Kendeshel Playthrough
| Kendeshel | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Playthrough Info | |
| Game | Skyrim Anniversary Edition |
| Race | Redguard (half Altmer) |
| Playthrough Dates | Begun 9/4/2023; in progress |
| Platform | Steam Deck and Win11 VM |
| Language | English |
| Difficulty | Adept |
This is the page for my eleventh Skyrim playthrough, for the Redguard character Kendeshel.
Kendeshel is take two of my doing a Skyrim run inspired by Kendis Thompson, the heroine of my Free Court of Seattle books, Faerie Blood and Bone Walker. Kendeshel is the name Kendis’ mother gave her at birth, so I’m bringing that in here.
This is a modded playthrough that includes RaceMenu, so I explicitly designed Kendeshel to try to mimic her namesake’s canon appearance as best I could, and to reflect that this version of the character is half-Redguard, half-Altmer. And since this playthrough also includes Alternate Start – Live Another Life, I’m taking advantage of that to come up with Kendeshel’s backstory for her run.
The primary goal for this playthrough will be to run Legacy of the Dragonborn. But just because I can, I am also trying out some other content mods I found interesting: Wintersun – Faiths of Skyrim, Moon and Star, Project AHO, and Wyrmstooth. Alternate Start will, likewise, give me the chance to see what a Skyrim run that doesn’t start in Helgen is like!
Kendeshel’s Backstory
The Fourth Era lore says that Hammerfell rejected the White-Gold Concordat in 175, and continued to fight with the Aldmeri Dominion until 180. Kendeshel’s parents were actively involved in that conflict. Her father Dhajid was a Redguard warrior; her mother Elanwe, a powerful Altmer mage in service to the Thalmor.
They met on the battlefield and fell in love despite themselves, a full on enemies to lovers scenario–and a deeply dangerous and tragic fate for them. The Redguards weren’t about to accept an Altmer among them even if she was a Thalmor defector, and as for the Thalmor, they were out for blood as soon as they realized one of their own had turned against them.
Dhajid and Elanwe met maybe in 178 and had to go it alone for a while, seeking their own shelter in the Alik’r Desert. Kendeshel, named by her mother, was born in 179.
And the Thalmor caught up with them in 180. Even if Hammerfell and the Aldmeri Dominion officially ceased hostilities, the Thalmor took it very, very badly that one of their own had defected, and they had an execution order out on Elanwe. This order was executed, and Dhajid was likewise slain as he rose to his wife’s defense.
Only the intervention of Agifa, Dhajid’s sister, saved the baby’s life. Agifa had been the one member of Dhajid’s family who hadn’t turned against him, and had come to find the couple in search of a reconciliation with them. As their last act before the Thalmor descended upon them, the two parents urged Agifa to flee their little settlement with the baby and take her far out of Thalmor reach. Agifa adopted the little girl, and raised her as her own.
Thus Kendeshel grew up in Redguard traditions, and learned to fiercely identify as a Redguard even though the signs of her mother’s blood were very visible on her, in the shape of her ears and eyes and an unmistakable Altmer tinge to her skin.
While she could not help but gain competency in weaponry growing up in the Alik’r, such skills were not where her main talents lay. She began showing signs of a gift for magic, inherited from her mother–and moreover, an intellectual curiosity that drove her to solitary explorations of ruins and other ancient locales. Once word of her roving got out, her family rejected her, accusing her of violating the sanctity of honored dead by investigating ruins–and at least one or two of her most hostile relatives called her a budding necromancer.
Highly offended, and already having grown up having to fight for her place in a family already hostile to her, Kendeshel set out on her own to find acceptance elsewhere. In the aftermath of Hammerfell’s abandoning the Empire, she decided in spite to head for a place most likely to anger as many of her family as possible: the Imperial City in Cyrodiil.
When she arrived, a travel-scarred and prickly young woman on the verge of adulthood, she found a place at the Gwylim University and threw herself headlong into the study of the history of Tamriel. Thirst for knowledge also drove her to seek training at the Arcane University, to give herself a grounding in the magical gifts she inherited from her mother.
Now in her mid-twenties, she has established herself as a skilled relic hunter. Enough so that it’s brought her to the attention of a certain museum in Solitude, who has decided to engage her services….
Playthrough Posts
Here are all the posts about Kendeshel’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 Kendeshel is Kidnapped and Sold into Slavery - 09/26/2023In which Kendeshel retrieves a lost journal in Sunderstone Gorge; becomes thane in Falkreath; acquires land and begins the building of Lakeview Manor; follows the trail of clues in a journal to visit a runestone and a shrine; meets the mysterious figure who stole the Horn of Jurgen Windcaller, and agrees to travel to Kynesgrove with her to slay a dragon; and last but not least, has all her plans upended when she is captured by slavers and dragged off to a secret Dunmer settlement beneath Skyrim, where she is sold to a Telvanni wizard.
- In Which Kendeshel Acquires Dawnbreaker and the Masque of Clavicus Vile - 09/25/2023In which Kendeshel seeks the Horn of Jurgen Windcaller in Ustengrav; slays a bandit in Dragon Bridge, and a lot more bandits at Robber's Gorge; helps a Daedra dog reunite with his master, and acquires the Masque of Clavicus Vile; acquires the sword Dawnbreaker by clearing Meridia's temple of a necromancer; eliminates the Alik'r mercenaries threatening Saadia; and begins to aid the people of Falkreath.
- Fic: Tense Negotiations - 09/25/2023Hey you guys, I actually wrote some prose! Even though I have some very mixed feelings about how Project AHO's plotline ends, it actually rattled my brain hard enough that this scene fell out. I consider this my headcanon for how a certain critical part of the plot played out, even though the mod didn't actually let me do this. Enjoy.
- Review of Project AHO mod (non-spoiler version) - 09/25/2023An almost entirely spoiler-free review of the Skyrim mod Project AHO. Includes one spoiler about the core idea of the mod, but no story specifics, because I want that in here as a content warning for benefit of other players. I have very mixed feelings--I liked some aspects of the mod a lot, and other aspects not so much. Two and a half stars out of five.
- Backpack Glitch in Legacy of the Dragonborn on Steam Deck - 09/22/2023I discovered a glitch in my Legacy of the Dragonborn run re: putting Anniversary Edition backpacks on display in the Hall of Wonders. Legacy's team doesn't officially support the Steam Deck so I needed to investigate this on my own. Includes a workaround for Future Me and any other Steam Deck users who might want to do a Legacy run.