Arissa is a Skyrim companion character with over 600 lines of dialogue, professionally recorded and beautifully voiced by the talented Nikkita. She is designed as a game-long companion that can accompany you from start to finish. She is inspired by Bethesda's Serana from Dawnguard, and the kinds of characters found in Bioware games.
Arissa is an Imperial with an independent, rebellious spirit and a gift for making expensive things disappear.
Arissa is a rogue-type character with a dual-wielding combat style. She will readily use blades, bows, and any armor given to her. She levels as the player levels, favoring thief-oriented skills such as light armor, lockpicking and one-handed weapons. Her level is uncapped.
Enjoy getting to know Arissa along your travels as you take part in her short-but-sweet two-part main quest line, complete with a new dungeon to explore.
She earns every bit of her title of "wandering rogue", having criss-crossed Skyrim the better part of the last decade. She will readily chime in with witty, interesting, and insightful comments about over 40 areas across Skyrim as you travel together. If you were searching for a bold and knowledgable companion to accompany you on your long travels, look no further. She is fully embedded in Skyrim's world and fully lore-friendly.
We promise an obsessive devotion to detail and quality while offering an experience that feels like a natural extension of the normal game. The voice acting and recording quality should sound as good as any NPC you'd encounter in the main game. The recordings are very high quality; it needs to be heard to be appreciated. The mod should also be free of typos and other grammatical errors. Every battle cry, "Uh huh", "Sure", "No thanks", and "Lead on" was carefully voice-acted and recorded by Nikkita; all dialogue spoken by Arissa is 100% original.
Special attention was paid to adding a high level of variety to common phrases in order to keep things from sounding repetitive. Attention was also paid to trying to find a "sweet spot" in her talkativeness, erring on the side of staying quiet and allowing the player to enjoy the game. We never wanted her to be annoying or repetative, and I think you'll be pleased with what we've been able to accomplish. For us, she is a joy to adventure and spend time with, and we hope you feel the same.
Arissa does not use the standard follower system in Skyrim, so she can be recruited in addition to any other follower you might have.
Special Note: Users that are arachnophobic may have a difficult time completing a portion of Arissa's main questline. Please install a spider replacer mod if this will impact you.
Visit the Dead Man's Drink in Falkreath. Arissa will be waiting for you there.
Arissa can talk about the general surroundings ("What do you know about this place?"), as well as her background. She will be elusive at first, but will begin to open up as you move through her main quest.
Arissa has been all over Skyrim, and will offer comments for a wide variety of locations in the base Skyrim game (DLC areas are not yet supported). When you come close to one of these areas, Arissa will chime in. She will only speak these lines unprompted once in a fixed amount of time in order to avoid repetition.
You can select "Keep it down for a while." in order to surpress her ambient dialogue for up to 12 hours, or until you ask her to speak up again.
She will also comment on successfully picking locks, choice of armor, nearby dungeons, and more.
We wanted to give Arissa a mind of her own and add some depth to Arissa's behavior, and have her behavior change over the course of your time spent with her. Arissa features a Regard system which determines how she feels about the player, and what tasks and favors she will be willing to perform.
Arissa will respond naturally to your actions over the course of the game. As her Regard increases, her disposition toward you will improve, unlocking new abilities. Her normal dialogue options will change in tone as well, ranging from dismissive to enthusiastic. Her Regard can also be affected (sometimes greatly) by certain dialogue options.
Arissa responds positively to acts of heroism and cunning, such as defeating difficult foes, winning brawls, performing successful sneak attacks, and more. She responds negatively to acts of murder and intimidation. She will also respond negatively to being hit by the player.
COMPANION Effect: Call of Oakshore unlocked. Summon Arissa from anywhere in Skyrim.
FRIEND Effect: Will give lockpicks and leveled poisons to player once / day.
ALLY Effect: Willing to do favors.
DISTANT Effect: Willing to Trade. Willing to Wait.
DISTRUSTFUL Effect: Nothing
RESENTFUL Effect: Nothing
RIVAL Effect: Leaves your service. You can wait and recruit her again.
Special note: Arissa hates cannibalism. If you feed on someone while wearing the Ring of Namira while Arissa is in your service, she will leave permanently. You will not be able to re-recruit her after this, so be careful!
Currently, Arissa is accepting towards vampirism and lycanthropy.
When visiting a major city in Skyrim, you can tell Arissa "You go ahead. I'll catch up with you later." Arissa will the leave your side to freely roam the city while you remain in it. She will rejoin you if asked or if you leave the city gates. Arissa will prefer to hang around and shop in alchemy and general good stores. She will retire to the local inn after dark.
If you allow Arissa to roam past midnight, she may get up to no good... who knows what she might find?
If you leave the city, Arissa will run to rejoin you; you don't have to track her down yourself.
I hope this feature allows you to have some time apart from each other while in cities without disturbing gameplay, leading to a more organic feeling experience. Town Roaming is compatible with Open Cities of Skyrim.
Arissa will attempt to intelligently get out of the player's way when Arissa and the player are too close, hopefully un-jamming her from doorways and halls.
When riding a horse, Arissa will automatically call her own and ride right behind you. Her horse is dismissed as soon as you dismount. Arissa is also compatible with Convenient Horses (with the available compatibility patch)! If you would like mounted combat options for Arissa, please use Convenient Horses.
Arissa wears her normal "casual" attire at the start of your journey together, and then quickly switches to a set of thief-based armor. This armor is sub-par and should be upgraded at the earliest opportunity. Arissa was designed with the modded game in mind, so please upgrade her gear to whatever you find suitable. Since her gear has lower armor value than any other armor found in the game, she should automatically wear whatever you give her.
Arissa changes to her more casual attire when left to her own devices when roaming in towns or when dismissed. She will re-equip her best equipment when you rerecruit her.
When Arissa's regard for you is high enough, you can begin managing her worn equipment. Note that this is distinct from trading with her; things given when saying "I'd like to trade some things with you." will not be worn. Select "Let's manage your equipment." instead.
The latest version of Skyrim.
Compatible with other custom follower mods.
Compatible with Convenient Horses. Please download the compatibility patch.
Compatible with Wearable Lanterns.
Compatible with Campfire.
Compatible with Become A Bard.
Compatible with Open Cities of Skyrim.
Compatible with SkyUI and features an optional Mod Configuration Menu. Without SkyUI, a configuration spell is given instead.
No compatibility was added for multi-follower mods; however, your gameplay should not be negatively impacted. Do not elect to "manage" Arissa using UFO or AFT or bugs may occur. EFF should be OK.
Arissa has already been cleaned with TES5Edit and the edits that remain are intentional. Specifically, these edits are intentional:
- Edits to defaultWICommentTRIG
- Edits to WICommentTriggerScript
- Edits to MilitaryCampHaafingarSonsLocation
- Edits to Worldspace Tamriel 00000D74 and Block -1, 0 and children (MilitaryCampHaafingarSonsLocation, MilitaryCampHaafingarSons03, etc)
"I lost Arissa! I can't find her!" If Arissa disappears, you can:
- Fast travel to another location and see if she re-appears
- Wait one in-game hour
- If you told her to Wait and forgot where, she will return to the Dead Man's Drink in Falkreath after 2 days.
- If you dismissed her, she will be waiting in the Dead Man's Drink in Falkreath.
- If you told her to roam freely while in a city, leave the city. She will run to you. You may need to wait an hour for her to catch up to you.
- If none of these solve the problem, open the console and type "set RecoverArissa to 1" and she will be returned to you in a few seconds.
"Arissa said "Excuse me" when I bumped into her, and then cowered, as if frightened." This is a known issue that is part of her "avoidance" package to try to get her out of your way when you bump into her.
"Arissa started sandboxing / started waiting somewhere, and now she's not following me even if I move away." Chances are high that your game (specifically your scripting system) is running poorly and my scripts are not being allowed to run. Try a new game or try disabling all other mods and see if it still happens. Arissa uses a system identical to the one used by Serana in Dawnguard to allow her to sandbox around an area when you are standing still.
"Does Arissa use a custom body, face, hair, etc?" Yes. Her body mesh and textures in the main install are the CBBE Slim Nevernude body. Her eyes are from The Eyes of Beauty. Her hair is a custom combination from Kalilie and ApachiiSkyHair. Please use the Arissa Customizer and The Hairstyler to choose exactly how you would like Arissa to look.
"Can you marry Arissa?" Not at this time. Making her a fun and pleasing character to adventure with was more important during development.
"I am a cannibal and now Arissa hates me. Is there any way to re-recruit her?" No, sorry.
"Is Arissa compatible with mod XYZ?" I don't know. Why don't you try it, and let me know? There are too many things for me to test by myself. Please report incompatibilities.
"Can Arissa die?" Only during a specific portion of her recruitment quest, if you select a certain aggressive option. Otherwise, she cannot die.
"Why won't Arissa do what I tell her to do?!" Because her Regard is too low for what you're asking her to do. See "Regard", above.
"Is Arissa compatible with multi-follower mods such as EFF, UFO, and AFT?" Nothing will break, but their additional follower features (probably) won't work. I haven't added compatibility for these.
"How do I start the second part of Arissa's main quest?" She will approach you automatically after about 3 days of gameplay. You can also use the Wait key to wait about 3 days to force this.
"How do I get past the barred gate?" Pull the right torch near the gate.
"What is the full list of things that increase Regard? What is the full list of things that decrease it?"
Her Regard is increased by: Days spent together Brawls Won Backstabs Locations Discovered Dungeons Cleared Persuasions Bribes Quests Completed Spells Learned Pockets Picked Locks Picked Horses Stolen Dragon Souls Collected People Killed (but not Murders) Undead Killed Daedra Killed Automatons Killed Times Shouted Words Of Power Learned Sneak Attacks Items Stolen
Her Regard is decreased by: Murders Intimidations Attacking her Feeding as a Cannibal (results in permanent disband)
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It's been a great privilege to work with someone as talented as Nikkita. Thank you for breathing life into Arissa; without your hard work, she would have never been possible.
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Thanks to Gareth for the excellent music track that opens her first quest.
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(1.3) Thanks to Lorelai's 3D modeling and texturing support.
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(1.3) Thanks to TheRoadStroker for use of his excellent-looking Rogue Sorceress outfit.
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Thanks to Apachii, Kalilies and Nouk for Arissa's hairstyle
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Thanks to Mitchalek, for Convenient Horses compatibility.
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Thanks to ClearanceClarence, for the excellent Arissa Customizer.
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Thanks to Caliente, for the CBBE body, which Arissa uses as of Arissa 2.2.
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Thanks to LogRaam, for Arissa's eyes from The Eyes of Beauty.
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And last but not least, thanks to YOU for your patience and for playing Arissa. I hope you have great adventures together and that we get to hear about them.
Contact Chesko at chesko.tesmod@gmail.com
YOU DO NOT NEED PERMISSION TO TRANSLATE THIS MOD. YOU SHOULD CREATE A TRANSLATION PLUG-IN THAT USES COMPANIONARISSA.ESM AS A MASTER INSTEAD OF TRANSLATING THE ESM ITSELF!
You may not re-upload Arissa, in whole or in part, to any site, without express permission from the author, with the exception of archival / availability purposes in the event that Skyrim Nexus no longer exists.
You may create a plug-in file that uses CompanionArissa.esm as a master file for any reason without permission. This includes translations.
Adventure awaits!