Dawnguard is annoying.
Skyrim, Dawnguard, gothy Van Helsing crap. SPOILERS.
Made a Skyrim character. Played her, she's nearing level 30 now. She's a mage-y sneak-y smithy alchemist who waffles between light and heavy armor. She has a crush on Aaela the Huntress but doesn't talk to her because the werewolf thing weirds her out too much and also I'm distractible and every trip to Whiterun with no other business in the area decreases the time until my next dragon.
(Morrowind bullshit deaths is still a problem. Exploring? HAVE A DAEDRA ON YOUR HEAD. Busy fighting? HAVE A SUDDEN MAGE ATTACK. Found a bear? ONE-HIT KILL. Found a Spriggan? You're dead. Weren't expecting a polar bear, were you? Good thing you just saved, you'll have to reload five times before you give up and turn back. Oh I see you're fighting a wolf pack. Have a dragon spawn on your head! Just kidding, have two!)
So I added Dawnguard in. Don't really want to play a vampire but this character and her affinity for combat and healing magic, as well as hitting people with axes and sneaking up and killing them with crossbows, makes her a shoo-in for vampire hunter.
My girl is not done with the main quest. She is the only one who can prevent global annihilation by ancient killer soul-eating dragon. She also is the only one who can permanently kill a dragon by eating its soul. Since she only just recently started using animal souls to repower soul gems, this whole thing weirds her out. Werewolves weird her out because drinking blood is degrading and anyone who voluntarily does that (as werewolves do to get infected) has a screw loose. So since the werewolf reveal, she hasn't even talked much to the lovely warrior lady she would otherwise have married by now.
So my girl is attacked by vampires, signs up for vampire stabbing, and goes to find a cave full of vampires and monsters she sneak-attacks with her new favorite thing, the crossbow. There is also a lot of FUS RO DAH all through this. So far I am having a riotous good time. I can't help but notice that the vampire armor is cut so that crouching to sneak ensures that you will catch any arrows right in the tits,* but since my girl is a stealthy archer who has much better armor this is all to her advantage. Then I find the stupid vampire princess, and all goes south.
For unclear reasons my character goes poking around with rituals involving her own blood and raises a monolith. Opening it causes a woman to fall out. The woman is a vampire. No, her eyes are glowing bright orange. Aaaand there's no "DIE VAMPIRE" dialogue option. What happens is that after talking to her, when she admits she's a vampire but won't reveal her family, says she has family problems but won't talk about them, and won't talk about the giant Elder Scroll on her back, she wants to be escorted home.
??? My character goes along with it? I don't understand this. There's no assurance she won't infect anyone else (vampirism is a disease, my character caught it and cured herself in the early stages three times in one day) and vampire holdings are chock-full of slaves they keep for blood. Actual slaves. Putting a vampire back in a vampire strongfast is partaking in slavery and murder, no two ways around it, but now I'm stuck on a stupid escort fest with this stupid vampire.
Did I mention my character is currently using a few minutes off her precious time to save the world? Adding to the crazy, Elder Scrolls are actual fragments of creation, artifacts that came into being with the launch of all that exists, that contain within them the vastness of infinity and the fires of ultimate truths. Reading them makes people go mad or blind. Reading them is described by one of the games' wise men as blasphemous. Walking around with one on your back is kinda like lashing a roll of duct tape around the Ark of the Covenant and skipping around wearing it as a hat. Also, my character hadn't actually been told what an Elder Scroll was, or even seen one, and was a bare step in the main quest away from needing to tear up the goddamn map looking for one and rip up a Dwemer stronghold for a way of reading it.
Bottom line is, it's completely nonsensical that my character wouldn't FUS RO DAH the strange woman straight into a wall and run off with the scroll, because whatever the vampire is doing with it the answer is NOT "saving the souls of the living and the dead from the gaping maw of Alduin All-Devourer."
But now I have a stupid vampire-woman follower, apparently because the game expects the main character to have spent the whole conversation staring at her chest. I guess I can accept that a little; after all, my girl is besotted with a werewolf warrior lady and vampire princess took advantage of this to minorly enthrall her into wasting six hours of her life on her. So i have to drag her to her family home to get rid of her. This involves fast travel to a location near where the vampire wants to go, because otherwise they'll have to walk together for hours, and then my girl running in a straight line over ridges and other impassible things until the game gave up and warped the princess to her. At one point a strange vampire came running up intending to run right by without attacking, but FUS RO DAH.
So we get there, and vampire princess patronizes her about not being a savage who attacks everyone she sees, to which the Dragonborn grits her teeth and does not ask which of them needs to bite people to live, again? Then they go in and some long-haired asshole patronizes the Dragonborn some more. He also claims to be a super-special vampire and offers her his blood as thanks for saving his daughter.
Ew.
Then he transforms to show how awesome he is, which is kind of like the blue naked Van Helsing ladies only with armor on and shrimpier wings, and just looks too World of Warcrafty for Skyrim. The Dragonborn has fought many dragons and has watched the serpentine rippling majesty of their flight, so I imagine at this point she was kind of rolling her eyes towards the door. She is once more offered a choice: accept or be banished (oh noes!) and hunted as prey.
So, being surrounded by enemies as well as Vampire Princess, she can't just FUS RO DAH and hit him a lot with her axe, plus she's sincerely out of crossbow bolts and this has to go into consideration. She takes her banishment, hops back to the mainland, and goes to report back. Where she has to explain this powerful fancypants super-special vampire lord got his daughter back along with a transdimensional fragment of the dawn of creation containing knowledge the gods themselves dare not touch. The only dialogue option I could click on to explain why this wasn't stopped was:
"I didn't get the chance."
Because I was lucky the game didn't railroad me into making my poor girl carry her piggyback across mountains.
I am now looking into seeing if that nice blacksmith lady is marriageable. My poor girl.
*That'll end your adventuring career.
Made a Skyrim character. Played her, she's nearing level 30 now. She's a mage-y sneak-y smithy alchemist who waffles between light and heavy armor. She has a crush on Aaela the Huntress but doesn't talk to her because the werewolf thing weirds her out too much and also I'm distractible and every trip to Whiterun with no other business in the area decreases the time until my next dragon.
(Morrowind bullshit deaths is still a problem. Exploring? HAVE A DAEDRA ON YOUR HEAD. Busy fighting? HAVE A SUDDEN MAGE ATTACK. Found a bear? ONE-HIT KILL. Found a Spriggan? You're dead. Weren't expecting a polar bear, were you? Good thing you just saved, you'll have to reload five times before you give up and turn back. Oh I see you're fighting a wolf pack. Have a dragon spawn on your head! Just kidding, have two!)
So I added Dawnguard in. Don't really want to play a vampire but this character and her affinity for combat and healing magic, as well as hitting people with axes and sneaking up and killing them with crossbows, makes her a shoo-in for vampire hunter.
My girl is not done with the main quest. She is the only one who can prevent global annihilation by ancient killer soul-eating dragon. She also is the only one who can permanently kill a dragon by eating its soul. Since she only just recently started using animal souls to repower soul gems, this whole thing weirds her out. Werewolves weird her out because drinking blood is degrading and anyone who voluntarily does that (as werewolves do to get infected) has a screw loose. So since the werewolf reveal, she hasn't even talked much to the lovely warrior lady she would otherwise have married by now.
So my girl is attacked by vampires, signs up for vampire stabbing, and goes to find a cave full of vampires and monsters she sneak-attacks with her new favorite thing, the crossbow. There is also a lot of FUS RO DAH all through this. So far I am having a riotous good time. I can't help but notice that the vampire armor is cut so that crouching to sneak ensures that you will catch any arrows right in the tits,* but since my girl is a stealthy archer who has much better armor this is all to her advantage. Then I find the stupid vampire princess, and all goes south.
For unclear reasons my character goes poking around with rituals involving her own blood and raises a monolith. Opening it causes a woman to fall out. The woman is a vampire. No, her eyes are glowing bright orange. Aaaand there's no "DIE VAMPIRE" dialogue option. What happens is that after talking to her, when she admits she's a vampire but won't reveal her family, says she has family problems but won't talk about them, and won't talk about the giant Elder Scroll on her back, she wants to be escorted home.
??? My character goes along with it? I don't understand this. There's no assurance she won't infect anyone else (vampirism is a disease, my character caught it and cured herself in the early stages three times in one day) and vampire holdings are chock-full of slaves they keep for blood. Actual slaves. Putting a vampire back in a vampire strongfast is partaking in slavery and murder, no two ways around it, but now I'm stuck on a stupid escort fest with this stupid vampire.
Did I mention my character is currently using a few minutes off her precious time to save the world? Adding to the crazy, Elder Scrolls are actual fragments of creation, artifacts that came into being with the launch of all that exists, that contain within them the vastness of infinity and the fires of ultimate truths. Reading them makes people go mad or blind. Reading them is described by one of the games' wise men as blasphemous. Walking around with one on your back is kinda like lashing a roll of duct tape around the Ark of the Covenant and skipping around wearing it as a hat. Also, my character hadn't actually been told what an Elder Scroll was, or even seen one, and was a bare step in the main quest away from needing to tear up the goddamn map looking for one and rip up a Dwemer stronghold for a way of reading it.
Bottom line is, it's completely nonsensical that my character wouldn't FUS RO DAH the strange woman straight into a wall and run off with the scroll, because whatever the vampire is doing with it the answer is NOT "saving the souls of the living and the dead from the gaping maw of Alduin All-Devourer."
But now I have a stupid vampire-woman follower, apparently because the game expects the main character to have spent the whole conversation staring at her chest. I guess I can accept that a little; after all, my girl is besotted with a werewolf warrior lady and vampire princess took advantage of this to minorly enthrall her into wasting six hours of her life on her. So i have to drag her to her family home to get rid of her. This involves fast travel to a location near where the vampire wants to go, because otherwise they'll have to walk together for hours, and then my girl running in a straight line over ridges and other impassible things until the game gave up and warped the princess to her. At one point a strange vampire came running up intending to run right by without attacking, but FUS RO DAH.
So we get there, and vampire princess patronizes her about not being a savage who attacks everyone she sees, to which the Dragonborn grits her teeth and does not ask which of them needs to bite people to live, again? Then they go in and some long-haired asshole patronizes the Dragonborn some more. He also claims to be a super-special vampire and offers her his blood as thanks for saving his daughter.
Ew.
Then he transforms to show how awesome he is, which is kind of like the blue naked Van Helsing ladies only with armor on and shrimpier wings, and just looks too World of Warcrafty for Skyrim. The Dragonborn has fought many dragons and has watched the serpentine rippling majesty of their flight, so I imagine at this point she was kind of rolling her eyes towards the door. She is once more offered a choice: accept or be banished (oh noes!) and hunted as prey.
So, being surrounded by enemies as well as Vampire Princess, she can't just FUS RO DAH and hit him a lot with her axe, plus she's sincerely out of crossbow bolts and this has to go into consideration. She takes her banishment, hops back to the mainland, and goes to report back. Where she has to explain this powerful fancypants super-special vampire lord got his daughter back along with a transdimensional fragment of the dawn of creation containing knowledge the gods themselves dare not touch. The only dialogue option I could click on to explain why this wasn't stopped was:
"I didn't get the chance."
Because I was lucky the game didn't railroad me into making my poor girl carry her piggyback across mountains.
I am now looking into seeing if that nice blacksmith lady is marriageable. My poor girl.
*That'll end your adventuring career.