Well I wanted another run through, but couldn't decide which direction to go, besides, I always seem to pick my favorite perks anyway. Then I get the idea, as soon as I get to the whiterun stables, hop a ride to dawnstar, and let the chest help me pic a direction. In other words, I'm going to respawn the chest a few times, and go by what enchated items I can find, the first few that seem to reasonably go together will be my build , see how it works.

Let fate decide your path. An interesting method indeed.

Yes - except s/he's not:


Fate deciding would be using whatever was there the first time.

I'm glad I don't know where Dawnstar chest is. I suspect it might make my game less fun.

the chest only respawns as long as the khajit trader that operates there stays alive. I had a random dragon attack dawnstar that passed me and went straight for the khajit...my chest is dead now so you might want to rethink your idea

I guess you misssed this part:
"...as soon as I get to the whiterun stables, hop a ride to dawnstar, and let the chest help me pic a direction."

There won't be any dragons.

Well since I only got an enchanted dagger the first chest that would require more imagination than I posess, but I digress...


After a few respawns, I got a couple of enchanted daggers, hide alchemy, alteration, resist fire armor, a decent bow, and a ring of minor archery. I also recieved similar armor in iron, and gauntlets with plus smithing, but I have zero desire to grind out armor this time around. So, I'll be rolling an assasin, with archery, and dual daggers for upclose melee, alteration spells for protection, and eventually teleconesis, and paralyze, and I have yet to try alchemy, so the poisons fit right in. I ran a pure thief earlier, but not an assasin. Not exactly ground breaking stuff I know, but this has def been a ton of fun, and I haven't even started playing yet.

Is now a good time to point out that there are two more of these chests, one each outside Solitude and Markarth?

where at and are they connected to the same khajit that operates in dawnstar?

Yes, they're all caravan loot chests. There are (as far as I can tell) three caravans, called "a", "b" and "c", and each has a loot chest. The Dawnstar chest is one. The Markarth one is behind the wall closest to the road sign where the path down from Markarth is about to cross the river. It's behind the bit running parallel to the river, near the end farthest from the sign. You need to be about two feet back from the wall. To get an idea, wait for the caravan to appear, and watch where they pitch tent - if you look from the Markath road it's the right-hand end (note this correction!!) of the bit they camp on, not far past the tent. Note that you can loot the box even when they are there. The Solitude one is also at the spot where the caravanners park up, just below the outer gateway (the one with no door). There's some flat ground with a tree, and the box is to the right of the tree if the road is behind you. If you have the game on PC, the CK makes them easy to find.

unfortunately im xbox so no sweet ck for me...i was hoping you had a youtube vid but thanks for the detailed.description

Unfortunately you'll still have to slowly quarter the ground whilst crouched to find any of them.

Prediction: You will tire of this character quickly.

I thought they had patched out the Caravan Chests.

Nope the one in Dawnstar still works for me but after many attempts the other two still don't show for me. I've looked all over for the one in Markarth and Solitude and nothing. I have since given up and will stick with the caravan in Dawnstar as I like them. May you find warm sands!

The patch may have lowered them. You could detect them because they are/were too close to the ground surface. I kinda, er, modfifed my game to bring them even closer (but still not visible) so that they were a little easier to find. Some day I may drop them down out of reach. Some day.

The chests outside of Markarth & Solitude still work I just got them.