I know as fat as the game is concerned, I need to bind myself to Nocturnal to finish the thieves guild questline. I know that this is unavoidable, but I need an alternate explination for my headcanon.

However, i've been roleplaying the same character since Arena. I have no desire to 'bind' this character to any Daedra. They are already probobly bound to Azura due to Morrowind. So i'm trying to think of ways around this, as I have already for other factions.

My usual way (for Oblivion, for example, with all the different guilds and Shivering Isles) is that I roleplay a Companion as being the actual 'main character' of a questline. That way from a story point of view it still all plays out, but the 'fate' or responsability is on another character that I DON'T plan to carry through to TES VI. That's potentially going to be easier in Skyrim than it was then, since it used to require mods. Now it requires a quest or 500 gold.

Has anyone got any other suggestions than just lumping the fate on a companion? And any companions that you fele might fit especially well? I haven't actually met many that weren;t just bloodthirsty warriors yet.

Just take the nightingale armour and run. You won't be able to finish the Thieves Guild Quest though.

Otherwise you can play a character like Mercer, who double crosses Nocturnal for the Skeleton Key.

People seem to ignore the fact that Nocturnal changes your deal once you return the Key: you have to guard the Twilight Sepulcher in life, but you basically become luck in death, plus you get to pick a Nightingale power.

So I wouldn't really worry about it unless the character dies, since the Sepulcher never gets attacked in-game.

People seem to forget a lot of details about quests.

I've not actually completed it yet^^ I am just trying to plan ahead, as I speedrun through the various questlines on my test character before my long-term RP runs. As both Player and GM I like to have overall plans for the important plotpoints that woudl otherwise disturb a charcters long term storyarch, even if I react to small thnsg on the spur of the moment.

Guarding the Twilight Sepulcher and becoming luck are not really in my plans for this character. Perhaps my dedicated Skyrim-only Thief character. As I say, i'm not bothered about actually becoming Nightingale as far as the game is concerned, that won't carry through to any future games anymore than my actual save files will, but for my screenshots and 'character journal' I want to have an alternate explanation.

I'm just asking for something clever, or else it will be the old standby of passing the fate onto a companion. Poor Arren, ending up as Sheogorath.

See, I RP with a different approach. By now, there are a half-dozen Daedra who probably think they have claim to my soul when I die. Let them fight over it. I'll be sitting on a beach in Sovengarde with a fishing pole in one hand and a bottle of mead in the other.

Hehe, I prefer to imagine that my PC will long outlive Divayth Fyre... however on the off-chance that some distant Elder Scrolls game ends with the PCs death I would prefer a many-thousand year life not end as a footstool for a Daedra.

I can appreciate your approach; but I like to fully embrace the fact that hero(oine)s have a blank destiny so to speak. And for me that includes not having their afterlife a foregone conclusion. Because I think one of the Daedra would come out on top, or have a stronegr claim, and Sovengarde would likely not be in the future of any bound soul.

In the end there really is no improtance to of course. I just want something different for a change than 'insert companion here'. In Oblivion, with all the factions, I did that a ton. The only faction my PC actually took part in were the Fighters Guild and Main Quest. A different 'companion' was asigned a dfferent role (Listener, Archmage, Grey Fox, Divine Crusader and Sheogorath). I still did the quests, but my PC was along for the ride and often the muscle instead of the 'main character'. I like to play into the fact that in TES pretty much everything happens, but its not guarenteed to be the Nerevarine/CoC/Dragonborn that does it. For the Sheogorath problem of him mentioning events, I just have to have that companion be around for the events. A hindsight I won't have had if anything like it pops up in TES VI, but thats so long away it might not even happen.

Daggerfall.

Yeah, if I remember right that was if you didn't hand over the Mantella? Either way, since while 'everything' happens, a lot of it is different due to the weird events. Since this same character went through Daggerfall, I had them go insane from having memories of dying while being alive (rationalized by the fact you only 'die' in one ending, and not the actual one my PC 'chose'), and ended up in jail as a traitor for giving the Mantella to the Underking (I rationalized it as the other Agent sent the report before the Warp. Years later, mostly themself again, they were shipped to Morrowind.

I did my speedthrough of the Thieves Guild, and its actually really easy to just give the identity to a companion. Not much to do if I wanted my PC to be the main character, but I suppose the old standby works. A few Screenshots after a setplayerrace on a disposable save. The only part that needs to be 'headcanon'd out' is the actual becoming a Nightingale. The Dovahkiin and the Nightingale can easly accomplish the 'mission' and I saw no mention that the Pigrims Path can't be walked by those with no intention of 'serving' Nocturnal. Plenty of bandits managed.

My only question is, did anyone take a companion with them through these quests? If you can't I might have to get a little more cunning.