Skyrim's Multiplying Multitudes

Here's my latest Skyrim character with a couple of followers. I'd been playing as an evil, magic using vampire again and decided to go the opposite route with this one. She's basically a Lawful Good paladin, a crusader against undead and demons. She belongs to a group called the Vigil of Stendarr, Stendarr being an Elder Scrolls god who hates undead and daedra (daedra being the Elder Scrolls version of demons). I wanted to play a character like this because I wanted to try one of the more famous quest mods called Vigilant.

That's a trailer for a mod of the mod. The original mod was from a Japanese creator so another modder got some voice actors together to make an English version. I kind of wanted to play it in Japanese but to switch languages would basically require a complete reinstall of the game and many of the other mods I use wouldn't work afterwards.

Vigilant's famous for being exceptionally grim but it doesn't begin that way. Your first quests when you join the Vigilants are to kill daedra that have been harassing people at various inns. One you encounter is even passed out drunk on the floor.

I also have a follower from another mod called Celestine who is also a Vigilant of Stendarr. The mod author gave her dialogue to make her compatible with the Vigilant mod. This is one of the things that keeps me endlessly fascinated with Skyrim, this new kind of collaborative storytelling that blurs the lines of the authorial voice. There's the line between the different mod authors and the vanilla game and there's also the creativity exercised in choosing which mods to employ. Look at this screenshot from my current playthrough:

In this one screenshot, you're seeing the effects of at least seventeen different mods. My character has a modded head and skin, the armour comes from another mod, the sword from another mod. All the people and the wolf on the lower left are modded followers and all of them, except the wolf, have appearance alterations and/or armour from separate mods. There's a mod to create more natural lighting, to upgrade all the textures, and another mod that adds trees to make the forests denser. I think the only unmodded element in this picture is the horse and possibly the bone shield. And that's just what's in the screenshot. Another player with a modded Skyrim wouldn't have this particular collection of mods so everyone has a unique experience reflective of choices they've made outside the game. There are even different mods with the same intent, like the lighting and texture mods.

Another mod I've been getting a kick out of lately is Jesters of Skyrim which adds jesters to all the courts in the game. I actually find them genuinely funny but the best part is all the awkward laughter.