Table of Contents
1. Introduction
2. Installation
3. What Does Mistwalker Offer?
4. Uninstallation
5. Known Bugs and Glitches
6. Future Updates

1. Introduction
"Illusion is really one of the least appreciated of the schools of magic."
--Drevis Neloren, Master of Illusion at the College of Winterhold

While not usually the first choice for many Dragonborn mages and bards, the school of Illusion has its advantages on the battlefield. By manipulating the minds of those nearby, Illusion mages can gain considerable leverage against most types of foes. The most skilled ones can even turn themselves invisible as well as influence the undead, Dwemer automatons, and daedra.

Mistwalker is a simple mod that adds a new line of Illusion spells (and spells from some other schools) to the world of Skyrim. These spells are similar to those found in tabletop PnP RPGs, from summoning illusory copies of the caster to throwing daggers of psychic energy at foolhardy pursuers. Additionally, 6 NEW Illusion perks allow players to hone their skills of battlefield deception to a mind-blowing level. (No pun intended.)

Quick Note: This is a pre-ALPHA version of a future Mistwalker mod. The content in this mod will be reorganized and published into a more clean version. So, with all comments, do keep in mind that this release is just to get the idea out there. All future updates will be included in the redesign.

2. Installation
WARNING: THIS MOD DOES NOT HAVE AN UNINSTALL FEATURE (yet). PLEASE KEEP A SAVE FROM BEFORE YOU INSTALLED THIS MOD SO YOU CAN REVERT BACK.

Installing this lightweight version of Mistwalker is fairly easy.

Recommended Prerequisites:
 -  Relationship Dialogue Overhaul (lets your duplicates talk!)
 -  Vortex (for mod management)
 -  SSEEdit/TES5Edit (for creating compatibility patches if necessary)
Compatibility Issues:
 -  Mods that alter the Illusion perk tree (including "Ordinator - Perks of Skyrim" )
      If you have Ordinator or a similar mod installed, load this AFTER this mod, as to overwrite the perks in this mod.
      Alternatively, you can use SSEEdit to override these perks.
 -  Mods that alter leveled items related to the schools of magic

It's recommended that you use Vortex or a mod manager application to customize the load order of your mods and easily enable/disable them.

Manual Installation:
Download the mod folder and extract it. Copy the files in the resulting folder into your game's Data folder. Double-check that the Mistwalker3.bsa, Mistwalker3 - Textures.bsa, and Mistwalker.esp are in the Data folder when you complete this process.

Mod Manager Installation:
Press the mod manager button (if you're downloading from Nexus Mods or a similar site). After the mod manager tells you the mod has been installed successfully, enable it and add dependency rules as needed or adjust the load order INSIDE the mod manager. (Warning: Doing this inside the game's Mods menu may break SkyUI.)

3. What Does Mistwalker Offer (Features)
The following spells can be bought from merchants and mages or found in the world. Simply read the new tomes to learn the spells.

Spells:
 -- Illusion:
     -  Illusory Duplicate Spells create duplicates of yourself to distract enemies
     -  Illusory Shard launches a psychic dagger at enemies, causing magic damage
     -  Aura of Fear surrounds the caster in a field of terror, causing nearby enemies to flee (radius increases with power and from perks such as Aspect of Terror)
     -  Grand Muffle and Invisibility to hide nearby followers
 -- Restoration:
     -  Elemental Wards (Fire and Frost) trade physical protection for elemental protection and can erupt when broken

The mod also comes with several perks to amplify your skill with mirages.

Two of the above spells are hidden in Labyrinthian and Nightcaller Temple. The rest may be purchased from Drevis in the College of Winterhold.

Perks (all Illusion):
 -  Substantial Mirages (2 levels max) --NEW--
      Increases the duration of mirages
 -  Psychic Potency (2 levels max) --NEW--
      Increases the damage of Illusory Shard and summoned mirages
      (By default, mirages don't deal any damage.)
 -  Multiplicity --NEW--
      Increases the number of mirages the caster can summon at once by 2 per spell
 -  Illusory Self --NEW--
      10% chance when hit to summon a perfect mirage (stacks with Multiplicity)
 -  Master of the Mind
      Illusory Shard deals damage to the undead, Dwemer automatons, daedra, and even dragons

4. Uninstallation
WARNING: THIS MOD DOES NOT HAVE AN UNINSTALL FEATURE (yet). PLEASE KEEP A SAVE FROM BEFORE YOU INSTALLED THIS MOD SO YOU CAN REVERT BACK. 
As long as you follow the instructions below, you may experience very few issues when disabling and uninstalling the mod. Mistwalker has few scripted quests, but it's generally not recommended with mods that have custom script behaviors.

Before uninstalling this mod, you need to do a few small steps to detach the spells in the game from the menus:

1. Cast Clarity to remove any lingering duplicates.

2. Go into your favorites menu and remove all Mistwalker spells.

3. Turn off Maintenance Mode by pressing ~ and entering this command:
SetStage MstWlkr3__maintenanceQuest 20
StopQuest MstWlkr3__maintenanceQuest
StopQuest MstWlkr3__spellsLearningProxy

4. Remove all Mistwalker perks. If you have spent any perk points on Mistwalker perks, I'd recommend leveling up your Illusion to 100 and setting the skill to legendary to free up any perk points tied to the skill tree. (Otherwise, you'll lose any perk points tied to these perks when the mod is uninstalled.) You can also use a console command to manually set Illusion to 100:
 -  Press ~
 -  Click on player (Top should read "00000014")
 -  Enter command: SetAV "Illusion" 100
 -  Open Skills menu
 -  Press <space> in the Illusion tree to make Illusion legendary

Alternatively, you can use console commands to remove the perks (but you won't get the perk points back):
 -  Press ~
 -  Enter command: player.RemovePerk <PerkID>

        Perk List: (xx for Mistwalker's load order)
         -  xx05E312
         -  xx012176
         -  xx0065A0
         -  xx00C3E3
         -  xx00C3E2
         -  xx00C3E1
         -  xx00C3E0
         -  xx00C3DF
         -  xx00C3DE


5. Quicksave.

6. Remove Mistwalker3.esp from your load order or disable it in Vortex or your mod manager of choice.

5. Known Glitches and Bugs
Maintenance Mode: (currently PC only) The mod also comes with a small Maintenance quest that allows players to take care of a couple of rare, unwanted behaviors that may occur from time to time. To start Maintenance Mode, press the ~ key and enter the following command into the console:

SetStage MstWlkr3__maintenanceQuest 10

You will see a notification that says a new spell called Delete Actor has been added. (See the Eternal Mirages bug below for more details.)
When you are finished with maintenance mode, enter the following command:

SetStage MstWlkr3__maintenanceQuest 20

Delete Actor will also remove itself silently.

Known Bugs: As of the mod's initial release, there are still some occasional hiccups. The mod's successor version is being designed from the ground up to combat these problems in the future. In the meantime, there are a couple of big ones to watch out for. Please consult this reference before posting issues on this mod:

• Unkillable Player
  

In order to make duplicates unkillable, the duplicate spells set the player's actor base to essential. Normally, the spell eliminates this protection for the player when their health drops to zero, killing them even when essential.
Sometimes, when two or more duplicates are summoned at once, this extra protection doesn't trigger, causing the player to enter bleedout instead of dying.
This issue will be solved in the next version by granting this safety to the duplicates and not all player actors.

• Missing Ears/Body Parts
  

There are times when Skyrim's engine doesn't like placing down more than one player actor in the same cell at a time. In some locations, or when your computer is running slowly, some of the player's body parts (including ears as far as I've seen) may disappear. This visual can be removed by quicksaving, quitting to the main menu, and loading the save back up. It's not unfixable, just annoying sometimes.

• Eternal Mirages
  

Normally, when the player casts a mirage spell, his/her duplicate will fade away after 30 seconds (longer if the player has perks). However, on a rare occasion, the duplicate will persist after the mirage effect on the player has ended.
The cause for this problem is currently unknown. In the meantime, please cast the Delete Actor spell accessible during Maintenance Mode to remove any rogue duplicates or use console commands to manually delete them. (You must be within a certain range of the duplicate to cast it. PLEASE DO NOT USE ON ANY OTHER ACTORS IN THE GAME.)

6. Future Updates
With consideration to all of these elements, this mod can be expected to receive a complete redesign in 2022. This new design will mitigate many of the issues discussed in Section 5, be optimized for speed, and introduce a couple of new spells and updated visuals.

If you liked the mod, please consider leaving a comment about what improvements you would like to see in the future that weren't included here.