The Library of Paarthurnax
A large player home at the Throat of the World. Navmeshed, cleaned, no DLC required.
Navmeshed? Yes
Required DLC/Mods? None
Cleaned with TES5Edit
To find the key: Look at the last image posted for this mod. It will give you step-by-step instructions.
Many ages have come and gone beneath the gaze of wise old Paarthurnax, and in that time,the ancient wyrm has not been idle; he has been watching, waiting, preparing,and witnessed the end of too many things. To ensure that his knowledge is not lost to the ages, a great library has been carved inside Skyrim’s tallest mountain, and for centuries the Greybeards have cared for its treasures. In times past, its halls saw pilgrims of all walks of life, from kings to Psijic monks. But times have grown dangerous, and as the Greybeards retreat ever further into seclusion, all memory of the library has vanished from the peoples of Skyrim.
If Paarthurnax is alive…
Paarthurnax is in need of a steward for his library, someone trustworthy and meticulous, someone who can browse bookshops in Solitude and delve into crypts in search of lost texts. Or maybe just someone who doesn’t mind the smell of dust and musty books.
If Paarthurnax is dead…
With no challenger willing to climb the brutal heights of the mountain, all of the elder dragon’s possessions are now yours. His legacy is in your hands.
Requirements
Just an up-to-date, legitimate copy of Skyrim. No DLC required, no other mods required.
If you run with a lot of intensive mods or you have a low-end pc, I strongly recommend Safety Load and ENBoost. This is a VERY INTENSIVE house mod: it’s script-light, but it’s big and it has lots and lots of decorations. If you want to live in a cozier, less taxing library that also requires no DLC, I highly recommend The Library of Windhelm
Incompatibilities
It SHOULD be compatible with all DLC, but I don’t actually have any DLC, so I can’t test that.
Mods that edit the Throat of the World or the entrance to High Hrothgar may be incompatible. Minor edits are fine, but major landscape changes or edits to the navmesh will be a problem. (Portal to Sovngarde appears to be compatible. You just have to walk carefully AROUND the portal instead of through it in order to reach the main library door, since walking too close to the Sovngarde portal transports you there automatically.)
99% of edits to Paarthurnax should be fine. (I use both The Paarthurnax Dilemma and Paarthurnax the Wise myself.)
The lighting may be too dark if you use an ENB.
All of the bookshelves rely on the vanilla bookshelf scripts, nothing special, so they should be compatible with mods that improve vanilla bookshelves. I’m not making any promises, though.
Install Instructions
(Sorry,there is no bsa version, just loose files. I had some trouble getting the bsa packing to work.)
Choose ONE version: original, or no mannequins.
I recommend the Nexus Mod Manager, but if you insist on manual installation, just place the contents of the zip file into your Data folder. To uninstall manually, delete the following:
Data\LibraryPaarthurnax.esp
Data\textures\LibraryPaarthurnax
Data\meshes\LibraryPaarthurnax
Data\sound\Voice\LibraryPaarthurnax.esp
Data\textures\actors\character\FaceGenData\Facetint\LibraryPaarthurnax.esp
Data\meshes\actors\character\FaceGenData\Facegeom\LibraryPaarthurnax.esp
All pex and psc files from Data\scripts and Data\scripts\source that start with “LibraryPaar” or “LPar_”
Location
There are two doors: One is just outside the entrance to High Hrothgar, and does not have a map marker because it’s RIGHT on top of the HH map marker. The other is at the Throat of the World and it does have a map marker; see the screenshots if you have trouble finding it.
The key is in front of the Throat door to the house, on the ground.
“How do I get the house? Is there a quest?”
No quest or dialog to get the house; you just pick up the key and the library is yours. However, accessing the key requires you to walk past the Throat of the World, meaning that you won’t be able to access the house until the main quest has sent you there. Doesn’t make much sense for you to be in charge of Paarthurnax’s library if you haven’t met Paarthurnax!
(Sorry, I know, most people prefer quests, but I was exhausted. Plus, any quest REALLY ought to involve Paarthurnax, and I was terrified of interfering with other mods or breaking the main questline.)
Note: If you are not playing as the dragonborn, it IS possible to bypass the main quest and still access the library. It requires one simple console command, nothing difficult. Go to the Docs/Readme tab, and check out points #7 and #40 for more info.
Amenities
Scripts? Yes, but they’re all really light (they’re simple, and they only activate when you do things like flip switches; they don’t run constantly) and you don’t need SKSE.
Loadscreens? Minimal
Follower/Spouse Friendly? Yes! You’ll need something like MHiYH or Spouses Can Live Everywhere, but the house is fully navmeshed, has ample sleeping space, and it’s full of invisible markers to make npcs interact with the environment.
Kid-Friendly? Doubtful. I don’t have Hearthfire and I have no idea what kids need. It does have all the appropriate keywords for a player home, and you could probably use console commands to add kid-sized beds to the smaller bedrooms.
Beds/Bedrooms: 1 master bedroom, 2 smaller bedrooms with 2 adult beds each, 6 more beds + 6 bedrolls in a common room by the kitchen. If you delete the two npcs, you can take their bedrooms too.
Crafting Stations? Everything. Even has a Skyforge, though you’ll need to find a key hidden in the library to access it.
Bookshelves for 1600 BOOKS. I don’t mean the winterhold-style bookcases that don’t actually show off your books (the library has lots of those too, but I’m not counting them); I mean REAL bookshelves. There aren’t that many books in the entire vanilla game—including spell books and letters—so feel free to grab mods that add MORE books and be a packrat! I’ve put little labels at the top of some of the bookshelves (i.e.“Maps”, “Alchemy”, etc), to help you sort your stuff, but you can ignore or delete those if you don’t like them.
Lots and lots of storage containers, all safe and non-respawning. Some of them have names to help you decide where to store what (“Food”,“Ingredients”, etc), but the names are just cosmetic; you can store anything you want in any container. If you want smart storage, I recommend Arod’s Better Containers.
17 mannequins, 9 dagger display cases, 9 large display cases, 7 shield plaques, 4 weapon plaques.
There’s also a hidden display room with 5 mannequins, 8 shield plaques, 20 weapon plaques, and 18 weapon racks, plus several flat tables for displaying misc objects.
A general goods vendor with 30,000G
A book vendor with rare scrolls, books, recipes, and 10,000G
Teleporters for fast travel within the library
Lots of hidden goodies to discover! Unenchanted versions of iconic armor, hidden rooms, rare books, that sort of thing. No “god” items (nothing more powerful than vanilla gear), but some things will be overpowered if you find them at low levels.
All 9 divine shrines, scattered throughout the library.
There are four objects that function as the 4 most popular standing stones: Lord, Lover, Atronach, and Steed. They don’t look like standing stones, but they work EXACTLY like them. They should be compatible with any mod that edits the standing stones.
Animated doo-dads, just for fun.
Respawning geode (soul gem) veins…assuming you can find them.
None of the plants respawn! So if you like them, don’t pick them!!
NPCs
If Paarthurnax is alive he will occasionally stop by to visit.
Lorath: Book/Scroll Vendor
Greybeard Lorath knows every book and scroll in Paarthurnax’ possession, but tending to the massive collection alone has become difficult, so he welcomes your assistance. He will purchase any books or manuscripts you bring him, and the library has a fair number of duplicate texts that he might be willing to sell to you in return.
Kiera Wintermorn: General GoodsVendor
Kiera is a student of the Greybeards; you can learn a little of her history from Lorath’s journal. She refuses to leave the safety of the library, but she is insatiably curious about the outside world, and she will eagerly accept whatever trinkets you might bring her: lockpicks, weapons, old lamps, even foreign food—she’ll gladly trade you a handful of useless yellow metal in exchange for such treasures.
Tools Used
Nifskope
Gimp
CreationKit
BSABrowser
Permissions
“Can I make improvements to your mod? Add hearthfire functionality, add portals or relics of Apocrypha, reduce the loadtime, fix bugs, add quests, adjust the lighting, add ‘smart’ containers or display cases, etc, etc?”
“Can I translate your mod to another language?”
“Can I use assets from your mod in my own mod?”
“Can I re-upload your mod to another website?”
“Can I make a patch for your mod?”
“Can I port your mod or its assets to other games or to the Special Edition?”
YES, IF you meet ALL FIVE of the following conditions:
You may not use any part of this mod in a project that charges money.
You must give the original resource authors credit (seriously, most the cool stuff in this mod is their work, not mine). See the credits section for a list of the mod authors that need credit. If you need to see which assets belong to which author, see the Readme.txt file that gets installed in Data\meshes\LibraryPaarthurnax.
Please give me credit too!
DarkRider has requested that their paintings not be used in pornographic mods. So if your project is pornographic, please respect their wishes and remove the paintings.
If you think my stuff is worth adding to a combo resource pack, that’s fine, but please only do that to items that are 100% mine; check the Readme.txt file in Data\meshes\LibraryPaarthurnax to see what’s what, and contact the appropriate author for permission.
If you meet ALL of those requirements, go right ahead! Consider this your permission, no need to send me a message. (Even if it’s a minor edit, just post your mod separately from mine, rather than sending it to me to post, since I might disappear at any time and then you wouldn’t be able to edit or pull down your mod. Plus I don’t feel comfortable posting mods that I haven’t tested myself.) If you feel like it, post a link to your mod in the comments! If I’m still around, I’ll add your link to the mod description.
If you do NOT meet all five of these requirements, the answer is No.
If you have a question about permissions that isn’t covered here, just use your best judgment. I know sending PMs can be frustrating or even terrifying for those of us with social anxiety, and as long as you’re not being mean or rude, I’d probably say yes anyway 🙂
Credits
Thank you resource authors, you wonderful, wonderful people!! I’ve reviewed all of the permissions information you posted, but if I still did something I wasn’t supposed to (or, heaven forbid, forgot to credit someone), please let me know so I can correct the oversight.
Blary:
Alchemy Clutter Resource
BookSets Resource
Ingredients in a Jar Resource
Food Container Resource
Ingredients Wall Art
OpenBooks Resource
IsharaMeradin: Wearable Satchel
…IsharaMeradin wrote a really neat piece of code for this satchel resource, to actually store items in the bag. I originally intended
to modify the code to store books, but I ended up just using the satchel mesh, not the code. Nothing wrong with the code; I just got tired.
DarkRider, WindmillTilter, Howard David Johnson, & Schattenlos: Celtic Décor for Skyrim I
GendunDrup: Spriggan Statue Resource
Malo/Kalten1979: Malo Statues
Oaristys,Tony67, Lady Nerevar, Saerileth, & JLouisB: Modder’s Resource Pack
stoverjm: Open Books Library
RefurbMadness: Cherrywood Dragon Enchanting Table
Stroti& Tamira: Stroti Resource Pack
Tueffel: Tueffel’s Misc Resources
And thanks to Thuum.org for the dragon rune font!
Not a part of the mod, but included in screenshots. Highly recommended!
32cm: Tamriel Reloaded HD
gutmaw: Snazzy HD Noble Beds (Custom Replacer version: Blue 02 for the single beds, and Blue02a for the noble 4-poster)
JJC71: Climates of Tamriel
Gamwich: Peltapalooza – Pelts of Skyrim Expansion
If you have questions or problems, please see the ReadMe tab. Seriously, I’ve tried to answer ANY question you might have.
