If you're anything like me, you've long wanted a player home that felt secure and defensible (Skyrim is a great place for making enemies, after all) without being oversized or totally incompatible with Skyrim lore. A convenient safe haven where you can dump your wealth and urchins, without worrying that the Whiterun drunk will stumble in at 4 am and help himself to a Daedric artifact from a wall display. Grand and impressive without being a sprawling maze. A balance between aesthetics and utility.

If so, this could be the player home for you.

Look, if you've explored any of my other player home mods then by now you'll know the drill. Kynesgarde is a secure player home that should meet all your storage and crafting needs, as well as being a base for your followers and children (N.B. you will need Hearthfire Multiple Adoptions and / or My Home Is Your Home (MHIYH 2PLUS) to do this, or other mods with similar functionality). The castle is located on a small plateau to the south of Riften and should feel true to the look and spirit of the vanilla game.



FEATURES

• Upgradable with quarters for your spouse and children, guards, and a steward and a blacksmith
• Quarters for either twelve, six, or four followers, depending on which upgrades you choose
• All the standard crafting stations
• Plenty of linked, named, and generic storage for flexibility
• Mannequins and weapon displays
• Stables, goats, and Hearthfires-style planters
• Training dummies and archery targets
• Custom architecture
• Fully navmeshed
• Cleaned with SSEdit
  

LAYOUT

• Great hall with library
• West wing with player quarters and armoury
• East wing with kitchens, alchemy workstation, combined enchanting station and staff enchanter, and trapdoor to a postern gate (exit in garden)
• Lower level with a second armoury, follower quarters, and optional children's quarters
• Separate quarters for guards or additional followers
• Undercroft with stables, storage, and smithy (combined forge and smelter)
• Garden with 18 planting spots, shelter for a pair of goats, and a hot springs area for bathing (NPCs undress automatically)
  

LOCATION, ACCESS, AND UPGRADES

Kynesgarde is located to the south of Riften, somewhere between Stendarr's Beacon and Lost Tongue Overlook. Follow the road southeast from Riften towards Dayspring Canyon and take the track on the right after crossing the bridge. The castle sits on a small plateau on the south side of the valley and is reached via steps cut into the hillside.



The castle is guarded by a werewolf - the previous thane, in fact - who made short work of the vigilants sent to dispatch him. Approach with caution.

Loot the werewolf's corpse for the key to the upper castle, and the key to the lower castle (including the postern gate) can be found at the end of the lower hallway inside. Activate the broom and shovel in the stables once you're ready to remove the corpses.

You can upgrade the castle with six guards (3000 coins), a steward and a blacksmith (1000 coins), and a chamber with beds for six children (2000 coins). To do so, activate the ledger in the lower hallway by the armoury.

The exact locations of the activators and keys are shown in the last few images on the mod page.


COMPATIBILITY

This player home has been tested across a number of characters, and is compatible and recommended for use with Hearthfire Multiple Adoptions. You may also wish to use one of the many excellent follower mods out there, such as My Home Is Your Home (MHIYH 2PLUS), to rehome your favourite followers in the castle. Multiple Floors Sandboxing should encourage more natural behaviours for anyone you do relocate.

The castle is unlikely to be compatible with other mods that alter the same cells. Let me know if you encounter conflicts, or indeed if other nearby mods work fine.

• A patch is available to fix a conflict with one of the locations added by Interesting NPCs (Skyshadow Crypt) (available under the files tab)
• Users of Skyrim versions pre-patch 1.6.1130 may wish to try installing Backported Extended ESL Support if you find that Kynesgarde does not appear in-game
• Compatible with CC Goblins - Gogh's Camp
  
  

INSTALLATION

Install in the usual way: I recommend using Mod Organizer 2 or Vortex for ease and transparency. Be very wary of uninstalling mods mid-game - even lightweight player home mods like this one - as unintended behaviours can result. My advice would be to hold onto a save from before you installed a given mod, allowing you to revert if you don't like the changes in-game.


ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

• The tutorials provided by the magnificent DarkFox127 (YouTube channel here)
• The Creation Kit forum here on the Nexus
• The three or four mildly crappier versions of this I made and binned before arriving here
  

FEEDBACK

Please let me know in the comments if you encounter any bugs or have any other feedback.


MY OTHER SKYRIM MODS

Yngol's Spear
Heartwood Castle
Kyneswatch