Companions

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Uvirith’s Legacy adds four fully functional companions, as well as a few mini-companions. The four main companions have all been outfitted with telepathy rings and teleportation scripting. The other companions have proper follow scripting, so they can at least keep up, and some can teleport as well.

Weather and regional based dialogue: Your companions complain about the weather (only in exteriors), and regional dialogue makes them sound less like crazy people while traveling through Solstheim and Mournhold.

Spell based follow commands: You can use command spells to make all your companions follow, wait, or wander at the same time. This will override a companion’s refusal to wait outside in inclement weather (because sometimes you just have to go on alone). However, Gavyn will still refuse to wait outside as a vampire because it could kill him.

Bury your fallen comrades. Read more on how:
I’ve fixed telepathy ring issues by making Gavyn and Sara’s corpses persistent. So your dead companions aren’t left lying around in an undignified manner, I’ve added a burial script.

  • When activating your fallen companion’s corpse, you have the choice to cremate them or select “not yet” so you can get your stuff from them before removing their corpses.
  • A short sequence will take place, giving you their ashes in an urn you can carry with you.
  • The burial option is only available for Sara and Gavyn. It is not needed for the dremora companion (since it can resurrect itself).
  • If you’re having trouble getting into their inventory to claim your stuff, you can circumvent the menu if you activate them while sneaking.

Gavyn Helerim

Hire an apprentice, give him chores, and take him along on quests. You can even train your apprentice in selected spells. Your apprentice has a telepathy ring, so if he’s in your tower you can send him on chores remotely. He also has combat options while following. Also, any gold you reward him will show up in his inventory (he’ll get upset if you take it back via. companion share). He’ll also randomly fritter away any gold in his inventory – including yours.

Chores:

You can only give your apprentice chores if he’s waiting in the tower (for scripting reasons). He’ll sometimes find items on his travels, and sometimes be possessive of them. Many quests have options to make your apprentice run off and do the dirty work for you. Make sure to talk to him often to see if new dialogue options pop up. You can also assign him chores with Anteres BigMod, and you can assign them remotely, but he must be waiting back in the tower before he’ll go.

Train your apprentice spells. Read more on how:
You can train Gavyn in a selection of spells through dialogue. It checks for spell effects (so you can cheat using enchanted items). If you don’t want to cheat, make sure you remove any constant effect items before training. This method allows for player-made or modded spells, which is why I did it this way.

  • Show him how to cast these spells by casting them yourself. After a few moments, if you haven’t cast yet, he’ll bug you about it. You then have the option to cancel training if it turns out you don’t know the spell.
  • A game hour will pass, then he’ll cast the spell to show he’s learned it. It will drain his magicka each time, so once it’s too low he’ll be too tired to train further until he rests.
  • Teaching him spells also increases his skills. Some spells won’t be available to him right away, but with training and leveling (with the player), he’ll eventually be able to learn them.
  • Offensive spells require you to take him down to the training room in the prison barracks and target the practice dummy. Make sure you tell Merana to leave the room if you’re going to teach him summoning spells. Gavyn is fairly well behaved down there, but the summoned creatures can go nuts on the practice dummy with area effects.
  • If you don’t have the fourth tower build completed yet, Gavyn can instead teleport you to his former master’s training room, and you can target the dummy there instead.
  • He also has three levels of destruction spells you can train him in as his destruction skill increases.
  • The player needs a base skill level of 30 in each school, and some spell training requires higher skill.
  • For offensive spells, make sure you target one of the two training dummies provided by the mod, for the rest, you need to target yourself.

Training options are compatible with Anteres BigMod. However, be careful not to teach him any area effect spells or you’ll take friendly fire during combat. If you don’t want him casting certain spells, like summons, don’t teach him those spells. Regular raining does not work remotely using the telepathy ring, but BigMod training does.

Turn your apprentice into a vampire. Read more on how:
I’ve added this option after he performs his first chore for you as your new apprentice.

  • Reading Vampires of Vvardenfell vol. I (the specially scripted copy in the library), will give you the option to talk to him about “Vampire Research.”
  • Sending him on a quest will cause him to contract the blood disease.
  • After he returns you you can teach him the cure spell, teach him how to make a cure potion, or lie about how to make a cure potion.
  • If you lie to him, he’ll become a vampire in three days. You then have to find a way to control him.

You can continue the quest after turning your apprentice into a vampire and find a way to become a vampire yourself. This is only available if you’re not already playing as a vampire. This quest is optional. You don’t need to turn yourself into a vampire to complete it.

If you’re already a vampire, you won’t get the vampire research quest. Instead, the apprenticeship test will cause him to catch the blood disease through contact with you. He will automatically become a vampire of your clan in three days. Being his sire, you won’t have to worry about keeping him in line.

Note: If you have him follow you outside in the daylight he will constantly lose health. He does have the sun damage spell. If you notice he’s casting heal on himself a lot while traveling, you need to get him out of the sun.

  • I’ve added a forcegreeting on a timer so he will warn you if he’s taking too much sun damage. If you ignore it, and you’re not a vampire, he’ll teleport back to the tower and you’ll have to go round him up again. If you are a vampire, he won’t disobey you, but he will keep whining until you take him out of the sun.
  • He’ll also refuse to wait outside in the sun (or outside at all if you’re not a vampire since he won’t trust you enough to come back for him).

The scripted event to turn him into a vampire is disabled if you are playing as a vampire with Vampire Embrace installed. Instead you can embrace him and turn him into a proper vampire child. Burying him to get him out of the sun has an added bonus: if you talk to him using his telepathy ring while he’s buried, he has a full set of dialogue options specific to his unique situation.

Customizing your apprentice. Read more on how:

Gavyn has a unique head, hair, and vampire head. Because I had to create a duplicate Dark Elf race to allow for a unique vampire head, I included bb textures with unique IDs so they won’t conflict with any body skinning mods you may have installed. Gavyn’s body defaults to the non-nude bb mesh, but can be changed to the nude version by doing the following:

  • Copy the file bb_skinm_de_uv.nif from the bb/nude folder, and place it in the bb folder. This will overwrite the non-nude file.
  • Texture files, located in the bb folder, are named bb_N_skinm_de_uvi.dds for the nude mesh, and bb_U_skinm_de_uvi.dds for the non-nude mesh.

You can also your apprentice into a teenager with the CoM add-on.


Sara N’tashra

The original Uvirith Inside companion. I’ve given her full companion functionality and tons of new dialogue. I’ve also altered her lore slightly and tied N’tashra’s power to her faithful service to Azura. She has a telepathy ring that lets you find her if she gets lost and talk to her in combat. If you send her back to the tower, she will wait in Craough’s Oasis until you return. She has a leveling script based on her skill set. Being fairly independant, she isn’t trainable but will learn own her own through experience as she travels with you.

New quests are available for Sara. Minor spoilers below:
She has two quests started by introducing her to other NPCs around your tower, including Verena.

  • You can give Sara a gift, helping her build a small shrine for her Azura worship. After giving her a statuette of Azura, you must send her back to home (using the return to tower dialogue command) so she can have some time to set it up.
  • Once the shrine is set up, asking Sara about the shrine will activate it so you can donate to receive a small blessing.
  • This shrine will also cure her if diseased. Send her back to wait for you, or bring her near the shrine yourself, and the shrine will do all the work for you.

Note: if the player is a vampire, you will have a more difficult time gaining her trust. You can’t turn her into a vampire with Vampire Embrace and you won’t be able to gain full disposition with her. However, she’ll still follow your orders and you shouldn’t have any problem talking to her. As an ancient Azura worshiping Ashlander it didn’t make sense for her to readily accept you as a vampire.

Customizing Sara:

She wears standard orcish armor, so it’s compatible with armor replacers. Change her armor will not effect her scripting. You can ask her to equip/unequip it so long she has medium armor in her inventory. As for customizing her look, instructions are here for modifying her head or hair.


Ash-Kosh Virash

The dremora lord companion is tied to the Uvirith tomb quest, and may later decide to become a full companion. I used Miltiades’ dremora race instead of a creature version. Ash-Kosh comes with a telepathy ring and a full complement of scripted combat and follow options. Companion sharing is also available with one caveat – all Ash-Kosh’s armor and weapons are bound and cannot be taken. If you try, they’ll be magically transferred back to Ash-Kosh. You can disable these items by asking Ash-Kosh to remove them, and they can be summoned back on your request.

Ash-Kosh will not always like being told what to do when it comes to combat. Asking Ash-Kosh to remove its bow or sword will only alter its behavior if you didn’t add similar weapons to it via companion share. Selecting “no spells” will prevent it from casting destruction or conjuration spells though. Also, if you banish Ash-Kosh, these options will be reset. Ash-Kosh prefers to fight how it pleases.

Choose the gender of your dremora companion. After gaining full companion status, you can decide if you’d rather Ash-Kosh be male or female. Selecting this option will temporarily banish Ash-Kosh for a week while it goes off to form its new body. After banishing Ash-Kosh you’ll need to pick her or him up by visiting its lair. If Ash-Kosh is currently banished, s/he will teleport you here on your request.

Ash-Kosh will resurrect itself if it dies in combat. However, to add balance to this feature I’ve added another way this companion can leave you: if you are not careful about keeping Ash-Kosh sufficiently entertained, it’ll get bored and leave.

There are ways get around this. Minor spoilers below.
  • At first, Ash-Kosh will return to its lair to wait for you, but if you leave it waiting too long, it’ll leave for good. All you have to do to keep Ash-Kosh occupied is to take it with you.
  • So long as Ash-Kosh is in follow mode, it will not get bored. If it does get bored, first it will wander off, then it will gradually get annoyed with you (you’ll notice a change in dialogue) and finally it will leave.
  • It takes some time to for it to get bored enough to leave for good, approximately three months of being inactive.
  • You can undo the “boredom count” by traveling with Ash-Kosh for longer than you left it.
  • You can also reset the boredom count by sending Ash-Kosh off to change gender.

Ash-Kosh’s armor and weapons: can be easily customized using non-esp texture and mesh replacers. However, these objects carry unique IDs, so they are not immediately compatible with .esp replacers. If you want to use an .esp replacer, instructions are here. If you want Ash-Kosh to use a completely different armor set, without customizing the unique armor, ask Ash-Kosh to remove its armor. Use companion share to give the dremora new armor. A separate option for equipping and un-equipping other armor is available in dialogue once Ash-Kosh’s unique armor has been removed. Keep in mind, if you send Ash-Kosh away to change gender, any armor or other items will remain in the inventory of whichever version you gave them to.

Important: Should Ash-Kosh die, you will lose any items he or she is carrying, as the ressurection script resets an NPC’s inventory. I’ve given the ressurection enough time so you can loot Ash-Kosh before he or she ressurects, but try to be quick about it.


Primus Plus!™

Primus Pilus from Uvirith Inside has been upgraded to Primus Plus!™with a brand new personality chip. He’s available after completing a small side-quest for Baladas Demnevanni, which can be started after partial completion of the alchemy table quest. Primus Plus!™is better than ever, with full companion functionality including a summoning ring, companion share, and basic teleportation scripting. You can also have him teleport back to the tower to wait for you, or order him to remain outside like a guar – a filthy guar.

To repair Primus, offer him scrap metal in dialogue, or turn the auto repair function on and stuff scrap metal in his inventory. Primus Plus!™ also offers repair services. Should Primus Plus™ be destroyed in combat, you can remove his head and take it back to Hlendrisa Seleth (your retainer designated as an expert in Dwemer construction by LGNPC) to have him repaired. It will take quite a few resources and a couple weeks to complete his repairs, after which a new Primus Plus!™ will appear in your tower – better than ever!

Primus Plus!™ can talk about the weather, tell jokes, and otherwise be annoying. If you find him too annoying, you can ask Baladas to remove his personality chip, turning him back into a mindless drone just like all the other centurions – you heartless monster.

An MWSE add-on is available for Primus’ companion scripting, but it’s an unstable beta. Use at your own risk.


Minor Companions

These companions do not have the full functionality of major companions.

Tower Centurions

The two centurions in the lower tower now have basic companion functions. You can order them to follow you, guard, patrol, keep out of the way, and return to their original positions in the tower from anywhere. You can set their starting positions to any area in the lower tower. First, get them to follow you, and once they’re in a spot you like, order them to reset their position. They will now return to that exact spot whenever you order them to return. You can order them to return to their start position from anywhere, including inside the lower tower.

You can also repair them, giving them scrap metal through dialogue. They both have fairly low health, so they’re not substantial companions in any way, but if they break you can repair them the same way you’d repair Primus. Take them to Hlendrisa, give her the right materials, and wait a week for new ones to arrive in your tower.

Tower Slaves

The dungeon slaves will follow you so you can position them around the tower. They don’t make great companions because their health is low and they’re terrible at combat, but they do have companion share so you can use them as pack mules or dress them up. If you’re feeling distinctly evil, you can feed them skooma or moon sugar to gain disposition. Note: this will make them unruly over time.

If you encounter a fleeing slave in your dungeon, you need a slave bracer to capture them. If you don’t have one on hand, cast command to drag them to the slave pens and grab one, provided in a crate. You can also let them go. To free the slaves, you’ll need the key found near the slave pens, but the escaping ones don’t require it as they’ve already shed their bracers. If you remove a bracer, through companionshare, from a slave with low disposition, they’ll flee.

For anyone who’s Twin Lamp’s friendly, I’ve included a quest to abolish slavery in your tower. This will stop escaping slaves from spawning in the dungeon, and make the slaves already there disappear. Setting them free, either manually or through abolishment, will add to your freed slaves counter. If you do this before setting Ra’Sha free, she’ll offer to stay on as a paid servant. She will still follow you anywhere, but she is old and weak, and prefers to stay in the tower.

Verena Uvirith

Also tied to the Uvirith Tomb Quest, she will only follow you until you escort her to the upper tower. Verena has a unique face texture (for quest reasons). She is not a full companion, but I’ve added companion share. I’ve also added numerous random conversation options. Find out just what kind of woman is running your tower while you’re away.

After she makes herself at home in your tower, you can choose to start a quest to get rid of her. If you don’t want to get rid of her, do not ask about “marriage” under the Verena topic. People will assume you’re trying to marry her off. If Sara should have the misfortune to cross Verena’s path while following you, another quest will begin.