the main story quest chain? I am getting pretty tired of having to trek all the way to Riverwood just to get the horn back from Delphine and then have to listen to her being condescending and then trying to tell me how she is on my side even though she is just trying to exploit my entire being for her own gain.

I would love it if there were a mod that removed the need to help Delphine and Esbern in order to progress through the story. Is there such a mod? PLEASE tell me! I do not think I can suffer another playthrough of listening to Delphine if I want any of my characters to be Dragonborn and eventually slay Alduin.

Closest you can get as far as I know would be The Paarthurnax Dilemma, which allows you to kill the Blades.

Someone asked about this once before and I've given some thought to trying to pull this off. No promises though. It touches A LOT of stuff and likely would take months to get done properly.

Yeah, that is what I figured. I just hope one day there'll be a mod!

Yes, there is now

With http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/55704/? it is possible to advance the main quest with only taking the Horn from Delphine. You still can do their quests later when you want to.

Combining it with http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/62894/? (there's a compatibility patch involved) shoud make even visiting her unnecessary.

Um... so the main quest will no longer make sense? You need Dragonrend to shake the other dragons' fear of Alduin's power, and since the Greybeards have no intention of even telling you of its existence unprompted, you need the Blades to learn about it at Alduin's Wall.

You are very observant

who will teach you the shout to call odahving ?? if not blades. seriously main quest will not make any sense without blades.

Not a yes/no question, won't answer

it would need to rewrite the entire main-questline entirely, as the Blades are one of its center driving forces and arguably the most important one (while you may want to hear it, yes the blades are even more important to the plot than the Greybeards are)..


it would be like trying to take Mass Effect 2, but make it so Cerberus doesn't exist at all.. the plot relies on the faction way to much

It's a sad day for game plots when an irrelevant group of people are more important to the plot than a group of people whom haven't been hunted down and killed by the Thalmor.

Oh, we're supposed to feel sorry for Delphine? She's a self important, manipulative jerk.

Anyway, I am trying to think of a way this whole "irrelevant couple of people being important to the plot" can be sidestepped. Like after find the Horn of Jurgen Windcaller, you get a note from an anonymous friend to check out Sky Haven Temple. After which, you notice from the middle of it is someone bringing down a Dragon with a shout, which would prompt you to ask the Greybeards.

About Odahving. I feel it fairly silly that Paarthurnax wouldn't know about the names of his fellow Dragons, since he used to be allied with them (although, I guess it could be said that he technically does not know which Dragon has been raised). Or it could be found in a note left at Sky Haven Temple.

I am just throwing ideas around. I wouldn't be opposed to a mod that made Delphine less of a jerk, I mean seriously there's got to be better ways to write strong female characters that doesn't involve making them totally unlikable.

the Blades aren't really irrelevant though, they have been a major focus as "the good guys" in every main quest since daggerfall (from what we know of the Agent, he was most likely a Blade.. the Nerevarine? sent by the Emperor to be released in Vardenfell and given orders to go Assist the leader of the Islands Blade forces.. the Champion of Cyrodiil? had to work heavily with the Blades while working to end the Oblivion Crisis.. for the Last Dragonborn, he has to work with the Blades to find out what mystical energy is causing all these Dragons to revive, and how to stop it).

working with the Blades in the main quest has become just as much of a tradition as starting off as a prisoner..

that would bring up major continuity errors, first, we don't even know its Alduin doing all this until Esbern starts decoding the wall's prophecy, nor that he was only ever weakened by Dragonrend,


second, seeing someone else use Dragonrend to bring up the subject makes zero sense, first, it was completely lost to time (which is why you need to use the Elder Scroll to enter the time wound to learn it).. greybeards could never have taught it to anyone because they themselves don't know it (due to being lost in time), and to them its existence is as much of a Sacrilege as if a person walked into the Vatican with a Pentagram painted with blood upon their chest while burning a cross shouting "Hail Satan! The End has come!"..

and if another Dragonorn somehow knowing it wouldn't make sense either.. as the prophecy dictates, we are "The Last Dragonborn" because after Alduins defeat Dragonborn will no longer be needed.. and even if there is somehow some other Dragonborn out there, unless he brought the same Elder Scroll to the time wound, he could never have learnt it.. like I said, it was completely lost to time, and if he had somehow found it written somewhere he wouldn't be able to use it anyways because he would still not understand the meaning behind the words.
the shouts we see Dragonborn learn are done so by either closely examining another use it, or by absorbing a Dragons Soul to use their knowledge to properly understand the full meaning behind the word.. but considering the source of Dragonrends power being it consists of words Dragons can not fully comprehend or debate against, using a Dragons knowledge to understand the true meaning behind the words by absorbing their souls would be useless.

Perhaps an idea would be to find a book that describes sites that the Akaviri built, perhaps even the same book that Esbern has. For that book, Sky Haven Temple would certainly stand out - although you may need either more text to understand what the map describes, or perhaps someone to tell you. That would only leave the interpretation of Alduin's Wall. Although it is somewhat obvious what is going on already. Probably just have an activator attached to the central part of the wall, and after you examine it, after a minute or so you realize it's a shout being used?

As for Ohdaviing's name, if you complete the Civil War questline before fighting Alduin the first time(or at least before you actually get to the "Season Unending" part of "The Fallen", although the quest says you can ask Esbern if he knows, the more...well, somewhat, convenient option is to ask Paarthurnax - who does know Ohdaviing's name, obviously.

I'm thinking the meaning was more the "shout" being depicted on Alduin's Wall, not any other person using it.

who would have decoded the wall though? Esbern was the only scholar with enough Knowledge of the Akaviri and the Dragonguard to properly read it, and considering the visual affect of Dragonrend is the same as Unrelenting Force (even if the magical effect is different), it could just be seen as someone hitting a weakened dragon with a Fus Roh..

pretty much any offensive Shout can kill a Dragon if its already been hurt, and the Dragonborn would know this by this point.. a picture of a guy shouting wouldn't have been enough to realize why or even that Dragonrend was needed (let alone that Alduin is the one causing the whole ordeal), you would have needed a scholar whos area of expertise is the Akaviri Dragonguard to properly understand the walls writings.. otherwise, it would just be a person looking at what appears to be a nicely sculpted mural, without knowing the story it told, the prophecy it predicted, and the clues it left behind..

it would be like finding a cave with images drawn by native Americans, unless you know enough about that tribe to understand it, its just a pretty wall of pictures

I mean in this game, not through the entire franchise.

Blades are reduced to just two members, 1 of them is the biggest jerk this side of Tamriel, and the other is half crazy. They're clinging on to something they once had. That is not very relevant. And, just so I am clear, when I am talking about "relevance" I am not talking about it in the context of the plot.

two currently active members anyways.. there are likely other former Blades members that are in hiding across the continent, the Blades are trained to try and stay undetected, so it is likely there are other members in hiding out there just like Delph and Esbern were (my guess is in TES6, we will meet some considering the Main Quests always involve the blades).. and Fultheim was likely a blade prior to the purge, hes a drunk who apparently stays there to "drink away unwanted memories", and carries some Blades Equipment on him (which is something no non-blade carries).


my point being, I don't think the Thalmor were quite as successful in fully wiping out the blades as they want people to think

ad 1) Strictly speaking, in unmodded vanilla Main Quest, besides hearing "Alduin" in battles with certain dragons, the first time you hear about him is when you meet Esbern in Ratway. The dialogue is going through

Esbern: "The end is nigh, Alduin returned!" (more or less)

PC: "Alduin... The dragon who's raising the others?" (*)

So it happens earlier than deciphering the wall. And even if it was not clear it is Alduin so far, the player character is not a totally drunken Nord and is able to make an educated guess during conversation.

(*) To adjust for player skipping Kynesgrove quest and not fully aware of dragon raising scheme, my mod changes this line to something more well-known,

PC: "Alduin... also known as the World-Eater?"

ad 2) If you look into it, the relevant dialogue with Greybeards starts with

PC: "I need to learn the Shout used to defeat Alduin."

and following this, it is Arngeir who brings up the word "Dragonrend" first.

So, it is enough for the player character to learn that Alduin has been defeated by a certain Shout. Knowing its name is optional.

@MaxusCorven - good catch about Paarthunax and Odahviing!

Although when Civil War negotiations in High Hrothgar do happen, removing Blades participants totally would be an overkill imho (*). Their contribution there is quick and helpful after all. (**)

(*) So since my mod allows doing Blades quests later, I needed to remove all references to Sky Haven Temple and Esbern, if they are not discovered yet, including Esbern himself - simply gave his lines to someone else who can handle Max von Sydow voice. Fultheim could be fun here, but if he's dead you need a backup npc anyway.

(**) Although they bother you about Paarthunax after they tell you the name of Odahviing, Delphine says just "There's one more thing. We know about Paarthurnax.", without revealing then they learned about him from a book found in SkyHaven - so no change to dialogue is needed for Paarthunax quest.

To sum it up - rewriting the entire main-questline entirely could have been fun, but even more fun was to augment it, without removing vanilla content.