Better Benirus Manor 5.11

Better Benirus Manor is much brighter and more polished than the default.  It features automatic lighting, clean and light decor, and many enhancements you may toggle via in-game switches/menus in the basement to your liking.  I've also added fun stuff to the lair, including an alchemy lab & training area - but access to the lair is optional, in case you'd like to just forget the whole traumatic thing.  The post-quest exterior of the house features a well, small vineyard, and tasteful decor & vegetation.  If you have Cobl, you will also find all the Cobl basics!

You can safely install this mod before or after the house's quest.

I made a fully voice-acted house servant! You can download her separately here.

TOGGLE OPTIONS FOR MANOR:

• Automatic Lights - Daylight from 7 a.m. - 7 p.m., Candlelight 7 p.m. - 7 a.m.  If you disable automatic lighting, a normal light switch will appear in the foyer for you to switch light settings as you like.
• Bedroom Bench - If you have the bathing mod, you will want this disabled so there's room for your bathtub.
• Benirus Master Bed - I made a custom Benirus-logo'd master bed, but you may prefer the default bed.
• Interior Doors - I have the interior doors off by default, they annoy me; bring them back if you like.
• Library Books - I added a fully-stocked library to the basement, but you might prefer empty shelves to fill up yourself, or to save FPS.
• Window Boards - Board the windows if you need extra privacy or darkness.  What you do in your manor is your business.
• Window Flowers - I added flowers around some windows inside the house; disable them for cleaner lines.
• Summon/Dismiss Butler - The butler will come, tidy up any messes you've made, put fresh food on the table, and hang around until dismissed.  Please note that this will remove all items from the manor that weren't placed by the game or the mod, so don't use this feature if you decorate!
• Summon/Dismiss Phoebe - Not a cat person?  Have a pet Land Dreugh?  Send Phoebe outside to play.

TOGGLE OPTIONS FOR BASEMENT:

• Basement Lights - Get extra bright lights in the basement if you need them.  The switch is by the basement door.
• Portal Cover - I have the lair portal covered by default for those who want to forget the whole thing.  Also plenty of wine in the basement.  The Secret Switch to access the lair is just outside the portal.

TOGGLE OPTIONS FOR LAIR:

• Lair Aged/Tidy - For the neat freak in all of us, the cobwebs and bones have been cleaned up - but you may prefer the aged & dirty look.  BYO spiders.
• Brazier Flames - you can turn the lair braziers on or off, either to save FPS or to be extra dark an' spookeh.
• Brazier Flame Colors - The brazier flames are an evil violet/green by default, but you can switch to normal flames if you're grilling in.
• Anvil - You can make the anvil in the lair for decoration only, if you prefer.
• Mage Altars - Toggle them on or off.
• Summon/Dismiss Guardian - Dismiss or recall Ed if he's in your way.

The library shelves are stocked with at least one copy of every book.  This includes skill books.  So, you know, don't read everything in one sitting.

I've also included a higher-resolution Arcane Symbol (the glowy circle-star thingy that's all over the lair) replacer.  I'm mostly sure it's an improvement on the original.  It's, uh, optional, in any case.

Support for All Natural, Benirus Lair, and See You Sleep are included in the main download.  Ghorak's House and Benirus Manor Rebuilt include patches I created for Better Benirus Manor in their files.  Open Cities Classic compatibility is already enabled without a patch.  "Interior Only" versions are included for users of city mods such as Better Cities and Open Cities Reborn to prevent conflicts.

All meshes have been pyffi'd for best performance, all resources have unique file paths, and all plugins have been cleaned with TES4Edit for best compatibility.

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REQUIREMENTS

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Requires the latest official Oblivion patch (1.2.0.416).

Recommended, but not required: Shivering Isles expansion, Book Jackets, Cobl, Anvil/City Morning Glory, Setsuna Dummy Training Modified

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LINKS

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A French translation of this mod is available at La Confrérie des Traducteurs.

A Russian translation of this mod is available at Anvil Bay.

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CREDITS

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Thanks to/for, in no particular order:

• HS for the fantastic housecat resources
• Arthmoor for working with me on making BBM and OCC compatible
• Qarl for allowing me to package his normalmaps in this mod for my custom wall texture
• Brumbek & the All Natural Team for allowing me to edit and distribute All Natural's house interior mesh for full All Natural support
• Obsidian Dawn (http://www.obsidiandawn.com/), a.k.a. redheadstock @ dA for the brushes used to finish the Arcane Symbol replacer
• InsanitySorrow for the dungeon retex we originally used for Better Dark Brotherhood Sanctuary
• The UOP Team for the script fix for black soul gem altars
• Greenwarden, for always.  <3