Shrike's Requiem

Music of the Moment: Sound of Silence (J2; Epic Vocal Rock edition)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEJpGP…;

A profile of my current avatar, Shrike. He and I are trawling through Skyrim on Requiem.

For those that play Requiem, you know what I'm talking about.
For those unfamiliar, continue reading below:

Requiem is quite simply the most insane overhaul of Skyrim you are likely to ever come across. Think Morrowind statistics in Skyrim. Think me, a 1400+ hour veteran, now dying approximately every ten to twenty minutes (every five to ten in the early levels). I've clocked over 35 hours on Shrike and he's only at level 16. Forget everything you thought you knew. This is the Roleplaying Overhaul. Suddenly Skyrim is 999% more challenging and immersive. This is survival. I love and hate it. It is agonizing and absolutely amazing.

Three essentialities for Requiem for the novice player:
-Potions. They are, hands down, a must.
-Horses. Get one as soon as you can: they have become even more important than ever. You'll see why.
-Wits. You've got to use 'em if you want your avatar to see tomorrow.

[WARNING: BELOW IS A LONG AND DETAILED RANT. CONTINUE IF YOU ARE OF ENERGY TO COMPREHEND THE DEVIANT'S INABILITY TO SHORTEN HER SARDONIC SUMMARIES.]
A list of some of the Challenges and The Bright Side to this king of mods, which so far I've discovered.

CHALLENGES (the agonizing cons):
-Exhaustion from running.
And it's even worse for me, because Shrike runs about in heavy armour. Agh.
-Non-instantaneous potions.
Only the rare and few that state they will heal your respective stats in the blink of an eye will do so. Otherwise, the effects of potions are prolonged over a period of about twenty seconds. You know: deficient potions heal you 3 points over 20 seconds, faint potions 5 points, fair potions 8 points, etc. 
Oh, and they're all renamed, too. Everything's renamed in Requiem.
-Encumbered.
Lockpicks and gold do encumber you too, and carry weight's reduced to around 100. Oh yes.
-No fast travel.
Very Morrowind-ish. You have to walk everywhere, hire carriages/boats or buy a horse. Unfortunately:
-Everything costs more.
Mercenaries cost 5000 septims to hire. Horses cost 6000 septims to buy. Carriage rides cost 100-200 septims, depending on where you're going. Rooms cost 50 septims to rent. The mod really does encourage you to appreciate the journey, doesn't it?
-Low skills.
Vanilla Skyrim: minor skills set to 15. Requiem Skyrim: minor skills set to 5. You've a long way to go if you aren't playing to your strengths.
-Reduced stats bonuses for levelling up.
Just that. Doesn't give you 10 to improve on anymore, only 5.
-Stamina.
I have never been so mindful of my stamina. Regular attacks sap it too, and weapon weight definitely counts. The lower your stamina, the less powerful your attacks. When you're scraping the bottom of the barrel, your weapon's barely making dents in your enemy.
And of course, when you're fatigued, you move slower. No stamina, no energy to run. You can barely walk.
-Health.
No longer passively regenerates. Rest won't cut it, either. You need potions, healing poultices, or a healing aura to recover from your scrapes and burns. None of them instantaneous.
-Magic penalties.
The heavier your armour, the more severe the penalty for your magic. Without perks, fundamental magic in heavy armour costs an absolutely ridiculous amount of magicka; the most basic would be up in the 600s or 800s or even in the 1000s for cost. Shall I also mention the magicka regeneration penalties? The more stressed or worn out your chap, the harder for them to concentrate/regenerate.
-Lock-no-happy.
In vanilla Skyrim you could get away picking master locks without investing a single perk in the skill tree, if you're skilled enough as a player. Not so in Requiem! Now you can't even pick basic locks without a perk invested in it (unless you're a Khajiit, thanks to a racial ability of theirs; but more on that later).
-Blocking.
A stamina-muncher if I ever knew one.
-Greedy merchants.
If you thought you were getting shamelessly ripped off by vendors before, Requiem makes you think again.
-Craftsmanship inabilities.
I'm yet to succeed recharging something, and you can't even tan leather without a perk invested in basic smithing. At least you're not completely useless; you can still build a house.
-Super bounties.
Get caught fiddling with a lock, 250 septims more on your head. Run over a guard or chicken on the road, 500 septims more on your head. I do not want to imagine what happens if you're caught murdering someone...
-Difficulty settings.
No more of that Novice-Apprentice-Adept-Expert-Master business. Requiem only has one setting: Requiem. So, good luck.
-Standing stones.
You know how you could run up to any standing stone you pleased and get the blessing? Nope! When you align yourself at the Guardian stones with the Thief, Mage or Warrior, only the Stones grouped with the corresopnding Guardian will now work for you. The only exception is the Serpent, which isn't aligned wtih anything. And all the Stone's abilities are altered too, conferring great bonuses alongside consequences, some of which are really, really quite painful.
(Take, for example, the Atronach, which is Shrike's constellation: he's gained a hell of a lot of magicka and 50% chance of spell absorption, but lost passive regeneration and the respective food bonus, and all magicka potions have lost 2/3rds of their potency)
Requiem definitely demonstrated deeper interest in the in-game lore with this one.
-Enemies.
Think Dungeons and Dragons here. Anything no longer works on everything. You need certain weapons to kill certain enemies now, which makes sense, but definitely throws hot horseshoes down your trousers if you're facing automatons or atronachs and you're inadequately prepared for them. Swords are useless against skeletons, you need fire to have any chance whatsoever of killing a troll or spriggan, silver weapons or restoration magic against the undead, blunt weapons or shock magic against automatons, and heavy armour if you don't want to get eviscerated at close quarters by a bear or sabre cat. You know this mod's serious when mudcrabs can walk all over you. And gods forbid if you're pitched against vampires.

THE BRIGHT SIDE (the amazing pros):
-WEAPONS OVERHAUL.
Hands down, the best thing. I need to go a bit into detail here, the magnitude of awesomess just can't be contained.
For Magic, you've got spells like Sunfire, Lightning Jolt, Animate Lockpick/Lock, Polymorph, Frightening Orb, Darkvision, and Teleport; and that's only some...And vanilla spells have also been overhauled. Candlelight now lasts much longer, and there's potential to Summon practically anything, from ghostly hounds, mudcrabs and swarms to Dragon Priests, werewolves, berserkers, wraiths and warlocks. And you're not left wanting with the range of Skeletal creatures, either.
For Weapons, the mod's added tantos, wakizashis, longswords, scimitars (I've so far seen silver and ebony), enchanted bolts/arrows, wooden/iron/steel crossbows, staves and warstaffs...All of them beautifully designed and incorporated in-game. And the value of weapons has been redone. Silver and enchanted best used on the undead, but Elven and Glass I've come to prize because they do more damage than Dwarven and Orcish: but more importantly, weigh less. Daedric weapons, the loading screen says, are the best weapons, because these weapons easily outmatch lesser metals and thus have unmatched armour penetration...
-SKILL TREE OVERHAUL.
I won't lie, I was dubious about it at first, but I've concluded that this is one of the best things about the mod. It has redefined every single skill and every perk bonus that goes with it. There are, for example, only four perks for the Lockpicking skill tree, and about six hundred more for the magic schools (I exaggerate slightly). Light Armor has been classed as Evasion, which is something like Morrowind's Unarmoured and Light Armor combined. Speechcraft has been completely redone: an entire tree dedicated to the Thu'um has been added there, and apparently using your Voice increases your Speechcraft ability, just as moving around in your armour gradually increases that respective skill. There are entirely new perks unseen in the vanilla game added to Requiem, while everything else has been edited, divided up and improved upon. So many perks have been added, it's even less easy keeping up with them before; the mod really encourages you to consider how your character evolves, endlessly reminding you that you can't have everything.
-COMBAT OVERHAUL.
I've already mentioned the enemies thing, but really it grows on you, this new level of immersion. Not only that, but combat is improved as a whole. For a taster, I'll discuss bandits, the easiest adversary in Skyrim. I mentioned everything's renamed: there are no Outlaws, Thugs or Marauders, there are only Bandits, and their own personal skill matched with yours. They come in a much broader variety of arms and armour (like Oblivion bandits). Blocked attacks do minimal damage upon both enemy and player compared to if you catch the full brunt of a swing. Enemy archers use both bows and crossbows, and with a swing of your sword/axe/mace you can break those ranged weapons while they're using them (a definite favourite, although I daresay the same fate awaits those if the situation is reversed). Naturally the heavily-armoured are going to be a tougher fight than the scantly-clad. And bandits now come in all races and genders! Have vanilla players noticed how they never seem to run into female Khajiit/Argonian bandits, or High Elves of either sex?
-RACE OVERHAUL.
Requiem races are tough cookies. The mod's really played on their strengths and their weaknesses. Khajiit, for example, have the very sensible toggled power of Night-Eye, can pick locks without training, reduced falling damage, higher claw damage, and 15% speed bonus, although spells cost 15% more. Argonians have 75% disease resistance (as do also the Bosmer and Redguards), 90% poison resistance, and the bonus of a Strong Stomach, which allows the eating of raw meat without penalties (Orcs, Bosmer and Khajiit also have this). And Nords...not only have a 25% reduced power attack cost, but a bloody awesome power titled 'The Dragon Within', which means for five seconds once a day they can Shout like a Greybeard. Damn.
(Of course all races have been modified, but I'm not going to list them all here)
-First person narration.
The mod redefines immersion. The in-game tutorials, thoughts and actions have been rewritten in your avatar's voice. For example, if you're disarmed, the vanilla alert would be: YOU HAVE BEEN DISARMED! Now your character thinks: DAMN, MY WEAPON! Or just after you've Rested: NOTHING BETTER THAN A GOOD NAP. When a shrine confers a blessing: I FEEL MUCH BETTER ALREADY. Or when you open your journal for the first time: MY JOURNAL. TIME HAS TAUGHT ME IT'S BETTER TO WRITE THINGS DOWN...So on and so on. It's a nice touch.
-You can get drunk.
And when you get drunk, you really get drunk, and you just can't take the game seriously anymore. You see everything in green and double, rendering it practically impossible to see straight, let alone direct a sane course. Encountering revelers in the wilderness has become a caution. Once Shrike rode from the Pale to Whiterun after a bottle of Honningbrew. Never again. Don't drink and ride, kiddies.
(I await Sanguine's quest in grave anticipation...)
-You can get high.
Skooma, my friends, has a whole new meaning. A druggy's visuals are ten times worse than a drunk's. The world's in quadruple, tinged pink, and you see rainbows. You're suddenly tireless and very, very fast. Then...withdrawl. And you can barely move. Oh, the aftereffects aren't bad the first time...and apparently, the risk of addiction is there...
Oh, don't take Shrike the wrong way. He doesn't use it. I only did it once (and reloaded afterward) because an associate insisted I experience what happens. Never, ever again.
-Food bonuses.
While it no longer restores health, food restores stamina and magicka. Raw meat is the most interesting. For anyone without a Strong Stomach, eating raw meat causes the instant loss of 100 stamina and magicka. For those with Strong Stomachs, it restores these attributes instead. Sadly, in Shrike's case, food now only restores stamina. 
-Shrine bonuses.
I discovered too late, too late, that shrine bonuses have also been overhauled. Shrines of Talos let you Shout 'much faster' (can't tell you how much faster, since I haven't dared to kill Mirmulnir yet, and likely I never shall be able to say on Shrike's profile); Shrines of Stendarr now cancel the effects of Lifedrain. These were the two I discovered before my ability to gain these bonuses was stripped from me. The gods notice even if you steal a few coin purses: and once you commit a crime, you can't even use their Shrines until you get the 'Hard Regrets' perk in Restoration. As a result you can steal and still get cured of disease at the shrines, but because you offended the Divines, no more amazing bonuses for you...Oh, bitter experience! Requiem just got that much harder...
-Improved horses.
The mod encourages you to get a horse to travel places. The horse is improved so players don't start bawling with the frustration of having to ride everywhere (while I, who has endured with much less in Morrowind, now consider horses a luxury). Horses are faster and fitter, and they have saddlebags! As of the Convenient Horses mod, I can also change saddles and consider armour for an aesthetic approach to my horse-bound journeys. Oh, and the mounted combat is even more awesome. I am a BOSS in the saddle: there's something very satisfying about trampling a Frostbite Spider, or sending bandits and Forsworn flying with a charge...
-Gold, gold, gold!
Because everything costs more, you end up finding more of it. And of course, even while severely ripped off in the early stages, the more you barter, the more you'll make...

Skyrim Requiem, folks. You'll love it. You'll hate it. In case you hadn't guessed, I heartily recommend it to anyone who dares (or is able) to go to that next level. Shrike's having a grand time. (Sarcasm)