I've just completed the DG side of the DLC and I have some questions

• Does Fort Dawnguard get upgraded at all? All of the spider webs and useless items annoy me.
  
• What is the deal with the Paragons?
  
• How do you return to the Soul Cairn?
  
• Does Auriel's Shield appear in the game? I remember somebody mentioning it.
  
• Is Castle Volkhair useless after killing everyone inside?

EDIT: Is there a Dwarven Crossbow?

It upgrades throughout the questline automatically, but you cant get rid of the spider webs.
You can insert the paragons into a pedestal in the forgotten vale and they open up portals to treasure. One of these leads to Auriel's Shield.

I don't think you can do anything with the Castle but you might be able to use it as a home.

You can get to the Soul Cairn again the same way you got there the first time.

Edit: Yes.

is it any specific paragon, or is it just random? Ive entered them all and still not found the sheild

It's ruby I think. It's in the portal with the falmer fighting....was it trolls or bears or something? It's on one of the Falmer's corpses.

ahh got it! Must've missed it O_o Thanks!

I got the Ruby one off of a Frost Giant

No problem.


You get a paragon off of each Frost Giant.

Yes, Automatically. Spiderwebs stay.

Paragons open portals in Forgotten Vale that lead to treasure.

Same way as before I believe.

Yes. The Ruby Paragon leads to it. A Falmer has it (the one that spawned for me had a full set of Heavy Falmer Armor too, I don't know if you'll get that though)

Pretty much. You might be able to use it for safe housing.

Yes. You have to do a bunch of Radiant Quests from a member of the Dawnguard to get it.