Ysani Demers Playthrough
| Ysani Demers | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Playthrough Info | |
| Game | Skyrim Special Edition |
| Race | Breton |
| Playthrough Dates | January to May 2022 |
| Platform/td> | 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 Does General Adventuring - 03/10/2022In which Ysani achieves full mastery of the School of Conjuration; acquires a staff on behalf of Enthir of the college; and travels back and forth between her properties to build.
- In Which Ysani Foils a Conspiracy and Adopts a Second Daughter - 03/08/2022In which Ysani confronts Taron Dreth about the Aetherial Crown; in which she foils a Forsworn conspiracy in Markarth; and in which she adopts the girl Erith when Left Hand Mine is devastated in a dragon attack.
- In Which Ysani Acquires More Stones of Barenziah and Interrupts a Summoning - 03/06/2022In which Ysani ventures through Rannveig's Fast and Sunderstone Gorge in search of additional Stones of Barenziah; and in which she aids Solitude by stopping an attempt to resurrect the spirit of Potema the Wolf Queen.
- In Which Ysani Destroys the Dark Brotherhood - 03/05/2022In which Ysani acquires two more Stones of Barenziah in Windhelm; in which she investigates the rumors that Aventus Aretino is trying to summon the Dark Brotherhood, and slays Grelod the Kind for him; in which she is kidnapped by Astrid of the Dark Brotherhood, and slays her as well, before wiping out the Dark Brotherhood entirely.
- In Which Ysani Steals a Horse and More Stones of Barenziah - 03/04/2022In which Ysani steals a horse and a Stone of Barenziah from Black-Briar Lodge, with authorization for the one but not so much the other; and in which she clears the ruin of Ansilvund to defeat a necromancer and find another of the Stones.