This is a beginner-level DiY project to allow Khajit and Argonian tails to show with a worn Campfire cloak. Our goal is to make a patch plugin to override the cloaks from Chesko’s Campfire using SSEedit (xEdit). By following the same procedure, you may alter other cloak mods to do the same.

In Skyrim, a cloak normally hides the tail since the cloak covers the tail. Makes sense to me, but some may prefer to see the tail. We’ll accomplish this edit by causing the tail to clip through the cloak and assume there’s a hole. There isn’t a hole, of course. Let’s pretend. Each armor item may include flags telling the game which body parts the item hides. The cloaks we’ll be looking at include a tail flag which is what we want to remove. We’ll do this by creating a patch plugin file, because we don’t want future Campfire updates to undo our edits.

requirements

• Campfire by Chesko (or another mod with cloaks)
• SSEedit (xEdit) by zilav et al
• A do-it-yourself spirit and willingness to try something new

The step-by-step instructions below are aimed at the beginner. If the sight of an editor like xEdit makes you curl up in a ball or freeze like a deer caught in headlights, then feel free to stop now and search for patches that do this for you. Send the author hugs, hail with praises for such wizardry, and shower the author with money.

• cycle: 168 miles
• run: 57 miles

They love switchbacks at Mahogany Mountain. It seems like half of the switchbacks are purely for kicks, at least the ones near the trailhead. It’s fun, that’s for certain. The map above includes images near points marked in red were I took photo. There are a number of routes to choose from, and my route on this ride took me to Grove Creek (mile 5) and up Mahogany Mountain Trail to a twisty trail called Sneaky Shiz (mile 8). The view above Sneaky shows Utah Lake down below. Trail signs are plentioctoful down near the trailhead in that twisty back-and-forth business, but up above not so much. Bring a map.

Trail tracking by Cyclemeter.

previous month

In TES V: Skyrim Special Edition, moving weapon position style or adjusting weapon positions for better fit on your character is a fairly straight-forward process by editing the custom skeleton, “XP32 Maximum Skeleton Special Extended” (XPMSSE) by Groovtama. As of April 2017, the only weapon styles available for immediate play include 1-handed swords on back, daggers on back hip, and Belt-fastened Quivers (BFQ) with bow. All the nodes for the other styles exist, but haven’t been set yet for download. Let’s set our own default weapon style! We can also adjust the positions of weapons and quivers to better fit the character if needed.

This tutorial assumes comfort with file management and willingness to learn if not some experience with editing nif files. I share step-by-step instructions on turning main weapon edge-side up and adjusting weapons-on-back distance. The process is the same for choosing other XPMSSE-included weapon styles.

requirements

If you don’t already have the custom skeleton you’ll need to install that first and make sure it’s working in game. We’ll also need the handy tool, NifSkope, to edit the skeletons (male and female).

• XPMSSE 4.20 by Groovtama (old 4.20 no longer available)
• NifSkope - Niftools

Make a backup copy of your skeleton files in case something goes horribly wrong. Best to copy them to a backup folder so you can easily copy them back to start over.

Skeleton nif-file locations:

• \Data\meshes\actors\character\character assets\skeleton.nif
• \Data\meshes\actors\character\character assets female\skeleton_female.nif

• cycle: 191 miles
• run: 72 miles

I took some days off mid-month to travel with some running in other states. Only 8 bicycle rides, but extended the miles by 75 over March.

Lake Tahoe looks pretty in April. Met some heavy fog along the snowy driver over Mt Rose from Reno, and it turned out quite sunny at the lake.

My Earth Day ride took me to see the Provo River

• cycle: 115 miles
• run: 77 miles

I took off an entire week mid-month, but I still managed to beat my February running miles. I’m gradually increasing my distance per outing, and for April I’ll be focusing more on cycling.

This photograph of Utah Valley was taken at the very end of the month during a bike ride.