Every so often, Gorr likes to rub the lump over his eye.

He presses hard against it, but it slides slickly under his thumb. He’s tried squashing it, picking it, even ripping off the skin, but it settles into the crook where his eye meets bone. Gorr refuses to give up. Somewhere, deep in those folds of scar tissue, a memory festers, and inside that memory, an answer.

A year ago, if you wanted to know who the man was, or what his name meant, he only needed to utter three words. Check my stats. The numbers said it all. 33-0, 33 KOs. But really, they were more like KTFOs, because everyone who stepped in that ring was Knocked The Fuck Out.

A year later, and the stats tell a different story. 34-0, 33 KOs. Technically, they were still unblemished. Privately, all he saw was a stain.

Somewhere, in that tiny pebble of flesh, is the truth of what happened that night. When he’s asked to recall that match, Gorr will tell you about the din of the crowd, and the hot, stink of the arena. He recalls the lights knifing down his brow, the rubber fuming up his nostrils. He recalls failing to land a single clean shot, every jab glancing off the Khajiit’s whiskers, every hook combing his fur. He remembers almost everything about that night. Everything, save for that punch.

In those final moments, the canvas starts to rumble as the crowd stands on their feet. Gorr hears them counting down, 5, 4, 3….as the blood drips from his gash and the sweat pours down his cheek. He feels the vibration saw away at his knees, but he’s not standing any more, he’s leaning, riding the anti-gravity that is a boxer’s pride. 

The last thing he remembers is the sound of the bell.

When it was over, Gorr sat hunched over in the locker room, a cold towel draped over his head. They tell him he’s a winner, by unanimous decision – and still, undisputed heavyweight champion of the world. Across the hall, the Khajiit is signing autographs, shaking hands, all smiles. A gracious loser to the end. As the press start to gather around the champion, the towel drops, and a barrage of flashbulbs hits his right eye. He reaches up to cover it.

And that’s when he notices the lump.

Here’s a little piece of fan art of Rumarin from Mashasi. This portion is part of a larger Skyrim Meme questionnaire they have, asking everything from favorite quests to whom you married and what you think happened to Rongeir‘s horse Ulfric (Answer: I don’t know either).

You can find the full version here as well as all Mashasi’s art over on her Deviant Art page.

Here is Glathriel voiced by the incomparable Alice Bell. Despite being one of the original ten or so NPCs introduced in the mod, I think only a small number of people have talked to her outside of her cameo in the Way of the Nine.

This overhaul has slightly expanded role play but most of the original stuff still holds up. The conversation about her pal Jorrik, her days in Solitude, the search for her mother, and of course, the reference to a certain Nord from Riften were left intact.

A couple notes on this latest update. In the tweaks section, I mention the removal of certain NPCs and turning them into vanilla clutter. Rest assured, they will not be permanently removed from the mod, as you can do that on your own if you dislike them via the console.

The reasons for this are two. In some cases, the dialogue has been altered in anticipation of an overhaul, and the old files don’t match the new script.

In other cases, I just wasn’t comfortable having such an old NPC be the first one you encounter. Given I can’t control the user experience, I can only hope that the first person you meet is representative of the overall quality of the mod. Temporarily removing some of the characters – like the placeholder audio I myself voiced, and voiced horribly, for instance – in addition to some archaic NPCs will help that.

3DNPC v3.04 FULL [1.8GB Torrent] 
UPDATE FROM v3.03 [350 MB zip]
HEARTHFIRE PATCH [5MB zip]

New Quests
• Thrice-Bitten, Once Shy (Matthew Dixon, lindenlaurel)
• The Gales of Guilt – (Giramor, Isaac Silbernberg aka MagnusDux, J.T. Decker, Matthew Dixon, lindenlaurel, Paul Kilmer)

New Follower NPCs
• Meresine (Elisabeth Hunter)
• Daenlyn Oakhollow (Matthew Dixon)

Voiced but Incomplete NPCs
• Arghus (Daniel Hodge) – Follower Options disabled as unrecorded

Re-Recorded NPCs
• Glathriel (Alice Bell)
• Iria (Adoxographist)
• Godrod (J.T. Decker)
• Okapi (Draginite)
• Sadrin/Rumarin/Edwayne/Orondil/Jaysen (Jay33721)

Alterations and Tweaks
• Moved “Meet and Greet” Quests to Miscellaneous section of the Journal
• Added bisexual marriage option for Hagravi
• Major overhaul for dialogue of Valgus and Rumarin, improved audio and writing.
• Minor revisions to dialogue of Dravos, Batheru, Callen, Olivia, and Beatrice
• Added “meet me there” to Callen for Horker Quest, Children Fair, and portions of Brother and Keeper and Sleeping Giant
• Temporarily disabled dialogue for Eleanor, Yushari, and Jeerah-Nur while they are being re-worked
• Replaced cycled silent track when mod bards play outdoors with one-time, 2 minute silent track

Bug Fixes and Failsafes
• Teleport script added to the end of “Rose Without Thorns” in case Erevan takes the long way to Kynesgrove
• Fixed audio compression issues for Jerulith. Edited her dialogue to remove the word “Justicar.”
• Northwatch prisoners showing up at Robber’s Refuge even if they haven’t been freed.
• Songstress not playing “Tale of the Tongues”
• Alassea missing audio files – Affected scenes and Bard Songs like “The Journey”
• Skjarn not mentioning duels
• Anum-La follows in perpetuity after completion of Black Robes
• House on the Hill – Talking to Mr. Skeever advances the quest too early, will fix. Also there’s too much of a delay on the dialogue between the 3, should be more rapid fire.
• Fironet – Audio files not included from dialogue split in 3.03
• Tikrid’s meet quest not completing
• Dravynea and Roggi not leaving bench after Rose Without Thorns

Here is Randy Westbrook voicing Cassius, part of a very short, not even miscellaneous quest I made up the other day. Randy is probably one of the more reliable actors in the community, and the character was fully voiced before I finished writing him. Crazy, but true.

In other news, I should mention I created another snag with Meresine. A bad condition makes it so that you have to enter the console code setstage DialogueMeresine 3 after meeting her to advance her dialogue.  All of this will be fixed in Monday’s mini update.

Yes, that’s right. I’ve mentioned this before, but never actually followed through. However, I think a weekly update might be doable. It won’t matter if you miss 1, or 2, or all of them, as they will be cumulative. Version 3.04.3, for example will include everything from 3.04.2 and 3.04.1, until we get all the way to 3.05 which will be a Nexus release.

The main obstacle previously was releasing half-finished content, but now I’m familiar enough with the CK to keep that stuff quarantined until it’s ready. So, it won’t matter if there’s only 10 new sound files included. Doing it every Monday will mean quicker fixes and quicker delivery of new stuff, especially for mod enthusiasts. Are you enthusiastic enough to download every week? Probably not. But you won’t have to.

Did I tell you how much I love fan art?

I mean shit, let’s face it. Much of the internet is cold, dark, and hopeless. The things you see…the shivers don’t just crawl up your spine, they hop on a rocket ship and blast off – right into the sun, where it’s nice and warm.

And somewhere, in that nuggety center, I imagine you’ll find pictures like this. This is a picture of BlueReptile’s character and Rumarin, just the latest in what has become a score of warm and fuzzies for our High Elf friend.

• Blue Reptile’s Tumblr
• Deviant Art Account

In a game like Skyrim, objectives are pretty much essential. You can’t really keep track of what the hell you were doing given there’s so much shit to do. Still, objectives do have unintended consequences. They tell you there is a piece of candy waiting for you at a certain place, and place an incentive on visiting it.

This is completely benign if the quest giver is self-aware. If I want you to fetch my sword from a cave, the player should have it marked on his or her map. They should have an incentive to go there. Objectives are just a helpful reminder of the task at hand.

However, in other cases, as with the crabber Juryk, the quest giver has no idea that certain events are taking place around him. There’s no reason an objective marker should point you to the next location, given the information the crabber provides. In this case, I decided to let things happen organically. The odds you would never visit the inns and taverns are next to nil, so there’s never a worry that lacking objectives will hinder your progress.

Nevertheless, I thought it’d be a good idea to highlight this and other easter eggy quests like The Queen of Mereth in the blog, if nothing else than to give the actors their due.

It’s a hard thing to find actors that have range, talent, a good mic, and most of all, are reliable. It’s very, very hard to check three of those boxes, let alone four. J.T. Decker, he checks boxes for breakfast. He’s had it up to here with your unchecked little squares. And while this sort of attitude means he takes no prisoners, he does take interview requests. Here he is answering questions and discussing the variety of characters he has put out in a relatively short amount of time.

If you care to listen, he’s slapped a WARNING label on this audio file. Something about having an odd sense of humor. Naturally, that only makes us curious types more likely to click on it. Nevertheless, click at your own peril.

And yes, the impersonation of me is rather spot on.

One of the things I’ve noticed when splitting up monologues is that the changes aren’t always for the better. In some instances, I feel like it transitions naturally. In other cases, I feel like the flow of the words is lost by the splitting question. For these conversations, I think a better way to present the backstories is through the use of scenes as opposed to a split or straight monologue.

Naturally, when the dialogue was constructed, I had no idea how to execute any of this, but now I know enough about the CK where I can implement these changes and do it in a way that’s consistent with the original layout. The dialogue stays as intended, the interaction is more dynamic, and by having free range of motion, you avoid the feeling of being locked into a conversation.

Here, we have two changes that were implemented in version 3.04. Both are examples of using scenes as opposed to splitting up monologues. Be forewarned, there are MINOR SPOILERS for the characters Zora, and MAJOR SPOILERS for the quest To Warm Sands. 

This video shows a similar effect with the initial meeting with Jaspar. With Flin, I start his dialogue early as opposed to after him sitting down. This prevents you from getting locked in to him for an extended period of time, while offering a different perspective and have free range of motion. You’ll also notice I sped up some of Flin’s lines, which I’ve been meaning to do for some time.

Here with have a similar opening to Jaspar to help condense Among the Hist’s initial sequence without removing any lines. Naturally, we don’t want to overuse the mechanic where we’re staring at people’s backs. There’s also the fact that with followers, you can’t orchestrate their movements as easily. Thus with Among the Hist, the sandbox feature is used when going into some of the protracted stories. This can be unpredictable – you don’t want him telling a sad story while riding the sword bicycle. However, I do think most of the sandbox items involve sitting down or standing still, so for the most part it should be a net gain.

Not that I don’t love Zora and Rumarin, but there’s over 200 NPCs and counting so you’d think some of the others would get some love. This is the talented Kayla Marquez drawing everyone’s favorite Swamp Knight. I really like the art style and the coloring, it gives them that animated feel that’s a good change of pace from the dark, hyper-realistic atmosphere in the game itself.  As Honor’s Calling has always been a fan favorite, perhaps Kayla will one day do a scene with all eight members of the party, with Indrel ensconced firmly in a tree.

Since there are two pictures in this post, now I have to fill this bottom area with text as well. Did you know Dalum-Ei’s favorite system is the honor one? Bet you didn’t. Although a strict, Draconian rule would come in a close second. In any case, here are Kayla’s links. Be sure to click on them, bookmark them, and tattoo them on your buttocks.

• Kayla’s Tumblr
• Kayla’s Deviant Art Page

There’s a reason the face sculptor lives in the Ratways. It’s the only place she can hide her can of worms.

The notion of altering one’s face may be ideal from a gameplay perspective, but from a lore standpoint it’s crazier than a barrel full of Orcs. The ability to take on the faces of loved ones, confidants and infiltrate places in plain sight makes it a game-breaking tool for any assassin or thief. As such, in most universes, shape-shifting is a power reserved for the most dangerous of villains. It’s a rare practice, a difficult feat, a taboo. It is not offered to random strangers for the cost of an ebony mace. After all, if such skills were available to everyone, it would destroy the very concept of physical identity. If anyone can be anyone, then there’s no guarantee that anyone is anyone.

Your spouse could be your neighbor, looking for a taste. Your child may be some orphan who wanted a better life. The guardsman who teases you about your stolen sweetroll could be the thief who stole it. Hell, he could be Ulfric Stormcloak. He’d certainly have the face for it. All it takes is some gold and a smith willing to forge it.

The elven sword Pelgurt asks you to retrieve is just that. A forgery. It’s a stranger posing as a member of the family. It wears its face, it bears its markings, but it has none of the history. Nevertheless, its resemblance alone is enough for Vartheim to question whether the sword he’s stolen is real. The same is true for the face of the mercenary Benild. At no point does he consider that her identity is as false as Pelgurt’s sword.

In the end, the story of The Elven Sword is one about deception. Whether it’s the make of a sword or the face on a skull, when identities can be bought and bartered for, it’s best not to trust anyone.

Here are some thoughts while I chomp on this burrito and Vex teaches me about the nuances of infiltration:

• README - The new quests and the big update slowed things down with the wiki, but the NPC portion is still caught up, as it includes even unreleased folks like Cassius and Geel-Jah. I feel like if I force myself to make the wiki pages as I make the NPCs, I should be fine. The quest pages though, they can take all day to complete, and I’m sure you’d prefer I focus on new content.

• DONATIONS - I saw a donate button on Kayla Marquez’s Tumblr, and I immediately thought to myself, why don’t I have one of those? Do I hate money? Anyone who knows me would probably say yes. In any case, as long as you remove AdBlock, I think the advertising revenue will be enough to sustain the blog and my lavish yachting lifestyle. For that reason, donations are not necessary, but if you are so inclined, I will hold you in high esteem.

• UPDATES – I still feel like the weekly update is the way to go, so we’re still on track to drop 3.04.1 on Monday. If you’ve noticed the casting call section, I’ve filled the part of Duraz, and the best part is the voice is even better than the last one. I just hope we can make it to the finish line. She’s also going to be marriable, which I feel like should be a word. Anyhow, the voice, yes the voice is pretty amazing. It makes me happy. It has just the right amount of gravel without sounding raspy or whispered. Take a listen:

• OTHER PROJECTS – I’ve batted around a few ideas for the Evermoor Island mod that has been made available as a resource, and even wrote up a few characters to open with. It would all take place outside of the Elder Scrolls universe, as tying yourself to that world would basically limit the stories you could tell. The biggest deterrent would probably be the fact that the navmeshes aren’t done.

It’s a pretty stupid thing to quibble about given the dude made an entire island, but on the other hand, adding the navmeshes is probably the most tedious thing you could ever spend your day on. Even with clutter you’re still sort of decorating. But it’s just incredibly hard to motivate yourself to connect a bunch of triangles together. The villages and towns are one thing, but the open world is another. Maybe I’ll start with one small area and see if I can maintain my sanity.

Ryan Cooper actually voiced a character a while back, but the quest is still unvoiced, so technically Torveld here will be his debut NPC. Pretty impressive range moving from old guy to Nord guy, and both he and Matthew Dixon make this pairing pretty fun to listen too.

As promised, here is the first of ten weekly updates before the release of version 3.05. Obviously, if I feel an unvoiced quest like Immortal Coil is on the verge of being fully voiced, I’ll delay things an extra week or two, but only if we’re on version 3.04.9. Otherwise, it will be released every Monday.

The releases will be cumulative. You don’t have to download every week. Version 3.04.2 will include everything in version 3.04.1. Moreover, the zips will be packaged with both the Main file and the Hearthfire patch. The Dawnguard patch is unnecessary since you aren’t overwriting any vampires with this update.

3DNPC v3.04.1 UPDATE [Requires Installation of 3.04]

New NPCs
• Geel-Jah (Matthew Dixon) and Torveld (Ryan Cooper)

Fixes and Tweaks
• Black Robes (Silent, Beta Quest) – Telling Anum-La to Wait at the Mourner’s Den will cause her to wait there forever if Lattimore is sent to Winterhold upon completion.
• Improper condition for Meresine upon meeting.

Aenigma66 suggested I make Valgus teach restoration, which makes sense from a role play aspect given he has such a hard-on for healing. The only issue is that as a follower, it allows the player to do the Faendal trick, where you can swipe the gold from his inventory immediately after paying him.

Of course, from an immersion standpoint, Valgus shouldn’t be asking for money anyhow. As far as he’s concerned, his things are your things, including the stuff in his brain.

***SPOILERS for the quest Birds of a Feather*** After some suggestions from user Danvolodar, I decided to add some post-quest witches to the Bird’s Eye, to help provide a visual representation of the effects of your choice. Given the hagraven AI is sketchy, I figured the best way to do this was give Misha a coven. The trigger for this is in Solitude. Once you enter the Winking Skeever after finishing the quest, the changes shown in the video will happen.

Given the witches are random, you do get some duplicates on occasion, such as the Dunmer at the bottom. For the most part though, I think it serves as a nice little addition to the quest should you side with Misha.

The Reachmen say his human heart was too big for his chest, so he traded it in for a smaller model. 

Unlike most NPCs, Thendrick doesn’t have an actor. He doesn’t have a single line of dialogue. His story is one told through his companions, Yseld and Ynvar. Nevertheless, I find him no less compelling.

This isn’t to say the trio are incomplete. Yseld has her quirks – she’s forgetful, indifferent, and at times aloof. She can turn a phrase, and maybe even turn a few heads. This is in sharp contrast to her sister Ynvar – who’s the kind of rough, unforgiving woman who eats scorpions and uses tarantulas to brush her hair. You might say she’s as hard as the very rocks that cover the Reach. And yet, while the two have depth both as individuals and as sisters, it’s their relationship with Thendrick that truly gives them character.

When I visit Ynvar and Thendrick, I’m reminded of those summer days as a kid. Maybe you met someone off at camp, and you were both a little bit shy, and a little bit excited, because it was so fresh and innocent and real. And when you go back to school in the fall and back to the real world, those summer days are like special little secrets you keep between the two of you, moments frozen in time.

I also think about how much of that innocence was lost as she grew older. As the war sharpened her edges, it left her angry, jaded, and mean. But Thendrick always believed that girl was still there. Sure, she never showed it, but that’s because it was something they shared between the two of them. He always remembered those words by the river, and the smile that came with it. It was their little secret.

And now, it’s a secret he takes to his grave.

When Thendrick transformed, you might say he lost more than his heart. He lost his innocence. Ynvar’s refusal to stop him is proof she had done the same. And yet while the story of Ynvar and Thendrick is inherently tragic, their secret still lives on through their hopes for Yseld. After all, she has her sister’s smile. Here’s hoping she never loses it.

Every time I get the urge to go to Solstheim, I land on the dock, talk to the substitute mayor, and take about a dozen or so steps before I turn around and run. That’s because she’s still there, this sad puppy dog of an NPC, waiting for someone to adopt her. In fact, she’s been waiting for the better part of a year now, hoping I’ll get the motivation to finish.

The fact remains that I probably never will. And her presence makes it that I can’t play Dragonborn either, because I end up quitting the game and messing around with vanilla voice files for the rest of the day. But occasionally all this dicking around will result in a scene or two. Today was one of those days.

You’ll notice in the video Teldryn refers to her as an outlander, as that’s what she is. The story is she came to Solstheim about a fortnight before you did, although that’s given her enough time to get somewhat settled and be friendly with the other citizens of Raven Rock. In any case, long story short, here’s another video for the NPC that will never be finished. Unless one day I make so many of these it turns out she is.

Technically, as with Fjona, Arisen1 never finished this character. What I did was cut out the half dozen lines or so that never were recorded. And yet, while the quest still functioned without the missing lines, there were still things that needed to be addressed, both with the writing and the audio quality.

So with Arisen1 absent, I had Alice re-record this NPC as well, and I really think the new version is better on all fronts. Originally, when Alice proposed using a Yorkshire accent, I wasn’t completely sure it would work, but hearing it in action does make Beatrice seem more like the “erstwhile savage” she claims to be. As always, the actor knows best.

The video is a prime example of the aforementioned improvements. Having her walk over to a standing Urzub really heightens the feel that they are giving a demonstration to the player. I also like how Urzub is a reluctant participant in her various antics, standing just long enough for her to finish her speech before returning to quiet contemplation. The poetry has also been altered to be more rhythmic, and I think the overall effect is a much better presentation of the character as a whole.

Here is some fan art from Lazuri on Nexus. It was actually posted back in December, but I forgot image uploads no longer require approval there. Anyways it’s awesome.

• Lazuri’s Nexus Profile

Here is the second of ten weekly updates before the release of version 3.05. This week was a bit strange because I ran into the problem of having an NPC – Melea Entius – whose overhaul was about eighty percent finished. However, given the importance of that remaining 20%, the only course of action was to disable it all.

As always, these releases are cumulative. You don’t have to download every week. Version 3.04.3 will include everything in version 3.04.1 and 3.04.2. Moreover, the zips will be packaged with both the Main file and the Hearthfire patch. The Dawnguard patch is unnecessary since you aren’t overwriting any vampires with this update.

3DNPC v3.04.2 UPDATE [Requires Installation of 3.04]

New NPCs
• Cassius (Randy Westbrook), Ogdul (Placeholder Audio)
• Yggleif (JLawrence Kenny)

Re-Recorded NPCs
• Beatrice (Alice Bell)

Temporarily Disabled NPCs
• Melea Entius (EvilSeedlet)

All Fixes and Tweaks from v3.04
• Black Robes (Silent, Beta Quest) – Telling Anum-La to Wait at the Mourner’s Den will cause her to wait there forever if Lattimore is sent to Winterhold upon completion.
• Improper condition for Meresine upon meeting.
• Missing files for Alassea inn dialogue and the request portion of the Journey, also Journey flagged incorrectly as “SayOnce”
• Gales of Guilt – Removed “SayOnce” flag on Foromir for cases where a line is triggered too early. Asgeld now teleported to the Blue Palace if the player beats him there.
• Mogo’s Mead – Dialogue may have been disconnected in v3.04 causing quest not to start, also fixed rare issue where Maven is late to the party by teleporting her into place.
• Sleeping Giant – Added failsafe package to ensure Anum-La and Fjona follow