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About this mod
Adds a new custom menu to the game. Collect information about the creatures you encounter, learn their strengths and weaknesses, and keep track of your feats with kill, summon and transformation counters. SKSE plugin.
- Requirements
- Permissions and credits
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Translations
- Turkish
- Spanish
- Russian
- Portuguese
- Polish
- Mandarin
- German
- French
- Changelogs
The Dragonborn's Bestiary is a project I have been wanting to work on for a very long time. If you are like me and love reading the different entries for creatures in games like The Witcher 3, or grabbing lore tidbits in Assassin's Creed's databases, then this one is for you. And if you like to play with resistances mods like Resistances and Weaknesses and the likes, then the Bestiary could come in handy during your adventures.
The base mod comes with 122 bestiary entries, covering all Vanilla, DLC and CC creatures. Add-ons are available as well for mod-added creatures.
Features:
- New custom menu
- HUD Widget
- Varied gameplay mechanics to unlock entries
- Kill, summon and transformation counters
- Widescreen 21:9 support
- Gamepad support
- SKSE plugin, compatible with all game versions
To open the new Bestiary menu, press K by default. The hotkey can be changed in the mod's INI file.
On the left of the menu, you can browse the different categories and their associated creatures. You can browse this menu either with keyboard navigation keys, with the mouse or with joysticks if using a gamepad.
On the top of the menu, you can switch between a creature's variants by pressing Q and R. If you are playing with a gamepad, press LB and RB to switch between variants. Alternatively, you can also click on the arrows next to the variants' names.
On the right of the menu, if the description is too long to fit in the text box, a scrolling bar will appear. If you are playing with mouse and keyboard, you can either use the mouse scroll or click and drag the bar to scroll the text. You can also use the Page Up and Page Down keys. If you are using a controller, use LT and RT to scroll the description.
Screenshot of the new Bestiary Menu with interactive areas highlighted.
The mod automatically detects if you are using a gamepad
and displays the appropriate icons.
and displays the appropriate icons.
The Bestiary includes a description of the creature, along with its potential loot as well as its resistances and weaknesses. All this information is contained in JSON files and can be easily edited (more about that below).
The Bestiary also tracks the number of times you have killed, summoned or... transformed into a creature! The kill counter will always be visible, even when at 0. The summon and transformation counters only appear after they have first been incremented.
The three types of counters. They appear
next to the creature's description.
next to the creature's description.
Since version 1.3, you can also add the Bestiary to the System Menu. In the mod's INI file, change the value of iEnableSystemMenuOption to 1 to make the Bestiary option available. Please keep in mind that this will replace the game's Help menu.
The new "Bestiary" option in the System Menu.
There are many ways to unlock a creature's entry in the Bestiary.
- Killing: the most straightforward way to unlock a creature's entry is by slaying them.
- Summoning: for mages and necromancers alike, this is a convenient and safe way to unlock new entries.
- Transforming: if you play a Werewolf or Vampire Lord character, you can unlock these creature's entries by transforming.
- Reading: a good monster hunter is a prepared one. Reading a book about a given creature unlocks its entry, and allows you to learn about its strengths and weaknesses before the fight.
- Interacting: interact with peaceful animals and pets to unlock their respective entries. No need to hurt the dogs.
- Dialogue: talking to certain characters will unlock an entry in the bestiary (used once in the base mod for a special creature).
Once a creature has been unlocked, a widget will appear on the right of your screen to indicate that a new entry is available in the Bestiary. You can adjust the widget's position in the mod's INI file, and also have the option to disable it completely.
Widget announcing a new entry has been unlocked.
If you want to unlock all available entries for debugging, or simply because you are curious, type the following command in the console: set rpgui_devmode to 1
Modularity was at the core of this mod's design from the beginning. Editing, adding and removing creatures or categories is extremely easy. Same goes for translating the mod. You can truly tailor the Bestiary to your liking and create add-ons for you favorite mod-added creatures in a convenient way. Most of the edits you make are also displayed at runtime, without the need to restart the game after each change.
I have written a few articles that explain how to do it in detail:
Editing and Adding Creatures
Editing and Adding Categories
Translations
Mod-added creatures
The base mod covers 122 creatures in total, including the base game, Dawnguard and Dragonborn DLCs and all Creation Club add-ons. You can safely download the full mod even if you don't use all these add-ons, this won't cause any issue.
Bestiary Add-Ons are available at launch for the following mods (under optional files):
SC - Horses
Bears of the North
Beyond Skyrim - Bruma SE
Tales of Skyrim - Berserkyr
Falmer Overhaul - New models and textures
Kthonia Minions - New Conjuration Spells
Welwas SE
Ogres SE
Flesh Colossus SE
Daedra SE
Goblins and Durzogs SE
Morrowind Creatures SE
Minor conflicts might arise when using add-ons. For example, the base mod comes with an entry for the Zombie, and the Bruma Add-On overwrites it with its own illustration. In such cases, you have to choose which "zombie.dds" you prefer, and let it overwrite the other. Alternatively, instead of overwriting, you can simply delete the illustration you don't want to keep.
The same applies for loot and resistances data (in the case of goblins or ogres for example).
Resistances mods
The mod will automatically detect if you are using the Resistances and Weaknesses mod and load the appropriate resistances, otherwise it will default to Vanilla configuration. I heavily recommend using the "Resistances and Weaknesses Tweaks" (in this mod's optional files) if you are using that mod. It corrects some inconsistencies and distributes appropriate attributes to CC and several mod-added creatures. The information shown in the Bestiary reflects these changes.
Additional slots have been created for Know Your Enemy 2 and Requiem. The mod automatically detects if one of these is active and loads the appropriate configuration. They weren't made by me, so you can find these patches on their respective pages:
I would like to thank the following people and teams:
The SKSE Team for SKSE64
Schlangster for SkyUI
Psychosteve for the SkyUI icons
Ryan-rsm-McKenzie for the original CommonLibSSE, and alandtse, powerofthree and CharmedBaryon for its ulterior updates
Powerofthree for Spell Perk Item Distributor (SPID) and Keyword Item Distributor (KID)
OsmosisWrench and all the people from r/skyrimmods discord who helped me with Flash, ActionScript and SKSE. This mod wouldn't exist without them!
Unofficial Elder Scrolls Pages (UESP) wiki, a treasure trove of information that was my main resource for lore and in-game creature data.
Greg Thompson for giving me the idea of creature variants (Q/R, LB/RB system)
ChrisKley for the kill counter suggestion
All the people over at Janquel's patching discord for suggestions, beta-testing and add-ons creation, and most of all for their general support and enthusiasm! Always a pleasure working with you guys!
CrEaToXx for their SkyUI HUD Widget tutorial
MrowrPurr for her SKSE tutorials and resources
All the modders who made their work opensource. Thank you for sharing, the modding scene keeps improving thanks to you generosity.
Finally a word for my Patrons: thank you all for the support, confidence and feedback during this mods' development. I feel honored you keep supporting me after all these years and hope you will like the future projects just as much. Cheers!
GitHub Source