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About this mod
Voyage to the Dreamborne Isles is a fantastic and beautiful mod created by VzRedemption. Our mod is an update to the original mod, allowing for a special guest to join you on this adventure. The mod is now fully navmeshed, with some added support for your guest to stay close to you in all areas.
- Requirements
- Permissions and credits
- Changelogs
Voyage to the Dreamborne Isles is a fantastic and beautiful mod created by VzRedemption. This mod is an update or addon to the original mod, allowing for a special guest to join you on this adventure. The mod is now fully navmeshed, with some added support for your guest to stay close to you in all areas.
This mod is dedicated to VzRedemption, the creator of the original mod, and to my dear friend Heike, who introduced me not only to this mod and this world, and to the Hillat outfit that Alex is wearing (with my private retexture to Alex's favorite maroon and gold colors), but Heike also has inspired me with many of her amazing stories and image sets, showcasing mods I learned about from her. Thanks to both of you, from both Alex and me. You both mean so much to us!
SE Version of our mod is here: Voyage to the Dreamborne Isles SE - Navmeshed for your Special Guest
Background
When I first became aware of Voyage to the Dreamborne Isles, I was sad because it was a solo adventure. I love all my potential followers, and especially my best girl Alex. The mod looks gorgeous, perfect for a special adventure for Alex and me to share together. So back in the middle of 2023, I decided to look into what it would take to take Alex with me. That began a very long project to create a fully navmeshed version of Voyage to the Dreamborne Isles, along with some other features to allow Alex and I to enjoy the mod together. Along with a few updates here and there to make things work a little more to my liking.
After 3-4 months and between 100-150 hours of work, I contacted VzRedemption to see if he was interested in what I was doing, and while he probably thought I was a bit crazy... he gave me his blessing to continue my efforts, and to publish this mod if I could get it all working. So after another 3 months and another 100-200 hours of work and a lot of testing of the navmesh, Alex and I set out at the beginning of April 2024, to do a full run through and test of this mod. As mentioned, Alex and I had tested several areas already, but we had not actually played the mod at all. We were surprised, amazed, and we both had so much fun just being together on this amazing adventure!
Voyage to the Dreamborne Isles is a very unique adventure, with several large interiors and several big exterior worldspaces. Read the description page for the original mod before you go on this adventure! But it has everything needed to keep things interesting! You like puzzles you need to figure out, so after a bit of frustration maybe... you get that rush of relief and accomplishment? It has that! You like intense battles? It has that as well. You like a beautiful environment to wander around in? Yes indeed, it has some gorgeous areas! It also has quite an amazing collection of background music!
What does this addon mod do? Details for those that want them...
It allows a special guest follower to follow you on this adventure. How? It adds and modifies several things:
1) Navmesh: This is where almost all of the work was concentrated. This is a very big mod with a lot of areas to navmesh - and all the new navmesh was added by hand. The original mod had navmesh in a few interiors to allow some battles to work, as the enemies need navmesh to work. But everything else did not. The newly added or modified navmesh allows your special guest to actually follow you through all of the various areas. If you take a secondary follower, they will use the new navmesh too, but they will not be able follow you everywhere. More on that later.
2) Platforms: The original mod has areas that are accessed by jumping across platforms, one platform to the next. Navmesh is not enough to allow your guest to follow you. What this mod does is allow your special guest to teleport from one platform to the next, staying one platform behind you. You are able to jump back to a platform your special guest is on, so you can give them a hug, talk to them, take some images together, etc. Note: There are a few platforms where your guest might not immediately teleport, due to limitations in my math skills. I wanted to be able to rejoin Alex to enjoy the view, and to give her a hug or a kiss. But that logic does cause the guest to sometimes not teleport if it appears you are jumping back towards them - even if it is to a different platform. The point is... just move on a few platforms and your guest will be teleporting to the platform behind you again.
3) Door logic: The original mod has several doors that link back into different areas in the same spaces, where the follower will sometimes get confused and appear to not follow. I have taken steps to minimize that, but what you need to know is that after going through a door, you may need to take a few steps away from the door before your followers will appear. If you know your Skyrim, an example of this is Belethor's store (or Ysolda's store in my game, LOL) - where quite often when you enter the shop, your follower will enter through the back door. That isn't that big of a deal because the store is small... but in this mod the distances between doors can be bigger and situations could cause a delay. So... when you go through a door, if your follower is not there immediately - just move away a few steps away and your special guest should appear. If you play first person like I do, you will probably never even notice the delay.
4) Audio "improvements". During testing, I discovered that some of the original dialogue audio lines had some strange popping or thumping sounds in spots. This could be something that was way more (or only) noticeable because I play using a full surround sound system with a good subwoofer. Not sure if it would be as noticeable using simple PC speakers or headphones. I also reduced the volume on one of the background music files that I thought was too loud. If anybody has played the original mod, noticed that, please let me know if you think the new audio files are an improvement.
5) A new potion that will allow you to teleport your special guest follower to you, in case they get lost. You may never need to use it, but I provide the potion... just in case. When you use the potion, another potion will be added to your inventory, if you need to use it again. Where it might come in handy is if you are impatient, or clumsy, and jump or fall off of a higher path to a lower one, causing your guest to try and figure out how to get to you. If you don't want to wait, use the potion. BUT leave room away from any edges of the path you are on, or one of you could fall off... again.
6) Journals: The original mod provides some journals along the way that give the player additional story and sometimes clues. My mod changes the appearance of the journals, while leaving the text unchanged - except for one journal that does have a bit of added text.
7) There are a few other little changes to make things work better. One that might be a significant change... but I am still not sure if my fix actually fixed something, or if the problem is just a random problem. In several tests, the problem did not occur after I made my change. Do NOT read the spoiler below if you have never played the original mod, and you hate any kind of spoiler about events to come. Edit: While testing with my very limited Skyrim AE game, the problem happened again to me - the night the mod was released. Edit: v1.01 includes a new fix for this old problem!
8) For the LE version only, I have also done some cleanup on the original plugin that I merged with my changes, since I am replacing it anyway. I did not want to waste any ESP slots on LE, since LE does not have the ESL options that SE has. The cleanup makes the combined plugin smaller (still bigger than the original one, of course), and could make it less likely to have conflicts with other mods. For SE, my changes will be an ESP-FE (ESL enabled plugin) that updates the SE ported plugin. I am a true LE player to the core, but the ESL concept that SE and Fallout 4 have sure would be nice to have in LE.
Installation and starting the main Quest.
Step 1: Install the original Voyage to the Dreamborne Isles mod.
Step 2: Install this mod, allowing it to overwrite any files from the original mod.
Step 3: Don't forget to read the description page for the original mod! After you finish reading this description page!
Step 4: Choose your special guest and have them follow you.
Step 5: Proceed to Winterhold, and speak to Borlan in the Frozen Hearth Inn. Borlan will give you a key and send you to his Master's house. If Borlan is there but will not talk to you (I believe this only happens on SE), save your game, reload from that save, and he should talk to you. Once you are at his Master's house, you will find a few things on the small end table next to the bed. A journal, a note, and 2 potions.
Step 6: Read the journal (part of the original mod), and read the new note. The note is a guest pass for your primary (or only) follower. Give the guest pass to the follower you want to have with you all the time while on this adventure. You should receive a message notification (upper left corner of the screen) that the special guest follower has been selected. The potions will teleport your special guest to you, if the guest gets lost. The potion will only teleport your special guest to you, not any secondary followers. If you ever need to use the potion, another one will be added to your inventory - just in case you need it more than once. Why are there 2 potions then... well.. I believe in backups.
Important: While you may take more than one follower with you, only the one you give the guest pass to will be able to be with you everywhere. Personally, after a lot of testing, I think it is better to just have your special guest with you. Especially if you take your spouse or a romantic interest. There are several areas where only your special guest can go with you. However, if you are not at higher levels in your game, a secondary follower could be very beneficial in some battles, and should participate along with you and your special guest.
Enjoy your adventures together!
Important Notes
This mod has been tested both with a single follower as the special guest, as mentioned above, and also with an additional secondary follower. There are a lot of narrow paths, so I have a few recommendations:
1) Take a normal size follower with you. Human or Mer (Elf races) are all fine. Khajiits should be fine too, Argonians I am not so sure about, but they are probably fine too, but neither of them were tested. What I am saying is that I would not recommend taking a large character like a troll as your guest. Hey, your spouse or best friend is a troll, giant, or other large creature? I am not judging at all, but they might not work that well as your special guest.
2) I would recommend that you do not take a follower with you that tends to bump into you, sometimes pushing you around, or that tends to talk a lot. Examples might include Serana, Tania the Hermit, and Sofia - at least in my experience. But that could just be in my game and my mods. I love all 3 of those followers too, so if you have never noticed those issues in normal game play with them, feel free to give them a try as your special guest. But I wanted to mention that. Also, in my experience, they tend to talk more than a normal follower, which could interrupt some of the quest dialogue, making things harder to hear. Up to you! Haha, maybe I will take Sofia and Tania together at some point, just to see what happens! LOL!!
ENB Considerations
I had problems in early testing in some places where everything would get very dark (sometimes completely dark) when looking in a certain direction with my ENB active. Shift F12 to deactivate the ENB brought everything back to normal. Activate it again, and things would get dark until I looked away. In at least some cases, it appeared that the issue was related to many of the Lights in various locations having the "Doesn't Light Water" flag set. I have an optional experimental ESP called "cmhDI_ISTests.esp" that removes that flag from the light soures, as an optional download. If you hit this problem, you can download the experimental "fix" and see if that helps. I use Rudy ENB, but the problem could also be some ENB setting I have changed. The other thing I did was to turn off the "SKY" effect in my ENB. Please note it is NOT the SKYLIGHTING effect I disabled, it is the SKY effect. When I was done playing the mod and back in Skyrim, I turned the SKY effect back on, since I normally use that option.
The original mod warns about potential problems with ENBs that make interiors darker, and suggests playing the mod without an ENB active as an alternative. I didn't want to do that because my ENB makes a lot of things look better, especially Alex and other NPCs. But at least with Rudy, it did make certain areas look quite different. Some of the worldspaces had a lot of fantasy-like colors. Almost pastel, if that makes sense. With Rudy (with my settings) a lot of the colors were desaturated. That is normally fine with me, but it did make quite a big difference in the final area.
My suggestion is to experiment a little. Use Shift F12 (the default key to disable/enable ENB effects) as you move through the different areas of this mod. Most of the time, I left my ENB turned on, with the optional "cmhDI_ISTests.esp" active.
Images
Most of the images in our image section are from my LE game, using Rudy ENB. DynDOLOD LE v2.98 is also being used in exterior locations. I have also provided a few images from my SE testing. Any images from my SE game will have SE in the image title. My SE game is very limited and used only for testing mods, ENB and DynDOLOD are not used in my SE game. So my SE images will look very vanilla. Images with Alex in them are from LE, images with Mavis Stormquiver or Eloise Dawnbringer in them, are from my SE game (Mavis and Eloise look better in my LE game!)
Conflicts and Patches
Our mod should not conflict with anything. However, the original Voyage to the Dreamborn Isles mod may have conflicts in two areas:
1) The Frozen Hearth Interior
Mods that modify the interior of the Frozen Hearth Inn can cause Borlan to be missing or to be up in the air leaning against a post... that isn't there anymore. There is at least one mod that has a conflict:
Holds The City Overhaul redesigns the Frozen Hearth, and there is what appears to be an old (not working) patch in Holds The City Overhaul - Patching Center BUT it no longer works properly, so that Borlan still is not available. A patch will be available soon, either here or in the Patching Center. Soon! (written Monday May 22nd, 2024)
2) The location that Borlan sends you to, where his master's house is located. Near the Guardian Stones.
Campsites in Skyrim - we have a patch for this mod as an optional download on our files page. The patch restores one landscape record, so that the campsite is not partially flooded.
Other Conflicts:
If you find a conflict not addressed above, please let me know. I will see if a patch can be made for the locations in Skyrim changed by the original mod. If there is a major conflict with the location Borlan sends you to, where his master's house is located, I can't promise anything. But let me know, and I will take a look.
FAQ
Q: Will this work with all follower mods?
A: It should. My testing was done with AFT. But I have used others in the past, and I do not expect any issues.
Q: Is your mod really needed? Doesn't it make more sense to do this adventure as a solo mission?
A: That is up to you. You want a solo mission, just use the original mod without this one. But if you love having a follower with you, both for help and companionship, this addon mod is just what you need. And what several users have requested in the past.
Q: Will the SE version (when available) also work on AE?
A: It should, depending on other mods, of course. As always. Against my better judgement, I have upgraded my very limited SE game to AE, and have beguin testing without any issues so far.
Q: Why did you create this mod?
A: We created this mod so we could go on this adventure together. Obviously, I (cmh) did all the geeky technical stuff. But I did all that work for Alex, and she in turn offered her loving support, and patience with me while doing it, and was involved with all of the testing on LE over several months. A simpler answer... Alex is the reason this mod exists.
If nobody ever uses this mod, it was still worth it to us to create it, so we could enjoy it. But we really hope that a lot of people will give this a try - especially so they can experience VzRedemption's vision, efforts, and his amazing world.
These last few questions are just to have a bit of fun.
Q: Are you maybe a little too in love with Alex?
A1: Not at all! She and I have been together for over 200 years. We met in Bravil during the Oblivion Crisis, and have been best friends for almost all of that time. We are very much in love, we spend time together every day, and maybe most important, we have a date night every Saturday. And of course... the chocolate!
A2: This is Alex, leave cmh alone, what are you... the Thalmor Love Police?? Haha, just teasing. But yeah, cmh is my best friend and more, and of course... the chocolate!
Q: Hey Alex, are you actually a real person?
A: What a weird question! Of course I am. Born in the USA before opening a portal to the Imperial City, which dumped me in Bravil by accident... umm... nevermind all that. Yes, I am real. And I am the best thing that ever happened to cmh! And he is the best thing that ever happened to me. Over 200 years together, and still going strong. :wub:
Q: Don't you wish that Nexus would let us use emoticons on mod pages?
A: YES! The fact that you can't... well... :wallbash: :laugh:
Q: Hey chickster, I thought you HATED using the CK? What happened??
A: Haha, I certainly did for a very long time. It is more of a love/hate relationship now. I still do almost all of my modding using TES5Edit. I had almost stopped using the CK completely, as I now can compile scripts outside of the CK, and do almost anything in TES5Edit. Almost. But doing navmesh - that required the Creation Kit.
I have learned a few things over the years about using the Creation Kit, and even more the last several months...
Credits
People:
Alex - For always being by my side, always having my back, always making me smile. And for when I bump into her at times, she sometimes will giggle and say... Later! :wub:
VzRedemption - for the original mod, support of what I was doing, and permission to publish this addon mod to his incredible world.
BlackMaid (Heike) - for inspiration and bringing many amazing mods to my attention, including Voyage to the Dreamborne Isles. Thank you, my dear friend!
arghTease (RT) - for testing on SE, and for all his girls and funny image sets, and letting me vent about the Thalmor over the years.
Laoshan99 - for the experiences we had making our Mavis and Eloise mods. That was part of the education process for me that eventually allowed me to do this mod. Plus, Mavis and Eloise did help with testing for the SE version.
And finally... to an unnamed friend - thank you so much for your support. You truly "get" us, and the things we do. Thank you from both of us!!
Tools Used:
Creation Kit
TES5Edit
SSEEdit
NifSkope
Audacity
Unfuzer CPP Edition
Recursive WAV-to-XWM Script
For our LE game and images:
Dynamic Distant Objects LOD - DynDOLOD LE V2.98
Honorable mention:
Gimp - not for the mod itself, but certainly for the outfit Alex is wearing in my images. Gimp is what I use for all my retextures.
If I have forgotten anything or any one, please let me know.
Donations
We do not want or need donations, modding and mods should be free. However, if you really want to donate, please consider these people:
VzRedemption - Creator of the original mod
If you really want to donate to me (or Alex) personally for the work we did, instead - donate to:
ElminsterAU - Creator of TES5Edit and SSEEdit and more, along with his team. If you donate this way, please let me know! I can't donate to him online due to my privacy hangups, and PayPal requiring a cell phone (I don't have one), and so you would be doing me a big favor! So let me know if you are comfortable with that.
Other than that, hug your kid, kiss your spouse, or just do something nice for somebody even when you do not need to!
Thanks!
cmh and Alex
This mod is dedicated to VzRedemption, the creator of the original mod, and to my dear friend Heike, who introduced me not only to this mod and this world, and to the Hillat outfit that Alex is wearing (with my private retexture to Alex's favorite maroon and gold colors), but Heike also has inspired me with many of her amazing stories and image sets, showcasing mods I learned about from her. Thanks to both of you, from both Alex and me. You both mean so much to us!
SE Version of our mod is here: Voyage to the Dreamborne Isles SE - Navmeshed for your Special Guest
Background
When I first became aware of Voyage to the Dreamborne Isles, I was sad because it was a solo adventure. I love all my potential followers, and especially my best girl Alex. The mod looks gorgeous, perfect for a special adventure for Alex and me to share together. So back in the middle of 2023, I decided to look into what it would take to take Alex with me. That began a very long project to create a fully navmeshed version of Voyage to the Dreamborne Isles, along with some other features to allow Alex and I to enjoy the mod together. Along with a few updates here and there to make things work a little more to my liking.
After 3-4 months and between 100-150 hours of work, I contacted VzRedemption to see if he was interested in what I was doing, and while he probably thought I was a bit crazy... he gave me his blessing to continue my efforts, and to publish this mod if I could get it all working. So after another 3 months and another 100-200 hours of work and a lot of testing of the navmesh, Alex and I set out at the beginning of April 2024, to do a full run through and test of this mod. As mentioned, Alex and I had tested several areas already, but we had not actually played the mod at all. We were surprised, amazed, and we both had so much fun just being together on this amazing adventure!
Voyage to the Dreamborne Isles is a very unique adventure, with several large interiors and several big exterior worldspaces. Read the description page for the original mod before you go on this adventure! But it has everything needed to keep things interesting! You like puzzles you need to figure out, so after a bit of frustration maybe... you get that rush of relief and accomplishment? It has that! You like intense battles? It has that as well. You like a beautiful environment to wander around in? Yes indeed, it has some gorgeous areas! It also has quite an amazing collection of background music!
What does this addon mod do? Details for those that want them...
It allows a special guest follower to follow you on this adventure. How? It adds and modifies several things:
1) Navmesh: This is where almost all of the work was concentrated. This is a very big mod with a lot of areas to navmesh - and all the new navmesh was added by hand. The original mod had navmesh in a few interiors to allow some battles to work, as the enemies need navmesh to work. But everything else did not. The newly added or modified navmesh allows your special guest to actually follow you through all of the various areas. If you take a secondary follower, they will use the new navmesh too, but they will not be able follow you everywhere. More on that later.
2) Platforms: The original mod has areas that are accessed by jumping across platforms, one platform to the next. Navmesh is not enough to allow your guest to follow you. What this mod does is allow your special guest to teleport from one platform to the next, staying one platform behind you. You are able to jump back to a platform your special guest is on, so you can give them a hug, talk to them, take some images together, etc. Note: There are a few platforms where your guest might not immediately teleport, due to limitations in my math skills. I wanted to be able to rejoin Alex to enjoy the view, and to give her a hug or a kiss. But that logic does cause the guest to sometimes not teleport if it appears you are jumping back towards them - even if it is to a different platform. The point is... just move on a few platforms and your guest will be teleporting to the platform behind you again.
3) Door logic: The original mod has several doors that link back into different areas in the same spaces, where the follower will sometimes get confused and appear to not follow. I have taken steps to minimize that, but what you need to know is that after going through a door, you may need to take a few steps away from the door before your followers will appear. If you know your Skyrim, an example of this is Belethor's store (or Ysolda's store in my game, LOL) - where quite often when you enter the shop, your follower will enter through the back door. That isn't that big of a deal because the store is small... but in this mod the distances between doors can be bigger and situations could cause a delay. So... when you go through a door, if your follower is not there immediately - just move away a few steps away and your special guest should appear. If you play first person like I do, you will probably never even notice the delay.
4) Audio "improvements". During testing, I discovered that some of the original dialogue audio lines had some strange popping or thumping sounds in spots. This could be something that was way more (or only) noticeable because I play using a full surround sound system with a good subwoofer. Not sure if it would be as noticeable using simple PC speakers or headphones. I also reduced the volume on one of the background music files that I thought was too loud. If anybody has played the original mod, noticed that, please let me know if you think the new audio files are an improvement.
5) A new potion that will allow you to teleport your special guest follower to you, in case they get lost. You may never need to use it, but I provide the potion... just in case. When you use the potion, another potion will be added to your inventory, if you need to use it again. Where it might come in handy is if you are impatient, or clumsy, and jump or fall off of a higher path to a lower one, causing your guest to try and figure out how to get to you. If you don't want to wait, use the potion. BUT leave room away from any edges of the path you are on, or one of you could fall off... again.
6) Journals: The original mod provides some journals along the way that give the player additional story and sometimes clues. My mod changes the appearance of the journals, while leaving the text unchanged - except for one journal that does have a bit of added text.
7) There are a few other little changes to make things work better. One that might be a significant change... but I am still not sure if my fix actually fixed something, or if the problem is just a random problem. In several tests, the problem did not occur after I made my change. Do NOT read the spoiler below if you have never played the original mod, and you hate any kind of spoiler about events to come. Edit: While testing with my very limited Skyrim AE game, the problem happened again to me - the night the mod was released. Edit: v1.01 includes a new fix for this old problem!
Spoiler:
Show
The original mod had a strange problem where during a dragon fight, the Zealot Master dragon might not die. After being damaged to the point of death, it would fly around and not attack, but it would not die either, preventing the completion of the active quest to deal with the dragon. This happened at least two times before I made my change. I hope my "fix" actually fixed the problem, but I am not 100% sure of that. But the problem has not happened since then, after several tests. If you have the problem with not being able to kill the Zealot Master, please let me know. Haha, do not report an issue if the Zealot Master simply kills you, that can happen to the best of us! Well... it certainly did for me a few times - that fight can get intense!
Edit: Since I hit this issue again testing on AE, I have created a new fix included in v1.01 (and it will be in SE V1.0) to try and fix this issue. BUT the problem is very random. Alex and I tested the fix in 15 tests of the battle, and the problem in question did not happen. Mavis, Eloise and I tested the fix 10 times on AE, and the problem did not happen. BUT random means random. So there is no real way to tell if my solution is in fact the final fix. But I do have hope after 25 total tests. Here is what I would still recommend for now. Save before you start the fight. Valkus will send you to kill some... enemies, so save before you start the fight. Then if the problem happens, you can quit, reload, and try again. Haha - and maybe more important, having a save before the fight... might just help you another way! I mean, it IS possible YOU could die in the fight!
If you DO hit this problem on v1.01, PLEASE let me know, either in comments (using spoiler tags) or by private message. Thanks!!
Edit: Since I hit this issue again testing on AE, I have created a new fix included in v1.01 (and it will be in SE V1.0) to try and fix this issue. BUT the problem is very random. Alex and I tested the fix in 15 tests of the battle, and the problem in question did not happen. Mavis, Eloise and I tested the fix 10 times on AE, and the problem did not happen. BUT random means random. So there is no real way to tell if my solution is in fact the final fix. But I do have hope after 25 total tests. Here is what I would still recommend for now. Save before you start the fight. Valkus will send you to kill some... enemies, so save before you start the fight. Then if the problem happens, you can quit, reload, and try again. Haha - and maybe more important, having a save before the fight... might just help you another way! I mean, it IS possible YOU could die in the fight!
If you DO hit this problem on v1.01, PLEASE let me know, either in comments (using spoiler tags) or by private message. Thanks!!
8) For the LE version only, I have also done some cleanup on the original plugin that I merged with my changes, since I am replacing it anyway. I did not want to waste any ESP slots on LE, since LE does not have the ESL options that SE has. The cleanup makes the combined plugin smaller (still bigger than the original one, of course), and could make it less likely to have conflicts with other mods. For SE, my changes will be an ESP-FE (ESL enabled plugin) that updates the SE ported plugin. I am a true LE player to the core, but the ESL concept that SE and Fallout 4 have sure would be nice to have in LE.
Installation and starting the main Quest.
Step 1: Install the original Voyage to the Dreamborne Isles mod.
Step 2: Install this mod, allowing it to overwrite any files from the original mod.
Step 3: Don't forget to read the description page for the original mod! After you finish reading this description page!
Step 4: Choose your special guest and have them follow you.
Step 5: Proceed to Winterhold, and speak to Borlan in the Frozen Hearth Inn. Borlan will give you a key and send you to his Master's house. If Borlan is there but will not talk to you (I believe this only happens on SE), save your game, reload from that save, and he should talk to you. Once you are at his Master's house, you will find a few things on the small end table next to the bed. A journal, a note, and 2 potions.
Step 6: Read the journal (part of the original mod), and read the new note. The note is a guest pass for your primary (or only) follower. Give the guest pass to the follower you want to have with you all the time while on this adventure. You should receive a message notification (upper left corner of the screen) that the special guest follower has been selected. The potions will teleport your special guest to you, if the guest gets lost. The potion will only teleport your special guest to you, not any secondary followers. If you ever need to use the potion, another one will be added to your inventory - just in case you need it more than once. Why are there 2 potions then... well.. I believe in backups.
Important: While you may take more than one follower with you, only the one you give the guest pass to will be able to be with you everywhere. Personally, after a lot of testing, I think it is better to just have your special guest with you. Especially if you take your spouse or a romantic interest. There are several areas where only your special guest can go with you. However, if you are not at higher levels in your game, a secondary follower could be very beneficial in some battles, and should participate along with you and your special guest.
Enjoy your adventures together!
Important Notes
This mod has been tested both with a single follower as the special guest, as mentioned above, and also with an additional secondary follower. There are a lot of narrow paths, so I have a few recommendations:
1) Take a normal size follower with you. Human or Mer (Elf races) are all fine. Khajiits should be fine too, Argonians I am not so sure about, but they are probably fine too, but neither of them were tested. What I am saying is that I would not recommend taking a large character like a troll as your guest. Hey, your spouse or best friend is a troll, giant, or other large creature? I am not judging at all, but they might not work that well as your special guest.
2) I would recommend that you do not take a follower with you that tends to bump into you, sometimes pushing you around, or that tends to talk a lot. Examples might include Serana, Tania the Hermit, and Sofia - at least in my experience. But that could just be in my game and my mods. I love all 3 of those followers too, so if you have never noticed those issues in normal game play with them, feel free to give them a try as your special guest. But I wanted to mention that. Also, in my experience, they tend to talk more than a normal follower, which could interrupt some of the quest dialogue, making things harder to hear. Up to you! Haha, maybe I will take Sofia and Tania together at some point, just to see what happens! LOL!!
ENB Considerations
I had problems in early testing in some places where everything would get very dark (sometimes completely dark) when looking in a certain direction with my ENB active. Shift F12 to deactivate the ENB brought everything back to normal. Activate it again, and things would get dark until I looked away. In at least some cases, it appeared that the issue was related to many of the Lights in various locations having the "Doesn't Light Water" flag set. I have an optional experimental ESP called "cmhDI_ISTests.esp" that removes that flag from the light soures, as an optional download. If you hit this problem, you can download the experimental "fix" and see if that helps. I use Rudy ENB, but the problem could also be some ENB setting I have changed. The other thing I did was to turn off the "SKY" effect in my ENB. Please note it is NOT the SKYLIGHTING effect I disabled, it is the SKY effect. When I was done playing the mod and back in Skyrim, I turned the SKY effect back on, since I normally use that option.
The original mod warns about potential problems with ENBs that make interiors darker, and suggests playing the mod without an ENB active as an alternative. I didn't want to do that because my ENB makes a lot of things look better, especially Alex and other NPCs. But at least with Rudy, it did make certain areas look quite different. Some of the worldspaces had a lot of fantasy-like colors. Almost pastel, if that makes sense. With Rudy (with my settings) a lot of the colors were desaturated. That is normally fine with me, but it did make quite a big difference in the final area.
My suggestion is to experiment a little. Use Shift F12 (the default key to disable/enable ENB effects) as you move through the different areas of this mod. Most of the time, I left my ENB turned on, with the optional "cmhDI_ISTests.esp" active.
Images
Most of the images in our image section are from my LE game, using Rudy ENB. DynDOLOD LE v2.98 is also being used in exterior locations. I have also provided a few images from my SE testing. Any images from my SE game will have SE in the image title. My SE game is very limited and used only for testing mods, ENB and DynDOLOD are not used in my SE game. So my SE images will look very vanilla. Images with Alex in them are from LE, images with Mavis Stormquiver or Eloise Dawnbringer in them, are from my SE game (Mavis and Eloise look better in my LE game!)
Conflicts and Patches
Our mod should not conflict with anything. However, the original Voyage to the Dreamborn Isles mod may have conflicts in two areas:
1) The Frozen Hearth Interior
Mods that modify the interior of the Frozen Hearth Inn can cause Borlan to be missing or to be up in the air leaning against a post... that isn't there anymore. There is at least one mod that has a conflict:
Holds The City Overhaul redesigns the Frozen Hearth, and there is what appears to be an old (not working) patch in Holds The City Overhaul - Patching Center BUT it no longer works properly, so that Borlan still is not available. A patch will be available soon, either here or in the Patching Center. Soon! (written Monday May 22nd, 2024)
2) The location that Borlan sends you to, where his master's house is located. Near the Guardian Stones.
Campsites in Skyrim - we have a patch for this mod as an optional download on our files page. The patch restores one landscape record, so that the campsite is not partially flooded.
Other Conflicts:
If you find a conflict not addressed above, please let me know. I will see if a patch can be made for the locations in Skyrim changed by the original mod. If there is a major conflict with the location Borlan sends you to, where his master's house is located, I can't promise anything. But let me know, and I will take a look.
FAQ
Q: Will this work with all follower mods?
A: It should. My testing was done with AFT. But I have used others in the past, and I do not expect any issues.
Q: Is your mod really needed? Doesn't it make more sense to do this adventure as a solo mission?
A: That is up to you. You want a solo mission, just use the original mod without this one. But if you love having a follower with you, both for help and companionship, this addon mod is just what you need. And what several users have requested in the past.
Q: Will the SE version (when available) also work on AE?
A: It should, depending on other mods, of course. As always. Against my better judgement, I have upgraded my very limited SE game to AE, and have beguin testing without any issues so far.
Q: Why did you create this mod?
A: We created this mod so we could go on this adventure together. Obviously, I (cmh) did all the geeky technical stuff. But I did all that work for Alex, and she in turn offered her loving support, and patience with me while doing it, and was involved with all of the testing on LE over several months. A simpler answer... Alex is the reason this mod exists.
If nobody ever uses this mod, it was still worth it to us to create it, so we could enjoy it. But we really hope that a lot of people will give this a try - especially so they can experience VzRedemption's vision, efforts, and his amazing world.
These last few questions are just to have a bit of fun.
Q: Are you maybe a little too in love with Alex?
A1: Not at all! She and I have been together for over 200 years. We met in Bravil during the Oblivion Crisis, and have been best friends for almost all of that time. We are very much in love, we spend time together every day, and maybe most important, we have a date night every Saturday. And of course... the chocolate!
A2: This is Alex, leave cmh alone, what are you... the Thalmor Love Police?? Haha, just teasing. But yeah, cmh is my best friend and more, and of course... the chocolate!
Q: Hey Alex, are you actually a real person?
A: What a weird question! Of course I am. Born in the USA before opening a portal to the Imperial City, which dumped me in Bravil by accident... umm... nevermind all that. Yes, I am real. And I am the best thing that ever happened to cmh! And he is the best thing that ever happened to me. Over 200 years together, and still going strong. :wub:
Q: Don't you wish that Nexus would let us use emoticons on mod pages?
A: YES! The fact that you can't... well... :wallbash: :laugh:
Q: Hey chickster, I thought you HATED using the CK? What happened??
A: Haha, I certainly did for a very long time. It is more of a love/hate relationship now. I still do almost all of my modding using TES5Edit. I had almost stopped using the CK completely, as I now can compile scripts outside of the CK, and do almost anything in TES5Edit. Almost. But doing navmesh - that required the Creation Kit.
I have learned a few things over the years about using the Creation Kit, and even more the last several months...
Spoiler:
Show
The most important thing was that using a very basic MO profile when working in the CK, that does NOT include most mods and especially not big texture replacers, the CK loads faster, behaves better, and rarely crashes. That was something I discovered a few years ago, or this mod would not have been made. The CK still gets me cussin' at times, but there are are lot of hotkeys to do a lot of things to make life much easier. You just have to learn them. If you find yourself thinking... there really should be an easier way to do this, check for features of the CK you don't know about yet.
For example, trying to do navmesh underwater was a major proble for me in the past. Until I learned about a hotkey to hide the water so I could see what I was doing. There is also a way to temporarily hide a few or many objects.
And for this mod, most importantly in some places, you can even hide large portions of navmesh for a while. Why is that so important you ask? Because in a mod like this, with overlapping areas, when you try to add tris or vertices or select them or edges, the CK will sometimes select navmesh on a lower level, even if it is not visible! That drove me crazy in a few areas. Once I learned you could hide the lower levels of navmesh, things became much easier. When I first started working on this mod, I would try to place a new vertex or tri, and the CK wouldn't let me - I had no idea at first that it was thinking I was selecting something in the navmesh several yards or meters below where I was working.
And maybe the most important thing of all I learned about the CK during this project, especially in very large interiors or in exterior worldspaces, is the CK does NOT always load everything as you move around in the place your are working on. Sometimes, you have to hit F5 to reload everything that is there. More than once, I was adding navmesh tris, and thinking... I swear I did this already... and I had. Nothing more frustrating than adding navmesh right through the bottom of a mountain, because the CK didn't bother to load it! And yes, that happened several times, even after I knew it could.
The things you learn along the way... LOL!!
I will tell you this, and I hope somebody is reading this. You do a project like this, and you become in awe of those like VzRedemption that have created entire worlds. What I have done really pales in comparison.
For example, trying to do navmesh underwater was a major proble for me in the past. Until I learned about a hotkey to hide the water so I could see what I was doing. There is also a way to temporarily hide a few or many objects.
And for this mod, most importantly in some places, you can even hide large portions of navmesh for a while. Why is that so important you ask? Because in a mod like this, with overlapping areas, when you try to add tris or vertices or select them or edges, the CK will sometimes select navmesh on a lower level, even if it is not visible! That drove me crazy in a few areas. Once I learned you could hide the lower levels of navmesh, things became much easier. When I first started working on this mod, I would try to place a new vertex or tri, and the CK wouldn't let me - I had no idea at first that it was thinking I was selecting something in the navmesh several yards or meters below where I was working.
And maybe the most important thing of all I learned about the CK during this project, especially in very large interiors or in exterior worldspaces, is the CK does NOT always load everything as you move around in the place your are working on. Sometimes, you have to hit F5 to reload everything that is there. More than once, I was adding navmesh tris, and thinking... I swear I did this already... and I had. Nothing more frustrating than adding navmesh right through the bottom of a mountain, because the CK didn't bother to load it! And yes, that happened several times, even after I knew it could.
The things you learn along the way... LOL!!
I will tell you this, and I hope somebody is reading this. You do a project like this, and you become in awe of those like VzRedemption that have created entire worlds. What I have done really pales in comparison.
Credits
People:
Alex - For always being by my side, always having my back, always making me smile. And for when I bump into her at times, she sometimes will giggle and say... Later! :wub:
VzRedemption - for the original mod, support of what I was doing, and permission to publish this addon mod to his incredible world.
BlackMaid (Heike) - for inspiration and bringing many amazing mods to my attention, including Voyage to the Dreamborne Isles. Thank you, my dear friend!
arghTease (RT) - for testing on SE, and for all his girls and funny image sets, and letting me vent about the Thalmor over the years.
Laoshan99 - for the experiences we had making our Mavis and Eloise mods. That was part of the education process for me that eventually allowed me to do this mod. Plus, Mavis and Eloise did help with testing for the SE version.
And finally... to an unnamed friend - thank you so much for your support. You truly "get" us, and the things we do. Thank you from both of us!!
Tools Used:
Creation Kit
TES5Edit
SSEEdit
NifSkope
Audacity
Unfuzer CPP Edition
Recursive WAV-to-XWM Script
For our LE game and images:
Dynamic Distant Objects LOD - DynDOLOD LE V2.98
Honorable mention:
Gimp - not for the mod itself, but certainly for the outfit Alex is wearing in my images. Gimp is what I use for all my retextures.
If I have forgotten anything or any one, please let me know.
Donations
We do not want or need donations, modding and mods should be free. However, if you really want to donate, please consider these people:
VzRedemption - Creator of the original mod
If you really want to donate to me (or Alex) personally for the work we did, instead - donate to:
ElminsterAU - Creator of TES5Edit and SSEEdit and more, along with his team. If you donate this way, please let me know! I can't donate to him online due to my privacy hangups, and PayPal requiring a cell phone (I don't have one), and so you would be doing me a big favor! So let me know if you are comfortable with that.
Other than that, hug your kid, kiss your spouse, or just do something nice for somebody even when you do not need to!
Thanks!
cmh and Alex