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Alistair Rodryk

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AlistairRodryk

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About this mod

Replaces the courier system with mailboxes you can rent or purchase, and includes extra features such as mail-order deliveries from shops, shipping items long distances, and sending off gear to be improved.

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Translations
  • German
Changelogs


Special Edition Version Here
Deutsch


Video by ArcticScrolls



I first heard it on a Sundas, late in the season of Last Seed. I had just returned from a brief sojourn in Solitude and was roving across the great plains of Whiterun in search of adventure when from behind me came that chilling refrain, the likeness of which I would grow all too familiar with over the ensuing months,

"I've been looking for you. Got something I'm supposed to deliver - Your. Hands. Only."

My mind raced as I turned quickly towards the voice. Who was this figure before me? How had he come to predict my whereabouts before I, a mere wanderer in those days, even had any inclination of where I was headed myself? Furthermore, who would possibly have hired the services of someone so skilled, simply to track me down? I reeled at the thought of the piles of gold this deceivingly maladroit young man must have been paid for the job - surely more than I saw in weeks, if not months. Before I could collect myself, he handed me a letter and took off down the path at a light jog.

My hands shaking, I broke the wax seal on the letter and unfolded it slowly, preparing myself for any number of things. I glanced around furtively before reading it, suddenly feeling watched. Visions of darkly powerful figures plotting my demise ran through my head, concurrent with fantasies of importance, fame, fortune. To my surprise however, what was written was nothing more than an invitation to the local Harvest's End celebrations. Curious...
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Exit RP. The courier is a much-loved feature among many of Skyrim's players, but I always found he did far more to draw me out of the experience than he did to enrich it. The strangeness of him always knowing where you're going to be, the irritating nature of the forced dialogue, his once-endearingly eager face which I slowly began to hate the sight of. Besides, if you have certain mods installed, the amount of letters received stresses patience easily.

Skald's Mail began simply - I wanted a way for my character to realistically receive the somewhat overwhelming amount of mail from a fairly early level, without irritating the heck out of me. That was done fairly quickly, so I set about adding some other features and assets until I felt satisfied with the system.

Currently, the features are as follows. You may:
-Receive regular mail at a primary mailbox-
-Own (or rent) up to 5 secondary mailboxes-
-Send packages between owned or rented mailboxes-
-Ship off weapons and armor to be improved at certain shops-
-Order items from several shops ingame-





Mailboxes
Mail lockboxes are placed around the world. They can generally be found outside of inns, as well as outside of each player home (Including Hearthfire homes, where they will be built along with the first room). Activating one will prompt you to either purchase or rent it (Or claim it for free, if it's the house mailbox of a house you own). Picking one of these options will assign that mail lockbox as your Primary Mailbox. Once you have a Primary Mailbox, the courier will no longer deliver letters to you* and to get your mail, you will need to open your mailbox. If a mailbox has items in it, letters can be seen through the slot.

Any further mail lockboxes you rent or purchase will be assigned as Secondary Mailboxes (Up to a maximum of 5), which do not receive regular mail, but can receive packages sent by the player and Mail Order deliveries. Any Secondary Mailbox can be set as your Primary Mailbox at any time.

*Unless you've checked Courier Delivers Important Letters in the MCM, in which case only the letters for which he has unique voice acting will be delivered, e.g. the Black Hand letter or the Dawnstar Museum Pamphlet.
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Sending a package
Packages may be sent between mailboxes owned or rented by the player. Shipping fees are dependent on the distance the package will travel, and the weight of the package sent. Upon arrival, a package may be seen tied around the mailbox to indicate there is a delivery waiting.
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Mail Order
Several shops in the game may now be ordered from remotely, and some of those will accept deliveries from the player and send back gold. Additionally, Warmaiden's can be sent melee weapons & armor for improvement, and the Solitude Fletcher will improve bows & crossbows.

You will need a shop's catalogue in your inventory to place an order with them. Catalogues can generally be purchased from the shop themselves. In the case of the College of Winterhold, all court wizards will sell their catalogue, but only Enthir & Tolfdir sell it at the College itself.

Red Mountain Imports is a shop which does not exist in the game. I added it as a way to believably order Solstheim items. Red Mountain Imports catalogues may be purchased from Brand-Shei in Riften, Sadri's Used Wares in Windhelm, and Fethis Alor in Raven Rock.

Catalogue shop inventory is static, and does not reflect the actual state of the merchant chest.

Speech skill still affects prices, but to a much lesser degree than it would in person.

You will pay 1/5th of the cost of the order up-front for a deposit, as well as the cost of shipping the items. The remainder can be paid immediately, but the items will not be considered stolen until 3 days after they are delivered. After a delivery from a shop arrives, they will accept no further orders from you until you pay what you owe them.
-

Paying Fees
There are two types of fees; Rented mailbox fees, and gold you owe to a shop you've ordered from.

Rented mailbox fees are due once per month, and may be paid at the rented mailbox in advance at any time during the month. Alternatively, you may leave gold in the mailbox itself (or send gold to that mailbox in a package) to pay the fees.

Owed gold may be paid from one of your mailboxes any time after you place an order. You have 3 days after your items arrive to pay for them, after which you will receive a bounty equivalent to the owed amount in the hold the shop resides in.




Patches
Knight's Rest
-

This mod alters very few vanilla records, so load order does not matter much.

Mods which deliver letters or items via the courier will generally be compatible without any need for a patch, however if the mod uses a method involving courier dialogue to advance a quest or trigger something else, it will likely need a patch. If you notice mod-added content involving letters failing to trigger properly, please let me know. It's probably very simple to fix.

Most other mods which do not modify the Courier's base container form are likely to be compatible, even those which affect the courier himself such as Provincial Courier Service. If you are using Provincial Courier Service, the only oddity will be the redundant mailboxes that mod adds outside of player homes (which may be disabled or moved with the console, if they bug you).

Town & city overhauls may introduce clipping issues depending on what they've placed where. I will not be providing patches for these, either use a positioner mod or the CK to move them where you want them. If you make a patch for a town or city overhaul, please let me know. I would be glad to link to it here.

New mailboxes may be added to the network fairly easily - There is a guide here: How to Add a New Mailbox

Script load with this mod is fairly minor. Most script actions are only triggered by player action while you're in the mailbox menu, with the exception of a few quick checks each owned mailbox does every 2&1/2 minutes or when you enter the cell which contains it, and the script which adds catalogues to the appropriate shopkeepers when you enter the cell which contains their merchant chests. In practice, you should notice practically no extra script latency.




You're able to eat ingredients and learn spell tomes through the catalog order menu. Working on a fix. In the meantime just... don't do that.

Please report any bugs or issues you find so I may resolve them as quickly as possible.