"Windhelm is the oldest city in Skyrim and may be the oldest human city on the continent."

A city with much history, tradition and ethnic conflict carved into it's stones.  And lots of snow.

Did you endorse this mod? Get your Offical Cerificate here:  Official Seal of  Approval 

Riften? Riften isn't getting finished. I'm sorry. Two reasons, 1. no free time, just logged in on the nexus today for the first time in like two(?) years. 2. I think I've lost the files due to a shitty backup when moving over the an new computer.... Really sorry about that.

Whiterun Expansion? click  Capital Whiterun Expansion at Skyrim Special Edition Nexus - Mods and Community
Quest help? Capital Windhelm Expansion (Skyrim) - Quick Quest Guide - YouTube

Read description and sticky post before asking questions.

FEATURES INSIDE THE WALLS:
Many new buildings, and multiple shops. Check out the video tab for some seriously good showcases.

- New, more open city layout
- A completely "new" model for the graveyard that I restored, (found in game files)
- The pit/arena is restored along with some voiced NPCs (you can fight there now! - compatible with Faction Pit Fighter mod)
- A Shop selling winter goods
- A smith specialized on axes
- Two bakeries (one fancy, one for commoners)
- A meadery
- A dunmer alchemist/magic goods shop
- A small tavern/soup kitchen
- racism 
- A small Windhelm-focused museum
- A new playerhome, Graystone Lodge. A cheap place in the gray quarter.
- A thieves guild safehouse. 

- Over 40 new NPCs
- Too lazy to count the exact number. They're spread out around town to avoid performance going to shit,.
- Some NPCs with unique dialogue that was cut, has been restored (it's compatible with Cutting Room Floor)
- The new npcs all have AI packs set up, so they'll do stuff around town. Practicing fighting in the day, drinking mead in the evening and so on
- Most of the new NPCs will have some dialogue and/or greetings using vanilla voice acting
- A few of the new NPCs will have some custom-made outfits.
- A fence who will buy stolen goods, you don't have be a guild member to trade. You have to find him yourself though. 

- Various new decorations around town.
- DLC-integration. Which is a fancy way to say I added in some stuff from DLCs. Like Dark Elf decorations in the Gray Quarter (from Dragonborn DLC). Some shops will offer imported Solstheim goods. 
- New books and some readable inscriptions around town describing Windhelms long history

FEATURES OUTSIDE THE WALLS:
- Small Dark elf shanty town to the east
- A new dock district to the west/front, with a small tavern
- The frozen wheelhouse from the concept art.
- Ice floe shortcuts to cross the river without freezing to death

Three new merchants will sell their goods on the Bridge to the main gate:
- An imperial peddler
- A dark elf peddler
- A nord fisherman


QUEST FEATURES - EFFECTS ON WINDHELM:
Depending on what quests you finish there will be some small changes around town.

- Civil War - Imperial victory will lead to the biggest changes. Shrines to Talos will be removed, banners will be replaced, some npcs will change etc. 
- Rise in the East -  East Empire Company entrance will get some new decorations
- Blood on the Ice - Flowers and candles will be placed where a certain NPC was killed
- After you finish some quests added by this mod, certain npcs might like you more and there might be a small scene or two


NEW QUESTS
Some are simple, some a bit more complex. It's all voice acted with recycled vanilla dialogue (and a little splicing/editing). 

1. Severed Cold - There's been a mysterious attack on the dunmer camp outside the walls. Noone seems to remember what happened. You investigate.
1b. Severed Cold - there's a secret unmarked mini quest related to the quest above. I'm not telling you exactly what it is though.
2. Unusual Imports - Signy got some unwanted guests in her last shipment from Solstheim
3. Collecting the Edda - Hoki is collecting poetic verses for his Windhelm Edda
4. The Talos Mistake - Hverung is on a one-man crusade against the Thalmor. Help him root out a spy. Or don't.
5. Kyne's Trial - Frida has heard rumors of a "bear the size of a mammoth"
6. Hunting Trip (repeatable quest) - Frida needs furs
7. The Mead Must Flow (repeatable quest) - Manheim needs someone to deliver his mead to various taverns
8. Delivery - Wilhelm needs to someone to deliver a purchase agreement to Higil

Quest Guide/Walkthrough:
Capital Windhelm Expansion (Skyrim) - Quick Quest Guide - YouTube


INSTALLATION
There has been significant changes to Windhelm. New game recommended. Some NPCs & objects might not behave correct if you add this mid-game. Like the dock gate. If you install this on an existing game, backup your save first.

1. I recommed saving your game somewhere that's not Windhelm. Before installing. 

2. Choose one version. The only difference between Cutting room floor edition and normal is an npc called Sulvar. Everything else is the same.

2. Install as usual, I recommend using a mod organizer, like mod organizer. Or vortex. It's up to you. 
- If you wanna do a manual install there's 3 files. "WindhelmSSE.esp" "WindhelmSSE.bsa" and "WindhelmSSE- Textures.bsa". Put them in your Skyrim/Data folder.

3. Quicksave and reload, and you're good to go. 

For LOD, run DyndoLod or SSELODGEN.
If you use DyndoLod, make sure it's the latest version.  Don't forget to run texgen & read the manual.
Lod generation It is not required, but the outside might look weird from a distance if you don't generate. 

You do not need to generate LOD for "0WHMiniBearQuestWorld". It's included. It's a mini worldspace you visit for one quest.

COMPABILITY
If it's not included here, I haven't tested it. So I don't know.  But in general it works like this:

Mods editing vanilla NPCs should be OK. You will need a patch if you use RS  Children or similiar mods though.
Mods editing texures should be OK (for example Noble Skyrim) .
Mods editing only interiors (the inside of buildings/shops/palaces etc) should be OK.
Mods like JKs, DoS and others that move things around outside or place new objects will likely need a patch.
Mods that edit Windhelm navmesh will likely need a patch.
If you have mods that adds a lot of NPCs you might need this: Actor Limit Fix at Skyrim Special Edition Nexus - Mods and Community

CURRENTLY NOT OK 
Bells of Skyrim - Gonna need a patch
Open Cities - Gonna neeed a patch
Snowy AF - Gonna need a patch

Quickest way to find out if it works, is to test it yourself. 

PATCHES ETC
These patches aren't made by me. I'm not making any patches, you are free do it yourself.

- JKs and Dawn of Skyrim - Patches in Optional Files 
- More Khajiit Speak Patches - (Capital Windhelm Expansion and More To Say) at Skyrim Special Edition Nexus - Mods and Community
- Narrative Loot - Capital Windhelm Expansion Patch at Skyrim Special Edition Nexus - Mods and Community
- Capital Windhelm Expansion Realistic RS Children Patch at Skyrim Special Edition Nexus - Mods and Community
- Capital Expansions- Guards Armour Replacer Patches at Skyrim Special Edition Nexus - Mods and Community
- Capital Windhelm Expansion - City Entrances Overhaul Patch at Skyrim Special Edition Nexus - Mods and Community (nexusmods.com)
- JK's Skyrim_Dawn of Skyrim_Capital Whiterun - Fixes and Patches at Skyrim Special Edition Nexus - Mods and Community (nexusmods.com)
Also check optional files.
If you want to change the outfits of NPCs try this:
Simple NPC Outfit Manager at Skyrim Special Edition Nexus - Mods and Community

HOW TO REPORT A BUG/PROBLEM:

1. Post bug report in bug report section
2. Make sure to test if you have the problem with only this mod installed. 
3. Are you playing on a new or existing save?
4. Check the bug reports to see if your issue has already been mentioned 
5. Use this: More Informative Console at Skyrim Special Edition Nexus - Mods and Community

PERFORMANCE
More stuff generally means lower fps. Difficult to avoid. I tried to keep things somewhat optimized though. If you can already run Windhelm smoothly you should be OK. 

Stuff you maybe want to know

- If you go to Iron Hall in the evening they might have a poetry night going on.
- There's over 573 new lines of voiced dialogue , not counting quests and scenes. 
- The new books is mainly stuff from the UESP wiki.
- The Windhelm expansion didn't end up looking as good as my Whiterun (Windhelm is Windhelm after all), so I put extra effort into NPCs and quests. 
- There's a shitload of unused Windhelm assets in the game files (some of them are unused for a reason though). I brought back some of the passable ones.

In fact the impression I got when making this mod is that Bethesda had a lot of cool concepts they were trying out for Windhelm, then one day someone was like "ah shit the deadline is tomorrow" and they  just threw together what they had. Of course they still put together something with it's own unique character and there's a lot of thought that has gone into the design,  it's just that other cities seem more polished  cohesive (?) in comparison. 


CREDITS

Concept art
Adam Adamowicz Skyrim Concepts | Flickr

Oaristys and CD PROJEKT RED
Modder's Resource Pack - The Witcher Extension at Skyrim Nexus - mods and community
I used a few models from here that suited Windhelm.

dwemer156 
Extra Meshes at Skyrim Nexus - mods and community
Used a few models from here that I thought suited Windhelm.

Soldierofwar
The Great Cities Modders Resource Centre SE at Skyrim Special Edition Nexus - Mods and Community
Used one building

Phitt & Tamira
Phitt's Sheogorad Resource - Part Two at Skyrim Nexus - mods and community
Used some shacks for the Dunmer camp. (I retextured them with vanilla Windhelm-style textures)

Threeton - TD18 Lore-Friendly Hair
TD18 Lore-Friendly Hair at Skyrim Nexus - mods and community
Neat hair. Used some hair for some of the new npcs. 

Some_Random_Guy_83
Enhanced textures detail (UV-tweaks) at Skyrim Special Edition Nexus - Mods and Community
Used some of his anti-light flickering Windhelm models. 

Mharlek1
Beards of Power at Skyrim Special Edition Nexus - Mods and Community
Used a powerful beard for a powerful character

Elza
Melt in the Mouth - Sweets Resources SE at Skyrim Special Edition Nexus - Mods and Community
Nord chocolate is lore friendly.

More Mods for Windhelm
Better Windhelm Ground Meshes at Skyrim Special Edition Nexus - Mods and Community (nexusmods.com)
Epic Windhelm Expansion - Base at Skyrim Special Edition Nexus - Mods and Community (nexusmods.com)
Restoring the Aretino Residence SE at Skyrim Special Edition Nexus - Mods and Community (nexusmods.com)
Windhelm Improvements (Snowy Windhelm) at Skyrim Special Edition Nexus - Mods and Community (nexusmods.com)
Windhelm Expansion - Grey Quarter at Skyrim Special Edition Nexus - Mods and Community (nexusmods.com)

PERMISSIONS
There's a whole bunch of models that I've edited myself. You're can use them if you want. Just give me credit, link to this page. No paywalls allowed.

Not all of the stuff is made by me , and the files are maybe a bit unorganized. You can message me if you are not sure who the file belongs to.

If you wanna make a patch/port or translation or whatever that's fine. You don't have to ask me.

If you're porting this to Xbox, oldrim, alexa etc make sure to mention that I can only provide support for the SSE PC version and that you're the one who made the port. Also this might not run as well on xbox. I dunno why. I don't have an xbox. Maybe the hardware is too old & weak.

SUPPORT
I made a Ko-Fi page, if you want to buy me coffe.  There's some screenshots on stuff I am working on as well.