Yup. Trying to explain that dude away in universe, requires a level of mental gymnastics that reaches far beyond silly. The encounter is as about as meta as Bethesda serves them. It's the devs holding up a mirror to have us be on the receiving end of that treatment for once.
BTW, if you think he's hard om vanilla, go have a shot at the Requiem version if you're feeling confident, or if you're (roleplaying) a genuine masochist, of course.
Not too hard for mental gymnastics. This is what happens when someone who isn't a Dragonborn, trains to be like one. This is the culmination of decades of adventuring just like you do, except without the inborn powers (which mean he had to ACTUALLY learn those shouts) so he had to be better...which is why he IS better.
As far as whether that's cannon or not is another question, but considering the term "adventurer" is commonplace, this is what happens when they DON'T take an arrow to the knee. He is what would've happened if the Dragonborne had been killed in Helgen, he would've been the the savior of Skyrim.
Yeah, except he spams Thums even quicker than we do. Learning those Ulfric style, let's you release them at about the pace of the Ents in LotR.
And while he's the only thing even close to matching our prowess, he's far from unbeatable. The vanilla version is wasy to outperform with a decent build.
The scariest and most dangerous part about him isn't even how much he statistically outpaces any enemy elsewhere in the game. It's the way he fights that catches the unsuspecting off guard.
No deliberately moving in slow, easy to analyse and anticipate movement patterns. He fights like a player. Or at least, closer to it. Frantic, quick paced movement, coupled with a wide variety of attacks and other applied battle tactics.
A reminder of how much devs usually refuse to take off the kitty gloves. Especially in an age pre-Soulsborne.
This. Idk if there’s a canon amount of time that’s supposed to have elapsed between the Helgen attack and the defeat of Alduin by the Dragonborn and the three heroes, but I don’t think we’re meant to believe that it was more than a few months. In that time, the Dragonborn goes from being an absolute useless/harmless nobody in terms of skills and combat prowess, to being an absolute BEAST. Now imagine that the Dragonborn continued adventuring, training, and advancing his skills at that rate for freaking decades. That’s the Ebony Warrior. He may not be Dragonborn, and I can understand some criticism specifically about his shouting ability since that should be so, so much more difficult for a non-dragonborn; But as for his overall combat prowess, I think it more than makes sense with decades of adventuring and training.
I did a recent play through of Morrowind, and they have a character who asks for money to buy weapons and armor. Long story short, he gets mad at you not having enough money to donate to him. He ends up buying a full set of ebony armor, and when you see him again, he DESTROYS you. Maybe a nod to that character???
That was was because he had a crazy high luck stat and that made him nearly impossible to hit, and why he could just ask for money and expect to get it.
There are so bits of lore here that point to him having been a scribe that got fed up at people that didnt add paragraphs to their manuscripts, vowed to become a knight and defeat them all in armed combat and so on
Exactly. Other NPCs in the game usually have a level cap, because the game isn't supposed to be a souls game and have every fight bring you close to death.
The first time I fought him I was surprised too, but managed to kill him without too much difficulty, mostly cause I read about him before facing him so I went in prepared.
Still, a cool addition to the game. Which makes me wonder if there's a mod that removes the level cap of NPCs, cause I wish some didn't have one, like dragons for example. Especially Alduin.
There is, I installed it on my last heavily modded playthrough. It made levelling past 40 really fun because normally that's where the game drops off but at around 80-90+ the game becomes a slog because everyone is too tanky
And therein lies the reason why there *should be* level caps for enemies. After a certain point, *the player* reaches a soft cap in power: each level up gives you a tiny, tiny stat increase but aside from that, you're expanding your skills sideways instead of actually getting stronger.
Exactly *when* that point is depends on the exact player, character build, mod list, et cetera. This is one of the problems with such a freeform leveling system: it's hard to predict exactly how strong the player is at any given time.
Yeah personally I like games with NO scaling. Let the early levels and areas be easy when you go back to them.
That level 5dungeon was cleared by me at level 5, why am I going back at level 50 and there's somehow level 50 enemies there. At least that's how I see it.
I get though that inevitably makes progression much more linear as you can't do certain stuff without an insane challenge and you'll have to grind for levels but that's just how I like it.
There's always a tradeoff:
If *everything* scales forever, it definitely feels like the entire leveling system is fake as hell. You're not really getting stronger: just ticking arbitrary check boxes.
No level scaling at all gives you a bit of extra control: you can rush to higher level areas for more challenge or level yourself up more to make it easier. One downside is, as you mentioned, the level grind. Another downside is that it can make early areas *too easy:* if you need to spend a lot of time in them, the lack of challenge can get boring fast.
Skyrim itself actually takes a mixed approach that works pretty well. Some areas have a minimum level—if I remember right, most dwemer ruins start at 20-25—but *everything* caps out and except for outliers like the Ebony Warrior, it's early enough to give you that power trip.
There are *problems* with Skyrim's system and I don't blame people for changing it with mods but the basic concept is solid.
But that just means the player has more utilities to deal with high level enemies. Maybe enemies become harder to kill, but that's just opportunity to use your own knowledge of the game to deal with them.
I mean, you can kind of do it yourself in vanilla. Just legendary all of your combat skills ASAP. That's what I've been doing. You still end up more powerful as you accumulate skill points, but you're still handicapping yourself by keeping your skills low while your level, and the enemies', are high.
Obis, and asis. With motal enemies and enemy combat overhaul.
Deadly dragons on insane dificulty.
Play it on legendary and tell le if you feel like a god
Plus he got high level enchanted gear, and plenty of strong potions
Surprisingly, he also knows two or three thu'ums, yet no greaybeard ever mentions him. Less importantly, he's a male human, that randomly can be redguard, imperial or nord, yet he always grieves for Sovngarde (i don't know if he spawns there however) even though only nords are accepted in Lorkhan's plane..
Edit: no he's just redguard
I don’t think Shor would reject someone simply because they aren’t a Nord. He’d probably be a lot more strict about the criteria for entry though.
The souls in Sovngarde expect the LDB to return to Sovngarde regardless of the race you’re playing.
I think as long as you devote yourself to the Nord way of life you can make it to Sovngarde.
Something I liked in Oblivion was that the leader of the Fighter's Guild levels with the player *plus 40*, so she's always 40 levels ahead of you. It's so fitting for the boss of the largest mercenary guild in the province
He's called the ebony warrior, or dark warrior, goes by the name of baba yaga.. but that's not because he's the boogeyman. He's the fucker that is sent to hunt down and kill him, that's who he is.
Haha love that. Canon event, for every skyrim player.
Reagrding the lore there is almost nothing known about him. The ebony warrior is one of the biggest mysteries in skyrim
Lore wise he isnt actually stronger than alduin and miraak he is probably strknger than harkon though.
Alduin is a dragon god that is destined to eat the planet I dont think I need to explain why that makes him so strong regardless lorewise he is the second strongest that you face.
Miraak is even more powerful he is the first ever dragonborn and is around (5000?) years old.
He spent most of those years inside the daedric realm of apocrypha surrounded by an essentially infinite source of knowledge allowing him to spend those years amassing an insane amount knowledge and power.
To give an idea of how insane he was he was able to mind control the people of solstheim from a completely different dimension.
Before he ended up in apocrypha he battled vahlok and his army of dragons the battle was so intense it broke solstheim off from skyrim and this was before he spent thousands of years amassing knowledge and power the miraak that appears in skyrim is so far above the one that split solstheim that its not even a comparison.
The player has been dragonborn for like a year and beat the shit out of this guy training for centuries lmao
It's like when firefighters meet volunteer firefighters
If you think about it, the Miraak in Dragonborn *is* weaker than the Miraak that split Solstheim. He's had thousands of years to learn, but he hasn't had that time to *practice:* as we see in lorebooks, there are many advanced spells that need components, specific places, or astronomic conjunctions to cast. Even if you can bypass some of that with raw power, Miraak has no way of knowing when the components are right.
His access to Magicka is also limited: Apocrypha has no stars, no holes into Aetherius through which magicka can flow. He can supplement his power with spell absorption and provoking Seekers into attacking him, but that's slow, potentially costly (he's not unkillable!), and risks drawing Mora's ire. That means there's a limit to how much he can *practice* what he learns, how much he can *use* his new knowledge.
Lastly, his access to allies in Apocrypha is limited. This is less relevant, but notable.
On the contrary I'd say. If anything new lore shows how much of a learning and power gaining jackpot Apocrypha is compared to any other place in the entire setting. By studying in Apocrypha we see lesser mortal mage servants of Mora learn to tap into fate itself and bend it to their will. They can actually make anyone or anything materialise using this knowledge by plucking what they want from a different point within the desired objects many fatelines and placing it within their own. This means you can manifest things that were previously destroyed because you are undoing it's destruction or materialise them before even they were made within the timeline. And these things you materialise are as real as the real thing.
We also have Hermaeus Mora's mortal librarians in Apocrypha going "Oh you want to make your own realm where you can do anything you want? Let me show you all the studying materials you need!"
Basically Miraak has access to the knowledge of how to make his own world, or how to create a system that plucks information from across time using fate itself. He can practically test every single thing he learn in Apocrypha.
As for magic beings in Oblivion can naturally regenerate magicka same as they are on Nirn as we see throughout the games. This is because you are actually tapping into Oblivion magic as explained in lore book than Aetherius Magic which you normally do while you are on Nirn.
Can I ask what your source is for those first three paragraphs? They don't seem to congrue with what we see in Dragonborn, and I don't know of anything matching in the lorebooks.
New lore added by ESO last year.
This thread actually goes into great detail explaining the new lore with the appropriate sources linked.
https://www.reddit.com/r/teslore/s/csrdLje4JU
The lore books are genuinely really interesting to me, and in Oblivion (at least, I haven't *found* any in Skyrim but that doesn't mean they aren't there) there are lots of easter egg locations and events mentioned in lore books that are also present and useful ingame- like a ritual that turns grand soul gems into black soul gems if you're in the right place at the right time and cast the right spell.
Dude I was actually so disappointed when I did the main quest line for the first time because alduin is 10x easier to beat than the 20 draugr death overlords guarding the portal.
Yes skuldafn is the real final boss. Side note the difficulty of the final boss fight with alduin is further diminished by the fact that you already beat him solo on the throat of the world so of course your going to beat him again especially with the nord heroes by your side.
In Oblivion, Umbra was wielded by a character called Umbra - a warrior fully decked out in ebony armour. They were one of the toughest opponents in the game. The ebony warrior is one of the toughest opponents in the game and is a tribute to Umbra.
No specific lore reason, just an Easter egg.
In lore Umbra the sword corrupts and steals the soul of whoever wields it (that's why the dog of Vile tries to convince you to return it to Vile). Since Umbra is a daedric weapon, it's made of ebony, so when it changes the identity of the wielder, it does that they become just like Umbra, changing the name and making them wear an ebony armor. No relations to the ebony warrior, it's just that in game the ebony is the strongest material for armor and weapons, and stronger ones like daedric and dragon bones are just mythical and not avaiable for almost everyone.
Also you can find Umbra and the sword Umbra in morrowind, tho it's not related to any quest and it's just a location encounter where a warrior in orcish or ebony attacks the nerevarine.
Daedric exists in both Morrowind and Oblivion dude. In Morrowind Umbra wears full orcish armour but in Oblivion it’s ebony, even though when your a certain level every other bandit wears either glass or daedric.
The ebony warrior is a reference to umbra, because umbra doesn’t exist after the events of the two books released with Skyrim. The floating island which was made from Clavicus Vile’s realm. Umbra was destroyed when the island was.
I know that it exists there, it's just something that a normal mortal would never gets their hands on
And what? Umbra is avaiable in skyrim throught the CC, and is considered as canon
Hmm.. as much as i don't like baseless canon claims, just because the writers felt like it should be, Bethesda and the uesp do actually state that the CC is canon..
Buut the whole thing behind Umbra is wacky, for instance: the Hero of Kvatch should have been corrupted for using the sword, yet he didn't and turned into Sheogorath.. i could understand the Nerevarine not being corrupted, because he is a reincarnation and protected by Azura and all that.. but the Hero is just a normal dude, that never existed before, and became a god by helping a mad man. TES writing is either beyond comprehension or just something a 13 years old may day dream.
Ebony Warrior is kind of a blending of both the Morrowind and Oblivion versions of Umbra. Umbra in Oblivion wears the heavy ebony armor, sure, but Morrowind's Umbra has the "I've defeated every foe and just want a warrior's death, defeat me in a 1v1 duel" plot.
I told this story once but oh well:
My first ever character was a Redguard. I made it having Kratos as a reference: Bulky, tall, long bearded... by the time I managed to reach lvl 30 or so, I got an entire set of Ebony Armor, it looked so menacing and badass on him, I was truly proud of his development! And that very same day, the hard disk of my computer collapsed. Like in a no-return point. I was truly annoyed but I did not want to give up on Skyrim.
Many races later, Argonians, Bretons and so on, my Nord Dragonborn, with all armor mods, plenty of questlines completed, happily engaged for eternity with his vampire gf, raising their adoptive daughter went to the Whiterun Market after reaching level 80.
And there he was. Full obsidian, tall as no other NPC (besides Tsun) in Skyrim can ever be.
My first ever Dragonborn telling me: **"OH NO. I SAY WHEN WE ARE DONE"**
Don't think there is any lore on him. Just wild fan fiction theories.
Only reason he exists is way back when, the fans commented that there's really no in game reason to lvl every skill to 100. Gets you to lvl 81 doing that (that's the pre requisite for the quest)
So the Devs added the ebony warrior with the Dragonborn DLC to give the player one final challenge.
Look at his dialogue, he's basically saying word for word what the player says at an end game point.
Come back to him later. Now that you've unlocked him just treat him as the final thing you do before your playthrough is complete because that's literally how he treats you
Just some dick head who thinks he is hot shit because he wears a bunch of enchanted heavy ebony. Fuck that guy ! Kill him good.
“Power Armor is for pussies !”
~Duke Nukem
He's just an NPC who got gud. He fixed his skill issue. He never gave up, never what? He's just minding his own business, grinding till he's senseless. His health can seem endless, he'll fuck up all your tendons, in short, he's pretty damn stupendous.
Ingame reason why he's so strong is that he levels with you and has good enchanted gear. (He is static at 80, must've mixed him up with someone else)
Lorewise, he has done everything he could've done in this life, he has experienced it all, its horrors and all and he is fighting tooth and nail for the worthiest of battle to get into sovngarde. He's also not much stronger than Alduin or Miraak, stronger than Harkon though. Honestly, Alduin stomps Miraak too but hmm.
Fan theory's reason is that he is a fallen yokudan god and is trying his best to get back to aetherius, one way or another. People say he is ebonarm. I like this theory.
So yeah, I was so fed up fighting him fairly because he would always tear me apart that I just sniped him from far away with stealth archery.
> Ingame reason why he's so strong is that he levels with you
No, he's fixed at level 80. He also has pretty much every high-level perk in the tree, plus a special NPC perk that does 3x damage.
Included in that perk set is *Reflect Blows*, which means there's a good chance of killing yourself if you hit him with an OP enchanted melee weapon.
Due to gameplay reasons a lot of stuff is much weaker than it would be by Lore. Dragon Tongue is literal reality warping by lore, but is limited to a bunch of 3 word minimal effect shouts in game. Archmages can take armies days to kill by throwing bodies at them till they get tired in lore, but in game you just shoot them with an arrow. Older vampires can move faster than people can see and have all sorts of magics available in lore but in game are barely better than anyone else. Necromancers raise armies of thousands in lore, but in game they can summon less than a handful of skeletons.
He shows up after level 81, which used to be the max possible level in the vanilla game but with the Dragonborn DLC they added the ability to reset skills so you could continue leveling up (without console commands or mods). That DLC also added the Ebony Warrior as a kind of final boss fight. There's not a lot of lore but he's basically... you. Like, another protagonist playing the game in parallel. Then when he's done everything, he's so powerful there's no one who can defeat him in honorable combat so he can go to Sovngarde.
[Watch this - super interesting video that looks at his lore across the Elder Scrolls history…sort of hints at the fact that he has been wiped from history.](https://youtu.be/0K2XK7XkIzs?si=8dZl6UuWQal6O3-x)
Edit: It goes off the pretence that he is Reymon Ebonarm. But again, it’s speculation.
In Morrowind there is a similar character called Gaenor.
He is the toughest enemy you can face in the entire game, and he also wears full ebony armor.
https://en.m.uesp.net/wiki/Tribunal:Gaenor
i’d suggest to beat him on legendary difficulty to make it feel like it was worth it. it’s pretty tough, but if you play vanilla then it makes it feel legit to use any strategy you can find since he’s pretty strong.
I wasn't sure so I googled it. I was going to type in Ebony Big Bad Warrior but I didn't have a lot of time so I shortened the search to Ebony BBW. Turns out it's not a man at all! It's a redguard lady with big hooters! I thought you needed mods for that stuff.
He's the 'hey I've heard you don't like how easy the end bosses are' character. Though tbf he's not that bad either, one Marked for Death shout makes him a pushover and you can block his fus ro dah with a ward, or just fus ro dah him yourself.
The most compelling lore explanation about the Ebony Warrior I've heard is that he's a wink and a nod to [Reymon Ebonarm](https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Reymon_Ebonarm), a minor Redguard God of War.
Nothing is confirmed but here's a coupel tidbits:
* Since Morrowind, Bethesda has had a tradition of a Random MF in Full Ebony that serves as an extremely powerful combative challenge, started with Gaenor, then Umbra and Now the Ebony Warrior.
* Some speculate that he is a reference to the Deleted Redguard Deity Reymon Ebonarm, an extremely powerful warrior guy enemy to all Daedra except Sheogorath clad in full Ebony with a Sword fused to his arm
* He could also potentially just be a reference to Post-Game DLC Dark characters in the 3 latest mainline games, with Gaenor in Tribunal, Clone in Shivering Isles and Ebony Warrior in Dragonborn
- Finally he is most likely a reference to (IMO) Umbra, a combination of the Morrowind and Oblivion Encounter. In Morrowind he is touted as one of the strongest warriors, someone who has done everything, seen every atrocity in war and has both worked on the sides of good and evil, he now simply waits for someone worthy enoguh to kill him in battle, we even meet him on a Mountain (More a hill but eh technical limitations lol), add to that Oblivion Umbra's Ebony Armor and you basically got Skyrim Umbra's whole narrative, power level, gear and location.
The final reference could be to Ulfgar the Unending, an extremely powerful an ancient Nord warrior we meet during Bloodmoon, whose quest ends in him asking us to kill him so he can go to Sovengarde
Noone knows but he appears whe you are level 80. And is something like the ultimate challenge.
Watch EpicNate's or CamelWork's video about him, I don't know which Skyrim detective actually made it, but both are great and highly recommended.
A legendary hero from another land that has traveled to Skyrim in search of a worthy death, as he has defeated everything he has ever come up against and just wants to die as a warrior.
He appears when you reach level 80, a level many players never actually reach in their playthroughs, and is widely considered to be the final boss of the game since by then you have most likely already defeated every other major villain.
He's stronger than any other enemy in the game and levels with you so you'll never out level him like you do other enemies.
Once you reach lvl 80 he will show up and challenge you. He's a decent guy, won't attack you for betrayal. He wants a clean fight up a mountain.
You shout, he shouts. You use destruction, he uses destruction. You shoot, he shoots. You beat him up with any weapon, so he will.
You bring a daedra from oblivion, he brings another.
Real badass. Best fight in the game.
I save before fighting him because I end up one-hitting him & killing him too soon. I'm usually to OP that I have to remove enchanted stuff for a fair fight.
I've learned to stand up hill from him so I don't get Fus Roh Dah'ed off the cliff.
Nobody really knows there's some theories he's the Current Reincarnation of Hoonding the Redguard god of Perseverance, but the in game reason is cuz he levels with you and has some Unique Perks
I was so disappointed by him. I’ve played for years and wanted a good way to cap my current (longest played) character. He was dead immediately - I already had Karstaag to help me. I didn’t realize he would be so easy with Karstaag, even on Legendary, such a disappointment lol
I did the fortify-resto loop, enchanted a ring of Fortify Alchemy 88,000%.
Then brewed a couple of crazy powerful Fortify Enchanting potions. I used one to the enchant my Daedric helmet with Fortify archery 88,000%.
Because of that, my Zephyr bow does 886,000~ points of damage.
I one-shotted the Ebony Warrior.
With him being a redgaurd and the next game being set in hammerfell I feel we'll find more out about him in the next game. Probably only a few hints here and there.
No real lore reason. Just someone Bethesda added to give high level characters a challenging fight.
Yup. Trying to explain that dude away in universe, requires a level of mental gymnastics that reaches far beyond silly. The encounter is as about as meta as Bethesda serves them. It's the devs holding up a mirror to have us be on the receiving end of that treatment for once. BTW, if you think he's hard om vanilla, go have a shot at the Requiem version if you're feeling confident, or if you're (roleplaying) a genuine masochist, of course.
Not too hard for mental gymnastics. This is what happens when someone who isn't a Dragonborn, trains to be like one. This is the culmination of decades of adventuring just like you do, except without the inborn powers (which mean he had to ACTUALLY learn those shouts) so he had to be better...which is why he IS better. As far as whether that's cannon or not is another question, but considering the term "adventurer" is commonplace, this is what happens when they DON'T take an arrow to the knee. He is what would've happened if the Dragonborne had been killed in Helgen, he would've been the the savior of Skyrim.
Yeah, except he spams Thums even quicker than we do. Learning those Ulfric style, let's you release them at about the pace of the Ents in LotR. And while he's the only thing even close to matching our prowess, he's far from unbeatable. The vanilla version is wasy to outperform with a decent build. The scariest and most dangerous part about him isn't even how much he statistically outpaces any enemy elsewhere in the game. It's the way he fights that catches the unsuspecting off guard. No deliberately moving in slow, easy to analyse and anticipate movement patterns. He fights like a player. Or at least, closer to it. Frantic, quick paced movement, coupled with a wide variety of attacks and other applied battle tactics. A reminder of how much devs usually refuse to take off the kitty gloves. Especially in an age pre-Soulsborne.
They don't pull their punches when they get down to it Edit: Kaarstag is another example
This. Idk if there’s a canon amount of time that’s supposed to have elapsed between the Helgen attack and the defeat of Alduin by the Dragonborn and the three heroes, but I don’t think we’re meant to believe that it was more than a few months. In that time, the Dragonborn goes from being an absolute useless/harmless nobody in terms of skills and combat prowess, to being an absolute BEAST. Now imagine that the Dragonborn continued adventuring, training, and advancing his skills at that rate for freaking decades. That’s the Ebony Warrior. He may not be Dragonborn, and I can understand some criticism specifically about his shouting ability since that should be so, so much more difficult for a non-dragonborn; But as for his overall combat prowess, I think it more than makes sense with decades of adventuring and training.
Genuine masochist has me lmao
I did a recent play through of Morrowind, and they have a character who asks for money to buy weapons and armor. Long story short, he gets mad at you not having enough money to donate to him. He ends up buying a full set of ebony armor, and when you see him again, he DESTROYS you. Maybe a nod to that character???
That was was because he had a crazy high luck stat and that made him nearly impossible to hit, and why he could just ask for money and expect to get it.
There are so bits of lore here that point to him having been a scribe that got fed up at people that didnt add paragraphs to their manuscripts, vowed to become a knight and defeat them all in armed combat and so on
There actually is a lore reason
He levels with you so no matter how strong and powerful and godlike you feel, he’s the exact same
Exactly. Other NPCs in the game usually have a level cap, because the game isn't supposed to be a souls game and have every fight bring you close to death. The first time I fought him I was surprised too, but managed to kill him without too much difficulty, mostly cause I read about him before facing him so I went in prepared. Still, a cool addition to the game. Which makes me wonder if there's a mod that removes the level cap of NPCs, cause I wish some didn't have one, like dragons for example. Especially Alduin.
There is, I installed it on my last heavily modded playthrough. It made levelling past 40 really fun because normally that's where the game drops off but at around 80-90+ the game becomes a slog because everyone is too tanky
And therein lies the reason why there *should be* level caps for enemies. After a certain point, *the player* reaches a soft cap in power: each level up gives you a tiny, tiny stat increase but aside from that, you're expanding your skills sideways instead of actually getting stronger. Exactly *when* that point is depends on the exact player, character build, mod list, et cetera. This is one of the problems with such a freeform leveling system: it's hard to predict exactly how strong the player is at any given time.
Yeah personally I like games with NO scaling. Let the early levels and areas be easy when you go back to them. That level 5dungeon was cleared by me at level 5, why am I going back at level 50 and there's somehow level 50 enemies there. At least that's how I see it. I get though that inevitably makes progression much more linear as you can't do certain stuff without an insane challenge and you'll have to grind for levels but that's just how I like it.
There's always a tradeoff: If *everything* scales forever, it definitely feels like the entire leveling system is fake as hell. You're not really getting stronger: just ticking arbitrary check boxes. No level scaling at all gives you a bit of extra control: you can rush to higher level areas for more challenge or level yourself up more to make it easier. One downside is, as you mentioned, the level grind. Another downside is that it can make early areas *too easy:* if you need to spend a lot of time in them, the lack of challenge can get boring fast. Skyrim itself actually takes a mixed approach that works pretty well. Some areas have a minimum level—if I remember right, most dwemer ruins start at 20-25—but *everything* caps out and except for outliers like the Ebony Warrior, it's early enough to give you that power trip. There are *problems* with Skyrim's system and I don't blame people for changing it with mods but the basic concept is solid.
But that just means the player has more utilities to deal with high level enemies. Maybe enemies become harder to kill, but that's just opportunity to use your own knowledge of the game to deal with them.
What's the name of the mod?
I mean, you can kind of do it yourself in vanilla. Just legendary all of your combat skills ASAP. That's what I've been doing. You still end up more powerful as you accumulate skill points, but you're still handicapping yourself by keeping your skills low while your level, and the enemies', are high.
Can you find this weird giant man in Riften in vanilla??
Lol yes The Ebony Warrior is part of the unmodded game, and he isn't always encountered in Riften. You need to get to level 80 before he shows up.
Holy shit thank you!
Obis, and asis. With motal enemies and enemy combat overhaul. Deadly dragons on insane dificulty. Play it on legendary and tell le if you feel like a god
Plus he got high level enchanted gear, and plenty of strong potions Surprisingly, he also knows two or three thu'ums, yet no greaybeard ever mentions him. Less importantly, he's a male human, that randomly can be redguard, imperial or nord, yet he always grieves for Sovngarde (i don't know if he spawns there however) even though only nords are accepted in Lorkhan's plane.. Edit: no he's just redguard
I don’t think Shor would reject someone simply because they aren’t a Nord. He’d probably be a lot more strict about the criteria for entry though. The souls in Sovngarde expect the LDB to return to Sovngarde regardless of the race you’re playing. I think as long as you devote yourself to the Nord way of life you can make it to Sovngarde.
Dunno, isn't sovengarde only for nords? For now, it's written that. And the only souls there are nords, like rikke that is half nord.
He’s actually always redguard.
Huh right. Don't remember why i got it confused.. maybe another masked npc
He is always a redguard...
Pretty sure he's always a redguard.
He is not random. He is always the same redguard model.
Fine, i'll edit it
Nope Lmao he's one of the few completely fixed characters in terms of stats, along with Kaarstag and Arngeir among afew others
His level is fixed at 80, does not scale up.
Something I liked in Oblivion was that the leader of the Fighter's Guild levels with the player *plus 40*, so she's always 40 levels ahead of you. It's so fitting for the boss of the largest mercenary guild in the province
He's called the ebony warrior, or dark warrior, goes by the name of baba yaga.. but that's not because he's the boogeyman. He's the fucker that is sent to hunt down and kill him, that's who he is.
He once killed three people - with a sweet roll
A fookin sweet roll
I heard that when the Ebony Warrior reads *The Lusty Argonian Maid*, his two handed skill increases.
You don’t even wanna know what happened when he read *The Sultry Argonian Bard*…
Did he steal it?
>he's the boogeyman. Now i completely understand how drake feels.
You fucked up the line
Yeah i know, but it did sound badass, didn't it?
It did! but more swearing would perfect it!!
Haha love that. Canon event, for every skyrim player. Reagrding the lore there is almost nothing known about him. The ebony warrior is one of the biggest mysteries in skyrim
Isn't he like an aspect of Ebonarm?
That's just a theory, and Ebornam was retcon so...
Lore wise he isnt actually stronger than alduin and miraak he is probably strknger than harkon though. Alduin is a dragon god that is destined to eat the planet I dont think I need to explain why that makes him so strong regardless lorewise he is the second strongest that you face. Miraak is even more powerful he is the first ever dragonborn and is around (5000?) years old. He spent most of those years inside the daedric realm of apocrypha surrounded by an essentially infinite source of knowledge allowing him to spend those years amassing an insane amount knowledge and power. To give an idea of how insane he was he was able to mind control the people of solstheim from a completely different dimension. Before he ended up in apocrypha he battled vahlok and his army of dragons the battle was so intense it broke solstheim off from skyrim and this was before he spent thousands of years amassing knowledge and power the miraak that appears in skyrim is so far above the one that split solstheim that its not even a comparison.
Yet he can be killed with a simple sword
a fork is enough
The player has been dragonborn for like a year and beat the shit out of this guy training for centuries lmao It's like when firefighters meet volunteer firefighters
If you think about it, the Miraak in Dragonborn *is* weaker than the Miraak that split Solstheim. He's had thousands of years to learn, but he hasn't had that time to *practice:* as we see in lorebooks, there are many advanced spells that need components, specific places, or astronomic conjunctions to cast. Even if you can bypass some of that with raw power, Miraak has no way of knowing when the components are right. His access to Magicka is also limited: Apocrypha has no stars, no holes into Aetherius through which magicka can flow. He can supplement his power with spell absorption and provoking Seekers into attacking him, but that's slow, potentially costly (he's not unkillable!), and risks drawing Mora's ire. That means there's a limit to how much he can *practice* what he learns, how much he can *use* his new knowledge. Lastly, his access to allies in Apocrypha is limited. This is less relevant, but notable.
On the contrary I'd say. If anything new lore shows how much of a learning and power gaining jackpot Apocrypha is compared to any other place in the entire setting. By studying in Apocrypha we see lesser mortal mage servants of Mora learn to tap into fate itself and bend it to their will. They can actually make anyone or anything materialise using this knowledge by plucking what they want from a different point within the desired objects many fatelines and placing it within their own. This means you can manifest things that were previously destroyed because you are undoing it's destruction or materialise them before even they were made within the timeline. And these things you materialise are as real as the real thing. We also have Hermaeus Mora's mortal librarians in Apocrypha going "Oh you want to make your own realm where you can do anything you want? Let me show you all the studying materials you need!" Basically Miraak has access to the knowledge of how to make his own world, or how to create a system that plucks information from across time using fate itself. He can practically test every single thing he learn in Apocrypha. As for magic beings in Oblivion can naturally regenerate magicka same as they are on Nirn as we see throughout the games. This is because you are actually tapping into Oblivion magic as explained in lore book than Aetherius Magic which you normally do while you are on Nirn.
Can I ask what your source is for those first three paragraphs? They don't seem to congrue with what we see in Dragonborn, and I don't know of anything matching in the lorebooks.
New lore added by ESO last year. This thread actually goes into great detail explaining the new lore with the appropriate sources linked. https://www.reddit.com/r/teslore/s/csrdLje4JU
Huh. ESO. Never would've guessed.
Holy shit you know your lore
The lore books are genuinely really interesting to me, and in Oblivion (at least, I haven't *found* any in Skyrim but that doesn't mean they aren't there) there are lots of easter egg locations and events mentioned in lore books that are also present and useful ingame- like a ritual that turns grand soul gems into black soul gems if you're in the right place at the right time and cast the right spell.
I also got outlore'd by an ESO player, as you'll see :P
Or when professional ice cream scoopers meet volunteer ice cream scoopers.
Hahaha game logic really be like that sometimes
Dude I was actually so disappointed when I did the main quest line for the first time because alduin is 10x easier to beat than the 20 draugr death overlords guarding the portal.
Yes skuldafn is the real final boss. Side note the difficulty of the final boss fight with alduin is further diminished by the fact that you already beat him solo on the throat of the world so of course your going to beat him again especially with the nord heroes by your side.
In Oblivion, Umbra was wielded by a character called Umbra - a warrior fully decked out in ebony armour. They were one of the toughest opponents in the game. The ebony warrior is one of the toughest opponents in the game and is a tribute to Umbra. No specific lore reason, just an Easter egg.
In lore Umbra the sword corrupts and steals the soul of whoever wields it (that's why the dog of Vile tries to convince you to return it to Vile). Since Umbra is a daedric weapon, it's made of ebony, so when it changes the identity of the wielder, it does that they become just like Umbra, changing the name and making them wear an ebony armor. No relations to the ebony warrior, it's just that in game the ebony is the strongest material for armor and weapons, and stronger ones like daedric and dragon bones are just mythical and not avaiable for almost everyone. Also you can find Umbra and the sword Umbra in morrowind, tho it's not related to any quest and it's just a location encounter where a warrior in orcish or ebony attacks the nerevarine.
Daedric exists in both Morrowind and Oblivion dude. In Morrowind Umbra wears full orcish armour but in Oblivion it’s ebony, even though when your a certain level every other bandit wears either glass or daedric. The ebony warrior is a reference to umbra, because umbra doesn’t exist after the events of the two books released with Skyrim. The floating island which was made from Clavicus Vile’s realm. Umbra was destroyed when the island was.
I know that it exists there, it's just something that a normal mortal would never gets their hands on And what? Umbra is avaiable in skyrim throught the CC, and is considered as canon
CC is barely canon. It isn’t in the base game therefore the canon status is debatable. Read The Infernal City and Lord of Souls.
CC is in the base game "mainn annniversary edition" it is cannnon. Dragonnborn and Dawnnguard weren't originally in the base game either...
One n.
Well, two
Not when discussing lore. It’s canon. A cannon is artillery
The joke is that caNoN has two Ns, a little lighthearted ribbing meant to be indicated by “well”
Spelling is for nnnerds
Hmm.. as much as i don't like baseless canon claims, just because the writers felt like it should be, Bethesda and the uesp do actually state that the CC is canon.. Buut the whole thing behind Umbra is wacky, for instance: the Hero of Kvatch should have been corrupted for using the sword, yet he didn't and turned into Sheogorath.. i could understand the Nerevarine not being corrupted, because he is a reincarnation and protected by Azura and all that.. but the Hero is just a normal dude, that never existed before, and became a god by helping a mad man. TES writing is either beyond comprehension or just something a 13 years old may day dream.
Ebony Warrior is kind of a blending of both the Morrowind and Oblivion versions of Umbra. Umbra in Oblivion wears the heavy ebony armor, sure, but Morrowind's Umbra has the "I've defeated every foe and just want a warrior's death, defeat me in a 1v1 duel" plot.
One skill you didn't put any points in is definitely Punctuation.
Holy shit it was a tough read
God, someone said it. Thank you. Hurt my brain reading that run-on sentence from hell with one comma.
Surprised anyone read it tbh. 100+ comments and almost no one mentions how hard of a read that was
And an ellipsis. Very important, that ellipsis.
I told this story once but oh well: My first ever character was a Redguard. I made it having Kratos as a reference: Bulky, tall, long bearded... by the time I managed to reach lvl 30 or so, I got an entire set of Ebony Armor, it looked so menacing and badass on him, I was truly proud of his development! And that very same day, the hard disk of my computer collapsed. Like in a no-return point. I was truly annoyed but I did not want to give up on Skyrim. Many races later, Argonians, Bretons and so on, my Nord Dragonborn, with all armor mods, plenty of questlines completed, happily engaged for eternity with his vampire gf, raising their adoptive daughter went to the Whiterun Market after reaching level 80. And there he was. Full obsidian, tall as no other NPC (besides Tsun) in Skyrim can ever be. My first ever Dragonborn telling me: **"OH NO. I SAY WHEN WE ARE DONE"**
Don't think there is any lore on him. Just wild fan fiction theories. Only reason he exists is way back when, the fans commented that there's really no in game reason to lvl every skill to 100. Gets you to lvl 81 doing that (that's the pre requisite for the quest) So the Devs added the ebony warrior with the Dragonborn DLC to give the player one final challenge. Look at his dialogue, he's basically saying word for word what the player says at an end game point. Come back to him later. Now that you've unlocked him just treat him as the final thing you do before your playthrough is complete because that's literally how he treats you
Just some dick head who thinks he is hot shit because he wears a bunch of enchanted heavy ebony. Fuck that guy ! Kill him good. “Power Armor is for pussies !” ~Duke Nukem
He's just an NPC who got gud. He fixed his skill issue. He never gave up, never what? He's just minding his own business, grinding till he's senseless. His health can seem endless, he'll fuck up all your tendons, in short, he's pretty damn stupendous.
Ingame reason why he's so strong is that he levels with you and has good enchanted gear. (He is static at 80, must've mixed him up with someone else) Lorewise, he has done everything he could've done in this life, he has experienced it all, its horrors and all and he is fighting tooth and nail for the worthiest of battle to get into sovngarde. He's also not much stronger than Alduin or Miraak, stronger than Harkon though. Honestly, Alduin stomps Miraak too but hmm. Fan theory's reason is that he is a fallen yokudan god and is trying his best to get back to aetherius, one way or another. People say he is ebonarm. I like this theory. So yeah, I was so fed up fighting him fairly because he would always tear me apart that I just sniped him from far away with stealth archery.
> Ingame reason why he's so strong is that he levels with you No, he's fixed at level 80. He also has pretty much every high-level perk in the tree, plus a special NPC perk that does 3x damage. Included in that perk set is *Reflect Blows*, which means there's a good chance of killing yourself if you hit him with an OP enchanted melee weapon.
How do you find them?
I didn't find him, he found me and i wish he didn't....
>I didn't find him, he found me And so it is.
You must get to level 80. Then go to any big city. He'll be there, waiting for you.
Thanks everyone
He spawns once you reach level 100
80
Oh? My bad
I thought it was 71 for some reason
He doesnt waste time on dialoge.
No matter how strong he was and caught up with my leveling, he still didn’t have the blood of the vampire lord during the fight…
I killed him in 2 hits with jarrin root arrows. He ain't nothing.
Due to gameplay reasons a lot of stuff is much weaker than it would be by Lore. Dragon Tongue is literal reality warping by lore, but is limited to a bunch of 3 word minimal effect shouts in game. Archmages can take armies days to kill by throwing bodies at them till they get tired in lore, but in game you just shoot them with an arrow. Older vampires can move faster than people can see and have all sorts of magics available in lore but in game are barely better than anyone else. Necromancers raise armies of thousands in lore, but in game they can summon less than a handful of skeletons.
He shows up after level 81, which used to be the max possible level in the vanilla game but with the Dragonborn DLC they added the ability to reset skills so you could continue leveling up (without console commands or mods). That DLC also added the Ebony Warrior as a kind of final boss fight. There's not a lot of lore but he's basically... you. Like, another protagonist playing the game in parallel. Then when he's done everything, he's so powerful there's no one who can defeat him in honorable combat so he can go to Sovngarde.
some random guy who challenges u when u reach level 80
[Watch this - super interesting video that looks at his lore across the Elder Scrolls history…sort of hints at the fact that he has been wiped from history.](https://youtu.be/0K2XK7XkIzs?si=8dZl6UuWQal6O3-x) Edit: It goes off the pretence that he is Reymon Ebonarm. But again, it’s speculation.
In Morrowind there is a similar character called Gaenor. He is the toughest enemy you can face in the entire game, and he also wears full ebony armor. https://en.m.uesp.net/wiki/Tribunal:Gaenor
He's also similar to Morrowind's Umbra with the "has defeated every worthy foe and just wants a warrior's death in battle" plot.
i’d suggest to beat him on legendary difficulty to make it feel like it was worth it. it’s pretty tough, but if you play vanilla then it makes it feel legit to use any strategy you can find since he’s pretty strong.
I wasn't sure so I googled it. I was going to type in Ebony Big Bad Warrior but I didn't have a lot of time so I shortened the search to Ebony BBW. Turns out it's not a man at all! It's a redguard lady with big hooters! I thought you needed mods for that stuff.
This joke is as strained as the ebony warrior's breastplate.
The lore is he is super powerful, and wants to die with honor in a fight, so he finds you, a powerful person to fight him
He's the 'hey I've heard you don't like how easy the end bosses are' character. Though tbf he's not that bad either, one Marked for Death shout makes him a pushover and you can block his fus ro dah with a ward, or just fus ro dah him yourself.
it’s me
Use full slow-time shout, makes fighting one person easy.
The most compelling lore explanation about the Ebony Warrior I've heard is that he's a wink and a nod to [Reymon Ebonarm](https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Reymon_Ebonarm), a minor Redguard God of War.
He has that damage reflection as well, which was a pain to find out when I was using my 10,000 damage great sword
Could you theoretically one shot him with Mehrune's Razor?
I recently fought him and he went down to my second strike with Mehrune's. The quest to find how to reach him was much harder.
yes, but IIRC he can also reflect it on you and one-shot you lol
A strong but not perfect theory is that he is Reymon Ebonarm, the god of war.
I think his level scales with the MC so if you overleveled... yeah.
he doesn't, one of the few NPCs that don't
My head-cannon is that he's you. From the future. The stronger you get the stronger he'll get. Enjoy the fight.
Nothing is confirmed but here's a coupel tidbits: * Since Morrowind, Bethesda has had a tradition of a Random MF in Full Ebony that serves as an extremely powerful combative challenge, started with Gaenor, then Umbra and Now the Ebony Warrior. * Some speculate that he is a reference to the Deleted Redguard Deity Reymon Ebonarm, an extremely powerful warrior guy enemy to all Daedra except Sheogorath clad in full Ebony with a Sword fused to his arm * He could also potentially just be a reference to Post-Game DLC Dark characters in the 3 latest mainline games, with Gaenor in Tribunal, Clone in Shivering Isles and Ebony Warrior in Dragonborn - Finally he is most likely a reference to (IMO) Umbra, a combination of the Morrowind and Oblivion Encounter. In Morrowind he is touted as one of the strongest warriors, someone who has done everything, seen every atrocity in war and has both worked on the sides of good and evil, he now simply waits for someone worthy enoguh to kill him in battle, we even meet him on a Mountain (More a hill but eh technical limitations lol), add to that Oblivion Umbra's Ebony Armor and you basically got Skyrim Umbra's whole narrative, power level, gear and location. The final reference could be to Ulfgar the Unending, an extremely powerful an ancient Nord warrior we meet during Bloodmoon, whose quest ends in him asking us to kill him so he can go to Sovengarde
Slow time shout was extremely useful for me.
TheEpicNate had a video or two on him along with other things. They’re my go to source for Skyrim and Fallout lore and theories.
He's Tod Howard
The dude that beat the game right before you.
Noone knows but he appears whe you are level 80. And is something like the ultimate challenge. Watch EpicNate's or CamelWork's video about him, I don't know which Skyrim detective actually made it, but both are great and highly recommended.
Time for somebody to discover the restoration loop and make a 1,000,000 attack wooden spoon.
A legendary hero from another land that has traveled to Skyrim in search of a worthy death, as he has defeated everything he has ever come up against and just wants to die as a warrior. He appears when you reach level 80, a level many players never actually reach in their playthroughs, and is widely considered to be the final boss of the game since by then you have most likely already defeated every other major villain. He's stronger than any other enemy in the game and levels with you so you'll never out level him like you do other enemies.
Just backstab him a few times with DB gloves on :)
I guess you haven’t fought Karstaag
What console commands????
He's probably the avatar of an Aedra.
Bob from Rorikstead
He's you. Dark Link--I mean, Dark Dovahkiin
Once you reach lvl 80 he will show up and challenge you. He's a decent guy, won't attack you for betrayal. He wants a clean fight up a mountain. You shout, he shouts. You use destruction, he uses destruction. You shoot, he shoots. You beat him up with any weapon, so he will. You bring a daedra from oblivion, he brings another. Real badass. Best fight in the game.
I always had issues with the crazy old mage that attacks you once you level up magic.
I always believed he is like a representation of what if we had pvp in skyrim, this guy is like another kitted out player
I save before fighting him because I end up one-hitting him & killing him too soon. I'm usually to OP that I have to remove enchanted stuff for a fair fight. I've learned to stand up hill from him so I don't get Fus Roh Dah'ed off the cliff.
Where’s the “laughs in resto-loop” guy? This thread feels so empty without that comment. 😢
Whoa I have played through six times and never saw this giant man!
Nobody really knows there's some theories he's the Current Reincarnation of Hoonding the Redguard god of Perseverance, but the in game reason is cuz he levels with you and has some Unique Perks
I was so disappointed by him. I’ve played for years and wanted a good way to cap my current (longest played) character. He was dead immediately - I already had Karstaag to help me. I didn’t realize he would be so easy with Karstaag, even on Legendary, such a disappointment lol
Some Redguard larper who thinks he's going to Sovngarde.
Well look, ~~Zaphod's~~ the ebony warrior's just zis guy, ya know?
I did the fortify-resto loop, enchanted a ring of Fortify Alchemy 88,000%. Then brewed a couple of crazy powerful Fortify Enchanting potions. I used one to the enchant my Daedric helmet with Fortify archery 88,000%. Because of that, my Zephyr bow does 886,000~ points of damage. I one-shotted the Ebony Warrior.
Damn bro. Was that one sentence?
Fight them
His only weakness is punctuation.
If you actually beat him before going to Sovngarde you can see him there
He's a character created to make murder-hobos self-reflect. Now you know how those bandits felt fighting you.
https://youtu.be/X7xhqGpBa2s?si=ze9chYEPbwrhgffw
https://preview.redd.it/0ywqcc6nk49d1.jpeg?width=298&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e6e345a2fd2cac464c47fb85055255bd6447fcd8
Some Redguard nerd who likes to larp as a nord, begs for sovengard even though he will never be allowed in because he’s a desert dwelling bitch
[This is a long video](https://youtu.be/ZlF7hkSfL_U?si=YnKlTqcU-F8pNsAc) that examines a few different possibilities as to who he is.
With him being a redgaurd and the next game being set in hammerfell I feel we'll find more out about him in the next game. Probably only a few hints here and there.
He's the EbonPapaRin.
It's like fighting Red after beating the Elite Four in Pokemon Crystal haha
Samuel L Motherfuck’n Jackson
Don't kill him. You'll need him at end game time.