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Mihail's complete overhaul of Creation Club's "Plague of the Dead" add-on, with new quest integration, improvements and expansion of lore, texts, creatures, combat and experience in general, making the quest fit the expected quality found in the original game. Works in SE (using "Plague of the Dead" creation) and AE.
- Requirements
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Translations
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- If you use, like and value my work, please consider giving an endorsement. I've worked hard for years to offer you the best of me for free, and the only thing I ask in return is this gesture, which increases my relevance and engagement on Nexus, and motivates me to continue;
- I do not inspect or have any influence over translations of my mods (including those linked directly on my pages), nor do I have any power over patches or add-ons made to my content. So, before using any unofficial add-ons for my mods, make sure they conform to the latest version of my official release, and never use these if they don't. The same applies to Xbox ports;
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Mihail's complete overhaul of Creation Club's "Plague of the Dead" add-on, with new quest integration, improvements and expansion of lore, texts, creatures, combat and experience in general, making the quest fit the expected quality found in the original game.
Works in SE (using "Plague of the Dead" creation) and AE.
A comment on my decision to finally touch the Creation Club: I have never hidden my criticisms towards Creation Club, including the very existence of the concept itself. I have nothing against the existence of patreons, since I even have one, and I am also very grateful to the Nexus Donation Points system, but I am absolutely against paywalled mods and any type of sale of add-ons. I believe that mods should forever be free, and available to everyone, which is another reason for me to be critical of CC, since many people around the world cannot afford to buy a good computer that runs SE/AE, and are automatically excluded from these new add-ons, which can be ported to LE with the greatest of ease. I am even more against it when I see the absolute disregard that Bethesda had when analyzing and approving the content of Creation Club, since its implementation was from the beginning lazy at its core, often breaking the immersion, the already pre-established lore, and basically trying to force as canon things that were simply made just to be made and sold, implemented without the slightest effort to make their development at least a little more immersive. There were no voice actors, there were almost no really new models (most of the new models come from TES: Blades), there were no new animations (which the developers could have easily provided and implemented because they had tools in their possession that were not made available alongside the Creation Kit for us) and much more, there was a lack of love, care and respect for the franchise and the community, something that most of us authors have.
But, after years of being asked by the community to give my touch on how I think this content should be, and after a productive conversation with the people at Extended Cut, who have already worked their magic with the creation of "Saints and Seducers Extended Cut", I decided to give in, no because I like CC, but exactly because I don't like it, and I think it can be improved, without however changing the basis of each add-on too much, so, the objective is to try to make the best version that I think could have been made and that wasn't in each of them, of course respecting the scope that each add-on deserves to have: for example, I will not make 50 caves for "Goblins", since the purpose of the add-on is only to add a specific clan on a specific cave, so, I will be moderate in this overhaul process. In conclusion, I am willing to recognize the Creation Club and its existence as canonical in the general scenario of my mods and their integration, but only when there is an overhaul carried out by me for each creation, or another overhaul that I consider suitable and well done, such as the one from Extended Cut.
I hope you like the overhauls, and support them by endorsing and downloading each one, as well as sharing my mods with people you know.
- The quest "The Rising Dead" received new integration: When the creation was launched in 2017, you automatically received a letter in your inventory, which you supposedly found on the ground, with the following quest entrance: "I've found an urgent anonymous letter. I should read it and see what it's regarding." with the objective "Read the Anonymous Letter". Later in future updates, the letter started to be delivered by a postman starting at level 5. When reading it, the following entry was then added to the quest journal "I've received an anonymous letter asking me to help stop a group of Necromancers who are planning to raise an army of Zombies. I should investigate the ritual site." Automatically then, the quest assigned you a location in Falkreath Hold, north of Southfringe Sanctum, which made little sense since the letter never mentioned the place, only saying that it was a location in the southern area of Skyrim, nor did it mention what type of place it was. In certain aspects, the update made everything even more illogical, as it is not explained why you received the letter from the postman. The letter ("Anonymous Letter") has now been mostly rewritten by me, maintaining the original style and personality of whoever wrote it, but adding more personality, context and lore to the story (check out the differences here). Reading the letter continues with part two of the quest, but now it explains what you will find, and how to get there, justifying the marking of the place on the map, and also explains why you received it in the first place. I maintained the lvl 5 requirement, and it continues to be delivered by courier. The "Necromancer's Journal" that ends the quest was also partially rewritten respecting the original material (click to see the differences);
(on the image above, the ''ritual site" before the quest starts, on the left on vanilla, on the right with this overhaul)
- In the place north of Southfringe Sanctum, a small conjuration circle can be found, which only exists after the quest is started, emitting a blue light and surrounded by burning braziers. As mentioned, initially in the vanilla creation the small circle only appeared magically when the quest was started, now the unnamed and unmarked place has been expanded into a small ruin used by necromancers, with a tent, sleeping items, and more, and if the place is visited before the start of the quest, now instead of an empty location, the place will be occupied by necromancers and skeletons, but there will be no blue energy emanating from the conjuration circle and the braziers will be turned off. When starting the quest, the necromancers and skeletons will be killed by zombies (as in the lore of the vanilla quest and explained in the texts, expanded in this overhaul), and the place will be controlled by the summoned zombies. The aforementioned powerful tome spell can now be found being used in the magic circle, the bluish energy will be present and the braziers will be lit (now replaced by the blue fire of Coldharbour). After the end of the quest, this place will once again be occupied by normal necromancers after a while.
NOTE- The unmarked location "The Headless Skeleton" can also be found here, with it being next to the pine tree, and remains functional even with my overhaul;
(on the image above, the same "ritual site" after the quest starts, on the left on vanilla, on the right with my overhaul)
(on the image above, the ''ritual site" before the quest starts, on the left on vanilla, on the right with this overhaul)
- In the place north of Southfringe Sanctum, a small conjuration circle can be found, which only exists after the quest is started, emitting a blue light and surrounded by burning braziers. As mentioned, initially in the vanilla creation the small circle only appeared magically when the quest was started, now the unnamed and unmarked place has been expanded into a small ruin used by necromancers, with a tent, sleeping items, and more, and if the place is visited before the start of the quest, now instead of an empty location, the place will be occupied by necromancers and skeletons, but there will be no blue energy emanating from the conjuration circle and the braziers will be turned off. When starting the quest, the necromancers and skeletons will be killed by zombies (as in the lore of the vanilla quest and explained in the texts, expanded in this overhaul), and the place will be controlled by the summoned zombies. The aforementioned powerful tome spell can now be found being used in the magic circle, the bluish energy will be present and the braziers will be lit (now replaced by the blue fire of Coldharbour). After the end of the quest, this place will once again be occupied by normal necromancers after a while.
NOTE- The unmarked location "The Headless Skeleton" can also be found here, with it being next to the pine tree, and remains functional even with my overhaul;
(on the image above, the same "ritual site" after the quest starts, on the left on vanilla, on the right with my overhaul)
- The creation adds 3 variants in terms of models, and 6 variants in terms of level and name, however it did not add any variety in terms of concrete gameplay apart from difficulty, and the 3 model variants alternated randomly in each level variant. Now each of the 3 model variants is exclusive to one of the 6 level and name variants, with the 3 extra new model variants being derived from the 3 initially available, these being distinguished by color variations and also in some cases having special effects attached to them such as toxic mists, so that the 6 are unique and justified. Some changes were made to their abilities, maintaining the intense weakness to fire, the relative resistance to ice, the possibility of breathing underwater and the immunity to poisons, but adding disease resistance, the effect of "blindness", making them weaker to detection and visual pursuit of enemies, in addition to removing their resistance to magic. The skeleton is also exclusive now, no longer causing them to be affected by mods that modify the Draugr's skeletons/proportions. They can no longer open doors, their heads no longer move as frequently following the movement of their victims, giving to them a more rotten and mindless behavior, and they can no longer be soul trapped (for reasons of lore explained in the texts), also now when attacked they produce blood and the sound of skin being cut (previously they repeated the "bone skin" sounds and effects of Draugrs). They are also now immune to paralysis. The names were kept, only with the exception of the normal "Zombie" now being called "Mangled Zombie", and with all variants receiving the "Thriceborn" prefix, for reasons also explained in the overhaul texts and lore, and later in this description. The vanilla zombies already have 4k textures, so there was no need to improve them, but the speculars gave them a plastic appearance, which was corrected with new speculars;
(on the image bellow, 4 of the 6 variants of thriceborn zombies)
- The weaker variants now start out slightly stronger, and all can scale with the player up to a certain level. But, the strongest variants, initially reaching levels similar to those of a "Draugr Deathlord" and similars, can now at most scale up to level 30, with the most common being a lvl cap at level 19, after all, even with all the lore involved, they are just mindless reanimated corpses, not the powerful wights of an ancient Dragon Cult. The strongest variants maintain health regeneration attributes;
(on the video above, the difference of zombie behaviour, attacks and sounds between vanilla and this mod)
- Now zombies move like zombies and not like Draugr/ Humans, just like in my Zombie mod, and similar to the zombies featured in TES 4: Oblivion. In the vanilla version they moved exactly like Draugrs, having the same speed, behavior, and using weapons, which didn't suit them at all, since zombies are mindless creatures unlike wights, a group which includes undeads such as Draugrs. They no longer use weapons, now attacking in bursts of speed with their rotten hands, but maintaining a slow and erratic behavior most of the time. They now have sounds compatible with zombies, no longer sounding like Draugrs, they can no longer pick up items (weapons from the ground) and their loot (Mort Flesh) has been adjusted to have the same stats as the Mort Flesh from my Zombie mod, and similar to that of TES 4, in addition to now having the appropriate weight.
(metal scabbards of the weapons used on vanilla by the zombies, floating on the zombies' waist
as in the image below, will no longer be something immersion breaking that you will see)
- Zombies can now transmit two diseases, with Astral Vapors being transmittable only by Putrid Zombies, covered in a pestilent green mist: Zombie Fever (in game description- "The contact between the necrotic tissue of zombies and your bloodstream causes a bacterial infection that impairs the regeneration of your stamina."); Astral Vapors (in game description- "Inhaling the putrefied and cursed vapors that surround a zombie is enough to damage your magical abilities, albeit on a small scale.");
(while all Zombies can transmit Zombie Fever, just the two variants bellow can transmit Astral Vapors)
- Now the CC's zombies are called "Thriceborn Zombies", being a special variant summoned from Coldharbour. They are not daedra, being still reanimated undead, but with strong daedric influence. Now, when they are destroyed after summoned, Chaotic Creatia will revive them 2 more times, thus giving rise to their name. Initially, this CC creation, in a strange and meaningless way, refers to the summoning of normal zombies as a big thing, and the encounter of a spelltome that leads to this summoning as a big deal as well, with incalculable consequences, which is pathetic since we constantly see corpses being reanimated on Nirn, and much more powerful things being conjured from Oblivion. Now it is explained why this ancient spelltome is dangerous and why these zombies are especially harmful and difficult to face. Usually for non-daedra I replace the title "Conjure" with "Summon" for consistency amongst my mods, and I usually add other magical effects to the "conjuration" process of non-daedra creatures, but in this case I kept the daedric effects since, despite being undead, they are being conjured from the pestilential dungeons of Coldharbour. Because they are unique spells, now the 6 types (initially only 4 existed on the vanilla creation) can only be found next to the dead necromancers in the place of the ritual, and nowhere else, as they are something unique that they were developing using the knowledge of the ancient discovered book as a basis, found by them not long ago;
(on the image above, the mentioned ancient dangerous spelltome, never seen on the original vanilla creation)
- This zombie conjuration now has a truly dangerous and rarely seen magical potential: now you can summon as many zombies as you want. They don't disappear after a while and will follow you like a horde (although naturally they are very slow). As they cannot open doors, you can even summon them as a horde guarding a fortress, for example, greatly increasing the roleplay and immersion factor. Also now you can destroy entire cities with your potentially infinite horde (of course being careful not to overload your game with too many actors); (on the video bellow, how the "thriceborn" resurrection works)
- After the end of the quest, the creation added 5 "zombie attack world interactions", which happened randomly and only at night. They were removed on this overhaul due to 2 factors: because my zombie mod already has countless much better implemented encounters with zombies, and because it doesn't make sense that a process that has just begun (that of conjuring thriceborn zombies) has already spread widely throughout Skyrim and can occur infinitely. Encounters now with small groups of zombies only happen 4 times and after the end of the creation's main quest, and they exclusively attack some forts and bandit camps relatively near the ritual area. These hordes are properly explained in the new texts, and may cause some trouble for the attacked places, but since they are unimportant for quests in their external areas, and since zombies can no longer open doors to acess interiors, they cannot interfere with any quest, including radiants. Attacks can now also occur during the day, and as mentioned, the zombies are unique and do not respawn, and there is no longer a chance for them to attack towns and villages. The groups remained between 4 and 7 zombies, as in the vanilla creation. The Zombies found on the ritual site also no longer respawn, as it made no sense for them to do so;
- A 2019's creation update added an extra 20 zombie spawn points on the map as fixed spawns, but in addition to most of them not making much sense, it also interferes with several of my creations, including severel of my much better implemented Zombies from my own standalone zombie mod, leading to them being removed on this overhaul, also because now the zombies in this creation have a specific magical quality and origin, no longer being ordinary zombies found anywhere. Common zombies are widely distributed in my standalone zombie mod, so by downloading it you will have a wide distribution of zombies (non- thriceborn), and also perfect thecnical and lore compatibility with the thriceborn zombies from CC's creation, overhauled by me.
The mod is not compatible with most other mods that modify the CC's creation "Plague of the Dead" and its added items, quest stages, locations, creatures, spells and more. If you have one installed, or think you might have one, put this mod below it/them in your load order. If you are asked about files overwriting those of other mods, press "Yes to all".
(OBS- If by chance when installing several of Mihail's mods at the same time you are asked about files overwriting those of other Mihail mods or other authors mods, don't worry because they are just the same files shared between mods. I recommend that on these occasions always give preference to the files contained in my mods, and among mine always give preference to the mod you are installing last.)
- "Plague of the Dead" Creation Club creation if you are using Skyrim Special Edition;
- Skyrim Anniversary Edition does not require the installation of any extra requirements.
The Mihail Monsters and Animals series aims to create and make available to the community the most complete set of creatures for TES 5: Skyrim, implemented in an immersive and unique way, with respect to the pillars of lore. Instead of pathetically just throwing models and textures in the game reusing 100% vanilla mechanics, the creatures made by Mihail have uniqueness and extreme zeal in their idealization and implementation, which will provide you with an experience that you have never had before in this area.
Author of the mod:
Mihail- changes and improvements on quest integration, changes and improvements on the creatures models and specular maps, changes and improvements on the areas, texts, clutter, new diseases, new sounds, new effects;
Other credits/acknowledgments:
Bethesda for the Creation Club's "Plague of the Dead" creation;
DarkWolfModding- for the original code used as base by me for the "dagon_script_resurrectactorafterdeat2" script;
(on the image bellow, 4 of the 6 variants of thriceborn zombies)
- The weaker variants now start out slightly stronger, and all can scale with the player up to a certain level. But, the strongest variants, initially reaching levels similar to those of a "Draugr Deathlord" and similars, can now at most scale up to level 30, with the most common being a lvl cap at level 19, after all, even with all the lore involved, they are just mindless reanimated corpses, not the powerful wights of an ancient Dragon Cult. The strongest variants maintain health regeneration attributes;
(on the video above, the difference of zombie behaviour, attacks and sounds between vanilla and this mod)
- Now zombies move like zombies and not like Draugr/ Humans, just like in my Zombie mod, and similar to the zombies featured in TES 4: Oblivion. In the vanilla version they moved exactly like Draugrs, having the same speed, behavior, and using weapons, which didn't suit them at all, since zombies are mindless creatures unlike wights, a group which includes undeads such as Draugrs. They no longer use weapons, now attacking in bursts of speed with their rotten hands, but maintaining a slow and erratic behavior most of the time. They now have sounds compatible with zombies, no longer sounding like Draugrs, they can no longer pick up items (weapons from the ground) and their loot (Mort Flesh) has been adjusted to have the same stats as the Mort Flesh from my Zombie mod, and similar to that of TES 4, in addition to now having the appropriate weight.
(metal scabbards of the weapons used on vanilla by the zombies, floating on the zombies' waist
as in the image below, will no longer be something immersion breaking that you will see)
- Zombies can now transmit two diseases, with Astral Vapors being transmittable only by Putrid Zombies, covered in a pestilent green mist: Zombie Fever (in game description- "The contact between the necrotic tissue of zombies and your bloodstream causes a bacterial infection that impairs the regeneration of your stamina."); Astral Vapors (in game description- "Inhaling the putrefied and cursed vapors that surround a zombie is enough to damage your magical abilities, albeit on a small scale.");
(while all Zombies can transmit Zombie Fever, just the two variants bellow can transmit Astral Vapors)
- Now the CC's zombies are called "Thriceborn Zombies", being a special variant summoned from Coldharbour. They are not daedra, being still reanimated undead, but with strong daedric influence. Now, when they are destroyed after summoned, Chaotic Creatia will revive them 2 more times, thus giving rise to their name. Initially, this CC creation, in a strange and meaningless way, refers to the summoning of normal zombies as a big thing, and the encounter of a spelltome that leads to this summoning as a big deal as well, with incalculable consequences, which is pathetic since we constantly see corpses being reanimated on Nirn, and much more powerful things being conjured from Oblivion. Now it is explained why this ancient spelltome is dangerous and why these zombies are especially harmful and difficult to face. Usually for non-daedra I replace the title "Conjure" with "Summon" for consistency amongst my mods, and I usually add other magical effects to the "conjuration" process of non-daedra creatures, but in this case I kept the daedric effects since, despite being undead, they are being conjured from the pestilential dungeons of Coldharbour. Because they are unique spells, now the 6 types (initially only 4 existed on the vanilla creation) can only be found next to the dead necromancers in the place of the ritual, and nowhere else, as they are something unique that they were developing using the knowledge of the ancient discovered book as a basis, found by them not long ago;
(on the image above, the mentioned ancient dangerous spelltome, never seen on the original vanilla creation)
- This zombie conjuration now has a truly dangerous and rarely seen magical potential: now you can summon as many zombies as you want. They don't disappear after a while and will follow you like a horde (although naturally they are very slow). As they cannot open doors, you can even summon them as a horde guarding a fortress, for example, greatly increasing the roleplay and immersion factor. Also now you can destroy entire cities with your potentially infinite horde (of course being careful not to overload your game with too many actors); (on the video bellow, how the "thriceborn" resurrection works)
- After the end of the quest, the creation added 5 "zombie attack world interactions", which happened randomly and only at night. They were removed on this overhaul due to 2 factors: because my zombie mod already has countless much better implemented encounters with zombies, and because it doesn't make sense that a process that has just begun (that of conjuring thriceborn zombies) has already spread widely throughout Skyrim and can occur infinitely. Encounters now with small groups of zombies only happen 4 times and after the end of the creation's main quest, and they exclusively attack some forts and bandit camps relatively near the ritual area. These hordes are properly explained in the new texts, and may cause some trouble for the attacked places, but since they are unimportant for quests in their external areas, and since zombies can no longer open doors to acess interiors, they cannot interfere with any quest, including radiants. Attacks can now also occur during the day, and as mentioned, the zombies are unique and do not respawn, and there is no longer a chance for them to attack towns and villages. The groups remained between 4 and 7 zombies, as in the vanilla creation. The Zombies found on the ritual site also no longer respawn, as it made no sense for them to do so;
- A 2019's creation update added an extra 20 zombie spawn points on the map as fixed spawns, but in addition to most of them not making much sense, it also interferes with several of my creations, including severel of my much better implemented Zombies from my own standalone zombie mod, leading to them being removed on this overhaul, also because now the zombies in this creation have a specific magical quality and origin, no longer being ordinary zombies found anywhere. Common zombies are widely distributed in my standalone zombie mod, so by downloading it you will have a wide distribution of zombies (non- thriceborn), and also perfect thecnical and lore compatibility with the thriceborn zombies from CC's creation, overhauled by me.
The mod is not compatible with most other mods that modify the CC's creation "Plague of the Dead" and its added items, quest stages, locations, creatures, spells and more. If you have one installed, or think you might have one, put this mod below it/them in your load order. If you are asked about files overwriting those of other mods, press "Yes to all".
(OBS- If by chance when installing several of Mihail's mods at the same time you are asked about files overwriting those of other Mihail mods or other authors mods, don't worry because they are just the same files shared between mods. I recommend that on these occasions always give preference to the files contained in my mods, and among mine always give preference to the mod you are installing last.)
- "Plague of the Dead" Creation Club creation if you are using Skyrim Special Edition;
- Skyrim Anniversary Edition does not require the installation of any extra requirements.
The Mihail Monsters and Animals series aims to create and make available to the community the most complete set of creatures for TES 5: Skyrim, implemented in an immersive and unique way, with respect to the pillars of lore. Instead of pathetically just throwing models and textures in the game reusing 100% vanilla mechanics, the creatures made by Mihail have uniqueness and extreme zeal in their idealization and implementation, which will provide you with an experience that you have never had before in this area.
Author of the mod:
Mihail- changes and improvements on quest integration, changes and improvements on the creatures models and specular maps, changes and improvements on the areas, texts, clutter, new diseases, new sounds, new effects;
Other credits/acknowledgments:
Bethesda for the Creation Club's "Plague of the Dead" creation;
DarkWolfModding- for the original code used as base by me for the "dagon_script_resurrectactorafterdeat2" script;