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:

  1. Play the game in French to practice my skill with that language and also just to see what the translated experience is like!
  2. Revisit the Thieves Guild because I had huge fun with that as Merawen
  3. Even more emphasis on magic this time through
  4. 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 Seeks Crimson Nirnroot and Slays Dragons - 04/03/2022
    In which Ysani recovers samples of crimson nirnroot from Blackreach, and bestows them upon Avrusa Sarethi in the name of alchemy; and in which she battles multiple dragons throughout the Rift.
  • In Which Ysani Slays Lord Harkon at Castle Volkihar - 04/03/2022
    In which Ysani leads the Dawnguard in an assault on Castle Volkihar, and slays Lord Harkon; and in which she returns to the Soul Cairn to tell Serana's mother Valerica it is safe for her to return to Tamriel.
  • In Which Ysani Finds Auriel’s Bow - 04/02/2022
    In which Ysani and the vampire Serana quest through Forgotten Vale in search of the Inner Sanctum and Auriel's Bow; in which they confront and slay Arch-Curate Vyrthur; and in which they are granted Auriel's Bow by Knight-Paladin Gelebor.
  • In Which Ysani Begins the Hunt for Auriel’s Bow - 03/30/2022
    In which Ysani ventures into Ancestor Glade and learns the location of Auriel's Bow; and in which she reaches Darkfall Cave, and learns from Knight-Paladin Gelebor how to find the sacred weapon.
  • In Which Ysani Recovers Another Schematic - 03/28/2022
    In which Ysani battles a Revered Dragon at the College of Winterhold, and recovers another schematic from Swindler’s Den for Sorine of the Dawnguard.

Screenshots

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