Playthroughs of the Past
I still have my very first save in Skyrim. Made back in 2014, it’s just named 001 Prisoner. It’s the first save the game automatically creates, just before you actually go and create your character. After the long, pretty boring cart ride. Rather than sit through said cart ride, I always use this save when I start a new Skyrim playthrough.
Of course, like any character customization, I always spend a while on it. Then I end up fucking up my character and starting again. After that, I give up and tweak a default character and go with that instead.
Being the person I am, I honestly haven’t really tried many of the races. I’ve made one Khajiit, one Orc, two Imperials and a ton of Argonians. The way I see it, I don’t want to be a boring human, I want to be something interesting. Elves are not interesting. They’re humans with stupid ears and weird eyes. Alright, the Dunmer are pretty cool but still. Orcs in Skyrim are somewhat standard but at least they’re not human. Khajiit and Argonians though are great, a step away from the norm. Even if Argonian females have breasts.
Out of all my playthroughs, the longest surviving ones were Lokmah and the Priestess of Arkay. Until my computer died, then Medic became my longest surviving save. Medic’s save after Paarthurnax’s speech was the only save I had that didn’t crash when loading. Sadly he didn’t have his Medic armour, so Medic was piss naked on top of a mountain, but he was alive. I still use my Medic save, mostly to test my shitty mods.
Lokmah was my original turn-into-a-dragon character. Unlike Lokmah V2 (my new save on my fixed computer), Lokmah could turn into a dragon whenever the fuck he wanted to. I tried to spend as much time as a dragon as possible, but back then, Burning Skies was much more primitive and buggy, so I ended up sticking some wings on him and left it at that. Later on, Lokmah got more and more play. He completed both DLCs, built himself a home called Lakeview Manor and spent the rest of his days either chilling with Paarthurnax or burning Markarth to the ground with his army of dragon buddies who had sworn allegiance to him.
The Priestess of Arkay though was my highest leveled character. She hit level 51 before I abandoned her. Yet another Argonian, but she was decked out in black skin and yellow war paint. She never really had much of a backstory, despite being my second playthrough. Basic idea was that, like most priests of Arkay, she was against necromancy. Then she was super against necromancy and the undead after a bunch of Draugr destroyed her small village. Of course, Draugr live in vast quantities in Skyrim, so she went there to go and kill a bunch of them. Oh and save the world in the process. She did the Dawnguard quest and killed so many damn vampires. Then she tried to burn a vampire castle to the ground by inviting Durnehviir and Odahviing round. After that, she killed a Legendary Dragon then disappeared.
Most of my saves though, they did the main storyline then messed about. Phovos, my first character, a green Argonian, went and joined every guild she could, becoming leader of all of them. Other characters though didn’t do much. Kindyna spent her time drinking with Sanguine and running around naked, summoning allies to fight for her. J’alla the Khajiit set a lot of stuff on fire, joined the College of Winterhold, set that on fire then disappeared. I don’t remember what happened to my Orc character.
Sniper though, he got the best ending. He went back to the TF2 universe with Medic, having smuggled several tons of mead and wine through a small portal at the Throat of the World.
Now I’ve restarted Skyrim, I’ve decided to do things differently. I spend most of my time as a little Argonian, hacking and slashing his way through Skyrim, and armies of Stormcloaks.
After that though, well, something huge is lurking in the distance…