#pavo ii loses sorry.

[corallapis]

favorite female master poll but it's between mestizer, pavo ii, and despina norman.

[dawns-beauty]

Okay, to counteract all my complaining, here are some (lore friendly) mods that I just like a lot (no animals, people, weapons/armors, mesh/texture replacers, etc. because there's too many and it gets boring.)

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Ghosts of the Deathbells: adds a really rare, somber event to picking a deathbell flower.

Falmeroon: adds Snow Elf ruins to some remote edges of the map. I've made an unofficial SE port here.

Snow Whale Bones: adds the remains of Snow Whales in some mountainous areas (iffy canon but sorry they are Cool.)

Windmills of Skyrim: adds windmills with unique, custom-painted sails to farms.

Scarecrows of Skyrim: adds scarecrows to farms.

Scribes of Skyrim: makes books and notes use a variety of typefaces (any fellow Pentiment fans out there?)

The Old Ways-Nordic Religion: adds totems representing the Nordic pantheon around Skyrim. Has patches for the next recommendation.

The Great Towns/Villages series: overhauls the smaller, worldspace towns in a really cool way, includes voice-acted NPCs. Personally, I like Kynesgrove the best because it actually adds to the lore about the Nordic pantheon. For Shor's Stone, I recommend this mod as well.

Redbag's Rorikstead: I like this mod over Great Village's version because the houses have sod roofs and I'm a sucker for sod roofs.

Capital Windhelm Expansion: adds some really thoughtful lore touches (Dunmer refugees outside the walls, an Arena, and a cool vampire quest)

Relic of Dawnstar: adds a Gehenoth skull to the White Hall (requires Cities of the North), inspired by the lore of the Travels game

Environs series: thoughtful additions that makes certain places change over time.

WiZKid's mods: especially Lund's Hut, Lively Farms, Icy Windhelm, Pinewatch, Hall of the Dead Stained Glass Windows, and Pavo's House. Sepolcri is also pretty good but loses immersion points for using celtic cross gravestones. You can pry Lanterns of Skyrim II from my cold, dead hands, though. Lux? Idk her, LoSII is my bestie.

Fancy Sleeping Tree Replacer: the Sleeping Tree is supposed to be a remnant of the sentient trees of the flying city of Umbriel (from the novels.) It should be weird, is what I'm saying, and this mod makes it alien and beautiful.

Unique Culture Riverwood: a mod that gives Riverwood its own style of farmhouse and a little more personality. The author has also made a mod for Falkreath.

Immersive World Encounters: adds more and edits World Encounters, including encountering faction NPCs out and about (ex. the Companions outside of Whiterun doing Companion-y things in the wilderness).

Glorious Doors of Skyrim: adds some really cool doors. 'nuff said.

Redbag's Dragonreach: adds some unique flair to Jarl Ballin's crib.

Cultured Orc Furniture: replaces generic furniture in Orc Strongholds with custom furniture.

Lavinia's Memorial: adds some gifts from her grieving parents to the little girl's grave in Falkreath. Ouch.

Nocturnal Moths: adds moths that spawn around lanterns at night.

Moons and Stars: fixes the positions of the stars and moons, as well as making moon phases consistent.

DK's Realistic Nord Ships: replaces Skyrim's ships with some gorgeous new models.

Morgenstern's Mushroom Circles: adds more fairy rings in the wilderness. Delightful!

Bloodmoon Brodir Grove: makes the grove in Solstheim a little more like it was in the Morrowind DLC. The mod author also has more mods that bring Bloodmoon details and locations to Solstheim.

Ships of the Horizon: does what it says on the tin.

EVG Animation Variance: the whole animation series by Everglaid is nice (haven't tried Traversal yet, but that is some incredible technology) but I especially like this one for the old people animations

jasperthegnome's houses: these are SO cozy and comfy.

Arctic- Frost Effects Redux: makes frost spells have cooler effects (including 3D ice spikes)

Northern Roads- Let Me Guess Someone Stole Your Sweetroads: a plugin that cuts down on Northern Roads, removing all the landscape changes and bridges and just keeping the clutter. Way more compatible than the original mod.

Skyrim Bridges: this is my favorite bridge mod. There are many, but I like this one best.

Edit: forgot two tiny mods in my original post:

Nightcaller Temple Unique Shrine of Mara: replaces the generic shrine with a wooden shrine Erandur carved

Broken Tower Redoubt Unique Shrine of Dibella: similar to the above mod, but Reachmen carved this one.