~Overview~
Dragon Enrichment Project is my newest project, made with the goal of enriching dragons.
~Features~ ~New Dragon Varieties~
Dragon Enrichment Project adds lightning and magic dragons to the regular levelled lists, able to breathe lightning and beams of energy respectively. These dragons have their own appearances and naming conventions, and unique abilities.
Lightning Dragon Abilities:
- Lightning Breath, a concentrated beam of lightning using the meshes from the master Destruction spell.
- Lightning Blast, a powerful, single-shot bolt of lightning which can chain between opponents.
- Conjure Dragonstorm Atronach, a Shout which spawns a level-scaled storm atronach.
- 33% shock resistance, and 33% weakness to frost damage.
Magic Dragon Abilities:
- Hyper Beam, a concentrated beam of energy which borrows the mesh from the Auriel's Bow sun attack thingy. The attack does a small amount of Magicka and Stamina damage.
- Energy Ball, a powerful energy ball with a similar effect.
- Conjure Spectral Draugr, a Shout which summons a fearsome valkyrie who once served the Dragon Cult.
- Because they can already damage your Stamina and Magicka, magic dragons can't use Drain Vitality.
Regular dragons are given summoning shouts too, of course:
- Conjure Dragonfire Atronach summons a level-scaled flame atronach.
- Conjure Glacier Atronach summons a level-scaled frost atronach.
~Slightly Tougher Dragons~
Dragon Enrichment Project gives all dragons an innate 20% magic, poison and physical damage resistance (in the form of about 165 armour rating). Elemental dragons have additional weaknesses and resistances:
- Fire dragons resist fire damage and are vulnerable to shock damage.
- Frost dragons resist frost damage and are vulnerable to fire damage.
- Lightning dragons resist shock damage and are vulnerable to frost damage.
The damage of most dragon abilities has been rearranged into a smooth difficulty curve. The weakest dragon breath does 25 damage per second, whereas the strongest does 150 per second. Single-shot attacks, such as Ice Storm, start out at 50 damage and can eventually reach 250. Dragon bite damage can get as high as 300, so I'd suggest you find yourself a sturdy shield, and try not to look tasty.
High-level dragons also start spawning earlier than in vanilla. With Dragon Enrichment Project, you may start seeing Legendary Dragons at level 65. Ideally your character's build will be finished by then, and you'll have mastered at least one crafting skill in addition to gathering hundreds of potions, so you should be fine.
~They Can Summon Now As Well~
As mentioned above, Dragon Enrichment Project gives some dragons the ability to summon atronachs or spectral draugr. Elemental dragons can summon an atronach corresponding to their element; magic dragons can summon a spectral draugr. These are limited to one summon every five minutes, so dragons shouldn't overwhelm you with a never-ending stream of atronachs.
~The Smaller Touches~
The dragon naming convention has been overhauled. Furthermore, every dragon gets a unique appearance, using the remixed skin and model technique pioneered in "Splendor - Dragon Variants" in addition to three new textures.
Dragons may have spell tomes you can loot upon defeat. They contain less gold, but will often have a small handful of gemstones you can sell or use for crafting.
~Complete Dragon Overview~
Level 1:
- Ember Dragon, Snow Dragon, Spark Dragon, and Whisper Dragon
- These are the basic dragons, allegedly made from Akatosh's dandruff, and not happy about it.
Level 15:
- Fire Dragon, Frost Dragon, Shock Dragon, and Gleam Dragon
- Able to use Unrelenting Force.
- Equivalent to Blood Dragons, Alduin would grudgingly acknowledge them as his brethren and sistren, but wouldn't stick his neck out for them.
Level 25:
- Flame Dragon, Ice Dragon, Lightning Dragon, and Witch Dragon
- Able to summon atronachs and/or spectral draugr.
- Equivalent to the vanilla Frost Dragon, who is thrilled to be called an Ice Dragon instead.
Level 35:
- Inferno Dragon, Winter Dragon, Thunder Dragon, and Chorus Dragon
- Equivalent to Elder Dragons, who are the same age as the rest of the dragons.
Level 45:
- Volcanic Dragon, Glacial Dragon, Maelstrom Dragon, and Sorcerous Dragon
- Able to use Drain Vitality (Sorry, everyone.)
- Equivalent to Ancient Dragons, most of these ones played at being gods over the Dragon Cult.
Level 55:
- Fire Breathing Dragon, Ice Tearing Dragon, Shock Howling Dragon, and Rainbow Spirit Dragon
- Also available as the Volcanic Serpent, Glacial Serpent, and Maelstrom Serpent on Solstheim
- Equivalent to Revered or Serpentine Dragons, these dragons are not the least bit self-conscious about their looks.
Level 65:
- Star Breathing Dragon, Diamond Eye Dragon, Lightning Spirit Dragon, and Myth Weaving Dragon
- Equivalent to Legendary Dragons. Most of these are confident they could defeat a Jill, but they've never seen one.
~Installation~
Install Dragon Enrichment Project the usual way with your mod manager of choice. Install the high-resolution textures the same way, and let them overwrite the standard textures.
For a manual installation, unzip the mod, then place "DragonEnrichmentProject.esp" and the folders called "textures" and "BashTags" directly in your Data folder.
To install the high-resolution textures manually, just place the folder named "textures" directly in your Data folder, replacing the standard ones that came with the mod.
~Compatibility~
Dragon Enrichment Project is meant to be the complete package. It makes significant edits to the dragon race, class and combat style, many individual dragons and the spells they use, and as such will overlap with most mods that do likewise.
Mods that add new types of dragon should work decently together, but will need a Bashed Patch to combine their levelled lists.
Dragon texture or model replacers should be compatible, as long as they stay fairly close to the vanilla meshes. I recommend Iconic's Dragon Retexture: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/101712
