Hm. I keep trying to find out just how old Ulfric is, for RP and fanfiction purposes.

If he was if he was 16 when the Great War started and left the Grey Beards then, he would be around 46 years of age in Skyrim. I'm not saying thats how old he is because it isn't likely. He may have been able to use the Voice as he can since he was taken in young, and old-style armies tended to accept even younger recruits if desperate, but it doesn't feel right.

So late fourties if he was in his late teens or early twenties. In his fifties if he was in his late twenties.

He certainly isn't in his sixties. Galmar comes across as quite a bit older and somewhat fatherly to Ulfric.

I'd personally put Ulfric at around 48-52. His face is weathered; but still has a certain youthfulness to it. He also doesn't seem to be greying.

Are there any more sources we can go to ingame to try and refine guesses? 'In his fourties or fifties' is hardly specific.

Let me see, I would believe he was about 8 or 9 when he was sent to the Greybeards and arounf 18-19 when he joined the Imperial Army. It is now 30 years after the war begun I think, making him around 49 years old. That is my best guess.

Based on a document found in the game I believe the "age of maturity" in Skyrim to be 16, that would be the age at which a person became a "legal" advlt for decision-making purposes. So I think the youngest he could have been when he joined the Legion during the Great War would have been 16.

The war started in 4E 171, but we don't know exactly when Ulfric left HH to join the fighting. We do know he was already a POW being held by the Thalmor before the sack of the Imperial City in 174. If he joined up at (what I assume to be) the youngest possible age (16) at the earliest possible time (171), that makes him 46 in 201. If he joined up at 16 but it was later in the war, it couldn't have been later than 174, which would give us a "youngest possible age" in 201 of 43 and I think that's really pushing it.

Personally I would put him somewhere between 45-50, for RP *cough* inappropriate personal fantasy *cough* purposes I seem to have settled on 46-47 as I don't see him being much younger than that and I think 50+ is too old for how he looks.

True, he could be a little younger than I estimated, going by your math. I think mid-fourties does seem to 'fit' him better than older. Especially since Galmar seems to be in his late fifties, or very-fit early sixties, and treats him almost like he is a proud father.

That actually makes a lot of sense, through further pondering, because I can see him beng conflicted over his vows for a time. Only as the death toll rose, and the edge of advlthood, I can imagine him edging towards the idea of leaving to join up. Something of a Yoda-Luke situation, though of course not a great comparison.

Galmar was Ulfric's mentor during the war.(Or at least some of the dialogue I've seen in the CK implies he was)

I seem to recall a retired imperial legionary remarking that he expects he'll probably make it to 150 in one of the books. So I'm not sure we can go by how we tend to look aged. Still, Ulfric's probably early 40's - early 50's as the above reasons surmise.

Galmar is described in the guide as "old, but still hale" or something to that effect, and IIRC was also the housecarl to Ulfric's father. So he's been around for a while and is presumably quite a bit older. I consider him to be sixty-ish and about 15 years older than Ulfric.

If you do all the Greybeard-related dialogue with Ulfric, he definitely seems very... wistful about HH, and somewhat nostalgic, at least IMO. It doesn't seem to me that leaving there was an easy thing to do and that a part of him still regrets it. It was a great honor to be chosen and certainly his family had to have gone along with it or he wouldn't have been sent there, so he may have been going against their express wishes when he left. Whatever his feelings about it may have been when he was a child, clearly he grew up to be a man of action who could not sit on a mountaintop and meditate while the world below burned.

And unlike Delphine, he harbors no resentment against the Greybeards for their "pacifist" philosophy, and it's obvious that he respects it and them a great deal. He just recognizes that it's an impossible philosophy to follow to the letter unless you choose to remain secluded as the Greybeards do. In fact I've posited elsewhere that part of the reason the Greybeards *do* remain secluded from the rest of the world is because that's the ONLY way to follow their philosophy and survive. Not to mention the fact of innocent bystanders getting caught up in the fallout if they had to shout in self-defense, which they would have to do eventually if they came down off that mountain.

From the in-game books I've read I've gotten the impression that most Nords joined the war in 174, so I think it's likely that Ulfric did, too. My guess is that he's around 45, give or take a year or two.

About as old as Rikke, since she, Ulfric, and Galmar were battle buddies during the Great War 30 years ago. Maybe 50ish?

Off topic but I've been thinking a lot lately about the choice made with regard to his last name, especially the "storm" part.

Talos means "Stormcrown" and the Greybeards use this term when they name you Dovahkiin.

Naal Thu'umu, mu ofan nii nu, Dovahkiin, naal suleyk do Kaan, naal suleyk do Shor, ahrk naal suleyk do Atmorasewuth. Lingrah krosis saraan Strundu'ul, voth nid balaan klov praan nau. Meyz nu Ysmir, Dovahsebrom. Dahmaan daar rok.

By our Thu'um, we give it now, Dragonborn, by (the) power of Kyne, by (the) power of Shor, and by (the) power of Atmora-of-old. (In) long sorrow waits (the) Stormcrown, with no worthy head (to) rest on. Become now Ysmir (Now comes Ysmir?), Dragon-of-(the)-north. He remembers this.

(Translation mine.)

It seems to me that the implication here is that the "Stormcrown" has now found another worthy head on which to rest, and it's yours.

So, Stormcrown. And if you do the CW war on Ulfric's side, he will name you Stormblade. And of course his name, and the name of his entire anti-Thalmor secession movement, is Stormcloak.

I don't know if it's just because it all sounds cool, or if "storm" is some kind of superlative indicator in the Nord naming tradition so it all makes sense while still being completely coincidental. Or if the use of it in all three instances is a Maguffin that's meant to make people like me go "Hmmmm...." but which actually means nothing. Or if it was deliberately done for some other reason, like to emphasize something about Ulfric, the Dragonborn, and Talos/Tiber/Ysmir and how they all fit together in a larger way than just what happens in the game.

Or I could just be completely nuts at this point from spending too much time in Skyrim. But I can't stop thinking about Stormcrown/Stormblade/Stormcloak. And that there might be something interesting going on there. I can't even remember coming across anyone else in the game with "storm" in their name, can you? It would be really interesting if those three instances are the only ones where "Storm" is used to refer to a specific person.

Both sides have allusions to Talos

Tullius - Talos
Stormcloak - Stormcrown

There's a rather large set up in place for a reenactment of the ascension of Talos to the godhead.

We have the underking figure in Ulfric, and the Zurin figure in Tullius. Wulfharth turned away from Tiber and Zurin when he thought they were no longer working for the betterment of mankind(Which in his case was "You're not slaughtering enough elves"). Ulfric did the same thing(For slightly similar reasons). The empire's betrayed Ulfric before. Zurin(And Tiber) betrayed Wulfharth. Tiber engineered the thing, swept in and claimed credit for it all, then used their work to conquer the rest of Tamriel.


No one's had their heart ripped out yet though.

The women really do look younger than they are in this game. I haven't had much to do with the Legion yet, and my guess was that Rikke was about 30... And Delphine looks incredibly good for a woman in her mid-fifties.

30? I took her to be 40-50ish from all the age lines on her face.

Yep agreed. No matter which side u pick, the thalmor are gonna suffer the wrath of of talos.

Rikke's definitely around the same age as Ulfric.

Rikke, Ulfric, and Galmar were close friends during the great war.

As I said, I haven't had much to do with the Legion yet - I think I've only met Rikke when I did Season Unending on my first character (who doesn't want to get involved in the war). I guess I didn't notice the lines then. Still: Delphine, Maven Black-Briar, Laila Law-Giver, Anneke, all women of known age or with advlt children, and they all look good for their ages, I would say. My personal guess is that Aela is older than she looks, too. (A little off-topic. Sorry.)

That would be the fangirl when she realizes Ulfric isn't marriageable.

The Great War states that "fresh legions from Skyrim" arrived in the Imperial City in 173; when Titus abandoned the city in 174 and marched north he met up with even more reinforcements marching south from Skyrim. However that doesn't mean that Nords weren't already joining and serving in the Legions from the outset of the war, in fact given the prevalence of Nords in the Imperial military I'm betting quite a few of them were already serving when the war broke out and that even more started enlisting soon after the Dominion attacked.

I think it's unlikely that Ulfric didn't join until 174 because the Imperial City was sacked in 174 and we know for a fact that he was captured by the Thalmor before that ever happened. If he didn't join until that late and was subsequently captured that quickly, it doesn't give him much time to rack up all the combat experience he supposedly has and make him the seasoned Legion veteran that he supposedly is (I've seen references in various forums to him having been a "commander" in the Legion during the GW, if someone can point me to an in-game source that confirms this, much obliged). This is a guy who was leading a Nord militia against the Forsworn in the Reach and defeating them handily (the Thu'um helped, but still) within two years of the end of his Legion service, so I think it's unlikely that he spent ten years navel-gazing at HH, joined the Legion and fought for a few months and was captured, and then suddenly emerges as such a force to be reckoned with as a military leader.

And also his experiences in the war itself, unrelated to what happened in Thalmor custody, seem to have left some real scars on him. I'm not saying that can't happen in combat in a few weeks or even a few days if things are ugly enough, but the way he talks about the dying men he held in his arms, that sounds like somebody who was in the **** for a while and in a position of some responsibility as well. I don't see that happening if he joined that late in the game and only served for a few months before becoming a POW.

[img]http://img641.imageshack.us/img641/8441/eydiswedding4.jpg[/img]

Oh I was http://sagenundlegenden.tumblr.com/post/18000948596/the-marry-ulfric-mod-has-hit-ladies-courtesy-of. But alas, mods cannot change the fabric of Nirn which is woven in the cruel heart of Bethesda Prime.

It's even better if you also use the Ulfric Overhaul mod, which gets rid of the "Make it quick, I'm a busy man" thing once you've gotten to the point where he would be a little less annoyed to see you. It takes some of the unused VA clips and uses them to make him say more appropriate things when you interact. A lot of things are still unvoiced but when you've had followers for a while that gets to feel like a blessing at some point, lol.

It was tricky getting those two plus UFO to all work together, and there are some known conflicts which I have to watch out for, but so far it's been a blast.

I'll have to look into it when I replay my Stormcloak character. I haven't been playing Skyrim for a couple months, on to other things until the DLC comes out.

He has been through a major traumatic event (the imprisonment and torture by the Aldmeri Dominion). Events such as this tend to age a person abnormally.

One example: I know one lady who went through her first cancer treatment and had one recurrence afterwards, and she looks easily 20 years older than she really is. You could of course accuse the radiation therapy and the chemotherapy, but I'm sure that the traumatic aspect of this all has carved more lines into her face.


Anyway, I'd put him a few years younger than you do. If I recall correctly, his value as a prisoner came from him being the son of the Jarl of Windhelm, not by any deed of his own - that puts him IMHO at a very young age back then. I find it unlikely that he was imprisoned right at the start of the Great War (which lasted from 4E171 to 4E175), which also shaves off another couple of years.

Well, that makes sense. Still, The book doesn't say WHEN in 173 the legions from Skyrim arrived (as I recall they arrived in174, but I might very well be wrong), or WHEN in 174 Imperial City was sacked, so there might very well been almost two years in between. But I'm no lore expert, and as I just begun the CW questline I guess there still might be things I haven't heard.

At least they gave us the opportunity to roleplay a love affair. It's a bit of a challenge, though, since the object for your character's affection never will express any tender feelings despite letting her (or him, if you like) sleep with him every night... :/

I don't suppose there's any way to find sound clips of Mr. Kulich saying things in other roles that might be appropriate and sticking them in the game... but then I guess you wouldn't have the proper facial animations to go along with them.

With regard to facial expressions and behavior, I will say that Ulfric seems happiest when he's in combat. He laughs, he trash talks, he says he's having fun and asks if I'm having fun too. (Okay I know that's supposed to be more trash talk for his target but work with me here people! )

And then we just stayed at the Nightgate Inn on our way back to Windhelm from Solitude (we cleared out what was left of the Thalmor Embassy... turned out Elenwen was still in there, so I took great pleasure in reloading, making her unessential, and letting Ulfric give her exactly what she deserved) and since none of the "waiting" type commands or functions work for him properly with the mods I'm using, all I could do was tell him to relax while I slept. He took a seat in the room I rented for the night and just sat there with a blank look on his face munching bread. When I got up the next morning he was sitting on a stool at the end of the bar holding a tankard in his hand looking very glum.

Or maybe it was just because we're newlyweds and the innkeeper gave us a room with a single bed and no door.