Watersong Manor
A big manor tucked away in a cozy little seaside worldspace.
Thanks for the hot files guys, you rock!
I don’t think I had spent this long on a mod ever before. Took me about a week… And I almost gave up on the whole thing several times throughout. But it’s finally ready to be released!
The file has been cleaned with TES5EDIT, does not require any DLC, and only has a couple of very lightweight scripts, so it should be safe for everybody to use. Still, you should always make a backup save before installing ANY mod, in case something goes wrong.
Watersong Manor is tucked away in a cozy little seaside worldspace, hand-made and fully navmeshed for a pleasant and soothing atmosphere. You can access it through a ship near the Solitude docks – simply approach the ship (called “The Watersong”), enter the cabin door, and you will be taken away. There is a visible map marker, but you will need to visit it before you can fast travel. On top of some crates you can find a custom spell book (script #1) that will teleport you to Watersong Cove as well, in case you may be far away from Solitude at some point. This is one-way only – to return to Skyrim, you will need to use the cabin door.
In the garden, you will find crops, a picnic area, chairs, and an apple orchard, among other things. All crafting stations are available (sharpening wheel, anvil, workbench, tanning rack, smelter), as well as enchanting and alchemy stations, mannequins, display cases and racks, several bookcases, and shrines to the divines.
The staff consists of a bard/bookseller, an alchemist, a cook, a smith, a sailor/general goods seller, and a noble who sells spellbooks and scrolls. All of them have their own daily routines and sell their wares 24/7.
The house itself is divided into four floors – ground floor, where you will find the kitchen and dining area; the first floor, with the study, master bedroom, armory and bathroom. The mirror in the vanity can be activated to change your character’s looks (script #2) but make sure to stand behind the vanity seat to avoid clipping. The showers can be used to stay clean if you’re using a mod such as Drink Eat Sleep Bathe. Then you have the attic, furbished to host many guests, and the basement, where the service staff sleeps and relaxes after work. There are no stairways connecting the floors, as this house is based on Strotis Manor Resource and that is how it was made, so I set up an elevator system for easy access. I worked quite a bit on the interiors – most decorations are static because I hate how you can knock something ever-so-slightly and make an absolute mess -, with all kinds of custom containers, nooks and crannies, so look around carefully! All containers in the house and the cove are safe and will not respawn. Hope you like the place!
You need to purchase the manor for 50000 gold using the sign by the main door (script #3). There is something strange about this sign, so if you feel like it, look around to find what happened to the previous tenants. You will also find a brochure with some previews of what the house looks like, so you can make up your mind. But it is worth the price, I assure you!
To install, extract the contents of your downloaded file to your “Steam/SteamApps/Common/Skyrim/Data” folder. Then activate the mod through your preferred launcher by ticking the checkbox next to the esp. Or you can use the Mod Manager to download the mod automatically. To uninstall, simply delete the files from your Data folder, and you’re good to go.
– 60 MB?! Are you nuts?! Why is the download so freakin’ big?!
– I am using a huge amount of custom content to go for a unique look. I did try to use vanilla textures in a lot of meshes and adapted many of the custom pieces to use the textures I already had, but there are only so many times you can reuse them before it looks stupid, so I made the sacrifice of including custom textures when there was no other choice.
– But I live in the middle of nowhere and my internet cannot handle this download! Make a version with less custom crap!
– I worked really hard on this to make it look unique and will not throw that away by making a vanilla resource-only version. In other words…
– The new textures are too low res and ugly! I cannot stand this!
– It’s what I had. I downscaled several textures to help reduce the file size, but when it comes to upscaling textures, I am at a loss because I am no good at texturing, so what you see is what you get. In other words…
– I hate those banners! How could you include such a thing with those evil colors? TALOS4LYF! Where is the Talos shrine?!
– An optional retexture is included in the download. If you don’t like it, you are more than welcome to make your own. If it’s good, you could even send it to me to be uploaded here. And there is a Talos shrine… Somewhere. You just need to look around.
– Where are all of the other shrines then? I can’t find them anywhere!
– They’re scattered around the house. You won’t find them all clustered together in one spot, that would look silly.
– Why are all of the NPCs high elves? I HATE HIGH ELVES ARGH
– Calm down, my belligerent friend. It’s what I had in mind when I made the house. If this bothers you, change their race in the Creation Kit or with TESEDIT. In other words…
– There are too many loading screens! This is lame!
– That is how the house was originally designed – no stairways – so I had to make do. The cells load pretty fast anyway, and there are charts next to the elevators on all floors so you can know exactly where you need to go. In other words…
– I’m lagging all over the place! Help!
– I tested this mod on a heavily modded setup, on a mid-range gaming laptop. The game has a tiny bit of lag when you first enter the cove (and around the corner behind the dock shack, for some strange reason), but the game only crashed when I tried to run both Skyrim and the Creation Kit at the same time. There are a lot of items in the cove and the manor, so if you’re playing on a coal-powered machine, you will definitively have some performance loss. In other words…
– I hate [item] and [item] and [item]! You should have done [item] and [item] instead! And while you’re at it remove [item] and [item] and add [item] and [item]! And [item] is NOT LORE FRIENDLY! FIX THIS!
– This isn’t a restaurant. If you don’t like something, use the console to disable it, remove it with the Creation Kit, or sell it off. In other words…
– I hate glazed pottery! It’s ugly, replace it with something else!
– Am I the only person who actually likes glazed pottery? In any case, if it bothers you, change it with the Creation Kit or use one of the beautiful textures from JadeRoyale’s Pottery Recolor set. In other words…
– I don’t like scripted mods! Remove these scripts at once!
– The scripts are OnActivate and MagicEffect only, not to mention the script for the sign is only used once, so they will not bloat your save. If you don’t like them, remove them with the Creation Kit. In other words…
– I hate everything being static! I wanna pick things up!
– I don’t like knocking things around all the time, and Skyrim has plenty of clutter everywhere already. In other words…
– The bard sucks! He doesn’t take requests and he doesn’t have any music sounds!
– Indeed, I’ve had trouble getting bards to follow their routines properly in the past, and this was the only way I managed to make it work so he would go out of the house, sleep and wander around. Otherwise he would be stuck playing all day and all night, and I wanted him to behave a bit more lifelike than that. In other words…
– The bedrolls in the tents outside are not usable! Why did you even include them?!
– For the looks, obviously! I don’t think NPCs can actually enter those tents anyway, so there was no point in making them usable, but they looked too empty without anything inside and it was bothering me. In other words…
– Can I move my followers/spouse/children here?
– For followers, use My Home Is Your Home. For spouses, use Spouses Can Live Everywhere. I have not made it compatible with mods such as Hearthfire Multiple Adoptions because I’m lazy and I did not want to use any DLC for the mod, but I may give it a try if enough people take up arms. I’m not sure of where they would stay, however, as there isn’t really any more room, unless you don’t mind them staying in the basement.
-50000 is too expensive! Make it cheaper!
– I think the price is fair considering what you get. For reference, Proudspire Manor, fully furnished, costs 39000 gold, and it doesn’t have as many beds for followers, staff and cool thingamabobs as Watersong Manor. In other words…
– Is this compatible with [mod]?
– If you have a mod that makes heavy changes to the Solitude docks, there could be issues, although I am personally running Enhanced Cities: Docks of Solitude with no problems. If you find any conflicts, let me know and I’ll see what I can do.
– How come my house looks different than your screenshots?
– I am using several retextures in my own game, so results may vary.
– This house is ugly! You suck!
– no u
And last but certainly not least, Quark for creating the base worldspace for me to cannibalize and the beach ball object, rebel-o-conner for turning the beach ball into a proper .nif file, Tamira for helping correct some issues with the vanity mesh, and Maxey, Nikki, Quark and Sam for their beautiful screenshots to use as paintings. You guyse rock <3
