Winds Of The North

Winds of the North is a modlist designed to improve Skyrim's gameplay, integrate new content into the world, and enhance its visuals while retaining that nostalgic feel of the original game.
There is lots of new content to explore, carefully curated in game music, Creation Club integration, and improved graphics from upscaled textures and Community Shaders.
I have tried my best to make a list that I feel is consistent, challenging, and fun to play.

Almost every aspect of gameplay has been overhauled in some form, primarily by the "Simonrim" mod suite.
At Simonrim's core is the perk overhaul called "Adamant". Adamant rebalances the entire perk system to allow for more meaningful perks, while at the same time, avoiding bloating the skill menu with a massive amount of extra perks. I like to think of Adamant as simply what the vanilla game *should* have been.
A new Hand to Hand skill has been added, magic is more useful and consistent, perks are more meaningful, combat is challenging but rewarding, and much more.

Winds of the North includes several mods that add new lands to explore, new quests to complete, and exciting new dungeons to delve into.

"Wyrmstooth adds a new quest that takes the Dragonborn to the island of Wyrmstooth situated north of Solitude across the Sea of Ghosts. Battle across new landscapes and through new dungeons in this expansion-sized mod. The task may seem simple enough: slay a dragon that's stirring up trouble. But things never quite go that easily..."

Skyrim Extended Cut - Saints and Seducers (also known as "ECSS") is a fantastic mod that overhauls the existing quest for the "Saints and Seducers" Creation, replacing it with a fully voiced, entirely new questline in which you return to part of the Shivering Isles.

Travel to a group of small islands north of Skyrim, where you can explore new dungeons, fight new enemies, and complete a questline where you search of a powerful ring called the Band of the Wraith.

"Morthal Barrow is a lore-friendly dungeon mod, intended to feel like vanilla content, and is based on its appearance in the The Elder Scrolls Online. It can be found close to the town of Morthal, turning the already existing unmarked ruin (named "Black Arts Ritual Site") into a fully-fledged dungeon. "

"Taarengrav Barrow is a lore-friendly dungeon mod that is supposed to feel very much like vanilla content and as if it's been there from the start. It is based on its appearance in The Elder Scrolls Online. The dungeon can be found close to the Rift Imperial Camp (see map screenshot) and is also fully Radiant Quest enabled."

Winds of the North includes most of the excellent "quest expansion" mods by Jayserpa. These mods add new ways to complete some of the vanilla quests that we are all familiar with.

One of the primary goals when making Winds of the North was to try to improve upon the general art direction of Skyrim rather than replace it. Therefore, I rely heavily on mods like "Community Shaders" and "Vanilla Remastered" to enhance to visuals.
There are also many other mods that touch up the game in all sorts of ways, from armor retextures by Xavbio (https://next.nexusmods.com/profile/xavbio/mods), to overhauled weathers from "Classic Weathers".

Game audio in Winds of the North is touched up by a fantastic mod called "Audio Overhaul for Skyrim SE" by DylanJames.
A quote from the modpage describes this mod better than I ever could, "The overall style and tone moves away from a "gamey" soundscape and instead uses more real-life audio behavior as a guideline. Audio Overhaul for Skyrim tries not give itself away as a mod. Through subtlety and coherence, new and old content should meld together seamlessly..."

Aside from modified game audio, Winds of the North also includes a custom music mix to breath new like into Skyrim's soundtrack. I am VERY careful when selecting new tracks to add to this mix.
It is essential to me that new tracks fit in seamlessly with the existing OST. This isn't the kind of list that you will hear Witcher 3 music in.



Music for the mix is mostly from:
"The Northerner Diaries - Immersive Edition (music by Jeremy Soule)" (the composer for Skyrim)
"Chapter II - Jeremy Soule Inspired Music" by DreymaComposer
"Additional Music" by Leon van der Stadt (the composer that made the Wyrmstooth music)

If you would like to read more about the list, head to Gameplay Guide
If you would like to install Winds of the North, please head to the Installation Guide and follow the instructions.
The full load order library list can be viewed "here".