Description
It seemed to me that a housecarl would usually be a younger, lower-ranking person. But there are enough young glamazon Lydia mods out there already. In this remake of Lydia, she is younger looking but remains lore-friendly and requires only vanilla assets. She now prefers light armor and comes equipped with scale armor, a Skyforge steel sword (thanks to the relationship between the Jarl and Jorrvaskr), a Whiterun shield (she does, after all, represent the Jarl), and a hunting bow.

And besides...the world desperately needed another Lydia remake.

IMPORTANT!! SEE INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS BELOW!!


Features

• Marked Essential.
• Female gender stance.
• Levels with the player from 3 to 100.
• Custom class and combat style.
• Perked in her particular skillsets (one-handed, archery,block,light armor, sneak, restoration).
• Morality: Up to "Violence against enemies" (she still represents the Jarl)
• Healing and Fast Healing spells
• Reviewed with TES5Edit.
  

Requirements
Vanilla Skyrim. No DLCs required.

Versions
See "Latest Version" link above.

Installation
If you are starting a new game:

• Download with NMM.
• Activate in NMM.
  

For an existing game - IMPORTANT:

• Download with NMM.
• If Lydia is currently a follower of yours, dismiss her as a follower.
• Create a savegame.
• Exit game and activate mod in NMM.
• Load the savegame.
• Go to Lydia (she may still be wearing the steel armor) and have her follow you.
• Trade with Lydia and take EVERYTHING from her inventory.
• Dismiss her as a follower.
• Open the console (tilde key) and click on Lydia. You should see her Form ID number appear.
• Type: disable (this will cause Lydia to disappear - that's ok)
• Type: enable
• Type: setlevel 1000 0 3 100
• Exit the console (tilde key)
• Lydia should now reappear and her stats should be correct (you can check with UFO)
• Make her a follower again and give her back her Skyforge sword, Whiterun shield, necklace, bow and arrows.
  

Removal
Dismiss the follower.
Deactivate in NMM.

Usage
Do not upload this mod elsewhere, but feel free to use anything in it for your own mod.

Compatibility
Load after UFO or any other mod which modifies Lydia.
Uses only vanilla assets.
Recommended mods:
UFO-Ultimate Follower Overhaul
Follower Trade Priority
Challenging AI - Aggressive Combat Styles
Duel - Combat Realism

Mods used in screenshots
I like a generally minimalistic approach to character visual changes. These are the mods I use which affect female appearance:

• Superior Lore-friendly Hair - HD Textures
• No More Blocky Faces
• Better Females By Bella (version: No makeup just improved textures)
• Natural Eyes
  

My Mods

• Incremental Difficulty - Expert and Master Difficulty increase enemy damage output without decreasing the player damage output
• Mages Focus - a magicka regen & spell cost reduction buff spell for battlemages
• Quieter Dremora Summons - Dremora summons say their lines less frequently
• Giants Are People Too - Giants can be just subdued rather than killed
• Khajiit Campsite - A Khajiit tent player home near Whitewatch Tower
• Thadimir and Thazimir - Redguard Followers - Two Redguard one-handed and shield tanks with custom combat styles
• Niphriel - A Wood Elf Necro Ranger Follower - Bow, one-handed and the dark arts
• Belrand Reloaded - A skills and cosmetic makeover of Belrand the hireling
• Follower Trade Priority - Moves the "I need to trade some things with you" topic up in the list of dialogue choices
• Orc Followers - Four Orc followers with various abilities ready for battle
• Follower Keeva-Ja - Conjurer of Fire and Ice Wraiths - Argonian follower Keeva-Ja conjures fire and ice wraiths together, and also has spell tomes so you can learn to summon these creatures
• Lore-Friendly Lydia - A young and capable Lydia remake which remains lore-friendly.
• Resilient Follower Jewelry - Jewelry for followers to recover from bleedout better and faster
• Jordis Empowered - A strong and attractive 2H-wielding Jordis
• Adelaisa Vendicci Revised - Improve the appearance & skill of the vanilla follower Adelaisa
• J'zargo the Magnificent - Makes J'zargo's skills worthy of his ego
• Valdimar Improved - Improve the skills and appearance of Valdimar the housecarl
• Uthgerd the Ally - Improve the appearance and skills of the follower Uthgerd, and bypass the brawl bugs
• Rayya Revised - Improve the appearance, outfit and skills of Falkreath housecarl Rayya
• Annekke Revised - Improves the looks and skills of Annekke Crag-Jumper. Includes special Bounder Edition!