Around Skyrim Without a Thune

Skyrim, how I love thee. The only game I've never grown entirely tired of playing (apart from Fire Emblem), Skyrim is still on my PS3, and this time Eve and I have undertaken a slightly different tack.

At the moment our character (a female Imperial called Helena Justina*) is level 63, she is relearning the One-Handed skill, and has maxed out Smithing, Two-Handed, Heavy Armour and only has Pickpocket below level 30. She's completed the Companions and Mages College quests and could become Thegn of Falkreath, Dawnstar, Winterhold, and Solitude if she chose to (she is the Thegn of Riften, but only because we wanted a house, Eve is passionate about loot and enjoys Alchemy much more than I). There's a large bounty on her head because I got a bit sword happy in Marketh, and went to town on the guards there in the stupid big quest - you may have gathered we don't like that particular plotline). We have raided tombs and barrows, defeated Dragon Priests, Draugr Deathlords and even ventured to the shores of Solstheim to adventure there.

So what's different? This all sounds pretty normal for the game, doesn't it?

The catch is, we haven't triggered the Dragonborn quest. Aside from the opening part where Alduin destroys Helgen, that quest has gone entirely untouched. There are no dragons at places like Mount Anthor and while we're picking the words for Thunes up as we play that's all; they can't be unlocked. We can't even undertake to weakly Unrelenting Force a bandit back a few feet if we're in danger of dying. Instead, we have been forced to rely on skills and magic, investigating thing that we do not usually make use of. For example, we have been using Illusion more than usual (it's not a favourite spell skill because a lot of the time it's simply too fiddly and seems to be more trouble than its worth) and investing heavily in the various armour spells you get in Alteration, even if we aren't brave enough to go without armour yet.

It is actually a fun way of playing, forcing us (well me, really - Eve's a bit of a back seat player unless it involves mixing potions or enchanting items) to change the way we approach things. I have a bad habit of leading with Shouts, using Fire Breath or Marked for Death in the first foray. Not being able to do that means that the character uses more stealth and sniping than usual. She doesn't charge into battle nearly as much as other characters we have played. Her skills matter more, she has to be able to strike hard and fast because there's no backup to reach for if things go wrong. Not having the Thunes has made me a better player in many ways because I use the game's inbuilt skills to buff her up and make her more powerful though magic (which means getting XP).

There's an element of humour to it too, running through the Robots, I mean Guards (sorry, my headcanon is that the city Guards are actually robots, which is why they say the same things and you barely ever get to see their faces) and hearing them make comments about dragon attacks. We both know full well that there won't be any until we actually trigger the quest, and even then they won't really start up until we trigger the Blades quest, another thing that will happen late in the game as neither of us has time for them.

The downside of playing this way is that at some point I have to undertake the main quest, which means that I'll have to face Ancient Dragons from the get go instead of progressing through the ranks of dragon kind in a nice orderly fashion. That does not seem so bad, though, it always seemed a bit odd that the game served up draconic foes in a nice, neat order to test your mettle against. This way the big guys will attack and get taken down (at which point I can turn Smithing Legendary because I'll get to make a suit of Dragon Scale Armour).

So, yeah. It's a huge amount of fun even if we have not really revelled in the many factions that dominate the game. I would definitely recommend playing this way as a change to the normal way Skyrim runs.

*The name is stolen from the Falco novels, where Helena is the Roman Private Informer's ally and squeeze.