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 Begins Work for the Thieves Guild - 02/10/2022
In which Ysani has a bardic witness to her latest dragon slaying; and in which she infiltrates the Goldenglow estate for the Guild and steals an incriminating bill of sale.
In Which Ysani Seeks Words of Power and Entry Among Thieves - 02/09/2022
In which Ysani seeks words of power at Shearpoint and Volskygge, and slays a dragon and two dragon priests doing so; and in which she gains admittance into the Thieves Guild.
In Which Ysani Becomes Arch-Mage of the College of Winterhold - 02/08/2022
In which Ysani retrieves the Staff of Magnus from Labyrinthian, and then uses it to triumph over Ancano of the Thalmor and save the College of Winterhold.
In Which Ysani Quests for the College of Winterhold - 02/07/2022
In which Ysani retrieves info on the whereabouts of the Staff of Magnus from Mzulft; in which she returns to the College of Winterhold and witnesses the death of the Arch-Mage; and in which she helps defend the town of Winterhold from the anomalies created by the Eye of Magnus.
In Which Ysani Quests for the Bards College - 02/07/2022
In which Ysani retrieves lost instruments for the Bards College; in which she sells bearskins to Temba Wide-Arm; and in which she begins to investigate Mzulft on behalf of the College of Winterhold, seeking clues to the whereabouts of the Staff of Magnus.

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Screenshots

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