Harkon - "I'm giving you one single chance to give me the bow"

Me - "Very well." (Give Auriel's bow)

Harkon - "Clearly you are cooperating with me, now i'm going to try to kill you and spoil my plan"

< Harkon dies >

What's the bow for?

I enjoyed Dawnguard immensely and though it's gotten some 'hate' it seems to be mostly related to VL form, the insidious red line on vampire's mouths as has been mentioned and Serana. Since I haven't play the vamp side I can't speak to the first two and I love the Serana character and had no major issues with her as a follower outside of her carring capacity due to the hood glitch.

All in all I loved the new areas including Ancestor Glade, Soul Cairn and Forgotten Vale. I think Ancestor Glade is underrated, one of the most breathtaking places in the game. Third in line behind Solstheim and Forgotten Vale. The cavern where you find the Moth Priest is great as well IMO.

A big thumbs up from me for the DLC although the radiant quests return you to already explored areas which was a little tedious. Oh! I also enjoy Dawnguard castle and Volkihar, it was super creepy and a dang maze to navigate!

Paying attention to the story usually helps with understanding it.

"The bow's involvement with the Tyranny of the Sun prophecy began when Vyrthur, the Arch-Curate of Auriel, was infected with Vampirism by one of his own initiates. Despite Vyrthur's devotion to Auriel, the god turned his back on him when he became undead. He swore revenge against Auriel; unable to kill a god, Vyrthur instead sought to destroy his influence on Nirn, by blocking the sun. To achieve this, he needed to create a Bloodcursed Elven Arrow, which involved cursing a mundane Elven arrow with the blood of a Daughter of Coldharbour, i.e. a pure-blooded female Vampire Lord who had received the disease directly from its creator, Molag Bal. Vyrthur allied himself with the Betrayed, the degenerated Falmer who had been crippled by the Dwemer and by centuries of living underground, and killed most members of the Chantry, claiming control of Auriel's Chapel to lay in wait for the prophecy to come true.

In 4E 201, the Tyranny of the Sun prophecy was realized with the awakening of Serana, an ancient Daughter of Coldharbour, by the reformed Dawnguard. Serana was the daughter of Lord Harkon, the leader of the Volkihar vampire clan, who had spent centuries attempting to fulfill the prophecy."

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Auriel%27s_Bow

Yeah, that is a MAJOR spoiler question and should be self evident.

I love dawnguard and how i ties itself to vanilla skyrim. Love the new dragon summon, shouts, soul cairn amulet and summons plus all others mentioned above. Ive only sided with dawnguard once because
-vamp attacks end after dawnguard main quest if you sign with vamos but not dawnguard attacks. They tend to only focus on you and can spawn in all sorts of interesting places
- takes a long time to get the dwarven xbow and u really cant be a vamp until then as they make you cure yourself ( quest to do so is a minor pain)
-i love the vamp amulets and radiant quests
-dogs and trolls are weak in combat and mostly get in the way
-necromage adds so much and you can use vamp lord to carry unlimited loot

Bad about dawnguard

Soul cairn is a pain to navigate especially for jiubs notes
Agree forgotten vale is empty. Would have liked more unique monsters. No reason for a second trip if you stock up on arrows (no carry weight)
Serana can be painful at times "what do you need" or visiting somewhere over and over

Dawnguard was a good dlc. I thought I would never enjoy the Vampire Lord as much as I have, since I'm not really a big fan of vampires. If you're going the vamp route it's best to join the Volkihar, they give good rewards for vamps.

FYI: The only vamp I ever liked was Kain from the "Legacy of Kain" series. Anyone old enough to remember those games?

"Let's drop the moral posturing, shall we? We both know there's no altruism in this pursuit. Your reckless indignation led you here - I counted on it. There's no shame in it, Raziel - revenge is motivation enough. At least it's honest. Hate me, but do it honestly."

"False God! This is the end... the final turn of your Wheel!"

Kain is best vampire. Everyone from the series was pretty awesome, from Kain to Mortanius.

New artifacts and return of two classic artifacts. (Classic meaning these artifacts been around since the very first Elder Scrolls game).

I extremely love what they did with the two classic artifacts actually.

Anyways. About OP's thought of decision... Well... Vampire side, you got a lot of stuff to help vampire players. Dawnguard side, you get pet trolls, huskies, and awesome crossbows... I normally pick Dawnguard though mainly because I'm either normal or a werewolf character. I only had a few vampires.

Also. Agreed. Love dem crossbows.

I prefer the Raziel side more personally but Kain is still cool. And love that one game where you switch between Kain and Raziel thru out the story.

Anyways... Back to the OP's topic shall we?

I agree everyone was great. Moebius, Janos Audron, Mortanius, Raziel and his "quirky" brothers, and many more. Also it some of the best voice acting in any game series. From SImon Templeman (Kain), Michael Bell (Raziel) and Tony Jay RIP (Elder God). It's the most underrated video game series, imo.

I love Raziel as well (must not think of sacrifice, oh, it's too late eyes are tearing up.) But technically he's a wraith not a vampire anymore.

Oh, sorry must have missed that part of the story because I always turn off the speakers when the tall pale orc with the orange eyes is speaking.

"It... it was you? You created that prophecy?"

Wait, you mean to tell me that this guy created 2 elder scrolls a million years ago and then somehow they magically made it into the vampire's hands? Snow elves write elder scrolls?, gee, I didn't know that. Seems legit too. Moth priest went blind and I had to do a ritual in a cave no one has been to in a million years even though a hunter use to live right outside the entrance. He never went in?

Ok, so now I know the story of the bow and what it does. The snow elf who created the prophecy and therefore created the elder scrolls needs to die. Done, that's one who wanted to fulfill that prophecy down, we don't have to use the bow now let's leave it there where it's safe from the other guy...

OR, I have an idea! Let's take the bow and take it to the other guy that wants it just to show him how shinny it is. I have no worries, it's impossible for him to kill me and take the bow, which I brought right to his castle and fulfill the prophecy of blocking the sun that doesn't seem to do any harm to vampires. If the vampires were to take damage and be in actual danger like in previous games then It would be more believeable. But nope, no damage, no stage 4 hostility towards the player and no one can tell if you're a vampire.

Then he gives me a chance: "very well (give Auriel's Bow)" And the exact same scenario where he wants to kill me. I just gave him his prophecy. This would have been a million times better if he kills Serana, takes her blood and the world is in Darkness then you at least have a purpose for the bow and for that line. Giving him the bow, makes it lose all value because you don't need it to fight him, he certainly won't do anything with it. I don't have to use it during the day because I don't take any damage from the sun, potions heal me, restoration heals me... So again, Why do I need to get the bow? I don't need it.

Not to mention you have to join the Dawguard if you want to be a vampire lord. And another thing, Why do I need the dragon scroll?

I personally say he was the one who created the 'myth' part of it. Like he read the Elder Scrolls at one point (Snow Elves are extremely powerful so wouldn't be surprise if he was able to) and got an idea of creating a 'prophecy' (FYI: The myth) and simply got it stuck in some vampire's head (Prolly someone Lord Harkon knew or ended up meeting) and then had the scrolls hidden in Skyrim then simply went ahead and wait for someone to try to fulfill the prophecy... Or something like that...

Basicly, he made a lie to get someone dumb like Lord Harkon to believe and hope that in the end, it will help him.

~Edit~

And technically, Nirn only been around for thousands of years... Saying million is just... No.

Her AI has a dozen things wrong with it and the unofficial patch only fixes a few problems.

That's why you're we're supposed to be reporting things like that, so the USKP folks can (hopefully) fix them. Without the help from us, the users of said mod, not there wouldn't have been nearly as many fixes to the game as they have been able to accomplish.

Dawnguard is an amazing DLC.

Some people seem to have problems with it, but they're not really paying attention.

I mean, how smart must you be to figure out that arriving in a town at night might be a bad idea when there are vampires roaming about?

Baloney.

Look, Morowind is the best game in the series alright?

This is not nostalgia.

Secondly, Dragonborn is not Morrowind. No matter how much it looks and sounds like it there still is no spellmaking, no teleportation, no levitation, no dispel, no jump, no slowfall, no attributes, no birthsings, and race choice is cosmetic only. It's still Skyrim and not Morrowind and therefore nostalgia does not apply.

What a cheap choice of words, how easy and convenient.

I never bother reporting because with my luck I will report a so called "bug", they will agree and patch it, others will install the latest version and their PC's will explode causing the world to split in half or some crap.

The most common bugs with Serana are already known, the team will patch them if they can I'm sure

Plus I am working on my own mod just for Serana since shes so awesome.

Speaking of dawnguard id like to ask a question. Ive beaten the keepers already and none of them dropped a dragon bone weapon, and I dont smith. Is there any other way to get a dragon bone weapon?

No.

The keepers only drop dagonbone weapons if you're level 50 or above on first entering the Soul Cairn, sorry.

*explitive* damn it, a slight oversight by bethesda.

Well said.

I personally did not like dawnguard. I don't have a problem with vampires in TES,but vampire lords and vampires that aren't hurt by the sun is a big no,no. It was cheesy in my opinion. At times it felt far from an elder scrolls game to me. Some ok things were added...but some of those things should have been there anyway. Making arrows and dragon weapons for start. We could make dragon armour from the get go,but not weapons. They saved that to make more cash.

Not a fan of dawnguard. The worst TES DLC in my opinion.

I thought it was level 46 + when they drop?