This build is inspired by the Follow Me Follow You event. However, instead of recreating and playing as one NPC I decided to create a build that would take on multiple NPC’s. There was one creature that came to mind when I thought about copying a NPC, and it’s one that is intrinsically suited to this kind of play thru. The idea is to hop from skin to skin as we work our way through the game.

THE DOPPELGANGER

Doppelganger, which means second goer in Atmoran, is a strange abomination, neither mortal nor daedric but some abhorrent mingling of the two. They are believed to be linked in some way to the Daedric Price of Lies Mephala due to their uncanny ability to deceive and their unnatural ability to change their physical form. They are assassins one and all, who not just murder their targets but steal their very lives, often living as said person for years before moving on to the next target. How they decide who to kill and what makes them move on to kill again is unknown.

Race: Various. Through the use of a mod we will be changing our race to fit the current target. Your starting race should be Nord to match our first target, Sven.

Stone: Serpent. The Serpent Stone represents the doppelganger’s ability to incapacitate his target and start the grisly process of subsuming them and taking their place.

Primary Skills: Heavy Armor, Two Handed, Illusion, Sneak

Secondary Skills (tentative): Restoration, Archery, Block

Stat Placement: M: 1 H: 1 S: 1 A pure even spread, fitting for a changeling. This way no matter our current form we will have high enough stats to “fake” it with a little help from equipment.

Weapons: The Ebony Blade is the chosen weapon of the Doppelganger. Fitting for a Scion of Mephala and also fitting since Two-Handed will be a primary skill of many of the Doppelganger’s targets.

Apparel: The Ebony Mail is our end game armor, until it becomes available use the best heavy armor you can find.   Heavy Armor and Sneak both play a large role in the Doppelganger’s playstyle and the mail fits that perfectly.   Furthermore the method of obtaining the Ebony Mail is superbly suited to the Doppelganger.

Gear: Ring of Namira

Shouts: The Doppelganger is not dragonborn, and therefore doesn’t use shouts

Mods: Race Change V.6 PS4, Don’t Change Your Race (PS4) I still need to test these out and make sure they work together and suit my needs. The idea is to change my race and appearance on demand for free.

Perk Spread Level 40

Heavy Armor: Juggernaut 5/5, Well Fitted, Tower of Strength

Two Handed: Barbarian 5/5, Champion’s Stance, Great Critical Charge, Devastating Blow, Sweep, Deep Wounds 3/3

Illusion: Novice-Expert, Illusion Dual Casting, Hypnotic Gaze, Aspect of Terror, Animage, Kindred Mage, Quiet Casting

Sneak: Stealth 5/5, Muffled Movement, Light Foot, Silent Roll, Silence, Shadow Warrior

Heavy Armor: A major skill of the Doppelganger taken mostly to maximize our use of the Ebony Mail. The focus here is purely on defense and all of the perks reflect that.

Two Handed: A major skill of the Doppelganger taken mostly to maximize the Ebony Blades potential. All the perks were chosen to maximize the Ebony Blades damage potential.

Illusion: Represents the shapeshifting and deceptive nature of the Doppelganger. The focus is on calm and fear effects. Calm represents the Doppelgangers ability to deceive others into thinking they are a friend and not a threat. Fear represents a very natural reaction to the realization that the creature you are facing is not a natural thing but some kind of daedric abomination.

Sneak: The Doppelganger is very capable of stealth, even while heavily armed and armored, thanks to their strange anatomy. We stay on the left side of this skill tree the right side doesn’t offer anything for a Two Handed weapon style.

Targets:

                Sven: Our first victim, complete his quest and then take him with you to Markarth, though only “Sven” will complete the journey.

                Borther Verulus: Early in the playthrough we head to Markarth and obtain the Ring of Namira. Afterwards we take Verulus’s place in the city acting as a priest and investigating the Forsworn Conspiracy. We want the ring for practical reasons but a creature of Mephala cannot help but get caught up in the intrigue.

                Cosnach/Vigilant Tyranus: Finally growing bored of Markarth the doppelganger takes another form and heads out in search of more interesting locales.

Uthgerd

                Erik the Slayer

                Stenvar

                Marcurio

                Ahtar

                Benor

                Mjoll the Lioness

                Roggi Knot-Beard

                Borgakh the Steel Heart

                Ingjard

                Vilkas

                Brelyna/J’zargo/Onmund

To Do: Actually start playing this character to test the mods I have in mind and maybe work out some others that will add to the playthrough. Figure out what the doppelganger will do, specifically quests, my inclination is to avoid the main quest and any other that requires you to become dragonborn, I’m thinking Dark Brotherhood and Volkihar would be fitting.

Just to be clear this is not for the event, it doesn't qualify, I was simply inspired by the idea and couldn't get this idea out of my head so I put it here.  I hope to maybe start playing this character this weekend but everything hinges on those mods working like i think they will....we'll see

I had the same idea but set it aside because busy... have fun!

haha, this looks like a lot of fun, Vargr. Can't wait to see what you do with it. Hope the mod combo works. 

Cool, cool. I'm really interested in what you do with this build Vargr, I think it's an awesome use of a mod (or type of mod) that I've never even thought about using, let alone in such an interesting way. Seriously I think it might be the most interesting use of a mod in a build to day. 

Oh, and just in case I'll point your direction towards a little questline in ESO (by little, I mean...no yeah it's not a little questline) that you might be able to incorperate into this build, it deals with characters that have a kind of similar ability, it might be a really cool way to get a bit of Lore/RP going here. Bugger, I never noticed how kind of...mediocre the ESO wikis are in comparison to the Skyrim/Oblivion ones... I'm going to keep looking for a more complete breakdown of the quests, but until then here's the first quest in the chain. And it's been too long since I played it... Bugger, sorry I can't be of more help here Vargr (even if you never asked for it.)

The roleplay potential for this build is crazy... You've made me a very happy guy Vargr!

Do you have plans on how to intergrate the Doppleganger into the lives of the victims? Going about the day to day life of a townsperson can get a bit tedious, but with a little RP it'd be easy to create a more realistic experience. Stuff like creating or RPing awkward situations that the player has to navigate through - being arrested for a crime the victim commited, making up conversations with family etc. It'd require a lot of out of game work, maybe writing down conversations between people to get a feel for the victim, and thinking up rammifications if they can't act enough like them, but it'd be a nice optional thing.

I've got a random idea you might like surrounding the Dark Brotherhood. The Doppleganger is an assassin who hates the pain of the targets family and friends, the mourning and regrets get to them, so they use their powers to gently let the loved ones down. Maybe you can start acting strange, sick even, before being overcome by a sudden case of Rotjoint. Or you could leave a note saying they've gone off on their own to become an adventurer, or pick a fight with a guards, or claim to be interested in a business venture in XYZ etc. Just a little idea.

I believe typically Dopplegangers try to gai power through their deceit (no idea where I got that from, but I'm sure I read it somewhere). It'd be hard to RP becoming Ulfric or Tullius, but becoming a bandit leader for a time, or a Thalmor officer, could be interesting. Then you could start conflicts to destroy the group before discreetly slipping away, it'd be an interesting way to deal with bounties and warfare.

I'm not sure if you've figured it out yet, but I love the idea, Vargr, the roleplay potential alone is brilliant, so I might pop by every now and then to rant some ideas at you.

Have you considered the use of Alchemy to better mimic said NPCs? Say if you're being Vilkas, you drink a Potion of Fortify 2-handed.

Unfortunalely these mods don't work as i thought they would, very buggy.  Seperatly the mods work fine.  Race change does just that but it doesn't change your face making Khajiit and Argonians horrific to look at.  This is only worsened when you try to change your appearance, either by the face sculpter or via mod.  Even if you stick to men and mer there are aspects of the face that never change, or overlap what you are changing leaving you with hideous abominations, kind of fun if that's what your going for but not good for this build.  So I won't be updating this unless you guys know of some other mods that might work better than the ones i picked.  Keep in mind that I'm on PS4 so my mod options are very limited, i scoured the mod list available for PS4 just to find these two, but I may have missed something.

[blockquote][b][url=/profile/Vargr]Vargr White-Tree[/url] said:[/b]

Unfortunalely these mods don't work as i thought they would, very buggy.  Seperatly the mods work fine.  Race change does just that but it doesn't change your face making Khajiit and Argonians horrific to look at.  This is only worsened when you try to change your appearance, either by the face sculpter or via mod.  Even if you stick to men and mer there are aspects of the face that never change, or overlap what you are changing leaving you with hideous abominations, kind of fun if that's what your going for but not good for this build.  So I won't be updating this unless you guys know of some other mods that might work better than the ones i picked.  Keep in mind that I'm on PS4 so my mod options are very limited, i scoured the mod list available for PS4 just to find these two, but I may have missed something.

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Hmm, that sucks Vargr, cause I was looking forward to this. Perhaps pair up with a PC person to see if they have mods that do what you want to do better?

[blockquote][b][url=/profile/Vargr]Vargr White-Tree[/url] said:[/b]

Unfortunalely these mods don't work as i thought they would, very buggy.  Seperatly the mods work fine.  Race change does just that but it doesn't change your face making Khajiit and Argonians horrific to look at.  This is only worsened when you try to change your appearance, either by the face sculpter or via mod.  Even if you stick to men and mer there are aspects of the face that never change, or overlap what you are changing leaving you with hideous abominations, kind of fun if that's what your going for but not good for this build.  So I won't be updating this unless you guys know of some other mods that might work better than the ones i picked.  Keep in mind that I'm on PS4 so my mod options are very limited, i scoured the mod list available for PS4 just to find these two, but I may have missed something.

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That's naff mate, sorry to hear, I was really looking forward to this. Can you think of any Vanilla ways to deal with it (which would require some roleplay obviously)? It's not the same, but the concept is so good I'd hate to see it end so prematurely.