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About this mod
A secret getaway for Wizards free of the opulence and craziness that often comes along with a modded playerhome. Get everything you need under one roof with a few bonuses and some cool magic junk to look at!
- Permissions and credits
The Wizard's Oculory
Welcome to the Oculory! An underground haven for the magically inclined, created by the Dwemer, co-opted by a group of mysterious (and imaginative) wizards, abandoned by a madman, and found by you, the player!
I created this mod for my own personal use upon trying to find a reasonable mage-themed player home and finding that every one of them was just... too much. While this mod certainly contains a decent bit of detail, and could possibly be said to include features that stretch the boundaries of the lore (though not by much, in my humble opinion), I've done everything I can to ensure this place was designed with vanilla Skyrim in mind. The Oculory contains three major sections, each with a host of their own benefits. But before you can explore that, you need to know how to get in, I guess. I mean a smart wizard would just figure it out, but I can do a bit of hand holding (since I absolutely was not bothering to make quest markers).
Location and Access
The Oculory is located inconveniently far in the mountains in the northern Reach, due west of Mor Khazgur, north by northeast from Deep Folk Crossing. Luckily, I designed this to accommodate myself, a player who doesn't use fast travel, and relies on expanded carriage mods to get around. This brings us to the final invention of the Head Keeper... The Wardrobe of Displacement.
After a long night of drinking mead at The Frozen Hearth, one may step outside for some fresh air. And if the night is clear, one may notice a faint blue glow on the mountain ridge just to the west of the side trail out of town. If one is feeling adventurous, they may wander this trail, scale this mountain, and come across a wardrobe... and if one has ever read a book in their life, they'll do the most logical thing they can think of, and they will climb inside this wardrobe. What follows is a mind boggling feat of magic, a wonderful, unimaginable mystery, and also a result that is terribly obvious. The Wardrobe is accessed most easily by taking the trail that runs behind the Jarl's House, taking a left where it opens up into the snowy field, and cresting the small mountainous terrain that overlooks Winterhold.
The Viewing Room
The Viewing Room is where the great and wise Keepers of the Oculory would discuss their findings, compare their notes and argue about where they believed they should take the future of magic in Tamriel. This is where you will find the Oculory Garden, The Wardrobe of Displacement, and the prism rune the Keepers created to ensure that their trees would never wilt, and that their supply of ingredients would never run dry. The tranquil garden also makes for a great spot to sleep, with its comfortable, luxurious... stone beds. Well, okay, it was good enough for the Dwemer and they're probably gods now, or something.
The Main Hall
The Main Hall is where you'll find the majority of your crafting stations, and ample amounts storage to suit them. Divided into four quarters, each furnished to accommodate its area of study, you'll locate your Smithy, Enchantery, Alchemists Hub/Kitchen, and the Library. Using their talent, time, and raw magical prowess, the Keepers were able to acquire even the most unique of stations to suit their crafting needs- no longer do you need to travel to a spooky mine or a withering tree just to perform the simple task of creating an elemental spider out of a rock, or turning a wooden stick into a weapon of mass destruction. The Library also contains some statues and replicas for flair- one of the Keepers was something of an engineer! At least, in the sense that they made recreations of moving things that don't move... or serve any real purpose... okay, so maybe they were more of a sculptor.
The Bedroom
The Bedroom is where the real magic happens, so they say... no, really! Containing a desk with some inexplicably immovable artifacts and cool, glowing visuals, this place has it all! Oh right- more importantly, it contains the custom crafting station exclusive to this mod; the Gem Pool. Decades of working with soul gems and mastering the schools of alteration and alchemy brought about one of the greatest inventions of the Oculory, a magic solution that harnesses the very power of the Aether itself! Using the Gem Pool, one can combine two gems of nearly any size to form an even larger gem, capable of holding a larger soul! And if one isn't too uncomfortable with the darker side of magic, or at least reaching into a chest cavity or two, they may be able to push the natural limits of what a gem can handle...
x2 Petty Soul Gem = 1 Lesser Soul Gem
x2 Lesser Soul Gem = 1 Common Soul Gem
x2 Common Soul Gem = 1 Greater Soul Gem
x2 Greater Soul Gem = 1 Grand Soul Gem
1 Grand Soul Gem + 1 Human Heart = 1 Black Soul Gem
Considerations and Known Issues
The first thing I'd like to emphasize is that while I've done a decent bit of modding in games like Fallout 3, Fallout 4, and New Vegas, this is my first time creating a Skyrim mod of this scale (I've only made a cabin for personal use and it lacked exterior navmeshing). I've run the mod through SSEEdit to check it over, there should be no issues or conflicts, and the only cells touched outside of the wilderness cell where the Oculory Lift and the Winterhold ridge are were simply opened up to copy a few items out of for the convenience of placing. These should be fully scrubbed as is, but I thought I'd specify for those people who can't help but open up every mod they download to check it out. Regardless, there is no content in this mod that should interfere with any vanilla cells, and it does not modify any vanilla records. The Oculory and it's connected cells are fully navmeshed, though there is a small gap outside the main Oculory Lift in the Tamriel worldspace where the navmesh wouldn't reconnect; The NPC's still path fine to the lift when given a moment to re-orient themselves, but it will generate a warning if you check the CK or SSEEDIT. This warning is safe to ignore. With all of this said, still keep in mind that it's possible I missed something that my playtesting didn't show me. If I did, politely let me know in the comments and I'll gladly get on it.
There is a slight visual glitch that I've been unable to reproduce consistently, this being in the Oculory. Sometimes, if you load your game while it is on screen, the rune platform in the middle of the Oculory can disappear when you turn away from it- this often only lasts a moment or two, and should be regarded as one of the classic instabilities of magic as opposed to being considered a "bug" or "something I should have found a way to fix"
Finally, the bookshelves! You've wandered into a grand wizard study room, where wizards did nothing but practice magic, and... The bookshelves are empty. While there's a note explaining why this may be (thanks for the inspiration, Bethesda) I'll give the real scoop- making bookshelves that display the books you place on them is stupid hard, and having those bookshelves display books without the player having placed them themselves is beyond my capability to figure out. The shelves WILL display any books you place on them, up to a total of 18 per shelf (enough room to display 216 of vanilla Skyrim's 337 books), but my inability to determine how to get preplaced books to show on the shelves defeated my love for immersive environments.
And with that, you're done! If you read this far, thank you for the consideration, and I hope you enjoy the mod! Check out my profile if you like my stuff- more Skyrim mods may follow, and I've got a catalogue of FO4 mods posted on the site for those who may be inclined to try them. Make sure to endorse if you like it, and comment if you can! Nothing better as a creator than to hear the opinions on your creation. Thanks again everyone!