ZvS

Definitely the best option, IMO!

Oh crap! Was that part of her side of the story? I don't recall that part. :-(

Now that I'm on my second play-through, I'm catching some details that I didn't catch the first time and I've changed my opinion on "In My Time of Need". In short, I'm noticing a lot more details this time around and see that it helps to have more background on the politics and history of the Elder Scrolls in general.

Yep, just ran into them yesterday. Except, as I recall they offered me mead, and I chose the response that was something like "Why have one when we can have two." Implying that I'd share with them as well. Their response was something like "A man after my own heart" (paraphrasing) and they gave me the same necklace. It was fun running into those cheery drunks. :-)

'Aye, love! Love! Even as man, great Talos cherished us.' Probably. Ha! I heard it too after reading this and got a good laugh. It's actually within these lines: "But you were once man! Aye! And as man you said, "Let me show you the power of Talos, Stormcrown, born of the North, where my breath is long winter." The whole speech is posted on Heimskr's UESPWiki page. I get a kick out of this guy. Reminds me of some of the wacky preachers I'd see on the street back when I worked in NYC. :-)

Okay, I see what happened with your items...

The spoiler section is here: http://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/forum/413-skyrim-spoilers/ Looks like you did the right things. Further confirmation is in the following spoiler block... Have you tried putting your weapon away while you're being attacked ('R' key by default)? That usually makes guards stop attacking and instead they try to arrest you. In which case, if your bounty is low enough you can just pay it off and be done. If they still attack you even though your weapon is sheathed and haven't attacked them back, then something else is wrong and I'm not sure what to do except for trying some of the console commands to remove your bounty, but this might cause other problems if you're not careful. If none of this helps, you might need to go back to a way early saved game, assuming you have one and try to avoid having bounties against you. If you're picking locks on houses, make sure you go into sneak mode and that you're marked as hidden first. I usually make sure I double check my crime stats too to make sure I got a way with it. In the absolute worst case, I know it seems like a big deal, but starting a new game is actually fun. I'm on my second play-through and am enjoying it as much, if not more than my first play-through. Good luck.

You might want to open a post within the "Spoilers" section, since we're getting into a grey area here. I'll put my next question and comment in a spoiler tag just to be safe, but if we need additional follow-ups let's do it in on the "Spoilers" board. I'll keep an eye out on the Spoilers board to see if you open anything there.

I agree with a lot of points in the OP's original post and thought the quests that were listed were pretty good examples. In fact, I've thought about writing a similar post, citing many of the same examples. I like the concept of moral ambiguity; however, I found some of the writing in Skyrim to be a bit lazy. If we're talking true immersion, then there would be opportunities to go a little further down the path of asking why or being able to investigate the facts a little more. "In My Time of Need" is a fine example. Neither side was willing to give enough information to make an informed decision, so yeah, the simple choice might be to ignore the quest. However, I think it would have been a lot more fulfilling if the writers could have gone a little deeper. They simply could have added more dialog options when talking to either side, or even better, allowed for you to investigate by talking with more people. Moral ambiguity is great when you can make an informed decision vs. an arbitrary one. A good example of moral ambiguity is when you have to choose to follow the "the law of the land" vs. being a vigilante. For "In My Time of Need", it would have been a little better if we had to make a choice between serving justice or serving our own personal greed, or some other similar choice. Choosing Team A vs Team B with no information isn't that exciting to me. Fortunately, Skyrim has so many great things about it, such as the open world, combat, etc. that it more than makes up for the lazy writing and thus I still find it a great game -- I just think it could be even better if the writers put a little more into it. In the old DnD days or Baldur's gate days, I always went for neutral-good alignment. I'm a golden-rule kinda guy and like to do the right thing, but not necessarily follow the law just because the authorities "said so". In Skyrim, I have to put that aside and instead just play through and care less about the moral consequences, otherwise there are way too many quests that would go unfinished. The end result of my first play-though was that I went through nearly all of the main quests even though they don't cohesively fit my character.

Kudos well-earned! This the the most awesome post I've seen yet. I got a good laugh out of this one and nearly got up and started cheering. It will be just as sweet though when I do it myself now.

Yes, I love to hate the Thalmor! It's easy to have them attack you when you see them escorting a prisoner out in the wilderness -- just talk with them and give the elusive, obnoxious answers to their asinine questions. I don't even think you have to say you worship Talos -- simply question why it's wrong to get them started. Just be careful, once one of the prisoners got caught in the cross-fire and Lydia killed him. We ended up with a 40gp bounty, that I gladly paid. I make a living selling Elven armor thanks to killing off these snooty, obnoxious, arrogant bastards. I also take pride in wearing the Elven armor I took off one of the Thalmor I killed. One of my favorite quests is in rescuing the Thorold Grey-Mane. I first talk with the guard at the gate, who blows me off, so I walk right past him thus inciting them to attack. Kill 'em all, and then work your way through to find Thorold. You'll kill lots of Thalmor and pick up more loot than you can carry. Ancano in Winterhold is another example of a Thalmor that gets my blood boiling. I remember my first time, I saved the game and tried killing him after one of his obnoxious comments. Unfortunately, that's when I found that he was essential. It was still fun beating him down even if I did have to ultimately go back to my saved game. The whole reason I can't align myself with the Imperials boils down to two reasons: - The Thalmor. I'd sooner choose to die rather than align myself with them, thus I can't respect the Imperials. - The Imperials intended to execute me simply because I was trying to cross the border -- probably still due to Thalmor policies. Looking forward to the Thalmor mod someone mentioned earlier in the thread! :-D

For your first problem, do you have saved games from back when you were in the Embassy? If so, I'd go back and check to see what, if any, bounties you have out on you. (Doing this from memory: Click escape to get to the menu, click general stats in heading, click crime on the left.). I've started checking my crimes on a regular basis, especially after doing certain things just to make sure I don't have a bounty out on me. Also, when in a town, if the guards start attacking you, simply put away your weapon and they should stop and give you a choice of paying your bounty or going to jail. For your shouts issue, I apologize if you already know this, but you have to manually unlock shouts by spending a dragon soul. Select the shout from your magic menu (P key), and then click "unlock". I forget which key is the default, but it'll show you on the bottom. You'll then be prompted to spend a dragon soul. This isn't necessarily intuitive, since the first two shouts (Unrelenting Force and Whirlwind Sprint) are given to you and you're not required to unlock them. Hope this helps.

This is an old thread, but I'm guessing it's going to be of interest to more and more folks like me who recently completed this quest line. I completely agree with the quoted response above and when Delphine first demanded that I kill Paarthurnax, I didn't consider it for a second. I only wish that siding with Paarth had more closure to it, like ultimately leading to a battle with Delphine or somehow convincing her otherwise. It annoys me to see the "Kill Paarthurnax" quest sitting in my journal -- it should instead be "Side with Paarthurnax or Side with the Blades", each path ultimately leading to a final battle.

Script Dragon has been updated! v1.4.21.0 is available here: http://alexander.sannybuilder.com/?category=other&altname=skyrim_script_dragon Did a quick test. Skyrim loaded fine and my Script Dragon mods seem to be working.