Skyrim Daedric Quests: Sheogorath & Boethia

Just a short little update on two more of the Daedric item quests that I finished yesterday. Enjoy!

Sheogorath - Wabbajack - Staff

So, Wabbajack. Want to cause random explosions? Want to turn people into harmless chickens/bunnies/cakes? Want to occasionally turn people into Dremora? <-- Bad luck on this one. The Wabbajack does all that and more. It's description is "causes an unpredictable effect" and boy does that not even come close to doing it justice. The first time I used this on an enemy he turned into a chicken and just wandered around for a while before poofing back into his previous state. Unfortunately just because they look like chickens doesn't mean they'll just die (that would be a bit ridiculous) and when you hit them they will revert back to their original form, or you can Wabbajack them again and see what else they turn into. The best one I've gotten so far was an explosion that took down about 80% of a dwarven centurion in one hit and then on the next hit, killed and turned him into a sweet cake. Mmmmmmmmm.

Where do I get my chicken morphing staff of cakes?

In solitude outside of the Jarl's palace (The Blue Palace) you'll see a homeless guy ranting and raving about how his master left him. Indulging the clearly disturbed hobo in conversation leads you to begin a quest called "The mind of madness". You're asked to find this guy's master who apparently went into the abandoned wing of the blue palace, you'll need a key which you can ask one of the servants in the palace to give you (They are marked). Oh, and the hobo gives you a hip bone too, he says you'll need it, sounds like good advice to me. Upon entering the abandoned section of the mansion you're quickly teleported into another dimension where you see Sheogorath and Pelagius the Mad having a meal in a very Alice-In-Wonderland type setting. After interrupting their meal Sheogorath agrees to return to reality if you can use Wabbajack to heal some of Pelagius' madness. You're sent to several areas with incredibly strange puzzles which really aren't very difficult and are quite entertaining so I'll leave out the full description here, the only thing you'll need to really know is just to be creative.

Once you finish these tasks Sheogorath returns you to the house and allows you to keep Wabbajack to do with what you will. It is actually quite an effective weapon that only has one negative effect that I've seen (Being the dremora transformation) so enjoy your new toy!

Boethia - Ebony Armor - Armor (It's better than it sounds)

Alright, this was pretty cool and mildly surprising since the armor is classified as "heavy" and is enchanted with an effect you'd expect on "light" armor. Whenever you go into "sneak mode" as I'll refer to it here, you're covered in shadows and you move silently. It literally shrouds your character in darkness, its pretty cool to look at. I did this quest on my level 30 warrior so I'm not 100% sure if the reward is the same for each character but I assume it is.

How do I get my shadowy ebony armor?

Somewhere along the line you'll be attacked by a priest of Boethia or something (its totally random) and he'll be carrying a book called "Boethia's Proving" which will instruct you to go to the shrine, which is located just outside of Windhelm. Upon reaching the summit of the mountain that the shrine is on you'll be confronted by a priestess of Boethia who will instruct you to bring someone who trusts you to the altar of sacrifice and then, well, sacrifice him to appease Boethia. At this point you'll just need to go pick up a follower that you've befriended and lead him to the altar, once you reach the sacrificial pillar you need to give your follower an order (interact with him and say "I need you to do something") and have him move to the pillar. He will be magically bound up and all you need to do is stab him/her dead. After he is dead Boethia will contact you and after a short conversation she instructs the entire encampment of people (There are around 10 maybe) to have a battle royale to determine who is fit to carry out her mission. After taking a dump on all of them (they are pretty easy) you're instructed to go to a cave and kill Boethia's current champion and retrieve his armor. After waltzing through the camp of bandits and beating the champion to death you'll have your new shadowy armor along with an entire set of ebony gear with the exception of the helmet. This is a great quest to do if you need an ebony set and aren't pursuing smithing or don't want to spend the money on crafting it yourself.

If I find any other Daedric Quests I'll post them up! Thanks for reading!

Ninja Edit: Wabbajack just blew someone up into a pile of money. <3

Ninja Ninja Edit: The Boethia assailant seems to show up when you hit level 30

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Skyrim Campaigns: The Companions

The Companions are the "fighters guild" substitute for Skyrim with one huge difference, they're all werewolves. The Companion quest-line begins like you'd expect any fighter-ish missions to start, you go to a ruin and beat up some baddies. Then you get trapped in a room while your partner remains in the room completely alone. Suddenly a swarm of bandit looking people rush out and claim they're going to kill him and they close in on him. Farkas (your partner for this mission) then says something along the lines of "There aren't enough of you" or some other mildly badass quote then he transforms into a giant ass werewolf and slaughters the entire group and casually lets you out of the cage. Upon looking at the fallen enemies they're labeled as "Silver Hand" which I automatically interpreted as a werewolf hunting group. So this mission basically sets the tone for the rest of the campaign and you're sent out to begin wiping out these werewolf hunters.

After you're officially invited into the Companions you're given an option to take part in the blood ritual, which will turn you into a werewolf. I believe you can choose to remain human if you so desire but I wanted to give lycanthropy a fair shot. I'll briefly go over the benefits and drawbacks of being a werewolf.

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Pros:

Transformation once a night

Extremely fast run speed (much faster than a horse)

High resistances to various attacks

Large boost in overall attack power

Cool finishers

Ability to heal and extend your transformation by feeding on fallen enemies

Cons:

Must kill and feed on one person a day in order to retain the maximum benefits (I never suffered the consequences of not doing this but I have read that you weaken the longer you don't feed)

It is a major crime if you're seen transforming

Weak to silver weapons (Typically only a problem when dealing with the silver hand)

Impossible to get "Rested" and "Well Rested" bonuses from sleeping

Can't use items or spells

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So after a few missions as a werewolf where you're sent to hunt down various groups of silver hand members, the harbinger of the group (unofficial leader/elder) wants you to go on a mission for him. This mission's purpose is to cure the entire group of the "beast blood" that runs through their veins so you're sent after the witches that gave it to the companions many years ago. So you go into a cave and cut off some hargreave heads to bring back to the harbinger as he had asked. When you return =*SPOILER ALERT*= the silver hand has raided the Companions' base in Whiterun and left the harbinger dead. Following this event you're sent to eliminate the leader of the silver hand in an act of vengeance. Once this is complete, the Companions reassemble the ancient axe used by the original founder Ysgramor and you enter into another ruin in order to attempt to purify the soul of your fallen leader. Once you fight your way to the end you place one of the witch's heads into the fire and summon out the wolf spirit of the harbinger. Its not a hard fight at all and then you purify the harbingers soul and all is well.

After the main story is over the extra missions involve curing the other members of the Companions of their lycanthropy and doing various hunting missions, including dragon hunts. You're also given the option of curing yourself as well (which I did) which is nice so you don't have to be stuck as a werewolf forever.

Ending notes: One of the early benefits of being a Companion is the Skyforge steel weapon you're offered upon joining. These are easily some of the best weapons you can get early on and hold their own against various other higher-than-steel class weapons such as dwarven, orcish, elven etc. You also get really cool looking wolf armor, its not terribly great but it is definitely one of the cooler looking armor sets in the game.

Thanks for reading :)! Daedric quests are next!

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Skyrim Campaigns: Civil War (Stormcloaks)

This will be a very short post since the differences between the two sides of this questline are extremely few and far between. Neither civil war rewards you very well at all and the fort sieges get pretty repetitive. The only thing I really liked about the Stormcloak side was the siege on Solitude. It is a larger city and proved to be more visually enticing than Windhelm. Outside of that they essentially just copy the quest-line from the Imperial side and change up the settings a bit. One thing I failed to mention about the civil war campaigns in general was the fact that the scars of the war are displayed in the various cities you siege, namely Whiterun. You can see broken portions of barricades and destroyed scenery, the signs of battle are preserved for the rest of the game which sort of gives you a feeling of influence over how the world develops and allows you to craft it.

Not a long post, not a long campaign. Can't say I enjoyed the civil war stuff very much, it was all kind of a bummer. I feel like they could have fleshed it out a bit more and made the city sieges way more epic.

Thieves Guild Campaign tomorrow! This one was a lot of fun.

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