About This File
Pickman’s Whisper
Continue Pickman’s legacy. Pick up the instrument of his art—his gift—and hear the voice of the blade turn the wasteland into your canvas, painted with the blood of anonymous NPCs that, all of a sudden, catch your eye. You know them. You even name them, because you know them like an old friend. Why do they not seem to know their own name? Is it because they are arrogant? Well, you’ll teach them the cost of their hubris. Haughty bitches. Why won’t the voices stop?
Pickman's Whisper is a serial killer simulator. Not for the weak of mind or easily offended. It pairs well with Necromantic.
This mod is under active development.
Features
The Blade & The Bond
Find Pickman's Blade and it becomes a living, whispering thing in your inventory. The knife's voice only fully "wakes up" once you've bonded with it — which requires both owning the blade and having the Lady Killer perk. Without Lady Killer, the blade stays a silent knife, no matter how long you carry it.
Hunger
The blade develops a hunger meter (0–100) that climbs slowly over real game-days. As hunger rises through five stages (Calm → Restless → Hungry → Starving → Desperate), the whispers change tone — from admiration, to jealousy, to open kill-urges — commenting on nearby women. Kill with the blade to satiate the hunger. Patience pays off: if you let hunger sit at Desperate for a full 13 in-game hours before finally satiating it, you're rewarded with a temporary +4 Agility / +4 Charisma boost that lasts as long as you stay Calm afterward.
Noticing & Stalking
The blade notices non-hostile women around you, with hunger-appropriate ambient whisper lines. Aiming or looking at a woman repeatedly escalates recognition — first silent, then a recognition line, then sharper hunger-stage lines. Sleeping women get their own special recognition line if you catch them dozing.
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The Naming Mechanic: Plenty of women you'll meet are just "Settler" or "Resident" — faceless, forgettable. Pickman's Whisper lets you fix that. Aim at her, open the Victims page in MCM, type a name, and apply it. She'll carry that name from then on — it shows up when you look at her, and the blade uses it in its whispers. Up to 32 women can be named this way.
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Potential Victims List: An MCM tracker monitors the 32 women you've marked, with world display names that match what the whispers call them.
Killing & Dismemberment
Kills made with Pickman's Blade drawn on eligible women trigger special praise — named victims get unique dedicated lines.
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Execute: Aim at a living, eligible woman and hit \ to bring up a menu: Sever Head (requires the blade) or Smash Head In (requires a heavy blunt weapon: baseball bat, sledgehammer, super sledge, pipe wrench, or pool cue). Instant kill, gory finisher, fully counts toward hunger satiation.
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Use the "\" to open the options list, requires the correct weapon.
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Corpse Dismemberment: Aim at a dead body with the blade drawn and press / for a limb-selection menu (sever head/arms/legs).
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Use the "/" to open the options list. Requires Pickman's Blade to be equipped
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Necromantic Intimacy
If you run the Necromantic mod, named victims get special voice lines at the start and end of those scenes.
Corpses Decay Over Time
Kills you make with the blade visibly decay over real game-hours — pallor, bruising, and worse the longer the body sits. Bodies reach a "ripe" stage where the blade urges you to eat them (Cannibal perk); doing so grants an Endurance buff and clears them from your victim list.
- This is a WIP and face overlays still need to be tweaked
Force Trade & Slavery
A "Force Trade" activate option on eligible living women opens their inventory to loot/gift, with a one-time gear strip the first time. Trading her slave gear (or a dedicated "Enslave" option) lets you take her as a collared follower — she travels and teleports with you, is killable, and can be freed via MCM. Trigger a full two-actor AAF scene for the "Take Her" option instead of the standard "Free" interaction.
- Use "]" key to open dialog options when Pickman's Blade isn't equipped
Beat Her Down
Go in with your fists on an eligible woman and she won't just crumple from a haymaker — she fights back, and she can't be killed until you draw a weapon again. Beat her down bare-handed, then arm up to finish it with Pickman's Blade. When the fight's over, she's left with real bruises — split lip, black eye, broken nose — marking exactly what happened to her.
- Requires the player to not have any weapons equipped. NPC will become essential until a weapon is drawn
- During combat open the dialog options and force trade to force trade and equip on the NPC a slave collar and wrist bindings, then enslave them
- Wrist bindings are required for the NPC to follow you.
- If bound they will not fight back during beatings
Note: Not all features are documented here. Discovery is part of the art.
Edited by Oohtre
