Ever wanted to kick back and smoke a hookah and hear it bubble? Walk through Persian gardens, ask your staff for a cocktail, or make one yourself? Maybe you're more of a 'pick your own sugar cane and limes, and make it all from scratch' kind of person. Well I spent hundreds of hours, countless all-nighters, and way too much covid-quarantine-time making damn well sure you could do all those things... and more!

Hidden in the forests of Falkreath is a long lost underground Redguard palace. Souira (suh-wee-ruh, from Essaouira of Jimi Hendrix fame) is a little (huge) thing I've been working on the past few months. I tend to go through player homes like nobody's business, because I really like to explore them rather than live in them. With that in mind I tried to make one that you could play for hours and still discover new things, hopefully I succeeded. 

At the start of the game in your inventory will be a letter from a long lost friend that teaches you the map marker. Just ask one of the guards for the key. (If for any reason that doesn't work, there's one in a lockbox behind the big boulder, inside a bush.)

Many of the rooms are hidden. Some are obvious doors you just need to figure out how to open, others you could walk right past. I'll include a cheat sheet in the threads. If you explore well and interact with everything, you won't have any trouble finding them, it'll be more fun without looking at the cheat sheet. 


Rooms:

-Main Hall/Throne Room- (In game just called Souira)
The main room, with a kitchen, dining area, throne platform, and pool/lounge area. Your housecarl and court wizard stand on your throne dias during the day and a servant moves about with a tray of drinks. Both barkeeps can make you cocktails, coffee, or a meal, all on the house of course. There are also coffee and cocktail crafting stations if you don't want to bother them. 

-Grand Vestibule- 
I feel like I always get lost in large house mods so I decided to make most of the cells come from one center room for easier access and less confusion. The Grand Vestibule is a large square room with a center statue and lions around the walls. Around the sides are doors to all the various cells with signs above each indicating where you're headed. 

-Master Bedchamber-
A small two story complex with a private bathroom, a study, a closet/dressing area, a small quarters for your valet and chambermaid, the former of which can complement your outfit and give you firewood for your fire. An elevator leads to the second story where your bed is, a nice fireplace and seating area, a space to make your midnight cocktails, and a glass ceiling for a better view of the stars. There's a spell on the second story to be able to teleport here whenever needed.
New Addition: A children's room with six beds and an assortment of toys. 


-Living Quarters- (based on a Moroccan riad style, with a center courtyard and a balcony overlooking it.) 
-Foyer-
A grand entryway to what really could be a separate house mod in and of itself. Here you have your glass shaft with an elevator to the second floor, a great library and reading area, and on the other side the incredible Antistar made topographic map next to some peculiar bookshelves and another seating area.
-Kitchen-
Another kitchen and dining area with all the same amenities and a fully stocked bar. Around the bend is a bard platform and one of many floor seating areas to kick back and smoke some hookah while listening to the music. 
-Atrium/2nd Floor Bedrooms-
One of my favorite cells, a courtyard with a greenhouse, seating areas, a beautiful garden, and a balcony on the second floor with private rooms for followers, plus another glass roof so you can see the sky, and all the trees need light of course. This is also where the formal entrance to the Master Bedroom is, as opposed to the shortcut elevator shaft in the Great Hall dining area.  
New Addition: A slide and two swing sets for the kids.
-Servant Quarters-
Just a tiny cell for storage and for the servants to sleep in at night. 
-Pool Room-
Really two rooms, one with three baths of various temperatures, a cold, room-temp, and hot, plus a sauna and a steam-room. The second room has a large pool with a swim up bar, plus a connected hot tub, both with toggleable underwater jets and lights.

-Arcane Study-
A room accessed through the Great Hall for all your arcane and apothecarial needs. Follow the monk to the basement cave to access your garden.
-The Honey Lounge- 
There are seating areas with rugs, pillows, and hookahs. There's a utility closet in the corner with buttons to toggle the "Nice Underwear" doormat that I personally chuckle at every time (credit to the show Alone Together.)  There's also an elevator down to a basement living area with private rooms. 

-Grand Bathroom-
A luxurious bathroom with marble tiles and an L shaped pool and a platform island with columns and a seating hookah area. There are three bathroom stalls with individual signs that say empty or occupied and change depending on whether or not they're empty. The sinks are also functioning, the knob turns and the water fills the bowl then drains when the tap is turned off. Be warned though, the NPCs use the toilets and there are strip markers so be careful not to go barging in when the sign says occupied!

-Chapel-
An absolutely superfluous cell but with a very pretty ceiling. There are a few statues that your resident priestess, Rayela, prays down to, plus a little area for her to sleep at night. 

-Dungeon- 
Accessed through the staircase in the hallway of the Throne Hall, on the left before the large door to the Grand Vestibule. A number of cells, one suitable for a more luxurious prisoner. Plus a second room with a strange altar and two areas sectioned off by glass in which you can summon enemies and then go in to fight, or if you're feeling less amenable, turn the fire on. 

-Smithy-
A room for your crafting needs. A resident blacksmith and trainer. Plus an area for practicing your swing and archery. 

-The Lord's Tower-
An art gallery at the very top of the tower built onto the mountain above Souira. A beautiful round room adorned with something like 30-40 real works of art with individual lights above each that are of course toggleable. Here is also the access to the astronomy deck, as obviously the higher the better. 

-The Lady's Tower-
The second tower, a staircase up to a small room for the lady of the house when she's tired of your sh*t or maybe for your most respected follower. It is surrounded by windows and has great lighting.

-Great Chamber- 
Four private rooms for followers, a common seating area and bar, plus a further removed Pleasure Garden with an enclosed seating area, as well as a large two-story Roman-style pool with rug covered terraces and a diving board.

-Oasis- 
Accessed through the Pleasure Garden floor hatch, this is a small spherical cave room adorned with palm trees and a magical healing pool in the center. There's a spell on the table to be able to teleport here whenever needed.

-Conservatory-
Accessed through the Arcane Study this is a round cell I made in blender with enough lemon and lime trees to last a lifetime as well as everything you need to craft your own sugar and rum from sugarcane. 

-Storeroom-
A small complex of rooms to store all your goods. There is individual storage for alchemical ingredients in one room, and ores, leathers, etc. in the other. There may or may not also be a hidden vault.

-The East Solar & The West Solar-
Two different cells, one off of the main Throne Hall and the other from the Grand Vestibule. A solar is a small living/dining room for the noble family within a castle or great house. These are two similar but mirrored cells with a dining/seating area, and a fireplace. 

-Astronomy Deck- 
This is on top of the Lord's Tower. A small tower-top deck with an area for astronomical calculations and observance. There is also a gazebo with a seating area for soaking in the views of Lake Ilinalta. 

(List doesn't include secret rooms) 
There is also a massive glass-ceiling Persian garden and a bathhouse, among others, but where!?

Plus a few followers!
Ozzy is based on my cat so be nice to him/don't let him get you into trouble. He sandboxes through pretty much the entire space, so just like in real life: good luck finding him. 
There is also Leterah in the Oasis,
and Zenobia your housecarl, named after the ruler of the Palmyrene empire, next to your throne.
There may or may not be a small hidden cell with 4 devoted assassins ready to carry out your commands, but you'll have to find them first. The original owner wasn't too keen on flaunting them. 


Lore:
If anything seems not to align with lore, there's a note somewhere explaining it. For example: where did these tropical trees come from? Read the note in the Living Quarter pool room. Why do guards of a Redguard palace not have Redguard armor? Read the note in the study of the Master Bedchamber. There's also in the same study, 'The History of Souira' which gives the whole story. 

Backstory:
I went to Morocco and thought the architecture was just awesome, and noticed there weren't many mods in the style. archimagekhan's Mona Alta and morganmarz's Esterah were the first I came across and a huge inspiration. So in that aim, everything that could be tiled, I tiled. There are rugs everywhere, lanterns, etc. But I'm not an architect so trying to recreate the interior of spaces like the Alhambra palace was a difficulty to say the least. I also played around with a few more extensive external designs, but pretty much everything cost too much FPS, so I made the simple glass elevator. Now that I'm decently proficient in Blender I might make something and import it as an optional file, if there's interest. 
For any fellow historians/history nerds: you may notice some famous works such as the lions from the Ishtar gate of Babylon, the door of the Mausoleum of Mohammed V in Rabat, the dome of the Selimiye Mosque in Turkey, and the dome of the Shah Mosque in Isfahan, Iran, among others. 

PSA: Don't smoke tobacco kids, lung cancer ain't cool. Hookahs just really furthered the vibe. 

*File size* I originally didn't plan on sharing this mod so I didn't care about file size to make it more appealing for downloads. I wanted to use as few vanilla resources as possible and use different textures for all the floors/walls/ceilings in each cell. All of these things in my mind would make it super cool and unique for myself. The outcome of that, however, was a massive file size. I apologize on behalf of your hard drive. I made a tooooon of custom resources for this that I'll release so that others (including myself in the future) can make smaller mods using some of the same stuff. (Hypn0sef Resource Pack) *Lite* This version should be a tiny bit better since I removed the armors. 

Lastly, two known issues:
1. I've noticed the glass objects in the Main Hall sometimes don't render properly and are just see-through. It mostly happens when first entering the cell upon loading the game and goes away after leaving and reentering. I'm not sure why this happens and will continue tinkering to try and solve it. 
2. In the Great Chamber the roman-esque pool model was very difficult to navmesh so followers sometimes have trouble getting up to the second level. I tried every which way to navmesh those spiral stairs but the NPC's just do not like it. This I can also continue to tweak.

Credits:

Thanks to these wonderful authors for allowing me to use their work in this mod:

Toasty Fresh- Gothic Armor (https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/9628)
apachii- Apachii Hair (https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/2014?tab=files)
archimagekhan- Mona Alta (https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/9883)
sirwho- (https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/2385)

Thanks to these wonderful authors for allowing their work to be used freely:

stroti- Strotis Organ Resource, + like everything Stroti, I just realized I only linked the Organ
User_1603236- Melt in the Mouth - Sweets Resources (https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/72021)
betterbecause- HQ Frames and Canvas (https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/60246)
RoboBirdie- Landscaping resource 
Kriemen- Orrible Orchids LE (I'm actually not sure if I ended up using this but lets credit just in case lol)
DaggerfallTeam- Gothic Resource Set Remastered
mcmanus82- Mirrored statues
minermanb- Statue of Tiber Septim (Modders Resource)
BrettM- FPI Experiment Pack 1
Elianora- Elianora's Extra Resources
LorSakyamuni- Lor Modders' Resources
kelretu- Greenhouse Tileset
BrownPastel- CN - Resource Pack
Tamira- Phitt's Morrowind Style Lanterns, New Plants 1_3, Strotis Craftsman Tools, Strotis Treebench, New Flowers Resource, Static dishes and food resource, Assorted Resources, Strotis Castle Furniture Resource, Strotis Ovens Resource, 
Chesko- Book Pile Resource
Tonynarko67- T67 - Shelf Scrolls
monk_ide- Upper Class Furniture Pack
flintone- Orient Set
Blary- Moth in Cage Resource, BookSets Resource, OpenBooks Resource
Oaristys- Modder's Resource Pack
morganmarz- HQ Real Paintings Modders Resource
gutmaw- Snazzy HD Noble Beds
LorSakyamuni- The Witcher 3 Mega Resource Pack
bruce142- Stroti Bathroom
Artisanix- Paintings and Frames
lolikyonyu- Lolicept Resources
DarkFox127- https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/79519
EvilEyedKyo- https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/31562
jet4571- https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/7840
Anduniel- https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/23263
Tarshana- https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/2901
LWatson95- https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/22669
elinen- https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/38651
antistar- https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/4155
Runspect- https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/26132?tab=files
Ga-Knomboe Boy- https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/19268
cpuLL- https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/19048 (for dance anim)


Thanks to these awesome folks who made 3D objects available freely online:
https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/swimming-pool-nouveau-roman-classical-25-m-4f470b5761734dbabba5b9e1920abda2
https://sketchfab.com/andrea.notarstefano (Made the awesome arab-esque stuff, the pillars, the wall deco, fantastic work.)
https://www.turbosquid.com/3d-models/chair-throne-seat-3d-1411170
https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/ox-head-sculpture-paris-affae482da4c4a1e86d38a472fb1be69
https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/statue-of-a-priest-295dc4db63e44bc9ab52a713857164e0
https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/medieval-fountain-empty-952a9c257db641229902c36abb97e8bc
https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/goddard-ab07a7b46ee546cf81ff69cd4798a490
https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/egyptian-cat-statue-02b0456362f9442da46d39fb34b3ee5b



(I used so many resources that I fear I missed one. If you notice I didn't credit you, I greatly apologize, shoot me a message and I'll add it asap.)

A huge shoutout and thank you goes to dylbill, Shadeybladey, and maxarturo for the advice/letting me complain about modding to them. If not for their help this thing would be dead in the water after almost 6 months of work.
Souira