Introduction.

So this is a 'player home and quest' mod. To be honest, I struggled to decide which category to put it in. There is a main quest to get the house. This starts as soon as you find the place. After that, there are another 2 quests, one is optional and can be done at any time. It can also be completed to obtain the house. Optionally, just complete the main quest the easy way by buying the house. The final quest will start automatically at some point after you've obtained the house (by either method). The optional quest takes place in a large dungeon with 7 cells.

The entire concept of the mod is based around the Thieves' Guild. Whilst it is not necessary to have any thief skills to obtain the house (you don't even need to be in the guild), good stealth skills come in very handy in the optional quest... it's designed that way.

The House.

A medium sized house called 'Mill View', situated across the lake from Heartwood Mill. No real enemies nearby, but it will be attacked by dragons and has a dragon perch on top of the roof. I don't like massive player homes. If castles are your thing, but you like the Thieves' Guild, download the mod for the quests! The odd bear may wander in if you don't keep the gates shut. Apart from that you'll see a fox or rabbit in the grounds.

Exterior: Fish hatchery, bee-hives, flour mill, Hearthfires style garden (16 plants), unique crafting oven and cooking pot plus a stable. Custom player horse. The horse has way more stamina than vanilla, is essential (can'tbe killed) and does more unarmed damage, but to ride her is classed as stealing until the house is owned by the player. 2 un-killable chickens and a couple of chicken nests.

Interior ground floor: Unique items storage (insects in jars). Player double bed and a dining table. 5 mannequins*, cooking pot, oven, shield rack and weapon plaques (6). Storage for books, drinks and food and cooking ingredients. . Candles can be lit and snuffed.

* my mannequins are a new race and should never move. This is not scripted. They are simply marked as 'immobile' and walks and swims are un-checked. Let me know if they move!

Interior cellar: smelter, forge, grindstone, armourer's table, tanning rack, arcane enchanter, staff enchanter, alchemy station. Storage for weapons, staves, ingredients, armour, soulgems, potions, enchanted crafting items, enchanted items, heartstones, gems, jewellery, leather, ingots and ore. Unique storage for paragons, dragon claws and a few other unique items. The image shows what can be displayed! Childrens' room with 2 child beds and chests. Staff bedroom with 2 beds. One bed is dedicated to a new unique actor, the other is for a housecarl. Weapon racks (10), weapon plaque, shield racks(4). Bedroom candles can be lit or snuffed.

General comments: A lot of the crafting is unavailable for use until the final quest reaches certain stages. More and more crafting becomes available until this quest is completed. You will then have every kind of crafting gear from the vanilla game, plus the exterior cooking where you can make meals added by this mod. Most, but not all storage is unique and most 'chests' have an auto-sort feature (courtesy of Lupus, with my thanks). Auto sorting can be turned on and off using menu paintings around the house.

Family: the mod has been tested with Hearthfire Multiple adoptions and will support a spouse, 2 children and a housecarl. It also works with 'Custom Family Home'. Plenty of idles for use by NPCs... heck, I was astonished to see the courier turn up in the grounds on several occasions! That bloke deserves a tip for all his running around.

The Quests.

There will be an expansion, maybe 2. This will involve getting into a dwarven ruin. For now, you cannot get into that Dwemer door, so don't waste time trying!

The main quest is to obtain the house. It starts as soon as you enter the grounds of Mill View. Like the optional quest, not everything has quest markers. This is not an error. Once you've discovered how to obtain the house, you can either buy it or solve a puzzle (not quest marked) that leads to the optional quest.

The optional quest can be completed in a number of ways, stealth is what it's aimed at but it can be done by tanking it... it's just very hard, that way. The enemies are all tougher than vanilla, some stupidly so. There are other ways to complete the quest more easily, but these are not quest marked... you have to figure them out from clues I've left.

You can also pick up a unique pet follower during this quest, but you have to find it first. I'll say no more about that and let you discover it for yourself...it has some special skills and is very stealthy!

Whilst the main objectives of the quest are marked, there are optional areas that are well worth a visit, if you can find them.

The last quest involves a new and fully* voice-acted NPC, who will act as a steward and merchant, once you do her a favour.

* She doesn't have things to say for when she blocks blows or does power attacks, but since she rarely gets to do this, I kept the mod size down (a bit) by leaving these out. I also had plans to add a bit of back story to her but I can add this later if people want it. She has all the rest including unique merchant dialogue.

Other Stuff.

New ingredients, new recipes for useful meals, some pretty handy potions.New (re-textured) weapons with useful stats and a powerful staff. A set of (lighter) golden imperial heavy officer's armour. New banners, wicked traps,

If you hate mages like I do, there are weapons in here that you'll truly love! I hate having great weapons and skills but being hammered by a mage in a dressing-gown! Get weapons to silence those milk-drinkers, once and for all!

But, but, but,.. for those that would rather roam around a frigid clime, wearing nought but a  night-gown and casting spells to keep warm... fear nought! The
solution is also here. Whilst the robes may not be in plenty, they are assured of quality. .. get your robes here and go and lay waste to those fools clad in iron! A complete set of battle-mage gear classed as light armour and heavilly enchanted.

See... I'm not biased. Well I am but I tried to be fair.

Unique items upgrading. I hated the way weapons and armour in the vanilla game are stuck at the level they are for stats and enchantments when you first get them. I have provided crafting resipes that allow you to upgrade both at certain levels, all the way up to level 60. If you like the weapons, you can keep upgrading as you level up enough. At certain levels you can make better ones at the forge or staff enchanter.

Lots of books. The books not only give you the lore related to the mod, but some contain essential clues to some parts of the quests that aren't quest marked. You really ought to read them.

I hope you like it and if you don't, just tell me. If I agree, I'll alter it for you. If you find any mistakes, let me know.

Starting the mod.

To Start... just load the game. Once you get close enough to Mill View it will start.
If you've found 'Redwater Den', go there and head south.
If you've found 'Heartwood Mill', go there and head north.
Both are a few seconds away.
You should even see an undiscovered 'house' sign on your map from both of these locations.
From Riften, head due West and you'll get there eventually.
The main quest starts as soon as you enter the grounds.

Installation.

By mod manager or install the esp and both BSA files in your SSE Data directory.

Uninstalling.

Just remove all 3 files from your Data directory.
Whilst this mod is not heavily scripted, I would not recommend uninstalling this or any mod mid-way through a play.

Mods this will conflict with.

Major: Any mod that heavilly edits the cells where the house is, especially navmesh. These are Tamriel (32, -21) and Tamriel (32, -22)
I have been made aware that Riverview Cottage by Cynndal is located on this spot. That will conflict badly. Sorry.

Moderate: 'Smooth Shores' will conflict if it is loaded after this mod. This causes the landscape to revert to vanilla and the oven on the patio ends up half buried. See image. Changing the load order rectifies this and does not adversely affect Smooth Shores'. Thanks to TBrandes for this.

Minor: I have edited death items for a few vanilla races*. If another mod edits these forms, one mod will win. All this means is that my death items may not be what you get. They are useful extras but not important for any quest in this mod.

Minor: I have edited 'Idle' sounds for the Dwarven Spider race. If another mod edits these sound files, one mod will win. No great consequence but my pet follower will not be as quiet as I wanted.

Potentially major: There is 1 trapdoor in a vanilla cell that is vital to my optional quest. The likelihood of another mod editing this spot and in such a way as to stop the quest is very slim indeed, but it could happen. Let me know if you struggle with the quest in the 'Problems And Bugs' thread. I'll see if this could be the problem.

Other comments: Grass mods may conflict in some areas but should work fine if used in conjunction with 'No Grassias Extended'. Thanks to TBrandes for this.

* Trolls, Frost Trolls, Chaurus, Goats, Falmer and Thalmor.

Special Notes.

During initial family testing I had an issue where the spouse, kids and housecarl would all troop off towards Riften. Stupidly, being NPCs and using their ALOI ('Artificial Lack Of Intelligence') they tried to cross Lake Honrich to do so and got stuck up against the fish hatchery netting. I found the answer but put in some buttons to disable 2 trapdoors while I worked on it. I've left these in with a pair of journals explaining about them. They shouldn't now be needed but if you have problems let me know. I have altered a couple of forms so that invisibility spells stay on after being hit or interacting with objects. This was done for a specific reason and I won't alter it.

Credits.

First, Lucy Newton c/o Tolquhon Gallery, Aberdeen, who very kindlypermitted me to use her beautiful 'Hare In Winter' image in the kids' room.
This is an original artwork by Lucy Newton and must not be used or re-distributed outside of this mod.
Lupus for the auto sort script.
Nickorasu for the large painting frames.
Jokerine for the small picture frames, horse image, cleaning set, ship model and kids' treat platter.

Massive thanks to my daughter for her voice acting. I couldn't have completed the mod without you, both for this and your aesthetic advice about lots of stuff.

Thanks to all on Nexus who helped me along the way. Special thanks (in no particular order) to SoupDragon1234, Maxarturo, Dylbill, NexusComa, IsharaMeradin, Rasikko, ReDragon2013, thumbincubation. If I've left you out let me know... my memory always was bad!

Questions (that you might ask).

Q. What level should I be to do the optional quest?
A. That depends. I've tested it from level 6 up to level 60. I doubt that most
players will even find the start point much before level 10. It's do-able at
level 6, but extremely tricky, even for me and I know everything in there. If
you find it too hard, just get the heck out of there! There's provision to back
out of it and go back to the easy way of getting the house.

Q. There's a barred door I can't get into. Am I missing something?
A. No, you're not. You can't get in. I was going to add even more content, but
realized I'd never release the mod until it was DLC-sized at the rate I was
going. I added the bars and activators for completeness. If the mod is well
enough received and people want more, I will add an expansion. Don't ask what
form the expansion will take because I haven't even thought about it yet.

Q. What form would any expansion take?
A. I told you not to ask. It would be based along the lines of Monty Python,
Blackadder and Top Gun... only kidding. See? I told you I hadn't thought about it!

Q. There are other locked doors I can't get into. Am I able to get in, or is this
just some other half-baked idea that you didn't finish?
A. Yes... as in, yes, other than the door above you can get into everything.
Some places do not need to be entered but can be. These locations are not quest
marked. You need to explore and look in odd places. There are some nice treats
in there, so it could be worth it.

Q. I have 'Breezehome by Lupus' and prefer the auto-sorting there. Will you
change it and add it to other storage?
A. Probably not. I'll be using my own mod and it's set up to my taste. If
enough people want this, I could offer an optional file along these lines but
that's a lot of work.

Q. I have visual mods like SMIM and I've noticed some of your stuff is vanilla.
Will you alter this to make it all high-poly meshes?
A. I may. The reason I did it this way, with 2 exceptions, is that I didn't
want to massively increase the mod size until I knew how much people enjoyed
it. I've certainly thought about it, though and could do something about it if
it's in demand. It's also a ton of work.

Q. That's dragon text on the main image. Is it genuine and what does it mean?
A. Yes, it is authentic. It means 'Ov dinok', which translates as 'Trust death'.

Q. That's all very well, but why do you write 'Trust death' on your main image.
Are you mad?
A. Yes, I am mad. I do, however have a reason for it. Find out the reason
during the optional quest.

Q. Not all of the notes in chests give skill points. Is this intended?
A. Yes. I felt I'd given enough skill points as it is.

Q. Those enemies are too OP, you idiot... How is it possible to complete the optional quest?
A. I am an idiot, but the enemies are not OP. There are other ways to finish
the quest: you just haven't found them yet.

Q. My family all get stuck in the lake. What can I do?
A. Give them arm-bands.

Q. I'm not joking... they get stuck in the lake! What do I do?
A. Use the 2 trapdoor buttons and report it to me. I'll look into it further.

Q. I've got the house but half of the crafting doesn't work. What's the point in that?
A. Complete 'The Farmer's Daughter' quest and it will all work.

Q. I've run out of beer and the shops/bars are shut. Can you help me?
A. Yes, gladly. Always plan ahead better for just this kind of medical
emergency. This is what fridges were designed for. The shelves and doors are
meant for your beer. The freezer compartment is for making ice to add to your
beer on a hot day. For yet more useful medical advice, contact me by PM. I'll
be totally insensible or otherwise engaged, but it can't harm to try. Total
waste of time, but still...

For anything else, ask in the appropriate topic section.

Enjoy!