Everdamned is a lore-friendly and gameplay-focused vampirism overhaul. It was designed to offer the player more and deeper ways of interacting with the curse of Vampirism, in a way that augments core gameplay loop without completely imposing itself over it (hopefully). 

Features include, but not limited to:

• Blood as resource - Vitae, with own resource bar
• Soft, but powerful incentives to act like a Vampire, enabled by the presence of Vitae.
• Multiple systems of organic progression - Vampiric Rank (Age), Vampirism skill tree, and more.
• Combat Draining with brand new animations to complement the gameplay
• Charm feeding system for role playing opportunities that also mesh well with gameplay goals
• Heavily reworked Vampire Lord perk tree
• Ways to unleash and gain control over the inner Beast
• Core mechanics implemented without Papyrus, so no drops in performance or added save bloat
• Hotkeys to reduce keybind bloat in a natural manner
• configurable through MCM (to some extent)

      and more

DISCLAIMER - This mod is heavily inspired by the general vibe of Vampire: The Masquerade and draws on features from MissLeeches' Vampiric Thirst and Enai's Sacrosanct. Both of these mods are long-time favorites of mine. The first and only mod I'd created before Everdamned was a compatibility patch so I can play them together. With time, I began tweaking things here and there, keeping the plugin in a dedicated folder called Sacrosanct tweaks. At some point it became clear that my appetites outgrew a mere compatibility patch, and this project commenced.

This mod is a work of its own, and all features that got carried over from Vampiric Thirst and Sacrosanct are expanded and reworked from the ground up. From Vampiric Thirst Everdamned inherits Disciplines and Seduction mechanic. From Sacrosanct, Everdamned borrows Hemomancy and Blue Blood, as well as several mortal and Vampire Lord spells and abilities. Most things that were ported over were left with their original names for clarity and transparency, but may have different effects/visuals.

Eternal damnation awaits

As the name suggests, Everdamned imagines vampiric condition as an eternal curse. You are now faster, stronger and tougher than ever before, can (potentially) bend mortals to your will, ageing only grows your powers and you also get to live forever. How is this a curse, you ask? 

The Daedric nature of the curse dampens connection to the Divines, rendering you void of their grace. Your skin is now susceptible to sunlight, and you cannot be healed by Restoration effects.  The Beast takes root inside you. Its urges make you into a creature of insatiable bloodlust, that can only be curtailed briefly. Controlling it will inform your decisions for the rest of your - eternal - existence.

Moreover, the aforementioned benefits only develop over time, while the negatives are front loaded. A newborn vampire has little edge over its former kin, and needs to grapple with new existential challenges straight away. 

Everdamned tries to flesh out and bring these challenges to the forefront in a way that is engaging, rather than tedious and constricting. This is achieved with introduction of a new resource, called Vitae - essentially, a blood reserve for fueling vampiric powers. It is leveraged to transform the matter of your vampiric nutrition from a simple chore to a thrilling hunt with long-term benefits and role play opportunities.  Be a ravenous beast, a dapper charmer/temptress, an unseen shadow or all of that combined to quench your thirst and keep a healthy diet. As you grow more powerful, sunlight become less oppressive, but will always remain an obstacle to be respected. In absence of Restoration healing, you can rely on the stolen blood, lifesteal effects and Alchemy to regenerate Health, or work your way up to making it effective again.

There is a number of baseline characteristics and powers that all vampires share:

• Poison and Disease resistance: Vampiric blood gives you 100% Resistance to poisons and disease.

• Moonlit Waters: You cannot drown underwater, and when Messer and Secunda shine bright, you can thread on their reflection.

• Resist Frost: Your undead body possesses a 20% Frost resistance, when you are Sated. As it grows more desiccated and lifeless, this effect increases up to 50% when Bloodstarved.

• Weakness to Fire: At the same time, it begins to catch fire more easily. You are 20% weaker to Fire when Sated. This effect increases up to 50% when Bloodstarved.

• Weakness to Sunlight: In sunny weather, Health, Magicka and Stamina are lowered by 25 (Sated) - 100 (Bloodstarved) points. In direct sunlight, their regeneration is halted, and Vitae dwindles by 2-10 points per second. When it dries up, sunlight becomes scorching. *

• Forsaken: Void of divine grace, Restoration healing effects have no effect on you. Skilled practitioners of a certain perfectly valid school of magic can learn to negate this effect. *

• No regeneration Vampire's **Health **does not regenerate naturally. Any effects boosting Health regeneration have no effect, unless Vigor Mortis is active.

• Vampiric Drain: absorb 5 (Sated) - 15 (Bloodstarved) Health and 10 - 20 Vitaefrom target. Effectiveness grows up to 50% with Vampirism skill level.

• Vampire's Seduction: Once a day, silently bewitches a person, calming them and allowing you to feed. Works on targets whose level does not exceed your Vampirism skill. Target must be facing and detecting you.

• Vampire's Sight: Improved night vision, that adapts to light level of the environment. *

Vampiric Drain is envisioned as a core part of toolkit. It has interactions with other spells and restores Vitae alongside Health, making it even harder to balance properly. For this reason, it cannot be cast from both hands at the same time outside of dual casting. This can be toggled off in the MCM.

Vampiric Rank (Age)

A newborn fledgling, even one sired by a member of royal bloodline, takes on the full brunt of Molag's curse, yet enjoys little of its benefits. As the unlife goes on, it adapts to the vampiric condition - an experienced hunter, older vampire is certainly a force not to be trifled with. A dexterous night hunter, vampire moves 5% (Fledgling) - 25% (Nightmaster) faster, and effective Sneak skill is 10 - 40 points higher. Some powers and abilities improve with age, usually their description will reflect that.

• Fledgling: the beginning of an eternal journey.
• Blooded (5 days total): Vampire can sense presence of the living nearby with Blood Sense. When feeding on fresh blood, it may be able to hear Psychic Echoes of victim's mind.
• Mistwalker (20 days total): Vampire gains Darkwing Dash, a bizarre but notorious power to dissipate into a cloud of bats.
• Nightstalker  (50 days total): Growing resilience helps stave off effects of the sun for longer, granting a Twilight Lurker ability.
• Nightlord  (100 days total): With age, vampire achieves greater control over its urges. Hunger progression is now slowed.
• Nightmaster (175 days total): This is the last Rank a vampire can realistically ascend to within mortal (gamesave) lifespan. Most of the vampiric powers abilities are tremendously enhanced.

Powers mentioned:

• Blood Sense: Sense the presence of living within 120 feet. Within 30 feet, you can discern the quality of nourishment offered by person's blood. Costs 5 Vitae to maintain, unless Blood-starved.
• Psychic Echoes: Fresh blood brims with echoes of life's journey. If there is a skill in which the victim is significantly more proficient, your own skill may improve based on the difference. Only works once per person.
• Darkwing Dash: Dissipate into a cloud of bats to become invulnerable and receive a movement speed boost for 3 seconds.
• Twilight Lurker: Nighttime lingers for 1 more hour after sunrise, and starts 1 hour earlier before nightfall.

Ageing happens naturally as time passes. Each time you Drain a mortal's life, the counter advances for 1 day. Diablerie (draining a vampire) advances your age, based on level difference. Ageing rate can be adjusted in MCM.

Hunger and Blood

Blood as resource

Most vampiric powers run on stolen blood, in the form of Vitae. It does not regenerate naturally, and can only be replenished by feeding on a living mortal or directly absorbing lifeforce through other means. Vampire starts its journey with a very limited capacity to hold Vitae in their system, which grows naturally as they advance in Rank. However, this is not the only way to expand it. Feeding on fresh blood temporarily boosts Vitae capacity by a certain percent of victim's health. This bonus deteriorates over time, but a small percentage of it will absorbed permanently by the Vampire over time.    IMPORTANT - the temporary Vitae Bonus does NOT compound. Each time you bite, if the potential new bonus amount is smaller than current bonus, current bonus stays the same. Meaning, to increase your current bonus, you must feed on someone who can provide a bonus bigger than your current. Details on how the bonus is calculated can be found below in the Feeding section.

IMPORTANT 2 - When you try to cast certain Vitae costing spells, such as those that are hand equipped, and do not have enough Vitae, cost system is implemented in such a way that you would get a "Not enough Magicka" notification and you Magicka bar would flash, as if you do not have enough mana to cast it. This is a temporary tradeoff for scriptless implementation, that I am hoping to change and make more immersive in a future update.

Current Vitae levels can be seen on the Vitae bar (new UI element, similar to vanilla health bar). Color of the right end of the bar ranges from violet to bright orange, meaning to represent how much Vitae bonus you currently have relative the base Vitae (permanently absorbed bonus is included as base). Bar's position on screen, as well as scale and some other characteristics can be adjusted in the MCM. See the Vitae magic effect in magic effects menu to know exact numbers.

If Vitae drops below 0, all effects that require it to be maintained end immediately and have to be recast , when Vitae becomes available again (except Vigor Mortis, because it is more like a toggleable passive ability).

Feeding

Consequently, blood drinking is more than a daily chore. Mortals come in all sorts of flavors, and so does their essence - seek out and feed on potent blood to grow stronger over time, or sip on those Volkihar stable capri-suns and miss out on your potential.

In Everdamned, there are different ways to sate the thirst:

• Vampire's Seduction: Silently bewitches a person, calming them and allowing you to feed.  Temporarily boosts Vitae by 20% of victim's Health.
• Thralls: Volkihar castle maintains a stable of thralls. Feeding on them temporarily boosts Vitae by 20% of victim's Health.
• Sleeping: Sneak into someone's domicile to feed on them in their sleep. Temporarily boosts Vitae by 30% of victim's Health.
• Charm (Eyes of the Moon perk): With a little touch of vampiric charm, seduce your way to victim's throat through conversation. A large number of factors determines the likelihood of a success.  Temporarily boosts Vitae by 30% (first success) to 50% (Blood Doll) of victim's Health, depending on how many times they were successfully seduced.
• Drain: If your bite was lethal, temporarily boosts Vitae by 50% of victim's Health. Act of draining another Vampire is called Diablerie, and is only possible through combat at first.

After feeding, victims need time to replenish the vital liquid. Recuperation period depends on how large was the % of Health used for Vitae boost. Draining is still possible regardless.

Combat Drain

In combat, special circumstance allow your to finish off an enemy with a lethal drain. Combat Drain becomes available, if your victim is below a certain Health threshold, or bleeding out. A visual effect above the target will play to indicate that.

To perform a Combat Drain, activate the target, while standing still. In some cases (mostly due to Bethesda jank) the animation cannot be played and your grasp will slip, prompting a notification. In general, you must be standing on roughly the same height level as the target, and there should not be any other objects obstructing the space between you. Some strategies to circumvent Skyrim engine jank were implemented, but they can only get you so far without making the game unstable.

KEEP IN MIND - unlike regular killmoves, Combat Drain does not make you invulnerable for its duration.

Avoiding detection

As a general rule, feeding in presence other non-vampires will not go unnoticed. If you are caught in the act, it would be considered physical assault and raise an alarm. Lethal drains would earn you a murder charge. To spot you, bystanders must be conscious, detect and have a line of sight on you, while being within a certain distance. This distance depends mainly on the light level at the time of the act. In general, you should avoid biting people in public in broad daylight. However, Charm offers opportunities to feed discreetly in circumstances that otherwise would be too revealing.

Charm (Eyes of the Moon perk)

A vampire does not always have to resort to violence or stealth to sate its thirst. Charming your prey with witty banter and a little touch of hypnosis will earn you an opportunity to take their blood peacefully, leaving them with a vague pleasant memories and blissfully unaware of any biting or feeding taking place. The quality of nourishment offered by their blood becomes significantly higher as well. Each time you successfully Charm a person, their blood becomes more attuned to you, eventually leading them to become your Blood Doll. Blood Doll's blood is highly nutritious. So far, this is the only effect of Blood Doll status.

Success in seduction depends on how eloquent you are (your Speechcraft level), weighted against your relationship with the person you are trying to seduce. The closer is your relationship, the greater are your chances. Charming a complete stranger is a tall order - something only a true master of speech could pull off, so consider putting in the legwork to befriend them first. However, there are many other influencing factors - including what you’re wearing, where you are, you and your prey's social standing, its mood, allegiances, and much more. Best way to become better at this IS doing it, and paying attention to the cues in form of the dialogue during and after the act. Also, you will have a power to Ruminate (castable power, available in magic menu) on your past experiences, during which you will also get valuable feedback and advice on how to best develop you allure.

When vampire feeds on a willing target this way, it is much easier to conceal as mere harmless flirtations. For example, an inn/tavern is a place where such behavior is natural and excepted, and noone would be suspicious unless you decide to feed literally in front of them. On the contrary, doing that out in the open street would be much harder to conceal, so its best to find a safe spot away from accidental bystanders.

Blue Blood

Mechanically it is a copy of Sacrosanct namesake feature, but with different rewards in mind.

After draining a life for the first time, a new quest would start, tasking you to taste the blood of Skyrim's greatest. Doing that is worthwhile, because with their blood you will absorb an echo of their extraordinarily lived lives (a number of skill points unique for each Blue Blood flagged NPC). Apart from that, after a second "blue blood" feeding, a new mechanic will be introduced - check spoiler to spoil it.

Blue Blood rewards

At 2 "blue blood" feedings, you will aquire a Chained Beast ability. It is a mechanic, similar to **Fortitude **from Sacrosanct, but with a twist. When you are at Stage 1 hunger and are felled, instead of dying like a chump you get a second chance. But this chance comes at a cost - you drop to Blood-starved and awaken your Beast. Unless you exit the combat or feed promptly, you will be forcefully transformed into a Vampire Fleder Beast. To revert the transformation, you will have to quench the Beast's thirst by feeding - either through Combat Drain, which is still available in this transformation, or on a corpse.

At 8 "blue blood" feedings, you will be able to attain greater control over your urges and rein in the Beast, transforming Chained Beast into Embrace the Beast. With it, there will be no more forced transformations, and it will function as a regular second chance mechanic, albeit still dropping you to Bloodstarved. Additionally, you will gain an ability to transform to and from Fleder at will, making it an essentially second vampiric transformation.

I've always really enjoyed werewolf form, it has a great melee play, far superior to that of a Vampire Lord. HOWEVER, vampires are really my thing and I like them better. So I felt like I'm missing out because i'd almost never got the chance to run around as werewolf. This feature is an attempt to remedy that, giving access to gameplay- and lore-friendly way to transform into a **werewolf skeleton and animations based **race, while still being a part of a larger picture of being a vampire. Transformation retains access to all vampiric powers and abilities, but not spells, for self-explanatory reasons. Killing mortal NPCs with left hand killmove (where the werewolf/Fleder devours the victim) counts as feeding, **Combat Drain **through activation uses this animation as well.

At 10 "blue blood" feedings, you will recieve 3 perk points to spend in regular skill trees.

If you experience compatibility issues with the second chance mechanic (like you have another mod with a similar feature of just don't like it), it can be turned off in the MCM. Forced transformation is also toggleable.

Hunger Stages

Vampires are ravenously hungry creatures. With each passing day without feeding, Hunger will advance one Stage, on average. Hungrier vampires become less able to use their powers in general, as Vitae capacity shrinks. However, the growing bloodlust makes them more voracious, increasing the power of Vampiric Drain and making it easier to perform a Combat Drain.

Hunger has 4 distinct Stages:

• Sated: 100% Vitae capacity; Combat Drain threshold is 25% Health.
• Thirsty: 70% Vitae capacity; Combat Drain threshold is 30% Health; **Vampiric Drain **base damage increased by 3.
• Parched: 50% Vitae capacity; Combat Drain threshold is 40% Health;  **Vampiric Drain **base damage increased by 6; Cannot Feed without Draining;
• Blood-starved: 40% Vitae capacity; Combat Drain threshold is 50% Health; Vampiric Drain base damage increased by 10; Cannot Feed without Draining; Bloodsense is free of cost.

When Bloodstarved, your vampiric nature is apparent, and you become **hated **and attacked on sight by the common folk. All forms of feeding reset hunger back to Stage 1.

Vampire and the Sun

In sunny weather, Health, Magicka and Stamina are lowered by 25 (Sated) - 100 (Blood-starved) points. In direct sunlight, their regeneration is halted, and Vitaedwindles by 2-10 points per second. When it dries up, sunlight becomes scorching, which is a nice way of saying that you catch fire like a matchstick.

As long as Auri-El keeps peeping unto Nirn through that dastardly hole in the sky, vampires will have to endure its unyielding presence. Much to Harkon's eternal disappointment, there is no way to become a true daywalker, completely immune to its effects. Every day, from 6 AM up until 7 PM direct sunshine is intense enough to harm a vampire. However, it may become obstructed by present weather conditions. Who needs to blot out the sun with an ancient prophecy, when Skyrim's own natural climate can make you forget what daylight is supposed to look like? All in all, a well-fed vampire that has some Vitae to spare can brave the sun with little actual consequence and run errands or even travel normally during the day. However, the pressure to seek shelter will still always be present.

Important notes concerning fast travel: if you fast travel while in direct sunlight and arrive at your destination while in the direct sunlight, game will treat it as if you where fast travelling under direct sunlight for the whole duration of the travel - in practice, that means you will arrive with 0 Vitae. This is not a problem per se, as it makes perfect sense as in "travel long under sunlight and get burned", but, unfortunately, I am unable to provide an MCM option to make regular fast travel completely safe at all times. Thankfully, i found a way to exclude carriage/ferry (and other forms of sitting fast) travel from this behavior (let's say that paid travel services come with a parasol).

Vampirism skill tree

Thanks to CommonlibSSE and new generation of revolutionary modding resources, namely Custom Skills Framework by meh321 and Parapets, vampires can finally have a dedicated fluid skill progression. No longer is it necessary to cram everything in Vampire Lord perk tree, leaving it free to focus on enhancing Vampire Lord gameplay!

Vampirism skill offers three loose branches to develop your undead prowess in. Vampirism perk points are separate from regular vanilla perk AND from Vampire Lord tree. Freshly turned vampires begin with 2 Vampirism perk points ready to be invested. You get a new perk point every 5 Vampirism skill levels, and 2 more each time you advance in Rank, for a total of 30 points. That means, the entirety of the Vampirism tree is unlockable in one playthrough, but that would require the player to reach both maximum skill level and ascend to highest Rank, making the order in which you unlock perks a little more meaningful.

By default, Vampirism skill does not contribute to player level progression. That can be adjusted in MCM. If you set the multiplier to 1, that would make Vampirism skill contribute the same level XP any regular skills. This multiplier is not retroactive. A lot of perks come with abilities that let you read a more detailed description of their current effect on your character. Navigate to the Magic Effects menu to see them.

The central branch offers ways to develop the archetypical vampiric traits of supernatural strength, speed and resilience. Batter enemies with more force than ever before! Run faster and jump higher than a mere mortal ever could! Shrug off heaviest blows like it's nothing, leave foes biting dust or omae wa mou shindeiru them with blinding speed and razor-sharp reflexes, while keeping things balanced by managing Vitae levels.

• Fortitude - Vigor Mortis: Use blood that you have taken to bring vitality back to your flesh and repair damaged tissue - Health regenerates at rate of 1.5% + 0.2% for each Vampiric Rank per second. Other sources of boosting Health regeneration become effective again. Halts when on fire or in direct sunlight. (Cost to maintain: 4 Vitae when actively regenerating)
• Reflexes - Extended Perception: Your awareness sharpens and reflexes becomes uncannily precise. Hold Hotkey A to toggle this power on or off. (Cost to maintain: 8 Vitae)
• Potence - Deadly Strength: Vampiric strength is as feared as it is supernatural. You passively deal more damage, carry more weight, take less fall damage and can charge a jump by holding Hotkey B. Effects grow with age. Activate this power to increase your overall physical damage by an additional 40% (Costing to maintain: 10 Vitae)
• Fortitude - Necrotic Flesh: Your dead flesh hardens, becoming akin to a gargoyle's hide. You take less damage from each physical attack, Fire and Shock resistance is 40% higher. However, you are encumbered, slowing you by 60% and making it impossible to sprint and jump high. Effects grow with age. (Cost to maintain: 20 Vitae)
• Reflexes - Celerity: For 4 seconds you move with speed so great that to those around you appear as nothing but a blur. Effect grows with age. Tap Hotkey A to activate, hold to dispel prematurely. (Cost: 400 Vitae)
• Potence - Ferocious Surge: Through channeling your inner Beast you can push your body beyond all physical limits. For 4 seconds you become almost completely tireless, attack 20% faster and your melee attacks hit all targets in front of you. Lasts longer with age, up to 13 seconds. (Cost: 600 Vitae)
• Potence - Impetus: When in Celerity and Deadly Strength are active, power attacks from behind take an enemy by surprise and carry such momentum they become critical and launch target forward.
• Reflexes - Wicked Wind: Ultimate expression of vampiric swiftness - in a blink of an eye, appear at target location within 15 feet. Castable only during Celerity. Tapping Hotkey A during Celerity casts this instead of Celerity.

Leftmost branch focuses primarily on stealth related mechanics and vampiric charms. The power to influence mortal minds and bend their will lies here.

• Eyes of the Moon: In conversation, your hypnotic gaze may help you seduce victims and feed on them discreetly. Feeding this way produces a bigger bonus to Vitae than through Vampire's Seduction. Bystanders might see through the act, raising alarm. Use Ruminate to reflect on how to best develop your allure.
• Vampire's Will: Directs attention of a living creature away from you for 60 seconds. They are less likely to detect you sneaking, and are oblivious to you feeding on others. Master practitioners of School of Illusion can learn to affect Daedra and Undead. Only works on 1 target at a time.
• Presence: Your vampiric influence makes Illusion spells up to 40% stronger and longer, depending on Vampirism skill progress. Vampire's Seduction works on targets 20 levels higher, if they are affected by a Calm spell. Makes intimidation attempts twice as likely to succeed.
• Mesmerize: Increases duration of Vampire's Seduction by 30 seconds and up to 3 minutes total, depending on Vampirism skill progress. You now can apply it when seducing through conversation instead of feeding, free of cooldown. Affected, if asked, will follow you, unless you move too far away from them.
• Confusion: Vampire's Will can now put a humanoid target in a state of Confusion, creating a distraction that would attract attention of nearby people. Only 1 target can be Confused at the same time, and targets become immune to it for a while afterwards. Player must be sneaking and undetected to apply this effect.
• Instinctive Charm: Upon receiving an unblocked hit, there is a small chance you will retaliate with a Calming charm. Effect lasts 15 seconds and has 30 seconds cooldown per person. Only works if attacking group in no smaller than 2 members. Effect can be toggled off.
• Dream Visitor: Feeding on a sleeping person makes them imprint on you in their dream. Your relationship rank with them increases by 1. Only works once per person.
• Obfuscate: Blend into your surroundings, gaining unbreakable invisibility for 60 seconds while sneaking. Nightstalker vampires and older do not have to sneak. Ends immediately when hit. (Cost: 300 Vitae)
• Masquerade: Constant low-level charm hides your vampiric features even when they are most apparent. You are no longer hated when Blood-starved. It becomes easier to feed without arousing suspicion, and detection radius becomes three times lower.
• Dominate: Bend mortals to your will. When Dominate is active, you may command any mortal to Stay, Follow, Flee or be Mesmerized, which places them under the effect of Vampire's Seduction. Applied this way, it works on targets up to 50 levels higher. Lasts 60 seconds. (Cost: 400 Vitae)

Rightmost branch is themed around various applications of Blood magic and offers you to deepen your understanding of its secrets through the art of Hemomancy. Hemomancy offers ways to deal magic damage over time, enhance your survivability and Vitae management, and even some opportunities for crowd control. All Hemomancy spells require Vitae instead of Magicka to be cast. Access to higher tiers of Hemomancy spells lets you annihilate enemies in a spectacular fashion, but costs a lot of Vitae. Hemomancy is designed to supplement general gameplay and offer powerful, but truly costly magic options, which may be difficult to achieve with Magicka based spells while keeping things balanced. Moreover, this branch offers a novel way to feed through Exsanguination, making it possible to get most effects of a feeding out of non-humanoid creatures.

• Hemomancy: Drain a life to unlock this perk and the secret art of Hemomancy, starting with the Blood Seed spell. Hemomancy grows up to 50% stronger with Vampirism skill progression. Most Hemomancy spells have no effect on dwarven automata, ghosts or skeletons.
• Bloodletting: When you apply Vampiric Drain, all targets affected by Blood Seed within 20 feet are also drained for 5 Health and Vitae per second.
• Adept Hemomancy: Using Hemomancy in combat leads to discovery of new spells when you drain a life. Practice the art of Hemomancy to uncover secrets of Blood Brand,** Blood Garden** spells and Maw ability.
• Exsanguinate: Vampiric Drain can now be dual cast. Maintaining an unbroken channel on a target that has less than 25% Health left will exsanguinate it, killing it and counting as feeding. **Vitae **capacity cannot be extended this way. Target of the channel cannot die until it is complete or the channel is broken.
• Transfusion: When cast at an ally, instead of regular effects Blood Brand heals them for 150 health over 2 seconds. If you are sneaking, applies regular Blood Brand effects.
• Expert Hemomancy: Your understanding of secrets of the blood grows further still. New spells of Blood Scourge and Blood Ankh, as well as Blood Tendril ability can now be learned through continued practice.
• Kindred: Transfusion now also makes its target immune to all other effects of Hemomancy for 8 seconds.
• Vicissitude: Hemomancy spells do 25% more damage in form of Health absorption to targets, affected by Blood Seed.
• Blood Resonance: Melee hits on targets affected by a Hemomancy spell regenerate 30 Vitae over 2 seconds. During that time, Vampiric Drain is 50% more effective.
• Master Hemomancy: Learn how truly devastating mastery over blood can be by discovering Blood Vortex, Blood Boil and Borrowed Time spells.

Hemomancy spells list is expanded compared with Sacrosanct. Blood Brand is reworked completely, and Blood Ankh is intergrated in Blood Scourge. Complete list of Hemomancy spells and abilities:

• Blood Seed: Jagged bone shards grow in a living or undead target, dealing 4 magic damage for 10 seconds. (Cost: 20 Vitae)
• Blood Brand: Inflicts Blood Seed, causing 10 magic damage for 12 seconds. Cast on a corpse to oversaturate its flesh with stolen blood, igniting it and creating a large pyre that lasts 45 seconds and burns enemies for 15 magic damage. Modified by Transfusion, Kindred and Blood Tendril. (Cost: 50 Vitae)
• Blood Garden: Casts Blood Seed on all targets, inflicting 8 magic damage for 10 seconds. (Cost: 80 Vitae)
• Maw: Vampiric Drain is 25% more effective, or 50% more effective if you have less than 50% Vitae, on targets affected by Blood Seed.
• Blood Scourge: Living or undead target takes 15 magic damage for 15 seconds. On death, spreads to all nearby targets. (Cost: 200 Vitae)
• Blood Ankh: Blood Scourge can now be aimed at a corpse or friendly controlled undead. Cast this way, it places a hex, after a brief delay causing target to explode for 200 magic damage.
• Blood Tendril: A Blood Tendril lashes out periodically from the pyre, created by Blood Brand. Those hit are dealt 100 magic damage and knocked prone.
• Blood Vortex: Perform a profane ritual to conjure a bloodstorm, covering a 20 feet area, for 30 seconds. Victims suffer 5 magic damage. Storm claims those who perish to last 10 more seconds. After 4 dead claimed it saturates fully and rebirths as Profaned Sun that burns for 25 magic damage per second for 15 seconds and follows last hostile Blood Branded target. (Cost: 300 Vitae)
• Blood Boil: A living target burns for 5 magic damage for 12 seconds. At half Health, blood boils in their veins, leading to an unpreventable violent explosion that knocks everyone down and deals 500 magic damage in a large area. Only 1 victim can burn at a time. (Cost: 600 Vitae)
• Borrowed Time: Deals 5 magic damage for 20 seconds to a living or undead target. When time runs out, deals damage equal to all Health lost by the target during this time. (Cost: 400 Vitae)

Inter-branch perks:

• Preservation: Learn to create Blood Potions by drawing them from thralls or with cooking station recipes. Skilled alchemists will be able to refine the formula to produce a much more potent Blood Wine*. Requires Vigor Mortis and Hemomancy perks to be unlocked.
• Auspex: In mortal form, your supernatural senses warn you of the presence of enemies within 70 feet, briefly illuminating them through walls. Enemies can only be illuminated once and enemies that are too close are not detected. Requires Extended Perception and Presence to be unlocked.

Hotkeys

Everdamned comes with two hotkeys, referenced as Hotkey A and Hotkey B. By default, they are bound to the X and V buttons, but can be remapped in MCM. Effects of these hotkeys, however, cannot be altered. They are mostly meant to streamline access to toggleable abilities (it is a great hassle to manage them otherwise), and access the Charged Jump mechanic.

Effects of these Hotkeys are as follows:

• Hotkey A: Hold to toggle Extended Perception. Tap to cast Celerity. Tap when in **Celerity **to cast Wicked Wind. LSHIFT + Tap to cast Darkwing Dash.
• Hotkey B: Tap to toggle Deadly Strength. LSHIFT + Tap to toggle Necrotic Flesh. Hold to Charge Jump.

Any effects listed will only be applied if player has them unlocked already. For example, you cannot cast Celerity, if you have not yet unlocked the respective perk.

Vampire Lord

First and foremost, you are a Volkihar vampire, and Vampire Lord form is an ultimate expression of that. Lore suggests this vampires of this lineage are uniquely gifted in the arts of Necromancy, can hide under a sheet of ice and grab prey from under it and also their breath is icy? Regardless, it is not reflected much in vanilla design. In Everdamned, Vampire Lords have access to more necromancy options, as well as a summoner-like archetype, to put an emphasis on the Lord part. Additionally, this bloodline is a direct gift from Molag Bal itself, so some of the powers are inspired by that connection to Coldharbour.

Overall, playing as Vampire Lord should feel powerful and worthy of the title. It is not a solution for every situation and cannot be used in every scenario, but when the time is right, it should feel fun without being overpowered. To make magic form less of a spamfest, Vampiric Drain was slightly nerfed to make way for other spells and abilities. Melee-focused powers from Vampirism tree, as well as from Vampire Lord's own tree, will give you more reasons to descend.

Basic Vampire Lord spells:

• Vampiric Drain: Explosion of vampiric energy that absorbs 10 (level 0) - 16 (level 50) Health and Vitae and deals 25 - 40 magic damage.
• Lord's Servant: Reanimate a corpse up to level 13 for 10 minutes.
• Bats: Dash in your direction of movement. Has 2 charges.

When in Vampire Lord form, you are hated as if Blood-starved, and direct sunlight is immediately **scorching **irrespective of current **Vitae **level.

Can you feel the power of the ancient blood coursing through your veins yet? Acquaint yourself with a selection of **23 **more perks, available for purchase in the Vampire Lord form. Perk points here are separate from **Vampirism **perk tree, and can be obtained through traditional method of absorbing victim Lifeblood by biting them or killing with form's version of Vampiric Drain. Biting produces **3 **times more Lifeblood than killing with a drain spell. 2 Vampire Lord perk points are awarded when you advance in Rank.

• Royal Bloodline: All attributes (Health, Magicka, Stamina) are increased by 50 points as Vampire Lord. Choose an attribute to further increase by 100 points.
• Unearthly Will: Your vampiric spells and powers, except for Vigor Mortis, cost 50% less in when in a vampiric transformation. Vampiric Drain costs 50% less Magicka in mortal form. Lord's Servant can now raise corpses of level equal to your Vampirism skill. Grants access to a lesser version of Lord's Servant in mortal form.
• Fountain of Life: Killing a person in melee with a bite attack in all forms form fully restores all your attributes. Draining a victim in mortal form counts towards Vampire Lord perk progression.
• Wings of the Strix: In magic mode, sprinting allows you to glide, greatly reducing fall speed.
• Night Cloak: In combat, you are surrounded by a cloud of bats that feed on living enemies within melee range, absorbing 5 points of Health per second from each. Weakened foes suffer reduced damage, but may get staggered instead.
• Raze: Cast a wave of blood that cuts through targets in a line, absorbing 15 - 25 Health and dealing 35 - 60 additional magic damage, based on your level. Permanently replaces standard Vampire Lord right hand spell.
• Tremble: If standing still and claws are drawn, ground landing emits a shockwave that throws all within **2 **feet into the air. Cooldown: 30 seconds.
• Royal Guardian: Upon entering combat, first time when an enemy enters an area within 30 feet of you, from the depths of Coldharbour a fierce guard dog emerges to protect you. It will be banished from this world when combat ends.
• Amaranth: Henceforth, don the Royal armor. Vampire's Seduction works on vampires, and draining humanoid vampires will absorb their power. Your reward for this depraved act is now a 30% bonus to combat and social skills while weaker vampires flee from you, for 5 minutes.
• Subjugate Undead: Lord's Servant spell now allows you to dominate a weaker hostile undead, placing it under your command. You can only control 1 target this way. Does not count against summon limit. Vampire's Will now works on undead. (Cost: 200 Vitae)
• Marching Flesh: Channel necrotic energy to empower commanded undead for 30 Health per second and 30% movement speed. Exposure for 6 seconds grants them Unholy Strength. It increases Health and Stamina by 50, attack speed for 20% for 15 seconds, and resets reanimation duration. (Cost: 30 Magicka, 30 Vitae)
• Undying Loyalty: Charge Lord's Servant for 3 seconds to increase its magnitude twofold, and make reanimated thrall last indefinitely and not disintegrate on death. Upon reverting to mortal form, the thrall will be displaced to the realm of Coldharbour and wait there for you to put on a mantle of Vampire Lord once again. (Cost: 300 Vitae)
• Shambling Hordes: Curse the ground around target area, bringing all of the dead lying upon it to animation for 40 seconds. Raised this way do not count against summon limit. Corpses disintegrate when the effect ends. (Cost: 300 Magicka, 800 Vitae)
• Conjure Gargoyle: Conjure a gargoyle to fight for you for 60 seconds. Available in mortal form as well. (Cost: 50 Magicka, 100 Vitae)
• Sacrificial Pyre: Channel for 20 Frost damage, engulfing target in cold-flames to be sent to Coldharbour upon death as tribute. A minion will be summoned for 30 seconds shortly after, that will not be counted towards your summon limit. Works on corpses, does not work on dragons. (Cost: 20 Magicka, 20 Vitae)
• Icy Winds: Volkihar's breath is said to freeze victim's blood in the veins. Concentrate to freeze the ground beneath you, making it hazardous. After 4 seconds of channel, release the spell to launch forward an icy storm, dealing 100 Frost damage and staggering or knocking victims down. (Cost: 35 Magicka, 40 Vitae per second of channel)
• Echolocation: Sends out a quick pulse that detects any creature. (Cost: 15 Magicka)
• Leeching Poison: Attacks in melee form deliver an unnatural toxin, dealing 25 points of poison damage and absorbing 50 points of Magicka and Vitae over 5 seconds.
• Mist Form: Disperse into a dark mist for 15 seconds, becoming undetectable and invulnerable but unable to fight while regenerating 25 points of Health, Magicka and Stamina per second. Has 30 seconds cooldown.
• Chokehold: Concentrate to pull a creature to you from a distance, absorbing 20 points of Health and Stamina per second when it is close. Can Exsanguinate victims, if you have the perk. Does not cost Vitae during Exsanguination. (Cost: 50 Magicka, 20 Vitae)
• Gutwrench: Concentrate to absorb 5 points of Health per second from nearby living foes. Uninterrupted exposure builds up 25 points of agony per second on each foe, tearing them apart when it exceeds their remaining Health. (Cost: 25 Magicka, 10 Vitae)
• Parting Gift: Chokeholding a corpse or a reanimated undead minion places a hex on them. In 4 seconds they explode violently, damaging all targets in 15 feet for 200 magic damage. Release Chokehold to throw them forward.
• Maelstorm: Create an imploding vortex that pulls all within 50 feet into the center, stunning them and reducing magic resistance by 50% for 3 seconds. (Cost: 150 Magicka, 400 Vitae)

Compatibility

Hard incompatibility: other vampirism overhauls, like Sacrosanct, Vampiric Thirst ports, Better Vampires etc. They are meant to modify same gameplay elements and would break each other.
Compatible: mods that change vampire appearance, like DVA, Vampire Lord Overhaul etc. Everdamned does not edit any vanilla race or NPC records to keep it as compatible with such mods as possible.
Partially Compatible: other mods, related to feeding, like Vampire Feeding Tweaks or Vampire Animations. Everdamned already covers feeding mechanics extensively, and in vanilla feeding the game does not have info about the victim, so it is not possible to calculate Vitae bonus and etc. Compatibility patches will have to be made, feel free to request some/ask about compatibility in the posts tab. A general compatibility patch with all of them is planned.
Not Recommended: These mods will not irreparably break the game if installed with Everdamned, but some bad interactions are known to happen, so hence this list:

• Wheeler - it has a bug that breaks the game timescale, if you open Wheeler menu during a Slow Time effect. It is a bug of a wheeler and cannot be fixed on Everdamned side, and Everdamned features time slow effects, so that might become an issue. But, the problem fixes itself once the Time Slow effect ends, so Wheeler still can be used, albeit with caution.
• ENB presets - most ENB presets are known to cause problems with color modifying part of Imagespace Modifiers. Everdamned features Imagespace Modifiers for spells and powers VFX, so you might not get the intended look. Same goes for most other gameplay mods, so unless you are a screen archer and/or need a specific ENB, consider investigating this matter and switching to a preset that does not break Imods, like True Vision. Or, better yet, use Community Shaders.
• Predator Vision - Everdamned implements similar features in a more performance friendly way, and has them integrated with gameplay mechanics. Also, it seems long abandoned and has several bugs : (
• Conjuration Limit Fix - currently, if Everdamned detects its presence, summon/reanimate spells that are listed as not counting towards summon limit DO count towards summon limit (because Everdamned conflicts with this mod and disables this feature it its presence). Integration is planned in a future update.

Installation

1. install all of the requirements flagged as Mandatory, and preferably the rest as well
2. install this mod with your preferred mod manager as regular, or copy the contents of the mod's archive into Skyrim Special Edition Data folder for manual installation (not recommended).

Credits

All assets are either made by me from vanilla assets or come from mods with open permission (or i asked for permission directly). In latter case, they can be found in a dedicated *_imported folder in /meshes/Everdamned or /textures/Everdamned. Important to note, 90% of them are not copied as is, but modified by me to some degree, sometimes they are not recognizable anymore, but I decided to leave them where they are for convenience.

MissLeeches - it was her mod that awakened the interest for vampiric media in me, that still holds to this day and led to the creation of this mod
EnaiSiaion - assets from Sacrosanct, Apocalypse and Ordinator. thanks for all the amazing mods of Enairim as well as Sacrosanct, how do I get off Ordinator, its just so good, someone please help me
MihailMods - used Fleder from his Vampire Beasts mod and Foglings from Foglings mod. hid mods are a staple of my load order and also seems like a swell guy
KittyTail - learned most of VFX that I can do with NIFs from dissecting their numerous mods of insane quality, also used some assets
noptasis - Arcanum is my favorite spell mod and a huge inspiration, also used some assets
Aipex8 - used his Cold-Flame textures and gradients, also like Coldharbour Resummoned very much
juhaaa - crouch idle from Sky Idles
iRetrospect - sprinting jump animation
JaySepra - breathing SFX
Shepiao - Tasha's Hideous Laughter laugh tracks
steelfeathers' Lost Grimoire - psychic explosion mesh
r/skyrimmods discord - for help with mod development

FAQ

Q: No sneak feeding? A: Yes, Everdamned does not feature an option to sneak feed. Honestly, I just don't understand the idea of "sneakily feeding on a conscious person". I will try to find a place for it in coming updates, suggestions are welcome.

Q: I want to report a bug/crash. A: Please describe the circumstances of the problem in as much detail as possible. Make sure to include crash logs in case of a crash and/or Papyrus logs. If you do not have crash logs or do not know where to get them, see this mod. For Papyrus logs, see this article.

Q: I want to suggest a compatibility patch. A: Suggestions are welcome, try to describe what mod you want to make Everdamned compatible with is about and which features must be made compatible, so I can prioritize.

Q: Seduction feeding animation / combat drain animation did not play, why? A: I wish I knew why. Sometimes, god knows for what reason, Skyrim engine decides that you cannot play idles (sometimes even solo idles) in a particular spot. Try again in a different spot.

• Direct sunlight represents actual in-game light level. Depending on your lightning mods, presence of ENB/CS and other effects affecting light, shadows you see rendered in-game may not correspond to what the game engine considers shadowed area. If that is the case for you and you feel it breaks your immersion, visit Everdamned MCM menu to make sun weakness not depend on light level. But I think its still fun regardless, so its on by default. Also, you can disable scorching sunlight entirely.
• Restoration Healing penalty is disabled when player gets a certain perk (see spoiler). Also, it can be disabled in MCM for compatibility reasons, like your perk overhaul not using some vanilla perk records/giving them a different name so you can't find them.

the perk is...

Necromage

• Again, due to inconsistencies with light level based effects, you can disable night vision adaptivity in the MCM and pick a preferred level there.
• There is a secret third effect of Preservation perk. Check spoiler to see: [spoiler]If you have progressed Skyrim's main quest far enough and Septimus gave you the Essence Extractor, you can use it on Blood Dolls to extract a more potent version of Blood Potion. You do not need to have the item in your inventory to do that. Option to bypass main quest requirement exists in the MCM[/spoiler]