#and the dragon end would be ironic given all the dragon slaying the dragonborn did

[caithyra]

Skyrim after the Stormcloak End

First things first; the vast majority of Skyrim’s population is some form of anti-Stormcloak or neutral by disadvantaged by Stormcloak policies. Just because Ulfric has “won” doesn’t mean he now rules or will survive until the end of the year (actually, Ulfric cannot CANONICALLY survive much longer than Tullius, since they both need to die in the same year so that when Bethesda write their vague histories about the Civil War in TESVI and beyond, their time of death matches both outcomes of the war, and presumably they would both die in the same year in a neutral playthrough as well. Titus Mede II will likely be recorded to have died in that same year, just vaguely alluded to maybe having been assassinated on his trip to his cousin’s wedding).

Also, “Stormblade” like all other hero-prisoners has disappeared soon after the game’s events.

So, lets see what would most likely happen:

A resistance force of anti-Stormcloaks will immediately spring up and outnumber the Stormcloaks (if Stormcloaks managed to get less than half the Nords, as per the Holds’ loyalties in game, that still leaves the majority of Nords, Reachmen and all the other races disliking them on the whole, if not outright working against them).

The avalanche that keeps the Imperial Legions out of the Pale Pass during the game clears, meaning that a much more effective and numerous force march into Falkreath from Cyrodiil than the untrained auxiliaries Tullius’ was saddled with when he immediately captured Ulfric upon his arrival in Skyrim.

The resurgence of Dark Brotherhood infamy after the assassination of the Emperor may give anti-Stormcloaks with little to lose ideas... “Sweet Mother, Sweet Mother, send thy child unto me...”

We have the Reachmen and the Forsworn who loathe Ulfric faaaar more than they do any other person alive, and are ripe for the Aldmeri Dominion to be the Stormcloaks to the Stormcloaks’ Empire. Imagine what a properly outfitted Forsworn Rebellion with their magics could do...

The disenfranchised Dunmer and Argonians within Ulfric’s own walls, and their Nord friends...

We have the fact that Stormcloaks are stupidly anti-magic and have alienated Skyrim’s best magicians in the College of Winterhold (just speak to Jarl Korir on the matter...), which leads to transportation magic rendering Skyrim’s mountainous defenses against Morrowind’s Telvanni mages moot, as well as distance being nothing to the Aldmeri Dominion’s mages who are not bound by the Synod’s anti-transportation magic stance. And Skyrim under the Stormcloaks has nothing to counter against this without the College or Imperial battlemages, unless you believe a single court mage in every hold is capable of doing the work of an army?

Oh, and once Ulfric dies the Stormcloaks will fall apart without the personality that made up their cult of personality.

So yeah, in TESVI Skyrim is either still part of the Empire or a vassal state of either Morrowind (once properly seceded from the Empire, and who are historical foes of the Nords in need of land after theirs turned into an ash tray) or the Aldmeri Dominion, or the Dragon Cult has resurfaced and they are ruled by dragons (either regular dragons, or under Paarthurnax’s “benevolent” tyranny).

They cannot, however, be independent without the entire rest of the world holding idiot balls.

This is also, incidentally, why Ulfric is stupid, and why Balgruuf was stupid to draw out his decision (and the Civil War) for so long and letting his people die for nothing or worse (if AD, Dragons or Morrowind take over) when he was never going to pick the Stormcloak side anyway (also, nothing will ever convince me that Laila Law-Giver would pick the Stormcloak side if Balgruuf picked the Imperial side from the beginning, giving the Empire a vast majority of the Skyrim’s people, given how depopulated Winterhold and Dawnstar are, Laila picks the side she believes will keep her safe and loved by her people, but mostly safe, and would easily be convinced by Maven in that case, if she needed any convincing at all. What do you think Ulfric can do with 3/9 Holds of people when 2 of those Holds are Winterhold and Dawnstar? Yeah, it wouldn’t have become full rebellion then, just a small annoyance with a few small raids by the Stormcloaks before their jarls are replaced by the rest of Skyrim).

[parasite-core]

So I’m playing Skyrim for the umpeenth time. Normally I play one of my D&D characters, but inevitably get bored when I can’t really act out everything they’d do. So this time I decided to actually make a character from Tamriel to play. Thus I created a former Thalmor mage, a traitor to the Dominion on the run. I have no idea what his real name is, when he was asked for his name in Helgen he told them it was none of their business (they were going to execute him anyways and he’d rather die fast by Imperial headsman than be tortured and killed by the Thalmor) His in game name just says “None”, and I’ve been calling him Nonni so we’ll go with that.

Anyways after Helgen he followed the main story up through Whiterun because he felt honorbound to at least warn the Jarl about the danger to Riverwood since Ralof helped him to escape. He even agreed to help get the Dragon Stone because it wasn’t like he had anything better to do, and running around in an old tomb could help any trail on him from Helgen hopefully go cold.

During the dragon attack on the Whiterun Watchtower, Nonni slayed the beast with a frost enchanted sword he’d found in Bleakfalls Barrow—the first time he’d used a sword, his preferred weapon, since leaving the Thalmor.

Nonni said ‘fuck this’ to the entire situation. He’s no dragon fighting hero, and suddenly all the Nords in town are treating him like some legendary savior, and a voice from the sky called him to the highest mountain in the realm. No way. He just wanted to lay low somewhere, not get roped into Skyrim’s issues. And definitely not draw attention to himself by playing hero. So Nonni made his way south to Falkreach, intending to slip through the southern border and make his way towards Hammerfell. This didn’t work out, the southern border was blocked off and he found the mountains nearby too treacherous to climb to try to circumvent them. Worse, another dragon swooped down near the border, and he had to slay it by himself. Cold and wet from a rainstorm starting, and despondent at the realization that these dragon’s would just keep coming, he made his way to some nearby ruins to get out of the elements. He decided to take the time while he waited out the weather to explore the old ruins, in the hope of finding some treasure to fund his unwilling but necessary travels to High Hrothgar.

The place was infested with skeletons and two vampires. The first he met just inside, she was weak and starving and was easy to take out. The second, in the deepest chambers of the ruins, was a much stronger master vampire who nearly managed to kill Nonni. After a difficult struggle Nonni managed to limp his way to the top of the ruins, where he unwillingly found another word of power and an exit high in the mountains.

As he left the ruins he began to feel a nagging hunger that his rations didn’t seem to quench, but he shrugged it off as having just dealt with a long and frustrating day. He took some time to climb down the mountain and began a long journey back to Falkreach.

Along the way he ran into a hunter from Falkreach whose companions had been killed by Spriggans. Nonni healed him and helped to avenge his companions, with the promise from the hunter that he could keep the alchemical pieces of the Spriggans for himself. He had no problem with the Spriggans, but was badly hurt by a bear that was also in the cave and began to feel feverish. The nagging hunger had gotten sharper as well. Something about being around the injured hunter made it worse, but Nonni still shrugged it off as the effects of fatigue.

After this he did a few favors for people in Falkreach, including getting a lost journal for their local priest of Arkay. He was a bit nosey and read some of they journal entries, which seemed to say that the priest had a vision of Nonni and the return of the dragons. More importantly, in Nonni’s mind, he found the sword of a deceased member of the Blades. Being former Thalmor he didn’t feel comfortable using it, but kept it as a reminder and to possibly return it should he stumble on any other surviving members someday.

Once he had money and supplies, Nonni began his trek back to Whiterun, intending to get a carriage to somewhere closer to High Hrothgar. After about a day’s journey, he accidentally stumbled on a bandit camp. They attacked without question, so he defended himself. As he faced the final bandit, the strange hunger that had been eating at him for days came to a head. When he killed the bandit, his vision went red, and he fed on him, becoming a fully fledged vampire himself.

Nonni was initially horrified. He’d just gone into all of this intending to keep his head down and just avoid the Thalmor for the rest of his days, but now he was some dragon magnet undead bloodsucker. Worse, he remembered that he’d been hearing rumors of vampire hunters in town recently, so he had even more need than ever to keep his head down.

Still, the dragons were attacking, and he wouldn’t be able to get a moment of peace to figure out his new situation until something was done about that. So he continued to Whiterun, and took a carriage to Windhelm, which seemed to be closest to High Hrothgar on his map.

Outside of Windhelm another dragon attacked. Backed into a corner, weak to fire, and badly hurt, Nonni fought back with everything he had. In a moment of desperation he was forced to use the blade he’d found earlier in a last ditch effort to save himself. He managed to slay the dragon with the Oathblade, and limped his way into Windhelm to rest.

He made his way to High Hrothgar, and began his training as the Greybeards insisted. Then he went to procure the horn at their request, and instead found nothing at the end of the path, only a letter leading him back to Riverwood.

Here he met Delphine, whose connection to the blade he immediately suspected given the armor she donned. He decided to play along for now, to join her in going the Kynsgrove and seeing the dragon burial mound for himself.

There he witnessed Alduin resurrecting a dragon, and was forced once again to play the role of dragon slayer. This earned Delphine’s trust, and she confirmed Nonni’s suspicions that she was one of the few remaining members of the Blades.

Nonni was not keen to help infiltrate the Thalmor Embassy. He doubted that the Thalmor were behind the dragon’s returning, although he didn’t doubt they might be keeping tabs on whoever or whatever the real cause was. Regardless, he had been avoiding them for so long, he feared placing himself right into their hands more than anything else. He finally convinced himself that between the time in hiding, the tattoos he’d had added to his face to make himself harder to recognize, and the changes becoming a vampire had made to his skin and eyes, surely he wouldn’t be recognized even if by some coincidence someone he’d once known was there.

So he handed off his best equipment (and a few bottles of resist fire) to Malborn and dressed in some gaudy Skyrim finery.

When the Thalmor ambassador singled him out to speak to almost immediately he was certain he’d been caught, but between answering her questions in a circular manner and Malborn interrupting and redirecting her attention, he managed to avoid such a confrontation. He egged on a drunkard to make a scene and get attention off of him, then slipped into the back with Malborn.

He immediately snuck up on and took out a Thalmor soldier, swapping clothes with him in an attempt to blend in and to mask his features. This worked part of the way, but as he approached his goal a mage stopped him. The Thalmor recognized him, he raised the alarm that a traitor was in their midst, and a fight ensued.

He managed to slip in and steal a number of papers that proved the Thalmor don’t know who caused the dragon uprising (as well as some incriminating documents about Ulfric Stormcloak that he intends to hold onto for later). After learning about Esbern and freeing the Thalmor’s prisoner, Nonni made to escape. Unfortunately the Thalmor has caught on that Malborn had let him in. Malborn came running into the room chased by mages. Nonni tried to kill them before they could kill Malborn, but he wasn’t strong enough, and only managed to escape with the released prisoner.

After that he’s continued with the main story with few other incidents at the moment. After freeing Esbern from Riften and meeting up with Delphine he agreed to go with them to Sky Haven Temple—he’s less of a reluctant hero now that he knows the literal apocalypse is going to happen if he runs and the Thalmor know he’s here anyways so hiding’s not such an option anymore. On their way they ran into two dragons. One was named and swooped out of nowhere. The other was a blood dragon and was another desperate and close fight that he only survived with Delphine and Esbern’s assistance.

And that’s Nonni’s adventures so far. Most recently he met Paarthurnax, he respects the dragon for his choice to side against his own kind when he saw something was wrong. He has lost any respect he has for the Greybeards however, after Arngeir decided that helping the Dragonborn to destroy Alduin would be a worse sin than letting the world die. We’ll see where those feelings go later. Somewhere along the way he also found Merida’s beacon and accidentally became her champion.

He’s too scared of being smote on the spot to tell her that he’s a vampire and that her making him her champion of light is incredibly ironic.

[fractal-grid]

a Naphtali is made in Daggerfall (running DOS through Boxer on Macbook) and this is used to bestow a sense of scale and history to Naphtali who clearly lives in a different time.  He is able to perceive the world around him in Skyrim differently because he has projected himself into the past, which represented a more functional and vast economy, world, etc...  

So it’s at this point that my interactions with Hermaeus Mora begin to occur in Skyrim and during the reading of the Black Books I began to simultaneously play Morrowind, which I’d only ever put about 20 hours into.  Solstheim is a major part of Morrowind following the explosion of Red Mountain and it was here that I felt the barriers break down and the experiences had with Herma Mora and Neloth provided an excellent back drop to experience TES III in a lore friendly way.   I created Naphtali again, born under the Atronach, natively living in Vvardenfell, in Vivec, of powerful mind but limited potential.  It was through a Breton named Hank Hill that he is able to project himself as an outsider and experience the world from the safety of Vivec.  Keep in mind, this is all a RP of Skyrim’s Naphtali honing his magical power in Solstheim.  Hank Hill formed the colony of Raven Rock, and gave a greater sense of purpose and understanding to OG Naphtali.  Bouncing between the games gave it the aspect of a revelation, or a vision.   Naphtali does not exist in Cyrodiil at the time of the Oblivion Crisis, presumably because he’s still living in Vivec.  While these are projections, there is also the possibility that these are lost memories of an older being.  Maybe he lost his memory in the Red Year and was stumbling lost around Cyrodiil and Skyrim when he was arrested, and he was brought back to a sense of purpose when Alduin attacked Helgen.  Maybe he’d been a vampire before, maybe as far back as Daggerfall, or possibly Arena, although that has not yet played out for me.  Regardless, the memories of a Khajiit named Charlie, who steals, dupes, glitches, and abuses potions to a great extent.  His body, depleted of stamina, once flew across a section of the map and was woken up by the NPC that starts the quest at Kvatch, signaling the real beginning of the Crisis.  Charlie and his actions are just as much of a crisis as oblivion, and seeing as he is a non-Dunmer working for the Daedra during the Crisis, it’s clear that while he may ultimately be moving the quest with the Blades forward, he is also causing much damage.  It’s a true crisis and the extent of which Naphtali is only now learning, probably due to the fact that he was reacting to the consequences in his homeland.   Naphtali gets married to Brelyna Maryon and they live in Hjerim in Windhelm, which is ironic, due to the Gray Quarter and the fact that he killed Ulfric just next door.  He has adopted Sofie and Francois Beaufort.  Mostly his travels take him from Winterhold to Riften, while making trips for a few days to Solstheim to continue research.  Just yesterday Neloth named Naphtali a member of House Telvanni and this may give renewed interest in Morrowind, to explore the House before it’s demise.  Master Neloth claims we may return in a few decades, which could be in the right timeline for the next game and while I do see why the Illiac Bay is suspected of being the next setting, and it makes sense given the proximity to Summerset and the Thalmor threat, I do think from the trailer that there’s a slight possibility of the shot being heading North along the coast by Mournhold in a post-erruption mainland Morrowind, and perhaps we would get to explore the mainland and Vaardenfell from the perspective of The Last Dragonborn, but I know that’s a longshot.   This really all begs the question of Who’s Story Is It Anyway?  Is there a distinct bias or favor towards any faction or race, intentionally placed by Bethesda?  Is this the story of the Dunmer, formerly the Chimer, who wielded the power of Gods? Did the Dwemer free themselves?  Should we hold allegiance to the Empire?  Does it serve the people?  How do we protect Tamriel from invasion? This seems imminent and if it was just glossed over what would be the point?  If invasion happens, can we affect it and work for either side?  Would we care about protecting an empire or a franchise of entertainment that would deny us the ability to make these choices, would I care about the struggles of a land in which the player is forgotten and actions have no meaning?   So far, I’m allowed to create my own stories and mesh them together in a way which makes sense to me, and someone who has been playing since 1994 might have such a different perspective than I do, simply because they didn’t experience them all simultaneously.