Mod review: Lucien

I haven’t finished posting Elessir’s playthrough posts yet, even though his run is now complete. But since his run is now complete, I can now actually do a review post for a big feature of it: namely, running Lucien as a primary follower!

This post is going to be spoiler-free. I’ve already got a lot of spoiler-heavy commentary in what posts I’ve done for Elessir so far, and I’ll have further commentary as I get to the parts where I finally got to finish off Lucien’s personal quest. So look for that commentary to come.

For now, let me just focus on overall spoiler-free commentary! More behind the cut.

The core concept of Lucien as a follower

Lucien’s main thing is that he’s a scholar at the start, and asks to follow you because he wants your protection as he learns more about the culture and dangers of Skyrim. You find him hanging out at the inn in Falkreath, where you can recruit him.

If you keep him with you, you can train up his skills, as well as develop a friendship with him and eventually unlock a personal quest of his to run.

You can find out more about Lucien on his official page, and you can grab his mod off of Nexus if you want to give him a go.

Stuff I liked

Lucien’s personality

Lucien’s personality, out of the gate, may be an acquired taste. Me, I generally found him delightful. But just note that he is very, very much a scholar and a nerd. And he’s also very, well, British. Which is not surprising, given that his creator is. But given that Lucien is also an Imperial and a trained and educated scholar, I found his British-style mannerisms appropriate for that.

And, well, I am a nerd, so having a follower who was also a nerd was fun!

His being a scholar is a running theme all throughout the game. Take this boy into a Dwemer ruin and he’ll be all “ooh ooh hang on I gotta study this bit”. Which I love. In general, it’s a nice contrast to the overall warrior-centric theme of the game, too. You don’t see much scholarship in Skyrim outside of the College of Winterhold, or maybe the Bard’s College.

While he clearly prefers to be non-violent, I also appreciated that he’s willing to stand up for himself as well. He periodically gave me pushback if I happened to choose snarkier or meaner dialogue prompts with him. Which, good! The lad’s a cinnamon roll but, to extend the metaphor a bit, not without spice.

Range of commentary on game events

Lucien’s ability to comment on game events is astounding, even just taking vanilla game content into consideration. He has lines about stuff all over the main quest of the game, and if you install the appropriate patches, commentary about Anniversary Edition stuff as well.

I was particularly charmed by his commentary on events during the College of Winterhold plot–and deeply amused by his reaction when you get made Arch-Mage. 😀

He’s got great reactions to your getting the Elder Scroll at Mzark, too, which tie in to his history as a scholar and his father’s position as one as well.

For Anniversary Edition content, he had fabulous commentary as well when I ran Forgotten Seasons stuff with Elessir–particularly regarding the Dwarven Horse. It’s worth running Forgotten Seasons just to see Lucien enthuse over that horse.

Range of commentary on mod events

In Elessir’s playthrough, I also had Beyond Skyrim: Bruma, and the patch to let Lucien react to events in that locale, too. As with his other commentary, this was great. Since Bruma is in Cyrodiil, and Lucien is an Imperial, his commentary there struck me as fun all around.

Lucien’s official page has a list of other mods he’s set up to comment on, which includes which parts of the vanilla content he can react to as well. So if you want to run him, that’s a good resource to check to plan how to do a load order that includes him.

Interactions with Inigo

During Harrowhark’s run, I ran Lucien along with a few other followers: Lydia early on in the playthrough, Vilja for a while (until I ditched her), and Inigo. And I’ll say without hesitation that Lucien and Inigo together are a goddamn delight. The two characters played off one another splendidly, and while I did run that playthrough long enough that their banter eventually did cycle around and start repeating itself, there was enough of it that I didn’t mind that much.

I know a lot of Skyrim players aren’t fans of having any followers at all, much less multiple ones at once. But if you do like having multiple followers at once, Lucien and Inigo are a wonderful pair.

Lucien’s also able to do extended banter with several other custom followers as well, also documented on his official page. Again, a good resource to check for purposes of planning your load order, if you’re a player who wants to run multiple followers at once.

Ability to train Lucien

I really liked the training system Lucien has. It felt very natural to use, just as conversation prompts between him and my Dragonborn. He had fun commentary on the various types of things I trained him in, too.

How Lucien’s personal quest triggers

It was also very natural and organic how Lucien’s personal quest got its initial trigger: via a letter sent to him by his father, once I reached a certain level of rapport with him. Which the courier gives to you by mistake! And which is in fact mentioned as a conversation point when you talk to Lucien after.

Stuff I’m ambivalent about

Which types of characters Lucien’s best suited for as a follower

I have to date run him with two different characters, both of which were of the, aheh, less law-abiding variety. By which I mean, they were both members of the Thieves Guild! And also, in Harrowhark’s case, a vampire and a member of the Dark Brotherhood, at least until her playthrough imploded.

And to be honest, Lucien arguably wasn’t really the best match for that. He seems absolutely untroubled by aiding and abetting criminal acts, mind you; he often makes cracks about being “partners in crime” with the Dragonborn. But for me, I found him enough of a cinnamon roll that it seemed to naturally pull me away from pursuing less lawful actions. Since I tend to lean towards ethical play even if I’m playing a thief, I wasn’t necessarily troubled by this.

But it did definitely have an impact on how I played Harrowhark–a character I originally envisioned as a vampire and necromancer, based on the character of the same name in the Locked Tomb series by Tamsyn Muir. I started her playthrough intending to play her a lot closer to her namesake, but having Lucien as an active follower influenced her run away from that. Again, this didn’t trouble me in the slightest, it just wasn’t how I originally intended that character to go.

And it was kind of the same deal with Elessir, very much a “rogue with a heart of gold” archetype. I think Lucien’s presence in his run definitely bent his run towards the “heart of gold” side of that, more than the “rogue”.

If you want to play your characters a lot more unlawful than I tend to do, you therefore may want to steer clear of Lucien.

A couple of aspects of Lucien’s personal quest

Without actually getting into details, again because I want to avoid spoilers, a couple of minor aspects of Lucien’s personal quest kinda bugged me:

There is a location added by his mod that you’re able to visit, and I found that location awkwardly large and difficult to navigate through.
A particular choice made by Lucien as part of that quest didn’t quite sit well with me. (Though in fairness, that decision of Lucien’s being unwise is part of the story, so I’m okay with it as a narrative choice. My not liking it was more a question of roleplay than it was of it being a bad narrative call.)

Stuff I didn’t like

Lack of commentary on Dawnguard and Dragonborn

It’s a little unfair to me to file Lucien’s lack of commentary on the Dawnguard and Dragonborn DLCs as a thing I didn’t like, just because that suggests it pissed me off, and it didn’t. But Lucien has so much wonderful commentary about so many other aspects of the game–including not only the Anniversary Edition content, but a bunch of commentary on Beyond Skyrim: Bruma as well–that it was a distinct disappointment that he didn’t have any commentary about anything in Dawnguard and Dragonborn.

I especially had been hoping to hear how he interacted with Serana, since I figured that as a scholar, he’d be all over the chance to talk to a vampire who’d been imprisoned so long ago that she predated the formation of Cyrodiil’s empire.

Plus, given that Dawnguard has you finding two additional Elder Scrolls on top of the one you need for the main quest, that should have been sending Lucien into fits of scholarly delight. I was sad that it did not!

Not really a fan of some of his lines to Lydia

While I love most of Lucien’s interactions with other characters in the vanilla game, I side-eyed a few of his exchanges with Lydia, in the early stretches of both Elessir’s and Harrow’s playthroughs. Those lines played up the idea of Lydia, a warrior, being… how shall I put this charitably… someone for whom intelligent thought was not a priority.

And as I’ve written before on this blog, I feel that’s unfair to Lydia. Just because she’s a warrior does not mean she can’t also be intelligent.

By and large, though, that kind of commentary out of Lucien was rare enough that I was willing to overlook it.

If you want spoilery commentary…

… then have a look at any of my posts in the Harrowhark Playthrough or the Elessir Playthrough. In both runs, I’ve got a lot of commentary on my reactions to Lucien doing various things. And I have liberal quotes of a bunch of his best lines!

All in all

What quibbles I have with Lucien’s implementation are really minor indeed, and none of them get in the way of my recommending him as a follower. So if custom followers in Skyrim are your jam, and you haven’t run this boy already in one of your playthroughs, consider checking him out!

I’ll definitely be running him again. And I’ll be periodically checking to see if his creator, Joseph Russell, drops any significant new updates for him. I’d be especially pleased if Lucien got an update that’d let him respond to stuff in Legacy of the Dragonborn, in particular. Because if there’s any major Skyrim mod that’s pretty much tailor-made for a follower with a scholarly bent, it’s Legacy of the Dragonborn!