UPDATE 2.2 Available now! A quick follow-up to the previous update. I was testing out the new build and decided to do a little redecorating in there, added some details to places that looked boring, made the creepy ground fog more consistent throughout, and removed some odd light fixtures like huge braziers to replace with torches and lanterns. I was just asking myself why and how certain stuff ended up in this prison. Added more cool stuff to Madanach's room, and various other things. I also rooted out the cause of some ore nodes that couldn't be mined and fixed that.
Previous update was bug fixes only pretty much, but a lot of much-needed ones.
UPDATE 2.1 is finally up! (Did a quick re-upload without version change after I noticed I left a few temp/unused files in the archive; minor difference in download size, no reason to download again if you were one of the 40 people who got it already.)
This is mostly a lot of bug fixes and polishing that have been in the works for a long time. Can't believe it's been almost 2 years. 2.1 is really not that different from 2.0 except it should all work a little better, hopefully.
Notable changes include: * New male Nord follower available as a reward for siding against the Forsworn. You can find him in the Silver-Blood Inn after completing the quest. He bears an uncanny resemblance to a young Brad Pitt; it wasn't really my aim going in, but I leaned into it, cause why not. Please note this does require a new playthrough of the quest, and he won't be present if you upgrade from an older version. * It's now possible to recruit the two prisoner followers later if you don't do it during the quest. They still head to Karthwasten after the prison break.
SSE version is actually done and being uploaded.
I still need to update the mod description page, and all the screenshots are super outdated too at this point. I've debated doing a whole new mod page because it's really not the same mod as the old version 1 anymore, but I don't want to confuse people. This old mod page has tons of downloads and endorsements on it, and thus gets a lot of traffic.
I have quietly uploaded my gigantic update of this mod. It's such a radical departure from previous versions that I might launch it as a different mod entirely later, but I'm hoping a few of you who pay attention to this mod page will give it a try so I can get some early feedback.
Some changes:
There are no longer separate "basic" or "deluxe" versions, what used to be the deluxe version is now a stand-alone mod with no outside requirements. Apachii has granted permission to include the hair assets, and I've replaced all the Dawnguard dependencies with custom stuff.
I'm have greatly expanded the NPCs' personalities. There is some unique follower dialogue, random idle chatter lines, a lot of edits to the old "I'm busting out of here" responses, and a short "what are you in for" conversation for each of the new NPC's.
I added a couple dialogue scenes between NPC's old and new.
It's now possible to spare Grisvar if you side with Madanach! I added a whole in-depth dialogue branch, new AI, some relevant interactions with his friend Odvan.
Now that I'm fairly competent with scripting, I've made some technical improvements over the old mod, plus I've dug into the original Cidhna Mine quest's innards to change how it works. I have fully removed the Cidhna Mine quest from the standard "get arrested" mechanic so it doesn't work like a regular jail sentence. This means I was able to add places to sleep, and let you mine all the ore you can carry without the "serve your sentence" pop-up breaking the quest.
Another main goal with this was to actually allow the player to escape from the mine without doing the quest at all. I made it so the player can simply pick a lock or two and sneak out, same as any jail, but I wanted this to be a serious challenge. It will be very difficult to get out alive, and if you do escape with the quest unfinished, you will remain the #1 most wanted criminal in the Reach; you'll never be able to get near Markarth without them trying to throw you back in there. Guards will accost you near Markarth. In other parts of Skyrim, bounty hunters will track you down.
If you escape the mine and get caught and thrown back in, up to 6 followers can get thrown in with you!
Per a user suggestion, I added a unique Forsworn follower who will join you in Druadach Redoubt if you side with Madanach.
I've been testing the hell out of this for months and I finally decided it's in complete enough shape to at least let other people test it. Please download and play and provide feedback.
You can't upgrade from an old version. Please be sure to delete all the files from previous versions before installing 2.0. Use a clean save where you have never had this mod installed.
I'd like to get a decent amount of feedback on this version before I even try to post it for SSE.
I've played through on version 2.1 a couple of years ago. Recently, I've installed 2.3 and no longer get the dialogue choice on Borkul from Devious Cidhna version 1.10. I also tried version 2.2 and experienced the same problem. I went back to 2.1 and it seems fine.
I didn’t make any changes to Borkul. I also have no idea what dialogue choices that other mod adds so I don’t know if there’s some minor detail that could trip it up, but it doesn’t sound like something that should conflict.
Hi, I really enjoy this mod. The only suggestion I have is that there are a number of ore veins added by this mod that appear to be interactive, but don't trigger mining when used, probably because of a mesh collision or something blocking the place where the player is supposed to stand for the animation. On my first playthrough this made me think mining might be broken entirely. Could you make these non interactive, by any chance?
Sorry about the late reply on this -- I finally went around and got some IDs.
349e4 1a6d 1a6c 349e2 1eb8 1ec7
That's a partial list. I stopped taking down the IDs when I got into the big room with Lebb and found that pretty much none of the ore in there can be mined at all. I would suspect an issue with my meshes or something, but I'm using different ones on this SSE playthrough than I was on LE, and I had the same issue there.
I confirmed that it wasn't that mining had stopped working for my character by coc'ing into Left Hand Mine and mining the first ore vein I found.
For what it's worth, this was my second playthrough on SSE, and this time I went with killing Madanach and the other inmates. All of that worked perfectly. Thank you again for making such a beautiful and solid mod!
I appreciate you taking the time. FYI my approach to ore veins in this mod was purely decorative; I didn't personally care a lot about whether it was functional. Sometimes I'd stick it on the ceiling or whatever. I just wanted to make sure the wealth of silver in there was apparent. But all things considered I'd rather not have fake-out interaction prompts if I can help it.
I know it's been years since this post, but in case you're still around or if anyone else cares, I think this is fixed. I believe I pinpointed the problem as missing linked references for the mining animation. I had put mining animation markers for NPCs to use near silver nodes - basically invisible "furniture" markers which let them know where to do a pickaxe animation - but hadn't linked them. Without linking them to the node, I think the game doesn't let the player mine ore because it doesn't know what animation to use. I went through and made sure all the ones I could find had linked markers. I tested a bunch and they seem to work now.
I realize that as you stated the ore veins were just for aesthetics to make the mine appear to have a wealth of silver. But, I do appreciate that you have made it possible to mine the ore veins, I like being able to grab some of the silver blood wealth after being incarcerated here. Unfortunately, I have already played the previous version 2.1 this last October 2022 and won't be able to return till next play through. But,I have downloaded version 2.2 on January 10,2024 and today 2.3 And I do so like the way you made this a more full experience over the vanilla mine and characters. All your mods have considerable 'depth' in them, you just don't throw something out there each time. I always,download any updates as you post them to any mod that has your moniker on them. Thanks for sharing!
I know this isn't your purview, or what the mod is about, but could you add an "RP" friendly version where you expose the corruption of Markarth to Gen. Tullius? And another option where you, AS THE FUCKING DRAGONBORN, HARBINGER OF THE COMPANIONS, ARCHMAGE OF THE GUILD, MASTER OF THE THEIVE'S GUILD, THANE OF NEARLY EVERY/EVERY HOLD IN SKYRIM, LISTENER OF THE DARK BROOTHERHOOD, CHAMPION OF ALL/MOST OF THE DEADRA, just goes "Are you sure about that?" And then you open an option to go to the prison and drag out the king in rags, and behead him right there for trying to f*#@ with you. Seriously, this is a great expansion mod, I played it on oldrim and loved it, but it still baffles me that nobody in the entire community has ever gone "Yeah, this quest makes zero sense if you have a high level PC with large renown." So, I apologize if this sounds ranty, because I am ranting, and I understand if the answer is a flat "no" because you, personally, love the quest, but even if you love it you can surely see how bonkers the mentality is when the PC has gotten to that point in the game before doing this quest. Imagine the actual political suicide that it would be if the entire country of Skyrim found out who you had jailed. But yeah, if any of you know of a mod like this, or if it's in this mod, please let me know. Because I am sick and tired of this quest being utterly bonkers in the sheer lack of logic behind it. I am currently slaughtering my way through markarth for the soul purpose of working off my stress at it. I do have a save placed beforehand, but still.
Half the quests in the game don't make sense if you're a world famous superhero, and that has never bothered me because I don't like thinking of my player character as a world famous superhero. I'm not at all interested in a narrative where everything is easy because you're such a badass. The premise of this quest, and the fun of it, is a sense that you're in over your head, and I have really worked to accentuate that more than anything. I wanted to make it MORE like that. If you're NOT in over your head, it ruins the whole thing, and there's no point in even doing it.
There's a reason this quest starts automatically the first time you set foot in Markarth, and that is: It is designed to be early game content. You're not supposed to start it at a high level when you've beat all the main quests and stuff. You're supposed to do it when you're still basically nobody. You certainly can do it late in the game, whether by using mods to postpone the start or just ignoring it in your quest log, but you're basically doing it wrong at that point. If you redesign the whole narrative around the concept of rolling in at level 75 and laughing it off, there's really no story there anymore and certainly no challenge. So no, I'm not interested in giving this or any other early game quest some kind of "f--- you I'm the Dragonborn" instant-win button. I get that it's a thing some people might want, but I'm not one of them, and it would basically be the opposite of this mod in intention and design.
TL;DR(Or would it be, Won't read?): Is it really that much of a ball ache to give me an actual, plot-hole-less reason to be railroaded into content that locks you out of doing other, potentially timed content? Is it really that much of a ball ache? Can you really say that? Could Bethesda REALLY say that?
I beg to differ. Most of the quests are ambiguously worded, or have some mention of who you are or what you've done at some point. A lot of others just don't actually matter who you are because you're offering to help someone and that's just what you do as the main character. Others still don't matter because who the f*#@ are you to those people? They've been focused on other, world ending events. Not some little rebellion that literally means nothing in the game at all, even with this mod installed. (I have it installed, this mod is the only part of the quest I am looking forward to, I'm not even kidding.) This is the only quest that actually breaks world immersion in such a spectacular fashion as this, as everything else I've encountered can at least have a plausible explanation. I actively avoid Markarth until I'm forced to go there because of this reason, which, in hindsight, really makes the quest more of a problem in this way, but that's beside the point. Look, if you want the quest to really feel like the player is in over their heads, fill in the plot holes, please. Don't let it be some rich boy and some false king be the ones pulling the strings. Make it some big power. If the player is the listener you can just tie it into the empire getting back at the player for assassinating the emperor. If the player supports the empire, have it be Ulfric trying to negate a big problem so that he can operate without the opposition of a very powerful fighter. These tiny things, the utterly tiny, small, puny things make a massive difference. That, and give the guards invulnerability and a code that just oneshots the PC so that it's not a joke to fight them and you're actively and forcefully railroaded into the quest. You know, like you would have been in the first place. Just give me an actual, plausible reason to be railroaded into a story before doing it. Choo choo.
The problem is that Bethesda have simply stopped caring. They no longer care about lore consistency, player agency, role playing potential, in-game guild and factional interconnectedness, etc. They no longer make RPG's: they make shallow action/adventure games with increasingly light RPG elements.
I just played through your version of the Quest and just wanted to leave you a huge THANK YOU for this gem! What I loved the most was 1. sparing Grisvar and be able to still side with the foresworn 2. able to break out in the middle of everything, stash away all the stolen silver and get thrown back into the mine with some punishment included (really nice writing here, I really liked it) 3. picking up over 400 empty bottles. It was like meditating. Never thought something could be more relaxing than mining. x,D Unfortunately I didn't find any of the followers, but I will try and look them up in the forums these days. Thanks again!
Unfortunately I stumbled across some little issues - one was Ralyas hair going crazy (I have Apachiis mod installed, if that is helpful, although you wrote that the hair was included in your file so idk what happened here to be honest)
After I finished the questline I decided to hunt down the remaining silver-bloods and was thrown into the cidna mine again. Only one hour before I had cleaned out the cidna mines - because I didn't find the ghost and the treasure back there on my own before - and then slipped out through the hidden exit (where the spider foreman was before) leaving behind a whole bunch of stuff because it was too heavy. Now I understand that the cell was updated, when I was put back in prison. And that's okay. I was only a little bit sad when it was gone.
But when I broke out again (this time through the main exit using a lot of picks) not only was my stashed stuff gone but I couldn't get to sleep when I got to the next Inn (Old Hroldan) - the game thought the bed was in the prison.
Just a funny little sidenote here, not even sure if it is because of you mod or because Skyrim is being funny again. But I wanted to let you know anyway. c:
That hair glitch is a known issue; it should (hopefully) be resolved if you install XPMSE - which is good to install for general compatibility anyway - but I'm hoping to fix the issue later so the mod won't have that requirement.
I just spent 2 hours looking for a solution for Ralya's hair glitch and found this. I tried all the normal things like dark face issue reporter, checked the facegen nif for bad texture paths, checked the ESP for incorrect paths, etc. The only thing I found is that she has a headpart (formid xx06A90C) that uses a "KS Hairdo's\AlexisHl.tri" file but that file does not exist anywhere. I checked all versions of KS Hairdo's in LE and SE for that file but it just doesn't exist unless I missed it. It may not even be the problem (I tried changing it to Alexis.tri which does exist but that didn't fix it). And I'm not installing XPMSE because of one character's hair. :)
EDIT: I also found that your dawn.nif and dawnhl.nif files point to the following textures, but they are not included in your download, they are only in the KS Hairdos mod.
The .tri files don't exist for most hairdos, and it's generally not an issue. Placeholder text in the plugin, basically.
As I said before, I'm fully aware of the hair issues and there is a fix on the way in an update. The texture glitch is from the wrong file paths in the hairline mesh, which is an easy fix, and the stretching glitch is from HDT weighting; this can be fixed by installing the XPMSE skeleton. For the next update the hair meshes have been regenerated without the weighting, so that issue will also be solved for anybody who for some reason does not install XPMSE. For now, that's the fix.
Can someone please tell me if this mod has full voice acting or at least full vanilla voice acting? this kinds of important information should always be in the description :(
Yes, it is fully voiced. Initially the mod used only vanilla dialogue. The description has not really been updated for version 2.0, which is still being tweaked, but I added tons of new voiced dialogue using spliced vanilla lines.
I have a suggestion about those named essential and protected NPCs. Can you give them a script forcing them to go home and stay there until the "aid Madanach" quest line is completed?
And where and what faction section should I delete? I might delete the wrong one.
Gave it a quick run in SE with Madanach's side. Had some problem with getting people to get moving, like Madanach just not leaving combat state and standing over a frozen Dwemer Spider... or people not getting out of the damn mine. Thankfully, since you can just pass time (no idea if that's because of this mod, the game's default behavior, or another mod that lets me wait anywhere), a couple of hours will generally solve things. Now I don't know if that's because of just passing time, or because of yet another mod called NPC AI Process Position Fix, but the job gets done either way. Everyone gets to where they should be once the wait screen is done.
This time, no problem with exiting, except I couldn't reach Thonar due to the mass of bodies between him and me. Then they rampaged through Markarth. Not a single guard is left alive - it's like an army just cutting down everyone who dares to stand in their way. I think only two of the Forsworn even get killed.
The problem, of course, is that all the Forsworn become non-hostile with this route. Don't care for it, personally, as it really cuts down on the danger of quests and the tension of journeying in the Reach. I'm going to try deleting the faction portions of the mod via xEdit, as mentioned in another post.
Anyway, this is definitely superior to the old one, especially with the extra miners having small sound bites about what they did to land in Cidhna, and the little interactions/choices added. Excellent.
Yeah, the faction change is a problem... I'm 100% writing that off as a failed experiment, and it's definitely getting taken out. Ultimately there are other mods that let you join the actual Forsworn faction if you want to, and that's really outside the scope of what this mod should be doing. I can admit when I'm wrong!
Adding a couple pockets of neutral Druadach-aligned Forsworn in the Reach might be a fun extra that's less disruptive, so I've considered that. The other faction issue that's been bugging me is that there are certain named NPC's in Markarth who are essential or protected and can get locked in eternal battle with the Forsworn while they escape, and I'm wondering if there's a way to get them to ignore each other without messing up any other alignment stuff.
A quick wait is the best way to get the NPC's moving if they stall out in the tunnels, for sure. I widened the tunnels in a lot of places but it's a lot of people trying to get through. This has always been an element of the mod, and I feel like a brief traffic jam is worth it for the epic battle scene that happens in Markarth once they all break out. There might still be ways to tweak the AI to make it work better.
Next version will have faction changes removed. In the meantime this is an easy do it yourself fix, just open the plugin in TES5Edit and delete the faction section.
Give Feedback
476 comments
A quick follow-up to the previous update. I was testing out the new build and decided to do a little redecorating in there, added some details to places that looked boring, made the creepy ground fog more consistent throughout, and removed some odd light fixtures like huge braziers to replace with torches and lanterns. I was just asking myself why and how certain stuff ended up in this prison. Added more cool stuff to Madanach's room, and various other things.
I also rooted out the cause of some ore nodes that couldn't be mined and fixed that.
Previous update was bug fixes only pretty much, but a lot of much-needed ones.
UPDATE 2.1 is finally up!
(Did a quick re-upload without version change after I noticed I left a few temp/unused files in the archive; minor difference in download size, no reason to download again if you were one of the 40 people who got it already.)
This is mostly a lot of bug fixes and polishing that have been in the works for a long time. Can't believe it's been almost 2 years.
2.1 is really not that different from 2.0 except it should all work a little better, hopefully.
Notable changes include:
* New male Nord follower available as a reward for siding against the Forsworn. You can find him in the Silver-Blood Inn after completing the quest. He bears an uncanny resemblance to a young Brad Pitt; it wasn't really my aim going in, but I leaned into it, cause why not. Please note this does require a new playthrough of the quest, and he won't be present if you upgrade from an older version.
* It's now possible to recruit the two prisoner followers later if you don't do it during the quest. They still head to Karthwasten after the prison break.
SSE version is actually done and being uploaded.
I still need to update the mod description page, and all the screenshots are super outdated too at this point. I've debated doing a whole new mod page because it's really not the same mod as the old version 1 anymore, but I don't want to confuse people. This old mod page has tons of downloads and endorsements on it, and thus gets a lot of traffic.
I have quietly uploaded my gigantic update of this mod. It's such a radical departure from previous versions that I might launch it as a different mod entirely later, but I'm hoping a few of you who pay attention to this mod page will give it a try so I can get some early feedback.
Some changes:
There are no longer separate "basic" or "deluxe" versions, what used to be the deluxe version is now a stand-alone mod with no outside requirements. Apachii has granted permission to include the hair assets, and I've replaced all the Dawnguard dependencies with custom stuff.
I'm have greatly expanded the NPCs' personalities. There is some unique follower dialogue, random idle chatter lines, a lot of edits to the old "I'm busting out of here" responses, and a short "what are you in for" conversation for each of the new NPC's.
I added a couple dialogue scenes between NPC's old and new.
It's now possible to spare Grisvar if you side with Madanach! I added a whole in-depth dialogue branch, new AI, some relevant interactions with his friend Odvan.
Now that I'm fairly competent with scripting, I've made some technical improvements over the old mod, plus I've dug into the original Cidhna Mine quest's innards to change how it works. I have fully removed the Cidhna Mine quest from the standard "get arrested" mechanic so it doesn't work like a regular jail sentence. This means I was able to add places to sleep, and let you mine all the ore you can carry without the "serve your sentence" pop-up breaking the quest.
Another main goal with this was to actually allow the player to escape from the mine without doing the quest at all. I made it so the player can simply pick a lock or two and sneak out, same as any jail, but I wanted this to be a serious challenge. It will be very difficult to get out alive, and if you do escape with the quest unfinished, you will remain the #1 most wanted criminal in the Reach; you'll never be able to get near Markarth without them trying to throw you back in there. Guards will accost you near Markarth. In other parts of Skyrim, bounty hunters will track you down.
If you escape the mine and get caught and thrown back in, up to 6 followers can get thrown in with you!
Per a user suggestion, I added a unique Forsworn follower who will join you in Druadach Redoubt if you side with Madanach.
I've been testing the hell out of this for months and I finally decided it's in complete enough shape to at least let other people test it. Please download and play and provide feedback.
You can't upgrade from an old version. Please be sure to delete all the files from previous versions before installing 2.0. Use a clean save where you have never had this mod installed.
I'd like to get a decent amount of feedback on this version before I even try to post it for SSE.
Check the FORUMS tab right there ^^^^^ for a detailed walkthrough of this mod that spoils all of the secrets!
It's also a place where you can discuss the hidden parts of this mod openly, without worrying about ruining the surprise for other players.
I've played through on version 2.1 a couple of years ago. Recently, I've installed 2.3 and no longer get the dialogue choice on Borkul from Devious Cidhna version 1.10. I also tried version 2.2 and experienced the same problem. I went back to 2.1 and it seems fine.
I went back to an older save then upgraded to version 2.3. It's working fine. Thanks!
349e4
1a6d
1a6c
349e2
1eb8
1ec7
That's a partial list. I stopped taking down the IDs when I got into the big room with Lebb and found that pretty much none of the ore in there can be mined at all. I would suspect an issue with my meshes or something, but I'm using different ones on this SSE playthrough than I was on LE, and I had the same issue there.
I confirmed that it wasn't that mining had stopped working for my character by coc'ing into Left Hand Mine and mining the first ore vein I found.
For what it's worth, this was my second playthrough on SSE, and this time I went with killing Madanach and the other inmates. All of that worked perfectly. Thank you again for making such a beautiful and solid mod!
But, I do appreciate that you have made it possible to mine the ore veins, I like being able to grab some of the silver blood wealth after being incarcerated here.
Unfortunately, I have already played the previous version 2.1 this last October 2022 and won't be able to return till next play through.
But,I have downloaded version 2.2 on January 10,2024 and today 2.3
And I do so like the way you made this a more full experience over the vanilla mine and characters.
All your mods have considerable 'depth' in them, you just don't throw something out there each time.
I always,download any updates as you post them to any mod that has your moniker on them. Thanks for sharing!
And then you open an option to go to the prison and drag out the king in rags, and behead him right there for trying to f*#@ with you.
Seriously, this is a great expansion mod, I played it on oldrim and loved it, but it still baffles me that nobody in the entire community has ever gone "Yeah, this quest makes zero sense if you have a high level PC with large renown."
So, I apologize if this sounds ranty, because I am ranting, and I understand if the answer is a flat "no" because you, personally, love the quest, but even if you love it you can surely see how bonkers the mentality is when the PC has gotten to that point in the game before doing this quest. Imagine the actual political suicide that it would be if the entire country of Skyrim found out who you had jailed. But yeah, if any of you know of a mod like this, or if it's in this mod, please let me know. Because I am sick and tired of this quest being utterly bonkers in the sheer lack of logic behind it. I am currently slaughtering my way through markarth for the soul purpose of working off my stress at it. I do have a save placed beforehand, but still.
There's a reason this quest starts automatically the first time you set foot in Markarth, and that is: It is designed to be early game content. You're not supposed to start it at a high level when you've beat all the main quests and stuff. You're supposed to do it when you're still basically nobody. You certainly can do it late in the game, whether by using mods to postpone the start or just ignoring it in your quest log, but you're basically doing it wrong at that point. If you redesign the whole narrative around the concept of rolling in at level 75 and laughing it off, there's really no story there anymore and certainly no challenge. So no, I'm not interested in giving this or any other early game quest some kind of "f--- you I'm the Dragonborn" instant-win button. I get that it's a thing some people might want, but I'm not one of them, and it would basically be the opposite of this mod in intention and design.
I beg to differ. Most of the quests are ambiguously worded, or have some mention of who you are or what you've done at some point. A lot of others just don't actually matter who you are because you're offering to help someone and that's just what you do as the main character. Others still don't matter because who the f*#@ are you to those people? They've been focused on other, world ending events. Not some little rebellion that literally means nothing in the game at all, even with this mod installed. (I have it installed, this mod is the only part of the quest I am looking forward to, I'm not even kidding.) This is the only quest that actually breaks world immersion in such a spectacular fashion as this, as everything else I've encountered can at least have a plausible explanation.
I actively avoid Markarth until I'm forced to go there because of this reason, which, in hindsight, really makes the quest more of a problem in this way, but that's beside the point.
Look, if you want the quest to really feel like the player is in over their heads, fill in the plot holes, please. Don't let it be some rich boy and some false king be the ones pulling the strings. Make it some big power. If the player is the listener you can just tie it into the empire getting back at the player for assassinating the emperor. If the player supports the empire, have it be Ulfric trying to negate a big problem so that he can operate without the opposition of a very powerful fighter. These tiny things, the utterly tiny, small, puny things make a massive difference. That, and give the guards invulnerability and a code that just oneshots the PC so that it's not a joke to fight them and you're actively and forcefully railroaded into the quest. You know, like you would have been in the first place. Just give me an actual, plausible reason to be railroaded into a story before doing it. Choo choo.
Unfortunately I didn't find any of the followers, but I will try and look them up in the forums these days. Thanks again!
Unfortunately I stumbled across some little issues - one was Ralyas hair going crazy (I have Apachiis mod installed, if that is helpful, although you wrote that the hair was included in your file so idk what happened here to be honest)
After I finished the questline I decided to hunt down the remaining silver-bloods and was thrown into the cidna mine again.
Only one hour before I had cleaned out the cidna mines - because I didn't find the ghost and the treasure back there on my own before - and then slipped out through the hidden exit (where the spider foreman was before) leaving behind a whole bunch of stuff because it was too heavy.
Now I understand that the cell was updated, when I was put back in prison. And that's okay. I was only a little bit sad when it was gone.
But when I broke out again (this time through the main exit using a lot of picks) not only was my stashed stuff gone but I couldn't get to sleep when I got to the next Inn (Old Hroldan) - the game thought the bed was in the prison.
Just a funny little sidenote here, not even sure if it is because of you mod or because Skyrim is being funny again. But I wanted to let you know anyway. c:
edit: I use your FANCY NEW VERSION btw.
EDIT: I also found that your dawn.nif and dawnhl.nif files point to the following textures, but they are not included in your download, they are only in the KS Hairdos mod.
textures\ks hairdo's\dawn.dds
textures\ks hairdo's\dawn_n.dds
The paths should probably be:
textures\cidhnamineexpanded\hair\dawn.dds
textures\cidhnamineexpanded\hair\dawn_n.dds
EDIT: You can solve the problem by simply downloading the following single file from XPMSE:
Skeleton meshes\meshes\actors\character assets female\skeleton.nif
Just copy that file to the following location and put it somewhere AFTER any other mod that has it (e.g. after Realistic Ragdolls and Force):
\meshes\actors\character assets female\skeleton.nif
As I said before, I'm fully aware of the hair issues and there is a fix on the way in an update. The texture glitch is from the wrong file paths in the hairline mesh, which is an easy fix, and the stretching glitch is from HDT weighting; this can be fixed by installing the XPMSE skeleton. For the next update the hair meshes have been regenerated without the weighting, so that issue will also be solved for anybody who for some reason does not install XPMSE. For now, that's the fix.
And where and what faction section should I delete? I might delete the wrong one.
This time, no problem with exiting, except I couldn't reach Thonar due to the mass of bodies between him and me. Then they rampaged through Markarth. Not a single guard is left alive - it's like an army just cutting down everyone who dares to stand in their way. I think only two of the Forsworn even get killed.
The problem, of course, is that all the Forsworn become non-hostile with this route. Don't care for it, personally, as it really cuts down on the danger of quests and the tension of journeying in the Reach. I'm going to try deleting the faction portions of the mod via xEdit, as mentioned in another post.
Anyway, this is definitely superior to the old one, especially with the extra miners having small sound bites about what they did to land in Cidhna, and the little interactions/choices added. Excellent.
Adding a couple pockets of neutral Druadach-aligned Forsworn in the Reach might be a fun extra that's less disruptive, so I've considered that. The other faction issue that's been bugging me is that there are certain named NPC's in Markarth who are essential or protected and can get locked in eternal battle with the Forsworn while they escape, and I'm wondering if there's a way to get them to ignore each other without messing up any other alignment stuff.
A quick wait is the best way to get the NPC's moving if they stall out in the tunnels, for sure. I widened the tunnels in a lot of places but it's a lot of people trying to get through. This has always been an element of the mod, and I feel like a brief traffic jam is worth it for the epic battle scene that happens in Markarth once they all break out. There might still be ways to tweak the AI to make it work better.