Mortum Castle - Extra Jobs and Features Add-on
The castle is already yours. Now rule it: hold court, command its people, and keep its gate.
What this isThe castle is already yours. Now rule it: hold court, command its people, and keep its gate.
An add-on for Mortum Castle by Jbuckhalt, built with his blessing. Mortum Castle is a fortified city of a home with its own knights, men-at-arms, crossbowmen, smiths, cooks, a wizard, a huntsman and a merchant. This add-on puts them under your command. You hold court in the Throne Room and your rulings reach Winterhold, the College, the Bleakcoast and Windhelm. You fill the castle's posts, rank and pay its garrison, keep its treasury, host noble guests, answer to the Thalmor if you keep a shrine to Talos, and hold the gate when raiders come up the road.
Everything is said by the people in it. No message boxes or pop-up menus while you play: your choices carry the gold, and the castle's people answer.
Everything lives in its own ESL-flagged plugin. Mortum Castle's files and records are not changed: his soldiers keep their posts, their schedules and their looks exactly as he made them.
Instant mod help: Join our Discord and ask in #mod-help.
- It starts by itself when you load a game with Mortum Castle installed. There is no quest to do first.
- Talk to the Captain of the Guard: "The garrison, Captain." He reports how the garrison stands, drills the men and tells you what the watch knows.
- Sit on the throne in the Throne Room to hold court.
- Hire people by talking to them: "I have a position for you at one of my estates."
- Lost? Ask anyone in the castle: "Can you show me the way?"
- Most things have a setting in the MCM (Mortum Castle Extras), and each part can be switched off on its own.
See it in game
A court session in Mortum's Throne Room: the hall fills, the Captain calls each petitioner, and you rule.
Hold courtA court session in Mortum's Throne Room: the hall fills, the Captain calls each petitioner, and you rule.
- Sit on the throne between 8 in the morning and 8 at night. The screen goes dark while the court assembles: your knights and ladies, men-at-arms and crossbowmen line both sides of the carpet, the Captain and your Steward stand beside the throne, and your followers and Warband take the benches along the walls.
- The Captain calls the court to session and calls each petitioner forward. They kneel before you and speak their petition out loud. The court is voiced.
- Seventeen kinds of petition, three ways to rule each, with the gold in your answer.
- Your rulings change how Winterhold, the College of Winterhold, the Bleakcoast and Windhelm see Mortum, and it lasts. Win them over and they write to you, send gifts and trade better. Make enemies of them and it costs you.
- Some rulings become decrees that stand until your Steward revokes them: road patrols, grain for Winterhold, a tithe, a ward pact with the College, a trade charter, a harbour toll, an open granary.
- Stand up to end the court: "All rise!"
- Steward, Castle Physician, Warchief, Quartermaster, Spymaster, Huntsman, Woodcutter, Court Wizard, Lady's Maid, Bard, Court Scribe, and up to 20 Warriors.
- Each one works in their own room of the castle by day: the Treasury, the Apothecary, the West Tower barracks, the Armory, the East Tower, the Library, the Master Bedroom, the keep's hall.
- And each one does something: the Quartermaster supplies you for the road, the Court Wizard recharges your weapons, the Lady's Maid draws you a bath, the Bard plays for the hall, the Spymaster warns of raiders early, the Warchief makes the garrison fight harder, the Huntsman and the Scribe bring in gold.
- Warriors stand watch at the inner gate in three shifts, stand to when raiders come, and spar with you ("Spar with me."). With a Warchief they get better every few days.
- The castle's 19 men-at-arms, 26 crossbowmen and their Captain become a ranked garrison: Recruit, Man-at-Arms or Crossbowman, Veteran, Sergeant, Lieutenant.
- Promote a soldier by talking to him. The price is in the line. Each step makes him tougher and better with his weapon.
- Every soldier draws a daily wage that grows with his rank. Pay them and morale climbs; miss the wages and the Captain tells you about it.
- A day of drill under the Captain costs gold and lifts morale.
- Each morning at 8 the castle's six shops pay their share into the treasury and the wages go out. The castle's gold is kept in its own books; the chests in the treasury room are never touched.
- Your Steward keeps the books: ask him and your choices show what's in the treasury and what comes in and goes out each day. Pay in or take out 100, 500, 1,000 or all of it.
- The Castle Ledger on its lectern in the Treasury opens the Your Estates screen.
- Give one of the three knights a task: clear the Bleakcoast road, carry your word to Windhelm, or escort grain to Winterhold. He rides out and tells you how it went when he's back.
- The smiths arm the garrison or forge for the market, and tell you when the work is done.
- Clovis wards the gate or writes to the College. The kitchen lays a feast or sends food to Winterhold. Logan hunts or scouts the coast. Tardine opens a trade run to Windhelm.
- Your Steward orders castle works that stay: an iron-bound gate, a beacon, cellars and a larder, an infirmary, a jetty, a training yard.
- Mortum earns renown from fair rulings, raids beaten at the gate and guests well received. Ask the Captain what people say of Mortum.
- With enough renown, noble guests come to stay in the keep and pay for each night.
- Keep the shrine to Talos outside the walls and now and then a Thalmor Justiciar comes to your Throne Room. Deny it, pay him off, or throw him out. Your Steward can have the shrine taken down, and your Spymaster hears they're coming.
- Beat sea raiders at the gate and you may take their chief alive. Ransom him, take him into your garrison, or hand him to the Jarl of Winterhold.
- Every week or two an enemy comes up the road to the outer gate: sea raiders, a vampire coven or the restless dead. Each can be switched off.
- The Captain warns you a day ahead, in person at the castle or by courier anywhere else.
- They come up from below the bridge in waves and batter the outer gate. Your soldiers call it out: each wave, the gate holding or giving way. Shoot them from the walls beside your crossbowmen, or raise the portcullis and go out to meet them.
- If the gate gives way they are in the front courtyard, and a share of the treasury is carried off.
- Away from the castle? The fight is decided by the garrison's strength, and the Captain tells you how it went when you're back.
- Mortum is big. Ask anyone in the castle "Can you show me the way?" and pick one of sixteen places. A light leads you there.
- With any of my other estate add-ons installed, Mortum Castle joins them on the Your Estates screen: every estate's treasury, income, upkeep and workers in one place. Send gold or a worker from one estate to another.
- Open it with the Estates of Skyrim power, from the Tab menu (ESTATES, with Tween Menu Overhaul, optional), from the Castle Ledger, or ask your Steward: "Show me all my estates." Prisma UI is the bare minimum: the screen needs it, whichever way you open it.
- There is one hire line for all of them. With several estates the person asks where, and you answer "At Mortum Castle."
- Only one estate is attacked at a time, and one lord per servant: someone who serves another estate is not taken on here.
- The court is voiced, and so are the castle's own people. Lines said by people you hire come with subtitles: turn on General Subtitles and Dialogue Subtitles, and use Fuz Ro D'oh so they stay on screen long enough to read.
- If a requirement is missing or not loading, a message says which, a few seconds after you load. If MCM Helper cannot read the settings, every setting uses its default.
- A knight away on a task is gone from the castle until he comes back.
- The castle's soldiers are not essential: they can die in a fight, as in Mortum Castle itself.
- A defence fought while you are away is worked out by numbers. Skyrim cannot run a far-away battle for real.
- Mortum Castle's grounds are heavy on scripts. If a gate or a chain answers late right after you arrive, give it a few seconds.
- With Become High King of Skyrim TNG installed and the crown yours, the Captain and the garrison address you as their king (MCM option). It is not required.
NEW: SKYRIM KINGS
I'm building a new mod that turns Skyrim into a war and diplomacy game. Every Jarl and lord lives on one realm map, marrying, making allies and going to war, and every day in Skyrim is a day on the map. It's still an early alpha and not out yet, so here's a first look.Want to help test it? Join us on Discord
CompatibilityI'm building a new mod that turns Skyrim into a war and diplomacy game. Every Jarl and lord lives on one realm map, marrying, making allies and going to war, and every day in Skyrim is a day on the map. It's still an early alpha and not out yet, so here's a first look.Want to help test it? Join us on Discord
- Made for Mortum Castle 2.1. None of its records are overridden.
- Made to go with my other mods: Hjertesten Hall - Extra Jobs and Features, White Hearth - Extra Jobs and Features, Halls of Order - Knights of the Order, Warband and Octavia (she keeps quiet while you hold court). None of them is required.
- Works on SE 1.5.97 and AE (with the requirements below).
- Built and played in a Nolvus Awakening load order.
Built and played in a Nolvus Awakening load order. Nolvus users: install it like any other mod.
Install with your mod manager and load after Mortum Castle. ESL-flagged, so it doesn't use a load order slot. Needs powerofthree's Papyrus Extender 5.9.0 or newer. On game version 1.6.640, use 6.4.3.
Safe to install mid-game: load your save, go to the castle and talk to the Captain of the Guard.
Uninstalling
This is a scripted mod. Don't remove it mid-playthrough. If you must: take your gold out of the treasury, then MCM > Mortum Castle Extras > Castle Maintenance > Prepare to uninstall, save in an interior away from the castle, quit, disable the mod, load and save again.
Also by me
Hjertesten Hall - Extra Jobs and Features - 20+ jobs, a farm economy, a warband with raids and wars for Hjertesten Hall.
White Hearth - Extra Jobs and Features - rule White Hearth like a jarl: household, court, sieges and treasury.
Halls of Order - Knights of the Order - raise a knighthood, hire staff and defend the crystal from raids.
Warband - a follower framework and party manager in one mod.
Octavia - a fully voiced shield-sister follower.
Hjertesten Hall - Extra Buildings - a barracks, a wizard's tower, an orphanage, a graveyard and four homes.
Hjertesten Hall - Stables - stable your horses in the hall's own stalls.
Word Travels - friends hear about your deeds and come talk to you about them.
If you enjoy my mods and want to support them, you can donate here.
Credits
- Jbuckhalt for Mortum Castle, and for his blessing to build on it. This add-on only exists because of it. Please endorse the original.
- The SKSE team, powerofthree (Papyrus Extender) and the authors of UIExtensions, SkyUI, MCM Helper, Prisma UI and Fuz Ro D'oh.
- Built with houseCARL and DevBench.
This add-on was built with the help of an AI coding assistant (scripts, records and this page). Some voice lines are AI clones of the game's own voices, and the banner art and illustrations are AI-made (the illustrations are marked as such in the gallery). I play it in my own game and fix reports fast, so tell me in the posts if anything's off.