#ranara

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 I have been drawing a lot, just not finishing much b/c time and energy

So, here’s a compilation for your entertainment. This time, Elder Scrolls Edition

Click for Captions!

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So tell me more of the TES OCs/Elder Scrolls versions of charas you have! Where do they live or like to go? How do they make a living? What are some of their noteworthy skills or talents? And if you've answered this before, you can ignore me; I just may not know because my net is slow and cannot tumbl most of the time. Hahaha

I have not ignored you, friend! I’m just slow as friggin’ molasses and busy/tired all the time to boot

So far with TES OCs, I have Nera(of course), Iala, and Zelah(Zeela), along with their various relations both new and old. Though in a strong sense, they’ve already become characters of their own and my idiot self should have renamed them lmao

But first of course, we have Nera. Nera is… a lot more stable, in this setting, though still a bit morally dubious. Just significantly less murderous and more thievery dubious this time around.

Whereas turian!Nera had a lovely(read: horrendously abusive) upbringing under Narrok,  khajiit!Nera was actually raised by her parents, Ranara and N'eroh, down in Falkreath and its surrounding areas. Her early life was a lot more chill, almost normal in most ways, and though she still learned various martial skills at a young age (Hand-to-hand and archery from her father, and some sweet swordsmanship from her mother) it was in a much more supportive, healthy manner that left Nera skilled without the detriment of being raised to be a gun like turian!Nera was.

If anything, her upbringing was pretty lax, almost too lax, with Rana and N'eroh being wanderers from Hammerfell and Elsweyr, respectively, who put most emphasis on freedom and seeing what the world had to offer over most things. Eventually, it came to inevitable point at 15 where Nera got the traveling bug herself, and that’s when she left her home to travel the rest of Skyrim, going to Riften, Windhelm, Winterhold, and Dawnstar until eventually settling semi-permanently in Solitude.

She stayed for a few years in Riften, where she found out she needed money which then lead to finding out she was pretty dang good at breaking into places and obtaining items of value. What started out as “Hey kid you’re pretty dang good at this” turned into “I can make a living doing this, holy shit”. And she did. Nera became great at both obtaining items and making sure they got into the hands of the “right” people. She even had a brief stint with the Thieves’ Guild, though at the end of her time in Riften, decided she didn’t quite fit in and preferred doing things her own way that didn’t involve so many shakedowns.

From there, she left for Windhelm, making further contacts among residents of all sorts, from Argonian dockworkers to Khajiit caravaneers to the occasional Nord merchant, using swift hands and a lot of sweet talk to make everyone happy. Or at least, most people happy. She still had occasional run-ins with the law, which made some guards unhappy, but more importantly she had a run-in with Narrok Ironhand, an influential Nord businessman, who seemed okay at first but turned out to have cargo Nera wanted no part of. She relieved him of said cargo and fled town. From there she went all along the northern and central parts of Skyrim, from Winterhold to Windhelm to Morthal to Dawnstar, and eventually she ended up in Solitude. Solitude, she liked, and it was there that she stayed for many years until she met our dear Fenir, who very clearly swept her off her feet and eventually moved to Anvil in Cyrodiil to live happily ever after with hellspawn and shenanigans.

(Jk, they fled to Cyrodiil to get away from Narrok and actually traveled for years until the twins happened. Then they stayed at Skingraad and traveled again when Brynne and Illaren were grown. Haven’t established much beyond that yet.)

And yeah. Nera continues to use her skills as a charismatic thief, a businesswoman, occasionally a mercenary and whatever else she needs to be to make a living. She’s good at sneaking about, she’s good at archery, good at dual-wielding a sword/dagger combo. Good at swindling, good at talking her way out of situations and making people happy. Also decent, then pretty good with Illusion magic. She is a cat lady of many talents.

Her son, Illaren, is definitely of a more magical persuasion, and is the closest thing to a pure mage that I have. While he can wield a sword with strength and precision, and he has his charm where it counts, he’s without a doubt a more scholarly sort overall. Always learning, always wanting to find and analyze the secrets of the universe. It gets him into trouble more than once, but beyond that it remains to be seen what he’ll get up to.

@greyfen can tell you more about his sister, Brynne.

I can tell you more about Iala, though. Like Illaren, Iala is also a scholarly sort, though she tends to take a more hands-on approach because she’s in her sixties and has long ago lost any sort of apprehension towards going into scary old ruins. She’s terrifying and out of fucks to give about anything that doesn’t involve discovery and weird experiments.

Iala had a pretty humble beginning, though, being born to fairly ordinary parents in Daggerfall. Her altmer mom was a mercenary, while her bosmer mom was a local alchemist/healer. Iala seemed to pick up from both of them yet also delved her own path, showing an interest in magic and technology fairly early on. Her parents arranged for her to have a tutor immediately, and said tutor, a Breton wizard by the name of Charlemund Wickcroft was happy to have her and have her excel.

He was just the first(if major) step in Iala’s education though, as the bosmer ended up going almost quite literally all around Tamriel to further her skills. From Daggerfall she went to Alinor, and from Alinor to the College of Whispers, and finally briefly to the College of Winterhold before she decided she was only going to learn more by going to the source.

The source was, of course, the various ruins and mystical objects scattered throughout Tamriel. The Ayelied and Dwemer ruins in particular caught her interest, and from there she studied both on her own and with others for decades before publishing a series of books on her observations and theoretical new applications of old technology. She made quite a profit from both valuable trinkets she found and said books, eventually allowing her to go from a simple traveling hermit lifestyle to that of a luxury witch hermit lifestyle. Still not satisfied, though, she continues to explore and experiment, seeing how far she can go and what boundaries she can push before old age decides it might be brave enough to claim her.

If I were to simplify her skills into a list, I’d say she was good with the arcane of all sorts, reverse-engineering and engineering of technology both magical and not, and not giving a fuck about looking death in the face as long as its FOR SCIENCE. Also, she was born under the sign of the Atronach and is capable of absorbing magic as well. Very hand for magical items that wanna kill her lmao. but yeah. SCIENCE

Finally we have Zelah, a dunmer Morag Tong assassin who essentially Mass Effect Zeela had she gone down a darker path. Unlike her quarian counterpart, Zelah was orphaned at a pretty young age and thus didn’t have much of a family to raise her, instead being raised by a Morag Tong agent and their various contacts. The guild, in essence, became her family, and she’s remained fervently loyal to it since, even as it stands as a shadow of what it once was.

I’ve yet to plan out her journey beyond that aside from the fact that Talsin, another Morag Tong assassin, is family to her and that they likely travel beyond Morrowind for reasons currently unknown. Skill-wise, she’s still retains her old information broker talents from Mass Effect: She’s good at lying, she can be manipulative, and she’s very good at finding out other peoples’ business. Unlike her counterpart, however, she’s also much more physically-adept, being an expert in poisons and knife-throwing combined with cloak and dagger tactics. She’s a master at getting people before they know she’s coming- whether she’s smiling in front of their face or coming out from the shadows.

And I think that’s it for now! I’m sorry for the fact that I seemed to have rambled instead of just straight up answering your questions but like…. Its fine, right? You learned more about them, and that’s good, right? Right. Totally right.

Thanks again for asking about my fools!

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Tell me about Nera's family in Elder Scrolls. Is Rana still around? If so, are Nera and her mother still in contact? What drove Nera to become an adventurer?

Oh, well, in Elder Scrolls, Nera's family definitely still exists! Actually, fun fact, it's the one setting where Rana and Nera's father, Nero (Or N'eroh in this setting lmao) get a "good end" in that they're both alive, together, and not separated from Nera in any permanent sense.

In ES, Ranara and N'eroh are wandering adventurers/mercenaries for hire who made it their goal long ago to see as much of Tamriel as possible together and just happened to have a kid in the process. While Nera herself wasn't exactly part of their plan, they worked it out, even managing to temper their mutual wanderlust to raise their fuzzy hellspawn in Falkreath for a time. 

As soon as said hellspawn left the nest, however they took back to traveling again pretty quickly once they figured she would be relatively okay without their guidance. (Aka they followed her for a bit to keep an eye on her initially, much to Nera's annoyance lol)

From there, both Nera and her parents managed to keep at least relatively in-touch with each other by sending various updates about where they were headed and when. Nera still both sends and gets letters from them throughout their lives, and sometimes they meet up, and the arrangement works fairly well for them, even if it seems a bit distant to others. To them, generally when they all meet, they simply pick up where they left off, and while it has its pitfalls(There are- definitely- times where Nera has gotten into trouble and really could have used their help), it seems to be the best way of doing things that they've come up with. Nera is probably the least wander-y of the trio and even she gets antsy when she's in one place for too long lol

So... that kinda answers why Nera became an adventurer. She inherited her parents' wanderlust a bit, sure, but more importantly she's a very curious person by nature who loves seeing new places and meeting new people, no matter what universe. She just happens to be the most successful in this universe, and therefore the most well-traveled. She's more able to settle in one place if the people are good, but she always feels to need to get out and see something new now and then to avoid going too stir-crazy. It's just how she is.And yeah, that about sums it up!

Oh, but also, for some extra facts it's worth noting that while I'm here: While Rana and Nera are both your typical cathay khajiit, N'eroh is a cathay-raht, aka he is Very Big with even more prominently feline anatomy (aka he's got digitigrade feet in contrast to his wife/child's plantigrade). Because Khajiit are friggen weird but I'm too much of a coward to make any of them a housecat lmao. Maybe a grandparent is a giant bobcat or something who tf knows

(I’ll do a proper pic later but this gives you a vague idea of their size difference. Rana isn’t short. N’eroh just towers over pretty much everyone lol.)

Also also, Rana is originally from Cyrodiil and N'eroh is actually from Elsewyr, with the accent and everything. Rana is an incredibly skilled swordsman, while N'eroh is incredibly proficient in khajiiti martial arts and with bows. It's very fun. They're all very good at kicking butts. It's great.

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Who out of all your crew are your favorites to write?

I tend to go through phases where I'm really into writing a specific character, but the constant is always Nera. I can practically write her in my sleep, though admittedly some of that might be because she's my oldest OC who is currently still in-use.

But yeah, who I want to write depends on my mood otherwise. If I want to play a refined character, I go for Delani, if I want to play someone who's overall sweet but has a darker side, I go for Zeela. If I want to write someone who's prideful and still trying to figure himself out, Illaren is starting to be a good choice. For the lone quiet badass, I go for Ada, and for a more outwardly cheery but secretly neurotic character, there's Raeto. When I want to play a fun character with dark undertones I go for Rana, and for Andromeda and just currently in general, I've been really into writing Iala who is turning out to be a vaguely mad scientist type.Currently, in-order, I'd say my more active characters, from most to least easy to write, are:

Nera, Iala, Rana, Illaren, Zeela, Delani, Ada and Raeto.

The order of the others is constantly changing, but Nera is my one constant. Nera is my babe

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It’s mother’s day, so I drew some mothers...?? It was totally planned, definitely

--Actually that’s lies. I really like drawing families and trying to figure out how to make characters look related so I did these a bit ago and decided to color them for funsies

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I would love to hear the "Dogtags" response for all the OCs! Unless that's too much to write out right now, in which case you can pick the two you want to write about the most! :D

A good question! How my characters want to be remembered... well.. for my main guys:

Nera would tell you that she wants to be remembered as a badass, someone who was competent and scary and got things done. It's true, too, she does. Part of her, however, also wants to be remembered for making someone's, anyone's life a little better. For being loyal to her people(As in, people she cares about. Her friends. Not turians lol), and for making some kind of difference in the lives of others that's not negative or unimpactful. It's part of what motivated her to stay on Omega during the Reaper War and also part of what motivated her to keep the Sarvhi Blades and Amaryllis running.

Zeela doesn't care who she's remembered by beyond her family and friends, but she wants to be remembered as someone who always cared and would always be there for them. As long as she can have that, she'll both live and die happy.

Rana wants to be remembered fondly by Nera as a mother who always cared and always loved her no matter the circumstances.  For others  she wants to be remembered as someone who was fun to be around, but beyond that? She really just doesn't want to be remembered for all of her failures in life. She feels like she's a walking example of how not to live one's life, and if she could avoid that by her death, she would be at peace with it. If not, well. As long as the people close to her love her, that's good enough too.

Delani would never say this aloud as even she knows when something sounds way too arrogant, but she kind of wants to be held as an example of the perfect Spectre. She's very confident in herself and her abilities, prides herself on them. Being a Spectre has become who she is, essentially, so it's just an extension of that. She wants to be remembered as someone who got things done, no matter the circumstances, in order to make the galaxy a better place. Beyond that, she doesn't give a shit lmao

And finally, we have Blue, who simply wants to be remembered as someone who was/is moral and principled, loyal, and never content to do things by halves. Like Delani, she can't bring herself to care beyond that.

Thanks for askin!

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7, 3, 23 and 34 for Rana

7. Does your character have recurring themes in their nightmares?Honestly, probably either people pointing out what a failure she is, or more likely, something happening to Nera. Either not finding her, finding her dead, or whathaveyou. 

Nera is kind of everything for Rana(For better or worse), so these dreams tend to weigh on her a lot when she has them.

3. What is/was your character’s relationship with their father like?

Well, they haven't talked in over a decade, if that gives you an idea lol. Deserting the Hierarchy to go frolic with your smuggler boyfriend isn't exactly the best way to better your relationship with your father. It only deteriorated further when Rana eventually was incarcerated and her whole story of her missing years unfolded.When she was younger, though, it was better. Rana was even the apple of her father's eye, for the longest time, even if back then she was still considered somewhat of a problem child. He was far more likely to defend her then, whereas now, not so much. Sometimes, Rana misses him, and it hurts, but for the most part she's determined to leave this part of her past behind and as such goes out of her way to avoid him. Not that he’s gone out of his way to make much contact.

23. What does your character dislike in other people?

Pointless cruelty(Though admittedly she's probably the most tolerant of my characters, given, you know. Pirate past.), arrogance, being too strict or uptight, those who are too quick to criticize. People without senses of humor.Rana tends to like most people by default though, and is very much a people person so honestly if you're not Super Justice Man or Satan's Walking Butthole, you're probably good.

34. Is your character more likely to keep trying a solution/method that didn’t work the first time, or immediately move on to a different solution/method?

She might try something one or more times if she feels she was close, but otherwise will move on. Much like in her life in general, she's not really one to cling onto past whatevers simply for the sake of it. If it don’t work, let your emotions do their thing and then move the heck on.

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Ranara would totally go to the gym with Styia

10. so canon. so very canon absolutely