Nerevar Returns: Custom-Voiced Standalone Follower

Dedication: This mod is dedicated in honor of Grumpy and in gratitude to Emma, whose contributions to Morrowind made followers actually fun and useful. Thank you both.



Introduction: This mod adds the voiced follower Nerevar to Windhelm. For those who have not played The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, Nerevar is the hero of that game. This mod requires Dawnguard DLC.

Purpose: Morrowind was the first Elder Scrolls game I played. I enjoyed roleplaying the Nerevarine. I enjoyed the story. And when I got Skyrim, I always wanted to have Nerevarine fight alongside Dragonborn. If you think about it, Nerevar was probably the most powerful person alive at the end of Morrowind and its two expansions. Someone like that doesn’t just disappear. I tried to find what had happened to him. The best thing I could find were rumors present in Oblivion that Nerevarine had sailed across the sea, presumably to Akavir. Why? Would he die there? Would it be possible for him to return? 
I’ve tried to create a Nerevarine that is completely lore-friendly. He has a logical backstory for being in Skyrim. I’ve done some roleplaying with him as well so that he isn’t just some generic Nerevar who could be the Nerevar that anyone played in Morrowind. He is my idea of Nerevar, and that gives him personality and his own uniqueness. He may not appeal to everyone, but his uniqueness gives him a flavor instead of a bland genericness. 
This is my first voiced follower, and I wanted him to be pretty basic, nothing as fancy as Vilja or Inigo or any of the other great follower mods of our time. But I wanted him to have enough functionality to be useful, fun, and unique. I’ve learned a ton and you’ll be seeing more from me soon. I hope you enjoy Nerevar even if you don’t like the scratchy Dunmer voice! :)



Description: Nerevar has returned to Tamriel after more than a hundred years of absence. The champion of the Dunmer and of Azura has seen much evil as his scarred and worn face indicates. Yet his spirit remains unbroken. The threat of the dragons has called him to this icy province in the North – the call of adventure and of an evil to face. He has sought shelter in Sadri’s Used Wares in Windhelm’s Grey Quarter among his own people while he formulates a plan. Rumors of the one called Dragonborn, whose destiny it is to defeat Alduin, have reached his ear.
Nerevar is a custom-voiced standalone follower. He has his own gear, horse, and backstory. He can be found in Sadri’s Used Wares in Windhelm. He is a powerful warrior, and is intended to be helpful in a fight even at high levels on higher difficulty. Because of this, he tends to one-hit-kill most foes at low levels. He has his own opinions on the events going on in Skyrim. Some of these he will share freely, but for others you may have to ask him. You can ask him to remain silent for a while so he isn’t interrupting important quest conversations, or just in case you get tired of hearing him ;) If you talk to him during Azura’s quest: The Black Star, he will have some unique things to say. 
Nerevar will immediately recognize you as Dragonborn when you meet him, so I recommend not recruiting him until after you have discovered in the Main Quest that you are Dragonborn. 
A word to the wise, the Savior of Morrowind does not like assassins or vampires. You have been warned...

Features:

• Requires Dawnguard DLC.
• Fully customized Dark Elf Nerevar NPC with highly detailed face.
• Custom modified Dark Elf race, custom class & fighting style.
• Nerevar is essential and levels with the player.
• Nerevar wears Ordinator armor, which has stats slightly higher than Dwarven armor.
• Nerevar wields the fiery sword Trueflame.
• Nerevar bears the ring Moon-And-Star that kills anyone who wears it other than Nerevar.
• Sandboxes when following like Serana.
• Rides his own horse when told or automatically when the player rides.
• Completely independent from the vanilla follower system to provide maximum reliability. Will not conflict with mods that add other followers or multiple follower mods like UFO, EFF, etc.
• Set home dialogue.
• Dismiss to multiple meeting locations including home or any of the major cities in Skyrim.
• Trains the player in Destruction magic up to Skill 99.
• Summon spell when following. 
• 3 unique Destruction spells that the player also can learn.
• Trade or Storage options allow you to give Nerevar gear to carry without him equipping it.
• Quest marker so you can always find him.
• Nerevar features a custom voice, based on the Dark Elf voice in the Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind. He has over 900 lines of dialogue which include greetings and goodbyes, location-based dialogue, combat dialogue, random comments, optional conversations about some of the major questlines in Skyrim, and optional conversations about Nerevar’s backstory.
• Random comments can be toggled on or off.
• Silent when sneaking, doesn’t affect stealth detection, lightfoot perk prevents him from triggering traps.
• Special introductory dialogue and a hidden “quest”.
• Optional conversations during Azura’s Daedric Quest.
• Detects if player has killed the Emperor as part of the Dark Brotherhood quest or if the player has joined Harkon’s vampire court in Dawnguard.
• Cleaned with TES5Edit.
  

 
Installation: I recommend a manual download and installing with NMM. For a manual install, just unzip the Nerevar001.esp and Nerevar001.bsa to your Skyrim/Data folder. You should be able to start this mod at any point in the game. A startup quest telling you where to find Nerevar will initiate. 

Uninstallation: simply delete the .esp and .bsa files from your Skyrim/Data folder.

Compatibility: Nerevar should be compatible with everything. The only edit to the vanilla game is adding him to Sadri’s Used Wares. Mods that edit certain locations in the main holds may cause his dismiss-to-location options to not work properly, but will not break anything. He is completely independent of the vanilla follower system, so he will not affect or be affected by most other follower-altering mods. He has been cleaned with TES5Edit for maximum compatibility.

FAQ:
Why is he a Dark Elf? 
The original Nerevar was a Chimer. Since the Chimer were all changed to Dunmer, it makes most sense that Nerevar would be reincarnated as a Dunmer rather than another race.

Why does he have this or that piece of equipment?
Nerevar proved he was Nerevarine by claiming Moon-And-Star without dying. Thus, that ring is essential to his identity as the incarnate. Of any weapon in the Elder Scrolls III, Trueflame was one of the most powerful and also had strong ties to Nerevar’s identity. The armor is reminiscent of armor in Morrowind, and it made sense to put him in an armor that honored Vivec rather than daedric armor. The crossbow was so he could have a ranged weapon other than magic, but he likes to use his magic anyway :P

Why does he talk like that?
I based his voice on the Dark Elves from the Elder Scrolls III. Nerevar is a tribute to that game after all. He is a Dunmer from another era who has found himself thrust into Skyrim. And honestly, I never liked Skyrim’s Dunmer voice. Sounds like a cab driver in London. I worked very hard to get the voice close, but even with my experience as a voice actor, that Dunmer voice is not easy. Still, I’m happy with the results. I spent many days coughing into my microphone and then running the lines through editing software to get them up to snuff. If you cannot stand his voice, don’t keep the mod, but I don’t need any complaints. I won’t be changing his voice no matter how many trolls descend upon the comment section. 

Will you change this or that?
Probably not. If there is a game-breaking bug that is the fault of this mod and not found in the vanilla game, I’ll attempt to fix it, but I won’t be taking requests for content changes. 

He talks too much.
Sorry. I designed him to be as unobtrusive as possible. He is meant to add a little opinion here and there and have optional conversations for those who want them. If that still is too much for you, then you can tell him to stop talking. 

Is this mod lore-friendly?
Short Answer: yes, it is lore-friendly. Is it purist friendly? No.
Long Answer: I have tried to make Nerevar as lore-friendly as possible using what I know from Morrowind and any and all information I can gather on what happened to Nerevar afterward. If you are okay with Nerevar returning from only-he-knows-where to join you in Skyrim, then he is lore-friendly. If that doesn’t seem lore-friendly to you, then, no, he’s not.

He is completely independent of the vanilla follower system?
Yes. Thanks to the help of the wizard Vayman, I built Nerevar to run completely on his own. This prevents conflicts with other mods that alter followers, such as behavior or follower count, but it also prevents those mods from working on Nerevar. I’ve tried to cover this by making him have his own functions for setting a home and having his own horse, among other things. One thing I have noticed during testing is that the dialogue from My Home is Your Home shows up when you talk to Nerevar if you have that mod active. Do not use that dialogue since Nerevar has his own home setting functions that are guaranteed to work. Other mods’ dialogue may randomly appear, but again, use it at your own risk. 

The Teleport spell is not working! 
You have to have Nerevar as an active follower for the spell to work, otherwise a message telling you he isn’t following right now will appear. This is necessary for the dismiss-to-location functions to work.

The horse is not working!/He is not dismissing to the meeting location!
I feel compelled to point out that this is not a question. But anyway, Nerevar’s scripts are clean. Vanilla Skyrim is the most likely culprit. I have noticed in testing that when you rapidly click through the dialogue for riding or dismissing, the scripts may not have time to fire. Going slowly and making sure he finishes his lines for each function almost always works. Giving him a few seconds after speaking to start walking toward the meeting place or to summon his horse and mount it will also help. His scripts are clean and they do work. Sometimes, he simply chooses to not go to the right location. This I view as part of his personality ;)

Is he marriageable?
No. And he never will be. Nerevar has endured much hardship in his life. He has had friends and family ripped from him. He is at a place where he enjoys company, but also solitude. He has no interest in marrying the Dragonborn or anyone else.

Why is he so powerful?
Nerevar at the height of his powers could kill most enemies in a single attack. Lucky for you, he is no longer at the height of his powers. After long and arduous journeys across the Sea, Nerevar’s power is somewhat diminished. He is a fading legend who is still more powerful than most creatures will ever be in their entire lives. He killed gods, went toe-to-toe with Daedric Lords, and survived every obstacle in his way. If any character has a right to be “overpowered,” it is Nerevar. Nerevar was made for use with mods such as Deadly Dragons, Dragon Combat Overhaul, Deadly Monsters, and Duel: Combat Realism. All these mods make fighting more challenging, and you’ll enjoy having such a powerful ally by your side when caught in the thick of a deadly ambush. 

Nerevar called me a monster and won’t talk to me. What did I do?
SPOILER: Nerevar puts up with a lot of your activities. But he doesn’t like vampires. He can tolerate you as long as you are a vanilla vampire, but once you have joined Lord Harkon’s vampires in the Dawnguard questline, you’ve gone too far. Nerevar won’t follow you any longer. There is no way to get him to follow you again. My advice is not to become a Vampire Lord.

Nerevar called me a murderer and won’t talk to me. What did I do?
SPOILER: Nerevar doesn’t approve of murder or assassination. He despises the Dark Brotherhood. He’ll tolerate your working for them until you kill the Emperor. That is the last straw for him. He can’t take it anymore. He won’t follow you anymore and there is no way to win his forgiveness. Maybe you should have thought about that before you became a murderer?

Will you be adding additional content?
In short, no I will not be adding any more content. I will release bug fixes as needed, but I consider Nerevar content-complete. I have lots of ideas of things to add and there are certainly more dialogue options, more functions, and even some of his own quests that I would like to add. But I have other projects to begin, and Nerevar was meant to be a stepping stone to those larger projects. He meets my bare-minimum requirements for a good voiced-follower mod, so it is time to move on.


Thanks & Credits:
People:
Vayman: script help, follower-system help
Anduniel: inspiration, countless tips and help, use of Anduniel as learning material
Shrike: scripts
 and of course, Emma and Grumpy!

Mod Resources:
 Anduniel - Quest Aware Custom Voiced Follower Companion by Anduniel: follower “learning material”

Ethereal Elven Overhaul by nuska: face textures

Moon-and-Star - a Morrowind artifact for Skyrim by PrivateEye: Moon-and-Star ring

Moon-and-Star Ring - Morrowind Lore Friendly by jackstarr: Moon-and-Star with kill script

Beards by Hvergelmir: beard texture

Brows by Hvergelmir: eyebrow texture

True Trueflame and Hopesfire by ArdenDanmer: Trueflame sword

Ordinator Armor by Natterforme: Ordinator armor

Morrowind Mods mentioned by Nerevar in Backstory:
Laura Craft Romance and Adventure ver 2.2 by Emma

The Witchgirl Adventure by Emma

The White Wolf of the Lokken Mountain by Emma and Teutonic

Thief companion Constance by Emma and Grumpy

The Underground by Qarl

Sea of Destiny


Screenshot Note: I'd used the mod XPMS - Back Hip Dagger n Back 1H Sword previously in my Skyrim. I deactivated all other mods before building Nerevar, but the sword still shows up on his back in the screenshots. You'll need to download this mod if you want his one-handed sword to actually be sheathed on his back in your game (found in the optional section of XP32 Maximum Skeleton -XPMS by xp32.