05.28.06
Oh, right… hormones
Ronja Thornskiold, Nord Guardian, with her horse Hrimfaxi.
Nobody really cares when or where it’s taken, it’s just a game FFS.
Okay, so… I’m just a guy, after all. Some clichées just can’t be escaped, I guess. It’s just that… I didn’t expect Oblivion to get THIS much more interesting just by switching to a female character. A young, attractive, blonde Nord female character. I like to believe the fact that she’s human and even Nord (the Oblivion version of Scandinavians) adds to the immersion and makes the game more interesting. But to be honest, that doesn’t really explain why I’ve suddenly started playing the game in third person and walking everywhere instead of running (hint: The character animation for walking females is really quite nice - I mean… it’s well made… it’s good craftsmanship! Ahem).
I considered myself rather mature, you know. I was clearly beyond such things as drooling over pixels, which is why I was never a great fan of Tomb Raider, etc. But now I’m actually spending time and gold pieces buying relaxed clothes for my character to wear when she’s just walking around town.
…
What is this, The Sims? No! It’s Oblivion! It’s an RPG! Men bashing each other with swords! It’s masculine! I should be adventuring the countryside, exploring ancient ruins, and KILLING BAD PEOPLE! Not dressing up my character like this is just some stupid Barbie game with stats.
In the picture above, though, she’s wearing the heavy raiment she received as a prize for becoming Grand Champion in The Arena in Imperial City. It’s the only really good piece of equipment I have so far [note: picture updated 05/06/06 with a more beautiful and fitting backdrop - still wearing the raiment, but now also holding a magical maze and a self-enchanted shield, the Shield of Thorns], as I’m not very high level yet. I created Ronja Thornskiold (”skiold” is an old way to spell “shield” in Danish) so I could play through the main storyline quests without getting my arse handed to me, because Seboomook is level 6 and has gained all his levels by raising his Speechcraft and Sneak skills. The plan is to complete the Mages Guild and Thieves Guild quests and generally go exploring with Seboomook and then do the Arena, the Fighters Guild, and the storyline quests with Ronja, who has been built to kick butt and look good doing it. While I did manage to complete the Arena quests with some effort, it was only after getting majorly sidetracked by three different dungeons upon emerging from the tutorial section in the beginning.
It went a bit like this: “Ah! Freedom! Blessed sun! Grass under my feet! Right, time to deliver that amulet to Jau– oh, I never did get around to checking out those ruins on the opposite shore with Seboomook, did I? Guess I could check it out…” [An hour passes] “Right, that was a cool dungeon, what a huge load of crystals they had lying around, those’ll come in handy later I bet. Well, time to go to Chorrol with that amul– is that a ruined keep or something up there? I think I should check that out before I leave…” [Another hour passes] “Bah, I hate undead! But the bandits were a piece of cake, mwahahah, you must all FEAR Ronja, Guardian of the North! Oh, right, that amulet, I gotta… bah, screw it, might as well go check out that cave down there, I’m clearly not getting to Chorrol today.”
What a horrible game this is. I guess that’s a compliment.
