I put this in the perms already, but this is up for grabs, yours to do with what you like, modify, patch, etc, go to town! I still hope to come back to it one day but if you have your own ideas, want to use parts of it, or all of it, whatever, that is OK with me. This is me giving you permission to recycle, upgrade, republish, etc. So, cheers!

SSE version here: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/48524



Why should I care about this? Because the differences in Skyrim races' gameplay is almost nonexistant. In early game a skill bonus can help you along your chosen path, but by the time you max out your skills it hardly matters if you're a Nord with 100 sneak or a Kahjiit with 100 sneak. It's the same thing--you are sneaky. What I'm hoping to do here is make each race truly distinct from the others. No matter your profession, and even if you never leave 1st person view, I want you to know very clearly, "I am an Argonian. I come from the swamp. I breath water. The Hist are with me."  And when your next playthrough is a Bosmer, I want you to immediately say, "Holy crap, I am NOT an Argonian. I can't do any of the things they can do. But I CAN do all these other awesome things!" (once the other race mods are done.)


This mod gives you the lesser powers Heat Vision & Venom, and the abilities Claws, Water Affinity (double healing while underwater), and Poison Resistance. It also adds to your vanilla Histkin power. As you level up, your powers will level up too. Your venom damage will increase, eventually gaining a stagger effect, and ultimately a paralyze effect. Your Heat Vision will quickly evolve to spot the dead, and your Histkin will, at the appropriate level, regenerate stamina, and eventually regenerate magicka. You can drop this file into an existing save. It appears that claw damage does not always level when dropped into an existing save, but no problems reported with the other powers. Therefor I recommend a clean save if upgrading!


Quick demo of what you're getting:



The venom attack has a minor knockback effect--not enough to move your enemies, but enough to cause trouble at parties.





It uses no scripts, so there should be no compatibility issues in that regard. It has been cleaned with TES5edit. Any mod that alters the Argonian race abilities/powers might override this mod. In that case you can grab the powers manually, as shown below in the "Known Issues" section, or you can simply place this mod after that one in your load order. 

PerMa/SkyRe/etc -  This should already be compatible using SkyRe's ReProccer system, so check that you are using the ReProccer as indicated by that mod!



If you use godmode (console command "tgm"), you'll notice the venom cooldown disappears and the DoT stacks, making it very overpowered. When you exit godmode and return to normal, the ability will function as expected. This is not an issue with the mod, it's just part of how godmode works.

The Water Affinity does not show up in Active Effects unless it is actually active--meaning you are in the water. When running around town, there is nothing in the menu to indicate you have this ability, but you do in fact have it. When you drop into the water you may hear a spell effect sound. I plan to remove this (will keep the visual effect so you still know it's working).

Claw damage may not level when the mod is dropped into an existing save, so you may need to do a clean save if upgrading. Hope to have this fixed soon.

At least one user is not getting the abilities automatically added to their character. It seems to have been a clash with another race overhaul mod. You can always move this mod to the end of your load order to work around such issues. Or, if that causes some unwanted loss from the other mod, you can still get the goods by using player.addspell in the console. Here the relevant IDs: 

Claws: xx0058CA
Venom: xx000D62 (currently identified as poison spit)
Heat Vision: xx00433F
Resist Poison: xx00182A
Water Affinity: xx0083E5





It is a single .esp, so if you aren't using NMM or other manager, you can just unzip and drop it in your Data folder. You should be able to install this directly into an existing save without a problem, and your Argonian abilities will automatically be available. To uninstall, just remove the esp from your data folder.




A special thanks to SunshineTentacles for the graphics, and to darthtrevhat who got me started in the right direction.

OTHER ARGONIAN MODS
Alright I haven't tried all of these, but here are some other Argonian mods you may like:

Tel Nalta II by Ac3s and RussianRanger
Argonian Imports by Artiedee and Serindas
Nagas Cavern by MsChif
BAT - Bigger Argonian Tails by Fearil
Skyrim Breastless Argonian Females by Lightningo
Horns Are Forever by Chilean Wolf
Argonian Female Refined by zalunaya
Argonian Fins by Chilean Wolf
Argonian Hair by Mugo99
Adoptable Argonian Hatchling - Chases-Starlight by NyessaX
Digitigrade Argonian Raptor Boots by MurdermiesteR
Better Claws and Gauntlets by Derok and Didact2401