Merawen Playthrough

Merawen

Playthrough Info
Game	Skyrim Special Edition
Race	Dunmer
Playthrough Dates	August to October 2021
Platform	Nintendo Switch
Language	English
Difficulty	Apprentice

This is the playthrough page for my second Skyrim playthrough, for the character Merawen of the Dunmer.

I began this playthrough immediately after the one for the Bosmer Alarrah, on 7/31/2021, just because there were large bits of the game I didn’t do with Alarrah and which I wanted to explore. I wanted Merawen to be my character to explore the Thieves Guild, to have a higher emphasis on using magic, and possibly also to explore the Dark Brotherhood.

I’d originally expected that the posts for Merawen’s run would not be quite as thorough as Alarrah’s, because of not wanting to write about the portions that would be the same. But as it turned out I had plenty of new material to talk about, as well as talking about the differences in how Merawen handled things vs. how Alarrah did.

Another notable difference I did with Merawen is the order in which I played major parts of the game. With Alarrah, I did the main plot first (and assorted major side plots such as the College of Winterhold), then Dawnguard, then Dragonborn.

With Merawen, I followed a track of cycling back and forth between several different things at once: Thieves Guild, College of Winterhold, and Dawnguard, with periodic diversions back to the main plot. Then I ran Dragonborn, and finally, closed out at the end with defeating Alduin and saving the world. I wound up liking this play flow kind of better, just because it seemed like a more satisfying narrative progression in terms of escalation of the stakes.

(However, I also found that cycling back and forth thing hard to keep track of, which informed my choices on later playthroughs.)

Like Alarrah, she is named for a character in my Rebels of Adalonia books, Valor of the Healer, Vengeance of the Hunter, and Victory of the Hawk.

Merawen’s Backstory

As Merawen was a Dunmer, I decided that as with many Dunmer coming to Skyrim, the eruption of Red Mountain early in the Fourth Era had to be critical to her backstory. However, I also decided she was too young to have witnessed it herself. She did, however, witness the impact of that eruption on her family.

While I never did decide for sure if Merawen’s family were Ashlanders, I was pretty sure they were–and that her family was reduced to hardscrabble existence and health issues that more or less wiped them out by the time Merawen came into the picture. She fled to Skyrim on a stolen boat, and probably got nabbed by the Empire not long after she came ashore near Windhelm.

This put her into a position to be very strongly influenced by the treatment of Dunmer she saw going on in Skyrim, particularly in Windhelm. And it informed a lot of the choices I made with her all throughout the game, up to and including her choice of spouse (Jenassa), and how Solstheim struck me very differently when I went there as a Dunmer.

All in all, it made Merawen a very satisfying character to play.

Playthrough Posts

Here are all the posts about Merawen’s playthrough! They’re listed in descending date order, so the newest posts appear first. Also, note the pagination controls after the first five posts. You can page through to see the newer ones.

You can also browse Merawen’s posts via her playthrough category link.

In Which Merawen Buys Proudspire Manor and Becomes Thane of Haafingar - 08/22/2021
In which Merawen becomes thane of Haafingar, and purchases Proudspire Manor; in which she does enough thievery in Whiterun to bring word to the Guild that Olfrid Battle-Born wants us to do a special job; in which she kills three different dragons; and in which she clears Ragnvald to learn a new word for a Shout and kill the Dragon Priest Otar there.
In Which Merawen Defeats the Wolf Queen for Solitude - 08/21/2021
In which Merawen stops the resurrection of the dreaded Wolf Queen Potema, and gains the gratitude of Jarl Elisif and her steward Falk in Solitude; in which she commits thievery in Solitude, Whiterun, and Windhelm; and in which she takes out a couple more dragons and multiple bandits.
In Which Merawen Restores the Thieves Guild in Windhelm - 08/20/2021
In which Merawen helps out in the mage college, and kills a dragon while she’s trying to be helpful and get training; in which she visits Raven Rock for the first time, meets a Guild contact, and also robs Severin Manor; and in which she does enough thievery in Windhelm to nab a special job for the Guild to re-establish its footing there.
In Which Merawen Becomes a Nightingale and Also Infiltrates the Thalmor Embassy - 08/19/2021
In which Merawen and Brynjolf accept Karliah’s offer to become Nightingales and swear an oath to Nocturnal; in which Merawen finally kills that giant at Bleakwind Basin, as well as an Elder Dragon when visiting the College of Winterhold for training; and in which she enacts Delphine’s plan to infiltrate the Thalmor Embassy.
In Which Merawen Saves the Mage College and Dooms Mercer Frey - 08/18/2021
In which Merawen acquires the Staff of Magnus at Labyrinthian, and kills the Dragon Priest Morokei while she’s at it; in which she saves the College of Winterhold and becomes Arch-Mage; in which she reveals to the Guild what their Guild Master has been doing; in which she also kills the Dragon Priest Volsung at Volskygge; and in which she learns what it’s like to fight two dragons at once at the Western Watchtower.

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Screenshots

Merawen’s screenshot album can be found on the Merawen Screenshots page.