The Elder Scrolls XVI: Sworn to Carry Your Burdens

[Keltest]

Barbas is his conscience relative to the other deadric princes. He is less pathologically malicious than the others, but you still just insulted him to his face. And Barbas isn't a good person either, just a less bad one. It's not in their interests to let you get away with that unscathed.

[Fyraltari]

No, it's not.

There's an achievement yu can get for having completed all of the Deadric Quests and obtaining all of the Deadric artifacts(Both of Hircine's rewards count towards it and the Black Star counts as well.)

If you do every other deadric quest, obtain all of their artifacts, but you killed Barbas to keep the Rueful Ax instead of returning it to get the Mask of Clavicus Vile... You don't get the Achievement.

It doesn't count towards the achievement, it's not a deadric Artifact. If you want that achievement, you need to either reload to a save before you did that quest or start a new game and collect all of the artifacts all over again.

It's just an enchanted ax.

You're putting a lot of weight behind that one achivement. It doesn't include the Skeleton Key either, is that not a deadric Artifact?

Edit: Nightbladed.

[Keltest]

Sure, Shor says so. But Shor died, because he is Lorkhan. And Akatosh may be powerful, but can he stand up to several Daedric Princes? Will he, for one soul that bartered itself to several Princes?

Knights of the Nine seems to suggest that the Divines at least are stronger than the daedra while on Mundus. It's also implicit to the barrier between Nirn and Oblivion, or else the daedra could just punch through it.

[Rater202]

What makes it different from Spellbreaker or Volendrung? Both were not created by the Daedra.

No clue.

Neither is the Skeleton Key, kinda explicitely a daedric artifact of Nocturnal...

You don't get to keep the skeleton key though, not unless you want the Thives Guild questline forever unresolved. That would be the differance.

Sure, Shor says so. But Shor died, because he is Lorkhan. And Akatosh may be powerful, but can he stand up to several Daedric Princes? Will he, for one soul that bartered itself to several Princes?

1: As a dragon soul, you're basically Akatosh's son or daughter in (literal) spirit if not in blood.

2: As an aedraic soul you're worth a bit more than the typical man or elf soul.

3: You're not just one soul now, are you? You are guaranteed to fight at least four dragons(IIRC) as part of the main storyline, not counting alduin, you will probably stumble across multiple dragon nests as parts of various sidequests, and the game is scripted so that a dragon will spawn in and attack you as yu're traveling if you haven' fought one in a while, plus random dragon attacks. Furthermore, in Dragonborn defeating Miraak gives you not one dragon soul, but 5-10, plus one additional dragon soul for every dragon you killed that Miiraak spawned in and stole from you.

There are 20 shouts in the base game, at three words each, and you get ten of those words for free. That means that if you have mastered all of the shouts in the base game that you must have killed at least 50 dragons, making the Dragonborn's soul the equivalent of at least 51 dragon souls.

I think that's something worth fighting over.

On the "ar the Septims the same kind of Dragonborn" thing, the former Bethesda writer whose headcanon keeps ending up in official material even though he doesn't work for the company anymore says that Allessa and those following the Covenant have their dragon blood/souls manifest in a different way from Miraak and the Last Dragonborn

"Alessia didn't have the power to absorb dragon souls. Hers was a much more nuanced power: to dream of liberty and give it a name and on her deathbed make Covenant with the Aka-Tusk

Make of that what you will.

[Keltest]

Delphine at least implies the Dragonborn emperors could consume dragon souls, which is why the Akaviri sought them out.

[Triaxx]

Lydia on the Raven Rock mine: And lo did the Dovahkiin spake thusly 'Give it up ya Burke' and thus was the mine bountiful once more.

[Keltest]

Lydia on the Raven Rock mine: And lo did the Dovahkiin spake thusly 'Give it up ya Burke' and thus was the mine bountiful once more.

I hope beyond all hope that they have Lydia's journal as a published book in Elder Scrolls 6.

[Destro_Yersul]

Yes, about to run hard into the "no obvious exploits" proviso.

I considered that, but Fortify Restoration buffing enchanted gear is an intended game mechanic. Unequipping and re-equipping to stack the buffs somehow is a little bit exploity, but even without that you can eventually make gear that allows you to enchant stuff really strong, it just takes longer. Since all I'm doing apart from that is hauling ore out of an otherwise empty cave and making trips up to Dawnstar by cart whenever I run out of snowberries, odds I run into an enemy before I'm functionally immortal are more or less nil. Once I'm a tireless immortal, I can do whatever I want.

[veti]

All three of the crafting skills in the vanilla game are overpowered. Max out any one of them, and you're 90% unstoppable, although at that point you may still have an Achillean ankle. Max out two, and combat becomes a mere formality before collecting loot, even if you reset your actual combat skills as "legendary".

So if I can pick a starting bonus in the game, that would be it. High skill levels (and corresponding perks) in alchemy, enchanting and smithing.

[Caelestion]

X would make no sense if X worked like it did in the real world.

That might as well be Bethesda's motto for any of their games now.

I installed Morrowind again with OpenMW 0.46 (with expansions). Are there any recommended mods that improve performance and visuals without changing gameplay or replacing characters and environment design with something new?
I want to the game to be as crisp and polished as I can get it, but still remaining the original game.

You want the Morrowind Graphics Guide.

[Vinyadan]

I think it would be something like 'Dovakh ate the empty mines, and they were full once again, and the tears from his digestion flowed inside.'

[Yora]

You want the Morrowind Graphics Guide.

Which ones do you recommend?

[Kareeah_Indaga]

...I'm not sure what you're referring to here.

My second time playing through this quest I had Mehrune’s Razor equipped during the final speech. So it went something like:

"It's a shame you wished for something so dull as me taking back the mutt. Quite the lack of imagination on your part. A lack of ambition like that really ought to be punished. Perhaps by turning you into a worm..." *draws Razor* "Oh, fine. Have my boon and be done with it. I've got more interesting deals to make, anyway."

Sure, Shor says so. But Shor died, because he is Lorkhan. And Akatosh may be powerful, but can he stand up to several Daedric Princes? Will he, for one soul that bartered itself to several Princes?

I don’t know if he would specifically do it for your character, but being able to do it at all is how and why he’s the one that gave Nirn its magical protection via the Amulet of Kings.

I hope beyond all hope that they have Lydia's journal as a published book in Elder Scrolls 6.

Second this, that would be fun.

[Divayth Fyr]

No clue.

You don't get to keep the skeleton key though, not unless you want the Thives Guild questline forever unresolved. That would be the differance.

Maybe, just maybe, accept the game isn't perfectly consistent and the Axe may in fact be a daedric artifact*? Instead of putting too much weight on technicalities?

*an E$O datamine did find an Outfit style for it that describes it as "Rueful Axe Elder Scrolls Artifact, a battle axe often associated with Clavicus Vile - and deals later regretted."

[Caelestion]

Sure, Shor says so. But Shor died, because he is Lorkhan. And Akatosh may be powerful, but can he stand up to several Daedric Princes? Will he, for one soul that bartered itself to several Princes?

It's more shoddy story-telling from Bethesda, but as I recall the end of the Thieves' Guild in Skyrim, the fact that Nocturnal seems to consider this a bargain is rather dropped on you with no warning. Of course, the fact that none of the Princes ever comment on you selling off your soul multiple times is just part and parcel of Bethesda's obsession with letting you play Everything At Once.

Which ones do you recommend?

Well, appreciation of textures varies wildly between people, but below are the graphics mods I was using. Bear in mind that this was a few years ago now, so I don't really have much insight into why I ordered them like that, other than Darknut's mods are getting rather long in the tooth now and so I was using them as a backup in cases where newer mods didn't have universal coverage.

Spoiler: for texture list

Show

\Textures - Books and Scrolls\Arukinns Journal with AST Bookmark and Vurts Scroll 2
\Textures - Books and Scrolls\BooksofVvardenfell_2.41
\Textures - Clothes and Robes\Better Clothes compilation
\Textures - Clothes and Robes\Better Robes 0-3-1 and Robes Overhaul
\Textures - Darknut\Darknuts Better Clothes Textures-43423-1-0
\Textures - Darknut\Darknuts Creature Textures - Compiled -43420
\Textures - Darknut\DN Armor Textures -43416-1-2
\Textures - Darknut\DN WeaponsComplete -43418-1-0
\Textures - Darknut\DN World Textures v1.0 -45056
\Textures - Items - Clutter\Ashlander Lanterns Retexture-43219-1-0
\Textures - Items - Clutter\AST beds texture replacer-21970-1-1
\Textures - Items - Clutter\Better Kegstands 1_1-37708-1-1
\Textures - Items - Clutter\Better Skulls -28729
\Textures - Items - Clutter\Better Skulls Optional
\Textures - Items - Clutter\GhostNulls Silverware Enhancer-1246
\Textures - Items - Clutter\Kets Paper Lanterns Retexture-45123
\Textures - Items - Clutter\Kets Potions and Beverages Retexture-44781-1-0
\Textures - Items - Clutter\Key Replacer Daduke -6749
\Textures - Items - Clutter\Long Live The Glassware - Retexture-44016-1-0
\Textures - Items - Clutter\Long Live The Limeware - Retexture-44045-1-0
\Textures - Items - Clutter\Long Live The Plates - Retexture-43935-1-0
\Textures - Items - Clutter\Morrowind Pillow Replacer v1-21884
\Textures - Items - Clutter\R-Zero's Dwemer Coin and Quill -44025
\Textures - Items - Clutter\Septims and Dumacs 3.7-1634-3-7
\Textures - Items - Clutter\Soulgem Replacer 0.9.1 -44117
\Textures - Items - Other\BlessedBeTheSaints-21345
\Textures - Items - Other\Dunmer Banners - Lysols Guar Skins compatibility
\Textures - Items - Other\Plangkye Telvanni Textures
\Textures - Items - Other\Road Marker Retextured-28311
\Textures - Items - Other\Real Signposts-3879
\Textures - Items - Other\Tapestries-22551-1-1
\Textures - Lysols Normal Maps\Lysols Guar Skin Banners Normal Mapped 1.0 for OpenMW-44355-1-0
\Textures - MQ Tiddy\- Hlaalu Arkitektora MQ -43098-1-1
\Textures - MQ Tiddy\- MQ Ordo Arkitektora-43940-1-0
\Textures - MQ Tiddy\- MQ Velothi Textures-43511-1-0
\Textures - MQ Tiddy\Armours - Outlander Styles MQ-44210-1-0
\Textures - MQ Tiddy\Full Dwemer Retexture MQ-44264-1-0
\Textures - MQ Tiddy\MQ Boat-Ship Textures-43520-1-0
\Textures - MQ Tiddy\MQ Daedric Textures-43486-1-0
\Textures - MQ Tiddy\MQ Land Textures 25363
\Textures - MQ Tiddy\MQ Redoran Arkitektora-43003-1-1
\Textures - MQ Tiddy\MQ Saints and Tribunal Frescoes-43810-1-0a
\Textures - MQ Tiddy\MQ Sewer vanilla-43144-1
\Textures - MQ Tiddy\MQ Urns-43541-1-0

[LibraryOgre]

All three of the crafting skills in the vanilla game are overpowered. Max out any one of them, and you're 90% unstoppable, although at that point you may still have an Achillean ankle. Max out two, and combat becomes a mere formality before collecting loot, even if you reset your actual combat skills as "legendary".

So if I can pick a starting bonus in the game, that would be it. High skill levels (and corresponding perks) in alchemy, enchanting and smithing.

Hell, high alchemy and a few days and you can make enough to start improving both Smithing, and then enchanting.

Alchemy is a money-maker.

[Yora]

I've been playing Morrowind since it first came out and every couple of years come back to play some 30 to 40 hours (which barely scratches the surface, I know).

And it took me probably some 100 to 150 hours to finally get the brilliant idea to learn a basic healing spell, even though I'm not playing a mage.

Holy hell, even if only one out of three castings succeeds, that a lot of healing compared to buying all the cheap healing potions in every store. I also tried out this Ancestor Guardian thing since I always play Dunmer. I still have no clue what exactly Sanctuary does, but it's making a huge difference.
I also learned from looking up now that I can increase my Alchemy by eating all the alchemy ingredients I find. Never knew that was a thing.

[LibraryOgre]

Holy hell, even if only one out of three castings succeeds, that a lot of healing compared to buying all the cheap healing potions in every store. I also tried out this Ancestor Guardian thing since I always play Dunmer. I still have no clue what exactly Sanctuary does, but it's making a huge difference.
I also learned from looking up now that I can increase my Alchemy by eating all the alchemy ingredients I find. Never knew that was a thing.

I make use of a lot of healing magic items... for less than the weight of a single potion, you can have several potions worth of healing that recharges in a magic ring. They're pretty available from Temple enchanters.

[Eldan]

[QUOTE=Kareeah_Indaga;25039826]My second time playing through this quest I had Mehrune’s Razor equipped during the final speech. So it went something like:

"It's a shame you wished for something so dull as me taking back the mutt. Quite the lack of imagination on your part. A lack of ambition like that really ought to be punished. Perhaps by turning you into a worm..." *draws Razor* "Oh, fine. Have my boon and be done with it. I've got more interesting deals to make, anyway."QUOTE]

ooh. And now I imagine the razor cutting the connection between Vile and Barbas.

[Eldan]

I've been playing Morrowind since it first came out and every couple of years come back to play some 30 to 40 hours (which barely scratches the surface, I know).

And it took me probably some 100 to 150 hours to finally get the brilliant idea to learn a basic healing spell, even though I'm not playing a mage.

Holy hell, even if only one out of three castings succeeds, that a lot of healing compared to buying all the cheap healing potions in every store. I also tried out this Ancestor Guardian thing since I always play Dunmer. I still have no clue what exactly Sanctuary does, but it's making a huge difference.
I also learned from looking up now that I can increase my Alchemy by eating all the alchemy ingredients I find. Never knew that was a thing.

Sanctuary basically lowers the enemy's to-hit chance.

[Yora]

I just had a really weird experience. I went to the Dwemmer Ruins to get the puzzle cube, killed everyone, and only lost a third of my health bar through the whole thing.
I even beat the wizard on the bridge without getting injured! And I was still only level 6.

I don't even think I went much later and did much more stuff before than I did in past runs at the game. Having played through Skyrim last year and actually understanding how Elder Scrolls games work seems to have made a big difference.

[veti]

So... Alduin is "the world eater", right? We keep hearing it. Everyone is afraid of it. We know it's a big deal and, according to Paarthunax - probably the best authority we have - it really does mean the literal end of the world.

But what does "eating the world" actually mean?

I'm pretty sure Alduin has no intention of chewing, mouthful by mouthful, through Mundus. At least he never shows any sign of it. He could potentially eat everyone in the world, but he doesn't show much interest in that either. He can eat spirits in Sovngard, but that's hardly "the world", is it?

What is this "world eating" business, and if Alduin is intent on doing it, why doesn't he?

[Lord Raziere]

So... Alduin is "the world eater", right? We keep hearing it. Everyone is afraid of it. We know it's a big deal and, according to Paarthunax - probably the best authority we have - it really does mean the literal end of the world.

But what does "eating the world" actually mean?

I'm pretty sure Alduin has no intention of chewing, mouthful by mouthful, through Mundus. At least he never shows any sign of it. He could potentially eat everyone in the world, but he doesn't show much interest in that either. He can eat spirits in Sovngard, but that's hardly "the world", is it?

What is this "world eating" business, and if Alduin is intent on doing it, why doesn't he?

Don't take it literally.

Its more like he is Akatosh's son/aspect that is supposed to bring about the apocalypse so that Akatosh can make a new kalpa begin. can't make a new age for the world without destroying the world, so that what Alduin is supposed to do: end it. death and rebirth, a cycle.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

So... Alduin is "the world eater", right? We keep hearing it. Everyone is afraid of it. We know it's a big deal and, according to Paarthunax - probably the best authority we have - it really does mean the literal end of the world.

But what does "eating the world" actually mean?

I'm pretty sure Alduin has no intention of chewing, mouthful by mouthful, through Mundus. At least he never shows any sign of it. He could potentially eat everyone in the world, but he doesn't show much interest in that either. He can eat spirits in Sovngard, but that's hardly "the world", is it?

What is this "world eating" business, and if Alduin is intent on doing it, why doesn't he?

Him trying to conquer the world instead of eat it was part of the problem in Skyrim IIRC, and the reason we don’t get to eat his soul is implied to be so he can eventually end the kalpha so the next one can begin. He still has to do that job at some point.

[InvisibleBison]

It's a Kirkbride post, and thus dubiously canonical, but the Seven Fights of the Aldudagga shows Alduin eating a previous world, and it does at least in part involve physically eating the land.

As for why he doesn't do that in Skyrim, I've always assumed that Esbern was wrong and Alduin had no intention of eating the world; rather, he wanted to conquer it and re-establish the Dragon Cult empire.

[veti]

It's a Kirkbride post, and thus dubiously canonical, but the Seven Fights of the Aldudagga shows Alduin eating a previous world, and it does at least in part involve physically eating the land.

I... would be comfortable with chalking that up as allegory or metaphor, rather than imagining Alduin literally sneezing out farmsteads.

[Vinyadan]

I see it as a lore/game disconnect, like Mannimmarco God of Worms vs the pansy Mannimarco you fight in Oblivion. I remember a fan explanation built around the Dragon Break, so the MMarco you fight in Oblivion would be the one who didn't become a god in Daggerfall. So maybe the Alduin you fight in Skyrim was the one who was just a big dragon lord instead of an apocalyptic force.

Option #2 was that Alduin wanted both to rule the world and was going to destroy it later on when he saw it fit. For what I understand, Alduin had missed out all of the previous eras and had been shifted from the remote past to straight over you in Helgen. Which might explain why he was so confused as to let the Dragonborn go. Now he needs to roam the world and call back his dead friends before he can do world domination and, later on, his final step when he decides to destroy the world.

I mean, Alduin had obviously existed inside the world during the earliest times, and he didn't destroy it. As I wrote in the past, I don't think Skyrim felt very apocalyptic, especially compared to Oblivion.

[factotum]

I think it's just that Alduin has forgotten his true purpose and is just all about "Dragons good, everyone else bad"--so he spends all his time resurrecting dragons and attacking small towns in the middle of nowhere. (Although I never really did understand why he attacked Helgen...there never seemed to be any real justification for him doing that).

[Vinyadan]

I understand the attack on Helgen this way, he was fighting some humans when he found himself up in the sky over Helgen, a town full of humans, so he kept fighting them, although something was obviously wrong.

[Rater202]

The iplication vry much seems to be that Helgen to the tower is all over the course of one day. It's hard to grok time scale in an sandbox game like this, but that's what makes sense.

Delphine comments that she's been tracking the dragons coming back for a while—she told Farangar about the dragon stone presumably a good while before you showed up in Whiterun since Balgraf refers to finding it as a project that Farangar is working on implying that it's not a super recent thing.

So I think that the dragons have been returning well before they were publically known and that Alduin has been back for a while.

As for what he's doing: While Alduin says that he doesn't sense the dragonsoul in you, it's noted that experienced Thu'um users can sense words of power and "understanding" of a word is a tangible force as shown by Paarthurnax and the Greybeards sharing their own understanding of words with you.

Ulfric knows and understands several words of power, enough to use a full-powered Unrelenting force and Disarm to a degree that I can't verify. So anywhere between four and six words.

Presumably, Alduin knows of the Prophecy of the last dragon born, or at least that a Dragonborn is destined to defeat him based on Mirrak's comments that he could have fulfilled the prophecy himself if he'd wanted to.

And hey, it a Thu'um users who isn't one of Parthurnax's followers is being sent along that way. Maybe stamp that out just in case.