A true home for a true adventurer! ...Or thief, treasure hunter, outlaw or Dragonborn! Nestled cozily in the warm volcanic rock beneath Bonestrewn Crest in Eastmarch, Bonestrewn Crypt is designed to be aesthetically true to the "Nord ruin" look, without being a maze.

Mod has been updated to Version 1.1. Please comment with any issues that you find. To avoid any item loss, please see "Updating" and notes below.

Bonestrewn Crypt is a medium-large Nord ruin player home optimized for daily use and with an eye toward immersion, with an easily-navigable layout. It's suitable for a beginning adventurer yet provides all the amenities a Dragonborn could want, and it is fully navmeshed.

It features support for Hearthfire Multiple Adoptions (requires aforementioned mod for that, supports 6 children), a room where up to four followers can sleep, and all crafting stations (except spider machine). There's also a library, display room, treasury, kitchen, dining hall and blacksmith, along with custom displays for your Daedric artifacts, bug jars, paragons, dragon claws, dragon masks, Black Books, and more. There is also a small, useable farm (with Hearthfire Planters) and natural spring pool. It is all in one cell, with no loadscreens. For the sake of flavor and fairness, it requires 5,000 gold and a small adventure to claim, and there's a journal to loot which explains a lot of the crypt's story. As part of the adventure, it also introduces a completely submerged dungeon to explore. I've tried to keep the mod as true to Skyrim's feel as I possibly can, despite all the features.

History: I wanted a home suitable for my treasure hunter/adventurer character, but couldn't find any "nordic crypt" homes that I actually liked--so I made my own! I'm a fan of tight, warm, bright homes, rather than sprawling monstrosities with fifty load doors and seventeen teleports, but nord ruins don't usually keep to the 'tiny' design. As a result I've a centrally-based layout with small wings--large, but not ridiculous, and very easy to roam. I wanted something that could feel as though it fit in with Skyrim, and hopefully I've succeeded in something true to the Vanilla game, and relatively immersive.

I currently have no plans to make a SSE version, and probably won't unless for some reason there's a huge clamor for it.



- Dozens of hand-placed apples.

- Tons of custom-named and -designed storage, Black Books and Daedric displays, Dragon Masks and Claws displays, mannequins, plaques and racks, all using default assets so everything fits the basic Skyrim aesthetic. See below for a complete list.

- (Mostly) proper place settings at the dinner table. I learned that the fork goes on the left. You just can't eat in a desecrated crypt without correct place settings. The moment someone sits on a bench this will all go flying, so enjoy it while it lasts. #skyrimphysics (Alternatively use Jaxonz Positioner to try and lock it all safely down before your grubby followers go all /tableflip.)

- Hearthfire Multiple Adoptions support for six children, along with a room with four beds for followers. Because moving your kids into a draugr crypt under a dragon lair is just good parenting.

- Dining room designed while hungry. I spent way too much time placing far too much food. Did I mention this one already?

- Dignified and proper lights that resolutely stay on instead of flickering between states like confused politicians.

- All crafting stations, except for the spider crafter. Enchanting, alchemy, staff enchanter, cooking pot, Hearthfire oven, smelter, (sky)forge, workbench, grinding stone, tanning rack.

- Lovingly hand-placed clutter, cobwebs, damaged stone, plants, minor mistakes, major mistakes, and pots.

- A single gourd.

- A blacksmithing room with ventilation.

- Speaking of mannequins, they for some reason sometimes don't have proper lighting until you first save and reload the cell, but will probably, hopefully, maybe not wander around or randomly get naked.

- Not actually all that many bones, all things considered.

- Wood chopping block for Frostfall users (followers' quarters).

- A warm and cozy bedroom that will allow your spouse, if you have a mod to move them there, to sleep in your bed. ;)

- A "secret" rear exit with a nice view and slightly less deadly neighbors.

- Fast travel markers (with horse markers) for both back and front. Kids' play area out back. Whether they'll use it I don't yet know. Note: the exteriors are nearly unchanged, wild, and dangerous. One is beneath a dragon lair, and the other is next to a spider/vampire cave. This mod's focus is not exterior gardens and walkways, but the interior alone.

- A treasure room with Thieves' Guild displays, more plaques, open chests etc. Just throw your gold all over the floor. Bathe in it.* Speaking of which--

- A bath. (Natural spring)

- An indoor farm with plantable Hearthfire planters, underneath a "break in the ceiling" in a cave area, so as to be realistic. Apiary included. /oprahbees.gif

- Three more planters, along with butterfly jar & paragon displays, spread throughout the alchemy/enchanting and bedroom areas.

* don't bathe in it. While you can get mods to allow you to drop your gold, doing so will undoubtedly crash your game. ...#skyrimphysics




- Daedric Artifacts (weapons on entrance wall of display room; armor & mehrune's razor on table at rear; peryite's shield hanging over table; oghwhatever infinitum on pedestal at the end of the library)

- Black Books, Dragon Masks, Dragon Claws display: various levels of the rounded area in the "ritual" Daedric/display room.

- Elder Scrolls, hanging in the bedroom (the Dragon one will give TWO error messages if you have no scroll, or ONE if you have one. Ignore this. It functions; it's due to there being two potential IDs for the scroll, that's all)

- Thieves' Guild everything displays & Barenziah mask, in treasury/treasure room

- Butterfly Jars & Paragons - all in the alch/enchanting room,  except the luna  moth jar, which can be found on the shelf in the adjacent bedroom. The jars and paragons are not lined up, but instead scattered around the desks, tables, and bookshelves. a e s t h e t i c s

- Dragonstone - Daedric/display room table.

- Dragon Burial Map - located on the lower right corner of the treasury room's table.

- Pendants displays- bedroom.

NAMED and CUSTOM storage:

- Two-Handed Weapons, One-Handed Weapons, Archery Equipment and Staffs - each in their own of four urns, in the Daedric/Display/Armory room. Each urn is filled with static examples of its category and bears the correct category name. Weapons displayed DO NOT change based on what's stored.

- Raw Food, Cooked Food - barrel & chest in the kitchen.

- Ore, Hides (barrels), ingots, leather (chests) in the blacksmithing room.

- Shields - a crate full of, you guessed it, shields on a shelf in the back of the blacksmithing room.

- Letters and Notes, Scrolls, and Journals - a pair of letters tacked to the map-board in the bedroom, a crate of scrolls underneath it, and a set of journals beside that.

- Soul Gems (open box of... soul gems), alchemy ingredients (small urn on alchemy desk), alchemy recipes (satchel there too) in alch/enchanting room; Potions (chest) and Poisons (safe) in alchemy area.

- Gems (strongbox) and Jewelry (safe) in the treasure room.

- Heavy Armor and Light Armor - chests behind the portcullis, just off the display room.

- A library with so, so many bookshelves.

There's also a few unnamed chests lying about, along with a wardrobe and nighttable, so there should be enough storage for all but the most horrific of pack rats. All storage has been double-checked to be non-respawning, safe storage--with the exception of the Apiary, which needs to be set to respawn to give you honey. But why would you want to hide stuff in a beehive, anyway?

OTHER:

- 22 mannequins. 5 in daedric room; 1 in blacksmithing, 2 in bedroom, 13 in main hall, 1 hidden a bit back in the treasury room.
- 3 dagger display cases--1 in the bedroom, 2 in treasury room on the wall. It took me 17 20 21 attempts to get the wall ones working. Worship me.
- 7 weapon plaques (3 in the treasure room, 1 in the bedroom, the rest scattered about), a few shield plaques (scattered about), and several large display cases (main hall). I wanted more of these but Nord ruins are (un)surprisingly terrible for straight vertical walls.




BEFORE UPDATING TO 1.1, please--at the very least--remove all books from the bookshelves in the bedroom, then leave the home and save in another cell (a city or another building). If you want to be fully safe, remove everything from the crypt and save in another cell, then return after updating. However, this should not be strictly necessary; you can always test on an extra game save slot to see if the simple bookshelf change works. If you have Planter NPCs standing naked in your farm from 1.0, open console with ~, click on each, and type RecycleActor on each to return them home.

BEFORE UPDATING FROM the beta version, please--at the very least--remove all books from the two bookshelves to either side of the Enchanting table (the two closest to it on the left and the right). If you want to be fully safe, remove everything from the entire crypt, save outside, uninstall, load and save, then reinstall again (you'd need to get the key from the start, however). This shouldn't be strictly necessary, but my own save file was ruined by something unrelated, and I therefore CANNOT test whether a simple update will preserve items. If you want to be kinda safe, but you're lazy, just remove whatever you care about, save the game outside, and then replace the current mod with the new version. If you do this, however, you may well lose items.


Either way, from that point on--or to install from scratch:

Unpack the .zip folder, and drag the contents of the contained Data folder (in other words, pull the .esp, the Scripts folder, and the Seq folder) into Skyrim's Data folder.

This mod requires an up-to-date Skyrim and all three DLCs. You only need Hearthfire Multiple Adoptions if you want to adopt children & move your family there, though it's a great mod that I do highly recommend.

Changelog:

Version 1.1 -
- Navmesh re-added to Planter NPCs room. If your Planter NPCs are half-nude men standing around in your farm as of 1.0, open console (~) and click on each of them, typing RecycleActor for each to reset them to their correct location.
- Corrected the dagger cases in the treasure rooms. Again.
- Bedroom bookshelves fixed: one bookshelf was not accepting books. REMOVE books from this shelf before updating to 1.1.


Version 1.0 -
- Broken Word Wall added in the Depths
- Added script to force Apiary to properly respawn (hopefully)
- Added small amounts of clutter to right side of main hall, & clutter piece (astrolabe) atop shelf in enchanting room. I love those things.
- Corrected soul gem custom container not actually being a container. It now does containing gooder.
- Corrected two bookshelves in enchanting/alch room that were non-functional (center of each nearest enchanting table, left and right)
- Replaced bookshelf (bottom right nearest enchanting table when facing it).
- Corrected two errors in the Waterlogged Journal and a repeated line in the Note.
- Navmesh has been entirely redone. Prior one seems to have happily deleted itself. (??)
- The two dagger cases in the treasure room have been reworked. Three times. They should hopefully work properly now.
- The Black Hand Daedric display has been raised up on a small platform for visibility.
- Occlusion planes have been removed from around the dining hall. They were apparently causing more framerate issues (due to constant loading/unloading of multiple items) than they were by occluding the items from remaining loaded. Hopefully this should smooth performance. Note that planes remain around a couple other locations including the farm, but shouldn't be jittery.

- Please do post any bugs that you find, and I'll get to them ASAP. -




- Step 1. Have 5,000 gold. Find Ri'saad. He's an Essential vanilla NPC whose Khajiit caravan wanders from Whiterun to Markarth. http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Ri'saad  If you speak with him, you should see a new dialogue option. If it isn't there, save the game and reload, and try again. Pay the cat his money, and take the letter.

- Step 2. Follow the hints in the letter that Ri'saad has sold you. It does NOT give you a quest or map marker. You'll need to head to Bonestrewn Crest (http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Bonestrewn_Crest_(Skyrim) ), and head slightly northwest to the volcanic pools. You'll find one with a necromancer's altar and lots of half-hidden Nord ruins about; there's a fissure with dead Draugr popping up just south of this. (This is all Vanilla game stuff, by the way--I have not heavily edited any exteriors). Check the screenshots on the mod's page for the exact location of the volcanic fissure.

- Step 3. Have a method of waterbreathing. I probably should have mentioned this before, huh?  It will need to be potions or an enchantment, as you won't be able to recast a spell underwater. You should be able to use the fissure like a door to dive down into the Bonestrewn Depths below. You will need to explore the underwater ruins to find the owner of Bonestrewn Crypt, and recover the key. If you really want to just skip payment and the Adventure™, go up to each of the doors of the Crypt itself, open console with the tilde (~) key, click the door and type Unlock. Press Tilde (~) again to close console. If you need help finding the fissure, or the key:

*SPOILER*
(Highlight below to see)

The key can be found on one dead Casimar, a dark elf, at the very end of the enormous chamber. He's at about middle height in this chamber, under a bit of an overhang, having drowned while permanently sealing the puzzle door.

- Step 4. Bring the key back and unlock the doors, if you aren't a filthy cheat* (or someone afraid of deep, murky water) who used console commands to unlock it already.
* apparently someone got REALLY MAD at me for this so I feel the need to spell it out--the filthy cheat comment is a joke. I don't care if you dance your way naked with tcl and tgm through the game using insta-kill commands. You do you, bro.

A note on this home: it has been optimized as best I can using simple occlusion planes. Given the strange shapes of Nordic "architecture," proper roombounds can't be used without cutting things off, unless I had added in long and pointless hallways. You may have jitters every now and then when the game suddenly loads in a chunk of stuff that wasn't prior loaded due to these planes, but otherwise they should keep the load off your PC, and things should be smooth.

REMEMBER: When placing moveable objects in your home--in any home--after you are satisfied with their placement, face the objects and save your game, then reload. This will prevent them from displacing at your next load. ...#skyrimphysics.



- There's a line through the water dungeon where, for some reason, the game doesn't register water. It's only a split-second where the light changes and you can fall a bit, but that split-second will destroy all the immersion you have ever loved. Unfortunately, I cannot fix it. If anyone knows how, please let me know; it is where both water tiles meet, but they were lined up, so far as I can tell, perfectly. The fall between water tiles shouldn't be fatal but if it is just-... swim lower.

- Sitting on the stones in the pool makes a chair-creak noise. I can't figure that one out, either, but it isn't a gamebreaker.



- Darkfox127, as always, for his incredible series of YouTube tutorials. I could never have gotten into modding without his work. His YouTube channel is here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtYB2iX9_52X_DNtSIJXyWg  I highly recommend subscribing if modding at all interests you.

- MrDanSG1 for his Modder's Display Compendium modders' resource. This has provided the Elder Scrolls, necklaces, Daedric, Black Books, Dragon Masks & Claws, etc. displays. Again, he has done fantastic work and generously provided it to all. You can check it out and endorse his work here: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/62732/