Consider for a moment three traveling Khajiit being asked to peddle wares in Skyrim. They are each given a wagon with a variety of general goods, but they quickly discover the wares are not necessarily relevant to the region.

The first salesman, being of average skill, immediately begins to highlight items like fur coats, snow boots, and fire salts. As an average salesman, he identifies a customer’s need and does his best to fulfill it.

The second salesman is slightly more skilled than the first. He asks his customers if they like to travel. Perhaps a Nord couple spends their winters in Hammerfell. He identifies needs that the customer himself is unaware of, while still covering his bases.

The third salesman is neither good nor average. He’s corrupt. He doesn’t identify needs. He manufactures them. He does not give two shits about whether his customers come away satisfied with the transaction. The third salesman sells ice to Eskimos.

The best street vendors have always been the third type. They aren’t interested in repeat business, because the majority of their business comes from tourists. They have limited knowledge about the wares they sell, which is probably wise if what they’re selling is garbage.

Yushari is not a florist. A florist manicures and arranges her flowers in neat little bouquets. Yushari is selling a handful of flowers she pulled out of the ground. Her typical customer is a traveler, coming to the Temple of Mara to arrange a marriage. Given how uncommon divorce is – Nazeem is still married – the odds of repeat business are slim, and there is no reason for her claims to have merit. She will do everything and say anything to get the only sale that matters, the one right in front of her.

Sometimes I like to whittle the world down to a set of attribute points. I’m drinking coffee over tea this morning for the +2 constitution. I’m wearing sneakers over skate shoes for the +1 speed, and the jacket for the +7 style. In most cases, especially when it comes to fashion, whatever enchantments you’re wearing are an expression of self. The clothes don’t give you style. It’s your style that picks the clothes. For better or for worse, when you dress, you’re trying to be you.

The same logic doesn’t apply to something like a hairpiece. Even though it’s fundamentally an article of clothing, like a hat made out of human fur, wearing one is perceived as being fake. You’re not being yourself. You’re hiding who you are.

I wonder if people in Skyrim wear speechcraft amulets to parties. I wonder if partygoers roll their eyes if some douchebard is trying to make moves with what is clearly an Amulet of Dibella around his neck. Perhaps this douchebard tries to conceal it by wearing enchanted rings, or painting his amulet black to hide the glow.  Or maybe in the world of Elder Scrolls, it’s simply part of the standard rules of engagement, like makeup, hair gel, and cologne. Maybe it’s like an Italian sports car, and the fact that some dude can afford a +30 speechcraft amulet overrides the fact that he’s literally compensating.

Still, I don’t think such behavior would go unnoticed in your average sewing circle. Unless the reason is purely medical, I can’t imagine people wearing performance enhancers in plain sight and not being the subject of ridicule. In a world with magical amulets and face surgeons, identity doesn’t have to be static, but changing it still has to be weird.

All of this is to say, I don’t know if anyone knows the real Beatrice. It’s possible the amulet she wears allows her to express who she really is. You could make an argument that poorly educated people have their identities forced on them like male pattern baldness, and hair plugs and speechcraft necklaces level the playing field.  Still, there’s a difference between who she was supposed to be and who she is. And as language is the basis for exposing yourself to new thoughts, revelations, and ideas, it’s not absurd to suggest wearing such an amulet can alter your very makeup. When Beatrice reads a book, I imagine it’s like reading a webpage translated from French. I haven’t learned a word of the language, but the knowledge is still conveyed. Yet for someone of her background, if she did manage to maintain the knowledge, it would happen in a way so sudden and drastic that it would almost seem unreal.

So when it comes to Beatrice’s identity, there really isn’t a definitive answer. Yet despite all her changes, real and artificial, there is one thing that has been a constant in her life.  Whether she was loquacious or unintelligible, the girl has always loved skooma.

Beatrice could someday lose her amulet, and the effects will be unpredictable. It’s possible she’ll transform into a less articulate version of herself.  She could retain some of her previous knowledge, or become a completely different person. And yet, regardless of what does or doesn’t happen, one thing is for certain. When she has that sweet, sweet bottle of refreshment in her hand, you know exactly who she is, and it’s hard to picture her as anyone else.

You can typically tell how effective a medicine is by how awful it is going down.  I know Listerine kills the most germs because it tastes like piss-flavored battery acid.  When I was a kid, my favorite cough medicine was Dimetapp. I swear on Ysmir’s pubes that grape-flavored honey was better than any soda I’d ever tasted, but alas, it did nothing for my cough.

And it makes sense. Strong medicine is supposed to taste bad because it’s designed to be toxic. It doesn’t make you better so much as it annihilates whatever was making you worse. Listerine began as a surgical antiseptic, a floor cleaner and a cure for gonorrhea before someone decided to gargle with it and survive. If poisonous things were pleasing to the palate, we wouldn’t have made it past the Stone Age regardless of how many dinosaurs Jesus killed.

I don’t know if the same concept applies to your average health potion, given how much they accelerate the healing process. Still, I’ve picked enough virtual pockets to know people don’t drink them for fun. This may be primarily a product of cost, but I imagine part of the reason is because health potions taste fucking horrible.

In 1992, Listerine introduced a Cool Mint followed by a Fresh Citrus mouthwash. It wasn’t as effective as the original. On the other hand, it didn’t taste like floor cleaner. It had struck an acceptable compromise.

The potions of Clario Moorsley are loosely based on this idea. Health potions don’t have to taste like shit.  While their effectiveness is limited, Clario’s potions aren’t designed for severed limbs and gonorrhea of the mouth. Just like you don’t wipe your floors with mouthwash, Clario’s potions are for minor scrapes and wounds, and meant to be pleasing to the palate. The average health potion is designed to be drank. Clario’s potions are meant to be tasted.

Which, in essence, makes them one of a kind.

There are limits to a game world, rules if you will. Weapons are weapons, medicine is medicine, food is food, and rarely do the lines cross. You can extrapolate this further to anything you wish. In real life, we make homes out of coke bottles, music out of kitchen appliances, eat chicken with waffles, and sometimes drink beer out of a boot. We don’t always do things according to the instructions. In the world of video games, items are mostly limited to their natural function.

Yet when I think about a fantasy world with alchemy and magic, I think about their utility beyond killing hordes of bandits.  I picture a chef who uses fire salts to boil a hotter broth.  Tavern cups enchanted to resist heat, and dinner plates enchanted to resist cold. I imagine agricultural mages putting ice spikes in the ground during a drought.  An alteration mage casting courage before he proposes to his love. Sellswords drinking ale out of their boots.

The vanilla game explores this as well. In Riften alone you find a woman using ice wraith teeth to preserve meat, and exotic drinks that experiment with alchemy ingredients. That is to say, there is a world of people like Clario Moorsley who exist in the lore of the game, if not in the gameplay itself. And that little bit of creativity is enough to make the world a more interesting place.

And if the people of Skyrim are anything like us, I imagine one of these days it’s going to happen. Some crazy son of a bitch is going to buy a cure disease potion and use it to disinfect his floors, and when he’s done, maybe even rinse his mouth.