Viconia DeVir for Skyrim by Sultericdrums Quick Notes The mod is now at version 4.0. There have been many changes! This version features: * Viconia is now a truly standalone companion and no longer relies on the generic follower logic in Skyrim (Thank you Vamyan). * The entire mod and all dialog has been revoiced by voice actress Amber Lee Connors. This was a truly epic under- taking. You will hear dialog voiced that has never been voiced before. * There is now a full “play Viconia as a friend” path. It will go through the entire quest but skip the romance based stages. Her default is 1, i.e. romance. To set her as a friend: go into the console (~ key) and enter: set aaviconiaromance to 0 * Added a summon spell that will summon Viconia if you get separated. Just grab the spell book out of her inventory and read it. It will give you a Summon Viconia spell under your Conjuration spells. * Many new stages. There is a total of 82 stages now. Many new conversations have been added including her taking about events in Baldur’s Gate II and Oblivion. Many other conversations have been changed. * Her default outfit is now steel plate armor. If you wish to give her custom armor it MUST be better than steel plate. She will no longer appear nude or in her underwear (who’s really complaining LOL) * There are all new hello, goodbye and idle dialog, which is fully voiced. * Viconia will no longer use the immersion breaking game follower dialog. She now has her own voice type which prevents this. She now has all her own command responses to follow, trade, dismiss, wait, etc. * Added perks to Viconia; Stealth80, Silence and Light Step. Now she won't give you away if you're sneaking and she will not trigger pressure plates or other traps. * Viconia’s behavior has changed. She will no longer approach and interrupt you. You have to activate/talk to her. Her conversation will change every 24 hours. Because of the way the conversations are done you have to tab out of the end of the conversation. This is a Skyrim bug and there’s nothing I can do about it. Introduction This mod is a port of the Viconia DeVir romance that was part of the game Baldur's Gate II – Shadows of Amn. This was brought into Oblivion and is now "ported" to Skyrim. Porting is not an appropriate term, this mod was redone from scratch because of the changes in the Creation Kit and it took a LOT of effort to do so. If Viconia DeVir is new to you, are you ready to try and romance a Drow female? If not choose the friendly path. Those new to Viconia or Drow in general should do a google search on her name or on "Drow" to see what you are getting yourself into. I've seen at least one comment wondering why Viconia was so mean to them. If you're asking this question you have no idea what a Drow is. For those that remember Viconia, this mod has attempted to preserve the original Viconia DeVir romance from BGII with some additions, changes and enhancements, which I feel make it better. Troll Warning This is NOT a lore friendly mod. I've seen comments about this elsewhere on the internet saying that it was a crime to bring her into the Elder Scrolls or that this isn’t lore friendly and this and that. I've even received death threats. Well, &^%$ YOU! I did the original mod for Oblivion because I loved the character and I wanted her in Oblivion. It only made sense for me to bring her into Skyrim too. It was not easy. I did it for ME and I decided to share, and judging by her popularity others like her too. Warning: Read this document, it contains important information you will need to play this mod and have the best playing experience possible. If you ask me questions on the forums I will point you back here if the information is contained within this document. This document is available for download separately. There is NO excuse not to read this! Story Meet Viconia DeVir, a female Drow cleric from the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Forgotten Realms plane. The Drow are a fierce underground race that reside in The Underdark. They are an exceptionally brutal race ruled by women. The males serve only to please them and are treated mainly as slaves. Considered a threat to Lloth, Viconia was banished across the planes to Tamriel in the Third Age during the Oblivion Crisis. Once there she was saved from execution by her friend and eventual lover. At the time, unknown to the citizens of Cyrodill, Lloth’s banishment of Viconia opened portals between the Underdark and Tamriel. Viconia and her lover went on a long and dangerous journey back to the Underdark to save Viconia’s brother, Valas, and to confront Lloth once and for all. Valas was saved and came back to Tamriel while Lloth was killed in her own temple. Viconia and her lover were wed by the Drow, whose culture has since changed drastically. The two returned to Tamriel and the portals were sealed, never to be opened again. Valas spent time at the Mages Guild but his current location is unknown. Now over 200+ years later Viconia remains, her husband having passed because of old age. Drow live exceptionally long lives when not exposed to the horrors of the Underdark. She now wanders Skyrim offering her services and exceptional skills in combat and you will find her in Jorrvaskr in Whiterun. Are you up to the challenge of winning her heart? Just looking for a sexy friend to help hack and slash your way around with some interesting friendly conversations along the way? You can choose that too. Required Mods No other mods are required except the latest version of Skyrim. Important Notes The quest is now over 82 stages in length. That is 82 days in game time to complete the quest. Version 3.0 contains many new stages, some enhanced, some pulled from the "Return to the Underdark" mod from Oblivion. If you played the original two mods for Oblivion you will notice some changes. Some dialog has been removed, some changed and a huge amount has been added. Amazing Follower Tweaks, Ultimate Follower Overhaul and other follower extenders are not supported by me and any questions about their use with Viconia will be directed to their authors. My test team and I have tested with these types of mods and have found no issues with them when testing version 4.0. If it doesn’t work with these mods it is simply not my problem. If it doesn’t work YOU are doing something wrong, your load order is messed up or you have a mod conflicting with it.    Versions before version 2.0 are no longer supported. Starting the Quest Upon starting the mod you should automatically receive a note in your inventory and a quest will begin to find Viconia DeVir. You can choose to do this at any time you wish. Upon reading the note you will be instructed where to find her. She is equipped with steel plate armor. If you give her armor it MUST be better than steel plate armor or she will not wear it. This is a limitation of Skyrim. Once you speak with her (“How did you get here?”) the first quest should end, the Find Viconia quest objective should complete and her romance quest will begin. At this point you can talk to her every 24 hours and have a unique conversation with her. The 24 hour wait was done to mimic the behavior of her romance in Baldur's Gate II. BOSS knows about Viconia.esp. Get the latest update and use it to sort your load order! Features - An epic romance quest with a female Drow. Any questions? If you are unfamiliar with Drow PLEASE look it up on wikipedia. - Viconia has an extensive list of flirtations to keep your travels more interesting and your relationship with Viconia more immersive. No other companion has this feature and it based off of one of the mods for Baldur's Gate II. - FAR better combat AI than the original mod. - You can now marry her as you can with the other stock companions. - You can now refuse the romance at stage 30 and Viconia will remain your companion. - As of version 3.0 the mod has been completely revoiced by Amber Lee Connors. Everything means all conversations, hello topics, goodbye topics, flirts, kill topics, etc. We’ve all been waiting a very long time for this, me especially. There have been many improvements over the original Oblivion mod like the unsheathing and sheathing of her weapon during combat is fixed. The AI in general is much improved. Viconia uses the stock companion logic built in by Bethesda yet will not interfere with any of the other stock companions. Viconia Standalone Version and Changing Appearance These versions have NOT been kept up to date and are old. Contact ChoChoFr for support of this. I have tried contacting him but have received no response. Viconia's Home Viconia's home is now Jorrvaskr, The Companions Lodge in Whiterun. If you get separated from her or take a different companion she will return there. Reset of her home is not yet supported but should be soon. Once you marry her you can set her home location to any home you own (but not custom homes). Load Order Use BOSS. Voice Actress Change As of version 3.0 the mod will be completely re-voiced by Amber Lee Connors. A sample of her work is up on YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OA4BRlIBQ0E Quest Flow After your initial meeting Viconia will talk to you once a day or every 24 hours when you activate her. She will no longer interrupt you. This is far better than the way it was done in Baldur's Gate II where it took multiple days between conversations. This is meant to keep the feel of the original game. This functionality now works FAR better than it ever did in Oblivion. As of version 3.0 she will no longer interrupt you when she talks to you. It is up to YOU to activate her first. Refusing Viconia’s Advances You can now refuse the romance at stage 30 and Viconia will remain your companion. If you refuse her advance you will still go through the quest but you will not get any of the romance conversations only friendly and informative dialog. IMPORTANT: For the friend thread to work you MUST go into the console (by pressing the ~ key) and enter the following command: Set aaviconiaromance to 0 This can be done at ANY time during the quest and it will save this setting when you save your game. Quest Targets Viconia has a quest target on her in case she gets lost. You can easily enable or disable this in your quest journal. After the Quests Once the romance quest is complete (and during it) you can use her as the standard companion you know and love. The flirts will always be available. The quest doesn’t actually end, the objective changes. If it ended she would simply stop following you. Leveling Viconia should level with the player from level 8 through 80. Spells Viconia comes with no spells. Combat AI Her lightning spell from the original mod has been removed. She will not turn invisible any longer. The sheathing and unsheathing of her weapon and combat is fixed. Horses Viconia no longer comes with a horse as it was causing too many problems, I see no reason to add it with the companion extensions that are available. There are companion mods recommended above that can add this feature to any companion. Death Viconia is set to essential, so when she gets knocked out she'll get back up in a few seconds, heal herself, and jump back in combat. If you don’t like this you can change it in the Creation Kit. Following Viconia no longer has the options to follow armed or follow casual. It was causing too many problems and breaking immersion. I may look into redoing this later. If you have multiple followers you are on your own. Combat Viconia will use any weapon you give to her or leave in her inventory whether it be close combat weapons or ranged weapons. You do not need to tell her to use one or the other. Her abilities match the length she has been in Tamriel. Flirting You can flirt with Viconia. There is no disposition system is used. The Flirt responses are based upon whether you have won her heart yet or not. There are many flirt options; smile at her, kiss her, etc and they have been expanded for this mod. Dialog Any dialog you see on the screen in parenthesis are not spoken lines. Viconia will respond vocally to all commands. She will only participate in conversation every 24 hours. Inventory You have full access to her inventory. You can load up Viconia with inventory and she’ll carry it if you get over- encumbered. She will not get over encumbered. Manual Installation I do not support NMM nor do I use it. This is the process of doing a manual install. 1. Install Skyrim! 2. Extract the rar file to your Desktop. 3. Open the rar file on your Desktop and locate the Data folder. 4. Copy the Data folder to your ..\Steam\steamapps\Common\Skyrim folder. 5. Start Skyrim. 6. Go to Data Files and select the Viconia.esp file. 7. Play! How To Do a Full Reload Sometimes updates require you to do a full reload of the mod. 1. Load your game with Viconia. 2. Transfer Viconia’s inventory back to you, save your game and say goodbye. Exit the game. 3. Extract the rar file to your Desktop. 4. Open the rar file on your Desktop and locate the Data folder. 5. Open your Skyrim folder at ..\Steam\steamapps\Common\ in another window. 6. Drag the Data folder from your Desktop into your Skyrim directory. 7. Start Skyrim. 8. Go to Data Files and DESELECT Viconia.esp. 9. Load your last save. Ignore and say Yes to the "This save relies on content no longer present." message. 10. Save and Quit. 11. Start Skyrim. 12. Go to Data Files and select Viconia.esp. 13. Load your last save and play! NMM Do not use NMM to install updates, it will remove all the previous required files. Marriage You can marry Viconia but there is no voicing for it. It ay be done at a later date. Known Bugs and Limitations Any known limitations or bugs are placed here as they are discovered. Currently there are only a few things which need mentioning. You have to go through the "How did you get here?" thread. After that ends she will begin conversations once every 24 hours. If you have ANY problem something is wrong with your install. • Using other stock followers with Viconia will not be supported by me. Use of follower extension mods is also not supported by me. See above sections for details on how to use these mods. • If Viconia turns you down when you first meet her you likely already have or had another companion and are not using one of the stock follower extender mods. You can solve this by doing the following in the console: set playerfollowercount to 0 • Viconia may or may not sit next to you. This was a known limitation in Oblivion because not all chairs were persistent references. I have not tested this issue in Skyrim. • Although you can summon Viconia into the Dark Brotherhood lair, I recommend against it. As soon as she appears there she will be attacked. • DO NOT change the name of the .esp file or any other .esp file for that matter. It will prevent her speech from working. Don’t screw around unless you know what you are doing. If you want to tweak the mod for your own purposes, that is fine but do not release it without our permission. • DO NOT change her race unless you are an advanced CK user. • If Skyrim crashes you are likely missing a required resource or have a corrupt download. • 2. Viconia may become hostile to other companions who are following you. This can happen even when you use UFO and tell her, "In combat, mistakes happen. Forgive and forget”. This seems to happen when another follower accidentally hits you in combat. There are only two workarounds we know of. • Let Viconia and the other follower fight until one of them falls (which may not be a good idea if that follower is non-essential). • Make sure you do not have other companions following you that can use AOE (Area of Effect) abilities/spells that can potentially hit you. Or, if at all possible, disable those abilities. • There is an issue with the marriage ceremony. See the Marriage section above for the work around. Debugging If you have any problems or get stuck at a specific stage there is a way to advance the quest. To find out where you are enter this in the console: getstage aaviconiaquest That will spit out the stage number you are currently at. All quest stage's next stage is one number apart so she doesn't repeat conversations. Let's say for some reason you can't get past stage 210 and it keeps repeating. Enter this in the console to advance the quest: Setstage aaviconiaquest 211 If you contact me with a problem I will likely ask you for this information. Another good debug command is this. Sqv aaviconiaquest Contact Info Email address for anything related to this mod: sulteric@charter.net Please put Viconia in the subject line, otherwise it may get ignored or deleted. Please contact me with any bugs or issues you find, so they may be corrected. If you are submitting an issue, please include as many details as humanly possible. What mods you are using and the load order can be important. Have fun with her. Feel free to let me know what you think of the mod. Suggestions and constructive criticism are welcome. FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) Q: Can you bring back the variants. A: No. ChoChoFr is no longer reponding to messages and it was his baby not mine. --- Q: UFO/AFT/EFF doesn't work. A: It works for others. Not my problem. --- Q: Can you do a custom marriage ceremony? A: No. Modding in Skyrim sucks huge donkey balls and this would incredibly hard. --- Q: I want her as a friend and I'm getting romance dialog. A: Stop flirting with her. Go into the console and enter: set aaviconiaromance to 0 --- Q: Her skin isn't dark enough. A: Drow are not black skinned. Go make your own Drow companion (and good luck). --- Q: A: NO. She is how she is. See above answer. --- Q: I'm at a stage that keeps repeating itself. A: See the debugging section above. You are likely using an OLD version. --- Q: Will you do Minsc/Jaheira/etc A: Likely no. The only other companion I plan on doing is Drizzt Do'Urden voiced by myself. Thanks This mod began with me wanting to bring back my favorite NPC of all time, Viconia DeVir from the Baldur’s Gate game series simply for my own purposes. I also wanted to introduce the idea of flirting, allowing you to interact romantically with a companion any time you want. This adds life to the companion so that they’re not just a robot. It allows more immersion even when the quests are done. Many thanks are in order here. I'd like to thank ChoChoFr and zzJay for all their help with Viconia’s appearance! I couldn’t have done it with you. A massive thank you to Tommod and Amber Lee Connor for contacting me about re-voicing the mod. This was a Herculean effort that I’ve been waiting literally years for. Disclaimer This mod has been tested thoroughly and I have gone through great lengths to make sure it shouldn't have any conflicts with any other mods or break the game in any way. Use it and other mods at your own risk because if it screws up your game, quite honestly there isn't a thing I can do about it. I would suggest keeping a unique save prior to using this mod, just in case. None of this can be used or translated without my explicit permission. Permission was granted by the owners of BG2 to port the original mod and likeness. No profit was or will be made from this work but you can feel free to shower me with graft. 8-) I will not respond to comments like "Can you make Viconia darker?". Drow were created by AD&D and in that realm the Drow are NOT very dark skinned. We have matched Viconia to appear as close as we can to her Baldur's Gate II appearance. If you want to break AD&D lore and make her darker it is up to YOU to do it, not us. We simply cannot support variants. It exponentially increases our work load. This mod has been used and tested by thousands of people. It works for 99.9% of us. If it is not working for you it's either a corrupt download, a mistake in installation, a load order issue or a mod conflict. I try and respond to as many people having issues as I can but I cannot get to everyone. Go through the comments section of her TesNexus page. Someone may have run into your problem before and has solved it. Credits Voicing: Amber Lee Connors, AI Engine: Bethesda Softworks, Vamyan, Writing: Black Isle and Sulteric Drums, Development: Sulteric Drums, Appearance: ChoChoFr Other Everyone on the Bethsoft, TesNexus, TESAlliance forums who gave me encouragement and suggestions. Thanks to Arthmoor, BigDaddy, and Alex Velicky for their help.