Bosmer Hearthfires?, Little Treehouse of Horrors Options

[ghastley]

So I'm currently playing a couple of Bosmer archers from the Gweden mod, who've made it to Skyrim. Darwen, who is very slender, with a dancer/gymnast's body, and Enilwen, who's a bit larger, rivalling Nords. Although they're taking different approaches, hunting bears and dragons respectively, they're both doing the usual sneak/archery/smithing thing for max damage, with little or no defence except RUN!!!

They'd each like somewhere to live, but haven't found anything they like. Darwen has taken over the Alchemist's shack, because it's in bear country, but she's not happy, because it's made of wood. Enilwen is sleeping in taverns, and has no fixed abode.

Dead wooden construction offends their Bosmer heritage, and neither has been to Solstheim to see Telvanni mushrooms. The options are pure stone, which isn't the best choice in cold climates, and living wood, which just doesn't seem to exist here. So I'm considering whether the latter can be fixed.

The CK has vines for wall and floor use, and I'd expect to use a lot of ivy for fill. There are bone and hide pieces that might be adapted as furniture, and mammoths have larger bones than most creatures, so their bones can be used for large items. Pelts everywhere, of course. Iron items from draugr ruins would be hauled in where they'd be useful. Even though they're not Bosmer-traditional, this is Skyrim, and they're available.

Can anyone think of any other stuff a Bosmer would use?

This post has been edited by ghastley: Apr 11 2016, 06:31 PM

[ghastley]

I've been doing a bit more fiddling with this one. I have a hollow tree stump added outside that contains a shrine to Kynareth, and also acts as the "workbench" for the construction. Kneeling at the shrine will make things appear, if you have the materials. The stump and shrine will always be there, but the construction part will be enabled by the quest.

I've added a chance of animal bones to the larger creatures that would have them (larger than wolf, and not spiders or chaurus) and I'm replacing logs with bones in some recipes. The main storage containers are now urns, that need clay to make them. The smithing items are still the original meshes that have obviously wooden parts, but I'm working on creating alternatives that use bone or iron in place of the wood. I still don't have decent shelves or chairs.

Edit: Sunday was the day to let Enilwen try out the building process. The smelter was the only piece that failed, and I've fixed that. Since I added the mod to her existing game, I gave her most of the materials via console, as the bones would take a long time to collect. In a regular game, you get a slow supply from normal play. The "pray to construct" crafting station works well, too.

However, she got attacked by a Blood Dragon when she got there, and it all took longer than I intended! And then by two Frostbite Spiders, who don't have bones.

She's now hunting, just to gauge the rate of bone collection, as I may adjust the recipes to use more or less of them. There's also a "bootstrap" issue to address, as you don't get an anvil on-site to make building material from iron. Shor's Stone isn't far, so she made her starter stuff there on the way, and I may want to prompt that in the quest (but without any dialog). You need to take enough iron fittings to make the forge, and enough ingots to make the smelter (and a leather strip for the tanning rack). Then the site can make all it needs, except for the usual "buy-only" items of straw and glass.

I need to add the Story Manager kick-off for the quest, and then I want to do it all with a freshly-rolled character. After that, maybe I'll release an 0.1 beta, even with a lack of furniture and "shelving".

Yet more edit: The wiki marks the Kyne's Sacred Trials quest at a recommended level of 20, but I suspect that is primarily because the guardians are hard for any character other than a sneaky archer. Enilwen had problems with the bear running away and hiding from her, but in all cases, she was able to find high ground where she couldn't be reached and rain arrows down on her target. The final troll was made easier by her clearing the location before going to Froki - the other trolls didn't respawn, so she only had the boss troll to take down.

Still, it looks like this will be a job for a mid-level character, and hard to use as a starter home. That is reinforced by the difficulty of gathering animal bones at low level. Most of the creature enemies don't drop them, and the deer survive the first shot and run away. It takes an improved hunting bow, steel arrows, and a couple of archery perks before you can successfully hunt the deer. Once the Sabre cats come in, it will get easier. They have bones themselves, and leave dead deer lying around.

I have a save of Enilwen before adding the mod that will probably become my start point for testing. Adding new furniture, or similar changes to the building quest, requires a fresh start, and I can't roll a new character for this one. This will become a consideration for beta-testers, too.

This post has been edited by ghastley: Jul 19 2016, 03:19 PM