Description

Marcus Far-Born is a Knight of the Nine... er, Knight of the Eight... er, let's say a Knight of the Divines. He's a Nord, but he's lived in Cyrodiil for most of his life, until he decided to visit his ancestors' homeland in Skyrim. A fight with a troll led to him having to recover from his injuries at the Temple of the Divines in Solitude - he's got a journal in his inventory if you want to know more. He is now fully recovered and more than ready for adventure if you want to take him along.

Marcus is pretty much a literal knight in shining armour. He's polite, respectful, friendly, and if you have to kill some bandits along the way, he's going to be regretful... after he smashes their faces in with his shield bash, of course.

For Marcus in Skyrim SE, click here.

Watch a video review here, thanks a million to Chaos_Hellfire/Ikari! (The Marcus part starts at 5:43.)

Features

• A custom voice set with location-aware comments. Talk to him while in town, out exploring, or relaxing at an inn - he might have something new to say! His voice set is an open-source asset by Kikiapplus and Christian Gaughf - see link in the Credits section.
• His own follower system. He ignores your friendly fire and doesn't count against the follower limit, so you can have him tag along with any other followers you might be using. If you tell him to wait, he will stay put indefinitely.
• A custom armour, based on meshes and textures listed in the Credits section. All pieces of the armour can be tempered and enchanted. The armour is in his inventory - he'll put it on after you recruit him, otherwise he'll be wearing a vanilla set of fine clothes. If you want to change his "civilian" outfit, use a follower management mod like Amazing Follower Tweaks.
• A daily schedule. He spends the morning training in the Castle Dour courtyard, hangs around the Temple of the Divines in the afternoon, visits the Winking Skeever in the evening, and returns to the temple for the night. If you dismiss him, he'll return to Solitude and resume his daily life. To make him stay put, use My Home is Your Home, or just tell him to wait instead of dismissing him.
• A teleport spell to bring him back if he gets lost. To acquire the spell, look for the "Call Marcus" spell book in Marcus's inventory.
  

Location

Mornings: Castle Dour courtyard, hacking away at a training dummy.

Afternoons: Inside the Temple of the Divines. He might be close to the shrines, or chilling upstairs - he sometimes goes there to grab a bite to eat.

Evening: Goes to the Winking Skeever for a drink or two.

Night: Back at the Temple of the Divines.

Some of those locations can get crowded, so if you can't find Marcus, you can always use the console to acquire the "Call Marcus" spell book, and summon him that way. But, to be honest, I never had any problems finding him during testing.


Other

Marcus uses a Sundracon-compatible body. For more information, see the Credits section.

Your player character can wear Marcus's armour. It works for both male and female characters.

He is a classic sword-and-board tank in heavy armour, and he can also heal himself a little, but it's not his main focus. (His .esp file is actually called "Healer", but that's no longer correct. I started out wanting to make a healer, then scrapped the idea, but renaming .esps is a pain.)

He has the following perks: Light Foot, Shield Wall (rank 2), Power Bash, Armsman (rank 2), Bladesman (rank 1).

He levels with the player and has no min or max level limit.

At the moment, his voice set has no marriage-related lines, so he is not marriable. Kikiapplus mentioned possibly making a marriage add-on in the future, though, so hopefully I'll be able to make Marcus a marriage prospect one day!


Install

Install with a mod manager.

If you want to install manually, unpack to Data folder as usual.


Uninstall

Uninstall with a mod manager.

If you want to uninstall manually, remove all the files and folders that came with this mod.


Compatibility notes

Compatible with Amazing Follower Tweaks and My Home is Your Home.

If you find any incompatibilities, let me know!


History

1.1, 2020-08-04 - Made Marcus essential. Added the option for the player to craft Marcus's armour if they read his journal and have the Advanced Armors perk (suggested by ElderScrollsFan001). Changed Marcus's default outfit to match the one in the SE version.
1.0, 2018-07-27 - Initial release.


Credits - assets

Christian Gaughf and Kikiapplus for the CHARMING voice set from Custom Voice Resource - CVR
ghostrecon123 for the armour and shield from Crusaders Knights Templar Hospitaller Teutonic Medieval Armors and ActusReus for the original armour mesh
Austinlyle0 and Nymphetta for the body from HPM- High Poly Male Meshes - Vanilla-SOS-Sundracon-FavoredSoul compatible
Hvergelmir for the beard from Beards and brows from Brows
mandragorasprouts for the skin from Vitruvia - Skin texture overhaul for males
Kalilies and Stealthic for the Zombrex hair from KS Hairdos - Renewal
HHaleyy for mouth textures from Fair Skin Complexion
Gabriel Mailhot as LogRaam for eye textures from The Eyes Of Beauty


Credits - tutorials

Without these excellent tutorials and tips, I would've been lost.

General instructions on adding a vanilla-voiced follower
Make a follower with a face you made in RaceMenu
Make your RaceMenu follower standalone (video tutorial)
Make a custom framework for your follower
Add custom voice
Make a summoning spell for your follower
Make AI packages for your follower


Credits - screenshots

I used the following mods for my screenshots:

Silverfish Grotto
The Repose - A Buildable Grotto Near Markarth
RSH II - LYDIA STRIKES AGAIN - Hoamaii InnerWear for male
Face Light
Wulf's Poser

If there's anything I missed, let me know!


Credits - other

Nexus user GreyGeekster for beta-testing and making some excellent suggestions
Bethesda for Skyrim and the Creation Kit
LHammonds for the Readme Generator


Tools used

7-Zip
Audacity
BSA Unpacker
Creation Kit
GIMP
NifSkope
NPC Nif Merge
RaceMenu
Readme Generator
TES5Edit
Unfuzer


Permissions

You can do whatever you want with this mod as long as it stays free and on the Nexus. Some assets I used were shared by their authors on the condition that they are never uploaded to other websites or used in paywalled mods.

All voice, mesh and texture assets in this mod were made by other people. If you want to use the files I modified, that's fine with me, but please make sure to credit the original authors. Credit me as well if you want, that would be nice!

See my profile for other mods!