Here's a mod that gives Skyrim Special Edition its own Witcher-style bestiary

A bestiary entry for the mammoth — (Image credit: JPSteel2)

Some mods fill obvious gaps. Others, you don't know you need until you discover they exist. For instance, I had no idea I needed a mod that gave me a randomized psychedelic experience every time I drank skooma until I learned it existed, and now it's an essential part of every playthrough.

The Dragonborn's Bestiary is in the same category. It's a mod that adds a new menu you bring up by pressing K, which keeps track of every creature you've encountered. Kill your first mudcrab or skeever and a pop-up appears telling you that you've unlocked the relevant entry, which contains info on what kind of loot they're likely to drop and any resistances or weaknesses they have.

Killing creatures isn't the only way to add them to the bestiary, however. You won't need to murder a dog just to complete your Skyrim Pokédex. Interacting with pets adds them to the bestiary, and you can also fill it out by summoning certain creatures, transforming into them, or reading books about them.

You can download The Dragonborn's Bestiary from Nexus Mods, and make sure to check the requirements section first. It's got a decent list of preliminary mods you'll need to have installed first, though they're all the kind of thing a dedicated modder probably already has installed. Because it's been out for a few months, there are several compatibility mods as well, like the Dragonborn Bestiary Quest Mod Compendium, which adds entries for creatures from popular quest mods including The Forgotten City, Clockwork, Sirenroot, Wyrmstooth, and more.

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Jody's first computer was a Commodore 64, so he remembers having to use a code wheel to play Pool of Radiance. A former music journalist who interviewed everyone from Giorgio Moroder to Trent Reznor, Jody also co-hosted Australia's first radio show about videogames, Zed Games. He's written for Rock Paper Shotgun, The Big Issue, GamesRadar, Zam, Glixel, Five Out of Ten Magazine, and Playboy.com, whose cheques with the bunny logo made for fun conversations at the bank. Jody's first article for PC Gamer was about the audio of Alien Isolation, published in 2015, and since then he's written about why Silent Hill belongs on PC, why Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale is the best fantasy shopkeeper tycoon game, and how weird Lost Ark can get. Jody edited PC Gamer Indie from 2017 to 2018, and he eventually lived up to his promise to play every Warhammer videogame.