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DESCRIPTION
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If you have completed the Shivering Isles quest to get Ushnar's Skinned Hound, this mod will make your hound a bit more fun to have around. He is now essential, leveled, and commandable. Activate your hound to get the following menu choices:

Follow: Your hound will follow at your side & attack any hostile targets engaged in combat with you or directly attacking him.

Stay: Your hound will stay at his current spot, and won't attack anything unless he is directly attacked.

Scram: Your hound will vamoose.

Go Home: Your hound will vanish to the safety of home. While at home, your hound will wander & guard the premises, attacking any targets that become engaged in combat with him or with you.

Mark Current Location as Home: Similar to many companion mods; the very spot where your hound is standing becomes his "home marker". This is where he will go when you tell him to Go Home.

Inventory: Use your hound as a pack mule.  Meaning, he can store your stuff.

Activating your hound while sneaking will offer the same menu, but with the additional option to restore all the hound's default AI settings. Use this option before uninstalling the mod. Giving your hound any of the other commands will undo this restoration.

When you first load up this mod, your hound will be resurrected if he's dead, and you'll be given a summon spell to call him to you. Khajiit players, who previously didn't have the option to acquire the hound, will be given the summoning spell after completing the main quest in Shivering Isles (untested).

This mod has five choices for what your hound can look like:

• The original skeletal hound
• A dog
• A wolf
• An atronach hound (pictured)
• A custom hound (white wolf by default; see installation instructions)
  

All resources have been given unique paths, and all plugins have been cleaned with TES4Edit for best compatibility.

New this version:
(v2.0)

• Cranked up the Hound's turn speed so it wouldn't take him a solid minute to turn around.  Dogs are supposed to be fairly agile, yes?
• Also cranked the Hound's health a little so he wouldn't spend so much time examining the floor tiles.
• Reduced the Hound's movement speed a hair from last update so he wouldn't look just plain silly while running.
• Added an inventory option to the Hound, so you can use him as a pack mule.  Note that, technically, your Hound is not actually carrying your stuff, so you can't over-burden him.
• Script code added to help ensure friendliness with the player & followers.  Just in case.
  

(v1.02)

• Fixed the Hound's Aggression stats so he would engage in combat more reliably when the player is attacked when set on Follow and Stay.  He should also fight defensively if he is attacked when set to Scram or Go Home.
• Raised the Hound's speed a little, as he lagged behind often.
• Your Hound will now level with you higher and more closely than before.
• Your Hound also now has a very low-grade Restore Health ability, so you won't have to heal him up quite so much during downtime.
• Added Bash tags to the plugins to ensure compatibility with other mods that may incidentally affect the Hound.
  

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REQUIREMENTS
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Requires the latest official Oblivion patch (1.2.0.416).
Requires the Shivering Isles expansion.


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NEED HELP? FIND A BUG?
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Mod Installation Guide
Mod Troubleshooting Guide


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CREDITS
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Thanks to/for, in no particular order:

• Gregg "Deepfreeze" Gean for the help with the hound's spell effects.
• JDFan for the exquisite atronach texture.
• Cryonaut, for the Tundra Wolf retexture from Subspecies Variety Pack - Canines.
• carmel for the Ushnars Skinned Hound Essential mod, which was my inspiration.
  

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PERMISSIONS
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You may re-use any of this mod's content in your own Oblivion mods, as long as you don't charge money for it, you credit me for my work, and you credit anyone I credited for their work.

You may share this mod freely, as long as you don't charge money for it, and you include my original Readme.

Please enjoy. =)