Aetherius - Races and Standing Stones Overhaul

Aetherius is a Vanilla Plus overhaul designed to make matches more meaningful without making them more restrictive. It also redesigns the Standing Stones to provide compelling options for early, mid, and late game characters.

Inviolable Rage: Orcs deal 10% less physical damage than other races.

Craftsman: Orcs are 10% better at blacksmithing.

Redguard

As Tamriel's most gifted warriors, the Redguards of Hammerfell possess extensive reserves of stamina and a natural resistance to poison.

Primary skill (+15): One-handed

Tips (+10): Alchemy, Archery, Blocking, Light Armor, Smithing

Wayfarer: Your Redguard blood makes you 50% resistant to poison.

Martial Arts Training: Red Guards are born with 50 more stamina than other races.

standing stone

In Vanilla game, 4 of the 13 standing stones provide simple experience rewards. In Aetherius, Guardian Stones instead provide meaningful rewards for early game characters, while Lovers remain untouched for users who want to level up faster. I've changed some to target more powerful powers, or higher levels (e.g. Ritual now takes enemies up to level 99 and you don't have to worry about dropping the Serpent's Spit). Bonus stones can be tweaked by replacing bonus stones with bonuses, spells, or other game mechanics (steeds, lords, and shadows) so that they continue to be valuable to late-game characters.

Mage Stone - The cost of all spells is reduced by 20% Magicka.

Thief's Stone - Sneaking, lockpicking and pickpocketing are 20% more effective.

Warrior Stone - Power attacks deal 20% more damage and reduce stamina by 20% Stamina.

Apprentice Stone - You have 100 extra Magicka and 100% extra magic regeneration, but your magic is 50% weaker.

Atronach Stone - Spells are 50% cheaper, you absorb 50% of spells, but you can't regenerate magic.

Serpent Stone - Lasts for 60 seconds, reducing the poisoning ability of enemies within melee range by 75%.

Shadow Stone - All moves are muffled. Stealth attack power increased by 25%.

Horse - You have 100 extra carrying capacity, 10% movement speed and 50% extra stamina regeneration.

Lord Stone - Resistes 10% physical damage and 20% magic damage.

Lady Stone - You have 100% extra health regeneration and an extra 50% stamina regeneration

Lover's Stone - All skills increased by 15%.

Tower Stone - Unlocked once per day on any Expert difficulty lock or lower.

Ritual Stone - Fight for you, fight for you.

compatibility

Aetherius edits race records and is therefore incompatible with other mods that edit them. This obviously includes other race mods, but it may also affect some less obvious mods. If you encounter any questions, please feel free to ask.

FAQ

I want to use a skill that is not listed as a primary or secondary skill for my preferred game. Your mod makes this skill available starting at level 5. Doesn't that make me too weak?

Not at all! In fact, with vanilla speed, your non-racial skills will level up so quickly that you can easily get level 5 skills up to level 15 in a dungeon or two!

I tried to exercise my weapons, but I couldn't. Is your mod broken?

No! Due to the vanilla scaling of Smithing skills, you cannot train weapons or armor until the skill reaches level 14. Since the vanilla game starts all characters at least level 15 in Smyring, most players have never encountered this mechanic before. Please be assured that if your Smith reaches level 14, everything will work as needed (Note: I made sure to give Smithing as a racial skill to Imperials, Nords, Orks, and Redguards to ensure that all "military" races will be able to improve their weapons immediately).

I found a bug. what do I do?

Report it in a post or bug tag so I can fix it ASAP! Any additional details you can include (where the error occurs, what you're doing, other mods you're using) will be very helpful in tracking down the source of the problem.

Why are you always disappointed in me?

dad? is that you?

Can you release a stripped down version of this mod without ed …