Kendis Playthrough

Kendis
Playthrough Info
Game Skyrim Anniversary Edition
Race Redguard
Playthrough Dates 12/07/2022-9/1/2023
Platform Nintendo Switch
Language English
Difficulty Adept (partially with Survival Mode)

This is the page for my eighth Skyrim playthrough, for the Redguard character Kendis.

I began this playthrough on 12/7/2022 on my Nintendo Switch, and finally ended it on 9/1/2023. And while the Anniversary Edition on the Switch came out at the tail end of Faanshi’s playthrough, this was my first official full playthrough with the AE on this platform.

This was also my first official attempt at running Survival Mode. But it was only a partial attempt, because I bailed on running Survival Mode partway through. (See reasons why written up in Bailing on Survival Mode in Kendis’ playthrough.)

I ran Kendis on the default Adept Difficulty, just because at the start of her run, I expected Survival Mode to make things difficult enough for me without running the Difficulty level up higher than normal.

Kendis is named for Kendis Thompson, the heroine of my Free Court of Seattle books, Faerie Blood and Bone Walker. And by rights, given that Kendis is half-Sidhe, her Skyrim counterpart really ought to be half-Altmer and half-Redguard, but the default character creation UI doesn’t let me do that. 😀 So I’ve set Skyrim!Kendis up as a Redguard!

Kendis’ Backstory

Even though this version of Kendis can’t technically be half-Altmer, I will take the liberty of assuming that Kendis does have some elf blood a few generations back in her family line. Not enough that she has any obviously elven features–but enough to bump up her magical affinity, for the inevitable point where she’ll join the College of Winterhold.

Redguard society, according to the Redguard lore page on the wiki, generally disdains magic. And from what I see about the town of Elinhir, that place in particular has reason to be distrustful of magic in the Fourth Era. So I think Kendis is from Elinhir–and grew up in a family explicitly distrustful of magic.

But when she discovered she had the ability to do certain things–throw fire with her hands, and command small wounds to heal themselves–she realized she’d have to go somewhere else if she wanted to learn more. She learned from a trader about a certain college in Skyrim that teaches magic, and so she went over the border between Hammerfell and Skyrim, hoping to find work that’d get her passage to find that college.

Unfortunately for Kendis, she came over the border right into the path of an Imperial patrol….

Playthrough Posts

Here are all the posts about Kendis’ 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 Kendis Finds Nettlebane and Renews the Gildergreen - 12/28/2022
    In which Kendis finds the dagger Nettlebane, but follows a kinder solution to restore the Gildergreen in Whiterun; recovers a lost journal; slays a horde of zombies from a ritual gone wrong; and helps a man with a necromancer in his family tomb, then hires him to run her farm at Goldenhills Plantation.
  • In Which Kendis Gains the Blood of the Beast - 12/26/2022
    In which Kendis is inducted into the Companions; rescues Hulda from Shimmermist Cave, and slays a dragon while bringing her to safety; clears bandits out of Embershard Mine and Knifepoint Ridge; joins the Inner Circle of the Companions, and accepts their wolf blood; and fights the Silver Hand at Gallows Rock with Aela, only to learn there that they'd slain Skjor.
  • In Which Kendis Retrieves a Fragment of Wuuthrad - 12/20/2022
    In which Kendis fights bandits at Halted Stream Camp and Silent Moons Camp; is tasked by Skjor of the Companions to recover a fragment of the axe Wuuthrad; and battles draugr and the Silver Hand in Wuuthrad, with Farkas, to retrieve the fragment.
  • In Which Kendis Goes to Shroud Hearth Barrow - 12/16/2022
    In which Kendis investigates the secrets of Shroud Hearth Barrow, then returns to Whiterun to replenish her supplies after the long journey.
  • In Which Kendis Gets a Farm, a House, and Serious Frostbite - 12/16/2022
    In which Kendis acquires a goat in Rorikstead; recovers silver armor from a dead man's hut; claims a farm when she lays a family's ghosts to rest; claims Hendraheim by right of combat; tames a horse for the riding, near Whiterun; and risks the bitter cold of High Hrothgar to answer the summons of the Greybeards.

Screenshots

Kendis’ screenshot galleries can be found on the Kendis Screenshots page.