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| I offer my soul to this... |
In case you were google-ing this page to figure out where Scouts-Many-Marshes is. He's usually on the docks of Windhelm. Note that this isn't Windhelm proper and is actually located slightly east of the bridge leading to the main city. If he's not walking the docks, he's probably within the Argonian Assemblage (also by the docks).
If you fast travel to the Stables of Windhelm, travel east and swim across the river. Scouts-Many-Marshes and his fellow Argonian friends (the Argonian chick is also marriable) should be on the docks, or inside the Argonian Assemblage (the should be the 3rd building from the left).
If you don't get a quest option after exploring all of his dialogues... The radiant AI system hates you and you most likely will not be able to choose him as a spouse. If you don't fancy a restart, try questing for a bit and coming back, the AI may or may not offer it to you then.
If you want more info, I contribute to the UESP. This is S-M-M's page :)
www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Scouts-Many-Marshes
So yes the past glorious 3 or is it 4 days now... Uhm... I've been in Tamriel. And though my travels to this continent have been happening since at least 5 or 6 years back when my first Argonian avatar stepped foot on the province of Morrowind in the desolate port of Sadrith Mora... I still know my own and remember it all.
Well ok enough of the BS. I felt it right to at least get into some remotely RP-like drama. And due to the fact that my game is laggy I don't have any pictures of my exploits to show off :( Instead if and when my game decides to cooperate, I'll get around to snapping a photo album or 2 of pictures when I start a new character (because it's so gonna happen :/) Well the main thing about the game is that there is literally endless well almost endless replay value. The hundreds of paths that exist in the game from deciding between killing or saving a stranger to choosing to liberate ancient artifacts from a crypt are all defined as chance. And so if/when I start a new character I undoubtedly will end up making a try at someone different. Maybe instead of focusing on a sword and shield, I'll train with a two handed weapon and literally pummel my foes to death... Or following the footsteps of my friend, level up enchanting to the max and get a mage who has a 100% reduction in destruction magic mana costs... The possibilities are endless in that sense and because of the randomizer effect of item drops, monster spawns and the game's radiant AI system, I forsee many many more hours of my soul poured into Skyrim.
Now actually to the game. So if and when you decide to start playing, a basic story line needs to be in place. And as this one goes, it's Dragons + Civil War + Elves. Now specifically citing the elves in the story may sound a bit excessive especially since most of the characters (a good 80% of all residents of Skyrim) are of the Nord race. But when you note how much animosity exists in the game and how the high elves are basically the diabolical masterminds of the story... You get the picture.
Anyway since starting out gaming I've actually already made 2 characters. And if you think this is excessive... You're probably right. But you see! There is a reason for all of this. Because Skyrim is buggy. Not as badly as Fallout was on release but enough for me to cringe and mash my F5 (quicksave) at the slightest possibility of trouble. Now in case you were wondering what's up. The game's Main Quest line - I.E. your character saving the known world from the dragon's that have been resurrected by a dark god... has many sections that either suffer bad programming or have inherent issues otherwise... Considering these notes of course will lead one to realize that I'm somewhat resentful of the Radiant AI system.
I love the game and that's not a lie. But I must admit that various glitches have really gotten on my nerves (and caused my first restart) :/ Like seriously I finally find the Blades Dragon Loremaster... And what happens next? He glitches out and won't open his door for me. Well not only that he also has no voice and the game won't register me attempting to activate him or the door.
Besides that my game randomly crashes at different points. I've yet to figure out exactly what the cause for it is... but for the most part my reflexive F5 finger (mastered over many many hours of playing Fallout New Vegas and having it crash...) has saved me from many issues.
Back to the game. So for both of my plays I've been Khajit hybrid mage/warriors. Now of course playing a cat person has it's perks and would have been better in the previous two incarnations of the game... But theres literally only one other race I like playing and that would be the Imperials. However they've removed disposition and though I love gold (the Imperial power) the two really don't make me want to play one any more. Granted if I ever decide to play a mage I would most likely have to consider an Altmer for the base magicka boost... I will have to note that having the racial powers and the dragon shouts on one button is annoying. Not to mention the night-eye ability that Khajits have is useless because instead of doing what it did back in Oblivion, in this incarnation we simply get what appears to be an increase in contrast with a light blue tinting :/
So yes. I'm ranting now. But I love the game still even if there are a few things that could be explained. :/ Like how there are like no Khajit anywhere. Yes I know you find them on the roads as merchants, bandits and the occasional Skooma-head. But there are almost none in cities and definently none that are marriage-able. (I tried 3 different characters my first game 2 of them glitched and the third refused to offer me a quest to get him to like me). My second play through I rushed to my Argonian Scouts-Many-Marshes to find that he was finally offering me the quest I needed (well objective in the sense that a quest is a multi-stepped program).
But enough of my lizard lover boy. Getting back to the game and how I've played through it. I've realized 2 things about Skyrim. The first being that I don't understand how an area 2 feet away can be knee deep snow and the area your character is standing on is perfectly non-snowy. The second being that Skyrim's population is over 75% bandit + undead. You think I'm joking? I'm not. Consider first how many of the marks on a players map indicate mini-dungeons or full fleged dungeons. Next consider how townsfolk usually don't respawn... However bandits do. Follow that up with how you're significantly more likely to walk on the road and meet up with a thief or god forbid an assassin who wants to back stab you than you are a soldier regiment or the stray farmer looking to join the army.
But enough of the people. TO THE DRAGONS! Dragons are to this game what the red mountain was to Morrowind and the Oblivion Crisis was to Oblivion. In this game the character will probably see at least 5-10 dragons if they've progressed anywhere within the game. Dragons in Skyrim are big bad and full of magical frost/fire magics. In lore the two are intermingled in the sense that Dragons at one point wished to rule all of Tamriel and were put down by the Blades. Though I must say it is fascinating how they chose the "Shout" system for the game. From the lore, when the player uses a shout ability, they are manifesting words in an ancient draconic language. These words of power form in the physical world as magic. And though several of the shouts make no sense, ok I'll give you that if you say some magical words you can breathe fire or frost or cause animals not to bash your face in anymore. But how does it make you sprint forward a few yards? That would seem more of a physical ability than anything of a magical nature. Anyway, back to the shout discussion. When dragons duel, they're in essence having a magical debate. And I for one can appreciate that as something very awesome.
Skyrim in many ways improves on it's predecessors of Oblivion and Morrowind. And though a few of the options/abilities and other features have been phased out, I must still semi-rave at least for the new leveling system. Granted I don't really understand the full mechanics of it and part of me misses stacking luck making the game my bitch, I must bow down to the superiority of the three attribute system. In previous games, stamina was useful and played a very helpful part of the game, but it was largely overshadowed in practicality by intellect, strength and endurance. In Skyrim, the game has condensed all of the other attributes to these three. Intellect improves the caster's magicka pool. Endurance used to improve your health and strength gives carrying capacity. Skyrim noted that these are the focus of a player and should really be the only stats that a player has to put things into. The talent system fills in everything else in the game. :)
I think I've typed too much for the average reader so I'll get back to this some other time.
"But how does it make you sprint forward a few yards?"
ReplyDeleteThat particular Thu'um (shout) is actually harnessing the power of wind, not making you run incredibly fast.