EinarrTheRed

Okay, bit of an news update, progress report, whatever you want to call it. I'm currently working on the next update to the mod and its going to be significant. Here's a brief rundown of what's in the works. I'll looking at cleaning up the masters for the mod. This is an old mod, and when I started the only hair mod was Apachii hair... even Apachii hair for females hadn't come out yet. I am still planning on removing those dependencies but... because of the way the various masters got added it will break a few things when I do. So, I need to clean that up now and get that organized so the Apachii stuff is at the end of the masters list and won't cause issues when I eventually do fully remove it. I haven't yet started on this, other than some basic investigation and getting some advice, so I'm not sure if it will impact anyone's save games. Probably not as most of PB doesn't use the DLC content which is the main stuff that will break. Blackbird and I have the updates for Salma at Ironbind, Fjola at Mistwatch, Eisa Blackthorn at Frostmere and Anska at High Gate ruins done and working and some testing done. I'm pretty happy with the results. You'll be able to recruit Salma, Anska and even Eisa as followers (if you meet the right conditions, more on that later)... but Fjola... she has a different ending. No spoilers for now. This is a bit beyond what the original purpose of the mod and I intend this to be my only foray in this direction, but I'm happy those quests are fixed, stable, and now have endings in line with what I believe Bethesda intended... and all in one mod, so you don't have to add four small mods to your load order for it. I've also been doing a lot of work on some bandit locations as previously discussed. Currently, I've overhauled Ruunvald and Japhet's Folly. In the case of Ruunvald, all the Charmed Vigilants are now named unique NPCs, they still die when Minorne is killed or enslaved, unless you enslave them first... so... enslave em and save their lives... that counts as a good deed, right? 😉 All the bandits at Japhet's Folly are also now unique and named with a few more added though not too much cause I didn't want to overwhelm anyone doing it at low level (you can try it as early as level 6). The real challenge is grabbing all the cuties, slapping slave collars on em and getting them off the island without them escaping or it turning into total chaos! In my testing I ended up camping on the island for 3 days before I had them well behaved enough to leave. Its still a one time trip, you cannot go back so if you miss any or leave them behind you lose them... play smart! In both cases the NPCs level with the player up to level 50 at 50% your level, they have more perks to make them better in a fight and their facegen was done in Racemenu so they're pretty good looking (better than the average PB stuff). KS Hair was used on all the new NPCs. I may post a few previews if I get the chance. The soldiers at Helgen are also getting reworked in a similar way. There are also three unique mages added to Felglow Keep encountered only during the Hitting the Books quest (this is in addition to The Caller who I'd already done). I also added two unique necromancer to Ilinalta's Deep. I'm planning to do Mistwatch, Northwatch Keep and Broken Oar Grotto (including the Ice Runner) as well. These locations don't normally respawn and I'm not going to change that for now. In the future I am thinking of adding a MCM toggle so that after doing the quest content, some of these locations can be made to respawn so you have bandit lairs to continue to raid if you want... but that's for the future. All total this will provide over 100 unique NPCs you can enslave with PAHE and not have to worry about a single naked bandit anywhere, and because they are unique NPCs if you sell them via @Musje AYGAS mod, they will not disappear and will continue to be resold so they stay in your game. That's going to probably be it for unique NPCs for the forseeable future, it should give you plenty of unique NPCs to grab until I can get the new random NPCs done which will do a lot to reduce the naked bandit bug. Its also giving me a lot of practice making nicer looking NPCs for when I start on the Prettier Resources ESM. Sadly, there's no way I'll have time to get the updated witches into the next release, the above is a LOT of work, and a lot accomplished. So the witches will be added in a future update, and this will give me time to do more with them (which dovetails with restarting work on my Darklight Tower mod). That's the news. I don't want to make promises yet on when this will be out but I'm hoping in 1-2 months maybe.

Prettier Bandits doesn't use a body replacer, it uses whatever you have installed. I use my own custom UNPB body I made in Bodyslide, so that's what you see in my screen shots. I'm not sure which topless one you mean, maybe the forsworn? If so, that's an armor replacer I use that makes the forsworn gals topless. Sorry for the long delay in replying.

Leave it to you to make burlap look good! 😄😉

@JayRoz Thank you, glad you are enjoying it. There is a new update in the works but its gotten delayed by RL. I've had a lot going on, and all things Skyrim got pushed onto the back burner.

Well, until I release an SE version, you could try converting it from LE to SE yourself. This mod is not (yet) SE compatible.

Don't blame ya, the next DLC for X4 Foundations was just announced and I'm pretty sure that's going to distract me for at least a week when it comes out. 😄

Ummm... that's literally what you wrote. So I have no idea what you meant. Regardless... For anyone who may be confused about this, let me clarify my intentions with this mod: I am NOT taking any respawning bandit (or other hostile) lair out of the respawn list. I *might* make some non-respawning lairs into respawning ones where lore makes that make sense, particularly with relation to other mods I support (Mistwatch and Cracked Tusk Keep are the only two locations currently being considered for that, and yes Piffy, that probably means you get your respawning prettier orcs with your SBC captives 😉 Soon as I can figure out how to make prettier lore friendly orcs... 😋). I AM taking some NON-respawning, leveled, non-unique bandits and other hostiles and turning them into unique named NPCs that hopefully will be more fun to fight, and also targets for PAHE players to bonk over the head and drag off as slaves. Most of these are in locations you normally only visit once, and some of which are quest locked. I am making a lore friendly mod that works with the Skyrim we were given. I could give a fuck about what someone *might* do somewhere, someday. I could give a fuck about people who insist on taking every damn spot and making yet another player home there. I am making a mod that supports PAHE players who like to bonk bandits over the head and drag them off as slaves. I am making a mod that supports SBC locations for rescuing captives placed by that mod. I am making a mod that should fully work with FSM for locations your poor abused and underpaid follower could end up a slave and needs to be rescued from. I am making a mod that makes NPCs that are better looking, but lore friendly and maybe who scale a little bit better with higher level DBs (within reason and lore). Truthfully, it makes them better looking than they probably have a right to be if I were being fully realistic. But, last I heard, nobody wanted potential slaves who were covered in scars, tattoos and mud. So... they aren't. But I at least try to keep it lore friendly and believable if you can believe bandits bathe regularly and own a hair brush and a tooth brush. I have taken Salma (not a bandit) and thanks to the hard work of Blackbird, that quest and the NPCs are now fixed, stable, reliable, and better looking and you can have her as a follower if you want (or bonk her over the head and drag her off as a slave, your call); you can even use console commands on her now. Not even Arthmoor managed to fix that mess, we did. I did it because I just didn't feel like making a whole other mod to fix that one NPC and quest. Call it a bonus, saved you a mod slot, say thank you. Otherwise, I could give a fuck. My mod assumes you are playing as the Dragonborn, the avatar of a god, Shor/Lorkhan made flesh come to save the human race from yet another apocalypse and their own incompetence while kicking the Mer in the nuts again and you want bad guys (and gals, some of you want mostly gals, okay most of you want mostly gals 😏; working on it) to give you a challenge which don't look like refugees from original Doom. However, if you are playing as anything else, say a hapless female constant victim who likes getting enslaved and abused, well if the NPCs presented by this mod happen to help with that play style... fine... happy for you... enjoy yourself. If not... I could give a fuck. I am NOT making a mod for people who prefer to play Better Homes and Gardens. This is Skyrim, we fight shit here. Get your violence on. This is the place for that, not the real world. Those are my priorities. If they aren't yours... well... I could give a fuck. Honestly, I'm not an asshole (truthfully I'm too nice for my own good), but there comes a point when as a modder I have to decide what my priorities are, what I can do and just as importantly what I can NOT do. That's not being an asshole, that's preserving my sanity and making best use of my time so the mod I CAN make gets made and in the shortest possible amount of time. Also, I have a very dry sense of humor. So... regarding other mods. If its lore friendly I'll probably try to work with it. If its not... I could give a fuck. If its PAHE related or SBC related or FSM related, I'll probably try to work with it. If it is a mod that goes against those mods... I could give a fuck. Making Mistwatch or any other bandit lair into a player home is NOT lore friendly... so... guess how I feel about that? Capisci. If anyone has suggestions for this mod that fit those priorities, I'll absolutely listen. If it doesn't fit those priorities... well... I think you get it by now. I have to draw the line somewhere, them's the lines. Entirely unrelated... Are you an experienced modder planning to put some real effort into making Goldenglow Estate into a nice and well done player home you say? Bless you! About damn time someone did. (Yes I'm aware there have been a couple of attempts to do it. Clearly I'm not impressed by the results. You say you think they are awesome mods and I shouldn't be so harsh... guess how I feel about that?) But leave the bandit lairs alone (and the warlocks and necromancers and the witches... Skyrim needs bad guys). PS - If you ask me to make prettier trolls or prettier Falmer... I will hunt you down and pummel you with a three day old carp until you are unconscious. Just thought I'd clarify that. Just in case... 😋 Go bug Mihail with that stuff. PSS - This does not include making prettier evolved Falmer for TID or strange fishy people for FTD... those I may do, but not in this mod. Didn't want Delzaron to think I was going to slap him with a fish. Sorry for any alarm my dry humor may have caused. 😏 Have a nice day. 😃

They went all in on the feral look. Just found a makeup pack that has the bloody lips and stuff, will keep that in mind for the future.

That's kind of you to say, but I still hate it because FSM was doing something I wish there was more of, mods that affect followers instead of everything being focused on the DB. I really wanted to do more to support and encourage that and when I get the chance I still want to get the current copy, see where things are at and contribute where and how I can.

I'm not taking anything out of the respawning list. Mistwatch, Ruunvald, Japhet's Folly, Broken Oar Hollow, none of these respawn normally. If they are in your game, you have a mod that makes that so. That said, I'm considering in some cases (like Mistwatch and Broken Oar Hollow) that once you've done the associate quest and killed or captured the unique occupants the location will respawn with regular bandits.

Not sure I follow what you mean. But to try an clarify... here's generally my approach. Vanilla uniques (Eisa Blackthorne, Fjola, Alva, Anska, etc.) - I updated these because I hadn't seen that many mods that updated their appearance, so my goal was partly to offer a comprehensive update in a single mod. I also updated their stats and their ability to level where it made sense, but kept it lore friendly (many were made back when the effective level cap was 40 or 60, so they weren't really scaling well with current game play). These were also NPCs I felt were likely to be targets for PAHE slavery. A few were special cases, Salma was kind of broken in several ways, along with her quest and even Arthmoor and USLEEP hadn't been able to entirely fix that. It was difficult to enslave her because of these issues. So that's fixed and now you can enslave her or have her as a follower without issue, some quest issues were also fixed and stablized. That's rare exception though, I don't plan to do many of those (if any more at all). All of these can easily be overwritten by other appearance replacers either with manual installed or MO2 if desired, though bear in mind they almost never do any stat improvements. Of the vanilla uniques, I'm probably pretty much done with this other than some already done ones from Solstheim and a few others that will be included in coming updates, beyond that I'm not planning to do any others unless I get requests. I think these are the ones you were concerned with, I'm pretty much done with these types. Well except some vampires some people might want that I hadn't really planned on doing, but... 😉 New Uniques - these are either taking previously leveled NPCs that were more or less unique and making them actual unique named NPCs with improved appearance OR they're brand new NPCs. The Vaermina Dream girls, the Wolf Skull Necromancers, and some others are examples of this. I'm putting most of my effort toward these types, working on places like Ruunvald (the charmed vigilants), Japhet's Folly, Mistwatch, and possibly a few others. Some of these (like Mistwatch) I'm considering having regular leveled bandits respawn once its been cleared so it remains a site you can keep sacking for loot and such. My purpose in creating these unique NPCs was mainly as targets for PAHE slavery, allowing you to get a nice collection of unique NPCs where you don't have to worry about any naked bandit bug. I'm focusing on these for now, but this is also temporary. I expect once I get a number of locations done that will probably be it. At that point I'll shift my focus entirely to building Prettier Resources and updating all the factions of leveled actors with the new "blank" NPCs. Elsewhere, we'll have the leveled lists of nameless respawning NPCs, and even there I'm working on expanding that so there will be so many base actors in the leveled lists that the naked bandit bug becomes rare even with those. For those not using PAHE, it will mean a lot more variety in the faces they see, and they'll look better. I'm also looking at adding in some new road and wilderness encounters, more about that later. Once I finish building Prettier Resources and the new leveled lists, I'll probably circle back to all the uniques and retouch their appearance. My guess is by the time I get done building over 3000 NPCs in Racemenu I should be pretty skilled at it and will be about to turn out really good results. That will also probably mark the end of the mods development, there just won't be anything left to do after that. That's fine, it'll allow me more free time to work on Whiterun, Stone Bluff Manor, Granite Hills and Darklight Tower. Not too mention helping @Blackbird Wanderer with SBC, @Delzaron with FTD and TID, and I was supposed to be helping @Bane Master with FSM and I regrettably dropped the ball on that (which I hate happened). Hope that clarified things a bit.

Yeah I've seen other's do Alva, but hadn't seen anyone update Laelette so.... I did. Plus they seemed a good pair to start with. I've also done Sybille Stentor as well, but haven't included her in the mod, I can if people would like that. I even did Serana for practice but I think there's more than enough out there by better artists than me. The vampires she sends you to kill are random leveled spawns, so that would require updating all the vampires, may get to that eventually. The only unique one in Morvath's lair is Morvath himself, the rest are leveled actors. Some of the Dawnguard stuff, particularly during Awakening might work to make unique as I don't think they respawn (but I haven't checked). The prisoner's in Felglow aren't unique but I think they could probably be made to be since they don't respawn IIRC There could be others, I honestly haven't looked.

I kinda... might... have... another surprise about that. 😏

Okay, found one of my concept drawings. Hopefully this will make some sense to you and I'll post notes about what is where and some reasons for doing things a certain way below. The map, Juutvol Isle

After I get v1.2 out (which will remove the Apachii Hair dependency) I'm going to look at an SE version. Fair point. Up until now I haven't done anything with vampires. Part of that has been because I just don't care about vampires in Skyrim, hasn't been of much interest to me. But it was also because doing vampires that look good in just CK wasn't easy. Racemenu offers me more options, especially since I've learned to copy fangs over into a Racemenu generated head. v1.1 will include Alva and Laelette (Morthal vampires) done in Racemenu as a first foray into that. I'm still learning there, but its a beginning. Sneak peak at Alva and Laelette I'm still experimenting with different options, glowing eyes or not, how feral to make them look... and maybe doing some of each (make some look more human and others less so for variety). Also experimenting with the make up and options like giving them blood covered chins. So... some unique vampires in Potema's Catacombs you say... well... its an idea. 😉