Temporary Wiki

Written by Lizzy

What Is Wildlander?        4

Getting Help        5

The Mods        6

Core Mods        6

Combat Mods        6

Survival Mods        7

Crafting Mods        8

UI        8

Economy        9

Crime        10

Factions        10

Magic        10

Transport        11

Followers        11

Supporting mods        13

Skyrim’s population        13

Player Housing        13

Questing and Exploration        14

Immersion        15

Camera        17

The UI        18

Frostfall Temperature Gauges        19

Sunhelm needs icons        19

Iequip Current equipment and enchantment charge status        20

SkyUI Icons        21

New Abilities        22

Changes from Vanilla Skyrim - A summary        23

Before you Begin        25

Quality Drop down        25

Shaders Drop down        25

Your First Character        26

Choosing Race / Class/ Stones        26

STARTING SKILLS AND ATTRIBUTES        26

CLASSES        28

STANDING STONES:        28

< The Warrior Group >        29

< The Mage Group >        29

< The Thief Group >        30

< The Serpent Group >        30

Starting your first day        31

Leveling Your Character        33

Damage Skills        33

Magic        34

Armor / Block        34

Camping        34

Foraging        34

Crafting         34

But how do I kill bandits and other hostile NPCs?        36

Strengths        36

Weaknesses        37

Kill order and tactics        38

OK I’ve progressed enough  - How Do I Start the Quests?         39

Tempering your Equipment        40

The Economy        41

Other Helpful Hints and tips        43

Can I tweak the difficulty?        47

Appendix        48

Keybindings         48

Useful Resources        49

Change Log        50

Thanks        50

IMPORTANT - Full WIKI now available Here. This document is no longer being maintained.

What Is Wildlander?

Wildlander is a total conversion modpack for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special Edition that aims to bring the frozen north into your home. Whether you want to call it immersion, realism, roleplaying, or simple masochism, the end-goal is to make you actually feel like an intrepid adventurer climbing snow-covered mountains, delving into ancient ruins, and getting your bits bitten off by packs of hungry wolves.

Wildlander is made up of hundreds of publicly available mods made by almost as many talented mod authors. These mods have been carefully selected, tested, and tweaked by Dylan to iron out any technical difficulties and maintain a consistent experience.

Wildlander is also a mod in its own right, as it includes proprietary features not available in the original mods.

The whole experience is built around Requiem - the Roleplaying Overhaul - 4.0.2. Requiem completely retools all of Skyrim to create a challenging, deleveled world with plenty of meaningful choices. Requiem can be overwhelming at first, so I highly recommend reading up on it. Start with Surviving the first few hours in Requiem, and if you want the nitty-gritty details, check out the Requiem Community Wiki and read the pdf manual included in the Requiem download. The manual is for an older version, but the only major differences are a few perk trees and the armor penetration mechanics.

In general, any Requiem resources you find will be applicable to Wildlander. Some information may be outdated, some may be overwritten by other mods in Wildlander, and some may have been disabled entirely, but the core principles are the same.

Getting Help

•  Dylan Perry YouTube channelFirstly – Most Common Questions are answered  Dylan Perry YouTube channelin our FAQ.
• Secondly – The known issues document contains a list of known issues and, if available, fixes for those issues.
• Support is available primarily on our Discord server Dylan Perry Discord Server. It is great for support, troubleshooting, and reporting bugs since you can speak with other users in real-time. We have many regular users offering help to new players. The Discord is also a good place to meet fellow adventurers and chat about Wildlander and other games.
• The Wildlander Subreddit is a great place to meet fellow players and share stories of your adventures. We also host community events, post screenshots of our characters’ latest exploits, and generally discuss whatever we like through Reddit’s forum-style posting. You can also use the Subreddit for tech support, but the Discord is better for real-time help and troubleshooting.
• TheWildlander YouTube channel contains a variety of Wildlander video content, including gameplay videos, gameplay tutorials, developer updates, modding tutorials, and other video content not related to Wildlander.
• Currently, we are not supporting any form of customization. Doing so denies you access to support.

To report a bug – First query with support, as it might have already been reported. They will advise you if you need to fill out a bug report form.

The Mods

As the List contains twice as many mods as the original Legendary Edition list, I will only be summarizing the gameplay and functionality mods in this section. A full list containing both the summarized mods below, plus of all of the audio, graphical, utility and bug related fixes are located here.

Core Mods

Wildlander is built around Requiem - the Roleplaying Overhaul. Requiem completely retools all of Skyrim to create a challenging, deleveled world with plenty of meaningful choices. It can be a bit obtuse, so I highly recommend reading up on it. Requiem - Minor Arcana SSE Convert tweaks many aspects of the game to provide a more consistent experience. Requiem - Dragonborn Patch applies Requiem’s overhauls to the Dragonborn DLC.

Skyrim Unbound Reborn skips the main quest up to right before you’re called by the Graybeards, and offers plenty of pre-start options (found under the Wildlander menu), such as where to start the game and whether or not your character is actually Dragonborn.

Diverse Character Creation is a character creation system that aims to bring the ideologies of Skyrim, Morrowind, and Oblivion together as one cohesive system. DCC introduces the ability to create characters with asymmetric skill levels and start with different (or no) spells based on your skills.

Wildlander SE – The one mod which ties everything together.

Combat Mods

Requiem already makes significant changes to enemies and combat, and Wildlander ups that ante by adding Wildcat - Combat of Skyrim and Mortal Enemies SE. Enemies are smarter, more aggressive, and more dangerous, but also fairer, as they no longer have undodgeable aimbot attacks or a suicidal drive to kill you at all costs.

Spell Perk Item Distributor (SPID) adds spells/leveled spells/perks/items/leveled items/shouts/packages/outfits to every NPC in the game to give a wider variety of challenge. See a bandit? Be careful as they may Fus Ro Dah you to next week!

Realistic AI Detection improves the balance and realism of sneaking and Suspicious city guards mean guards will become suspicious and follow you when they see you sneaking around.

To get a few levels at the start of the game you can use Train and Study – Hit dummies and read some books to train yourself over several hours of fast-wait time.

Pumping Iron gives your character more muscles over time as your character’s combat- and crafting-related skills increase.

Borgut1337's Dual Wield Parrying Non-SKSE Random Attacks (Oldrim conversion) Adds the ability for the player to parry an attack while dual-wielding.

Non-Exploitable Crossbow Reloading SE prevents the player from using the old “switch weapons to instantly reload” trick. Make Non-Exploitable Crossbow Slow Again For Requiem SSE makes the corrected crossbows match Requiem crossbow reload speed.        

zxlice hitStop SSE - Script Free makes you feel like you really hit something when the enemy gets hit.

Survival Mods

Wildlander contains many elements of wilderness survival. Sunhelm Survival adds the need to eat, drink and sleep, Frostfall (guide) adds cold weather mechanics, Campfire (guide) adds the ability to camp outdoors to sleep, cook and keep warm, and Hunterborn (guides included in mod folder) adds mechanics centered around butchering animals.

KN Cutting Trees gives you the ability to harvest trees for firewood by attacking with a axe  while Dynamic Things Alternative allows you to loot clutter objects  and more, and Keep It Clean and Dirt and Blood makes you stay clean to avoid disease and other penalties.

High Hrothgar Kitchen adds an extra room connecting the High Hrothgar monastery to a small natural cave under the mountainside. This is the Greybeards' kitchen, where they store their food supplies and cook their meals. A spring at the back of the cave serves as a water source.

Crafting Mods

Many new items and crafting options are added, with a crafting system built around Complete Crafting Overhaul Remastered, Simple Bedrolls and Supplies - for Campfire,  Craftable Horse Barding More Saddles, and Winter Is Coming SSE - Cloaks

Honed Metal allows you to contract smiths and enchanters to do crafting for you. Wildlander also includes ClothingCraft Redux and adds the ability to use the Honed Metal system to order clothes from tailors, which includes most alchemists.

Item Durability makes your weapons and armor lose their tempering as you use them, so you will want to re-temper them every now and then.

UI

A combination of SkyUI, SkyHud,More HUD SE A Matter of Time Iequip and a smattering of other mods gives Wildlander a clean GUI that adds a lot of relevant information while removing certain things that tend to leave the player staring at the interface instead of experiencing the game world such as quest markers. The compass has had a much needed tweak to Remove Enemies

The Map has been replaced with A Quality World Map

Skyui also has plugins for Favorite Things, Inventory Functions SE,  SkyUI AIO Survival (SAS), and Wider MCM Menu for SkyUI

SSE Display Tweaks All-in-one solution for smooth FPS-unlocked gameplay. Includes a physics fix, borderless fullscreen performance boost, refresh rate control, highly configurable frame rate limiting. Notification Log SSE Captures your notifications so you can look at them later. Convenient Dialogue UI - SE adds Q.O.L changes to the dialog menu.

Reflection - Level Up Messages Reflection brings back the level up messages found in previous Elder Scrolls titles. Undiscover Skyrim SE prevents you from receiving discovered messages the first time you arrive at a new location. Smaller Vanilla Cursors reduces the size of the cursor by 50%

FadingSignal's Hide UI - Improved allows you to play with No hud at all.

For Normal use, most GUI elements will fade out when not in use. Here is a quick rundown of what you’ll see:

The icons in the top right are ongoing magical effects, displayed by SkyUI. The blue and yellow bars in the bottom right are Frostfall indicators. The apple, bottle, and moon icons in the bottom right indicate Sunhelm’s survival needs and Keep it cleans Bath needs. The singular yellow bar close to the middle of the screen displays the remaining oil in your wearable lantern. The clock towards the bottom middle and date in the upper left are from A Matter of Time.

Finally, Requiem - Less Double-Vision (R-LDV) reduces the drunk/illness effects so they don't actually make you want to be sick IRL.

Economy

Trade Routes alters the prices and availability of goods based on location and whether certain quests have been completed.

Trade and Barter increases buying and selling prices in big cities, as well as making a bunch of small price adjustments based on things like race and reputation.

Realistic Trading Stocks of Skyrim gives the various fishers, woodcutters, etc. items to sell. It also lets you pay temple priests to give you long-lasting buffs.

Skald's Mail - A Courier Alternative replaces the courier system with mailboxes you can rent or purchase, and includes extra features such as mail-order deliveries from shops, shipping items long distances, and sending off gear to be improved.

Crime

In Wildlander, the divines will disown you if you commit too many crimes, denying you the free disease curing and powerful blessings their shrines offer.

Better Stealing allows you to steal items worth less than 50 gold without having them marked as stolen. It still counts as stealing as far as the divines are concerned, though.

The Thieves’ Guild won’t let you in unless you’ve committed a certain number of crimes; see below for more information.

Factions

The Companions, College of Winterhold, and Thieves’ Guild all have prerequisites for joining and/or advancing. Check the MCM settings for ESF: Companions, Not So Fast - Mage Guild, College of Winterhold Entry Requirements, Improved College Entry - Questline Tweaks and Thieves Guild Requirements for details.

Misc. College of Winterhold Tweaks is a collection of tweaks, additions, fixes, and adjustments to College of Winterhold.

Obscure's College of Winterhold is an expansion and overhaul for the College of Winterhold, including two new towers, a re-imagined Arcanaeum and Hall of the Elements, revised set dressing and clutter in many areas, changes that appear over time, door signs to assist with navigation, support for many other mods, and not a trace of hay.

Choose Your Own Arch-Mage Why should the Psijic Order decide who should become the new Arch-Mage? It should be the choice of the current Arch-Mage. Unfortunately for Winterhold, that's you.

Viewable Faction Ranks Allows you to see your current rank with each Skyrim faction from the MCM.

Magic

The most significant change to magic (other than Requiem) is the inclusion of Spell Research. This mod is large and complex, so you’ll want to consult the guide or this video guide. The guide is for US 3.4, but the only thing that’s changed with Spell Research since then is the name of the liquids.

Arctic - Frost Effects Redux Improved and realistic textures applied to frost spells and effects along with new 3D meshes!

Deadly Spell Impacts Fire, lightning, frost, and spit (Spider/Chaurus) spell impacts now have their own unique textures. This mod also increases the variation in impact size, increases the size of dragon breath impacts, and adds melted snow impacts for fire and lightning spells.Voltage 4-2K  Improved and realistic textures applied to Shock spells.

No More Ugly Effects SE Replaces certain character effect shaders with an invisible version. No more garish green glow from Alteration armor spells! No more red/green/blue outline when using drain spells and effects.

Transport

Fast travel is disabled by Requiem in Wildlander, so you’ll have to traverse the game world by other means.

Immersive Horses adds many features, most importantly the ability to access your horse’s inventory and to call it whenever you’re outside. Owning a horse is very useful in Wildlander, as it allows you to travel the harsh roads in relative safety.

Carriage and Ferry Travel Overhaul will add boats and carriages to settlements all over Skyrim and allows you to take them to almost any settlement.

Followers

FollowerLivePackage A framework which expands the followers functionality so they are actually useful!

Disable Follower Collision disables collisions between the player and allied NPCs. Allied NPCs include followers, actors commanded by the player, and actors commanded by followers.

Follower Trap Safety Disables the ability for followers to murder themselves by triggering traps.

No More Ugly Combat Idles for Followers Followers no longer use the ugly ape animation after unsheathing their weapons.

Supporting mods

Skyrim’s population

Populated Skyrim Prisons Cells Reborn  populates a bit of the prisons of cities and towns in Skyrim. With some surprises…

Inconsequential NPCs Adds NPCs and dialogue scenes to Skyrim to enhance the social ambiance of the game, all voiced.

Immersive Patrols SE Adds a reasonable amount of Stormcloak, Thalmor, Imperial and Dawnguard patrols to Skyrim and a few Skaal, Reaver and Riekling "patrols" to Solstheim.

Immersive College NPCs Adds students and guards to the College of Winterhold for added immersion!

Good-folks of Raven Rock The one and only mod for SE that populates the town of Raven Rock. Show those Dark Elves the love they deserve.

AI Overhaul SSE Changes many of the Vanilla NPCs' AI to act more realistic and immersive.

Armor and Clothing Extension Adds more diversity and lore-friendly clothing options and gives NPCs more appropriate attire.

Improved Roads Removes animals from roads, adds bandits at night to roads, and adds patrols and travelers to roads during the day.

Player Housing

A collection of hideouts have been added to the world with Hidden Hideouts of Skyrim and Outlaws Refuges. These are designed to provide your characters with immersive areas in the cities, wilderness and sewers for rest, storage, and the occasional amenity.

If you get far enough into the game that you have a lot of player houses then you can use Rent My House and put your unused houses to work by renting them out!

Vanilla housing has also been given some love with interior overhauls to Vlindrel Hall, Breezehome, Honeyside, Severin Manor, Hjerim and Proudspire Manor, along with Dawnstar’s Dark brotherhood Sanctuary 

Hearthfire Extended Build any furniture in any room. Build additional wings off your cellar. Also includes bug fixes and enhancements to vanilla apiaries, butter churns and mead barrels.

Properties Without Pestering allows players to purchase homes from Jarls without the need to do favor quests. 

Questing and Exploration

Even Better Quest Objectives enhances the quest descriptions in the vanilla game so that you have a clear sense of where you are supposed to go and what you are supposed to do besides looking at the quest markers. Let's face it - the quest descriptions were quite bad, not specifying where you are supposed to go by themselves, and forcing you to play with the quest markers on all the time.

In each major hold, there are now Missive boards with a selection of radiant quests, like go kill this, deliver that or return item from a cave/ruin. These quests refresh every 3 days providing the MCM setup instructions have been followed.

Blood and Silver - Cidhna Mine Expanded adds a MASSIVE expansion. New places, new people, new challenges!

Finding Velehk Sain This mod creates additional content surrounding the strange gauntlet in the Midden Dark, as well as the four missing Apprentices from the College of Winterhold.

Paarthurnax - Quest Expansion and  adds  an expansion on the quest the Blades give you concerning Paarthurnax.

The Choice is Yours Stop quests from starting automatically. Pursue the quests you want, ignore the ones you don't. https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/365ake your choices matter.

In addition - Skyrim Sewers 4 - adds sewer systems to Solitude, Whiterun and Windhelm, and a couple of forts, these contain a good range of enemies ranging from easy to difficult.

Underwater Treasure SSE Adds underwater treasure chests to discover all around Skyrim.

Immersion

Nights and dungeons are very dark, and you won’t be able to effectively explore them without a light source. You can buy a wearable lantern and flammable oil for it at a general store, use a spell or ability such as Candlelight or Night Eye, or for vampires and werewolves Predator Vision, or use torches if you’re okay with occupying one of your hands.

Players are now able to interact with NPCs in multiple ways thanks to Immersive Speechcraft. Based on your character's speech skill, you might be able to convince an NPC to follow you for a bit, barter, help you in combat and more! Realistic Conversations is a NPC overhaul which improves the npc’s conversation AI making them talk to each other and less likely to talk to you from a distance, while adding expressions and emotions to the conversations. Relationship Dialogue Overhaul makes friends talk to you more like friends. Followers have much more to say when speaking to them. If your spouse is a follower, he/she will talk to you like a spouse instead of a generic follower. NPCs who dislike you (not bandits and Forsworn, but citizens of towns and cities) will have more insults to say and may even completely stop talking to you if you continue to pester them. To Your Face SE and VR NPCs will not speak greetings towards the Dragonborn's back. Guard Dialogue Overhaul SE adds dialogue, realism, and respect towards the player in the dialogue of Skyrim’s guards, making that dialogue much more immersive. Finally, No NPC Greetings (Special Edition) reduces the distance required for NPCs to greet you.

NPCs such as labourers now have real names. Additionally, children are no longer immune to the dangers of the world. Hunters Not Bandits NPCs will not use taunts or insults when fighting animals. Especially hunters will behave in a more realistic manner, as well as fixing the odd behavior where enemies would start using greetings and other unfitting dialogues right after they killed you.

GIST - Genuinely Intelligent Soul Trap SE A new and improved solution to the underfilled soul gem problem.

You can now drop a torch to ignite the oil traps or sleep anywhere with Simply Rest (or Sleep) Anywhere

Cities and villages also celebrate holidays based on TES lore. Immersive Laundry adds decorative clotheslines and other washing-related items throughout Skyrim

Inns and taverns have several games added such as blackjack and faro.

Hold Border Banners Adds banners along roads showing which hold you are about to enter.

Owning a house or a car in the real world would allow the government to tax you. Simple Taxes adds the same functionality to Skyrim for horses, followers, and player residences.

Bibliophile's Arcanaeum - A Winterhold Circulating Collection This mod is for role-players and book lovers. It allows you to peruse the collection in the Arcanaeum, select books to borrow, curl up by the hearth, and be harassed by the college guard for forgetting to return them before the due date. If you wish, you may also study to add temporary buffs to your skill increase rate.

Unlimited Bookshelves Lets you place as many books on a bookshelf as will fit, instead of a fixed number, as well as any other kind of item. Up to around 90 letter/note type books on a single shelf, and not limited to just books!

R.A.S.S. Rain Ash And Snow Shaders - Wet Frost Cold Dust and Cold Region Behavior - Beta Test These mods reproduce the cold visual effects (cold breath, cold clothing, frozen effect, etc.) of “Wet and Cold”.

All Geared Up Derivative SE - AllGUD Displays unequipped bows and shields on the character’s back, as well as some other items on the back and waist such as: Gold Pouches, Potions, War Horns, Lutes, Azura's Star, and The White Phial.

Immersive Movement Speed tweaks to the movement speed of your character. Running is slower and walking is faster.

Enhanced Blood Textures SE Adds a realistic amount of blood to your Skyrim, if you hit someone in the face with an axe – you will see it!

Simply Knock SE Allows you to knock on locked doors in Skyrim so you can talk to the owners if they are home (or rob the place blind if they are not).

Alternative Bards Lute Songs and Alternative Bards Drum Songs Changes the lute and drum tunes bards play. Bard Instrumentals Only - Sing Upon Request Prevents bards from bursting into song unless you specificially ask them.

Sleep Tight SE Allows NPCs to choose more appropriate clothing to sleep in.

Camera

Customizable Camera has been added to allow you to customize the camera to your liking in the MCM.

Alternate Conversation Camera Plus  changes the camera position so its looking over your characters shoulder at the NPC in question.

SmoothCam is a highly configurable third-person camera, with smooth frame-interpolation and a raycasting crosshair to help you aim.

Motion Sensitive Fix SE Remove camera sway, head bobbing and FOV zoom. For 1st and 3rd person. All animation left intact. Made for those who get motion sickness.

True Directional Movement Overhauls the third person gameplay similarly to modern action RPGs, entirely through SKSE. Move and attack in any direction. Includes a custom target lock component and animated healthbar widget, target headtracking, projectile aim support during target lock, boss bars, mount support and more! Modular and customizable through MCM.        

The UI

Left Side

• Compass
• Current date and time

Centre Section

• Health/Magic/Stamina bars
• IEquip Current equipment and enchantment charge status

Right Side

• Frostfall Temperature Gauges
• Active effects
• Sunhelm needs icons

Frostfall Temperature Gauges

The Center bar represents your current exposure. As your exposure increases, the meter will fill up. The more full it is, the more penalties you suffer. Once it is full, you die. The glow around the center bar indicates you are currently warm from standing near a fire.

The white line is the maximum exposure indicator. This is the highest your exposure will increase to in that area. If the indicator is all the way on the other side of the meter, that means that the area has lethal (maximum) exposure. If your exposure is currently higher than the indicator, your exposure will decrease to meet it as you warm up.

The thin bar at the top indicates how warm your surroundings are.

The thin blue bar at the bottom is the wetness meter. As you get wetter, it will increase. As you dry off, it will decrease. Being wet increases the rate your center bar fills up.

Sunhelm needs icons

Next to frostfall indicators are 3 icons which appear “more solid” the more Hungry/Tired/Thirsty you are.

Iequip Current equipment and enchantment charge status

Rightside – Contains the Currently Equipped  main-hand weapon, Its tempering (Exquisite) its durability (fades from White, to red when low durability) and the charge – The Circle around the icon.

Uncharged, Max Durability weapon

Fully Charged, Durability below 25%

Uncharged, Durability below 10%

Left Side – If using bow Contains Ammo currently equipped, count of arrows in your inventory. If using a shield or second sword, same as the right side

SkyUI Icons

Inventory Screen

Blue Eye - Enchanted, Enchantment is teachable

Red eye - Enchanted,, Player cannot learn the enchant

Active Effects

New Abilities

Ability - Build Campfire (Hotkey < ) allows you to place a campfire that you can then interact with in order to build a fire for warmth, placement of a cooking pot, or primitive cooking.

Ability - Recall Followers (Hotkey B ) prevents your followers from attacking when you don’t want them too.

Ability - Forage (Hotkey Right Alt ) allows you to spend time looking for wood, bones, alchemy ingredients, or even food from the floor around you.

Ability - Frisk (No Hotkey ) loot a fleeing target.

Ability -  Horse Whistle (Hotkey H ) allows you to summon your horse.

Ability -  Horse Inventory (Hotkey U ) Access your horses Inventory

Ability – Change difficulty (Hotkey Right control) Switch between Easy and standard difficulties.

Ability – Primitive Cooking (Hotkey > )  allows the user to use a sufficiently sized fire to BBQ any meat in the inventory.

Keybinding can be shown and hidden at any time by pressing F11.

Changes from Vanilla Skyrim - A summary

• All encounters are no longer leveled, the appearance of a given NPC or creature only depends on your current location and luck.
• Some creature encounter lists have been altered, for example you will see more small than large mudcrabs and more wolves than bears.
• Loot is no longer dependent on your level, but high quality items are of course much rarer.
• Quests rewards are decoupled from your level.
• Most locks are no longer leveled.
• Trap damage is now independent of your level and therefore much higher and often even lethal.
• Your enemies are more skilled than before. If somebody wields a mace, you better expect some armor crushing blows from him.
• Weapon damage has increased significantly, especially archery, which is now deadly. A skilled  archer can often take out an unarmored humanoid with a single shot. But drawing a bow now also takes considerably more time.
• Blocking and/or dodging is now essential if you want to survive melee combat.
• Some quests have had starting requirements changed to accommodate for the rewards - no more doing daedric weapon quests at level 5.
• Survival has a much, much greater importance, you can and will die if you don't eat, sleep or stay warm
• Houses have had their prices or quest requirements altered.
• Dragons are the flying, magic casting tanks with teeth that you should be afraid of.
• Dragon priests are even worse. 
• Smithing and enchanting are no longer mandatory - blacksmiths and court wizards can do these services for you.
• Level cap is 82, therefore Perk points are limited. Plan where you are going to spend them accordingly.
• Your initial Carry weight is lower, but you can craft or buy Backpacks to increase it.
• Weight of your armor affects your magica pool, clothing is better for mages, Spellsword is not something to be at level one - either focus the sword or the spells. 
• Don't expect to be wearing heavy armor and running marathons from level 1. It takes perks, time and training to master the art of being a walking tank.
• It’s dark when its supposed to be, nightvision, a torch or lantern is required for dungeon diving
• Getting sick and/or drunk and/or consuming a lot of alchemy ingredients gives a visual effect/blurring on your screen
• Heavy Armor makes sneaking impossible.
• Sneak mages can’t exist - Spells Make noise to cast until you are deep into the illusion tree
• Stamina is a precious resource at lower levels. Wearing any armor without the first perk causes a drain standing still, even with the first perk you will lose it if you are running around. Anyone with armor should be investing in stamina restoration food.
• Vampires are Allergic to sunlight, and restoration spells don't work - they have their own healing spell in the conjuration tree.
• You are not forced to perk into lockpicking - spells for unlocking, scrolls for unlocking and just plain smacking the lock can be used instead

If you have played our legendary edition mod pack and want to see the differences between that build and the SE release, You can do so here

Before you Begin

You should not be starting skyrim from steam, you should not be running SKSE, you should not be running mod organizer.  Instead you should be using our dedicated launcher which allows you to customize the Screen resolution, Graphics settings and ENB shaders.

Quality Drop down

These are your standard Skyrim parameters. The Graphics dropdown determines the quality of basic graphical elements, such as the draw distance of grass and shadows, the number of effects visible at once, and the quality of distant objects. These elements use a mix of CPU and GPU.

• Ultra - Everything on, All the bells and whistles - For "beast" PC's
• High - Reduced Draw distances compared to Ultra, but still the full mod package.
• Medium - Reduced Draw distances compared to High, but still the full mod package.
• Low - No grass, no shadows, but still the full mod package.
• Potato - Stripped down lists for PC's which were built when oldrim was first released.

Shaders Drop down

These control the level of ENB Shaders being applied. The Shaders dropdown determines the quality of post-processing effects, such as environment lighting, particle lighting, ambient occlusion, sun rays, and water effects. These elements are very heavy on the GPU.

• Ultra - Default Zangdar's ENB Everything on, All the bells and whistles
• Medium - Zangdar ENB Performance preset
• Low - Zangdar ENB Performance preset W/o Ambient Occlusion
• No ENB - Run without shaders at all

Your First Character

Before creating your first character - It is strongly recommended that you test that your PC is stable enough to run Wildlander. A guide on how to do so is located here.

A word of warning: If you are not running a standard US Keyboard, Once you have created each character, you may need to adjust some keybinds or rebind them for your specific keyboard. There is an appropriate guide here. Please note: Some keybindings E.G bathe are not labeled as such in the MCM you are directed to. If you want to swap Crouch and Quick restore hotkeys The keybinding for this is in Iequip. I personally switch Quick restore to 'C' and move crouch using the Skyrim standard controls back to the default keybind.

Once you start a new game from the skyrim menu, you are going to be able to pick (or create) the class you want to play and the birthstones you are going to use. These determine the abilities your character has to do damage - as without you are as dangerous as a butter knife. It is strongly recommended to choose a matching birthstone to the class you want to play as once you pick a school – you cannot change it. If you pick a warrior stone, you will be restricted to the other “tank” stones.

Choosing Race / Class/ Stones

STARTING SKILLS AND ATTRIBUTES

CLASSES

• Acrobat: Lockpicking, Marksman, One-Handed, Pickpocket, Sneak, Speechcraft
• Agent: Illusion, Lockpicking, Marksman, One-Handed, Sneak, Speechcraft
• Assassin: Alchemy, Evasion, Lockpicking, Marksman, One-Handed, Sneak
• Barbarian: Block, Evasion, Marksman, One-Handed, Smithing, Two-Handed
• Bard: Block, Enchanting, Illusion, Evasion, One-Handed, Speechcraft
• Battlemage: Alteration, Conjuration, Destruction, Enchanting, Heavy Armor, Two-Handed
• Crusader: Alchemy, Block, Destruction, Heavy Armor, One-Handed, Restoration
• Healer: Alchemy, Alteration, Destruction, Illusion, Restoration, Speechcraft
• Knight: Block, Enchanting, Heavy Armor, One-Handed, Restoration, Speechcraft
• Monk: Alteration, Illusion, Lockpicking, Marksman, One-Handed, Sneak
• Nightblade: Alteration, Destruction, Evasion, Lockpicking, One-Handed, Restoration
• Pilgrim: Block, Illusion, Evasion, One-Handed, Smithing, Speechcraft
• Scout: Alchemy, Evasion, Marksman, One-Handed, Smithing, Sneak
• Sorcerer: Alteration, Conjuration, Destruction, Enchanting, Heavy Armor, Restoration
• Spellsword: Alteration, Destruction, Heavy Armor, Illusion, One-Handed, Restoration
• Thief: Alchemy, Evasion, Lockpicking, Pickpocket, Sneak, Speechcraft
• Warrior: Block, Heavy Armor, Marksman, One-Handed, Smithing, Two-Handed
• Witchhunter: Alchemy, Destruction, Lockpicking, Marksman, One-Handed, Sneak

Or make your own….

STANDING STONES:

Note: once you take a stone from given group, you will become locked to that group. For example, after taking Warrior you will be able to change your stone only to Lady/Lord/Steed and not others.

< The Warrior Group >

Lady: Those under the sign of the Lady regenerate Stamina faster.

50% faster Stamina regen

Lord: The Stone of the Lord grants those who possess its blessing increased damage resistance and weakened hostile spells.

120% damage resistance, 15% magic resistance

Steed: The Steed grants those who bear its blessing increased Stamina.

Fortify Stamina 100 points

Warrior: The Warrior strengthens those who bear his blessing, allowing a more efficient use with all kinds of weaponry.

+10 Fortify Marksman, +10 Fortify One-Handed, +10 Fortify Two-Handed, +10 Fortify Armor Penetration

< The Mage Group >

Apprentice: The Apprentice greatly enhances magicka regeneration.

200% faster Magicka regen, 25% decrease to magic resistance

Atronach: The Sign of the Atronach grants additional Magicka and a chance for Spell Absorption, but makes it almost impossible to passively regenerate magicka, reduces the efficacy of magicka potions by one third, and negates the long-term benefits offered by cooked meals.

0% chance of magicka regen, 50% spell absorption, fortify Magicka by 350 points  

Mage: Those under the Sign of the Mage are granted additional Magicka and find it easier to focus their thoughts while running.

Fortify Magicka 100 points

Ritual: Those under the Sign of the Ritual are capable of animating hordes of undead for a limited duration once each day.

Daily power to raise the dead

< The Thief Group >

Lover: Those under the sign of the lover find it easier to be attractive, intriguing and also use speech to get what they want…

Fortify Speech 25 points

Shadow: Those under the Sign of the Shadow are able of becoming invisible and inaudible once a day.

Daily power of muffle and invisibility for 300 seconds

Thief: The Thief grants wide-spread abilities to those who bear her blessing. It improves sneaking, pickpocketing and lockpicking skills and grants lockpicking expertise. Furthermore it increases armor penetration with one-handed and ranged weapons.

+5 Armor Penetration, +15 Fortify Sneak, +15 Fortify Pickpocket, +5 Fortify Lockpicking, +20 Fortify Lockpicking Expertise

Tower: The Tower grants a blessing of 20 extra carry weight and supernatural lockpicking skills. Expertise is increased by 40 and any effortless lock can be picked in plain sight with nobody noticing, creating a wax-molded copy of the key, if one exists.

+20 Carry Weight, +40 Lockpicking

< The Serpent Group >

Serpent: The Bite of the Serpent will paralyze and poison a target for a moderate duration.

‘Venomous Splatter’ poison and paralyze spell

Starting your first day

Once you spawn into the world the first thing a new character should make sure of is that they get to a safe location. For brand new players Riverwood is ideal to start with. Riverwood has plentiful trees for wood gathering, a river to drink from, a free wood chopping axe at the lumber mill, a tent, and cooking fire. 

To start earning money in order to feed yourself, you should get a wood chopping axe or a war axe and “Attack” to harvest trees (or use the chopping blocks at the lumber mills). Sell this wood to give yourself a bit of coin.

If you select “smithing” as a starting skill, use the gold to purchase some salt. You should then activate the cows to collect the milk they produce. Finally,  move to a cooking pot and use the crafting (Hotkey “right shift”) to turn the wood into flutes and sell to the Riverwood Trader. If you are not a smith, you can still harvest the cows and drink or sell the milk.

You can also use the wood you obtain to level your camping skills by making kindling and tinder, which will allow you to make a campfire (Hotkey “<“) to keep yourself warm. You should also frequently use the forage(Hotkey “Alt GR”) ability to look for edibles and alchemy ingredients. And when the “drink” icon appears, use the river to drink (Hotkey “ ; “). You should also pick any herbs you spot on your travels - even if you don't plan on being an alchemist - everything sells.

Bathing should be done regularly using the (Hotkey “’ ‘/@ ”) in the river - there are penalties applied to speech and disease resistance the dirtier you are so before selling or buying anything, always bathe.

Food can be purchased from the Inn or by cooking raw meat at the fire using the (Hotkey > ). 

Up until you have a few levels under your belt - beware of wildlife - they will kill you.

One of your first purchases should be a hunting knife from the general store or the local Blacksmith  - as any dead animals can be harvested for food, skins, and alchemy ingredients and having a knife improves your skills. You should also invest in a backpack, cloak and additional waterskins. As a mage character - as Research journal is recommended for training purposes. For alchemists, a mortar and pestle is suggested for crafting on the fly.

Skyrim is dark at night so torches or a travel lantern (and oil) is highly suggested. Travel Lanterns take up a belt slot and can be turned on or off as needed with the ‘L’ hotkey. More Importantly unlike a torch, they don’t require you to hold it in your hand so you can fight if needed.

Waterskins are a portable source of water that can be filled from any water source and pressing (hotkey ;),  using a well bucket or by using them from your inventory screen.

Armor/clothing now has two additional statistics - Cover which protects you from wet weather, and warmth which protects from cold. So if upgrading your gear - make sure you pick appropriate stats for where you plan on traveling to. 

Weapons can now degrade in quality, so tempering your weapons to keep them a peak damage either via providing the blacksmith with the materials to do so(for none crafters) or doing it yourself.. A well-made weapon is always better than a basic equivalent.

For a free place to sleep before you leave Riverwood a tent should be purchased. A fur tent protects you from the cold, and a leather tent protects you from rain. If you need to cook while in the middle of nowhere then a cooking pot can be purchased to use with your constructed campfires.

Checking the nearest cities missive board for delivery quests is a great way to get early gold to get you started.

Leveling Your Character

Once you have the basics of food/water/cleanliness/warmth and shelter covered. You can now focus on leveling your skills.. 

Wildlander is a deleveled world - The importance of understanding this can not be overrated, and people misunderstanding it are a constant source for the kind of question I'm trying to answer with this guide. A very common occurrence is people who think they understand the concept, and promptly ask, why they get their butt handed to them at bleak falls barrow when they try it at level 1. The answer is simply:-

****If it kicks you in the teeth for the 20th time, it's above your paygrade.****

Confronted with this, a lot of people ask what they are supposed to do on Lv 1-5, then. The answer is: anything. Save often, try to run from a fight when you start losing, hunt, chop wood, collect ingredients and mix potions, mine ore, craft stuff. Anything. As long as it gets you gold and/or level-ups do it! Following on from that - Training your skills and armor.

Damage Skills

For Melee , archers, or destruction mages - you can head to Whiterun and train on the training dummies at the Jorrvaskr in Whiterun, or to any town – most have dummies. There are two methods, you can use the “activate” option, which only gives a small amount of experience. Or you can actually attack the dummies - giving faster experience at the cost of damaging your weapons. Make sure you monitor your active effects and if you are too tired to train you won’t benefit from the experience. If you get too tired - sleep.

Magic

 You can use the Research journal to research the spells you have equipped in your hands for “none offensive” spells e.g. conjuration’s spirit wolf. You will need a research journal in your inventory to do this.

Armor / Block

Running in armor will also slowly level it. for block - you can Shield bash training dummies to level it. you can also use the time-honored requiem cheat of allowing slaughterfish to nibble on your toes.

Camping

Every campfire you build and tent you pitch will level these skills up. The skills menu accessible when using a campfire will allow you to build a fire quicker in harsher environments.

Foraging

Using the skill will level this up. Higher levels are able to specify what to look for.

Crafting 

Crafting is based on selling price, so anything crafted at a forge for low materiels, high sell price can level this.

Building a campfire and using the skills menu is how you allocate perks from the camping and sunhelm mods.

I’ve finished training - Now what?

Firstly - and always when in a major city - check the missive boards for quests which require “easy” kills (mudcrab wolf or skeever parts are examples of such). You can also pick up quests for the easier item retrievals or dungeon cleans. Even if you’re not quite ready yet to take on the challenge or retrievals or clears you can pick them up as most don't have a time limit. 

The next section covers combat tactics in detail, but once you have a few levels and more importantly perks under your belt you can start to pick off wildlife. A good place to start killing is in the Whiterun sewers where the first few rooms contain level 1 and 2 mudcrabs and a few skeevers - Be careful about venturing too deeply as there are a few surprises lurking. Once you're comfortable with whiterun sewers, you can venture to riften, Markarth, solitude or windhelm which also have sewer systems. If you don't want to go north yet - then you can pick off the mudcrabs around the whiterun area, but this is significantly more dangerous with level 10+ sabercats/bears also in the area.

After the wildlife has been beaten into submission, you are ready to tackle more intelligent competition in the form of the open world bandit camps. And after those, you can move into the bandit camp inside of dungeons - Helgen, Embershard mine and halted stream camp are recommended “Starter” dungeons for you to test your capabilities. 

The final advice regarding early dungeons is that you should not attempt bleak falls barrow or any other draugr areas without decent tempered ‘silver’ weapons and perks in both of your armor and weapon at skill- level 50 at bare minimum! 

But how do I kill bandits and other hostile NPCs?

In simple terms - planning. Never underestimate the power of scouting first. The main reason for this is: if you don't, you die. And you don't even know how it happened.

Stamina is one of the most important parts of combat - if you run out you can be disarmed. Stamina potions are cheap and easy to get mats for also a lifesaver - make sure you carry a supply of these - even if it's only so you can run away, for casters - Magicka potions too. 

The questions you should ask yourself - What kinds of enemies do I face? Where are they? How will they try to kill me? How can I kill them? The first two of those questions you can usually answer by opening your eyes and liberal use of the instincts skill and identify target abilities. Use your ears to locate things we cant see. Luckily for us, almost everything in Skyrim sees it as a necessity to constantly make one noise or another. For the third and fourth question, I put humanoid NPCs in categories based on what they are wielding, and what armor they are wearing. 

The most important thing is to know their strengths (so you don't die) and the second most important thing is knowing their weaknesses (so they die).

Strengths

• Unless you invest in the respective perk (which you usually can't at low levels, due to skill requirements) arrows do nothing to heavy armor. Try it once, so you can learn from that mistake.

• If you stay too still for too long too close, archers will kill you. Heavy armor helps, but also makes you slower.

• Anything with a shield will very successfully block all your attacks, given the chance.

• Anything that requires two hands to wield will kill you. Even when blocked, those power attacks take a big toll. And if not blocked, you better not be there when that hammer comes down.

• Never underestimate the benefits of side-step-dodging - 2 handed power attacks leave the opposition vulnerable to a quick slash in the back as they fly past you.

• It is very hard to outrun guys in light or no armor, especially when you are wearing heavy armor. You can, for a short while, but they will catch up. Because you run slower with less stamina.

• Mudcrabs power attack can and does knock you down.

• Wolves generally hunt in numbers and will try to flank you. 

Weaknesses

• Low-quality bows break - when you hit the guy who holds them. Yes. If you manage to close in fast enough, you can knock the bow, that would have killed you a split second later, right out of that archer's hands! (you won't be able to use it afterward, though, so keep that in mind)

• Lightly armored bandits die so satisfyingly quickly when caught off guard. (like with an arrow, at close distance)

• Heavy's are slow. Seriously. When one of those tries a power attack on you, you can dodge the attack, circle around him, and hit him as hard as you can in the back (unless, of course, you are just as slow)

• Archers have a hard time keeping up with zig-zagging, ones with a crossbow have a long reload time, so use this wisely.

• For those carrying two-handed weapons, there is a long time between the strike of the power attack, and the time they can do anything again. This means free, unblocked hits for you, which means death for a lot of not so heavy bandits.

• Mudcrabs hunch up right before doing the power attack - if you see this it makes it easy to dodge.

• A single wolf will always retreat, focus your attacks rather than trying to kill all at once.

Important note: Any other types of the enemy not covered above have their strengths and weaknesses covered in the “Bestiary of Skyrim”. Some require specialist weapons or spells, others take less damage from certain types of damage, or have health regeneration.  

Kill order and tactics

• The first thing I always think about is ranged enemies, and because of them, cover. Where are they now? Where will they go when I go behind this cover? How long can I stay behind that stone before the melees reach me and I have to move?

• The second thing is the armor. Or, more importantly, who wears which kind? Because lightly armored bandits are squishy. Even with no perks invested, a few slashes with a one-hander, or a few arrows at medium range, and they go down. They don't necessarily die, but surrenders are more permanent than vanilla.

• Another important factor is speed. If you have enough ground between you and the bandits, and you play your cards right, you can kill off the light melee faction before the heavy melee faction even gets there. You could even go so far and try to rush to the ranged guys after killing the light melees, leaving the heavy's panting in the middle. But your speed is important as well. Mostly, because speed usually costs more stamina, and power attacks do as well. And power attacks are useful.

• There is no shame in cheesy tactics like kiting stronger enemies to guards and letting them deal with them.

• Don't be afraid to run away - if the content is too hard - recruit some friends or temper/enchant your gear (or get a mage or blacksmith to do it for you) and come back later. Enemies in Wildlander stay the same level, so there is no shame in getting more levels and skills under your belt and coming back later. 

• There’s power in numbers and wildlander is no exception, if you find somewhere too challenging go recruit some friends!

OK I’ve progressed enough  - How Do I Start the Quests? 

For the Original Skyrim quest line - Find and kill a dragon. Depending on the settings in the Skyrim Unbound MCM - these might not have spawned yet and for good reason. Dragons are flying, Frost/Fire breathing, heavily armored tanks who can and will eat with one bite the unprepared adventurer. Once you have killed your dragon you will be summoned by the greybeards - no need to go for the dragon stone or bleak falls barrow unless you want to, they are not part of the Wildlander Main Quest.

For Dawnguard - The courier will invite you at level 30, but you can travel to fort dawnguard yourself at any point before then.

For Dragonborn - this requires completion of  "A Blade in the Dark" during the Main Quest, but some advice - all of Solstheim is true endgame content which some builds are not able to clear any of it - even the critters are deadly.

For Thieves guide - this content requires you to be a thief, and have a certain level of items stolen and pockets picked.

Tempering your Equipment

Both Armor and weapons within wildlander make tempering your equipment relevant.

The higher the temper on the weapon, the more damage it does.

The higher the temper on the Armor, the more protection it does.

Tempering is shown in your inventory with a Word description and a number in brackets.

You can temper your own weapons with your smithing skills at the grindstone, and armor at the armor workbench. You can also ask the blacksmiths to “upgrade your equipment”. In order to repair your damaged weapons and armor back to “standard” temper, you need to have the perk for the material the piece is made from and sufficient skill in smithing.

The Economy

The Local Holds Economy have also had a tidy up - and now have a immersive regional economy by dynamically adjusting the gold value and merchant supply of food, drinks, animal parts, ingredients, ores, ingots, gems, soul gems and spell tomes according to the actual supply and logical demand of each item in each hold. These regional differences serve to create a network of profitable trade routes, and can also be influenced by the player's activities (where appropriate).

Taking Dawnstar for example, the Pale doesn't have many farms or rivers and it's far too remote from Riften to have an abundance of mead - so you shouldn't expect to see these items at the merchants. What dawnstar does have however is Sea-shore to the north, populated with clams and horkers and snowfields to the south covered in snowberries and giants. Therefore the stores in Dawnstar will have a lot of these items instead.

Winterhold due to the presence of the college is likewise the place for the player to buy spellbooks.

This allows for traveling merchant playthrough who would buy cheap in one hold, then move to another hold to make a profit.

In addition Pricing is now specialized by the type of merchant

* Producers (Farmers and Hunters) - You save money when you buy directly from the source. These merchants have low overhead and can give you better deals on the goods you buy from them; however, they also can't afford to pay much for any goods you're trying to sell.

* Crafters & Specialists (Blacksmiths, Felchers, Mages and Alchemists) - While their prices are higher than buying raw materials directly from farmers and hunters, they are still less expensive than purchasing from the general merchants who resell the finished goods. They also have the resources and knowledge to offer you more money for items you're trying to sell.

* General Goods - These traders buy low and sell high in order to turn a profit. Expect to pay more when buying goods from them, and don't expect them to pay you full value for the goods you sell.

* Fences - Don't expect any favors from Fences. Selling stolen items is going to cost you, so don't expect to get top dollar for ill-gotten goods.

Therefore you should - only sell excess potions/reagents to Alchemists, ore, hides, weapons or armor to blacksmiths. Meat to Innkeepers and general clutter to general stores.

Having higher skills is also useful:-

        * Blacksmiths will respect your skill at the forge and give you better prices the higher your Smithing skill.

        * Apothecaries recognize your knowledge of alchemical properties and will give you better prices the higher your Alchemy skill.

        * Spell merchants respect your knowledge of the arcane and will give you better prices the higher your Enchanting skill.

        * Fletchers recognize a fellow marksman and will give you better prices the higher your Archery skill.

And as a final note - Location - Major cities have better prices than the smaller towns. So if you are playing a trader character, take the extra mile to go to a Major city instead of the small towns.

Other Helpful Hints and tips

• Each major hold has a Missive board for quests ranging from simple deliveries to clear caves. For beginners, the delivery quests are a good source of gold. Picking up the vampire quests will allow you to claim the reward even if the guards killed it.
• Don't rely on 1 save, you don't want to hit a game breaking bug due to skyrim being skyrim and lose all your progress.  It's recommended to have a minimum of the 10 most recent saves (the more the better). 
• Mudcrabs on both north and south shores of lake Ilinalta are where I usually train block to 20, be careful swimming near the Lady Stone in the center as there's a giant slaughterfish nearby.
• Any damage you take will not heal on its own so having a way to heal yourself reliably is HUGE in Wildlander. I use the alchemy perk that allows constant healing over time - it basically functions as a (slower) always-on healing aura (though both work just fine). Other options are health drain weapons (very reliable) or potions (generally not fast enough unless you can make sure you're not taking much damage through heavy armor or the like). You can also use a Poultice and wait for an hour which will heal you when not in combat.
• Without additional mods, you are limited in the number of perks you can have. Plan what you want your character to be, and allocate your perks accordingly. Perks are precious - don't use them for the sake of using them.
• Most sewers have lootable boxes which contain food for free, as well as ruined books which can be crafted into paper rolls for mages.
• Don’t expect to be tackling bleak falls barrow at level 1 - you wouldn't expect to be killing a bandit horde within 5 minutes of picking up a sword for the first time in real life. You need to train up first.
• Don't expect to be good at a skill if you don't invest perk points in it - This is best illustrated by the heavy armor skill. You can have 100 in heavy armor, but without perks, all that does is give your armor rating a minimal increase (with a full set of legendary steel plate armor it has 505 armor at (skill) level 6 and 550 at level 100). Without spending points on heavy armor skills, you lose stamina even while standing completely still, and when you are moving it’s at a snail’s pace! With the right perks, however, you can regenerate stamina while walking and move at normal speeds.
• For the first few bandit camps you clear - Take everything. Clutter - such as Wooden plates and tankards can be processed at the forge into charcoal and metal fragments if you have craftsmanship, or else can be sold for some coins.
• Wildlander has completely reworked skill books, while they still give you an immediate 1up in a skill you can also study them you can study the book over and over for the experience.
• If you're planning to play a smith - keep your eyes peeled for books with titles like “the Craftsman Manual’ these are listed in your smithing tree. You will need these books in your inventory to learn the perk, but once you’ve learned that perk you no longer need the book.
• Make sure you are clean and clothed before you try to buy from or sell to shop-keepers as they will severely overcharge you if you're dirty and/or naked. In addition, certain soaps also give skill bonuses, so make sure you use the correct soap for what you want to do.
• Skills in Archery will allow you to hunt more effectively, which is a great source of food and cash, selling pelts and reagents to vendors is great early game money. With the Craftsman skill, you can even fashion hides into armor and clothing. This is also a great way to practice marksmanship and gain experience if you are short of a skill you need to level.
• Craft yourself a chest or barrel. If you're setting up a permanent camp, give yourself somewhere to store excess stuff you don't need to carry with you while exploring.
• To preserve Stamina - you can toggle between walking and running using the “Caps lock” key.
• A horse is one of the best early investments in the game as it's essentially a mobile chest. It's always worth having a 12-hour fire’s worth of wood and a tent store inside in case of an emergency blizzard. There are a few you don't have to pay for a horse if you can find them. Horses can be adopted by stealth next to them, activate and select adopt. If the ‘adopt’ option is not available, ride the horse approximately 100 meters and try again. 

• There's occasionally a horse(or group of horses) in the wilderness - typically with a dead NPC by it. 
• Midnight is in a cave underneath Dragonsreach guarded by bandits - taking this one counts as stealing(although you almost never get a bounty for doing so).

• The Bestiary of Skyrim is your best friend, it describes in detail ways of effectively dealing with some creatures which require specific methods of killing.
• Make sure you always have a stew buff as it provides stamina over time - nothing will kill you quicker than being disarmed when you run out of Stamina.
• Make sure you set up the “Q” Favorites menu with your weapon sets to make switching spells or ranged/melee weapons quickly. You can do this by Favoriting your spells/weapons and then, open the Q menu. Click the weapon and assign it a hotkey.
• Use the “L” to toggle off your lantern in daylight or brightly lit interiors - this will save your oil.
• As a stealth character, you should use shadows to your advantage and bathe regularly, this will ensure NPCs have a harder time detecting you - it’s not hard to find someone who smells like a bag of day-old slaughter fish standing beside a brazier.
• As a mage, the more “weight” you are wearing the more your spells cost until you get enchantments, wear as little as possible. 
• If you pick up a disease, alchemists offer a cleansing potion. Priests, Vigilants, and altars can also cure you if you have not made the divines abandon you with too much crime.
• The main quest cannot be started until you have killed a dragon and absorbed its soul - depending on your MCM settings this will either be time-delayed or when you reach a certain level. Do note however you can still travel to Solstheim but you cannot complete the ‘main quest’ there, Dawnguard can be done as per normal.
• Wildlander allows you to recruit an army of followers - if you are finding the game too challenging don't be afraid to recruit any you encounter! 
• Manage your weight - Gold and arrows have weight in this game - only carry what you need. For a quick tip – if you have a horse, you can craft a barrel, store your gold in the barrel, pick the barrel back up and store it on your horse for only the weight of the barrel. This applies to other items too! 
• There are also hidden hideouts in locations all around Skyrim which you can use for safe storage - sleeping and some even have alchemy/cooking stations if you can find them.
• Use all of your senses - some animals sneaking around can be identified by the sounds they make. The instincts ability from the center mouse button also gives visual indicators of paths enemies have taken, plants to harvest, and corpses to loot.
• If you're outnumbered - don't be afraid to run - but be aware, some enemies can use doors just as well as you can!
• Don’t try to go into Windhelm if you are a beast race without some bribe money or you won’t be let in. This can lead you to freeze to death!
• If you are an enchanter or mage - keep an eye out for Enchanted weapon handles, filled soul gem fragments or Imbued bones, they can be used for spell research.
• Never go north without a tent, kindling, tinder, and wood.
• Join companions if you're a warrior or College if you're a mage(note you need to pass a skills test to join), they'll be an excellent source of experience if you care to do those quests, and the Companions require quite a lot of questing to actually advance in. Winterhold would be the perfect place to learn magic if it wasn't freezing. However, the college itself is plenty warm as it has a training dummy in the basement – but be aware  - he fights back!
• How to open Locks if you aren't invented in Lockpicking (or if you are but your skills are too low)

•  Spells Knock, Knock  II and Knock III can be used to unlock any item. Knock III empowered can open master chests.
•  Knock spell also comes in scroll format.
•  You can Bash Novice, apprentice and Adept wooden locks if your current health and stamina reaches the requirements. (boss chests and steel doors can’t be bashed) note: Weapon doesn't matter

• Novice Level Locks: If (HP * 2) + Stamina > 350 = Success.
• Apprentice Level Locks: If (HP * 2) + Stamina > 450 = Success.
• Adept Level Locks: If (HP * 2) + Stamina > 550 = Success.

• All of the faction quests are significantly slowed down - for example, you have to have the following requirements to progress the Companions storyline.

• One defensive combat skill--Light or Heavy Armor, or Block--at least 30
• One weapon skill--One-Handed/Two-Handed/Archery--at least 30
• Player level at least 5
• At least 10 radiant quests done since joining (including one for each member of the Circle)
• Be a member for at least 2 weeks

Can I tweak the difficulty?

If you find combat is still not to your liking on Easy mode, you can adjust the amount of damage you take in the Requiem MCM.

If the survival elements are getting to you, Sunhelm and/or Frostfall can be adjusted (or turned off) in their respective MCMs.

If you are finding the survival aspect too easy - you can increase the difficulty by increasing your exposure within frostfall

Appendix

Keybindings 

PRESS F11 IN GAME

Useful Resources

Requiem armor resistance table located Here and weapons Here

Damage Vs Armor explained Here 

Requiem Racial Traits Here 

Requiem Standing Stones Guide Here 

Spell Research guide Here 

Alchemy Research notes (credit semkiry) Here

Requiem’s WIKI Here

Unique Item Effects ("mostly" accurate): Here

Location of all smithing books. *extreme spoilers*  NOTE: do not discuss on discord some people want to find them naturally.

Change Log

01-12-21 - Initial Release.

10-01-22 - Added tempering section

15-01-22 - Added hotkey source table.

Thanks

We would like to thank Terrorforge, Skjolbir, Goldymires, Semkiry and the whole Requiem Team for the guides used to produce this document.