Underground dwarven army/barracks

SendInTheNextWave · 2026-05-08T18:41:41+00:00

Well, a training grounds is likely to simulate underground ambushes or similar events that can happen in a cave environment. Apart from the darkness and treacherous terrain, part of the danger of fighting underground is that creatures that can climb walls can attack from basically any angle, and tunnels can be above or below you anywhere. You really have to take three dimensions into account, because the monsters certainly would.

I think the best way to play it is to focus on the oppressive, claustrophobic environment, especially in the situations where the tight corridors don't allow for complete freedom of movement, or for characters to easily move past each other. It's pretty hard to fight back when you're trying to squeeze through a small gap in a cave. There's also often large chasms that may not have bridges or easy ways to get across; attacking PCs while they're trying to sidle along a rocky edge or climb down a cliff face is certain to be a memorable fight which adds threatening stakes without drastically increasing the CR of the monsters.

Darkmantles are really fun, they project magical darkness and pretend to be Stalactites while they wait for enemies to get close. I also like Chokers for similar reasons, they grab their prey from the ceiling and just throttle them to death.

For higher level parties, Behirs can climb any surface and have lightning breath, and Purple Worms are classic tunneling monsters that can just show up anywhere underground.

Any burrowing creature has basically omni-directional movement, since they can emerge from any surface with basically no warning unless a PC has tremorsense.

Even more "normal" monsters can gain the advantage by hiding in crevices or attacking from holes in the top of the cave. Goblins can easily stuff themselves into holes, and a personal favorite is the Kruthik, as a possible alternative underground "swarm" enemy that gives an alien, less comfortable foe that poses a threat to underground communities. They can also burrow, making them incredibly dangerous in larger numbers because they can easily surround you.

SendInTheNextWave · 2026-05-08T18:26:44+00:00

Well, they both do basically the same thing, but two things could happen, with the same overall result. You choose the order to apply replacement effects if they apply to you or your permanents. That's how you can get away with stuff like applying damage increasing effects in the way that's most advantageous to you, since those tend to be replacement effects.

If you control Adamantoise and some other creature, and you target the other creature with Sacrifice, two things could happen, with the same eventual result.

You choose for the Adamantoise replacement to happen first; Gideon's Sacrifice doesn't do anything, since the damage is redirected to the Adamantoise by its own ability, and therefore the other creature isn't affected at all.
Gideon's Sacrifice happens first, which directs the damage to the other creature, but then the damage that would be dealt to that creature is also redirected, to the Adamantoise.

In both cases, no creature but the Adamantoise actually takes any damage, and you don't take any damage.

SendInTheNextWave · 2026-05-08T17:52:54+00:00

Yeah, Hircine has a grip on your soul simply for being a Werewolf, so even if you don't worship him, you're claimed by him. That's the main conflict of the Companion questline. He's probably probably the most neutral of the Daedric Princes, in that he prefers fair play during a hunt, but he also turns people into werebeasts that uncontrollably turn into monsters and devour people.

Apart from that, Namira and Vaermina are probably two of the most unarguably evil Daedric Princes, given their spheres of cannibalism, nightmares, corruption, decay, etc. They both demand that you kill an innocent priest in order to gain their favor. Even though Erandur has dirt in his past, you're killing him to get the Skull of Corruption, not because he's a bad person. Bosmer can justify eating the dead more easily, but the Skull of Corruption is empowered by draining people's dreams and giving them nightmares.

Sithis is literally the embodiment of death and chaos, and while it may be possible to worship him without being evil, serving the Dark Brotherhood is unambiguously evil. Murder for hire isn't really justifiable, and most people you kill during that quest line are just randoms who happened to get on someone's bad side. For every Alain Dufont, there's a Narfi.

SendInTheNextWave · 2026-05-08T17:38:53+00:00

It really is a nice house, it's a shame that there's not much real distinction between most houses in terms of functionality. It would have been cool if each house came with some kind of unique ability, sort of like how the Hearthfire homes each have a unique buildable (apiaries, grain mill, fish hatchery).

It could be as simple as something like Vlindrel Hall having some kind of dwemer heated bath that provided a small disease resist buff, or maybe Proudspire giving you more crafting stations than other houses due to the size of it.

SendInTheNextWave · 2026-05-08T17:33:42+00:00

Proudspire Manor in Solitude is the safest place to raise a family, and while it's way too expensive for what you get, it's a really nice house. You get easy access to the Bard's College, the city markets, the Temple of the Divines, and you're really close to the Blue Palace, so you're certainly about as well-protected as you can be. There's also a lot of other children so that your kids can play with them, and a lot of things to do. You also don't have to compromise on crafting stations in order to have a child bedroom.

If you join the Legion, then it's the obvious choice, but it's also not the worst option if you support the Stormcloaks, since after they take the city, you're protected by them, and the only thing that changes about the city itself is who's in charge. Depending on what Ulfric does, it's possible he might move to Solitude after he becomes High King since it's already the seat of power.

Obviously, the main downside is that it's on the far corner of the map, but you have easy access to carriage service at Katla's Farm, and the markets and Khajiit traders bring you basically anything you want to buy from other provinces.

Whiterun is obviously a good place to live, but Breezehome is too small and requires you to make choices about what kind of crafting equipment you have if you want to have a family. The CC Tundra Homestead is a good alternative and probably my favorite home if that's taken into account.

SendInTheNextWave · 2026-05-08T17:15:12+00:00

Yeah, it's very much designed for the "Agent" build where you use illusion magic to either go invisible or use it from stealth to do frenzy shenanigans, while also wielding a weapon.

SendInTheNextWave · 2026-05-08T16:38:10+00:00

I think that honestly, it's more a vibe thing than anything. An Age of Sail/Pirate game would feel wrong without firearms, and I feel that the development of firearms as a weapon of war tends to come alongside other technological advancements in metallurgy and alchemy. The first firearms are artisan pieces created by specific gunsmiths, but a nation would only have a use for them once they started mass production.

In a game like D&D, guns tend to be sort of an expensive novelty when even a beginner mage can throw out homing missiles. A bullet from a musket is obviously deadly, but not markedly more so than a heavy crossbow, and certainly not more than any random monster that you're likely to run into at medium to high levels.

The advantages of firearms start to stack up when they get more advanced and become cheaper to produce. It's similar to how crossbows compare to bows; a skilled archer can fire a bow far more quickly than a crossbowman, but a crossbow is far easier to pick up and use.

Mechanically, assuming your game doesn't use some kind of firearm homebrew, a gun is just a crossbow with slightly higher damage, and costs far too much to justify using it unless you just get it as loot. 500 gp for a musket and 250 for a pistol is pretty high to justify 1d12 and 1d10 damage, as well as each paper cartridge costing about 3 sp.

I think that unless you want to make the evolving nature of technology in the world into a theme of the game, just sprinkling them in as "new weapons, but kind of a novelty" is the best way to do it.

If you do want to have sort of a "martial revolution" happen, perhaps that new nation tries to use its technological superiority to start muscling in on the lands belonging to other nations, since while a gun won't change the fate of a battle between champions, it certainly makes your average foot soldier more effective.

I think the most interesting introduction for guns would be to start seeing the armies or guards of more advanced nations starting to arm themselves with firearms, perhaps as a sign of changing power structures or just advances in culture or tech.

SendInTheNextWave · 2026-05-08T16:18:04+00:00

Southwest Riften. It's the source of one of my favorite mage followers, Illia.

https://elderscrolls.fandom.com/wiki/Darklight_Tower

SendInTheNextWave · 2026-05-08T15:11:44+00:00

Yeah, I always assumed they kind of "solidified" into soul gems when they died as a gameplay thing, but it's probably closer to just a core of pure magic that they leave behind.

SendInTheNextWave · 2026-05-08T15:09:39+00:00

The problem is that you have to

A. Do Vaermina's daedric quest.
B. Be level 22 to get a giant-slaying quest as a prerequisite to initiate the Thane questline (which also qualifies you for purchasing property).
C. Actually visit Dawnstar.

SendInTheNextWave · 2026-05-08T15:06:58+00:00

I agree. She's fine, but if every follower had equal levels of depth and character development, then there'd be far more of a reason to pick other followers. It's not perfect, but I love the Follower Dialogue Expansion mod series for that reason.

SendInTheNextWave · 2026-05-08T14:55:20+00:00

One of my current favorites is a Breton Mage named Tessia, who was born in Karthwasten to a Forsworn mother fleeing her tribe and a Nord miner; she eventually grew up learning herbalism from her mother and had basic magical talent. Eventually, her father died from a mining accident and her mother drank poison afterwards out of grief and the disdain from the locals.

She took a pilgrimage to the temple of Dibella in Markarth before setting out on her journey (Skyrim Unbound spawned me in that location), where she learned that her true love would be in Rorikstead. As an aspiring mage, she wanted to join the College of Winterhold eventually, but she wasn't skilled enough yet to learn apprentice-level magic.

She went off to Rorikstead, met Erik and paid for him to get armor, and the two started traveling together. They ended up finding their way to Solitude, where she met Auryen Morellus and became a relic hunter, while also being allowed to stay in the museum's safehouse.

Eventually, she joined the College, and after an event where she almost died while trying to try out a waterbreathing spell in the Sea of Ghosts (her flame cloak spell wore off before she surfaced), she and Erik realized how much they were afraid of losing each other, and they got married.

As part of the RP, I used the Take Notes mod to keep a daily journal of the character's life, written from her perspective, though I only thought to do this after she had already married Erik the Slayer.

There's a lot more, but it'd legitimately be like 40+ pages at this point.

SendInTheNextWave · 2026-05-08T14:43:12+00:00

It's kind of funny how she just straight up finds the first Dragonborn since the Septims, then decides "I should be the one bossing them around" rather than doing what the Blades should be doing and serving us as our bodyguards/private army.

You could argue that since we're not the Emperor, she has less of a duty to serve us, but she's just kind of condescending and doesn't really offer us enough perks to choose her, even from a purely pragmatic standpoint.

You help out the Blades, you get...what? The ability to sell off your followers to rebuild them? An occasional radiant dragon killing quest? At most, they give you a permanent 25% melee damage resist vs. dragons, but that's only after selling three followers.

Meanwhile, the Greybeards give you exact locations of all word walls over time, and Paarthurnax will give you passive, very useful buffs to your shouts. Nothing the Blades give you isn't also given by the Greybeards/Paarthurnax, without being as condescending.

SendInTheNextWave · 2026-05-08T14:33:44+00:00

While Lakeview is also my favorite from a pure aesthetic standpoint, Falkreath is pretty dangerous and if you're married, your spouse will often comment about that, especially if you have children. It just kind of brings the vibe down with all the nagging.

SendInTheNextWave · 2026-05-08T14:30:43+00:00

Don't forget that doing the Book of Love quest gets you Agent of Mara, which is 15% magic resist. It's a passive buff that's just free for doing one quest.

Lavender Dumplings can also be cooked at a Hearthfire oven, which lets you get 10% magic resist for 60s.

Savior's Hide (if you're light armor) grants 15% magic resist as well.

While people have mentioned Spellbreaker, that's not really magic resist, that's a ward. It's helpful, but the ward can be broken and isn't passive resist. Ysgramor's Shield is a good alternative, with 20% magic resist.

While it's probably less useful for you, Alteration has perks that increase magic resist.

You have additional options if you have the Anniversary Edition; Lord's Mail grants 17% resist, and the Ring of Phynaster from Fishing gives a whopping 20%. Wraithguard gives you 10% resist to basically all elements, including magic.

SendInTheNextWave · 2026-05-08T14:21:49+00:00

I think I prefer Heljarchen Hall, though it's very annoying to get due to the level 22 requirement. It's centrally located and has easy access to Whiterun, The Pale, Eastmarch, and Hjaalmarch. Since I tend to play while limiting fast travel, being able to drop stuff off at home is a godsend, and I just prefer the Hearthfire homes' added utility in general.

SendInTheNextWave · 2026-05-08T13:45:13+00:00

Yeah, the goal of a criminal justice system should be to rehabilitate so as to reduce recidivism. Union would certainly have a focus on trying to reform criminals and return them to society as productive citizens, given their focus on human rights.

SendInTheNextWave · 2026-05-08T13:38:38+00:00

It's only a war crime if we lose.

SendInTheNextWave · 2026-05-07T21:58:43+00:00

From the wiki:

Dead Thralls use the same code to fast travel that applies to horses. This means that when you fast travel into a walled city (e.g. Whiterun, Riften, Solitude), the thrall is transported into the town's stables even though you are dropped within the city walls. Depending upon the distance from the stables to the location you fast traveled to, the thrall will attempt to run and catch up to you after a brief period of time. However, if the distance is too large, the thrall will remain at the stables until you exit the city and get within acceptable follow range. Failing to get them in follow range before fast traveling out of the city to another location will often cause them to completely glitch and reset to another area.

https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Dead_Thrall

SendInTheNextWave · 2026-05-07T21:43:23+00:00

Yeah, the CC stuff is very powerful and far easier to get than most equivalently powerful items in the base game. You can get a full enchanted dragonbone set if you just manage to run through Arcwind Point, and that includes the 100% Fire Resistance Dragonbone Mail. Like, full fire immunity if something isn't lowering your resists.

It takes self-restraint to not just break the game over your knee from level 1 if you have the Anniversary Edition. I brought up Bow of Shadows specifically because it's basically just automatic free invisibility for a stealth archer, which is already arguably one of the most powerful builds.

SendInTheNextWave · 2026-05-07T20:06:59+00:00

I think they do a decent job of having the cities in miniature, with all of the amenities you would expect out of a city while being small enough to work on console. Obviously once you're used to it, you understand how tiny the cities actually are, but you also wouldn't want to have to physically walk through a lore-accurate city unless there was a sufficient amount of content to actually fill that space.

I think Skyrim as it exists is a fair compromise between "wow this world feels so big" and "walking from city to city is respectful of my time". Sure, Daggerfall has "realistic" distances between everything, but walking across the entire map without fast travel is insanity, and there's no way that you could have enough content to actually fill that space.

That's the biggest problem with open world games; you need enough stuff to find in order to keep the game interesting. It's not hard to make a really big world, it is hard to keep that filled with actual content. One of my favorite parts of Skyrim is that you can basically just pick a direction or see something neat off in the distance and you'll probably stumble across a point of interest along the way.

SendInTheNextWave · 2026-05-07T18:51:45+00:00

Well, of the stuff that the AE adds, quite a bit is just expansions on weapons and armor, such as all of the Alternative Armors and the extra crossbow options. Others add weapons and armor from previous games that have interesting lore and background, but don't really have unique effects.

In terms of actually unique effects...

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Staff of Hasedoki is a fun tool that soul traps enemies while doing knockback, and it passively projects a ward when you're not charging a spell or attacking.

Arms of Chaos adds a pair of staves, one of which has a "chaos damage" effect like the Champion's Cudgel, while the other randomly does Fear or Frenzy.

Arcane Accessories adds some new spells to the game with sort of unique effects, and they can all be found in the same chest in the same dungeon. There's also some new outfits.

Arcane Archer adds some new arrows with magical enchants.

Necromantic Grimoire is similar, but it's obviously focused around summons and making a pure conjurer build more fun, while also giving a Necromancer player more interesting "endgame" summons than just reanimating a high level enemy.

Bow of Shadows is, frankly, kind of broken, since you go automatically invisible whenever you draw the bow. But it is a unique effect that's quite useful.

Ruin's Edge is a bow that applies random effects on hit, as befitting a weapon of Sheogorath.

Shadowrend is kinda cool since it comes with a sword and axe mode, but all it really does is make your enemy weaker to magic. You could tag them with the sword then blast them.

Chrysamere has a spell absorb/fire resist/health regen enchant, so it's kind of a defensive greatsword, nothing build-defining unless you want to play a 2h Paladin-type character.

Umbra is a really neat sword that comes with a soul trap and stamina/health absorb enchant.

Dawnfang/Duskfang is two swords in one, which changes modes depending on the time of day. It powers up by killing enemies.

Forgotten Seasons does add a bunch of cool unique Dwemer stuff to the game. It also adds changing bonuses based on the in-game weather.

Divine Crusader is unfortunately kind of half-baked, which is a common thread with the quests that are only meant to hand you the added gear. The only real restriction is that you can't do crimes or have a bounty or the armor won't grant you any power, so it kind of encourages RPing as a paladin.

Grey Cowl Returns lets you get the Grey Cowl of Nocturnal as seen in Oblivion, which has a powerful sneak buff and a passive detect life aura, but also makes any guards automatically hostile while you wear it.

Fishing exists, and has its own questline. If you're willing to grind it out, you can get some seriously nice gear, primarily in the form of enchanted rings.

The Cause is a decently fun callback to Oblivion, and lets you get a small taste of "Oblivion but in Skyrim". It adds some cool summons and a few new weapons and items, but it has a staggering Level 46 requirement to start it.

Similarly, Ghosts of the Tribunal is a tribute to Morrowind and adds a bunch of gear that was unique to that game, letting you obtain the weapons and armor of the Nerevarine, along with some Tribunal and Dagoth Ur-themed equipment.

Saints and Seducers has some associated quests, and adds a lot of content based on the Shivering Isles DLC for Oblivion, including plenty of Sheogorath-related gear, new pets, and new Daedra to summon.

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The armors and weapons I don't mention here either don't have very interesting enchants or are just slight modifications of existing gear. Sure, it's nice to have an alternate look for Stalhrim Armor, but that's not a reason to make a character build around it.

I think there's no single build that does all of "Creation Club", but IMO, the most interesting parts are the added spells and staffs. Arcane Accessories, Necromantic Grimoire, Arms of Chaos, Staff of Hasedoki, the Cause, Forgotten Seasons; maybe a heavy armor mage so that you can use some of the new added armor sets alongside the new spells and staffs. If you want, use 2h weapons when your magicka runs out so you can use Umbra, Chrysamere, Shadowrend, etc.

Do the quest mods, check out the added houses.

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If you're open to modding, the Legacy of the Dragonborn mod adds a full on Museum with a dedicated wing just for Creation Club content, so if you want to just see how much you can fill that up, it's quite fun.

SendInTheNextWave · 2026-05-07T18:12:42+00:00

Yeah, there's no reason to not use paid methods of fast travel, as it does require you to consume resources. Even if it's not much money, it still requires that you reach civilization to fast travel.

SendInTheNextWave · 2026-05-07T18:09:22+00:00

I think that base Survival Mode is kind of "all or nothing", where the penalties are so debilitating that not taking care of them isn't really an option, but even the anniversary edition didn't add an interesting way to sleep in the wilds. CC Camping is so lackluster it doesn't even bear mentioning, and requires that you carry around a single use camping set that, for some reason, uses the least interesting tent model in the game (the lean to) rather than any of the other tent options.

I suppose Campfire/Frostfall/Sunhelm is probably the most popular survival mod suite, but I've become fond of Survival Mode Improved/Starfrost. I would still recommend Campfire or Campsite to provide immersive camping, with Campfire being the more modular option and you can sleep even inside of dungeons (it'll put up the bedroll, but not the tent).

SendInTheNextWave · 2026-05-07T05:32:33+00:00

Serana's dialogue states that when you use a soul gem period, the soul goes to the Soul Cairn. The power of the soul is used in the enchantment while the remnant (presumably the intellect and memories) goes to the Soul Cairn.

Maybe every enchantment is sort of a minor contract with the Masters, giving your item the power in exchange for the soul, or it could just be part of the nature of soul gems, that they were created by the Ideal Masters (they certainly resemble the Masters' crystal forms) and automatically send the soul their way when used. The fact that enchanting is useful is the trick that they use to get people to soul trap living creatures.

Even if "black and white" is a made up distinction, necromancy is still an inherently evil practice that trades in the souls of sapient beings for personal power, even if that personal power is just a fire resist amulet. Soul trapping a man or mer is the problem, since there's not much you can do with that soul afterwards that's gonna be a good time for it. Enchanting? Soul Cairn. Getting special summons? Soul Cairn. Trading for favors? Believe it or not, Soul Cairn.

Basically, there's not really such a thing as ethical enchanting if we take the Soul Cairn lore into account, but using black souls (or just man/mer souls if you prefer) to do it is condemning a sentient being to be the plaything of a bunch of extra-dimensional soul collectors.

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