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About this mod
Now reborn. Battle your way through Lakvan's Stronghold and claim it as your own. Highly immersive dungeon experience with references to TES Travels: Shadowkey.
- Requirements
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Translations
- Spanish
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Here the slightest of things, a memento, a merchant's pack, align a hero's path toward destiny. Forces revealed now are needed later... if the new hero can survive a meeting with a master of shadow.
Lakvan's Stronghold is a dungeon & player home located near the border crossing between High Rock and Skyrim. It is occupied by a clan of powerful and bloodthirsty marauders, feared for their cruelty and gall -- for the stronghold is extremely defensible, and no band of lawmen have yet been able to threaten its denizens.
The Castle
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The origins of the fortress now known as Lakvan's Stronghold lie in the silver age of the Duchy of Jehanna, when the strategically-placed fort held a position of high prestige for its noble occupants. With humble beginnings as a simple hillfort, the castle was later expanded with a watchtower opposite the main gates, and the undercroft was dug further to accomodate ever-increasing stockpiles.
During the War of Bendr-Mahk, the stronghold was seized by the bandit lord Lakvan, by whose name the castle is now called. Lakvan met his end at the hands of a hero whose identity has fallen out of memory. The castle subsequently fell into disuse until the upper levels were occupied by an Imperial legion as a border post in the 4th Era.
After most of the legionnaires had been recalled from the castle, which was a non-critical border crossing during the Skyrim Civil War, a band of mercenaries-turned-marauders massacred the remaining custodial force and moved into the stronghold. They were tracked to their new base by one Halvor Grey-Loam, a former member of their band with a burning oath of vengeance for atrocities committed against his family.
During the War of Bendr-Mahk, the stronghold was seized by the bandit lord Lakvan, by whose name the castle is now called. Lakvan met his end at the hands of a hero whose identity has fallen out of memory. The castle subsequently fell into disuse until the upper levels were occupied by an Imperial legion as a border post in the 4th Era.
After most of the legionnaires had been recalled from the castle, which was a non-critical border crossing during the Skyrim Civil War, a band of mercenaries-turned-marauders massacred the remaining custodial force and moved into the stronghold. They were tracked to their new base by one Halvor Grey-Loam, a former member of their band with a burning oath of vengeance for atrocities committed against his family.
The Hall
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Once a grand reception hall of the resident duke, the hall has since fallen from its former splendor. Stone dust crackles under foot as a cold draft whistles through fractured windowpanes. At the end of the hall, appearing to be seated in the place of honor, is Galldir Frostfear, the cruel and mad leader of the marauders. Be wary, for death waits in the shadows.
The Dungeons
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A tangled mass of cold chambers, derelict supplies, and murderous villains, the castle's undercroft served as the living quarters of Lakvan's band during his time, and now hosts Galldir's marauders. The wind sounds an eerie wail as it blows through the barred windows that pierce the darkness of this grim dungeon. Merchandise stolen at knifepoint from unwary traders lines the cold walls, tossed together with the old rotten and dessicated stockpiles of the castle's former occupants. The atmosphere darkens as one delves deeper through the bleak dungeons, revealing centuries of dust and barbarity.
The Courtyard & Chambers
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Beyond the hall lie the courtyard and the duke's chambers. Volund, the tired-eyed smith, and his daughter Yrse were the only survivors of Galldir's bloodbath. Their knowledge of the castle and Volund's skill as a smith saved their lives; Volund, forced to craft a near-endless supply of bolts for the band's crossbows, wishes for nothing more but to be freed from their patronage. Owing to its occupancy by the smith and his daughter, the courtyard is in far better shape than the hall and undercroft. The same can be said of the chambers. These lavish quarters have been preserved in their original state, largely untouched since the nobles of Jehanna departed the castle. Should the fortress be liberated once more, they will serve as fine living quarters, with all the necessary amenities that befit a lord.
This remastering update is the product of several months of work, completely overhauling virtually EVERYTHING in the original mod.
What's new in 2.0+:
- The dungeon as well as the player home have been completely rebuilt from scratch. The new dungeon is greatly expanded, with challenging enemies, great loot, much backstory, and carefully-crafted visuals inspired by Diablo, Nosferatu, real European castles, and various other influences. The player home has been made nearly standalone, and is now a reward for completing the dungeon, rather than being a dungeon itself.
- The exterior has been massively improved. The ramparts are now almost fully walkable, and a new area, the Burned Watchtower, has been added.
- Various secrets have been added.
- The quest has been made minimalistic. Rest in peace, Halvor. On the bright side, this means that players who previously had issues with progression will be able to complete the quest without any problems.
- The architecture now makes much better use of vanilla and custom tilesets, avoiding the previously-common issue of broken texture mapping entirely.
- Challenging dungeon for mid- to high-level characters;
- Carefully-designed encounters that are approachable by any playstyle;
- Architecture inspired by real Central European castles as well as various fantasy concepts;
- All the usual amenities: all smithing furniture (including a smelter), ovens and cooking pots, alchemy and enchanting;
- Lots of non-respawning storage.
Installation:
Install as usual, I recommend Mod Organizer 2. Load patches after LakvansStrongholdReborn.esp.
Then generate DyndoLOD if you want distant LOD.
Compatibility:
No vanilla records are edited, aside from obviously necessary additions to the Skyrim worldspace. Everything else is standalone, so it should be compatible with virtually everything as long as it doesn't add stuff to the overworld in the same location.
Everyone is welcome to contribute or host compatibility patches, NPC visual overhauls, etc. Let me know, so I can link to them here.
Known Issues:
- Followers may have trouble pathing up the stairs to the castle and around the castle ramparts. Unfortunately, there's nothing I can do about this, and since the navmesh looks OK, it's likely just a quirk of Bethesda's AI pathing.
Credits:
I'm using a couple assets from COTN - Falkreath, COTN - Winterhold, The Great Town of Shor's Stone, and Keys Redone. Thank you to kkol/Ara for the Shadowkey mesh and Tesak1243 (via ClefJ) for the Norman Keep tileset, and ClefJ for the layout inspiration from Moonstone Holdfast.
