I can do a little post for Cilla if you guys want and I've had some time to think up a scene for Alice back at the house. Try to get Willow involved so she can post again.
I'm also excited for when we get to the Whitescar Brotherhood and have some proper battles going on here. I've been playing a lot of Medieval 2: Total War as the Holy Roman Empire, who are basically real-world Nords. And I've been fighting the Danish who are the other real-world Nords. I've gotten some fine inspiration for the look and feel of battles for this as I've been slaughtering, spying and assassinating my way across Europe. Poland's been putting up a tough fight and the Danes are really tough. Those Norse War Clerics put up a nasty fight against my mailed knights. They were even responsible for turning a battle that was going well into a massacre that destroyed BOTH armies to a man. One War Cleric was left alive and everyone else, my men and the Danish, were killed, captured or routed. Nasty defeat but incredible epic.
Something interesting I've noticed though. In Skyrim, as in most high fantasy games, people mostly use swords of varying lengths to do their bloody business. In medieval Europe swords were a relative luxury because they were expensive and required proper training to use. Only nobles, royalty and the knights and armies they funded could afford to use swords extensively. Most men made do with other weapons like maces but the most common weapon in Europe was the spear. Anybody could pick up a spear and shield and stand their ground and most armies comprised of spearmen for that reason. Plus they were really cheap to produce. Yet in Skyrim, no one uses spears. The hold guards should be expected to use spears but none of them do. You can't even get any yourself. So why is that? When did we decide that spears in a fantasy RPG aren't worth our time when they were ubiquitous in history? And how come everybody can just afford swords? Even an iron one would be more expensive than a steel spear and the spear would probably be more useful. I don't expect an answer but it's something to think about. I could also get into crossbows as they were another cheap and easy-to-use weapon that everybody in Europe used but I know Dawnguard adds them. How do they compare to bows?