I just discovered how to stop Brynjolf stalking you through Rifted without clogging your quest list.

Just go and use the blacksmith's forge. You don't actually have to make anything, just make sure you get the menu screen with the hammering animation. Brynjolf will come up to you and say his line (sometimes a few times) but eventually he goes and then won't bother you again unless you go up to talk to him and nothing gets added to your log.

Happy days.

Speaking of Riften, I just got there with my latest character. I did not feel like chatting with Maul, so I looked to "go around" by way of the iron wrought gates on either side of the front Riften Gate. Went to the one on the right side: "Locked: Needs a specific key." Tried the left side gate: "Locked: Needs a specific key." Well!

After listening to Maul, I spent the night in the Bee and Barb. As I left Riften, via the front gate, I checked both side gates: "Unlocked." So, apprently, talking to Maul is a mandatory thing

I was fighting a dragon along a road side with plenty of other creatures around to attract it's attention. I watched the dragon lift off into the air then I saw a wolf in front of me, I was about to attack the wolf when I heard the dragon roar then saw it swoop down and grab the wolf in it's talons then lift off and let that wolf fly. I'd only seen a dragon do this in Helgen before but never anywhere else until now. It's was pretty cool. http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?s=d1b0b508aa87fff592be55e4fe7708e6&&app=forums&module=extras§ion=legends#

That is really cool. I'm not good at reading code, when does it deal what bonus damage?

I recently discovered that USLEEP takes some NPCs off the pickpocketing list so people can't steal a quest item that inadvertently breaks a quest when doing so before the NPC gives it to you (like keys). It doesn't say specifically in the Changelog that Athis from Jorvasker is one of those NPCs, but I disabled USLEEP and loaded Skyrim to see if I could then pickpocket Athis. After disabling USLEEP, I was able to pickpocket Athis, And people wonder why I play without the unofficial patches. It's because of questionable changes like this. :/ I mean is there no other way to fix the quest bug other than to nanny the player from stealing anything from the NPC so they can't bork the quest even if they wanted to?

Then again I'm not even aware of any quests that Athis is a part of to warrant not being able to pickpocket him. He is a one-handed trainer, btw.

Edit: In the regular game, some followers spawn the hunting bow and use it no matter how hard you try to remove it from their inventory. You can't normally even access that hunting bow through their normal inventory dialogue. So a possible solution is to put the quest item in the same inventory bag as that hunting bow where the player can't inadvertently steal the quest item. Then when it comes to the quest stage update when the NPC gives the player the quest item, run the script to "additem" to the player's inventory and "removeitem" from the NPC's inventory. Would this not work?

I thought it was Malacath that gave him a vision of a good death that led him there

The problem with him is that he takes up a random spawn location and stays in place until something kills him.

Regarding the Old Orc...

Are you certain? I have left him all over Skyrim (especially on the road from Whiterun to Valtheim Towers), and he does go away, to respawn in another location. I do get other spawns at his former locations. I do have some mods (including the Unofficial Patch), so maybe that is changing things?

Could be. I'm only recently trying a full game with USLEEP. It also may be that I actually engaged him in dialogue just northwest of Whiterun and basically said "Good luck with that," to which he remained in that spot ever since.

Edit: So I initially denied him his death and eventually got tired of him being there all the time. One prowl running through the area as a werewolf, I still saw him there and finally decided to finish him off. His corpse still remained to no end. So I surmised you have to acquiesce his request and kill him "honourably" to get him to go away.

Strange that I had only seen him one time in each of my other play throughs, and now my current character has seen him at least 4 times. She now gives him the death he wants, as it just seems so sad. He looks like a strong, vital person, and it makes her want to curse Malacath.

I've only ever come across him two or three times in my own games (all playthroughs). I haven't seen him more than once in any one playthrough, IIRC. Now with the USLEEP patch going, I've already seen the Afflicted Refugee 3x in my current playthrough. I'm not sure how that works really. Does the orc show up again even if you give him an "honourable" death?

It seems so, even though she didn't the first time. He's shown up again after giving him his death.

I came across the old Orc on the road from Markarth.

Shortly after that I met some mage going to visit Calcemo. The man had two body guards and when I talked to him he attacked me for recognising his name! I got killed a little later on by yet another random encounter and hadn't saved after disposing of the mage and his henchmen. I went back to the save after the old Orc but didn't meet the mage again.

I'd dearly love him to be the next thing I re-discover.

As for my most recent discovery, it's a bit boring. It's the abandoned prison. That puts me to 398 discovered locations, according to my stats. I still don't have a definitive answer for how many there are with Dawnguard and Dragonborn included (I'm assuming here that the 398 includes Solsteim).

Just in case you do not wish to know, changed my post to include spoiler tags

Speaking of Old Orc. How many times do I have to kill this guy?

AlBquirky,

you are correct. I have done that quest. I do hope I meet him again because he was so rude to attack me while I was exchanging pleasantries!

I appal myself by how vindictive I can get when playing Skyrim. Also, I get on my high-horse if somebody casts aspersions about the beggars in the towns. My normal reaction to that is to crouch down and pick-pocket every last thing they're carrying...Delvin has taught me too well. In extreme circumstances, I've even gone around to their homes and swept every last thing from them.

That mage had better mind his tongue when next we meet!

Until he is dead.

Give him the last honour of a death

Not sure if this is known or not, but I found a way through a bugged "Blood on the Ice" quest. When I went by the graveyard, the onlookers where there, but the guard wasn't and I couldn't talk to the witnesses.

So I went and picked the lock on Hjerim and the quest activated as soon as the interior loaded. It went perfectly after that.

I don't know if it actually helps in my case, but whenever I go to Windhelm, I always avoid that area until I actually want to do the quest. I never had any problems starting it doing it this way.

I actually go to Windhelm and avoiding the graveyard area seems to work well enough to not trigger that quest