The Elder Scrolls XIII: Born Under a Certain Sign

[Balmas]

Morrowind, Part 8:

The Ald'Ruhn Mage's guild only had a few jobs for me--go grab a rare book. I remembered seeing one in Sulipund, so I recalled back, grabbed the book, waved to the startled mages there, and Aimsivi interventioned back to Ald'Ruhn before Sulipund's residents could remark too violently on the subject of personal belongings.

With that done, I spent a bit of my hard-stolen gold on a few spells. Night-eye was important, but even more important was a nice universal-lockpick spell. Hard to cast, especially with my low skill in the school of Alteration, but it'll open any lock. And wouldn't you know it, there was a lock just begging to be tested in the fighter's guild. I'm sure Percius wouldn't mind letting a poor Journeyman take a peek at how the higher class lived.

How the higher class lives is apparently that they walk around in peasant-grade netch-leather and leave nearly an entire set of glass armor in a chest in their room. Percius didn't comment on it as I walked out of the guild wearing his armor, but I could feel his eyes on me as I left.

========

I thought about just taking a silt-strider back to Balmora, but I had business in Caldera. And then, stepping out of the city, I found some business going towards Ghostgate as well. A pilgrim--annoying broad, with more nag than stable's worth of horses--wanted me to take her there within the next two days. I figured, I was going that way, why not earn some gold on the way? Getting to Ghostgate was simple, but the instant we stepped through the double-portcullis, we were jumped by a double-whammy of a furious red sandstorm and furious lightning-slinging monsters. By the end of the fight, the monsters were dead, but so was the woman.

Eh. I failed the escort job, but the 500 gold in her pocket made me feel better about it.

From there, I thought it would be a nice slow walk down the Foyada towards Caldera. The book the Temple had given me said that the Foyada ought to be a safe route. Naturally, that meant that I was harassed by cliff racers the entire way. I couldn't sleep, I couldn't nap. They hounded me nearly the entire way to Caldera. It was only once I found a nice little crevice to hide in--and had a pile of cliff racer corpses that I felt safe to lie down for the night.

Naturally, that's when the assassin decided to ambush me.

[Ogremindes]

---

Castle Volkihar, Frostfall 12
We've worked out where Serana's mother went from her notes. The contraption in the middle of the room is a portal, to a place called the Soul Cairn. It's the Daedric Plane of necromancy, as far as I can discern. With the reagents in the room, and Serana's own blood (her mother used her own blood as part of the formula for security), we were able to open the way. there's a problem. I'm too alive to go through. I felt like I was being ripped into pieces when I tried. Serana thinks if I'm partially soul-trapped I could get through by casting the soul gem in first. Sounds very risky, and even more unpleasant. Still, I've trusted her this far.

I'll leave this journal here, outside the portal. This seems incredibly dangerous, and I want there to be a record if I don't make it back.

---

---

Steepfall Burrow, Frostfall 15?
Meeko! We found Meeko! I thought he had died for sure!

Right... We're back in Tamriel, I'm, thankfully, back in one piece, and we have the second Elder Scroll. And Meeko.

Having part of my soul ripped out was every bit as unpleasant as I had expected. It was painful, as painful as when I stepped into the portal unprotected. While I was still dazed from the experience Serena dropped the soul gem into the portal. I was then able to pass into the cairn without further harm, but the cost was significant. I was lethargic, slow to act, slow to recover. It didn't feel the same as being sick. It was more like I didn't care enough to act with full vigor. Or something like that. I let Serana to the heavy lifting in the fighting for the first day we were in there, while I hung back with my crossbow. Thankfully, we found the soul gem containing the rest of me shortly into the second day.

Not that we were sure of the flow of time, there was no day or night per se, we just made camp when I was too tired and cold to keep going.

It wasn't until after I had recovered my soul that we dared approach the largest structure we saw. Sure enough, it was the prison of Serana's mother: Valerica. She had entered the Soul Cairn to hide from Harkon many, many years ago, and took one of the Scrolls we need with her. Serana convinced her that simply hiding away wasn't the best course of action, that deciphering Harkon's prophecy and stopping it was better than waiting for him to work it out himself.

There would be a final challenge: The dragon Durnehviir was Valerica's jailer, and attacked the three of us as we went to where Valerica had hidden the Scroll. Durnehviir summoned swarms of undead to fight us along with his own considerable physical power, but the bright bursts of Dawnbreaker would clear the area of his minions. I engaged him otherwise with my crossbow, while the vampires used their own magic powers. Eventually I saw an opening and charged him with my sword, banishing his physical form briefly. We collected the scroll and made to leave. Durnehviir confronted me again as I left, but not as a foe. He was no longer bound to guard Valerica after his defeat, but equally could no longer leave the cairn. He gave me his name, in the hope I might be able to use it to summon him briefly to Tamriel.

We left the Soul Cairn the way we came, and made our way out of the castle and to my old campsite in a cave not too nearby. As we returned to the castle undercroft, we found Meeko waiting for us. Even with the trauma to my soul I couldn't have been happier to see him.

I feel very tired. And even though I got the removed piece of my soul back, I still think I may have left something of myself back in the Soul Cairn.

---

[Aeson]

Balmas:
If you want to get around an NPC and are using the console, you might want to try "tcl" (toggle collision), which will allow you to walk through them (as well as through walls, floors, ceilings, etc, and if I recall correctly other NPCs and creatures can do the same while collision is off), or "ra" (reset actors), which will place all actors in their initial position.

If you want to see object ownership, try "tfh" (toggle full help), though as a warning this will also reveal scripts on the object.

Just so you know, "dispose of corpse" puts everything that you can take from the corpse into your inventory before it removes the corpse from the game. Also, that was the cult altar in Fort Buckmoth; Morrowind is just sometimes finicky about letting you activate altars when there are other things nearby, like say an NPC, which can also be activated.

[Triaxx]

Looked like the altar was flashing up to the left there.

Shrine's up and to the right from Ghostgate. It's a bit of an invisible side path for some reason.

Ah, even better, turns out there's a poorly documented issue with Rigmor of Bruma interrupting Immersive Armors startup for some reason. Turn Rigmor off, let IA configure, and then turn Rigmor back on. Fantastic.

Also, Cheese of Ages review: Fantastic mod. Slightly creepy in a place or two with some truly cringe inducing dialogue, but fantastic even so.

[Winter_Wolf]

I did a new install of Skyrim LE and went through and did clean install of my mods after the initial vanilla start up and get .ini files set up. Something, and I suspect SkyUI 5.1 for son reason, is putting a $ in front of all the games system and dialogue box interactive text: "$Settings" "$Exit" "$New" "$Continue" and so forth. I don't recall having had this issue on my old computer. Guess I should try to install SkyUI v4.something and upgrade? Anyone encounter this before?

[Triaxx]

Try reinstalling SKSE. SkyUI isn't finding the files it needs for it's custom fonts.

[Sajiri]

Didn't happen until I tried to add the Sound and Graphics Overhaul. Uninstalled it and deleted the folder. I'll reinstall and play without instead.

Aaaannnd Skyrim needs a reinstall. Can't start a new game with RAS, because it crashes after a minute or so with a Visual C++ error, and the vanilla start sees the carriage not only freak out by rolling over at speed, but at one point the entire thing rotated 360 degrees around the horse, and then unloaded us into one of the walls and prevented Lokir from being arrowed. At least it was amusing. (Can continue old games, but can't start new and I don't want to record any further than I already have because it's way too far ahead.)

I used to get that carriage freakout all the time. I know there is a mod to fix it, but I can't remember what it was and I'm about to go to work >_< Do you use SMIM? I recall I used to have 2 fixes for it, one was an actual mod supposed to fix the carriage, the other was a fix because it happens when you have SMIM. I just remember that one of them worked for me and the other didn't, but I dont recall which one (It was on an old install).

Otherwise you could just keep trying to go through the opening. If the carriage can end up in relatively the correct spot it will carry on as usual. Sometimes I managed to do that despite the flippings, other times the cart horse just started walking into the sky.

[Balmas]

I just keep a vanilla save right at character creation, so I can avoid that carriage issue.

[Triaxx]

It's likely SMIM, but that's one part of why I use an alternate start mod. So I'd never actually seen that. It's actually pretty funny.

[DigoDragon]

I mean, they could be worse.
They could all look like this graphical glitch I got a few years back.

Heh heh, yeah that is certainly worse. The mouth still moves? Yikes! XD

[Winter_Wolf]

Try reinstalling SKSE. SkyUI isn't finding the files it needs for it's custom fonts.

Turns out this hasn't helped the issue. Installer, manual install, both SKSE and SkyUI reinstalls. Guess instead of playing I'll be troubleshooting tonight.

[Ogremindes]

---

Fort Dawnguard, Frostfall 20
With no solid leads on where to start looking for another Elder Scroll, we took a meandering path back to Fort Dawnguard. Along the way we collected a dwemer schematic for Jurard from an old dwarven site.

Florentius made it to the fort safely. With nothing else to guide the way, I asked about for tasks that need doing. Sorine has a lead on a dwemer crossbow design, and Gunmar has a vampire he wants me to track down.

---

---

Treva's Watch, Frostfall 21
The dwemer schematic was in the hands of bandits occupying the fort Treva's Watch. The fort's prior owner, Stalleo, was camped outside with a couple of soldiers. He asked me to enter the fort by a back way and open the gate for him. We fought our way through the bandits, they indeed had the schematic amongst other dwarven artifacts. When I opened the gate Stalleo asked me if I had seen his family within. I didn't have the heart to tell him about the corpses I saw dumped in a side room. He payed me for my efforts, and we went on our way, striking camp not far away.

---

---

Fort Dawnguard, Frostfall 27
I've spent the last week doing small missions for the Dawnguard. I rescued the widow from Heartwood Mill, who had been abducted by a vampire leading a group of bandits, recovered a final schematic for Sorine and hunted down a vampire in Falkreath. While I was in the area I also assisted a hunter whose friends had been massacred by Spriggans.

Now I'm back at Fort Dawnguard. Jurard has provided me with a new, enhanced crossbow based on dwarven designs. Florentius has enchanted the weapon to imbue it's bolts with fire. We've dubbed it "Duskseeker".

We've still no leads on where we might find another Elder Scroll. Serana thinks we should head to Winterhold, far to the north and home to a Mages' College. Well, I suppose they would know something about the subject. It's not going to be an easy trip to head that far north at this time of year

---

---

Skytemple Ruins, Frostfall 29
After a long, cold journey we arrived at Winterhold, home of the Mages' College. The city itself was almost non-existent, a handful of buildings along the main street, and a lot of abandoned and collapsed homes. Asking around, I heard about an eccentric wizard who's set up an outpost in the ice floes to the north, who's supposedly an expert on Elder Scrolls. Looking out over the Sea of Ghosts I could just about make it out.

Try as I might, I couldn't avoid falling in the frigid water along the way. Luckily I was near enough to the outpost to shelter there while I dried out. The wizard: Septimus Signus spoke in riddles and rhymes, but, If I understand correctly, told me that there's an Elder Scroll in an underground realm called Blackreach. He gave me a key that will open the way to Blackreach from the dwemer city of Alftand, and a cube with which to transcribe the information from the Scroll with a dwarven machine. The transcribed Scroll would be payment for his aid. Looks like we got just what we needed.

I took another plunge into the water on the way back, and so we've come to these ruins to make camp and dry off before I freeze to death. There were a few skeletons and a draugr hanging around, but we cleared them out quickly enough. Tomorrow we'll return to Winterhold then begin making our way west. If I'm understanding right, Alftand is the ruins I could see from Frostflow Lighthouse.

---

[GungHo]

Turns out this hasn't helped the issue. Installer, manual install, both SKSE and SkyUI reinstalls. Guess instead of playing I'll be troubleshooting tonight.

That is the game.

[Sajiri]

I adopted Lucia, decided to give her a makeover and elven ears (so she looks like a fitting half elven child for my bosmer archer/witch and nord ranger husband), go to take a picture and she then decides, oh this will be a perfect time to just lay down on the floor and have a tantrum or something. Maybe she doesnt like the new hairdo, but it was one of the only childlike hairstyles I had easy access to.

Not sure where or how she got a bow though...

Spoiler

Show

Well, at least I have managed in some way to finally customise a vanilla child since any of those mods that add non human children never work for me.

[LibraryOgre]

In Skyrim, I was planning on having another character in a cheery lesbian relationship with Ysolla, since that's worked out well for me in the past.

But, then my orc visited a stronghold, and I realized "By the Nine, I am a strong orc woman, out kicking ass across Skyrim. I may not have time to raise a family right now, but I need an Orc man to be my wife when I am chieftain." So I married the miner. He, Rayya, and Llwellyn (and Meeko) watch the kids at Lakeview Manor while I am out killing every goddamn thing that shows up as a red dot.

In Arena news, I am doing substantially better as a Breton Bard, though I suspect some of that is just a more cautious playstyle, this time.

[DigoDragon]

Not sure where or how she got a bow though...

I'd check your loot containers for fingerprints. ;)

[Balmas]

Morrowind: Part 9

The fight with the assassin was not as brief as I'd have liked. I'd been too tired to pull my armor off before collapsing in a crevice for my impromptu nap, and so the assassin's first stab skittered of the green glass of my gorget. Still, I was exhausted from the long journey from Ald'Ruhn, and my summoned spear drooped in my hands. Even my fireballs fizzled out as my clumsy fingers failed to make the required gestures. Still, my ability to heal with magic meant that I could just outlast him, and soon the assassin lay quietly baking before me.

I looked at him. I looked at the pile of cliff racers. I pulled out my map, and squinted at how far I hadn't gotten from Ghostgate. Finally, I sighed, said "Blow this for a lark," and levitated over the hills towards Caldera, civilization, and a warm bed. One with no cliff racers or assassins coming after me.

========

I didn't just come to Caldera to escape the Foyada. Eydis Fire-Eye had also told me that there were some Telvanni agents causing troubles for the Imperial ebony mine there. I was a bit wary of pissing off the Telvanni, since they sounded like the kind of people I might eventually want to work for, if for no other reason than because they might eventually help me to get away from the Empire.

Still, it was a job. What's more, it was a paying one, which was better than half the mage's guild quests so far. Eydis had given me a list of the agents' names, and said that they were camped out in a cave near the mind, probably with a lookout. And wouldja look at that, here was a cave, with a lookout posted, and who introduced himself using one of the names on the list.

Five minutes of fireballs later, I was done with my work. I debated whether I wanted to walk back to Balmora before deciding that teleportation was uncomfortable, but had a complete lack of cliff racers.

========

Both Eydis and Ranis had new jobs for me once I reported my jobs were done. Ranis wanted me to escort a mage to Pelagiad (and also steal his notes), while Eydis just wanted me to grab a stolen code book from some woman in the South Wall cornerclub. I figured I'd do the code book--which was a simple matter of going there, talking up the lady who'd stolen it, and asking nicely for her to give it back.

Since I was in the neighborhood, I checked in with Caius. I still think he's a moron for expecting me to work with him, but... well, I'm doing it, aren't I? He told me that now that I'd established myself a bit, I was ready for the next step: learning about Morrowind. After all, he said, "no point in being part of history if you're too ignorant to understand it."

Damn, if that's not ominous I don't know what is.

========

So, to learn about Morrowind, and about this thing called a Nerevarine, Caius sent me to talk to Antabolis in the fighters guild. Big history buff, knows all kindsa things, but needed me to do him a favor first. That involved going into Arkngthand, a nearby dwemer ruin, to retrieve a puzzle cube. I'd actually already explored the ruin, and hadn't been able to pick it up in my first sweep, but I figure I'll head back and do another sweep. More fully explore it, now that I have both levitation and a jump spell. And maybe I'll even get around to doing what I'm asked to do.

[Sajiri]

I'd check your loot containers for fingerprints. ;)

The fact she got her hands on one almost makes me want to take her out on adventures and teach her the family trade. All grown up stealing her mother's weapons, she has learned much from my Auronia without me even trying to teach it to her

Edit: I attempted to adopt Sofie this morning, because man I feel so bad for the orphan girls in this game. Feels like they have it so much worse than the boys. But I guess she decided she'd rather take her chances in windhelm instead of my home that seems to get attacked by dragons daily, because even after adopting her she refused to ever move over there, just telling me over and over 'I need to get my things' like she was hoping I would take the hint and leave her alone.

So I ended up killing Grelod and adopting Runa instead, who tried hard to sell herself on how strong, fast, and smart she was. She's my new little warrior, who also seems to have got her hands on a bow. Might give her something else if she insists on having a weapon.

Spoiler

Show

Not thrilled with the outfits, but I havent gone out of my way to make anything special for them yet and just raided my wardrobes to see what looked decent on them. Now I just need to adopt Hroar because of his glorious name, but this house is starting to get pretty crowded

[Winter_Wolf]

Is that tantrum thing part of a mod? I don't recall seeing adoptees ever getting full on throwing self on ground tantrum. Granted, the last time my character bothered with adopting or "family" it was essentially "I have a place for you to live and food for you to eat, kid. And a 'mother' to take care of you. By the way, you will probably never see me again since I literally never go to the estate you and your new mommy will be living."

Unrelated, I seem to be having trouble verifying my game cache. Could it be from something like the SKSE Launch Patch? 'Cause I'm not even 100% sure I need it since I'm using Mod Organizer, and it works like a champ on my old computer. I mean really there's the probability that by the time I get a response I will have tried it, but then again I might just "rest my eyes" for longer than I expect tonight.

It was the bloody SKSE launch patch. Fiddling with the skse.ini got rid of the $(text) issue.

[Sajiri]

She wasnt really having a tantrum, she just layed down while humming and swinging/rocking her legs like she was relaxing. It was just an amusing time for her to do so.

[DigoDragon]

Not thrilled with the outfits, but I havent gone out of my way to make anything special for them yet and just raided my wardrobes to see what looked decent on them. Now I just need to adopt Hroar because of his glorious name, but this house is starting to get pretty crowded

Remind me, what mods are you using for their appearance? They look adorable in those outfits!

[Sajiri]

Remind me, what mods are you using for their appearance? They look adorable in those outfits!

There's a few of them.

RS Children for the basic face/body.
Armor and Clothing for Kids- lets you give them any armor even mod added ones
KS hairdo wigs for the hair (girls only, I think apachii wigs has males but Im not fond of apachii hairs, not sure I know of any other wig mods. Some of the boys in RS have nice hairstyles anyway)
Some craftable/equippable elf ear mod I forget the name of
Lucia's outfit I think is from zzjay's wardrobe with a necklace from...KS jewellery? I dont know, just threw something on there so no neck seam but I dont even remember if she had one. Runa's is differerent parts from an outfit from Apachii Divine Elegance store.

Then you need something like AFT/Immersive AFT to let you manage their outfits, probably what gave them a bow when I force recruited them as a follower to handle the outfit. Although some kid overhauls like..xvision? I think have a built in way of managing outfits.

Somewhat off topic, I found another child appearance overhaul that I love, makes the kid faces cuter and more varied without going full on creepy doll look. Unfortunately it only seems to adjust girls, and I think it converts the kids to use the same body as adults, which considering I am currently using CBBE I....really really don't want that to happen. It's also, I think, in japanese so hard to understand, and like many uncomfortable animes or worse, the mod's page has the girls, with their shrunken adult bodies, in rather revealing clothes. Cute kid faces, but made me not want to look at the rest of the page when I started noticing how the author dressed them in the screenshots

I know a basic way of overhauling children appearances in the CK but I didn't really want to mess with that. I kinda want to actually take them on adventures now for RP purposes but I'd have to reinstall RS children for the playable version, and then reinstall Armor and Clothing for Kids to go with that, then get ANOTHER mod (children fight back?) and Im not sure if I'm bothered with that, especially with how rarely I would even take them out.

[Ogremindes]

---

Alftand, Frostfall 30
We braved the cold and reached Alftand shortly after midday. Snow had set in, so we briefly examined the abandoned outpost around the ruin before heading in. There was an antiquarian's expedition here not long ago, but all that seemed to be left was a skooma-mad Khajiit. It wasn't surprising that the same pale monsters that killed the family at Frostflow were here, and that they were responsible for the expedition's demise. We've fought through a significant number of those, along with many dwarven machines. For now we need to stop and make camp, and we'll be taking care on our watches tonight.

I can here the sounds of machinery echoing up from deeper. I wonder what we'll find.

---

---

Sinderion's Field Laboratory, Frostfall 31
Wow. I've had my first sight of Blackreach. It's an absolutely enormous cave, with water flowing through, glowing mushrooms, and multiple cities worth of ruins. The glowing minerals up above look like stars on a black field.

We found the last two of the Alftand expedition. They seem to have gone mad, as they attacked each other, and then us. Once they were dealt with we found a lift back to the surface, and more importantly the way down to Blackreach. The spherical key Signus gave me worked, and we made our way down.

A building near where we emerged contained the laboratory of an alchemist named Sinderion who had come down here some time before us. he died to the dwarven machines, but his notes tell of an apprentice of sorts in Skyrim. He was investigating the strange red strain of Nirnroot found down here, it may be worth seeing if that apprentice would continue his work and bring her some samples.

This place is huge, so we're making camp already. We'll scout around and then rest up for a substantial expedition tomorrow.

---

---

Blackreach, Sun's Dusk 1
We spent the day scouting the perimeter of Blackreach. We found several more connections to the surface, and some scattered monsters and dwarf machines. Points of interest to examine tomorrow are a massive complex in the centre of the caves and a free-standing tower a short ways from there.

---

---

Mzark, Sun's Dusk 2
The central structure was inhabited by those pale monsters, and also slaves taken from the surface races. The slaves were completely loyal to their masters, one wonders how long ago they were taken, so they were just as aggressive as the goblins. The machine we were looking for wasn't there, so we moved on to the tower.

That tower was the place we were looking for. It contained an enormous machine that, with some tinkering, etched runes onto the cube we were given and opened a odd box containing the Scroll we came for. The tower linked up to a sealed doorway on the surface, which we opened from the inside. There's an abandoned campsite here which we've repurposed for the night. We've come a long way south, so we'll go back to Fort Dawnguard before returning the cube to Signus. We finally have everything we need to decipher the Tyranny of the Sun.

---

---

Fort Dawnguard, Sun's Dusk 4
So much for having everything we need. Dexion failed to take all the precautions he needed, and blinded himself with his last reading. He'll probably recover in time, but Harkon's been moving, we can't wait for the months or years it may take.

Dexion told me of a ritual that I could perform, in an "Ancestor Glade" in the southeast of Skyrim, to read the scrolls myself. Dexion made some vague reference to risks worse than blindness, but it's really the only option we have now.

Along the way back to Fort Dawnguard, I met with Sinderion's apprentice. She took the Crimson Nirnroot I had gathered from Blackreach, and in return taught me some alchemy tricks and gave me a tome on the subject.

---

---

Shrine to Zenithar, Sun's Dusk 6
We travelled to the Ancestor Glade, stopping for a night in Falkreath along the way. I performed the ritual Dexion described to me, cutting bark from a special tree with a Draw Knife, and using it to gather the Ancestor Moths around me. When I did, the was a palpable distortion around me. I stepped into a shaft of light, and began the reading. Three scrolls, each in turn, starting with Valerica's. As the patterns overlapped before me, they formed into a map. The bow, Auriel's bow. Darkfall cave.

Serana was anxious to get moving before her father's minions found her. Naturally, that's when a band of vampires and their thralls burst into the glade. Dawnbreaker's fire made the vampires quickly, and briefly, wish they didn't. Hopefully the fighting hasn't damaged the place too much.

Darkfall lies far to the north, we covered good ground for the remainder of the day. As we passed standing stones of The Lady, I realized that a scrawled map I had found described a place nearby, and sure enough I found a treasure chest hidden under the water. We continued to Broken Fang Cave, where we found a Volkihar vampire and his minions waiting for us. We defeated them, and made camp in a ruined shrine a short ways north from there.

---

---

Darkfall Cave, Sun's Dusk 7
We reached Darkfall cave as the light was beginning to fade. There wasn't much to see in the cave, at least until an old rope bridge collapsed beneath us. We were thrown into rushing water, and swept much deeper into the cave. We found an abandoned campsite, presumably belonging to someone who died here not long before we arrived. We've cleaned up the camp a bit, and killed some trolls that were uncomfortably nearby. We'll rest here, and continue the search tomorrow.

---

---

Forgotten Vale, Sun's Dusk 8
A vicious snowstorm has set in, here in this isolated valley. We've made camp but we can go no further in this weather.

Overnight, I found a hidden pull-chain near our camp. Pulling it opened up a hidden path to a shrine of Auriel tucked away in this cave. It was to tended by an elf, who beckoned us over. He introduced himself as Knight-Paladin Gelebor, a snow elf, a race of elves that went all but extinct, degraded into those pale monsters that he calls "The Betrayed", or just Falmer.

He bid us kill his brother, former head of the temple of Auriel, who had been corrupted many years ago when the Betrayed attacked, and in return he would grant us Auriel's Bow, the artifact at the centre of the prophecy. In order to do this we must walk the path of an initiate of Auriel, performing the old rituals to open the way. He unlocked a wayshrine, a portal that would lead us to the first station of this ritual

We had to pass through more darkened caves, inhabited by more of these falmer When we reached the end we met the spectre of a Snow Elf, who finally opened the way to a hidden, open valley. There are another four shrines to discover here, but until the snowstorm abates, we're stuck.

---

[DigoDragon]

There's a few of them.

RS Children for the basic face/body.
Armor and Clothing for Kids- lets you give them any armor even mod added ones
KS hairdo wigs for the hair (girls only, I think apachii wigs has males but Im not fond of apachii hairs, not sure I know of any other wig mods. Some of the boys in RS have nice hairstyles anyway)
Some craftable/equippable elf ear mod I forget the name of
Lucia's outfit I think is from zzjay's wardrobe with a necklace from...KS jewellery? I dont know, just threw something on there so no neck seam but I dont even remember if she had one. Runa's is differerent parts from an outfit from Apachii Divine Elegance store.

Then you need something like AFT/Immersive AFT to let you manage their outfits, probably what gave them a bow when I force recruited them as a follower to handle the outfit. Although some kid overhauls like..xvision? I think have a built in way of managing outfits.

Sweet and thank you! I've been thinking to get back into Skyrim and would like to try out more outfits and stuff, especially for the kids. Haven't gotten to use Hearthfire DLC yet.

Gotta get into housebuilding.

[Winter_Wolf]

The Hearthfire homesteads are okay. The DLC is a good base for buildable mod estates. Blackthorn and Silverstead are pretty cool, and not terribly more inconvenient than the official homesteads. Skyfall Estate is right next to Whiterun and you can get there straight from the overworld. It can be a bit overblown on the interior, but if you use the buildable version you can tone it down a bit and it still turns out pretty good.

Maybe you're not interested in mod based homes and estates. Understanding that Lakeview is most likely the earliest available property, I prefer either Windstad Manor or Heljarchen Hall. Windstad has a great view of Solitude from either towers or the roof of the bedroom wing of the homestead. Heljarchen doesn't have the most spectacular views, but it's very central and like the others you can go straight from the overworld to your home interior. If you fast travel it probably doesn't matter much, but if you find yourself walking or riding the width and breadth of Skyrim, it's handy to have a place you're going to pass by often. Lakeview Manor does have the good views of a lake and mountains, as well as being geographically pretty defensible. Still Windstad is number one in my book.

[VoxRationis]

Lakeview Manor does have the good views of a lake and mountains, as well as being geographically pretty defensible. Still Windstad is number one in my book.

Questionably defensible. All of the Hearthfire homes (I have no experience with the mod homes) are clearly manors rather than castles, being made largely of wood with no arrow slits or defensive architecture, or even a fence around the grounds. This seems odd in a setting plagued by bandit attacks and currently in the middle of a civil war, especially given that some of the Jarls imply that they are establishing you as a sort of miniature marcher lord.

[Keltest]

Questionably defensible. All of the Hearthfire homes (I have no experience with the mod homes) are clearly manors rather than castles, being made largely of wood with no arrow slits or defensive architecture, or even a fence around the grounds. This seems odd in a setting plagued by bandit attacks and currently in the middle of a civil war, especially given that some of the Jarls imply that they are establishing you as a sort of miniature marcher lord.

Yeah, I was a little disappointed that I couldn't build a castle rather than a manor. I'm living in the wilderness, wolves, bandits and vampires regularly attack my home. Why cant I build a wall?

[Triaxx]

I still prefer Build your own home myself, but then again, building in a Valley across a river with a couple nearby waterfalls appeals to me.

Plus the smithy on a platform looks cool. (The fact that my most downloaded mod adds a bridge for the place doesn't hurt either.)

[LibraryOgre]

My house at Lakeview Manor was built specifically to have a wrap-around second floor porch. You might have better design options, but the open porch is pretty fantastic.

[Sajiri]

I'm using Riverside Lodge Redux- buildable edition. It's my favourite house both vanilla and modded. It's not terribly huge like a mansion, but it does have everything you need, choice of rooms like the hearthfire ones, lots of storage that will pull/sort things for you into the right chests. It's also just visually appealing to me. Right on the river past Riverwood heading to Whiterun. There is a non buildable version, but I enjoy that aspect of it. Has a nice outside area too with a deck, garden for planting, training area, a sauna etc.