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Character Build: The Spirit Reaper

Tags: #Character Build Blacksmith  #Character Build Elementalist  #Character Build Enchanter  #Race:Breton  #Rank:Recognized  #Death  #Scythe  #Soul  #Spirit Reaper 
  • September 8, 2012

    Spirit reapers are humans that have been convinced that they are an incarnation of the grim reaper himself. They strive to achieve his likeness, trapping souls and using them for their own purposes. Usually, at least. But you, you are motivated by an even greater goal. You are dragonborn, and can thus absorb dragon souls, which are much more powerful than regular ones. Embracing your destiny, you equip yourself to survive impacts from both sword and spell. The dragons will not stop you. No one will. No one.

             

         The Grim Reaper/My souls keeper/Armed with darkness and fright/He comes for you in the night.

                        The Spirit Reaper

    Race: Anything goes really, although Breton is the most useful in my opinion, because of the magic resistance and Dragonskin.

    Standing stone: Atronach or Shadow. Atronach is probably better overall, but Shadow is cool if you want to play a "silent death" kind of character.

    Major skills: 

    Smithing: To best achieve the likeness of the grim reaper, spirit reapers are masters of both creating their own weapons and armor...

    Enchanting: ... and giving them appropriate magical effects.

    Two Handed: To get maximum damage from your "scythe".

    Minor Skills:

    Destruction: Your ranged attack. At first I thought about frost, but I ended up with shock because I haven´t  tried the element before, and it´s quick and lethal, the traits I imagined this character would have.

    Restoration: Your form of healing. The grim reaper cannot sustain injuries, so why should you?

    Heavy Armor: Not many perk points here, but useful to keep you alive.

    Shouts: 

    Marked for death: Obviously, the incarnation of death should be able to doom people by marking them.

    Soul Tear: Useful for filling soul gems, fits roleplay. Also, since you are using your mouth to shout, you are technically sucking the soul out of their bodies!

    Become Ethernal: Deep down you know that you are but a mortal, but assuming a ghostlike form brings you one step closer to being an immortal.

    Quests:

    Main Quest: You want to get to absorbing dragon souls as quick as possible. It´s reaping on a whole new level!

    College of Winterhold: To get powerful spells early on and train your magical abilities.

    Companions: Optional, but useful to train your warrior abilities.

    Boethias and Azuras quests: Boethia for Ebony Mail, Azura for black star.

                                               

                                               Additional Details:

    Vampirism: The grim reaper is immortal, so it would be logical for you to want to be too. How does a mortal go about becoming immortal? He becomes a vampire! This will also allow us to take advantage of Necromage, which will give us a big buff to many of our abilities.

    Dawnguard: Now that you already are a vampire, what´s stopping you from taking it one step further? Become a vampire lord, the very embodiment of evil! Also, bloodcursed arrows and soul cairn.

    Daedric Quests: A friend of the daedra, the soul reaper completes tasks for them in order to get powerful artifacts such as a star of darkness for soul storage and a poisonous piece of armor.

    Level 50 perk spread: http://skyrimcalculator.com/#186393

                                         Equipment:

    Scythe of harvesting: Ebony battleaxe (which is scythe-like) enchanted with soul trap/fiery soul trap and paralysis. 

    Headsman´s axe: A good alternative. Not only is it the biggest axe in the game, making it quite intimidating, but it is also good friends with death, often inflicting it even when not used in battle. This could make it quite attractive to the spirit reaper.

                 Headsman'sAxe.jpg

    You can either go for the ebony mail or a self enchanted chestpiece of ebony armor, whatever floats your boat. Gauntlets and boots can be either ebony or daedric. I like daedric, but it´s your choice. The enchantments are completely free choice, it depends on your playstyle. I like to have some extra health, some elemental and magic resistances, and some health and magica regeneration. As helm you will have a dragon priest mask, as it has an ominous and skull-like look to it. I like Nahkriin, because it´s black and augments some useful skills. The downside is that *minor spoilers!* you only get it at the very end of the main quest *minor spoilers end!*.  

                                                   Roleplay:

    Kill whenever you get the opportunity. Murdering makes you more powerful, enhancing your skills and giving you souls.

    Collect souls: You are the harvester of spirits! I have a whole chest full of filled soul gems in my house.

                                                           Special Moves:

    Ultimate Punishment: First, you paralyze them with a blow from your axe. Then, they can only helplessly watch as you proceed to suck out their soul! Requires: Paralyze enchantment, Soul tear.


    Casters Bane: A group of unfriendly mages would be the end of many, but you laugh in the face of such dangers! Unaffected by their attacks you take them out, all at the same time!

    Requires: Dragonskin with atronach stone (spell immunity) and a powerful lightning spell. Chain lightning for groups, thunderbolt for a single enemy.

                                                       Closing notes:

    This is still an open concept build, what you see above is only my personal preference. If you feel like it you can put on some black robes and go more necromancer, or become a silent killer embracing illusion and light armor with the nightingale armor set (the hood looks great, and achieves the "deadly" look really well).  


  • Member
    September 8, 2012

    Great build im proud to be the first like but perhaps you could add some perk choices and a bit more on the equipment, great job

  • September 8, 2012

    Loving the imagery and general cruelty of this build! You may want to consider a slight name change, Narmis put up a Soul Reaper a while back. I do love that ebony war axe though!

  • September 8, 2012

    I was not aware of the other soul reaper.

    I´ll have to make a slight name change in that case. Glad you like it though!

  • September 8, 2012

    Thanks a lot! I´m not sure if I´ll put up a perk spread, because as said in the build, much of it is open concept. I might do though!

  • Member
    September 8, 2012

    Awesome build! Instead of the Nahkriin mask though you might want to try the Nightingale Hood, it's black, fits a little bit more with the theme i think, and the illusion bonus is quite nice.

  • September 8, 2012

    If I were to play the "silent killer" version of the build I would definitely use the nightingale hood!

    I like the dragon priest mask because it kind of looks like a skull, and the grim reaper is most often depicted as a skeleton. The nightingale hood is great, but I prefer Nahkriin. I might add that to the open concept part though! Also, glad you liked it.