« As in pieces the body of the innocent Hare is torn, the Huntsman reflects on the tragic imbalances of power and the cruel injustices of the world.»
- The Posting of the Hunt
Hello and welcome to my first Skyrim build on the Skyforge. I’m proud to present to you: The Telboth Necromage, a brutal and rutheless hunter cursed to live as a vampire who decided to protect the natue of Tamriel against evil forces for eternity. Let’s jump into the backstory !
I – The Backstory
Years ago, there was a little town depp in the forests of Valenwood. It was a little settlement where everybody knew everybody, it was completely unremarquable but it was relatively peacefull despite the struggles of the life in this region of Tamriel. In this town, lived a maged who occupied the role of taking care of all things related to magic and nature. For example, he was tasked to use spells to predict the weather and where the animals would be to prepare the hunters of the village to hunt them down. Protect the biodiversity of the village and taking care of animals that would approch too close of the village and prepare conconctions to heal the villagers when they would be sick or wounded.
Far away from the stereotype of a recluse and creepy mage he was really friendly to his neighbours and appreciated in the town for his talents and personality. He even adopted a young bosmer orphan and take her as his apprentice and assistant.
One day, some travelers came into the village, they where seeking the help of a mage who might find an explanation about a strange situation. They came into the mage’s cabin and began to repport very strange events they came across in their way to the villages. Things seems to die in certain parts of the region and some animals would just stop moving and stare into nothing, indefferent to the presence of bosmers or predators. The mage and his daughter both find this very weird and decided to lead the investigation. The mage decided to take his daughter with him seeing this as a good opportunity to teach her, like it would be related to magic and not dangerous at all. Plus it would proably take them just a week and if it turn out to be a joke, they would have lost nothing but time.
They prepared a few provisions and go to one of the locations the travelers talk about and, a bit surprise, they discover that everything the travelers told them was true, plants where dying even if they add the perfect condition to grow and live, animals where starring in the void and standing three where roting from the inside with no apparent raison. They set up a camp and the mage spent one week trying to restore nature around him to its normal state, he tried every spell, incantation and alchemical brew he could think of but nothing worked, it was liked if the plants and animal weren’t real anymore. After one week, frustrated by his failure to change a thing, he leave the camp with his daughter, apologing to her for the dissapointement and went back to the village with the idea of writtting a letter to much efficient mages than him who might know what to do.
When he arrived at the village he speak to no one and went directly to his cabin.
He open the door and see his daughter sitting on the table, her throat and her robe covered by blood. He didn’t even had the time to realize what it really was than he turn behind him and was stabbed in the belly and fell on the ground. The creature he thought to be his daughter jump on him and tried to kill him, he resist and turn back its weapon against him and killed the creature which fall next to him. As poison and despair drive into his body, he realize he has been a victim of an attack of the Telboth vampire clan. A powerfull and feared vampire of Valenwood, known to take the place of childrens in a familly and wait for the opportunity to slaughter and devor it. He knows he has been tricked and without him the village would probalbly soon be destroyed by the vampire clan. He looked at the corpse of the vampire and realize he only had one option to survive to the poison and save his village. Reluctantly, he use the blood of the creature to become a vampire.
He run out of his cabin and went to the center of the village, but everything was normal, like if nothing happened. The villages looked at him, and scream in horror at the view of his red glowing eyes and the blood on him. They immidiatly understood than something horrible happened but they believed it was him who did something horrible and a few villagers tried to arrest him. He flew and return to his cabin, his daugther was truly dead and the Telboth make him looks like the author of this meurder « What was i thinking ? Why didn’t i see anything ? » He thought with grief and anger. He couldn’t stand here to defend the village because the villagers now surely wan’t him dead. He took a few furnitures, burried the corpse of his daughter in a place close to the village and left with nothing but grief and desire for vengeance.
II – Roleplay
The roleplay begin when The Telboth Necromage was caught at the border of Skyrim. He spent the last few years wandering all across Tamriel, slaying every vampire and evil creatures which cross his road, he was nothing more than shell of the mer he once was and didn’t care about dying. But he escape Helgen thanks to the attack of a dragon and immediatly want to know more about this phenomenon. He help the local population to take down a dragon which treaten their city and realize he his a dragonborn. His time to die asn’t come yet and he still has a lot of work to do.
Even after his enconter with Falion, a mage capable of curing vampirism, he doesn’t wan’t to cure himself anymore. His soul is already a lost cause and he lost his daughter, life and integrity because he underestimate the cunning and ruthlessness of vampires, by being one of them he can hunt them down and protect nature against evil forces for eternity.
He’s a morally ambiguous character and this ambiguity create a really unique playtrought and particular roleplay moments for a vampire hunter like him.
He’s a ruthless and brutal hunter who only find joy in destroying any threat against nature and make his ennemies bleed by every pores. Because he has studied the behavior of animals during his time as a forester he also have the ability to call animals to hunt with him, more details about that feature of the build the gameplay section.
He take his role as dragonborn extremely seriously and doesn’t make the Greybeards wait. He meet Delphine and they discover than the dragons are bring back from the deads by Alduin. The Telboth Necromage consider his duty to slaugther him and bring peace to Tamriel and Skyrim.
He also learn about the reconstruction of the Dawnguard, a guild of vampires hunters, and decide to join them. You should pursue this questline until the quest « Chasing echoes » in which you will be abble to ask Serena to turn you into a vampire. For the roleplay we can imagine than The Telboth Necromage was just an half vampire unable to enter into the soul cairn and he decided to mix his half Telboth blood with the Volkihar blood of Serena to become a full vampire and enter in the Soul Cairn. If you become a vampire before this quest, Isran will refuse your help, stopping you from pursing the Dawnguard questline, and ask you to seek the help of Falion to cure your vampirism.
After this quest you should pause the Dawnguard and do the Dragonborn DLC to complete the aesthethic of this character. After this you will be abble to complete the Dawnguard, Main Quest, College of Winterhold at your discretion. This character should ignore the Civil War, Thief Guild, Compagnons and Dark Brotherhood enterely because they aren’t relevant for this character.
For side quests, any quest that deals with alchemy, hunting and protection of nature is fitting for him, some relevant quests include : Return to your roots, The Cursed Tribe, The Only Cure, Ill met by Moonlight, The Wolf Queen Awakened, Waking Nightmare, Laid to rest, Ancestral Worship, A Scroll For Anska, saving Valdr from the spriggans and The White Phial.
III – Gameplay
The Telboth Necromage is all about bleeding and poison damage. He weild two weapons he often coat with poisons to make his ennemies bleed even harder. He his a wild force of nature, a true predator capable of heading head first into a combat and create chaos on the battlefield with his weapons. But he combine his skill in combat with his skills as a brillant mage by preparing before combat with poisons, flesh spells and undeads hounds.
Yes, because he’s also a necromancer, but not a traditional one.
Instead of reanimate humans or creating abominations with necromantics rituals, he will only reanimate animals so they can temporarily help him in his never ending quest to protect nature against the evil forces of the world. Even if he despice necromancers, he thinks that there is now problem to reanimate the corpse of an animal who already left his body to protect the animals that are still alives. He will never raise a human or an elf from the deads because humans aren’t equal to animals in death. Even if he’s a protector of nature, he knows than the only funeral a wild animal can hope is to be devored by predators or be let to rot in the wilds. For this reason he allows himself to reanimate animals to help in his combat. Note that you should dismiss your thralls before entering into a town to avoid problems with the local population.
You should also combine your undead thralls with living animals by using your racial ability Command animal or the shout Animal Allegiance when it’s not an option. You will find a lot saber-toothed cats, bears, trolls, spiders, wolfs and more in the wilds lands of Skyrim to help you in you’re battle against the forces of evil.
This legion of animals following you will synergy with your skills in battle and the amonts of blood you shed increase the hunger of ferocity of the beasts, making them fight with a nameless rage.
Potions and poisons
For potions, The Telboth Necromage will get the most use of a lot of beneficials potions and will have a variety of deadly poisons on hand, two in particular are the most important for the build.
Poison of Weakness to Poison
Bleeding Crown + Small Antlers
Poison of Damage Health
Deathbell + Nightshade
Most of the time you will wan’t to apply both of these poisons on your two weapons, hit your target with the Weakness to Poison effect firstly then the Damage Health effect. These potions can be made with plantables and common ingredients and should be used in every combat that requiered a bit of effort, but there’s also a special, more efficient, poison to use in your toughest battles :
Ravenous Toxin
Damage Health + Linguering Damage Health + Ravage Health
Imp Stoll + Scathercraw + Skeever Tail
This poison is absolutely incredible when combine with Drain vitality and bleeding damages and will make most of the hardest fight of the games way more easy.
Alchemy is the most important skill of the build and i recommand leveling it quickly as possible by crafting valuable potions, here’s the one in personally like to use :
Lavander + Hanging Moss + Blue Montain Flower
Mora Tapinella + Scaly Pholiota + Creep Cluster
You should build a non upgraded version of Winstad maner with the garden, The Telboth Necromage is not interested by a huge nordic mansion but it will be helpfull for him to have a cabin where he can hunt, cook, and plant ingredients for his brews. With the money earned with these potions you will be able to buy conjuration training with Phinis Gestor at the College of Winterhold and maybe One-Handed lessons from Burkuk at Dushnik Yal if you need to. For Alteration, you can just use telekinesis (there’s a spell tome of that spell in Redwater Den) on any item you wan't for a few hours in game and you will reach level 100 really fast.
IV – Creating the Character
Weapons :
- Two Orcish Axes
- Orcish Dagger
I chose these two weapons because they fit with the aesthetic of the character and because the Orcish Axe as the longest bleeding damage per second stat of all the weapons in the game (2 points of damage per seconds for 8 seconds with hack and slash). This will become really powerfull when combined with deadly poisons, your hounds and the shout Drain Vitality.
When you’re fighting with two weapons, having a dagger in your left hand increase the speed of your attacks, allowing for more versatility during combat. For example when you’re fighting multiple ennemies you should prioritize agility and fight with a dagger and an axe and when you’re fighting a strong and solo ennemy, switch to two axes.
Armor:
The outfit of The Telboth Necromage was chosen mainly for aesthetic but provide a lot of usefull buffs for this character.
With Miraak’s Robes, you gain a chance to create an explosion of tentacles when you’re hit, fitting for this character. Plus, the 25 % magic absorbtion will be really usefull when combine with the Atronach perk from the Alteration skill stree and the amulet of resist fire.
The Helmet of the Olds Gods can be obtain as a reward after the quest No one escape Cidhna Mine (side with the forsworns to obtain it) and provide a usefull 30+ points of magicka but it was mainly for the awesome look it gives to the character than i chose this helmet. With this on his head he really has the look of a mysterious spirit protector of the forest, watching a pack of hunters from the sommet of a hill.
For auxiliary gear, he will wear an amulet of resist fire (almost mandatory for vampires builds) and the ring of Namira which, in addition of the amazing 50+ boost in stamina, allows you to feed on corpses to regain you’re health and obtain a temporary bonus in health regen.
It isn’t out of character for the Telboth Necromage to do Namira questline because we can imagine than he follow this quest to gain the trust of cultists of Namira and slaughter them all once they’re all gather in the same room.
Spells :
- Ebonyflesh
- Paralysis
- Detect Life
- Detect Death
- Flaming Familiar
- Banish Daedra
- Dead Thrall
Shouts:
- Animal Alleageance
- Become Ethereal
- Drain Vitality
- Whirlwind Sprint
- Elemental Fury
Stats and Perks Spread :
I recommand leveling this build with a ratio of 1;2;1.
With this ratio you should have all the magicka you need to raise your summons and cast a flesh spell, as well as enough health to run head first in combat and tank the damages.
Standing stone : The Lady
THE PERFECT standing stone for vampires, the boost in health and stamina regenaration conteract the negative effect of being a vampire during the daylight.
Race : Wood Elf + Vampire
I choose this race for the roleplay, backstory and for the racial ability Command animal plus the boost in Alchemy at the start of the playtrought. Since he isn’t perking Archery or Destruction the Vampire lord form will be really usefull to take down dragons, Embrace of Shadows, the bost in frost resistance and Vampire’s Servant could be usefull for this build.
One-Handed
Each of these perks are necessary. This choice of perks will make you extremely fast and extremely dangerous.
Alchemy
The most important skill of the build. This build is all about making bleed out your ennemies by every pores using a smart combination of deadly poisons and brutal cuts. Snakeblood is useless for this build because as a bosmer and a vampire you will have a total of 15O % resistance to diseases and poisons. Experimenter is also useless because alchemy guides existe online and it’s easy to roleplay the effects of an ingretient coming from the Telboth Necromage himself. I personally don’t like Purity because it make crafting valuable potions basically impossible, its probably allows for more flexibility in crafting potion but i anyways didn’t feel it was necessary for this build, but feel free to get to this perk if you wan’t to.
Alteration
Alteration will make you a lot tankier, the boost in resist magick of the Robe of Miraak, the amulet of resist fire and the Atronach perk will make fighting mages much more easier. I didn’t take the perk Dual casting for this skill tree because the character has a low poll of magic and will prefer to use it to raise animals from the deads, but you could probably takej this perk in higher levels.
Conjuration
You will use this skill tree mostly to raise the corpses of animals and spigands from the deads. But i also include Conjure Flaming Familiar which will have its use in the special move section of the build.
If you wan't to play past level 40, you can add more perks in One-Handed and adding Sneak and Restoration for the bonus these skill trees provide.
Others relevant perks for this build
- Sinderion’s Serendipity
Reward for the quest A return to your roots, give you a chance to craft two potions instead of one.
- Seeker of Sorcery
Effect of the Black Book «The Sallow Regent » all spells cost 10 % less magicka.
- Mora’s Boon
Effect of the Black Book «The Hidden Twilight » Completely replenish Health, Stamina and Magicka once per day.
V - Specials Moves
Specials moves are a combination of spells, abilities, potions and more to give unique abilities to each characters and make them feels more unique.
The specials moves of The Telboth Necromage is all about making your ennemies bleed as much as possible and reinforce the appetite of yours animals compagnons to make them even more dangerous.
1 - Heat of the Hunt
Dismay + Conjure Flaming Familiars
Sneak into position (use a potion of invisibility if necessary) and shout Dismay on many ennemies as you can. As your preys are fleeing away cast as much Flaming Familiars as you can and let them enjoy the hunt.
2 – Claws of The Predator
Drain Vitality + Ravenous Toxin + Hack and Slash
A flurry of quick and brutal strikes that will open a lots of wonds in the body of your ennemy, making him bleeding profusely. The damage of the poison and the shout will stack up with the bleeding damage of the One-Handed skill tree, making the health bar of your ennemy melt in a few seconds.
3 – Feast of Blood
Paralysis (no matter the way used) + Animals + Ring of Namira
The appetite of your animals compagnons grew by the blood you have shed, you finally offer them the preys and they will shred them to pieces and devour them with a nameless fury. Join them in this well deserved feast by devoring the corpse of one of your fallens ennemies.
Conclusion:
Thanks your for your time and attention ! I hope you liked reading the build and you will give it a try. The Telboth Necromage is a versatile character extremely fun to play who combine brutal force and thought gameplay. I don't know if i will make others builds because i'm usually really bad at building characters and i prefer playings the builds of others, but i think The Telboth Necromage is a decent build and it was worth writing about him and sharing this build here on the Skyrforge.
Have a nice day !
Replies
This is by far one of the best and well-balanced builds I've seen for a class like this. It is truly unique build. Great job!
Thanks ! I'm really glad you liked my build !
Yeeees this is so cool! Everything is on-point, and i'm always a fan of using antlered helmets
Thanks you ! It means a lot to me
I would recommend trying to break the text up a bit more, but overall, another solid build