Misery and despair have haunted you all your life. Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse, you've been arrested and thrown in the dungeons. Your trial was supposed to be weeks ago, only nobody has come for you. It's been so long since seeing daylight you no longer know what month it is anymore. The dungeon is cold, damp, and worse still, you're running out of food. At least you have that leak in the wall for water. It seems as though you've been forgotten, soon to rot away and die. The eight have forsaken you! Or... have they?
Live Another Life provides an alternative means to start the game for those who do not wish to go through the lengthy intro sequence at Helgen. You will be given the opportunity to choose your race and then choose a new life for your character to lead. A wide variety of choices will be available. What you choose will have a lasting impact, so choose carefully or the gods may forsake you again!
Additional support has also been provided to allow you to extend Live Another Life with your own starts.
Starting the Main Quest
Skyrim has a lot more flexibility in pursuit of the main quest, even when playing the default Helgen scenario. Alduin's appearance does not force one to pursue the main quest beyond Helgen. So this mod is mainly providing a mechanism to bypass Helgen and not encounter Alduin either. The game will patiently wait for you to follow along. So there's no special effort really needed to avoid it, just don't do it :)
For most of the starts, it will appear as though your "Live Another Life" quest has stalled. You will not have an active objective telling you where to go next. When you are ready to begin pursuing the main quest, talk to an innkeeper and ask them for rumors. You'll be given a generic rumor about Helgen and told to travel there. You can also simply go to Helgen on your own without anyone telling you to do so.
The main quest will also start if you join the Civil War, complete the first two missions for your chosen side, and then get sent to Whiterun. Once there, you'll find Whiterun closed. If you manage to bribe or persuade your way in, the next guard you pass by who delivers the line about Helgen being hit by a dragon will resolve the beginning portion. Otherwise asking them what they mean by dragons will get you pointed toward Helgen and you can proceed from there.
If you somehow avoid all the guards and get into Dragonsreach without ever hearing about Helgen, the MQ will be force-started upon entering the main hall. Sorry, but this failsafe is required because it is not possible to advance the Civil War until Bleak Falls Barrow and Dragon Rising have been completed. Bethesda did not supply dialogue to allow for a Stormcloak takeover of Whiterun before starting the Main Quest.
Choosing the campsite start will begin immediately with the encounter with Alduin.
Using this mod to follow the default Helgen sequence will play out the same as the vanilla game.
Extensions
As of version 2.5.0 and higher, Live Another Life allows for extensions to be written to provide additional starting options. This is a known list of extensions that are available:
City Guard - the example extension provided on the Nexus page for LAL.
Legacy of the Dragonborn - An extension to allow you start as a relic hunter for the mod's museum in Solitude.
New Beginnings - Several new start options using the extension framework.
Compatibility Patches
Compatibility
Tested and confirmed to work with Open Cities Skyrim.
Known to be incompatible with any mod which attempts to remove the essential flags from any NPCs in Helgen.
Not compatible with Opening Scene Overhaul due to conflicts with edits to MQ101. Moving LAL after it in the load order should resolve the problem but obviously that then makes the opening scene overhaul a moot point because it will be overridden. If you ignore this and leave it with OSO after LAL, the initial load screen will freeze and the game will never load. There is nothing that can be done about this.
Helgen Reborn – Fully compatible, even with the vanilla start option.
Shlongs of Skyrim (ugh, yes, there really is a mod about that) - This has been reported to completely mess up the cart ride for the vanilla start option. If you're going to use that mod, it is best to wait until you're off the carts and inside the keep before installing it.
Become High King of Skyrim - Edits MQ101, though it's a dirty edit. Either clean the mod using TES5Edit or make sure it loads BEFORE Live Another Life so that it won't cause the "new game" menu to get stuck.
Better Vampires - No issues should arise from using LAL and BV together. Even the vampire start should work properly as the method LAL uses to change you into one uses script calls BV retains in its edited version of the player's vampire quest.
Mods altering the Abandoned Prison (cell 00021594) will probably need to be patched since the navmesh has been edited.
Mods which alter the following quests will not be compatible without a patch:
MQ101 - Unbound
MQ102 - Before the Storm
WERoad01 - Farmer refugees after dragon attack
Mods which edit the following scripts will not be compatible unless patched:
QF_MQ101_0003372B
QF_MQ102_0004E50D
TIF__0005A6A6
TIF__0005A6B1
TIF__000D50CA
TIF__000D50DB
TIF__000D50E0
TIF__000D660D
TIF__000E2D03
Known Issues
The Thane offer won't be available in every city right away if you use a property owner start. The quest interaction makes doing so impossible without sacrificing too much of the content to it.
When picking the Companions guild start, you need to go watch the fight before Vlikas will go outside to train you.
When choosing one of the two civil war starts, you are strongly advised to let the Jagged Crown scene play out. If you don't, the quest may fail to start and the entire civil war quest line will get jammed.
There may be some unfound dialogue that references Helgen. If you find some and have NOT witnessed Alduin fly overhead yet, please report those with as much detail as possible.
Some quests in a major city you pick a start for may not be available until after you've left that city and returned later. This is normal. It's due to how "Change Location" events work in the game and there's nothing that can be done about it.
If you start the game inside of Whiterun by any means, go to the Bannered Mare and hear the Helgen rumor, and then for some reason decide to go straight to Dragonsreach, all of the Helgen objectives will complete and the MQ will be officially started. This is not something that can be worked around due to the numerous ways mods could provide alternative access into the city at some later point. It's part of the failsafe system.
Choosing the Shadowfoot Sanctum property start will still have the outer gate locked. This cannot be addressed because the GetFormFromFile() Papyrus function cannot return a result for a non-persistent reference. You will have to pick your way out the door when you leave.
Credits
Chesko - For his polygon shape detection script.
Nikkita - For her awesome work on the voiced lines for the statue of Mara in the starting cell.
Dwip - The new mesh section for the farmhouse interior.
Disclaimer
This mod is not made, guaranteed, or supported by Microsoft, Zenimax, Bethesda Game Studios, or any of their affiliates.
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