The wonderful world of Skyrim is full of places to visit, quests to undertakes, and NPC’s to talk to. The world seems completely endless when you first set out to explore, but unfortunately, this sense of wonder doesn’t hold up to hundreds of hours of gameplay.
This is where the Skyrim modding community has decided to step in. Thanks to a dedicated community, there will always be things to do in Skyrim to make your game look and feel like new. Each week I choose just a couple of these mods to showcase here, that I think are worthy of a download.
This week, we start off with a simple mod that offers more of a cosmetic change than anything. However, the implementation into the game is so seamless that it had to make the list. Dirt and Blood – Dynamic Visual Effects by JaySerpa is a mod that adds a progressive level of visual effects to players.
After a battle, you might find your character now covered with blood from the conflict, or after days of traveling the wilds of Skyrim, you might have accumulated some dirt. This mod also adds dirt visual effects to NPC’s that work in manual labor jobs like blacksmiths. Overall, the mod is lightweight, highly customizable, and the effects are high quality in their own right.
The next mod on the list is one that I have had in my load order for a while, but have never gotten around to reviewing. TDN Equipable Horns SE by Nightshade adds in 43 equipable horns and 2 Argonian feather variants for player characters. They are all craftable at a forge, and they use the circlet slot for equipment.
Even though this mod seems fairly niche, it does add some interesting gameplay and roleplay options for your characters. If you are playing a Bosmer for example, you can add horns to your character as they have in ESO. Additionally, you could even play as a Dremora, or a half Dragon complete with all the accessories.
The final mod for this week Improved Follower Dialogue – Lydia by Roadhouse699 dramatically improves the personality in everyone’s favorite housecarl. This mod adds in 350 lines of dialogue to make the character much more interesting, and also for her relationship to progress with the player throughout the game.
The new dialogue includes all-new conversations with Lydia during certain places in the main quest. She also will initiate ambient conversations about the weather, the armor you’ve given her, and the current goings-on of the game just to increase immersion. The voice acting is extremely well done, and overall this is one of the best follower dialogue expansion mods out there.
That about wraps up this week’s mod list. Make sure to check back next week for a new set of mods to add to your load order. Also, be sure to check out happygamer for the latest Skyrim modding news.
