Our heroes, Divines Help us
Four Walking Disasters
is an Elder Scrolls fanfiction written by Adamant39.The story follows four main characters:
- Dulurza, an orc sent to be a spy and kill the Jarl of Solitude;
- Alexander, a wannabe mage trying to become a god;
- Hjarnagredda, a Reach woman trying to find her family;
- And lastly L'laarzen, a Khajiit hairdresser.
They travel Skyrim interacting with one another, as well as doing many of the side quests—for example, Xander doing the College of Winterhold questlines, while L'laarzen does the Thieves Guild ones. Notably, none of these characters are the Dragonborn.
Four Walking Disaster contain the following tropes:
- The Ace: Xander's siblings at the fields they chose to specialise in.
- Cassia Meteuse, despite her young age and reckless tendencies, is an incredibly powerful destruction and restoration mage, capable of both blasting apart hoards of undead in seconds and healing the fatally wounded in mere days.
- Octavia Meteuse is an exceptional spy, and a master of conjuration and illusion. She primarily fights with deadly bound weapons and has mastered illusion to such a degree that she can both be invisible and muffled, and control someone's mind via direct physical contact.
- The Dragonborn. Of course.
- Advancing Wall of Doom: The Eye of Magnus does this when Ancano, the resident Thalmor, messes with the artifact. It gets pretty far, enveloping all of Winterhold and threatening to go further (until Alexander stops it of course).
- Adaptation Expansion: Arguably the whole point of the fanfiction. Several in-game characters get far more development and personality than they do in game through the authors writing, such as Sybille Stentor, Savos Aren, Mercer Frey, Vendil Ulen and even the Emperor Titus Mede II, to name a few.
- Adaptational Badass: Savos Aren. While his game counterpart is uncermoniously killed by Ancano once the latter links with the Eye of Magnus, this version actually holds his own for a little while, and after dying plays a crucial role by slowing down the expansion of Ancano's barrier, giving Xander time to complete his mission.
- Margret. Whereas before she was just an ordinary imperial spy, she is revealed here to be a member of the Penitus Oculatus, the Emperor's personal security force. She proves that she earned that title by showcasing deadly skill with her blades, even defeating a Dark Brotherhood assassin.
- Always Someone Better: Dulurza to Borkagh, her older sister. For the greater part of a year before the story, Dulurza has been beating her in spars on the regular, leading to her father Larak choosing her over Borkagh. It's more even when Borkagh acquires Volendrung.
- Also how Xander sees Julius, telling the latter as much when he is beaten in a duel by his older brother.
- An Arm and a Leg: Logrolf the Willful gets his arm ripped off by Hjar in her werewolf form.
- Blue-and-Orange Morality: This sums up the Dadera pretty well, they work on levels that mere mortals can not understand.
- Bunny-Ears Lawyer: While Alexander is lacking in magic, his intelligence has made him more effective than some mages. By sheer intelligence alone (and some luck), he has been able to best foes far more powerful than himeslf.
- He tricked his way into the College of Winterhold by mere sleight of hand. with the aid of a scroll bracer in his robes which he uses to ‘cast’ spells, akin to a wrist gun. He later upgrades it to hold 3 scrolls, and further upgrades it to support quickly equipping scroll magazines.
- At one point a literal example, as he was a 'lawyer' for L’laarzen when she needed to make a deal with Nocturnal, the Daedric Prince of Shadows.
- Crapsack World: It's Skyrim in the middle of not only the civil war, a dragon apocalypse and Thalmor—it's also extremely cold, and if you happen to be in the Reach you risk getting attacked by barbarian tribes. Not that this slows any of the heroes down.
- Deal with the Devil: This happens to the cast of a few occasions.
- Dysfunction Junction: Each and every one of the heroes.
- Fate Worse than Death: Through the scheming of Sybille Stentor, Elisif ends up partially possessed by Potema the Wolf Queen's spirit, which gradually asserts more dominance and even takes over her body on occasion. Dulurza attempts to free her using Dawnbreaker, but learns that the only way to do this is by killing Elisif, which nobody wants. Ultimately subverted as Potema and Elisif come to an understanding that allows Elisif to maintain control while Potema assists her sometimes.
- Hidden Depths: Every main character has a lot of emotional depth to them which is slowly revealed through the story.
- Xander is a genius trickster wracked with insecurities about nearly every aspect of his life. Seeing what his siblings can do, this isn't surprising.
- Hjar ends up suffering several identity crisis', when the Forsworn, the family she came to reunite with, turn out to be far more malicious than she imagined, though the Silver-Bloods and the Jarl are equally as in the wrong, at least in her eyes. She ends up resolving at least one of the crisis' by simply killing every faction leader in the hold.
- Dulurza sets out with a simple quest. To kill the Jarl of Solitude. However, she ends up falling in love with Elisif as she spends more time 'in her service', and decides she can't go on with her fathers plans.
- L'laarzen appears to be a normal, law abiding citizen who just wants to cut hair... even though she's an incredibly skilled thief. It turns out that L'laarzen is actually an ex-member of the Morag Tong, a deadly group of assassins and she came to Skyrim in an attempt to outrun her past.
- I Have Your Wife: While no one's wife, this is what the Silver-Bloods do to Margret. The tables are later turned when Hjar is put in the same position as a bargaining chip against Margret.
- Improvised Weapon: Alexander does this with a staff, but instead of using it for a spell, he breaks it and releases the magic energies inside, killing a skeletal dragon via the explosion.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Hjar does this to the Reach when she kills the Jarl, Madanach, and Thonar, pretty much leaving each of the factions leaderless and the region in chaos. Her story in arc four and onwards revolves around fixing the mess she created.
- If it wasn't for Xander, the Thalmor would've never learnt how to trap a dragons soul.
- Odd Friendship: Two examples among the main cast, Hjar with Margret, An imperial spy and a Forsworn and Elisif with Dulurza, Dulurza intended to kill her.
- Sharinga Body: What’s happening to Elisif, as she becomes possessed by Potema. Her court mage Sybille commanded necromancers to resurrect Potema's spirit so she could be placed in Elisif and then bound, allowing Sybille to control Elisif like a puppet. It didn't work, but had unintended side effects.
- Take a Third Option: Hjar is offered a choice: Kill Margret and side with the Forsworn, or spare her and ‘join’ the Silver-Bloods. She kills Thonar and Madanach instead, along with a lot of people on both sides, in her werewolf form no less. Things get messy.
- Tempting Fate: This could be argued whenever the cast interacts with Daedra both in literal sense of the word and metaphorical, such as when Alexander basically outsourced a Daedric quest from Meridia to Dulhurza, as here she literally said that the quest was fore-told, or in a metaphorical when Hjar told off Hircine and Molag Bal, as both gods are more than capable of killing the girl where she stands.
- Time Stands Still: Whenever the Psijic order shows up to speak with Alexander. It doesn't work on Daedra though. Julius also figures out how to make himself immune to it within minutes.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here!: A guard says this right before a fight as guards on the Silver-Blood payroll are about to attempt to kill Hjar. Also attempted by Alexander when Nelecar tells him Azura's Star is in a den of crazy necromancers.
- Wretched Hive:The Ratway is filled with nothing but thieves and thugs, though Riften in general isn't much better with Maven Black-Briar in charge, as said thieves and thugs operate pretty much in the open.
- To a lesser extent, Markarth, with Forsworn attacking people in the streets and the Silver-Bloods owning half the guard force.
