Requirements:

• Skyrim and all DLCs
  

How it works
A Cursed Sword Experience is designed to add a new gameplay loop to Skyrim from the beginning to the end of your playthrough. You start the mod with a Cursed Sword of your choice between Blodvitr, Daem, and Heindel. At the start, they are equivalent to steel weapons with a minor enchantment, but can be upgraded to improve their damage output, improve their enchantment, and even unlock spells for the player to use by spending a currency called Favor.

To earn Favor, you must satiate your Cursed Sword's Hunger. Your Cursed Sword has a configurable Hunger value that must be reduced to 0 within a number of days set in the MCM. This period of time is called a Hunger Cycle. At the end of each Hunger Cycle, your Cursed Sword will evaluate how well you fed them and award favor accordingly. A successful Hunger Cycle (successful meaning that Hunger was reduced to 0) will reward favor in an amount set in the MCM. If you fail to reduce Hunger to 0 in time, you will lose favor equal to twice the amount of Hunger remaining and your Cursed Sword will punish you with a debuff unique to each Curse that lasts until the next Hunger Cycle.

To reduce Hunger, you must perform Satiating Actions and Voracious Actions. Satiating Actions reduce Hunger by 5 and Voracious Actions reduce it by 10. These actions are unique to each Curse and are done by killing specific targets with your Cursed Sword. For example, Blodvitr's Satiating Action is to kill any living target (this would exclude automatons, daedra, undead, etc).

Voracious Actions are more difficult to accomplish and potentially unavoidable. At the end of each Hunger Cycle, your Cursed Sword will grow closer to becoming Starved, regardless of whether the Hunger Cycle was successful or not. When your Cursed Sword becomes starved, satiating Actions will not reduce Hunger at all, forcing you to perform Voracious Actions instead. Additionally, while your Cursed Sword is starved, you will be afflicted with a debuff unique to each Curse as you suffer alongside your Cursed Sword. Each successful Voracious Action resets the amount of Hunger Cycles until your Cursed Sword becomes starved.

Once Hunger has reached 0, each Satiating and Voracious Action afterwards will award bonus favor in an amount set in the MCM for the remaining duration of the Hunger Cycle. The more favor you earn this way, the higher the chances are of your insanity increasing, which makes you more reliant on your Cursed Sword and causes additional debuffs.


Satiating Action: Kill any living target.

Voracious Action: Kill an innocent NPC or an NPC who has a relationship with you higher or lower than 0. It's important to note that most NPCs have a relationship rank of 0 with the player. This includes common enemies such as bandits.

• Blodvitr includes a power called Blodvitr's Selection. When you use this power on an NPC, Blodvitr will speak to you and inform you if
  killing that NPC will reduce her Hunger or not.
• An innocent NPC is one who won't normally attack you (excluding guards and essential NPCs). This works on named and unnamed NPCs.
• The relationship rank can be positive or negative. Blodvitr does not care if the NPC hates you or loves you. You can lower an NPCs relationship rank with you by killing those close to them or increase it by completing quests for them.
  

Favor Unlocks
You can unlock the following abilities and upgrades from Blodvitr's Beseech menu:

• Blodvitr's Bloodlust: Spend 50 favor to unlock this power. It costs 50 favor to activate, detecting the life of all living targets around you, increasing your health temporarily by 50, and doubling your damage against wounded targets for 5 minutes.
  

• Enchantment Upgrade: Blodvitr's enchantment absorbs health and magicka. You can upgrade this up to 4 times, increasing the amount absorbed. After you unlock tier 4, you can swap  out the enchantment between tiers 4, 5, and 6 for 100 favor at any time.
  
  • Tier 1: Blodvitr Absorbs 5 health and magicka. Cost: 100 Favor
  • Tier 2: Blodvitr Absorbs 10 health and magicka. Cost: 250 Favor
  • Tier 3: Blodvitr Absorbs 15 health and magicka. Cost: 500 Favor
  • Tier 4: Blodvitr Absorbs 20 health and magicka. Cost: 750 Favor
  • Tier 5: Blodvitr Absorbs 30 health. Cost: 100 Favor
  • Tier 6: Blodvitr Absorbs 50 magicka. Cost: 100 Favor
    
• Vampirism: For 500 favor, Blodvitr will immediately turn you into a Vampire.
  

Blodvitr's Chosen
Blodvitr has specific tastes and will sometimes demand that you satisfy them. When you enter a new cell, there is a 15% chance Blodvitr will choose a nearby NPC for you to kill within 1 hour. If you do, you will become blessed with Chosen Blood: one of 4 random, stacking buffs that last for 1 in-game day:

• Sneaking is 20% better
• Melee damage is increased by 5
• Increase your armor rating by 10
• Illusion spells costs 25% less to cast
  

Punishment and Starvation

• Punishment: Blodvitr will reduce your health from 30 to 90 based on how much Hunger is remaining at the end of the Hunger Cycle.
• Starvation: While Blodvitr is starved, your health, magicka, and stamina will not regenerate.
  

Recommended Setup:
For a particularly evil playthrough, I suggest using mods that remove essential status from NPCs and children. Yes, Blodvitr will sometimes choose essential NPCs or children for Blodvitr's Chosen quest. I would also recommend mods that add more NPCs for you to kill, such as inconsequential NPCs, and mods that add minor miscellaneous quests to help you grow your relationship rank with NPCs.
Also be careful about using mods that change your starting health pool to be less than 100 or if you decide to become a vampire. Blodvitr's punishment can kill you if your health is less than the amount it reduces!

The Blade of Oblivion. Hungry for souls, gluttonous for only the purest and whitest of them, Daem ensnares the souls of his victims as slaves to his wielder.

Satiating Action: Capture any soul.

Voracious Action: Capture 20 points of white souls. Daem will not inform you of how many points you have acquired. Points reset once the Voracious Action completes and at the end of each Hunger Cycle.

• Petty: 1 Point
• Lesser: 2 Points
• Common: 3 Points
• Greater: 4 Points
• Grand: 5 Points
  

Favor Unlocks
You can unlock the following abilities and upgrades from Daem's Beseech menu:

• Daem's Snare and Daem's Summon: Spend 50 favor to unlock Daem's Snare and Daem's Summon.
  • Daem's Snare: This power costs 50 favor to activate. When you do, your next attack with Daem deals additional damage and causes damage over time to health and magicka for 1 minute. Targets up to level 3 killed within this time, will have their soul captured, allowing you to summon them using Daem's Summon.
    
    • Tier 1: Daem's Snare can trap the soul of creatures up to level 10. Cost: 250 Favor
    • Tier 2: Daem's Snare can trap the soul of creatures up to level 30. Cost: 500 Favor
    • Tier 3: Daem's Snare can trap the soul of creatures of any level. Cost: 750 Favor
      
  • Daem's Summon: Summon the soul captured by Daem's Snare as your ally for 1 minute.
    • Tier 1: Daem's Summon lasts for 10 minutes. Cost: 500 Favor
    • Tier 2: Daem's Summon lasts for 1 hour. Cost: 1000 Favor
      
    
    
• Enchantment Upgrade: Daem's enchantment banishes summoned creatures and absorbs magicka.
  • Tier 1: Daem banishes summoned creatures up to level 10 and Absorbs 10 magicka. Cost: 250 Favor
  • Tier 2: Daem banishes summoned creatures up to level 15 and Absorbs 15 magicka. Cost: 500 Favor
  • Tier 3: Daem banishes summoned creatures up to level 30 and Absorbs 30 magicka. Cost: 750 Favor
    
  
  

Punishment and Starvation

• Punishment: Instead of immediately punishing you, Daem will devour filled soul gems from your inventory until he is satisfied. The type of gem and amount depends on how much Hunger is remaining. If there are not enough soul gems for him to devour, Daem will reduce your magicka from 25 to 150 based on how much Hunger is remaining afterwards.
• Starvation: While Daem is starved, the cost to cast spells and perform power attacks is doubled.
  

Recommended Setup:
I would recommend enabling Voracious Action Satiates when using Daem. Otherwise it will take many soulgems and many hours of chasing white souls to satiate him when starved. I would also suggest installing mods that allow you to craft soulgems or add another means of acquiring them more easily. Azura's star will also work, but it will need to be emptied frequently if you want to rely on it.

The Blade of the Hunt. At the demand of slaying all forms of prey and continuing an eternal Hunt, Heindel rewards his wielder with blessings of the wild and allegiance to the forces of nature.

Satiating Action: Kill any target.

Voracious Action: Kill the target designated by Heindel's Hunt. When you choose Heindel, you will gain a power to start Heindel's Hunt. Using this power starts a quest to hunt a random target in Skyrim. Completing the hunt rewards you with Heindel's Blessing: one of 4 random, stacking buffs that last for 1 in-game day:

• Magic Resistance increased by 10%
• Damage Resistance increased by 10%
• Melee damage increased by 5
• Stamina regeneration is increased by 25%
  

Favor Unlocks
You can unlock the following abilities and upgrades from Heindel's Beseech menu:

• Unlock Heindel's Animal Ally: Spend 50 favor to unlock Heindel's Animal Ally.
  • Heindel's Animal Ally: For 50 favor, target animal becomes a temporary ally for 1 minute. While the animal remains your ally, you gain a buff relating to whether it is predator or prey.
    
    • Predator Buff: Melee damage increased by 3 and you are 20% harder to detect while sneaking.
    • Prey Buff: Stamina increased by 50 and you move 10% faster.
      
  • Tier 1: Heindel's Animal Ally lasts for 10 minutes. Cost: 250 Favor
  • Tier 2: Heindel's Animal Ally lasts for 30 minutes. Cost: 500 Favor
  • Tier 3: Heindel's Animal Ally lasts indefinitely. Cost: 750 Favor
    
• Enchantment Upgrade: Heindel's enchantment fears enemies and absorbs stamina.
  • Tier 1: Heindel absorbs 10 stamina and fears enemies up to level 5. Cost: 250 Favor
  • Tier 2: Heindel absorbs 20 stamina and fears enemies up to level 10. Cost: 500 Favor
  • Tier 3: Heindel absorbs 30 stamina and fears enemies up to level 15. Cost: 750 Favor
  • Tier 4: Heindel absorbs 40 stamina and fears enemies up to level 20. Cost: 1000 Favor
    
  
  

Punishment and Starvation

• Punishment: Heindel will reduce your stamina from 25 to 150 based on how much Hunger is remaining at the end of each Hunger Cycle.
• Starvation: While Heindel is starved, the damage you receive from from spells and silver weapons is doubled during the day and increased by 20% during the night
  

Recommended Setup:
I would suggest enabling Voracious Action Satiates with Heindel or increase the number of days in a Hunger Cycle by a lot. This is because Heindel's Hunt will choose a random enemy from anywhere in the game, which will result in a lot of traveling across the map.
Check out mods that add new creatures to the game for Heindel's Animal Ally as well.


Starting CSE
You start the mod by selecting your Cursed Sword of choice from the MCM menu. When the mod starts, you will be given the Cursed Sword you selected (unless you choose Immersive Starts) and also 100 favor. You will also gain whatever starting abilities your Curse Sword has plus 2 powers: Beseech and Commune.

Favor
You earn favor in the following ways:

• Successfully satiating your Cursed Sword each Hunger Cycle will reward an amount of favor set in the MCM
• Performing satiating actions when your Cursed Sword is already satiated will reward bonus favor in an amount set in the MCM
• Performing voracious actions when your Cursed Sword is already satiated will reward bonus favor in an amount set in the MCM
  

At the end of a Hunger Cycle, if you failed to satiate your Cursed Sword, you will lose favor equal to twice the amount of Hunger remaining.

Insanity
Insanity causes you to take more damage from all sources and reduces the damage you deal when wielding weapons other than your Cursed Sword. These effects will scale in intensity as insanity grows, capping at +50% increased damage taken, -5 damage with other weapons, and +25 stamina for power attacks with other weapons when Insanity hits a maximum value of 10.

Insanity increases as you use your Cursed Sword. Performing satiating/voracious actions after your Cursed Sword has been satiated will reward bonus favor. The more favor you earn this way, the higher your chances are of your insanity increasing by 1 at the end of a Hunger Cycle. Your insanity can also increase by performing the Offer Blood offering and the Offer Soul offering (details below).

You can reduce Insanity by either spending 100 favor from the Beseech menu or by refusing to satiate your Cursed Sword. The chances of insanity being reduced by the latter depends on how much Hunger is remaining (with the more hunger remaining, the higher the chances are of insanity decreasing).

Beseech
This power brings up a menu where you can spend favor and grant offerings to your Cursed Sword. You must have your Cursed Sword equipped in your right hand to use this power.

Spend Favor: Selecting this option from the Beseech Menu will bring up a series of pages to upgrade your Cursed Sword's stats, enhance its enchantment,
unlock new powers, or improve the powers already unlocked. The powers and enchantments are different for each sword, but every sword has the following options available:

• Damage Buff: Increase your Cursed Sword's damage by 1. Cost: 100 favor
• Speed Buff: Increase your Cursed Sword's attack speed by 15%. Cost: 100 favor
• Critical Buff: Increase your Cursed Sword's critical damage by 1. Cost: 100 favor
• Unlock Perk: Gain a perk point. Cost: 1000 favor
  

Offerings: Selecting this option from the Beseech Menu will bring up a page with four offerings you can make to your Cursed Sword. These are available for all 3 Curses:

• Reduce Insanity: Decrease your Insanity by 1. Cost: 100 favor
• Offer Blood: Offer the cursed sword your own blood, temporarily reducing your max health and lowering Hunger by 1/3 of the maximum Hunger required, with a 50% chance of increasing insanity by 1. As your insanity grows, the amount of Hunger this reduces decreases.
• Offer Soul: Feed parts of your soul to your Cursed Sword, restoring it to full charge and increasing Insanity by 3. Satiating/Voracious actions are tied to your Cursed Sword's enchantment. If the enchantment charge is 0, you will be unable to satiate your Cursed Sword's Hunger (except with Offer Blood). You will want to keep soul gems on hand if you want to keep your insanity low!
• Destroy Weapon: If you have 0 insanity, you can spend 1000 favor to destroy your Cursed Sword permanently.
  
  

Commune
This power is used to communicate with your Cursed Sword. When you use this power, you will kneel on the ground and your curse sword will inform you
of its status. It will show the current Hunger, the time remaining in the current Hunger Cycle, and how many cycles until your Cursed Sword becomes starved.

Additionally, your Cursed Sword will speak to you to inform you of its condition, playing a unique sound and displaying a message at the center of your screen.

Update 1.1: Using this power will also update the stats on your Cursed Sword. After loading the game from the start, the enchantment and stats may have been reset to the default. Using this power will refresh your Cursed Sword to have the correct stats and enchantment.

Cursed Voice
Your Cursed Sword will speak to you during certain events and when you complete different actions in the form of a sound playing alongside a display message. Your Cursed Sword will speak to you:

• At the start of each Hunger Cycle.
• When you successfully reduce Hunger to 0.
• When you use Commune.
• Randomly when you complete a Satiating action (the chance of this is configurable in the MCM).
• When you first acquire your Cursed Sword.
• When you successfully perform a Voracious Action
• During unique events.
  

Hunger Cycle
You can set how many days a Hunger Cycle lasts in the MCM. At the end of the Hunger Cycle, you will be awarded favor if Hunger is 0, or you will be punished if not. Punishments scale in severity the higher Hunger is at the end of the Hunger Cycle. For example, Blodvitr's punishment reduces your health by up to 90 at maximum Hunger. Punishments are only removed at the end of a Hunger Cycle, regardless if Hunger is reduced to 0 before the timer expires, and are reapplied otherwise (they do not stack). This is opposed to the Starvation debuff which is removed as soon as Hunger reaches 0.

The amount of Hunger Cycles until your Cursed Sword becomes starved decreases by 1 at the end of each Hunger Cycle and is reset on each Voracious Action. You can set how many Hunger Cycles it takes for your Cursed Sword to become starved in the MCM.

Mod Configuration
A Cursed Sword Experience is highly configurable from the MCM menu. Here are some of the options:

Immersive Starts
If you choose Immersive Starts, instead of getting the Sword added to your Inventory when you start the mod, you will have to retrieve the sword from a location specific to each curse. You still have to start the mod for this to work.

• Blodvitr: Moldering Ruins
• Daem: Skytemple Ruins
• Heindel: Darkshade
  

Favor First
At the end of a Hunger Cycle, you lose favor equal to twice the amount of remaining hunger and then are punished. By checking this option, punishments will only be applied if favor is 0. Note: Since favor is taken before punishments are applied, having favor won't necessarily protect you.

Voracious Action Satiates
Voracious Actions normally reduce Hunger by 10. By checking this option, Voracious Actions will always reduce Hunger to 0, even when your Cursed Sword is starved.

Disable Starvation
By checking this option, your Cursed Sword will never become starved.

Hide Commune Details
When you Commune with your Cursed Sword, the current Hunger, time left in the Hunger Cycle, and the number of Cycles until starvation are displayed in the corner of your screen. By checking this option, those stats will not show and you must rely on what your Cursed Sword tells you for information. This makes the experience slightly more difficult, but also more immersive.

Custom Weapon
If you'd like to use a different Sword model instead of my designs, you can do so with this option. This supports one handed, two handed, and daggers, but does require you to place the model of the weapon you would like to use in: meshes/Collygon - Cursed Sword and name it either Custom1H, Custom2H, or CustomD (for one handed, two handed, and dagger respectively). There are text files inside the folder for you to copy and paste the name from.

Credits and Thanks:
    Bethesda
    Blender
    GIMP
    Paint.NET
    Substance Painter
    HUMUS for their cubemap base

Permissions:
    Do NOT upload this anywhere without permission.
    NONE of this mod's assets can be used in paid mods.
    
Find me elsewhere:
    Twitter: https://twitter.com/collygon
    Discord: Collygon#3938