Volkihar Castle Rebuilt
Giorgina Makara
After the Dawnguard quest line is over, have you ever wondered why nobody bothers to rebuild Castle Volkihar? Harkon may have been an obsessive lazy vampire, but that doesn't mean you need to be! Now you can rebuild the castle as you see fit, whether you're a vampire lord yourself and just want the stinking mess cleaned up, or a member of the Dawnguard seeking to expand into a new base and occupy some new territory.
At several locations throughout the Main Hall, Volkihar Ruins, Volkihar Courtyard, the Undercroft, and the docks behind the castle will be rubble piles or debris columns you can use to clean up the area around them. You'll need a pickaxe to do so, but that's it. After that all you need is the patience to see things through.
If you are playing as a vampire, your existing vampire minions will continue to provide their normal functions, just in a much cleaner environment. After all, what are we? Vampires or slovenly trolls? To clear the path to the Courtyard, speak to Garen Marethi as usual.
If you're playing as the Dawnguard, cleaning up rooms in the main guildhall area will bring in new Dawnguard members to man the stations that the vampires used to. The blacksmith, apothecary, and vendor will offer services appropriate to Dawnguard members. Ownership of the various castle cells will also be marked properly so you won't get accused of stealing the stuff you fought so hard to take. As a small added bonus, Fort Dawnguard will get cleaned up properly too. No more cobwebs lurking about!
If playing as the Dawnguard, Serana can now be directed to move into the castle and use her cleaned up room by lighting the candle on the corner of her nightstand (the one with the cloth mat). When the flames are lit, she will stay at the castle when dismissed. If they are out, she will stay at Fort Dawnguard. This candle will be lit permanently if playing for the vampires to indicate she stays there when dismissed. As an added bonus, she will make full use of the entire cell in either location, instead of just being narrowly restricted to the main hall areas.
Valerica's Study and the hallway outside that leads down to the secret fireplace passage will clean up when you go to the Soul Cairn to tell her Harkon is dead. Best to let the senior vampire handle her own affairs
Clearing the North Tower attached to the Courtyard provides a player home with safe storage, 3 mannequins, some weapon racks, 3 bookshelves, and a place to sleep too. Be aware though that the North Tower is the ONLY room you can clear out where storage is safe.
Go to the home page, then click on 'downloads' at the top of the page. Then you click on Skyrim in the sidebar. Once loaded, click on Houses and Dwellings. You will find Castle Volkihar Rebuilt on the Houses and Dwellings page.
I have always wanted something like this for Winterhold Like I love the Winterhold restored mods but the canon lore is that Winterhold is in ruins so it would be a nice money sink if the player could pay to rebuild winterhold and make it over the game into a proper town. I had quietly thought it must not be possible but this mod shows it is.
My fantasising about mods that don't exist aside this looks great and if I can find a way to make it fit into my load order I will.
Do the piles have to be activated in a certain order? I went into Volkihar ruins and tried to do the first clean spot. After one hit, animation would quit. So, I cleared area of all hostiles and started at the end and worked my way back. However, there are 2 clean spots that when activated, there is no animation and I'm frozen for a few seconds. I can spin around but can't move until I'm guessing is the time the animation would have been done.
I love this mod, but I'm having an issue where npc's who I now have living in the rebuilt castle are getting stuck at the door out of the undercroft that leads to the courtyard. They will stand at this door and the animation plays of them trying to open it, but they never leave, just perpetually stuck in the undercroft. the door works for me both ways, but not for npcs coming out. NPC's are able to enter from the courtyard. I'm stumped!
After obtaining Auriel's Bow, the quest Kindred Judgement does not start. Serena does not talk and the journal does not show the quest. I have tried using console commands to reset the quest and set it to the part where I talk Serena but that did not work (instructions used were from here). I tried installing the unofficial patch for dawngaurd (and the ones for the other DLC's and Skyrim) and loading a previous save to before obtaining the bow and working back to that point, it also did not help. Anyone have any suggestions or have fixed this themself?
If reloading is not working then I'm not sure if there is much of a solution on any of the consoles. The issue is that the quest didn't progress correctly and thus there isn't much to do from there. Other than maybe reloading from way before getting to Vyrthur or perhaps not picking up the bow after defeating him but instead fooling around a bit (such as attacking Serana or Gelebor, fast traveling away, etc) and then grab the bow after all of this.
Hi, I tried everyones suggestions, even the death hounds, they were both alive in the castle. I loaded a previous save too, But kindred judgement still wasn't starting. So I went onto my mods to see if anything could be interfering with the quest, I disabled 'castle volkihar rebuilt' and 'nicer castle volkihar' and then it worked! I was so happy to hear Serana say "it's not as shiny as I expected" lol I thought I would comment my success for other people googling the issue. Hope it helps ??
That I know of, you could try resetting the area via fast travelling and such before grabbing the bow but after killing Vyrthur. I've heard some people try blowing Serana and/or Gelebor off the shelf and then waiting for them to return to grab the bow can work before though it sounds like the issue usually persists anyway.
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