Necromancy Realism
Version 2.0
By Dormouse

Dark prophecy has it that soon one of the last great necromancers will meet an unfortunate end, and in the process, signal the beginning of a new necromancer's journey into the dark art. If you are the new necromancer spoken of in the prophecy, your future holds many dark things. Command undead minions that will devote their borrowed lives for your cause. But beware the consequences. Many evil things await for those that disregard the rules of life.

On your journey, you will learn the story of an experienced necromancer, collect corpses by casting spells on undead, create black soul gems by channeling souls, prepare corpses with secret combinations of ingredients, resurrect multiple undead that will follow your every command, and fight for your life as curses and failed necromancy subjects threated to overwhelm you in darkness.


Features

With this mod, necromancy gains a whole new level of play. Use your conjuration skill to resurrect corpses to create eleven different undead minions, including skeleton warriors, archers, and wizards that can be equipped with weapons and armor.

A typical resurrection requires the player to obtain a corpse by casting a spell on an undead enemy, prepare the corpse by adding the appropriate ingredients, and casting a spell to resurrect the undead. If successful, the undead can be commanded to follow, stay, or stand at attention. You can also equip them with weapons and have them carry equipment. The undead will be able to walk the earth until they are dispatched back to hell by being killed. However, with each undead that is resurrected, the necromancer is cursed with drained strength and endurance. There are a total of eleven different undead that can be resurrected, based on the conjuration skill of the necromancer and how the corpse is prepared.

In order to perform resurrections, the necromancer requires black soul gems. They can be created by channeling souls of the dead into the player using an Incantation Book. These will allow the corpse to be animated.

Once you have killed its previous owner, take residence in the necromancer's lair. It provides many important ingredients, literature, and an appropriate atmosphere for necromancy. I have cleared out some debris to add another shelf, added an additional table on which to prepare corpses, new potted plants for gathering ingredients, and other decor and lighting. There is also a special skull that should come in handy for a necromancer.


New with Version 2.0

- Some of the ingredient combinations have been changed slightly, as well as the number of ingredients required.
- Added the ability to raise Draugrs and Liches with Bloodmoon and Tribunal.
- Replaced Skeleton Warriors, Skeleton Archers, and Skeleton Wizards with a new race of NPC, modified from UserExists' skeleton meshes and texture. This allows them to be equipped with armor. If you do not like using the NPC skeleton companions, the regular Skeleton can be used instead, but can not be equipped with armor.
- Added Raven companion.
- Additional Note. In order to introduce the draugrs and liches in an immersive way, there are letters from other necromancers from the mainland and Solstheim. However, I did not create the necromancers. The one from Bloodmoon is actually present in the game, but he has not been modified in this mod. So if a book or letter refers to another necromancer, don't expect to find them.


Raven Companion

- The raven model and three idle animations came with the Bloodmoon expansion. There was never a walking, fighting, or any other type of animation associated with the raven. So expect to carry the raven with you, and place her where you want her.
- Feed Raven berries for a chance that she will cast helpful spells on you. The rarer the berry, the more powerful the spell.
- Send Raven to gather ingredients for your resurrections. Depending on the player's level, she will gather ingredients for more powerful undead. She will leave once the player leaves the cell, and will return the following day.
- Raven has the power to heal the player once a day.
- Since there is no fighting animation with Raven, she can not fight herself. But when the player is attacked, she will summon an ally to help you in your battle.
- Raven must use magicka to cast spells, so you may need to rest for her to gain magicka back.
- Included several raven calls, which add some atmosphere to your necromancy lair. The Raven companion is completely optional. You can leave her where she is, take her along with you, or ditch her someplace where she won't bother you.


Gameplay Notes

- Once a corpse is placed on the ground, it can be activated like a container to add in the ingredients.
- To pick a corpse back up, activate the corpse while in sneak mode.
- Initiate dialogue with the undead to give it commands and access its inventory.
- Casting Ressurect once in a cell with multiple corpses that are prepared will cause all of them to be resurrected. If you have several corpses around and wish to only resurrect one, make sure the others do not have a black soul gem, and they will not resurrect.
- If anyone is having trouble getting started, ask around Dagon Fel for some interesting people.
- Each type of undead has a specific combination and number of ingredients that must be prepared in the corpse. Part of this mod is to experiment with these combinations and discover them through repeated trials. If you get stuck, however, there is a list towards the end of the readme.


Compatibility

Most of the mod consists of new containers, items, and scripts, so there is unlikely to be any compatibility issues. However, it changes a single cell where the necromancer can be found. It also attaches scripts to many of the undead enemies in the game.

There should therefore not be a problem with using this mod to supplement any other necromancy mod you may already have. Using several at once should be fine.


Version History

Version 1.0
- Released

Version 2.0
- Added Skeleton NPCs that Wear Armor
- Added Tribunal and Bloodmoon Undead
- Modified Ingredients for each Undead
- Added Raven Companion


Credits

Inspiration from Necromancy in Oblivion.
The skeleton NPCs were modified from the meshes and textures by UserExists.
The Raven sound effects were modified from samples from sound-effect.com.


Requirements

Morrowind, Bloodmoon, and Tribunal



Thanks for checking it out. I hope you enjoy the mod!

PES Link: http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=Mods.Detail&id=7580

Wow!!
Wil most definatly try it out!
Thank you!!

Sounds most evil. Well done.


-kwm

Awesome. I'm glad to see this finished. :celebration:
I'll try it out right now.

Edit: I've just finished trying it out. Excellent work, Dormouse!
I have given you a vote of 10.00 on PES, and it's well earned.

This mod does exactly what is says on the tin, so to speak. It works very well, and provides a stable experience for anyone seeking a nice necromancy mod. By not using any external programs, the mod remains relatively out of the box and easy to use for players new to mods. This is good. While it isn't as flashy as one of the more notable options, it still does a good job. I really have nothing to complain about. The only real thing that I can think that the creator could use to further improve the mod would be to give the followers modern companion scripts/warping scripts, so that the need to carefully guide their minions is minimized. Even if this is somehow reserved for higher level conjuration skills, and incurs a larger penalty.

Overall, you've done a wonderful job. Congrats.

Nice to pop back in and see this fantastic mod updated. Just wanted to check, while I am in here, if it is still okay for me to utilize this as a resource for my Burial Rites mod (once I start work back up on it again here)?

Thank you for the comments and suggestions. If I decide to update the mod again, I will likely included teleporting/warping abilities.




Yeah, that is still okay. Thanks for asking.

Oh, certainly, the work you have done on this mod is fantastic - I couldn't begin to run with it without your permission