BrettM

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?

I think it depends on your timing. If you don't go to the College until after you learn you need an Elder Scroll, then you can use the Voice to get in so you can consult the librarian. This provides a way into the College for non-mages who are only there to pursue the main quest. However, if you get there earlier, presumably because you want to follow the College questline, then your only option is to demo a spell. There are a couple of places in the College quests where you can use a Shout in place of a spell. For example, in Saarthal you can use a Shout on the amulet wall instead of following Tolfdir's suggestion to try a spell.

It's because of the UN, secretly commanding game companies to subliminally support Agenda 21 and encourage players to help depopulate the earth by failing to breed in sufficient numbers. No, really! I Have Proof!

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.

Skyrim is a console game ported to the PC. Even without a Microsoft deal, why wouldn't we expect that they'd finish the console version of any DLC first and then do the PC port? If they finish the console first, why would they sit on it, getting no income from it, while doing the port? Just to make us PC players feel better? Heck, I don't mind coming in second, since the console users will uncover a bunch of bugs that can be corrected in the port so we'll never see them on the PC.

My first character through I actually tried communicating with the Afflicted, but they always attacked me regardless of my being on a mission from Peryite himself and feeling sorry for them, so I ended up killing them. I also tried talking to Orchendor, figuring he might give me a reason to refuse to obey Peryite's demand and say "screw you" to another Daedric Prince. Perhaps he was trying to keep all the Afflicted quarantined so as to contain the plague, which would make him a pretty good guy. But he also attacked me on sight. Next character just slaughtered everything. After all, all of them seemed to be working on various vats of goop and stuff that they planned to use to spread plague across Tamriel. Not nice! Third character snuck past everything except the dwarven bots, but did have to kill Orchendor to get the key to exit the place. So I still couldn't say "screw you" to Peryite. No approach to this quest made the least bit of difference to Peryite or to the Afflicted. All characters who did the quest were still subject to random attacks by Afflicted later on. So do it whichever way you like. You aren't supposed to do anything but kill Orchendor, and nobody cares what you do on the way to find him.

Never having seen any Morrowind myself, I will be quite happy just to get more Nordish lore and story. The bad title hardly matters, since the game doesn't throw it in your face once you've bought and installed the DLC. Edit: I do wish they'd find some way to get at least a few of the characters from the base game involved with the DLC, but I imagine it will be like Dawnguard and all of them will be oblivious to the new content. Vampires attacking towns everywhere but even the jarls don't have a word to say about the crisis.

However a true pacifist doesn't just forswear killing, but violence in all forms. Knocking someone out is still something a pacifist wouldn't do, along with barroom brawls and the like.

These people are bandits, evil mages, vampires, etc. They have adopted a way of life in which they rob, steal, kill, kidnap, enthrall, and perform unholy rituals using unwilling victims. Yet you expect them never to tell a lie about yielding because that is just wrong? :D Anyway, one can play a game free of murder but not one free of killing. The two are not the same. A true pacifist may not do either, but that doesn't mean the terms are synonymous. Killing a person in self defense is not murder even if a pacifist still refuses to kill for that reason.

Forgotten Vale, on the big frozen lake where the word wall for Drain Vitality is found. The Inner Sanctum Balcony is directly above the southwest corner of the lake and the Wayshrine of Resolution is directly north of it. It sounds like you must have somehow avoided crossing the ice while going after Auriel's Bow. Even skirting the edges in the vicinity of the word wall seems to be enough to trigger those dragons. If not, then just go wander around the lake for a bit. I'm sure they'll show up.

Relax. You can't mess up your game no matter what decisions you make. There are several possible outcomes to the conference, but all of them are just a matter of which side controls what holds afterwards. The only difference that makes is what quests will have to be done to win the civil war for your side, if you decide to resume the war after finishing the main story line.

Keep it going! I'm enjoying this greatly. A sterling example of how to construct back story.

And yet ... many fortresses and towers have these small rooms containing nothing but a tall stool, a bucket, and a book sitting on a handy ledge. Hmmmm. (I rofled the first time I noticed one of those little rooms. :))

Except that committing that murder is also your only path to destroying the Dark Brotherhood. It doesn't make much real sense, but, there it is. So, will you sacrifice one abusive hag to destroy a whole nest of assassins? Except that's an unfair way to put it for RP purposes, because your character has no way of knowing the long-term consequences of killing or not killing Grelod. That decision must be made on its own merits. If a character is willing to murder Grelod for a reason, it doesn't mean that he must be of a moral inclination to join the DB and murder for hire. Willingness to murder for some reasons =/= willingness to murder for ANY reason. It's really a tangled mess. To me, it would have made more story sense to use Aventius to introduce you to the idea of the Dark Brotherhood, do something non-lethal about Grelod if possible, and then get directed to the Penitus outpost for more information. The commander there could still give your hero the assignment to wipe them out. For less-good characters, the option to simply kill Grelod would still be there, with the same paths to follow that exist now. This structure would give you four options: do nothing, do only good, be morally flexible, or embrace evil all the way.

As I recall, the abuse wasn't just verbal. Grelod was physically abusive as well. In addition, she was deliberately preventing the adoption of any of her charges and then throwing them out on the street -- uneducated and with no resources -- on the day of their majority. Talk to Balimund's apprentice, who is a product of Honor Hall. He got lucky in that Balimund was willing to take him on, but he's still a pretty sad excuse for a human being. In a Skyrim hold, there are no regular courts, licensing laws, child-welfare agencies etc. that you can call down on the head of someone like Grelod to get her shut down. You can't report her to the guards and get her thrown in jail, since there are no laws against what she's doing. Your options are limited. Unfortunately, the game limits the options even further. Administer street justice or leave the kids with no justice at all. I would have more respect for the devs if you could at least intimidate Grelod into leaving town, administering a few bruises if necessary. The sensible option, though -- especially if you're a thane -- would be to petition the jarl as an advocate for the children. After all, it is her job to hear petitions from her subjects and provide what passes for justice in their society. How hard would it be to convince the jarl that Grelod is doing great harm by releasing uneducated, abused street rats into the hold, leaving most of them with little choice but to make their way down to the ratway and take up a life of crime? If nothing else, the jarl certainly has the power to banish Grelod, or at least forbid her from operating an orphanage.

The rebellion against the dragon priests clearly had two phases -- before and after Paarthurnax's conversion to the side of humanity -- with an unknown amount of time between them. However, that time must have amounted to years because it would have taken that long for Paarth to train non-dragonborn humans into effective Tongues. Ten or twenty years at the inside, I would think. Would the other humans have just offered themselves up for slaughter during these years by keeping up the fight? I doubt it. So I think there is some justification for considering each phase a separate rebellion, separated by years of peace. Either way, Lachdonin came up with a good explanation of the situation. It's just quibbling to debate whether the rebellion should be considered one or two, because the end result is the same no matter what label you apply to it. Nice job, Lachdonin!

Dragons killed by ordinary means can be resurrected by Alduin. However, if a dragon's soul has been absorbed by a dragonborn, I don't think even Alduin can resurrect it. That's why Delphine tells you that a dragonborn is the ultimate dragon slayer. Even if you could learn Alduin's resurrection shout, if you got close enough to the corpse to use it, you'd absorb the soul and prevent resurrection.

It isn't a random encounter. There are five giants in total and they're always in the same locations. One of them is directly across the river from the platform where you use the gems. The other locations are a bit out of the way, so you'll have to search around the vale until you learn where they hang out.

So the existence of anything is merely a thought in the dream of a god? Bingo! God thinks, therefore I am. CHIM courtesy of Descarte. :)