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DameEveKnightUploaded by
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About this mod
Many book improvements for you to choose from, including text and texture bugfixes and title and body text improvements
- Requirements
- Permissions and credits
- Changelogs
- Donations
The Book Covers Skyrim mods (original and Lost Library) are listed as requirements. You can technically use different versions of them as well, so long as the names of the plugins themselves match. You can, for example, use the original mods' ESP files, delete their archives, download 4K texture mods, download a Bethesda archive extractor, extract all the textures and meshes from said 4K texture mods, and then add those as loose files to your data folder. You once again also have the option of downloading the already-extracted loose textures and meshes from this mod's file page.
You can also use just any or all of the portions of this that require the original Book Covers Skyrim. And you can also use just the portion of this that requires Book Covers Skyrim Lost Library. You can even use the banner clipping fix that requires neither.
Scribes of Skyrim Compatible
Other mod authors have previously been kind enough to make similar changes to their own book overhaul efforts at my behest. While I think I'm the only one to use double spaces instead of leading zeroes, the more important feature of this mod is that it also incorporates all the improvements of the Scribes of Skyrim mod, so the internal text of the books feature different fonts.
The body text for the books that are part of the base Skyrim Special Edition comes from the Scribes of Skyrim mod, so you should get that as well. It may not technically be required, but you'll want it to ensure you benefit from all the changes it makes to books other than the ones this mod's files touch.
This mod also benefits from the compatibility efforts of the previous mod that combined Book Covers Skyrim and Scribes of Skyrim, so that is likewise also recommended.
Contiguous Series
Three series of books are renamed so they are automatically grouped together:
The Ransom of Zarek is renamed to Ancient Tales of the Dwemer, Vol. 1: The Ransom of Zarek
The Seed is renamed to Ancient Tales of the Dwemer, Vol. 2: The Seed
... and so forth.
The second series:
Beggar is renamed to Eslaf Erol, Vol. 1: Beggar
Thief is renamed to Eslaf Erol, Vol. 2: Thief
... and so forth.
The last series:
The Woodcutter's Wife is renamed to Mogen's Tales, Vol. 1: The Woodcutter's Wife
The Cabin in the Woods is renamed to Mogen's Tales, Vol. 2: The Cabin in the Woods
Text Corrections
The Alduin/Akatosh Dichotomy. The title page of this book erroneously indicates it is part of the 2920 series. This mod simply removes the two offending lines.
Leading Article Removal
This mod's files remove the words A, An, and The from the beginning of book titles so they are instead alphabetized by their second word. It does not alter books with titles that start with On, Of, or any other term. So A Game at Dinner is now Game at Dinner, for example. Such changes are made for all books in Skyrim, Dawnguard, and Dragonborn within the files that do not specify a creation. Those that do modify the book(s) added by the specific creation (or verified creation) they name.
Further, The Black Arts On Trial has the inappropriate capitalization of On corrected as well, so it's now titled Black Arts on Trial.
Also, while I appreciate the purpose of the scare quotes, The "Madmen" of the Reach is similarly standardized to Madmen of the Reach (with no quotes).
Notes and letters are generally not adjusted. So "The Warmth of Mara," "An Apology," and so forth stay as is. The exception is the note from Lost Library and its capitalization issues.
The Last King of the Ayleids is intentionally left as is. This book is a quest version, distinctly different from the book titled Last King of the Ayleids, which never had The in front of the title and is the one that would go on library shelves and such anyway.
Volume Designations
The 2920 series, for example, started out with titles like 2920, First Seed, v3. Book Covers Skyrim adjusted them to be of the format 2920, Vol. 03: First Seed. This mod further adjusts the first nine books in the series to use two spaces instead of a leading zero. So that book becomes 2920, Vol. 3: First Seed. Similar changes are made to other series where necessary. Volume 6 is also adjusted to use Mid Year in the title instead of MidYear, to match the text within the book.
Argonian Account, Book 2 becomes Argonian Account, Vol. 2 ... and so forth.
16 Accords of Madness, v. XII becomes Sixteen Accords of Madness, Vol. 12 ... and so forth.
The two single-digit volume numbers for Songs of the Return also get double spaces instead of a leading zero.
Lost Library
Saints and Seducers. So DanielCoffey's Lost Library mod (2016) adds a book with this title since it was a book from Oblivion. And it has a fancy cover like all the others in the mod. Then Bethesda released Saints and Seducers the creation in 2019. This adds an official version of the book to Skyrim. So at this point people using both have two different versions of the same book from different sources with different art. Reconciling this first meant editing the official Saints and Seducers from the creation of the same name to use the art from Lost Library. So now the book obtained via the creation has the nice art. But we still have two different versions of the same book. It turns out that Lost Library uses a fancy script to add its books to appropriate inventories (like vendors). Editing the script source that DanielCoffey nicely included was easy enough. Figuring out how to compile my edited version was a journey. The leveled list LItemBook4All also had the Lost Library version of Saints and Seducers on it, so that has now been removed. The end result is that the acquisition methods for this book are now determined wholly by the creation (or anything that overrides it, such as the Extended Cut mod), this mod has said creation as a dependency, and it comes with a shiny new version of the script that adds the books to inventories (which will automatically install to the correct location with a mod manager installation). As a side note Heretical Thoughts and Blessing of Sheogorath were not added by Lost Library, so those still only come from the creation (and have no fancy covers).
36 Lessons of Vivec, Sermon 16
For example. Just like the Sixteen Accords of Madness series, these were renamed to Thirty-Six Lessons of Vivec, and "Sermon" was replaced with "Vol." for consistency. Same with The Seven Fights of the Aldudagga, Fight 1 and its friends.
The Affairs of Wizards
For example. Like the rest of the Convergence series, leading articles are removed. So this one becomes Affairs of Wizards.
King Edward, Vol. 01
Also like the rest of the Convergence series, leading zeroes are replaced with double spaces. So this one becomes King Edward, Vol. 1. Still comes before Vol. 10 and looks better than 01.
The Prophet Arden-Sul, Vol. 02
Volume Two is the only volume that exists here, so the leading zero doesn't even serve a purpose. So this one gets no double space and becomes Prophet Arden-Sul, Vol. 2.
Why were the Dwemer Considered a Great House?
Although "were" is a minor word, it's too long to be lowercase. So this becomes Why Were the Dwemer Considered a Great House? instead.
Retun of a Fellow Scholar
At first I thought there was just a typo in the title. So this became Return of a Fellow Scholar. I then saw that there were many additional typos in the body text, so those are also corrected. Not sure how many were actually typos and how many were spelling errors, but the result is the same.
Vernaccus and Bourlor
So this book is actually in Skyrim twice by default. One version is a common book, and one is a skill book. The unofficial patch removes the common one from leveled lists so there's only one version of it (the skill one). I prefer this change, so I have carried it forward. As such, the two affected lists (LItemBook2All and LItemBookClutter) now contain the genuinely new entries from Lost Library but not the common version of Vernaccus and Bourlor.
Note about burial
The note from the satchel near Merryfair Farm likely won't be gracing our bookshelves, but it still looks silly in the inventory window without title case capitalization. So it's now "Note About Burial."
Journal - Book Collector's
From the same satchel, this book looks fine in the loot window and our inventories. Its model if dropped (or placed on a shelf), however, does not. It showed the bright fuchsia of a missing texture. I likely would not have noticed this myself, so thanks to Nesishoot for pointing this out in a post back on the Lost Library mod page. And thanks to Clevon for suggesting a fix that, while not the route I chose, highlighted precisely what the issue was. To fix this here, I altered the plugin's texture set to actually have the intended file names (journalhunt, not JournalSmuggler).
EasierRider's Dungeon Pack
In addition to dungeons, this mod also adds some associated books. Unfortunately, some of them can't even be read due to trying to use a font that is defined in neither the unmodified game nor the font config for Scribes of Skyrim. So, in addition to adjusting the titles of these books to conform to Convergence's standards, the adjustments to the nonexistent font face found in a couple of the books are removed so the books become legible. As such, EasierRider's Dungeon Pack is added to the list of required files. It's required only if you download the one file associated with it from this mod, though.
File Choices and Requirements
No optional paid content is required for this mod. However, the requirements page does not allow the capability to list different requirements for different files on the same mod.
Likewise, while I have not made multiple versions of the same book record to suit different tastes, I have done my best to separate out the broad philosophical decisions made as part of these overhauls into separate files so you may choose which parts you like without being forced to get parts you do not like.
I've also done my best to allow compatibility for those that are not using the most recent versions of Skyrim. As such, the books with the Fishing and Saints & Seducers creations as dependencies are in separate files (even though they're included in the game for free now) so you can take or leave them as you see fit. The Lost Library improvements effectively bring along a Saints & Seducers dependency as well, though.
Item Property Manipulator Option
For the files that only alter book names (not body text or artwork), Exoticusgaming has created an alternative version of the associated files via configuration files for the Item Property Manipulator mod. As such, I am adding this to the requirements list and uploading the associated files. Note that you do not need Item Property Manipulator for the original versions of these files. It is only required if you prefer the Item Property Manipulator methodology (to preserve another mod changing a book's weight, for example). The "Text Corrections" and "Lost Library" files are specifically omitted since it looks like Item Property Manipulator cannot currently alter the additional properties necessary to effect those files' changes. And "East Empire Expansion" was not converted since Exoticusgaming lacks the requisite verified creation.
Installation
Lastly, ensure this mod overwrites everything else by being farther down your load order list.
Version Numbers
Forgive any confusion here. I don't see a way for this to work properly. I'm updating the version of the mod and the corresponding change log whenever I make a change. I can only have a change log for the mod itself, not its individual files. I also increment the version of the affected file(s). However, clicking the version numbers on the file list shows the change log that all of the files share, yielding confusing and inaccurate information. If I update the version numbers on every single file each time any of them are updated, the change log might make more sense but then it would look like there are updates to files that have no update.