Greetings, this is my first time posting here… please be gentle.
Every aspect of this built tries to be as lore friendly as possible. I personally, being a PC gamer, use mods to enhance game play; however they are not required for this build.
"What was that?The camp erupted into chaos. Fires burst out in the wagons, the horses wailed from mortal blows, casks of wine, fresh water, and liquor gushed their contents to the ground. A nimble shadow dashed past Scotti and Mallon, gathering sacks of grain and gold with impossible agility and grace. Scotti had only one glance at it, lit up by a sudden nearby burst of flame. It was a sleek creature with pointed ears, wide yellow eyes, mottled pied fur and a tail like a whip.
"Werewolf," he whimpered, shrinking back.
"Cathay-raht," groaned Mallon. "Much worse. Khajiti cousins or some such thing, come to plunder."
"Are you sure?"
As quickly as they struck, the creatures retreated, diving off the bluff before the battlemage and knight, the caravan's escorts, had fully opened their eyes. Mallon and Scotti ran to the precipice and saw a hundred feet below the tiny figures dash out of the water, shake themselves, and disappear into the wood.
"Werewolves aren't acrobats like that," said Mallon. "They were definitely Cathay-raht. Bastard thieves. Thank Stendarr they didn't realize the value of my notebooks. It wasn't a complete loss."
- Excerpt from A Dance in fire Vol1
tl;dr
Race: Khajiit
Stone: Thief/warrior (leveling), Advanced Atronach
Major Skills: Archery, Alchemy, Sneak
Minor Skills: Block, Heavy Armor, Smithing
Optional Skills: Restoration, One handed, Alteration (after level 50)
Weapons: Hunting Bow, Mehrunes' Razor, Windshear
Armor: Ahzidal's Armor, Ahzidal's Boots, Ancient Shrouded Gloves, Banded Iron Shield, Ancient Shrouded Boots (when you aren't mocking J'zus)
Shout: Marked for death, Slow Time, Elemental Fury, Whirlwind Sprint, Unrelenting Force
Stat spread:
Magicka 0 / Health 5 / Stamina 3
100 / 600 /400 At level 82 (if my maths is correct)
Jewelry: Amulet of Talos, Ring of Namira
Potions:
Health potion Imp stool or blue mountain flower + Wheat
Damage health/Slow/weakness to poison Chaurus eggs + deathbell + river betty
Invisibility Nirnroot or Ash Creep Cluster + Chaurus eggs
Fortify Marksman/Regenerate Health Canis root + juniper berries + namira’s rot
Invisibility/ Regenerate health juniper berries + Chaurus eggs + Vampire dust
Cure disease Mudcrab chitin + Vampire dust
For ingredients simply click the hot linked names.
Optionals: I have included this section due to not everyone having all the DLCs
Armor:
Ancient Nord armor (Vanilla)
Ancient Nord armor (Vanilla)
Helmet of your choice I don’t use them.
Jewelry:
I know some people cannot be dragged away from their vampire or werewolf beast forms.
Ring of Hircine (Vanilla)
Ring of the hunt (Werewolf - Dragonborn),
Ring of the beast (Vampire - Dawnguard)
Weapons:
Nord Hero Bow
Supple Ancient Nord Bow (version 1.0 unofficial skyrim patch fixed the tempering bug)
Quests:
Dark Brotherhood
Thieves Guild
Unearthed
Civil war quest line (Either, for lore friendly go Imperials, don't finish it if you have overhaul mods, more fun)
Main quest line (At least up to paarthurnax - meditation)
Dawnguard (Either side. I never complete this quest due to farming vampire dust from town attacks).
Pieces of the past
The taste of death (or ill met by moonlight)
Perks:
At Level 25: http://skyrimcalculator.com/353929
At level 50: http://skyrimcalculator.com/353926
At level 82: http://skyrimcalculator.com/353927
(I will probably do a paint image for each at some stage so bear with me)
(For easy leveling just make alchemy legendary and create your potions like normal.)
Move chains: (I suck at naming things so if anyone wants to name these chains feel free.)
Slow time + Elemental Fury + Marked for death
Gets you out of tight situations
Throw Voice + Nightingale Subterfuge + Invisbility/regenerate health potion
Fun to watch. See Emer Dareloth’s The Voice build for the original move. I substituted shadow stone for invisibility potion.
Unrelenting force + whirlwind sprint + invisibility potion
Quick Escape:
Tactics:
Your standard scout play style, with heavy emphasis on potions. Due to no enchanting, alchemy is where the damage boost of your weapons is going to come from.
Slow time + Archery + slow poison for range, (invisibility + ) sneak dagger for close quarters combat, poison for tougher opponents/dragons.
Your shield is mostly there to crack skulls should anything be stupid enough to remain standing. If you get stuck, force push + whirlwind sprint your sorry arse out of there and invisibility/regenerate health potion yourself so you can do it all again.
Windshear is because, well you are not using enchanting, and its “perk” comes in handy against high level draugr for stagger locking the bastards. Importantly, no crossbows, they look pretty and pack a punch… but the noise they make makes them useless for a scout style character… and no followers… the number of times I have been skewered on spike traps because Lydia or some other tank pressed the panic button and gutted me…(legendary)... Use traps to your advantage… spike traps work wonders on most draugr… not so much on deathlords without marked for death draining their armor first.
Always take the upper ground.. If you can reach that tiny outcrop that the enemy jump to, get there and using invisibility/regenerate health potions, spam arrows after one another.. Run out of arrows or get spotted? No worries sword and board or dual fury.
Equipment choices:
In choosing the weapons and armor for this build, I tried to make it as close to law as possible, especially since once fully tempered, there is only 20 or so damage difference between dragon bone and hunting.
Mehrunes' Razor and Windshear were the obvious choice with the no enchanting clause, they have their own perk that does not impact upon the elemental fury shout allowing for a much more deadly melee strike.
Armor, I needed to find something that both looked good and suited the build, but also fitted in well with the lore. Ahzidals armor allowed for increased damage protection in close quarters combat with its "perk" whilst due to not reaching the armor cap until after level 50, Shrouded gauntlets and boots enhance the nightblade skills of the character whilst Ahzidals greaves make for faster travel across water, and with frostfall, swimming in the north is fatal without a snowberry potion. Also prevents slaughterfish killing you on legendary at low levels.
Exploits (OPTIONAL):
Vampire: 100% spell absorption Necromage + atronach stone + Atronach perk
(I honestly just got tired of being rag dolled by every single draugr I came across. Using dragon soul relinquish means you can spend the 8, 16 if you use default 2 souls per perk, souls needed for the perks without falling behind in level perk suggestions. Not to mention, you can cure yourself instantly afterwards and still have the effects.)
Alternatively you could use the Restoration exploit which can be seen here on Mason’s Obsidian Sentinel and ignore the alteration and restoration school entirely..
(This was however fixed in the unofficial Skyrim patch (PC) so it should be fine for console, just not PC users who use the unofficial patch.)
100% shout cool down (No mods - Optional), choose your exploit here: Fortify shouts 100%
With Dragon soul relinquish, I only get it to 70% (50% default + amulet of talos) which I feel is a nice percentage, to still cause cool down, yet be able to effectively chain shouts.. With frostfall, the talos backpack can bring it to 90% which effectively brings shouts down to 5.. 10 seconds recharge depending on the shout or 60 seconds for a full storm call.
End Game: Leveled loot chests
Alchemy boost: (75% no enchanting)
Necklace of Peerless Alchemy
Daedric/dragonbone/scale Gauntlets of Peerless Alchemy
Daedric/dragonbone/scale helmet of Peerless Alchemy
Smithing Boost (75% no enchanting)
Necklace of Peerless smithing
Ring of Peerless smithing
Daedric/dragonbone/scale Boots of Peerless Alchemy
Fortify smithing potion: 60% + Alchemy boost = 105%
Using these items, you can make Ahzidals Chest, Boots, Ancient Shrouded gauntlets, Banded shield just over 550+ Defence allowing for 80% damage resistance and factoring in the 20 hidden armour loss from not wearing a helmet/circlet without using the crafting exploit or restoration glitch.
Physiology
Their body structure is similar to that of a much larger Cathay. They are described as being "Jaguar-Men" with pointed ears, wide yellow eyes, mottled pied fur, and having a whip like tail. The Cathay-raht are known to be very fast, agile and strong, and able to jump incredible heights and distances with great dexterity. One account describes them as being of the same size and speed as a werewolf
Role play.
You were raised in the forests, hidden away from society, a recluse, you only ventured into town when you needed to sell your unused goods or to replace that which you could not create, repair or replace yourself from items salvaged or taken from nature. (Don’t buy anything you can create through smithing, cooking, hunting, mining or alchemy. Either mine it, grow it, gather it or chop it.)
You are a nomad, never staying in one place for too long. Walk or ride round skyrim on horse back or via carriages/boats.. do not fast travel. (Frost fall tents works wonders with this, hard core for an immersive experience.. needs and diseases is a decent addition if you’re that way inclined.)
No magic except to level alteration and restoration for the perks (if you have unofficial skyrim patch preventing Mason's restoration exploit and you want 100% magic absorption). No enchanting, you have lived your life in the forests in a minimalist lifestyle, when would you have time to learn enchanting?
Cooking can be an excellent way to supplement health potions early on, however imp stool (or blue mountain flower straight out of Helgen) and wheat is far easier to come by than salt in my opinion and with the right equipment, can rival the ultimate healing potions… not to mention it weighs less than most food.
Like all Khajiit, you hate bosmer, though, having very little interaction with argonians, you do not share your kins hatred of them. I couldn't find any lore towards hatred of altmer, due to the reverence of them for "bringing back the moons", but I hate high elves.. so killing them on sight is up to you.
Like all khajiit you have no view of self, and so you do as you please, often ignoring the consequences.
Optional Mods: PC Only.
More plants and recipes for Hearthfire including Dawnguard and Dragonborn plants:
Damage health/Slow (Deathbell + jarring root + salt pile) – Very useful on legendary!
Frostfall: Hypothermia camping survival
Hardcore + Talos backpack 20% (fortify shout)
Bandolier - bags and pouches
I use leather large box pouches for 300 extra carry space for all the potions and ingredients
Amidianborn: Book of silence retextures
Player size adjuster and first person camera height fix
Cathy Rhat were said to be as tall as werewolves.. UESP scale werewolves at 1.13.. Player size adapter allows you to scale your khajiit to 1.13 Height (Altmer are 1.08)
Dragon Soul Relinquish
50% fortify shout (25 souls relinquished) + amulet of talos = 70% fortify shout
Lock Overhaul
Alteration spell to unlock chests (0 magicka, needs 100 alteration for master lock) or Smash them open with a weapon One handed or two handed weapons.. no need for lock picks.
Run for your lives
People go inside away from dragons
When vampires attack
People hide inside from vampires when they attack
Live another life
Any that start in the wild
Your market stall
Khajiit has ware if you have coin
CREDITS:
Mason: 100% Magic Absorption exploit
Emer: Move chain
Greetings, this is my first time posting here… please be gentle.
Every aspect of this built tries to be as lore friendly as possible. I personally, being a PC gamer, use mods to enhance game play; however they are not required for this build.
"What was that?The camp erupted into chaos. Fires burst out in the wagons, the horses wailed from mortal blows, casks of wine, fresh water, and liquor gushed their contents to the ground. A nimble shadow dashed past Scotti and Mallon, gathering sacks of grain and gold with impossible agility and grace. Scotti had only one glance at it, lit up by a sudden nearby burst of flame. It was a sleek creature with pointed ears, wide yellow eyes, mottled pied fur and a tail like a whip.
"Werewolf," he whimpered, shrinking back.
"Cathay-raht," groaned Mallon. "Much worse. Khajiti cousins or some such thing, come to plunder."
"Are you sure?"
As quickly as they struck, the creatures retreated, diving off the bluff before the battlemage and knight, the caravan's escorts, had fully opened their eyes. Mallon and Scotti ran to the precipice and saw a hundred feet below the tiny figures dash out of the water, shake themselves, and disappear into the wood.
"Werewolves aren't acrobats like that," said Mallon. "They were definitely Cathay-raht. Bastard thieves. Thank Stendarr they didn't realize the value of my notebooks. It wasn't a complete loss."
- Excerpt from A Dance in fire Vol1
tl;dr
Race: Khajiit
Stone: Thief/warrior (leveling), Advanced Atronach
Major Skills: Archery, Alchemy, Sneak
Minor Skills: Block, Heavy Armor, Smithing
Optional Skills: Restoration, One handed, Alteration (after level 50)
Weapons: Hunting Bow, Mehrunes' Razor, Windshear
Armor: Ahzidal's Armor, Ahzidal's Boots, Ancient Shrouded Gloves, Banded Iron Shield, Ancient Shrouded Boots (when you aren't mocking J'zus)
Shout: Marked for death, Slow Time, Elemental Fury, Whirlwind Sprint, Unrelenting Force
Stat spread:
Magicka 0 / Health 5 / Stamina 3
100 / 600 /400 At level 82 (if my maths is correct)
Jewelry: Amulet of Talos, Ring of Namira
Potions:
Health potion Imp stool or blue mountain flower + Wheat
Damage health/Slow/weakness to poison Chaurus eggs + deathbell + river betty
Invisibility Nirnroot or Ash Creep Cluster + Chaurus eggs
Fortify Marksman/Regenerate Health Canis root + juniper berries + namira’s rot
Invisibility/ Regenerate health juniper berries + Chaurus eggs + Vampire dust
Cure disease Mudcrab chitin + Vampire dust
For ingredients simply click the hot linked names.
Optionals: I have included this section due to not everyone having all the DLCs
Armor:
Ancient Nord armor (Vanilla)
Ancient Nord armor (Vanilla)
Helmet of your choice I don’t use them.
Jewelry:
I know some people cannot be dragged away from their vampire or werewolf beast forms.
Ring of Hircine (Vanilla)
Ring of the hunt (Werewolf - Dragonborn),
Ring of the beast (Vampire - Dawnguard)
Weapons:
Nord Hero Bow
Supple Ancient Nord Bow (version 1.0 unofficial skyrim patch fixed the tempering bug)
Quests:
Dark Brotherhood
Thieves Guild
Unearthed
Civil war quest line (Either, for lore friendly go Imperials, don't finish it if you have overhaul mods, more fun)
Main quest line (At least up to paarthurnax - meditation)
Dawnguard (Either side. I never complete this quest due to farming vampire dust from town attacks).
Pieces of the past
The taste of death (or ill met by moonlight)
Perks:
At Level 25: http://skyrimcalculator.com/353929
At level 50: http://skyrimcalculator.com/353926
At level 82: http://skyrimcalculator.com/353927
(I will probably do a paint image for each at some stage so bear with me)
(For easy leveling just make alchemy legendary and create your potions like normal.)
Move chains: (I suck at naming things so if anyone wants to name these chains feel free.)
Slow time + Elemental Fury + Marked for death
Gets you out of tight situations
Throw Voice + Nightingale Subterfuge + Invisbility/regenerate health potion
Fun to watch. See Emer Dareloth’s The Voice build for the original move. I substituted shadow stone for invisibility potion.
Unrelenting force + whirlwind sprint + invisibility potion
Quick Escape:
Tactics:
Your standard scout play style, with heavy emphasis on potions. Due to no enchanting, alchemy is where the damage boost of your weapons is going to come from.
Slow time + Archery + slow poison for range, (invisibility + ) sneak dagger for close quarters combat, poison for tougher opponents/dragons.
Your shield is mostly there to crack skulls should anything be stupid enough to remain standing. If you get stuck, force push + whirlwind sprint your sorry arse out of there and invisibility/regenerate health potion yourself so you can do it all again.
Windshear is because, well you are not using enchanting, and its “perk” comes in handy against high level draugr for stagger locking the bastards. Importantly, no crossbows, they look pretty and pack a punch… but the noise they make makes them useless for a scout style character… and no followers… the number of times I have been skewered on spike traps because Lydia or some other tank pressed the panic button and gutted me…(legendary)... Use traps to your advantage… spike traps work wonders on most draugr… not so much on deathlords without marked for death draining their armor first.
Always take the upper ground.. If you can reach that tiny outcrop that the enemy jump to, get there and using invisibility/regenerate health potions, spam arrows after one another.. Run out of arrows or get spotted? No worries sword and board or dual fury.
Equipment choices:
In choosing the weapons and armor for this build, I tried to make it as close to law as possible, especially since once fully tempered, there is only 20 or so damage difference between dragon bone and hunting.
Mehrunes' Razor and Windshear were the obvious choice with the no enchanting clause, they have their own perk that does not impact upon the elemental fury shout allowing for a much more deadly melee strike.
Armor, I needed to find something that both looked good and suited the build, but also fitted in well with the lore. Ahzidals armor allowed for increased damage protection in close quarters combat with its "perk" whilst due to not reaching the armor cap until after level 50, Shrouded gauntlets and boots enhance the nightblade skills of the character whilst Ahzidals greaves make for faster travel across water, and with frostfall, swimming in the north is fatal without a snowberry potion. Also prevents slaughterfish killing you on legendary at low levels.
Exploits (OPTIONAL):
Vampire: 100% spell absorption Necromage + atronach stone + Atronach perk
(I honestly just got tired of being rag dolled by every single draugr I came across. Using dragon soul relinquish means you can spend the 8, 16 if you use default 2 souls per perk, souls needed for the perks without falling behind in level perk suggestions. Not to mention, you can cure yourself instantly afterwards and still have the effects.)
Alternatively you could use the Restoration exploit which can be seen here on Mason’s Obsidian Sentinel and ignore the alteration and restoration school entirely..
(This was however fixed in the unofficial Skyrim patch (PC) so it should be fine for console, just not PC users who use the unofficial patch.)
100% shout cool down (No mods - Optional), choose your exploit here: Fortify shouts 100%
With Dragon soul relinquish, I only get it to 70% (50% default + amulet of talos) which I feel is a nice percentage, to still cause cool down, yet be able to effectively chain shouts.. With frostfall, the talos backpack can bring it to 90% which effectively brings shouts down to 5.. 10 seconds recharge depending on the shout or 60 seconds for a full storm call.
End Game: Leveled loot chests
Alchemy boost: (75% no enchanting)
Necklace of Peerless Alchemy
Daedric/dragonbone/scale Gauntlets of Peerless Alchemy
Daedric/dragonbone/scale helmet of Peerless Alchemy
Smithing Boost (75% no enchanting)
Necklace of Peerless smithing
Ring of Peerless smithing
Daedric/dragonbone/scale Boots of Peerless Alchemy
Fortify smithing potion: 60% + Alchemy boost = 105%
Using these items, you can make Ahzidals Chest, Boots, Ancient Shrouded gauntlets, Banded shield just over 550+ Defence allowing for 80% damage resistance and factoring in the 20 hidden armour loss from not wearing a helmet/circlet without using the crafting exploit or restoration glitch.
Physiology
Their body structure is similar to that of a much larger Cathay. They are described as being "Jaguar-Men" with pointed ears, wide yellow eyes, mottled pied fur, and having a whip like tail. The Cathay-raht are known to be very fast, agile and strong, and able to jump incredible heights and distances with great dexterity. One account describes them as being of the same size and speed as a werewolf
Role play.
You were raised in the forests, hidden away from society, a recluse, you only ventured into town when you needed to sell your unused goods or to replace that which you could not create, repair or replace yourself from items salvaged or taken from nature. (Don’t buy anything you can create through smithing, cooking, hunting, mining or alchemy. Either mine it, grow it, gather it or chop it.)
You are a nomad, never staying in one place for too long. Walk or ride round skyrim on horse back or via carriages/boats.. do not fast travel. (Frost fall tents works wonders with this, hard core for an immersive experience.. needs and diseases is a decent addition if you’re that way inclined.)
No magic except to level alteration and restoration for the perks (if you have unofficial skyrim patch preventing Mason's restoration exploit and you want 100% magic absorption). No enchanting, you have lived your life in the forests in a minimalist lifestyle, when would you have time to learn enchanting?
Cooking can be an excellent way to supplement health potions early on, however imp stool (or blue mountain flower straight out of Helgen) and wheat is far easier to come by than salt in my opinion and with the right equipment, can rival the ultimate healing potions… not to mention it weighs less than most food.
Like all Khajiit, you hate bosmer, though, having very little interaction with argonians, you do not share your kins hatred of them. I couldn't find any lore towards hatred of altmer, due to the reverence of them for "bringing back the moons", but I hate high elves.. so killing them on sight is up to you.
Like all khajiit you have no view of self, and so you do as you please, often ignoring the consequences.
Optional Mods: PC Only.
More plants and recipes for Hearthfire including Dawnguard and Dragonborn plants:
Damage health/Slow (Deathbell + jarring root + salt pile) – Very useful on legendary!
Frostfall: Hypothermia camping survival
Hardcore + Talos backpack 20% (fortify shout)
Bandolier - bags and pouches
I use leather large box pouches for 300 extra carry space for all the potions and ingredients
Amidianborn: Book of silence retextures
Player size adjuster and first person camera height fix
Cathy Rhat were said to be as tall as werewolves.. UESP scale werewolves at 1.13.. Player size adapter allows you to scale your khajiit to 1.13 Height (Altmer are 1.08)
Dragon Soul Relinquish
50% fortify shout (25 souls relinquished) + amulet of talos = 70% fortify shout
Lock Overhaul
Alteration spell to unlock chests (0 magicka, needs 100 alteration for master lock) or Smash them open with a weapon One handed or two handed weapons.. no need for lock picks.
Run for your lives
People go inside away from dragons
When vampires attack
People hide inside from vampires when they attack
Live another life
Any that start in the wild
Your market stall
Khajiit has ware if you have coin
CREDITS:
Mason: 100% Magic Absorption exploit
Emer: Move chain
