Immersive Sounds – Magic
Overhauls several of Skyrim’s spellcasting sounds.
NOTE: This is a modular version of just the magic changes from Immersive Sounds – Compendium. For more in depth information please refer to Compendium’s description page.
The module should have the same content found in Compendium, but it’s good to always assume that Compendium is the most up to date version.
Requires Dawnguard.
Magic/Spell sounds have been dramatically reworked to help emphasize the differences between each school of magic, as I felt the original sounds were too homogenized (and in many cases they literally just share the same generic sounds across magic schools). I’m going to split up the descriptions between each school and try to explain my ideas and motivations for the changes:
DESTRUCTION – Destruction is split up between the 3 different elements, so we’ll go over those respectively.
Fire spells in vanilla have a lot of sharp crackling in them, as if it was firewood being burnt in a brazier or something. Since you are conjuring up flames from the ether, this didn’t sound quite right to me. So fire spells now have a much smoother, windy quality to them.
Shock spells I believe suffered much from very cliché-sounding electric buzzing. This is a problem in many, many games since they all seem to pull from the same old tired stock sounds. I have tried to downplay this aspect in many of the shock spells and instead emphasize rumbling thunder.
Frost spells were IMO the least problematic of the three and didn’t need as much work. A lot of people have complained about icicle/icy spear being a bit harsh on the ears, so that has been replaced with something that is hopefully more pleasant sounding.
CONJURATION – In addition to the main conjuration sounds being reworked, this school also suffered from simply using the fire sounds for charging and casting so they have been replaced with new unique sounds. The overall theme for conjuration sounds is to be more rythmic than the others, and have a sort of dark and menacing aspect to them, since you’re dealing with powerful Daedric forces here.
ILLUSION – Likewise there were a lot of generic fire sounds being used here, so Illusion has been given a unique makeover just like conjuration. I wanted it to sound more otherwordly and mysterious, with a lot of dissonant droning to it. The exceptions here are the fury and fear-based spells, which have a more aggressive quality to them.
ALTERATION – This is sort of like Illusion in that I wanted it to sound kind of otherworldly, but with less of a dissonant characteristic. And since Alteration is more about the manipulation of physical things, rather than the mind like Illusion, I have also tried to reflect this in some of the spells. Oakflesh, Stoneflesh, Ironflesh now all use different casting sounds true to their names.
RESTORATION – I wanted Restoration to differ itself by somehow sounding more benevolent than the other schools. By default IS gives Restoration spells a sort of ethereal, harmonic vibe. I know from experience with users though that people can be quite picky over how their Restoration sounds like. So for this school there are multiple choices of sounds you can choose from in the installer. One is from an earlier version of my mod, which is reminiscent of classic RPG healing, the other is sort of inspired by the Templar healing sounds in TESO, or you could simply choose to opt out of any custom sounds and use the vanilla ones.
VAMPIRIC – Shock sounds have been removed from Vampiric Drain effects and replaced with new unique sounds more suited to creatures that go bump in the night.
SHOUTS – Many of Skyrim’s shout spell sounds (not the voices) with the same intention as the magic portion: to provide more variety and emphasize the differences between the shouts, instead of being mostly just thunder sounds with a hint of some other element
