The Restless Dead (A Draugr and Skeleton Overhaul)

Introduction:

Skyrim’s map is dotted with ancient temples, tombs and ruins. In the vanilla game, these dungeons are usually populated by the undead, mainly draugr, occasionally skeletons or ghosts. But encounters with these enemies tend to be a bit underwhelming, due to the lack of variety in appearance and skill between them. All draugr wear the same armor pieces, and their tactics are extremely limited. Fights with “unique” bosses usually feature some interesting mechanic, but even these draugr use the same model as regular enemies. Skeletons are unarmored Level 1 pushovers. Ghosts are just semi-transparent glowing bandits.

“The Restless Dead” breathes new life into these rotting corpses by overhauling pretty much every aspect related to the undead. The design choices applied to the mod are based on these three premisses:

• []Not all Nordic ruins are associated with the Dragon Cult.

  []Not all draugr are former dragon worshippers.

  []Not all undead are reanimated by the same means or for the same purpose.

  For more a more detailed explanation of these arguments read this article.

  Localized Enemy Spawns:

  Dungeons populated by the undead have been grouped into different categories:

  • []Dragon Cult Temples

    []Solstheim Tombs

    []Ancient Tombs

    []Special Dungeons

    Each dungeon type spawns specific foes that fit its theme.

    Increased Visual Variety:

    New draugr and skeleton models have been added, making it easier to deduce an enemy’s class and level:

    []Dragon Cultists retain the vanilla draugr look, but they also get new models to differentiate between the diverse warrior types and spellcasters.

    []The draugr on Solstheim wear the same armor and clothes as Dragon Cultists, but they have the dark skin and red eyes from OpusGlass’ “Cannibal Draugr on Solstheim” mod, to recreate the look they had in Morrowind.

    []Undead in Ancient Tombs are equipped with more “modern” armor and weapons. Their equipment uses lore friendly assets that adhere to the Nordic aesthetic, and has been retextured to look appropriately aged.

    []Special Dungeons spawn unique enemies found only in that particular location. For example, undead Royal Guards can be encountered only in the first section of Potema’s Catacombs.

    []All named draugr bosses now have a unique model.

    []New hair and beard colors have been added. Hair color is chosen randomly for every generic draugr.

    []New varieties of ske