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WiP Heroic Spirit Guide: Ysmir, Dragon of the North

  • May 2, 2019

    Before you read this Heroic Spirit, note that I've made a slight change to the series. I've decided that I'm going to allow Mods for at least some of the Guides, possibly all of them from this point. This build in particular is going to use Ordinator - Perks of Skyrim, Apocalypse - Magic of Skyrim, Morningstar - Minimalistic Races of Skyrim, Andromeda - Unique Standing Stones of SkyrimThunderchild - Epic Shouts and Immersion and Wildcat - Combat of Skyrim

    Others may use Sacrosanct - Vampires of SkyrimWintersun - Faiths of Skyrim or Summermyst - Enchantments of Skyrim as well as a collection of the above mods.

    So yeah...mods and all that basically. I wanted to provide a more unique flavour to each Guide and I think this allows for more creativity and unique characters on my part. I don't have to skip over any Trap Characters (focused on trapping, not the anime term...probably)

    Ysmir is a character that I find really difficult to properly describe. To understand who he is, also involves understanding that Ysmir in this case is more of a title than a singular person. As a Heroic Spirit, the concept of Ysmir, Dragon of the North is sealed into a singular being that combines Aspects of all notable people that have been given the title, and can be seen as an amalgamation of them. Three people are known to have recieved the title, but it's possible that others have been given the title at some point as well. Tiber Septim, Wulfharth and The Last Dragonborn are the main three Aspects that define the Heroic Spirit, Ysmir. 

    Qualified Servant Classes:

    Note 1: All Heroic Spirits are summoned into a specific ‘class container’ which dictates many of their skills, parameters and even personality. While they’re often most suited for a particular class, there are many heroes that qualify for multiple classes and thus could theoretically be summoned under any of those classes. An easy example is Almalexia. She is well known for both her swordsmanship and magical abilities and would commonly be summonable under the classes of Saber or Caster.

    Potential Classes: Archer, Assassin, Berserker, Caster, Lancer, Rider and Saber

    To be honest I feel like I can justify Ysmir fitting into any class, so you know I did that. I think there are two real options that work better than any of the others. Caster and Berserker are two classes that I feel would work perfectly with any of the three major heroes associated with the title of Ysmir. Tiber Septim, Wulfharth and TLDB can all be associated with both magic and combat, with the only slight issue being that we can't assign a single weapon to any of these aspects. Because of that rather simple issue, I'm going to go with Caster for this particular character, though the take on it is something a bit unique.

    Class for this Guide: Caster

    Parameters:

    Note 2: Parameters are defined both by the individual and the class they’re summoned under. For example, all Caster’s have a base Mana of A, but there are individuals who have specific restrictions that may reduce their Mana to B or are incredibly powerful and thus could have a rating of A+. The system is hardly a way to judge a servant fully, just because an individual has higher stats doesn’t mean they’ll automatically defeat someone with lower stats, but it would mean that (for example) a Servant with a Strength of A will be naturally stronger than one with a Strength of B.

    Note 3: The ranking is E, D, C, B, A, EX. Ranks E through A can also have a modifier (either + or -) that designates that their skill has certain restrictions or increases in certain situations. Essentially a + or – means that their highest level isn’t stable or permanent, with a B+ being normally weaker than an A but being stronger than an A in certain circumstances. Examples – fighting a specific foe, being blessed or cursed, having a spell cast on you, etc

    Note 4: A servant is more powerful than a normal mortal by default (or the average human). E is 10x more powerful than an average human. D is 20x more powerful and so on and so forth. EX is theoretically 100x more powerful, but the scale is ambiguous.

    Strength: C

    Endurance: B

    Agility: C-

    Mana: A

    Luck: B

    Noble Phantasm: EX-

    Class Skills:

    Note 5: Class Skills are the skills that all Servants summoned under that class have access to, but to a varying degree based on the individuals. These are very general skills, but everyone will have different ranks in each skill based on certain aspects of their legend which are popular. If a Saber Class Servant was well known for fighting Mages, then they may receive a higher Magic Resistance than another Saber Servant who was known for being killed by a Mage.

    Item Construction: C

    Ysmir is not a Heroic Spirit that is well known for creating deadly items. He can create unique items but they're mostly at the level of what normal Smiths or Enchanters could create.

    Territory Creation: N/A

    Ysmir is not well known for creating any defensive locations, and could honestly be more associated with attacking his enemies. Because he's so focused on attacking enemies, his ability to protect locations has been completely blocked in favour of the Personal Skill, Territory Destruction.

    Personal Skills:

    Note 6: Personal Skills are unique to everyone…mostly. Two Servants may have Personal Skills with the same name, but they’ll have unique differences based on their own personal life and legend (for example, two Servants may have the ‘Charisma’ skill at the exact same rank, but one of them may be more charismatic when talking to military leaders while the other is more charismatic when talking to commoners.

    Territory Destruction: A+

    Territory Destruction is a unique skill that allows Ysmir to harness his offensive prowess to devastate enemy fortifications and completely wreck any attempts at protecting locations with Magic. It can be seen as a 'Magic Piercing' effect that allows his magic to push through 

    Power of the Dragon: EX

    All of Ysmir's aspects are associated with Destruction and Death to an extent that is really only rivalled by the Shezzarine. Any of the three, individually, could be considered one of the most powerful mortals to walk the earth, but combined they create a chaotic storm of offensive power that is near unrivalled. All of the offensive power of the three major aspects - Wulfharth, Tiber and The Last Dragonborn - is combined into Ysmir, allowing the Heroic Spirit to access the unrivalled might of the Thu'um and Wulfharth's power as the Ash-King.

    Noble Phantasms:

    Note 7: Noble Phantasms are unique to each Servant completely and is a notable part of their legend. For some heroes, these may be unique weapons or a set of armour that they wielded in their life, for others it may be a concept that is closely related to the Servant’s legend. For example, Morihaus is likely to be summoned with The Lord’s Mail as a set of armour while Tiber Septim may have a Noble Phantasm connected to his role of Emperor or Dragonborn.

    Undying Body of Ysmir: B+

    A Phtantasm that gains it's power from Wulfharth, The Undying Body of Ysmir, is a power that symbolizes Wulfharth's near immortality. He was known to have died at least three times, and yet would return for just about any seemingly important event in Tamrielic History. Because of this, Ysmir can survive three fatal blows, completely regenerating after he's killed. The flaw of this Noble Phantasm is that he is always summoned in the middle of whatever the largest nearby battle is, meaning he's constantly thrust into battle.

    It's also possible to simply overwhelm the Noble Phantasm, and a Dragon, Divine Being or overly powerful attack could easily overpower the Undying Body of Ysmir.

    Breath of Kyne, Storm of Dragons: E-EX

    The Voice of Ysmir, Talos and The Last Dragonborn are forces that are unrivalled by almost all mortals who have tapped into the power of the Thu'um. With the power to rout armies with a word, encourage allies with a whisper and rip apart reality with a shout, Ysmir is a mortal with a power that few understand and even fewer can match. This Noble Phantasm allows him to tap into the potential of each of his Aspects and use their unique gifts with the Voice, and utilize it in more ways than any singular aspect could have. A word from him is just as powerful as any of the greatest Tongues, and his mastery is unrivalled by all mortals.

    Sign of a Conqueror: B

    The title of Ysmir is constantly associated with War and Strife. Any of his aspects can be related to war, and because of this he is everything that a Conqueror is. He inspires loyalty beyond measure in his troops, fear beyond imagination in his foes and has an instinctive knowledge on what it means to defeat an enemy. This is a completely passive Noble Phantasm, and can be more closely related to a skill, but it's power is almost on the scale of a reality warping effect that allows him to always understand what he needs to do in order to win.

     

     

    Translation to Skyrim

     

    Fuck yes, this is the part that I’m super excited for. To be honest there’s something about designing Azhidal that I’ve really enjoyed so I’m going to talk quite a bit about that before I delve any further. My idea for him was to create a Heroic Spirit that is both incredibly powerful and fairly weak. As you may notice, he has terrible Parameters with the exception of his Noble Phantasms, and even then, they’re not exactly straight up overpowering, more utility based than anything. However the benefits they provide are really fascinating, and fit the lore to a tee. I’ll delve more into them in the Skills and Noble Phantasms section but uh yeah they’re kind of perfect in my opinion.

     

    What might be confusing is that Azhidal is an Archer here. While I have decided to use a Bow (Bound Bow), the reason is rather simply that all his attacks are projectile based (with the exception of Cloaks and Runes) so it's very much a fitting class. If I had to say, Caster would be a more powerful class for Azhidal to be summoned under, he'd have access to all of his magic which, honestly is kind of insane. As an Archer I'm probably only going up to Adept, so the sheer power level would be immense (especially if you were running Ordinator).

     

    It was honestly a challenge, but a fun one. Anyway, here we gooooo.

     

    Skills and Stats:

     

    Primary Skills: Alteration and Destruction

     

    Secondary Skills: Conjuration, Illusion and Restoration

     

    Stats: 5 Magicka, 3 Health and 2 Stamina per 10 levels.

     

    Required Perks and Equipment:

     

    Alteration: Alteration Mastery 2/2, Mage Armour 3/3, Distorted Shape, Geomancer, Throne of Nirn, Wild Shrines and Welloc's Dormant Arcana

    Destruction: Destruction Mastery 2/2, Dual Casting, Harsh Lesson, Force of Nature, Robe of the Magi, Combustion 2/2, Merciless Cold 2/2, Scarring Burns, Frostfall, Iced Earth and Pyromancer Ascension.

    Speech: Speech Mastery 2/2, Kinship, And The Universe Listens, Windborne, Force Redoubled 2/2, Hurricane Force, Thu'um of War, Merciless Storm and Dovahzulaan

    Equipment: Nothing is Required, just pick out a nice looking outfit that isn't armour.

     

    Spells: Flesh Spells, All Vanilla Elemental Spells, Ocato's Recital, Wither, Tharn's Prison, Strength of Earth, Spell Twine, Deep Storage, Entomb, Knowledge is Power, Battletide, Control Weather, Milestones, Sotha's Maelstrom, Talons of Nirn, Thrumming Stone and any Apocalypse Destruction Spells you want.

    Roleplaying and Other Information:

    I'm actually going to leave this is a tad bare at the moment because I'd like to run it by anyone who reads the build. The logical starting point for Ysmir is completing The College of Winterhold, Main Quest and Civil War questlines in order to follow some of the more logical storybeats of all three Aspects - Shouts, Magic and Conquest - but even there we can easily get into debates on what side of the Civil War makes more sense. Ysmir can be linked to both the Empire and Skyrim through Wulfharth and Tiber Septim, and it's kinda tough to pick between the two when we don't have a tiebreaker vote

    Other quests are also kinda tough, so that's why this is currently in the Workshop rather than Character Building. Quests, and Character Traits of Ysmir (who you should look at as an amalagamation of Tiber, Wulfharth and the entity known as TLDB). 

    Quick note about this because it might be confusing. Tiber Septim, Wulfharth and TLDB would all argubaly be Heroic Spirits on the level of Ysmir, or surpassing him. He has the power of the three as Mortals, then compounded by the fame of the Title Ysmir. He's really strong, probably one of the stronger Nordic Heroic Spirits, but he'd probably get his ass handed to him by Reman Cyrodiil, Tiber Septim, Mannimarco or any other equally famous hero. It also depends on where he's summoned, Ysmir is really only that famous a title in Skyrim, so he'd probably get a massive power drop in Black Marsh for example. 

    But that's just boring character stuff, let's delve into what I always have the most fun with...Breaking down the statistics of the character and justifying them (and fanboying over my own ideas sometimes :P). I really freaking love the concept of Ysmir here, starting with his Class Skills. Item Creation is a bit of a wildcard as a skill, because in Skyrim it would involve three primary options, but there is a Secondary Option which I might explore. THe first three are Smithing, Enchanting and Alchemy, which are all self explanatory but I don't think they really represent Ysmir properly. Maybe if Smithing still involved repairing weapons I could justify it, but honestly I don't see him as a Craftsman. The Secondary Option might be a bit more fitting, as they're more magic-focused than even Enchanting. The first of the two is using the Atronach Forge which would allow for some interesting additions to the character and doesn't require another skill to be grinded, could even justify doing the Aetherium quest so that's another forge you get to play around with. It's still Item Creation, but it's a lot more restricted. Territory Creation and Territory Destruction require a bit more explanation rather than rambling. Territory Creation is a skill that's focused on defending an area from attacks, and providing AoE buffing effects. I can't really see Ysmir being all about that, so I decided to bar him from the skill and give him a unique 'Territory Destruction' skill that focuses on tearing down defences. If we're talking about it in an abstract manner, it kinda means he's an Anti-Caster type Servant, whose most skilled at fighting other Casters because their defences are useless against him. In-game, eh he has access to a few skills that negate or ignore enemy Magic Resistance so it reduces the effectiveness of their defence. Power of the Dragon, his last Skill is a bit more abstract, because it involves utilizing the offensive power of all three Aspects of Ysmir. Basically, his individual spells are going to be pretty damn powerful, and he'll have access to all the offensive magic that Wulfharth, Tiber or the Dragonborn had access to. It leaves him as a bit of a Glass Cannon when it comes to defending against Magic, he might have some decent physical defence, but the lack of any Magic Resistance leaves him weak to other Mages.

    Undying Body of Ysmir is cool. It's based off a Noble Phantasm called God Hand, which is a lot more badass and gives the user 12 lives, allows him to ignore any attack that isn't incredibly strong and after each kill he becomes immune to the attack that killed him. The Noble Phantasm I've given Ysmir is a lot less cool, mainly because it lacks the actual defence of God Hand, but also because it has a lot of weaknesses. Anyone that fights in the name of a Daedra or Divine could beat the Regeneration, and he's constantly forced into bad situations. Gameplay wise, my first suggestion would be simply playing the character with a 'Life Counter', give yourself three lives, or two reloads and your set. The other way is simply by following the logic that the three lives reset after a certain time...Really there are a lot of ways to do it but it requires a personal approach.

    Breath of Kyne, Storm of Dragons is also cool. That'll be the last time (probably) that I describe one as cool, but it's also difficult to explain. It's obviously somewhat similar to Power of the Dragon and I arguably could have combined the two into a single Phantasm/Skill, but this is actually seperate for Lore reasons. In TES, the Thu'um is (in my opinion) so much more potent and Mythical than simple magic. It is something that only a small number of very skilled people can use, and it has a 'Mystery' to it that magic simply doesn't have (the use of Mystery here is a bit more based on Fate, and it essentially represents the weight of a concept.). Because of this, Breath of Kyne has to be treated as a Noble Phantasm, a unique power related to an individual Heroic Spirit. The ability to Shout as Ysmir does is unique to him, and has to be protected behind the power of a Phantasm. But yeah, basic concept is real simple, use Thunderchild and Ordinator's Speech tree to really bolster your Shouts.

    Sign of a Conqueror is super simple, it's purely a Roleplaying focused Noble Phantasm that focuses a bit more on just winning battles. In theory the idea is that Ysmir might gain insight into an individual's desires, fears or dreams in order to either turn them to his side, or spur them into a certain action. This insight might also grant him the ability to randomly guess (correctly) the movement of an enemy allowing him to perfectly position his troops for success. It's rather endless, but allows him a random chance to correctly choose the correct action in any battle. Gameplay-wise, it just means you can you know...play the game.

    Closing Notes:

    I'm going to leave the Closing Notes a bit barebones for now because I do want to get that Workshop advice before posting it. For now I'll just quickly grab my links, throw them here and list a few things I want to focus on in the 'Shop.

     

    Image 1 Source

    Image 2 Source

    I can't find the source for the third image, sadly but it isn't mine. If I find it in the meantime I'll edit this, but yeah.

    Lore Article for Ysmir (Including all Lore-Friendly Sources)

    More Information on the Caster Class

    Fate - Parameter Rules    |    Fate - Servant Definition    |    Fate - Noble Phantasms    |    Fate - Full List of Skills

    As a final note, I just wanted to thank Trekster for inspiring these guides. Obviously we've got really different takes and inspirations for the series and they're honestly really different, but there's so much of his work that inspired mine. Check Out His Guides because they really are awesome, and a bit more suited to just plugging a build into the Guide and playing with it. Hope these are interesting, I tried really hard to balance the combination of Skyrim and Fate, though I'll freely admit to focusing more on the latter.

  • Member
    May 2, 2019

    The opening image is spectacular, Deebs! I spotted an Azhidal paragraph which I'm sure you're getting around to editing. Focusing mainly on the Skyrim bits, your interpretation of Ysmir is interesting by making him a magic-user. There's a strong connection between Ysmir and the Warrior Sign but this interpretation leaves that particular Mundus Stone useless for a mage.

    It's refreshing, though, and makes a fair amount of sense that the Heroic Spirit representation of all incarnations of Ysmir have the sort-of spirit of the Ash-King, and I can almost hear the Song of the Askelde Men as I picture this Ysmir standing on his Throne of Nirn and laying down searing fire as if to create a funeral pyre visible from Sovngarde. Thinking about it, I'd be tempted to add just a touch of Restoration for that Warrior's Flame goodness and have it as an RP thing that the Warrior's Flame is that connection to the stars.

     

  • May 2, 2019
    The opening image is spectacular, Deebs! I spotted an Azhidal paragraph which I'm sure you're getting around to editing. Focusing mainly on the Skyrim bits, your interpretation of Ysmir is interesting by making him a magic-user. There's a strong connection between Ysmir and the Warrior Sign but this interpretation leaves that particular Mundus Stone useless for a mage.
    Yeah that image is something else, I don't think I've ever found an image that's as perfect and honestly amazing as that one for a build. Hadn't seen that particular source, but there's no doubt that there's a connection there. I think I could probably justify the use of the Lord's power from Andromeda with the build (Staggering is actually something the build focuses on heavily), even the power of the Warrior Stone could argubaly be used...actually it might be kinda fitting, a near-death restoration of the body? Might have to run with it anyway...

    It's refreshing, though, and makes a fair amount of sense that the Heroic Spirit representation of all incarnations of Ysmir have the sort-of spirit of the Ash-King, and I can almost hear the Song of the Askelde Men as I picture this Ysmir standing on his Throne of Nirn and laying down searing fire as if to create a funeral pyre visible from Sovngarde. Thinking about it, I'd be tempted to add just a touch of Restoration for that Warrior's Flame goodness and have it as an RP thing that the Warrior's Flame is that connection to the stars.

    Honestly, I'm of basically the same opinion regarding Warrior's Flame, and Restoration in general since there's a lot of lower-key links to Restoration, Healing and Regeneration in the character. If I altered things slightly, the build could be just as much about Healing as it is currently about Destruction, and honestly with Ysmir I could really hone in on some of the elements of Duality. A Healer, King and Defender of the Nords and Conqueror, Destroyer and Killer of the Elves. Because he's very Nordic in so many way, and like any famous Nord, Aspects of Ysmir are great at killing Elves (It's harder than it is easy to remember Nords who aren't famous for killing Elves). 
     
    Honestly though, I did want to sort of focus the character a bit more...I was half tempted to remove Alteration for thematic reasons, but I think it provides enough offense through Throne of Nirn, the Spells, while Geomancer and Distorted Shape are really battle-focused perks. Restoration is still a Secondary Skill 
    (Which can still mean 10 or more perks with Ordinator :P) but I wanted to control how many perks I recommended and I'm already pushing it compared to some of the other Guides. There's supposed to be a lot of personal choice, but Warrior's Flame is incredibly fitting.