A new Skyrim mod introduces dozens of nature-themed spells and magic abilities to the Bethesda RPG game. While The Elder Scrolls V is already packed with plenty of exciting magic across its various schools of Restoration, Alteration, Conjuration, Destruction, and Illusion, the best Skyrim mods include plenty of ways to spice up the fantasy game with all manner of new tricks.
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim mod Natura, by creator Norive, is a nature-based spell pack that is balanced to fit in around the spells found in the vanilla game. It introduces a wealth of new magic that is spread across all proficiency levels of the Restoration, Alteration, and Conjuration trees of magic. It also adds new Spriggans to the game as both enemies and companions, along with a range of Spriggan masks that each offer unique abilities to buff your Dragonborn.
The Restoration tree is the simplest and includes several different tiers of healing magic, as you might expect, but also offers bug-based poison attacks that can be deployed in a large area with abilities such as Bug Bomb, or applied to everyone around the user with skills such as Bug Cloak. You can also protect yourself with Oak Heart to reduce incoming damage, or regenerate health when attacked through the use of an Earth Shield.
The Alteration spells offer a bunch of strong buffs that can be applied to yourself to increase stats such as stamina regeneration or reflect damage back to attackers by coating yourself in a wreath of thorns. However, you also have a choice of 18 different Aspects to choose from. Only one of these may be active at once, but they range from simple effects such as increased elemental damage on your attacks and spells to more potent abilities. The Aspect of the Phoenix causes you to rapidly heal yourself and ignite all nearby enemies when your health drops below 25%, while the Aspect of the Basilisk causes a chance for any enemy that stands in front of you to be petrified for three seconds.
Finally, the Conjuration school gives you the sorts of summons that you’d usually expect, but with a whole range of new options. Some of these, such as Deer and Mudcrabs, aren’t actually particularly helpful – Norive notes that they’re “more for RP purposes, but they will attack your enemies like any other summon.” At the higher tiers, however, you have the option to call in the likes of Chaurus Hunters and Sabre Cats, as well as the various new Spriggan variants.
The last (but by no means least) of the additions are the Spriggan masks, of which there are a total of 24. Each of the six variants of Spriggan have four possible drops – one that’s the mask in its base, unenchanted form, and the rest offering a range of powerful buffs to the wearer. Among our favourites are the Mask of the Chameleon, offering invisibility while standing still, and the Mask of the Deer, which increases your movement speed by 50% while outside of combat.
All of this sounds great to us, and the perfect setup for a new playthrough of one of the best open-world games on PC centred around these spells. If you’re tempted to do the same, you can download the Skyrim mod Natura at Nexus Mods.
While you’re at it, why not check out some other nice additions, such as a Skyrim roads mod that overhauls every last inch of the game’s pathways, or a mod adding a Skyrim mage city to explore with over 100 NPCs. If the nicer side of the natural world isn’t to your liking, how about some Skyrim blood magic for an alternative option? Or if you’d rather not be the hero for a change, why not check out a Skyrim job mod that lets you swap out dragon slaying for a more traditional 9-to-5? You could even go one step further and check out more of the best games like Skyrim, if even this isn’t enough to lure you back in.