mammoth tusk, after Aviendha’s sudden disappearance, sure had to feel weird to Nona!

But she stands by her general policy of “Ysolda’s cute and all, but right now probably really isn’t the time for the Dragonborn to try to romance anybody“.

Follower number five: Lucien

Okay, so, I went into this playthrough specifically thinking I would not try to run Lucien, because I’d just run him with Elessir’s playthrough. And I wanted to give priority to followers I hadn’t seen before.

And yet there he was, right there in Dead Man’s Drink, and I couldn’t not stop and talk to him. Besides, I wanted to see what Tuxborn’s version of him looked like.

So yeaaaaah HI AGAIN LUCIEN! And I gotta say, I think I really do like the replacer Tuxborn’s using for him. It makes him quite cute.

Follower number six: Gore

And this brings me to the main reason I wanted to be in the vicinity of Falkreath: finding Gore. He’d come recommended to me as a follower, and I knew I’d find him at Peak’s Shade Tower.

So went over there and found in the bear trap, and set about getting him out of that. Which took two tries, given that I got killed by nearby Thalmor. (Which, if they were nearby, raises the question of whether they were the ones who’d trapped Gore to begin with, and if so, why didn’t they just kill him? But if they had, I couldn’t have freed him! So.)

On take two, successfully freed Gore and took out the Thalmor. And I noted as I did that Elven armor in Tuxborn is rather darker of appearance than vanilla Skyrim, because apparently it’s got more ebony or obsidian as accents? Either way, it does look kinda neat. And kind of on brand for the Thalmor, for that matter.

Looting the Thalmor let me see more of the coins mod in action, too, because one of them had some sancars–which the mod sets up as the official currency of the Aldmeri Dominion. There’s no reference of this in official lore as far as I know. But it seems absolutely plausible to me that the Thalmor would set up their own coinage once they took power. So for the AU of Skyrim as portrayed by Tuxborn, quite happy to run with that!

But back to Gore, once I recruited him, I figured out pretty quickly that he was a talkative follower. Like Lucien, he started uttering random dialogue lines once I officially recruited him. And he had a lot to say about the abundance of game in Falkreath, the weather, sunshine, the beauty of Skyrim, and more. In general, he struck me quickly as surprisingly poetic for a guy brought up by a ragtag group of semi-legitimate mercenaries. Which is, as I understand it, a big point of Gore’s character! So props to the dev, who was also his voice actor, for the dialogue and character work.

And later, when I got him back to Dead Man’s Drink, I got a bit more backstory out of him: the Thalmor razing his home village for worshipping Talos; his mother actually being a worshipper of Kyne, and her dying when he was almost too young to remember her; and the Band of the Raven taking him in. He also told me about the Thalmor attack on the Ravens–which leads me back to my previous question of, if there were Thalmor in his immediate vicinity when he was caught in the bear trap, why on Nirn didn’t they just kill him right then and there? Presumably they were tracking him. Were they trying to search the area for other survivors, or what?

Bilegulch Tower

Something else I’d noted by this point in Nona’s playthrough was how many more locations had been added to the game. I’m pretty sure most of these were coming in via Interesting NPCs, since a bunch of these NPCs are getting added in some of those very locations!

One such I found en route to Bilegulch Mine: the unsurprisingly named Bilegulch Tower. I went over close enough to it to mark it for the map, but did not actually take the time to investigate it. I wanted to go ahead and run the mine.

Still need to go back and check out that tower, though!

S’vashni, back at Peak’s Shade Tower

As it turned out though, Gore wasn’t the only interesting encounter at Peak’s Shade Tower. Because there was a very surly Khajiit also hanging out there–and who, if she’d seen Gore, presumably had zero fucks to give about him!

S’vashni, as I discovered, was an addition of Interesting NPCs. And she definitely was interesting, once I engaged her in conversation. She turned out to be a warrior gifted in the sword, extremely arrogant, and bent on tracking down her former master to try to learn the final stance of a series of fighting stances all based on the Divines.

Here’s an example of her being arrogant:

A son of Cloud Ruler Temple named me the Desert Fang. The Thalmor know me as Death’s Courier. To you I am simply S’vashni, the Khajiit who spared your life.

Snerk. I feel like Nona would blink a bit at this, be slightly nonplussed for a moment, and then say brightly, “Well, I’m pleased to meet you, I’m sure.” (Remember, y’all: Nona likes everybody!)

Her player, on the other hand, is going, “Do you know what they call me in the ancient legends of the Dalek Homeworld? The Oncoming Storm.”

Anyway, arrogant and full of herself as she was, S’vashni seemed perfectly content to spout off at me about how badassed she was, how foolish the Blades were, and all about her backstory and how she was bent on learning the Stance of Arkay. I didn’t follow up much with her about that at that point, though. I came away with an objective to ask an innkeeper about a clue to follow up on, though.

Picking up on Barbas, and heading to Helgen and Orphan Rock

Hanging out in Falkreath also inevitably meant having a guard asking me if I’d seen a dog. So I went ahead and kicked off A Daedra’s Best Friend, just to get that done and dealt with.

I did not, however, actually directly follow Barbas to Haemar’s Shame. I got a little sidetracked trying to see if I could find Auri’s Pod, since I was interested in recruiting her as a follower as well. I didn’t find her in this session, but I did find an Ayleid ruin I’m pretty sure was added in by Interesting NPCs.

I did eventually go ahead and head to Helgen, though. As has started becoming my habit when doing an Alternate Start in a Skyrim run, I looted as much as I could of the place–there’s useful stuff in Helgen, yo! And some of it is even displayable in the Legacy museum!

Then it was on around to Orphan Rock to get Nettlebane–and that went quickly, with a large follower squad on hand! Take that, hagravens!

Notable follower lines

Eris, talking about Roggvir and his execution, another example of a line that makes me suspect that Eris is not quite as morally neutral as she may pretend:

He spoke with such courage before the end. A death sentence for something as simple as opening a door.

Eris also reacted to my finishing up In My Time of Need:

You helped her escape her past, for little recompense. I wonder why this is so.

Lydia has opinions about the marsh:

Why anyone chose to build a town out here is beyond me. Where are they supposed to grow crops?

Gorr, my dude, you say this like you’ve got some experience in the matter?

Falmer make for easy targets. You can’t swing at them, because they’re too low to the ground. but you can make like a blacksmith and hammer them.

Lydia also has opinions on what to do with bandits:

I lost my mother to bandits like these. Don’t leave a single one alive.

Lydia is also up on her current events, and is fucking frustrated about it, and, well, relatable:

There’s a civil war being fought as we speak, we’ll be at war with the Thalmor in a few years, and yet so many of the province’s warriors are brigands.

Also relatable, because boy howdy do I remember how pissed off I was about this in my very first Skyrim run, Lydia’s reaction to us discovering that WTAF SOMEBODY TOOK THE HORN OF JURGEN WINDCALLER:

You’ve got to be kidding me…

Lydia and I discuss the meaning of that discovery, and she is not impressed in general with whoever took the Horn:

They seem to know who you are, which probably means they aren’t very smart.

Lyds has some concerns about my survival skills, and I’d like this a lot better if the Lydia mod had some ability built in for me to train with her, because if it did I would totally do that:

You’re not much of a warrior, are you? We could remedy that at some point, if you’d like. It has me somewhat concerned.

So what you’re telling me, Gorr, is that you’ve had a very lively arena career?

One of the Nords I killed in the Arena is buried here in this cemetery. Although I guess you could say that about pretty much any cemetery.

Lucien cut straight to commenting on current events as soon as I recruited him:

Hagravens are downright nasty. But, I suppose if’s worth tangling with them for a good cause like the Gildergreen.

Once I recruited Gore, one of his random lines dropped a hint that somebody was a little salty about Narri in Dead Man’s Drink:

“Shor’s bones, a handsome man in Falkreath,” yeah, she says that to everyone. Broke my heart.

And sounds like Gorr and Gore have some similar interests, when it comes to bashing heads, and whose heads in particular:

Plenty of prey in these woods. Elk… hare… bandit.

This line of Gore’s made me LOL. Dude knows his strengths, I guess!

Think we could use any of this ore? By we, I mean you. I couldn’t smith my way out of a gentle hug.

This is an example of what I mean about Gore being surprisingly poetic:

Snow falls silently, like a feather. The overwhelming silence of its presence never ceases to amaze me.

On the other hand, Gore is also not above complaining about the weather either.

I’m a nord, sure, but I’m freezing.

And also:

Ravens wore what we found in the field, mostly. I left my arms exposed for mobility, but days like this, I longed for warmth.

So clearly what Gore is telling me here is, get him some warmer armor.

Gore is also clearly not Jarl Siddgeir’s biggest fan:

I’d love a moment alone with that Jarl. Feed his own teeth to him.

Eris responds to our clearing out Orphan Rock:

The Hagravens are cruel in their design. You have destroyed one such infestation, but they are known for their guile… and more will emerge in time.

Next time

Nona’s next post after this one will feature:

Hitting Haemar’s Shame and taking out a whole bunch of vampires
Talking to Clavicus Vile and getting the quest to go after the Rueful Axe
Taking out some zombies!
Meeting, of all things, a talkative Thalmor
Getting the backstory on the unfamiliar child in Falkreath, and her ailing mother
Taking out dragons, as you do
Buying the land for Lakeview Manor
Taking out bandits at Broken Oar Grotto
Discovering Meridia’s Sanctum right near where I needed to get the Rueful Axe
Returning the Axe–and Barbas–to Clavicus Vile
And more!