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An Altmer Intrigue

Like most of the Dovahkiin's bounty jobs, the journey starts simply enough: retrieve a prized family weapon for wealthy Altmer lord, Pelin Varlais. When the Dovahkiin discovers that the friendly Altmer's theft was a contracted job, however, a story of political machinations, personal vendettas, and the ultimate corruption of colonialism and imperialism begins to surface. As the Dovahkiin is drawn deeper and deeper into Pelin's circumstances, will friendship or betrayal be found?

"An Altmer Intrigue" brings you a new, canon-friendly questline exploring the Altmer branch of Tamriel's 4E history. Taking thematic inspiration from Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse Now, "An Altmer Intrigue" seeks to bring a multidimensional quality to the Altmer presence in Skyrim and draws from The Elder Scrolls® lore subtexts[www.uesp.net] regarding the Altmer and their own views of the Aldmeri Dominion political posturing.

Features:
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• A new, Altmer-centric questline.
  
  
• Pelin Varlais, an Altmer Spellsword NPC:
  
  • Potential follower after the first quest and marriage candidate upon questline completion,
    
  • Expanded comment and conversation capabilities, and
    
  • Regularly changes outfits from daytime to evening and for sleep.
  
  
• A new dungeon and the chance to revisit familiar places for new purposes.
  
  
• Dozens of new reading materials.
  
  
• Twenty-nine new, fully voiced NPCs, a dog named Porkchop, and a horse named Rielle.
  
  
• The massive, 3-story Varlais Hall manor home, available as the Player house following marriage to Pelin.
  
  
• Hundreds of lines of new and remixed dialogue, including new Player conversations and custom NPC scenes.
  
  
• Improved spouse features. While following, Pelin continues to address the Player with terms of affection. Pelin also leaves gifts of poems and flowers.
  
  
• Following completion of the main questline, permanent access to the Varlais Hall Honor Guard for powerful, 6-member team escort and combat assistance. No conflict with the Player's follower slots.
  
  
• Wealthy merchants at Varlais Manor, each with 10,000 gold available. Merchants include permanent Khajiit caravan, two blacksmiths, and general store featuring an alchemist, a mage, and a pawn broker.
  
  
• If Civil War questline is won for Stormcloaks, an extra quest is available for one of Pelin's friends. Completing the quest adds new NPC interactions and details to Varlais Hall.
  
  
• Craftable lockpicks. Just because.

Requirements:
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No DLCs are required to run "An Altmer Intrigue."

• Skyrim
  
• Update 1.92

Known Mod Conflicts:
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Only the following are known or suspected at this time. Please comment if you encounter additional or different issues.

• Will present crash-to-desktop (CTD) conflicts if run with any mods affecting the southwest of Secunda's Kiss and/or the northeast of Sunderstone Gorge. Please see map screenshot.
  
  
• May conflict with mods that alter location or behavior of NPCs Faralda, Nelacar, Calcelmo, Aicantar, and Ondolemar.
  
  
• May conflict with mods that change the interior of The Bannered Mare.
  
  
• May conflict with marriage mods affecting the Relationship SM node.

Known Bugs:
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After you have dismissed Pelin as your follower, armor he was wearing may disappear from his inventory.
This bug was discovered during beta testing and occurs intermittently—its root cause remains unidentified. It is isolated to equipped items, and other objects, such as weapons, books, ingredients, etc., remain unaffected. It is recommended that you always take armor from Pelin prior to dismissing him.

When exiting Riften through the lakeside door, Pelin speaks his half of the Pelin-Varmyr conversation.
Pelin's conversation with Varmyr is a "Change Location Event," triggered when you and he change location to Riften's Mistveil Keep. This bug occurs because Bethesda has tagged the outer wall of Riften as part of Mistveil Keep. Since correcting the issue would require changing important Riften location keyword information, this quirk will remain in the mod.

FAQs:
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Q: How do I start the main questline?
A: Pick up the Stolen Item Warrant on the bar counter of The Bannered Mare in Whiterun.

Q: Can Varlais Hall be used as a custom player home?
A: Yes! If you choose to marry Pelin at the conclusion of the main questline, Varlais Hall will be an option for your residence, since it is your spouse's home.

Q: Once I marry Pelin, can I also move my adopted children into Varlais Hall?
A: Yes! There are two options to do this, including subscribing to "An Altmer Intrigue: HearthFires Edition." Details can be found in the FAQs discussion thread and on that mod's workshop page.

Please see the discussion thread, "FAQs," for additional question-and-answer topics and the thread, "Hints, Walkthrough, and Spoilers," for hints and solutions.

Credits:
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Pelin's love poems are all public domain works by Emily Dickenson, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Oscar Wilde, John Donne, and W.B. Yeats.

The content of the ingame book, "An Ayleid Primer" is licensed under the Creative Commons by-sa license[creativecommons.org]. It uses material from the UESP article http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Ayleid_Language.

Great thanks to the following modders for these mesh/texture mods:
Paintings and Frames[www.nexusmods.com] by Artisanix
Ingredients in a Jar Resource[www.nexusmods.com] by Blary
Ingredients Wall Art Resource[www.nexusmods.com] by Blary
Modder's Resource Pack[www.nexusmods.com] by Oaristys and Tony67
Stroti Resource Pack[www.nexusmods.com] for Skyrim by Stroti and Tamira

Heartfelt thanks to Danaleesan for extra help in testing.

Thanks to Bethesda for creating TES and for offering the Creation Kit to let us extend the Skyrim world.

This mod was cleaned by hand with the native Bethesda Creation Kit Data Details features. Any remaining base object edits are intentional.

Please rate up if you enjoyed!