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I just got done reading Red Seas Under Red Skies, so I'm super stoked on pirates right now. Luckily, I stumbled across a new Skyrim mod that turns Bethesda's nigh-immortal fantasy role-player into a surprisingly robust pirate game. You get a ship, a crew, open seas to sail, and all sorts of loot to pillage.

Brodual did a video rundown of the Pirates of Skyrim: The Northern Cardinal Under The Black Flag mod, which you can download here. It adds a boatload of pirate-y diversions to Skyrim, practically transforming it into a whole new (albeit not terribly lengthy) game. You can face off with and ransack other ships—which vary in crew and ferocity based on which faction they're a part of—scour the ocean floor for treasure, encounter random events, take care of your crew's morale, and kit yourself out with new weapons and items.


It's not quite the second (or third) coming of Assassin's Creed: Black Flag, but it's damn impressive for something bolted onto Skyrim's creaky old hull. So take a hard larboard turn into the download page and yes I've recently developed a habit of using dated nautical terms in regular conversation. My friends say we're only "taking a break" until I work this out of my system, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little worried.

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To contact the author of this post, write to nathan.grayson@kotaku.com or find him on Twitter @vahn16.