Basic background on the events that transpire between Oblivion and Skyrim:


As we know from oblivion, the last of the line of the true Emperors, Martin Septim sacrificed himself to save the Empire from the realm of Oblivion.

Shortly afterwards, An extremist High Elf faction called the Thalmor take control of the Summerset Isles.

Once in complete control of the Isles, the Thalmor use their influence to organize a coup in the land of the woodelves. After throwing out the Empire in the Wood Elves homeland, the two join forces/consolidate their power and call themselves the Altermi Dominion.


After some shenanigans involving Tamriel's moons disappearing and reappearing, the Kahjiit join the A.D.


The A.D. send a big list of demands to the Empire (not a descendent of the septims)

The emperor refuses.

A.D. invade the Imperial City war, war, war.

The Emperor eventually concedes and signs the the White-Gold Concordat which brings a temporary peace to the realm. As part of the agreement, the worship of Talos is banned in the Empire, the Blades are disbanded, and large sections of land are given to the AD. Hammerfell refuses to give up their lands and secedes from the Empire. The AD and Hammerfell (along with hoards of nords from Skyrim) go to War. (The Great War that is mentioned by some warriors of Skyrim).

After many years of fighting, the AD retreats and no lands are exchanged.


Now, Ulfric Stormcloak sees the new Empire as weak and does not serve the needs of Skyrim and that the Empire are a bunch of puppets to the AD.

[This message has been edited by Predmid (edited 12/4/2011 10:59p).]



EDIT: No. 2 I read a lot of books in Skyrim.




A LOT.

[This message has been edited by Predmid (edited 12/4/2011 10:59p).]

Ok Smithing...

Someone had posted a way to buy ingots and rinse repeat making daggers. Some thought this wasn't a good way to "game", etc.

I have a slightly different way that is less gaming the system.

If you have done the mages college quest, the dwarven ruins, and store room, at Mulzaft are loaded full of dwarven junk. A lot of this you can smelt into dwarven ingots. Go back with a companion and grab as much bent scrap metal, etc and you will have a freaking ton of dwarven ingots.

I used these with my stockpile of iron ingots and made a ton of dwarven bows. It's 2 dwarven ingots and 1 iron for a bow.

Then use 1 dwarven ingot to improve it, and then I enchanted each one with my best value enchant. Sold these to some vendors.

So for picking up some junk, I was selling bows for 400 g a piece (my speech skill sucks or they'd be 1k a piece) and I also got a lot of decent leveling in smithing and enchanting.

that's pretty much what I did. I keep an outfit that is enchanted with smithing at my home in Whiterun. So I go home, change, and then get my smithing all done in one shot, and when it comes to dwarven bows or armor I can pretty much level up every 2 that I create. And Dwarven materials are way more available than some of the other materials.

I still don't see how it's gaming the system to buy materials available from a vendor and use them to craft items.

It's not, some purists may think that you should only craft items as needed to complete the game and level up that way. But if you did that you'd never come close to maxing out your smithing.

I also find myself with a lot of pelts from fighting wolves and bears. You can get a ton of leather and leather strips from them to make hide armor. And then sell that for decent coin.

Question for the conjuration mages out there:

say you have a conjuration spell that is way above your conjuration level, but you have the magic reserves to cast the spell...is there a chance of the conjuration spell failing or is it just a bug in the system if it doesn't conjure?


/I may or may not have cheated and looked up the atronoch forge recipie for "spell tome: conjure storm atronach".

[This message has been edited by Predmid (edited 12/5/2011 8:47a).]

I just don't think that the empire and skyrim stand a chance against the Dominion if they're fractured. I support a unified front against those elven supremacists. The empire welcomes all races. All of the imperials that I've spoken to oppose The Dominion, if only passive aggressively.

The quality of life in Skyrim has a higher ceiling if they stay in the empire. The empire is better for business than independence is. I'll admit that it's corrupt right now, and has sold out the religious interests of the Nords, but it's not worth giving up on yet.

I know that some of my motives are drawn from deep roleplaying and won't see any sort of fruition in the gameplay, but I've been sucked deep into the story and the lore and I'm loving it.

I went Stormcloak rebellion the first time through, it was pretty fun. I haven't decided which one this time through.

quote:

---

I'm a High Elf so it seems like I should side with the Empire.

---

The Empire bends to the High Elves' will, but I haven't talked to one imperial supporter who likes it. All of them have expressed a desire to fight for the sovereign empire of old.

Also, don't get too caught up in Ulfric's cry for Nordic independence. 5/9 holds and their populaces still support the empire. His intention is to liberate them, whether they want it or not.

Either allegiance will result in subjugating political opponents against their will.

I've also heard many nords declare that Ulfric's true motive is no more than hunger for power. It's worth considering.

Also:




few things terrify me more than when spelunking in a cave and having a spider drop in on top of me unexpectedly.



I quite literally start losing it and nearly crap my bed.


I hate spiders.


Seriously.



Frack those *******s. They die easy enough as I drop a few fireballs on their heads.

This thread is winning just because of Predmid... please, continue.

Awesome summary btw - so, does the decision on which faction really matter in game? I thought I read the actual battles for the holds happens in game (which is awesome) - but does this actually affect the game that much? Maybe I'll go stormcloak as a high elf and then side with the empire as a nord - totally screwing up the expectations of the player type.

[This message has been edited by wee_ag (edited 12/5/2011 11:51a).]

I was going to join the stormcloaks and then saw they were racist against the dark elves and seemed to think Nords were better than everyone else.

So I decided to side with the empire.

nothing makes me happier than dropping chain lightning+fireballs on a crowd of spiders and watching them disintigrate/explode.

Thank you destruction perks.

Well, I finally encountered a backward flying dragon. This ******* took forever to get down to 0% health because he flies around all kinds of crazy, but the really lame thing is that once he's down to 0 health, he just keeps on flying around like he's having a seizure or something. It sucks too, because I need to kill him for a random Winhelm mission I received. Here's a video of it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyEyVx-moko

Hopefully the next patch fixes this ish.

It seems like the pre-planned dragon fights aren't as bad as the random aggro'ed dragons.

***Markarth Quest Spoiler****

Has anyone done the Markath/Forsworn quest and sided with the Forsworn leader?

I didnt realize I had a choice and now I cant enter the city without fighting a mass of never ending guards. If I offer to pay my bounty they refuse and don't take me to jail.

What can I do or am I screwed?

I sided with him, got out of jail with him, and the guards say something to me but don't attack. When we broke out he said something to the effect of, "They'll know you helped but remember their true enemy is the forsworn."

^
Didn't know there was a choice either, but I don't get attacked.

I didn't think I had a choice when I broke out of jail with them. I haven't been back to the city yet, but I am (was?) Thane there, so I wonder if that has any effect either way.

didn't know there was a choice.

I've been wiping out all the forsworn I find cause they seem to attack me on sight.

If I remember correctly I think in your dialogue with the old man you are given the option to kill him or join him.

quote:

---

Thieves Guild was the first major line I completed. Gonna be hard for the others to top it. I'm already kind of let down by the Dark Brotherhood. Very un-menacing once you actually get in.

---

I had a blast with the DB questline. I almost feel bad for Solitude. For a city that suffered through the reigns of Potema and Pelagius(sp?), the recent wedding will be the new talk of the town for centuries.

The end of that line had me so angry I killed everything from Falkreath to Solitude.

I'm like two or three quests in on all the lines. I near-about refuse to "complete" any of them.

I've decided that I'm basically going to assassinate Thalmor indiscriminately whenever I can do it undetected.

Anyone having problems with caverns not loading texture 100%? It's happened to me twice.

Randomly here and there, yeah.




So, major random....task? I wouldn't call it a quest, because I haven't been given a 'quest' yet, but has anyone else been fighting the dragon priests and collecting their masks?

I found one in a dungeon, one near a dragon wall on top of a mountain (that was a fun little "oh hey, i just killed a dragon, ho HUUUMMAAAA AAAAH undead dude who turned my atronoch against me and is throwing fireballs at me aahhhhhh".


At first, I thought they were just random awesome masks you got for killing a tough baddie, but I found something that made me realize that there are 8 very specific dragon priests that drop 8 very specific masks.

I'm having an issue with a lot of ore deposits that I have mined and gone back later after they recharged. They aren't depleted but I can't mine them.

Also, screw those dragon priests..dudes hit HARD. Herp derp..just killed a dragon..wait..whats throwing fire balls at mooooOOOHHH GOD. *Lydia gets owned* *flee in terror*

Found a third dragon priest.

+100% magic regen mask. Sweeeeeet.

Predmid you need to check out Cronvangr Cave, trust me you'll love it.

....there are two possibilities.

1. another dragon priest in there
2. cave full of giant spiders.



I'm leaning towards the latter.

lol wild

and I keep stumbling upon those priests on accident. Thought they were random until reading the above posts. Thanks for the heads up.

Also, you guys been finding treasure maps? I've collected 2 or 3 but havn't found the locations drawn on them yet.

[This message has been edited by kbassil (edited 12/6/2011 9:05a).]

Hold on to those masks, there's something to do with them once you collect the set.
And I've found a few treasure maps, found three treasures so far. But they aren't anything crazy good, I've found better stuff in random chests while on quests.

Premid,

don't know if you are playing on computer, but apparently a lot of people suffer from your spider problem and they've created mods for it. One mod changes all the spiders into bears.

Not nearly as far along as you guys, so I have a noob question:

Can someone explain the soul gems concept to me? I'm trying to get my enchanting on soon, but I don't get the deal with the various fill amounts of the gems. How do I get a full one? Very confused.