Ysani Demers Playthrough

Ysani Demers

Playthrough Info
Game	Skyrim Special Edition
Race	Breton
Playthrough Dates	January to May 2022
Platform	Nintendo Switch
Language	French
Difficulty	Expert

This is the page for my fourth Skyrim playthrough, for the character Ysani Demers, Breton mage.

I began this playthrough immediately concluding the one for Delga, on 1/25/2022, with the following goals:

Play the game in French to practice my skill with that language and also just to see what the translated experience is like!
Revisit the Thieves Guild because I had huge fun with that as Merawen
Even more emphasis on magic this time through
And back to sneaking and archery!

In terms of character concept, Ysani is the diametric opposite of Delga. She’s a slender little wisp of a thing, ideally suited for sneakiness. And as a Breton, she packed an excellent amount of magical firepower right out of the gate, which I have taken heavy advantage of throughout her run.

Ysani’s first name comes from the soulname of my character Wayfound, played during my years on the Elfquest themed MUSH Two Moons. Her last name comes from Olivier Demers, one of the two fiddle players in my favorite band, Le Vent du Nord–who are Quebecois! I figured that since Bretons are heavily French-like in Skyrim, a French surname would be very appropriate for her.

Ysani’s Backstory

Out of all my playthroughs to date, Ysani arguably has the most traumatic backstory of the lot–and that’s saying something, given Merawen’s backstory!

Ysani’s backstory starts when she is targeted by the Thalmor in High Rock–because her father, a secret Thalmor agent, decides to have her taken into custody in order to blackmail her mother into going along with Thalmor demands. Already a budding mage, Ysani eludes capture and hurries home, only to discover her parents in pitched battle with one another. As additional Thalmor soldiers close in their home, she sees her mother screaming for her to flee, just as she kills her husband.

The last Ysani sees of her mother, she’s falling in a hail of lightning from additional mages showing up on the scene.

Ysani runs like hell and finally reaches Skyrim, only to be captured by the Imperials. And cue the start of the game.

I suspect her family also had a copy of Nightingales: Fact or Fiction? in the house, which leads Ysani to choose Skyrim as her destination–in a desperate bid to find out whether the Nightingales are real, and whether she can gain the skills necessary to fight against the Thalmor by joining the Thieves Guild and pledging herself to Nocturnal.

Playthrough Posts

Here are all the posts about Ysani’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 Ysani Slays a Necromancer, Then Slays Mercer Frey - 02/20/2022
In which Ysani slays the necromancer Arondil at Yngvild; in which she commits thievery in Windhelm; and in which she, along with fellow Nightingales Karliah and Brynjolf, slays Mercer Frey at Irkngthand.
In Which Ysani Journeys Northward - 02/19/2022
In which Ysani journeys from Lakeview through Whiterun, Riften, and Windhelm, and northward towards Yngvild; and in which she slays a dragon and other assorted hostile creatures.
In Which Ysani Becomes Thane of the Reach, and Also a Nightingale - 02/19/2022
In which Ysani becomes thane of the Reach, by recovering a shield for the Jarl and helping the people of the Reach; slays a dragon in Rorikstead; clears Kolskeggr Mine of Forsworn; gains the sword Chillrend from the house of Mercer Frey; and becomes a Nightingale along with Brynjolf, so that they and Karliah can stop Mercer and get vengeance for his treachery.
In Which Ysani Quests Through the Reach - 02/17/2022
In which Ysani commits thievery in Whiterun, but plants gold where she steals items; in which she recovers a training book from Fort Sungard; and in which she finds a third aetherium shard to aid the ghost of Katria.
In Which Ysani Robs a Museum, Translates a Journal, and Investigates Arkngthamz - 02/16/2022
In which Ysani slays the spider Nimhe for Calcelmo, but then breaks into his Dwemer museum; in which she reveals Mercer Frey's treachery to the Thieves Guild; and in which she investigates the ruin at Arkngthamz and aids the ghost of Katria.

...

Screenshots

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