[Mod Concept] Skyrim: ASHES

[soljer13]

So after playing Fallout New Vegas: DUST for a bit, I had this idea all of a sudden.. Why not some post-apocalyptic equivalent to this set in the world of TESV Skyrim? I imagined it something along these lines:

 

Worldspace Changes: All trees replaced with dead ones, or fallen ones. Most of skyrim either covered in snow, ashes, or made volcanic (Eastmarch reminds me of yellowstone, imagine the apocalypse made it partially detonate, making the whole area volcanic), Cities are either ruins or taken over by different factions that have changed, such as Solitude being a Thalmor foothold into skyrim, though frequently attacked by Volkihar vampires, Whiterun being the beaten emergency capital of whats left of skyrim, staffed by imperial soldiers, stuck in a war with the Thalmor, or Rorikstead being taken over by afflicted.

 

Atmosphere Changes: Southern Solstheim/Red Mountain Eruption Weather, Lightning storms with damaging lightning strikes(and each strike drains all magica like the events in labrynthian), Thick Fog and Bloodcursed Sun.

 

Factions: Thalmor(occupying solitude and morthal, hostile to everyone), Empire (occupying falkreath and whiterun, not hostile to the player character or other NPCs but embroiled in a battle with the Thalmor and other threats, also have closed off the cyrodil border), Stormcloaks (occupying riften, hostile to most other factions except nords, they blame the ruin brought to skyrim by its invaders), Reachmen (same as vanilla, but have complete dominance over the reach), The Dawnguard (the darkness that plagues the land has made vampires come out of the woodwork, and so has it made recruit numbers surge), Vigilants of Stendarr(paranoid and quick to judge you, avoid talking to them), Bandit factions, The Dwemer Reborn (Calcemo gone bonkers using dark magic and creating dwemer automata left and right), Cultists, and more to come as my brain juices flow.

 

Gameplay Changes: This is a doozy, ASHES would require its own mods or it would require borrowing alot of other mods, same as DUST. Things like primary needs, deadlier diseases, poisons, traps, combat. Ashmen spawn across skyrim, concentrated around Eastmarch, a harsher economy, no dragons, new armors and weapons (im thinking for armors it would need scarves, hooves, patchwork stuff, nothing new that needs to be made from scratch. And for weapons I believe weapons of the third era would suffice). Now I dont want it to be an exact translation of DUST into Skyrim, as such there should be a bit more civilization. Non-hostile/friendly/neutral townsfolk could be huddled in any number of caves/dungeons/dwemer ruins or even spots of black reach, struggling to survive, the surface is cold and haunted with ashmen/the dead/vampires/hardier beasts, so people would have to adapt to the harsher environments, changing their diets and economy topside, or down underground.(incentive to use hunterborn?)

 

Possible Story: Similar to DUST, ASHES is a story of a lot of things that could have gone wrong, going wrong. Set an undetermined amount of years after the Dragonborn succeeded in stopping Alduin and drove away most dragons, but he/she failed to stop many of the other threats skyrim faced. I was thinking something along the lines of the dragonborn fufilling the Blood Prophecy but never becoming the Grandmaster of the Mages Guild, Thus Ancano got his hands on the Eye of Magnus and, while his blind misuse of its powers ended up killing him, it vaporized Winterhold, and unleashed the sleeping power under eastmarch. The magical blast warping skyrim. Peryites plague has spread, the Reachmen have taken alot of ground, Thalmor have restarted their war with the Empire, trying to take the northern provinces, cultists, bandits, necromancers, and vampires bid for the wasteland that is now skyrim.

 

The player's objectives would be to survive, collect notes and learned what has happened, and possibly escape down towards Cyrodil/Hammerfell/Morrowind alongside any companions (perhaps leading a group of survivor npcs?) in an exodus to safety.

I dont know guys but I think a world like TES, that has magic, demons, dragons, ghosts, etc. is a great place to set up a post apocalyptic survival scenario. If you have any ideas, comments or criticisms feel free to pitch in. I have zero modding ability, but I just couldnt sit by and let this sit in my head as an idea. Hopefully someone or a few people take this and make it happen. I dont need credit for the idea (besides im sure many others have similar ideas), I just want to see it a reality.

Here's my r/skyrim thread if anyone would like to pitch in support/ideas there. 

https://www.reddit.com/r/skyrimmods/comments/3hn9oz/mod_idea_skyrim_ashes/