Harrowhark Playthrough
| Harrowhark | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Playthrough Info | |
| Game | Skyrim Anniversary Edition |
| Race | Imperial |
| Playthrough Dates | Started 11/19/2022, ended 6/18/2023 |
| Platform | PC, Steam Deck |
| Language | English |
| Difficulty | Adept |
This is the page for my seventh Skyrim playthrough, for the character Harrowhark, renegade Imperial, necromancer, erstwhile vampire, and assassin.
I began this playthrough on 11/19/2022, and it alternated between my Win11 VM on my M1 MacBook Pro, and my Steam Deck. This was also my first Skyrim playthrough to use a full set of mods (as opposed to just the USSEP, which is what I had with Shenner).
The playthrough unexpectedly ended in early July 2023, because I broke it partly due to too much rearranging of her mods, and partly from a disastrous attempt to fix it that lost me three+ months’ worth of saves.
A writeup of all the mods I used in this playthrough can be found here.
As with Shenner’s playthrough, this one used the Anniversary Edition.
Harrowhark breaks my personal character naming scheme of “characters who appear in books I’ve written, whether or not those books are released”. Instead, she is named after Harrowhark Nonagesimus in Tamsyn Muir’s splendid Locked Tomb series. And as with that character in those books, I will frequently be referring to this character as Harrow for short.
Harrowhark’s Backstory
This is kind of the part where I regret forgetting to install Alternate Start – Live Another Life before starting Harrow’s playthrough, because starting her off as a vampire out of the gate would have been an excellent excuse for her to be arrested and sent to Helgen.
I decided instead that she’ll have fought off a rape attempt. And that she killed the guy–only, in blind fury, raised him. Just so that she could stab him again.
And she got caught doing that. Given that necromancy is extremely frowned upon in most of Tamriel, that is what got her sent to Helgen for execution.
She carried a massive grudge about this, because she was under no circumstances sorry that she killed the guy, or that she raised him. Because he absolutely deserved being stabbed twice.
This contributed to her into joining the Dark Brotherhood, not to mention learning more about how to control her necromancy. And made her willing to accept being a vampire once it happened to her.
Playthrough Posts
Here are all the posts about Harrowhark’s playthrough! These are dynamically updated, so a new post should appear here when it goes up. They’re listed in descending date order, so the newest posts should always appear first. Also, note the pagination controls after the first five posts. You can page through to see the older ones.
- In Which Harrowhark Slays Mercer Frey and Is Cured of Vampirism - 03/25/2023In which Harrowhark slays Mercer Frey; returns the Skeleton Key to the Twilight Sepulcher, and becomes an Agent of Nocturnal; acquires the hammer Nerveshatter; is finally cured of her vampirism by Falion in Morthal; and recreates some long-lost artifacts after acquiring sigil stones in a summoning ritual.
- In Which Harrowhark is Inducted as a Bard, Then Goes After Mercer Frey - 03/18/2023In which Harrowhark concludes her bard studies, recovers King Olaf's verse, and is inducted as a full bard in the college; slays the dragon Nahagliiv; recovers lost instruments for the Bards College; returns a lexicon to Avanchnzel; and ventures into Irkngthand in search of the treacherous Mercer Frey.
- In Which Harrowhark Becomes Thane of Haafingar - 03/12/2023In which Harrowhark continues musical studies at the Bards College; recovers the Ancestral Sword of Clan Ice-Blade, and gains the Gray Cowl of Nocturnal; wins the Wabbajack by answering a challenge from Sheogorath; destroys the spirit of Potema before she can escape her catacombs; investigates signs of a resurgence of the Mythic Dawn; and becomes thane in Solitude and buys Proudspire Manor.
- In Which Harrowhark Acquires Mehrunes’ Razor and Joins the Bards College - 03/07/2023In which Harrowhark acquires Gauldur's Amulet and Mehrunes' Razor; battles the mad smith Evethra, and learns how to forge amber and madness gear; joins the Bards College in Solitude; agrees to help a madman find his master; disrupts a ritual to summon Potema in Wolfskull Cave; and follows clues from a mysterious stranger to lead her to find a lost sword at Silverdrift Lair.
- In Which Harrowhark Takes on the Thalmor and Becomes a Nightingale - 03/03/2023In which Harrowhark infiltrates the Thalmor Embassy, and causes havoc there; breaks into a Dwemer museum in Markarth; helps Enthir and Karliah translate Gallus's coded journal; reveals Karliah's proof to the Thieves Guild; joins Karliah and Brynjolf in becoming Nightingales; retrieves Esbern from the Ratway; and helps Delphine and Esbern find Alduin's Wall in Sky Haven Temple.