Table of Contents
Creatures, NPCs and Players
Ahhhh NPCs, those innocent beings that we all love to slaughter. Unfortunately, there's not much variety to them due to the dreaded excuse of “engine limitations”. That being said in the years since Skyrim's release the community has stretched the dozen or so archetypal creature animations to their limits and created a decide variety for us to enjoy! Also Skyblivion claims they'll have custom animations for creatures. Not sure why this tool wasn't instantly released to the public but we have that to look forward to in the Kanye West future of 2040!
Enemies and Monsters
Skyrim's creature mods are limited in animations but wide in scope. In the past people have relied on large overhauls to add hundreds of creatures at once but it generally lead to a oversaturation of poorly thought out creatures. Now people tend to add their creatures one by one since plugin limits aren't really a thing anymore. Here is a list of our top pics for creatures!
Creature Modders
These are some of the authors who have shaped much of the Skyrim creature modding. Rather than list their individual mods you should look on their pages and pick and choose what you like more. Some creatures overlap and it's up to you to determine which you like more. My personal opinion is to use opusGlass and 4thUnkown creatures and flesh things out with what looks good from Mihail.
| MihailMods | Probably the most prolific monster mod maker, Mihail has made tons of creature mods ranging from all types of places and games. Gonna warn ya, the creatures can be a tad tough at low levels. |
| 4thUnknown | Another somewhat prolific monster/armor mod maker. 4th's monster mods feature high quality meshes, but you may need to download the optional fixes. |
| opusGlass | Mod author who focuses on bringing back a lot of old enemies from previous games in the series. Also very good at diversifying creatures like Werewolves, Dragons, Trolls, Draugr and Horkers |
| Skinwalker21 | Alright, most of this guys monster mods are dinosaurs, but he does make some that are lore-friendly! |
Creatures and Enemies
Here's the rest of the creature mods that come recommended on behalf of Snakestone
| Dwemer Spectres Special Edition | Spooky nerd ghosts |
| Seagulls of Skyrim | Does what it says. Adds seagulls to the docks of Skyrim. |
| Bears of the North | Makes the bears of Skyrim much bigger and threatening. |
| Sea Turtles | Adds a peaceful race of turtles found between Solitude and Winterhold. |
| Snowray | Adds the Snowrays of lore to the border between Skyrim and High Rock! |
| Mountain Lion | This mod will add them to the mountainous areas of Falkreath! |
| Beast Skeletons Revised | This mod adds Khajiit, Argonian and Orc skeletons to the world. All hand placed and even comes as an esl! |
| Rhino | Adds Woolly Rhinos to the plains of Skyrim! |
| Cliff Racers on Solstheim | This mod adds passive Cliff Racers to the land of Solstheim, just a small quality of life mod. |
| Boar | This mod adds Beyond Skyrim Boars to Skyrim. |
| Ash Hunters | This mod takes the flying ash hoppers from SIC and makes them standalone and hand placed in the Solstheim world. So no worries of leveled lists edits. ESL flagged too. |
| High Fantasy Deer and Elk | 4K resolution deer/elk textures with fur color options. |
| Blue Whales | Since Beasts of Tamriel's whale is busted, here's a much better alternative. ESL flagged too. |
| New Farm Animals | This mod adds BS farm animals to the farms across Skyrim. Works well with the other farm animal mod. |
| Flying Crows | Adds flying crows to various locations around Tamriel to create a more nordic atmosphere in your Skyrim. |
| Gehenoth | Adds the fierce Gehenoth from the popular game TES Travels: Dawnstar to Skyrim! (A real game that did exist we promise) |
| Immersive Khajiit Caravan Mules | Adds mules to the khajiit caravans. Just a nice little immersion thing. |
| Beavers and Raccoons of Skyrim | Very important mod. |
| Rats around Skyrim | Adds Beyond Skyrim's rats to the skeever leveled lists. (REQUIRES BRUMA) |
| Rats on Solstheim | Adds rats to Solstheim. (REQUIRES BRUMA) |
| Skaven of Skyrim | Rats! Rats! We are the rats! |
| Toads and Frogs of Skyrim | Ribbit |
| Ducks and Swans for Skyrim | Adds ducks and swans to the ponds of Skyrim, they can be harvested for food and alchemy ingredients. But the main thing about this mod is how it adds to the atmosphere of the game. |
| Female Reikling | Mesh replacer, it replaces the clothed reikling to a female variant. |
| Wormpie's Hagravens | Adds 80+ different models to Hagravens for much more diversity. |
| GoT Dragons (A Game of Thrones) | High poly dragon replacer. |
| The Restless Dead (A Draugr and Skeleton Overhaul) | A massive overhaul of all the undead enemies in the game. New variants and such. |
| Forsworn Minotaurs | Integrates Minotaurs SE and/or Mihail's Minotaurs in with the Forsworn faction in a compatible and visually fitting way, with new model variants. |
| Immersive Magic Brooms | Adds Fantasia brooms around the mages of Skyrim! |
| Nocturnal Moths | Adds moths to lanterns at night, with animations and sound effects. |
Follower Tools
Before we get to followers themselves here are some tools to manage your followers in game. Keep in mind that large follower frameworks generally don't integrate with custom voiced followers. If you're planning to use a team of custom voiced followers I'd avoid bothering with a large follower framework.
| Extensible Follower Framework | The best large scale follower framework. Adds custom health bars and a wheel manager for commanding your followers. Allows for multiple generic followers. Allows you to force and NPC to become a follower. This mod has it all. |
| Swiftly Order Squad | Extremely lightweight follower framework for ordering your party around with it's own custom menus and options. Also works with custom voiced followers and pets. This is the best option for those who like to keep a team of custom voiced followers around or for people who just like something stupid and simple. |
| Show NPC Disposition Relationship Rank | Show NPC's relationship rank with the player in dialog menu. |
| Show Follower Carry Weight | Show follower's current carry weight in trading menu. |
| Press H to Horse | Extremely simple horse overhaul that doesn't feel bloated or broken. |
| Simplicity of Stalking | Ever wanted to be the follower and follow around an NPC? |
| Press E to Heal Followers | Allows you to quickly heal your allies like in the Todd space game. |
| Follower Goes on Trip | A mod that allows your unused followers to go adventure the world on their own! Perfect for /tesg/ followers to make it feel like all your buddies are wandering and doing their own adventures throughout Skyrim! |
| Relationship Dialogue Overhaul | Adds a ton of new voiced dialogue to the NPCs of Skyrim, namely followers and spouses! There's a dozen different patches to keep this mod up to do but here's the one I use |
Followers
Followers Followers are awesome, simple as that. They can range from adventurous sellswords you meet along your journey, or friends you make and travel together on amazing quests! /tesg/ followers are great because instead of having some random guy following you around, you have a little piece of /tesg/ sprinkled into your game. A person that you meet in the threads and want to adventure with and take great screenshots with. DON'T USE UFO. IT'S NOT OLD AS SHIT ANYMORE, BUT IT'S LOADED WITH BUGS.
| Brhuce Hammar | Brhuce “Had sex with Akulakhan and not only survived but made it cum” Hammar is a custom voiced telvanni train wizard with his own quests to battle against shitfus and traverse the realms of Oblivion and Aetherius. This one is by Trainwiz and a fan favorite for those who don't always like custom voiced followers. |
| Lucien | Lucien is a custom voiced follower known for never shutting up and having an annoying voice. For some that would be enough to recommend against him but he has one saving grace and that is his absolutely insane level of interaction with not only the vanilla world but also a million other custom voiced followers. On top of that his quest is really well designed. He has a recommendation and I even made him a patch to make his appearance a bit more… fitting ;) |
| INIGO | Inigo is the granddaddy of all custom voiced followers with a billion lines. He's a blue Khajiit with his own quest and lots of fun banter. Those using an alternate start may think he's immersion breaking but don't worry he has a later dialogue option to call him a crackhead for thinking he saw you in Helgen. |
| Arissa | Arissa was originally a paid mod by Chesko from Bethesda and Steam's ill-fated Steam Paid Mods system. Ironically she was one of the better mods from that system and is now free to download. I've linked a custom port to her since she was never officially ported to SE. |
| Authentic Sinding Follower | A vanilla NPC overhaul this mod turns the werewolf from Hircine's quest into his own follower. |
| Nebarra | A Thalmor mercenary who renamed himself the Hight Elf version of the n-word. Very snarky and enjoyable guy with his own custom armor to boot! |
| Redcap the Riekling | Redcap is a Riekling follower with his own custom voice an quest. Very cute little guy with his own custom mount too! |
| Remiel | On the surface another souless nexus waifu but I kinda like the way this one looks. Her voice isn't too grating either and she's really just a nerd who's into Dwarven Gunpla. |
| Khash The Argonian | Custom voiced Argonian loli with a ton of extra interactions with other followers and an overall really cute presentation! |
| Immersive Fat Idiot Son | Someone let one of Snakestone's bastards out of the cage again. |
| Merlin the Corgi | Magical Doge pet that uses spells to battle! |
| Gladys the Corgi | A second doge follower!? Will not make you rich on crypto! |
| Mushroom Followers | Adds really cute and subtle magic walking mushrooms around the world! |
| The Knight of the Void | A unique custom voiced follower who takes the form of a cursed undead knight! |
NPC Packs
It truly is hard to create NPCs that actually sound good, look good, and are actually interesting and useful in the game. These are the most popular and biggest NPC mods out there. They're pretty good but be warned, you're not gonna get quality professional voice acting from these mods. Even if this is a Bethesda game…
| Interesting NPCs SE | Adds a ton of very detailed, well written and well rounded NPCs into the game, along with several quests to go along with them. However, every single kid it adds is a piece of shit and you may want to pair this with a killable children mod! As for the NPCs there's a good chunk that sound good and have nice interactions but there's just as many that will drone on about nothing for 10 minutes to absolute strangers. It's a good mod but damn are some of these fuckers annoying! |
| Inconsequential NPCs | The opposite of Interesting NPCs, this mod adds a large amount of unique NPCs who give no shits about you. They are voiced but they have their own lives and often don't want to talk to you and are there to make the world feel less empty. The Town Crier is often disliked so here's a patch to disable him! Also here's another patch to fix up some older armors. |
| DIVERSE SKYRIM | Adds over one hundred new NPCs with unique appearences to the Vanilla levelled lists for adding racial diversity while staying lore friendly. All handled with vanilla mechanisms too! |
| Rogues 'n Raiders | Rogues ‘n Raiders makes enemies more challenging and interesting to fight by expanding their skill set and increasing their diversity. Basically a less bloated version of OBIS |
| Vampire Clans and Bloodlines | Replaces generic vampires with vampires from five distinct Clans and Bloodlines. Somewhat lorebreaking for those who are autistic about vampire lore but overall I think this is probably the best option for new vampire types! |
| Civil War Deserters | New Bandit enemy based on civil war deserters. |
| Immersive Patrols | The closest thing you'll find to a Civil War Overhaul on this list. This mod adds patrols from various factions that may start fighting each other. |
NPC Appearance Makeovers
It truly is hard to look at the ugly npcs in the game, well these mods hopefully correct those ugly npcs by making them look good, interesting and unique looking. These are the NPC overhauls we think add the most to the looks of the characters. Some may recommend others so feel free to mix and match with your favorites as well! That's why Bijin isn't listed here
| Beards of Power | This mod overhauls the male NPCs of the world by giving them fittingly beautiful beards! Best male overhaul and seriously steps up Skyrim's beard game! |
| Thorned Women | A female replacer that touches up select NPCs to give him a lore friendly but updated appearance. |
| RS Children Overhaul | The least shit child NPC overhaul. Skyrim children are potato goblins but this makes them look less awful. Also grab the Realistic patch for better textures on some of the children! |
| Project ja-Kha'jay | Extremely in depth Khajiit overhaul that adds all types of new Khajiit types to the game! Has a ton of patches for basically any Khajiit mods! |
| Children of the Pariah | Extremely good orc overhaul to overhaul all the Orc NPCs in the game! |
| Children of the Hist | Massive overhaul of vanilla Argonian NPCs! |
| Elven Ears for Breton NPCs | Ever wish you could tell a Breton from a nord at first glance? Now you can thanks to these subtle but nice elf ears! Bretons are Half Elves after all but you wouldn't know it by looking at their vanilla NPCs! |
| Bosmer NPCs have antlers | Adds antlers to Bosmer NPCs. Makes them a bit more unique! |
| Hedgehog's Serana | Serana fags on suicide watch but this is the best Serana replacer. If you have shit taste you may prefer Seranaholic. |
| True Meeko | Gives a unique and customizable look to the best boy in all of Skyrim! |
| Umbral Embrace | Unique overhaul of Nocturnal that makes her looking like a motherfucking goddess of shadows! |
| Erik the Slayer | Overhauls the appearance of one of my favorite vanilla NPCs Erik the Slayer (That dude who died of cancer so Bethesda added him as an NPC into Skyrim). |
| Thrynn the Rogue | Conversely an overhaul of an NPC I've never encountered but he sure looks cool! |
| Hidden Blade | An overhaul of one of the most hated vanilla NPCs in the game. Worst part about this mod is it makes her look so cool you almost forget what a piece of shit Dolphin is to wholesome chungus Party Snacks! |