I never liked how Black Reach, many people's most favorite area of the game, is quest locked behind Discerning the Transmundane. We know the Attunement Sphere Septimus so willingly gives the player is not a unique item (as another can be found in Sinderion's Field Lab), yet there is no possible way to get one to go to Black Reach without talking to him. Unless of course, you cheat with console commands or additemmenu. Barf.

This mod fixes this immersive catastrophe by simply distributing the Attunement Sphere at a rate of 1% to ALL actor type NPC's. This means all non-animal NPCs will basically have the 1% chance of having the Attunement Sphere in their inventory, where it could then be either looted, pickpocketed, or traded (depending on what other mods you have) from them. This extends to all vanilla, DLC, and modded NPC's, so yes, you could technically find a sphere while in Falskaar for example. It will not appear for sale in shops though, even if the owner has it in their inventory. Once finding the sphere, you can then take it to any of the three hidden Dwemer mechanisms to access Black Reach without Septimus ever even knowing.

This mod accomplishes this by using powerofthree's amazing mod, Spell Perk Item Distributor (SPID), which is a hard requirement. This mod will do nothing without it. Once you've downloaded and installed SPID and all of it's requirements, install this mod with your favorite mod manager or hand place the included _DISTR.ini file into your data folder. It is completely safe to install or un-install at any time during a playthrough and does not count toward your esp limit (as there is no esp!! :D).

I have also included two additional files:

- One that distributes the Attunement Sphere only to non-animal NPC's in the Bandit Faction. Again, this will cover NPC's from any mod so long as they are members of the Bandit Faction. Distribution rate is set to 1% for them as well.

- One that distributes the Attunement Sphere only to creature type Falmer NPC's (Falmer in general). Distribution rate is set to 5%

*UPDATE*
A fourth file has been added to cover the Blank Lexicon item also handed out by Septimus. Distribution rate is set to 1% for all non-animal, actor type NPC's and 5% for all Falmer. If you're lucky enough to find both an Attunement Sphere and a Blank Lexicon, you can access the Elder Scroll without dealing with Septimus at all.

Lastly, I set the distribution rates to 1% as I feel this should be a very rare item from a lore standpoint. Slightly higher chances with Falmer as they pretty much live in Black Reach. If you don't like those rates you can easily change them by editing the ini files included. Simply open either the AttunementSphere_DISTR.ini or AttunementSphere BanditsOnly_DISTR.ini (or the Falmer one), at which point you will see these lines:

;Attunement Sphere
Item = 0x0003532C - Skyrim.esm | ActorTypeNPC | NONE | NONE | NONE | 1 | 1

or

;Attunement Sphere
Item = 0x0003532C - Skyrim.esm | ActorTypeNPC | 0001BCC0 | NONE | NONE | 1 | 1

The " 1 " at the very end of the line represents drop chance percentage. Change this to whatever percentage you want. 0.1 - 100.

*UPDATE 2*
To give you an idea of the drop rates, with 1% distribution to everyone I was seeing at least one cube or lexicon per 2-4 hour gaming session without actually searching for one. 5% distribution to falmer yielded me like 2 or 3 spheres just getting through Alftand (definitely not cool in my playthroughs). For a truly "rare" chance, change the drop rate to 0.1%

Also check out Webmetz' Attunement Sphere and Lexicon Distributor for common sense distribution to certain unique NPC's!

That's it. Enjoy!

My Other Mods

If you like, please take a look at some of my other mods!

-Content-

-EAI- Exceptional Alchemical Ingredients: Immersively discover new, powerful specimens and learn to examine and identify them like a real alchemist. Incredible benefits await you, as does a horrible death if you are not careful! Hundreds of new items with an interesting story to teach you the basics!
Scourge of the Werewolf: No one is immune to the Curse of Hircine.. but who is a beast and who is not? How can you be sure?
Scourge of the Werebear: The plague of the wearbear is real. These monsters are as unforgiving as their werewolf cousins.
Attunement Sphere SPID'ified: Find an attunement sphere from falmer and bandit NPC's as a rare loot and gain access to Blackreach! No quests from iceberg-dwelling lunatics required!

-Armor Distribution-

SPID for Kvetchi Mercenary Set by Pulcharmsolis
SPID for Vigilants of Stendarr Templar Armor by gearshout
SPID for Nord Raven Battle Armor by gearshout
SPID for SMP Telvanni Myconic Prosthesis Armor by Pulcharmsolis