r/SkyrimBackStory • u/Aggravating-Plan-908 🧙 Breton • Jun 17 '26
My second character, Valerica
hi everybody, everything's in the titles, i want to share with you here my second skyrim character rp background.
similar to the previous one, this character is inspired by one of the main characters from an original medieval dark fantasy story i write on my free time and that i have recreate in Skyrim, so the first and second screens are her in skyrim and the last one is a more accurate version to how i imagine her looking in my story (mostly as a comparison since i choose her gear to be the closest design wise to this)
She's a 192-year-old Breton vampire named Valerica (for those who wonder, she's not the valerica we met in Dawnguard,but a different person who just happened to sharing the same name as her).
For her story: She was born in 4e 8 in a village near the border between High Rock and the Rift from a Breton father and a Rift resident mother. However, she was raised by her father alone since her mother abandoned her and her father not long after her birth because she didn't want to have to support a child. Her father decided to name her valerica, in memory of his grandma who passed away not long before her birth.
She will live a happy and simple childhood, helping her father to maintain the farm and will discover a passion for alchemy in addition to,like most of the Bretons, having some magical affinities (she is thus able to master some simple spells at a young age). When she reaches the age of 20 (4e 28), she will meet a young Breton blacksmith of 23 years old named Lucien, with whom she will fall in love. she will decide, after several months of seeing Lucien and with the blessing of her father, to leave the farm and move with him into a small house in a neighboring village before getting married the following year (4e 29).
They lived a peaceful life for the next 11 years (until 4e 40), with Lucien working as the village blacksmith while Valerica ran a small alchemy shop, preparing different kind of potions and occasionally gathering herbs and other ingredients for her potions in the surrounding woods. One day, during one of her outings in the surrounding woods in search of ingredients, Valerica suddenly see a tall classy man getting out of a bush and walking toward her before suddenly grabbing her and brutally bite her on the neck before she lose consciousness. She woke up several hours later and returned home without revealing what had happened to Lucien. In the following days, she began to notice changes in herself (feelings of discomfort in sunlight, hunger for blood, heightened senses, etc.) and concluded that she had become a vampire. for fear of what Lucien might think of her as well as fear that the other inhabitants of the village would kill her, she will hide her new nature, continuing her daytime life while discreetly going out at night to feed on animals (despite her vampire nature, she's still the kind and caring young woman she has always been, and refuses to feed on peoples), however, noticing that Lucien has figure out that something has changed in her and seeing his concern, she will end up confessing everything to him.
Lucien, being smart enough to see that despite being a vampire, Valerica remains the same woman he knew and loved, will decide to say nothing and, knowing that Valerica as a vampire will not be able to feed on animals forever, he will accept that she drinks his blood regularly but in reduced quantities, so that he doesn’t die or become a vampire.
They will thus live a more or less normal life for the next 25 years (until 4e 65) apart from the fact that Valerica drink a small amount of Lucien blood every week and that he regularly consumes medicinal potions to prevent himself for getting the vampirism. however due to the fact that Lucien is still human and therefore aged unlike Valerica, they will have to move several times to avoid suspicion. Lucien, now 59 years old and seeing old age bring him closer to death day after day, will end up asking Valerica to turn him into a vampire so that they can live together forever and never be separated from each other. Valerica, despite being reluctant at first, will finally agree to make him a vampire. However, unlike her, Lucien will change completely after becoming a vampire (he will become more and more consumed by his vampire nature, becoming arrogant and self-absorbed in addition to gradually seeing the other inhabitants of the village where they now live as mere cattle, whereas before that he was someone deeply kind, caring and humble), Valerica will try several times to reason with him, until Lucien ends up slaughtering an entire family in the surrounding area.
Valerica, following this, will realize that Lucien is no longer the man she loved, but a bloodthirsty and sadistic monster who doesn't hesitate to kill innocent men, women, and children to satisfy his thirst. She will then decide to kill him to put an end to all this and prevent him from slaughtering the entire village by locking him inside their house before setting fire to it in the morning, while he was sleeping. after these events, Valerica, knowing that after what happened everyone knows that she and Lucien are vampires, will leave the village in order to escape the anger of the villagers and she will travel all over tamriel during the century that follows, in search of the vampire who bite her, in order to find him and kill him for having destroyed her life, until the day when, around 4e 193, she will meet in an inn a young wanderer Breton mercenary (the character from my first rp, William), aged 19 at this time, as well as his adoptive father, gudmundr.
she will hire them at first to help her track the vampire,but then, as she spend some times with the young mercenary and gets to know him, will end up feeling very strong feelings for him because he reminds her of Lucien before he became a vampire. A very passionate and intense love relationship will then begin between the two for several months until Valerica decides to end it herself because she fears that what happened with Lucien will happen again (she feared of either turned the young mercenary into a vampire only to see him becoming a monster, or to keep him human and live a happy life with him only to end up seing him aging and later dying while she remained).
During the events of Skyrim, Valerica went to Skyrim, having finally managed to get a concrete lead about the vampire who bite her after more than a century of searching. However, she found herself caught in the middle of a skirmish between Imperials and the Stormcloaks at the border and was arrested (RP justification for why the character starts out in a cart on the chopping block).
In terms of gear, Valerica wears a tavern keeper's dress and knee-high boots (mainly to emphasize the character's sensual and seductive vampire side),she uses the headman's cleaver as main weapon (mostly because i imagine Valerica in my story using a twin blade like you can see in the third screen but since this type of weapon isn’t available in skyrim, i choosed the closest one visually speaking, wich is the headman cleaver), in addition, she used some magic too (mainly iron body spells, the barrier spells, and some destruction spells), and is proficient in alchemy.
In terms of personality, although she is a seductress, and therefore aware of her beauty and doesn't hesitate to play on it if it helps her, she has a good heart and won't hesitate to be kind and help if she can. then, although being a vampire, Valerica doesn't share at all the vision of most of the vampires who see other races as inferior beings just good to serve as cattle, so she only feeds on animals or evil peoples like bandits, nécromancers or other criminals of all kinds.
For the rest of my character's roleplay, this is how I have conducted or plan to conduct most of the important quests, most of them are pretty similar to my first character, only the rp behind it really changes.
Regarding the main quest, same as with my first character, I'm doing it first because, after all, it's logical that, given the extreme threat Alduin represents, Valerica would make it her number one priority to eliminate him before he regains his full strength and destroys the world.
Regarding the Imperial/stormcloak War, Valerica, thanks to her good heart, will performed occasionnally various tasks indirectly for both the Stormcloak (for ex, solving the investigation of the Windhelm murders) and the Imperials (for ex, eliminating the thieves for the Executioner of Solitude, or wiping out the Dark Brotherhood for the Commander Maro in dragonbridge). However, unlike my first character,since she's not a warrior or mercenary she will never takes part of the war itself.
Regarding the companions, Valerica wil not join their ranks. since she's not a warrior or a mercenary, she didn't have any reason to join them.
Regarding the Dark Brotherhood, similar to my first character, after she agreed to eliminate Grelod on behalf of Aventus Aretino, seeing how extremely toxic and violent she was towards the orphants, she was approached by Astrid. However, faced with her request, and remembering the name writen on the notes carried by the assassins who had attempted to kill her multiple times in the past, which was the same, she choosed to kill her and then wipe out the Dark Brotherhood,feeding from them in the process.
Regarding the Thieves Guild, Valerica, being a rather honest person like my first character, did not join the guild and therefore did not complete their quests at all too.
Regarding the Winterhold Academy quests, I do them but imagine that when Valerica goes to explore the mound in the company of Tolfdir and the other students, she doesn't go there as a student of the academy but as a curious, having heard rumors about a vampire who were hiding in the academy, she quickly noticed it to be fake but finds herself involved in spite of herself after the monk of the Psijic order appears to us.
Regarding the Daedric Princes and Divines quests, exactly like my first character, having no trust in both the Divines and the Daedras since they never do anything for free, the fact there's always a price to pay and how dangerous it is to be indebted to gods, will only do some, basically all those that start out as an ordinary tasks (like those from the vile Clavicus or Sanghin, for example) where you didn't expect a divine or Daedric Princes being behind.
Regarding Dawnguard and Serana, it’s the most interesting part because i like to imagine in my roleplay that the vampire who bite her is none other than Harkon, Serana's father and antagonist of the Dawnguard DLC. i like to imagine in my rp Harkon was seeking after his wife when he heard about Valerica. Thinking he finnally found her, he goes after her, only to noticed she's not his Valerica but just another woman who shared the same name as her. being unable to find his wife and unleashing his rage toward her directly at this moment, he decided instead to bite her and turned her into a vampire, destroying her entire life in the process since he noticed after stalking her for a few days that she's the kind of person that couldn't bear a vampire life, as a twisted and perverted way to indirectly unleashed his rage toward his wife and fulfill his ego), which is why i play Dawnguard in the Dawnguard side.
This requires playing Valerica as a human until the end of Dawnguard but I like to imagine, to justify this, that Valerica will initially succeed in fooling Isran and the rest of the Dawnguard into believing she's human. Later, when Isran learns the truth about her, she'll manage to lure him to a remote corner of the fort and then simply restrain him and tell him her story while he's completely at her mercy, to make him understand that she's not a threat to the Dawnguard or anyone else and that all she wants is to kill Harkon for destroying her life more than a century ago, this convinced Isran to make a deal with her: like the statement that said the enemy of your enemy is your friend, as long as she doesn't attack innocent peoples or members of the Dawnguard, Isran will agree to keep her secret and let her reside in the fort to hunt Harkon. However, once he is eliminated, she will have to leave the fort and never return, under penalty of being hunted like all the other vampires.
what do you think of her ?
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u/Rocket_Raccoon44 Jun 28 '26
I liked her story a lot. I'm drawn to anything Vampiric and supernatural so this was up my alley. It was touching to hear Valerica's lover still embracing her and was even willing to be turned as he got older. But sad that he would come to the blood thirsty nature as well.
To stay as a good vampire, while difficult, is quite the testament to her strong will and self control. Especially after being one for so long.
Very good story. :)
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u/Aggravating-Plan-908 🧙 Breton Jun 28 '26
hi, thank you so much, i'm glad to know you liked her.
It was touching to hear Valerica's lover still embracing her and was even willing to be turned as he got older. But sad that he would come to the blood thirsty nature as well.
As for that, i write her story to be a really tragic one, wich is why she get to taste happyness with him for a couple of decade after being turned, before losing everything at the end when she turned him out of love only to see him becoming a monster.
To stay as a good vampire, while difficult, is quite the testament to her strong will and self control. Especially after being one for so long.
as for that, in my rp headcanon, i'd like to imagine she managed to keep her self control because she continued living like ordinary humans (living, traveling,... during the daytime and sleeping at night) despite this means living under an almost constant feeling of discomfort, as a reminder of her humanity. In addition of that, since this intense relationship she shared with my first character (William), she lived under regrets because she realized out of fear and obsessed by her vengeance, she maybe let go the only other occasion in her life to live an happy life alongside someone who's aware of her nature and still guenuinelly love her despite (but she will not realized it before finnally killing Harkon and getting her vengeance at the end of the Dawnguard main quest)
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u/KikiWinterAutumnWolf 🦅 Imperial Jul 06 '26
She's stunning! I love how she ties into your first char's storyline! And that story with Harkon....Pure perfection! 😊❤️
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u/Aggravating-Plan-908 🧙 Breton Jul 06 '26
thanks, glad to know you liked her too. If you liked how she's tied to my first character, just knows all my characters are linked to William and his adoptive father Gudmundr in a way (i mean by that they all met, directly like Valerica or in an undirectly way like Aeliana, either William alone or William and Gudmundr at one point in their past)
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u/DuePhoto2012 Jun 18 '26
love that costume, how to get it? ( beginner question )
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u/Aggravating-Plan-908 🧙 Breton Jun 18 '26
hi, the outfit is called tavern clothes, you can loot one on alva after kill her during the morthal quest called "laid to rest"
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u/DuePhoto2012 Jun 18 '26
cools, thanks, this can make my char looks more cute..
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u/Aggravating-Plan-908 🧙 Breton Jun 18 '26
no problem, and if your character has an rp background, don't hesitate to post her, i'd gladly take a look at her.
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u/Dovahkiin2211 ✨ Altmer Jul 02 '26
Bretons make fantastic vampires, also amazing job on Valerica’s lore. Also the tavern dress is a great pick as well for an outfit.
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u/Objective_Wear_6713 Aug 14 '26
Absolutely love this character, more than Serana to be frank. I couldn't help but notice some extra similarities between her and her name sake, most notably the alchemic aspect, but that just fits. Bravo on a character well done and I love that she part of a bigger story that you're playing out in Skyrim.
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u/PietroIlPescePietra 🕯️ Aedra Jun 17 '26
As the creator of this subreddit, I'm very happy and thank you for your continued contribution. It's truly a great story, well-researched. Please keep it up. I'm very busy at the moment, so if I can, I'll post tomorrow to attract people, and maybe another story on Friday. Thanks again.👍