Skyrim

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Created by

Will Evans

Uploaded by

DdsLedg

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About this mod

This mod adds a new, realistic playable race to Skyrim, the Sun Elves

Requirements
Permissions and credits
Changelogs
Donations
For the Special Edition Version, visit this link

Midwood Isle is now published! Download here


Sun Elves
New Playable Race

Information
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This Mod adds a new, custom made playable race into the world of Skyrim: Sun Elves.



Description
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Long Description
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Sun elves, or "Sonmer" are a proud race, coming from the tiny land of Midwood Isle. They value speed, skill and strength in battle, making them formidable opponents. They are naturally charismatic, strong and agile, with a slight magical flair, specialising in the schools of Restoration and Alteration. This makes them ideal spellswords, as they can heal themselves and boost their armour rating, whilst quickly dealing damage. Due to their natural charisma, Sun Elves have better buying and selling prices in stores around Skyrim. They can hone their senses once a day, which halves all incoming damage and results in power attacks using no stamina.

Short Description
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Hailing from the warm, tiny land of Midwood Isle, Sun Elves, or "Sonmer", are naturally charismatic and agile. They value speed and skill in battle. They also possess a slight magical ability, making them good healers or spellswords. They can hone their senses to half incoming damage and repeatedly power attack.


Appearance
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Sun Elves are usually short, blonde haired people. They are naturally quite strong, and have either pale or lightly tanned skin. They have firm features and almost always have long hair. They come with their own hair colour, as shown in the screenshots. Feel free to edit any of the NPCs or Presets appearances, because I know some HD texture or graphics mods may change their appearance.


Starting Stats
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Smithing ~ 15
Heavy Armour ~ 15
Block ~ 15
Two-Handed ~ 15
One-Handed ~ 20
Archery ~ 20
Light Armour ~ 20
Sneak ~ 15
Lockpicking ~ 15
Pickpocket ~ 15
Speech ~ 25
Alchemy ~ 15
Illusion ~ 15
Conjuration ~ 15
Destruction ~ 15
Restoration ~ 20
Alteration ~ 20
Enchanting ~ 15


Racial Bonus'
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Racial Power - Hone Senses:
This power is similar to the "Berserk" power, of the Orcs. "Hone Senses" causes all incoming damage to be halved, and all power attacks to not require any stamina. This power lasts for 30 seconds and can be used once a day.

Racial Ability - Fortify Barter:
All buying and selling prices are 15% better.


About Midwood Isle
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Midwood Isle is a tiny island to the north-west of central High rock, situated in the Eltheric Ocean, outside of Tamriels border. It is warm and its environment is similar to the environment of Falkreath in Skyrim, just with a few less rocks and trees. It is a fairly flat island when compared to a place like Skyrim, but still has the occasional mountain present in the north-west. The island trades with both Skyrim and High rock, allowing to receive supplies they cannot get themselves. It has similar wildlife to Skyrim.



Downloading & Usage Information
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Compatibility
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This mod uses vanilla meshes, textures and bodyparts, so should work fine with any other mod that changes appearance of certain races. Some high-definition face texture mods may change the appearance slightly, yet there should be no issue with that as the mod uses all vanilla faceparts anyway. As far as I know, this mod works fine with any other mod, if there is one that messes this up, please let me know.


Requirements
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There are two different options, all included in a Fomod installer for easier installation:
 > Playable Sun Elves
- Adds the Sun Elves to the playable races of Skyrim. For vanilla Skyrim.
- Requires Race Compatibility. Download Race Compatibility here
 > Playable Sun Elves, Dawnguard
- Adds the Sun Elves to the playable races of Skyrim, and also adds the dawnguard vampire face to the player in the case of contracting vampirism. Is not needed if you want normal skin as a vampire.
- Requires Dawnguard and Race Compatibility. Download Race Compatibility here



Optional Files
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PSE Hirelings:
This optional file adds 4 followers and hirelings to the world of Skyrim, 2 male and 2 female. Annoyingly, there was only one vanilla voicetype for female hirelings, and this wasnt suitable at all, as the dialogue was quite unique. Therefore the two female hirelings had to be made into simple followers instead. The 2 males are both hirelings, and the 2 females are both followers. Feel free to edit any of the NPCs appearances, because I know some HD texture or graphics mods may change their appearance. All of the NPCs have basic AI packages, so will wander around and interact with things fairly close to them, however they will not wander off from their original location. The NPCs are as follows:
Minego: Male - Found outside the Frostfruit Inn in Rorikstead.
Forond: Male - Found inside the Four Shields Tavern in Dragon Bridge.
Aglari: Female - Found inside the Dead man's Drink in Falkreath.
Samiail: Female - Found inside the Vilemyr Inn in Ivarstead.

PSE NPCs:
This mod comes with an optional PSE NPCs file, which adds Sun Elves into the world of Skyrim. It adds in over 90 Sun Elf NPC's into the levelled lists of Skyrim, so they may be randomly encountered as Bandits or Necromancers. They may not appear as frequently as other races in these lists, as the chances were made slightly lower. The optional file requires the main file and has not yet been tested for any compatibilities.If you come across any incompatibilities then please let me know. The file edits the levelled lists so any other mod that edits the same thing will most likely NOT be compatible with the optional file.


Change Log
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Version 1.00: Playable Sun Elves Race Released
Version 1.10: File provided as a .esm file
Version 1.15: Mod cleaned with TES5Edit
Version 1.30: Main files and optional files all merged together under a fomod installer.
Includes PSE NPCs and the new PSE Hirelings.
Version 1.35: A few bug fixes with dismissing the followers
Version 1.50: Further bug fixes to increase compatibility with other mods
Version 1.70: Bug Fixes with Vampirism and 1st Person
Version 1.80: Further Bug fixes with hirelings
Version 2.00: Revamped the mod. Now requires Race compatibility. Also fixed vampirism as it was never working in the first place,
and added a verion without the option to play as Sun elves for those who just want the game files for other mods.
Version 2.10: Due to changes to Midwood Isle, removed option for unplayable race.


Permissions
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I give my permission to anyone to change this mod and re-upload it, but they MUST notify and request it of me first, as well as adding me in the credits. I also give my permission to any modder that wants to edit the appearance of the Sun Elves for their own game, but this file mustnt be published without me being notified and asked about it.


Installation
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I HIGHLY recommend to install this using Vortex/Nexus Mod Manager. It includes a fomod for easier installation.

Manual:
Once the file is downloaded, right click on it and click on "extract here".
Then, choose which version you would prefer. There are two versions. One requires Dawnguard, and adds the correct face for vampires. The other is
for vanilla Skyrim.
REQUIRES RACE COMPATIBILITY!
 > Download Race Compatibility here: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/24168?
Extract the files, either from 00 Playable if you want the vanilla Skyrim Playable version, 00 Playable DG if you want the
Dawnguard Playable version, into your skyrim folder. The data folder should merge so the esm ends up with your skyrim exe link.
Now, choose which optional files you would like to have, and then copy the contents of them into your Skyrim Data folder.
Now, choose which optional files you would like to have, and then copy the contents of them into your Skyrim Data folder.

Vortex/Nexus Mod Manager:
Download the file and install it, choosing the options using the fomod installer.


Uninstallation
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Manual:
Simply delete the "Playable Sun Elves.esm" file in your Data folder, most likely situated in: "C:/Program
Files/Steam/SteamApps/common/skyrim"

Vortex/Nexus Mod Manager:
Simply uninstall and delete the file


F.A.Q's
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Why Download this mod?
This mod creates more options and playstyles for your Skyrim gameplay, and therefore results in more fun whilst playing the game. It is not compulsory to choose this race, you can choose one of the vanilla game's races or another custom race if you ever get tired of Sun Elves.

My Sun Elf looks slightly different to those in your screenshots
That is most likely because you have installed another Skyrim mod that edits the vanilla face textures, or makes them appear more High Definition. My mod is a stand-along mod and so will work alongside with these, and so those mods will simply change the same textures of Sun Elves as with every other vanilla race.

Is this mod Lore-friendly?
Yes, as the mod adds a well-thought up description of sun elves, including their Altmer language name, the "Sonmer". It also talks about their home island, Midwood Isle, and briefly explains about it in the character creation menu. The isle fits The Elder Scrolls lore, as it is situated just outside of Tamriel, so it will not appear on maps or in any books.

Are Sun Elves overpowered?
In my opinion they are not, because, like races in the vanilla game, they start will a 5 level increase in 5 different stats, and a 10 level increase in 1 stat. Their ability is not combat related, so this puts them at a slight disadvantage in combat, but gives them a slight advantage in the overall gameplay. However, their power is very strong, meaning overall they are of equal strength to other races. The power is not as strong as other powers, such as the Orcs power, "Berserk", or the Argonians power "Hitskin", which makes their overall performance equal to other races.


Credits
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TMPhoenix for his work on RaceCompatibility. Without that mod the vampirism would still be broken and it would be conflicting :)
Please do not flame, just give constructive criticism as this is my very first mod :)