::FEATURES::

This mod removes the ruined buildings in Winterhold and adds walls to demarcate the boundaries of the city proper, new buildings and a few landmarks. The mod also features the addition of the following merchants or services to the city:

• An alchemist
• A bard
• A blacksmith
• A bookstore
• A carriage driver
• A farmer
• A ferryman
• A fishery
• A fletcher
• A food vendor
• A fence
• A greenhouse
• A guardhouse with a jail, additional guards and a guard captain
• A hunter/fisherman
• A jeweler
• A mead hall
• A spell merchant
• A tailor
• Fishing docks
• Stables with a new horse breed
• Two potential player homes and a new housecarl
• A unique merchant that will sell the unique modded items added by this mod
  

All of the new citizens have been set to protected, with the exception of the followers who have been set to essential. The NPCs' level scale with the player and they do not have level caps. The NPCs have immersive schedules and a few of them can become potential followers and marriageable options once their disposition is high enough. There are two potential player homes that can be bought after becoming the Thane of Winterhold, as well as a new housecarl. Winterhold also has a new furry mascot, a unique snow-white husky follower, who wanders the city and its outskirts. This mod has been cleaned with SSEEdit, is fully navmeshed, features limited landscape edits and has been carefully optimized with occlusion planes to boost fps. Meshes from the modding resources that were used, were all cleaned and optimized with SSE NIF Optimizer.





::LORE::

Now to address the elephant in the room...The Great Collapse. According to the in-game lore, the Great Collapse ultimately led to Winterhold being mostly abandoned. To be honest, I don't agree fully with this conventional interpretation for a number of reasons:

• Human Nature: As humans we can point to several real life examples where natural disasters occur, they leave a lot of destruction in their wake and people overcome and rebuild. From a human nature perspective this lore makes no sense, especially when you take into account other elder scrolls lore that describes the nords as being stubborn to a fault.
• Time Problem: The human NPCs in Winterhold speak about this event like if it happened last week or as if they were eye-witnesses to the event, despite it taking place 80 years ago and well before their lifetimes. And this is a problem across the board for Skyrim's world building, where NPC dialogue about the Oblivion Crisis (200 years ago) and the Great War (almost 30 years ago) would be spoken of in ways that is unrealistic. I will use a real life event as an example, the Tsunami of 2004 happened only two decades ago but even then it is rarely remembered despite killing over 200,000 people and despite all the eerie footage of the ocean retreating from the shore.
• The in-game inconsistencies if the popular interpretation is correct: There is no explanation as to how the vanilla Winterhold NPCs and those at the College feed themselves. There is not enough ruins or physical evidence for the Great Collapse; there is a lack of a debris field along the coastline and at the bottom of the sea. There is also no explanation as to where all of the Winterhold soldiers came from (for both the Stormcloaks and the Imperials) that fight over Winterhold for the Civil War. There is no explanation as to why the Winterhold citizens who are aversed to magic, send their prisoners to a jail that is guarded by Frost Atronachs. The lore inconsistencies for Winterhold like Wuunferth the Unliving claiming that the College of Winterhold hasn't allowed Necromancy for hundreds of years while Phinis Gestor says that it is legal at the College. Wuunferth making that remark would make complete sense if Winterhold was intended to be a developed and populated city while The Chill would make sense if the Great Collapse did not occur and the relations between the College and the Hold were fine.
• The history of Bethesda: Fort Sutch, which was meant to be County Sutch in Oblivion, was a major city that was scrapped by the game developers to save time in the development of Oblivion. I strongly suspect that this was also the case for Winterhold due to the fact that most of Skyrim's unfinished quests restored by Cutting Room Floor take place in Winterhold and the incoherent world building in my first three points. All of these points suggest that Winterhold's development was rushed and that the Great Collapse was more than likely a tool that was invented later on in Skyrim's development to save time from creating an established city for Winterhold.
  

With all that said, I understand that many would still disagree with me, which is fine. Personally, I see vanilla Winterhold in the same way that County Sutch was downgraded into a fort and similar to the way the Levitation Act was used in Oblivion because of the game's limitations. Many in the Elder Scrolls community rightly mock the Levitation Act and there are many flying and levitation mods that outright defy it like the Skyrim's Paraglider. As such I did not allow the popular strict interpretation that the Great Collapse prevented rebuilding efforts in Winterhold (within those 80 years) to stifle this mod's creativity.



::WINTERHOLD::


::THE MERCHANTS::

The leveled lists for the goods sold by the new merchants have been carefully tweaked so they will have a chance to sell most of the vanilla and official DLC items in the game. Please note, that the rare items added by the guild quests and the official DLCs will only appear once those questlines have been completed. This isn't a cheat, since in most cases you would have already bought or collected the rare items during the questline anyway. The premise of this feature is that the conclusion of the conflicts in those questlines would and should open up trade with those factions and/or regions just as in real life (something that was done with the Thieves Guild questline with respect to the new fences and caravans). The following is a list of the prerequisite events for the expansion of goods available to the merchants in this mod:

Dawnguard DLC

Hearthfire DLC

Dragonborn DLC

Vaermina's Daedric Quest

Thieves Guild Questline

Dark Brotherhood Questline

The College of Winterhold Questline

Once the prerequisite event has occurred, go to Winterhold and pray at the Shrine of Jhunal, once done the merchants will begin to stock the new items. I welcome suggestions or requests for additional vanilla gear to be added to the merchants. With version 1.8.0, a unique merchant was added, Vithar, who will sell items unique to this specific mod and any additional gear that users of the mod made requests for. This mod will also allow you to invest in the shops of the new merchants assuming that you have the Investor perk.


::THE NPCS::

The mod adds detailed AI packages to all of the new NPCs in Winterhold. Please note that none of the vanilla NPCs have been touch by this mod in any way. The new NPCs will do their jobs, cook, clean, chop wood, carry buckets, carry firewood, train with the combat dummies and carry out a wide variety of other tasks. They will be more immersive and have more daily tasks than most of the vanilla and DLC NPCs, if you have ever used Immersive Citizens - AI Overhaul SE, then you will know what I mean. Even the children will do activities that are on par with those featured in the Hearthfire DLC. This mod also features 8 potential marriage and follower options:



Each follower has been set to essential, their levels scale with the player and they do not have level caps - they can and eventually will outperform the vanilla NPC followers as a result because most of the vanilla NPCs have level caps. They have the Light Foot perk to avoid traps and will not affect your stealth meter when you sneak. The followers also have the AlchemySkillBoosts and PerkSkillBoosts perks which will allow them to benefit from potions and enchantments that boost skills - something that the vanilla followers do not have by default. This mod also adds a husky follower which wanders town and the area near the fishery and the fishing docks, along with a spell to summon him. He is set to essential just like the followers and has the same quality of life perks.


::THE PLAYER HOMES::

After becoming the Thane of Winterhold, pray at the Shrine of Jhunal, doing so will unlock more dialogue for the Jarl's Steward, Malur Seloth, to sell two new player homes - Urdarbrunnr, a two storey noble home, which stands in the heart of the city and Frostwind Perch, a single storey upper class home, which can be found at the docks near the Fishery. Frostwind Perch is designed for those who prefer a minimalist vanilla-styled home with just the basics in terms of personal storage, bookcases, crafting furniture and vanilla weapon racks, while Urdarbrunnr has a number of unique features in addition to what's typically found in vanilla player homes. Urdarbrunnr contains custom displays for several of the artifacts that you will encounter throughout your playthrough like unique books, weapons, armor, jewelry, dragon claws, dragon priest masks and more. It features an alchemy and enchanting station, the spider scroll and staff crafting stations added by the DLCs in addition to a custom crafting station that disenchant items and reverses smithing improvements. It also features a few custom crafting tools with more to come. Urdarbrunnr's basement contains all of the necessary crafting stations for smithing, its own Atronach Forge and planters to grow up to 30 plants. There are also small pools located at the basement available for those who use bathing mods.

Upon purchasing Urdarbrunnr, you will unlock your housecarl, Urdr the Fateweaver. She is a college mage who has access to a wide variety of utility spells but specializes in casting frost destruction spells and conjuring frost atronachs. She will switch to a combination of one handed weapons and wards whenever enemies are within melee range. She can dual wield when necessary and will make use of two handed weapons as well.


::THE STABLES::

You can buy a horse from the stables near the inn. Opposite the stables, you can find a Carriage Driver who will transport you to a variety of destinations including the small settlements between the holds. The new horses scale with the player's level, are set to protected and will also assume the physical likeness of Frost. What does that last bit mean? If you have any mod that edits Frost's appearance, the mod will also alter the horses' appearance. If you don't have any mods that directly edits Frost then the Winterhold horses will assume the appearance of the Solitude's Palmiro horses. If there isn't any mods or texture replacers that affect those Solitude horses then the Winterhold horses will simply look like vanilla Solitude horses. Here are a few example Frost mods to choose from, however, some may require conversion to Special Edition:

• Better Frost - New
• Realistic Horse Breeds
• Swift Steeds Frost
• Slof's Unique Frost
• The Real Frost
• Alternative Frost
  

I've just released a new mod, Better Frost which gives you more options to better customize the appearance of the Winterhold horses to your own liking.


::THE GUARDHOUSE AND JAIL::

Most of the new guards added in the mod will sleep there after their patrol. The jail can be found in the basement. Please note that this mod does not touch the crime system in Winterhold - when you commit a crime you will still go to the ice cave, The Chill, Winterhold's new jail is mostly for aesthetics and realism.

If the Empire seizes control of Winterhold then all of the guards added by the mod including the ones patrolling the fishery and fishing docks will be replaced by imperial soldiers, the guard captain will also be replaced. In addition to this, the Winterhold banners on the guardhouse will switch to imperial banners if they take over the hold during the Civil War and even the makeshift Talos shrine within the Guardhouse will be removed.


::THE FISHERY::

To find the fishery, you will need to walk under the bridge that connects the city and the College of Winterhold, continue along the narrow path down the hill and you will see it below near the water's edge. You can place pond fish, salmon roe, clam meat and slaughterfish eggs in the fish hatchery to spawn fish just like the fishery that becomes available through Windstad Manor in the Hearthfire DLC. There is also an inaccessible house next to Frostwind Perch and the Fishery. Please note that particular house exists as a stand-in for Windyridge if the patch in this mod's download section is used.


::THE FISHING DOCKS::

The fishing docks is within view of the fishery and could be seen while walking the same path down the hill. The docks also features a ferryman who will transport you to Solitude, Dawnstar, Morthal, Windhelm and Castle Volkihar and will chat about those destinations once you've hired him to take you there, similar to the carriage drivers. In addition to this, the vanilla ferrymen will also be able to transport the player to Winterhold and give immersive dialogue about the Hold when they do.


::THE MEAD HALL::

It is located at the fishing docks. You can buy food and drinks there, it has a lot of beds for you and your followers and safe cloud storage chests in its basement. The Mead Hall also has a pool of water in its basement that can be used with your bathing mods. Feel free to set the Mead Hall and/or its basement as a "home base" for your followers, it was specifically designed with this in mind. The bard added in the mod will also perform there and several of the citizens throughout the city will visit it.


::THE TEMPLE::

There are two statues of Shalidor, the founder of Winterhold, one near the guardhouse with a greatsword and the other under the snowy oak tree with an eagle. NPCs will gather around them from time to time, just like the Gildergreen in Whiterun. Winterhold now has a Temple of Jhunal, a place of learning and research, inspired in part by the lore in TES II: Daggerfall. The Temple features a staff enchanter and a spider scroll crafting station introduced by the Dragonborn DLC. It also houses a statue of Jhunal, the nordic god of wisdom and magic. By default the Temple can only be accessed via a subtle snowy portal at the Docks (right next to the campfire), however, if you have Cities of the North - Winterhold and its patch in this mod's download section then you will also be able to access the Temple through the Jarl's Castle.

Just outside of the Mead Hall down at the docks, is a statue of Kyne with a shrine to the goddess and a plaque that memorializes those who died in the Great Collapse.


::THE GREENHOUSE::

The greenhouse is maintained by the Alchemist's husband and a farmer from the Mead Hall. It can be found at the Temple, head downstairs and you will find the entrance to the greenhouse. You can grow up to 80 plants there. There are many plants that already grow there and combined with the Fishery and Docks, it exists to explain where the citizens of Winterhold are getting their food from.


::THE MENU SYSTEM::

The mod now allows players to make tweaks to a few of its features via a menu system. Equipping an Amulet of Jhunal and praying at any of the Shrines of Jhunal or Shrines of Kyne will grant access to the menu. You can typically find these amulets near these shrines or one can be purchased from Vithar, a high elf merchant who sells unique loot that are exclusive to this mod. The menus will allow players to do the following:

• Disable and enable the mannequins at the Urdarbrunnr player home. It's recommended to disable the mannequins should the player decides to invite other NPCs to the home.
• Allows players to increase or decrease the number of child beds and follower beds in the home. By default the home has 2 child beds and 4 follower beds but this can be flipped to 6 child beds or 6 follower beds if the player choses.
• Grants players the ability to deactivate or reactivate the Quest Reward system, the feature that allows merchants to sell items connected to quests and questlines.
• Offers the ability to give a bonus 10000 septims to the new merchants should players desire the ability to sell more loot without having to leave the Hold to do so. Please note that this setting is disabled by default.
• Gives the ability to enable or disable extra lights in Winterhold, perfect for those with mods that makes Skyrim's nights even darker.
  

::REQUIREMENTS::

• Skyrim - Latest Version
• Dawnguard
• Hearthfire
• Dragonborn
  

::INSTALLATION::

First of all, if you play with the older versions of Skyrim (Skyrim 1.5.97 to Skyrim 1.6.640) then you will need to use Backported Extended ESL Support because the mod was updated with the latest Creation Kit. Install the mod manually or virtually with your preferred mod manager. The mod will update automatically in-game soon after you load a save with the mod enabled (this will only occur once). Wait for the update to complete, then travel to Winterhold to see the changes.

If you're already playing the game and would like to install the mod mid-playthrough then do the following: Head to and enter an interior cell like an inn or house in a distant hold like Markarth, make a hard save, then close the game. Once you've loaded a save with the mod enabled, then the mod will update automatically (this only occurs once), after it is done updating then wait for at least 30 in-game days before you head back to Winterhold. Thankfully, you can use the Better Sleep Wait Menu mod to make this part less annoying. If you don't like the mod then uninstall it and rollback to a pre-install save and be sure to delete any/all post-install saves even the autosaves. Don't continue your playthrough with a post-install save that simply has Winterhold Restored uninstalled, you need to continue with a pre-install save because this mod has scripts.


::UPDATING::

Once again if you play with the older versions of Skyrim (Skyrim 1.5.97 to Skyrim 1.6.640) then you will need to use Backported Extended ESL Support as the mod was made with the latest version of the Creation Kit. Before updating to a new version, dismiss any of the new followers from this mod if they are following you, head to and enter an interior cell like an inn or house in a distant hold like Markarth, make a save, then close the game.

Update the mod by reinstalling it with the latest version, ideally you should do this with a mod manager. Once you've loaded up the game wait for at least 30 days before you head back to Winterhold. You can use the Better Sleep Wait Menu mod to make this part of the process easier. Once in Winterhold, pray at the Shrine of Jhunal and wait for the in-game update to complete. Why do you have to wait for those 30 in-game days? Cells need enough time to reset all the objects that are stored within it, if I made significant changes to an interior or exterior cell(s) in the new update and you immediately went to Winterhold then it's possible that you won't see the changes immediately. Also if you do not do this step then you will likely see some of NPCs standing still for prolonged periods of time until proceeding to do their tasks - these things have nothing to do with the mod it's just how the Skyrim engine works. This is a good practice to adopt even if you don't use this mod, but use the other city overhauls that are still being updated by their authors.


::UNINSTALLATION::

This mod has scripts and shouldn't be uninstalled on an ongoing save that had the mod enabled. If you decide to uninstall the mod, then uninstall it and revert to the pre-installation save(s) that was made by following the Installation procedure above.




::MOD COMPATIBILITY::


::MERGING PLUGINS::

Please do not merge the plugins of the patches that are available in the download section. Creating a merged patch is fine as there's a key difference between merging plugins and making a merged patch.


::COMPATIBLE MODS::

• Built-in compatibility for Skyshards and Skyshards - Tweaks and ESLed.
• Built-in compatibility for Hearthfire Multiple Adoptions.
• Built-in compatibility for DynDOLOD.
• Built-in compatibility for RS Children Overhaul and other child overhaul mods.
• Built-in compatibility for Convenient Horses.
• Built-in compatibility for mods that alter the appearance of vampires like Humanoid Vampires SE.
• Mods that add NPCs to the city of Winterhold.
• Mods that alter the interiors of the vanilla buildings in Winterhold.
  

::SLIGHTLY COMPATIBLE MODS::

The following mods become fully compatible as long as this mod's .esp file is loaded after their .esp file or is positioned lower down your mod load order:

• Thunderchild - Epic Shouts and Immersion
• Cutting Room Floor
• Bring Out Your Dead
• Winterhold Gate SE
• Obscure's College of Winterhold - Please do not use the Winterhold Restored patches from that mod as it is unnecessary, obsolete and will actually introduce stability issues if you use them. Simply load the .esp file for Obscure's College of Winterhold before Winterhold Restored.esp.
• Immersive College of Winterhold
• Magical College of Winterhold
• Immersive Citizens - AI Overhaul SE
• Skyrim Better Roads (SkyBeRoads)
• Recorder - Standalone Fully Voiced Follower
• Clockwork (SSE)
• Missives
• Outlaws Refuges
• Realistic Water Two
• Lootable Woodpiles
• Winterhold College Hideout - Please do not use the patch created by JohnnyQuest101 in that mod's download section as it is obsolete and will likely introduce stability issues. Loading the .esp file for Winterhold College Hideout before Winterhold Restored.esp will suffice.
• iNeed - Food Water and Sleep (Extended Version)
• College of Winterhold mods
• Any mod that try to edit the exterior cells in Winterhold
• Any mod that strictly edits vanilla references within the cells in Winterhold
• Any mod that only edit the vanilla navmesh of exterior cells in Winterhold
• Any mod that alter the vanilla landscape around Winterhold, for instance, raises or lowers the land
• A few mods that add a small static or structure to Winterhold, but this depends on where it's added
  

::INCOMPATIBLE MODS::

The following mods are either slightly incompatible or completely incompatible with this mod:

• Carriage and Ferry Travel Overhaul - Patch Available
• Cities of the North - Winterhold - Patch Available
• Better Dynamic Snow - Patch Available
• Simplicity of Snow - Patch Available
• Interesting NPCs - Patch Available
• JK's Skyrim - Patch Available
• No Snow Under the Roof - Patch Available
• Northern Vanilla Farmhouses - Patch Available
• The Scarlett - A Buildable Ship (SE) - Patch Available
• Windyridge - Player Home in Winterhold - Patch Available
• Farmhouse Chimneys SE - Patch Available
• Convenient Carriages - A patch is available through its installation. Just be sure to load its patch (CC_WRWint_Patch.esp) after Winterhold Restored - JKs Skyrim Patch.esp.
• Any mod that adds buildings or large structures to Winterhold like the other Winterhold mods
• Any old patch (that specifically edits the navmesh of Winterhold) that was designed for the older versions of Winterhold Restored. Those navmesh patches will likely introduce stability problems to Winterhold.
  

::RECOMMENDED MODS::

Please note that the following are not requirements - some were used in the screenshots while others will add more stability to your mod load order, even if you don't use this mod:

• Dynamic Distant Objects LOD - DynDOLOD - This will improve the quality of the LODs in the game and will allow you to properly assign tree LODs that match your own tree mods via the use of tree billboards. You can learn how to set up DynDOLOD for your mod load order here. If you do not use DynDOLOD then you will have no choice but to use the "Winterhold Restored - LOD Patch" in the download section.
• A Merged Patch created with SSEEdit is recommended to increase compatibility between mods in general. You can learn how to create a merged patch here.
• A Bashed Patch created with Wrye Bash could improve the likelihood of items from other mods becoming available for sale by this mod's new merchants. You can learn how to create a bashed patch here.
• Nordic Snow
• Better Frost - Use this mod if you would like the horses in Winterhold to look like the ones in the screenshots.
• Better Sleep Wait Menu will make it easier for you to wait the 30 days after mod updates.
• Real Mountains
• Vivid Weathers
• BethINI is a fantastic tool that optimizes and tweaks your Skyrim INI files to run the game smoother and with less lag.
  

::PERMISSIONS::

Please do not upload this mod to other websites. Anyone can make a translation for this mod and my other mods without seeking my permission. The only thing that I ask is that you at least upload the translation to the Nexus or create a Nexus mod page to act as a mod mirror (so that mod users can download the file that is already hosted on the other website via the Nexus). For those out there who own a website, then it's perfectly fine if you host the translation on other websites, but all I ask is that you please maintain a separate mod page or mod mirror page for the translation here on the Nexus in addition to that copy on your website so that mod users can find it easier.