Bring Out Your Dead

Bring Out Your Dead is a simple yet immersive mod which expands on the number of graves given to the unique NPCs in areas of the game that don't currently have them. Solitude, Windhelm, Whiterun, Riften, and Markarth all have a Hall of the Dead that contains coffins and urns for various unique NPCs who live there. Their items are transferred to their assigned coffin when they die. The smaller cities of Falkreath, Morthal, Dawnstar, and Winterhold do not have these facilities, and neither do the other smaller villages and towns. NPCs living on farms outside the major hold capitols don't get buried in their Hall of the Dead either. This mod aims to correct this and provide for more uniform handling of everyone's dead.

Falkreath and Morthal both have graveyards already and have been expanded slightly to hold more. Dawnstar, Winterhold, and the smaller villages all have space set aside for new graveyards. NPCs living on farms immediately outside the 5 major hold capitols will be given appropriate burial space in the Hall of the Dead for their city if they don't already have it.

NPCs marked as essential will not be given a grave since they cannot be killed normally unless the game removes that flag as the result of a completed quest.

Downloads

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=14178
http://tesalliance.org/forums/index.php?/files/file/1178-bring-out-your-dead/
http://www.tesvskyrim.com/skyrim-content-16-bring-out-your-dead
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=20181

Installation Requirements

Official Skyrim patch 1.5.24 or greater.

Installation - Wrye Bash BAIN

Drop the archive into your Skyrim Mods\Bash Installers folder, then install as usual.
Make sure the mod is active in the Wrye Bash mods tab.

Installation - Steam Workshop

Subscribe to the mod via the Workshop page, then use the Skyrim launcher to allow it to download and install.
Make sure it's active in the Data Files menu.

Installation - Nexus Mod Manager

Use the "Download with Manager" button on the Bring Out Your Dead page at Skyrim Nexus. The installer should take care of things from there.
Or add it to NMM manually through the "Add File" dialogue.
Then simply make sure NMM has the mod activated.

Installation - Manual

Drop Bring Out Your Dead.esp and Bring Out Your Dead.bsa into your Data folder.
Activate the mod using whatever management tool suits you.

Uninstalling Bring Out Your Dead

If you used one of the mod management tools, uninstall it using that. Otherwise simply remove the .esp and .bsa from your Data folder.

Load Order

This touches numerous NPCs, which can lead to conflicts. Since gravestones aren't in and of themselves terribly important, it's advised to load this mod early on and allow other mods which have other changes to make the ability to take effect.

Be absolutely certain this loads AFTER the USKP!!! While the USKP handles giving many NPCs a "grave" it did so in several instances by dumping them all into a holding cell the player has no access to. This mod gives every unique NPC an accessible burial container.

Compatibility

Potential conflict with any mod which is expanding the various cities and villages. If these conflicts are brought to my attention I can attempt to make adjustments for them within reason.

Use of Wrye Bash to merge NPC edits will be strongly recommended once Bash gets the ability to handle NPC script assignments.

Couldn't resist the idea you talked yourself into then , I saw the conversation which led to it. Glad no-one jumped in before you.

I think this is going to be a slow burner - But already bookmarked in my immersion essentials and grabbing shortly. Thank you Arthmoor.

PS Any pirates in there ?

Edit: And cue the Monty Python quotes "I'm not deead"

Heh, nope. Didn't take long either. More tedious than anything, but at least not subject to the navmesh bug.

Would it surprise anyone to know I'm not a fan of Monty Python at all? The "Bring Out Your Dead" thing was something I remembered from The Stand, by Stephen King. Though Google has dutifully informed me that Monty Python fans everywhere will recognize the title.

Really cool idea. Adding to my list for my next playthrough.

As always good job Arthmoor, downloading now.

....I'm about to start a new playthrough.. downloading...

There's a related line in the Discworld II game - "Bring out your living dead". May be related to haveing a certain Eric Idle voicing several characters....

Downloaded.

Might it make sense for more distant farms etc to have their own "family plots" rather than hauling the dead all the way to town?

Most of these grave sites already are that way. Anything that wasn't immediately close to a town will have on-site graves. I probably haven't got everything that should be done either since there's so many places out there.

I probably should have also mentioned that this isn't capable of retroactively providing for proper burial if the NPC is already dead.

I'm old enough to remember where this phrase really comes from: the great London plague of 1665.

Does this mod make it so that Falkreath really does have the graveyard it's supposed to? (largest in all of Skyrim should really be a bit larger than it's shown - though I guess it's always been larger than any other but that's not a difficult achievement.)

Very cool.

Falkreath has tons of gravestones already, this will just add more if NPCs there die.

I've always felt tht Falkreath's graveyard gravely needed an expansion anyway, given all the in-game hype about it being a battlefield and whatnot. The place needs war monuments too. And lots of rusty items scattered throughout the woods. And...

Arthmoor:
What are the object Ids for the headstone graves you use? I have the Nordic pillars as 166D2, D3, and D4.
I am working on a bat file for impromptu field burials. For innocent victims, I would like to disable the body, and replace it with a grave marker.
The Nordic pillar is fine, but i think the Falkreath stones might be better.
For bandits I kill (or other scum) I leave bones and a skull. Well, I have the skull code (AF5FD), and need the codes for thorax and other bones.

Right now I just use player.placeatme, But it would be nice to not have to use the console - maybe a script to select the body ( like the button / key to select for taking items) and have an option to bury with dignity (remove the body / place a marker) or dishonor ( remove the body, scatter the bones).

Nice mod.

Arthmoor, Chesko, and Imp the Perverse must be my favorite modders. DL'ing ASAP. Not ATM, sadly.

Damn that that's old you've seen alot bat[censored] crazy stuff go down lol.
But in all seriousness I too only saw the histroical context of mass burial. Tho I like both Monty python and Stephen king.

I'm glad you made this! Have all the followers/spouces been given graves? So we can moarn our beloved lost ones?!

If they were flagged as unique, yes.

Arthmoor:
Do you have the item codes for skeletons, and the headstones for Falkreath and Dawnstar handy?
Thanks!!

EDIT: update: I looked in the creation kit and found some pretty creative stuff to use., like heads on pikes. I found the cairn and tombstone codes also.

Falkreath gravestones are RTGravestone01A.
Dawnstar headstones are SGravestone01.

Both found under the activators category in vanilla.

Which skeleton are you looking for?

This looks like great work! Something like this really does a lot to make the world feel more rooted and persistent. I made a little tribute to Faendal when he died in a dragon attack

This is in my "Skyrim Mods - To Download" folder in Firefox For when I get a chance to play again.

Made a mental note to add this the next time I started a new game, lost that mental note, and just added this 20 hours into said "new game". Another welcome addition to my load order as always Arthmoor!

Arthmoor:
I couldn't find the code for a complete static skeleton.
I have found the bloody skeleton parts, and non-bloody skeleton parts.
Thanks for your reply.

I am probably going to do a VERY rudimentary field burial mod. my level of sophistication at this point means it will be only bat files, because I am new to modding.

If you're talking about skeletons in the various Nord tombs, those are actually embedded into the larger static tileset pieces. Extremely limiting in terms of decorating a dungeon using those pieces.

Yeah, they're quite awful models and have incredibly low textures too. They don't look anywhere good enough to be in Skyrim, but they're there...