The Horns Of Hell is an overhaul of Skyrim's economy designed to decrease the speed at which you acquire wealth. At the same time it is designed to be a more realistic representation of what you might find merchants selling and what might be found on the various enemy types and in treasure chests, as well as all containers. It also makes player crafting more important by limiting items found at merchants and in the world as treasure. Crafting material will mostly be unavailable at merchants, therefore making player gathering also very important. Mining ore will be worthwhile, and hunting rare alchemical ingredients is almost a necessity for alchemists. Enchanters will find soul gems being sold are mostly empty, and will require the player to go out and fill them with souls.
It also adds certain tweaks in the same vein to make the play through more realistic and challenging. If you download mods that add items and gear, you could undo all that I have done here. IMO, make sure the mod is only providing variety, and not filled with items that are more valuable or powerful than their vanilla counterparts. If one dead bandit is suddenly worth 3000 septims because of his god gear...

This mod:
* Removes starter spells. Your character should have the option of not knowing magic if you so choose. The starting spells will be sold in Riverwood at the trader.

Death Item Changes. Keep in mind that none of these changes remove inventory items. Any humanoid creature listed here will still drop whatever they are carrying/wearing that is lootable.

* Removes the possibility of receiving small treasures, i.e. gold, gems, jewelry, from the beasts you kill. Such as bears, wolves, dogs, cows, etc.
* Removes the possibility of receiving gems, soul gems, ore, and arrows from Dwarven constructs.
* Removes the possibility of receiving any extra items from Draugr when they die.
* Removes the possibility of receiving anything other than a toe from a Giant's death. They are almost always near a boss chest so filling a Giant's death item inventory with a huge amount of treasure is overkill.
* Removes the possibility of receiving soul gems and ingredients from Hagravens, other than their claws and feathers.
* Removes the possibility of receiving extra gold and potions from Thalmor or Vampires.
* Removes the possibility of receiving bone meal from skeletons.
REGARDING BONE MEAL: Bone meal is looted from almost every skeletal corpse in the game, and I intend to remove it all. I have a mod somewhere that I use or have used that requires you to take bones and grind them into meal yourself. That bone meal is present in its form on every skeletal corpse is not realistic and while it may seem minimal at first, once you have looted many remains, it has a meaningful impact on Alchemy and gold income.
* Most blacksmiths will now only sell gear up to steel plate, or gear they are most likely making. (Also keep in mind that their stock would probably be lower even than this, and that they are also responsible for making nails and basic worked metal items and as reflected in a lot of dialogue, and are often busy with priority requests from the Jarls. Orcish gear is sold in Orc strongholds (level dependent). You can find Elven and Glass gear on Elves not native to Skyrim. There is only one mine per metal that goes into making Elven gear in all of Skyrim, so for one, those shipments are snatched up, and probably taken by the Thalmor and the Empire. Plus, lore has it that the Altmer have tried to keep the knowledge of crafting Elven gear a closely guarded secret. Some blacksmiths will have sets unique to them, such as Adrianne. She will sell Imperial gear as well as basic blacksmith gear. This is not only because she is an Imperial, but when we first meet her we hear her being commissioned to make gear for the Imperials.
Blacksmiths are not Fletchers, and therefore will no longer sell bows and arrows, although some will sell low level bows and arrows when it seemed appropriate. Elrindir in the Drunken Huntsman is both a Fletcher, and a tavern keeper, and his stock will reflect that. Eorlund Gray-Mane is widely known to be perhaps the greatest smith in Skyrim. He owes this largely in part to the Skyforge. (IMO try not to add mods that allow you to craft Skyforge gear at any other forge, it is unique). That being said, he couldn't make regular crappy gear if he tried. He will now only sell skyforged steel weapons at the appropriate level, meaning he will not be selling you any gear when you first meet him, except I think one steel shield that is near him. (Merchants in Skyrim sell you the wares from their merchant chest, from the area around them, and from their own belongings if they are sellable by the type of merchant they are. This is why I had to actually touch a lot of the merchants to remove some of their inventory items so they did not show up in their wares).
MORE ABOUT SMITHING - At this point I will give my opinion about smithing in the game and my recommendations. First of all, it is not realistic at all, and that's fine. Some points concerning realism would be that your player character should never be able to learn how to craft more than a fraction of what is available in the world, since he is not a blacksmith by trade, and does not wander the lands, spending his life developing his craft. I recommend trying as best you can to make sure you download weapon and armor mods that only add them to the leveled list, and have a non craftable option, just my opinion. Secondly, it is highly unrealistic that you can craft any weapon or armor with a click of a button, and no time passes in game. (Some craftable gear would likely take days to weeks to craft) Keeping that in mind, I would recommend that you refrain from using mods that give you smithing experience for smelting and tanning, (to provide balance), and that allow you to melt down your weapons and armor for materials. I thought that was a cool idea, until I tried it myself and it ruined the progression of my character and I consider it now to basically be an exploit.
* Removed gold and valuable treasure from unlocked containers. You should no longer be able to go into a house and find gold in every end table, dresser, cupboard, etc. An NPC keeps their gold and jewelry in locked boxes.
* Barrels and Sacks will only contain food, (which is already mostly the case), and no longer ingredients or salt. The food itself is salted as a preservative and that salt can not be separated from the food it is preserving. Salt will still show up as it is in both the food and ingredient leveled lists.
* Burial urns contain no loot. They have all been looted previously by bandits and grave robbers. This is a way to decrease the amount of gold per dungeon run, as well as save you time by not having to check every single urn to see if you might find something useful. (They probably would have little more than ashes in them anyway, which would not be the same thing as bone meal)
* Removed lock picks from most containers that would probably not have them. These seemed to be just thrown in everywhere to make it easy for players who forgot to bring their own. Honest citizens will not be selling them anymore either.
* Soul gems were everywhere. These were taken out of a lot of container lists. It is dangerous work filling them, so that will up to the player mostly now.
* Gems are usually mined or purchased. Most gems are used and crafted into jewelry and weapons/armor and other valuables. The sheer number of gems just floating around Skyrim is imo silly and have been removed from a lot of containers except for the most valuable ones such as boss chests
and strongboxes.
* Enchanted weapons and armor should be very rare. I'll note here, that my intention is for enchanted gear to be super rare. I have a strong D&D background and magic weapons should be so rare that they each have their own name and stories to go along with them. I liken this to Aegis-Fang, the Warhammer crafted for Wulfgar by Bruenor Battlehammer. It was basically a once in a lifetime achievement for a renowned smith.
* Scrolls and spell tomes should be found in appropriate places. Not just given away like candy. Not carried by every idiot NPC and in every container and on every table. Especially NPCs who probably can't even read.
* Potions. Holy Cow. Literally in everything and on everyone. These will be systematically removed from wherever they don't make perfect sense in their placement. This will of course cut down on the gold gain, but also cause your player created potions to actually have value to you. Make or purchase some health potions, cause you will no longer find them everywhere you step.
* Alchemists - Just talk to Arcadia and she will basically tell you what her job description is. She will brag about all the people she has cured. Alchemists are the town doctors/pharmacists. As such, they will no longer be selling poisons or potions that do not fit that description. This will make player Alchemy much more rewarding. She will also not be selling rare ingredients. You will, for example, have to go kill your own Daedra if you want their heart. No more just waiting to see if one will spawn in an Alchemists inventory.
* General goods vendors - These now sell just general goods like the name suggests. They are not a second source for armor and weapons and crafting components anymore.
* Magic - This is a big one. As soon as you start talking to the populace of Skyrim, they tell you right away, Nords do not like magic. Lucan says he has a few spell books laying around, but after that, you have to go to the college of Winterhold if you want to blow yourself up. He now only has three spell books. The two spells that you used to start out with if you still want them, and one other useful spell for exploring. The Jarls court wizards should be seen less like mages, and more like advisors/seers. They will still sell low level empty soul gems and some basic tomes. They have a job to do full time that is not being a magic merchant to whoever meanders into the Jarls presence.
* Adjusted Khajiit Caravans - They sell mostly the same items as before, minus weapons and armor. They will now buy stolen goods right from the start. I did not want my Khajiit Traders wandering the lands of Skyrim wearing no armor, and the light armor in the game did not have the look and variety that was suitable to me. This is why I added armor and clothing mods as masters. These armor and clothes mods are probably some of the best you can have as far as being immersive and realistic.PLEASE: If you come across a merchant or container that you feel should realistically contain something that is not in it or being sold because I either took it out, or it was not there to begin with, please let me know. I will always favor gameplay over realism and immersion unless it really takes away from either.The country is in the middle of a civil war. Dragons have returned and lay waste to the land. Vampires and Werewolves are abducting and murdering our kinsfolk. Daedric Lords are toying with our lives for their sadistic pleasure, and lead the weak minded into their service. The Thalmor and their bands of justicars are slaughtering those found worshipping Talos. Thieves, assassins, and bandits plague the land and take advantage of the turmoil, now that resistance is spread so thin. Necromancers and Warlocks roam the land practicing their dark arts. Jarls and Thanes are posturing for power now that the High King is dead.I have finished my first pass through all the leveled container lists. Every merchant and every container has been adjusted. To be honest, I am not completely happy even though it is a hundred times better than what the vanilla game threw my way. I am rather burned out, but I will go through sometime in the near future to make things even better by creating unique combinations of loot for various categories.My idea of fun: The journey is more important than what might be found at the destination. How can I enjoy Riverwood if I feel compelled to hurry past it to get to other content. (not the best example since you must warn the Jarl about the dragon, and quick, but you get the idea) For me, I want challenging and realistic gameplay. I'm the guy that has every mod that adds enemies and makes them stronger and smarter. I download the mods that get rid of exploits like using alchemy and enchanting back and forth to get my smithing skill unrealistically high. I have mods that make rare materials actually rare. I want to be challenged so that when I come through the other side of something, I feel like I earned it. Gold should be very hard to come by. You will be surrounded by mostly very poor people and places, and the game does not reflect that at times. I would imagine that in Skyrim, there is probably still a lot of bartering that takes place, (there is even dialogue that mentions this), but somehow everyone has a bunch of gold.***If you are the sort of player that thinks you should be able to afford to buy a horse and a house after killing a few bandits and fetching this and that, you will not like what I have done. If you think you should be able to level your skills in a few weeks of game time, and like mods that give you more experience for doing less, or mods that hand you magic candy and chests full of goodies, you needn't look here.I could write pages about the definitions and differences between Realism and Immersion, but let me try to be brief enough to give an adequate understanding of the purpose of this mod. Realism tends to mostly be understood as to how much like our own real life the game is. Immersion is the ability to place yourself into the shoes of your player character, and lose yourself in an imaginary game world while keeping your suspension of disbelief intact. Most of all the game should be fun. Immersion and fun are more important than realism, or I should say hyper-realism. Keep in mind, that my idea of fun might be different than yours, and that is good. Also, your suspension of disbelief may be lost for you under different circumstances than for me, and what I want realism to extend to in my game maybe different than what you want, which is what makes a modded game so very awesome.So ask yourself this: Do you really want realism as your holy grail? As I peruse the selection of mods on the Nexus, I have to say that realism is not as important a feature as some mods would have you believe. For example, there are many mods that try to allow your character to have a higher "carry weight" and this is completely unrealistic in any implementation I have seen. (where are all the mods lowering carry weight) First of all, let me also point out that what you are able to carry is determined by a weight value, but size is not measured into that equation, which makes the inventory system completely unrealistic. Just look at your player inventory when you are about to exit a dungeon and ask yourself if you could really be carrying all those sets of armor and weapons? Another example: have you ever seen a human being bench press 5000lbs? As of writing this the world record is 722lbs. That is because all beings have limits as to what they are potentially capable of, physically and intellectually. The leveling system in Skyrim is unacceptable to me personally, however my ideas on how to fix it are not within my skill set yet. Does it make sense that you can make a skill legendary and somehow your character has magically forgotten how to smith high tier armor all of a sudden, and those cool techniques you learned have somehow become lost to you? This was a poor attempt to increase a players ability to level past the point where all skills have reached 100. But as I eluded to, it is unrealistic to level past the point of your characters maximum potential. So, here is where we may disagree as to something that is unrealistic but acceptable because you may enjoy becoming overpowered and godlike more than you like realism in this situation.I recommend placing this at the end of your load order. It would be helpful if you learn how to make a bashed patch as well as use SSEEdit.