Whimsical Wizards - Winterhold College NPC Overhaul

A modest rework for the visuals of Winterhold's instructors with an immersive, lore-friendly approach. My goal was to visually enhance each NPC in a way that wouldn't look too out of place in the vanilla game yet still be unique & reflective of their personality/background. I've also given Ancano a unique set of armor to signify his station as a Thalmor liaison to the college. He'll only wear the mask occasionally so you can still his face most of the time. Savos will also lower his hood from time to time to let the wind flow through his hair.

REQUIREMENTS & RECOMMENDATIONS

This mod has no hard requirements other than the base game. However, facegen was generated using Expressive Facegen Morphs so Expressive Facial Animations (Male & Female) could be considered a soft requirement. NPCs will use whatever textures you have installed, but if you'd like your followers to look exactly like the screenshots, I highly recommend Tempered Skins (Male & Female), Mild Complexions, Brows, Beards, & True Faces.

COMPATIBILTY & OTHER INFO

It should go without saying, but this mod is generally incompatible with other mods that edit the same NPCs, whether or not they modify appearances. Most issues can be resolved via proper load order, but some problems may require a different solution. For more information, please read below.

Q: "Can this be flagged as an ESL to save myself a plugin slot?"

A: Possibly. You can use xEdit to compact the FormIDs & add an ESL flag if you like, but I'll leave that up to you. Personally, I had some occasional issues on the loading screen as a result even though xEdit showed no errors so I left it as a standard .esp file.

Q: "I have the gray/dark face bug!"

A: If you have an issue with dark faces, it's likely due to a conflict in your load order. To be safe, run LOOT & make sure my mod's loose files & esp are placed below any others that affect NPC visuals. You should also be aware that any mods which edit NPC records, even without changing their appearance, may also cause the dark face bug & need to be patched. If you're still having issues, please check out THIS article on how to solve mod conflicts before leaving a comment or bug report.

Q: "Some NPCs have invisible hair!"

A: A character's hair is baked into their 3D head mesh so if you're having this issue, it likely comes down to incompatibilities with two mods - Vanilla Hair Replacer and Face Discoloration Fix. Both mods can cause issues with NPC replacers if not properly installed