Unexpected Roleplay Progression.

Anyone ever find yourself at a point where you look back and notice that your character is a far cry from how you intended him or her to be?

My current character for instance is a younger Nord named "Snorri Black-Nose", originally escaped with Ralof, dead sprinted to Falkreath Hold, making a living off the land, smithing and creating a variety of potions.

Eventually his focus shifts from being an average everyday woodsman to joining the Stormcloaks being faced with the cold hard truth of the civil war and the suffering of his kinsmen under the hands of the Thalmor while the Empire sat idly by.

A little further down the road, he goes spiraling down the DB questline, honing his skills of murder and combat even further, slowly becoming obsessed with life and death as he now throws himself head first into the dragon crisis, his heart burning with hatred and rage towards the dragons' cruelty and jealousy towards their immortality....

Snorri's story continues and I cant wait to see what happens next.

Anyone else feel like sharing?

My character started out as a young, idealistic student of magic. She left Cyrodiil in an attempt to enroll in the college of Winterhold. The student eventually became an adept, then a master of magic.

She expanded beyond simply using magic to become a battle-mage. Sword and Light Armor honed through practice with The Companions and enhanced magically through powerful enchantment of her own design. Alduin fell in flames to spell and blade and voice. The heroes of Sovngard sing still the song of her victory.

When the dark lord Harkon rose to menace the province, she was forced to enter The Soul Cairn for the good of Skyrim. But she could not do so without becoming a vampire. Or worse, allowing the vampire Serana tamper with her very soul!

Becoming a vampire was the only logical choice. It was a known quantity, she would remind herself. In addition to that, she would be able to study the effects of her condition. The prospect proved fascinating to her, and surely after she had observed all she wished, a cure would be made available.

It turned out that the cure was worse than the affliction. The filled black soul-gem needed to purge the curse of Coldharbour from her spirit would damn some poor captured soul in her place. Her ideals would not allow it. It was better to suffer the curse of Molag Bal than to damn a soul, no matter how wretched, to the horrors of The Soul Cairn.

A vampire she may be, but she resolved to keep her soul. She would control this curse, it would not consume her. She would not allow it...Still, the hunger calls to her... The night sings to her.

She is losing herself by inches. Her altruistic nature is eroded grain by grain in the name of survival.

I try not to plan my RP characters ahead too much, there's so many random encounters, and loot that can take you off on a tangent, and it's not like your character knows where the free Spell Tome: Flame Cloak is.

One of my characters started out as a good person, Pure Mage. Saved the College, became Arch-Mage... then it slightly took a different path of becoming obsessed with knowledge for the arcane, especially Necromancy.

Became slightly odd, would do things to obtain magical artifacts. Daedric and non daedric. Started eating people he couldn't raise as thralls. Because he figured their power must be in their blood.

Well, I never intended to switch Nendir's race a million times, for starters.

In all seriousness, however, I was fairly surprised at how Nendir turned out especially. He was meant to be involved with the College of Winterhold, but he got sucked into joining the Legion instead as one of its prime tacticians and magic advisers. He also became an outspoken advocate on racial equality, especially in Windhelm. Hence why he's so keen on ousting Ulfric.

Valbjorn hasn't changed much to me. He's Harbinger of the Companions, but doesn't feel like he's earned the right to lead them. Damn modesty...

I haven't done much with Ri'virr yet (replacing Rannulfus; the latter's file got deleted on accident).

I had a character that was supposed to be based on Aragorn from Lord of the Rings. He was all set, a light armor wearing Nord who wore just fur armor for the longest time. Then somehow, Brynjolf convinced him that his skills were practical for a thief and my character rationalized that in Skyrim, stealing from those who have and giving to those who don't, is a very noble thing to do which befit his regal heritage. Here's where I started to mix Aragorn with Robin Hood--which I maintain to this day is OK. But then the effectiveness of stealth killing began to creep into my character's mind and he started to develop this strange bloodlust. The urge to slit someone's throat got really overwhelming and soon he found himself leading the Thieves Guild and rebuilding a trashed Dark Brotherhood as the Listener. I actually started to play the game like it was Splinter Cell where I would reload if I was spotted. It got kind of sick, to be honest.

I started out very much intending to be a noble Ranger living out of the Alchemist's Shack, but turned into this thieving killing machine. I really don't know what the hell happened. Sadly, the character got deleted by accident and I've often considered starting over, but this time sticking true to the Aragorn intentions and perhaps making a case that he had some sort of heritage that made him an ideal/rightful candidate to lead the Thieves Guild back into a golden age of prosperity and nobleness.

Ansen was a savage and brutal vampire, more animal than human. She murdered lone travelers for laughs, blasting them to bits with the rudimentary spells that she'd once been so interested in as a mortal and filled her pockets with anything that wasn't nailed down. She enjoyed what small dominion she had over humankind, what power she had over the fates of others, how much stronger she is as creature of the night than she ever was as a human. In the same breath, she eventually came to realize exactly how weak she really was. Being of entirely indeterminate bloodlines, she had no clan to go home to, no useful skills besides bloodletting and daydreaming. She drifted aimlessly from settlement to settlement, slipping through locked doors in the night, pilfering what she could to keep body and soul together, feeding whenever she had the chance. She was not a lithe predator, but a scraggly wolf without a pack, scavenging what scraps it could and skittering away whenever someone gave it a hard kick to the belly.

And so she trekked through the icy wastes, to the end of horizon, to Winterhold, to gain power. At first she stuck to her old ways, pilfering from her classmates and teachers, snidely snarling during long lectures, fleeing the college grounds at midnight merely to catch some unwary travelers and satisfy her aching bloodlust.

But then things began to change. As time passed, she realized that she was no longer going hungry. That everything she could ever want was provided for her here. That she no longer needed to steal for money. And so, she gradually settled into her own domestication, growing fat from the blood of the readily-available and trusting mages surrounding her, growing in stature among her colleagues in ways she never imagined possible. The friendships she'd formed with the other apprentices and the townsfolk below were the final nail in her metaphorical coffin.

She grew to sincerely love the frozen, desolate land she'd been cast adrift in, so far from the world that had hated her and spent countless hours exploring among the glaciers of the Ghost Sea, scouring the dark underbelly of the college and uncovering every secret she possibly could. She came to believe that vampires could live with mortals in peace, that they needn't always be hunter and prey.

When a wandering, blood-starved vampire chose to attack town and subsequently murdered two guards, it was like a direct slap in Ansen's pale face. How could such a monster be of her own kind? And furthermore, was she herself really so far removed from that as she believed?

The questions only grew bigger as she and Brelyna toured Skyrim together, to spread the college's good name and complete research of their own. The vampire menace was everywhere, savagely threatening the innocent just as Ansen had once done. Never once was she allowed to forget what she really was. And so, fear grew inside her as she watched the growing drama play out. These vampires were not of common bloodlines and seemed to be banding together under a common leader. One, she feared, would not think a thing of a dirty little backwater bloodsucker. On the other hand, another faction of vampire hunters who would never look upon her kindly, was gathering to face the coming threat.

And here she is caught between the two of them - cowardly enough to beg her own kind for protection but despising them just enough to think of taking a stand against them.

My character started off as a power hungry man who seeked to be superior to everyone in Tamriel. His ego was large and he would kill anyone to prove he was the best. He seeked out the most powerful of weapons UNTIL he married Ysolda. A kind and gentle woman who loved him dearly, he also met Lydia who died whilst adventuring. This made him realise how others must feel when he took someone's life, after all everyone is a son, a brother and a father.
Joining the Companions pushed him further, seeing people's expression and gratitude for helping them made my character happy. However becoming a werewolf changed things, he lost control and murdered everyone in Riverwood, ashasmed he drowned his sorrow in the Thieves Guild taking his mind of his rampage. This led him to meeting new friends and gaining more power, he vowed he would not kill on those missions.
Then his past came back to haunt him.
The Dark Brotherhood showed up forcing him to kill one hostage. He murdered the cruel khajit pitying the frightened bandit and the rude single mother of six children. Joining the assassins he told himself "As painless and quick as possible will my victims death be. And only when I choose to kill, the Night Mother may tell me who I need to talk to, to get someone killed but I choose when."

Currently after ridding himself of being a werewolf, he is now a vampire and understands what it is like to be a vampire. Lonely. Vulnerable. And it made him realise something, a thought that ran across his head.

"Every day something/someone wants to kill you. Whether because you went in the wrong place, you looked like a tasty snack or simply because you're the Dragonborne. One the best day it is a group of stupid bandits or a pack of wolves. On the worst it is dragons, or you forget to feed and villagers want you burnt!"

For a couple of days now his adventures have become limited. He spends his time mostly in Solitude close enough to feed on the Jarl but far enough from anything/anyone to kill him.

My character kind of went sideways (mainly due to me, surprisingly) I had originally planned her out to be a shadowy assassin, a killer of men and taker of lives, and all that nonsense. I couldn't write a character like that very well so she soon started to slip into a "normal" adventurer, putting money and items before her companions. And then I stopped RPing and have yet to get back into it.

I am proud to see the RP section today though, and I know even if I don't RP anymore hundreds of others do.