Skyrim

About this mod

The Druid's Den is a fairly large nature-themed, family friendly player home with brand new custom display mechanics for collectors and treasure hunters. It's located on a mountain slope just outside Whiterun with breathtaking view of the countryside. REQUIRES ALL OFFICIAL DLCs!

Requirements
Permissions and credits
Translations
  • German
Changelogs

Druid's Den - Collectors Edition
Nature-Themed Player Home for Magpies & Treasure Hunters




The Druid's Den is a highly detailed, fairly large player home situated on a mountain slope near Whiterun, right above Valtheim towers. The house was originally designed with a druid character in mind, but became a lot grander since then and should suit anyone who loves plants, waterfalls and the nordic ruins tileset as much as I do. The mod which Saeralith expanded upon was later handed off to Icecreamassassin who further enhanced it's features, layout and functionality. The den can be acquired by beginning a simple quest with a man named Holgrim at the Winking Skeever Inn in Solitude. To actually uncover the den, you will need to be skilled with magic.

Please note that unlocking the den requires a certain skill level in several magic schools. If you are not proficient enough, the quest will instead take a small detour where you enlist the help of a mage from the College of Winterhold.

Features
  • Fully voiced quest to reveal and acquire the Druid's Den
  • Brand new custom display mechanics & quest-aware content
  • Dynamic display storage of clutter, food, supplies, and more; store it and it appears on display
  • Vast library and study area with functional bookshelves
  • Custom displays for unique and rare items
  • Treasury with lots of storage space, mannequins, expanded weapon racks and loot piles that grows as you deposit gold
  • 100% live item displays, meaning all mesh and texture replacers work for displays as well
  • Auto-sorting chests
  • Craftloot system that draws and replaces items from storage containers when the craft station is being used
  • Mage area with alchemy/enchanting stations (including Staff Enchanter from DB)
  • Enchantment dispelling font
  • Soul gem combining font
  • Replica crafting station for making displays of quest turn in items
  • Underground forge with smithing equipment
  • Kitchen and cooking area
  • Indoor ingredient garden with 120 planting nodes
  • Exterior porch with breathtaking view of Whiterun and the Eastmarch
  • Working stable for your horse
  • Lots of greenery
  • Dynamic and toggleable lighting
  • Fully navmeshed and cleaned with TES5Edit
  • Family friendly with support for up to 6 children (Hearthfire Multiple Adoptions required!)
  • Observatory tower with the best view in Skyrim
  • New respec feature (after dragonborn main quest) atop the tower
  • Hidden areas and other secrets revealed with custom spell
  • Vampire/Werewolf aware lair with werewolf prey baiting feature
  • Integrated Dovahcloset outfit system
  • and MUCH more

Lighting was optimized using standard game play and cinematic ENB and was given a dark, warm feel. Additional light presets are available to work best with any ENB or lighting mods you may be using, or just to adjust the feel of the den as you see fit. Merely enable the patch you wish after Druid's Den (use only one patch at a time).

Display Collections
This is where Druid's Den really shines. Skyrim has some incredible artwork for most of its everyday items, especially the weapons. But most of it is rarely ever visible, because any excess loot gets dumped into a chest or sold outright. Personally, I'm an incredible magpie when it comes to gaming, and I like to collect things - like a full set of weapons for every material type in the game. But collecting is only half the fun when there's nowhere to put your treasures on display, and the vanilla houses simply don't have enough room for that. Besides, using weapon plaques to display that many weapons just looks silly. The Den offers a visually much more pleasing way to display all of your treasures.


The idea is also expanded to other item types, like alchemy ingredients, scrolls, potions and soul gems. It really takes the fun out of collecting stuff when your home is already full of everything when you move in, on the other hand Skyrim's physics engine is a major pain in the butt when it comes to placing clutter on shelves and the like ingame. With this player home you can finally roleplay a character that collects almost anything - shelves will display the items you add to their containers, the larder will fill up as you restock your supplies and treasure chests will overflow with riches the more gold you place in them. No more pre-stocked alchemy labs, no more fiddling with clumsy physics. The Druid's Den visually reflects the items you possess, they are no longer all hidden away in chests and barrels.

How it works
There are named containers placed around the player home. If a certain item (e.g. an iron dagger) is placed in it's corresponding container (in this case the chest labelled "Iron Weapons" in the treasury), the item appears somewhere in the cell (in our example the dagger is mounted on the wall behind the chest).

The dagger isn't really placed on the wall the way weapon racks work, what actually happens is that the script enables a "dummy" on the wall, an activator that looks exactly like an iron dagger. The weapon is still in the chest, and activating the "dummy" will do nothing in most cases. When the item is removed from the chest, it's counterpart is disabled again. A variation of the script used for ingredients, soul gems, unique relics, potions and scrolls allows you to take those items directly from their shelves by activating them (this is reflected by their tooltip). In fact you will hardly notice the activators are "fakes", they will even play the appropriate pickup sounds when taken.

Certain (not all) displays react to how many instances of a given item are added to their containers. For example, most of the items in the kitchen (plates, cups, etc.) come in sets of 4 to 6. Some items can be displayed in several places, for example the falmer staff is appropriate either in the Arcanum (as staff) or in the Treasury (with the other falmer weapons). Usually a container's name is a good indicator of what kind of items it reacts to. Some replicas of unique items can also be displayed in a variety of places depending on which relic chest you place them in. Choose the place you wish to display an item or make multiple replicas to display in multiple places.

The displays make use of any texture/model replacer installed. They are all havok-disabled, so you no longer need to worry about knocking something over and spending the better part of an hour putting it back. The havoc system has recently been improved to ensure solid displays.

About SKSE
SKSE is now a requirement for Druid's Den. The new and improved relic and weapon display scripts use array functions that require V1.7.3 of SKSE. Without it, certain displays will not function. SKSE is super easy to install and is required by a very large percentage of mods anyway. Previous versions of Druid's Den (prior to V3) required JContainer, a plugin for SKSE, but with V3 all scripts have been overhauled and no longer require it.

Currently Covered

  • Major weapon materials: Iron, Steel, Orcish, Dwarven, Ebony, Daedric, Elven, Glass
  • DLC weapon sets (Dragonbone, Stalhrim & Nordic)
  • Ancient Nord, Falmer & Forworn weapons
  • Nord Hero & Skyforge Steel weapons (compatible with aMidianBorn replacer)
  • SkyRe weapons (Iron & Steel)
  • Most unique weapons and armor
  • All Daedric Artifacts
  • Alchemy Ingredients
  • Quest item replicas
  • Vanilla and DLC Potions
  • Soul Gems
  • Scrolls
  • Staves
  • Food & Dishes
  • Ores & Ingots
  • Gems
  • Dragon Priest Masks & Dragon Claws
  • Vanilla jewelry

Quest-Aware Content and replicas
There are several displays which will enable on their own depending on your progress in the game to indicate the factions you are a member of. Hold banners enable when you are named Thane of that hold, faction banners when you join, stormcloak or imperial banners depending on the side you choose, etc. Additionally some quest items which are lost after turn in can be reproduced for display by using the replica font in the den arcanaeum. You only need to have obtained the item in order to be able to craft it.

Installation

Requirements:
As of v2.6 requires ALL official DLCs (Dawnguard, Hearthfire and Dragonborn).
As of v2.9JC requires v3.1.1 of JContainers and SKSE v1.7.1 (follow the installation instructions on those pages, respectively).
As of V3 DOES NOT require JContainers but DOES require SKSE V1.7.3
Install with NMM or download manually and extract the files to your Skyrim/Data directory. Make sure the PlugIn is activated, launch the game and move into your new home. There is no need to start a new game, just plug and play.
To allow children and spouses to move in you will need a mod that supports custom player homes in those scripts. I suggest Hearthfire Multiple Adoptions as it covers both adoptions and marriages. Note that you need to cast the "bless home" spell from HFMA inside the Warrens (the kids' bedroom), otherwise it will not work properly.

Do NOT unpack the .bsa-archive to your data folder or attempt to merge the mod into others with TES5Edit. If you do, the scripts will not function as intended and may even break other mods in the process! You've been warned.

Upgrading
V3 is a VAST overhaul of Druid's Den 2.9JC made by Icecreamassassin and a fresh install of the Den is recommended. It would be best to install on a fresh character that has never used the Den before (or had the mod even loaded), or installed on a game that has been thoroughly script cleaned. See the Articles Tab for details on using the save game script cleaning utility to surgically remove any traces of an old version from your saves. You MUST empty your old Druid's Den entirely before proceeding however or you will lose items.

Compatibility
Incompatible with any mod that alters the landscape around Valtheim towers (none known), otherwise no known incompatibilities. Please report any compatibility issues you encounter in the comment section.

When using SkyRe, PerMa or any other mod that distributes mod items to leveled lists through a SkyProc Patcher, please add "Druid Den Redux.esp" to the respective BlockList.txt files.

Known to be fully compatible with:

Compatibility Patch available for:

Known Issues
  • The neighbors. Druid's Den lies right next door to Galdun Rock, and just a stone's throw from Valtheim Towers. Before moving in, it might be advised to go hunting.
  • I'm having a hard time getting my spouse to sleep in the marital bed (just stays up all night). You do get the lover's comfort boon even if your spouse doesn't sleep, and they won't sleep in anyone else's beds (no confused children unable to go to bed).
  • If you have the animated iceberg feature of Realistic Water Two installed, the ice on the floor of the cold room in the kitchen will move.
  • The torchbugs spawned in the bedroom look nice, but tend to float through walls and ceilings. Same with the butterflies in the Cavern.

Credits
This mod started out as a redesign of kitty_k188's beautiful Druid Den. Kitty has graciously allowed me to host my version, and if you like my mod, please go and have a look at the original and share the love! Most of my work has been inspired by hers.

Many thanks to silvericed for his JContainers framework. Without it, performance of the display scripts would be abysmal, and coding would be a nightmare.

As of July 2015, development has been taken over by Icecreamassassin, who has put in an incredible amount of work to finish up all the lose ends and fix the remaining bugs. In addition to that, he added a whole bunch of awesome new features, a voiced quest to obtain the house and several brand new areas. The Den is now as much his mod as it ever was mine.

Voice Actors:

DingoTheHuman - Holgrim
Gozzuro92 - Albrecht



Resources used:
Insanity's Static Dragon Claws
Alchemy Clutter Resource, Ingredients Wall Art Resource and OpenBooks Resource by Blary
Forest Throne - Level Asset by Angilla
GKB Green Trees by Ga-Knomboe Boy
Modders Resource Pack by Oaristys
New Plants 1_2 by Tamira
Resources for modders by Runspect
Hoddminir Water plants by elinen
Just In Time Lighting Dynamic Scripts and Tutorial by Daemonjax
Dovahcloset by Icecreamassassin
Various static resources by Icecreamassassin
Music by Kevin MacLeod (www.incompetech.com)

Display scripts inspired by General Displays

Also check out Icecreamassassin's


My Other Mods


If you're a mod author, check out my resource pack: Gemling Queen Resources