Lets Play Skyrim On The Highest Graphical Settings I Can (Low)

Since my Crusader Kings II lets play is on hiatus (mostly because I found out my computer can run Skyrim), I decided to make another lets play, why not. Because I'm clearly great at consistently updating and can be trusted with the responsibility. So anyway, Skyrim! I've seen a couple lets plays of it, but I've never seen anyone do one properly- A gigantic Nord with a two handed axe killing everyone he sees in a drunken fury, whose only use for magic is resurrecting a dead elf so he can kill it again. I'm also using the random start mod so that I don't begin on my way to my own execution in Helgen. Of course, that could mean I'll start off surrounded by frost trolls and a pissed off cave bear, but that's a risk I'm willing to take. There are a couple other mods I have downloaded, but they'll only come up if I feel like increasing the wackiness quotient. Anyway, to the character creator!

Meet Sten Stenson, the middle aged village drunk of Helgen. He supports his habits by strangling wolves and selling the pelts. After a particularly productive day of lupine asphyxiation, he bought enough mead to kill a dragon and woke up in

The middle of god damn nowhere, standing on a rock and staring into a fenced off pit filled with bones and blood. At least he had the good sense to drunkenly mug a soldier and take his gear before passing out on this frozen rock! Who knows what he might run into around here. Stenson decides to get his bearings and runs across

some burnt up dead guy. Not like he'll be needing this cash anymore! Y'know, judging by the blood spatter, this guy really bled a lot before he died of burning. Oh well, probably wasn't anything that will affect me in any way. Stenson decided to leave this mountain top, having found enough gold to get mildly drunk for the night, and began searching for a town.

That looks friendly Let's go mug meet the villagers!

Turns out they're not too friendly. Also, they're necromancers. Let's see how well a necromancer fares in a corpseless location.

Poorly. The necromancer fared poorly. Well, that village was a bust. Maybe if Stenson just keeps aimlessly wandering around, he'll run into something useful.

For instance, a bandit with a claymore he can steal. Let's see if the bandit has anything else on him.

Sten has been needing a new goblet! Thanks for volunteering your own skull, your sacrifice will not soon be forgotten. After a bit more aimless wandering, he finds a cave to hide out in while the cops look for the guy who just murdered 3 people the weather calms down.

Yngol Barrow? Sounds like a nice, beginner friendly dungeon.

Oh this will be good. /settles in with popcorn

Inside Yngol Barrow

Stenson must still be pretty drunk if he's seeing tiny glowballs floating around. Maybe if he presses on into this freezing pit he'll sober up a little.

Guess not. He did come across a dead scholar with a couple books on him though. Being the kind of man who respects the dead, Stenson took his clothes so that he could give them to his next of kin. Let's take a look at the book he borrowed


The puzzles in this game are not all that complex. First we look for an area being shined upon by the sun.

Then we click on the snake until it becomes an eagle, as all snakes dream of becoming one day.

There is also a bush with a whale in it we must click until it becomes a snake and a wet patch with an eagle in it we must click until it becomes a whale. If you do that you can pull the lever

and open the door. If you fail to solve this puzzle and pull the lever anyway, you set off a trap that pelts you with darts for your ignorance. The draugr that built this tomb were big fans of social darwinism, and considered it their duty to rid the world of less intelligent adventurers. It's somewhat confusing that a dead scholar who could translate ancient Nord runes couldn't solve this puzzle, but hey, more loot for me. Stenson continues into the dungeon and finds

An awesome dragon claw. He quickly pockets it, assuming it's valuable because it was lying on a pedestal in a tomb. If you look at the little pictures of a snake, a howling wolf, and a butterfly, you'll see the answers to the next mind bending puzzle that Skyrim has in store.

The angry spirits of the dead surround Stenson, as he has looted most of their alcohol and all of their dragon claws. Unfortunately for them, Stenson doesn't believe in ghosts or magic, and thus can't be affected by them. Anyway, see those pictures on the door? You can change them around until they become a

Snake, a howling wolf, and a butterfly. The dragon claw is a key. Next time, we see what's behind the door.

After drunkenly fumbling with the claw until he finally managed to insert it into the keyhole, Stenson discovered

Free loot! If he was the type to believe in ghosts, he might be scared of stealing from this tomb. He, however, is not.

Some swamp gas gets up from the throne and starts waving a sword and shouting at him. Fortunately, Stenson has spent his entire life preparing for the inevitable swamp gas rebellion and counters by beating the ever loving shit out of it with a sword.

Being the respectful man he is, Stenson immediately begins looting everything. He even takes the book Song of Hrormir, in case he needs to clean up some vomit later on.

Looking good for a drunken, middle aged, level one wolf choker. Were the 30% resist frost on Yngol's Helm not a silly superstition, Stenson would be sitting pretty at 80% resist frost. Stenson heads outside as the smell of dead bodies isn't going well with his slowly rising hangover, and comes across

A cuddly lovable horker! Stenson has always felt a deep kinship with horker kind, and he and the horker get along quite well for a couple weeks, going on many adventures and clearing the northern wastes of bandits. Unfortunately, Stenson just seduced the horker's wife in a mead-fueled haze and the horker is now honor bound by horker law to seek the blood price. The two promise to save each other a seat in Sovngarde, as nothing could get between the true friendship they formed over the past weeks, and the battle commences.

After sending the horker to Sovngarde and weeping over his only real friend, Stenson sets off to find a proper city with enough booze to let him forget this tragedy.

Instead, he comes across Windhelm, which is a frozen over rebel city mostly filled with racists and god damned elves. While he doesn't particularly care about elven rights or the empire, Stenson does enjoy punching things, and decides to assault challenge Rolff to an honorable fist fight with a wager of 100 gold.

Judging purely by hats, Rolff never had a chance. A leather cap will never beat a Viking helmet. After fairly collecting his winnings, Stenson blew it all on nord mead, a woman who would never have the same gentle caress as Mrs. Horker, and a bed for the night.
Edit: More to come later, for now it's 2 in the morning and I should sleep

And I'm back. Let's see what Stenson is up to.

Dammit Sten, I told you to lay off the absinthe! Lets give him a couple hours to sober up before making any plans.
...
...
...
Alright, he should be fine now, lets check in.

Ya, everything is back to normal.
So the general gameplan right now is to make it back to Helgen, because someone needs to strangle those wolves. You stop chokin' em for a day and they get cocky. And when wolves start to get cocky, people start to die. Bit of a long march from Windhelm to Helgen, but as long as Stenson doesn't get distracted by anything he should be-

Oooh, I wonder whats in this cave! Stenson immediately forgets that he has a job to do and wanders into the probably spider infested wonderful cave of mystery.

Uh...trigger warning for arachnophobes, I guess. After horribly mutilating all of the spiders in his way, Stenson is surprised to see

A couple chumps who couldn't even fight off some measly rottweiler sized spiders. They were probably elves, which is why Stenson feels no guilt over ransacking their remains.

That sounds pleasant. Lets delve deeper, I'm sure the spiders have treasure chests full of jewelry and axes to find.

Well that's a bit larger than normal. Must be on steroids, I've heard they've become a blight on the spider sporting community. Stenson can see a chest that is presumably full of riches right behind it, and charges out to meet the spider. by which I mean exploits the fact that the spider can't fit through the tunnel he's hiding in and just beats the crap out of it while it can't fight back. After looting everything that isn't nailed down and on fire, Stenson leaves the cave and sees a village across a river.

Upon arriving, he finds the village to be completely empty. I guess we know where the corpses in that cave came from now. Stenson proceeds to loot every house in the area, as is tradition among the proud Nord peoples. Next time on LPSOTHGSIC (L):

Oh, that looks welcoming.

Lost Knife Hideout is, of course, filled with Khajit bandits. Stenson had never been good with cats.

He tried to rub its belly, and then it started swingin' a mace at him. After being so rudely assaulted, Stenson has lost all compassion for Khajit kind. They're even dealing drugs!

Look at that, a flute, some bloody bones, and enough Skooma to give Stenson a mild buzz. He grabs the skooma to take it off the streets sell it at the Riften orphanage. Stenson is a pusher, not a user. After clearing this cave of mangy, flea ridden khajit, Stenson finds an elf.

After a getting served by the elf's sweet dance moves, Stenson remembers that he has an unquenchable lust for elf blood and smacks the bandit off of the log and into the ravine 100 feet below. Starting to get thirsty, Stenson looks for the nearest place he can hideout and drink all the wine he lawfully took from the Khajit bandits. He ends up finding a tomb with some dude muttering about necromancers instead.

Fondling them, probably. Never trust a necromancer. Anyway, Stenson decides to help out Golldir as Nord tombs tend to be full of valuables he can pawn.

Golldir is less than enthusiastic about Stenson's proclivity for pilfering.

However, he is also an intelligent man and knows that it would be foolish to attack a necromancer without a drunken moron to take all the hits. They continue on through the tomb and finally come across Vals Veran, the asshole raising the dead.

Vals begins to monologue, but Stenson doesn't respect the rules of proper heroism and strikes him down before he finishes his sentence. He then takes everything of value in Golldir's family crypt.

As it turns out, Nord tombs are mostly filled with alcohol and battle axes. Stenson drinks half of his weight in mead and spends the rest of the night swinging his axe at pink mammoths and hitting on spriggans.

When last we left Stenson, he was going on a bender the likes of which haven't been seen since yesterday. lets see how he's doing.

Once again, he has woken up naked next to a dead giant prostitute, 3 troll skulls, 2 empty bottles of skooma, a horker tusk and a suspiciously large amount of blood. The worst part is that it's 5 pm! The entire day is gone, Sten, now you won't be able to get anything done! Anyway, he sets off in the general direction of Helgen again and runs into an inviting cave.

This guy loved it so much he would rather die than leave! Lets see whats inside.

Unfortunately, all Stenson finds are a bunch of dead trolls with missing skulls and some suspect fluids in the sleeping area. There isn't even a bed, so he's forced to wander off in search of a better place to sleep.

This looks cozy. Maybe the inhabitants will be friendlier than the last village.

Nope. Turns out they're assholes. Ah well, we have ways of dealing with their type.

Consider the toll payed. Stenson proceeds to go on a murderous rampage throughout the tower, leaving no child behind who could one day carry a sword against him.

Hey, It's the Bandit Chief. I've been needing some new armor!

Lookin' pretty snazzy there, Stenson. With that done, he sets off once again in the hopes of at least finding somewhere he can sell off his 300 pounds of loot.

I found them lying on the road after killing a couple wolves. I'm forced to assume that they were star crossed lovers who killed themselves because society wouldn't accept them for who they were. Stenson sheds a single tear before stripping the witch to sell her clothes and taking most of the fire atronarch's internal organs as they are the key ingrediant in a Bosmer aphrodisiac.

Hey, it's Whiterun! Finally a city where I can sell off my loot, get properly drunk in a real tavern, and maybe kill a couple high elves.

I even meet a friend, Sloth. Unfortunately, he steals all my ladies and I'm forced to split up with him a couple hours later. Almost 3/4 of the way to Helgen now, where Stenson can once again go back to the daily grind of wrestling wolves to sell their pelts. Sigh.

...

GO HOME STENSON YOU'RE STILL DRUNK.

On that note, though... I'm saddened that there doesn't seem to be a mod that simulates drunkeness using screen blur and occasional cursor hijacking... I remember a mod for Oblivion that caused your FOV to occasionally move in a random direction when drunk... you could be walking down the street and randomly turn to the left, for example. It was both annoying and entertaining at the same time.

Enjoy
There is also a skooma effect mod.
Oh, and a big update is coming. Forgot I had the coming mod downloaded. Does anyone else like Amnesia Dark Descent? Just a question.

I'm sorry that you must play Skyrim at these settings :(

I'm going to have to get that once I get Skyrim.

Also... why do I get the feeling your next update will contain lots of darkness and zombies?

Just when I think it can't get any better you say that and my excitement goes through the roof.

I'm going to suggest something I made for the FXAA injector which will increase your image quality with a very low overhead:

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/760#content

Under Old Versions install the Injector v1_3 Complete Package

It's still better than when I was playing it on the Playstation. Fucker stops working about 60 hours in, which is a serious problem with an Elder Scrolls game.

Because I have all the subtlety of a hammer to the skull.


Anyway, let's see where Stenson is.

Some podunk little backwater called Riverwood. Stenson continues trudging on, wondering if he should have ever left the Whiterun tavern, when he comes across this.

That looks nice! Now Stenson can join the proud ranks of homeowners. I wonder if the inside is just as good...

Well, it's a bit of a fix me up, but Stenson needs a place to store his booze. Lets check out the basement, maybe it's in better shape.

Why did he rip all of his skin off? That's just fuckin' stupid. Fixing this place seems like a lot of work, so Stenson heads off to take a quick nap.

Not gonna lie, the bed could be in better shape. Plus, that corpse seems to be sightlessly staring at me. Oh well, not the worst place Stenson has ever slept off a hangover.
Also, he's been finding these notes, but is functionally illiterate. Maybe you can make them out?



I'm putting my money on benign spirits. Those shouts were merely the happy villagers screaming in joy when being fed the most delicious of ice creams before the pure ecstasy of it all became to much for them and they ripped their own skin off. But, I digress.




Kind of her to tell me where to find the key. I also find the key to the other key on the skinned corpse of a child. Must've been some delicious ice cream.


I need to start ending all my notes like that. Anyway, there's one more note I found before I go off to the basement in search of treasure.



In my experience, a dilapidated house with ethereal, glowing windows isn't a good place to raise a family. It's a great place to raise a family.

Yeah... the few times I've played Skyrim on the PS3, it locked up whenever I move through water. I tend to play Argonians. You can see the problem here.

Goddamn... this house is old. For reference, the Third Era is when Morrowind and Oblivion is set... which is around 200 years before Skyrim, which takes place in the Fourth Era.

You sir are a scholar and a gentleman. I'll probably download that later tonight.

Anyway, the basement door has been unlocked. let's see what's down there.

That looks pleasant. Better keep going.

See, what'd i say? Pleasant. That table even has the traditional housewarming gifts of an eldritch abomination, some rusty hatchets and a diary filled with the ramblings of a mad man who has seen what man was not meant to see. Take a gander!




For best results, listen to this while you read. So I open the door to a realm called "the stretch" and run into this.

The geometries are as close to Euclidian as one can reasonably expect, and Stenson bravely soldiers on, persisting off of a mix of liquid courage and not really giving a fuck.

This greets me at the end of the hall. Let's see how eldritch abominations fare against a drunken viking with an overcompensating axe.

Poorly. Eldritch abominations fare poorly.

As Stenson continues down the blood red hallway, he comes across a few cloaked demons.

They die like the others. Stenson is now the bogeyman that abominations tell their children about to get them to behave. Let's see what else is in here.

Empty?!? I can guarantee you that unless the organ have been removed, that corpse is filled with enough alcohol to kill a bull elephant. Oh well. The only question left is whether to go left

or right

I'll just leave this here for a while. Tell me which way I should go if you're into that sort of thing.

Go left. Whenever you are in a maze, the answer is always left.

Or possibly right.

I forget.

I'm sad, because this is on the Low settings, but it looks an awful lot like how Skyrim looks on the PS3.

...mother, what does Skyrim look like on the highest settings? Can my eyes take in something like that?

Skyrim on High is beautiful. Sometimes I set it to high and struggle through a 5fps frame rate just to take in a couple waterfalls. Even if they look more like syrup than water with all the lag.
Edit:

Odin's beard that is gorgeous

Well, since you asked:
http://deadendthrills.com/?cat=314

Don't worry too much, that guy isn't exactly playing at 60 fps like that.

oh my god
i am actually crying right now

My computer can't even handle Skyrim on the LOWEST OF LOW SETTINGS.

Pretty sure that's just with default textures, too.

Now imagine that with high-rez replacements. Yeah.

You probably wouldn't be able to play Skyrim like that... but you'd have a damned pretty slideshow.

I... Can't actually see a difference between this and playing on my console. Barring the water pattern.

Clearly this is why I am not a PC gamer, my eyesight is not good enough to even notice the superior graphics.

If it's any consolation, I have a friend who can't run Age of Mythology on the lowest settings. I like to use his computer whenever I feel that I must repent for an awful sin.

My laptop chugs a bit when I try to play Morrowind... in fairness, I have quite a few CPU-intensive mods, and Morrowind's not exactly optimized, so it eats RAM like candy.

I should see if I can run Oblivion or Fallout 3 on this thing, though... they're a little bit tighter-programmed.

You can actually play it - it isn't as demanding as I expected at those settings. And it is awesome, especially with a nice headset. I start feeling actually cold when I'm up on a mountain with snow blowing around and the wind whistling, etc.

Another update!
So Stenson hurriedly runs off to the left, getting sick of the constant moaning sound effects of this place and finds this at the end of the hall way.

Utter darkness. Well I've seen Indiana Jones enough times to know how to deal with this!

I even start to get a teleport animation about fifty feet lower! Stenson ends up..,

Right back at the start. Awesome. Well, there's still the right side to explore.

Some more darkness and a stairwell. Up he goes, hoping to at least find a demon to kill.

Instead, he finds a dead end. Well, if it didn't kill him last time...

Gravity forgets about him for a few seconds, but it eventually gets around to cruelly dragging him into the abyss. Maybe this will teleport him somewhere else.

It will not. And I can't actually use that door, so that's fun. Well, I do have one more plan, so cunning and wily that a fox would be jealous.

Drink!

Damn straight he is. Fuck it, might as well jump around the crazy teleporting abyss. It's what I would do if I was drunk and in what appears to be hell.

C'mon, just keep staggering on over there.

You can do it!

I believe in you!

You asshole, don't black out on me! Now you're gonna wake up skinned alive and next to a demon that you're pretty sure has every std.

Or your drunken blackouts have gained the power to warp the very fabrics of reality and you'll wake up in some hamlet about...

50 miles away. Note that he didn't lose his equipment, but he did wake up naked. Who knows what he did in the 2 hours that have passed since he blacked out.
Edit: Some awful grammar

Probably time to start getting a move on. That last blackout left him pretty far away from Helgen, so it's probably best if he-

Look at that, game. You just had to go and insult his alcoholic pride. He won't be sober for long.

Anyway, Stenson got trashed and wrecked a Stormcloak camp, as is his custom from time to time. At first they were yelling at him to stop fucking up their camp, but they grew accustomed to it over time. Eventually he woke up

naked in Riften, which is the Skyrim equivalent of waking up in the gutter of a Pahrump brothel, in addition to being marginally closer to Helgen. Also, fuck you Brand-Shei. Just because he's not bishie doesn't mean he's not a helluva catch. Stenson eventually finds his clothes scattered around the various houses of ill-repute and finds a fetching Nord lass.

He immediately begins hitting on her, which goes something like this:
Stenson- *belching* Didsh you fall from heaven?
Mjoll- :|
Stenson- Cush you really fucked up your fashe! AhaHaAHAhaHaahhaAA
Mjoll- :|
Stenson- Don't leave me
He also agrees with everything she says about the Thieves Guild, because if video games have taught me anything it's that the quickest way to a woman's heart is being a spineless sycophant.
After being shot down, he starts dejectedly wandering around the city and runs into this guy.

He knows too much! Stenson runs the hell out of this city before that guy turns him in to the city guard. Maybe the nearby Orc stronghold will take him in.

Damned lazy Orcs. Don't even have a guard in their tower, let alone someone to give Stenson the grand tour he deserves. Stenson presses on, hoping to find somewhere to sleep off his burgeoning hangover.


Of course, a treasure laden dungeon would be nice too. He enters the dungeon, heart full of excitement and head full of a pain only a practiced alcoholic can know, only to find this elf had beat him to it and didn't even have the courtesy to die in a trap!

Ya, ya. I'll help you out. What I definitely won't do is wait for you to lead me to the treasure and then decapitate you in a single stroke.
Unfortunately, it turns out I really won't be doing that since she expects me to do all the work, including solving puzzles and finding the treasure. You're the archaeologist, dammit!

It doesn't help that the drunkenness mod really does add hangovers, which have caused me to use all my stamina in a single power attack. Anyway, about half an hour of draugr slaying later, something totally unexpected happens.

Zounds! Who could've seen such a dastardly deed coming? Oh well, not like I wasn't gonna kill her anyway.

Huh. Less work for me, I suppose. It was probably a mercy, considering Stenson is an angry, hungover viking and she's an archaeologist. No way that would've ended well for her.

This being an Elder Scrolls game, there is a secret passage in the trap o' poetic justice. Let's see where it leads!

In addition to a chest full of loot, there is a dragon shout on the wall! Maybe it's fire breath, or ice breath, or really anything that involves wanton slaughter. I'm so excited!
...
...
It was animal allegiance. This is like being told you'll get an xbox for Christmas and getting your dog in 5 different boxes under the tree instead. Well, my will to play has been sapped for the night. god damn elves and animal allegiance

No wacky opening this time, there is business to attend to. Stenson encountered a dark wizard on his way to Helgen, a mage with powers so terrible and mighty that even after his death, his foul minions roam Tamriel seeking vengeance for their master. Stenson encountered a...

Chickenmancer. Truly the scourge of Skyrim. He might've stood a chance if he had summoned ultra mega chicken, but he is legend. Stenson then takes a short break from his travels to appreciate nature.

Beautiful.
...
...
What, are you expecting a joke? Waterfalls are awesome.
Anyway, he also runs into an Orc that calls him names like "milk drinker."

Clearly his only recourse was to headbutt her to death. That's real Nord craftsmanship in his helmet, it can withstand being rammed into just about anything. Of course, that's not nearly important as the fact that Stenson is almost back to Helgen now. Finally he can get back to his old job and retire from this crazy adventuring business.

Oh no. Helgen was destroyed. I'm sad. Stenson immediately suspects an alliance between the wolves and undead chickens has destroyed his hometown.

Further investigation yields a couple wolf corpses with gashes so deep you'd think a dragon attacked them and some burnt up chickens. The villagers didn't die without a fight! Stenson will see his brothers in Sovngarde soon, but not before he avenges their deaths.

Or gets bored and clears out a couple more bandit filled caves. Fun fact: Stenson one shots anything short of a bandit chief due to my ingenious leveling system of putting every perk into two-handed and having 70 in the two-handed skill by level 8ish. After clearing out this mountain pass, Stenson finds himself outside and staring down at Whiterun once more. Might as well take care of business then.

Talos proves he is the best god by ending Stenson's hangover. If praying actually cured hangovers I'd be a lot more religious. ALTERNATIVE BANTER: Maybe the real reason elves want to ban his worship is that they know the Nords would be crippled if they couldn't wish away their hangovers. After that, Stenson chooses to go talk to villagers instead of warn the Jarl of dragons chickens and further the main quest. He even finds himself a little job investigating the whereabouts of some guy named Thorald. It will take all of his stealth and cunning to infiltrate house Battle-Born.

Or the only person guarding the house will leave all the doors open and not notice the heavily armored drunkard take a book lying right in front of him. That works too. Stenson returns the Missive containing Thorald's whereabouts to Avulstein. He says something about Thalmor, which only means "Free elf slaughter" to me.

Don't worry buddy, I've got this one. Stenson considers doing this mission for free as a dead Altmer is payment enough, but remembers that the last time he tried to buy mead with Altmer bones he barely got enough to get lightly buzzed. The exchange rates on elf skeletons to septims has been terrible ever since the Great War led to skeletal inflation.
Next time on LPSOTHGSIC (L), a Thalmor will die on every page! Unless something awesome happens on the way to their prison camp.
Edit; Commas and periods are not interchangeable.
Edit's Edit: Or semicolons and colons.

I started a new Skyrim game yesterday too! It's fun to see what different choices we've made. Mine involve fewer dead giant prostitutes. Alas.

Post your mod list! And Pogo, if it's not too much trouble, maybe post somewhere a TL/DR version thread about the various/FXAA/ENB/HDR mods. I've never tried them yet and I'm not sure where to start.

If there aren't any dead giant prostitutes, you made a wrong choice somewhere.
Mods!
Autodidact Wizard- I hate searching for spell tomes
Crimes Against Nature- Gives you Tommy Wisseau the Horse, among other things
Removable Skulls 'n Stuff- Lets you remove skulls and stuff
JSwords.esm- Cool weapons
Hoofless the Mighty, Useless Edition- A drunken caribou to carry your loot
Random Alternate Start- Starts you in a random location with some basic equipment
Throwing Weapons- Weapons. You throw them.
Bear Musician
The Stretch (beta)- That horror mod. Not finished yet.
Cows of Skyrim- Fills Skyrim with cows. Don't judge me.
Alcohol Drunk Effect- It felt necessary for this playthrough
Autotuned Bears
Sweetroll Shout- You can turn enemies into sweetrolls. Unfortunately, you can't eat them yet.
A whole shit ton of others I can't remember right now or don't feel like typing. Also gonna download Pogo's when I feel less lazy.

I promised dead elves, and no one can say that I don't deliver. As Stenson walked down the long road to the Thalmor hideout, he happened upon a group of Justiciars reporting back to base.

What followed will be presented without comment.




They look so peaceful when they're dead. Stenson took all of their armor and belongings, as is tradition, and continued down the path to Northwatch, the Thalmor base.

And there it is. Stenson was advised to use the stealthy approach, let's see how that goes.

So far so good. Stenson begins giving the traditional Nord greeting of waving his axe in the guard's snooty Altmer face.
Unfortunately, the guards were less than fond of the next part of said greeting (insulting the heritage of all elves, everywhere and swinging your axe at random) and forced Stenson to defend himself.

Fire spells are Stenson's biggest weakness as all the alcohol in his system has left his blood flammable.

The elf shooting the fire realizes that Stenson is too drunk to care and uses her forbidden technique, sheathing her sword and slowly walking away. Stenson is barely able to overcome such skill.

The Thalmor should consider wearing helmets. I doubt it felt good to have Yngol's helm slammed repeatedly into his skull.

I'm not sure what's going on here, but I like it. Y'know, before this game I didn't particularly like elves, but I didn't hate them either. Ever since running into the Thalmor, though, I have gotten inordinate amounts of joy from elven slaughter.

Looks like the drink really
•_•)
( •_•)>⌐■-■
(⌐■_■)
Got to his head. I apologize for nothing!

Your death. Anyway, Stenson has now killed every Thalmor in the base and freed a couple other prisoners in addition to Thorvald. I would've taken pictures, but there weren't any dead elves.

Some other stuff that happened:

Old Orc is my favorite random encounter in the game. He was standing next to two dead sabrecats and gave me the hardest fight yet.Nature is amazing.

Some raging sociopath just left a bear trap in the middle of nowhere. There aren't even any bears around here, you dick!

I watched this random hunter take down a frost troll with nothing but an iron dagger and a set of balls so gigantic they have their own gravity well. I left him 3 bottles of mead, 40 gold, and a battleaxe in the hopes that he would grant me passage. He just kept saying the Jarl wouldn't mind if he poached a little game, which I took as him telling me to go on.

Check the Skyrim Mods thread in the games part of the forum, if you ask there then I'll remember. Getting into visual customization is a long, dark, digitally vibrant path you may or may not be prepared for.

Last update for the night
At a loss for what to do after all that Thalmor killing, Stenson decides to go back to an old standby: Nordic Teleportation.

Let's see where his reality sundering blackout takes him this time!

Fuck man. How drunk do you have to be to streak up the 7000 steps to High Hrothgar? I wonder if he killed the troll or tried to seduce it.
Anyway, High Hrothgar is sorta boring if you can't go inside, so...

And the first man to stagger up to the Greybeards, vomit in their collection box, blackout and disappear off of the face of Tamriel for a while is Sten Stenson!

That's not the best thing to wake up to. Stenson didn't even have a chance to jump in, be a hero, and spout some cheesy pick up lines ("That pendant would look better on my floor. Also your clothes.") before she was backstabbed for x30 damage.

He avenges the nameless woman's death with a bitchin' suplex. Somewhat sobered up by this point, Stenson decides that he needs a drink to calm his nerves after all that death and violence.

This guy knows what he's talking about. Unfortunately, Stenson didn't have quite enough booze to get blackout drunk, and a Breton named Eltrys approaches him to talk about the murder and con Stenson into helping him solve it.

You really shouldn't get Stenson involved if you want there to be less murder and blood. And he didn't even have the courtesy to mention how awesome the vengeance suplex was, the prick. Oh welll, time to go to the tavern and get drunk collect info on the victim.


She had the courtesy to leave a journal behind. Quite nice of her, really. The guards seem to have caught wind of Stenson's sleuthing, though.

Stenson is a loose cannon, he's not gonna follow your silly laws. Not like they'd really do anything anyway.

The murderer also had some writings to read. A note from some guy called N. Lets find him.

Unfortunately, this N guy heard that we found a note in the slums that didn't mention him by name or incriminate him in anyway and thought it would be a good idea to send some ruffian to beat the crap out of Stenson and get him to stop sleuthing.

Next time have a subordinate do all the face-to-face hiring and use an alias, Nepos. I wonder why they call him the Nose.

Hot damn, I'm not wondering anymore! Stenson was too distracted by that gigantic schnoz to hear Nepos describe his plan in detail and threaten to kill him.

Unfortunately for Nepos, his nose is too heavy for him to stay on balance while wielding a sword and he is quickly dispatched. You'd think the city guard would've heard about all this murder and brawling but hey, they're probably really busy talking about arrows, knees, and sweetrolls. Time to go tell Eltrys about all this corruption, I suppose.

Well that sucks. Looks like they killed ol' Eltrys here and have been waiting for Stenson at the meeting place. Fuck these guys, Stenson can't go back to jail. He's too pretty!

Stenson is forced to run after killing 4 and a half of 'em (one died trying to jump down a waterfall to cut off Stenson. He forget to aim for the water). A local priest also joins in the hunt and starts blasting Stenson with lightning, but he is eventually able to escape.

So Stenson can never go back to Markarth. Hopefully he doesn't blackout and appear there again.
Coming up next time: Stenson blacks out and appears there again (probably)

So I probably won't be updating today because windows 8 is a demon bitch that should never be trusted, but I did make some fan art. I know, I know, it's a little cocky to make fan art of your own lets play, but I feel that this really encapsulates the spirit of the thing.

Fucking. Masterpiece.

In further keeping with the spirit of this lets play while my good computer is restored to its former glory, enjoy this drinking game.
Every time Sten is referred to by his first name rather than Stenson, take a shot
Every time Sten wakes up naked in a new location, take a shot
Whenever some depraved sex act is mentioned (horkers, giant prostitutes, etc.) take a shot
Whenever the word elf is put in hateful italics, take a shot
First person to go through the whole thing gets a cookie and a reward of their choice.

So you'd need to take... Nineteen shots. Yes, I counted.

That sounds doable enough. I was gonna make it way more brutal, but nineteen is at least less than the first chapter of the My Immortal drinking game. I'd shudder to remember that if I could remember anything from that night.
Recommended Drinks for Increased Immersion:
Anything 80 proof or higher. Preferably higher. You shouldn't remember winning or drunkenly making an ass out of yourself when you're done.

So shots of straight vodka are not only allowed but recommended?

Vodka is especially recommended, unless you have access to poitin, in which case good luck and godspeed. The only way I will accept cocktails is if you drink them out of something like this:

And remember, if it's before 12 p.m. wherever you are now, you can start drinking screwdrivers because that's a breakfast cocktail. It's got orange juice in it!

No updates until Monday because A. that's when my computer comes back and B. I found out Mad Men is on Netflix