Thanks Gollum (and sorry for the late reply). I'm happy that the build came across as rather simple and I'm glad you enjoyed it. 

You really don't need any of the contest's winning prizes: custom artwork - not necessary, your pictures are intimidating enough; modded screenshots - what for? yours already capture the spirit of the build and I bet they're already edited aside from the frame addition. It's a fantastic build with a fantastic presentation. The steam punk and occult themes give me a penny dreadful vibe. Awesome!

Meant to reply before, clean forgot. Please forgive me Deebs  

This is inspirational stuff, no doubt about it. Two confessions: I have never used the Aetherial Staff properly, created it but discovered the others were "better" and reloaded. Also, never enjoyed the Visage of Whatsit to it's fullest.

Question: That helmet, because of it's enchantment, does it work line Rune Shield? If so, can the Become Ethereal hotkey trick disable the stamina drain? 

Thanks Phil, it definitely means a lot to hear that 

I'd honestly never used the Aetherial Staff either until this build and it really is a luck-based thing. It sucks getting the Spider, that's pretty much useless to be honest, but the Sphere is really quite powerful and it can kind of turn fights when you've got such a simple skill-set.

I don't remember the hotkey glitch so I'm not sure...The Stamina probably wouldn't drain with BE up, but I don't know if the fact that the Breath itself being a power would effect the glitch. With the Rune Shield it's just a passive effect that is automatically activated but with the Visage you'd need to equip the power separately..

Ah, that's some really high praise Noodles, thank you so much. I'm really happy with the screenshots (mostly the first one and Golden's) so I'm glad you liked them too. Really I can't say much more, thanks for the praise.

Ah, I will admit that I enjoy participating in the Contest just to build towards a theme rather than aiming for the gold or anything. Not that I'd complain of course about getting myself a sweet tag but it's never my main goal. I'd rather have a good build out than a win for a contest you know 

penny dreadful vibe.

That's such a cool phrase (and a well deserved compliment ;D).

While the Dwarven Helmet can be a little ugly, I do love the look of a full set of Dwarven Armor  

I like the depth that you've gone into for the Vampire Lord Form. Most of the times I've ever had it, I've used it to get a single power in human (or lizard) form. And a lot of builds that I've seen just take all the perks since there's no real cost to it. So lets just say I find it interesting.

Believe it or not, the hardest of those screenshots to take was the blood drain one. Because of the nature of animcam I was stuck with the camera angle I had when I input it. So if I wanted a low angle shot, then the spell would be cast on an upwards angle (if that makes sense) and vise versa.

Nobody likes the Dwarven Helmet without the full set, it's just an ugly, ugly thing. 

I feel like part of the thing with the Vampire Lord form is that we just like all the fancy spells and powers and just love to use them all as much as possible. I had a lot more fun strategically playing with the form, picking and choosing my powers.

I can imagine, it's hard enough to line up spells normally so I can't imagine that the shitty controls would help that at all.  I actually really like that shot (though my favorite are the Mist Form ones, you can't get more badass). Thanks for the shots again, and of course the comment and like 

The female version is even worse at least the male helmet fits with the rest of the armor.

I think what makes the mist form ones look as good as they do, is having the mist there to create a contrast with the black mist from the form. Maybe if Bethesda had fixed the problem with Vampire Lord Form and TFC, it would have been easier. Either way there still some nice shots.