A grim and gritty Shattered Skyrim modlist for Wabbajack
Shattered Skyrim is a mod that completely changes the game, it shatters Skyrim, so there are no inhabited cities, towns, villges.
World Eater is an addon for it that means to defeat Alduin you must weaken him by defeating various Dragon Priests, the world is infested by Draugr and Dragons.
The modpages themselves can explain this further : https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/84320 and https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/85133
I have further edited these mods with addons and custom changes so that bandits still spawn and various bosses and locations are to be found.
The visuals of this list use a base from NGVO - Next Generation Visual Overhaul by Biggie_Boss, but tweaked in various places to fit the grim theme.
This modlist uses a customized version of GRIM ENB on top of NAT3 weathers, and a custom reshade, this gives it a faded, dreamlike, and gritty look, somewhat like old film. It wont be everyones cup of tea, but I like it so it what it is :)
This is a modlist with survival as a focus - it uses mods such as Campfire, Hypothermia, Sunhelm, CC Fishing, Hunterborn, Skills of the Wild all patched and customized. You will get cold and hungry. Most food has been removed from the world ( as its a post-apocalyptic Skyrim ) So hunting and foraging and scavenging is required to stay alive.
It uses Experience - Static Skill Levelling , so that killing monsters and finding locations grants you XP , with which you can choose which skills to level up.
The full suite of Darenii spell mods have been added, alongside much of the Simonrim suite of mods ( Mysticism, blade and blunt, adamant, apothecary, stormcrown etc )
Spell Research is used to change how spells are learned, you can still learn from tomes, but they are hard to find, and theres nobody left alive to buy them from! You will have to find spell research archetypes and ingredients in loot and on enemies, and discover your own spells! )
The game will start with you choosing an equipment loadout, then exiting the Helgen cave and being teleported to Angis Camp where the story begins.
You can pursue a class type system via the Subclasses of Skyrim mod, which is activated by the Destiny lesser power.
The Stormcrown mod is a mod that enhances the gameplay of Shouts, with its own custom perk tree, the Shout tree is activated by the Meditate Lesser Power.
To accomodate the fact that speechcraft is mostly useless in this list, I have removed the perks from the Adamant mod that enhanced bartering etc, and kept just the ones that enhanced shouts.
This also means that Pickpocket perk tree is completely useless, so uhhh... just dont pick anything from it.
Pilgrim is a religion mod where you can choose your blessing, it is activated by the Prayer Lesser Power.
The Stress and Fear mod is included, so you can become traumatized by enemies and stress, this can be alleviated by praying, playing a musical instrument, fishing, various foods and drinks ( and the Brewer mod is included so you can make your own alcohol )
A whole range of clothing and armor is added, all that tie into Hypothermias warmth system through custom synthesis patchers.
All soups and stews can keep you warm and reduce stress.
The MCM settings will all be automatically set for you after the game loads.
There is a hardcore permadeath and hardcore saving system in place - both the saving system and sunhelm survival wont enable until after the first time you sleep.
After which, you will be restricted to a 3-save rotating save roster, only allowed when sleeping or exiting the game, and you will have 3 lives, you can buy more lives with dragon souls and gain some more as you level up, after they are gone, that character is GONE!
Nights are very very dark, but torches are more useful , and you can craft wearable lanterns, and refuel them from animal fat from your hunting !
There is equipment degradation over time, and this can be mitigated with portable tempering tools such as whetstones and hammers.
Loot is not as plentiful - thanks to the Scarcity mod.
There are many new weapons and armors distributed in the world and craftable - and many enchanted variants, thanks to Open World Loot, Artificer, Thaumaturgy, Animated Armory, Reforging to the Masses, Believable Weapons, Modular Armory, Cathedral Armory and more, all patched and integrated.
You can hit trees with Woodcutter axes to get deadwood/firewood/branches, or gather them with the campfire power.
Crafting and various activities now pass the time - so be careful - if you havnt got enough food!
On that subject, food and ingredients will now decay and rot over time, and will sometimes be found as mouldy or stale in containers, instead of fresh. These have minimal nutritional value, so will animal carcasses rot left without proper dressing.
Animals can be tamed with Skills of the Wild, or dogs can be found and adopted as followers!
Autosaves are made automatically after combat
You will slow down as you carry more crap - with the Progressive Encumbrance mod
You will get better with a particular type of weapon as you use it more often - with the Signature Equipment mod
You can fish anywhere with CC Fishing overhaul mods
You can climb slopes with skyclimb, and paraglide with the paraglider mod!
Wards are more like physical shields now
Spellcasting in armor is more difficult now
You can get wounded from combat and suffer injuries that require treatment - medicine and bandages etc can be crafted
Simple Smithing Overhaul and Crafting Matters cover smithing and new recipes and some breakdown recipes
Skyrim Souls unpauses most menus ( except console )
No compass until Skills of the wild unlocks it as a perk
No location on map, use the power "sense location" to get an idea of where you are in Skyrim
There are essentially 3 tiers to the crafting progression:
-
Campfire crafting power - this can be used anywhere and enables crafting of simple items, also can use the portable kits from Styxx Field Crafting to do some more simple crafting.
-
Tanning Rack - this can be used to make intermediate items out of leather and such.
-
After progressing in the Skills of the Wild skill tree ( activated at a campfire ) - more crafting options will open up, with the Hunterborn scrimshaw crafting, you will also be able to build forges from builders workbenches, these will enable you to build the more complex items at forges.
There are a multitude of placeable furniture and items to craft - to enable you to build up your own camp or live as a nomad.
This is the part of the list that I need the most feedback on, I have added various animations, third person camera, blade and blunt and dodge mods and various other shield timed blocking and parrying mods, also skyvalor to change armor calculations to make the tiers more distinct.
But I have little experience in designing a list that has many combat mods as they previously werent a focus of mine, but now I want to learn, so please offer feedback in this area. In my testing so far ive found it tough but fair - not quite Requiem tough but getting there.
Caps Lock to open Wheeler quick menu
left Alt to dodge
, for placing a campfire
; for crafting basic items
' for gathering wood
[ for sunhelm filling waterkins and bottles when standing in water
] for toggling wearable lanterns
As you can see most of these are clustered around the enter key
There is not much that would fit the theme of Shattered Skyrim, but the mods Darkend, Identity Crisis, Chanterelle, and the Tale of Tsatampra Xiros were added as they arent thematically jarring
I get around 80 fps at 1440p with a 4070ti in outside areas. This is not a light list in terms of performance, although CPU strain in certain areas is no longer a concern as most NPCs are gone lol
Your mileage may vary. a 3070ti+ is probably recommended for 60fps, although I was using close to 10GB VRAM, so pagefile increases may be necessary.
No current optionals in the list, it is as it is.
for now this is a beta test with people who know how to install Wabbajack lists already, and therefore newcomer-specific instructions arent being provided yet, TBC
Requires 270GB total space, of which there is 105GB downloads
Avoid combat early. youve only got 3 lives and you die easy.
Hide, camp, gather, build, grow. Sneak, Scavenge, use your ears.
Enemy archers are pain, try and get them first.
Draugr aint so bad in small groups or alone, but in the settlements there are MANY of them, along with dragon priests and dragons - avoid settlements until you are powerful enough to approach them, consider settlements as the mid to lategame bosses. Or try and cheese and pick them off and wear them down, they dont respawn.
You start on a mountain, its cold, it might rain, freezing can happen quick, dont neglect fire and gathering wood.
There are a bunch of little bandit camps just down the mountain, they have useful things - bedroll - tent - warmer clothes maybe, will you risk them or go around them?
quickloot with animals is meant to be disabled, but with some it still pops up but with broken strings. this is likely down to some untarnished UI patch that I removed before and I forgot why I removed so I added it back but now I remember why I removed it so ill remove it again next recompile .
the crafting heirarchy needs some work, the higher tiers need to be crafted at a forge, and forge can be crafted with the hearthcraft mod, but that also requires Hearthfire logs whcih will be hard to get in Shattered, ... no good DIY logging mod exists, so I could gimp the COBJ or make some proper logging thing... which would be neat also for various other stuff
