Animal Research: The Insatiable Scholar

[killer905]

4 hours ago, Morgon213 said:

I'm having an issue with the dark lord section in volkihar. Harkon uses his spell to immobilize tirwin and i but nothing happens after that. We just all stand there.

It's best to load the save. And Harkon should turn into the Vampire Lord after paralysing the PC and Tirwin. Depending on the PC's gender, there will be sex between Tirwin and Harkon, and between the female PC and Harkon.

 

If the problem persists, here are instructions with all quests and stages.

 

[kamithemoon]

On 10/19/2025 at 9:15 AM, mircislav said:

or clean your save with Falrim tool before entering the in - filter the Animal Research and delete everything from the list - see the attach.

Just wanted to say that this worked for me to get the start scene with Tirwin in the Bannered Mare to work.  I never had issues with that scene previously, until I installed JKs Bannered Mare.  xEdit doesn't show any conflicts so I'm not sure what could be preventing the initial scene, but deleting these scripts to reset things worked for me.

[Gristle]

On 11/4/2025 at 7:29 AM, Guardian_Angel said:

I have only seen this in testing when i fast travel 'inside' whiterun and then go to the banneredmare. i solved it by leaving whiterun on foot, wait a few mins the enter whiterun again and enter the inn. there must be something in the script that requires you to enter whiterun. i have not hit this issue during normal game play though.

This is strange. The first quest in this mod is started (on stage 10) by a trigger box placed just in front of the main door on the inside of the Bannered Mare. If you enter the Bannered Mare and see Naryu and Tirwin, the quest has started, because those actors are initially disabled and are enabled by the first stage (stage 10) of the quest. They should start talking to each other because the same quest stage that enables them also starts a dialogue "scene" between them. 

 

There's not that many things that would prevent a scene from playing. There shouldn't be any higher priority scene using them, because they are mod-added actors. Perhaps you could check and see if their aliases are filling, using "sqv VAR_MainQuest" in the console. There should be IDs (and not "None") next to the TirwinLH and Naryu alias names.

[brewmasterhal]

Hey @Gristle great mod so far man.  I'm really digging the amount of extremely relevant NPC chatter - must have taken forever to set up all the conditions to get them to say the right things when their comments make sense.

One little gripe:

I'm currently playing as an Altmer, but the only dialogs that seem to acknowledge this fact are a few random comments from Tirwin and I think the one dialog option of "By law I can only have sex with another pure-blood Altmer" "Good thing I'm an Altmer" "Agreed, that makes things easier" (paraphrased).  Within the lore, if a male and female of distinct races reproduce, the baby assumes the race of the mother - the only exception to this is the creation of the Bretons, who are men with enough elven (Ayleid, I think) heritage to have some innate magical powers, unlike their cousins the Imperials.  By this reasoning, there should be no such concept as a "pure blooded" Altmer.

It's sorta similar to how you're only a "real Hebrew" if your grandmother was Hebrew.  Aside: this reasoning is stupid; it's the chicken-egg problem.  If my grandmother had been Hebrew but her grandmother was the one who converted, the non-Hebrew-ness should obey the logical transitive property, e.g. A=H because B=H, and B=H because C=H.  However, since my grandmother's grandmother's grandmother was not Hebrew, that means that C != H, which means that B != H, which in turn means that A != H.  Thus, a claim of Hebrew-ness would require that one be able to trace an unbroken family tree of nothing but Heebs all the way to Eve (or Noah's wife at least).

Anyway, Tirwin would need to be able to trace her lineage all the way to Auri-El - with only Altmer/Ayleids/etc in her family tree - for this to make sense.  This seems unlikely, and if it were possible there's no reason to assume that a player playing as an Altmer could not do the same thing.

Ultimately, what I'm saying is: if I want to roleplay as a similar Altmer, I feel like I should be able to.  The captain of the North Wind demands Tirwin have sex with his dog, and there's a dialog option to ask "what if I have sex with the dog instead?" to which he responds "no, it has to be her because I want to see an Altmer degrade herself".  He says this, to an Altmer.  You also establish at the same time that the crew don't even know Tirwin's name, so it seems unlikely that they would assume her to be a Thalmor, let alone know enough about her to identify that she's "pure blood".  Just seems a bit insane to ignore race through so much of the mod story, when it's sort of a low-hanging fruit as far as giving the player more/more interesting options.

Edited November 8, 2025 by brewmasterhal

[killer905]

1 hour ago, brewmasterhal said:

Hey @Gristle great mod so far man.  I'm really digging the amount of extremely relevant NPC chatter - must have taken forever to set up all the conditions to get them to say the right things when their comments make sense.

One little gripe:

I'm currently playing as an Altmer, but the only dialogs that seem to acknowledge this fact are a few random comments from Tirwin and I think the one dialog option of "By law I can only have sex with another pure-blood Altmer" "Good thing I'm an Altmer" "Agreed, that makes things easier" (paraphrased).  Within the lore, if a male and female of distinct races reproduce, the baby assumes the race of the mother - the only exception to this is the creation of the Bretons, who are men with enough elven (Ayleid, I think) heritage to have some innate magical powers, unlike their cousins the Imperials.  By this reasoning, there should be no such concept as a "pure blooded" Altmer.

It's sorta similar to how you're only a "real Hebrew" if your grandmother was Hebrew.  Aside: this reasoning is stupid; it's the chicken-egg problem.  If my grandmother had been Hebrew but her grandmother was the one who converted, the non-Hebrew-ness should obey the logical transitive property, e.g. A=H because B=H, and B=H because C=H.  However, since my grandmother's grandmother's grandmother was not Hebrew, that means that C != H, which means that B != H, which in turn means that A != H.  Thus, unless one can trace an unbroken family tree of nothing but Heebs all the way to Eve (or Noah's wife at least).

Anyway, Tirwin would need to be able to trace her lineage all the way to Auri-El - with only Altmer/Ayleids/etc in her family tree - for this to make sense.  This seems unlikely, and if it were possible there's no reason to assume that a player playing as an Altmer could not do the same thing.

Ultimately, what I'm saying is: if I want to roleplay as a similar Altmer, I feel like I should be able to.  The captain of the North Wind demands Tirwin have sex with his dog, and there's a dialog option to ask "what if I have sex with the dog instead?" to which he responds "no, it has to be her because I want to see an Altmer degrade herself".  He says this, to an Altmer.  You also establish at the same time that the crew don't even know Tirwin's name, so it seems unlikely that they would assume her to be a Thalmor, let alone know enough about her to identify that she's "pure blood".  Just seems a bit insane to ignore race through so much of the mod story, when it's sort of a low-hanging fruit as far as giving the player more/more interesting options.

To be honest, I don't remember if it was my idea or Gristle's from ‘pure-blood’, but the point is that it's a Thalmor rule. So technically, the Tirwin family may not have a family member of a different race, say, from 2E 100. It's like having to prove that you didn't have a Jewish relative in Nazi Germany. In practice, it is impossible to trace your family lines (IRL) back to their origins, and the same applies to Triwin. Let's say that the records only go back to 2E 100 and then the trail goes cold because the documents no longer exist/were deliberately destroyed or the place where they were kept burned down.

 

Races other than Altmer may not know the actual ‘pure-blood’ rule, because for them, even hugging can mean ‘not pure-blooded’ Altmer.

 

In one of the quests, we can explain that the ‘pure-blooded’ rule is just a lie to prevent other Altmer, convinced of their racial purity, from mating with races other than Altmer.

 

As for the PC, being ‘pure-blooded’ is rather insignificant, because when you meet the Thalmor (on the road), they refer to the PC as a High Elf as if it were a sub-race. As far as I remember, something like ‘You are a disgrace to your race.’

[Gristle]

59 minutes ago, brewmasterhal said:

Hey @Gristle great mod so far man.  I'm really digging the amount of extremely relevant NPC chatter - must have taken forever to set up all the conditions to get them to say the right things when their comments make sense.

One little gripe:

I'm currently playing as an Altmer, but the only dialogs that seem to acknowledge this fact are a few random comments from Tirwin and I think the one dialog option of "By law I can only have sex with another pure-blood Altmer" "Good thing I'm an Altmer" "Agreed, that makes things easier" (paraphrased).  Within the lore, if a male and female of distinct races reproduce, the baby assumes the race of the mother - the only exception to this is the creation of the Bretons, who are men with enough elven (Ayleid, I think) heritage to have some innate magical powers, unlike their cousins the Imperials.  By this reasoning, there should be no such concept as a "pure blooded" Altmer.

It's sorta similar to how you're only a "real Hebrew" if your grandmother was Hebrew.  Aside: this reasoning is stupid; it's the chicken-egg problem.  If my grandmother had been Hebrew but her grandmother was the one who converted, the non-Hebrew-ness should obey the logical transitive property, e.g. A=H because B=H, and B=H because C=H.  However, since my grandmother's grandmother's grandmother was not Hebrew, that means that C != H, which means that B != H, which in turn means that A != H.  Thus, unless one can trace an unbroken family tree of nothing but Heebs all the way to Eve (or Noah's wife at least).

Anyway, Tirwin would need to be able to trace her lineage all the way to Auri-El - with only Altmer/Ayleids/etc in her family tree - for this to make sense.  This seems unlikely, and if it were possible there's no reason to assume that a player playing as an Altmer could not do the same thing.

Ultimately, what I'm saying is: if I want to roleplay as a similar Altmer, I feel like I should be able to.  The captain of the North Wind demands Tirwin have sex with his dog, and there's a dialog option to ask "what if I have sex with the dog instead?" to which he responds "no, it has to be her because I want to see an Altmer degrade herself".  He says this, to an Altmer.  You also establish at the same time that the crew don't even know Tirwin's name, so it seems unlikely that they would assume her to be a Thalmor, let alone know enough about her to identify that she's "pure blood".  Just seems a bit insane to ignore race through so much of the mod story, when it's sort of a low-hanging fruit as far as giving the player more/more interesting options.

Good point. An Altmer PC's race should be noticed whenever relevant. Certainly in the boat scene you mention.  This will be fixed.

 

As for lineage, I'm sure many "pure-blooded" Altmer are not so pure, but the Thalmor have to keep up the premise for political purposes, right? 

 

As for race in general, I would love to add more racial comments, but with 10 rases, it can make the voice files pretty big. One line turns into 10.

 

[Gristle]

7 minutes ago, killer905 said:

To be honest, I don't remember if it was my idea or Gristle's from ‘pure-blood’, but the point is that it's a Thalmor rule. So technically, the Tirwin family may not have a family member of a different race, say, from 2E 100. It's like having to prove that you didn't have a Jewish relative in Nazi Germany. In practice, it is impossible to trace your family lines (IRL) back to their origins, and the same applies to Triwin. Let's say that the records only go back to 2E 100 and then the trail goes cold because the documents no longer exist/were deliberately destroyed or the place where they were kept burned down.

Right. The records aren't going to go back forever. Also, according to the UESP, in the First Dominion, "The Thalmor began as an obscure Altmeri council within the government of the Summerset Isles that was tasked with safeguarding Altmeri heritage." So, the Thalmor have been the ones keeping lineage records -- and "safeguarding" it -- for a long time.

 

[mhgm]

Amazing mod!!! Thank you, Gristle!

 

I've struggled a bit with the quest not advancing after Tirwin's animations. Don't know if it is a common issue , though. Hope to see more of this mod!

[killer905]

14 minutes ago, mhgm said:

Amazing mod!!! Thank you, Gristle!

 

I've struggled a bit with the quest not advancing after Tirwin's animations. Don't know if it is a common issue , though. Hope to see more of this mod!

Sounds like "Sexlab P+"

[saksy_xd]

gargoyle gygax isn't summoning after valerica finishes her dialogue and the statue break animation occurs any idea on how should i advance the quest or fix the gargoyle's spawning?

[eflat01]

3 hours ago, saksy_xd said:

gargoyle gygax isn't summoning after valerica finishes her dialogue and the statue break animation occurs any idea on how should i advance the quest or fix the gargoyle's spawning?

 

That sounds like a missing animation, I think it goes after vaginal tags and the gargoyle race.

[eflat01]

17 hours ago, brewmasterhal said:

It's sorta similar to how you're only a "real Hebrew" if your grandmother was Hebrew.  Aside: this reasoning is stupid; it's the chicken-egg problem.  If my grandmother had been Hebrew but her grandmother was the one who converted, the non-Hebrew-ness should obey the logical transitive property, e.g. A=H because B=H, and B=H because C=H.  However, since my grandmother's grandmother's grandmother was not Hebrew, that means that C != H, which means that B != H, which in turn means that A != H.  Thus, unless one can trace an unbroken family tree of nothing but Heebs all the way to Eve (or Noah's wife at least).

 

Matters little,  thinking from a historical perspective. I can just assume it's more so from a social perspective and the fact that even our our world was once large, it grew much smaller. One thing I may state is names have a meaning, surnames have a meaning although they came late in existence.

 

I'd done quite a bit of heritage tracking for people. Most people did not move around and marriages were at one time mostly "arranged by families".  Obviously records only go back so far and most those records were recorded by religious institutions not governments.  The scope of all that is the women had to be Hebrew in the past, if the mother was Jewish then the children were compelled to be. That was socially strict rules enforced in the past the further back we look back.

 

With families of nobility it's even more-so, that's why there was so much inbreeding within them, a prince must marry a princess - few and far between...  i.e. When Caesar met Cleopatra she was married to her brother, and that was her second marriage she was married to her first brother until he passed away. Those Macedonians were not just strict  but cut-throat.

 

You're right records get lost or not even recorded especially when common people, still in the middle ages most people never traveled more than twenty miles away from their birth. 

 

I'm old, I kind of knew I'm slavic/celt, my fathers parents from eastern Poland - Polish/Lithuanian, pretty obvious since his mother and father were born in Poland in the late 1800's. and my mother's side Irish/Welsh. I'd taken a dna test and all it did was show the area my families came from, which i had already known on my father's - it's near the border of both nations. I have  a cousin on my father's side who shows up 1% Jewish in her dna markers in, and that stands to reason. There's a specific set of genes, just as R1a defines western, R1b eastern European while e1b1a1 African, etc...  Judaism may be a religion but they are a people and culture and due their common Leviant origin and religious isolation they show up  distinct - is not one gene identifier but strong mix of certain genes. If you took dna samples from someone in the middle-east they can narrow down the of their roots origin, and  migration. 

Edited November 8, 2025 by eflat01

[brewmasterhal]

17 hours ago, killer905 said:

To be honest, I don't remember if it was my idea or Gristle's from ‘pure-blood’, but the point is that it's a Thalmor rule. So technically, the Tirwin family may not have a family member of a different race, say, from 2E 100. It's like having to prove that you didn't have a Jewish relative in Nazi Germany. In practice, it is impossible to trace your family lines (IRL) back to their origins, and the same applies to Triwin. Let's say that the records only go back to 2E 100 and then the trail goes cold because the documents no longer exist/were deliberately destroyed or the place where they were kept burned down.

Makes sense.  My point is that the exchange between the player and Tirwin regarding it being a good thing that the player is Altmer implies that both the player and Tirwin agree that the player is sufficiently pure-blood for the Thalmor to allow their relationship, but this seems like it's not how the rest of the narrative is treating the situation.
 

17 hours ago, killer905 said:

In one of the quests, we can explain that the ‘pure-blooded’ rule is just a lie to prevent other Altmer, convinced of their racial purity, from mating with races other than Altmer.

Seems like a good idea.  I would suggest the following: during the initial meeting with Tirwin, if the player is Altmer, have Tirwin bring up the new "pure-blood" rule that the Thalmor are promulgating, and ask the player if he/she has heard about it.  This gives the player some options: argue that she's not pure-blooded due to non-Altmer lineage, to which Tirwin can explain that the Thalmor don't see it that way; claim to be pure-blooded and ask what the new rules are; or claim to already know about the new rules.  Tirwin can then (if necessary) explain the restriction, and express disgust with the Thalmor and their ideology.  This is Chekov's Gun - setting up something in the first act that becomes important in the second or third (in this case, increasingly important).  If you wanted to, you could create a boolean flag for player "pure-blood" and use that for certain checks in lieu of player.getIsRace(HighElfRace).
 

17 hours ago, killer905 said:

As for the PC, being ‘pure-blooded’ is rather insignificant, because when you meet the Thalmor (on the road), they refer to the PC as a High Elf as if it were a sub-race. As far as I remember, something like ‘You are a disgrace to your race.’

I looked this up, because I've never encountered it before.  It's one of a tiny number of dialog condition checks in vanilla Skyrim (33 in Skyrim, 5 in Dawnguard) which reference the HighElfRace record.  Most of the INFOs that perform checks are negative, i.e. player.getIsRace(HighElfRace) == false.  The relevant ones you're speaking of are "Go. Your very presence sickens me." and "You are a disgrace to the Altmer. I should kill you on general principle." which seem to be intended to be related to something that appears to have been cut from the final game.

If a player talks to one of the Thalmor escorting a prisoner as part of the WEThalmorDialogue world event, the player can ask about the Thalmor and about the prisoner.  There are invisible continues that follow every single one of the Thalmor responses, leading to branches which either terminate the conversation or (if the Thalmor has membership in a Suspicious faction) leads to combat after the player confesses to worship of Talos.  Curiously there's no dialog which does not ultimately lead to saying "you got me, I worship Talos".  However, while all of the Thalmor in the event have been added to that faction, they have a base rank of -1 meaning they are not "members" of the faction.  It's possible that the script attached to the WE has some random chance of setting their faction rank to 1, but as I said it appears this was ultimately cut.  I expect that during playtesting they found that players mostly just killed Thalmor on sight so it wasn't worth the dev time.

Anyway, my read of this is "you're a disgrace to the Altmer" because you worship Talos, or you're impeding official Thalmor stuff, or for simply not being a Thalmor.  The existence of this dialog supports the idea that disgracing the Altmer, or bringing shame to the race in any way, is treated as cause for an immediate death sentence.  Again, have Tirwin bring this up at some point prior to the confrontation in VAR_Horse - or in the immediate aftermath - to reinforce these ideas and explain the conflict to come.  "Remember when I said" is more effective than post-hoc exposition.  Tirwin should definitely also ask the player about the Thalmor, and perspective on the group and their racial purity stuff, before following the player into a dungeon to pick up a book about engaging in bestiality with a wolf.

Imagine her position: I'm going to be alone, in a dungeon, with this person whom I've hired specifically because she's strong enough to kill me easily - I want to know how she's going to react to this book stuff going into this situation.  Furthermore, Tirwin is fully aware that her goals are likely to bring her into conflict with the Thalmor.  She knows that she's high-profile enough for them to be interested in keeping tabs on her activities in Skyrim, and she knows that she intends to violate their laws to a degree which may lead to capital punishment.  I would want to know not only that my chosen body guard is capable of guarding me from spiders and shit to find the books, but also that she is neither a Thalmor spy nor a sympathizer.  How she might determine the former would be a difficult question; perhaps something like ask the player to demonstrate willingness to have sex with a non-Altmer, similar to how gang initiations in real life involve committing serious crimes (in Baltimore, they now require initiates to murder a random person on the street to weed out undercover cops).

 

 

17 hours ago, Gristle said:

Good point. An Altmer PC's race should be noticed whenever relevant. Certainly in the boat scene you mention.  This will be fixed.

 

As for lineage, I'm sure many "pure-blooded" Altmer are not so pure, but the Thalmor have to keep up the premise for political purposes, right? 

 

As for race in general, I would love to add more racial comments, but with 10 rases, it can make the voice files pretty big. One line turns into 10.

17 hours ago, Gristle said:

Right. The records aren't going to go back forever. Also, according to the UESP, in the First Dominion, "The Thalmor began as an obscure Altmeri council within the government of the Summerset Isles that was tasked with safeguarding Altmeri heritage." So, the Thalmor have been the ones keeping lineage records -- and "safeguarding" it -- for a long time.

 

Did not know about this, regarding the Thalmor's lore.  That is another thing that should probably be brought up during conversation at some point.  Creating lore around your story will only sell the ideas better, and using established lore will ensure that it fits with the world around it.

Very much appreciate that creating dialogs and conditions for every race would be way too much.  The lore you have established in this story is quite binary, though: Altmer are ok, things not Altmer are not ok.  If you wanted to get slightly more granular, you could create globals that get populated by a script during the first few dialogs, breaking the player race into Altmer, other mer (excluding orcs), men, and beasts (including orcs).  This at least cuts down on the amount of dialog necessary, and the complexity of the conditions checking.


Anyway, just some ideas that I've had.  Don't want to step on any toes with this stuff; it's not my story to write.  I'll be glad to see any of this get added.

[killer905]

13 hours ago, brewmasterhal said:

Makes sense.  My point is that the exchange between the player and Tirwin regarding it being a good thing that the player is Altmer implies that both the player and Tirwin agree that the player is sufficiently pure-blood for the Thalmor to allow their relationship, but this seems like it's not how the rest of the narrative is treating the situation.
 

Seems like a good idea.  I would suggest the following: during the initial meeting with Tirwin, if the player is Altmer, have Tirwin bring up the new "pure-blood" rule that the Thalmor are promulgating, and ask the player if he/she has heard about it.  This gives the player some options: argue that she's not pure-blooded due to non-Altmer lineage, to which Tirwin can explain that the Thalmor don't see it that way; claim to be pure-blooded and ask what the new rules are; or claim to already know about the new rules.  Tirwin can then (if necessary) explain the restriction, and express disgust with the Thalmor and their ideology.  This is Chekov's Gun - setting up something in the first act that becomes important in the second or third (in this case, increasingly important).  If you wanted to, you could create a boolean flag for player "pure-blood" and use that for certain checks in lieu of player.getIsRace(HighElfRace).
 

I looked this up, because I've never encountered it before.  It's one of a tiny number of dialog condition checks in vanilla Skyrim (33 in Skyrim, 5 in Dawnguard) which reference the HighElfRace record.  Most of the INFOs that perform checks are negative, i.e. player.getIsRace(HighElfRace) == false.  The relevant ones you're speaking of are "Go. Your very presence sickens me." and "You are a disgrace to the Altmer. I should kill you on general principle." which seem to be intended to be related to something that appears to have been cut from the final game.

If a player talks to one of the Thalmor escorting a prisoner as part of the WEThalmorDialogue world event, the player can ask about the Thalmor and about the prisoner.  There are invisible continues that follow every single one of the Thalmor responses, leading to branches which either terminate the conversation or (if the Thalmor has membership in a Suspicious faction) leads to combat after the player confesses to worship of Talos.  Curiously there's no dialog which does not ultimately lead to saying "you got me, I worship Talos".  However, while all of the Thalmor in the event have been added to that faction, they have a base rank of -1 meaning they are not "members" of the faction.  It's possible that the script attached to the WE has some random chance of setting their faction rank to 1, but as I said it appears this was ultimately cut.  I expect that during playtesting they found that players mostly just killed Thalmor on sight so it wasn't worth the dev time.

Anyway, my read of this is "you're a disgrace to the Altmer" because you worship Talos, or you're impeding official Thalmor stuff, or for simply not being a Thalmor.  The existence of this dialog supports the idea that disgracing the Altmer, or bringing shame to the race in any way, is treated as cause for an immediate death sentence.  Again, have Tirwin bring this up at some point prior to the confrontation in VAR_Horse - or in the immediate aftermath - to reinforce these ideas and explain the conflict to come.  "Remember when I said" is more effective than post-hoc exposition.  Tirwin should definitely also ask the player about the Thalmor, and perspective on the group and their racial purity stuff, before following the player into a dungeon to pick up a book about engaging in bestiality with a wolf.

Imagine her position: I'm going to be alone, in a dungeon, with this person whom I've hired specifically because she's strong enough to kill me easily - I want to know how she's going to react to this book stuff going into this situation.  Furthermore, Tirwin is fully aware that her goals are likely to bring her into conflict with the Thalmor.  She knows that she's high-profile enough for them to be interested in keeping tabs on her activities in Skyrim, and she knows that she intends to violate their laws to a degree which may lead to capital punishment.  I would want to know not only that my chosen body guard is capable of guarding me from spiders and shit to find the books, but also that she is neither a Thalmor spy nor a sympathizer.  How she might determine the former would be a difficult question; perhaps something like ask the player to demonstrate willingness to have sex with a non-Altmer, similar to how gang initiations in real life involve committing serious crimes (in Baltimore, they now require initiates to murder a random person on the street to weed out undercover cops).

 

 

Did not know about this, regarding the Thalmor's lore.  That is another thing that should probably be brought up during conversation at some point.  Creating lore around your story will only sell the ideas better, and using established lore will ensure that it fits with the world around it.

Very much appreciate that creating dialogs and conditions for every race would be way too much.  The lore you have established in this story is quite binary, though: Altmer are ok, things not Altmer are not ok.  If you wanted to get slightly more granular, you could create globals that get populated by a script during the first few dialogs, breaking the player race into Altmer, other mer (excluding orcs), men, and beasts (including orcs).  This at least cuts down on the amount of dialog necessary, and the complexity of the conditions checking.


Anyway, just some ideas that I've had.  Don't want to step on any toes with this stuff; it's not my story to write.  I'll be glad to see any of this get added.

Your observations are spot on, and you're right!

 

In the case of Altmer PCs (even those of a race other than Altmer), you could have Tirwin challenge the PC to approach a random female/male and say something like, "Hey, let's have sex", and I think in this case, there would be a greater chance that the PC is not a Thamor/Aalmor agent, and Tirwin could trust the PC to protect her, right?

 

The PC's statements about racial purity are just words, and actions speak louder than words, right?

Here's an interesting fact, in case you didn't know. If the PC is naked (regardless of race or gender), Tirwin will mistake the PC for a prostitute.

If this does not appear in the next update, it will probably be in the QoL update, which (theoretically) is supposed to correct inaccuracies or minor/major corrections in the story itself.

 

I hope you will share your thoughts on the next tasks, pointing out any plot holes.

 

I have added this post to the TODO list.

 

It's kind of like Dogma, which improves old content. For example, I liked the changes made to the segments with bandits on the road or with Old Nam in the inn. As far as I remember, there were no major changes in Wildhelm and Riften.

[killer905]

21 hours ago, saksy_xd said:

gargoyle gygax isn't summoning after valerica finishes her dialogue and the statue break animation occurs any idea on how should i advance the quest or fix the gargoyle's spawning?

Try  load save and donlt speed up Valerica dialogue if you did.

17 hours ago, eflat01 said:

 

That sounds like a missing animation, I think it goes after vaginal tags and the gargoyle race.

The missing animations would not prevent the gargoyle from appearing in the room.

[eflat01]

On 11/7/2025 at 3:58 AM, Gristle said:

Good point. An Altmer PC's race should be noticed whenever relevant. Certainly in the boat scene you mention.  This will be fixed.

 

As for lineage, I'm sure many "pure-blooded" Altmer are not so pure, but the Thalmor have to keep up the premise for political purposes, right? 

 

As for race in general, I would love to add more racial comments, but with 10 rases, it can make the voice files pretty big. One line turns into 10.

 

 

Yes, racial comments are a pain because they require a ton more dialog. It also lends to different ideas in scenarios though. You'd have to place yourself into the mind of every character. 

 

I can also say while the race of the player may matter for immersive purposes the dialog changing might lead to branches within the story-line. 

• Initial meeting, She just got through speaking with Naryu so, Tirwin could possibly be unsure she really wants a Altmer accompanying her without proving themselves? 

1. She is apparently afraid of the Thalmor not just for her own self-being but for her family. It may cross her thoughts that an Altmer may be a Thalmor agent or possibly more likely to be loyal to them so, she may likely mistrust the PC at first. iow, when initially met she would have less apprehension with anyone who's not an Altmer. A Altmer may seem riskier. 

• Throughout the quests, the few times when Thalmor are encountered they are condescending to the PC. If the PC were a Altmer they would definitely treat them differently.  While less condescending towards the PC's race they'd be even more critical of them, after all they're Altmer so should fall in line. 

1. They can try to persuade or appeal to an Altmer PC to adhere to their ideals, don't betray your people?... "head games" or
2. The PC would actually become a threat, they have Tirwin's family as leverage, while a rogue Altmer they have no leverage over at all is a definite traitor and even the greater threat.

 

On those notes, I wish had a courier mod which could deliver messages and items from Hannah (my PC) to npcs. The first thing I think I'd use it for would be to send a letter and gift, "My dearest Lady Elenwen, I cannot tell you in words how much I admire your eloquence. In my travels I found this small token which I feel accentuates the  beauty in your eyes, please accept and wear this with my greatest admiration,  With all my Love your humble servant <PC>". - sent along with a amulet of Talos. 😏

 

Edited November 8, 2025 by eflat01

[Gristle]

@brewmasterhal @killer905 @eflat01 The "pure-blooded" Altmer concept is more or less a mod invention, but it follows naturally from the Altmer belief in the racial superiority of the Altmer and their view of the mixed-blood races (e.g., Bretons) as inferior.  Politically, it is also a convenient means for the Thalmor to justify their power, and to discredit opponents. Also, given that the Thalmor started as a council tasked with keeping lineage records (and safeguarding the Aldmeri heritage) centuries ago, they are in a good position to do this.

 

Of course, for story purposes, it also increases the stakes for Tirwin to have a relationship with the PC, who is presumably not a "pure-blooded" Altmer, or at least not one who can trace their lineage back centuries through the Thalmor records. On this point, Tirwin's dialogue about sex with the PC is a bit questionable, because she's not worried about being caught with an Altmer PC. But her dialogue could be justified simply because her being seen with an Altmer is not at all suspicious. After all, it's not like Thalmor can recognize a non-pure-blooded Altmer on sight. That said, this dialogue could be revised a bit to explain this better.

 

In any case, for mod purposes, putting Altmer PCs in basically the same situation as non-Altmer PCs allows the mod quests involving the Thalmor to all unfold basically the same way. Of course, that doesn't mean the dialogue can't change as appropriate for Altmer PCs.

 

Also, as noted, the dialogue on the boat needs to be revised, as it assumes the PC is not an Altmer. And, I agree that Tirwin should be suspicious of revealing her research to an Altmer (although, of course, non-Altmer could spy for Altmer as well - see Solstheim.) I'm not sure if this deserves a mini-quest, but certainly at least some additional dialogue.

 

 

[eflat01]

20 hours ago, Gristle said:

@brewmasterhal @killer905 @eflat01 The "pure-blooded" Altmer concept is more or less a mod invention, but it follows naturally from the Altmer belief in the racial superiority of the Altmer and their view of the mixed-blood races (e.g., Bretons) as inferior.  Politically, it is also a convenient means for the Thalmor to justify their power, and to discredit opponents. Also, given that the Thalmor started as a council tasked with keeping lineage records (and safeguarding the Aldmeri heritage) centuries ago, they are in a good position to do this.

 

Of course, for story purposes, it also increases the stakes for Tirwin to have a relationship with the PC, who is presumably not a "pure-blooded" Altmer, or at least not one who can trace their lineage back centuries through the Thalmor records. On this point, Tirwin's dialogue about sex with the PC is a bit questionable, because she's not worried about being caught with an Altmer PC. But her dialogue could be justified simply because her being seen with an Altmer is not at all suspicious. After all, it's not like Thalmor can recognize a non-pure-blooded Altmer on sight. That said, this dialogue could be revised a bit to explain this better.

 

In any case, for mod purposes, putting Altmer PCs in basically the same situation as non-Altmer PCs allows the mod quests involving the Thalmor to all unfold basically the same way. Of course, that doesn't mean the dialogue can't change as appropriate for Altmer PCs.

 

Also, as noted, the dialogue on the boat needs to be revised, as it assumes the PC is not an Altmer. And, I agree that Tirwin should be suspicious of revealing her research to an Altmer (although, of course, non-Altmer could spy for Altmer as well - see Solstheim.) I'm not sure if this deserves a mini-quest, but certainly at least some additional dialogue.

 

 

 

Yes, I understand this after all,  most the Altmer in Skyrim happen to be Thalmor and as a npcs who are not go, typically their dialog is generally reflect a condescending attitude, save maybe Niranye although she's a profiteer on the shady side. It's generally taken collectively they would frown about collaboration without gain or need let alone personal relationships with other races. They have a smug aire in their words and hint or tout others are beneath them. 

Edited November 9, 2025 by eflat01

[wolfskyrim]

I get to the 1st Wolf Quest and get the cage open and go through all the dialogue, then hide behind carriage, then they just stare at each other endlessly. 

[Maidenslayer]

This is an enjoyable quest.  I've played it at least four times before as the mod has been improved and updated over the years.  But I can't get it to automatically start.

 

I can use console commands to execute setstage var_mainquest 20.  Most folks can't.  Thus, frustrated players will abandon it.

 

Perhaps the Bannered Mare trigger box is too small.  Or perhaps you can think of a different way to start it with certainty.  Or perhaps you could simply publish the console command to force-start it on the mod's description page.

 

As always, I look forward to future updates.  And I hope it automatically starts the next time.

Edited November 13, 2025 by Maidenslayer
Clarified problem

[killer905]

On 11/9/2025 at 5:25 PM, wolfskyrim said:

I get to the 1st Wolf Quest and get the cage open and go through all the dialogue, then hide behind carriage, then they just stare at each other endlessly. 

Creature are activeted in SexLab? Yu have animations for wolf?

[killer905]

7 minutes ago, Maidenslayer said:

This is an enjoyable quest.  I've played it at least four times before as the mod has been improved and updated over the years.  But I can't get it to automatically start.

 

I can use console commands.  Most folks can't.  Thus, frustrated players will abandon it.

 

Perhaps the Bannered Mare trigger box is too small.  Or perhaps you can think of a different way to start it with certainty.  Or perhaps you could simply publish the console command to force-start it on the mod's description page.

 

As always, I look forward to future updates.  And I hope it automatically starts the next time.

This is a strange problem in general, because neither Gristle nor I experience it, and the only thing that comes to mind is that some modification conflicts with the inn, or you just need to put Animal Research lower in the mod order.

[mastergundam7777]

Is it possible to revisit some of the creatures besides the bear? Would like to revisit the Rieklings but not sure if that is possible.

[killer905]

1 hour ago, mastergundam7777 said:

Is it possible to revisit some of the creatures besides the bear? Would like to revisit the Rieklings but not sure if that is possible.

At the moment, revisiting is only available for Bear and Deer, but we plan to add the option to revisit every creature (except those that the PC can summon). Why? Because we prefer to focus on the main story, and revisiting creatures we have already met is less of a priority.

[The_Blank_Frank]

That was a wild ride (literally 😆!)

The Sanguine party was incredible (even more with Spectator crowds mod, which increases the already perfect "orgy effect"): too bad Serana couldn't join the party 🤣... perhaps in the future? Seeing her acting as Tirwin does in that event would have been a masterpiece 😂.

Another interesting scenario would be to let Caliban (the hound) come back in the present as a dog follower for Serana such as Ragnar for Tirwin.

Anyway, this mod is fantastic and I'm truly curious to see how the story will proceed.

Keep up the good work!