Mannoroth Shield for Skyrim SE/AE

A Skyrim Special Edition and Anniversary Edition port and remaster of Tusk of Mannoroth standalone shield by SamyFrench (Skyrim LE, 2016). The shield comes in three sizes, with a smoother model, a real handle, first-person models, fel fire burning in the skull's eyes, a custom enchantment and simple forge recipes.

Download the latest release: 2K and 4K packages, see Downloads.

Features

• Three sizes: Small, Medium (the original size) and Large, each with its own mesh, collision, first-person model and recipes.
• Fel fire eyes: green fel fire burns in both eye sockets of the skull, with animated flames rising out of them.
• Handle: the shield has a grip where the hand holds it (the vanilla iron shield handle).
• First-person models: at rest the rim and tusk show at the lower left of the screen; when blocking, the shield covers the view like a vanilla shield.
• Smoother model: converted to Skyrim SE, normals and collision rebuilt, and the mesh subdivided so the tusk and skull are round while the spikes stay sharp.
• Textures: the original 512 px texture upscaled, with a new normal map, reflection mask and glow map, in two packages (2K and 4K).
• Blood of Mannoroth enchantment: Fortify Block 20% and Fel Rebuke, a chance to set melee attackers on fire when you block.
• Simple crafting: any forge, 2 Orichalcum Ingots, no perk needed.
• ESL-flagged plugin that only adds new records. No SKSE needed.

Downloads

Install one package. Both contain the same plugin, meshes and script; only the texture size changes.

Package	Diffuse and normal map	Download (version 1.0)
2K	4096 px	Mannoroth-Shield-SE-2K-1.0.7z (26.3 MB)
4K	8192 px	Mannoroth-Shield-SE-4K-1.0.7z (107.2 MB)

The source texture is a 512 px painting, so the labels describe the detail you see rather than the file size: the 4096 px set looks like a 2K texture and the 8192 px set like a 4K one. Release notes and SHA-256 checksums: v1.0.

Mod pages

Page	Link
GitHub Releases	All releases
Dwemer Mods	Mannoroth Shield - SE AE Port and Remaster
Original mod (Skyrim LE)	Tusk of Mannoroth standalone shield on Nexus Mods

Requirements

• Skyrim Special Edition or Anniversary Edition. Built and tested on version 1.6.1170.
• Nothing else: no SKSE, no DLC and no other mods. The only master is Skyrim.esm.

Installation

• Mod Organizer 2: Install a new mod from an archive, pick the package, then enable the mod and [Tinesh] Mannoroth Shield.esp.
• Vortex: drag the package onto the Mods page (or use Install From File), then enable and deploy.
• Manual: extract the package into the game's Data folder and enable the plugin.

The archive holds the Data folder's contents (plugin, meshes, textures, Scripts, Source), so mod managers install it without asking for a data folder. To switch texture packages, uninstall one and install the other. The plugin is ESL-flagged and only adds records, so its place in the load order does not matter.

Getting the shield

Item	Armor	Weight	Value	Forge recipe	Tempering
Mannoroth Shield (Small)	30	12	900	2 Orichalcum Ingots	1 Orichalcum Ingot
Mannoroth Shield (Medium)	34	16	1100	2 Orichalcum Ingots	2 Orichalcum Ingots
Mannoroth Shield (Large)	38	21	1300	2 Orichalcum Ingots	3 Orichalcum Ingots

Base values; the inventory shows them with your perks applied. All three are heavy shields, made at any blacksmith forge with no perk needed and tempered at a workbench (as enchanted items, they need the Arcane Blacksmith perk). They can also be added with the console: help mannoroth 4, then player.additem <ID> 1.

Enchantment: Blood of Mannoroth

• Fortify Block 20%: block 20% more damage with your shield.
• Fel Rebuke: blocking a melee attack has a 60% chance to engulf the attacker in green fel fire, staggering them and dealing 100 points of fire damage (fire resistance applies). At most once every 3 seconds; it does not trigger on allies, on non-hostile actors or during brawls.

The enchantment cannot be learned by disenchanting, like the vanilla artifacts.

Compatibility

• Adds new records only and changes no vanilla record.
• The handle uses the vanilla iron shield textures, so iron shield retextures also change the handle.
• With mods that show shields on the back, check the Large size with capes.
• The XPMSSE female skeleton shows shields at 85% size on female characters.
• First person was tested with Improved Camera SE.

Changes from the original

• Mesh converted to Skyrim SE, one per size (0.8, 1.0 and 1.25 times the original, scaled around the attach point).
• Triangle soup welded and normals rebuilt (the stored normals did not match the faces, so the shield rendered dark and faceted); mesh subdivided with creases, from 922 to 19,728 triangles.
• Collision rebuilt from the shield's own shape (the original used the vanilla ebony shield's collision).
• Absolute texture paths made relative.
• Normal map rebuilt for this texture (the original reused the vanilla ebony shield's normal map).
• Plugin rebuilt for Skyrim SE: form version 44, ESL-flagged, only Skyrim.esm as master, the original FormIDs of the shield, its armor addon and recipes kept.
• The armor addon includes the vampire races, so the shield no longer disappears on vampire characters.
• Stats rebalanced (the original had 76 armor, weight 28 and value 5750).

Full history: CHANGELOG.md.

Building from source

The repository holds the build pipeline, not the original files. build.ps1 rebuilds both packages from the original Skyrim LE archive and the vanilla game files.

1. Download MannorothShield-74030-1-1.rar from the original mod page and put it in original\.

2. Install the tools: Blender 4.3 with PyNifly, Python 3 with NumPy, Pillow, OpenCV and lz4, texconv (DirectXTex), the .NET 9 SDK, 7-Zip and the Creation Kit (for the Papyrus compiler).

3. Run the build from PowerShell:

   .\build.ps1                     # both packages in dist\
   .\build.ps1 -Install            # also installs the 4K package into the Mod Organizer 2 mod folder (MO2 closed)

   Tool and game locations are parameters (-Game, -Blender, -SevenZip, -Upscaler, -ModFolder). Upscaled intermediates are kept in cache\ and reused, so -Upscaler is only needed on the first build.

Path	Contents
build.ps1	One-command build: original archive to meshes, textures, script, plugin and packages
tools/build_meshes.py	Meshes: subdivision, handle, sizes, first-person models, fel fire effects (Blender + PyNifly)
tools/make_textures.py	Texture sets: diffuse, normal map, reflection mask and glow map in BC7
tools/eye_socket.json	Where the eye socket sits in the texture
tools/lib/	Shared helpers: LE to SE mesh conversion, BSA reader, normal map builder, .pex cleanup
plugin/	Plugin generator (C#, Mutagen)
scripts/	Papyrus source of the Fel Rebuke effect
docs/	Screenshots and the release checklist

Credits and permissions

• SamyFrench: original mod, model and textures (Tusk of Mannoroth standalone shield).
• Blizzard Entertainment: the design is based on the Tusks of Mannoroth from World of Warcraft.
• Bethesda Game Studios: the vanilla iron shield handle and the vanilla effects and textures the shield uses.
• Tinesh: SE/AE port and remaster.
• Tools: Blender, PyNifly, Mutagen, DirectXTex, the Papyrus Compiler from the Creation Kit, 7-Zip.

Support My Work

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