Have you ever wanted to command a zerglike army of minions in Skyrim?
No? That's just me? Oh...
Well...

Now you can anyway!

This mod was inspired by the craftable albino spiders added by the Dragonborn expansion, but takes things in a completely different direction. It adds several 'scrolls' craftable at special workbenches that can be used to summon a variety of specialized insectoid minions. The number of minions you can summon is based on your level, and they grow more powerful as your crafting skills improve.

This mod also adds:
Swarm themed spells and abilities
Several thematic craftable weapons with unique capabilities
Craftable pieces of armor that use extra slots and can be used along side vanilla armor
New mod related alchemy ingredients
New mod related enchantments
A 'nest' where the custom workbenches are located (a permanent door is located in Whiterun)
Summonable doors that give access to the nest from anywhere.
And more! (Details in the FAQ)

Requirements:
Skyrim (obviously)
Dawnguard
Dragonborn
(I kept the requirements to a minimum on purpose.)

Things Still To do: I'd really like to animate the claw grafts. I'd also like to switch the 'chrysalis' models I used for the minion inventory and in hand graphics  for a model that looks like the actual minion. Animated wings on the mystics would also be nice. Unfortunately, I have yet to successfully animate a custom model or even edit an animated model. If anyone can help me with that I'd appreciate it. The only 3d modeling program I have is Blender.
The outer nest could use a little more decorating.

Optional: There is an optional file that adds a 'cheat' merchant who sells all the vanilla items you need for this mod. You can find her hanging out in the Bannered Mare in Whiterun.

Incompatibilities:
This mod does not touch any of the vanilla resources, and thus should be compatible with almost anything.
It does add a door under the bridge in Whiterun, and might be incompetible with anything that changes that location. 'Open city' mods may make the nest inaccessible.

Changelog:
v1.01
Fixed a bug that caused the emerald mystic's aoe attacks to one shot kill enemies
Player attacks and damaging spells should no long harm minions both in and out of combat.


Usage stuff:
You can use any of the resources I created for this mod without permission as long as you give me credit for creating them.
You are welcome to create and post alternate resources (such as alternate textures, meshes, or the like). You are also welcome to make 'addons' for this mod. If you let me know about it, I'll add a link to it in this description.
Please do not change or upload this mod itself without asking first.

Credits and thanks:
Bethesda for making Skyrim
ReDragon2013 for fixing the portal summoning script
lofgren an IsharaMeradin for help with quest scripting
The nifskope people
http://spiralgraphics.biz for some of the textures
fore of new idles fame. I didn't use what he helped me with in the end, but it helped me figure out some things I used latter.
The makers of more tutorials, guides, utilities, tools, and wiki pages than I can remember.
The modding community in general. You guys are all awesome!