Conjured equipment is
pretty strong in Morrowind. It weighs nothing, has
no durability penalty, hardly consumes any
fatigue when attacking, is as strong as the Daedric
Equivalents, and comes with a relevant fortify
skill or attribute effect. Kinda overpowered. But what if you couldn't use any armor
or weapons unless they're conjured? How would that work
out? So, the rules. No bugs or glitches, no
fortify loops with alchemy, and no armor or weapons
that aren't conjured. Except when I have to
use Sunder and Keening on the heart, and I have to
wear Wraithguard to use it. That's an exception.
Jewelry's fine. This build is going to be
kind of a magical barbarian. Strong and underdressed,
but with an affinity for shinies. Lockpicks are okay too. The
difficulty will be set to 100 just because it makes the game more interesting.
Oh, also no buying training from trainers, otherwise I'd be unable to resist
min-maxing. And that's no fun. We'll be playing with the OpenMW
engine using the I Heart Vanilla mod list, a collection of graphical improvements,
bug fixes, and quality of life tweaks. The goal of this run is to kill all the
gods. Or defeat, in the case of Hircine. Our name is questioned because
we'll be axing people a lot of them. Um... You know, now that I say it out loud,
that doesn't actually make any sense. Whatever. I already
decided on that name, and that's what I'm going with.
We'll be going the Berserker route. Summon your gear and break some bones.
Nord or Orc would be the best choice here, but we'll go with Nord
for the extra bonus to axe. The Bound Battle
Axe is pretty strong. We're going to want to
use it. For majors, of course, we're taking Axe and Conjuration.
Those will be our bread and butter. Also Acrobatics and
Athletics because I like being able to move fast right
at the start of the game. Alchemy because Restore Health and
Fatigue Potions are pretty easy to make. For minor skills, no real thought process,
just some skills I thought might be useful. Speechcraft, Mercantile,
Unarmored, Security, and Sneak. Strength and Endurance are our favorite
abilities because of course they are. And we'll take the Lady's
Sign for extra endurance. Although we're playing on
max difficulty, I actually think we'll scale against
the enemies rather well. Well enough that the
extra health from the extra endurance should provide
a bit more survivability. I don't expect we'll be
getting one shot constantly. I hope. Take your ring, Fargoth,
I won't be needing it. Typical start to the run, go to Balmora
and loot all the stuff in the crates and urns around the city.
Alchemy Supplies, Soul Gems, Potions, Random Bowls and Cups.
Join the Fighters and Mages Guild, take stuff from their chests, and sell
everything I don't need to Galbedir. Then we can use the Guild Guide
to go over to Caldera and we can steal the Master Alchemy Set there before
buying some spells from Medila Indaren. Bound Gauntlet, Spear, Helmet, and
Mace. By default, these spells
summon the equipment for 60 seconds but we can use spellmaking
to make longer durations. We can even bundle some
of these spells together to summon an entire
set of gear in one cast. I sold all my clothes to
Galbedir, so I need a little bit of something just
to cover myself up a bit. For some reason, a
red skirt feels like it goes the best with the Berserker
theme. Know what I mean? There's actually no spell
to summon Greaves, so it's not like I'm missing
out on anything anyway. Also, fashion supersedes
effectiveness 9 times out of 10. That's also why I won't
be getting a bound cuirass. Gotta stick to the theme.
Gotta stay shirtless. While we're here in Caldera, let's buy
an Amulet of Recall from Verick Germain. I have no intention of abusing Enchanted
Items, or making crazy Enchanted Items, or even using scrolls,
but I'll be damned if I'm not going to use Mark,
Recall, and Intervention. The easiest way to use them
is with Enchanted Jewelry. Back in Balmora, I'll buy the Bound
Longsword spell from the Guild Guide, and I'll make two new spells with
Estirdalin, a Conjuration Training spell. Summon Bound Helmet for one second.
In Morrowind, you get the same amount of XP regardless of
the strength of the spell you cast, so the best
thing to do is to make a spell that's very, very
weak and very, very easy to cast so you can get
as much XP as possible without having to rest
to restore your magicka. In this case, training
with armor instead of a weapon is better because
when you summon a weapon, you go to your weapon
stance and then you have to put your weapon away
and then take out your spells again because
your hands are different. I guess you have two sets of hands, you
have weapon hands and you have magic hands. Conjuring Armor, you keep your spell hands
up. The second spell we'll make is the Bound Battle Axe spell for 180 seconds.
The cast chance is low, but as we level up, this spell will be more and more reliable.
Nalcarya of Whitehaven will buy the Master Alchemy set we stole for
just under 2000 septims, and we can steal another
one from her crates. We can steal her Grandmaster
Mortar and Pestle as well. We can do a bit of
shuffling of ingredients with Ajira to make some
fatigue potions while also increasing her
supply of gold so she can buy a bunch of the stuff
I stole from Nalcarya. Okay, after all that, we're
sitting at a healthy 3000 septims. I also got a couple alchemy
levels and I have some potions. Let's make some more spells.
The Bound Gauntlet spell not only summons a gauntlet for each hand,
but together they provide 10 points of fortification to hand to hand and agility.
Because spears are good for training endurance... but spear is
one of my miscellaneous skills so it's pretty
low level... pairing the Bound Glove spell with
the Bound Spear spell should help my
accuracy just a little bit. 120 seconds on both seems pretty good. Damn it, Dark Brotherhood. Well, no better time than
now to test this spear, huh? Oh, wow. Yeah, the strength of Bound Gear kind of levels
out as you get into the harder content, but early
game…it’s pretty strong. Before getting into the main quest, I want
to do Edwinna Elbert’s first few quests. It's mostly just a bunch of fetch
quests, but the reward is pretty good. Let's just rapid fire
through it real quick. *Deep breath* Get her a copy of the
Chronicles of Nchuleft easily bought at
Dorisa's bookshop in Balmora. Look at the
tasteful thickness of it. Fetch a potion from
Skin-in-Tree's-Shade in Sadrith Mora. Steal the Chimchar
vamumumum…from Sirilonwe and Vivec. Make a spell that summons
a set of Bound Equipment. Axe, Helm, Boots, and Gloves for 60
seconds. This isn't part of Edwina's quest, but I just thought to do it while I
was looking at Heemla’s spells. Go to Maar Gan and check up on
what's happening in Huleen’s hut. Oh, a scamp. Kill it. Whoops, it killed me
first. Unlock the door. Naked man. He’s vibing. Edwinna’s happy to know
the status of said naked man, and now we gotta return the
Chim-numnumnumnumnum. Once it’s back in
Sirilonwe’s possession, Edwinna awards us with an amulet
of Almsivi and Divine intervention. Now let's do something with a bit of
challenge. Getting the Amulet of Mark. It's in the cave Shurinbal
outside of Gnaar Mok. Could I just use scrolls
and potions of Mark? Yeah, but having an amulet is easier.
The enemies in this place are level 10ish, so they're pretty strong given I'm only
level 1, but I'm sporting Ethereal Daedric, so I should be good. Look at that. I got hit and didn't die immediately. Still
took a sizable chunk of damage though. This challenge might
feel more fair. How fun. I hope I don't regret saying that. Okay, so three hits instead of one. It's like a retro platformer
or a Zelda game. Huh, that actually gives
me an interesting idea. I need to learn how to mod this game. Hello, Archer, let me axe you a me. Yeah, it doesn't make sense. I really regret not
using spears in my Tribunal at level 1 playthrough.
They're just so damn good. Why didn't I take Spear
as a major skill for this run? Because Battle Axe, the big strong.
Spear, the fast and far, but not as big strong as Battle Axe.
Berserker need big strong. See? Now that we're all set
up with our teleportation jewelry, we can get
started with the main quest. I won't go into a ton
of detail about the story since I've already talked
about it a lot in other videos, so if you really
want to know the story in detail, watch my Marksmanship
run. Or play the game yourself. It's really good. I would go
as far to say that, uh, I like it. Following in the
footsteps of the sexiest man this way of the
Nibenay Bay, we too shall refuse to ever wear a
shirt, and the first task Caius gives us is to get
a Dwemer Puzzle Box for Hasphat Antabolis.
Classic quest. Iconic quest. Off to Arkngthand. It's the element of surprise that gets
you. I wonder if this is an OpenMW thing, but I've noticed NPCs won't ever
use attacks that you can resist. Normally, Snowy
Granius. Snowy Granius. Been long enough, you think
my voice would stop cracking. Normally Snowy Granius
would use shock spells, but Nords have a 50%
shock resistance, and instead Granius is using fireballs. So far so good. Bit inaccurate, but that's to be expected.
See, I want to get spear levels so I can get some endurance attribute points, and
I want to do it sooner rather than later. Both because the
enemies are weak right now, so inaccuracy
is not too big of a deal, but also the sooner I
get 100 endurance, the more health I'll get over
the course of this run. When fights get riskier, I’ll
want to whip out my battle axe. It'll be more accurate,
and it'll be stronger. Now we don't have to
fight these guys, but XP is XP, and it's fun to fight.
I did the running and crying and whining in Solstheim.
I want to have a little bit of fun. Sorry, Crito, but that's just the way
it goes. And there's the puzzle box. Our next task is to get
a skull for Sharn, an orc who's totally not a
necromancer, and that skull is in the Andrano Ancestral
Tomb. Simple enough. I suspect archers will
be a long-running issue during this run, but I
don't understand why. Is my Nordic chest not oily enough?
Can I not deflect these arrows? Dude's skull. Cool, cool. Unarmored skill
book. Cool, cool. Aren't all skill books unarmored?
Hasphat has his puzzle box. Sharn's got her skull.
Two skulls now, actually. Or more. It's just that one of them is occupying a critical space that
Sharn is likely…reticent about relocating. These two tasks were to learn a
bit more about the Nerevarine Cult, the Sixth House, Prophecy,
et cetera, et cetera. And no matter how promptly
we finish these tasks, Caius still won't give us more
to do until we hit level three. So we got to go exploring.
I was wandering around the Shulk kwama mine, killing foragers and
occasional poacher, when I had a thought. Just because we haven't
been given the quest yet, that doesn't mean we
can't do some work that's required for later
quests sooner, right? Eventually, we have to go to
Kogoruhn and get a few items. And we'll have to get
that bow from the wraith at the end of the
Urshilaku burial caverns. What if I just went ahead and did that now?
I'm only just now getting to level two. Surely an adventure through
Kogoruhn and Kogoruhn-adjacent places will get me
to level three, right? I've said it before that
Kogoruhn is a great place to test out a
build due to its variety of enemies, but I've
never actually gone there until probably a few
levels into the run anyway. How much harder would
Kogoruhn be at level two? Let's find out. East of Khuul we go. This will make getting
back to Caius a bit less convenient, but I'd
rather make the trek to the Urshilaku camp as few times as possible.
So I'll place my mark here for later. After I kill this scamp that
followed me from Assurnabitashpi. Did I say that right?
Assurnabitashpi. Yeah. We'll start with
the burial caverns. I wonder if the wraith of
Sul-Senipul is even in here. If you don't get the quest from
Sul-Matuul, does the ghost just not spawn? Where are all the skeletons?
There's no enemies. Oh, well they always
manage to find me. Something's telling me
the ghost won't be here. Oh, but will it have the bow? Excellent. It has the bow. I wonder why
there are no skeletons in here. Weird. Well, off to Kogoruhn. Okay, good. At least
there are enemies here. We'll need a Dagoth Cup,
Corprus Weepings and the Shadow Shield from
this place for a later quest. Whether they're actually here
right now is a different story. I know the bow is in the
caverns, but games are weird. There's a house Dagoth presence at least.
The Noodle Snoots aren't too hard to kill even on max difficulty
and at a low level. They attack slowly and
they're easy to dodge, but the magic dot they place on you has a
long burn and it can easily kill you if you aren't paying attention. Noodle Snoot is dead. We'll grab the cup.
We'll grab the weepings. Wonderful. Now we
just got to find the shield. I want to try killing one
of those sleepers though. The squid face guys,
they're kind of tough. He's not attacking me. Oh! That was terrifying. Oh my God, they can talk. How? Sleeper: “Have you asked yourself
why you are doing Azura’s bidding?” Because a shirtless guy told me to get a puzzle box. All right, you're
tougher than you look. Gonna have to employ
the foolproof strat of hiding behind an obstacle while
you run out of magicka. Pfft, idiot. With that guy
being passive, I wonder how much safer the deeper parts of Kogoruhn
will be. Will there be no ash slaves? I know Ilunibi is devoid
of ash slaves if you go there before you're given
the quest to kill Dagoth Gares, so maybe this place is
the same. Seems pretty dead. Much like the slaves, am I right?
Because they've been resurrected by the Heart of Lorkhan, although arguably
they're just projections produced by the Heart itself to
cause the destruction of Kagrenac’s enchantments,
binding it to Nirn. Perhaps even Dagoth
Ur is just a copy of Voryn Dagoth's essence that
was imprinted on the Heart thousands of years ago. *uncertain
laughter* We'll sell this glass armor. Oh, well there's still
fire atronachs here. And they have a powerful dot. Not that there was really any doubt
about that. We'll just skip it for now. Oh, I thought that was a
new cell. Um, this is awkward. Pardon me. Damn it all. Oh, there's an ash slave. I
guess journal updates trigger certain spawn points and not others.
And the Kogoruhn sewers must be unaffected by the
Kogoruhn quest flag. But upstairs is kind of
affected, but not really. I don't even know if that's how Morrowind
is designed, but…I mean clearly there's some sort of scripting because otherwise
the Ascended Sleepers won't talk to you. But if you come here before
you get the quest, they will. So there's something interesting
going on there. Ah, frost atronach. Your frost spells do nothing to me.
So you're just going to use melee. Okay, you clever dick.
The next part of this dungeon is a bit
tougher than the previous parts because there's
actually enemies here. So I'm going to swap to using the
bound battle axe instead of the spear. Fire atronachs and
noodle snoots are plenty. Oh, look at that. I can just barely survive a single
fireball dot from a fire atronach. Not two though. Come on. Hit me. Hit me. Yeah. You can't. Accuracy, huh? Fantastic. The shield's here. I
figured it would be, but I had this wriggling feeling in
my gut. I could just leave right now, but I want to fight the ash vampire.
Oh, and loot these Daedric gauntlets. Easy gold. You'd
think after all this time, I'd learn to bring a sizable amount of
restore strength potions, especially when I know I'll be fighting
a greater bonewalker. I guess I'll just drop a
bunch of stuff and fight the ash vampire in a weakened
state. That's as part of the challenge. Yeah... Bwah! It's not that he sounds scary. In
fact, he just sounds like a normal guy. But when that droning
Morrowind cave ambiance is interrupted by
a whispery all up in your ears voice, it's quite startling. I
don't play with music on, by the way. It makes editing easier. So
everything's pretty quiet most of the time. All right. So ash
vampires are pretty strong. Put that on the wiki. Let's
just go with the battle axe. Figured a bit of range
with the spear would be good, but when my strength
is damaged this much, I got to extract as much power
from my weapons as possible. There we go. Let's
pick all this stuff back up. Use divine intervention, drop it again,
restore our stats of the shrine, pick my loot back up again and wonderful.
But I'm still not level three. I think our best option
would be to wander around aimlessly killing wildlife
like a true American. I guess I could cast my
conjuration training spell over and over again, get
a few conjuration levels, but I still want to max out my endurance.
So running around the countryside with my hand on my spear should get me levels in
acrobatics, athletics, and maybe unarmored. Yeah, it was taken too long.
So I just my conjuration training spell. Uh… Eh… Level three, you're probably wondering why I'm here east
of Seyda Neen in such an iconic location. How could you not
tell I was east of Seyda Neen? Well, I want to
grab the Mentor’s ring. As far as unique items go,
it’s pretty middle of the road, but it's good without feeling overpowered.
It's in the Samarys ancestral tomb. Past the ghosts, the skeletons, and the
bonewalker, inside a trapped urn labeled Lord Brinne. It fortifies intelligence and willpower
by 10 points each. It'll make summoning
my gear just a bit easier. Now that we're level three, we
can get on with the main quest. Caius wants us to gather more information.
So we're off to question some people in the city of Vivec.
Did you know you can get Huleeya to Jobasha's bookshop without
having to fight the Dunmer harassing him? If you raise Ethys
Savile's disposition high enough, they'll just
tell you to get lost. Huleeya is a monster in combat
though, so it's not like he needs help. We'll steal a copy of the Progress of
Truth while we're here at the bookshop. Then we got some information
about the Nerevarine from Mehra Milo. Hopefully the tribunal
temple doesn't learn that she's been disseminating
dissenting doctrine. That'd be a tragedy.
Finally, Addhiranirr. Normally you'd have to go talk to her in
the sewers, then deal with the tax man in the waistworks, then go
back down to the sewers to learn what she knows
about the sixth house. Instead, I'll taunt the tax
man until he attacks me. This way I can kill him before meeting
Addhiranirr, and she'll tell me what I want to know immediately.
No backtracking needed. And because he attacked me, it
was self defense. So there's no bounty. Before returning to Caius will stop
by and buy some scrolls of Uth's hand of heaven from their enchanter.
50 points of levitate for 30 seconds. You can get inexpensive
rising force potions from Danso Indules
in the temple canton, but these scrolls give
you faster levitation. Now we need to learn
about the Ashlander tribes. Ashlanders? What's that? A camp? Where could that be? Oh, who knows?
I've never been there. Well, if we butter up Hassour Zainsubani,
he'll tell us what we want to know. Yeah, Caius, there is
an Ashlander camp east of Khuul, northwest of
the Dunmer stronghold of Kogoruhn, just outside Assurnabitashpi,
northeast of Druscashti and Bthungthumz. Zainsubani said it was north of
Maar Gan. Well, I guess technically, but my directions seem better. Wow, my recall spell
brought me right to the camp. Oh, the serendipity. Am I
worthy to speak to the Ashkhan? I don't know, Zabamund.
How does 200 gold sound? You honor me, outlander. That's
my Morrowind Dunmer voice. I'll workshop it. An
initiation, right, Sul-Matuul? Why, whatever could it be?
Get your dad's bow from the Urshilaku burial caverns?
Man, are you in luck? Do you think that would actually
satisfy someone in real life? Go get me the thing. I
already have the thing. Oh, uh, that, that, that
thing, that, that doesn't count. I think no matter how
much they wanted the thing, they'd be a little upset
by how predictable you've proved them to be.
Kind of knock the wind out of their sails, you know? So we
get more Nerevarine information from Nibani Maesa, and when we
return to Caius, he tells us to go execute a raid on
the Sixth House base, Ilunibi, and kill the leader there.
Like Kogoruhn, this place is full of Sixth House enemies.
Unlike Kogoruhn, most of those enemies are Ash Slaves, and
Ash Slaves are somehow one of the hardest enemy types to fight, and I'm not sure why.
Their shield spell boosts their defense, so they take less damage,
but it feels like it boosts their evasion, so you
can't friggin' hit them. And they have a ton of magicka,
so they keep casting spells at you, and their fists are made out of concrete.
Admittedly, I'd probably have an easier time killing them if I weren't
doing quick jabs with the spear. A fully charged swing from a battle
axe would probably two-shot them, but you know, I gotta
make it harder for myself. Do you think Dagoth Ur is
watching this fight right now and he's wondering what
the hell Nerevar is doing? “You're training your spear, Nerevar,
but I liked your spear the way it was.” And that's my Dagoth Ur impression. It
is probably the best you've ever heard. Uh oh. Corprus. Gotta get that
cured. To Tel Fyr! There's a little trick
you can do with Corprus. So, every day you
spend with it, it worsens, fortifying your strength and
endurance while draining your willpower, intelligence,
personality, and speed. Every day, those effects
increase in magnitude. The idea is that you're becoming more of
a decrepit, bloated Corprus monster, and I guess Corprus monsters
are strong and enduring. But when you get it
cured, you lose the negative effects while retaining
the positive effects you gained over the
course of your infection. You can get your strength and
endurance really high this way. I suspect there was supposed
to be an upper limit to this. Regardless, I don't want to
do it. It feels like an oversight. What buffs I get over the course of getting
this cured is what I'll end up with. I'm not going to do any excessive
waiting, so we're probably going to see, like, maybe two strength levels.
Speaking of waiting, level four. Strength, intelligence, and
endurance. Almost 100 endurance. Divayth Fyr, we'll try
curing our Corprus only if we fetch a pair of boots
for him from everyone's favorite living dwarf, Yagrum Bagarn.
He's got Corprus, so he's a bit…tumescent. Well, it's probably not that
exciting. Corpulent is probably a better five dollar word to use. Ah,
that must be why it's called Corprus. He's bloated, to say the least.
But he's an affable enough guy, all things considered. A little smug,
but hey, what ancient elves aren't? And in exchange for some boots,
Divayth Fyr makes us immortal. Not the intent, but
that's the result. Divine Intervention from Tel Fyr takes us to Wolverine Hall in
Sadrith Mora, and while I'm here, I'm going to
make some useful potions. With Marshmerrow, Salt Rice, and
Scribjerky, you can make a potion that restores both fatigue and health.
Regardless of your alchemy level, it's a nice combo potion to have on
you, and it doesn't feel overpowered. It feels like a reward for exploring the
game. The two vendors in the Imperial Shrine sell the ingredients. Now
that we're disease-free, successfully executing the task that
Caius set us upon, when we return to him, he tells us
he's leaving Morrowind. The Empire called him back to the capital.
And to remember him, he bequeaths to us not only his ring and pants, but his shirt.
And I want to feel honored by this gift. To feel I've earned his respect.
But I understand the truth. It's subtle. It's harsh. And it's something only
we shirtless few understand. Granting another
chestman a shirt is symbolic. I thought
everything I've done for Caius and the Empire meant something. But for him to leave while
telling me to cover up. To cover up with his own shirt. I
don't know whether to feel insulted, angered, or ashamed.
Did I do something wrong? Did I fail to accomplish
my tasks appropriately? Or is Caius jealous? I see. The young
supplant the old. And it seems you don't like that. I
thought you were better than that, Caius. Keep your shirt. It looks
better on you anyway. Now that Caius is dead to us, it's
probably best that we check on Mehra Milo. See if she learned anything else about the
Nerevarine cult and the dissident priests. Whoop. She's been arrested. Oh, I don't want to forget. I
need divine intervention scrolls. This guy in Ebonheart
sells them. Great. I want to try levitating through the whole
prison. I don't know how it'll work out. Maybe I'll get stuck in
some places I shouldn't be. Let's find out. It turns out, in
a world with levitation magic, having ground-bound
guards ain't the best choice. And maybe you should
use higher level locks for your prison... Wuh! Almost got me. You'd think God King Vivec would have put
a teleportation barrier around Baar Dau to prevent a levitating berserker from
smuggling in teleportation scrolls. Yeah, Mehra. Holomayan. Got it. How big do
you think a scroll is? The in-game model is pretty large,
but surely they aren't actually that size. Do you think you could pull off the
nail-file-in-a-cake thing in Tamriel? You just put a teleport
scroll in sweetroll. We get a bunch of
books from Gilvas Barelo, take them back to the
Urshilaku camp, and talk to Nibani Maesa, who tells
us about the Nerevarine prophecy and the
different trials we have to go through, but the
third trial is a secret. Shush. Sul-Matuul
will tell us what that secret trial is, if
and only if we retrieve a House Dagoth cup, Corprus
Weepings, and the Shadow Shield from the Dungar Stronghold of
Kogoruhn. Dude, you ain't gonna believe it. Now begins the final stretch
of the base game's main quest. Cavern of the Incarnate,
Nerevarine, and Hortator. Very little combat
involved here, so there's not much of a challenge, so we'll try
to speed through this kinda quick. On the way to the Cavern of the Incarnate,
we'll pay the vampire Calvario a visit. We gotta kill him for the Zainab portion of
the Nerevarine quests, so we might as well knock it out since we're in the area.
He's currently hosting a party for the undead, all of whom
are in varying states of fleshiness, but he's not
too much of a problem. Nerevar, yeah, yeah, Nerevarine,
Hortator, we know, we know. You know what? Before I forget. Okay, we've been named Urshilaku
Nerevarine. I always forget to do this. Except right now.
Now isn't always. Always was the past.
And perhaps the future. But in the future it won't be
always, it'll be almost always. Speedrun, Ahemmusa Nerevarine,
bringing the wise woman to Ald Daedroth. Why the hell are you,
oh, oh, now you kill it. Eww, dreughs. So
creepy in this game. It's like something out of
Subnautica, but smaller. Wisewoman: [Saying some dumb bullshit
because escort quests never work correctly]. There is nothing I hate more in
video games than escort quests. There was a time when every single video
game had escort quests, and I don't think anybody liked them back then either.
They suck today, they sucked yesterday, and they will always suck in the
future. Now where is she going? Oh, good. Good luck with
these maniacs, dumbass. At least we got to
level five out of all of it. 100 Endurance,
time to retire the spear. Greetings, Kaushad.
Kill a vampire, you say. Would you believe I've done it? I
can read you Ashkhans like a book. Now we escort a slave
dressed as a Telvanni noble woman to the camp because
Kaushad wants a bride. At least Falura’s not annoying to
escort. Here's your sex slave, Kaushad. Thanks for the
thong. Erabenimsun. Peace through slaughter. Here you are, Han-Ammu, the loot from the bodies of several slain
men to wear upon your throne of bones. Therana. Here’s money. Vote for me. Dratha. Here’s money. Vote for me. Neloth. Here’s money. Vote for me. Gothren. Here’s an axe in your skull. Uh-oh. Oh, phew. Would you quit healing and just die?
We both know how this is going to end. Aryon, make me Hortator. Thanks. Athyn Serethi, you need me to
rescue your son? No problem. Come on, let's get out
of here. Oop, pardon me. Got Athyn's support.
Got Llethri's support. Got Morvayn's support.
Got Arobar's support. Got Ramoran's support. Got Venim's support. Hlaalu time. Crassius,
here's a thousand gold. Yngling, here's two thousand
gold. Dam Bero, it seems you've lost this game of hide and seek. I
trust I have your Hortator supportator. Orvas Dren is a tough
guy to convince, but with a little bit of finesse, you
can get him on your side. First try. Omani, Orvas Dren wouldn't support me as
Hortator, and unfortunately, he was found dead with several axe wounds to the
neck. Self-inflicted, the Ordinators say. I trust the same won't happen to you. Ules, vote for me or I'll cut off your... And now, we're the Hlaalu
Hortator. Thanks for the belt, Crassius. I don't need it, but thank you.
I just need to check back in on Athyn Sarethi, let him know that Bolvar
Venim has decided to cease his opposition. And that's the Redoran Hortator.
We're ready to meet the Archcanon. It's crazy to think
Archcanon Tholer Saryoni can launch giant metal
balls across a battlefield. And here's the final act of
the base game's main quest. We meet with Vivec, and he tells
us the plan to defeat Dagoth Ur. We must use Kagrenac's tools
on the Heart of Lorkhan and sever the enchantments the
Dwemer placed upon it. This should defeat
Dagoth Ur once and for all. But to wield the tools without receiving
lethal injuries, we must wear Wraithguard, a heavy armor gauntlet that Vivec gives us.
This is, unfortunately, the one part of the run where we have to break the
rules. Which is why there's the exception. Not only must we equip
a non-bound glove, but we must use Sunder
and Keening on the Heart, neither of which are bound weapons.
Let's just pretend Wraithguard, Sunder, and Keening are weirdly shaped
lockpicks. Yeah, that works. Sunder is in Vemynal.
Keening is in an Odrosal. Dagoth Ur is in Dagoth Ur. Jesus, I… it's just spooky. I just never expected. I guess I didn't
have to kill Odros, but why skip what's kind of a boss
fight? You do have to kill Vemyn, though. It's not so bad since he mostly casts
spells that don't have an area of effect, meaning you don't
have to worry about his 10-ton fists knocking
you out with a single hit. Sunder and Keening in hand, it's
time to deal with our first of many gods. Watch out, Nerevarine
coming through, out of my way, piss off, Bonewalker,
I don't need your shit. Dagoth Ur: “Welcome Moon-and-Star…”
Yeah, yeah, Moon and Star. When he says this place where destiny
is made, I get a How It's Made vibe. Today on How It's Made: Destiny. One god down. I think this is the first run where I'll
actually get to put Azura's ring to use. Night Eye and a constant
restore fatigue effect. My natural regeneration
is 4.5 fatigue per second. 7.5 with the ring.
Running drains 5 fatigue per second, so with the ring I'll
be restoring fatigue faster than I lose it. While running. Pretty good. Onward to Tribunal. If
you want a more in-depth journey through the Tribunal storyline,
watch my Tribunal from Level 1 video. It's linked in the cards. You know
how YouTube works at this point. I'm expecting to have a much
easier time this time around. How did... how did that sentence
get through my proofread? Whatever, I'm sticking with it. I'm
expecting to have a much easier time this time around,
not because I'm going in at a slightly higher
level, but because I have some pretty good spells available to
me. I mean, I'm sure being a higher level helps too, but maybe I'm wrong.
Maybe it'll be another nightmare of constant one-shots.
Let's find out. Fedris Hler, leader of
the Hands of Amalexia, wants us to deal with
the goblin army that King Helseth is training by
killing the two goblin warchiefs and killing
their Altmer trainers. Down to the sewers we go. The
goblins, even lowly grunts, can be pretty brutal, but I think it shouldn't be
too... Should've seen that coming up. This does feel fairer than
the Level 1 video though. I may be getting one-shot, but I'm nearly
one-shotting all the even the durzogs, and I don't have to rely on the
orc's berserk power, so that's nice. *giddy laughter* Huh? Really know how to bring me
down a peg, huh, Morrowind? My first level in Tribunal content.
Can you guess what skills I've been training this entire time?
Oh, in my hubris I seem to have attracted a goblin army
to my location by running around the enemies
instead of killing them. Oh, what a fool I am.
The warchief IS body blocking them, so that's nice. Now, how do I handle this mess? What about levitation?
I do have some potions. Come on, up and over, come on. Yes! I'm too smart for
you, game from 2002. Now we're free to kill
the other warchief. And not to anyone's
surprise, it's pretty easy. The warchief's attacks are very
predictable and simple to dodge. I suspect the Altmer trainers
will give me a bit of trouble though, just because of how fast they
are. And we don't have any way to take advantage of their significant
elemental weaknesses this time around. Probably not smart to fight two at once. I
assume the damage you do to an enemy's armor durability is directly proportional
to the damage your weapon deals. And that's why I love these
chunky two-handed weapons. An enemy can only block a handful of times
before their shield just completely breaks. A fast, weak weapon would get
blocked way more often before the shield breaks
if it breaks at all. For someone with
medium armor, he sure is eating these hits pretty well. I'm not gonna bother looting them. After sorting out the goblin problem,
we now need to escort a priest to the Shrine of the Dead under Mournhold. I hope you know I'm
abandoning you down there. He's weak, so it's
better to just leave him hanging back while you
clear out the skeletons and ghosts and this one
dart throwing Dunmer. I don't know what
happens if the priest dies, but I assume it's not good.
This Dunmer is part of the super duper dart gang, or whatever the hell
it's called, and he has a limited supply of darts with a very potent enchantment, so
it's best to avoid getting hit altogether. Urvel certainly can't
dodge, so I'll just leave him in the previous
cell while I kill this guy. Oh, bonelords instead
of skeletons. Neat. This is part of Morrowind's
pseudo-scaling, I believe. Oblivion does this too, where
your level affects the type of enemies that spawn in certain
locations, but I think in Oblivion, unlike
Morrowind, those enemies still have variable
levels within their own bracket, scaling depending
on your own level. It can be a bit more punishing,
at least in my experience. It's a difficult balance, I'll admit.
I think it works better in Skyrim because there's no strict attribute
system like in Morrowind and Oblivion. It's hard to level wrong in
Skyrim. I'm sure you could do it, but it's harder to do it. I
guess if you put one point into every skill tree
before putting a second point in, that might
make things kinda tough. But for the most part, you gotta put in
extra effort to make a bad Skyrim build. Maybe I'm too much of a
casual gamer degenerate, but I prefer perk systems
like that in Skyrim, Fallout 4, and even
Starfield. I know. Crazy, right? A level in those games feels more than just number-go-up.
Although admittedly some perks are just, oh, do 10% more damage.
Regardless, it's why I'm not on board with the Morrowind-best-ever meme.
They all have their goods and their bads. Anyway. Time to
fight the Profane Acolytes with their Greater Bonewalkers.
Their Bonewalkers die in about two hits. That's good. But they're
resummoned soon after they die. That's bad. But the Profane
only use shock spells, which I resist. That's good. But they've got a ton of magicka,
so I can't wait out their casts. That's bad. Although they stagger
and fall to the ground pretty easily, stopping them from
resummoning the Bonewalkers. That's good. Alright, enough of that. I'm over encumbered and I don't
feel like resetting, so let's place a mark, cast Divine Intervention, drop all these
divine armaments and armor on the ground. I don't need them anymore.
They're just weighing me down. And we'll restore our stats at the
Imperial Shrine before recalling back. And that's all she
wrote. Level 8. Alright, Urvel. Coast is clear. Come, cleanse the
shrine. Thank you. Good job. Good luck
finding your own way home. Job done, Gavas.
A blessed spear? For me? Because Urvel
survived the journey? Oh, thank you. Ain't I great. Next, we need to get Barilzar's
Mazed Band from Barilzar…in the sewers. It's a real shame.
Mournhold and the Clockwork City are such cool locations, but we spend
most of the expansions stuck in the sewers. The Profane NPCs are pretty cool
looking, though. Simple, but cool. There's something spooky
about them not having a lower jaw. Kind of like the Bone Lords, but the Bone
Lords are trying too hard because they have too many arms. I don't know. There's something... there’s something
about the simplicity that's appealing. Barilzar may have a Daedric Claymore as a
weapon, but the real danger is the spell he keeps trying to cast on
you. Burden and Blind. So you can't see him one-shotting
your over encumbered body. Oh, the burden wasn't
enough. I can still move. Can't see, though, so I have to
use the little mini-map as my guide. Just gotta backpedal
until my eyesight returns. Alright, where is he? Let me at him.
Oh, he's over there. Now that we have the mazed band, Gavas Drin
tells us to meet with Almalexia herself. She wants the ring. Here you go. Here's the ring.
After waiting a day, the city is suspiciously
attacked by mechanical automatons, strange
creatures that seem to have been brought from another
place entirely, a place that one would have to
teleport to, perhaps by making use of a specially
enchanted ring that allows teleportation
to even un-teleportable to locations. Hmm. Surely not suspicious at all. The
fabricants have a good bit of health, but they stagger quite reliably when struck
with... They can be a bit unpredictable. Fedris would like us to investigate
the hole that opened up in the plaza. Yep, this is an
interesting hole. It's an interesting hole. But Almalexia is less
interested in interesting holes and more interested
in the feeble suicide cult that's cropping up in Mournhold.
Honestly, the best way to get rid of a suicide cult is probably to just
let them do what they're doing. It's a self-correcting issue, but she
doesn't like the gossip they're spreading. And after we learn more
about them... because a god couldn't have
just sussed this out on their own... she wants us to enter the
interesting hole once again and activate the Dwemer weather-controlling
machine within. It's ironic that she not
only used Dwemer tech to become a god, but she must now rely on
it to show that her divinity isn't waning. She won't have to worry about that for
very long. The Dwemer automatons down here aren't too threatening.
Even the AoE enchantments on the archer's darts aren't that bad since
I resist the shock damage, but getting hit directly is easily a one-shot
kill. Best to avoid them entirely. It's not like I'm
planning on using their darts anyway, so I'm
not going to farm any up. I'm trapped. Crafty Dwemer
in your impeccable foresight. Oh. We definitely
won't be able to pick any of the locks down here, but we don't
need to. The key we need is sitting right here in Radac's Forge. Also,
I'm going to leave a mark here since we'll be coming back soon enough
anyway. Unlock this door with the key, grab the explosives, and blow up
the debris at the end of the corridor. We'll blow up the second pile
of debris on the way as well. Cool guys, don't look at
explosions, action movies, etc. I don't understand why Amalexia
couldn't have just done this herself. I know she says she's busy tending to those
injured during the attack on Mournhold that she totally didn't perpetrate, but it would
take her like, a minute to come down here? Surely a god could just teleport, right?
It's pretty dangerous down here after all. What if I died, and I couldn't
start up the weather machine? She would have to
come in and do it anyway. Surely she wouldn't
want to kill the Nerevarine. I was her husband in a former life.
Why would she want to hurt her husband? With the ashstorms indiscriminately harming
both dissenters and worshippers alike, the kind and merciful goddess Amalexia
tasks us with murdering one of her Hands. He's saying mean things
about her behind her back, like her hair is stupid,
her fashion sense is, like, yuck, and that the tribunal temple
has, like, a totally flawed epistemology. Gag me with a spoon. Seems
the best way of handling the hand is to dodge the darts until
he's got none left, then backpedal while he's
staggered and wait for him to run back into range to get staggered
again. As long as I maintain this rhythm... The trouble is if I miss. I'm pretty
accurate, but not 100% accurate. If I miss as he runs into attack
and I don't stagger him, I will die. The bond spear would probably
function better here, but axe go thunk. Man, look at all that gear. I'm taking Amalexia's Warm Reflected Glory. It's a 10 point fortify health buff. Seems
like it'd go a longer way than fortifying my armor skills or a
slight paralysis resistance. Now Amalexia wants
us to reforge Trueflame, Nerevar's blade that was lost
during the Battle of Red Mountain. So mysterious the events
surrounding Nerevar's death. There's a total of three blade
pieces, and she gives us one of them. So we got to find the other two. One
is held by Helseth’s Champion Karrod. The other is in the hands
of the Museum of Artifacts. To get the latter, we
need to donate two artifacts to the museum in exchange
for the Dwemer Battle Shield onto which a piece
of Trueflame is grafted. For one of the artifacts,
we're actually going to leave Mournhold to get it. The Boots of Blinding Speed. Probably the least wise item to
donate, but I'm recklessly wild. You. Can't. Hold. Me. Back. The second artifact
will come as a reward while getting the second
blade piece. Convenient. Before we could fight Karrod, Helseth wants
us to foil an assassination plot targeting his mother, Queen Barenziah.
Of course, the assassins were sent for me, not the Queen.
Sent by Helseth himself, in fact. He's the whole reason
the Dark Brotherhood was attacking us in
Vvardenfell in the first place. I read an interesting theory that
Morrowind's Dark Brotherhood is actually the Mythic Dawn in disguise. A lot
of the Dark Brotherhood targets you have to go after during the Morag Tong questline
are in Daedric Shrines to Mehrunes Dagon, and the structure of the Brotherhood is
very different from what we're used to. Their nightmother is
just a woman who leads them. She's not some
spiritual conduit to Sithis. The Dark Brotherhood in Morrowind
seems more like a knockoff. They're what the
Brotherhood would be if they were just pretending
to be the Brotherhood. Considering how taboo it is to worship
Princess from the House of Troubles, it makes sense that
they'd try to hide. Why hide as illegal assassins
is anyone's guess. It's just speculation.
With the plot against “the Queen” foiled, we can now prove
our strength to Helseth by fighting Karrod. He's a very easy fight. He
may be level 50, he may be fast, and he may have a lot of strong constant
effects, but his weapon is pretty terrible. It maxes out at like 15 damage, so
if he does hit you, it's not a problem. He's just got a lot of health,
so the fight takes a bit of time. After defeating him, he gives us his shitty
weapon, which is one third of Trueflame, and Helseth gives us the
Dagger of Symmachus, the second artifact we'll
donate to the museum. Tarasa Aram accepts the Dagger and
gives us the Dwemer Battleshield in return, which we could take
to Yagak the Smith, and he pries the last piece
of Trueflame from it. If we give him two days,
he'll reforge the blade anew, but it's missing the
necessary fire enchantment. Radac Stungnthumz must have known
a bit about enchanting Dwemer weapons, so Yagak suggests we look
for some hints within Bamz-Amschend. Better than just a hint, we find the ghost
of Radac himself, and he tells us in order to enchant the sword,
we must retrieve for him Pyroil Tar from Myn Dhrur, a Daedric Ruin located even further
beneath these Dwemer ruins. We need to kill the
Dramora Lord Cash Register Drawer to get a bottle of Pyroil Tar.
He's surrounded by several other Daedra, Lesser Dramora, Golden Saints,
and Hungers, but we can bottleneck them through this run-down
architecture. They're all pretty easy to
knock down too, that's the benefit of these beefy
two-handed weapons. They're slow, but they've
got a decent chance to knock enemies over,
and they're usually stunned long enough to buy
you an extra hit or two. I find it interesting that
Cash here has a dreugh staff this time around
instead of a Dwarven Spear. I wonder what the criteria are for
what weapons bosses spawn with. I assume it's got to do with my
level. Although I'm a higher level now, so why is it a dreugh staff this time,
and before it was a Dwarven Spear. Or maybe it was a
Dwarven Halberd. Whatever, six of one, half
dozen of the other. Anyway, if we take
the Tar back to Radac’s ghost, he'll imbue
Trueflame with Trueflames. With sword in hand,
even though we won't use it, Amalexia sends us
off to the Clockwork City in order to kill Sotha
Sil, the one responsible for the fabricant attack
on Mournhold, allegedly. She can teleport us to
the Clockwork City, but she couldn't teleport down
to the Weather Machine? And why can't she just kill Sotha Sil
herself? Something's not adding up here. Make sure you kill the Fabricants
on your way through the city. Don't just rush past them.
You need some of their juices for some of the puzzles. Well that thing just got deleted. And I just got deleted. The biggest weakness of Battle Axes
is that they make you overconfident. Were two-handed Battle
Axes real weapons? I know there were two-handed swords
like the Zweihander, and I know there were small one-handed axes that an archer might
use if somebody gets a little too close. I think they also use falchions,
which is kinda like an axe. I mean, it's a sword, but it's also got
like a very choppy sort of... I mean it's more of a machete, really.
It's a medieval machete. But did anyone really use these giant,
ridiculous axes that seem unwieldy? And then at what point does a
Battle Axe become a polearm? I guess it's just a length thing,
right? I'm getting distracted. Level nine. Nice. We need the speed juice for this room.
Just chug all the verminous fabricant elixir you collected and
zoom to the next room. This room, however,
I can never figure out. I know when the pipes
up above start wiggling around, you need to
open the interior door with the right lever so when the fabricant
spawns the outer door will open and you can run through to the next room.
But what triggers the pipes? Why do they wiggle?
Nothing I do seems to affect it so I assume
it's on a timer. You need 100 strength for
the next puzzle room, but I already have
enough strength juice so I'm just going to avoid
fighting these scorpions. I'm guessing the cheese-pizza-looking
substance is supposed to be molten slag, just another sign of the tribunal's decay.
The clockwork city is like a dying volcano, if that's how volcanoes
work. Geologists, if there's one of you in the comments, let me know.
The Imperfect is a pretty tough enemy. A lot of health, can't be staggered,
and it has a potent shock attack that also debuffs you with weakness to shock.
Being a Nord weakens the attack, making it not a one-hit kill, but
the danger arises when it uses the spell in quick
succession, bleeding my health faster than
my potions can heal. I think the weakness
effect doesn't actually affect the initial damage of the
spell since the damage applies first. The weakness debuff
lasts for 5 seconds, so if it casts the spell again
within those 5 seconds, then I take increased damage.
Otherwise, it's just an unmodified chunk of shock damage. Time to fight Amalexia. You can speed up her
monologue by saving and loading. It forces her to start the
next part of her speech. I'm doing this without door cheese. You
know, running out of the room when she casts a spell so you don't take
damage. We're not going to do that. Her magic attack does a touch less
damage than my entire health bar. 100 points of fire damage
plus 40 points of absorb health. I have 147 health, so
I just barely hold on. There's also a weakness
to fire component to the spell, but like with the Imperfect,
I'm pretty sure it doesn't affect the initial damage of the spell.
Because I can reliably stagger her, by the time she can cast another spell,
I've already healed up to full with potions and the weakness debuff has worn
off. As long as I keep the correct rhythm, she should stay stagger locked
long enough for me to stay safe. Morrowind is a rhythm game.
The bigger danger is Hopesfire. I may resist its
enchantment, but it's a strong sword regardless and
Amalexia is like level 100 so a direct hit… Ah, so close. She has a total of 3000
health, and she heals for 40 health every time she
hits me with her magic. I don't know exactly how
much damage I'm doing with my axe, but I
can try to estimate it. A full powered attack from a bound
battle axe can do 80 points of damage. We multiply by a strength modifier
which is just one-percent more damage per point of strength above
50. With 81 strength, we multiply by 1.31. The condition and
critical hit modifiers are both 1 since our condition
is always maximum, and we're not critically hitting. Armor
can reduce damage by up to 75%. So without armor, I'm dealing at
most 104 damage per charged attack. 26 if she has maximum armor.
Long fight to say the least. This whole explanation, and
the fight's still not over, but with a little patience, we've
killed our second god. And then we can use
Barilzar's mazed band, which we loot from
Amalexia's corpse, to teleport out of the Clockwork City
and return to Mournhold where Azura’s is waiting
to give us another hug. Onward to Solstheim. If you want to know the story in more
detail, watch my Solstheim from level 1 video linked in the cards.
There were two reasons for making those from level 1 videos.
They're challenging, so…views. But they're also self-contained,
so I can refer back to them for narrative purposes whenever I
want. Think of it like reference material. So the beginning of the
Bloodmoon story is quite mundane. Captain Falx wants us to find
out why the soldiers are grumpy. Give a soldier some sujamma, or
any alcohol for that matter, and they'll tell us the captain banned alcohol.
But the truth is, he actually didn't, the shipments just
quote-unquote stopped arriving. And that's because
the priest, in all his self-righteous glory, stole it
and hid it away in his office. We promise not to narc on him,
and he gives us a key to his stash. With all that sorted, we can get
on to the real meat of this island. Weapon smugglers.
We'll investigate the matter of missing weapons
with Gaea Artoria because she's a better fighter
than Saenus Lusius. And I have no idea how difficult
fighting the smugglers will be, so I'm banking on
all the help I can get. After a bit of convincing,
Zeno Faustus points us to Gandrung Caverns
just outside the fort. There are five
smugglers there, all with enchanted weapons
that paralyze on strike. Unlike “guy that's
totally not a werewolf,” I don't think I'll get killed in a single
hit, so the paralysis will be a problem. The solution? Don't get hit. Well, I survived a hit,
resisted the paralysis, but I still died because
he knocked me over. I may be better
equipped and higher than level one, but this is
still endgame content. Need a bit more
finesse, methinks. Good news is they
don't brush off my attacks, and I'm actually doing a reasonable
amount of damage to them. Quite a bit of health on this
guy, and he keeps blocking. As long as I stay away from the
sharp end of his sword, I should be fine. Listen, fellas, maybe
we got off on the wrong... Ah, broke his shield. A few more hits
should... Damn it. Three down. Four down. Time for the leader. He's
stronger than the other smugglers. He's faster than
the other smugglers. And he's longer than
the other smugglers. His range, his-his attack range…is
longer than the other smugglers. Okay, so he's a little tough. Five for five. Back to Fort Frostmoth,
and, man, is it nice to have divine intervention
on Solstheim again. From anywhere in Solstheim,
it takes you right to the fort, which seems to have been
attacked by some horrible wolf creatures, and the
captain's gone missing. The Skaal to the north
might know something about the attack, and
as a symbol of good faith, we're going to bring them
the universal symbol of peace: a human skull. Huh…since when did
the Fryse hags summon ghosts? They never did
that on my previous run. Oh, is it because their
daggers have frost on it so they don't want to
attack me with a dagger since they know I'm
immune to frost? Hmm. We've made it to the Skaal
Village. Ignore the blood. Tharsten Heart-Fang loves
the skull. I was worried because I thought he might already have one. He
points us to Korst Wind-Eye, the village shaman, who tells us
to perform the Ritual of Gifts in order to restore
the oneness to the land. Easy enough,
right? Here’s hopin’. There are six rituals, some are harder than
others, but I'm certain I'll have an easier time this time around than last
time. We'll start with the beast stone. Rescue the good beast from
being killed by a bunch of rieklings. If you don't kill the
rieklings fast enough, the bear will die and I guess
the quest is softlocked and you have to reload to
save. Fortunately, this is a little more than a slaughter. *Disappointed sigh*
Should probably conjure armor more often. There we go. Pull the arrow out of the good beast, rest
up a bit, and return to the beast stone. Ritual of the beast
complete. Wind stone. We got to fondle the greedy
man's wind sack in Glenschul’s tomb. This place was a nightmare
during my level one run and it was the impetus
for a fourth wall break, which everybody thought was a face reveal,
even though I've been showing my face on this channel for two and a half
years, but a lot of you are new, so… Hey, how are ya? I have alopecia,
that's why I look the way I do. I also learned that I look like a
lot more people than I realized. I should make a tier list.
Anyway, will this build fare better? Pumba, why? So it turns out, Draugr
aren't all that strong. Even a little bit of bound armor
makes their attacks reasonable. They're still nightmarishly fast, though. Everything in here is now dead. We can stroll out like we own the
place, but why walk when you can recall? Ritual of the wind. Complete.
Sunstone, we must free the warm sun from the halls of
Penumbra. A cavern full of Draugr with a Grahl at the very end. I'm
feeling pretty confident, if I'm honest. I hate Grahl. Oh my god, why is it so fast? Wow. Ooh, knocked
it over, can I finish it? Shit. What the hell was that? There, dead. Doesn't bode
well for Castle Karstaag. Ritual of the sun
completed. The tree stone. He who has the seeds controls the trees.
I must retrieve the seeds of the first trees and plant them near the tree stone.
After killing the riekling, you could just take the seeds and be on your
way. The Spriggans will stop attacking you, but because you have to kill a Spriggan
three times before they stay dead, it's pretty good axe xp, so why not kill
him? Also, chopping down Spriggans with a battle axe is peak immersion. Ritual of the trees complete. Earthstone. Travel to
the cave of hidden music and learn the Song of
the Earth. What can I say? Draugr aren't
actually horrendously overpowered monstrosities
against this build. They're just a bunch of weak bags of bones.
What made the last run so difficult wasn't Solstheim itself, it was
the fact that I was a tiny little wood elf with a
piddly little crossbow. Now that we're through
the Draugr, we just gotta make the stalactites
far the right pitch. [*aside* I'm actually
making the stalagmites fart] Excellent. Ritual of
the earth completed. Waterstone. We must... Oops. The combat may not
be as hard this time around especially if you're
prepared, but Solstheim is still deadly if you
aren't paying attention. Gotta keep your head
on a swivel. Waterstone. We must travel out to sea
and acquire the water of life. We have potions this time around so
drowning shouldn't be too much of an issue. We also have enough
health to survive for about a minute without air anyway,
so we're in good shape. See? And there's
the water of life. Zelda CDi “cutscene”:
“Here. Have some water of life. My, you’re
thirsty. Oh my goodness!” Ritual of water completed. That's
all six rituals and as a reward, Tharsten gives us the
mace of Aevar Stone-Singer, one of the strongest
weapons in the game. It's a one-handed mace that can do up
to 90 damage, double against werewolves. Stronger than even Sunder itself
if you go by raw damage numbers. Perhaps even if you go by
cooked to damage numbers. Why the hell did I write that in the
script? It doesn't even make any sense. Next, we gotta solve a crime to prove
our wisdom to the Skaal and it's easily deduced when we find
a letter from Rigmor to Risi, Engar's wife,
outlining a clear motive. When confronted, Rigmor
spills everything. He tried to frame Engar
for theft to force Engar into exile so Risi would be
newly single. Rigmor's an asshole. I'd like to feed him to the
wolves, but exile is faster. As a reward, we get a
wolf helmet that would go great with this whole
barbarian aesthetic, but it's against the rules so
we'll just drop it at Tharsten's feet. I'm sure he appreciates us
rejecting his gift immediately. Also gonna drop all this other
crap that's weighing me down. Trueflame, Hopesfire.
Eh, the Skaal can have him. That mace alone weighs 90 WEIGHT UNITS. Now
it's time the Skaal tested our strength, as if it weren't clear how beefy and
tough I am from these glistening abs. We got a draugr lord
living under the lake, and it's about time
somebody put a stop to his dastardly deeds, making a big
fire on the lake. Grr, how fiendish. Ay-slip, or perhaps
Ee-slip, is at the end of these draugr-filled tunnels
and when we confront him he tells us his
long and tragic story. How his lust for power
led him to dark magics. How the Skaal exiled
him for these pursuits. How he learned of Daedric
machinations, an army, building to destroy his people.
Although the Skaal abandoned him, they were still his people. He
communed with dark forces to extend his life, becoming
a draugr, so he could maintain the barrier
keeping the Daedra at bay, protecting the Skaal who so
villainized him. Such a noble act. To voluntarily imprison
yourself within these walls of ice, all to
protect a people who think of you more than a monster. Aeslip's dead. Back to Tharsten. You got it. Oh my, werewolves are attacking the
Skaal village. The climactic second act. Quick, get the werewolf. Alright nevermind, everyone go
back to what you were doing. Oh right. Wait a minute, I
think I just messed up. Yep, got a werewolf in me. That's a problem. I'll
employ the same strat I used in the Mournhold sewers. Levitation. Squeeze through, dammit. Yes! Hey, I survived a hit
from a werewolf, cool. Ah, Korst, you've
arrived just in time. I'm infected you say. Dear
oh dear, whatever will I do? Alright Korst, what we doing?
We must perform the Ristaag in order to please the Allmaker.
And the first step to performing the Ristaag is acquiring the Totem of
Claw and Fang from the Tomb of Skaalara. If we went the werewolf path,
we'd have to defend the totem. As soon as we enter the tomb, we're
immediately assaulted by four werewolves. I could try killing them
by kiting them around in a tight circle, or I could
just try to make a run for it. Ah, shucks. The key is to know
where the hell you're going. Why am I bothering
to attack them? W-w-w-why am I being cute? Let's
just try killing them in the tomb's…foyer? Well, it wasn't easy. It
wasn't really hard either. It's mostly just tense since one hit
from them is probably enough to kill me. The chest containing the totem has
a level 30 lock on it and I could just try to snipe-pick it while
I'm running away from the wolves, but killing
them is more manageable. Yeah, it was definitely worth
killing them. Here's the totem, Korst. Now what? Meet Rolf
Long-Tooth at nightfall to take part in the Ristaag, west
of Lake Fjalding. You got it. Rolf tells us the Totem of Claw
and Fang summons the Spirit Bear. We must hunt the Spirit
Bear and return its heart to Korst Wind Eye before
sunrise so that we may be blessed by the Allmaker. Hunt a bear. Easy. Sattir the Bold is dead. Grerid Axe-Wife is dead. Oop, werewolves. And a bear. Rolf is dead. Wait, is this the Spirit Bear? This is the Spirit Bear. Well, I guess I should avenge
the fallen hunters or whatever. Here's the heart, Korst.
The others didn't make it. Korst now tells us the third sign of the
Bloodmoon prophecy may be upon us. Horker corpses are washing up
on the shore without explanation. Korst hopes it's just the work of mortals,
not of prophecy, so he sends us to Castle Karstaag to investigate.
And this, I expect, will be the most difficult part of the whole run.
It's a DPS check because you're forced to kill eight Grahl while escorting
a tiny riekling who must not die. If he dies, quest failed. You need
him alive in order to enter the castle. There's a crevice in the
water behind the castle that leads into the
subterranean cave system. When we enter, we're
immediately greeted by Krish, a riekling who figured,
with Master Karstaag MIA, it'd be a great time
to take over the place. He got Grahl to help
with his revolution, but they started eating
his friends, as one does, and now Krish
can't even get back into the castle due to all the
Grahl blocking his path. To enter the castle we
need Karstaag's blessing, which Krish has, and
he won't help us get into the castle if we don't
help him with the Grahl. So we gotta kill the
Grahl before they kill Krish. At least these Grahl are a bit weaker
than the one in the Halls of Penumbra. And Krish is dead.
*Disappointed but unsurprised sigh* Gotta reload. I think my
best bet is to press myself up against the Grahl and
just hope strafing is enough to keep me alive until I
stagger it or something. Yeah, like this. God damn it, Krish. Why can't you just stay back?
You can't fight these things. You're too tiny. Well,
that took long enough. With all the Grahl dead,
we can now enter the castle. And now here's a point where I
need to be as transparent as possible. Let me just step out of the
narrative for a moment and talk to you post footage recorded
Just Background Noise. As you can see, I'm looting
a bunch of Nord mead.. It's like sujamma. It can
boost your strength by a ton. And there's a bunch of it
here in Castle Karstaag. My first playthrough...
the one you're watching... I used a bunch of these for the final
fights and for the maze when you run it through with all the werewolves.
But it didn't feel right, so I went back at the time of writing
this script to try again. But I didn't have a hard
save before this point. The earliest save was before I
started doing any of the Bloodmoon stuff. I probably should have saved
more frequently, but I didn't. So what I ended up doing was loading that
save, using the console commands to edit my skills to match
what they will be in the old footage at the end
before all the fights. Then I console commanded
myself to the end of the quest so I could
re-record myself fighting all those fights without boosted
stats. Does that make sense? So it means this run
isn't contiguous, but the original attempt felt
cheapened by the mead. So I think this is a better alternative.
I could have just not said anything and you'd all be none the wiser. But I
would know, and that would bug me. So I'm putting it out there
now. My first attempt, I used a bunch of Nord mead and sujamma.
It was, unsurprisingly, very easy. My second attempt was
artificial, but identical to what it would have been
if I didn't use strength boosting potions. We good? Cool. Now that
we're in the castle, we can talk to Dulk and
he tells us that they're not responsible for
the death of the horkers, and if you can't trust these little
riekling shits, then who can you trust? He also reveals that Karstaag
too was kidnapped by wolves. It seems the blood moon
prophecy is coming to pass. *Shocked gasp* That’s why
the called the expansion bloodm… Back at the village, Korst awards us
with a sword that's good at killing Grahl. Would have been nice
if he gave that to me before I went to the
castle, but, eh, whatever. I wouldn't have used it anyway. With
the prophecy all but confirmed, Korst says, there's nothing
we can do but wait for the hunter's game to begin,
and the next time we rest... So Hircine welcomes us
to his game, and when we enter his maze, we're
met with Captain Carius, and we can choose to either fight
alongside him or kill him outright. This footage here is
the original attempt, and you can see I almost
immediately chugged a bunch of Nord mead to
make the maze easier. Here's the new attempt. The strategy is the same, but I ignored
Carius since he doesn't actually matter, and I just sprinted through the maze,
grabbed the key, and headed for the portal. Strangely enough, werewolves
aren't fast enough to keep up with you. On the other side of the portal is
Tharsten. We can either fight alongside him or kill him immediately.
He'd eventually transform into a werewolf and attack
us anyway, so I figure we might as well just
get it over with now. My first attempt, I was loaded up
on booze, so he died in a few hits. Second attempt took many more
hits, so there was more risk involved. Other than that, though, he
was just like any other vampire. Not a vampire. He
was just like any other werewolf, except with a bit more
health. He's very different than a vampire. The portal key is on
Tharsten's wolf-corpse, so we don't need to find
the chest within the maze, we just need to run for the portal.
And, like the previous room, as long as you don't stop, the
wolves shouldn't get you. If you maneuver correctly, you can
even dodge them when you hit a dead end. The Karstaag fight. The boozed up attempt
saw him die in two hits. The more challenging
attempt… it took more hits than that, obviously.
Probably at least two dozen, with every hit risking a one-shot.
I'm just grateful the bound weapons don't consume much stamina. With
Azura's ring, I'm always near full fatigue. It's a pretty good ring. And that's Karstaag dead. For the final fight, I went
with the Aspect of Strength. It's a big strong bear, and strength
is what this character is all about, so it seems thematically
appropriate. Everything is thematic. I will admit, the Aspect of Guile might
have been more difficult, but…spears, boo. A lot of these boss fights, I
guess you could call them, feel a bit like red tearstone
fights in Dark Souls. In Dark Souls, when
your health is really low, basically one hit away from
death, if you're wearing the red tearstone ring, you
do boosted damage. The idea is to never get
hit, so you can benefit from the damage-boost
and kill the boss faster. Except in Morrowind, the
extra damage I'm taking doesn't let me do extra damage in return,
so imagine I'm using the red tearstone ring strategy without the ring.
So I basically just die in one hit. And with that, the
Aspect of Strength is dead, and Hircine’s plot was
foiled with the power of bound equipment. Dagoth Ur? Killed with bound equipment
(and Sunder and Keening). Amalexia? Killed
with bound equipment. Vivec? Oh, I forgot to kill him! I am Vivec now. How do I float?
