The Old North
[Version 1.0]

The Old North is the granfdad attempt™ at a quintessential vanilla experience. Subtle tweaks are included to smooth out the Bethesda jank and enhance the game's strengths. Upscaled textures, improved NPCs, and more tactical combat come together to create vanilla Skyrim as you remember it being.

The Old North: Legendary Edition is an optional profile that changes the game's visuals to recreate the atmosphere of Bethesda's 2011 release.

The Old North Highlights

Wander is a weather mod that increases that variety and quality of vanilla weathers, improving on distant visibility, horizon seams, nighttime brightness, and a lot more.

Nordic Faces is the ultimate vanilla+ NPC overhaul. NPCs retain their rough and dirty looks, but with much more detail and personality. The mod also includes physics-enabled hair in combination with Vanilla Hair Remake!

Blade and Blunt makes combat more tactical and balanced. Harsher resource penalties and attacks of opportunity means you'll need to think more about when and how you attack. TON uses vanilla's difficulty sliders instead of Blade and Blunt's, so the game won't be that much harder than vanilla.

Perks Plus Plus is a minimalist facelift to some of the less interesting (or less powerful) vanilla perks. Perks have been moved, tweaked or completely rewritten to allow for more playstyles and more logical progression.

Timing Is Everything adds customization of quest timing, allowing for more reasonable level requirements. In TON, the DLC open up much later than in vanilla. You'll need to be at least level 30 to start Dawnguard, and you'll need to finish the main quest before Miraak's cultists set their sights on you.

Epic Oldrim replaces Wander in the Legendary Edition profile, and is the ultimate LE weather experience.

System Requirements
Despite what it may look like, The Old North is quite a bit more demanding than the original game. This can mostly be attributed to the very high DynDOLOD settings, but Community Shaders plays a role too. The Legendary Edition profile acts as a de-facto performance mode, but it significantly changes the visuals. If you have absolutely no issues running the vanilla game, you can probably run The Old North at the frames you want, but if you're already struggling then you'll probably encounter issues.

Installation

Make sure you have:

• A steam copy of Skyrim Special Edition (the paid Anniversary Upgrade is NOT required)
• A Nexus Mods account, preferably premium.
• Visual C++ 2019.
• .NET Framework 4.8.
  

Preparing Skyrim

• Perform a clean reinstall of Skyrim by deleting both content in the install directory (On steam: SSE>Properties>Installed Files>Browse...) and the documents directory (documents>my games>Skyrim Special Edition)
• Confirm first that you are on the latest version of Skyrim (version 1.6.1170). You can check by going to SkyrimSE.exe, right-clicking and selecting Details
• Launch Skyrim once to generate INI files. You don't need to download AE content if you have it purchased.
• Set the game language to English. This is a temporary measure as Wabbajack requires the English version of the game to work correctly. You can revert the language back after installation
  

Preparing Wabbajack

• Download Wabbajack
• Extract the file and place it in an easy to access location. DO NOT place it inside any UAC controlled folders e.g. Program Files, Program Files (x86), Downloads, Documents, etc.
• Run Wabbajack and let it update.
  

Installing The Old North

• Launch Wabbajack and select "browse modlists"
• Select "Skyrim Special Edition" from the "Game" dropdown, and enable "Show Unofficial Lists"
• Find The Old North, and hit the download button, eventually this will become a "play" button, hit it once it does.
• Pick an installation location. Again, keep it outside of UAC controlled folders.
• Optionally, pick a downloads location. Wabbajack will automatically set a directory based on your install location, but you can change this if you want.
• Press the "play" button on the right to begin installation.
  

If Wabbajack fails or you need to pause the install for any reason, you can quit the window without losing any progress. Wabbajack will resume from where it left off if you start the install again in the same locations. If the install repeatedly fails and you need help, take a look at the troubleshooting section.

Post-Install
Once the installation is completed, navigate to the install folder, run ModOrganizer.exe, and hit the big "run" button on in the top right corner of the window. Everything will be set up and ready to go, enjoy!

Updating
Updates must be performed manually, and work exactly the same as installing the list. Make sure you're installing to the same location as you originally did, and let Wabbajack run. It's recommended to back up your saves if before you update, just in case.

Troubleshooting
If you need help with a bug or other problem, or just want to chat about the list, I'm available on the Aetherius Modding discord server. You’ll need the "The Old North” role to access the channel where you can get support. (Please don’t ask for support in the general channels!)

Thank Yous
This list is based on ForgottenGlory's (now defunct) SSEE modlist.
This readme is based on Ferroxious' readme for Little Bit of Everything