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 Fights Bandits, Spriggans, and a Dragon - 01/31/2022
In which Ysani travels through Falkreath and Whiterun, and fights bandits, spriggans, and a dragon; and in which she gains the good favor of the Jarl of Falkreath.
In Which Ysani Joins the College of Winterhold - 01/30/2022
In which Ysani discovers another word for a Shout in Shroud Hearth Barrow; in which she battles another dragon at the watchtower; and in which she joins the College of Winterhold.
In Which Ysani Goes to the Greybeards - 01/29/2022
In which Ysani heeds the summons of the Greybeards, and journeys with her new housecarl Lydia to the Throat of the World; and in which Ysani begins to investigate the allegedly haunted barrow near Ivarstead.
In Which Ysani Fights Her First Dragon - 01/28/2022
In which Ysani escapes Bleak Falls Barrow and returns to Whiterun--only to get the biggest shock of her life when she's called upon to help fight off a dragon attack that reveals that she is Dragonborn.
In Which Ysani Goes to Whiterun and Bleak Falls Barrow - 01/27/2022
In which Ysani brings the word of the Helgen attack to Whiterun; and in which she ventures into Bleak Falls Barrow in search of the Dragonstone, as well as a stolen Golden Claw.

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Screenshots

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