README

SNOWBLIND SANCTUARY - A Snow Elf-themed player home, and the ability to recreate the Snow Elf race.

REQUIREMENTS: -----------------
Up-to-date Skyrim + Update, + Dawnguard, Hearthfire & Dragonborn.

INSTALLATION: -----------------
Unpack ZIP. If you want loose files, just pull everything from within the included "Data" folder -except- the BSA into your Skyrim/Data folder. If you want to use the .BSA, include the SEQ folder, the .BSA, and the .ESP. The BSA -should- include all meshes, textures, sounds and scripts.

UNINSTALLING: -----------------
Remove everything from the home, and leave the area entirely. Ensure you have no Snow Elf followers or Ouro with you. They must all be dismissed. Save the game. Disable the mod from the mod list. If you wish, remove any included files from your SKyrim directories (unnecessary but will give space). Reload, and save again. The only "orphan" script will check for a light update twice, and should then cancel itself upon finding the mod gone.

GUIDE: -----------------
- You MUST be near completion of the Dawnguard expansion, up to at least Touching the Sky (sends you into the Falmer valley for Auriel's Bow). You will also need to be far enough along in the Mage's Guild to have passed through Mzulft and unlocked the Oculory, though you can give yourself the required item from Mzulft via console commands if you prefer.
- GETTING STARTED - Past Darkfall Cave (where you first meet Knight-Paladin Gelebor), deep inside Darkfall Passage (with all the bioluminescent plants + animals) there are two skeletons. One has been killed by a spear trap. A bit before this one, somewhat hidden beside a ledge (you need to turn back and look to see it), by a pink-glowing plant, is the other. It is called Altmer Skeleton. Loot this for the key to Snowblind Sanctuary and Elanmir's Journal, which begins the quest and explains the lore behind the mod, along with offering hints.
- Continue until you exit the cave system into the "Falmer Valley." Ahead you should almost immediately see Snowblind Sanctuary set into the mountains. It is in the area near the first outdoor shrine, before you enter the snowier regions near the river.
- Go into the house. The Research Journal required for the quest is on a table in the main hall to the left, on a table beside the cage.
- Read the journal. You will then be prompted to head to three different Dwemer ruins. You will NOT receive Objective markers. If at any point you have real trouble, you can gift yourself the item through console commands using "player.additem ITEMID 1" with ITEMID replaced by the ID. You need to type "help Dwemer" and look for the correct item's name, and use its ID #.

REPAIRING THE SOLAR FOCUSING IRIS
- FIRST ITEM - "Dwemer Capacitor" - Kagrenzel. In Kagrenzel you fall down quite far into the water, and need to climb your way out. Halfway up, there's a 90' turn with a mound of rubble at its hub. Resting here is the Capacitor, looking like Dwemer scrap metal.
- SECOND ITEM - "Dwemer Control Cube" - Raldbthar. In the bandits' sleeping area, on a table near an armor set. It looks like a Dwemer Lexicon.
- THIRD ITEM - "Dwemer Energy Core" - Mzulft. At the very end, in the Oculory, on the table behind the big machine.
- Take these items back to the house. On the table where you found the journal, facing the cage, there are three places to slot the items in. The Control Cube sits atop its pedestal. The Capacitor slots into the empty space just to its right, between the pedestal on the table and the gold cabinet to its right. The Energy Core slots into the cabinet itself (you may have to move the cursor around a bit; you might accidentally open the cabinet a couple times but keep trying).


CURING FALMER -----------------
- Learn the "Ensnare Falmer" spell tome sitting on the other table's lectern to the right of these 3 items.
- Go to the font to the LEFT of the cage. ONLY DURING THE DAY, this font will allow the player to create a potion called Auri-el's Gift. You will need one of these for each Falmer you wish to cure.
- Go out, find a Falmer in the world, and use the spell on them. They should vanish. YOU CAN ONLY DO ONE AT A TIME.
- Return to the house. There should now be a Falmer inside the cell.*
- Speak to the Falmer (the left-hand lever can open and close the cage if he's too far back) and Administer the Potion. **
- Go to the table. Pull the lever on the right side (REQUIRES DAYLIGHT). Wait.
- Speak to the new Snow Elf, and reassure them.
- You can now use the Ensnare Falmer spell to ensnare another Falmer; use a potion; and then press the lever to get another Snow Elf. This can be repeated indefinitely for as many Snow Elves as you like.


* The Falmer will sometimes, especially after Waiting, appear outside the cell. This doesn't matter; it's non-hostile, and will usually "return" to the cell after Waiting one in-game hour.

** If at any point something doesn't work as it should--if a Falmer doesn't appear or vanish correctly, etc.--there is a literal Reset Button to the right of the right-side table, on a Dwemer pedestal. Press this, wait 5 seconds, and to be sure press it again. This will reset all of the repeating Falmer-related quests (and, upon cell re-entry, NPCs) so you can start the "cure" process over safely. It will not despawn existing Snow Elves, or make you repair the Apparatus again. You'll just need to capture a new Falmer.

ABOUT SNOW ELVES -----------------

Snow Elves can be used as Followers. They can also be traded with at any time, and will keep armor/weapons given to them equipped. When speaking to a Snow Elf who is not currently your follower, they can be told to go out and wander the world, or to live in Snowblind Sanctuary. This can be changed as many times as you like, regardless of location.

A Non-Follower Snow Elf will by default live in the Sanctuary, using beds at night and the numerous Idle markers + furniture/crafting during the day. He or she can be given gear and weapons and will keep them equipped. If told to wander the world, the Snow Elf will do just that--they will leave, and wander Skyrim. Each day they will select one of a number of locations from a list, each tied to the day of the week. They will visit various towns & inns, Calcelmo's Dwemer research area in Markarth, the Temple of the Divines, and more. You should, once you have enough out there, find them occasionally on roads and in the world as a whole. It should feel organic--and like a triumph; you're returning the Snow Elves to Skyrim! Don't worry for their safety; the local Nords probably won't recognize them as Snow Elves. They look and sound a lot like very pale Altmer.

A Follower Snow Elf will not use the default FollowerDialogue quest. That means he'll have trouble using Convenient Horses horses, and AFT and the like may have issues counting them--I'm unsure. However, since they do use their own quest, it shouldn't affect anything else at all. They are set to refuse to follow you if you have -one- other follower. However, if you have two or more, they should agree--meaning if you do have AFT or the like they may work. There are a number of "classes" of Snow Elf with different abilities, spells, and perks. If you captured a regular Falmer (something like 88% of the Falmer population), you will get a random melee-specialized Snow Elf upon curing it. If you managed to capture a rarer Shaman-type Falmer (and not all Shaman-LOOKING Falmer are Shaman-classed, unfortunately, for whatever reason) then you'll cure it into one of the Caster types. You can tell which one you've caught by examining it: A "Falmer Captive" is just a loincloth-clad Falmer by that name. A "Falmer Shaman Captive" wears thin black bands around its arms and legs. ALL SNOW ELF FOLLOWERS come with both Muffled Movement and Lightfoot perks so they can sneak and not trigger traps. ALL ARE SET TO PROTECTED, but not Essential--you can kill them if you want. Please note that since the Snow Elves use the HighElfHaughty voice, they won't have a whole lot to actually say. You can get mods that unlock "racial" dialogue to allow a little more speech, but normally they'll really only speak when spoken to, and then very little.

So that you can best kit them out, the Classes are as follows (and each comes with randomly Male or Female gender): Snow Elf Champion (2H weapons, any armor type); Snow Elf Archer (archery-related perks); Snow Elf Skirmisher (dual-wield + Light Armor perks); Snow Elf Warrior (heavy armor + shield perks), Snow Elf (no class name! - also a shield/heavy armor class). The "mage" classes are Snow Elf Mage (2 appearances each for male/female--they have Frostbite, healing spells, Lightning Bolt, Frost Cloak + Ward spells, with related perks); Snow Elf Sorcerer (Vampire's Bane, self-healing, frostbite, frost cloak, ironflesh and ward, with related perks); and Snow Elf Spellsword (Bound Sword, Sunfire, Fireball, Flame Cloak, Frostbite and Healing spells, with related perks).

HOME FEATURES -----------------

Storage - Loads of custom & named storage. Named storage for Scrolls, and for Heavy, Light and Cloth armor; Custom-Appearance Storage for 1h, 2h and Archery weapons; Staffs; Potions, Poisons, Soul Gems, Letters, Journals, and more. Plenty of unnamed storage.

Displays: Black Books, Dragon Claws, Dragon Masks, Elder Scrolls (fixed from the normal displays to take BOTH "Dragon" scroll IDs, but will always give at least one 'you don't have the item' error message--not a bug), Thieves' Guild items, bug jars, Paragon displays and more. It does NOT have custom displays for Daedric artifacts. There are 19 mannequins, numerous weapons and shield plaques, four weapon display cases, and quite a few shield racks. The "forge" room doubles as a big display room.

Crafting - All crafting tables EXCEPT Spider creator. The "Smelter" is a forge at the center of the forge room. It. Is. Lava. Do not TOUCH it. You can smelt by activating it from a foot or two away. Don't. Touch. The lava. There's an anvil that counts as a (sky)forge upon which to create armor. THERE IS A NEW CUSTOM RECIPE to create Ancient Falmer Armor (the Light ivory armor set from Dawnguard's end). It makes vanilla "Ancient Falmer" chestpiece, boots, and gloves, but the recipe for the Crown makes instead a new version unique to this mod. The original Crown will NOT be altered; it was a Jewelry piece. The new one is a Light Armor headpiece, identical in -appearance,- but now can be improved with an Iron Ingot and will --count toward the well-fitted Light Armor perk-- for wearing a full Light Armor set. IT REQUIRES ELVEN SMITHING to create. You will NOT see it in the anvil without this perk. You will also find Hearthfire planters in the dirt ring around the Forge.

Other Features: The house is large, but set up to be VERY central and easily-navigable. You will not get lost. The entrance has a large, steaming fountain that followers will sit/bathe in. Moving forward you will find the bedroom, with bookshelves, bed (for you +, if you have Hearthfire Multiple Adoptions, your spouse), Alchemy/Enchanting/Staff crafting tables, armor and weapons storage, a desk with letters/scrolls/journals storage, Dragon Masks/Claws displays, Elder Scrolls & Black Books displays, etc. To the right from the entrance, instead, is the Forge, with workbench/grindstone/forge/anvil and tons of weapons racks/plaques, mannequins, and Thieves' Guild displays, along with storage for crafting, and 3 training dummies for the kids (with Hearthfire Multiple Adoptions). If you head left from the entrance, instead, you come to the big "Follower Room." This holds a heated natural spring bath; six or so Follower-friendly beds; a fireplace with seating and bookshelves; the kids' area with kids' beds, toys and chests; a long dining table set with food + cooking spit and Hearthfire baking oven; the Auri-el's sacred font, and the cage and "Solar Focusing Iris" used to cure the Falmer. The house features (unnaturally bright/blessed) white light during the day--not overly bright, but brighter than the very dim valley outside--with light rays, and audible birdsong. At dawn and dusk the light instead is a soft reddish. At night, the natural light fades completely, and the home is lit only by its fire sources, and cicadas are audible instead of birds.

Ouro: a custom animal follower: a glowing Saber cat from Dawnguard's "Darkfall Passage"/Falmer valley cave area. Muffled Movement/Lightfoot perks, set to Essential. By default he will return to live in Snowblind Sanctuary when dismissed. He can usually be found right in the entrance area and the "gardens"to either side. Named for the Ouroboros that represents, in-universe and out, the Elder Scrolls'series ongoing factional warfare.

Hearthfire Multiple Adoptions Compatible. YOU WILL NEED the Hearthfire Multiple Adoptions mod. Use the Bless Home spell inside Snowblind Sanctuary. It has beds for five children and plenty of idle markers for them to use.

KNOWN ISSUES -----------------
Snowblind Sanctuary has NO horse travel marker. When you fast-travel home, you'll leave your horse wherever it was. It seems I can't make a horse marker in the Falmer valley as it's a separate worldspace. If you use Convenient Horses, be sure to empty your horse's inventory, if you need it, BEFORE fast-travelling. If you know how to fix this, do let me know.

Snowblind also has lighting changes: Night into Dawn, Dawn into Day, Day into Dusk, Dusk into Night. These lighting changes are not gradual and can be jarring if you're standing in the house. It's just a fast lighting change, but there's no real way to make it a gradual change.

Occasionally the Falmer spawning scripts seem to get confused. Just use the Reset button if something goes wrong--hit it, wait a few seconds, hit it again for good measure. The reset button has an in-character explanation in one of the notes on the table--it resets the magical process, obviously. >.>

The kids tend to sink into their stone beds.

Please let me know if you find any other bugs.


CREDITS -----------------

Darkfox127 for numerous, extremely understandable and helpful YouTube videos. I could never have done any modding (for better or worse) without his very generously-uploaded vids. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtYB2iX9_52X_DNtSIJXyWg I strongly recommending having a look and subscribing if you're at all interested in modding!

Blary's Alchemy Clutter Resource for the wonderful wall hangings, Alchemy static clutter, hanging butterfly cases and more! A must-have for most house mods. https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/30599/

MrDanSG1's Modder Display Compendium. Most if not all of my Dragon Claws, Elder Scrolls, Masks, etc. Display scripts and statics are either directly his or adapted from his work. Beautiful work, generously uploaded! If you make mods, he has all the items laid out neatly with scripts & activators in a room--all you have to do is copy-paste into your own cell, move it around and rename the items. I highly recommend it!
https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/62732/