For some time I'm curious about whom do other people consider their 'companions' - whether currently or ideally.

My favourite character is almost a pure stealthy-archery rogue, with an agenda of her own. But I intend to have her sometimes side with a Paladin sort of guy, someone who does not necessarily work under the Empire, just someone with the nobility of spirit and deep sense of honour.

I am sure some ppl have their own companion(s)... so, pls talk about them!

Who are they? How do they complement your character? How did they meet (if you have a backstory to this)?

I personally like a few of the CM partners, well these are the ones used more than any other
Ryman,J'Jynx and whoever the Dark elf on the waterfront is.

And of course Mazoga, I dunno, but she seems to stay out of my blades reach, and kick some ass.
Only Mazoga and Tetsu had a backstory for their journey.

With the other partners, they are usually played off as Adventurers who decide to team up with the character, to venture to the next town.

Buffy travels with an etherial old paladin named Acadian that lives in her head. He doesn't seem to really have any physical form of his own, but he can do a few magical things that can really assist her. She also travels with her precious black mare, Superian. Heck, poor girl has even been known to talk to her enchanted bow, Slayer.

I did not acquire a companion until many months into my first play-through. Never saw the point in 'em. Then on a whim I decided to install Companion Neeshka. Much to my surprise, I found that she added welcome complexity to my adventures, and had a definite personality to boot. Near the end of that play-through I sadly and reluctantly abandoned her due to A.I. overload, which she either contributed to or was a an obvious victim of... or both.

This play-through I decided to go with Companion Vilja, the current darling of the PC companion mods. I'm still getting used to her, having added her only after completing the main quest, KotN and the two guild quest-lines I elected to participate in (Fighters and Mages). I think she's a keeper, and so far hasn't suffered any quirky A.I. behavior.

Here's an early capture of http://i307.photobucket.com/albums/nn303/Decrepit_Waste/ESIV%20Oblivion/CK_WT2.jpg not far from the eastern Kvatch Watch Tower. Here's a capture of http://i307.photobucket.com/albums/nn303/Decrepit_Waste/ESIV%20Oblivion/Vilja_meeting.jpg. http://i307.photobucket.com/albums/nn303/Decrepit_Waste/ESIV%20Oblivion/ViljaNeeshkaFC.jpg during the very brief period this play-through when both were active.

Note the armor in the third and final screenshot. Both wear variants from the Black-Luster collection. I'm rather partial to it for female characters. (There is no male equivalent.) It is exotic and "feminine" yet at the same time property protective as, imo, good armor should be. Admittedly, Neeshka's red set exposes a bit of bare leg, but Vilja's white (Saint's Armour) offers a nice skirt-pants combo. I think Black-Luster suits Neeskha more than Vilja, who I see as the less exotic of the two. But nothing I've come across appeals quite so much. With Black-Luster already installed it's likely to remain my companion's armor-of-choice unless something better comes along. That said, I wouldn't mind finding a more modest-looking helm for Vilja.

-Decrepit-

Shadowmere is my main one. Others are my Ebony Golem and the Woodland Creatures of Jephre.

Most interesting.

I myself follow this principle when playing MMOs. There I am known as "the master", an unwelcome if tolerable presence residing in my on-screen avatar's heads, forever trying to influence their actions. It's a sort of Lews Therin Telamon - Rand al'Thor arrangement, though that estimable duo was not my inspiration.

I began the practice as a means to let my avatars remain in-character, yet still be able to participate in those all-but-unavoidable OOC situations that crop up in MMOs far too frequently. Done right it allows a good measure of role-play in a genre whose participants often seem to place little emphases on it.

So as not to shanghai this thread, I close with one of my favorite captures of http://i307.photobucket.com/albums/nn303/Decrepit_Waste/ESIV%20Oblivion/SkingradChapel_1a.jpg.

-Decrepit-

The blade, Umbra, is my only companion.

Whenever I draw her, she awakens and must drink the soul of a living being before she will allow me to sheath her again.

How do you get companions??

In Vanilla, completing larger quest lines, but these ones aren't really all that good.
Mods like CM partners adds people to the world, who you talk to to recruit them, and then you can have them do a multitude of things.

None. Lothran walks alone and if he needs to talk he goes to the local inn. However he does have a sweetheart in Dynari Amnis, and before her it was Methredel

You can get a good amount by starting some quests that have people follow you and not actually doing what you are supposed to do. You can get Modryn Oreyn, Martin, Jauffre, Erthor and the Jermane brothers that I know of haha. You can also have the Adoring Fan but he's not much of a companion.

Cool, that sounds like fun! Can't wait =)

Due to xbox, my characters only companion is me.

i understand having the faithful horse as a compnaion... but does anyone have another kind of pet - or not necessarily a human companion? A beaar, an owl, a dog...

One of the characters I played got me thinking how cool it would be to have some sort of Ancient Ghost with him at all times. Imagine starfting a conversation with someone at night, standing beside a Phantom?

Well Night Elfs do have a power kind of like the Ancient Ghost thing..... You can always use Command spells to make people or animals follow you around a bit. You could also consider summons a companion who only come when you call for them. If you want to have lots of summons, OOO has some associated with restoration and alteration available.

Dark Elves - yes, and the name is pretty cool (ancestor Guardian or Ghost), but its a 1x day thing and pretty limited later on.

i think if i ever played a ranger i'd have a dire wolf at all times, and if a druid, an ancient grizzly bear, like that one that got bazooka'd in the end of that 80's movie.

Best bet is constantly casting command on creatures/people or installing a mod of some sort.

Most of the time I find companions annoying, because they always walk into traps, get in the way of my arrows or sword, and love to charge into attack things when I don't want them to. However, I did have one character to use one for quite a while. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v90/subrosa_florens/oblivion/Oblivion203.jpg liked her http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v90/subrosa_florens/oblivion/Oblivion204.jpg so much that I used the CM Partners mod to create her a skeleton companion named Bones. After a while it just got too easy with him though. Plus he had a bad habit of just running off and disappearing at random times. So I just went back to using the regular summoned skeletons.

The link here, http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Followers, outlines every follower you can get in vanilla. Some are useful, some annoying, some immortal, and some fragile. Some will only follow you in one location. Others will follow you forever as long as you don't finish their quest.

I've played one character with a companion-- my original Breton jack-of-all-trades, Bob, travelled for quite a while with a custom CM companion-- a Bosmer archer named Sara. She was a great companion because her AI was set up as a non-aggressive archer, so she never ran in front of him and whenever he snuck, she snuck too. She'd switch to a short sword if she was backed into a corner, but as soon as she could get away, she'd switch back to her bow. She was just a pleasure to have around, and it was particularly nice when he'd be fighting it out with some monster and suddenly an arrow would come whizzing in over his shoulder and take it out.

I've got a house mod that included two marvelous dogs who will follow you and who are surprisingly deadly fighters, but I've yet to come up with a character who would really enjoy traveling with either or both of them.

Amarel almost never goes anywhere without her two best friends, http://lovkullen.net/Emma/Vilja.htm and http://tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=17743. They make for a pretty great (and entertaining) team--Vilja is the healer, alchemist and pvssyrbox, and is decent with a bow; Stoker is the mostly silent (possibly because no one can get a word in edgewise when Vilja's around!) tank, charging headlong into melee combat; and Amarel herself switches between sneaky archery and, when needed, melee.

...Yes, I've basically turned Oblivion from a solo adventure into a party RPG. But they're so entertaining I just can't regret it.

As for animal companions, Amarel has her faithful black horse, Celethelel. (Whose name I borrowed from http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:The_Song_of_Pelinal,_v_3.) Vilja and Stoker have their own horses as well.

Angel adores her summoned Clannfear and would keep it with her at all times but for the fact that it would make a mess on the floor.

Her black pony is very special (it automatically resized to her diminutive heigth) as is the Unicorn she stole from it's meadow in the wilderness. Oddly enough, neither one has a name. Whenever she is in town, she visits them everyday at the stable.
http://img194.imageshack.us/i/screenshot5bf.jpg/

She also had a dragon named Akatosh for a while (mod) but the dragon and unicorn fought to the death every time they came in contact so she gave up on the dragon.
http://img188.imageshack.us/i/akatosh3.jpg/

My frost Atronach familiar as the fire variety is to weak and I don't like the storm.

Well, Kiva is joined by Vilja on her journey.
Kain travels alone (he's a former assassin after all. Travelling in groups usually attracts attention).
Jarved...I don't think he wants to be alone. His experiences from the past have coloured his views however, so he looks at everything rather cynically.
I think he just needs to settle down, but he's a little old for it (he's around 40) and he has a task that he must complete, that may result in his death.

Calacirya had Ruined-Tail around for a while, and really really liked him. At the end of his quest line, however, she sort of lost him and is still too heartbroken from that to even consider getting a new companion. She has her summoned http://kauhumieli.net/troya/OB/pumpinssi1.bmp and her horses, http://kauhumieli.net/troya/OB/darkenmind.bmp, http://kauhumieli.net/troya/OB/spotty1.bmp and http://kauhumieli.net/troya/OB/fruity1.bmp. And her very useless Guar friends http://kauhumieli.net/troya/OB/compy.bmp and http://kauhumieli.net/troya/OB/corky.bmp, who just chill out in the garden of her house and never come along anywhere.