The Alts, specifics

Last post I babbled about the generalities of my alt line-up; this time I’ll go through the specifics of what they each do.

Someone once commented, “so when do you stop messing around with all that and start playing the game?” Just to be clear: this is me playing the game. I actually do like grinding, it amuses the same part of my brain that likes to knit or make chain jewelry – small, repetitive actions towards a goal are soothing to me – and when I’m in the right mood I can farm a circuit for 6 hours w/o blinking. At the same time, the instant I do get bored, I’m done. My characters are set up the way they are so I never feel stuck, or like I’m in a rut; I do whatever is fun until it isn’t fun anymore, then I jump characters and do something else. I go down the list approximately in the order I have it below, skipping any character if I don’t feel like doing their thing, or if I’m pressed for time.

All of my characters now have 50 in all crafting skills, but until a couple of weeks ago, one character in the rotation would be doing decon as part of their log-in. And I’m down to only 3 characters who need the stable, but a stable trip also used to be part of the deal.

Aaaaaaaaaand: cut.

Vashta Neradae

Screen name: Vashta Neradae
aka: Vashta
Nightblade, Ebonheart Pact
Crafter alt – Alchemy
Dunmer

We are the Darkness.  We are infinite.  We were here before you came, and we will be here long after you are gone and your monuments turned to dust.  When only your screams remain, we will rejoice. 

The Elder Scrolls world tends to be a place of heroes who make good decisions.  As the games have evolved and developed the richness and nuance they have now – and the audience has matured – the devs put more options into the game world that increased the viability of “evil” characters.  Oblivion had more options than Morrowind, but Skyrim was the first of the line to allow for the role-playing of a character who could make truly evil choices, like consuming the flesh of a friend, or killing followers as a sacrifice.  Skyrim also, finally, truly depicted the Dark Brotherhood as the pit of crazy, homicidal cultists they are.

I’m not a huge fan of playing dark characters – in general I’d rather be the good guy.  But I do like role-playing, and I always want to see all the options available.  Vashta is my dark character – an assassin, Daedra worshipper, and the one who always takes the dialog option that leads to pain.  She’s a running experiment in the morality bounds of TES games.

What I’ve found in the ESO world is that there’s not a lot of room for her.  The main story quests are explicitly about diminishing Molag Bal’s influence on the world and stopping him from claiming Nirn/Mundus… but that’s hard to play with Vashta, because she’s actively rooting for a Daedric win.  I liked the mechanics of playing a Nightblade, but had to retire Vashta, because she just wasn’t the right Nightblade for the ESO world.  When the Dark Brotherhood DLC is launched, Vashta will (probably) be the one I run through that content; she’ll be happy to be back in the embrace of the Night Mother and Sithis.  Until then, she is crafting poisons to increase her skill.  (And then vendoring them, because right now they’re worthless in ESO – you can make them, but you can’t currently use them.)

Yes, incidentally, that IS a Doctor Who reference; I’m a fangirl.  When I built the character, I found that Vashta Nerada, Vashta Neradah, Vashta Neradu, and many other versions were already taken on the server; I’m not the only geek who had the idea, which tickles me.  It gave me the idea to have Vashta always speak as a plural entity and not in the singular.  Vashta’s theme is insectoid (the purple and green in her armor is meant to invoke the colors of a beetle shell) and she thinks of herself as a swarm.  It works well with the Daedric aspect as well as the original Doctor Who context.