Ever stood ready to face Lord Harkon, an ancient vampire. A man who has seen millennia pass, who has the blood of a Daedric prince coursing through his undead veins. A man who let his wife and daughter be assaulted, defiled, killed and then reanimated in the cruellest way possible in pursuit of power. A man who stands before you at the zenith of said power ready to kill you and his only daughter, only for the same generic combat music to play.

The same goes for Miraak a Dragonborn so powerful that his battle with Vahlok was said to tear Solstheim away from the Mainland.

Or Alduin a literal god - but not just any god. A god that can eat other gods and the world in its entirety.

Or has your Dragonborn travelled to the Soul Cairn or Apocrypha - both hellish planes of Oblivion completely alien to Tamriel. Places Bethesda was thoughtful enough to add new exploration music but for some reason keep the same generic combat music.

I love the vanilla Skyrim combat music as much as the next guy but I believe major boss battles and planes of Oblivion deserve their own combat themes.

They also deserve buffs to make them an actual challenge. I recommend Revenge of the Enemies and Deadly Dragons.


Music

Knight's March for Alduin
Waltz With Vampires for Harkon
An edit of the Dragonborn theme for Miraak
Battlespire: Soul Cairn theme for Soul Cairn combat
Bioshock Infinite OST: Battle for Columbia II, IV, V and The Songbird for Apocrypha combat

All edited slightly to reduce clipping, have consistent volume and loop better. Also converted to .xwm to work better.

If you wish to replace these with your own choices then it's as simple as replacing one of the music files. Make sure whatever music file you choose is converted to .xwm format (I use Yakitori for this) and give it the same name as the file you wish to replace. The file names should be clear enough as to which one is which (e.g. "MUS_AlduinTheme.xwm" or "MUS_Apocrypha_Combat_2.xwm") and they are located in Data\music\SpecialMusicForVanilla.

Please note that the battle against Durnehviir in the Soul Cairn and the battle against Sahrotaar in Apocrypha should still use the default dragon combat music.


Install/Uninstall

Use a mod manager or extract into Data folder. Fine to install or uninstall mid-playthrough. No scripts at all. Probably best not to uninstall while a track from this mod is playing in your save. To uninstall manually delete the .esp and delete the Data\music\SpecialMusicForVanilla folder.


Conflicts

Will conflict with any mod that edits the same vanilla combat music records. Check or patch with TesVedit if you are not sure. This is because I added conditions to them to make sure they do not play when they shouldn't.

Known Issues

None. Please let me know in the comments if you discover any.