Skyrim; Iron Man Style

[spendavis]

So, I'm thinking of setting myself a new challenge. Creating a new character and making it as hard as possible, whilst still attempting to stay immersed and giving my character a decent personality.

 

I am forever finding myself quicksaving as I roam around Skyrim, so to combat this I will not allow myself to quicksave and will only save the game at the end of my current session.

 

Furthermore, if my character dies, that is it. Game over. The save gets deleted. By adding a permanent aspect to death, I think that the feeling and emotion gained knowing that my character is in mortal danger will change the way I play and view different aspects of the game. I think knowing that the death of my character is permanent will make the play-through more authentic. It will make it more real. The loss becomes greater, and so the emotions felt will become more real. The challenge that arises out of that loss will be more real. The game will become more real.

 

And I plan on making it as hard as possible. I will be playing on Master, using little or no armour. I will turn off the HUD, Compass and Crosshair to add immersion. I will also disable the music and I will never fast travel.

 

My character will be as follows:

 

- Name: Athilien

 

- Race: Wood Elf

 

- Skills: One-Handed, Archery, Sneak

 

- Weapons: Bow & Dagger

 

- Secondary Attributes: Embraces Alchemy & Smithing.

 

- Immersional Attributes: Eats and sleeps daily. Walks everywhere, though occasionally uses horses and carriages. Only acquires useful items and gear (he has no interest in gold).

 

- Background Story:

 

Athilien is a direct descendant to the Champion of Cyrodiil, though he does not know this, as his father left his mother for distant land before he was born, and his mother died during child birth. He was born in the Imperial City, and was raised in the building in which he was born - The Merchant's Inn, in the Trade District of the capital. The elderly couple that raised him were the owners of the Inn, and he has fond memories of the place. He spent his childhood roaming the city streets, scaling walls, reading books, sometimes pinching apples and (when he was caught, which wasn't often) being chased by the guards.

 

Athilien developed a good relationship with the beggars of the city, who were a decent source of information. As he grew up, he much became the opportunist, using shadow as a veil to steal items for coin, whilst distributing much of his wealth to the beggars whom he had become friends with. Most within the city walls held Athilien in kind regard (though most did not know of his shadowy antics, for whom they blamed the illusive 'Shadow Hawk'...) and were surprised at his sudden disappearance, just a short time after his last guardian at The Merchant's Inn had passed away.

 

Athilien had left to travel North, as the last people he considered family had left for another realm, and he no longer felt any connection to the city. With the Empire in constant turmoil, Athilien wanted to get away, so he travelled North to Bruma, hoping to scale the Pale Pass into Skyrim.

 

At Bruma, he stopped for the night, as he was exhausted and the cold was chilling him to the bone. He had left the imperial city with nought more than the clothes that wrapped him and a dagger made of fine steel. His stomach rumbled. He hadn't eaten for a long time. Athilien went to the Inn, and attempted to slide some bread from the counter, neath his cloak. However, in his tiredness he had become clumsy and the innkeeper spotted his actions and let out an almighty yell, alerting the guards.

 

Athilien fled from the city, making for Pale Pass with the guards hot in his tracks. After a while he thought he had lost them, so slowed down to eat whatever bread had lasted the sprint. As he sat in the shrubbery by the roadside, he ducked neath a bush as he heard hooves, and thus two guards galloped past towards the border.

 

He needed to move. The cold was taking him. Athilien raised the strength to stand, and left for the border, no longer trusting the road, but walking closely by its side instead. Further on, when he was sure he had made it into Skyrim and twilight was on the horizon, he stopped to finish the last of his rations.

 

Before the bread could reach his mouth, a hood veiled his vision. Pain shot through the back of his head, and darkness took him. He had been captured.

 

 

What do you think? I would love to hear your thoughts on my idea for permanent death. Will you join me in creating a new character under the same circumstances? If so, what is their story?

[Jagermh]

That's really cool, I might try a bow and dagger only character too soon.

I'm not into the permadeath thing though, why did you decide to only save at the end of each play session if you're going to play permadeath?

[Ricksnowy]

are you playing the game or writing a story....................... let the adventure continue .good story

[Helmic]

I don't know if you're just super-awesome at the game, but Master might be a bit too much for a permadeath adventure. There's a lot of one-hit kills from things you wouldn't expect to kill you in one blow, what with them doing 4x damage and you only doing half. If you're going full stealth I suppose it won't pop up as often but for those fights where you can't hide it'll be utter hell without a follower to tank everything for you.

[luzburg]

Yea, its far too easy to get unlucky and die in master. Even if you don't get caught by an unseen archer you still will have to kite everything. Thats just not fun, unless it is fun for you. So whatever floats your boat!

[Lawlacaust]

You should do a let's play and post it on youtube i love watching other people play the game on there

[spendavis]

You should do a let's play and post it on youtube i love watching other people play the game on there

 

Okay, I will!

[vineyard]

That is the styple that I'm being always playing. However, I do wish there is mod that could resurrect my fallen soul from Sovenguard at the exchange of Dragon soul or something similar.

[Cipherthe3vil]

I'll do it.

I wont be turning off HUD though, since that's silly. It's more immersion breaking to me when I miss every dang time when irl you'd have instincts and better perspectives that help (I would know, considering I AM a shooter of both bows and firearms, instincts really help a lot.), which in effect is simulated with crosshairs to help out. The health, magicka, stamina bars are rather annoying however. The compass is bearable. It'd be nice if instead of listing the name of something you are going to activate the crosshairs just turn a different color so you know you can activate it. Names wouldn't be displayed, but an option to ask the NPC their name could be available in dialogue...

 

Anyway!

 

I'm starting a character...

 

*elevator music*

 

*whistles*

 

*twiddles thumbs*

 

This is taking a while to download all pertinent mods...

 

*elevator music finally changes... to polka!*

 

*and the gods spare you your torment*

Mods are done, time to build the character!

 

NOOO! Dammit, crashed when I activated the bed. (Alternate Start).

 

Ran boss. I hope it was just a load order issue or because I clicked a different option at the Mara statue, then clicked the one I really wanted (Dialogue troubles, happens all the time.)

 

 

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=110743940

http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/884093047553494549/76BB461D9E15DB8FEC35083E7CFB1C92592A1B77/

http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/884093047553489923/415BC29C6742AA358B3CB91F30F5C2AAAA087155/

 

Urdyre Blacktree.

 

Udyre is a dryad, a mythical creature with a close connection to a specific type of tree. Urdyre's connection is to the Deathbark, an equally mythical tree that is said to produce a vapor that causes hallucinations to those within an entire mile, it's bark when touched blackens the skin on contact as it's poison kills the flesh while leaving it in a living-like state governed by the Deathbark tree itself. It's said that it produces a new seed whenever the tree kills, the seed housing and feeding off the soul of the slain.

 

Through her connection, Urdyre is naturally inclined to Conjuration, Illusion, and Alchemy.

She sees other races as little more then talking food, to be eaten if doing so is more convenient then letting them live.

She loves illusions, and enjoys growing and creating her own drugs and psychedelics.

 

Strength: Summoning, Crowed control, poisons.

Weakness: Personal strength, without magicka or summons active she isn't too likely to last long especially against multiple enemies.

 

Plot-theme:

Urdyre is currently residing in Elsweyr. However, strange visions haunt her would be pleasant experience when she tries to enjoy her creations. The visions eventually lead her to Skyrim, where she later discovers that the Deathbark has slain the Dragonborn, it's soul and energies merging with her own through the tree. Leaving the dragonborn prophecy dead and no one to save the world... or is there?

 

However the transfer is not complete, Urdyre is NOT dragonborn, despite having gained the abilities similar to one. She must quest to destroy the Primal Gods to cultivate the power to overcome destiny. http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/27364

 

 

Mods key to the playthrough:

Dryad Race.

Dryad Companions, for her loyal "chosen" from her own little mini cult that would give their life for her cause.

SkyHighRim.

Canabis Mod.

World Bosses.

Moonpath to Elsweyr.

... Mm... I think that's all of them. Far from all the mods I'm actually using, but those are the ones I specifically installed for this.

OH!

And of course a mod to add more human meat and hearts, and some human recipes for cooking pots.

 

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=110768169

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=110768020

Edited November 29, 2012 by Cipherthe3vil

[Cipherthe3vil]

I hope it's alright to double post, I'm updating.

 

Urdyre is dead.

I've started a new character now. Same general concept.

 

I am now playing Absynth, a Succubus. This succubus drained the would-be dragonborn, stealing it's soul and with it it's dragonborn nature.

The dragonborn soul, however, is very strong. It overpowered her, waking her up so to speak. She took on aspects of the dragonborn's personality. A motivation, an urge. A yearning for adventure tore her away from her infernal nature. She was now conflicted with rivaling sensations of her heritage, that of Oblivion, and the divine nature granted from the dragonborn's soul.

 

She is painfully aware now of the prophecy she interrupted. With no dragonborn, Alduin was sure to bring an end to the world. Absynth, however, has access to resources unknown to the mortals. She knows that one can overcome destiny, overcome fate itself, by becoming God-Slayer.

Absynth hunts the legendary Primal Gods in order to take upon this title, and to slay Alduin himself by shattering his fate-woven armor that he cannot be slain by any but the dragonborn.

 

Absynth has killed two of the multitude of Primal Gods, they aren't actually all too hard. They easily kill you quickly. But if you're clever, as Absynth is, you can find ways. I killed the God Elemental, and the giant orc near it, by remaining far out of range and where NPCs, since they can't jump, cannot reach. Then I pelted them with arrows until they died XD

 

Absynth is a ranger type. Sneak, Archery, Alchemy. I carry around poisons, poison all my shots. Sneak, for sneak attacking and remaining undetected.

 

I added Absynth to the Bandit and Foresworn factions, as well as other human factions that would be reasonable. Bandits shouldn't randomly kill anyone they see anyway, but I also attribute it to Absynth being a succubus.

The reason being that I have several mods making the world highly inhospitable. There are tons and tons of monsters, as well as wars. Via warzones, SkyMoMod, and Skyrim Monster Wars. Then of course the World Bosses mod adding these "primal gods". This allows me to retreat to more human-populated locations to take refuge and get some allies to help me take down monsters that otherwise kill me in few hits.