Oblivion

About this mod

A complete overhaul of Frostcrag Spire based on detail, immersion and pleasant visual experiences.

Permissions and credits
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Introduction: Frostcrag Spire is probably the most modded player home out of the 4 that Bethesda created themselves with the most popular mods as of right now being Frostcrag Reborn and Frostcrag Revisited. Now if you had read the review I left for Frostcrag Reborn you'd know that I don't exactly have a particularly good opinion about that mod in general. Frostcrag Revisited however was the one that caught my eye, but it was still not exactly what I wanted it to be and it was outdated for today's standards. So here at last I bring to you Frostcrag Revisited Redux, a complete rework of the original mod aimed at immersion and attention to the tiny little details, and when I say "tiny little details" I mean that quite literally. Every single section from the original mod has been completely refurnished and extensive changes have been made in a way that makes sense while also leaving some room here and there for you to place your own inventory items if you so desire. Everything has been painstakingly hand-placed and double-checked for clipping and bleeding. Finally, the mod makes use of a generous pool of the best modder resources available combined with vanilla ones to create a visually impressive setup unlike anything Frostcrag has ever seen. This description doesn't really do it justice so I encourage you to take a look at the load of screenshots taken from every single room and see for yourself. The major changes are as follows below:

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General Changes: Every room has been fit with realistic lighting patterns and the fake ambient light sources have been entirely removed for a more cozy and immersive atmosphere. Please do note that the mod looks best with the brightness turned down to around 5% or 5 notches up on the slider. Redundant meshes on the various pedestals seen all over the place have also been removed. Vanilla furniture has been almost entirely replaced with custom furniture while the problematic auto-stacking bookshelves have been swapped with custom ones carefully chosen so that you'll have no problem placing your books with just the normal grab mechanic. The infamous magetallow candles have been placed in the large display case in the main level so you can pick them up right away. Finally, the "Frostcrag Memoirs" book held in the Atronach hand at the entrance has been rewritten to incorporate the major tower additions in a lore-friendly fashion as well as give away a little more background information on various different things so you should read that as well.

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The Main Level: This floor now incorporates a kitchen area with an accurately set-up dining table to the right as you enter, a fireplace area to the left as well as an office/study area on the pad where the Atronach Altar is situated. Two excavated Ayleid statues now sit on the sides of this elevated area. There are now also a couple of new Ayleid and Dwemer research areas.

The Frostcrag Steamworks: The original mod used to incorporate a functional Oblivion gate which I thought was quite useless and nonsensical to have. So what I did is I replaced it with something that's probably even more useless BUT something that counts as an immersion feature. The Steamworks is a water and sewage processing machinery fashioned by the previous owner using Dwemer schematics and materials as pointed out in the Memoirs book. 

The Vault: For the Vault I have decided to go with a few more large display cases since the original version had none as well as a food and wine storage area. The silly snowy rocks used to access to upper part of the Vault have also been replaced with a proper staircase.

The Upper Tower - Master Bedroom: The Master Bedroom is quite possibly the most visually impressive room out of them all. The lower area has been fit with various small statues as well as an insanely detailed Aquarium, Terrarium and a miniature ship model. Just the Aquarium alone took me an entire week of searching for appropriate resources and fitting everything in perfectly. I even went as far as to create a lore-friendly water purification for it so it's unlikely you'll see something like this in another Oblivion mod as of right now because every single piece you see in there as well as the ship model is meticulously hand-placed by yours truly, which is a tedious and time-consuming process when dealing with such small scales and finicky zoom capabilities. The upper area is the actual bedroom fitted with a double canopy bed, a small desk with a couple of bookshelves as well as a bathroom. You'll also find the unique classic wizard outfit that belonged to the previous owner here. 

The Upper Tower - Guest Bedrooms: There are two guest bedrooms that were added with the original version of the mod. Both of them have been completely refurnished with the new custom furniture and bathrooms have been added as well. 

Library: As stated initially, the scripted stacking bookshelves that the original mod used were often times problematic so I swapped them all out for custom ones with large enough shelves so that manually placing books with the grab mechanic will no longer pose an issue. The standard display cases have been removed and the pedestals surrounding the room have been fitted with wooden plates where you can display the more precious books in your collection. 

Alchemy Lab: The alchemical laboratory has been fit with a nicely detailed set of desks as well as new alchemical ingredient and potion storage shelves. Here you'll also find the unique set of Grandmaster Alchemy Apparatus with custom models and icons. The upper ingredient cultivation pads have been kept as they were in the original mod. 

Outside: Outside of the tower you'll find two new cabins sitting right beside it. They are the Servant Quarters and the Laundry, both furnished appropriately. A stable has been added and the outer entrance is guarded by a couple of frost atronachs that will spawn once all the upgrades are bought and the magetallow candles are placed on the enchanting and spell-making altars in the Main Level. Finally, the top of the tower is now an astrological observation area. 

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Installation and requirements: The only requirement is the original plug-in by Bethesda, you DO NOT need the original Frostcrag Revisited mod for this to work. Install the mod manually ONLY by dragging the contents of the "Frostcrag Assets" folder from the archive into the "Data" folder of the Oblivion installation and don't forget to install the 1.2 Update as well. Finally, choose your ESP from the 1.2 Archive according to whether or not you use the Vegetation plug-in of Natural Environments. I do not advise installing this using either of the mod managers because the package was not made nor tested with those in mind. Lastly, make sure to clear out any belongings you have stored in the tower before installing this mod. You don't need to make a clean save, you can just install it and go to Bruma where you should automatically receive the key and the deed.

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UPDATES:

Version 1.1
- Fixed kitchen items bleeding through the wall on  one of the the upper shelves
- Added brand new Ayleid and Dwemer research areas in the Main Level

Version 1.2
- Added animated bubble streams to the Aquarium
- Added missing textures for the Aquarium ship anchor
- Added paint jars on the Main Level desk
- Replaced the gold coins and nuggets on the Main Level desk with static coins and gems due to constant physics issues
- Fixed minor clipping issues with the Aquarium pipe fittings
- Resized a couple of items in the kitchen
- Re-positioned the beverage bottles on the kitchen bar
- Fixed minor clipping issue with the hourglass on the bedroom desk

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Compatibility: Apart from the obvious mods that make changes to the tower you shouldn't really have any compatibility issues with anything else and if there is a conflict you've discovered then let me know and I'll do my best to address it as quickly as possible. The exterior additions are contained within the tower's territory and shouldn't conflict with mods like Unique Landscapes or Frostcrag Village. 

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Future Plans: There may or may not be any changes made into the future, but do keep an eye out for any updates or patches should there be any. If you have a request then let me know and I may do it depending on how I personally feel about it as well as the complexity of the task. 

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Credits: None of this would have been possible without the resources created by the talented artists in this community. Please understand that given how a large number of resources have been used it is possible that I may have mistakenly omitted someone when putting together the final credits. If your name is missing from the credits hit me up and I'll include you right away. Lastly, I do not wish for this mod to be published anywhere else as long as the Nexus is up and running. In the unfortunate event where that may no longer be the case, you're free to upload and distribute this wherever you want. Let me know what you think and consider leaving and endorsement if you liked our work. Thanks!

Wylight
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