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About this mod
Aedra Abode is a DLC-sized player home and quest mod that puts Hearthfire to shame. As the estate comes under assault by a clan of fanatics it is up to you to protect your home and win over the servants in your care. With new adventures, spells, features, battles, friends, and enemies, this mod promises hours of unique and unforgettable gameplay.
- Requirements
- Permissions and credits
Aedra Abode: Curse of the Dragonbone King
In his lair the Dragonbone King waits.
A child who became a tyrant.
A tyrant who became a god.
Now his followers seek to unleash him once more.
A child who became a tyrant.
A tyrant who became a god.
Now his followers seek to unleash him once more.
Aedra Abode is a DLC-sized adventure that I have been working on for over six years. It is an essential part of my game and I hope it can become a part of your game too. Aedra Abode boasts one of the most incredible series of features available on the Nexus.
FULL DESCRIPTION
This mod is a one-of-a-kind experience that will give you a true family in the world of Tamriel. Between your new children, your old children, the servants, and the adventures you will share you will never play Skyrim the same way again. A highlight of some major features:
This mod is a one-of-a-kind experience that will give you a true family in the world of Tamriel. Between your new children, your old children, the servants, and the adventures you will share you will never play Skyrim the same way again. A highlight of some major features:
- A home where the members actually felt like a family, complete with their own quests and rewards.
- All of the standard features you expect in a home, such as crafting, autosort, and displays.
- An 8 hour main quest line and 10-12 hours of side quests.
- The most expansive enchanted arrow system available for Skyrim.
- Hearthfire Multiple Adoption Friendly with room for six children.
- Four new adoptable daughters that DO NOT take up adoption slots, meaning you can have up to ten children!
- Over 300 new toys and gifts for children.
- Over 75 new outfits for children.
- Dozens of new and visually spectacular quests.
- New creatures, spells, enchantments, locations, perks, ingredients, and lore.
- A patch for Divine Elegance that dresses up every servant in new clothing.
- Despite this mod's size it is compatible with virtually every other mod.
There is a lot to this mod. I wanted to create a family and after years and years of work I finally feel like I've done it. The mod is very user-friendly and comes with an MCM menu that has bug-fixing features.
THE HOME
First and foremost, Aedra Abode is a player home mod. The estate is divided into the Servant's Quarters and the Main Home. You could ignore the entire quest and still have a wonderful home. The sprawling estate is located to the north of the Whiterun giant camp within view of Silent Moon's Camp. You walk up on the home just as fanatics known as the Dragonbone Clansmen murder the previous lord in cold blood. It is up to you to discover why the old lord was murdered, defend the home, and win over the trust of your servants. The home includes:
- Over 20 servants with their own unique schedules, purposes, quests, and perks.
- 3 servant children and beds for 10 additional children.
- Bards that put on nightly shows for you and the servants.
- Plenty of mannequins and displays, including new displays such as a Black Soul Gem wall.
- Configurable random events such as bandit attacks, dragon attacks, mudcrab infestations, and draugr waves.
- Every crafting station and a dozen new crafting stations, such as arrow enchanters and arrow sharpening wheels.
- Regular loot from the estate's bandit hunting operations that improves with your efforts.
- Adjustable lighting though the MCM and the housecarl.
THE FAMILY
Aedra Abode contains over 30 NPCs. Despite the size of the staff, the house doesn't feel crowded at all. Aedra Abode comes with dynamic perks that grow as your reputation around the estate grows. Every servant comes with their own quests that follow emotionally gratifying storylines. Some of the perks include magic power buffs, access to new and exciting spells, training in every skill, an amulet that teleports you back to the estate, the ability to start bandit raids, and more. The house is Multiple Adoption friendly and has room for 6 Hearthfire children, 4 new children added by the mod, over a dozen new pets, 7 followers, and your spouse.
The estate adds four new adoptable daughters that are obtained through an optional quest. The girls have their own routines and AI packages that are completely unrelated to the Hearthfire adoption system. They have dozens of new interactions such as showing you their magic, bringing you baked goods, and crafting jewelry for you. You can change their clothes, enable/disable their pets, and interact with them in many of the ways that a parent should be able to.
Spoiler:
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THE QUESTS
Main Quest - The main quest for Aedra Abode charges the player with chasing an ancient tyrant, The Dragonbone King, across a series of new realms added by the mod. The Dragonbone King was a master of Alteration Magic and several new mechanics of Alteration are introduced throughout the quest. The new realms are designed to add functionality to the home, such as an arena where you can spawn enemies, a vast hunting area, a working farmland with over 50 soil plots, and a sprawling city with lootable houses. The main quest takes about 8 hours.
Servant Quests - Each servant comes with their own unique background quest. Some servants are looking for love, some for riches, the children want toys and the bards want to start music lessons. Some are trying to spread religion and some want revenge against the bandits that killed their friends. My favorite quest is Theo's quest, which involves a full ship battle and working cannons. It's some good stuff.
Adoptable Children Quest - The mod adds four adoptable girls to Aedra Abode that through various misfortunes make their way to the estate. The quest can be started by talking to Carl. Completing the quest opens a huge range of interactions and dialogue options for the girls.
Divine Cloaks and Trinkets - As part of your effort to cement the estate's reputation in Tamriel, Smatnir sends you on a quest to locate powerful Aedric items that have been scattered across the land. You can think of this as a loose extension of Daedric artifacts. It always annoyed me that the Daedra got so much attention and the Aedra only had those boring shrines. You have to earn the Aedra's favor in ways that correspond to each Divine entity. Julianos involves magic, Dibella involves getting naked, Mara involves love, etc... The Trinkets and Cloaks provide perks such as negating fall damage and access to alters where you can combine potions, fuse soul gems, stretch ores, and much more.
Freeing the Prisoners - Within the Dragonbone King's portraits are dozens of trapped victims that he has enslaved. During the quest, these souls provide perks such as training, shops, and assistance. After the King's fall you are left with the morally heart wrenching choice of keeping the slaves there for your benefit or sending them home and losing their perks.
NEW FEATURES
Enchanted Arrows
Aedra Abode adds the most expansive enchanted arrow system available for Skyrim. They can be crafted in the estate's workshop, found on generic vendors, and found in the levelled lists. The rarity of the arrows is fully configurable in the MCM. Powerful arrows, such as the Glaciate and Oblivion Arrows, are extremely rare. All Enchanted and Summoning Arrows use the Nord Hero Arrow design so that they are easily recognizable from a distance. A full list of the new arrows is in the spoiler below.
Spoiler:
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Summoning Arrows
Summoning arrows use alteration magic to spawn an enemy at the point of impact. The enemies spawned are not under the Player's control. They are wild and dangerous beasts that can be used to distract or maim opponents.
Spoiler:
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Sharpened Arrows
Most of the base arrows can now be sharpened and improved at an Arrow Sharpening Wheel. Sharpened arrows can also be found on archers, making archers as formidable as mages even in the early stages of the game. In vanilla Skyrim it frustrated me that archery was massively overpowered for the player but hilariously underpowered for the average enemy.
Spoiler:
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Divine Elegance Patch
In the "Files" sections there is an optional file for the Divine Elegance mod. This mod adds hundreds of outfits to Skyrim and I highly recommend it. If you add it, all of the servants and several major NPCs in the quest will don new outfits. It also adds several outfits to the personal wardrobes in the main bedroom.
Spells
The mod focuses on stopping an ancient Alteration mage, so a lot of the new spells fall under Alteration. Some are hilarious gimmicks (like Cluck You, which I highly recommend) and others (like the Genesis spells) are extremely functional. An explanation of where to find them is below, but most of them are also available in the Timely Tomes bookstore in the Colossus portrait.
Spoiler:
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Enchantments
Dozens of new enchantments can be found throughout the portraits and the home. Some of them are gimmicks, but most of them are functional and can be disenchanted to learn their effects.
Spoiler:
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New Realms
The core feature of the main quest is an adventure through portraits as you chase the Dragonbone King. The different realms are all designed to add functionality to the house itself. They add wonderful perks like a functional farmland, a massive hunting ground, and an arena with spawnable enemies.
Spoiler:
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Crafting Stations, Children's Toys, and Other Features
The estate contains dozens of new crafting stations. Some are immediately available, such as the arrow sharpeners. Others become available as you complete the Divine Cloaks quest. It also adds hundreds of new children gifts, alchemy ingredients, and wearable charms.
Spoiler:
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VIDEOS
There are very few mods that are directly incompatible and lead to CTD on load. Most incompatibilities stem from your load order being naturally unstable and the large number of NPCs around Aedra Abode pushing your system over the edge, leading to a crash. I went VERY far out of my way to ensure that virtually everything on the Nexus is compatible despite the large scope of this mod. Below are common complaints and their answers.
CTDs When approaching the estate for the first time
CTDs during the Dragonbone Clansmen Assault
CTDs during the draugr attack random event
This does not occur unless other heavy mods are installed. Mods that are extremely script-heavy and mods that add a lot of actors and events to the area around Aedra Abode cause this. The most common complaints during testing stemmed from combining Warzones, Genesis, and OBIS. It just loads too much too fast and causes the game to crash. I can get any combination of two of those mods to work, but all three together is borderline unplayable. More detailed explanations are below.
Warzones 2015/Warzones: Assault Attack
Compatible - BUT the Whiterun battles must be turned off in the Warzone MCM. Assault Attack adds a cannon to the estate's front yard that breaks the navmeshing and kills the pheasants. Even then, the game will almost always CTD the first time you approach the estate. You need to approach slowly so that it loads the actors and initializes the AI from both mods over time instead of all at once. The crashes stop after the first time you successfully enter the estate as long as the Whiterun battles are turned off in the Warzones and Warzones Assault Attack MCMs.
Genesis
Compatible - BUT be emotionally prepared for the occasional CTD. Even then, the game will almost always CTD the first time you approach the estate. You need to approach slowly so that it loads the actors and initializes the AI from both mods over time instead of all at once. The crashes largely stop after the first time you successfully enter the estate but will pop back up during the Clansmen assault.
Organized Bandits of Skyrim
Compatible and highly encouraged. Having the spawn rates set too high in the OBIS MCM can cause a lot of bandits to spawn in Silent Moons Camps, which can lead to issues. Beyond that testers had no issues with OBIS unless Warzones and Genesis were also installed and at high spawn rates.
The Kids Are Alright (and other children mods)
Compatible - TKAA works just fine. I do not know about other mods such as RS Children and would appreciate any feedback. The new clothing are added through a system that is entirely removed from the Hearthfires system, which helps a lot. TKAA children will not be able to wear the new clothes, but other than that there are no issues.
Immersive Creatures/High Level Enemies
Compatible - May cause small issues with framerate during the estate battles but by itself caused no issues. I am unsure of how it interacts with the other mods above.
Other Children Clothing and Toy Mods
Largely redundant. They don't normally cause CTDs but they can mess up the childgiftlist formlist used for children gifts, which means you won't be able to give any of the hundreds of new toys to your kids. This mod adds the same clothes found in Dovahkinder so you do not need both.
Player Homes Re-Imagined
Player Homes Re-imagined is the early version of this mod. They are not compatible.
Any Mod That Causes Permanent Death
I would be absolutely shocked if you could make it through this mod without dying. The mod gives about 1 in every 200 bandits and undead Oblivion Arrows, which will kill you if you don't see them. The Castle Walls leg of the quest is essentially a series of puzzles where you have to figure out where you are safe. It's fun, but you will die.
Known Issues
-There is a single mesh seam that is off in the Library of Colossus.
I know it's off and I do not have the willpower to fix it. Adding all of those bookshelves was a nightmare and I'm not re-arranging all of them. I apologize.
-The guards outside the estate run into the walls when combat occurs.
This happens sometimes when the estate first loads but should resolve itself after a few times. The estate is properly Navmeshed. YouTube says it is a "Too many AIs" issue and not a Navmesh issue.
-The dialogue skips sometimes.
This is a game issue with silent voice files. Sometimes the engine doesn't properly register them. All voice files have a silent recording, which should fix this most of the time. Fus Ro D-oh can also help if the game does it continuously.
-Crashes during the Dragonbone Clansmen Assault
The assault pushes the Skyrim engine to its limit. I have scaled it WAY back to make it workable for most computers, but the game still sometimes crashes especially if you have other script-heavy mods. Your best option is to use a Teleportation Arrow to teleport directly to the Clansman Leader by Silent Moons Camp.
-Crashes within the Castle Walls
This is the same issue as the Clansmen Assault. I have scaled it WAY back to make it workable for most computers, but the game still sometimes crashes. There is an option in the MCM to drastically lower the number of NPCs.
-There is a gaggle of Castle Maids in the inn in Windhelm
I know. I'm not sure why they are there and I'm trying to figure it out.
-The bards are the same bards that are in the other Hearthfire Houses.
"It's not a bug, it's a feature." I'm very attached to those bards. I didn't want to lose them just because I switched houses. Everyone else in the estate is a new character but I kept the bards from Hearthfire.
-I freed the librarians in Colossus before I finished Sabrine's quest and now I'm stuck.
Open the console and type "setstage AedraAbodeQuestServantSabrine 20" . That should advance the quest. If that doesn't work, try 30, then try 800.
Other issues will be posted here as they arise.
INSTALLATION
I recommend using your preferred mod manager. If you have Divine Elegance, then download the Divine Elegance patch as well so that servants have fancy clothes. It is not in your best interest to unpack the .bsa unless you know what you are doing.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS (And their accompanying snarky responses)
Q: ___________ is overpowered and ruined my entire game.
Assault Rifles are overpowered and you can buy them in Walmart. You can buy a hand grenade on Amazon. The idea that overpowered things shouldn't exist makes no sense to me. Things that are overpowered within the mod, such as Oblivion Arrows, are deliberately rare but they exist. Why? Because sometimes you come across a skeever that really annoys you and you want to aggressively remove its soul from its body. If you don't like it just don't use it.
Q: The voices don't work.
The dialogue is unvoiced for two reasons:
(1) There are thousands of lines of dialogue from over a hundred NPCs.
(2) I do not have a hundred friends or the willpower to contact voice actors. If Pokémon doesn't need voices then neither does this.
That being said, you have my full permission to try to add voices if you want. I just won't do it.
Q: The dialogue skips sometimes.
It does. This is an engine limitation that happens with all dialogue but it's more obvious without the voices. If you feel like you missed something important just try to restart the conversation.
Q: I was insta-murdered by a level 2 bandit with an Oblivion Arrow.
Haha that sucks. Batman's parents were also killed by a level 2 bandit. Be more careful.
Q: Will you add __________ to the mod or __________ to the child interactions?
Possibly. It depends on how much work your idea is. Just post your request in the forum.
Q: I KEEP GETTING TELEPORTED TO RANDOM PLACES!
The mod adds Teleportation Arrows, which are not in any leveled lists given to living NPCs. They are added to bandits on death as a possible loot item. However, if an NPC gets ahold of a Teleportation Arrow (Such as by you shooting them with one or mods that distribute new loot) the arrows only teleport the player character. You need to figure out who has a Teleportation Arrow and murder them.
Q: I keep getting killed at _______.
Use a Trinket of Mara. You come across it in the Divine Cloaks quest. It gives you the effects of the Ethereal Shout and makes you temporarily invincible.
Q: I can't get past _______.
Use a Trinket of Mara.
Q: The castle walls are too hard.
Use a Trinket of Mara.
Q: The skeevers in the maze are overpowered.
Trinket of Mara.
Q: The giant mudcrak keeps killing me.
Use Genesis Spike. You should have it by now. And a Trinket of Mara.
Q: ________ is not 100% lore-friendly. This mod is marked as "Lore-Friendly" but this one line in the 1st Era the book "Mudungus and his Bees" clearly states something that goes against what you said.
tHiS mOd iS nOt LoRe FriEnDLy. Your mom's not lore friendly. I tried to make it as accurate as I could.
Q: Really? You're going to pretend that your mod is lore accurate when I found an arrow that can summon a Triceratops?
Okay fine. It's lore accurate except for the dinosaurs. Those were a gift to myself. But there's no text saying that 65 million years ago on Tamriel there weren't dinosaurs... so technically it might be lore friendly.
My Other Mods
Perkapalooza
Joy Angel Graham for Pinksluvva121
Unique Rabbit Loot
Increased Urn Loot
Credits and Thanks
This mod would not have been possible without the work and patience of dozens of people and content creators. First and most importantly I want to thank my wife, who for some reason has the patience to tolerate me sitting on the computer for hours trying to make an exploding chicken.
If you would like to adapt or use anything in this mod, please send me a message. I will almost certainly allow it but I would like to ensure that the resource creators I utilized receive their due credit if their work is involved.
If I forgot anyone below, please let me know. I've lost my list of resources more times than I can count. I immensely appreciate the countless hours that the community has put into creating the resources that I was able to find. Thank you to each and every one of you.
YouTube Tutorials: Between these two masters you can learn to do just about anything you want in the Creation Kit.
BestInSlot - Link to Channel
DarkFox127 - Link to Channel
Collaborators:
Zerofrost - Dragon used with permission
Apachii - Patch for Divine Elegance outfits created with permission
Resources:
Blary:
Ingredients Wall Art Resource
Alchemy Clutter Resource
PotionShelf Resource
OpenBooksResource
Booksets Resource
Ingredients Drawer Resource
RoboBirdie:
Teddies
Interior Decorations
Tapestries
New Creatures
Tamira:
Teddybears
Stroti Resource Pack
Stroti Resource Pack II
Phitt's Fishtank
Assorted Resources
New Plants 1_3
Artisanix: - Paintings and Frames
cad435: - Airship Resource
LogisticsofBreath: - Divine Cloaks
flintone: - Bunny Toys
Deleted6973877User: - Cherrywood Dragon Enchanting Table
Oaristys: - Modder's Resource Pack
Runspect: - Resources for Modders
GendunDrup: - Nexus Creature Resource
Elianora: - Elianora's Extra Resources
Lilith: - Ready Clutter and Furnishings
Willybach: - Willybach's Vanilla Clothing
MihailMods: - Children's Toys
ps46183: - Platter with goblets cups
Xaa1962 - Sit and Read Script
