Now that The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim‘s been out a good long while, some of the RPG game can feel a little stale. A new Skyrim mod overhauls the children of the fantasy game, sprucing up the ones already there, and adding a couple dozen more besides.
The Kids Are Alright Renewal updates the models for kids already scurrying around Tamriel, adjusting skin colour, hair, and more on the existing models. Boys and girls have more defining features, like added musculature for boys, and softer skin on girls, and a glitchy mouth mesh in some of the models has been fixed. Another 27 have been placed throughout the world, scripted to hang around places where youth are known to be.
Many of the added children are for humanoid races, like Argonians and Dark Elves, to liven up their communities. Dedicated mod users might recognise some of this, as it used to exist in a previous, much more substantial mod. According to creator triptherift, a mix-up involving the original being accidentally taken down led to this replacement. The first version had become quite feature-heavy, and this time triptherift intends to keep it as streamlined as possible. You can read more on Nexus.
A couple of restrictions are in place: the “child” flag can’t be disabled to harm them, and some precautions are built-in if you decide to dress them in physics-enabled adult clothes. It’s recommended you start on a new save if you use this mod, and you should remove any other mods that affect children.
One mod that could very well sync-up nicely is this one that lets you pet the dog. Given current events, starting a new Skyrim save to adopt some kids, build a farm, and pet the dog loads sounds positively tranquil. As always, mod with caution.