Absolutely wonderful. I wish I could endorse it twenty-five thousand times. This was exactly what I was looking for, even taking the lore into account.
I'm putting together a modpack to play with my vigilant/vampire hunter roleplay, and I must have tested at least twenty carefully selected mods that I thought would fit what I wanted. There was always some fatal issue, though. Some were too big, others too small, and a few felt too much like a power trip for my taste. For example, my character is not the Dragonborn, or at least doesn't know he is for most of the gameplay, so it feels a bit off to have a perfect replica of the Labyrinthian mask altar decorating the dining room. At the same time, I wanted a place that wasn’t fully set up the moment my character arrived, preferably with room for upgrades.
I was also trying to find a place where I wouldn’t need to move to a bigger home in the late game. I was looking for something simple but solid, and I was starting to lose hope until I was blessed with this mod. Not only does it include vigilants connected to the lore, but it is also close to the Dawnguard entrance and Stendarr's Beacon. It truly gives the sense of safety I was looking for, and it even lets me choose whether or not I want to fill the house with kids, which was something that bothered me in other mods.
To make it perfect, I would love to be able to hire a cook or two for the kitchen, since doing that with general follower placement plugins is a bit awkward. Personally, I used Jaxons Positioner to delete the door that leads to the garden, since I found it a little unsettling that a reinforced stronghold with a proper castle gate had such a conventional door for invaders, which leads straight to the front of the owner's bedroom.
I am only having two technical issues, and I am not sure whether they are caused by my load order of nearly four hundred mods. The blacksmith doesn’t work at the forge downstairs and instead spends the whole day standing in front of the hall door until it’s time to sleep. Also, Frostfall rarely detects that I am under a roof when I am downstairs. The screen even goes white from snow as if I were outside. On a side note, the hot spring works PERFECTLY with Frostfall, which really surprised me in a great way.
Ha, that may be too high praise! But thank you. I'm glad to have created a home that suits your game so well, however inadvertently.
Hm... I'll see if I can reproduce the issue with the smith. I'm not sure about the issue with Frostfall... there's actually a script that runs whenever you're "under the roof" that is supposed to stop all weather effects, so something there isn't working as intended with your modlist. Have you tried using the "Alternative Version" - does that make a difference? I suppose Frostfall might have its own way of identifying when the player is under cover, and the Kynesgarde script might be interferring with it...
Update: I'm afraid both of these aspects are working as intended in my game... the smith sandboxes where she's supposed to, and the weather effects stop in the covered areas. I can only observe that I'm using the mods that come with AE - so 'Survival' rather than Frostfall - but as I understand it, they work in fairly similar ways...
DO NOT DOWNLOAD THIS MOD UNLESS YOU ARE OK WITH IT INTERFERING WITH A 3dnpc quest. The guy built this right on top of a 3DNPC Dungeon. None of the beds work with followers, there no space in the place for companions to rome. Not my cup of tea. Storage is ok, i can tell they put effort into it. but thats all I got out of it. Nothing like Redwater Castle which I loved.
"The guy" welcomes your feedback but would encourage you to ask for support before declaring that things are broken. For example:
There is a patch for 3DNPC users - are you saying that this is no longer working, or did you not install it?
I tested this with followers on multiple playthroughs before uploading it and it worked fine. If you want to provide more information on the issues you're having, I can try to help.
GEEZ i LOOKED FOR A PATCH I have no idea how I missed that, thats crazy. My mistake. As for the followers though I have no mods affecting beds but a mesh replacer. No idea what that could be. And yes you're right, I had severly stubbed my toe and nearly cried that day....I was abit...irritated. Sorry. As a suggestion there should be some adoption friendly beds in there, Still nothing like Redwater. That place is nearly perfect. And there's nothing for serana to do there except freeze outside, eat or invade my personal space sitting in my room, even though theres tons of places to sit throughout the castle. Either way thanks for modding. "guy" and my toe is getting its natural color back.
No worries, we all have those days. Glad your toe is getting better!
Haha, it's possible I hid the features in this place too well: you do have the option to adopt kids and house them here - there's a ledger below the great hall (check the mod images) with the option to add a children's bedroom downstairs. Bit strange that your followers won't use the beds though - which follower management mod are using? I've had a look in the Creation Kit and there's no ownership on the beds in the basement, so telling followers to sleep in that area (I use My Home Is Your Home (MHIYH 2PLUS) for this) should get them using the beds (it worked in my testing). That said, you're right about the place being fairly snug, so you might be better off using a different mod like Redwater if you want more space for sandboxing. And I am working on something larger still I'd like to publish this year - watch this space.
Hey pal - you're very welcome to do so. Same requests as before - just credit me as the original author and share a link once you've got it online so I can add it to the Nexus description page. Thanks!
I love your "Redwater Castle" because it's purchasable, and therefore highly lore-friendly ! Here with this one, it's very "easy" and free to just acquire such a big castle. An option to make the castle purchasable would be amazing, just like you did with Redwater Castle !
Hopefully, that dream comes true one day <3 Great job, beautiful creation, thanks for your involvement !
It's one of the few rare lore-friendly, fair and balanced SMALL castle/fortified house available on the site, amongst so many other mods :p Any chance I can pay you for a patch ? xP
I appreciate the compliment - and it turns out I'm pretty susceptible to flattery, haha. Would you like to take a look at v1.2 I've added to the optional files section and let me know how you get on? It's similar to the Redwater Castle purchase script - it should check for whether the player is Thane of Riften, and the price is a bit lower to reflect the smaller size.
Wait you really did it ? Thank you I'm gonna try that ToT
I'm gonna have to use commands to become thane then, and try this now I'll let you know if anything goes wrong. Do you have somewhere I can go to give you a tip ?
Just one thing that doesn't work: once the castle is acquired, some of the doors can be unlocked, but the door on the left side, besides the shrine to kyne, doesn't work. Another door I can't unlock is the one climbing up the staircase, right after the guardroom door. It seems like the script didn't give me the key :) Maybe it's what you're fixing ? xD
Ah yeah, not actually addressing those points! Both those doors are intentionally locked at first (to force the player to go through the main entrance). The second key can be found in the (interior) basement: head right at the bottom of the stairs, and it's on a table at the end of the corridor (it's in one of the images).
Yeah I've just read it, I was just discovering and then I found the key haha Okay, I'm updating it, thanks a lot, I'll make sure to track your future mod release <3
So, I added the mod, made sure it is enabled and also used "tmm 1" to reveal the location, yet it is not showing up. I also tried the same with the alt version with the same results. Do I have to have Aniversary edition to use the mod or should it work with Special edition 1.5.97? Thanks in advance.
Hi Josiath98. You want this bit from the description page:
"Users of Skyrim versions pre-patch 1.6.1130 may wish to try installing Backported Extended ESL Support if you find that Kynesgarde does not appear in-game."
The BEES mod author explains it better than I can, but the short version is that mods made for AE won't load with earlier game versions by default. This has worked for others so I'd recommend giving it a go. Good luck!
So I recently tried Redwater Castle, Kynesgarde, and Yngol's Spear and love all of them (thank you!) - just what I was looking for in a player home for extra followers. But I may not be able to use Kynesgarde in my playthrough, because of an Issue I can't figure out. Thought I would post here in case you have any insights into the cause.
Basically traversing the lower level of Kynesgarde regularly triggers a large red alert (covers most of the screen) from ENBseries stating that the weather settings cannot be loaded, because ENB helper isn't working. The alert can pop up and remain up at any time after you cross the first line past the gate (in front of the "Travel to Riften" bag) and often will disappear again when you step out of the stairwell onto the top level. Sometimes the message simply won't go away until you go inside the house. The text of the alert often appears moving and distorted, and one time I got part way up the stairs and found my character was suddenly suspended in water until they moved forward, so my impression is that the game is confused about whether the lower level is underwater or not.
The lower level of Kynesgarde is the only location where I've encountered this issue and it's easily reproducible. ENB Helper is installed and working fine, except for here. I'm running PRT XII for ENB and NAT.ENB III Weather Plugin for weather.
Hoping you might have some thoughts on what I need to check to correct things - I'm lost when it comes to ENB/SKSE conflicts. In any case, thank you again for the excellent player homes!
Thank you, ParmenidesX - what a kind comment, and very helpful from a bugfixing perspective as well.
The good news is that I know exactly what this relates to. Because the lower exterior levels are under cover, and I found the vanilla weather clipping very inconsistent when testing (more specifically, it tended to keep raining or snowing when "inside"), I set up a basic script to pause precipitation effects while the player is within the covered zone (a bit like the Clear Skies dragon shout) and restart it when the player goes back outside. Some aspect of your ENB setup is breaking that script - I'd guess either removing the weather reference that my script points to, or just a case of scripts treading on each others' toes for whatever reason.
The bad news is that I haven't the foggiest how to properly resolve this - I've never used ENBs and I can't see anything helpful in the documentation. That being the case, I think the best I can do is upload an alternative version of the mod without the scripting for the lower level... it's possible that the mods you have are smarter than the vanilla game anyway, and are able to resolve the weather clipping themselves, so it might be a non-issue in your game.
I've uploaded an alternative version now with the changes - let me know if that fixes the issue with the ENB Helper.
Edit: I love that at one point you were suspended underwater - Skyrim is so lovably terrible at times!
I'm glad the problem made sense! Thank you for putting together the alternate version. The changes you made did fix the ENB alert issue on my setup. Unfortunately they also seem to have broken the model somehow. The alternate Kynesgarde renders with no walls or roof, just floors, doors, and miscellaneous objects. The parts that are no longer visible actually seem to be missing, not just invisible. I got inside the upper level and it renders as floors and furniture in a white void.
So you were right about the source of the error messages, but it looks like the fix is not simple. No one else seems to running into the issue, so I'd not spend more time on it, unless you're just keen on understanding it. Thank you for taking the time to address a bizarre issue reported by just one user: that's definitely going above and beyond!
I'm amused at how terrible a fix that was - apologies! I forgot to rename the .bsa to match the .esp (modding 101, duh), hence the missing assets - please could you take a look at the new 'alternative version' I've uploaded and let me know if that addresses it? I have tested this one and it should be fine...
No trouble at all - a bit of courtesy goes a long way =) (I also enjoyed reading up on Parmenides!)
I'm really impressed - you actually looked up Parmenides! (Greek usernames are relics of being a Philosophy major at one point back in the Dark Ages.)
MO2 disabled the new version on updating, which slowed down trying to check it, but the new version seems to work perfectly here! No ENB errors and no problems with the weather on the lower level so far. Rain isn't appearing until you reach the open area near the front door. Thank you so much for taking a look at this issue! My character, who is a blacksmith, thanks you too for restoring the smithing area to working order.
Btw, your implementation of the smelter in the base of the forge is brilliant - it makes jobs that require going back and forth between the forge and smelter much easier. Wish more player home authors would make homes like yours with no unique item display rooms or kids rooms or other things that you only need in a single house and with the same attention to detail you've put into yours. Looking forward to finally starting a playthrough with three of your mods installed! Kudos!
I'm delighted it worked - especially after my first attempt made things significantly worse, haha. Glad to help. I appreciate the feedback as well; I may well make something larger in future, but my playstyle has generally lent itself to more contained homes, which don't suit everyone. Enjoy your playthrough!
And ha, yes, never can resist reading around, and your name was shouting "Greek philosopher" at me. I'd have studied Philosophy in another life, I think. Lovely choice of pseudonym!
It would be great to offer a vampire version, with coffins and gore. Looks like the perfect place, and protected by a werewolf from its previous owner. Just a thought.
98 comments
I'm putting together a modpack to play with my vigilant/vampire hunter roleplay, and I must have tested at least twenty carefully selected mods that I thought would fit what I wanted. There was always some fatal issue, though. Some were too big, others too small, and a few felt too much like a power trip for my taste. For example, my character is not the Dragonborn, or at least doesn't know he is for most of the gameplay, so it feels a bit off to have a perfect replica of the Labyrinthian mask altar decorating the dining room. At the same time, I wanted a place that wasn’t fully set up the moment my character arrived, preferably with room for upgrades.
I was also trying to find a place where I wouldn’t need to move to a bigger home in the late game. I was looking for something simple but solid, and I was starting to lose hope until I was blessed with this mod. Not only does it include vigilants connected to the lore, but it is also close to the Dawnguard entrance and Stendarr's Beacon. It truly gives the sense of safety I was looking for, and it even lets me choose whether or not I want to fill the house with kids, which was something that bothered me in other mods.
To make it perfect, I would love to be able to hire a cook or two for the kitchen, since doing that with general follower placement plugins is a bit awkward. Personally, I used Jaxons Positioner to delete the door that leads to the garden, since I found it a little unsettling that a reinforced stronghold with a proper castle gate had such a conventional door for invaders, which leads straight to the front of the owner's bedroom.
I am only having two technical issues, and I am not sure whether they are caused by my load order of nearly four hundred mods. The blacksmith doesn’t work at the forge downstairs and instead spends the whole day standing in front of the hall door until it’s time to sleep. Also, Frostfall rarely detects that I am under a roof when I am downstairs. The screen even goes white from snow as if I were outside.
On a side note, the hot spring works PERFECTLY with Frostfall, which really surprised me in a great way.
Hm... I'll see if I can reproduce the issue with the smith. I'm not sure about the issue with Frostfall... there's actually a script that runs whenever you're "under the roof" that is supposed to stop all weather effects, so something there isn't working as intended with your modlist. Have you tried using the "Alternative Version" - does that make a difference? I suppose Frostfall might have its own way of identifying when the player is under cover, and the Kynesgarde script might be interferring with it...
Update: I'm afraid both of these aspects are working as intended in my game... the smith sandboxes where she's supposed to, and the weather effects stop in the covered areas. I can only observe that I'm using the mods that come with AE - so 'Survival' rather than Frostfall - but as I understand it, they work in fairly similar ways...
Haha, it's possible I hid the features in this place too well: you do have the option to adopt kids and house them here - there's a ledger below the great hall (check the mod images) with the option to add a children's bedroom downstairs. Bit strange that your followers won't use the beds though - which follower management mod are using? I've had a look in the Creation Kit and there's no ownership on the beds in the basement, so telling followers to sleep in that area (I use My Home Is Your Home (MHIYH 2PLUS) for this) should get them using the beds (it worked in my testing). That said, you're right about the place being fairly snug, so you might be better off using a different mod like Redwater if you want more space for sandboxing. And I am working on something larger still I'd like to publish this year - watch this space.
I recently ported your Redwater castle to Xbox and would like to port this one as well, with your permission of course.
Thanks!
Thanks again!
https://creations.bethesda.net/en/skyrim/details/77cf3401-0b60-47e3-b1aa-c3e5474f5f02/Kynesgarde
I love your "Redwater Castle" because it's purchasable, and therefore highly lore-friendly ! Here with this one, it's very "easy" and free to just acquire such a big castle. An option to make the castle purchasable would be amazing, just like you did with Redwater Castle !
Hopefully, that dream comes true one day <3
Great job, beautiful creation, thanks for your involvement !
It's one of the few rare lore-friendly, fair and balanced SMALL castle/fortified house available on the site, amongst so many other mods :p
Any chance I can pay you for a patch ? xP
I'm gonna have to use commands to become thane then, and try this now
I'll let you know if anything goes wrong. Do you have somewhere I can go to give you a tip ?
Annoyingly, I've just realised I left a typo in the script - give me a moment to update it and upload a new version.
For now everything works fine on my side BTW :)
Just one thing that doesn't work: once the castle is acquired, some of the doors can be unlocked, but the door on the left side, besides the shrine to kyne, doesn't work. Another door I can't unlock is the one climbing up the staircase, right after the guardroom door. It seems like the script didn't give me the key :) Maybe it's what you're fixing ? xD
With your castle, I've just discovered the unmarked location of the "burning farmhouse" for the very first time in 1500 hours of Skyrim xD
Very fun to have the castle right above that location :D
Ah yeah, not actually addressing those points! Both those doors are intentionally locked at first (to force the player to go through the main entrance). The second key can be found in the (interior) basement: head right at the bottom of the stairs, and it's on a table at the end of the corridor (it's in one of the images).
Okay, I'm updating it, thanks a lot, I'll make sure to track your future mod release <3
"Users of Skyrim versions pre-patch 1.6.1130 may wish to try installing Backported Extended ESL Support if you find that Kynesgarde does not appear in-game."
The BEES mod author explains it better than I can, but the short version is that mods made for AE won't load with earlier game versions by default. This has worked for others so I'd recommend giving it a go. Good luck!
Basically traversing the lower level of Kynesgarde regularly triggers a large red alert (covers most of the screen) from ENBseries stating that the weather settings cannot be loaded, because ENB helper isn't working. The alert can pop up and remain up at any time after you cross the first line past the gate (in front of the "Travel to Riften" bag) and often will disappear again when you step out of the stairwell onto the top level. Sometimes the message simply won't go away until you go inside the house. The text of the alert often appears moving and distorted, and one time I got part way up the stairs and found my character was suddenly suspended in water until they moved forward, so my impression is that the game is confused about whether the lower level is underwater or not.
The lower level of Kynesgarde is the only location where I've encountered this issue and it's easily reproducible. ENB Helper is installed and working fine, except for here. I'm running PRT XII for ENB and NAT.ENB III Weather Plugin for weather.
Hoping you might have some thoughts on what I need to check to correct things - I'm lost when it comes to ENB/SKSE conflicts. In any case, thank you again for the excellent player homes!
The good news is that I know exactly what this relates to. Because the lower exterior levels are under cover, and I found the vanilla weather clipping very inconsistent when testing (more specifically, it tended to keep raining or snowing when "inside"), I set up a basic script to pause precipitation effects while the player is within the covered zone (a bit like the Clear Skies dragon shout) and restart it when the player goes back outside. Some aspect of your ENB setup is breaking that script - I'd guess either removing the weather reference that my script points to, or just a case of scripts treading on each others' toes for whatever reason.
The bad news is that I haven't the foggiest how to properly resolve this - I've never used ENBs and I can't see anything helpful in the documentation. That being the case, I think the best I can do is upload an alternative version of the mod without the scripting for the lower level... it's possible that the mods you have are smarter than the vanilla game anyway, and are able to resolve the weather clipping themselves, so it might be a non-issue in your game.
I've uploaded an alternative version now with the changes - let me know if that fixes the issue with the ENB Helper.
Edit: I love that at one point you were suspended underwater - Skyrim is so lovably terrible at times!
So you were right about the source of the error messages, but it looks like the fix is not simple. No one else seems to running into the issue, so I'd not spend more time on it, unless you're just keen on understanding it. Thank you for taking the time to address a bizarre issue reported by just one user: that's definitely going above and beyond!
No trouble at all - a bit of courtesy goes a long way =) (I also enjoyed reading up on Parmenides!)
MO2 disabled the new version on updating, which slowed down trying to check it, but the new version seems to work perfectly here! No ENB errors and no problems with the weather on the lower level so far. Rain isn't appearing until you reach the open area near the front door. Thank you so much for taking a look at this issue! My character, who is a blacksmith, thanks you too for restoring the smithing area to working order.
Btw, your implementation of the smelter in the base of the forge is brilliant - it makes jobs that require going back and forth between the forge and smelter much easier. Wish more player home authors would make homes like yours with no unique item display rooms or kids rooms or other things that you only need in a single house and with the same attention to detail you've put into yours. Looking forward to finally starting a playthrough with three of your mods installed! Kudos!
And ha, yes, never can resist reading around, and your name was shouting "Greek philosopher" at me. I'd have studied Philosophy in another life, I think. Lovely choice of pseudonym!
This place look amazing Spleen, you truly make very good and original player homes.