What Does This Mod Do?

Ashe: Crystal Heart is a Skyrim mod that introduces Ashe, a fully-voiced Breton* follower with over 3,000 lines of rich, character-driven dialogue. This mod offers a deeply personal and introspective journey, delving into themes of identity, purpose, and morality—bringing a depth unseen in Skyrim.

DLC-Sized Questline

Embark on a DLC-sized quest spanning all of Skyrim, offering hours of new content—half the scope of Dawnguard. Uncover the secrets of Ashe's creation and assist her unique quest. Your choices shape her evolving ethical compass, leading to multiple outcomes. When vengeance is achieved, Ashe must face her past and forge a new purpose in a world that struggles to understand her.

Dynamic Super Follower

Ashe is a dynamic companion whose relationship with you evolves based on your choices. Unlock extensive features gradually, including:

• Training and Sparring: Improve your skills together.

• Custom Outfit System: Outfits change automatically based on location.

• Blacksmithing Services: She can forge and improve your weapons.

• Backpack Storage: Extra carrying capacity.

• Immersive Commentary: Reacts to your skills, actions, and locations.

• Radiant Features: Includes sleep, teleportation, and tracking markers.

Evolving Relationships

Develop friendship and romance organically. Ashe doesn't just throw herself at you; your actions genuinely influence the relationship dynamics, not just scripted events. The friendship and romance systems are nuanced, moving beyond simple binary choices.

Advanced Technical Enhancements

• Custom Animations: Exclusive to this mod, enhancing her unique personality.

• Next-Gen Visuals: HD textures, unique texture sets per character, and HDT physics support for hair and outfits.

• Compatibility: Built-in support for Open Animation Framework, OStim Standalone, and Expressive Facial Animations for lifelike animations.

• Optional Integration with Attack - MCO (Modern Combat Overhaul): If MCO is installed, Ashe features unique, custom movesets tailored to her combat style. 

• Bodyslide-Ready Outfit: Supports all popular body types.

Renowned Voice Cast

Experience unparalleled depth with an ensemble cast of renowned voice actors, including:

• Anna Rust (Carnival Row, Cyberpunk 2077) as Ashe.

• Sean Chiplock (Genshin Impact, Re:Zero) among others.

Limitless Potential

With future content updates planned—companion banter with Serana, quest awareness, and additional questline material. 

Mod Integrations (Optional)

• Nemesis and DAR/OAR: For custom animations. Without the mod, you won't be able to see some unique flavor/dialogue/combat animations.

• HDT-SMP: For outfit and HDT hair physics support. Without the mod, Ashe's hair will still work, it'll just be static.

• SKSE: For additional functionality (mainly for backend mod checks).

• EFA (Expressive Facial Animations): Improves facial animations. Non-EFA setups are also supported.

• RSkyrim Children Overhaul: For a "non-potato head" patch for Remy. Without it, Remy will look like any other Skyrim child.

• OStim Standalone: Enables animated romance scenes. Without this, romances will fade to black.

• MCO (Modern Combat Overhaul) + SCAR : If installed, Ashe has unique combat movesets designed specifically for her, adding dynamic and immersive gameplay. Without this, her combat reverts to basic Skyrim animations but will still use replacers for the default Skyrim animations.

Mod Integrations (Outfits):

Milk Drinker Yorha 2B Attire - No patch needed, Ashe comments when she's given 2B's main armor.

Official Compatibility / Optional Files (hosted on the main mod page)

Ashe × Inigo Patch – Fixes a single world-encounter commentary record so both followers can comment without conflict. ESL-flagged; load after both mods.

Ashe × SDA Patch – Prevents Ashe from crashing Serana’s “Bannered Mare” romance scene. (Banter patch still in development—this is just the safety fix.)

Ashe UCOW / ICOW Book-Placement Patch – Moves Ashe’s Arcanaeum books to the relocated table used by Ultimate College of Winterhold and Immersive College of Winterhold. No hard master required. Credits to ReDrew89.

Ashe Vanilla Body Patch (Experimental) – Forces Ashe and related NPCs to use the game’s vanilla body, leaving custom outfits untouched. May cause minor texture stretching; planned to merge once thoroughly tested.

Legacy Skirt Bodyslide Files (v1.0 LegacySkirt)

Bring back Ashe’s shorter 1.0 skirt with updated boot fixes. Choose the set that matches your body mod, overwrite the main FOMOD, then rebuild in Bodyslide: • 3BA • BHUNP • CBBE

Unofficial Compatibility Patches

• Here are some fan-made patches and integrations created by users for other mods. These are unofficial and not officially supported. For any technical issues related to these patches, please contact the respective patch authors, not me.

• SL and Flowergirls Patch: Provides integration for SexLab and Flowergirls. (Link)

• SkyChild Patch: Provides compatibility and look support for the Skychild mod with this mod's Remy NPC. Use this instead of the RS Children Patch if you have SkyChild in your modding setup. (Link)

• Ulvenwald Patch: Fixes a conflict between Ashe and Ulvenwald, where a tree from Ulvenwald was blocking a path in Riverwood Commune, causing NPCs and the player to get stuck. (Link)

• Northern Roads Patch: Fixes compatibility issues with the Northern Roads mod (Link) 

• Paradise Valley Compatibility Patch: Fixes blocking Aryo's Lab (Link)

• Nevas Hostility Fix: Not technically a (patch) but the issue tends to arise on heavily modded setups. Use this if a specific scene in Chapter 2 isn't firing correctly. (Link)

• Ashe LoreRim Community Patch: Community patch for LoreRim & Requiem that rebalances gameplay and begins adding lore-friendly adjustments to Ashe’s dialogue, outfits, and features (work in progress). (Link) 

Accolades

Hot Files

#1 Mod of the Month for December 2024

Ranked #3 Most Popular Mod of 2024 (Mod of the Month Rankings)

Covered by GamingBible

Featured on Zero Period Productions, Arjarim, PonPon, Swiizles, SkyrimGTX, Capt. Panda (YT)

As of January 19, 2025, nearly 2,600 endorsements since its November 30, 2024 release, making Ashe one of the fastest-growing follower mods.

This mod works right out of the box with no hard requirements. However, my mod integrates with others pretty well, so please read below to see what they are!

Ashe was designed with compatibility in mind, but due to the vast number of Skyrim mods, some conflicts may occur. This section details known issues.

Location Conflicts:

- Winterstone Castle: Conflicts with Riverwood Commune. A patch is currently unavailable as the original author has retired and permissions are unknown.

- Stendarr's Beacon Enhanced and Ruhmastered, Interesting NPCs, Fullhelm Fortress, Northern Roads: These mods add locations that overlap with Aryo's Workshop. Patches are planned, and community contributions are welcome.

- The Gate of Sovngarde/Ulvenwald Modlist: Resolved as of the latest update. Previously caused an invisible wall near Riverwood Commune due to a conflict with Ulvenwald, which has since been removed from the modlist.

- Worldspace / terrain overhaul mods in general may add blocking statics that interfere with certain quest scenes. Temporarily disabling the conflicting mod, advancing the quest, then re-enabling it is a safe workaround.

Mod-Specific Issues:

- Improved Alternate Conversation Camera: This mod may prevent dialogue from progressing during Ashe's first flashback quest.

- Workaround: Type EnablePlayerControls in the console. Note: This will temporarily reveal your Dragonborn model with Ashe's voice, breaking immersion.

- VR Players: You may experience black screens during Ashe's dream sequences.

- Workaround: Press "Enter" or your "Trigger" button to advance through any unseen prompts. The mod remains playable.

MFG Fix NG: With MFG Fix NG installed, some players may notice Ashe’s eyes remain closed briefly after a few lines. This minor visual quirk resolves on its own once you exit dialogue or pick another topic. It does not affect gameplay or progression.

Movesets & Precision: Ashe’s Shrine of Vedir moveset can cause attacks to miss due to the animations’ removed hit multipliers. This is not a bug with Ashe herself.

With Precision, NPCs may whiff attacks because they aren’t aware of the altered hitboxes.

Fix: disable Precision’s weapon hitbox feature, or add an override in "SKSE\plugins\precision\AshePrecision.toml" (NOTE, this will have to be done for each weapon you have her wield without affecting other NPCs)

[[WeaponOverride]]Weapon = { FormID = 0x4761B, Plugin = "Ashe - Fire and Blood.esp" }Length = 150Radius = 20

Alternatively, replace her moveset with a different MCO animation pack.

Note: If you encounter other compatibility issues, please report them with a detailed description and your load order.

(Optional) Install the soft requirements.

Download and install the FOMOD, and the latest hotfix (if applicable).

Run through the installer options.

Place Ashe near the bottom of your load order. This ensures her mod wins conflicts, which is critical for her questline to function correctly.

Bodyslide Setup:

If you chose a custom outfit, build meshes in Bodyslide.

You can select between heels or non-heels for Ashe’s boots.

While the mod functions without Bodyslide, skipping this step may result in minor seams, clipping, or mismatched body meshes.

Run Nemesis to enable her unique animations.

Launch the game and enjoy!

WARNING: Do not try to control Ashe with options from other mods. (AFT, NFF, UFO, etc...)

You will break her mind!

This applies to any custom companion with their own AI. You’re welcome to use any mod alongside Ashe, but don’t force her into external follower control systems. She’s designed to ignore most other mods if left alone and comes with her own set of customizable options.

To access her options, use her Tactics Menu or interact with her through dialogue. These settings are tailored to her character and story, offering features like combat preferences, outfit changes, relaxing, and more.

For the best experience, let Ashe be Ashe! 😊