#the bannered mare

[elderscrollsconceptart]

"Whiterun - The Bannered Mare"

Concept art for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Art by Ray Lederer

[nerevar-quote-and-star]

Uthgerd the Unbroken: My advice to the kids is that they should fight people on the playground while they can still get away with it without legal consequences.

[peony-plum]

[scribeofskyrim]

Morndas, 23rd of Last Seed, 4E 201

Today was quite the profitable little adventure! I can see why so many people are drawn to this sort of work.

Buying a house here in Whiterun is only 5000 gold. I’m almost at 3000 and it’s only been a few days?!

I seriously can’t believe my eyes when I look in my pack. I don’t think I’ve seen this much gold in my entire life, much less all at once!

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

We set out this morning for the cave. According to where Amren marked on my map, it was very close, and he wasn’t exaggerating. It was just up the hillside off the main trail.

Two bandits were hanging out near the entrance of the cave, at a small lookout with a fire. The furniture and such told me it was an outdoor kitchen. I was a bit worried about them, but Lydia bolted in and destroyed them! She needs to be more careful of my arrows and fire, though – I nearly got her a few times.

The inside of the cave wasn’t anything impressive. Mostly it was a series of small connected cavern “rooms” with a bandit or two in each of them. There was some furniture and some bedrolls and such, but it looked pretty dilapidated. There were some exposed ore veins, too, and upon looking around at the parts that seemed carved and built out, I think it was a mine at some point. It would explain the random wardrobes and shelves laying around. I can’t imagine a group of thieves hauling those up the side of the hill.

The cave went up instead of down, and as we went from room to room, level to level, I was getting worried. There was no sign of the sword. Just fairly standard iron and fur armor pieces, and a nice supply of weapons. And there was even a steel sword, but it looked just like every other steel sword I've seen here. Clearly Nordic in style, and Amren’s a Redguard from Hammerfell, so I knew that wasn’t it.

When we got to the top of the cave, there was an opening to the outside, like in Bleak Falls Barrow. But rather than a route down the hill, there was a huge man with nice steel armor out there. He fell on us pretty quickly, but Lydia and I made short work of him. He had a journal on him, and some magic bracers that were of more use to Lydia than myself, so I gave those to her.

His journal said that there was some unrest amongst his men, pickings were slim, blah blah blah. Mostly complaints about how hard it was to be a bandit and how stressful it was to lead a troop. I laughed to myself at first, but then I looked at Lydia, and realized that I might be on my way to that. If I ever have anyone else joining us, how will I handle it? Will they fight, or get along?

I didn’t come up here to see the ghost of a potential future in the form of some bandit chief, but oh, well. I’ll hop that silt-strider when I come to it.

The area out there had a platform built up, arranged as a rest area or maybe just a quiet place he could go to. There was also a chest, and in it was the sword!

It looked old and beat up, but according to Amren, it had seen more than it’s fair share of bloodshed, so that figures.

We took everything we could carry and more on the way out, and slowly made our way back to Whiterun. Lydia was Not Happy about that. She said it wasn’t a good tactical decision, and I agreed with her. Likewise, her refusal to hold anything that might slow her down was an excellent tactical decision. I told her how Dru and I had a rule. One was allowed to be stupid, if the other agreed to be smart. We were not allowed to be idiots at the same time.

Lydia said she couldn't argue with that logic, and she walked leisurely by me while I dragged our haul to Whiterun.

I am so glad that Adrienne is right by the entrance. I was able to get rid of most of what we’d gathered, and I finally had enough to make a fur tent with two bedrolls. Huzzah for not freezing to death! Then we made out way to Belethor’s to get rid of the rest. We found Amren’s house, and his wife was yelling at him for something. She seems awfully snippy. I’ve only seen her in passing, and I’ve never seen her smile.

But I handed over the sword and was rewarded with…

A sword-fighting lesson.

Oh, well. I won’t say it didn’t help! He was able to transfer the lesson easily to my axe. He said that if I ever want more training, he'd be happy to teach me. For a price, of course, but that’s only fair.

Hmm… A free sword-fighting lesson and a ton of loot that put us over 3000 Septims.

Not bad for a day’s work!

Now to drink an incredible amount of bandit camp wine and pass out, because it’s my turn to be stupid.

---

Back | Next

[thenitookanarrowintheknee]

Gonna get a room for the night in Whiterun at The Bannered Mare. Too late to stop by Arcadia's. 🌑🌙🌕

[jhunals]

alright let's try this

balcony: astrid, delvin mallory, cicero, babette, brynjolf, karliah, madesi

back room: geldis sadri (i think??? im floored), brenuin, saadia

back row: arngeir, ulfric, tullius, elenwen, ondolemar, sheogorath, miraak, nocturnal

second row to front: paarthurnax, enthir, serana, valerica, farkas, vilkas, aela, teldryn sero, sinmir, marcurio, yngol, neloth, frea???

front row: j'zargo, sam guevenne, nazeem, jarl balgruuf, irileth, hulda

[mylittlestims]

Could you do a Mayor Mare stimboard with banner and book stims please?

- 🦔

Mayor Mare Stimboard with books for 🦔 Anon

(X) (X) (X)

(X) (X) (X)

(X) (X) (X)

[elderscrollsconceptart]

"Tavern Wench" - artist's title not mine

Concept art for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Art by Ray Lederer

[nerevar-quote-and-star]

Aela the Huntress, after seeing Uthgerd at The Bannered Mare: Is this a friend of yours, Vilkas?

Vilkas: Kind of? Not really. She's in my life and there's nothing I can do about it.

[starcleere]

(taliesin/main quest (alduin) spoilers ahead) ‼️

aight boys just finished the main quest (again) but with tally for the first time and

I AM. EMOTIONAL IN THIS CHILI'S TONIGHT.

Because I'm already a sucker for modded followers with dialogue specific to "about to go to Sovngarde, please don't die, I believe in you" and the "post-Alduin, you're back! :D" scenes because they are GUARANTEED going to make me cry (xelzaz and auri dialogues specifically)

Then Tally just gets the most,,, subtle-but-not-really resignation that DB is going to fight Alduin, and he won't be there for them,, and we're sold on it because the writing and VA are PEAK

AND HGGGGGGGG

When DB comes back, and I arranged a lil Dragongang party in Whiterun, Tally has the AUDACITY to be the sweetest (he might deny it) lil mer and the 'I'll follow you to the ends of the earth... but only if you'll have me' vibe he was giving like BROOOOO OF COURSE YOU ARE WORTH LOVING AND I WILL GLADLY HAVE YOU BY MY SIDE UNTIL THE WORLD ENDS ARE YOU KIDDIGN

anyways this is me in front of my computer tonight (with love):

[scribeofskyrim]

Sundas, 22nd of Last Seed, 4E 201

Right now, we’re having lunch at the Bannered Mare.

I need to get us kitted out so we can help Saadia and earn a bit more gold.

This morning Proventus said I could buy a house in the city for 5000 gold. Given the incredible amount of loot I’ve had to pass on simply because I couldn’y carry it, having Lydia to help should make it a piece of cake.

She did snark at me a bit when I handed her some food and drink. “I am sworn to carry your burdens,” she said, and she sounded incredibly tired of it all.

Something makes me wonder if being assigned to me was a punishment rather than a reward. I know a lot of the other guards were looking at me like I was some sort of magical being, but Lydia seems unfazed.

Probably Irileth’s favorite student.

I went out to get more supplies. The smith at the city gates is Adrienne Advenicci, Proventus’s daughter. She implied that her father’s wisdom doesn’t all come from him. Makes sense. She’s a smith and among the people. He’d need to get his information from somewhere.

She showed me how to work her forge, which was nice of her.

You know who’s not nice? Belethor. Good gods, that man gives me the creeps. He’s so slimy he makes a mudcrab look dry. I did some trading with him, and while I left I was certain that he was staring at my ass.

I went to talk to Saadia about those men looking for her, and she pulled a knife on me.

I hate being right all the time.

Luckily, I was able to calm her down, and she said that she was actually Iman, a noblewoman from Hammerfell who spoke out against the Altmeri Dominion. She wants me to get rid of the mercenaries hired to capture her. She’s convinced that if they do, their leader Kematu will either kill her or drag her back to be executed.

Gods forbid a woman have an opinion of her own, let alone voice it!

She said that she heard one of the Alik’r men got captured trying to sneak into the city last night. If he’s still in the dungeon at Dragonsreach, I might be able to learn more about where they're hiding. She promised a nice bounty if I got rid of Kematu for her.

I don’t know if I can handle a whole den of mercenaries, even with Lydia. I have no idea how good she is in a fight, but given that she seems as comfortable in her armor as a fox in its skin, she’s probably a force to be reckoned with. But I can’t ignore the threat to Iman’s life.

What I do know is that I don’t have enough nearly enough gold or gear to go running around the countryside looking for assassins.

Once we’re done with lunch, we’re going to go and retrieve Amren’s father’s sword from those bandits. Bandits mean loot, and if we’re lucky, I can buy that house or at least enough to comfortably outfit a camp for us and get more armor.

-----------

Well, I thought that was what we were doing today. Turns out, I was wrong!

We’re back at the Bannered Mare.

On our way out of the city, we saw a group of three thieves on the road, attacking a group of adventurer types. They must have been desperate, because there were a bunch of guards right there, too! Of course, by the time we got there there was nothing left to do but loot the bodies, so we did.

I decided that we’d better turn back and leave first thing tomorrow. So, I sold what we got and now we’re resting up to find that sword.

---

Back | Next

[wellthebardsdead]

Flynt: *walking into the bannered mare, still covered in soot and burns from fighting the dragon at the watch tower* room?… *looks in the direction he thinks his travelling companion is in*

Taliesin: do you want me to get us o-

Flynt: … *looks down sadly with a sigh before nodding*

Taliesin: *remembering the riverwood situation, seeing how rude and impatient everyone was with the bosmer despite his clear struggling* …I’ll get us a room.

Flynt: *suddenly tugs on his robe* …ch-chair.

Taliesin: Chair? Oh… right. *ushers him to a table and sits him down, just glad he’s finally accepting his help* I’ll be right back.

Flynt: *sighs and sits quietly, just listening to the space around him trying to imagine what it’d look like* …

Carlotta: come near me again and I will end you! You filthy pervert!

Mikael: Oh I’ll gladly let you finish me off any day~

Flynt: … *gets up*

*Meanwhile at the bar*

Taliesin: I think he’d like some privacy so two rooms will d-

Mikael: OKAY! IM SORRY! IM SORRY ILL LEAVE HER ALONE!!!

Taliesin: *spins around to see his bosmer companion holding the bards face inches from the fire* Oh dear-

Flynt: Good. *lets him go* *gets up and walks back to his table followinv his memory, stopping as Carlotta taps him on the shoulder*

Carlotta: Thank you, here for your trouble. *hands him a bag of gold*

Mila: *suddenly hugs the former soldier* thank you for defending mama. *lets go and hurries off with her mother*

Flynt: don’ menshin id… *sits back at the table*

Taliesin: *looks at Hulda nervously* I um, won’t need to pay extra for nearly killing your lute player right?

[umbracirrus]

I still think on occasion about the idea of there being a Balgruuf the Lesser because of Balgruuf being known as 'the Greater'.

I like the concept of 'the Lesser' being Balgruuf's father who posthumously got the title because his son run Whiterun in a way which was deemed better.

Perhaps it was as a result of running Whiterun post-Great War so actually having more money from the White-Gold Concordat and access to resources - hence 'the Greater'.

I also can't not bring up one of my favourite conversations between Irileth and Balgruuf with her telling him off for sneaking out to the Bannered Mare for a pint - he wants to chat with the people, be with them, so perhaps he was simply more of a people-person than the Balgruuf who came before, and that resonated with people, and again led to the title...

[trickster-tabby]

are there supposed to be necromancers in the bannered mare. this has never happened in any of my dozens upon dozens of playthroughs

[unsettlingcreature]

hmmmm i wonder how hard it is to like. edit the interior of a space in skyrim. i would love to change how the inside of taverns look to be more like ... you know. an actual tavern/inn people could stay at.