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#falkreath houses skyrim
mikatesmods · 8 months
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Thistle's Lair
Shaman's hut for Skyrim LE
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venacoeurva · 9 months
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That little island with the hunter and boat on Illinalta is underappreciated, I'm putting a tiny house on that thang
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isamajor · 10 months
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Eyecandies.
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ralofofriverwoods · 1 year
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WTF DO YOU MEAN YOU GET TO KEEP SEVERIN MANOR?? OH MY GOD! SOLSTHEIM JUST GOT 100 TIMES BETTER WTF
Literally never leaving Solstheim again. This is my main house now.
I can display all of my daedric artifacts and sets of armor n stuff in the same fucking room?? Are you KIDDING ME? that’s absolutely fucking PERFECT! I’ve never wanted anything more!!
I need to see if any of my dragon priest masks are liable to disappear, because if they’re not they’re absolutely living in the display cases too
Oh god I can’t wait to decorate this place omg it’s gonna be so fun
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neverendingford · 1 year
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#tag talk#skyrim oc#OH I JUST HAD A GREAT IDEA FOR MY SHITHOLE SKYRIM CHARACTER#so I'm gonna get a steward for the Falkreath house. go get some more housecarls to take care of my daughters#AND THEN I'M GONNA MAKE HIM AM ABSENTEE FATHER.#he's gonna be like “I have to leave my family while I join the dark brotherhood to make skyrim a better place through murder and war#and the juicy thing is that the dark brotherhood sanctuary is literally in south Falkreath. like ten minutes away from home#so he's gonna lurk in the woods sometimes being a pathetic sad noodle wishing he could see his girls again#when literally he could if he weren't such an egotistical idealist.#I like the idea of turning invisible and leaving money on the doorstep at night as a way of trying to make up for being gone#you know that thing where people feel bad for not having a relationship with you so they just give you money and gifts instead? yeah.#AND THEN HIS DARK BROTHERHOOD FOUND FAMILY IS GONNA DIE TOO. he's gonna be so fucking shattered#but his pride won't let him come crawling back to his family now that they've spent two years without him. so he'll just be so alone#maybe that's when I go back and join the thieves guild. because there's a new npc that changes your face with magic#he'll be so distraught that he'll join any group that'll have him that he hasn't burned bridges with yet.#this is going to be so fun omgggg#I usually just pick all the silent options for dark brotherhood dialogue but this guy is a fucking suck up simp.#he picks all the most agreeable options like he's networking at the office. he would probably be way too into Patric Bateman irl ngl#he wouldn't do nfts but he would definitely do crypto and get maybe fucked by some stupid futures trading that went bad#exactly the kind of man who would get picked up for Squid Game tbh#no idea if he'll every get up the courage to become the dragonborn.#I think maybe he'll just keep going on hopes that a dragon fucking kills him
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dawns-beauty · 8 months
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Okay, to counteract all my complaining, here are some (lore friendly) mods that I just like a lot (no animals, people, weapons/armors, mesh/texture replacers, etc. because there's too many and it gets boring.)
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Ghosts of the Deathbells: adds a really rare, somber event to picking a deathbell flower.
Falmeroon: adds Snow Elf ruins to some remote edges of the map. I've made an unofficial SE port here.
Snow Whale Bones: adds the remains of Snow Whales in some mountainous areas (iffy canon but sorry they are Cool.)
Windmills of Skyrim: adds windmills with unique, custom-painted sails to farms.
Scarecrows of Skyrim: adds scarecrows to farms.
Scribes of Skyrim: makes books and notes use a variety of typefaces (any fellow Pentiment fans out there?)
The Old Ways-Nordic Religion: adds totems representing the Nordic pantheon around Skyrim. Has patches for the next recommendation.
The Great Towns/Villages series: overhauls the smaller, worldspace towns in a really cool way, includes voice-acted NPCs. Personally, I like Kynesgrove the best because it actually adds to the lore about the Nordic pantheon. For Shor's Stone, I recommend this mod as well.
Redbag's Rorikstead: I like this mod over Great Village's version because the houses have sod roofs and I'm a sucker for sod roofs.
Capital Windhelm Expansion: adds some really thoughtful lore touches (Dunmer refugees outside the walls, an Arena, and a cool vampire quest)
Relic of Dawnstar: adds a Gehenoth skull to the White Hall (requires Cities of the North), inspired by the lore of the Travels game
Environs series: thoughtful additions that makes certain places change over time.
WiZKid's mods: especially Lund's Hut, Lively Farms, Icy Windhelm, Pinewatch, Hall of the Dead Stained Glass Windows, and Pavo's House. Sepolcri is also pretty good but loses immersion points for using celtic cross gravestones. You can pry Lanterns of Skyrim II from my cold, dead hands, though. Lux? Idk her, LoSII is my bestie.
Fancy Sleeping Tree Replacer: the Sleeping Tree is supposed to be a remnant of the sentient trees of the flying city of Umbriel (from the novels.) It should be weird, is what I'm saying, and this mod makes it alien and beautiful.
Unique Culture Riverwood: a mod that gives Riverwood its own style of farmhouse and a little more personality. The author has also made a mod for Falkreath.
Immersive World Encounters: adds more and edits World Encounters, including encountering faction NPCs out and about (ex. the Companions outside of Whiterun doing Companion-y things in the wilderness).
Glorious Doors of Skyrim: adds some really cool doors. 'nuff said.
Redbag's Dragonreach: adds some unique flair to Jarl Ballin's crib.
Cultured Orc Furniture: replaces generic furniture in Orc Strongholds with custom furniture.
Lavinia's Memorial: adds some gifts from her grieving parents to the little girl's grave in Falkreath. Ouch.
Nocturnal Moths: adds moths that spawn around lanterns at night.
Moons and Stars: fixes the positions of the stars and moons, as well as making moon phases consistent.
DK's Realistic Nord Ships: replaces Skyrim's ships with some gorgeous new models.
Morgenstern's Mushroom Circles: adds more fairy rings in the wilderness. Delightful!
Bloodmoon Brodir Grove: makes the grove in Solstheim a little more like it was in the Morrowind DLC. The mod author also has more mods that bring Bloodmoon details and locations to Solstheim.
Ships of the Horizon: does what it says on the tin.
EVG Animation Variance: the whole animation series by Everglaid is nice (haven't tried Traversal yet, but that is some incredible technology) but I especially like this one for the old people animations
jasperthegnome's houses: these are SO cozy and comfy.
Arctic- Frost Effects Redux: makes frost spells have cooler effects (including 3D ice spikes)
Northern Roads- Let Me Guess Someone Stole Your Sweetroads: a plugin that cuts down on Northern Roads, removing all the landscape changes and bridges and just keeping the clutter. Way more compatible than the original mod.
Skyrim Bridges: this is my favorite bridge mod. There are many, but I like this one best.
Edit: forgot two tiny mods in my original post:
Nightcaller Temple Unique Shrine of Mara: replaces the generic shrine with a wooden shrine Erandur carved
Broken Tower Redoubt Unique Shrine of Dibella: similar to the above mod, but Reachmen carved this one.
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vernfernn · 5 months
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i don’t think i’ve ever told anyone this but like, during one of my first Skyrim play throughs, i was working up to build Lakeview manner. Lydia was my companion for the majority of the beginning, and she followed me around literally everywhere. holding all the materials i was hoarding, fighting my battles for me (i was new and inexperienced), and generally doing all the heavy work and getting literally no reward.
and when i say holding all my materials, i mean all my materials. all my good gems. my stone. clay. other miscellaneous ingots and bs i was never gonna look at nor use. countless dragon bones, scales, cast iron pots, ingredients and potions i “may need someday”.
she followed me everywhere, fought dragons, went missing when i ran from the dragons, disappeared when i started getting the hang of the game, and i never really bat an eye until i was at the half finished house and several dragons spawned in to attack me (i always fast traveled and that kind of triggered a dragon to always spawn whenever i got to the house) and was constantly screaming for her because i was low level and had no idea what i was doing.
“LYDIA WHERE DID YOUR SWORN TO CARRY MY BURDENS ASS GO IM GETTING FLAMED ALIVE IN FRONT OF A DEAD MUDCRAB!”
anyways
she also was there for when i became thane of falkreath and followed me when i painstakingly tried to figure out who i was supposed to do quests for to become thane.
i remember going into some sort of cave to find a journal for the priest of arkay only for it to be infested with the draugr (my sworn enemies at the time because they freaked me out) and she ended up getting locked out of the boss fight.
she got stuck behind a door while i sniped those idiots from a distance and somehow did not get spotted.
anyways, after building up all the wings for Lakeview (with spotty interior decor) we went to a mine so i could get a bunch of iron because i needed nails and hinges for my basement.
we finally get home and of course—a dragon decides to attack. again.
and i’m fighting for my life here, trying not to die and reload my quick save from literal hours ago.
and lydia thinks this is the perfect time to ask to be my steward.
with fire literally raining down from the heavens, burning my character alive, i hastily say yes without even realizing what she was asking for, and go into the offensive to put down this habanero lizard and steal its soul. classic hot girl shit.
she, me, and rayya (the housecarl you get when becoming thane of falkreath) fight this damn thing and kill it within literal minutes (i felt so proud of myself for not struggling during this fight.)
me later realizing i don’t have a follower behind me anymore when i fast travel to falkreath to buy more building materials for my house. the entire time i was wondering if Lydia glitched again (she got stuck behind a wall in ustengrav before and during that fetch quest for that one priest so i decided i would backtrack once i finished buying building materials to furnish my house.)
i teleport back to my house and almost immediately see lydia walk around like she owned the place. it was then i realized she wasn’t my follower anymore, and i assumed that my game had indeed glitched so i go up to her to see what the problem is or to recruit her again.
que lydias talk screen having the options to decorate my house when i talk to her, and i realize what happened. i immediately have second thoughts when i hear how happy she is about being my Steward and i feel guilty for wanting her as a follower again. so i just leave her there along with like 15k gold to furnish my house.
i also have a housecarl as mentioned before: rayya. and as i’m playing (and marrying some lass from riverwood for the money and literally nothing else because i was DESPERATE to have the house fully furnished.)
i eventually realized it was a bit odd that there where three women living in one house under one roof along side two kids and a husky and other small creature. (it was either a rat, bunny, or mud crab i do not remember.)
que me replaying this character a several more times and keeping up the tradition of having Lydia as a steward for Lakeview and Rayya as another household member but never adopt any kids or marry again because i’m now a master at scamming vendors in the game. plus the kids were annoying, and always ungrateful, and always asking for cash or gifts (none of which they were ever grateful for).
as the years progress i grow attached to my character and start creating a small story for him because we have a lot of history and i got attached.
i’m then wondering how i would explain Lydia and Rayya.
it hits me.
lesbians.
they’re married and employed by a really cool landlord who also happens to be the prophesied savior of the world.
they simply live out their years in a big house with the best scenery and local necromancer to keep them company. once tasked to follow and guard a guy who could yell really loud, now living out in the woods with an early retirement.
now in my head they are married and live in the big ass house with a cool husky, some chickens, a cow, carriage, horse, bard, and the occasional giant on its way to absolutely murder the chickens and cow whenever he stops by. classic cottagecore—warrior—lesbian story.
que me going through the house to see if there would be enough beds for everyone.
minus the one in the wing i used to create a primary bedroom, there’s another bed for two people upstairs. in my mind that bed is theirs and they’re married
lydia kept one of my amulets of mara my first play through when i agreed to let her be my steward (she kept a lot of my stuff, and i was unable to get it back because i felt too guilty taking the one thing she seemed to like). ((also i tried pickpocketing her but failed every single time)).
i grow genuinely attached to this idea and can never keep Lydia as a companion when it comes to getting my house furnished and feel a sense of pride when i’m reuniting her with her one true love.
anyways, that’s the story of how i came to love two completely unrelated characters and no one will understand my attachment to them. i love them so much and want them to be happy.
they’re married, idc
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wellthebardsdead · 8 months
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Elder scrolls 6 really needs to take several pages out of baldurs gates book. For both writing, voice acting and more. But they should do what baldurs gate did and have more npcs within the cities. Like not even interactable ones but just ones to make it feel more alive.
Think about it, in acts 1 and 2 there’s not a lot of people around but it makes sense for the settings.
The Druids grove is a secluded sanctuary that’s struggling with housing the group of refugees living there.
The goblin camp is filled with goblins, and Waukeens rest is on fire when we arrive.
Really the only populated place is the Githyanki crèche but again it makes sense a gith creche would be full of Githyanki.
The whole of act 1 and 2 feels deliberately widespread but adequately populated given the circumstances. And then we get to act 3 and the city. And we are overwhelmed with the sheer population. Because it’s one of the major city hubs of the sword coast! It makes sense it’d be flooded.
But then we have Bethesda games, like skyrim.
Falkreath? Okay it’s a small settlement filled with mostly dead people, fine. Same with all of the small settlements like riverwood.
But solitude, whiterun and windhelm? Supposedly the biggest trading hubs/ports in all of skyrim? Why are they so empty. Why are all the cities empty?! Heck riften should be booming given its on the border to the empire.
Literally they could’ve included more nameless npcs like guards. It wouldn’t have been hard and it’d add more emersion to the games!
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the-elder-polls · 18 days
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Ok, so Esper Ironhand started out as the character I did actually get to play for a while in the same messy dnd campaign as the Healer who became Leitav. Esper was originally a Cisco woman, before sliding into gender ambiguity, and I gave that poor gal the saddest backstory like it was a competition (it kinda was, we were all seeing who could make the dm cry)
In Skyrim, Esper keeps a good bit of that backstory in that the story begins in a literal underground forced fighting ring at a very young age, with no memory of life before the Pit. Esper was adopted by a slightly older Argonian kid, who did her best to at least keep Esper alive and fighting, and in the end Esper did the same for a Khajiit kid a little younger.
The fighters in the Pits were all the so-called beast races, at least according to the Racial Philiogeny and The Pig Children crowd, Khajiit and Argonians and Orcs (maybe like a Lamia or two? Goblins?)
The three were nearly full grown (Esper was over six foot) when they became eligible to be put in the tournament for Champion, which supposedly leads to freedom (they take you out of the Pits anyway, though what it actually leads to, even I don't know). Esper was put up against the Khajiit, Stoneclaw, and tried to pull punches and let him win, even though it was a fight to the death. The consequences of holding back like you are a real person who gets to make actual choices were...bad. Stoneclaw died, and Esper nearly did. So after recovering and getting put back in, Esper didn't hesitate again when put against the Argonian of the trio, Hope-in-Darkness. Hope may have, but she was always a little more dexterous and sneaky, so it didn't show.
And after that, after Esper became Champion, but Champion alone, there was no point to going free by the Master's way, so Esper waited until it was almost over and broke his neck, then ran for the river running through the caverns that they used to dispose of bodies. It turned out to lead to freedom rather than back to Stoneclaw and Hope, so Esper became a wandering sellsword, but without the sword part, refusing to use any weapons after having been chained to a blade for so long.
If you know the story Inigo tells about how he betrayed and tried to murder his partner while addicted to skooma? Yeah that was actually Esper, who fled the scene before he could come back, and wound up taking a ship all the way to Dawnstar and wandering the snowfields still kid of out of it from the head injury until being attacked by bandits and left for dead (Alternate Start Live Another Life mod). Since it put me at Alftand for that, I made my way up to the Shrine of Azura where Aranea helped me and called me Champion(?!), and so the adventure begins.
Esper had to head to Winterhold and then Solitude on foot, and taking the dock gate into Solitude on a day when it was sleeting lead to finding Sofie actually frozen to the pavement and instantly becoming a parent, even if finding an actual house took longer. Then a carriage ride to Whiterun (and finding a hideout on the city outskirts because I have the Dragons Den house mod) brought Lucia into the family too, and then taking another carriage down to Falkreath to strike out north for Illinata's Deep (must pay back the debt to Aranea, daedra prince nonsense or no) lead to Gore, and the family begins to take shape.
Esper is an absolute unit of an Orc, and I have had unnecessary amounts of fun playing with size tweaks and comparison shots
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Lore for your enjoyment, anyway
i am doing this to esper
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curvedswords · 2 years
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Skyrim Themed Asks
Creatures: Personal
Mudcrab: Favorite candy?
Frostbite Spider: Favorite soda?
Sabre Cat: Favorite food?
Spriggan: How old are you?
Fox: Describe a feature about yourself?
Wolf: Favorite fruit?
Slaughterfish: Least favorite color?
Cave Bear: Do you play any other games?
Dog: Do you have any hobbies?
Rabbit: Are you learning anything new?
Chicken: How long have you been on tumblr?
Elk: Whats your style?
Mammoth: What's you're MBTI type?
Horse: What other fandoms are you in?
Skeever: Do you have any new years resolutions?
Plants/ingredients: Game Questions
Nightshade: Dark Brotherhood vs Thieves Guild
Blue mountain flower: Favorite Skyrim character?
Lavender: Character you like that everyone hates?
Juniper Berry: Controversial Skyrim opinion?
Snowberry: Favorite random quest?
Dragons Tongue: Favorite Shout?
Fire Salts: Restoration, Destruction, Alteration, Conjuration, or Illusion?
Nirnroot: What skill tree do you use often?
Blisterwort: Have you ever killed Paarthurnax?
Bleeding crown: How many characters have you made?
Deathbell: How long have you been playing Skyrim?
Elves Ear: What do you play Skyrim on?
Torchbug: Heavy armor vs Light armor?
Butterfly Wing: Favorite basegame house?
Briar Heart: Favorite Hearthfire house?
Bone Meal: Do you adopt kids? Who?
Ice Wraith Teeth: Imperials or Stormcloaks?
Chaurus Eggs: Favorite Aedra?
Daedra Heart: Favorite Daedra?
Vampire Dust: Dawnguard vs Vampires?
Dwarven Oil: Favorite tes race?
Hagraven Claws: Favorite Daedra quest/weapon?
Cities/towns: OC questions
Falkreath: How many OC's do you have?
Morthal: Who was your first OC?
Riverwood: What skill trees does (OC's name) use?
Ivarstead: What guilds are (OC's name) in?
Dawnstar: Where does (OC's name) live?
Riften: What's (OC's name) personality like?
Markarth: What does (OC's name) look like?
Solitude: Does (OC's name) marry anyone?
Winterhold: Does (OC's name) adopt anyone?
Windhelm: Which follower does (OC's name) have?
Elder Scroll: Wild Card! Ask Whatever You Want!
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venacoeurva · 5 months
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I was thinking about it and I personally really like my houses and set my own house mods around Riverwood/Lake Ilinalta and around the mineral pools in Eastmarch
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vikings-til-valhalla · 9 months
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I remember my friend once refused to believe dead dragons fall from the sky by chance in Skyrim, until I found the save file a few seconds later, loaded it, and a bunch of bones in the shape of a dragon fell from the sky in the middle of a field. We laughed and made jokes about it for months. She was astounded that a glitch that bad could happen, let alone be replicated on command. I had my character step inside a house shortly thereafter, and all the plates on different tables began shaking and food went flying just because of my mere presence. Y'all Skyrim needs to be studied by programmers as an example of what never to do with your games. I showed the same friend the power of console commands next, and created a bunch of NPCs on site, used a shout, and made them all go flying into the void. The rest who survived banishment proceeded to try killing each other because they attempted attacking me only to hit one another by mistake, thus triggering combat between the NPCs instead of myself and them. There's a reason I've dumped almost 3,000 hours in 10 years to that game. I once made my own mod that fucked the game over so bad that all of Falkreath was underwater and everyone drowned. I got fined for the deaths of the goats.
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keldjinfae · 4 months
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WIP Whenever
I was tagged by @dear-massacre... um... a week ago? More? Less? The point is, I was tagged to share a snippet from a WIP, and for the first time this year, I actually have something to share. This is from the first part of what is going to be a stupidly long series that fuses Teen Wolf with Skyrim, Life in a Northern Town. Even just posting this, I'm already reformating parts of it in my head, so that should give an idea of how very much "in-progress" it is:
The village of Falkreath was known for its graveyard. Rather than an actual Hall of the Dead where the deceased citizens of Falkreath Hold were entombed, as was the custom in most parts of Skyrim, they instead joined the ranks of a large, sprawling cemetery. The resident priest of Arkay oversaw their burials and otherwise kept to his nearby home, where he held rites for the god of life and death, and led mourners in services for their departed loved ones.
Outside of the small hold capitol, the cemetery was nearly <i>all</i> that Falkreath was known for. The Pine Forest had legends of its own, and the old magic of the woods was often enough to spur wary travelers past the unassuming road leading to the village in their haste to break through the trees before nightfall. Those who were brave (or avaricious) enough to shrug off superstition and remain found that the villagers had long embraced its reputation, and that death had inevitably settled into their way of life.
From the innkeeper at Dead Man’s Drink to the alchemists selling poultices and poisons at Grave Concoctions, Falkreath’s citizens were well-practiced in attracting the business of the morbidly curious. Just like they were similarly adept at drawing their attention <i>away</i> from the mages who placed the wards on the graves that made sure the dead remained restful, or the men who dug the graves in the first place. Death may have been the village’s tourist trap, but the actual trappings of death were bad for business.
Which meant having to slip out of the house just before dawn and stumbling down to the cemetery, still half-asleep, if Stiles wanted to catch up to Isaac before he was finished. The sounds of his trek across one side of town to the other were exaggerated by the slumbering stillness of the early morning, from the sharp crack of the door's creaking hinges as it closed behind him, to the crunching of grass and dirt beneath his feet, made crisp by the frost that had settled overnight. In less than an hour’s time, the sun would warm the earth just enough to clear away the frost, but a thick fog would rise up in its place, looming over most of the hold like a burial shroud until nearly nightfall.
Stiles moved quickly through the dark without a need for carrying a torch or casting Candlelight, able to find his way as the stars were gradually washed out of the sky. He’d only made it about halfway to his destination before he started to regret not throwing on more clothes despite his haste to leave without waking his father, curling his hands together and blowing into already-stinging fingers to warm them before tucking them under his armpits. He kept his arms folded tightly over his chest as he passed by the beginning of the long, stone wall dividing the cemetery from the rest of the village, and it wasn’t much longer after that he was able to make out the faint, flickering glow of a lantern in the distance.
Isaac Lahey was tall even for a Nord, his head and arms still popping up above the ground every few seconds while he drove a shovel into the frozen earth.
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ehlnofay · 8 months
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19! :)
19: sea change
In the last few days of the year 200, Torr kills the Emperor. In early 201, a war breaks out.
It’s not wholly unexpected, at least not by those who know where to look. The Emperor’s death is no small blow to Solitude, the city that sent him off on a voyage he would only exit under a pall; especially considering that the guard had patted itself on the back for successfully foiling an assassination attempt right before his ship left, only for his throat to be slit under their noses, anyway. The head of Skyrim’s Penitus Oculatus appears to have vanished. No-one reports seeing anyone out of place on the boat until they started stumbling over the bodies. The Empire mourns through all the official avenues as the heir prepares for succession; Solitude’s government is busy trying desperately to smooth it over, putting out excessive bounties on the assassin that failed and scraping up intel on the one who succeeded. Not that there’s anything much to find – it’s a locked-room murder, and every logical suspect has an alibi that holds up to interrogation. There are no leads to follow.
And Windhelm is a powder keg.
It always has been, ever since the Great War, as long as Torr or any of his kids have been alive. Short-fused and disillusioned, crowds moving hot as blood through its winding stone streets, it’s always been something tough, hard-throated, splintered into careful lined sections. Torr walks whatever lines he wants, but not everyone has the energy to straddle them; not everyone can.  The upper city is all harsh-cut stone and ice, the bricks ancient, the crowds in a hurry, even though none of them seem to know where they’re going; the Grey Quarter is where the snow runs when it turns to slush and the walls are stuffed with rags. The planks keep snapping with dry rot, sharp and gaping as broken teeth. They need to be filled to keep the cold out. The Cornerclub keeps the fire roaring. Talres goes there to work most days and doesn’t come back up to the house until the streets are empty. No-one knows it’s going to happen, not exactly, but there's no way anyone couldn't know. There are a lot of people who have been waiting on an opening, and all eyes are pointed elsewhere.
With little fanfare, the Jarl and his entourage leave Windhelm.
The city stops being a fuse and starts being the wreckage after it’s blown. Torr is told that there’s a span of a few weeks where Talres stops leaving the house completely. Katla gets arrested again and weasels out of it on her own. The ill-drawn posters of something approaching Torr’s face stuck up over the walls of Solitude are covered up with announcements and calls to join the Legion. Windhelm floods with bodies ready for the rebellion. Aventus’ house is already crowded; in a few months, Torr hears, it’s nigh impossible to walk in for the bedrolls and blankets spread over the floor. The city has never been a warm place in any sense of the word; Torr’s siblings are inundated with more kids and more kids with nowhere else to go. They don’t know if Solitude is much better; they look different now than they did on the night of the assassination that wasn’t and then was, hair cropped shorter and uneven, face gaunter, the weight they’d managed to gain over their comfortable months in Falkreath sloughing off them like a spider’s old skin, but even so it’s a bit much to step foot in there so soon, some of the bounty posters still mouldering on their posts. One of the kids says something about needing a whole other house. They’ve only got the one. Still, it makes Torr think.
(Skyrim has one orphanage, a little wooden hall down on the banks of Riften’s canals. And now there is a cursed house in Windhelm.)
Torr doesn’t go to Solitude. They only occasionally go to Windhelm. When they’re not on business, they stay on the outskirts of Danstrar; the Pale, all frozen winds and snow high enough to ice a horse’s knees, is an unappetising enough target that aside from an announcement of alliance with Windhelm’s Stormcloaks the war has not truly reached them yet. Which is ironic, considering.
(If prompted, Torr probably could have seen this coming – Torr, who spent years with his finger on Windhelm’s pulse, moving through the people and hearing endless talk about the government. It was going to happen sooner or later. And of course the Empire reeling from the assassination of its Emperor – the first since around the time of the Oblivion Crisis, which no-one is anxious to repeat, and the reminder of which put plenty of important people quite on edge – is enough of an opportunity to weigh heavily in sooner’s favour. If he’d thought about it with his blade set beneath the hairs of the old man’s beard, he would have known he was setting a war in motion. What Torr doesn’t know is if he would have cared.)
(Probably not. He still doesn’t, after all. Not enough to regret anything.)
Dead winter bleeds into spring; a little ice melts, and the sea begins to change. Torr’s shoulder aches when the weather is bad. There are clashes on the roads, outside cities, described in newspapers and word of mouth. Cyrodiil ships off heaps of soldiers to spill into Solitude’s ports. The house in Windhelm is overrun. But the nightshade kept in the temperate corner that Babette has transformed into a garden begins to bloom months early. The tides still come in and out.
The old Emperor is dead. Skyrim is tearing itself apart. Torr cleans his knife after use with a soap that smells like lavender and tries very hard to dredge up any guilt.
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berrywinkle · 6 months
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my ass cannot finish Skyrim because the joy I feel building my own house and starting a family far outweighs any satisfaction I would feel from finishing the main quest. Once I get Lakeview manor my entire playthrough derails into resource gathering to build furniture. I'm getting level 100 smithing from crafting iron nails to build tables and beds for my kids. I spend all my gold on lumber. I'm overencumbered on clay and quarried stone to build an oven I'll never use. My house will be the most magnificent home in Falkreath, rivaling the Jarl himself!
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