About this mod
Mod aimed to Protect NPCs from unwanted death through Reference Aliases instead of editing Actor records ensuring maximum compatibility with mods that edit the same NPCs, such as appearance overhaul mods.
- Requirements
- Permissions and credits
-
Translations
- Russian
- Changelogs
Thank you guys! ;_; It took a while but it's finally there! :)




{Throughout this description, I use the term "Actor record" to refer to the "NPC_" Form Type used in the Creation Kit to designate NPCs' and creatures' object records. The reason why I referred to them as Actor records is because NPCs and creatures are collectively known as Actors in the CK Wiki. Sorry if anyone was confused by this naming scheme.}
Bryling Example
This isn't a new discovery that people never knew about but I don't understand why anyone hasn't utilized this. I mean it's right there (in the CK I mean). What I'm talking about is Reference Aliases. What about Reference Aliases? They have a Protected flag that can be checked. What?!

I find this way of protecting NPCs through quest aliases much more efficient than editing a whole slew of Actor records that can easily be overridden by other mods. Having to resolve conflicts in patches all the freakin' time gets really annoying so I'm saving you the time of protecting NPCs yourself by making them Protected through a quest that can't be overridden by anything. This will make your life easier because you won't have to worry about civilian NPCs dying anymore because you didn't know a mod you installed edited Actor records' Protected flags off. I know, for sure, a lot of people use NPC appearance overhaul mods because they think Skyrim NPCs look ugly but, guess what? Loading that mod after an NPC protection mod makes those NPCs unprotected again. Sure you can resolve it by making a patch but you can save time by using this mod and ensuring that your NPCs never get killed because my Protected flags can't be overridden!
Who did I Protect?
- unique named NPCs
- all vanilla children
- named animals - all named dogs, the Stray Dog that can follow you, the goat Lucky from Dragon Bridge, Gleda the Goat, the fox Pumpkin from Southfringe Sanctum, Frost, all Hearthfire pets, Bilgemuck,
Old Salty, Lord Tusk - named creatures -
Grok, Moira,Melka,Uderfrykte,Sinding (werewolf)
- already Protected NPCs
- respawning NPCs (including Shadowmere)
- NPCs that are supposed to die during a quest
- initially hostile NPCs
- NPCs that aren't very important or you only meet once - Giana, Gissur, Rulindil, all the hunters from Ill Met By Moonlight, the 3 DB captives in the Abondoned Shack, Shavari, Tsavani, Kematu's Alik'r, etc.
I used NPCs Protected Redux as a base and started from there. I found NPCs that I didn't agree with protecting or inhibited you from killing them in other ways.
These NPCs are Protected by NPCs Protected Redux but I chose to not protect them for reasons:
I mostly Protected unique named NPCs. I even Protected NPCs that are normally Essential throughout the whole game. These NPCs cannot be Protected or else quests won't progress properly:
- Non-Essential Serana
- Non-Essential Blades by Razi108
- Non-Essential Generals
- Unessential Jarls RE-CONTINUED INFO DOWN BELOW
- No Essential Npcs - Bat File
- Npc nonessential bat file 1.0
- Nolonger Essential - Louis Letrush
- No-Essential NPCs
- Kill Balgruuf Essential Protected Invulnerable Ghost Actor
- Killable Essential Characters
- EssentialNPCs Begone
- All killable children mods
There are a lot of mods that edit vanilla NPC Actor records in other ways but will undoubtedly cause you to create a "conflict resolution" patch just to keep NPCs Protected:
- Cutting Room Floor
- Immersive Weapons (adds weapons to Actor records; this honestly could've been done through a Reference Alias as well)
- Cloaks of Skyrim (edits Idalof Battle-Born)
- Prince and The Pauper
- Consistent Older People
- NARC (just Stump)
- Hoth (edits Jenassa for no reason; delete asap)
- Atvir Dres (leaves edits on Mikael and Uthgerd; delete asap; AsaRuth's update still leaves an edit for Mikael)
- Vigilance Reborn
- Meeko Reborn
- Timing is Everything (edits Perth; get the Afflicted Fix as well :))
- Expanded Towns and Cities
- Open Cities Skyrim (edits Heimskr)
- Amazing Follower Tweaks (edits 2 Ciceros and the DB Initiates)
- Immersive Amazing Follower Tweaks (see above)
- Various NPC appearance overhaul mods
- Various child appearance overhaul mods
In total, my mod protects around 800 NPCs.
Dawnguard, Hearthfire and Dragonborn are required for the Legendary version. Otherwise, I made individual versions for those that don't own all 3 DLCs. This mod is perfectly safe to merge with other mods. I recommend Merge Plugins to do this.
Cutting Room Floor for PyP_CuttingRoomFloor.esp.
Inconsequential NPCs for PyP_InconsequentialNPCs.esp.
Interesting NPCs for PyP_InterestingNPCs.esp.
USLEEP is not required.
SKSE is not required.
A new game start is not required.
Installation
Use a mod manager for the fomod installer or install directly to data folder.
Uninstallation
Use specified console commands.
PyP_Legendary.esp Pre-1.4
stopquest pyp_legendary
PyP_Legendary.esp Post-1.4
stopquest pyp_skyrim
stopquest pyp_dawnguard
stopquest pyp_hearthfire
stopquest pyp_dragonborn
PyP_Skyrim.esp
stopquest pyp_skyrim
PyP_Dawnguard.esp
stopquest pyp_dawnguard
PyP_Hearthfire.esp
stopquest pyp_hearthfire
PyP_Dragonborn.esp
stopquest pyp_dragonborn
PyP_CuttingRoomFloor.esp
stopquest pyp_cuttingroomfloor
PyP_InconsequentialNPCs.esp
stopquest pyp_inconsequentialnpcs
PyP_InterestingNPCs.esp
stopquest pyp_interestingnpcs
Delete .ESPs and their corresponding .BSAs.
Compatibility
Compatible with:
USLEEP
Run For Your Lives
When Vampires Attack
Open Cities
NPC Knockout Overhaul
Correct Gender Animations
Immersive Citizens
Immersive Children
Inhabitants of Skyrim
Bijin Warmaidens, NPCs and Wives
All multiple follower mods
All other appearance overhaul mods
All other killable children mods
Completely compatible with almost anything because of the way my mod is set up. Just a single quest protecting individual NPCs instead of editing Actor records so there will be no conflicts with other mods that edit the same NPCs. I chose not to make quest NPCs Protected after their quests end directly through the aforementioned quests themselves because I don't like making huge edits to important things like quests, plus it would be harder to uninstall if you didn't like this mod.

As of 1.4, I officially supported detecting Innocence Lost Alternative and Adoption Without Murder (Innocence Lost for Good Guys) since both mods kill Grelod the Kind without the Player physically attacking her. Lemkil is killed in the latter mod through a scripted kill. Basically, any mods that want to run scripted deaths on NPCs protected by PyP are inherentlyincompatible unless you use a specific script to detect my mod and turnoff the targeted reference aliases which I sent script files to the mod authors of each mod to include in their own in order to make them compatible with my mod.
Permissions
Why? Please ask me first for whatever reason.
Credits
-NPCs for dropping like flies.
-Arthmoor for Cutting Room Floor.
-Kris Takahashi for Interesting NPCs.
-missjennabee, Pymous and Nazenn for Expanded Towns and Cities.
-blattgeist for NPCs Protected Redux.
-ripple for Inconsequential NPCs.
Check out other mods I worked on


