This guide was written for people with no idea on how any of this works, complete beginner style. Feel free to skip steps if you feel comfortable doing so.
I wrote this for the Devil's Lair, check out one of the best night clubs of Choas : https://devils-lair.carrd.co/
These steps will also work for general purposes.

Quick disclaimer: This is only for PC. From what I know, it isn't possible to install mods or shaders on consoles.

Okay so first of all, this is largely inspired by https://reniguide.info/ for the Penumbra and Mare installation which is a great resource.

Summary:

1. Definitions
1. Install XIVLauncher
1. Setup additional plugin repositories
1. Install Heels, Palette+, Customize+ and Glamourer.
1. Install & Configure Penumbra
1. Install & Configure Mare Synchronos
1. Joining Devil Lair's Syncshell
1. (Optional) Install mods yourself
1. (Optional) IVCS

0 - Definitions

Right, let's begin with definitions :

XIVLauncher : This is a replacement for the official game launcher. It's more stable, lighter, and more efficient to install and update your game, on top of having the ability to save your password. It also does one important thing that is going to be necessary with mods, it injects Dalamud into your game.
Dalamud : This is a Plugin Loader, that will allow you to install and manage plugins in your game.
Plugin Repository : A small file contaning information on plugins for dalamud to download and install them automatically.
Plugins : Usually small tools that allow you to interact with the game a certain way. Their function ranges from simple ease of us stuff like "No Tank You", to full UI overalls like "DelvUI".
Penumbra : This is a Mod Loader coming in the form of a plugin, that will allow you to install and manage mods in your game.
Glamourer : Plugin that allows to modify your appearance and your gear. The change is only visible to you.
Mare Synchronos : This is a plugin that allows you to synchronise your Penumbra mods and Glamourer settings with other people using it.
Heels : Plugin that offsets your character off the ground when wearing heels.
Customize+ : Plugin that allows you to create and apply more advanced body-scaling.
Palette+ : Plugin that adds a custom color palette for anything that can be dyed (Including hair!).

Let's jump into it !

1 - Install XIVLauncher

Let's start with installing XIVLauncher. As said in definitions, it is required, because it injects Dalamud, which we'll need to install plugins.
First, you'll want to download this : https://github.com/goatcorp/FFXIVQuickLauncher/releases/latest
On that page, click the "Setup.exe" link.
Now that the Setup is downloaded, just open it, then follow the instructions.
You should be able to just leave everything at default, the setup wizard is pretty self explanatory.
Congrats, you have now replaced the official game launcher with XIVLauncher !
You can now start your game with it. You'll quickly see that something has changed, as you should now see a Dalamud icon in the top left of your screen on the main menu.
Don't touch it just yet, I'll first need you to log into your character.
Once you're logged in, let's move to the next step !

2 - Setup additional plugin repositories

Okay so, let's hit Escape (or whatever key you use to open System), and click "Dalamud Settings".
You should now see a red and black interface with a few tabs. Let's go into the "Experimental" tab.
In there, you should see a bunch of text, and 2 editable tables. We're interested in the "Custom Plugin Repositories" one.
To add an entry into that table, just enter the URL of the repository (listed below) in the URL field, then hit the "+" on the right hand on that new entry. It should now be Enabled by default.
I'm now gonna need you to add a few entries :

Once you've added those entries, you can now click the Save icon in the bottom right.
Your dalamud settings are now complete, and you are now able to download and install every plugin required in this guide !

3 - Install Heels, Palette+, Customize+ and Glamourer

We'll now install some Plug & Play plugins, meaning you will not need to configure anything for them to work properly.
Let's open the System menu again, then this time click "Dalamud Plugins".
You will now repeat these instructions for each of the 4 plugins (Heels, Palette+, Customize+ and Glamourer) :
In the search bar that is top right of that window, type the name of the plugin you want to install.
Once you see it in the list, click it to open details.
You should now see a button "Install v something", click it.
Done ! That plugin is now installed.

Once you've done that for all 4 plugins, that's it ! Let's move on to the next step.

4 - Install & Configure Penumbra

This one will require a bit more work, as you'll need to create folders outside of the game.
First, let's install it from the plugins menu. Just repeat the instructions that were in the last step but for Penumbra.

Now, you'll want to tab out of the game and create a folder.
Ideally, you want this folder to be created at the root of your drive, and also ideally, the fastest drive in your computer (SSD).
If you have no idea what I'm talking about, when you open Windows Explorer, on the left panel you'll see, under "This PC", multiples folders like Desktop, Documents, Music etc and below those, your drives !
For example on my computer I have "Local Disk (C:)", "Main (D:)" and "M.2 (G:)". My fastest drive is "M.2 (G:)", because it is an SSD. If you only have C:, that's fine too, let's click on it and create a folder there.
Name this folder whatever you want, but something simple like "PenumbraMods".
Do not put anything inside that folder, it is here only for Penumbra to use.
Let's jump back into the game and configure it to use that new folder.

Now, let's open Penumbra's interface. Open your chat and type "/penumbra". Hit enter, and you should see a new window appear.
Because this guide will help you configure Penumbra, let's hit "Skip Tutorial". If you want to read that tutorial again later, there is a "Restart Tutorial" button you can use whenever you want.
In the Settings tab (open by default), you'll see a "Root Directory" line, let's write the path to the folder we just created here.
For me, that is "G:\PenumbraMods". If it is on C: for you, you will instead type "C:\PenumbraMods".
Once that's done, hit Enter, and you're all done !

If you want to install mods for yourself, jump to step 7 of this guide.
If you just want to see other people's mods, let's get to the next step !

5 - Install & Configure Mare Synchronos

/!\ Disclaimer : If you have installed mods before with TexTools or a similar tool, this will break them ! You will need to repair your game with XIVLauncher first.
/!\ Disclaimer 2 : If you have shaders (reshade or similar), this will break them ! You will need to reinstall them once you're done.

Alright we're almost there ! This step will require you to create another folder next to the one we set up in the previous step, as well as join a Discord server to authenticate yourself with the Mare Synchronos servers.

Let's first find your lodestone page. You can do so by first opening this link : https://eu.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodestone/
If you aren't already, log in with your square enix account in the top right. Then, click your name where the log in button used to be, and click "Character Profile".
Once you're on that page, let's make a note of that page's URL. For example, mine is https://eu.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodestone/character/41566997/
Write it down somewhere, you'll need it !
Scroll down below your jobs, and you'll see a "Character Profile" box with an edit icon on the right. Click that, then let's move to Mare's Discord server.

Here is the link for it : https://discord.gg/maresynchronos
Once you've joined it, you'll wanna first accept their rules, then open the "**###mare-commands" channel.
Inside that channel, you'll see a huge wall of bot text, you can mostly ignore that as I'll just give you the commands to type.
Let's first type "/register", then hit enter. You'll see a pop up asking you for the URL of your Lodestone page I asked you to write down earlier. Give it that, then hit Submit.
You'll now see the bot ask you to put a key into your character description inside your lodestone page. Copy this key, and let's head back to your browser with the edit box open.

There, just paste the key you just copied, then click on the "Confirm" button.
You'll need to click this button again once the website shows you a preview.
Once that's done, let's head back to Mare's Discord again, same channel (#mare-commands), but this time we'll type "/verify" and hit Enter.
You are now registered with Mare ! The bot should now have given you a key. /!\ Do not share this key with others !
Copy this key, and ideally save it in a note somewhere safe, as if you lose it, you will not be able to get it back and you'll need to register again.
You'll also want to go back to your Lodestone page and modify that description again to remove the key that was in there.
We can now head back into the game and Install Mare Synchronos !

Open the Dalamud Plugins window once again (Last time !), go into All Plugins then search for "Mare Synchronos". Install it.
A pop up should show up automatically to check if you have Penumbra and Glamourer installed, which if you followed this guide, you should ! Click Next.
Next, you'll have a "Agreement of Usage of Service" window, with a Next button at the bottom, on a 60s timer. They really want you to read it. Just wait 60s, then click Next.

Let's now jump out of the game again and go back to that folder I made you create earlier. Read the previous step again if you forgot where that is.
Next to that folder (Not inside), we'll create another folder. Just like the last one, you can name it whatever you want, but let's keep it simple "MareSyncCache".
You should now have 2 folders on your drive, both empty.
Let's jump back to the game and configure it !

In this new window, you'll see another box where you can input the path to your newly created folder, but this time you can't edit it, instead, just click on the folder icon on the right hand of that box.
Now, on the left, you'll see your drives names (C:, D:, G: etc). Click on the one you created your folder in, then double click the folder you just created. Now let's click Ok in the bottom right.
Once that's done, click Next, and let's head to setting up your account with Mare.
In this new window, you will find a "I have an account" checkbox, click that, then paste the key I made you save in a safe place earlier.
Now, just click "Save", and Mare should now be configured and ready to go !

You can now see the main Mare interface, with your personal ID at the top. This is what you share with other people to synchronize with them.
For Devil's Lair though, that's not what we're gonna do, let's talk about it in the next step.

6 - Joining Devil Lair's Syncshell

Let's configure Mare so that we're synchronizing mods as a group, specifically the Devil's Lair group, which in Mare are called "Syncshells".
If you closed Mare's interface, just type /mare in the chat then hit Enter.
Now that Mare interface is open, let's click the two people icon.
Right underneath those two buttons, you'll see a box, I want you to copy this into it : MSS-A2DHESWZPEC6
A popup will appear, asking you for a password. Copy this into it : HHAUQMV8B0PLM7QH
Now, click the Join button.
Congratulations, you are now syncing your mods with others, and others are also syncing their mods with you !

Please note that it is the case only when those people are visible to you ingame.
Also, quick thing, let's right click MSS-A2DHESWZPEC6 on Mare's interface, and let's type "Devil's Lair" instead.
If it still shows you the long name, just click it once.
You can also go into Mare's settings in the top right by clicking the gear icon, then in the "General" tab, check the "Show player name instead of note for visible players".

7 - (Optional) Install mods yourself

Now that you're all set up with both Penumbra and Mare, you'll probably want to install mods for yourself, and that's where this step comes in 😄
Okay so, let's talk abouts mods for a bit first. I personnally consider there are 9 categories :

Animation
Gear
Body
Hair
Minion
Mount
Furniture
Sound
VFX

That is the list I use to sort my mods, you do it however you want 🙂
In this guide, we'll mostly look into Animation, Gear, and Body.

Alright so let's start by choosing and downloading our first mods !
There are multiples websites that list mods https://www.xivmodarchive.com/ is the one I use but https://beta.aetherlink.app/ is another. You can also find some mods on their creators' Patreon or Gumroad.
For this guide, I will teach you how to install 3 mods :

Bibo+ : https://www.xivmodarchive.com/modid/29029 (That's a nude/NSFW mod ! If you do not want that, skip this one, but you might be missing on a lot of this guide)
For male characters, you can use The Body SE instead : https://beta.aetherlink.app/mods/6994949803713265664 (I will refer to Bibo+ for the remaining of this guide but the process is the same)
2 Phut Hon : https://www.xivmodarchive.com/modid/49355 (This is a dance mod)
T&F Rebel Girl : https://www.xivmodarchive.com/modid/69257 (This is an outfit mod)
You can choose other mods if you want to, but this guide will be specifically for those ones to work.
Read their description if you want to, but most importantly check out on the right side the "Affects/Replaces :" part. This will help you use the mod.
Let's start by downloading them ! On each page, in the top right you'll have a "Download Mod" green button, click that.
You're now downloading a .ttmp2 file for Collegiate Attire, a rar archive for Bibo+, and a zip archives for 2 Phut Hon.
We'll first start by extracting the mod files from Bibo+'s archive, so just double click it to open it, or click it once in the bottom if you're using Chrome.
If you can't open .rar files, I suggest installing 7-Zip (https://www.7-zip.org/a/7z2201-x64.exe), it's free and open source.
Inside that archive, you should see 1 .ttmp2 file named Bibo+, it is 1.5Gb (Yes, very HQ boobies hihi). Let's drag and drop it to a folder of your choice, just make sure you remember it. As your other two downloaded mods are in your Downloads folder, it's a good candidate for that.
Let's do the same thing again for the zip archive containing 2 Phut Hon. This time, you'll see it has 2 files, one for Vanilla and the other for IVCS. I'll talk about IVCS in the next step, so let's stick with Vanilla for now, but let's export both for later anyway.
You should now have 4 .ttmp2 files. If you can't see them, check at the bottom of your Downloads folder. The more mods you'll download, the more this is gonna be a mess, so I suggest having a dedicated folder where you store and categorize all your downloaded mods. For now though, let's continue with installing those.

Now, let's jump into the game, and open Penumbra (Type /penumbra in the chat, then hit Enter).
Let's now go into the Mods tab of Penumbra's interface, and at the bottom left you should see a few buttons. Let's click the second one from the left, the Import button.
This will open up a File explorer window, and we'll now guide it through your folders to find your downloaded mods.
On the left, you should see below your drives a few preset folders, including the Download folder. Click that, and you should now see your 4 mods ! If you downloaded your mods somewhere else, go to that other folder to find them.
Let's select all of them (Hold CTRL then click another one to select multiple), then click Ok in the bottom right corner.
Penumbra is now importing your new mods, and installing them. Because Bibo+ is a big mod, this might take a few seconds.
After it's finished, you can click the Close button. We're now back into Penumbra's interface with 4 mods in green in the list.
You can click on any of them to open its settings. Let's start with 2 Phut Hon. (It's named "raykie 2 Phut Hon Loop (All tall Harvest Dance) Vanilla V1_0_2")
In the Settings tab, you should see an Enabled checkbox, let's click that to enable it. Congrats ! You have installed and enabled your first mod ! Let's give it a try.
This mod is for the Harvest Dance emote. If you don't have it, it's a quick 5 minutes quest : https://ffxiv.consolegameswiki.com/wiki/Saw_That_One_Coming
Close or fold Penumbra's interface (The triangle arrows icon in the top right folds the window without closing it), then type /harvestdance and hit Enter.

Let's go back to Penumbra and work on Bibo+. Before enabling it, I'll ask you to take your top/bottom off. No I will not ask for a screenshot lol, this is to show you how redrawing works.
You should now be seeing yourself in small clothes. Disclaimer : If you're a Lalafell, Bibo+ will not work for you. Lalafell nudity is strictly prohibited in the modding community. Look instead for Otopop.
Now, let's Enable it, just like 2 Phut Hon. It has more settings below that, but let's leave everything as default for now.
Can't see a difference ? That's normal, we'll first need to Redraw your character. To do that, click the "Self" button at the bottom of Penumbra interface.
I'm sure a big "Oh WoW" just came out of your mouth at this moment, so let's quickly put some clothes back on. 😄
Congratulations, you now have a body mod installed ! Now, Bibo+ isn't there just to get naked, it's also there to help normalize your attributes' sizes accross modded outfits.
Basically, if an outfit is Bibo+ compatible (or Gen3 compatible which Bibo+ can handle), your attributes should stay the same size whenever you wear the modded outfit.
To configure said sizes, go into Bibo+'s settings and modify them as you wish. Just make sure you leave the top setting as "Gen3 compatible Bibo".

Let's now move on to our 3rd mod, Collegiate Attire. As you can see in the name, it is Bibo+ compatible, so it should fit your Bibo+ settings.
Let's enable it, then redraw yourself, and check if we have the outfit. As you can see, no difference, that's because we need to equip or glamour the item it replaces.
Instead of actually trying to get the item, I'll instead teach you how to use Glamourer. Let's open its interface by typing /glamourer in the chat and pressing Enter.
In this new interface, let's click our name in the list on the left, at the top of it.
If you unfold the different categories on the right, you can now see every single character customization you have, and change them.
This is only visible to you and people you're syncrhonized with in Mare Synchronos however.
Let's go into the Character Equipment category, and change the items we're equipping. If you go back into the mod page on XIV Mod Archive, you'll see it replaces three items.
Starting with the top, click the Body dropdown list, then type "Collegiate Blazer".
Let's now equip the next 2 items, which I'll let you figure out how, to familiarize yourself with Glamourer, as you'll need to use it frequently to wear modded gear.
Let's configure it so that it also matches our Bibo+ settings, and redraw. Don't forget to tick the "Bibo+" checkbox under Collegiate Shoes (Tall Socks) adjusted section.

I've chosen this one specifically to make you understand what Bibo+ is and how clothes work in the game.
As you can see, the difference isn't very visible from the original item. That's because instead of changing the appearance of the item itself, this mod only makes it so that it fits the Bibo+ shapes.
Technically, when you wear an item like a shirt, it doesn't fit above your naked body like in real life, it actually replaces your whole torso.
Bibo+ changes that original Torso shape, so mods exist to refit (and sometimes upscale) outfits to more accurately represent that new shape.
There are also a plethora of original items to choose from, which I'll let you discover on the websites mentioned above. A big part of it is NSFW, but that's because the original game already provides a lot of great options to choose from for regular outfits.

Congratulations, you're now wearing a modded outfit, while doing a modded emote, with a modded body shape !

8 - (Optional) IVCS

Do you remember that IVCS version of the emote mod we installed ? Great ! Let's install it now 😄 I'll let you do it, as you should now know how.
So, first things first, what's IVCS ? Well, it's complicated. Let's start by explaning how bones work ingame.
Just like real life, your characters has bones. Now different from real life, they're not actual bones but just points in your body linked together to make it so that you body moves in certain ways.
Animations use those bones to, well, animate, and poses use them to, well, pose. I know, shocking. What does that have to do with anything ?
Well, because people are horny (and it's fun to be fair), we now have additional parts to play with. Specifically, penises, vaginas, and better boob jiggles.
(And for my feet lovers out there, toes, as the game doesn't have proper bones for those by default)
Those parts also need bones to animate and pose. That's where IVCS comes in.
It adds additionnal bones for those parts, as well as more bones to already existing parts (specifically the face) for modders to play with.

Now, why are we interested in this ? Well because now that you're using Mare Synchronos, some people are surely going to be using those.
The problem with that, is that for some reason that I do not fully understand, IVCS doesn't like when it's getting imported by Mare.
That means that if someone uses something that requires IVCS and you don't have the requirements for it, you might crash. I say might because it isn't consistent.
So let's install them ! But wait, we have Bibo+, won't that interfere with it ? It also changes some body stuff.
The answer is yes, but there's patches for that too ! So let's install everything, then configure them to work properly. Here's what you need :

https://www.xivmodarchive.com/modid/56712
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1kZ_X7Lp38MAxbcHgsrFAAtf40CvJUXFF Note 1
(For male characters) https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-sHPcYJ1S3RYyOWVADn9qysal9bViJEW/edit Note 2
Note 1: On this page, you need to download all 3 .ttmp2 files, ignore the folders. To do that, select all 3 (Hold CTRL to select multiple), then right click them, and click Download.
Note 2: On this page, click the Download icon in the top right.
Once you have everything downloaded, I'll let you install them. Don't enable them yet, we'll first configure their priority.

Okay so, if you click on one of them, you'll see next to the Enabled checkbox, a number. That's the mod's priority.
Basically, when two mods replace the same game file, they mismatch, because they both try to replace the same file. How do we choose which comes first or last ?
That's where Priority comes in, it makes it so that a mod has priority over the other. It goes from 0 (lowest priority, applies changes first) to 999 (highest priority, applies changes last).
IVCS requires very specific priorities to make it work. There's a whole guide about it to work with different body mods (which you can find here : https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yo-ynhqH-gMTN7SQv55x2yzOe_V2II9dSAJE8FnEghE/edit#) but for the purpose of this guide, I'll make you install it for Bibo+.

Here is the list of IVCS mods and their priorities for our case :

Bibo+ : 0
(For male characters) The Body SE : 0
IV - Expression Library : 0
[IVCS] Illusio Vitae Custom Skeleton Base V something : 2
[IVCS] Unique Racial Bodies Base : 3
[IVCS] Bibo+ : 4
(For male characters) [IVCS] The Body SE : 4

Set all of those according to your setup, then enable all of them. Redraw yourself, and as you can see, nothing changed ! Congrats 😄
Yes, nothing changing is a good thing, that means IVCS is now working properly. If it didn't your body might be missing parts, or your game straight up crashed. 😄
I left a spot for 1, that's because there's additional mods that change specific stuff, for example Futa characters need another IVCS patch. I won't go into the details for that in this guide, but feel free to ask below.

Let's now install that IVCS version of the dance emote we installed earlier, and don't forget to disable the vanilla version.
Again, no major change, but if you do it naked you might see a bit more tiddy jiggle and penis wiggle 😄
Of course that's not the purpose of IVCS, it's mostly focused on gposers, but can cause issues when using Mare, hence why this step.

That's it ! If you've followed this guide all the way through, that's amazing ! I know how verbose I am, so thank you for bearing with me ❤️
If you find anything that is wrong or simply a typo, please notify me, I'll edit 😄
If you need help, feel free to contact me on Discord (Exorion#2956) or ingame (Klyhia Moni@Moogle - Chaos)
Happy modding ❤️

Exorion1er/FFXIVModding.md