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Character Build: Ashes of the Tribunal

Tags: #Character Build Juggernaut  #Character Build Knight  #Character Build Hero  #Race:Dunmer  #Rank:Recognized  #Dragonborn1721 
  • January 29, 2015

    By the Light of the Tribunal, you may be judged

    By the Powers of Truth and Hope, your soul may be condemned

    By the Fire of my Sword, I shall be the Light to guide you towards death

    By the Light that bathed this land he dead rose, and by my light they shall be sent back.

     

    “I am one of the last, the followers of the true Tribunal are all but gone these days. When that Nerevarine  framed Almalexia for murders he committed he set in stride the downfall of the entire Tribunal. He killed Sotha Sil and Almalexia and the lies he spread forced Vivec to disappear, those loyal to the True Tribunal are long dead, gone or ‘convinced’ to abandon them. Yet I remain, I have lived a long life, long enough to remember the deeds of the Nerevarine, long enough to have once met Vivec himself, long enough to have seen the Nerevarine’s lies for what they were. And Yet now I am considered crazy, irrational and deluded, an old coot I was called once, I’m only 457, there are many Dunmer older than me and they call me Old, the nerve of these weaklings. But I am sworn to protect the Dunmer people, sworn to the Tribunal, to Vivec, to Sotha Sil and to Almalexia. I am the Champion of the Tribunal, in this land of Ash, I alone am their Knight, protecting their people from any threat I can, whether it be saving lives in the Argonian Invasion or moving people away from Red Mountain before it’s explosion. Even now in this land of freezing cold and bitter nights, I protect my people.”

    So I’ll be honest right now, this build came to from something simple. A comment on one of my old builds from Phil I like your push for Bonemold, I've always seen that as perfect for a Dunmer Paladin”  And today I plan to truly push the Dunmer Paladin concept into a build, backed up by a little bit of Lore and an interesting twist on the Dunmeri Pantheon, I believe I have finished my goal, I have finished my Paladin but I threw in a little Ranger/Witch-Hunter vibe on accident.  I also managed to bring some Morrowind Nostalgia into my game but that’s a sideline victory for me.

    Race: Dunmer

    The %50 Fire Resistance was an insane help to this build, it meant I could take on a wide selection of baddies (including Fire Dragons, my worst enemy ) without having to blink, ‘oh nice fire spell, yeah I dare you to hit me with it.’ Ancestors Cloak gets a lot of crap for some reason, a free Fire Cloak that can be cast at any level by any character, why is this bad in any way. Of course it fits the Lore and the Skill set as well so that’s a plus.

    Skills: One-Handed, Destruction, Alteration, Conjuration, Enchanting  and Heavy Armour

    Each skill is obviously chosen for a reason, One-Handed is my main source of damage, Destruction is my ranged attack, but also backs me up in melee. Alteration and Conjuration are sort of meant to slow my enemies down and give me backup whenever I want and Heavy Armour is the bulk of my defence. Oh and Enchanting boosts my damage slightly and allow me to hit the weapon replication I wanted

    Stat Placement: 1 Magicka, 1 Health and 1 Stamina

    Spells: Fire Rune, Fire Cloak and Fireball. Ash Rune, Ash Shell and Detect Dead. Ash Guardian, Conjure Flaming Familiar and Expel Daedra.

    My chosen Spells are quite simple really, the fire/ash element is sort of the theme of this build and Fireball and Fire Rune are useful to use on enemies further away and the Cloak is good for when you’re in melee combat, a large chunk of time that is. Ash Rune and Shell aren’t that good as panic spells but they can force a lot of enemies out of a fight, I like them more then paralyse even if it means I can’t damage them. Conjure Flaming Familiar, well that was originally chosen because of the Fire but also the Dunmer disdain for undead made me stay away from summoning undead, and Daedra, well it doesn’t fit your classical holy paladin does it . Detect Dead was chosen to fit in the Paladin’s general slaying of the undead theme and well it was fun to hunt them down in Ancient Tombs. Ash Guardian was a little more of a difficult choice, On one hand the Ash Spawn would technically be undead, I don’t know if they’re classified as undead but based on Lore they should be, the Ash Guardian isn’t so I’m okay about using it  

    Shouts:  Elemental Fury (early game), Unrelenting Force, Whirlwind Sprint and Fire Breath

    Powers: Ancestors Wrath, Sun Flare, Waters of Life, Bones of the Earth, Dragonborn Flame, Mora’s Boon, Secret of Strength, Companions Insight and Seeker of Sorcery.

    For reasons you’ll read later on communicating with Daedra isn’t a goal of this character but Mora us one I consider, well you have to for the Dragonborn Questline

    Click on the picture so you can read it. Same for the Equipment, these are done by me so they aren't that good. Sorry the text is so small, it looked much better when I was editing it.

    Bonemold is the feature of the build, I chose it because of the good look, decent armour and low weight, I didn't upgrade because I felt that the Advanced Bonemold was to heavy for little extra protection and I had to add a perk for Steel Smithing.

    Now the Daedric Swords, first off they are end game gear, I got them from the Atronach Forge and enchanted the, by myself, no smithing, no base enchantments nothing. It was fairly cheap, easy and I was getting close to the 90 Conjuration needed anyway. I also decided that they could replicate Trueflame and Hopesfire based off of the looks purely, no lore or anything, they aren't intended to be the swords but merely insanely powerful replicas.

    This build plays like a charm, at first I thought combat would either get ridiculously tedious or would be difficult to keep switching but because of the nature of this character it was all fairly easy. Conjuration is sparsely used, Alteration is more of a starting out thing and you won’t ever be switching in combat and Destruction is mainly for ranged threats.

    Warriors: Dealing with Warriors is easy, throw a cloak up and charge them. Of course this character is rather fragile, he won’t be taking a lot of hits so dodging is a key skill for him to be played successfully. Shield and Sword enemies are easy because they block to much sometimes and Two-Handed guys are easier to dodge.

    Archers: Simplicity itself, ill sum it up in a few words. BOOM! BOOM! FIREBALLS!

    Mages: Are a little trickier but with the Fire Resist and Magic Resist as well you won’t be taking much damage from Fire Spells and normal Spells will be weakened on you. Watch out for Ice Storm though, that spell can be horrible to deal with. Don't let them summon anything either, if they try to summon a Daedra send it back to Oblivion, keep the world cleaner.

    Dragons: The Mighty Dragon, many are strong against fire and making them land is difficult without Dragonrend, my favourite tactic was duck and attack, simple you duck behind cover until they land and then smack them with a few Double Power Attacks, their breath (the fire ones anyway) don’t phase you.

    I felt that this was a difficult and yet easy build to roleplay, the basic concept of a Knight wasn't difficult, Chivalry, Honour, you guys know the stuff. However, playing as a true Dunmer Paladin was slightly different from most other types. For instance Dunmer consider their dead sacred and some Daedra Evil, some Good, with this character being as old as he is, he still has the customs of the older Dunmer and combine that with the Paladin side of things and it get tricky.

    For this I simply laid some rules down, they aren't set in stone and you can follow your own code if you want in fact if you play and use your own Paladin’s Code then leave it bellow so others can gain inspiration.

    1: I shall not harm any who do not mean others harm.

    2: I shall not loot the dead, nor defile their corpses in any way. (unless it is for the Greater Good)

    3: I shall not summon undead, nor will I summon evil Daedra.

    4: I shall never steal the soul of another human, a beast or Daedra is fine, but not a human’s.

    5: I shall spread the light in the name of the Tribunal

     “The Greater Good is not something one should invoke without 

    provocation. It is not a toy or status to hide behind. It is about honour, justice and most importantly the lives of the Innocent. If I have to loot one man’s corpse to save ten, I will always save ten people, no matter what. If I need to harm an innocent to save five more then I will do so, with great regret and I will sing the Hymn of the Departed over their corpse and give them a proper departing but it will have to be done, for the Greater Good.”

    Warning this is just an extra, you don’t have to do it and it’s probably really bad but I felt it was in my character’s nature to do something like this.

    I bid you farewell my dear friend, the one who has been sent away.

    I bid you farewell innocent soul, who’s life I ended quickly

    I bid you farewell young one, the one who was silenced

    I bid you farewell brave man, the man I sent away.

    I bid you Farewell innocent, and may your ancestors welcome you.

    Skyrim Main Quest:

    “I must save the people of this world, I have sworn service to the Tribunal and that means watching over the Dunmer people, whether they know it or not. Stopping this Dragon shall help my people and thus it is my goal”

    Dragonborn Main Quests:

    “My people have fled ‘here’ to this rock. I will not question their judgement, it must have been sound and instead I will dedicate myself to saving the people on this island, from the one called Miraak.”

    Raven Rock and Neloth’s Quests:

    “I am starting to sense a connection. I help my people, they continue to need help. My service to the Tribunal is above all, I shall help the people of this island, even if it means doing menial tasks for them”

    Dawnguard (Dawnguard):

    “These Vampires, ugh. Pure Evil they are, and evil must be uprooted, I shall burn their leader if it means the destruction of these foul minions of Molag Bal.”

    Civil War: (Imperials):

    "What is this, I visit Windhlem once and I am spit upon, insulted and have to see my people driven into the slums, considered lowly beasts. These Nords have gone to far this time, they pretend to grant my people shelter but instead all the receive is abuse. Time to talk to this Tullius Fellow, I'm sure the Legion could use my power, as will my people."

     

    Alright Everyone that’s all for now, I enjoyed playing the build and I hope you will too. I enjoy twisting characters or making characters that have opinions that go against lore, it makes them seem more real if they have their own opinions .

    Leave a like and comment down below and if you want to, check out my other build on my Page. I have one that play slightly like this but has a very different roleplay so if this is a little RP heavy for you check out the Temporal Warrior. I’d like to thank Noodles for suggesting the Picasa service to me, it allowed me to make the decent, edited picture you can see throughout the build. None are mine of course, I found all of them online.

  • January 29, 2015
    Please tell me I haven't written that and it's just you being annoyed that it doesn't use Two-Handed.
  • January 29, 2015

    This is exactly the build, that will make me play Skyrim as Dunmer again.

    Really like the roleplaying aspect "Nerevarine is SOB" :)

    Good job. +1

  • January 29, 2015
    Glad you liked it so much Karver. I found it....difficult to play hating my past character but oh well, it was a hell of a lot of fun and if you ever have any questions feel free to drop by and ask
  • January 29, 2015
    Fair enough, is. it bad that I thought I might have written it, I probably will screw up like that eventually. The Greatsword was my original plan but then I remembered the swords and felt like they fit perfectly.
  • January 29, 2015

    You have pictured it pretty well.

    I just wish that there were more quests with dunmers in Windhelm. This character would be a great leader for them. I always found it annoying that you can never quite fit in with citizens of Grey Quarter.

    I will have to think about some roleplaying there.

  • January 29, 2015
    It's weird that you can help the Argonians there more then the Dark Elves, that just reminds me that I forgot to finish of the quests section, ugh sometimes I hate writing my build up as I go.
  • Member
    January 29, 2015

    Nice!

    Do you know that there is an Ash Knight build? It doesn't have "The" in the title but I thought that you might want to change the name regardless 

  • January 29, 2015
    Of course there is. I'll change the name immediately. Thanks for the like and letting me know this Vazgen, I swear picking a name is impossible these days.
  • Member
    January 29, 2015

    I don't make it much of a secret that I like Dunmer builds, but I really like the feel of this. The Dumer Paladin concept gives off a really cool vibe, and the roleplay is awesome... a great decision!

    Another great DB build ;D