The Elder Strolls, Part 1: "Just Off the Boat"
Some individuals insist that Skyrim isn’t really an RPG at all. They claim that role-playing is minimal there. Nonsense, comrades! You just need to approach it creatively. Like Christopher Livingston, one of the writers from PCGamer.com. He decided to play Skyrim... as an ordinary NPC. Why, how, and what came of it will be told by him.
It’s morning, and I’ve just arrived in Skyrim. I’m not wearing armor, just simple clothes and rags. I don’t have a two-handed sword, just a humble iron dagger. There are no fearsome battle paints or scars on my face telling tales of won battles. I have no invaluable treasures or magical artifacts, just a handful of gold coins and an apple.
I won’t be robbing tombs filled with undead or clearing out forts occupied by bandits. I won’t help people solve their problems, and I definitely don’t intend to awaken any dragons. My name is Nordrik. I’m not a hero; I’m a simple NPC, and I’m here not to play Skyrim, but to live in it.
I did something similar once in [The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion](/games?search=The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion), and even wrote about it in the relevant blog. The NPC I created in that game was quite an ugly-looking fellow named Nondrik, and now his descendant will live by similar rules here in Skyrim. The rules are as follows:
- Regularly sleep and eat, walk everywhere on foot like other NPCs, unless there’s a reason to run – such as for hunting, fighting, or tactical retreat. No fast travel!
- Do everything possible to avoid adventures, intrigues, and other excitements, although if a quest seems rather boring or safe (like, for example, crafting training), it can be completed.
- No stealing (including not joining guilds just to get gear that is immediately sold to the first merchant encountered).
- Find a way to live without getting embroiled in any adventures. Find a place that can be called home, and maybe even marry, if fate is kind to me (which is unlikely).
- NPCs cannot load a saved game if something goes wrong. And neither can Nordrik. If he dies, he dies.
The appearance was inherited, but I just couldn’t give up the sideburns.
In the case of Oblivion, I started the game standing in a boat near a small coastal town called Anvil. Nordrik will have a similar beginning – standing in a boat near a small coastal town called Dawnstar. Nordrik will start the game with the same equipment that Nondrik had: a dagger, an apple, and 17 gold.
Okay. Enough worldly preparations! It’s time for Nordrik to start his mundane life! I slowly climb out of the boat as if I’ve just returned from a long journey, and walk through the docks into the city. Dawnstar is a frozen, dim village, its houses huddled together as if trying to stay warm. And there’s the entrance to the mine – right next to the docks. I wanted to explore the town first and chat with the locals a bit before getting into hours of tiring physical labor, but since the mine is right here, I might as well check it out first.
When visiting Dawnstar, don’t forget to check out the sights – like this filthy hole in the ground.
Entering the Mercury Mine, I suddenly panicked. In this dark and rustling place, a vision struck me – the entrance collapses behind me, I get trapped, and I have to fight giant spiders or cave trolls or careless safety engineers to escape… What if this isn’t a mine at all, but a clever ploy by the game to immediately pull me into an adventure? Oblivion constantly tried to pull me into something, and I don’t think this will be any different.
Fortunately, the mine remains just a regular mine and has no intention of collapsing. However, right in front of me stood my first harsh moral choice. I came here to mine ore, but I don’t have a pickaxe. Nearby on a table is a pickaxe, and the game doesn’t mark it as someone’s property, so if I take it, the game won’t consider it stealing. But I’d still feel like a thief – after all, it’s not my pickaxe! In the end, I compromised and decided to borrow it: I’ll mine some ore with it and then just put it back and buy my own later. The decision seems quite fitting, and it’s probably the most dramatic choice I’ll have to make and describe in this blog (I warned you).
These are the kinds of battles I enjoy – striking what can’t strike back.
And now I’m busy swinging the pickaxe and smashing stones all around the cave. Soon my pockets are filled with mercury ore: 15 pieces, each estimated to be worth 25 gold (the local trader probably wouldn’t agree). I also mined a couple of garnets, each worth 100 gold. Guys, I only worked for an hour, and I’m already knee-deep in loot! Poor old Nondrik spent ages gathering flowers and brewing potions to earn as much gold as I made in my first hour in Skyrim.
Finishing my mining for the day, I tossed the pickaxe to the ground approximately where I found it, and imagine my surprise when another miner, a woman named Edith, came over, picked up the pickaxe, and handed it back to me, claiming she saw me drop it. How thoughtful of her! Too bad I can’t offer her my hand and heart right here and now (marriage in Skyrim isn’t that simple) because Edith is exactly my type of companion: hardworking, attentive, and a woman too. I can’t explain to her that the pickaxe isn’t actually mine, so I walk closer to the mine’s exit, toss the tool to the ground again, and quickly leave before she rushes over and respectfully shoves it back into my inventory.
Outside, Leigelf, the mine owner, offers to buy all the ore I mined in the mine, which seems quite strange to me. It is his mine, so isn’t it his ore? It’s like being a grocery store owner and buying back all the goods from customers as soon as they try to leave. Also, Leigelf makes a fleeting but nasty remark about some “milk lovers.” I have no idea what he’s talking about, but it sounds somewhat racist. No thanks, Leigelf, not today. Stay cool. Either way, I want to do something worthwhile with this ore, so I don’t intend to sell it right away. I patiently wait for the miner named Lond to finish using the smelter, smelt half my ore into ingots, and then head to the blacksmith.
It looks like I’m working, but actually I’m producing nothing valuable. Just like in real life!
I chat with Rastlif, the local blacksmith, and try to sell him the stones I found, but he isn’t interested in buying them. I use his forge hoping to make something from the ore I’ve mined, but even as I watch myself from the outside striking the anvil with a hammer I’ve never owned, I seem unable to create anything from my mercury ingots. Quite frankly, I have no idea how to deal with mercury ingots.
I take a short (instantaneous, to be honest) break, snack on an apple, and then continue my stroll through the town. I engage in conversations with nearly all passersby, and almost all mention their night terrors during the conversations. Some ramble on about them for quite a while. Damn, this all sounds a bit ominous. A dark cloud hangs over this town, a dark cloud shaped like a huge quest. In the middle of a dialogue, I step aside to eat some strange berries growing on nearby bushes – a bit rough, I admit. A person here is desperately asking for help to rid them of supernatural nightmares, and I step aside to stuff my mouth with berries. But sometimes you can get a quest just by listening to other people’s conversations, and I desperately want to avoid getting quests. And besides – they are free berries! After eating them, I learn one of their alchemical properties, thus making my first step into the great world of alchemy. Grandpa Nondrik, a somewhat skilled alchemist, would be proud of me.
I descend into the iron mine and return after several hours, loaded with ore and precious gems (I’ll probably be able to forge my own Bejeweled). However, I still can’t create anything at the forge because I need leather. I can’t afford to buy it – so I’ll have to hunt, and that means I need a bow and a couple of arrows.
Karita: a delight for the eyes, death for the ears.
It’s getting dark (leisurely walking instead of constant running really takes a lot of time – try it for yourself sometime), so I headed to the local tavern. Here I met a rather attractive woman named Karita, who said she was a bard, a graduate of the Bard College. Hmm, a hot college graduate with a steady job? Maybe I want to marry Karita now, not Edith. I mean, if Edith had attended college, maybe she wouldn’t have to walk in the mud and dig rocks underground. But then Karita starts singing, and – oh miracle! – now she’s simply terrible. My thoughts of marriage quickly return back to Edith.
I pay for a room for the night and am pleasantly surprised to find that the tavern owner, Toring, accompanies me to my room instead of just vaguely gesturing in its direction (as his colleagues in Oblivion were guilty of). Nice, always ready to help, and a businessman? Ah, and he also has quite a variety of cheese for sale. I might be better off marrying him.
Having paid for the room (10 gold) and bought bread for dinner (6 gold), I’ve reduced my budget to 1 gold coin. I stand at a crossroads: working in the mine, I’ve mined quite a lot of valuable stuff, but no one wanted to buy the gems, and I want to keep the ore and ingots for later crafting. Tomorrow I’ll have to find a solution, because the room can only be rented for one night, and I need to eat something too. At least I lived a day without getting into adventures, just fell in love three times.
Feel free to approach the counter and ring the bell if you ever want to hang another head of a dead animal above you.
On the table next to the bed lies a book, and I wanted to read it before bed, but the title read: “Cabin in the Woods, Part 2,” and I hadn’t read the first part. No spoilers! I’m a little worried about those nightmares everyone is talking about: what if a harmless dream triggers some quest? However, Toring says that I won’t have bad dreams: only the townsfolk suffer from them, not travelers. And so, standing by the bed all night and enjoying sleep, I find his words to be true. And my soul feels just a little bit calmer.
Now – attention! Should I continue translating the adventures of Nordrik (which already counts 8 parts), or is it just me who finds it that cool and fun?