Chinook Bear Companion (Requires SKSE)

Chinook (or whatever you decide to call him) is a polar bear cub that you save from a bandit-run animal fighting ring (killing other captured animals in the process [you monster]). Once you find him in Faldar's Tooth and enlist him as a follower, he'll begin to grow, his body weight will change depending on the amount of food you give him, and he becomes rideable once he gets close to adulthood.

Changelog

v1.13

• Chinook is now renameable via the "Would you like a new name?" dialogue option.
  

v1.12

• Added two alternate saddle colors
• Fixed an issue in the file paths
  

v1.11

• Added a saddle for Chinook
• Various script tweaks
  

v1.1

• Made Chinook rideable
• "Command to Feed" spell added
  

v1.0

• Initial release
  

Installation

Extract the .zip file into your Skyrim Data folder, or just use NMM: no muss, no fuss.
If you haven't installed Skyrim Script Extender yet, download it here.

Uninstallation

Remove "ChinookBearCompanion.esp" from your Skyrim Data folder.

Finding Chinook

1.    The cub spawns in Faldar's Tooth, a fort northwest of Riften. To get there, take the north road out of Riften and turn left at the first intersection. If you try to stick to the north bank of the lake while heading west from here, you'll run right into it. Alternatively, look at the screenshot of the world map I've left for you and go to town- or, uh, fort. Whatever.

2.    When you enter the fort, head down the stairs on your left and go right through the door at the landing. There'll be a room with a barred cell lining the left side and one or two bandits in it. Proceed through this room.

3.    You'll come to an intersection: there'll be a doorway in front of you and another to your right. Go right. If you haven't beaten this dungeon yet, the door in front of you will be blocked by a portcullis, which'll make your decision-making process a tad easier.

4.    You'll then pass through a corridor that leads to a room with many cages, a few bandits, and an oil covered floor. This is where you'll find Chinook. From the room's entrance, Chinook will be held in the first cage on the right. You'll have to either pick the lock on the cage's door or find the key to open it somewhere in the dungeon to reach him. Great job, chief: you've just rescued yourself a bear cub.

Features

• Chinook - A bear that you can raise from a cub (nifty, eh?). If fed two to three times a day, he'll reach full maturity in about two in-game months. If you starve him, it'll take closer to six. In addition to gaining/losing weight if you over/underfeed him, his movement speed and base attack damage will change as well. As of Version 1.1, he becomes rideable when he gets close to adulthood.
  

• Bear saddle - Standard Bear Cavalry issue. This is a saddle you can outfit Chinook with when he reaches riding age. It also allows him to carry items (other than food he is able to eat), 'cause saddle bags. You can make one at any forge.
  

• "Set Chinook's Home" - A spell that you receive when Chinook is first recruited. When cast, it will change the place that Chinook will go when dismissed to wherever you're standing. Chinook's default "home" is just within the entrance of Faldar's Tooth (though why you'd want him to go back there is anyone's guess; perhaps you're a sadist?).
  

• "Command to Feed" - A spell you can use if carrying around a lot of food annoys you. Cast it on corspes that you'd like Chinook to eat from.
  

• "How's it going?" - A dialogue option that Chinook has when following you. He'll respond to it differently depending on his age, weight, hunger, location, etc.
  

• Renaming Chinook - You can now rename Chinook right after you recruit him for the first time. Just select "Would you like a new name?" from his dialogue options, find the dwarven dagger named "Chinook" when an enchanting menu opens, rename the dagger whatever you'd like Chinook to be called, enchant it however you'd like (a Dwarven Dagger of Absorption is added to your inventory in case you haven't disenchanted a weapon, yet), and *bam*: Chinook's new name is Blargafiggle (your results may vary, of course).
  

Known Issues

Even after working tirelessly on this mod for several weekends, there're still some pesky quirks I can't seem to get rid of. While none of them really harm the overall functionality of the mod, they may scare the especially discriminating/OCD mod-seekers away. I've listed them here for their convenience (and also in hopes that someone more competent than myself might give me some pointers):

• When using the "How's it going?" dialogue option, the subtitles that appear will occasionally pop up for a split second before returning to the root dialogue menu, rather than staying onscreen until the user clicks. This phenomenon appears to be random, and nothing I've tried in Creation Kit has fixed it thus far. It can be easily thwarted by persistence, however: just keep clicking "How's it going?" until the subtitles remain onscreen (this problem was mostly resolved as of v1.13, although the secondary subtitles may still do this).
  

• As Chinook is a bear, he'll be pretty big as an adult. Big things in Skyrim don't do too well in small spaces. Case in point: if you and an adult Chinook go into a dungeon, adult Chinook is going to get stuck at the first 3-foot wide corridor you come to and won't be able to follow you any further. The best solution to this is shrinking him using the Setscale command on the console. Keep in mind that Chinook (as an adult) is 1.1x the size of a regular snow bear, so set his scale to 1.1 when you're ready to return him to regular size.
  

• As of Version 1.11, the riding feature has become far less wonky. It still suffers from flaws in the mounting/dismounting animations that I'm without the means to fix, but getting Chinook to let you ride him has become far less of a hassle (hopefully).
  
  
  
• I tried for a long time to make the process of renaming Chinook less janky... and failed utterly. If you have any questions/trouble with that feature, don't hesitate to ask.
  

• Using a save that has data from a previous version of this mod to play the current version may cause a few problems. Certain variables crucial to making the mod function won't change correctly, astride other bad stuff. Use an unclean save at your own risk!
  

Credits

I've gotta mention that this mod wouldn't have happened had I not used Hypno's Wolf Follower mod as a reference for most of the script it uses. If you like this mod, go show him some love, yeah? Yeah.

I s'pose that's all. If you've got any questions, quips, or suggestions, don't hesitate to post 'em!