#be it Empire base that's secretly a tomb or Imperial lives or whatever | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

thespleenoflorkhan · 5 years

Text

TES OC Answers For Alta Adalrica

Under a cut because there’s so much god damn text.

1. It’s a little unreasonable for everyone in a Middle Ages-esque fantasy to be perfectly literate, and writing with quills was considered legitimate labor! How well can your oc read and/or write? How detailed is their quest log/journal, if they keep one at all?

Alta is very literate; she mostly taught herself how to read as a child by going through her parents books and trying to learn all the stories they had in them. She does not keep a quest journal, but does compose several songs and poems based on things that happened in her adventures, first as assignments from the Bards’ College to show that she’s not slacking off in her studies while she goes traveling, but later when she realizes that she’s quickly amassing her own legend and wants to keep as accurate a report of her life as she can for future generations to learn from.

2. How educated is your oc? Did their parents teach them, did they have a tutor or were they apprenticed to a master, or did they attend a university? What university? What are they educated in? How long did their education take? (Learned skills like blacksmithing count here too!)

Alta had tutors as a child, and as an adult studied in various different vocations before settling on bard/historian. She’s shadowed priests, taken classes, and had apprenticeships, making her very knowledgeable about a wide variety of academia. After settling on bard/historian, Alta then traveled the Empire to learn more about the various peoples of Tamriel, taking in their stories and learning their songs.

Alta came to Skyrim with the express intent of joining the Bards’ College in Solitude to continue her education, and starts off her story having attended the college for a few weeks already.

3. Does your oc have any kind of crafting skills that either aren’t in-game or don’t have as much importance in-game as they would in real life? (For example, can your oc sew or weave, etc? Are they skilled in any kind of art? Can they make jewelry or work glass? Are they musicians? etc)

Since Alta is a bard, she knows how to compose music and poetry, and play a few instruments. She can play the flute (badly), the drums (passably), the lute (very well), as well as the Nibenese mandolin (exceptionally well). Alta prefers playing the mandolin to the lute, but the lute is more widely found in Skyrim and her mandolin kind of got broken into a billion pieces early on in her adventure, so.

She also knows how to: sew, cook, book bind, skin and debone a carcass, make and sustain a fire without flint/magic, purify water for drinking, pitch a tent, and take care of her various weapons/instruments, such as restringing her bow or lute (and making a new string from scratch if necessary) and doing light mending to her mace’s handle.

4. What pantheon does your oc worship? If they worship the Cyrodiilic/Imperial pantheon, does that include Talos? If they secretly worship Talos, how do they justify hiding it?

Alta worships the Cyrodiilic pantheon (Stendarr in particular) with one alteration: she worships Shezarr in favor of Talos. She first found mention of Shezarr as a child and was so stricken by the idea that the world had a whole ‘nother god that people just forgot about, that she started offering him her prayers as well.

When she grew older and learned more about Tiber Septim, she started leaving Talos out of her prayers because she didn’t want to venerate someone who’d done such terrible things, and by the time she’s an adult and running around Skyrim as the Last Dragonborn she’s left him out entirely. If asked, Alta would say that being dragonborn herself, Talos is too familiar to her to be worshiped, and it would be like asking a child to worship their older sibling.

But in truth it’s because she just thinks he’s a dick.

5. How religious is your oc? Do they come into conflict with others over their beliefs? If their patron deity told them to do something extremely undesirable or against their moral compass, would they do it? Would your oc sell someone’s soul for a corn chip?

Alta’s Stendarr worship is very important to her. She keeps an amulet of Stendarr on her at all times and always makes a trip to the nearest temple of the divines or wayshrine to Stendaar in whatever city she goes to to thank him for safe passage. Though many of the virtues Stendarr embodies are things she would be drawn to anyways—mercy, compassion, charity, protecting your fellow man, and providing aid when you can to as much as you can—she feels better when enacting these virtues because of Him.

However, considering Stendarr is also the enemy to Daedra, that means that for a good chunk of her adventure, Alta has a fair amount of difficulty interacting with Orcs, Dark Elves, and to a lesser degree Khajiit because their racial pantheons include the worship of Daedra. She tries not to judge them or think less of them, since Stendarr makes no distinction between worshipers and heretics, but it does make her uncomfortable for a long while. She gets better about it later, which is quite the boon by the time she goes to Solstheim.

During the Dawnguard questline, Alta had great difficulty reconciling Serana her friend with Serana the vampire Abomination she was obligated to destroy. Eventually she decided that as a mortal she doesn’t need to be held to a Divine standard, and would prefer to make a mistake in the eyes of her god than to let someone’s please for help go unanswered just because they’re not alive.

6. Does your oc have a family of origin? How many members of their FoO are still living? Do they have a good relationship? How much contact does your oc have with their FoO? How in-the-loop is your oc’s FoO about your oc’s being Dragonborn/HoK/Nerevarine?

Alta has a mother and father that live in some city in Cyrodiil that I’ll decide later when I eventually get around to playing Oblivion. She has a fairly good relationship with them—her birth father passed away when she was younger and her step-father was the one who encouraged her to see the world while she was young, while her mother encouraged her studies and skill-training, hoping that her daughter would become someone important one day. I don’t know yet if she has any sibling but I’m leaning towards no.

Alta sends letters to her parents every few months or so, and has ever since she left home years and years ago. Since she does a lot of traveling, she directs all her mail to a certain city or village that she spends a lot of time in in any particular region—Solitude, for example. She doesn’t tell her parents about being the Dragonborn until after Alduin has been slain, but does tell them about occasional things she’s done, like take the plunge off of Bard’s Leap Summit and become thane of various holds.

7. What social class was your oc born into? Did they change classes at all? How?

Alta was born middle class, and remained fairly wealthy until she set out on her own. Then she got robbed a whole lot. For a good chunk of her initial adventures in Skyrim, Alta was strapped for cash and mostly made a living by eating what she could hunt/forage and getting coin by playing in inns or trawling through caves. As she went on adventuring, she went up in ranks to an upper-middle class adventurer-poet, a mid-high class thane and folk hero, a high class politician and war hero, and eventually finishes her story years later as the Dragonborn Empress of the Fourth Empire.

8. How politically active is your oc? Are they obviously influential, or is their influence more subtle?

At first, Alta is not very politically inclined. She becomes Thane of Morthal a few weeks after clearing out the vampire problem on her way to the Hall of the Vigilant when she makes the return journey back to Solitude, and didn’t put much thought into the position aside from spending one week in Morthal per month for a while since if it’s a political position it must be important.

Since she’s so rarely in any one particular hold for long, Alta doesn’t do much political maneuvering, and doesn’t hold much sway over the courts of each particular jarl. However, as she travels more and becomes more well-known, she gains a good amount of sway with the jarls themselves, since she’s not only a folk hero, but someone who travels between the holds all the time, and has insight into what’s going on in each of the major cities.

For the longest time, her political aspirations were just “end the Civil War in Skyrim.” As time went on, they shifted to “stop a second war with the Thalmor”, to “defeat the Thalmor”, to “unify Tamriel into the Fourth Empire”, to “rule justly and fairly as the Empress of the Fourth Empire.” I would say that at that point she’s very politically active.

9. What unplayable faction would/did your oc join, if any? Why?

Aside from being very active among the Bards’ College (which I’m counting as unplayable because you can’t actually do anything if you join), Alta is technically considered an Initiate among the Vigilants of Stendarr due to the fact that she keeps getting involved in Daedric Fuckery and bringing them artifacts to watch over. She doesn’t actually have any clout within the organization and it’s mostly just so the Initiates are more apt to take her to the Keeper when she swings by with a new artifact, but still.

10. How trustworthy is your oc? Would they ever change opposing factions?

Alta can fairly reasonably be expected to keep her word. She’s not going to die over keeping a promise, but she’s not going to lie to you unless the matter is very important. She also prefers not to pick sides at all in a conflict until she’s reasonable sure that she’s made a good choice, i.e., joining the Imperials because a Stormcloak victory would weaken the Empire and that’s just what the Thalmor wanted. Once she’s made up her mind, it’s going to take a lot to change it.

11. What is your oc’s main source of income, if they have one besides plundering tombs and adventuring? If they’re mercenaries, are they part of a company? Does your oc own their own business, and if so, what is it?

Alta makes a lot of her money by playing for tips and requests at inns, as well as penning new songs and poems for Viarmo to publish once word gets out that the Dragonborn walks amongst us and their adventures can be your to hear for a small fee. She’s also published a few books based on strange findings or stranger happenings in Skyrim

The position of Arch-Mage of the College of Winterhold probably has a salary, but Alta doesn’t feel like she’s earned it, so she doesn’t take it and just has that money pumped back into the Arcaneum.

12. Is your oc good with finances? Bartering? How long can they keep the money they make?

I’d say she’s good with money! Alta is pretty good at sums and estimates, and has a fairly good idea of how much most objects are worth at fair market value due to traveling all over Tamriel and seeing all kinds of different markets to value things in. She rarely keeps a lot of money on her though since coins are heavy and noisy and easy to misplace. Most of her money is either in investments with various businesses around Skyrim, or split between banks in all nine holds with her housecarls instructed to use the funds to maintain the household while she’s away.

13. Does your oc have any particular rivalry or mutual dislike with any NPC?

She utterly loathes Elenwen for all her Elenwen-ness, and after the Battle of Windhelm (which ended in Ulfric being forced to surrender without the promise of a glorious death for the bards to sing songs of), she’s really grown to dislike Ulfric Stormcloak. She disliked him before due to his stubbornness (as well as Tullius’s stubbornness) during the war meeting at High Hrothgar, but him laying down his weapons and asking to die struck her as an act of unforgivable cowardice since he was the one who wanted to die fighting instead of just surrender quietly, and especially after he and his sad little war had given Alduin so much power and caused Skyrim so much strife.

Alta also dislikes Delphine, but that’s more because Delphine’s just rude as hell and lowkey using you to enact a vendetta against the dragons than anything truly unforgivable. They only become easier allies after a forceful reminder that the Blades are supposed to serve the Dragonborn, not the other way around.

Oh wait that said mutual UHM probably the one girl in the bard’s college who says’s she’s better than everyone.

14. How well-liked is your oc? What is their reputation, if they’re well-known? Are they simply liked/disliked, or are they respected but feared, or personally liked but not taken seriously, etc? Do major factions consider your oc an important player?

I want to say Alta is fairly decently liked? Or at least as much as a non-Nord in Skyrim can be. in the beginning she was just a pretty good bard who was always ready to help you out if you needed her to, and then things got more complicated when she was recognized as the Dragonborn. Since word doesn’t spread fast and there’s no photography in Skyrim, Alta basically has three reputations: the Dragonborn’s, the Bard’s, and the Imperial’s. Her identity as the Dragonborn is more liked than her identity as Alta Adalrica, and her eventual identity as a renowned bard is probably liked the most of all since bards don’t have to make moral choices.

To the Bards’ College, she’s pretty much just another bard, albeit an especially famous one. She’s the Arch-Mage of the College of Winterhold, but the professors mostly just consider her a fellow scholar who doesn’t yet realize her talent since she claims to not be worthy of the position on account of only knowing a handful of Restoration spells but is one of the only people alive who can Shout. The Dawnguard and the Vigilants consider her to be a valuable addition to their ranks, but mostly just another person on the team.

The Forsworn hate her for killing Madanach. The Dark Brotherhood (or what’s left of it) probably hate her for killing everyone. Valerica is the only remaining Volkihar vampire after Serana became human and mostly doesn’t care so long as Serena is safe, like at worst she’s peeved that the Dawnguard killed all her minions.

The Companions and the Thieves’ Guild Do Not Know Her.

15. Does your oc have a horse/other mount? A pet? How did they get this animal? If they were given the animal, do they have the money to maintain it? How careful/careless are they with their animal? What do they do with their pets while adventuring, especially on dangerous quests?

All Dragonborns are required by law to adopt Meeko. So she did. Meeko lives in Silian Manor with the rest of Alta’s children, pets, and followers. Alta does have the money to maintain Meeko, though initially she just fed him scraps from hunting and preparing meat in the wild. After coming back home from Solstheim she also adopted the Steadfast Dwarven Sphere, who mostly just scoots around the floor of the house like a steam-powered roomba.

Alta has tried to keep a horse over the course of her adventures, but they generally end up getting stolen or killed. After the second dead horse she just said fuck it and stuck with walking and carriages. Once she came out of the Soul Cairn though, she would end up summoning Arvak to ride on if she needed to go somewhere too far to walk since she doesn’t have to worry about him dying.

16. Does your oc take their time as they travel, or are they purposeful? How do they survive in the wilds, especially if they aren’t hunter-types? How dependent is your oc on civilized society?

Alta sets out intending to go quickly and do only what she needs to do, but she keeps stopping in various buildings or caves for shelter during the night only to end up fighting trolls or wiping out a bandit camp. And that’s not even getting into “I was halfway to my destination when someone implored me to help them with a thing and I couldn’t just say no.”

She’s able to survive fairly well in the wild, but has no idea what to do if she runs out of plants to forage or animals to hunt, so her ability to survive is ultimately limited before she’s forced to return to civilization. Additionally, unless she’s traveling somewhere, Alta would get bored to tears pretty quickly in the wild. She needs her books.

17. What does your oc like to eat? How much food do they eat? Can your oc cook, and can they do it well?

Mostly, Alta just eats whatever she can hunt and forage while she’s traveling on the road. She keeps a few containers of fresh and dried herbs/spices, and she knows how to look for wild edible plants and fungi.

Alta is a fairly decent cook when she has access to a full pantry, and she enjoys baking things. He favorite food is mammoth cheese, something that she can, and has raided giant camps for when doing bounty jobs for the various hold jarls. If you introduced her to fried mammoth cheese it would probably blow her mind.

20. What does your oc wear in the city/settlements? In the house? When travelling, but not adventuring or expecting combat? Do they vary their clothes depending on what hold/city they’re in? If they don’t, why not (e.g., if your oc wears the same outfit to tend their garden or lounge around the house as they did to meet Ulfric or Elisif, why?) Does your oc have a good or bad sense of fashion? How many clothes does your oc have?

Alta wears regular civilian clothes when not adventuring. If she’s traveling, she’s almost certainly going to end up in combat at some point, either with a bear or a bandit so it’s just practical. If she’s going somewhere she needs a specific outfit for, she just puts on her Vampire Armor and keeps her normal clothes in a travel bag. Alta has a decent sense of fashion, but she prefers styles from her native Cyrodiil that aren’t popular in Skyrim, and thus comes across as kind of unfashionable. I would say she has enough clothes to go two weeks without having to to laundry.

21. How picky is your oc about their gear? Do they have different equipment for different adventures, or is it the same suit of armor for everything (not counting upgrades like from steel to ebony)?

Alta pretty much has the same equipment for everything. She packs lightly for more maneuverability, and prefers her Vampire Armor over Scale Armor or Elven Armor because it’s more versatile—you can disguise Vampire Armor as a fashion choice at a party or use it to fool vampires from a distance, but you can’t really do the same thing with a suit of Elven Plate.

She’s used a few different weapons over time, settling on a bow for primary combat and a mace to fall back on. Starting with a carved wooden club and a simple hunter’s bow, she ended her journey with a dragonbone mace and the Bow of Auri-El.

22. How does your oc acquire their clothes, and from where/whom?

Alta mostly buys her clothes, though she will occasionally sew them herself. She gets a lot of clothes from Khajiiti traders as well.

Her primary set of armor though, came from very early on in her adventures through Skyrim: she’d taken a stop in Morthal on her way to the Hall of the Vigilant after exorcising Sheogorath from the Blue Palace and receiving the Wabbajack, and got roped into dealing with the vampire problem there. After dealing with Morvath and almost getting killed for not having armor on, she swipes a set of Vampire Armor from his lair and wears that for most of her time adventuring in Skyrim.

23. Can your oc swim, and how well? Have they ever swam in the ocean, or only lakes/rivers? Remember, it’s much harder to swim in the ocean than in a lake!

Alta is bad at swimming. She knows how to float, and she knows how to paddle, but she’s not going to be able to fight a current and she’s not going to be able to swim quickly.

24. How easy/difficult is it to rob your oc? Pickpocket? Bribe?

When she’s starting out? Having been a scholar all her life whose only combat experience was hunting for sustenance, it’s really easy to rob/pickpocket her. Later, when she’s a more experienced adventurer, it’s still fairly easy to pickpocket her, but she keeps several small caches of coin/valuables on her person to make sure that losing one or two isn’t that big of a deal, and she’s a good enough combatant now that outright robbing her is hard.

Alta can only be bribed if: the thing she’s being asked to do is something she would be okay with doing afterwards, and the bribe is something other than money, like rare books or fried mammoth cheese.

26. How helpful is your oc, and why? Are they helpful or kind even during difficult situations? Are they pragmatic, or do they have a hero syndrome?

Stendarr teaches that you should always help your fellow man if you have the means to do so, so even when she doesn’t want to help, Alta will at least try to do something. She will try to be pragmatic about things, but that doesn’t always work.

Alta is naturally helpful and tries to diffuse any difficult situation she comes across as best she can before taking action: for instance, after finding Aventus Aretino performing the Black Sacrament and mistaking her for a Dark Brotherhood assassin, she sat him down with a cup of tea and talked to him about why he wanted Grelod to be punished so badly and why he felt assassination was the right way to go before making a visit to Grelod herself.

#alta adalrica #headcanon #god there's just #so much #this took me literal hours

4 notes · View notes