Zim’s Immersive Artifacts
Adds lore-friendly, balanced improvements to the under-powered artifacts of Skyrim.
The aim of this mod is to make Skyrim’s most legendary and infamous artifacts more powerful without making them
over-powered, to make their effects unique and invaluable, and to stay within the Elder Scrolls lore.
This mod has been made to improve immersion. When I come across a legendary artifact that’s boring or under-powered, I find it completely breaks immersion. Auriel’s Bow, for example: created by a god with craftsmanship that’s said to have no equal, but it’s less effective than a Glass Bow and its enchantment is mediocre. The weapon of a god shouldn’t be so mundane.
Updated Artifacts
Includes balanced, lore-friendly and immersive improvements
to over 50 of Skyrim’s most legendary and famous artifacts,
and removes item leveling.
Modular Installation
A Vortex installer and Merging Guide let you to choose
which artifacts are improved and which are left alone.
Alternatives
Optional new textures and equipment-types
available for some artifacts.
V1.7 Now Available!
Bug fixes and improved stability.
New improvements for some artifacts.
New method for acquiring alternatives and Thane weapons.
For a general overview, see V1.7 Update: general overview in the Q&A section.
For a full list of changes, see V1.7 Update in the Changelog section.
Requirements and Compatibility
No other mods required, fully compatible with all my mods.
DLC requirements listed below; Dragonborn and Dawnguard required for full install.
Place this mod lower in your load-order than any other mods that might clash to avoid any issues.
The artifact improvements applied by this mod are divided into Packs.
You can choose to install all content, or only the Packs you want. You can also pick-and-choose
the individual artifact improvements you’d like installed from the Ancient and Daedric Packs.
Ancient Pack
Dawnguard and Dragonborn required
Includes improvements to Auriel’s Bow and Shield, the Blade of Woe, the Bloodskal Blade,
Chillrend, the Gauldur Amulet and its Fragments, Keening, Kyne’s Token, Nettlebane, the
Staff of Magnus, the Shield of Ysgramor, and Wuuthrad.
For a full list of artifact improvements,
press the spoiler button below
Daedric Pack
Dawnguard and Dragonborn required
Includes improvements to all of vanilla Skyrim’s Daedric artifacts,
as well as the Rueful Axe and the Amulet of Articulation.
Miraak Pack
Dragonborn required
Includes improvements to all of Miraak’s equipment,
including his mask, armor and weapons.
Be warned, this Pack makes Miraak a harder foe to defeat.
Nightingale Pack
No DLC required
Includes improvements to all of the Nightingale equipment,
including the sword, bow, hood, armor, gauntlets and boots.
Fully compatible with most mods that affect
the meshes or textures of Nightingale armor.
Thane Pack
Dragonborn required
Includes unique and disenchantable replacements
for the generic Thane weapons.
Fully compatible with Hearthfire.
Note: if you have already obtained thane weapons when installing this mod, they will be renamed Thane Status (these can be disposed of)
and the new versions will be automatically placed in your inventory. Your carry capacity will be temporarily increased to prevent over-encumbering.
Some artifacts have new options for textures, meshes
or in-game appearances, and equipment-types.
To obtain these alternatives, you will either have to make changes in-game
or implement changes during the mod installation process.
Depending on how you choose to install this mod’s content, you can have between 1 and 35 individual esp files
installed. Most of these are ESL flagged in Skyrim SE, but for anyone looking to reduce their esp count, all
esp files in Zim’s Immersive Artifacts (ZIA) are designed to be easily merged into a single esp file.