Veghra Playthrough

Veghra
Screenshot of Veghra from the login screen of ESO. She is an Orc with olive-green skin and tousled dark brown hair, wearing steel-blue light armor with white and red trim, and a battleaxe on her back.
Playthrough Info
Game Elder Scrolls Online
Race Orc
Class Sorcerer
Playthrough Dates February 2024, in progress
Platform Steam Deck, macOS

This is the page for my third Elder Scrolls Online playthrough, for the character Veghra of the Orcs.

I began this playthrough in February 2024. As with my first two ESO playthroughs, Veghra’s run is primarily on the Steam Deck, but with action on the Mac if I want to run group activities with my Guilds, or if I just feel like being on the Mac instead.

Veghra is another character who breaks the personal naming scheme I have of naming my characters after characters in things I’ve written. She is instead directly inspired by a friend who’s often used the nickname The Littlest Orc. Which is why I deliberately made Veghra short!

My original goal with this character was to use her as a crafter and resource farmer, to supplement the same activities with other characters. As such, I initially dropped a bunch of Champion points into abilities that increase her speed and make farming resources in general more profitable, and as she’s developed, I’ve been dropping a lot of skill points on all her crafting skills. After Gyllerah, she’s also the priority character to get recipes, style pages, and other items useful for crafters.

That said, I’ve also played her heavily, taking her through the Fighters and Mages Guild plotlines, in addition to running the Daggerfall Covenant and proceeding through the game’s main quest. She’s also very likely to join the Psijics.

Since Veghra is a Sorcerer, I’ve been doing heavy staff work with her. She’s also the first character with whom I’ve explored the Oakensoul Ring, and I’ve been having great fun with her one bar build for that. To my surprise, she’s pulled ahead of Marwyth as my current highest damage character. So I’ve been taking her into dungeons as well.

Mostly I use a lightning staff and the various Sorcerer skills with her. But since she’s also an Orc, sometimes I have her whip out a physical weapon on general principles. I usually prefer the battleaxe for that, but as of her reaching the Alik’r Desert in the Covenant’s plotline, she’s taken to wielding a greatsword sometimes as well.

Veghra’s Backstory

Veghra is from a remote clan of Orcs in Wrothgar, and grew up showing strong affinity for crafting–and, as is common for Orc women, she took very strongly to the forge. Her father, the clan chieftain, had several daughters of varying ages, and Veghra was considered odd amongst them for being short. What marked her as even more odd, though, was showing early signs of an unusual aptitude for magic.

She was not her father’s only magically inclined daughter. But unlike another of her sisters, who received training from the clan’s wise-woman, Veghra’s talents leaned away from the blood-based magic favored by the clan. Whispers spread amongst the stronghold that she might be linked to Oblivion, and she was often regarded with suspicion even as she grew into her adulthood.

Unfortunately, her clan fell on hard times as she grew up. A string of bad winters and poor hunting, combined with aggression from giants and ogres, cost them a number of strong warriors and hunters. Veghra’s father was forced to seek alliance with a neighboring rival clan–on the condition that he give up some of his daughters for the other clan’s new young chieftain.

However, when that other chieftain came to Veghra’s clan to make his choices, he was attracted to Veghra’s prettiest sister, a girl not long past her puberty, and not yet old enough to wed. Offended by his inappropriate overtures to her sister, Veghra confronted him–and this escalated into a serious fight. In the heat of the moment, Veghra’s growing magical power erupted, and she instinctively summoned a familiar that came to her aid. A familiar which flew into the face of the chieftain, and mauled one of his eyes.

Chaos erupted as a result. The visiting chieftain howled for Veghra’s blood. Absolutely unrepentant, Veghra proclaimed that the offense to her sister required a blood price of its own, one which she now considered fulfilled.

This put Veghra’s father into the extremely awkward position of deciding how to resolve the crisis. He couldn’t risk losing the other chieftain’s support, not if their clan was to survive the next winter. But he, too, had been offended by the younger chieftain’s horrible behavior to his daughter, and personally believed Veghra had behaved with honor.

So he presented his daughter with two choices: go with the other chieftain herself as his new forge-wife, or exile from their clan.

Disgusted that her father would let any of his daughters marry that worm, yet also aware that their clan was on the verge of starvation, Veghra opted for exile. And set out for Daggerfall, with the intention of finding mages who could train her in her power if her own people didn’t want her.

After weeks of hard travel, she at last reached Daggerfall–only to be approached by a mysterious hooded figure….

Playthrough Posts

Here are all the posts about Veghra’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 Veghra Rescues Lyris from Coldharbour - 08/28/2024
    In which Veghra learns from the Prophet that Lyris Titanborn is enslaved in Coldharbour, and returns to that realm to rescue her.
  • In Which Veghra Has an Extremely Bad Day in Daggerfall - 07/31/2024
    In which Veghra the Orc escapes Coldharbour, and winds up on board a ship in Stros M'Kai; joins forces with the captain of the Spearhead to steal shipping logs from a corrupt headman; helps the Orcs of Betnikh and destroys a dangerous relic; convinces the daughter of the Seamount chief to pursue her own life; and learns more from the Prophet about what led to her experience in Coldharbour.

Screenshots

Veghra’s screenshot galleries can be found on the Veghra Screenshots page.