Jarl.

Elk.

2 hardcore 4 me.

Jarl.

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Immersion

updated December 24th, 2022

Immersion is one of those little things that makes the world feel like it's not just an empty husk. I mean, it's still pretty empty but this guide will alleviate the boredom... or pain. These mods can range from big content packs, to smaller tweaks. Please note that most mods with the word "Immersive" in the title are most likely created by a dumbass who's just trying to advertise his mod to other dumbasses.

NOTE: IF YOU RUN WRYE BASH AND IT COMPLAINS ABOUT "OLD/OUTDATED" FILES, AND SHOWS YOU A MOD ".ESP", THAT MEANS THAT MOD HASN'T BEEN PORTED PROPERLY, OR IS A LEGENDARY EDITION MOD, IF SO, YOU NEED TO UPDATE THAT SHIT YOURSELF, AND GIVE THE MOD AUTHOR A STERN TALKING-TO.

Just follow the tutorial mentioned on the "Essential(link)" page to update the mod yourself, skip everything, and just re-save the ".esp" on the Creation Kit.

In this section, we will discuss:

-Alternate Starts

-Audio and Music, these might link to Legendary Edition pages, but since they're just sound files, they work fine.

-Immersive Overhauls

-Backpacks and Gear

-Roleplaying Elements

-Nature and Weather

-Animations

-Miscellaneous Immersion mods

Alternate Starts

Dont you hate it when you want to make a new character but you have to go all the way through Helgen? Well with these two mods, you can totally forget about Helgen and even forget about becoming the Dragonborn too! USE ONLY ONE AT A TIME.

Realm of Lorkhan - Freeform Alternate Start

Starts the player in an alternate realm, rather than the default execution scene opening.

Here, they can obtain items; a birth sign; optional boons, curses, and classes; smith starting gear; and choose a location to start the game. Gorgeous visuals, and limitless possibilities for adventure and exploration.

Alternate Perspective

Rewrite & Framework for the Vanilla Intro. Experience Helgens Destruction from a POV different than the Prisoners!

Skyrim Unbound

Skyrim Unbound is an alternate start mod with a wide range of options. It allows the player to skip the opening sequence, choose whether or not to play as the Dragonborn, and have total control over dragon spawns. The first few chapters of the main questline have been bypassed (and effectively removed), meaning you no longer have to obtain the Dragonstone for Farengar or defeat Mirmulnir for the Jarl of Whiterun. If you do wish to play as the Dragonborn and complete the main quest, all you have to do is absorb a dragon soul and you'll be summoned to High Hrothgar by the Greybeards.

Opening Scene Overhaul

Don't want to use any of the alternative starts and wanna stick with the original start? Well, today's your lucky day, because this mod rejuvenates and overhauls the opening scene by restoring LOTS of cut, unused dialogue, including a more invigorating carriage scene, escaping the Keep with Ulfric and Elenwen confronting General Tullius. This actually works with a modded Skyrim.

Atmosphere and Magic

You might not think that audio plays a big role in immersion, but it actually does. Walking through a forest with the sounds of nature and light hearted fantasy music in the wind makes you feel right at home in a game like this. Also because listening to the song, Under an Ancient Sun, can get tiresome and repetitive for some people. A good change of music can make a big difference in how you want your game to feel like!

Chapter II - Jeremy Soule Inspired Music My go to music mod with lots of music made to mimic Jeremy Soule	Acoustic Space Improvement Fixes Audiophile tweaks for the games sounds system	Fantasy Soundtrack Project Fantasy Soundtrack Project provides 800+ minutes (12+ hours) of new music for TESV: Skyirm. 235+ orchestral and instrumental fantasy/epic music tracks for exploring, towns, taverns and castles.
Glory Days - Music Of Skyrim Replaces all of the vanilla and DLC music tracks with some brand new ones, mostly from Vindsvept.	Realistic Conversations Makes NPCs talk to each other more often, makes them greet you less often, fixes the pause between lines, overall makes npcs more dynamic.	Skeletons of Daggerfall Brings back the crazy sounding screams skeletons made from Daggerfall and adds them back into Skyrim.
Morrowindic Sneak Attack Changes the sneak attack and critical hit sounds from Skyrim and replaces them with their Morrowind counterparts.	Immersive Sounds - Compendium Immersive Sounds - Compendium is an all-in-one package of all my previously released modules in the series. Together they drastically alter the sound and atmosphere of Skyrim. It is the culmination of almost a year of work since June 2013. It's more than a mere sound replacer. It is just as much of a sound expansion, altering and adding to the systems behind Skyrim's sound playback to create a richer and more varied experience. A mod that's not required but is eager to be tried!	Ultra Realistic Crossbow Shoot Sound Replaces the "THUNDER" like crossbow sounds and replaces them with some pretty realistic sounding crossbow noises. This ONLY replaces the crossbow shooting sounds and not the reloading and impact noises.
Real Arrow SFX A highly exaggerated but great sounding archery sound replacer. It comes with Pull, Fire, and Impact sounds. DO NOT add the impact sounds, they are really bad.	Personalized Music The most popular and most commonly used music overhaul. This mod allows you to add your own music to the game. It also comes with extra features so that you can truely customize where a song can be played. You want jazz to play in dungeons only? Sure! Heavy metal at early mornings? You can do that too!	Better Horse Pain Sounds I don't know about you, but the horse noises in Skyrim are ear shattering. Even the simplest of pain noise sounds like the horse is getting castrated. This mod just says "goodbye castration noises, hello normal horse sounds".
Sounds of Skyrim Originally a horribly bloat-inducing mod, Sounds of Skyrim was fixed up a little while back. It adds ambient noises to dungeons, wilderness, and towns, making things feel more lively It is still marked possibly unstable, due to the scripts being possibly intensive for low-end computers. Possibly...	Bards Sing Rarely Makes bards sing less frequently.	True 3D Sound for Headphones Don't know why I hadn't added it before, I use this. A .dll that adds true 3D directional sound to the game. Makes a hell of a difference when using headphones.

Overhauls

To make a mod good, sometimes you have to rework a certain aspect of the game. Adding new features while still keeping the game stable and fit with the rest of the original work. Here are a few overhaul mods that add brand new features to the game that will change your experience of Skyrim as you know it now.

However, only use these mods on light loads as they are script heavy and impact your game.

Follower Death and Injury Chance - Followers Can Die Chance of death/injury for followers. Best used with mods that add a lot of followers like 3DNPCs.	Shadow of Skyrim - Nemesis and Alternative Death System A mod aiming to add a nemesis and alternate death system similar to Shadow of Mordor. Now Defeat is a valid playstyle	Last Seed - Primary Needs Wellness Disease Chesko's swan song. Finished by fans and brought over to SE! Pairs best with Frostfall and Campfire!
Campsite A simple, intuitive camping mod for Skyrim. Build a campfire and pitch a tent, using only existing items with no spells/powers added.	SunHelm Survival and needs SunHelm is an all in one survival and needs mod. It includes many features such as Hunger, Thirst, Fatigue, and even hypothermia mechanics all while attempting to stay as streamlined as possible.	Frostfall - Hypothermia Camping Survival The ultimate survival overhaul mod. This mod adds new weather mechanics that make you feel like your actually in a frigid landscape. You can't go around wearing skimpy armors in the middle of a snowstorm anymore and expect to live. Now you have to wear weather appropriate gear and make a campsite to sleep or wait for time to pass by.
Campfire - Complete Camping System Campfire is the most feature-rich stand-alone camping mod for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. It was created from Frostfall 2.6's unique, immersive camping system. Now, you can enjoy an unparalleled camping experience in conjunction with some of your other favorite survival and immersion mods.	Vitality Mode Basic needs are a common target for mods, since food and drink in the vanilla game are utterly useless, and sleeping is only marginally beneficial for skill increase bonuses. This mod gives these game mechanics a bit more weight, but without introducing a survival mini-game where one needs to keep large stores of food and drink in one's inventory, or stay near an inn to sleep every handful of hours.	Run For Your Lives I'd run straight to my house if I saw dragons attacking my town. Hell, that would be anyone's reaction! This mod makes NPCs go inside buildings during random attack events, allowing them to not be killed by random assholes.

Backpacks and Gear

Any immersion nut knows that to make an immersive character, you have to wear a bunch of random shit on yourself! Backpacks, capes, potions, books, hoods, torches, etc. are all viable options to make your character look like a person who actually lives in the frigid lands of Skyrim. However, this list is mostly just backpacks because I fucking love backpacks.

SC - Unsainted Original unisex accessories	HDT-SMP Traveler's Backpack Backpack with HDT-SMP physics. Also available as static (non-HDT).	Simple Leather Backpack Mod adds a craftable backpack to the game, with three variants in two different colours.
Equippable Tomes - Belt-Worn Books Equippable Tomes is a mod that adds books that can be worn on the belt to increase the damage of your spells. Unenchanted tomes for you to enchant yourself are included as well, in case you just want to wear some books on your belt and don't want to increase spell damage.	Cloaks of Skyrim A pretty old mod, but still a great one. This mod adds an array of cloaks and capes to NPCs, leveled lists, and to the crafting menu. Also get the compatibility fix for the Unofficial Skyrim Patch: http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/56922/?t	Bandolier - Bags and Pouches If you didn't read the image, it says that this mod adds bandoliers, bags, and pouches that you can craft and wear. You can also get optional files that adds these accessories to NPCs. Also, get the newest retextures for them too http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/65896/?
Hip Bags They're like backpacks but for your HIPS.	Leather Backpack Leather backpacks that have a variety of different options like colors and straps, but also has carry capacity options as well.	Mead Keg Backpack For mead lovers and party goers! Share your sweet mead with your companions on the go or hog it all for yourself!
Knapsack Backpacks You see all those backpacks lying around Skyrim that you can't pick up? This mods add variants that you can actually equip and use.	Equip-able Maps Adds a physical map that your character can wield in Skyrim. It doesn't really do anything, it's just for show.	Winter is Coming Just like cloaks of Skyrim, this mod adds cloaks to NPCs, leveled lists, and to the crafting menu. However, these cloaks are fur and more oriented to the cold. It also comes with hoods that match the fur cloaks and is compatible with Frostfall to keep you warmer.
Telescope Adds a craftable telescope that you can equip. Unlike the equipable map, this one actually works! You can zoom in and out and look at in all directions! It just works!	Bandanas Adds Rambo style bandanas to the game. You can craft them at tanning racks and they come in dozens of colors!	Blindfolds Just like the Bandanas, you can craft these at tanning racks and they come in dozens of colors! They also come in three different styles; a full blindfold, and a half blindfold for each eye.
Face Masks This mod adds craftable face makes to the game. They come in two versions, with and without a neck scarf, and 8 different colors for each.	Divine Cloaks Want to represent your chosen Divine? Why not show the world who you worship! Perfect for those Paladin, Warrior Cleric types.	Daedric Cloaks Cloaks for each of the seventeen daedric princes. (And one for Sithis, because why not?)
Blanket Scarf Earth Tones Edition - Adds poncho like scarves to Skyrim. Something for every type of player.	BlanketScarfSE More blanket scarves.

Roleplaying Elements

Do you want to RP in a single player game? Well my friend that sounds kind of dumb, but we can at least help you out with some very unique mods.

Auto Move Makes your auto move key make your player auto move to your custom marker! Very nice for those wanting a automatic form of fast travel other than Touring Carriages.	Tamrielic Names Adds lore friend names to generic NPCs without the use of any scripts!	Perseids Inns and Taverns - Realistic Room Rental Enhanced ONLY GRAB THE BASIC VERSION. Adds more expensive hotel rooms.
Art of the Catch The original paid mod that was partially responsible for the whole project being cancelled. Now on SE and still better than the CC fishing!	C.O.I.N. - Coins of Interesting Natures A lite Coin variety mod for the happiest of merchants!	Sensible Bribes - Based on Speechcraft Not Level Makes skillchecks based on Speech and not the player's level. Now the Riften Guard's extortion is an actual threat!
NPCs Wear Amulets of Mara PLUS Roleplay as Chad Thundercock and have women at your knees, begging to marry you!	Immersive Rejections Roleplay as Saint Elliot the Scorned and get rejected by everything with a pulse in Skyrim!	Skyrim's Got Talent - Improve As a Bard The best bard mod! Grab an instrument and start learning to play today!
Transportato Real Time Trains and Ships Similar to Traveling Carriages, this adds ships and trains that can be seen traveling around Skyrim. Makes the world feel so much more alive!	College of Winterhold - Quest Expansion Overhauls the College of Winterhold's start to be less shitty and actually allow the player to learn some magic!	Thieves Guild Requirements SE Overhauls the Thieves guide quests to not allow Hogruff Fatcock to join due to his fat cock altering the guards. Also overhauls several other aspects of the questline!
Choose Your Own Arch-Mage Why should the Psijic Order decide who should become the new Arch-Mage? It should be the choice of the current Arch-Mage. Unfortunately for Winterhold, that's you.	Wintersun - Faiths of Skyrim Wintersun adds religion and worship. Pray, worship at shrines and follow the tenets of your deity to strengthen your bond with the deity and eventually reward you with divine strength. In addition to the divines and daedric princes, the mod adds many other deities from Elder Scrolls lore with their own shrines.	Time Flies SE An alternative to Living Takes time. Make game time pass when performing actions like crafting, reading, eating, building campfires, Hearthfire home construction. etc.. Time Flies is a modified version of Living Takes TIme with Hearthfire, Campfire (Frostfall), iNeed and Honed Metal support, also a "framework" to help you adding support for other mods.
YOT - Your Own Thoughts This mod basically changes most(if not all) of the second person messages and texts in game and makes them 1st person.	Hunting in Skyrim - A Hunting Guild The Hunters of Skyrim is a new guild offering services to the people of the land such as contracts and hunting assignments. The story is currently work in progress and serves as a starting point, but many of the important features are already in place.	Critters Ain't Snitches SNITCHES GET STITCHES.
Your Market Stall Now you too can become a merchant and sell random items to random people in random towns and cities!	Alternate Conversation Camera Automatically switch to first person and third person view when talking. You can customize this with MCM to change FOV and zoom speed. It's basically like the Oblivion talk screen except the world is still moving.	Take Notes - Journal of the Dragonborn Take Notes! adds a new player journal (a SkyUI widget) to the game which lets you create, view and export your own journal entries.
Simply Knock Simply Knock is the first feature-complete mod that allows you to knock on locked doors of houses in Skyrim. If anyone is home, they will answer the door! You can then flex your speechcraft skills in order to get them to allow you inside. If someone inside is a friend, they will always permit you to enter.	Hunterborn A total hunting overhaul! This a very customizable mod that changes how hunting works and actually makes it worth your time. You can skin animals like in Far Cry 3 and you can even track your hunting stats like how much of a certain animal you killed or how many you've skinned. Honest work for honest gold.	Touring Carriages Adds carriages that ride around Skyrim. You can ride on them as well as watch NPCs ride them.
One With Nature - Dynamic Animals and Creatures One With Nature is a mod designed to give the player control over how certain animals and creatures react to their character without altering their original AI or faction relationships. When you open the MCM, you will find a list of dropdown menus for a variety of NPC groups. Each menu offers five reaction settings: Vanilla, Allied, Friendly, Cowardly, and Defensive. Depending on your play style, you can apply different reaction settings to different NPC groups.	Improved Camera (BETA) REJOICE, our time is upon us! For a while now there was a unofficial backport of Enhanced Camera for SE floating the pages on Reddit, but it was very buggy and updates were scarce, however a kind soul has taken upon him to update the mod and make it work as good as, if not better, than Enhanced Camera for LE. While the mod is still in BETA it works very well and the author says it'll be ready for mass release in about a month (written July 31st 2019)	Immersive First Person View comes bundled with .NET Script Framework, which is a really nice crash log report A SECOND option on the "look down to see tits" category, IFPV works kind of wonky at the moment, but its being maintained by the same person that is updating Improved Camera, so updates might be quite frequent apparently. Between this and Improved Camera is just personal taste at the moment, try both and decide. Not at the same time obviously. You're not dumb are you? Are you?
Joy of Perspective (don't use this, there're better alternatives available now, see Improved Camera and IFPV) So... uh... the author of Enhanced Camera said he won't release it for SE... He'll work on making JoP work... cuz it may work with Xbox too... BRUH, JUST RELEASE ENHANCED CAMERA.	Player Size Adjuster This mod allows you to change your height and camera height in MCM. So now you can switch from first to third person without any weird screen height differences anymore! You can also edit how much you grow when you transform into a vampire or werewolf AND how fast you move at your current size.	No more Radial Blur No Blur. Removes that awful blur and eye adaption effect that every Triple-A dev somehow thinks is good.
Khajiit Speak - Complete Dialogue Overhaul Recommended for any Khajiit players. This mod changes all the player dialogue options into khajiit speak. So instead of saying "I hate Nazeem", your character will say "This one dislikes the one called Nazeem".	Multiple Adoptions Want to have a family? Want to have a BIG Family? Well, here you go, you can now adopt more than 2 kids. What is this China? The Dovahkiin isn't bound by law, let them have many kids.	My Home is Your Home Hate having to find your friends back where they originally were? How about you tell them that they now live where you tell them to.
Improved Adoptions This mod brings life into your family as they actually do shit instead of sticking around the house like bums. Why remind ourselves of our Dad's feelings about us? Adds a spell that allows you to tell your kids to shut the hell up.

Nature and Weather

It's the small things that you admire in a vast game like this. Usually when you want to get immersed into something, you take it slowly and observe all the hidden elements it has to offer. Mods are no different.

Northern Roads Compatibility nightmare and location mod of the year. Adds new bridges and new road assets to the entire main roads of Skyrim. If used place very low in your load order!!!	Khajiit Has Wares - A Caravan Camp Overhaul Overhauls the Khajiit Caravan locations to add more flair to visiting the mini settlements.	After the Civil War - Siege Damage Repairs Fixes the damages after each civil war battle so your solitude isn't covered in garbage a decade after you did the quest.
Skyrim Realistic Conquering When you clear certain locations in game they will be taken over by the local authorities and transformed thanks to your actions! Works with Lawbringing and other similar mods!	The Stumbling Sabrecat Adds a cute tavern after you clear Fort Dunstad	Lawbringer Claim radiant locations for various factions. Has a lot of addons and compatibility with other similar mods
Siberpunk's Environs Series A series of mods adding dynamically changing locations based on events in various quests. Ruined Tundra house is particularly good for those playing the quest mod Vigilant.	Rainmaker - For Pluviophiles in Skyrim Rainmaker offers an immersive way to make it rain, for the sake of Pluviophiles in Skyrim. You will also gain several perks which makes you brisk and comfortable in the rain as you progress as a Rainmaker.	Seasons of Skyrim SKSE A framework for adding seasonal changes to Skyrim!
Turn of the Seasons Properly integrates the seasons of Skyrim!	Nocturnal Moths LAMP! LAMP!	Seasonal Wildlife Distribution Changes when different animals are more or less active during various seasons!
Seasonal Alchemy Varies what can and can't grow during different seasons.	The Blackest Reaches Overhauls the Dwemer underground cavern into a true spectacle!	Depths of Skyrim Adds new things to find in the oceans!
Lux Via A mod that adds a ton of new sights to see on the roads of Skyrim. Extremely compatible! Basically Point the Way but way better!	s6o6t LORE - Oblivion gates Adds the titular Oblivion gates from everyone's favorite game: Morrowblivion!	s6o6t LORE - Dark Anchors Ruins and Dolmens Adds some daedric ruins to Skyrim. Allegedly from some game called Elder Scrolls Online. But to quote M'aiq "M'aiq prefers to adventure alone. Others just get in the way. And they talk, talk, talk"
Cultured Orc Furniture Custom furniture for orc strongholds	R.A.S.S "R.A.S.S." adds visual effects to the Player and NPCs during certain conditions.	Splashes Of Skyrim SKSE plugin that adds projectile based water splashes and ripples, and underwater explosions.
Waterplants Make your rivers and lakes more immersive, by adding realistic waterplants and watergrass/kelps to your game! Updated, with better realistic plants' textures.	The Marshlands Transforms much of the hjaalmarch march area into an immersive and claustrophobic flooded forest, particularly around movarth's lair and the abandoned shack near morthal. Disclaimer: unfinished cells	Vivid Weathers Vivid Weathers is the biggest Weather and Visual Overhaul for Skyrim It overhauls all the Skyrim Weathers and imagespaces as well as add a whole bunch of new Weathers (500+) and effects (Snowstorms, blizzards, thick fog, distant fogs, distant rain, particle snowflakes...)
Dolomite Weathers NLVA II. Lightweight, simulates plant subsurface scattering.	Obsidian Weathers and Seasons Colab work from the dudes that made Rustic Weathers and NLVA. Lightweight as fuck, simulates Seasons with screen overlays, customizable using a power added to the game.	Wearable Lanterns Hate to use torches? Now you can equip a lantern on yourself like in the game Dragon's Dogma! The light actually emanates from the lantern, so you can use 2 handed weapons and ranged weapons and actually see what you're doing in the dark.
Ducks and Swans for Skyrim Adds ducks and swans to lakes and ponds. They swim around and act like waterfowl, what do you expect?	More Village Animals You're on a farm, right? And you see 2 cows and 1 chicken. How the hell is that farm still running? This mod throws that question away and adds a decent amount of farm animals around Skyrim.	Wonders of Weather A new modpack which combines Splash of Rain, Rainbows, and Shooting Stars mods! Splash of rain adds more ambient rain noises and rain splashses, Rainbows adds rainbow,s and Shooting Stars add to the sky at night time. All of these mods are purely aesthetic and are here for your viewing and hearing pleasure!
True Storms Makes storms MUCH MUCH MUCH better. Instead of a light shower, you get heavy rainfall with tons of new thunder sound effects.	Smoking Torches and Candles Smoke comes out of torches now. You'd think this would be in the vanilla game and not a mod...

Animations

These are mods that make you and the inhabitants of Skyrim not move like robots all the time. Note: All of these mods require FNIS to work which you should have already installed into your game already. Many of these mods conflict with eachother since they are animation packs so please don't try to mix match animations of the same weapon with another. IE: Trying to mix

YY Anim Replacer - Zweihander with Enhanced Animation's two hander animations.

Dynamic Collision Adjustment You can now crouch under objects immersively	Draugr Spear Animation Draugr Spear Animation	Reanimated NPC Animations New Animations for Reanimated NPCs. Make them act more soulless.
Taunt Your Enemies - Taunting Matters Taunt your enemies for a small stat increase!	Conditional Dog Barking (DAR) Adds animations to your dog when they talk to you!	Lively cart driver animation replacer Adds animations to the cart driver so he's less stiff!
Lively Children Animations (DAR) Makes kids childish: adds more than 10 idles and 10 dialogue gestures and other animations variants + secret bonus animation specifically to children. No esp/esl plugin - just Dynamic Animation Replacer folders. Safe to install or delete mid-playthrough - try and see for yourself!	Drunk Sinking Head Idle Fix SE This simply fixes the horrible drunk sinking head idle. There's no .esp just two idle replacers.	Immersive Interactions - Animated Actions See your character perform context-aware animations when interacting with the world. Animated greeting of NPCs, pickpocketing, lockpicking, and more!
Animated Eating Redux SE edition Definitive animated eating mod. works on NPCs and the player	Dragon Animation Replace Now this is a bit different. This mod replaces several of the dragon animations so that they look less hunched over all the time.	Animations Adds animations for looting containers and corpses, harvesting plants, lockpicking doors and chests, opening doors, activating levers, drinking and eating potions and food and equipping armor. It's as simple as that!
No Spinning Death Animation Simply removes the spinning around dance animation that they do before death, they will now just ragdoll when killed. Works for normal deaths and dying from a high fall. It will not affect killmoves.	YY Anim Replacer - Mystic Knight This mod replaces one-handed sword and magic animations. Designed to fit a character with a sword in one hand, a magic in the other, such as Spellsword, Battle Mage or Mystic Knight, or pure Mage.	Pretty Combat Animations A collection of several different idle animations for weapons and magic. Some of them will look weird with other animations.
Pretty Female Idles SSE Adds a bunch of idle options for females.	Pretty Sit Idles Just like Pretty Combat Idles, this mod is a collection of animations that you can switch between. This mod just changes the default character sit idle. There's a bunch of strange ones you can choose from like crouched on a chair, leaning, and even this weird prayer float.	Immersive Animations Replaces old animations with new one's that look less robotic and better looking than the original animations. This also includes multiple options and fixes.
Blocking Animation Pack SSE Blocking animation replacer for two-handed, one-handed. Works both in first person and third person view.	Phalanx Stance As the title says, replaces the shield block animation to a Phalanx Stance.

Miscellaneous

Mods that don't fit into any of these previous sections. I honestly don't know where to put them, but here they are!

Bond of Matrimony (Wedding Band Enhancement - Left Hand Rings) Married NPCs now wear wedding bands	More Thalmor Dossiers New lore text for lore NERDS	Rain Extinguishes Fires "Hey, if we're underwater, how could there be a..." - Sun Tzu the Art of War
Clouds in the Cloud District Shouldn't the Cloud District have clouds?	Lines Expansion Series Tired of hearing the same lines over and over again? This series of mods adds new lines for the Civil War factions, Forsworn, Thalmor and Bandits to make the world feel a little less generic!	Tamrielic Distribution Adds a bunch of items to the leveled list, mostly from Beyond Skyrim.
Riverwood Trader Is A Mess Makes the Riverwood Trader actually look like it just got sacked by bandits! You can even help clean it up after you get the claw back	Store Entrance Doorbells Adds doorbells that jingle when you enter a shop. Stupid and yet immersive!	Bosmeri Cuisine Bosmer food and drinks.
Dynamic Mercenary Fees Makes mercenaries ask for more or less money depending on your level and race.	Tavern band and music Only grab the tavern band in riften by Jayserpa! Adds a cat band in Riften that will play various meme songs!	Better Third Person Selection - BTPS SKSE DLL to overhaul 3rd person object selection. Rewrites Skyrim's crosshair selection to work more like true 3rd person RPGs - no more spending 5 minutes picking up tiny gold coins from the ground!
Eastern Dwemer Towers of Solstheim Adds Morrowind styled towers to Solstheim's dwarven ruins, and gives Falbtharz the Solstheim kit on the outside, rather than just the inside.	Soaking Wet - Character Wetness Effect A SKSE64 plugin that makes characters and their gear appear wet when in water. Works on player and NPCs with seamless soak/dry transitions and adjustable shine level.	Oxygen Meter SKSE plugin that adds an oxygen meter, when underwater
Simple Block Sparks- Script Free SKSE plugin that spawns sparks effect on weapon/shield while block attack, visual effect only.	Cuyi's Bosmeri Antlers - SSE Adds five variations of antlers as either circlets or scars.	Sleeping Expanded - Animations and NPC reactions Ever noticed how NPCs don't react at all to being woken up in the middle of the night? Or how characters stop breathing while they sleep? Or... how it takes them YEARS to get in and out of bed? Well, no more! WAKE UP, JARL BALGRUUF!!!!!!! Sleeping Expanded is here!!!!
Skyrim at War Improves the Civil War by adding over 200+ Civil War patrols that march throughout Skyrim along with new Civil War units, proper marching/battle formations, tactical retreats, and the ability for the Player to command up to 78 soldiers. Full of exciting, action packed, challenging, tactical, stressful, and unpredictable battles/experiences.	At Your Own Pace The mod is an overhaul of Skyrim questlines, designed provide the player breaks at each stage.	Timing is Everything SE Allows you to customize the starting conditions for various quests. You can choose to delay the start of Dragonborn, Dawnguard, or Hearthfire quests, as well as other quest events. You can also reduce the level requirements to allow a quest to begin earlier than it normally would.
The Choice is Yours Stop quests from starting automatically. Pursue the quests you want, ignore the ones you don't. Make your choices matter.	Immersive World Encounters. FINAL SE First released in 2018, Immersive World Encounters has been developped by SetteLisette with a goal to diversify your exploration in Skyrim by adding roughly 100 new random events and new quests.	Guard Dialogue Overhaul SE More Dialogue, More Realism, More Respect. This Mod alters the Guard Dialogue, changing it from something that breaks your immersion in the world of Skyrim to something that actually increases it. All in the original voices and Fully compliant with Skyrim Lore.
More to Say You have more to say. NPCs have more to say. This mod adds miscellaneous inconsequential dialogue to existing NPCs.	More Dialogue Options This mod adds dialogue options in a simple and immersive way to improve various conversations in the vanilla game. The responses are all voiced by using the original voice files of the game. The new options are meant to feel like they should have been in the game all along.	Misc Dialogue Edits This mod improves dialogue that other mods don't, contributing to make conversations in Skyrim as plausible and immersive as possible, while taking compatibility into account. Everything here is intended to feel like it could have been part of the vanilla game all along, but it also supports alternate start mods.
Skyrim Reputation - Fixed and Patched Unofficial continuation of dcyren's fantastic Skyrim Reputation mod. Fixes typos and oddities in the new dialogue introduced. Also includes patches for EnaiSiaion's Growl, Sacrilege, and Sacrosanct mods.	Denizens of Morthal - Dialogue and Character Expander Uses carefully spliced and re-purposed dialogue to allow the citizens of Morthal to interact with each another. Along with giving more immersive schedules to the inhabitants, it also expands the skills and backstories of Benor, Eisa Blackthorn, Valdimar and Erandur.	AI Overhaul SSE Changes many of the Vanilla NPCs AI to act more realistic and immersive.
Outlander UI Modern minimal-fantasy UI skin with a focus on visibility and clarity.	Whiterun Watchtower Doesn't Start Broken Whiterun Watchtower Doesn't Start Broken	Skyrim at War Improves the Civil War by adding over 200+ Civil War patrols that march throughout Skyrim along with new Civil War units, proper marching/battle formations, tactical retreats, and the ability for the Player to command up to 24 soldiers. Full of exciting, action packed, challenging, tactical, stressful, and unpredictable battles/experiences.
Followers Go On A Trip Allows you to send of followers or other NPCs on trips. Optionally do bounties as well with toggleable risk of being captured on failure.	Sharpen Other Swords Instead of always sharpening an iron sword, sharpen other swords based on your inventory	Animated Forge Water A mesh only animated forge water replacer with refraction. No ESP.
Smart NPC Potions - Enemies Use Potions and Poisons Why is the Dragonborn the only sensible person carrying at least a couple of health/stamina potions in Skyrim? This mod makes it so enemies sometimes carry and use a couple of potions and poisons just like you do. This will make fights fairer, more unpredictable and harder. Compatible with everything and customizable via MCM.	A Change in Managment This mod seamlessly makes Brynjolf Guild Master of the Thieves Guild. Mod includes remastered audio files, edited quest messages and objectives, and ensures all subtitles are updated with the new dialog.	Talkative Dragons Ever found it weird that dragons, fully sapient beings, have never spoken a word while you’re doing your best trying to defeat them? This mod changes that.
SmoothCam SmoothCam is a highly configurable third-person camera, with smooth frame-interpolation and a raycasting crosshair to help you aim.	Extended Encounters Extended Encounters is a simple mod that adds to the pool of random roadside, wilderness and location encounters in a way that makes the world seem a bit more dynamic and alive without negatively affecting game performance or bloating your save file.	The Elder Scrolls Legends - Loading Scre Adds 56 high quality and lore friendly artworks from "The Elder Scrolls: Legends" as loading screens. Works as a vanilla replacer and alongside vanilla loading screens.
Werewolf Howl Adjustment Conditions the howl animation for werewolves to trigger only during a transformation. DAR required.	Facelight Plus SE A simple mod to add extra functionality to Face Light. MCM, auto toggle on sneak, conversation facelight and more!	Dirt and Blood - Dynamic Visual Effects. Your character will accumulate dirt and blood dynamically, which you can clean by swimming, standing in the rain or taking a bath. The effects are mostly visual only and do not affect gameplay. NPCs will also get bloody as a result of battles. Mod is designed to be simple and lightweight.
Pipes Yo LotR style longpipes.	Farmhouse Chimneys This mod adds chimneys to farmhouses that have fireplaces inside. It includes smoke effects for the chimneys, and snow shaders where applicable.	Ashlander Camp New Zainab New Zainab is a reconstruction of the remote Ashlander camps found in the wastelands of Morrowind. New Zainab is located in Eastmarch, south of Windhelm, in the marshy areas found there. Much care has been taken to recreate the feeling and atmosphere of the Ashlander camps from Morrowind.
Camp Argentum Well detailed Imperial Camp set in Whiterun Hold.	Camp Varglya Well detailed Stormcloak camp set in Whiterun Hold.	Immersive Movement Movement speed has been configured to a much more fluid and realistic rate. No more walking like a turtle! No more jogging like a gazelle! No more sprinting like an olympic sprinter! No more skating when sneak running!
Ophelia Accessories This mod contains several wreaths for vanilla/default races (for females and males) and for all replacers. In all, there are 22 decorations for different hair types.	Amulets of Skyrim This mod adds over 230 new amulets (and a few rings) to Skyrim and gives these amulets to some named NPCs. Most of amulets are placed at several locations and some amulets are sold by Amulet merchant who is in the Ragged Flagon. Ulfric Stormcloak and General Tullius have their own unique amulet.	Skaal Kid Aeta Coat Amongst the Skaal is a single token child, a girl named Aeta. You may have noticed her by the fact that she is conspicuously gabred in generic kid clothes while everyone else has skaal parkas. Not only is this kinda jarring, it is also a bit immersion-breaking because it's FREAKIN' COLD in the Skaal Village and the generic girl outfit is not very warm-looking. This mod rectifies this by introducing a kid-sized Skaal parka for her to wear.
PC Head Tracking and Voice Type note, has been a while since I've personally used this mod, might be better now, check mod page and see if there are any bug reports before downloading WARNING, BUGGY AS FUCK, MAY CRASH AND BURN YOUR GAME. Only "detection type: Crosshair" or it WILL crash your game.	Book Covers Skyrim Tired of every book looking the same? Book Covers Skyrim replaces almost every book and gives them custom textures so you want have to read the same imperial symbol book ever again!	Book Covers Skyrim - Lost Library Also check out Book Covers Skyrim - Lost Library which adds even more books from previous games with their own custom textures!
Unlimited Bookshelves With the updated bookshelf script written by da5id2701, now up to 128 books or other objects can be stored on any bookshelves using the vanilla bookshelf activator, allowing for much more storage of books in library rooms or various other displays.	Dead Body Collision Fix Makes dead bodies collide with objects and each other, allowing you to finally stand on top of that dragon corpse. It isn't actually unstable, but if you stand on a body, you are at risk for the thing flipping out and killing you from collision damage.	No Essential Npcs Allows you to kill all npcs that aren't quest protected.
Unique Region Names Ever wonder why everytime you leave a dungeon or cave it says "To Skyrim"? I mean where else would you be? This mod changes these messages to the appropriate names of the region you are in to sooth your autism.	Even Better Quest Objectives This mod reworks dialogue for quest objectives, making them far more descriptive. Mainly for those who don't want to use quest markers.	Animated Dwemer Lift Load Doors Instead of just being sent to a loading screen when pulling on a dwemer lift lever, a small animation starts and now the lift actually moves and goes down. It doesn't actually work like a real lift, but it gives the player the impression that the lift is actually doing something.
Animated clutter This mod adds opening/closing and idle animations to several objects that should have had them in the first place like bags and secret hatches.

FAQ

Q: Why isn't this or that mod in the guide?

A: Some mods haven't been officially ported to Special Edition yet, if a mod you like isn't listed, try converting it yourself.

Q: Why isn't Cliamtes of Tamriel in this guide?

A: Beccause there are mods way better than Climates.

Q: Will you be adding more to these guides?

A: Of course! We'll try to keep all the guides up to date and will notify everyone if something has changed or has been added on. We also accept submissions if the mod is good enough!

Immersion

updated December 24th, 2022

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NOTE: IF YOU RUN WRYE BASH AND IT COMPLAINS ABOUT "OLD/OUTDATED" FILES, AND SHOWS YOU A MOD ".ESP", THAT MEANS THAT MOD HASN'T BEEN PORTED PROPERLY, OR IS A LEGENDARY EDITION MOD, IF SO, YOU NEED TO UPDATE THAT SHIT YOURSELF, AND GIVE THE MOD AUTHOR A STERN TALKING-TO.

Just follow the tutorial mentioned on the "Essential(link)" page to update the mod yourself, skip everything, and just re-save the ".esp" on the Creation Kit.

In this section, we will discuss:

-Alternate Starts

-Audio and Music, these might link to Legendary Edition pages, but since they're just sound files, they work fine.

-Immersive Overhauls

-Backpacks and Gear

-Roleplaying Elements

-Nature and Weather

-Animations

-Miscellaneous Immersion mods

Alternate Starts

Dont you hate it when you want to make a new character but you have to go all the way through Helgen? Well with these two mods, you can totally forget about Helgen and even forget about becoming the Dragonborn too! USE ONLY ONE AT A TIME.

Realm of Lorkhan - Freeform Alternate Start

Alternate Perspective

Rewrite & Framework for the Vanilla Intro. Experience Helgens Destruction from a POV different than the Prisoners!

Skyrim Unbound

Opening Scene Overhaul

Atmosphere and Magic

Chapter II - Jeremy Soule Inspired Music

My go to music mod with lots of music made to mimic Jeremy Soule

Acoustic Space Improvement Fixes

Audiophile tweaks for the games sounds system

Fantasy Soundtrack Project

Fantasy Soundtrack Project provides 800+ minutes (12+ hours) of new music for TESV: Skyirm. 235+ orchestral and instrumental fantasy/epic music tracks for exploring, towns, taverns and castles.

Glory Days - Music Of Skyrim

Replaces all of the vanilla and DLC music tracks with some brand new ones, mostly from Vindsvept.

Realistic Conversations

Makes NPCs talk to each other more often, makes them greet you less often, fixes the pause between lines, overall makes npcs more dynamic.

Skeletons of Daggerfall

Brings back the crazy sounding screams skeletons made from Daggerfall and adds them back into Skyrim.

Morrowindic Sneak Attack

Changes the sneak attack and critical hit sounds from Skyrim and replaces them with their Morrowind counterparts.

Immersive Sounds - Compendium

Ultra Realistic Crossbow Shoot Sound

Replaces the "THUNDER" like crossbow sounds and replaces them with some pretty realistic sounding crossbow noises. This ONLY replaces the crossbow shooting sounds and not the reloading and impact noises.

Real Arrow SFX

A highly exaggerated but great sounding archery sound replacer. It comes with Pull, Fire, and Impact sounds. DO NOT add the impact sounds, they are really bad.

Personalized Music

Better Horse Pain Sounds

I don't know about you, but the horse noises in Skyrim are ear shattering. Even the simplest of pain noise sounds like the horse is getting castrated. This mod just says "goodbye castration noises, hello normal horse sounds".

Sounds of Skyrim

Originally a horribly bloat-inducing mod, Sounds of Skyrim was fixed up a little while back. It adds ambient noises to dungeons, wilderness, and towns, making things feel more lively It is still marked possibly unstable, due to the scripts being possibly intensive for low-end computers. Possibly...

Bards Sing Rarely

Makes bards sing less frequently.

True 3D Sound for Headphones

Don't know why I hadn't added it before, I use this. A .dll that adds true 3D directional sound to the game. Makes a hell of a difference when using headphones.

Overhauls

However, only use these mods on light loads as they are script heavy and impact your game.

Follower Death and Injury Chance - Followers Can Die

Chance of death/injury for followers. Best used with mods that add a lot of followers like 3DNPCs.

Shadow of Skyrim - Nemesis and Alternative Death System

A mod aiming to add a nemesis and alternate death system similar to Shadow of Mordor. Now Defeat is a valid playstyle

Last Seed - Primary Needs Wellness Disease

Chesko's swan song. Finished by fans and brought over to SE! Pairs best with Frostfall and Campfire!

Campsite

A simple, intuitive camping mod for Skyrim. Build a campfire and pitch a tent, using only existing items with no spells/powers added.

SunHelm Survival and needs

SunHelm is an all in one survival and needs mod. It includes many features such as Hunger, Thirst, Fatigue, and even hypothermia mechanics all while attempting to stay as streamlined as possible.

Frostfall - Hypothermia Camping Survival

Campfire - Complete Camping System

Campfire is the most feature-rich stand-alone camping mod for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. It was created from Frostfall 2.6's unique, immersive camping system. Now, you can enjoy an unparalleled camping experience in conjunction with some of your other favorite survival and immersion mods.

Vitality Mode

Run For Your Lives

I'd run straight to my house if I saw dragons attacking my town. Hell, that would be anyone's reaction! This mod makes NPCs go inside buildings during random attack events, allowing them to not be killed by random assholes.

Backpacks and Gear

SC - Unsainted

Original unisex accessories

HDT-SMP Traveler's Backpack

Backpack with HDT-SMP physics. Also available as static (non-HDT).

Simple Leather Backpack

Mod adds a craftable backpack to the game, with three variants in two different colours.

Equippable Tomes - Belt-Worn Books

Equippable Tomes is a mod that adds books that can be worn on the belt to increase the damage of your spells. Unenchanted tomes for you to enchant yourself are included as well, in case you just want to wear some books on your belt and don't want to increase spell damage.

Cloaks of Skyrim

A pretty old mod, but still a great one. This mod adds an array of cloaks and capes to NPCs, leveled lists, and to the crafting menu. Also get the compatibility fix for the Unofficial Skyrim Patch: http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/56922/?t

Bandolier - Bags and Pouches