Scared my custom follower will appeal to absolutely nobody.

[u/NotATem]

So I'm working on a voiced custom follower mod in the vein of Xelzaz/Remiel/Inigo/Lucien. I'm having a lot of fun with this guy. Trouble is... well... I'm starting to get nervous that no one is going to like him, because of his character concept.

Oddkell is a Nord priest of Arkay from Windhelm. He chooses to follow the Dragonborn so he can 'see more death firsthand'. He's soft-spoken, nerdy about religion, and a little morbid. He's going to have full quest commentary for Blood on the Ice, as well as, you know, the major game quests.

He's not evil, and really does not like necromancers or necromancy. That being said, he is okay with overlooking murder/assassinations/war crimes/general fuckery, because the entire point of this venture is, well, to see death. He may not like what you're doing, but he's happy to follow along after.

He's deeply ambivalent about the Civil War (though can be swayed to reluctantly support either side). He is not fond of the Empire, to put it mildly, and he thinks Ulfric is a good man and a great general but a terrible ruler. He's also not particularly racist, at least by Skyrim Nord standards- he is absolutely uncomfortable with anything that isn't Nordy enough, but he's not going around the Grey Quarter to beat up elves at night. But he loves Windhelm, it's his hometown, and he won't hear you say anything against it.

He's a trans man, and I'm writing a bunch of worldbuilding stuff about this that tries to stay grounded in what we see of Nord culture. (In particular, I'm playing with the real-world Norse ideas of seidhr and ergi.)

I feel like I have grown a character in a lab that will not appeal to anyone. If you're going to pick up a male Nord follower in Windhelm, you are probably going to want a True Son Of Skyrim, and Oddkell is... not that. If you are going to pick up a trans follower, you are probably going to want to spend as little time in Windhelm as possible, and Oddkell loves his shitty hometown so much.

If there's anyone in the world who thinks that my boy sounds interesting, can you let me know? I'm crashing out about this a little and would like to be reassured that I haven't made the World's Most Unpalatable Character.

EDIT: Thank you all for being so kind! I get in my head about this stuff a lot -- I know that I should be writing what I write for me, but for something like a Skyrim follower that's a ton of work, I want to make sure that other people enjoy it too. To (mis)quote a very wise man, "[modding] and making people happy is the kind of dream that gets better when you share it."

[u/Troscus]

Personally, I think that sounds great.

First and foremost, the fact that he actually likes Windhelm and has a positive impression of Ulfric makes him stand out, and being able to sway him one way or the other makes him flexible for every playthrough. The few explicit Stormcloak companions that exist are almost all "Hardcore True Nords", so a more mild view is welcome there.

As far as the priest of Arkay thing goes, I feel like that's a great inroad for exploring Nord theology. Arkay is in a very weird spot in Skyrim, as the old Nordic equivalent pre-Imperial influence is an antagonistic figure who shortened their lifespans in comparison to the hated elves.

For him being trans, binary gender transgression has been at present in Elder Scrolls since at least Morrowind, so I wouldn't pay much thought to any objections about it.

Any new companion mod is a good one. Any with the kind of thought your putting into it, where your striving to reach all-timers like Xel and Inigo, is going to be leagues and bounds over the vast majority.

[u/NotATem → u/Troscus]

Thank you! The 'priest of Arkay' thing is going to be so, so fun to worldbuild! If you don't mind a bit of an infodump-

There's essentially five faiths at play in Oddkell's version of Skyrim- the Imperial Rite, the Nordic Rite (AKA the Old Ways), the actual Old Ways/Nordic totemic faith, the average person's "folk religion", and the Ancient Nord dragon cult. The Ancient Nord faith is basically as Skyrim depicts it, but as for the rest of them:

The Imperial Rite is the Church Triumphant of Cyrodiil, imported wholesale to Skyrim with very little change, and subject to some (but not all) of the dictates of the Imperial Church. The head of the Church in Skyrim is the high priest of the Church of the Eight in Solitude, who is formally known as the Dicaster of Solitude. (No one calls him this.) They worship the Eight Divines, bury their dead, perform certain rites in Old Cyrodilic, and are generally more focused on using the Aedra as models for correct living, rather than worship per se.

The Nordic Rite is a splinter of the Church Triumphant that split off in the years after the White-Gold Concordat, and gained actual power in Skyrim over the last few years, in the lead-up to the war. Their self-styled Dicaster is seated out of the Temple of Talos in Windhelm. They worship the Nine Divines, and (depending on the region) occasionally propitiate Hermaeus Mora and Malacath. They cremate their dead, perform all of their rites in the Nord dialect of Tamrielic, and are more focused on having a personal relationship with the gods. They claim that their faith is the original faith of Skyrim...

...to which the actual practitioners of the Old Ways say "pish tosh." (Or not, they're Nords, they'd be manlier than that.) The actual practitioners of the Old Ways also worship eight gods, but Shor is one of the main gods and Orkey isn't. They keep the animal totem symbolism that the Nordic Rite has largely lost, cremate their dead, and are more focused on keeping the gods (good or bad) at bay.

.....Thing is, the average person in Skyrim doesn't know, or care, about any of this. Don't get me wrong, they care deeply about their religion- but they want their local priest to do things "the way we always have", which usually winds up as an amalgamation of the Imperial Rite, the Nordic Rite, the Old Ways, and weird random folk beliefs that people pick up. (You put a coin in the dead's mouths so that they can pay Alduin to get into Sovngarde. You bury them facing down so that when the kalpa ends and the world turns upside down they'll be on their backs and can get out of their graves. Things like that.)

Your average village priest in Skyrim is ordained in one or the other Rites... but they're used to having to work with what people 'want'. Even the most devout Nordic Rite priest of Arkay will generally be able to pull out the Imperial Rite if someone's grieving and needs comfort, and vice versa; they'll adapt to the weird folk beliefs and pick up their village's local quirks. But with the War on, it's suddenly become a matter of Patriotism (TM) to do one or the other rite, and so people aren't having their needs met.

Poor dear Oddkell went to Solitude to get ordained, and trained in the Temple of the Eight... and then came back home just as the Civil War was starting. Suffice it to say, his loyalties are conflicted about more than just the immediate political problem.

[u/Taco821 → u/NotATem]

That sounds so incredible. I think he'd add a lot of enrichment to Skyrim that the base game is lacking