Final thoughts on Harrowhark’s Skyrim Run

Even though I’m having to cancel Harrow’s run prematurely, here’s the best I can do with a Final Thoughts post for her, similar to what I’ve done for previous playthroughs.

Since her playthrough was modded, I’ve called out my thoughts on the mods I used in Mods review for Harrowhark’s run. This post will focus on the other topics I usually cover in a Final Thoughts post.

Favorite Follower

Absolutely no contest: Lucien. And since I also ran Inigo for most of this playthrough as well, let me also say that even though Inigo’s dragon souls thing pissed me off, the interplay of Inigo and Lucien together was absolutely delightful.

I will definitely be running Lucien again, just because I want to actually finish out his character plot! And I’ll be returning to Inigo once they deploy a version of him that can toggle that dragon souls thing off.

Favorite City

Whiterun again, but this time just because I loved, loved, loved the layout changes done by Dawn of Skyrim and a couple of the other mods I was running too.

Favorite Daedric Quest

At this point I’m well familiar with all the various Daedric quests, and none of them stood out in particular for Harrow. But I suspect that the one most meaningful/relevant for her was probably getting Mehrunes’ Razor.

Favorite Non-Daedric Plot

Even though I don’t think I’m going to return to it (because certain aspects of the narrative rubbed me the wrong way), I gotta give props to the Forgotten City. That was great. And I do recommend anybody who runs a modded playthrough consider running this at least once. It was definitely worth trying once.

Favorite Armor

No contest on this: the Hedge Mage Armor. I really enjoyed playing with the armor from that mod, and going through the trouble to fortify it up to very cool levels. I will probably run this again for a character it’d be appropriate for: i.e., magically inclined types on the edges of society.

Favorite Weapon

The Bow of Shadows remains a top contender. <3 But in this modded playthrough I’ll also give props to the Scout Bow and Scout Arrows. I found those kind of overpowered, but I gotta admit, I also used those pretty much constantly once I was able to make them.

Favorite Named Dragon

I am sad that I didn’t get to the point in Harrow’s playthrough of getting to run The Paarthurnax Dilemma. I also didn’t get to run Dawnguard with her, so I didn’t get to the point of bringing Durnehviir into her playthrough.

Which does kind of limit me in terms of ability to make a judgment call on this one! But I suspect the answer would have been Paarthurnax if I’d been able to finish her playthrough properly.

Things I Actively Disliked

I had opinions on Vilja, as I documented here and here. I’m still a little sad that I wound up disliking her as much as I did, though.

I will not be attempting to run her as a follower again.

Aside from Vilja, I was also frustrated by the mechanics of playing as a vampire. I feel like the only real disadvantage I had with that was how hard my Health, Stamina, and Magicka got nerfed during the day. But I was able to pretty much wander the game freely as a vampire, with nobody whatsoever giving me any shit about it (except the occasional bandit, and, well, fuck bandits). If Skyrim’s society (and Tamriel at large) is supposed to be so anti-vampire, I think more NPCs should be better at spotting you if you’re a fucking vampire.

Especially members of the Dawnguard. I didn’t actually run Dawnguard with Harrow, but I know for a fact that nobody would have driven her off if she’d shown up at Fort Dawnguard while still a vamp.

Things I Wish I’d Done Differently

Harrow’s original concept was supposed to be “necromancer vampire” and I’m a little sad that I didn’t actually hold to that very hard. Part of this was the aforementioned frustration with being nerfed during daylight hours, but part of it was also that I think my follower choices in this run contributed to pushing Harrow away from that path.

I’ll keep the possibility open of revisiting that character idea in the future, I think. I should definitely have worked a little harder on getting Harrow to be better at the necromantic types of spells.

And Now, Some Stats

Since I accidentally blew away a bunch of Harrow’s saves, I can’t do a final stats capture for her. But I can at least touch on a few things from memory:

• She was thane in Whiterun, the Rift, Falkreath, Hjaalmarch, the Pale, and Haafingar; I’m pretty sure I never got to be thane in Winterhold, and I definitely didn’t do it in the Reach. And since this was a non-civil-war playthrough, Eastmarch was also out.
• She owned the following properties:
  • In Whiterun Hold: Breezehome, Tundra Homestead, Goldenhills Plantation
  • In the Rift: Honeyside, Shadowfoot Sanctum
  • In Falkreath Hold: Lakeview Manor
  • In Winterhold: Bloodchill Cavern
  • In Haafingar: Proudspire Manor
  • In Hjaalmarch: Windstad Manor, Myrwatch
  • In the Pale: Heljarchen Hall
  • In the Reach: Hendraheim
• She was a member of the Bards College in Solitude
• She was Arch-Mage of the College of Winterhold
• She was Guildmaster of the Thieves Guild, and a Nightingale
• She became the Listener of the Dark Brotherhood
• She did not choose a side in the civil war

Surprising entirely no one, Harrow turned into a stealth archer. 😉 But she also wound up powerful in all the schools of magic, thanks to the training functionality added by the Immersive College of Winterhold mod.

And she definitely favored Light Armor. When I wasn’t running the Hedge Mage armor, I spent time in Nightingale and Shrouded.

Since this playthrough was cut short, I didn’t rack up as many sessions for it as some of the longer ones, but I did make it to 76 sessions with her. Her first session was November 23, 2022, and her final one was June 18th, 2023. But that length of time is deceptive, since I also spend a lot of time on other Elder Scrolls games these days.

76 sessions works out roughly to two and a half months, certainly comparable to some of my shorter playthroughs. Had I been able to finish her run, I expect it would have broken my previous record for a Skyrim run’s length (which is held by Ysani). I had so much extra content to run that I would definitely have been able to milk a couple more months’ worth of play out of her.

Next time

I need to think more about what kind of modded playthrough I want to do next. Until I figure that out, I’ll be trying to move Kendis’ playthrough further along.