» Fri Feb 28, 2014 9:59 pm Skyrim Mod: Immersive Jewelry
The motivation to create this mod began with a dissatisfaction with fundamental parts of the Skyrim economy. There have been great current and past mods that have redressed problems of too much endgame gold, resale value, and loot scarcity, including such mods as Economics of Skyrim, Trade and Barter, Trade Routes, and Loot Scarcity, but one remaining flaw that continually stuck out for me, even after implementing these mods into my load order, was the value of gold as a precious commodity.
In the scheme of Skyrim materials, gold really isn't all that valuable. A single large ingot, the size of a real life "good delivery" bar of gold bullion, which might be valued between $300,000 and $420,000, is worth only 100 septims in the vanilla game. In terms of value in the Skyrim economy, that's worth only around a dozen ales - and even less with the fbartermax/min merchant markup taken into account. This means that finding a large gold brick, such as one might in the trove of the leader of the Blackblood Marauders, or in the secret treasure of Velehk Sain, is not like finding a "treasure" at all. At most the level of reward of finding a gold brick is like finding a coupon for a single free lunch-pleasant, but hardly a worthy quest reward for an immersive world where mercenaries and hired adventurers would risk their lives to get it. If the choice was between adventuring for a gold brick and possibly dying versus just chopping wood about 20 times, I think the choice is clear.
The new value change in CCO which raises a gold ingot to 500 septims is a start toward redressing this, but the value of the gold ingot versus its visual mass is also a problem when one considers that in vanilla Skyrim, only two gold rings can be created from the entire block. Even if one upgrades this to 4 gold rings, the visual disparity alone is disturbing and upsetting to immersion. Besides, shouldn't gold be considered more valuable and precious just for the fact that it serves as the underpinning of the Skyrim economic system?
Contriving a fix for this problem that was one more puzzle piece for immersion was the original inspiration for this mod. As I will explain below, the main solution is a fix for the crafting system involving precious metals and gems. To do that I've implemented a new system of recipes composed of meshes representing smaller samples of precious metal. For the mod to truly be immersive, however, I soon realized that this fix would have to extend to every precious item in the game, including those added by mods. The makers of the jewelry mods on the Skyrim Nexus graciously allowed me to combine their work together into this mod so that this new system would carry throughout.
Mod Features:
Skyrim Gold Standard:
The typical gold ingot used in crafting has been replaced with a smaller, palm sized mesh that more accurately represents the portion of gold useful to a goldsmith or jeweler. This gold ingot is called the "Goldsmith's Ingot" and has the same formID as the vanilla object, meaning it will be compatible with all other mods that use gold ingots in their recipes. This goldsmith's ingot is valued at 500 septims and is considered to be 1/10 of the vanilla object mesh that had been called the gold ingot. The old large brick sized ingot has been re-created as a new object called "Imperial Bullion", and it has been placed in the world in the places where its low value counterpart was once placed - in treasure hordes, bandit-seized cargo of shipwrecks, etc.
Silver has also been shrunk to a jewelers' "silversmith's ingot", and has been valued at 40 septims. It's full, brick sized version is ten times the size and value at 400 septims. This makes silver 1/12 the value of gold. Other metals remain the same, with new 1/10 sized jeweler's portions now existing for all of them. Both small and vanilla large versions of the ingots have been distributed through appropriate leveled lists.
Finally, the palm-sized "jeweler's ingots" can in turn be divided into 4 rings. As these rings are in a form that can be broken, twisted, and bent, they serve as the core components for almost every piece of jewelry in Skyrim. This means that 1 Imperial Bullion=10 Goldsmiths' Ingots=40 Plain Gold Rings.
"Quarter-Ingot" Ebony Ring:
"Quarter-Ingot" Copper Ring:
Realistic Substance Weights and Debased Septim Coins:
Crafting substances have been reweighted in proportion to each other based on their real life atomic densities. This was done by assuming a starting point of a .01 feather drake/septim coin of pure gold with a volume of 808.93 mm3 (the volume of a US Quarter). Using the density of gold at 19.32 g/cm3, a weight in feathers were calculated as if the "goldsmith's ingot" was constituted of the same mass as 200 septim coins using this image as a reference: http://www.ockoreanmartialarts.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/coinstacks.jpg This allowed me to arrive at the weight of gold in Skyrim in feathers, which means gold will have a consistent and realistic weight at any size.
Then, both for lore reasons and because of the inflated septim that really doesn't buy that much, I wanted to debase the septim more toward my valuation of 500 septims for one goldsmith's ingot. As the empire is on its last legs, it is not only reasonable, but completely realistic that the Empire would debase its coinage with base metal to pay its troops. This is consistent with the history of the actual Roman Empire in its final centuries as well as with historical periods of inflation such as that of the Weimar Republic. The septim is also visually much larger than a quarter - so I decided to debase the septim so that it was only 40% gold to 60% copper. Using some stoichiometry with the new density of copper at 8.92 g/cm3, I arrived at a proportional weight for copper in Skyrim versus gold of the same volume. Using the ratio from these, I was able to substitute the densities for every other crafting substance in Skyrim, as well as discover a universal feathers/grams ratio that could work for other mods as well. A smelter recipe to produce 1 goldsmith's ingot, 1 coppersmith's ingot, and 2 copper rings in exchange for melting down 506 septims was added.
I recommend "Antique Septim Retexture" to make it seem as though the septim has a high copper content. 
Jewelry Variety:
Having a new framework for jewelry making and crafting recipes would hardly be worthwhile if the 20 or so vanilla jewelry objects were the only things that could be crafted. Immersive Jewelry has incorporated created designs and jewelry objects with the permission of the following artists and mod authors:
Jewelry Collections:
Severus
Lautasantenni
Petrovich
Gamwich
Yuril
Aeterna
ZZJay
Johnskyrim
Leveled List Distribution and Unique Artisans:
In the Vanilla game, Madesi of Riften claims to be among the last "Saxhleel Jewelers", who hawks "traditional Argonian craftsmanship". Likewise, Kerah of Markarth claims to sell the Redguard jewelry crafted by her husband, yet both sell the same vanilla jewelry that Fralia Graymane in Whiterun sells, and can be found in any crypt in Skyrim. Now Saxhleel jewelry will truly be unique, with Madesi's traditional offerings of the pearl and shell jewelry designed by Severus, or the claw rings designed by Mr. Dave of Bob's Armory. Kerah will sell some other unique Creola earrings designed by Severus, as well as the ripple-pattern rings of Yuril that recall the Hammerfell desert sands. If you have "Jewels of the Nord" installed, then Fralia will sell the Nordic pattern rings of the Graymane smith or else the vanilla rings and necklaces.
Draugr jewelry leveled lists have also been altered so that certain types of jewelries won't be found on them as part of a further step toward making an "ancient" and "antique" feel for their items, in keeping with the spirit of mods like "Skyrim Coin Replacer".
New Uniques:
Several quest objects and unique jewelry rewards in vanilla Skyrim have made do with reiterations of vanilla meshes. Contibutions from the following artists and mod authors will give these items some variety:
(This list is just a sample!)
Fjotli's Locket, by Merilia :
Nightweaver's Band, by PrivateEye:
Viola's Ring, by Aeterna:
Locket of St. Jiub, by Andre7890:
Sword of Queen Freydis, by Pete40:
Mage's Circlet, by myself:
Ancient Enchanted Ring of Saarthal, by PrivateEye:
Diadem of the Savant, by Anton0028:
Circlet of Waterbreathing, by Severus:
Bond of Matrimony, by Gamwich:
Revelers' Charmed Necklace, by Avenger86:
True Geomancy:
Now the gemstone and the setting material of a piece of jewelry determines what type of enchantment is most suited to it. All 600+ pieces of jewelry have been tagged with keywords which instruct the enchanting system to increase or reduce the potency of enchantments placed on them depending on the type of enchantment. The bonuses and penalties for the material types were drawn from countless references to real world occult lore, such as the works of pseudo-Albertus Magnus and Cornelius Agrippa, as well as references from history. For instance, as it was for the Romans, "onyx" will be disposed toward enchantments that make one excel in battle, and as it was said by Marbodius of Rennes, "if any one wished to strengthen his memory or become and eloquent speaker, he was sure to attain his end by taking possession of a fine emerald". Taking another statement from the 1604 Spanish work "de las Piedras Preciosas", "[emerald] is an enemy of all conjurations and sorceries, hence the arts of the magicians are to no avail if the emerald is in their vicinity when they begin to weave their spells". This means I have made onyx grant bonuses to weapon skill enchantments, while emerald is quite suited to fortify barter, speechcraft, or resist magic enchantments.
Setting material such as gold, silver, or iron also has been tagged to influence enchanting, so that, for instance, the masculine energy of gold favors the proactive arts like destruction, whereas silver, sacred to the moon, influences the passive arts like illusion.
This has been tied in to Skyrim lore by the relation of the metals and gems to the planets, as it was for real world astrology and magic. Gold is sacred to the sun, Iron to Mars, etc. In Skyrim lore, the Aedra are considered "the Earth Bones" or Elnofey because they gave of their essence to be constituted in Mundus. The planets which orbit Nirn are considered to be the visual representation of their planes of existence. I will include books that detail the connection of gems and metals to the personalities of particular Aedra. Oftentimes strong clues are given by what material their necklaces or shrines are made out of.
Compatibility with CCO:
These items have also all been tagged for compatibility with the MCM menu in Complete Crafting Overhaul's latest iteration by Kryptopyr.
Progress:
600 pieces of jewelry have already been reworked for their recipes using the new system, or new recipes have been added if they didn't have them. This took the greatest amount of time and it is only after completing it that I have made this WIP post. Objects without ground objects have received them, and all items have been revalued as well as tagged with keywords for True Geomancy as well as CCO.
The process of adding items to leveled lists has begun, and items have been tagged to be sold by Madesi or Kerah, as appropriate.
To do:
Variants for the vanilla retextures by Yuril and Aeterna in gold, silver, ebony, and orichalcum were done but now need to be remade for compatibility with the new smoothed SMIM ring meshes.
The enchanting bonuses for ring and material types need to be balanced and tweaked.
Variants for Petrovich's UNP Jewelry need to be made.
Leveled list needs to be finished and balanced.
. worse yet, when i add a gem to that ingot, half of the bar magically disappears or something? it's not like i need twice as much gold for a ring just to make that gem sit in its place...