Subscribe to download Alternate Start - Live Another Life

Misery and despair have haunted you all your life. Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse, you've been arrested and thrown in the dungeons. Your trial was supposed to be weeks ago, only nobody has come for you. It's been so long since seeing daylight you no longer know what month it is anymore. The dungeon is cold, damp, and worse still, you're running out of food. At least you have that leak in the wall for water. It seems as though you've been forgotten, soon to rot away and die. The eight have forsaken you! Or... have they?

Live Another Life provides an alternative means to start the game for those who do not wish to go through the lengthy intro sequence at Helgen. You will be given the opportunity to choose your race and then choose a new life for your character to lead. A wide variety of choices will be available. What you choose will have a lasting impact, so choose carefully or the gods may forsake you again!

Alternate Download Locations
========================

Skyrim Nexus
Dark Creations
TES Alliance
AFK Mods

Live Another Life Bug Tracker

Installation Requirements
====================

Official Skyrim patch 1.9.29.0.8 or greater. Using earlier game versions will result in CTDs and other problems. Just don't.

You will need to turn on subtitles to see the text for the startup quest.

Alternately, download and use Fuz Ro D-oh - Silent Voice to see subtitles only on those NPCs with no voiced audio. This requires SKSE.

Full documentation available.

Uninstalling Live Another Life
=======================

First things first. You need to be sure the main quest has been started before you can uninstall this mod. The quest "Live Another Life" must have been marked as completed, AND you must have "Before the Storm" listed in your journal. Uninstalling prior to this will break the main quest as well as the civil war.

It should also go without saying that if you're using the farmhouse start, clean your stuff out of it first because if you don't you'll lose it all.

Be sure to unsubscribe before doing this or the game launcher will simply replace those files again.

Load Order
=========

Due to the sensitive nature of the mod, it should be loaded relatively late in the load order. A lot of other mods may seek to make modifications to Helgen and the charactergen quests. Moving this further down in your list will likely help, a lot. I highly recommend going with the order BOSS specifies since it is now compatible with Skyrim's new load order system.

Compatibility
==========

Tested and confirmed to work with Dawnguard, Dragonborn, and Open Cities Skyrim.

Known to be incompatible with any mod which attempts to remove the essential flags from any NPCs in Helgen.

Song of Ice and Skyrim ( http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=20793 ) causes the game to get stuck loading the prison cell, regardless of load order.

Descent Into Madness ( http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/16461 ) causes the game to get stuck loading the prison cell, regardless of load order.

The Oblivion Racial Bonuses module from Occupy Skyrim ( http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/12479 ) is not compatible since OCS OSR.esp alters MQ101.

Sellswords ( http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/27942 ) is not compatible because it alters MQ101 to be able to offer its alternative game mode.

Mods which alter the following quests will not be compatible without a patch:

MQ101 - Unbound
MQ102 - Before the Storm
MQ101DragonAttack - [Vanilla dragon attack on Helgen]
CW00WindhelmMapTableScene - Jagged Crown scene for Ulfric and Galmar
WERoad01 - Farmer refugees after dragon attack

Mods which edit the following scripts will not be compatible unless patched:

dunPostHelgenEnableScript.psc
MQ101QuestScript.psc
QF_MQ101_0003372B.psc
QF_MQ101DragonAttack_000D0593.psc
QF_MQ102_0004E50D.psc
TIF__000D50CA.psc
TIF__000D50DB.psc
TIF__000D50E0.psc

Known Issues
===========

The Thane offer won't be available in every city right away if you use a property owner start. The quest interaction makes doing so impossible without sacrificing too much of the content to it.

When picking the Companions guild start, you need to go watch the fight before Vlikas will go outside to train you.

When choosing one of the two civil war starts, you are strongly advised to let the Jagged Crown scene play out. If you don't, the quest may fail to start and the entire civil war quest line will get jammed.

There may be some unfound dialogue that references Helgen. If you find some and have NOT read the dead adventurer's journal yet, please report those with as much detail as possible.

Starting the Main Quest
===================

Skyrim has a lot more flexibility in pursuit of the main quest, even when playing the default Helgen scenario. Alduin's appearance does not force one to pursue the main quest beyond Helgen. So this mod is mainly providing a mechanism to bypass Helgen and not encounter Alduin either. The game will patiently wait for you to follow along. So there's no special effort really needed to avoid it, just don't do it :)

For most starts, you'll be given an initial quest to investigate rumors of war activity near Helgen. Ask around, people will point you where you need to go to follow this. It will eventually lead you to the encounter with Alduin in the campsite near Helgen. From there, the main quest starts in earnest and you can go straight to the Jarl in Whiterun, or follow the objectives to the corpse and into the cave with Hadvar and Ralof.

This may seem somewhat choppy and poorly done, but future plans for the encounter with Alduin will be expanded upon at a later time so that this sequence of events doesn't feel stilted.

Choosing the campsite start skips the startup quest, you will begin immediately with the encounter with Alduin. Choosing a civil war start bypasses all of this, by necessity, so you won't need to deal with Helgen at all.

Using this mod to follow the default Helgen sequence will play out the same as the vanilla game.

Donations welcome.

*** Support the rights of modders to publish as they see fit ***
*** Sign our wall to show support and help bring change ***