Elf Companions places two female elven NPCs into the Imperial City. Once you've befriended them, they will serve as both travel and combat companions. Scripting is in place to (automatically!) prevent various annoyances, such as them getting lost or stuck in any hard to reach areas, or for freaking out if you accidentally hit them in combat. Equipment changes and orders are carried out easily, just speak to them and decide what they should do. The greatest feature of this mod is its' ease of use. There's not a lot of extra 'fluff', it's designed to be simple but effective. A full list of features follows, but first...

ESSENTIAL SUPPORTING MODS: (Links provided!)
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This mod benefits greatly from the use of these other mods:

-Reznod's Easy Companion Share (Included as separate plugin, REQUIRED for
Elf Companions to work!)

Elf companions will work without the following, but is so much nicer if
you have these:

-A body replacement mod, such as HGEC or Exnem's

HGEC: http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=15802

Exnems: http://teseyecandy.com/forum/index.php?PHPSESSID=be1e50992ea155c375469bc6c6bf75ec&

-A clothing replacer mod, there are some available for both HGEC and
Exnem's. I HIGHLY recommend "Clothing and Armor Replacer for Exnems
Complete by Grhys" as it works just fine for HGEC too. The purpose is
to make the clothing in the game match up with the new bodies. Without
it, 98% of the shirts and a good many of the pants don't look right on
the companion NPCs because the skin tones differ. If you do use Grhys'
replacer, note that the included plugin won't work with Francesco's or
Oscuro's overhaul mods, in which case just using the new meshes and
textures is good enough.

Grhys' clothing mod: http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=11824

-Any mod that disables the use of Fast Travel, such as Modular Oblivion
Enhanced, or Cyradil Transportation Network. Note that fast travel is
NOT disabled in this mod by default. (More on this later!)

Cyrodiil transportation:
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=4520

FEATURES:
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-Two new NPCs specifically designed to accompany and assist the player
in any type of environment.

-They are both set to level with the player, with an offset of -2 levels.

-The ranger Anowyn is tied to the Arena quest line - defeat Agronak
gro-Malog (The Gray Prince) and become the Grand Champion, and she will
gladly accompany you! You can find her wandering around the Arena
district. (She should still join you even if you finished the arena
before installing Elf Companions.)

-The warrior-to-be Aislin can be found near the wooden houses at the
Imperial City Waterfront. Reduced to life as a beggar, she'll be more
than happy to follow you around the countryside as opposed to living
the rest of her life on the streets.

-Both companions have their own inventories and can be given individual
instructions to STAY PUT, FOLLOW, or WANDER. Stay put is good if you're
in a dangerous place and want them to remain in a certain spot. Follow,
of course, makes them follow you around, and telling them to 'Wait
around here' puts them in Wander mode, nice if you want to leave them
in a purchased home or hideout.

-An option to apologize is present, to fix any lost disposition from
accidentally hitting them in combat. (They are set to ignore friendly
hits, as accidentally hitting them in a town before would cause an
insane fight between both of them and the guards! The ensuing chaos
could be AI breaking, sometimes guards would fight other guards!)

-Two new spells, one per companion, designed to summon them to your
current location regardless of theirs (Useful if you've left them
in another cell), upon acquisition of a companion, you automatically
learn the spell.

-If while in the same cell as your companions and they are set to
FOLLOW, once a certain distance is reached they automatically appear
at your location (not entirely realistic, I know, but it compensates
for any pathing issues you may encounter - for example, before I added
this feature, it was impossible to get them to follow you into a body
of water).

-Neither companion can actually die. They are simply knocked out, and
after a short amount of time, will regain consciousness. Please note,
however, that they will drop their weapon if KO'd in combat, so be sure
to pick it back up and give it to them, if they don't do it themselves!
(They are not set as essential, however, so no crown icon. Setting them
to essential conflicted with them appearing at your location if they
were KO'd - they would crumple up and move through the air towards
the player, VERY silly looking.)

-Reznod's Easy Companion Share (included as it's so vital to this mod)
makes it easy to equip them with whatever items you want, and you can
have them carry extra stuff for you. It's easy to use, too, it's just
like using any container in the game. Also, you can see the NPC's
encumberance on screen while you manage their inventory, so no
accidental over-encumbering!

-Any additional equipment and body mods should work with great effect
with this mod. See what they look like wearing custom armor!

-Finally, both companions are set to sneak whenever the player is
sneaking.


KNOWN ISSUES:
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#1. Don't use fast travel while using this mod. Actually, I believe it's
the same with all companion mods. For whatever reason, when you fast
travel with a companion NPC, a duplicate of that NPC is made that
occupies exactly the same space as the original. This does two things.
Firstly, the NPC remains expressionless, even during dialogue. Secondly,
it causes any items equipped on them through Companion Share to only
appear on ONE of the NPCs, while the other will continue wearing its'
default equipment. This looks as bad as it sounds like it would.

There are mods out there that serve as an excellent workaround to this
problem, and will implement a more 'Morrowind-like' transportation
system - basically set travel points and even the teleportation oriented
Mark and Recall spells. Two popular ones are listed near the beginning of
this readme. To anyone that can't stand to lose Fast Travel, my apologies.

#2. The fair skinned facial textures used on the girls do not match the
default body skin tones at all. Simply put this looks terrible. It's
most noticeable on the ranger, as she's wearing a small top and you can
see most of her torso. The solution to this is to use a body replacer
mod and a clothing replacer mod. The two most popular bodies (I believe)
are Exnem's and HGEC. For the clothing replacer I suggest "Clothing and
Armor Replacer for Exnems Complete by Grhys". They can all be found on
the TES Nexus mod site: www.tesnexus.com


CREDITS:
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I have stood on the shoulders of giants to make this mod and would like
to acknowledge the authors of mods incorporated into this one. I take
absolutely no credit for the following:

Reznod, for the Easy Companion Share mod, which makes companion NPCs
so much cooler and more useful.

*The ranger's face and hair come from:
Terimer race and Companion, by jclyde6108 and CapsAdmin, and their team:
Westly - eyelash texture
throttlekitty - head mesh, eyelash mesh
Scanti - merged mouth resource
Acidoangel - cute elf ear mesh, Cute Elves esp
Flonne - eye textures
Ren - Eye Meshes, original hair mesh and texture
Babe, Maya, Koazaburo Babe Hair meshes and textures
Spirited Treasure, et al Modified Ren's Hair 7 mesh and texture

*The warrior's face and hair comes from:
Cute Elves race by Acidoangel

*This mod was greatly influenced by the mod Female Adoring Fan, by
John Anthony Curran. I used that one mod more than any other to learn
the different components of a working companion NPC. This is not to say
I took his mod and altered it, quite the opposite - I created Elf
Companions from scratch, only using Female Adoring Fan as reference if I
got stuck.