Pillars of Eternity 1 mods: portraits, Unity Mod Manager and IE Mod

Before anything else, check which game you're modding. Pillars of Eternity (2015, later the Definitive Edition) and Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire (2018) share a name and an engine, but not their mods or their install methods. A lot of what comes up when you search "Pillars of Eternity mods" is actually about Deadfire, including its override folder. Everything below is for the first game.

Two kinds of mod, two install methods

Pillars 1 mods split cleanly into two groups:

• Asset drop-ins, such as custom portraits. You copy files into a specific game folder and the game picks them up. No loader involved.
• Code mods, which change how the game behaves. These run through Unity Mod Manager (UMM), a loader that patches the game once and then loads mods from a Mods folder.

Most people start with portraits, so that's first.

Custom portraits

Portraits go in the game's own data folder, not in a mods folder:

Pillars of Eternity\PillarsOfEternity_Data\data\art\gui\portraits\player\

Each portrait is two PNG files with matching names:

File	Size	Used for
yourname_lg.png	210 × 330 px	Character sheet and creation screen
yourname_sm.png	76 × 96 px	Party bar in the game UI

The prefix can be anything, but the _lg and _sm endings are required, and each portrait needs both files. Drop the pairs in, start the game, and they're selectable at character creation.

Portrait packs such as 700 Portraits ship ready-made pairs. If a pack's files are already named correctly, you can copy them in as they are.

Setting up Unity Mod Manager

Download UMM from its Nexus page, extract it anywhere, and run UnityModManager.exe.

1. Pick Pillars of Eternity from the game list.
2. Point it at your install folder. On Steam that's usually C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Pillars of Eternity\. On GOG, it's wherever you installed the game.
3. Click Install. UMM patches the game so it loads alongside it, and keeps a backup so the patch can be undone.

After that, launch Pillars the normal way. You don't need a separate launcher.

How to open Unity Mod Manager in game

Press Ctrl+F10. The UMM window opens over the game and lists every mod it loaded, with an on/off toggle, a settings panel if the mod has one, and a log. If Ctrl+F10 does nothing, UMM isn't patched in. Re-run UnityModManager.exe and click Install again, especially after moving the game or verifying its files.

IE Mod Rewrite, the mod most people are here for

The best-known Pillars 1 code mod is IE Mod, named for the Infinity Engine games Pillars was built to recall. It adds quality-of-life and behaviour options that fans of Baldur's Gate-style controls went looking for. Its feature list is long and still growing, so the Nexus page is the place to read it.

There are two versions, and mixing them is the one real trap here:

• IE Mod Rewrite by SiliconMage is the current one. It's built on UMM, and the latest release (v1.4.4) came out in March 2025.
• The original IE Mod patched files inside PillarsOfEternity_Data\Managed\ directly. It predates UMM and is no longer maintained.

To install the Rewrite, open UMM's Mods tab and either click Install Mod or drag the downloaded .zip onto the window. You should then have a Mods\IEMod folder inside your Pillars install. Change its options from the Ctrl+F10 menu.

If you, or an old save's previous setup, ever used the original IE Mod, verify the game files through Steam or GOG before installing the Rewrite. Leftover files in Managed from the old version can conflict with it.

Adding other code mods

Any mod that says it's for UMM installs the same way: through the Mods tab, or by extracting its folder into Pillars of Eternity\Mods\. A correctly packaged mod folder contains an Info.json next to its .dll. If yours has an extra folder level in between, UMM won't see it.

Mods made for Deadfire won't load in the first game, even when they have similar names. Check that the Nexus page is under Pillars of Eternity, not Pillars of Eternity 2.

Removing mods and going back to vanilla

• One mod: turn it off in the Ctrl+F10 menu, or delete its folder from Mods.
• Everything: run UnityModManager.exe and use its uninstall option to reverse the patch, then verify the game files through your store to be safe.
• Portraits: delete the _lg and _sm files you added. They don't affect saves beyond which portrait a character uses.

Code mods that change game rules can leave traces in a save. Keep a copy of your save folder before trying a big one, and don't expect a save made with a mod to behave the same once the mod is gone.

Owlcat's Pathfinder games use the same Unity Mod Manager workflow; see the Pathfinder: Kingmaker guide.