Dispatches from Northwatch: Part 7, Hearth and Home, 2 of 3

Hello.

Last Time: I entered the construction phase and built an abode most suitable for a Nord adventurer. Read it here.

This Time: I stock my chambers with all the latest items, and hire a helper or two.

Pro-Tip 1: Displaying objects doesn’t have to mean placing them on racks or in display cases. You can grab and scatter items anywhere you wish. As this rather unhinged chap did with his skulls collection.

“What’s the interior of your home look like?” Well, we’ve gone with a green-tea and earth brown for the great room, and a giant triptych of Hieronymus Bosch’s The Garden of Earthly Delights above the rock fireplace. But over at Heljarden Hall where my Skyrim hero spends most of his time, there’s a “skulls everywhere” aesthetic, and a predisposition for hoarding a large amount of rubbish. The greenhouse holds a variety of grasses, herbs, and fungi. And the kitchen is positioned to allow the baking of a variety of fancy pies (augmented by the mill in the garden outside – the only place in Skyrim where grinding flour is available). And there’s roof access so I can scramble across the exterior gables and gather rare bird eggs. It’s a windswept, rugged existence, but it becomes easier once you’ve gather a few retainers and hangers-on to help with the chores.

Pro-Tip 2: Manual labor not part of your exploration skill-set? Then hire a trusted Seward, who not only mines and quarries stone for you (for a price), and can completely outfit a room (except the cellar) for you, too. Cheers, Lydia! Now when’s my broth ready?

The Revised and Expanded Skyrim Guide has complete tables to show what you can outfit each room with, along with checkboxes so you don’t miss out on positioning every shelf, table, or wardrobe. There are also “ingredients” for the Trophy Room, so you know what you need to collect in order to display a stuffed hagraven, slaughterfish, or spriggan. Those with book-collecting on their minds could think about gathering every book in the land, and then displaying them in alphabetical order. But that might demonstrate a frightening obsessive-compulsive disorder that it isn’t wise to tell your friends about.

Pro-Tip 3: Try creating “sets” of creatures (such as “animals” with a bear, cave bear, deer, sabre cat, and wolf to theme your Trophy Room. And don’t forget to gather every single shrine in your cellar, so you can pray to your favored deity as often as you like!

More importantly, there are other improvements to your abode to make, once the chambers are filled with stuff. Buy a carriage and driver to whisk you to any town. Hire a bard to strum and warble until you have to leave or throttle them. Pay for a horse to stand in your stables. There’s an animal pen where a cow and two chickens can live comfortably. But even better, you can hire your own housecarl. Gregor, a Nord with a penchant for two-handed slicing and dicing, is an invaluable guardian. Find one by completing further jobs for the Jarl that sold you the plot of land in the first place.

How are your Skyrim home interiors looking? Then why not tell us about it?

Until next time (when I introduce you to my Skyrim family) may your homes be filled with antlers , and your Housecarl enthralled at guarding your goods…