The bearded babies of this Mount and Blade 2 mod may mean I never sleep soundly again-

Look, I’ll level with you: This is a small mod. A trifling mod. A mod bagatelle. But it’s also possibly the worst and most wonderful thing I’ve ever seen, so here I am writing about it and here you are reading about it.

Bearded Babies for Mount and Blade 2 adds beards to the babies of Mount and Blade 2, even (or especially) ones you can play as. Sick of no one taking your infant warlord seriously? Slap some mutton-chops on that bairn and assert their masculinity. Make friend and foe alike show some respect as they tell you it looks like someone needs a nap and haul you off screaming to your crib. It’s made by a modder called xjoverax and is, apparently, their first time modding. Now here is a career I will watch with interest.

I know what you’re thinking: “Joshua!”—you can call me Josh, by the way—”Joshua! You can’t play as babies in Mount and Blade 2! What on Earth are you going on about?” Well that’s the thing, reader: For best results, xjoverax recommends using another mod called Detailed Character Creation alongside Bearded Babies. That one will let you roll characters of any age, babies and toddlers included.

The creator also recommends installing Designer225’s Miscellaneous Patches, which will let you, hm, “fix invincible children”. You could also not do that. You know, your choice.

“If you’ve ever wanted to spice up your baby playthrough, well here you go,” says xjoverax in the descriptive blurb on Nexus Mods, effortlessly summing up this entire article in a single laconic phrase. To install it, you’ll want to drop the downloaded BeardedBabies folder in your steamapps\common\Mount & Blade II- Bannerlord\Modules\ directory. Once that’s done, switch it on in the game’s launcher and make sure it’s placed above the “Native” module. After that? Long live the infant king.