BrettM

My mistake. I had misread your remark as a reference to Malborn fleeing to Skyrim, but I see now you were talking about his later flight to Morrowind after "Diplomatic Immunity." Time to brush up on my reading comprehension skills.

Malborn is a Bosmer, and he was fleeing one of the purges the Thalmor are still conducting in Valenwood. Apparently the Dominion has its own internal problems, but we don't know how extensive or disruptive those problems are and how they might affect any resumption of the war. I would imagine that there are troubles in Summerset as well, and there may be more now that the Psijic Order has re-surfaced. I can't help wondering if even the Khajiit are as pacified as we believe, or, if so, if they will remain that way. As far as I know, the Dominion has no presence in Morrowind at all. Nor does the Empire, who, as I understand it, never actually incorporated Morrowind in the same sense as, say, Hammerfell or Highrock. If you side with the Empire, though, the new Imperial guards in Riften make a little comment about the value of having a base within easy reach of Morrowind. One has to wonder what the Empire has in mind, since any attempt at conquest would be flat-out insane in the Empire's current condition.

I see a single-player game like this as having two phases of play. The first is the "sense of wonder" phase (or the "WTF is going on" phase, if you prefer), which is largely emotional. With repeat plays this emotional response diminishes, though there can be new discoveries made on repeats, and it becomes more of an intellectual exercise. You try different character builds, optimize strategies for the various encounters you know are coming, and so forth. It is still fun, but a different kind of fun, and it can last as long as you can think of different things you want to try or modders are producing neat mods that change the flavor. Then a new DLC comes along and you start all over. :) I have no problem maintaining an interest in such a game unless there is a long dry period -- HL2:Ep3, anyone? -- at which point I move on to something else.

It depends on what you mean by "wrap the game up". Finishing the main quest? In that case you will simply need to not progress the main quest until after completing the civil war line. At a certain point in the main quest line you will have no choice but to put the civil war on hold until after the MQ is done if the civil war is not already completed. It doesn't really matter, though. I have had characters finish the MQ last, first, and in-between and it doesn't make any difference to my satisfaction with the playthrough. The various major quest lines are all basically independent of one another and can be done in any order.

I can't imagine it either, since we meet the founder of the Way of the Voice inside. Wouldn't fighting Tsun violate his principles, or could he rationalize it as being "True Need" or a way of honoring the Divines?

Yet the semi-literate Nord who wrote Alduin is Real knew of Alduin's defeat in the Dragon War, and Tale of the Tongues was part of the repetoire of the bards. We persuaded Balgruuf of the need to capture a dragon by informing him of Alduin's return, without giving him an extended lecture on the significance. The only one who ever needed any long explanations was our own character, and that was mostly because we ourselves, the player behind the character, required them.

My impression was that we were challenged by Tsun only because we came there as uninvited, unjudged living beings. I figured that any spirit there had already been judged worthy and had free run of the whole of Sovngarde, including the Hall. Kodlak even spoke of putting together an expeditionary force to go rescue previous Harbingers from Hircine's realm, implying that the spirits weren't even bound to stay in Sovngarde at all times, much less confined to the Hall. But "worthiness" was not judged by the standards of good vs. evil, only by valor in combat. Even a murderous bandit could hope to go to Sovngarde. So Ulfric's presence can't be taken as any indicator of his moral standing. Perhaps it would have been better had Ulfric persuaded Torygg to declare independence, but it might not have been possible psychologically for Ulfric to do this. Ulfric had been fiercely loyal to the Empire and could not stand to stay in High Hrothgar when other Nords were risking their lives in its service. Then he found his loyalty betrayed by a weak Emperor. Was he able to tolerate the idea of risking betrayal again should the High King be too weak to stick to the course of rebellion? I think his rage at the Emperor and the guilt the Thalmor planted in his mind during his captivity made him blind to any quality of leadership other than unbending strength. Ulfric was no longer able to bow to anyone who was not first proven stronger than Ulfric himself. Thus he felt compelled to challenge Torygg instead of persuading him.

The best guide I've yet seen is So You Want to be a Mage, and I highly recommend that you read it. A few points off the top of my head: You have way, way too much Magicka and way, way too little Health. My mages don't have even half that much Magicka because it just isn't needed if you're using gear that reduces spell costs. You need some on the way up the ladder, but once you have good gear and perks, spell costs should be zero for the magic type you use most. If you're going to put a mage in cloth, you need to give him as much health as you can to avoid being one-shotted. Even my wimp mages in light armor do that. I also have very little use for Master spells. For Destruction, the Dual Cast and Impact perks make it possible to easily stun-lock anything with lesser spells. An expert Destruction spell on one hand and an expert Conjuration spell (I favor Dremora Lord quite a bit) on the other is also a good combination. Keep in mind that Expert missile spells have a longer range than bows, so you can hit an archer before he can hit you. Master spells are just too slow and that much power is rarely, if ever, needed.

Yet only a few of them, such as Molag Bal and Boethia, seem truly anti-good. Meridia and Azura strike me as being pretty far over on the good side, and perhaps Malacath as well. Sanguine seems mostly harmless except for causing a little chaos. Hircine isn't out to conquer the world or anything, but just loves a good hunt and is equally happy whether the hunter or the prey wins as long as it was challenging for both. Some, such as Peryite, strike me as ambiguous. There seems to be a great deal of variety among the Daedric Princes, so they can't really be categorized as a group. It makes me wonder if there is as much variety among the Aedra, but we never get a chance to interact directly with them as we do the Daedra.

Odahviing also refers to Paarthurnax as "the old one" after Paarth announces his intention to try to teach The Way of the Voice to the other dragons. It's hard to see why he would phrase it that way unless he was substantially younger than Paarth. So there does seem to be more age variation within the species than just Alduin vs. all the others. Regarding the dragons in Forgotten Vale, I'm not sure they were hiding. I have wondered if those dragons might not have been there from the beginning as a sort of honor guard to a major temple to their father (given that Auriel = Akatosh). That Falmer temple must be unthinkably ancient, and was certainly built long before the arrival of men from Atmora. How do we know that a large number of dragons didn't flee to Atmora to escape the Dragonguard pogrom? They must have lived there once, since that was where dragon worship began. Perhaps all Alduin had to do was recall them after his return.

The magnitude of the effect on the item that you disenchant does not matter. You learned the stamina regen effect when you disenchanted the first item and do not need to learn it again to apply higher strengths to new items. The strength of the enchantments you apply depend on your current skill in enchanting, perks that you selected, the level of the soul gem you use, and the effects of any Fortify Enchanting potion that you used. The strength of the item you originally disenchanted makes no difference at all. If you had discovered and disenchanted the 50% ring first, you would still not be able to enchant an item of that strength until you had enough ability to do so through skill, perks, potion, and/or gem. So the way to get a better enchantment is to level up enchanting, get a stronger soul gem, buy or make a potion, and pick the right perks.

Well, WE went after it even though it was in the hands of one of the most powerful people alive undead. :)

I wouldn't expect any ties between Dragonborn and anything else in the game. Look at the lack of change in the main game in response to Dawnguard, for example. None of the jarls has one word to say about vampire attacks on their holds, the vampire Court Mage in Solitude seems oblivious, nobody at the College of Winterhold gets involved, Odahviing apparently can't hear you when you're in the Forgotten Vale, etc. It won't surprise me at all if Dragonborn gets the same lack of response from the main characters, even though it would seem to make sense that Paarthurnax and/or the Greybeards would at least have some information for you. Connections between two DLC would be even less likely, since customers might resent being forced to buy a DLC they don't want to play one they do want, so I wouldn't expect anything in Dragonborn to send us back to see St. Jiub.

Amen! One kudo from me to Helmic for that little diatribe, as soon as I stop laughing too hard to click that little plus sign.

If you side with the Imperials, listen to some of the new guards talking after you take Riften. They seem to think this is a good thing because it gives them a base from which to move on Morrowind. It doesn't sound like the Empire's intentions regarding that semi-ex-province are any too friendly, though perhaps they are more concerned with the Argonian presence there.

Beth can do pretty much anything they want with the story, given that our choice was ultimately inconclusive. If the Empire won, well, there are still Stormcloak camps out there and the rebellion could still make a comeback. Likewise, if the Stormcloaks won, there are still Imperial camps out there who might someday turn the tide. No matter which side "wins", the jarls supporting the other side are all still alive and sequestered, available to be put back on their thrones, while Elisif is still on hers either way and the Moot has not yet met to confirm or deny her claim. So Skyrim could end up independent or could remain in the Empire in the long run no matter which side you supported in the quest line. All the elements are in place to justify either. The only thing Beth can't do is have either leader live. But, that's easy enough to handle by just introducing a history book that says both leaders were killed at some point during the course of the rebellion before the matter was finally settled.

And the Imperials are SO much better with their whole "White Man's Burden" approach. Nords are just barbarians and Skyrim would be total chaos if it weren't for the Empire giving them rules. The Empire tries so hard to be a civilizing influence, but all these Nords, Bretons, Bosmer, etc. (not to mention those darned animal races) just don't appreciate it. Right.

Hmmm. I just found out about The Chill three seconds ago, when I read your post, wondered what the heck you were talking about, and checked UESP. :)

The really interesting thing is that all the College NPCs seem to think that the shortest path to the library is through the Archmage quarters, since they all go that way from the lobby. They obviously know something and we should beat it out of them.

The prerequisite is that it be "sundered, kingless, bleeding" but does that necessarily amount to being deactivated? Bleeding and broken is not the same as dead, though it obviously isn't an indicator of health, and both conditions apparently are the result of the Dragon War -- the Time Wound and the Dragon Break that occurred when Felldir created it. I can't see the "kingless" part as having anything to do with deactivation, since the High King is not likely to be the Stone and Skyrim has been kingless before, following the death of Borgas. Whether or not the Snow Tower is actually deactivated depends on what the Stone is, I would think. If it is, say, the Eye of Magnus, then the deactivation may have occurred even before Ysgrammor's time, when the Eye was removed to the location where Saarthal was later built. If it is Alduin, then perhaps the Tower was deactivated at his banishment, reactivated at his return, then deactivated again at his defeat. Or perhaps it can never be deactivated as long as he exists and will one day return to fulfill his destiny as World Eater.

And yet it was the Akaviri, not any of the races of Tamriel, who constructed Alduin's Wall to ensure that the history and prophesies regarding Alduin were not forgotten. If nothing else, that particular prophesy had high importance to them.

I like your reasoning, but I would still include Akavir in the list. I think this really fits with Skyrim and the Blades storyline quite well. Who better to deal with a Tiger Dragon that wants to invade Tamriel than a Dragonborn? Dragonborn have had connections with Akavir since the time of Reman, though those connections were somewhat second- or third-hand via the Dragonguard and the Blades. The Tsaesci invaded Tamriel in search of a Dragonborn because of their obsession with the extermination of all dragonkind. Now that the dragons have returned, might history repeat?

I'm a bit confused. I thought the Snow Tower was the Monahven. How was that constructed by mortals, and when and how did it become deactivated?

No, it isn't genetic, as The Book of the Dragonborn discusses. There was no hereditary relation, for example, among the founders of the three empires: Alessia, Reman Cyrodiil, and Tiber Septim. There have also been Dragonborn outside the imperial lines, as we can meet one in Sovngarde, and the Greybeards say it may be possible for there to be others in the world that have not come to their attention as you did. It appears that being Dragonborn is a direct gift from Akatosh, though he perpetuated the gift within the imperial lines because of the Covenant. As long as the descendants were "true to the dragon blood", the gift was maintained and the Gates of Oblivion were kept sealed. But that is a matter of the will of Akatosh rather than a genetic entitlement, and nothing stops him from giving the gift elsewhere. This is all a separate issue from the gift of the Voice that Kynareth gave to the Nords. She did not create any Dragonborn, and there were none during the Dragon War or for a long time thereafter. The first to receive Akatosh's gift was Alessia, who was not a Nord but a Nede from one of the human tribes of Cyrodiil. Though all Nords have the Voice, the racial ability they share (Battle Cry) doesn't seem to be draconic in nature. There are no words to it that must be learned, raising some questions about the nature of the Voice. Obviously one must have the Voice to be able to learn to Thu'um using the dragon language. But it looks as if there may be neglected possibilities in the gift that are unconnected with the dragons. I wonder if any of the Greybeards in the history of their order have ever pondered this.

Kudos sent for that one! Nice summary and right on target.