For all the effort put into designing the world, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim was sorely lacking in other areas, most notably quest design and how bland the writing was. Conversations exist as an exposition dump with no personality; only one or two options that lead to the same outcome or information. There were no meaningful choices for the player, no "voice" to each option in dialogue that allowed the player to build who they wanted to be in a given situation, only what Bethesda wanted you to know, where to go and what to do when you got there.

Well, it's time to change that.

The successor to the original mod for Divinity: Original Sin II, CoT adds new characters to the world, each of them with their own distinct personality and conversations that can branch off in a number of ways. As a tribute to old-school RPGs, Citizens is a passion project I have been working on in my spare time and adds some much needed life to Skyrim's NPCs, not to mention giving the player - at long last - the chance to actually roleplay and develop their character in dialogue.

The mod pays homage to the likes of Baldur's Gate, Fallout, Divinity, KotOR, Dragon Age, VtMB and more - the games (and genre) I love. Each of the characters in Citizens acts as an "easter egg" of sorts, unmarked and hidden away in the world for you to find naturally while playing. This will, in turn, hopefully provide that feeling of discovery and that you've come across something special, not just been forced into talking to them.

Each of the conversations are essentially character studies, allowing the player to come to their own conclusion about the themes or events being explored in dialogue without being explicitly told what to think or railroaded into a choice. Some encounters might be comical, some of them might be deadly serious, but ultimately how you react to them and how they progress is up to you.

After all, that's what roleplaying is about: choice and consequence. Though the mod may be small, the goal is to make the world feel more alive through these characters and your experience while playing through it all the more meaningful. Each of them has lived an actual life, they have motivations and flaws... ultimately Citizens is about coming into contact with other people in the context of the world, not robots, and exploring what they have to talk about.

Of course, writing can only be as good as the voice acting it relies upon and that works both ways. One of the main goals was to ensure that the quality of the voice acting was the best it could be for every character. Each NPC has been brought to life by a talented group of voice actors both new and experienced in the community.



With the third and final part now available, Citizens of Tamriel is officially complete.


Make sure to uninstall any of the previous releases first!

Manual
1. Download the archive and extract the files to a location of your choice.
2. Put everything into ../SteamApps/common/Skyrim/Data and make sure to preserve the folder structure.
3. You should be good to go. To uninstall, just remove the same files.

Mod Manager
Same as usual. Install/uninstall is automated.

The final version of Citizens is relatively straightforward with minimal bloat. If you encounter any problems from the mod specifically, please make a post that details the issue. In the case of how it works alongside other mods, I can't help you with individual load orders so the mod is provided as-is.

The audio files are as loud as they can be without affecting quality. If, for some reason, voices are too quiet on your speakers, go to ../Documents/My Games/Skyrim/SkyrimPrefs.ini and under [AudioMenu] is fval1 = 1.0000. This works as a percentage, so change it as needed.

Disclaimer

Citizens has, first and foremost, been written as a meaningful exploration of a variety of characters. As a result of this, it explores some themes, topics and events that might make some people uncomfortable. If this is the case for you, please exit the conversation at your own discretion.

I would like to stress that there is a world of difference between writing a fictional character that holds certain views or giving the player a certain option and condoning those views or actions myself. This is a work of fiction and should be taken as such.

I believe that all the content in the mod has been handled in a mature and respectful way. Setting up characters to act as a foil of sorts and the nature of branching, multiple choice dialogue allows the player to make up their own mind and explore the issues at hand without being forced into a particular view or path.

And that, after all, is what role-playing is about: allowing the player to explore morality and complex themes to develop their character and place within the world. Thank you for checking out Citizens of Tamriel and I hope you enjoy playing it.