There are many fantasy role playing games (RPGs) available but I’ve hardly played any. Dungeons & Dragons is the best known. I had a couple High School friends who read fantasy and probably would have played D&D with me. If we’d known it existed. It came out in 1974, when I was the perfect age of 16, but I didn’t hear about it until my mid-twenties, when I was in graduate school and had no time for socializing. In college, friends and I played marathon Risk games so we probably would have played D&D if we’d known of it. I would have loved being a Dungeon Master. I know quite a few people now who play and I’ve been invited, but I’m just too busy. I can also be obsessive when I get caught up in something; if I started I might never quit.

However, I have an XBOX Series X and a fantasy RPG called Skyrim. I play some most weeks and during summer might go on a marathon session. I don’t have to wait for other folks to be ready and don’t have to travel farther than my living room. Skyrim is part of the Elder Scrolls series by Bethesda. There are earlier Elder Scroll games and I’ve played those, but mostly I play Skyrim.

Skyrim is the name of the land where the storyline takes place. It’s the land of the Nords, Viking types. It’s a high fantasy game in that you also have elves, trolls, dragons, dwarves etc., but the way I play it hews close to straight Sword & Sorcery. You start out a condemned prisoner but gradually learn you are the “chosen one,” a character known as Dragonborn, who must save Skyrim and the world from the return of the ancient dragons.

While on that quest, you can also fight a Civil War, hunt down bandits, become a master thief and/or master assassin, become a powerful wizard, help others with their problems, and become a werewolf or vampire. You can construct your own armor and weapons, of various kinds, and learn how to make potions to up your power. You can own homes and marry. I have the Hearthfire edition which allows you to build your own homes and adopt children.

I’ve played through several times but am having the most fun in my current incarnation, which is as a “book collector.” You see, Skyrim has books, which you can read (although they tend to be very short). There are spell books, song books, history books, craft books about how to make special weapons, and many others.

When you build your homes you can put in a library wing, which I always do, and your regular houses have bookshelves too. This time through, I’m a book collector, and killing dragons or bandits is only a means to either get books directly or get gold to buy books.

My current Skyrim incarnation, with Daedric armor and weapons and a Death Dealer helmet

I’m currently at level 94 (although I’ve been higher), and I’ve got almost all the books available. But just like in real life, some are hard to find, and there’s no Skyrim Amazon or eBay to buy them. You typically have to kill to get them.

Above are a few pics from my current Skyrim incarnation. I’ve made mostly Daedric armor and weapons and this is about the closest I can get to Frazetta’s Death Dealer.

Some Skyrim shelfies

I’ve also included shelfies of part of my Skyrim book collection. Yeah, I like books.

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Charles Gramlich administers The Swords & Planet League group on Facebook, where this post first appeared. His last article for us was an abituary for James Sallis. See all of his recent posts for Black Gate here.