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 Speaks to the Augur of Dunlain and Journeys to Mzulft - 01/15/2023In which Harrowhark assists fellow apprentices at the College of Winterhold; learns from the Augur of Dunlain that she must find the Staff of Magnus; retrieves a staff for Enthir from Pinemoon Cave; retrieves intel on a sword from Faldar's Tooth; and reaches Mzulft to begin the search for the Staff of Magnus.
- In Which Harrowhark Recovers Azura’s Star and Stolen Books - 01/12/2023In which Harrowhark recovers the broken Azura's Star from Ilinalta's Deep; recovers stolen books from Fellglow Keep; returns to the College of Winterhold; and receives a surprise visitor who asks for her personally, raising the suspicion of Ancano.
- In Which Harrowhark Gets Bloodchill Cavern and Joins the College of Winterhold - 01/08/2023In which Harrowhark acquires Bloodchill Cavern, after fighting off a Dawnguard attack and displacing the vampires there; visits the Shrine of Azura and is called upon to recover Azura's Star; joins the College of Winterhold; and discovers a strange powerful orb in the depths of the Saarthal ruins.
- In Which Harrowhark Becomes Thane of Hjaalmarch - 01/05/2023In which Harrowhark becomes thane of Hjaalmarch; gains Valdimar as her housecarl; slays the dragon at Skyborn Altar; bestows a horse on Inigo; finds studded dragonscale armor at Yorgrim Overlook; and slays a group of Seducers bandits who'd been hassling Ri'saad's trading caravan.
- In Which Harrowhark Gains a Thaneship and a Khajiit Follower - 01/02/2023In which Harrowhark gains the thaneship in Falkreath, Lakeview Manor, the sword Dawnfang and Duskfang, the Masque of Clavicus Vile, the arrest of Grelod the Kind, and a very strange Khajiit companion who'd locked himself up in the Riften jail.