I’ve heard that many people have trouble making a character that doesn’t ultimately end up being some sort of stealth archer. I don’t understand this at all, because all of my characters end up being conjurers. No matter what character concept I start out with, I can’t resist the raise dead spells, and invariably conjuration is my first skill to reach 100.

I find myself drawn to bandit camps. Raising a wolf or sabre cat from the dead is fine and all, but they’re lacking something important: the hopeless moaning of a doomed soul torn from peaceful rest back to its rotting corpse. The groaning noises excite me. The aggressive “OOOOGGGHH!” of the male Altmer (my favorite); the tortured “aaaaaaaaaRRRGH” of the male Nord; the guttural “aaaaaaaauuugh” of the female Nord; the piteous “Aoaaoaoaoaaooww” of the male Dunmer”; the occasional, plaintive “release me” as my undead slave stalks through Skyrim at night.

I sometimes lose track of things in battle. My companion (forget his name, the Nord guy with the two-hander) is fighting someone and some spells are flying, but all my concentration is on the beautiful form of my enspelled zombie. The delightful grunting, moaning, groaning, the occasional scream of “YOU. MUST. DIEEEEEEEEEE.” I laugh to myself as my zombie’s sword carves into my enemies. I laugh even harder as the zombie tumbles to the ground, seemingly dead…until I command him to rise once more. It’s my sole focus. It’s my sole reason for being in Skyrim. I’m not after the boss’s treasure at the end of the dungeon: to me, the dead are the greatest treasure in Skyrim.

Some people probably like to use strong NPC characters for their dead thralls, engaging in some sort of weird power fantasy, but not me: oh no. I love nothing more than seeing my low level bandit thrall being cuffed around like a schoolchild by Skyrim’s deadliest Dwemer centurions, dragons, and Atronachs, only to rise again and again, flinging himself and his iron sword and fur armor at my enemies. You have dragonbone weapons? I have screaming corpses, and patience. Skyrim just doesn’t understand what they’re up against. But it will.