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 Goes to Shroud Hearth Barrow - 12/14/2022In which Harrowhark overhears a highly awkward conversation between Vilja and Lydia; in which the trio kills a dragon on the way to Ivarstead; and in which they begin to investigate Shroud Hearth Barrow. Also contains commentary on one major issue I'm taking with Vilja as a follower: her tendency to comment on her weight.
- In Which Harrowhark Helps Vilja Find a Bottle - 11/29/2022In which Harrowhark convinces a farmer to help a jester with a broken wagon; meets the Greybeards at High Hrothgar; confronts cultists in Ivarstead; meets Vilja, and helps her recover a stolen bottle with very strange properties; and stops an assassin from killing the Jarl of Whiterun, claiming the Bow of Shadows from him.
- In Which Harrowhark Explores Whiterun and Mod Problems - 11/29/2022In which Harrowhark explores Whiterun--and her player gets a chance to check out all the content brought in by her mods! Sadly, I found issues with Anna NPCs which caused me to have to delete it.
- In Which Harrowhark is Revealed as Dragonborn - 11/25/2022In which Harrowhark finds the Dragonstone in Bleak Falls Barrow; returns it to Whiterun; slays the dragon Mirmulnir at the Western Watchtower; and is made thane of Whiterun, with Lydia as her appointed housecarl.
- In Which Harrowhark Escapes Execution and Dragonfire - 11/23/2022In which Harrowhark, an Imperial arrested by her own people, escapes execution at Helgen only by virtue of a surprise dragon attack; escapes Helgen with the help of a Stormcloak; warns Whiterun of the dragon danger; and goes to Bleak Falls Barrow at the request of Whiterun's wizard.