Skyrim

About this mod

Adds dynamic herders with their animals and camps to Skyrim, purchasable&milkable cows&goats, and more.

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Permissions and credits
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Description
Adds several herder NPCs with their own daily/weekly schedules around various locations on the map(and Solstheim).
CHECK THE MAP BELOW OR IN THE PICTURE SECTION FOR THE ROUTES AND BASE LOCATIONS.
The Npcs have a complete schedule, travel between places, sell their produce, have pets, unique clothes etc.
Some have just a basic daily schedule, others a more varied one.
With v1.2 I added dynamic camps and locations to the mod.
What that means is that their spots will be active *only* when the NPCs are *actually* there (not time bound).
Visiting them at any other time of the day/week/month will show an abandoned/inactive version or maybe even nothing.
The mod also adds cows&goats for sale for the Player and a couple unique objects.
Please report bugs in the appropriate "Bugs" Section.
Comments are closed.

SSE Version


The Npcs


Milla:
Gilfre's kid sister. Lives with her at Mixwater Mill and tends to the animals, since all the workers are away due to the civil war.
In the early morning she feeds the chickens and then herds the goats in the area.

Lisa:
Young female Breton bard residing in Riften's Helga's Bunkhouse.
Every day herds her small herd in the woods west of the city and around Shor's Stone.
In the evening she hangs around the Bee and Barb. Might play/sing if she feels like it.
Once a week she visits her friend Adriana in Ivarstead.
Has a dog named Rosa (unique doge mesh).

Gaius:
Retired Imperial Legion veteran living in Dragon Bridge. Still carries around his old sword.
Visits the Stables/Farm in the morning and Solitude in the Afternoon.
Has been known to visit Clearpine Pond.
Around 4-5 PM he sets up shop on the bridge, till around 9-10PM.
Has a pack pony and herds goats.

Demis:
Dark Elf refugee from Morrowind. Destruction Mage. Has pet red torchbug.
She's on the road most of the time.
Travels between: Morthal(Inn)-Drelas'Cottage(camp)-Whiterun(Inn)-Mixwater Mill(Worker's Hut)-Windhelm(Grey Quarter)-Nightgate Inn-Dawnstar(Inn)
Herds goats.

Marbel:
Old imperial widow living in Falkreath.
Every morning she visits her husband's grave and then heads to Riverwood with her goats.
On quiet days she herds near Lake Ilinata.
On Sundas, she relaxes in town, visits the Shrine and shops.
Has a dog called Pert. Sleeps at Falkreath's inn.

Ingmurd:
Skaal or Skaal-associated Nord Male living near Dawnstar. Has a pack of domesticated reindeers.
Dressed in Skaal clothes and armed with a spear.
While his route is mainly in the Dawnstar area, he also travels to Winterhold on occasion.
Sells pelts and Skaal clothing. At night visits the inn for a couple hours.

Ciara:
Middle aged Nord used up Dibella worshiper.
Lives in Markarth's SilverBlood Inn and herds her goats east of the city.
Twice a week visits Karthwasten.
In the evening she visits the Temple to "commune" with her goddess.
On Sundas, she does her weekly shopping visiting several stores and the local market.


Bors:

Young Nord managing the Rorikstead Cow Herd and in charge of selling the cows.
Has 2 quite aggressive sheep dogs guarding the place, a big one mainly devoted to guarding the large herd and fending off wolves and such; and a small one that follows him around in the afternoon
and keeps him company at night.
Sleeps at the Frostfruit Inn in the evening.
On Sundas, he gets a day off and hangs around town and the inn with his dog.

Svarjn:
Young Nord Temporarily herding his cows next to Loraius' Farm with his permission, due to the prime pastures in the area and the relative absence of predators.
Has 2 sheep dogs and a horse and personally patrols the fields.
In the morning, he follows the herd to pasture, and after a short lunch break at his camp, he reprises his role as herder till nightfall, when he visits the farm.
At night sleeps in his tent with the only company of his dogs.

Svitjl&Girmi
Two bulky male Nords. They're in charge of the huge traveling herd.
It's based near Drelas Cottage to the south next to the river.
While mostly herding them in the area, they visit Svarjn in Loreius on Loredas, Whiterun proper on Sundas, Bors in Rorikstead on Mondas.
They spend the following day herding in nearby valleys, only to go back to their main camp on Middas.
Along with Bors and Svarjn they're all part of the same Faction operating in the Whiterun Tundra.
They have a horse each. They'll ride whenever they join the herd for a trip.
There's also two unique huskies, Bento (the herding dog) and Marta (the guard dog).
Together they keep an eye on the animals most on the time without much human intervention.


new in v1.1
Glimoril
A wood elf female living in the woods around Falkreath.
Has a tiny shack, a pet young deer she tamed, and several goats.
Herds mostly in the HalfMoon mill area but on the weekends she visits both Falkreath and Whiterun to stock up on supplies.

Fenrir
Somewhat eccentric Dunmer in Solstheim.
On week days you can find him near his small hut next to the Sun Stone, on Weekends he goes back to Raven Rock to stock up on supplies etc.
Herds a Netch Bull, 3 betties, and 3 calves.
Sleeps at the local inn when in town.

Adriana
A not so young Imperial maiden residing in Ivarstead.
She's befriended Lisa during her herding, and she visits her weekly for 2 days along with her goats.
In the evening, when in town, she manages a small market stall right next to the Inn selling cheese, milk, etc.
Sleeps at the inn.

Melvryn
Avrusa and Aduri's nephew.
Fancies himself a wizard and practices his spells every morning.
Is forced to herd the farm goats away every day after a Ninroot related accident.
Mainly in the area, but every once in a while he goes as far as Darkwater crossing.
Obviously sleeps in Sarethi Farmstead.

Peaceful Giant
Just a giant herding a few mammoths, traveling around giant camps.
Has a male, a female, and two juveniles.

new in v1.2
Lucius
A somewhat mysterious Imperial living in a small house in the Whiterun area.
Seems to herd goats and possibly sell them.
On weekends heads to town to buy supplies and trade.
Has a pet grey goat named Scrap (the 3rd, as the other 2 literally died in the CK for unknown reasons).


Druben
Little is known about her. Maybe you can stumble upon her in some remote location.

new in v1.3

B'Nard&J'Nessa
A little female orphan adopted by B'Nard, a male adult khajiit expelled by his Caravan Tribe.
They herd their goats near Crabber's Shanty but travel the Whiterun Plains in order to sell their goods.
They stop twice a week in the Roriksteadean outskirts, for two straight days they set up shop in the Ruined Farm near Whiterun Watchtower and finally visit Morthal once a week.
In addition to goat herder's item list, they tend to sell all sorts of merchandise. Word on the street is they fence too.
They have a relatively large herd of goats and a pack pony to transport such a large cache.


The Animals
There's alot of them added by this mod.
None of them are static. They have follow packages to let themselves be herded around, and a fallback spot for night sandboxing.
In addition to the herds managed above by the Human Npcs there's also some who operate near pre-existing farms often herded by a dog or even wandering alone during the day (they go back to their pen and/or the farm premises at night.
The animals added are mainly cows (vanilla morph, black, calves) and goats (vanilla, brown non scruffy, and baby goats).
Cows and Goats for sale have unique colors and morphs.
In addition there's Ingmurd's domesticated Reindeer herd up in the frozen north.
In Solstheim you got a small netch herd so far.
Both the Main herd and Loreius' now should behave like actual herds. Rorikstead is somewhat static.
They are all set to protected, as to not die instantly but at the same time give the PC freedom to RP them away.


The Cows, Goats for Sale, the Feeding and the Merchant aspect of the mod
You can buy cows off Bors located just east of Rorikstead in an old abandoned watchtower.
He is currently able to sell the player a calf, a juvenile cow, 3 varieties of cows and finally a small herd made up of a black cow, 3 other cows and 2 calves for a modest sum.
Lucius in Whiterun sells 9 goats, including one baby. 3 brown ones (the most common type in my mod), a vanilla one, a baby and several other variants.

To purchase them buy the receipts off his merchant menu and then walk up to them and interact normally. They're now followable.
They use a custom follower system so you can recruit many at the same time even without any additional mod.
You'll also need the Herd Stick to make them obey you mind you.
You can craft it at the tanning rack or just buy it off pretty much all the Npcs.
Just lead them your house/farm and them dismiss them and they'll revert back to their basic sandbox and stick around.

All of them (the purchasable ones!) are milkable.  You'll need a bucket (bucket01).
And, a positive relationship rank, because they use a unique system linked to feeding.
Basically, feeding the animals (except baby ones) will raise the relationship rank towards the player upwards to 3 (Ally).
But milking will displease the animal and lower it.
Milking has a very slim chance of failing (animal didn't have enough milk prompt) and a small chance of resulting in 2 Milk Jugs instead of 1.

So the 2 are interlinked and feeding plays and actual active role.
You can feed all purchasable animals carrots (also sold by the NPCs, but they're vanilla carrots).
A gesture and sound should play.

Feeding, Milking and the Follow Commands are all done via dialogue, to be as streamlined and unobtrusive as possible.




Patches&Compatibility
Included there's a RS Children patch to have Milla look like the screenshots and a Common Clothes patch to give the others their unique outfits.
Also included a More adoptable children patch to make Melvryn look, well, like a child.
I encourage everybody to use them both as they improve the experience significantly.
Should be compatible with *anything* aside from mods that place structures right on top of the xmarkers.
Version 1.1 should be compatible 100% with Rorikstead expansion mods (and also Wayshrines of Skyrim).
Version 1.2 should be compatible with Ivarstead and Whiterun outskirts mods (but not Unique Landscapes-Whiterun).
Fully USLEEP compliant as it doesn't alter anything vanilla at all.
I didn't bother to add satchels/backpacks to the NPCs as Wet&Cold does a very good job already.

tl;dr both JK and the Dawn series *should* be compatible. Expanded Towns has been reported to conflict in Ivarstead so far.


Install&Bugs
Use NMM or just copypaste. 
For v 1.2 I highly recommend a clean save. And full reinstall/install via NMM just to be sure as they mod has changed a bit.
Berticus' milking script *might* linger in your savefile too if you don't do this. 
I tested a clean install and there's no papyrus traces (from either that or my mod) whatsoever on the other hand.

Baby goats display a stretched mesh when opening their mouth.

The mod is tailored to a timescale of 10. On faster ones some packages might skip due to the actor not having enough time to complete the scripted actions. I recommend a timescale of 10 or at least 15 anyways, as the vanilla one is waaay too fast.

Their schedules can be disrupted by predator attacks or them getting stuck in places.
Not a bug really as their days *always* being the same is unrealistic and boring anyway.
Eventually the schedules should fix themselves regardless.

Due to AI limitations, I've observed the animals sometime "falling asleep" and being left behind. That happens in vanilla too however.

Vanilla Bugs this mod is affected by to varying degrees:

>Wait and Fast Travel lead to schedules not properly loaded, mostly only for *following* npcs. What this means in practice is the actor once loaded (in the wrong spot) will scramble to reach where he is *supposed* to be at that time but isn't. I suspect this is why most vanilla NPCs are extremely static by design and it being the phenomenon behind NPCs in inns etc sometimes leaving *only* when you're done with the Waiting and similar oddities.
This affects my mod in several ways upon FT or Wait as far as the spot you're in is concerned: a)running animals  b)packages skipped no matter how neat they are programmed or double enforced c)animals popping in out of nowhere when FTing


>Cell Loading leads to actors being loaded above ground (and falling to their death). This is a terrible vanilla bug from day 1. It's the infamous "mammoth bug". And why I made all the actors protected.
You can sometimes witness this with well, mammoths, and deers in the wild. The mod "Horses gone wild" is particularly affected (poor horses).

>The "skating animal" bug. Ergo movement animations not showing. For an explanation as to why and how I suggest you visit SkyTest's page: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/10175

>Dialogue not showing up: just save&reload, as your savefile hasn't picked up the quest yet. No biggie.




Credits
Elianora for the doge mesh & pants base texture
Shaydow for the torchbug mesh 
ghosu for the herding stick mesh 
berticus0001 for the basic milking script
wrig675 for various textures 
PlagueHush for the husky textures 
GreyFox77 for the calf assets 
etayorius for the baby goat assets 
sliceandkill for the caribou texture and juvenile deer mesh
pfaffendrill for highland cow textures 
Laup26 for the hunter saddle mesh 
issae for the hunter spear mesh
keungkeung for the blanket scarf
jasperthegnome for the retexture
MihailMods for the baby mammoth mesh and merchant stuff(?)
volvaga0 for the goggles
Chesko for the stick
zzjay for the huntress clothes
Oaristys&Jokerine for misc resources
LOrdOfWar&iamonewhoplaysgames for the pants 
tumbajamba for the mage backpack
Tamira and Phitt for Phitt's Sheogorad Resource Part One 
perseid9 and fadingsignal  for Milking and Feeding idea/script stuff respectively
hl84 for the khajiit children race
Fallhammer for the idea 
FranklinZunge for making these amazing outfits 
RustyShackleford69 for helping out with testing v 1.2


Main Mods I use in the screens/animal mods I'm using
Skybirds Lite
Highland Cow Retex by Pfuscher
Varied Chickens
Hummingbirds 
Wolves of Cyrodill
Dangerous Bees
Sewer Rats
Horses gone Wild
Tetrachromatic ENB/Vivid Weathers
Tamriel Reloaded
Campfire
Wet and Cold
Feed the Animals
Green Grass (varied version)
Unique Flowers and Plants
Realistic Water 2

CHANGELOG
v 1.1
>fixed Demis' goat leader not being essential, therefore dying, therefore the rest wandering off
>fixed several Saverius' farm cows
>fixed Bors' dog not being in the same faction leading to brawls
>fixed Bors' schedule
>added a new travel route for Marbel, Gaius, Ciara, Lisa, Ingmurd
>added 5 new NPCs: Giant, Glimoril, Fenrir, Melvryn, Adriana
>moved and revamped Rorikstead HQ, added and reorganized cows
>introduced 1h stick version
>uniformed all actors as *protected*
>actually included scripts this time ;^)
v 1.2
>fixed tons of essential/protected/spawn mismatches
>added missing ownership to animals
>fixed some factions
>fixed several schedules
>added "days off" to some NPCs and new routines
>navmeshed Glimoril's hut so now she(and her deer) actually uses it (and the stairs!)
>redone basically from scratch Loreius' stuff&all the cows
>redone Main Herd's schedul etc.
>added 10 new dynamic "spots"
>added 9 purchasable goats
>added some bits of dialogue
>redone the milking system from scratch
>added a feeding system (for carrots)
>added 2 new NPCs
>added a fix for "Feed the Animals" soundfile

v 1.3
>added 2 new NPCs
>added 5 new dynamic locations
>altered Demis' itinerary to have much shorter trips since she couldn't keep up with her schedule
>added unlimited feeding for adult animals too
>fixed Lucius' dialogue
>fixed Girmi's missing package
>reverted Main Herd method of travel and fixed a double linked ref, and a mismatch, per which they got lost for 2 whole days near Rorikstead 
>manually cleaned some wild edits
>changed Lucius' house, added a location, and his schedule in the hopes he'll actually use it now (but I doubt it)

v 1.3.5
Just general bugfixing and tweaking of stuff reported here, on SSE, and found by me.
>changed the dynamic camp triggerbox script, so now there's a 60s delay between trigger and stuff being enabled. Removed LOS as it was useless basically and clogged up script cycle.
>fixed the reindeer's schedule in Winterhold
>added pony no.2 missing meshes
>moved slightly Khajiit camp in Morthal
>fixed an issue per which B'Nard glitched out due to his references being initially disabled 
>fixed cursed goats (just like poor Scrap I and II) in the Khajiit herd which lead to them not following in some games
>fixed (hopefully) Lisa's herd package
>moved Melvryn's training spot a bit for compatibility with Expanded Towns and Settlements
...


FUTURE PLANS

>an npc couple (nord hunter, imperial cyrodillian woman herder) in the Velothi Mountains region
>jobs
>encounters
>dynamic herd growth across the year (actually first few months of gameplay as nobody plays past that anyway)
>offsprings for your animals, male animals for purchase 
>better milking and feeding scripts/systems


Map for routes, locations(v 1.3)