UESP Forums

“Each event is preceded by a prophecy, but without the hero, there is no event” – Zurin Arctus, the underking

Destiny. In any tale of epic battles, of high fantasy or adventure, the hero will often be in the right place at the right time, a series of perfect coincidences will bring them face to face with fate.

But, what if they weren't? What if the hero was absent, the freak chance failed, they stopped to tie their shoes?
Many of us will have played Skyrim, we all know the famous scene in the carts with Ralof, where our fate was explained to us. But we must ask, what if the Stormcloaks weren’t there? What if the ambush didn’t go according to plan? What if the prisoner didn’t walk into that ambush?

What if the last Dragonborn wasn’t there?

So I imagine you’ll have figured it out now, yes, this RP will be set in a post-apocalyptic Tamriel circa 4E 241. Alduin returned, and ignored his own destiny as the world eater, ruling instead. The dragons came back with him, many being destroyed as they swarmed over the world; Morrowind, the Empire, the Aldmeri Dominion, all fought, all fell. Now, after the dust has settled, after the dragons squabbled amongst themselves over the carcass of Tamriel, there remained a mere five hundred or so, with Alduin ruling over the remaining mortals, bound in small, isolated communities ruled by the resurgent dragon priests and their servants. The wilds of the world took back their own, but for the areas burned by dragon fire, the scorched land that will never grow back. These wastelands exist around the world, easily identified; broken ground, ancient ruins of cities that were destroyed long ago, the blistering heat of the still scorched earth.

Deep in the recesses of civilisation, in dark caves and treacherous mountains, there are rumours of those who live away from the slavery under the dragons. Of course, anyone in this resistance would face a surely difficult and dangerous life. While this may seem a brief introduction, I hope that you’ll find out more about this warped Tamriel by discovering things for yourselves.

Gameplay


Factions


Notes


Rules


Character creation


Featuring...
Hissien as...Quenthel -

Knight Captain Kerr as...Anise Saren


Archer as...Arnand Maceil


The Shadow One as...Faeth Avlest

Can i reserve a spot for a Dovah? I mean, i am called Fin Laat dov for a reason.

So can we be a dragon (possibly), a priest, cultist, a mortal or a resistance member?

How are the Daedra doing? They can't die so I imagine they still have some influence. Because if I did join I'd like to make a Dunmer resistance member who still revers The Reclamations. Also where would we be starting? Cause we'd probably be best off all starting close enough to each other as opposed to one of us being in Hammerfell while everyone else is on the otherside of the continent in Black Marsh.

Are we are all going to be a party and one group or will we all be separated and working for different factions? The OP wasn't very clear as to what players would actually be doing.

Honestly, that's because I'm not all to sure yet! Okay the factions are more or less templates, there is no big group called 'the resistance' and there aren't overly complex faction mechanics. If you want a character associated with the cult, fine, or a simple survivor is also fine. As for the daedra, worship of them has died in Tamriel but it's not been that long, as I said we're talking about 4E 241, it'd be completely reasonable for some to still worship the daedra. Of course, without many mortal servants on mundus, their power is limited. You can play as someone associated with the daedra, heck I'm pretty sure Hissien's going to play AS one.
As for starting, yes, I am indeed going to try and start you all near eachother, I'm going to throw in a spoiler here that this will start with an event - the cult will most probably be searching for some of the fugitives which they believe are hidden amongst the survivor communities somewhere (as in, a region, not somewhere amongst all of them). This way characters can be brought together somehow. That's how I intend for it to begin at any rate.

Also: Consider your spot reserved Dovah!

Quick questions:

Do races have any bonuses to skills and/or any abilities?
How are the relations between the different races? Have they improved in the face of adversity, or has it just divided them further?
Is there a specific magic system or is it more free-form, so to speak?

Soon, the time of the Dovah will occur and there will be THE DOVAH! Mwhahahahahahahahahah. What? Fine, i'll promise not to kill everyone and eat them afterwards.

Right I'll cook up my Dunmer who revers The Reclamations tomorrow.

Do the dragons just control Tamriel or do they control the other continents on Nirn too? Not that I'm planning to play as a Sload or expecting us to hang out with Sload, I'm just curious. Although even if the Dragons don't have influence there the Daedra almost certainly do.

How does the special system work for the Dovahs and can i choose to rebel against Alduin? Just curious.

Archer's Questions -
Racial attributes will be taken into account when making decisions and in the outcome of actions, for example if a difficult shot with a bow was going to be taken by an archer, a bosmer may fare better than other races, excluding other factors.

Good question. Communities can be a mix of races, in many cases adversity has brought people together. However a community in Hamerfell would naturally be predominantly Redguard, and it is unlikely that they would trust a dunmer. Heck, younger like, under 30, may not even have ever seen a dunmer. Rather than races having poor dispositions of eachother, it's more or less fear of the unknown, since communities are so sparse, strangers, even those of the same race, would be treated with suspicion.

Magic will be freeform, sticking to Lore Friendly spells unless there is reason not to. There will be some scattered spell tomes, so that's one way of learning spells, and they can also be taught by other mages. Their use will depend on the situation and attributes etc.

Kerr's question-
No, our RP will stick to Tamriel. Amongst the cult, there are rumours of dragons who flew far over the sea, finding many distant lands. However, taking Tanriel alone was not without difficulty. Unless Alduin himself were to go there, distant lands remain unconquered, in places like Akavir they would not have heard of the invasion, simply that the lands to the far west was now ruled by vicious dragons.

Dovah's -
You will still use the special system, and this will somewhat determine the capability of your dragon e.g. a high endurance would let you fly for longer. But I will also consider the fact you are a DRAGON!!!! Ahem, yes, consider your attributes on a different level to others. A mortal with a Strength of 8 is not equally as strong as a dragon with 8 also, they are just strong for a mortal, as the dragon would be strong for a dragon. Just because Dovah took the first Dragon, that doesn't mean you can't send a sheet for one anyway, it'll still be considered, by the way.

Sorry for all this lacking in the OP's information, but at least with this sort of Q and A you guys can get the information you need and it helps me develop this.

So, i could, in theory, punch a mortal and send them flying?

Also, do Dovahs have to be a certain type of Dovah? E.g. Elder or can i make a unique one? For shouts, can i make them up? E.g. Fin Lait unleashed a terrible shout. It ripped the skin from the mortals bones before the ground swallowed them up. Within reason.

What startles me about this is the use of SPECIAL. This goes against everything I know about TES roleplays.

It may seem a little unorthodox, but it was a good system which I and everyone else could understand, it's not going to be the most important factor in the RP, it's just a way to tell me more about the characters.

Dovah, yeah I mean, within reason, I rarely see the dragons using their own words. You can just attempt to breathe fire or use frost breath. As for which you would play as, it won't affect you that much, when playing as one there won't be classes of dragons. Of course when fighting one it'd be different. If there's a particular way you want to look you could specify the colour of your scales, if you have horns, that sort of thing.

Oh and, yes, you can quite easily send mortals flying

If you want to use SPECIAL I recommend doing what I do and remove Luck, it's why I use CASPIE. Luck in Fallout mainly relates to Critical Hit chance which is far too impractical to actually implement here.

I have problems with CASPIE though, big one is the lack of differentiation between mental and physical. I mean if your character swaps bodies as some point (not as unlikely as you might assume, they might have their brain stuffed in a robobrain or something) then what happens to your Strength, Intelligence and Endurance is all pretty clear. But what about your Agility, Perception and Charisma? Those attributes are all a combination of the mental and the physical. Not that you can't have stats be a combination of mental and physical, it's just not as clear as it could be when it comes to what you should do in these situations.

Blah.

What's your thoughts on lycanthtopes and their cousins?

Could one be a werevulture if they could justify it?

Piggybacking off of TSO, how about vampires?

I'll keep luck in, I still want there to be a tiny random chance of things happening, but honestly it'll only have a real influence if it's eight or above or 2 or below.

Your character sheet is fine Hissien, it gives me enough info for the character. So uh, accepted I guess.

As for Lycanthropes and Vampires, I guess they'd be absolutely possible, but consider where you must find blood, and how rare other Vampires/Werecreatures would be to find. Why would you want to play as a were vulture? I mean, if you want to and can justify it? It'd depend on your reasoning.

Why not? I can pick clean the flesh of my foes, fly, and be a good dragon cultist. Tso will work on character sheet you can bet I will have an aninal motif.

I added a skill section to put skills because I didn't know where else to put them. Hope you don't mind.

The rise of UESP's overpower... i mean, well balanced Dovah shall occur.....sooon.

Mainly because i'm busy with life atm and it'll be Sunday that i can work on it.(if i'm not hungover)

I think our characters should get along swimmingly, Kerr.

These character sheets are fine, good idea with the skills section Kerr, I had considered it but thought it may as well be put in the bio. But it's no problem either way.

TSO, if you can justify it, go for it. It'd be intersting at least...

A werevulture bosmeri dragon cultist mage.

Those clothes are genuinely awesome. Yeah, he's good, does he use any weapons at all? I'm assuming no armour from his clothes.