Showing posts with label Blue Monday. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Blue Monday. Show all posts

18 June 2018

Skin Tight Promise

We've got a bit of light fun today for



Written by Elaine Lee (of Starstruck fame, among other notables) for the 1995 Skin Tight Orbit collection, this was one of a set of stories put together under the premise of "Who said women can't write horny stuff?"

While the entire book was written by Elaine, each story in the volume was illustrated by a different artist. The three part tale, Promise Her Anything, featured artwork from Mary Wilshire, whose mid-80s work on Red Sonja is still fondly remembered by many. (Myself included) Among her other noteworthy works - she designed the iconic Blues Brothers logo.

To view the artwork, please visit the full mirror of this post in our adult content back room, The Other Voice Of ODD!



pages by Elaine Lee and Mary Wilshire for Skin Tight Orbit (1995)

04 June 2018

Covering The Sewer (No - Not Manhole Covers)

The previous post of Un-Comics came from Robin Bougie's very odd mag - Cinema Sewer.


In our adult content back room we've got a monster's dozen* covers from the magazine to wrap up today's Blue Monday Catch-up.  Step on back to the full mirror of this post on The Other Voice Of ODD! to view the cover gallery.


===

*(Bakers don't use that dozen any more - time to hand it off to someone else)

Blue Monday Bonus - Un-Comics From The Sewer


Say you're a fan of 'trashy' movies. You love discovering what weird creations have sprung from the minds of those artists who dwell off on the sidestreets, far from the main Boulevard of Dreams.
Where do you go to find them?

Okay. You go to the internet these days - though it can be a daunting expedition that may leave one suffering from things that can never be unseen. It's often safer to find a trusty guide. For the past 20+ years, one man has put his sanity on the line for us, bringing back his (and his team's) reports from the Cinema Sewer - a guide named Robin Bougie. We'll be talking more about the magazine, but today's focus is on their frequent use of Un-Comics for both stories and reviews.


That's the focus of the latest post in our adult content 'back room'. To view the accompanying artwork, visit the full post on The Other Voice Of ODD!
The rest of the text is presented here for context (and search engines, since they can't get past doorman)


Given the focus of the magazine, it should come as no surprise that the creators seem completely unfettered, in the finest underground comix tradition. They are designed to express personal voices - quite bluntly and proudly. (In the dark corners of my mind, the Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny is fought between Robin Bougie and Chris Gore, both summoning their troops from the best/worst of cinema)

So, here's a sampling of Cinema Sewer Un-Comics, ranging from film reviews to slice-of-life experiences to a History Of Bukkake and celebrity features and condemnations...



They even did a profile on The Fake Detective, Ed Lake -



Ed's done some great work over the years. I encountered him back in the late '90s while crafting some fakes (all clearly labelled, per his suggestion). The few months i spent playing with those taught me more about Photoshop than a decade of professional work using the tool. (In case you were wondering why.)

Sorry - couldn't find any on the active systems. I'd have to go digging in the archives to find examples.


page art by Robin Bougie, Kim Dietch, D.J. Bryant, David Paleo, Phil Barrett, Josh Simmons, Priscilla Equis, Joseph Bergin III, and Hugo for  Cinema Sewer #s 16, 18, 19, 20 & 22 (2005-2009)

Blue Monday - Dirty Shorts


I've been neglecting Blue Monday lately - a rather natural side effect of having no clue what day it is. Alas.
Today in our adult content back room we'll try to make up for it a little bit, starting with a selection of shorts. These have been piling up in my work bin from a wide variety of sources. Some, like the first and last offerings today, were not published in English, but the minimal dialogue needs no translation. Artists include Luis Royo and Lee Burks.

To take a look, please visit the complete mirror of this post on The Other Voice Of ODD!

Later today - we descend into the Sewer...



28 May 2018

A Case Of Don

Don Lomax was the feature of our first Un-Comic way back in our 13th post, but we haven't seen him since. Let's fix that with today's edition of



Case Morgan is something of a free dive into the murky waters of Don's primal urges and desires.
Let's let him explain it...


 To read the full article and see the artwork please visit the mirror of this post in our adult content back room, The Other Voice Of ODD!


all art by Don Lomax from Case Morgan #s 1-11 (1991, 1992)

07 May 2018

Prehistoric Blue Monday

Recently i've been teasing an upcoming focus on cavemen in comics. Let's get a jump on that for today's edition of


Today in our adult content back room we're looking at the artwork of Budd Root and his Cavewoman -
Head on back to view this post on The Other Voice Of ODD! 



artwork by Budd Root from Cavewoman-The Mature Version and Cavewoman Prehistoric Pinups #s 2, 4, 5, 6 & 7 (1998-2010)

16 April 2018

Vamping Without The Vamp



For today's Blue Monday post in our adult content back room, we've got a trio of tales from Vampirella magazine back in the '70s. We've got some folks you might not be used to seeing work together - like Jim Starlin & Alex Nino, and some you might not be used to seeing do 'blue' material at all - like Carmine Infantino (with inks by Alfredo Alcala). Those old Warren magazines hid a lot of odd little treasures like that for those who ventured off the path of the mainstream colour comics in those days.

To view the artwork, please follow the link to the full post on The Other Voice Of ODD!


Brother Hawk by Nicola Cuti, Carmine Infantino & Alex Nino for Vampirella #61, Wolf Hunt by Joe Wehrle & Esteban Maroto for Vampirella #74, The Service by Bruce Jones, Jim Starlin & Alfredo Alcala for Vampirella #78

09 April 2018

G.A. Welz, B.C.

Currently in our back room, we've got short little 5 page Blue Monday extra while i'm getting back into gear.

A decade before Cherry Poptart debuted, got into trouble, lost her last name and pool partied with Hobo Hal, Larry Welz was already working out the basics for the series. We may have been looking back on the Groovy Age around here lately, but they were calling it the Golden Age...

To read the story, follow the link to the post in back on The Other Voice Of ODD!.

Blue & Gray

Today's post in our 'back room' for adult content takes a quick peek at a short tale by an artist famed for his work on Tarzan, Buck Rogers, and Flash Gordon, among others in this edition of


 Most readers are likely to be familiar with Gray Morrow's adult themed strips like Orion and Amora, created in traditionally inked comic strip style. While i enjoy those, and we'll likely wind up running some strips eventually, there's one odd tale done quite differently rendered, and written by his then-wife, Betty.

If you're interested in this story (The Journey) from Wally Wood's prozine, Witzend, follow the link to this post on The Other Voice Of ODD!

 The Journey by Betty & Gray Morrow for Witzend #7 (1970)

02 April 2018

Chastity En Blue

This week's Blue Monday feature is Ron Embleton's comic, Sweet Chastity...


...featuring artwork from Azpiri, Milo Manara, Julie Bell, Boris Vallejo, Michael Lopez, Horatio Altuna, Luis Royo, and, of course, Ron Embleton.

As all Blue Monday posts, this one is located in our Back Room for adult content, The Other Voice Of ODD!  Please follow the link past the age checking 'security guard' to enjoy the pics.


art by Ron Embleton, Azpiri, Luis Royo, Milo Manara, Horatio Altuna, Julie Bell, Boris Vallejo, and Michael Lopez for Penthouse & Penthouse Comix (1981-1988, 1997)

26 March 2018

California Love Tree

Last week we saw a couple of covers from California Comics in our Non-Verbal Blue post. in our adult content back room.(Images shown in full post linked below)


These beautiful covers by Ed Watson come from a title most never encountered. California Comics is another of those books published by a comic shop with limited distribution. These came from Bob Sidebottom's shop in San Jose which, i believe, was also named California Comics. He also published Barbarian Comics and Barbarian Women Comics. Ed did some pin-up work for them as well, some of which appeared in that same post linked above.

The subject featured on the two covers above is the wizard Love Tree, who also starred in strips by Ed in all 3 issues of California Comics. I'll bet you can guess where this is leading, hm?
To this week's edition of




Meet Love Tree in the full post in our Back Room.


While Ed Watson also provided the painted cover to the 3rd issue, it didn't feature Love Tree.
It was Pure California - 

There is an Ed Watson doing comic artwork these days, but i get the impression that he's too young to be the same Ed Watson.

artwork by Ed Watson for California Comics #s 1-3 (1974, 1975, 1977)

19 March 2018

Non-Verbal Blue

Sorry for the disruption yesterday - we'll resume with Bunny tomorrow.
Amazing how disruptive a lost chastity key can be.
Meanwhile...

A couple weeks back we had a post entitled Non-Verbal In The Groovy Age looking at a bunch of splash page artwork from underground comics & comix. Of course, underground artists, being underground artists, frequently like to let loose when working free of the restrictions imposed upon mainstream work. And so we have a theme for today's


If you want to take a gander at a couple dozen full and double page uncensored art from the undergrounds in the Groovy Age, head on to our adult content Back Room for the post.
To help you decide, the image source listing is posted below.



art by (Ask!) from American Flyer #1, A-Plus #1, Armageddon #s 1 & 3, Barbarian Comics #s 2 & 3, Barbarian Women Comics #s 1 & 2,  California Comics #s 1 & 2, Eternal Comics #1, Greaser Comics #1, Heavy TragiComics #1, Illuminations #1, Jiz Comics #4, Laugh In The Dark #1, Man From Utopia #1, Pork #1, Purple Cat #1, and Snatch Comics #s 1 & 2 (1960s, 1970s)

12 March 2018

Blue Grass (sans music)

It seems like at least half of the stories drawn by Grass Green featured nudity and sex, making him a natural candidate for this week's edition of


As is now standard policy, this post is being published on The Other Voice Of ODD!, the 'back room' for this blog. The text is posted here for you to be able to decide if you wish to go view the artwork.
Link to post. 

Text Of Post:

Something i can relate to about Green was his insistence on creating material that was fun for him, prioritizing his personal enjoyment of the art over potential career options. For years, Dennis Kitchen tried to get him to do stories focusing on social and political themes so Green's work would fit better into Kitchen Sink's comic line-up. Perhaps we were left with a diminished legacy when Richard Green died so young, but hopefully he enjoyed his time in this world more for following his own desires. And he did gain recognition for his work in the industry even if he wasn't widely known. Even publications like Heavy Metal magazine drew upon his talents, though you likely might not have noticed at the time -


In the early 90s, Grass produced four issues of Horny Comix & Stories for Rip Off Press-



It featured pretty much whatever Green felt like creating, including his female 'Tarzan' strip, Gina Of The Jungle...



...which ended with one of the all-time great shock-takes in comics:



I love that face - i may make a t-shirt based on it.

Here's a quick peek at some of what to expect in Horny C&S -



 Warla is one of Grass Green's recurring characters. Let's stop peeking at pages and look at some full stories, starting with Warla's adventure from the second issue of Bizarre Sex -



Another of Green's regular characters was Hobo Hal. Hal was your typical down-n-out guy living rough on the road, with one small exception. Everyone wanted to "ride the hobo express", no matter where he went. You can imagine what happens when he wanders into somebody else's adult comic, like when he showed up Cherry Jubilee (because, apparently, Poptart was already taken)...



That's the typical ending to a Hobo Hall tale - run, Hal, run!
This story, from Grass Green's Good Jive #1 is probably the best summary of Hal's experiences...



Seriously. Everybody wanted to ride.



Our final tale today comes from Bizarre Sex #1 -



Oddly enough, Grass re-used this story almost 20 years later, changing from Incest to Sinnin' the title to match the title of the comic in which it appeared:



Condolences to the fannyless among you who took that bet.

everything by Grass Green for Bizarre Sex #s 1&2, Cherry's Jubilee #3, Good Jive #s 1&2, and Horny Stories & Comix #s 1,2&3 (1971, 1972, 1991, 1993)



05 March 2018

Blue Matinee

We're continuing our theme from the weekend in this edition of



If you weren't here, we've been doing Doppelcomix - imitations of the originals that copy art styles as well as the famous characters. We've got a Triple Feature and a bonus short for our matinee today - not quite Prince Valiant, Superman & Wonder Woman, and Flash Gordon - all brought to us by one of the old masters of the industry - Wally Wood.

NOTE: Wally's sporting serious wood today,
with all comics containing graphic sex & nudity.
The artwork has been moved to our 'back room'
for adult content following the site restructuring.

Our features, primarily coming from the second issue of Wally Wood's Gang Bang, are presented in the above billed order, with the bonus short following our final feature.
Bring Your Own Snacks.



features by Wally Wood from Gang Bang #2(1981)

26 February 2018

Beauty By Manara

When looking at erotic and naked art in comics, it was inevitable that we'd feature Milo Manara on multiple occasions. Nevertheless, let's do something a little special for his return to this edition of



Jumping back just under two decades to 1999, let's go to Aphrodite: Book One.
Les Humanoids published a translated edition of Pierre Louys' 19th century classic in a series of four books, each illustrated by a different artist. Presented here are the 15 plates Manara produced for the first volume.

NOTE: The images for this post contain much nudity and
have been moved to our back room for adult content.
The text remains for context, to let you know what you are missing.
Please follow this link to The Other Voice Of ODD! archive



If that doesn't make you want to read it, what would?


art by Milo Manara for Aphrodite: Book One (1999)



 

19 February 2018

Doc Wirtham's Greatest Hit


Hey! Remember Oisif Egaux?

NOTE: As intended by the creators, pretty much every image from this post
has been moved to our back room for adult content following the site restructuring.
The text remains that you may make a fair guess as to whether or not you wish to look at the pics.
Please follow this link to The Other Voice Of ODD! archive of the original post to view the artwork.


Odds are, most folks don't. But most likely never saw his work...



It's definitely distinctively different than most...




Okay - how about Clifford Neal? Is that name any more familiar?

Back when the underground comix market had dropped off to almost nothing, and before the independent market opened up, Cliff Neal stepped up to provide a unique open forum comic. Starting in 1976, he published a confusing number of issues (let's call it 10) of Dr. Wirtham's Comix & Stories -




As you might have already deduced, that's Oisif Egeaux's work on the cover of #2 (and #1, but i like #2 better). The first issue of Dr. Wirtham's C&S was completely the work of Egaux (pronounced Ego, appropriately enough in that case). This might not be too surprising, given that Clifford Neal and Oisif Egeaux are the same person.

Having produced the first issue solo, he ran this editorial at the opening of the first issue:


And how did that call for folks to join him work out?
Well - take a look at the Table Of Contents from the following issue:




I'd say it worked out Not Damned Bad. And i think that's the earliest work i've seen from Will Muegniot.

By a few issues later...




I used this one so you could see the Editorial Statement that ran with it.
Other contributors over the run of the book included Gene Day, Peter Bagge, Terry Beatty, and Joe Zabel. It's an oddly unique title, and we'll come back and look at some of their work another day. Today, let's look more at Cliff/Oisif's art and stories from the book.




all art by Oisif Egaux/Clifford Neal for Dr. Wirtham's Comix & Stories (1976-1987)










12 February 2018

BBBlue Monday

We're taking a look at a little seen side of a popular artist with the initials B. B., hence our stuttering subject line for today's edition of



Our featured artist today is one you might not expect to see here. Brian Bolland is well known for his finely detailed delineations and his realistic style, but you virtually never see real nudity from the man. Very nearly in The Killing Joke, but not to erotic effect. Kinda/sorta in The Doom Patrol in a not-quite-human/stare-back-at-you kind of way. Usually, at most there's an erotic undercurrent, such as in these images...



...and even then, he's hat-tipping to Chaykin that third piece.

But...  Once upon a time, 40 years ago, in a magical place across the sea, there was Little Nympho In Slumberland...



NOTE: This story and the following images contain much nudity
and have been moved to our back room for adult content.
Please follow this link to The Other Voice Of ODD! archive
of the original post to view the artwork
.


This odd bit of Bolland comes to us from the short lived Graphixus magazine -



We've seen a bit or two from Graphixus previously, and we'll certainly return to this self-describedly Odd book in the future.
Okay - They didn't use the word Odd, but, as Garry Leach said -



I'm going to call that close enough in intent.


pages from Graphixus #3 (1978)



05 February 2018

Frankly Blue

Finally back. #1 son and i spent much of the day with systems ripped apart trying to figure where the problem in the new system has been hiding with partial success. While no new system yet, i may be able to return to my artwork by week end. We shall see...

Meanwhile, back at our regularly scheduled



...as one might have inferred from the earlier post, we're featuring Frank Cho today.
Cho's love of the female form is no secret, of course. In addition to his many works in the superhero genre for Marvel, he's well known for his scantily clad Jungle Girl comic, are rather more clad Liberty Meadows.

 Here, of course, Jungle Girl tends more toward unclad...


NOTE: Following the restructure of this site, the images for this post
have been moved to our back room for adult content.
The text remains for context and perhaps to entice you to go look.


Don't be fooled by his lovely delineations - Frank Cho isn't limited to his line work for comics...



If there's one thing Frank has taught me, it's that girls in the jungle have a lot of troubles with animals...



...but, truth to tell, it seems Farm Girls don't have it easy, either -



Um... yeah.
I think we better leave it here and mosey right along.

Expect tomorrow to be late - it's been an exhausting day.

all art by Frank Cho 
















Blue Monday Cho Down

Hey! You know what today is, right?

It's time for a Bl-

NOTE: This lovely image by Frank Cho contains nudity
and has been moved to our back room for adult content.

Oh.
All right. We'll be late today, it seems.
Be back this evening...


29 January 2018

Blue Gaming

My current character in Skyrim is Hela.

Her name is not based on Thor: Ragnarok, it's one of 3 names that i've routinely used for ass-kicking Nord women over the years. Hela, Hel (same goddess, different poems), or Tyra (Tyr is god of war in Norse mythology, his daughter might go by Tyra). Nords are the local culture in Skyrim, the northernmost province of Tamriel, on the world of Nirn. Much of their culture is derived from Nordic traditions, naturally enough, and so that becomes the source of many of my characters' names.

But this incarnation of Hela is more than just an ass-kicking warrior woman. She's gone to the dark side and embraced it. And this makes her a good character for the subject mentioned in our previous post - a Skryim edition of



Meet Hela, a sweet Nord girl wearing her first crafted armour-


She still prefers leather for her armour, though she has upgraded a bit. And she is no longer "sweet" in any way...


Her gauntlets and boots now incorporate ebony, but still light weight. She goes very light on protection, heavy on offense. She likes to do her Bleach act -


Big-Ass Sword gets the job done is her basic philosophy. Though she freely embraces the bow for both Dragon Slaying and Sniper Assassinations.

As mentioned, no longer sweet in any way. Hela may have saved the world from destruction, but that's only because she was using it. Besides being Dragonborn, devouring the souls of the dragons she slays (57 and counting), she's also the head of a cannibal cult, she's restored the Dark Brotherhood by assassinating the Emperor, she killed the head of the vampire royal family so she could replace him...
Really -  you don't want to meet her in a dark alley these days-


NOTE: Most of the images for this post contain nudity and have been moved to our back room for adult content. The text remains that you may make a fair guess as to whether or not you wish to look at the pics.
Please follow this link to The Other Voice Of ODD! archive of the original post to view the artwork


Oh, and she's also not just a vampire - she's a Vampire Lord -




And, as you might have noticed from the last two pics, or inferred from her armour, Hela is an exhibitionist.
I don't mean that merely in the character design and how i play her sense. It's also mod enforced, and the character is coded with exhibitionist behaviour. If her clothes come off, she wants to enjoy it for a bit and will refuse to put them back on. Heading into a dungeon, she may decide it's terribly dirty and remove her armour to keep it clean. This changes both the level of challenge, and the visual entertainment of the game.

But don't let her appearance fool you - even dragons gather to pay respect to her while she freely enjoys the mountain air.




As mentioned last time, the physics engine of the game has been adapted to provided bounce & jiggle to breasts & butts, as well as sway to testicles and possibly to handling flaccid to erect penis transformation. Or that might just be an animated morph - i really don't know what's handling the erections.
(I'm not even going to try to claim innocence on that one.)

I should also mention that clothing, armour and NPCs have been modified, so the game has a sometimes radically different look to it. Take the daughter of the Vampire King who was my follower for a while. Her name is Serana, but she looks little like the Serana of the Dawnguard expansion to Skyrim. I'll let you guess which one is the original, and which is taken from my current game-




Umm...  no. She doesn't usually 'dress' like that. She had some recent difficulties with some bandits. They've been known to leave souvenirs after a rape, like tattoos, piercings or locked bondage devices. Sometimes in combination, as seen above.

While typically the only rock & roll is of the avalanche variety, the mods do supply drugs to accompany your sex -







One can get fucked up to the point of barely being able to function. This also comes with a system of addiction, but don't worry. There's prostitution, so you can work for your drugs if needed.
And, speaking of drugs, you may have noticed that Hela's breasts seemed a bit larger in the second picture as compared to the first. That's not a misperception. There's this drug called Lacatcid, see...
It's used by dairy farmers who don't use cows. You probably don't want to get dosed with it; certainly not on any regular basis.

It's a dark world in Skyrim these days - Dragons, Civil War, Regicide, Slavery, Banditry, Misogyny, and rampant Rape. And it's not just bandits and guards looking to take advantage of any adventurer that comes their way - even the undead in the tombs can get literal boners.

In the wilderness, one looks to quickly put down trolls, werewolves, and anything else encountered before they turn the tables and take what they really want. Even giants have a whole new meaning of dangerous-





And, the world is still more dangerous, and lecherous. You never know when it might go full Hentai on you...



Luckily for Hela, the chaurus did not lay a clutch of eggs in her. This time.
...even ancient Dwemer technology might still function to collect sexual energy from the unwary-




The local authorities have turned to extreme measures to try to deal with the bandits and general lawlessness during these dark times...













...and getting arrested can be much worse than one might suspect, not only including public shaming...




...but also guards who make cash on the side renting out the prisoners for beatings and worse.

Of course, it's not all bad times. Beyond basic seduction and charm, or prostitution if preferred, there are also full romance relationships and storylines to be explored via the mods. Some even pull unused dialog by the original actors from the data files and restore them to the game to help create new relationships.

Of course, what really gets people hot is watching Hela kill a dragon and suck down its soul...












Nothing like that post kill orgy to work off the tension of facing down a dragon.
Sometimes those dragon kills can be fairly epic, cutting to a cinematic rendering. But all too often, the randomly chosen camera angles suck bubbling farts out of dead toad frogs -


Hela can use dragon shouts to summon storms, with lightning striking the dragon twice while she climbed on its head and frelling smote it. And that's the angle from which we got to view it,  barely getting a glimpse of Hela's butt throughout the sequence. Tragic cinematography.
Sometimes the angles work out much better -






Yeah, that last scene is dark, but i like it for the stark lighting contrast provided by the flaming death the dragon was calling from the sky while we battled.

So - what was it that turned our sweet black smithing Nord girl into a demonic hellion rampaging across Skyrim? I mean, sure - she's seen some things -




...and the world is a dark and nasty place, certainly...




...but what really sent her over the edge was when bandits captured and gang raped her, and then sold her off into slavery -




After she killed her master and escaped, she went on a revenge spree that never really stopped.

I should also point out that the mods are in no way limited to female characters, with some excellent male only adult options available, too.

If you ever wondered why people are still playing this old game when so many newer worlds are available to play in, the mods might give you an answer.

One of the big things that makes the Elder Scrolls games so great to play for so long (Morrowind - Elder Scrolls III released in 2002 - is still getting regular updates and expansions) is the design philosophy that sets it apart even from other in-house games like the FallOut series. They build a huge world first, then stuff it full of stories instead of writing a big story and building a world around it. (That may not be the actual chronological order, but it's the priority order) This results in a world that can be played in and explored without ever bothering with the main story. I had played for a year or more before playing the Dragonborn story through for the first time, and Hela is only the 3rd character to complete the basic story of Alduin, the World Eater and the returning dragons. In fact, many of my characters live in worlds where the dragons are still legends. With an alternate start mod, the standard opening is bypassed and dozens of beginning options are available. As long as one never approaches the town of Helgen, the dragons never appear. And still the game world is expansive revealing new things after years of play.
The other big thing is that they leave the architecture for building that world open so that gamers may freely expand and alter the world, making it ever changing and growing.

We've only barely glimpsed the Blue side of Skyrim here, it goes deep into the dark. Pretty much the only place it doesn't go is children. The mods enabling the sex animations and interactions will not recognize children, nor characters scaled down to child size, and will disable themselves if mods tagging children as adults (to make them killable) are present in the game.

Of course, the blue mods are only a small percentage of the overall options available. There are huge adventures that don't even begin until after one has completed primary game quests, extending the stories long past their original endings. If one even follows any of the many primary quest storylines in the game. Simpler stories abound - playing a young alchemist or jewelry smith becomes an entertaining game by itself, just seeking to acquire materials and learn skills while trying to find shelter where Inns might cost as much as a couple hundred dollars a night for a bed. I've had characters who've never held a weapon or never cast a spell play for 30 levels or more. Placing character based limits greatly enhances the replay factor, too.

Hela, for instance, uses no magic. Nords look down on spellcasting. But she does work the magic in metal, not only forging her own weapons and armour, but enchanting them as well. This suits her world view. And it makes the game completely different from when Selene, a necromantic conjurer who never held a weapon,  was dealing with some of the same situations.

And, of course, though Skyrim may be a bleak, cold land...


...it's not too hard to make new friends...




all screens from (heavily modded) Skyrim (TESV)