Skyrim, Being a Bodacious Dragonborn Warrior

So...
Audience! I wrote a lil while ago (let's not count months shall we?) a blog post about Skyrim. The post went over really well since it covered both the basic history of Tamriel as well as tips for being a successful thief in Skyrim. Now this post won't be as informative about Elder Scrolls history; for that information please just click that handy little link above to my previous Skyrim article. It saves both of us so much time.

As the title states, this post is about being a warrior in the land of Skyrim. Being a warrior (by my definition for my three main characters) means doing warrior-like quests and what not. Thor (not original but don't care) my Nord warrior is not involved with the thieves guild or enlisted in the Dark Brotherhood or paid to perform mercenary work or under the control of schmucky Daedra Princes; I'm looking at you Molag Bal. In any case the point is Thor is a good guy. He did accidentally kill one of his rescue assignments once (the guy had his weapon drawn) but the Companions overlooked that minor slip up. Before I go on with details on the silvery Companions and Dawnguard fighters, let's bullet this post!

• Being a warrior has it's difficulties, like magic hurts a lot I mean A LOT
• Armor (armour for some of you) is everything and looks badass
• Healing spells, still necessary
• Shield Brothers
• Running around hacking giants to bits is wonderful
• You can carry a looooooooooooot of stuff
• Sneaking is hard
• Magic is difficult
• Two handed is easy
• Block is simple
• Heavy armor is a breeze
• Smithing is so much fun
• Enchanting becomes your bestie always
• Vilkas and Serana 

There you have it audience. Everything you need to know about being a warrior in Skyrim. Laters, I'm sleepy due to spore. Damn attack hits me every, *yawn*, time...zzz

Wait what? Oops. That would've been a little too short of a post. We have so much more to go over my darlings. So very much.

Let us start with the beginning as a warrior. Like any character you deal with a dragon interrupting your execution and being one of the few survivors of the fiery ordeal. Unlike a thief or mage however, you choose the warrior stone at the standing stone circle outside of Riverwood. The warrior stone enables all skills designated as "warrior" to level up twenty percent faster than all others. This includes Heavy Armor, Two-Handed, Block, One-handed, and Smithing. Although armor and weapon play are important, smithing is far more the nugget of this batch of goodies. Also block sucks to level up without finding a guillotine trap or bandit archer. Seriously it's a shield. Why even have perks?

Essentially what Thor looks like

Back to smithing. Smithing is where you are able to play blacksmith at the local armory. There you have all the tools you need to craft armor, swords, battle-axes, maces, and jewelry. Also bows and arrows but those are thieving weapons; warriors done crossbows. The higher the smithing level the more variety you have on what kinds of armor you want. In fact the smithing perk tree is a bit odd. Rather than have two paths that end in a different "maxed out" trait, this tree ends on the same perk. Can you guess what it is? I'll give you a hint, it has something to do with- naw screw that. Hints are annoying me at the moment. It's Dragon armor. That's right DRAGON armor.

What's that audience? Some of you don't care about dragon armor? As I told my girls at camp (I'm a counselor each year) if they sang anything from Frozen's soundtrack I would mildly tell them to, "GET OUT." Comically of course. Dragons rule and Frozen, well let's leave my opinion about that for another blog. Dragons rule, end of diatribe.

To be honest the dragon armor could have looked far more awesome. There are two sets of it, Dragon Scale (perfectly named for yours truly) and Dragon Bone armor. Bone is stronger but looks so clunky since it's the Heavy Armor of the two. Scale is better but like Glass is ruined by the helmet. Seriously, why do Light Armor helmets always suck? The best looking armor and my personal favorite from both Skyrim and Oblivion is the Daedra armor. It is worth the climb up the skill tree audience. Not only is it black with a glowing red undertone BUT you look like this: 

Open the gates of Oblivion maggots!

Yeah resembling Sauron from the LOTR trilogy is sweet. I have Thor even wielding a mace. I'm not big on the two-handed battle-hammers. 

So you're probably wondering how long it will take to level up smithing? Happily audience not long at all. In fact there are two methods and one involves leveling enchanting as well.

Enchanting is a mage skill but can be leveled quickly and easily alongside the smithing skill. The only issue with enchanting is finding filled soul gems. See enchanting involves the use of "soul capture" which is where you put a spell on a creature or human that steals their soul once they die. There are different sized souls ranging from petty to grand to black. A black soul belongs to a human or vampire or werewolf character. These are technically the no-no souls since they are frequently used by necromancers. Plus they require black soul gems which none of the court wizards keep in stock. However, you can acquire soul gems (even filled ones) early in the game without being a thief or Daedra worshipper. What you need to do is go to the invisible chest in Dawnstar (not Dawnguard but rather the hold in the Pale) owned by a Khajiit merchant. Seriously I'm not making this up. There's a chest and it has stuff in it including soul gems and...just follow the link for details.

Now you have your soul gems and are ready to enchant! Well except you need to know some enchantments and have some things to enchant. Knowing is not difficult. Simply destroy either weapons or clothing that already have an enchantment to learn the power. For instance if you find a fire dagger on a bandit, you can destroy the weapon at an enchanting table (found everywhere there is court wizard and a Jarl Palace) thus forever learning the fire damage enchantment. It's rather useful. You can even destroy your wedding ring. Yeah, I did that and the missus doesn't seem to care. 

About the things to enchant though, that's where smithing comes in. There happens to be a spell called Transmute than can be acquired whenever in the game. Enemies level up with you in most cases involving caves and I happened nab this at level eight so, yeah. It's doable early on. What transmute does is it turns iron ore into silver ore and silver ore into gold ore. Iron ore is plentiful in Skyrim and always available from merchants and blacksmiths. It's cheap too, so so cheap.

"Come to see Balimund perform miracles with steel eh?"

You do need some patience with transmute since it is an Adept level Alteration spell. What this means is it the spell costs a decent amount of magicka and is slow to regenerate unless you've many Alteration perks. Just drink potions or wait an hour to replenish your magicka, it's worth it. What you do once you have several chunks of gold ore is smelt it into ingots. It takes two ore to make one ingot for most materials so stock up! Once you have gold ingots you can smith some jewelry. The most useful item you can make from gold (for enchanting and leveling purposes) is a gold ring. Or should I say two gold rings. One ingot makes two rings. Excellent. By the way, all of this transmuting goes directly to your Alteration tree which increases your overall level. Really it's two birds with one stone in three ways; multitasking inception with Alteration (iron to gold), smithing (ingots to rings), and enchanting (rings to magic rings). You also can sell the rings for a profit. After all the soul gems were free from the chest and the iron ore costs so little. You my warrior loving audience are off to a profitable start.

Quick Tip: The other way to quickly level smithing is by making iron daggers. They are cheap to make and once again you can craft your own ingots. Just remember to sell them less you want to be over encumbered.

About that time I noticed the girl scout was six feet tall and from the late Paleozoic era. Ha, I love that quote. After gaining some "tree-fitty" from the local merchants and cranking up those skill trees, it's time to do some serious questing. Boy are you in for a treat audience. I give you the Companions and Dawnguard. But first my shield brothers. Sorry Serana, you need to wait your turn.

The Companions guild (or group since they are leaderless) is located in Whiterun at the old mead hall Jorrvaskr. It is the reincarnation of the Fighter's Guild from Oblivion with a few minor changes. The arena is missing and now you can become a werewolf.

Warning: Being a werewolf is overpowering and amazing in the earlier levels of the game. However it becomes a weaker form in the later stages, around level thirty seven, and more of a gimmick. 

Personally I enjoy being a werewolf more than a vampire since the form is totally optional. It acts as a power and therefore can only be used once per day. Also it is fun to go around slashing things to bits and howling at the moon. Plus wild wolfs and your shield brothers are able to join you in lupus battles. This is an optional aspect of the Companions which you can deny while being able to finishing the story line. Fear not! I will not spoil anything from that juicy timeline of quests. You'll have to play yourself for those details audience. Rather I'll go in to some of the advantages of the Companions namely the shield brothers and the Ring of Hircine.

Vilkas is my favorite shield brother or companion friend. The reasoning behind this is well, his voice is lovely and he trains Heavy Armor. He mainly is there to act as a follower who helps you on your quests. You can customize his armor (my Vilkas has exceptional Ebony armor) and weapons to make him a better fighter as well as use him to carry some extra items in case you become over encumbered while questing. He comments on various places you go and is useful in a tough battle. Plus he's also a werewolf so there's that companionship. The voice thing is preference and for those of you looking for sassy females might want to team up with Aela; she also trains archery by the by. Teaming up with a trainer is useful for when you are so close to that level up but just don't have the willpower to farm skill trees. Instead you talk to your companion and ask for them to train you until you hit the next level. Then (this is the trick) you ask to share inventory with them and take back all the gold you spent on training. Free training and friendship, what a deal.

Besides that there's not much I can say about the Companions without spoiling quests. Ah, well I can go into werewolves a bit more. As I said earlier being a werewolf is awesome in the beginning of the game but loses it's luster as your enemies level up. If you didn't level up your werewolf in the beginning and now wish to boost that perk tree (oh yes both werewolves and vampire lords have perk trees) there are a few tricks of the trade. The way to climb the wolf bound perk tree is to feed on fresh corpses left by your victims. In other words dead bandits. Earlier I mentioned that "werewolf" is a power. What that means is that you can only change into a werewolf once a day. This is somewhat annoying when you want to level up those perks. How to go around this? Ring of Hircine. Hircine is the Daedric Prince of werewolves and provides this very useful trinket for your wolf bound character. When worn, the ring enables you to turn into a werewolf as many times as you like. The ring is listed under your power section of Magic (odd but it is) and functions very much like your normal werewolf change.

Such a good guy

Remember Thor is a good guy, he doesn't feed on innocents. The loophole is that you don't have to kill your feeding vessels while in your werewolf form. Instead, slaughter a bandit camp as a terrifying force of Daedric armor and change into a werewolf afterwards. You then can feed quite easily on the dead corpses. Once finished have your character wait a few hours in order to exit the werewolf form. Yes this is annoying but the only way to return to your human form is to allow time to pass.

Warning: When going through the Ring of Hircine quest make sure to kill the mercenaries who are seeking Sinding otherwise you will not obtain the curse free ring.

Right-o let's finish up this post with a few details on Dawnguard. Serana, a lovable lady I name dropped earlier, is an ancient vampire lord. She is a central character in the DLC (downloadable content) Dawnguard. The word Dawnguard refers to a fraction of vampire hunters located in the western area of the Rift. They have sworn themselves to destroying the rising vampire lord Harkon who happens to be Serana's bat-shit crazy father. Harkon's goal is to block out the sun and have vampires devour the world under his rule. Obviously you want to stop this. Now dear audience you have a choice; you can either side with Harkon (temporarily) and become a vampire lord, or stay loyal to the Dawnguard. Regardless of your choice you will be able to kick his guano covered butt later on as well as team up with Serana. She is a strong follower who not only shoots ice blasts but also summons dead corpses to fight alongside you. This is nice when you slay a daedra or another vampire. Doesn't feel so great being on the Harkon side now does it blood sucking fiends! No offence Serana. By the way, Thor stayed loyal to Dawnguard.

What is so special about the Dawnguard you ask? I did happen to mention something about warriors using crossbows earlier in this post darlings. Crossbows are tricky to use at first (if you're accustomed to a bow) but pack a huge punch and come with a variety of magical bolts. Without being a part of the Dawnguard you won't learn how to craft crossbows or magical bolts. That sucks for any warrior. Especially when you can have Dwemer styled crossbows that the Dwarven Spheres use. Those robotic bastards are a pain to slaughter. Instead of your blood rusting on their bronze butts, you can annihilate them with exploding bolts of shock. It's rather amusing to watch them burst from electric surges.

I am a creepy nuisance

Crossbows by far are the best perk of the Dawnguard. However, there is one more thing that makes Dawnguard worthwhile. How many of you love dogs? I know I do. And of those of you who have souls and adore canines, how many enjoy the look of the husky breed? It just so happens that the Dawnguard has husky dogs that will fight along side you and warn you of emanate danger while traveling Skyrim. They are cute and vicious which makes them a great addition to any team. Plus they don't count as a human follower so you can have a husky and Vilkas on your team at the same time. The Dawnguard also have armoured trolls to rent. They are cool but a bit fussy. Trolls will leave you after a while because they become bored. The huskys never leave you. They are loyal. Also husky dogs are cuter than those creepy Death Hounds the vampires make. Bleh, ugly creatures.

I'll stop there with Dawnguard since I don't want to spoil any of the quest line. The Harkon thing is something you learn from the trailer so I'm not feeling guilt over that little tidbit. I hope you all download Dawnguard since it is a great addition to the game. I'll go in the Dragonborn DLC on my next (and final) Skyrim blog. That one will follow the adventures of my baddie of a mage Loki. I know the name is not original and I still don't care. Anyhow, that's all from Elder Scrolls for now. Happy gameplay.

P.S. I put the hint to the next post in a different location this time audience.

P.S.S. It's rather obvious too.

And here's some music!