Skygerfall -- Daggerfall's Main Quest in TESV mod for Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Skyrim LE: Nexusmods.com

Skyrim SE: Nexusmods.com

Discord: Discord.gg

Introduction They said it couldn't be done... Daggerfall is too big to fit in the TESV engine... And they were, on the one hand, right! You cannot capture the grand scale or the nearly endless possibilities that exist in a world larger than England! Yet, for all of its vastness and promise, Daggerfall remains a world unfamiliar to many Elder Scrolls fans. The mechanics and graphics feel dated to say the least, and its sometimes unreasonable time limits for quests as well as quest-breaking bugs left many players, even back in the '90's, so frustrated that perhaps a majority of players never finished the Main Quest, preferring to simply explore the world on their own terms, joining guilds or Knightly Orders, or becoming a vampire or a wereboar. And that is a shame, because the Main Quest is actually quite a good story. The purpose of this mod is not to replace TESII: Daggerfall, but to bring some of its magic and lore to Elder Scrolls fans of the Skyrim generation that would never otherwise experience it, as well as perhaps delight those fans of the original game that would love to see the Main Quest in an updated engine, complete with voice acting, re-mastered music and better graphics.

Please note that the Main Quest of Daggerfall is NOT about choice. You are role-playing as the Emperor's friend on an important mission, so, while the order in which you tackle these quests is your choice, it is assumed that you want to finish the Main Quest and so you will not be able to refuse the quest-givers' requests. At this point, there really isn't much of anything other than the Main Quest for you to do in Daggerfall, anyway!

Dungeons Doors and corridors! You never know what terror lurks behind the next door, or around the next bend, or when/if you will escape this seemingly endless maze! Such is the essence of dungeon crawling in Daggerfall. All of the dungeons necessary for Daggerfall's Main Quest have been remade to reflect as accurately as possible the essence of the original, hand crafted ones from TESII. The walkthroughs given by UESP were an invaluable aid in reproducing them, and can still be used by you to navigate the dungeons should you get stuck. (Exceptions: The ridiculous number of teleporters you needed to go through to exit Castle Wayrest's dungeon --in case you forgot to mark an anchor-- has been collapsed so that the first one you encounter on the way beck described by UESP takes you to the final teleportation point, and the puzzle found in Aetherius' Room of Fire has been changed slightly, but if you've played Skyrim you should have no problem here.) In addition to UESP, Daggerfall Modelling was a great tool to help reproduce not only the main path, but also unique points of interest in the dungeons should you choose to explore. Privateer's Hold and the realms of Aetherius have been reproduced in their entirety. However, other dungeons have been somewhat streamlined, so that you cannot get hopelessly lost, as you could in the originals. I think most players will appreciate the balance. Scourg Barrow is the only dungeon significantly truncated, since it is a relatively short path to reach Mannimarco, and its remaining aspects of interest merely repeat much of Privateer's Hold. Additionally, I have constructed an all-new dungeon for the werewolf quest, based upon models that were included in the assets of TESII, but never implemented in any dungeon. Think of it as restored cut-content! The procedurally generated dungeons of Daggerfall all mix and match the same elements encountered in the Main Quest dungeons, so once you have completed this mod, you will have experienced nearly all of the elements present in the original game. (For proper immersion, please bear in mind that the spheres in Aetherius upon which you see the stars or the sun have no collisions, so please try not to levitate outside of them. If you do, you will see the other parts of the dungeons in a way meant only for use within the Creation Kit. Such a view could be achieved in the original Daggerfall game if you glitched outside of the walls in any dungeon, but that glitch wasn't very immersive, either.)

Magic Levitation! Mark and Recall! Lock and Unlock! These spells and more from TESII have been added to enhance your Daggerfall experience. Levitation uses the method of J3X, which employs rather large, invisible plates that you walk on. As such, levitation will not work in very small places; i.e., it will not function in elevator shafts. Please use the lifts provided to go up and down, and do not have a levitation effect active when you do. (Occasionally, if you re-cast a Levitation spell before the magic effect of the first one runs out, you might find yourself beginning to descend. If that occurs, re-cast the spell again to stop yourself from falling.) Jumping and Slowfalling require SKSE, so if you don't want to have it installed for some reason, those two magical effects will not function in your game, though everything else will. Additionally, all of the alchemical ingredients from TESII, with their Daggerfall effects, have been included for your crafting needs.

Gameplay The entire bestiary from TESII has been reproduced, and you will encounter each and every monster at least once or twice as you play though the mod. Be warned: Weapons made from low grade materials will not work on all creatures, so make sure you keep that ebony dagger the Emperor gave you handy if you want to be able to defeat some monsters you will encounter even in the opening dungeon! Some powerful monsters will be encountered underwater, so you might want to install Zartar's Character Behaviors Enhanced in order to enjoy underwater combat! Out of lockpicks, with no spells available to unlock a door? Have no fear! Bash the door open with your weapon! Lock bashing, using mzin's method, is back, so enjoy! And you will have the opportunity to become a wearboar! Once you become infected with the lycanthropy disease (which will occur at least once as you make your way through the main quest, unless you already have 100% disease resistance), if you choose not to cure yourself, you will become a wereboar after three days, instantly changing wherever you may be at the time. As a wereboar, you will gain 40 points to health and stamina, immunity to disease, and, while in beast form, immunity to damage from iron and steel weapons. It's overpowered, because it was overpowered in Daggerfall, too! As with being a werewolf in Skyrim, the only negatives are not being able to gain resting bonuses and being attacked on sight when in beast form, though I may re-introduce the requirement to feed and forced shifts with the moons at a later point, as per Daggerfall. And speaking of diseases, the crippling effects of Daggerfall diseases are back, so make sure you carry enough cure disease potions, have a cure disease spell, or are immune to disease if you want to survive long! Also, some creatures can paralyze you for a few seconds, so be sure to carry enough free action potions or gain immunity to paralysis. (As should be well known to all Daggerfall players, High Elves are immune to paralysis.) Finally, staves, short swords, mithril and adamantium armor and weapons, as well as clothing and armor mods, have been added to make sure you know you're not in Skyrim anymore!

Worldspace I tried to make the worldspace's land mass resemble as closely as possible the original Daggerfall map, but scaled down to be roughly two-thirds the size of Skyrim. Some islands needed to be made proportionally a little larger, and Daggerfall, Wayrest and Sentinel, still large, are now sprawled out over a greater proportion of the land. Within the walls of these cities, the landscape is mostly flat to be faithful to Daggerfall. Taverns, shrines and some shops have finished interiors, but many of the buildings are only for show at this point. Proper landscaping takes a lot of time and talent, and the entire esm-flagged esp for this mod has been produced by only one person: me. Hence, only areas around points of interest to the Main Quest have been developed to any large extent. For this release, I see the landscape as merely a prop that needs to look decent when you pass through it, but it is not the main attraction. While you are able to walk across the entire map, you may fast travel to a location once the quest giver has marked it on your map, which is the same as what you were able to do in the original Daggerfall.

Buying and Selling There are inns/taverns in Daggerfall, Wayrest, Sentinel, Gothway Garden and Whitefort set up to buy and sell general goods, as well as standard tavern fare (some unique to Daggerfall). There is a functional blacksmith in Daggerfall across from the player home, as well as court blacksmiths in Daggerfall and Orsinium, who will sell all of the Daggerfall weapons and armor in the game (except for artifacts, of course). And there are court sorcerers in Daggerfall, Wayrest and Sentinel who will sell all of the Daggerfall spells, ingredients, and potions. All merchants have a little more gold than their Skyrim counterparts.