Effigy Follower Builder

Overview

Sculpt a face in RaceMenu, then let Effigy turn it into a complete, shareable follower.

No Creation Kit. No manual FaceGen. No hunting through folders for the right textures.

Effigy is a desktop app that takes a RaceMenu face export and builds a standalone Skyrim follower from it: the face and every asset it needs, a class with real combat behavior, perks, spells, a weapon, a shield, an outfit and gold, all packaged into a ZIP that is ready to install or share. You pick a face, walk a six-step wizard, and Effigy writes the plugin and copies every asset into the follower's own folder.

Because it reads the exported head and each head part's texture set to decide exactly what your follower renders, it packages what the face actually uses and nothing it does not. The result is a self-contained follower you can drop into your own game or upload for others.

Every follower you make is kept in the Follower Library, so you can open her again later, change anything, and rebuild.

Note: Effigy builds faces on High Poly Head, so you need it installed to sculpt and import. The followers it generates do not: each one carries its own copy of the High Poly Head parts its face uses. Effigy itself is a Windows desktop application and is code-signed through Azure, so Windows and antivirus tools can verify it really came from ColdSun.New in 2.0

• Follower Library - Effigy now opens on a library of every follower you have made. Edit one to reopen her in the wizard, change what you like, and rebuild
• Inventory step - a new step between Character and Perks sets her weapon, shield, outfit and starting gold, each starting from her class default
• Saved spawn spots - stand anywhere in Skyrim, use a power, and that exact spot becomes a spawn location for any follower you build
• Six themes - Skirmish, Kindling, Orbit, Hyperlane, Hyperlane Light and Guildhall, picked on the new Settings page.
• A new Settings page - Appearance, Mod manager and Output on one tabbed page, with a check beside every folder that tells you what is wrong and how to fix it
• More mod managers - Nexus Mod Manager and no mod manager at all join Mod Organizer 2 and Vortex
• A new icon - the forged mask

See the Changelogs tab for full version details.Features

Face Import

• Import a RaceMenu face - give Effigy your exported Head NIF, Head DDS, JSLOT preset, and SavePCFace export, and it builds the follower's face from them. Male and female followers of the eight human and elf races are supported
• Face Library - Effigy finds the RaceMenu exports in your mod setup for you and lists them newest first, with a mark for each of the four files it found, so most of the time you pick a face instead of browsing for files
• SMP hair - Effigy can create followers with RaceMenu SMP hair, not wigs, with its physics and body collision intact. You can then use wigs on top of that hair. Most SMP hair mods were tested, but if you run into one that does not work, please report it in the bug section.
• Body overlays - body, hand and feet overlays saved in your JSLOT preset, such as tattoos, come with the follower and show on her in game
• Broken exports caught at import - if a RaceMenu preset names head parts the exported head does not actually contain, Effigy refuses it, names exactly which parts are missing, and tells you how to fix it
• Smart asset tracing - Effigy takes its answer from the exported head and each head part's texture set, the two things that decide what renders, so it never fails over a stock texture your follower would never draw
• Consistent eyes - every follower ships with the same set of eye support maps, so her eyes light the same wherever she is installed
• Finds files like the game does - Effigy discovers BSAs the way Skyrim does (the base archives, whatever archives.txt lists, and Foo.bsa for any active Foo.esp), so it finds the right files under every supported mod setup
• High Poly Head based - faces are built on High Poly Head for quality, and each follower ships its own copy of the head parts it uses, so players do not need High Poly Head installed

Character

• Name, voice and spawn - name her, give her a voice (with a button to hear a sample line), and choose where she waits for you
• 70+ voice types - the vanilla follower voices, the voices Missing Follower Dialogue Fix makes follower-capable, plus CVR Follower Voices and SOSVoices if you have them
• 55 spawn locations - curated places across Skyrim's towns and settlements, searchable by town, plus any spots you have saved yourself
• Twelve classes - 1H+Shield Fighter, Dual-Wield Fighter, Two-Handed Fighter, Heartbow Ranger, Shadowblade, Spellsword, Elemental Mage, Conjurer, Necromancer, Battlemage, Healer and Vampire Hunter. Each comes with its own stats, skills, perks, spells and gear, and fights the way its name says
• A Healer that heals you - she casts Healing Hands and Heal Other on you when you are hurt in combat, then goes back to fighting with lightning
• Custom skins - add skins to the Skin Library once and give any follower her own skin. She ships with her own copy of it, credited on Finalize. Without one she uses the player's installed skin
• Essential and vampire - essential followers drop to bleedout instead of dying (on by default). Vampire followers are tagged as undead vampires and learn Drain Life
• Romantasy personality - optionally include a profile for the Romantasy mod: her starting relationship level and whether she likes, dislikes or ignores each of 58 activities

Inventory

• Weapon - choose from over 3,000 Skyrim and DLC weapons by their in-game names, filtered by type, with damage and enchantments shown
• Shield - choose from the Skyrim and DLC shields, or No shield. Effigy tells you when her shield would go unused beside a two-handed weapon or a bow
• Outfit - choose from over 500 Skyrim and DLC outfits, filtered by heavy armor, light armor or clothing, with every piece listed. Search finds outfits by their pieces too
• Gold - set the septims she starts with
• Sensible gear - a dual wielder carries two of a new one-handed weapon, and ammunition follows the weapon, so a crossbow comes with bolts and a bow with arrows

Perks and Spells

• Perks - pick from every vanilla skill tree, ranks and skill levels shown
• Custom perks - 44 perks baked straight into the follower's plugin, so she needs no extra mod for them
• Class perks - three perks written by ColdSun for each class, offered only to that class and never applied unless you pick them
• Spells - assign spells and shouts from Skyrim and the DLC, with their in-game descriptions
• Custom spells - scan your load order for spell mods and give her spells from them

Output and Packaging

• One-click generation - Effigy writes the complete follower: the plugin plus every FaceGen and head-part asset the face needs, packaged as a ZIP for your mod manager
• Your prefix on everything - your 2 to 3 character author prefix goes on the plugin filename, every record EditorID, and every asset path, so two authors' followers never collide
• Unique asset paths - each follower's meshes and textures live under their own folder, so no two followers overwrite each other
• Returns home - when you dismiss her, she walks back to her spawn location and goes about her day there
• Ready to share - every ZIP carries a build manifest, a credits file built from the asset sources you fill in on Finalize, and an RSV exclusion INI, so the output is ready to upload

The App

• Follower Library - the home screen. Every follower's settings are saved here, so you can come back to her, change anything, and rebuild
• Step-by-step wizard - a guided flow from face import to finished follower, with a collapsible sidebar that tracks your progress
• Six themes - pick the look you like on the Settings page
• Clear problems, easy reports - when something goes wrong Effigy says what happened and how to fix it. Copy Report puts the details on your clipboard for a bug report
• Signed and verifiable - code-signed through Azure so your system can confirm it came from ColdSun

Requirements

To run Effigy

• A Windows PC
• Your Skyrim SE or AE mod setup: Mod Organizer 2, Vortex, Nexus Mod Manager, or no mod manager at all. Effigy reads your installed mods to trace and package the face's assets

To make a face to import

• SKSE64 and RaceMenu - to sculpt the face and produce the export (Head NIF, Head DDS, JSLOT preset, and a SavePCFace export)
• High Poly Head - the face is built on it. Only you need it; your generated follower carries its own copy of the head
• PapyrusUtil SE - only to save your own spawn spots with the capture plugin

What your followers may need in a player's game

• If you use a voice that normally does not have follower functionality, she will not use her follower dialogue without another mod. Download either Relationship Dialogue Overhaul or, my own preference, Missing Follower Dialogue Fix to get her follower features working
• A CVR Follower Voices or SOSVoices voice needs that voice mod installed
• Spells picked from a spell mod need that spell mod installed
• A follower with body overlays needs RaceMenu installed to show them

Does not support Beast Races or Custom Races of any type at this time. Plans are in the works to add these features in time.

Installation

1. Download Effigy and run the installer. It is a standalone desktop app, not a mod manager mod.
2. On first launch, Effigy opens on the Settings page. Choose your mod manager and its folders, your output folder, and your author prefix (2 to 3 characters, starting with a letter).
3. Import a face, build your follower, and Forge. Effigy writes the follower's ZIP to your output folder.
4. Install the ZIP with your mod manager like any other mod.

There is no MCM. Everything is done in the app.The Wizard

1. Import Face

Pick a face from the Face Library, or point Effigy at the four files of your RaceMenu export: the Head NIF, the Head DDS, the JSLOT preset, and the SavePCFace file. Effigy reads her race and sex from the export, traces every asset the face renders, and validates the export, stopping with a clear message if the head is missing any part the preset uses.

2. Character

Give her a name and a voice, choose where she spawns and which skin she wears, set the essential and vampire options, and pick her class from twelve illustrated class cards. Optionally add a Romantasy personality.

3. Inventory

Choose her weapon, shield, outfit and gold. Each starts at her class default, and a panel beside them shows exactly what she will carry.

4. Perks

Her class's perks are already picked. Add or remove any from the vanilla trees, the custom perks, and her class perks, then lock them in.

5. Spells

Her class's spells are already picked. Add vanilla and DLC spells and shouts, or open Custom Spells to scan your spell mods and add spells from them.

6. Finalize

Review everything, fill in the asset credits, then Forge. Effigy writes the plugin and copies every FaceGen and head-part asset into the follower's own folders, stamped with your author prefix, and packages it all as a ZIP ready to install or share. She is saved to the Follower Library as she builds.The Libraries

Followers

Every follower you save or build, each on a card with her class portrait. Create New starts a follower; Edit reopens one in the wizard with everything you chose. Her first build fixes her plugin name, so rebuilding her later replaces her mod instead of making a second one.

Skins

Add a skin once by giving Effigy its 13 textures, or fill them all from a folder. It then appears in the Skin choice on Character for every follower of the matching sex.

Locations

Get the capture plugin from this page and install it. In game, stand where a follower should appear, face the way she should face, and use the Effigy: Save Spawn Spot power. Back in Effigy the spot shows up here with its town, hold and nearest landmark, ready to name and save, and it stays in the Spawn Location list for every follower you build.How It Works

From face to follower - Effigy reads your exported head and its head parts, works out exactly which meshes and textures the face renders, and generates the runtime FaceGen mesh and baked FaceTint on the standard Skyrim paths. It then copies the hair, brow, eye and High Poly Head assets the face uses into a folder unique to that follower.

Your prefix, everywhere - the author prefix you set reaches the plugin filename, every record EditorID, and every asset path. Two authors who both build a follower named the same thing will not collide as long as their prefixes differ, and one follower's assets can never silently overwrite another's.

Import validation - RaceMenu can write a preset that names head parts its exported head does not contain, which is the classic cause of the black-face bug. Effigy refuses that export at import, names the missing parts, and tells you to re-export the head with every part showing.

Archive discovery - rather than trusting a single profile file, Effigy finds assets the way the game does: the base archives, the entries in archives.txt, and the matching BSA for any active plugin. That means stock textures shipped inside BSAs are found correctly under every supported mod setup.

Classes that fight the way they should - where no vanilla record does the job, Effigy writes its own into the follower's plugin: a combat style that lets dual wielders really use both weapons, class records that train the skills each class actually uses, and the Healer's package that makes her cast her heals on you. All of it lives in the follower's plugin, so she needs no extra mod.

Spawn and return home - each follower waits in a hidden cell until she is moved to her spawn location, and when you dismiss her she walks back there and goes about her day. A saved spawn spot works the same way: she carries her own marker, which is moved to the exact spot you saved.Compatibility

Works with:

• Skyrim AE, SE, and VR
• Mod Organizer 2, Vortex, Nexus Mod Manager, or no mod manager - Effigy reads any of these setups to trace and package assets
• High Poly Head - the foundation every Effigy face is built on
• Any armor, hair, brow, and eye mods you sculpted the face with - Effigy packages what the face uses. There are some scenarios where assets may not work. If you run into one, report it in the bug section and I will attempt to fix it. There are some cases where I may decide not to support certain asset mods (for example, Goam's Elven Ears).

The followers Effigy produces are ordinary standalone follower mods. They install and play alongside everything else, and none of them requires High Poly Head.Troubleshooting

Import is refused for missing head parts

Your RaceMenu export is incomplete: the preset names parts the exported head does not contain. Load the preset in RaceMenu, check that every part listed in the message is showing on the face, then export the head again (Sculpt, Export Head) and import the new files.

Import is refused because the race is not supported

Effigy builds the eight human and elf races. Khajiit, Argonian and races added by mods are not supported yet.

The generated follower has a black face

This means head parts were missing from the export. Effigy catches this at import; if you see it in game, re-export the head with every part showing and rebuild. If you still have a black face, create a bug report and let me know which asset mods you were using.

An asset could not be found

Effigy traces assets against your installed mods. Run it against the same mod setup you sculpted the face in, so every hair, brow, and eye texture the face uses is present.

Effigy keeps opening on the Settings page

A setting needs your attention. The field with the problem says what is wrong and how to fix it. If your saved author prefix is 4 or 5 characters, from an older version, pick a 2 to 3 character prefix. Followers you already built keep their original prefix and are unaffected.

My saved spawn spot does not show up in Locations

With Mod Organizer 2 the capture plugin saves spots to your Overwrite folder; with Vortex, Nexus Mod Manager or no mod manager they go to your Data folder. If yours is somewhere else, use Choose file on the Locations page. The capture plugin needs PapyrusUtil SE.

My older follower stands still after I dismiss her

Followers built with Effigy 1.1.3 to 1.4.2 can stand where you dismissed them. Open her in the Follower Library and rebuild her with 2.0.

Something else went wrong

Use Copy Report on the error and paste it into a bug report. It carries the technical details I need, with your Windows user name hidden.

Windows or antivirus warns about the app

Effigy is code-signed through Azure, so its publisher can be verified. If you downloaded it from somewhere other than the official page, get it from the official page instead.Typical Workflow

Build a follower: sculpt a face in RaceMenu and export it, open Effigy, choose Create New, pick the face, set her name, voice, spawn and class, choose her gear, perks and spells, then Finalize and Forge.

Change her later: open her from the Follower Library, change anything, and Forge again. Her mod is replaced with the new build.

Share it: upload the ZIP Effigy made and credit the asset providers named in its credits file. Before you share any follower, be sure to have permission from all mod authors whose assets you used, and include them in the credits of your follower mod.