A player-owned fort!

[kromey]

I don't think you should disqualify anything for having a badly built interior space. Most interiors seem to be designed as neat dungeon locations instead of as someone's old living space. I suspect you'd end up wanting to rearrange any stock fortification's interior to make it more liveable.

 

A fair point. Thing is, I'm inherently lazy, so if there's a place with good exteriors and interiors around, that's less work for me to get stage 1 (player can buy or otherwise acquire ownership of the fort/whatever) completed.

 

Still, you're absolutely right that interior spaces can be rearranged. For example, for Bloodlet Throne, one could easily just seal off the cave tunnels to restrict the livable space to the actual fort proper -- and that right there makes the place almost ideal for my plans!

 

Robber's Gorge does indeed lie right on a highway; the bandits have actually fortified escarpments on both sides of the road and rain boulders on any travelers that are so unwise as to pass through. There's also a cave with an underwater exit beneath the camp. The Jarl could task the Dragonborn with removing the bandits from the camp to preserve the Emperor's Peace since the Legion is too busy fighting to keep down banditry.

 

Indeed. And after the bandits are cleared, she could grant the Dragonborn the land and task him/her with protecting the travelers who use the road. Making it a minor quest to get the place initially, and then the Dragonborn has a spiffy new home that he/she can start to purchase upgrades for! :)

 

(Note to self: Make sure the player can acquire the place even after the Stormcloaks replace the jarl with one friendly to their cause.)

 

Hmm... would you necessarily need a whole exterior town? Make an inn for travelers, a small trading post for the same, and the fort's blacksmith + maybe an alchemist in service to the Dragonborn. Hmm... I'll keep thinking about it. :o)

 

"Need"? Nah. And indeed, the initial upgrades would be along those lines -- a blacksmith, an inn, a trading post, things like that that a simple fort needs. But the NPCs that operate those places need a place to live, as do the guards hired to defend the fort. And they probably would like to have their families there, too.

 

A town isn't strictly necessary, no, but it is what I want for this mod. Maybe not initially -- version 1 of the mod could be just the fort, blacksmith, inn, and a small general store -- but it's definitely where I want things to go.

[KaptTorbjorn]

In regards to getting people to populate the fort/surrounding area, rather than just having a random NPC show up, you could go collect the 'apprentices', after doing a short quest for them, to certain professionals you find dotted around Skyrim. Of the top of my head there's:

 

Shadr - Apprectice stablehand at Riften Stables

Forget name - Apprectice blacksmith to the guy in Riften

Forget name...again - Apprectice fletcher to the fletcher in Solitude

Merchant - The annoying kid in Whiterun that always says he works with Belethor

[kromey]

In regards to getting people to populate the fort/surrounding area, rather than just having a random NPC show up, you could go collect the 'apprentices', after doing a short quest for them, to certain professionals you find dotted around Skyrim. Of the top of my head there's:

 

Shadr - Apprectice stablehand at Riften Stables

Forget name - Apprectice blacksmith to the guy in Riften

Forget name...again - Apprectice fletcher to the fletcher in Solitude

Merchant - The annoying kid in Whiterun that always says he works with Belethor

 

Hm... So, using the stables for example, do you envision it like this:

1) Player buys the stables; building shows up, but it's "non functional" and no NPC is there to operate it

2) Player goes and talks to Shadr (would have to have someone point the player to the relevant apprentice, I think...)

3) Shadr says he can work for the player only after the player [insert task/mini-quest here]

4) Shadr moves to the new stables after [task/mini-quest] is completed.

 

Hm... I'm not sure about this, seems awfully tedious for very little payoff, especially if this would have to be done for every single upgrade. It also breaks a common thread that seems to run throughout the game: you always achieve something by either paying gold or completing a quest, but you never have to pay gold for the "privilege" of doing a quest!

 

On the other hand, it makes a lot of sense from an RP/immersion point of view, that your buildings are obviously unstaffed until, well, staff are hired. However, there's an implicit support network behind the player here, personified by the steward (or whatever NPC it ends up being) that the player buys the upgrades from. I'd assumed this would include handling hiring the staff.

 

Perhaps a hybrid approach? Buy the building (e.g. the stables), and spawn an NPC there. The player is also, however, told about an apprentice somewhere in Skyrim (e.g. Shadr in Riften) who could be recruited to run your building. Now you've got the building purchased, but you can also do a mini-quest to get a better staffer for it who will upgrade it in some way -- maybe Shadr working your stables makes a better horse available to you there.

 

Or another approach altogether: For buildings like the stables, the smithy, etc. -- places that are essentially businesses -- you could find the apprentice/professional somewhere in Skyrim, and do a mini-quest for them to convince them to set up shop in your fort, instead of buying the building. You would still have to buy upgrades like walls and towers and barracks, but the shopkeepers could be recruited/convinced to set up their own shops on their own. Which also makes the growing up of a town a more believable side effect -- someone moving to Robber's Gorge to set up a new business is of course going to bring their family with them!

[gofer32]

This is brilliant - I want this mod to happen.

 

Just an idea - what about Treva's Watch? One possible storyline: after you

 

 

liberate the place from the bandits, you could buy the place from Stalleo, because he's fallen on hard times and can't afford to repair the fort, now that the bandits have trashed it. Layer of irony: you could employ him as a steward in the castle he used to own.

 

 

It's small enough to be manageable but big enough to accommodate a blacksmith and so on. A bit like Faldar's Tooth, come to think of it.

 

But I reckon an establish-a-town mod could be amazing. It's like the next step after becoming a Thane. First a house, then a fort, then an entire town... named after you, naturally.

[gofer32]

Also - just a thought - what if the various upgrades earned you gold? So - for exmple you pay Shadr to upgrade and then work at the stables (i.e. you provide the start-up capital of, I dunno, 10,000 gold) and then Shadr's Stables earn you, say 100 gold a week.

 

Pretty paltry to begin with - but you could add a couple more side-quests which would increase that to 200, 500 or 1,000 (or whatever).

 

And to save you some GTA Vice City-type traipse round each business to collect your cash, the gold could simply be added to a safe in your room.

[kromey]

I'll have to check out Treva's Watch in-game (so much content in Skyrim, I've spent over 100 hours in the game and barely scratched the surface!), but my initial thoughts are that the location is less than ideal -- it's well within the borders of a hold, which severely limits the plausibility of the player establishing a new hold there. Robber's Gorge, on the other hand, is right near the point where 3 different holds meet, relatively far from any hold capital, which makes it better on that score.

 

Still, I'll check out Treva's Watch, give it a fair chance.

 

I have indeed been thinking about the player earning money as the fort/town grows. It would definitely be the case that it will take some time before the player's initial investment will be made up, as in real life. And, yes, the money will be deposited into e.g. a safe somewhere -- I hated having to visit all my various shops every so often in GTA, I certainly don't want to add that ridiculousness to Skyrim! Alternatively, the player might get it from their steward in a similar fashion to getting income from their spouse.

[DeanAnon]

Fellhammer Fort, along the southern road from Dawnstar, that's my favourite.

 

It has an Iron mine, a smelter, and small Barrack with Officer's room, perfect to edit as a home. It does need external wall repairs, better pathway leading to it, but does have space for tents and towers for followers or defence, plus high spot on top of barracks for archers (or warning fire to Dawnstar?).

 

Perhaps becoming Thane of Dawnstar could grant ownership or purchase of this Fort?

 

 

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Fort_Fellhammer

http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Fort_Fellhammer

[kromey]

I like the screenshots of Fort Fellhammer, I'll check that one out in-game too.

 

Fellhammer is actually in Winterhold, not the Pale, despite the proximity to Dawnstar; the Pale is an oddly-shaped hold that snakes around and between several of the others. So it would have to be the jarl in Winterhold, not Dawnstar, that grants the player access to it.

 

Still, if it has a suitable appearance and surrounding lands for a town, its proximity to the edge of Winterhold (while also being somewhat distant from Winterhold) makes it well-suited to my purposes, and I'll definitely check it out in-game.

[Sunnie]

Fort Fellhammer is part of Companions series, and becomes the Silverhand base of operations once you start the Companions series.

[kromey]

Fort Fellhammer is part of Companions series, and becomes the Silverhand base of operations once you start the Companions series.

 

Do any of the Companions quests actually involve the fort? UESP.net doesn't list any Companions quests under Fellhammer, and neither does it mention Fellhammer in any of the Companions quests. If it's just a fort that happens to be occupied by Silver Hand rather than run-of-the-mill bandits, I doubt there's a problem.