College of Winterhold - Omni-guides/Tuxborn GitHub Wiki

This page is an overview in FAQ format of what changes Tuxborn makes to the College of Winterhold.

Tuxborn's load order still expects you to talk to Faralda on the bridge up to the College, to gain permission to enter and join as an apprentice. Play through that as you would in vanilla, up through Mirabelle giving you the tour and then taking you to Tolfdir's class on wards. Finish that class.

At that point, the mod College of Winterhold - Quest Expansion begins. This mod will require you to finish seven basic lessons with trainers around the College before you'll progress to the dig at Saarthal, and the rest of the College plot. (See next section for more on this.) After that point, the College questline proceeds as in vanilla Skyrim.

Once you have the initial lesson with Tolfdir, you'll need to speak to him to arrange further lessons. In addition to the five usual spell trainers at the College, you'll also need to speak to Sergius (the trainer for Enchanting), and Urag (the keeper of the Arcaeneum). All seven will have a short quest for you to fulfill. Tolfdir will start you off first with teaching you the Waterbreathing spell if you don't know it already, and asking you to find and speak to Arniel Gane. You can also take an extra dialogue option with him to get quest markers, if you have trouble locating all the trainers.

Each of these quests can be skipped with the provided dialogue option with the NPCs, and you may wish to do that route if you're already familiar with this mod and don't want to play through the lessons again.

However, if you do play through them, be advised that some of the quests are a trifle buggy, and others may not have obvious solutions. Here are some tips on how to complete each quest.

As noted above, this one will require you to go find Arniel Gane and offer him your help. He'll lead you out just north of the College, and ask you to go diving to recover a gem he's looking for, in a sunken chest.

Some important things about this:

1. This quest will teach you the Waterbreathing spell if you don't already know it¹. Note however that actually casting the spell is not critical to quest completion. If you have an item enchanted with the Waterbreathing enchantment, that'll still work to let you complete the quest. And may be more useful anyway, as it'll give you more time to stay underwater if you need it. But that said...
2. ... if you are playing Survival Mode, the weather is likely to be a problem. So is the fact that you'll be diving into frigid water. Prepare accordingly. Hot soups and a Flame Cloak spell would be helpful. You can also ask Arniel to build a fire for you, to warm up.
3. Since this involves diving, your Stamina will take a hit. If you're underwater long enough, your Stamina may run out completely. Again, plan and prepare accordingly.
4. Some form of light is highly recommended, so that you can actually see underwater as you dive. Ideally, this should be a Circlet of Light or a Necklace of Light, both of which cast an always-on Candlelight spell. Failing that, the actual Candlelight spell, though this will be of limited duration and you'll have to surface again to recast it. This is why an enchanted item is preferable. Lanterns may work in this case, but a Circlet or Necklace of Light is likely to give you better light underwater.
5. Related to previous, you will have better visibility underwater if you dive during the daytime. Try to avoid running this quest at night.
6. Last but not least, you'll get a quest marker for where you're supposed to look, but that quest marker is not precise. This is by design. Click on the below spoiler if you need help finding the chest.

Tip on how to find the chest you're diving for...

The quest marker is not precise, but it does put you near the target. Swim carefully north of the quest marker location. You should find the chest you need a short distance north of where the quest marker points.

For this one, you'll need to speak to Phinis. He'll ask you to demonstrate your Conjuration ability by taking you out into the courtyard, and asking you to summon a familiar.

Tip on how to satisfy this quest...

Tuxborn's load order changes the name of the Conjure Familiar spell. In our load order, it's called Conjure Spectral Wolf. And you want that specific spell, even if you're already capable of summoning higher level familiars or atronachs. Once you summon your familiar, Phinis will summon a frost atronach that will proceed to fight and defeat your familiar. Phinis will have a few more lines of dialogue, and that will conclude the quest.

This one is one of the least janky of the lot. Faralda will ask you to use the Firebolt spell against a hostile animal, out to the east of the College. You should get a quest marker for your target creature.

Depending on the precise route you take to get to the target, you may or may not pass by the altar with the dead apprentice Rundi. If you do find that altar on the way, stop there. Rundi's Dagger is a displayable artifact for LOTD. Note, however, that the Finding Velekh Sain mod hooks into the unused vanilla game data about the missing apprentices (see more on this below). So if you don't go by the altar as part of running this quest, you'll have an opportunity to do so later if you run that quest.

Sergius will, once you speak with him, task you with casting a Fire Damage enchantment on a client's sword. This quest is known to be a bit buggy, though. He is supposed to give you a dagger with the enchantment on it, as well as the soul gem he wants you to use, and a note with instructions on what to do. However, perhaps if you know the relevant enchantment already, he may not actually give you the dagger and soul gem, and just give you the note and the client's sword.

Tips on what to do if this happens...

This part of the quest can be safely concluded by doing the following:

1. Go to the enchanter table on the second floor of the Hall of Countenance
2. Make sure you have a filled Petty Soul Gem, pull one out of your personal stashed supplies if you need to
3. Enchant the sword Sergius gave you with the Fire Damage enchantment, using the Petty Soul Gem

This should let you proceed to the next stage of the quest.

If these steps do not work, alternately, some console commands you can try are:

setstage cow_enchantment 25

setstage cow_enchantment 30

These two commands were cited by JaySerpa (the mod creator) in comments on posts on the mod's page, as ones you can try to get past the enchanting part of the quest if it's weird for you. So if all else fails give these a try.

You will then need to take the enchanted sword to the intended client. Expect to run into complications when you get to the target location!

You'll need to speak to Drevis for this one. He'll send you just outside the College, to where some skeevers have dug themselves a nest and are making a nuisance of themselves. Drevis tasks you with getting rid of the skeevers.

Tips on how to do this...

Drevis' dialogue with you drops a hint about what he expects you to do: use the Fear spell. If you don't actually know that spell, but you do know higher-level Illusion spells that do the same thing, such as Panic, those won't work to satisfy the quest. It needs to be the Fear spell specifically.

However, you can still satisfy the quest if you and/or your follower(s) kill the skeevers, regardless. Drevis will accept this as sufficient to finish the lesson.

This one is super easy. Urag will give you a book and then quiz you on it. All of his questions are easy, assuming that you did in fact read the content of Olaf and the Dragon.

If you have trouble reading the actual book in your inventory (for example if you are playing on a handheld and it's hard for you to read), you can find the full text of the book on the UESP at the Olaf and the Dragon page.

You will of course need to speak to Colette for this one, but she'll send you right back to Tolfdir, after teaching you the Turn Lesser Undead spell if you don't know it already. You will then need to apply what you've learned to taking out draugr in the Midden.

Joining the College of Winterhold is a vanilla Skyrim requirement. You do have to get access to the College to fulfill the part of the main quest where you have to find the Elder Scroll, and you can't get into the College without joining it.

And a lesser constraint here has to do with running the Forbidden Legend quest, where you reassemble the Gauldur amulet. You can't finish that quest without getting into Saarthal, and you can't get into Saarthal without joining the College.

At this time, Tuxborn does not include anything in its load order to eliminate these requirements. So yes, you do need to join the College.

If you specifically don't want to be a mage, we suggest that you do the bare minimum of magic. Perhaps consider your presence at the College an excuse to maybe find out more about how the Voice works, since the power of the Thu'um wielded by the Dragonborn is arguably magic-adjacent! And if you're the thane of Winterhold, you might also RP that you consider the College part of your jurisdiction, and that you want to be able to keep an eye on its events, just to protect and defend the place.

You could also just do the bare minimum of action at the College, but keep in mind as well that finishing the entire College questline will net you additional displays for your LOTD museum. So we do recommend you run the whole thing.

Speaking of your LOTD museum, there are a few reasons to run the College just because of Legacy of the Dragonborn:

1. Over 25 known displayable artifacts for your museum (see next section for more on this)
2. The Gauldur amulet, which you cannot finish without clearing Saarthal, is also a displayable artifact
3. Finishing the College questline and assembling the Gauldur amulet are two of the three requirements to build outposts for your Explorers Society in LOTD

Aside from the main quest, the Forbidden Legend quest, and Legacy of the Dragonborn, the following content in Tuxborn will also expect you to access the College to finish it:

• Creature of Legend, the AE quest that lets you tame a Unicorn
• Forgotten Vale Books Quest, the side quest you can run as part of Dawnguard
• No Stone Unturned, the quest to gather all 24 of the Stones of Barenziah (one of them is in the Arch-Mage's quarters, unless you use the Thieves Guild Requirements MCM to randomize their locations)
• Swift As an Arrow, the AE quest that lets you learn how to craft Telekinesis Arrows

There are quite a few, some of which you'll get as part of the main College questline, some of which are from side quests, and some of which are things you can discover in parallel with running College content:

• All three books you get from the Caller when you run Fellglow Keep: Fragment: On Artaeum, Night of Tears, and The Last King of the Ayleids
• All four items belonging to the missing apprentices: Borvir's Dagger, Ilas-Tei's Ring, Rundi's Dagger, and Yisra's Necklace
• All items carried by the dragon priest Morokei in Labyrinthian: Morokei (the mask), Morokei's Robes, Morokei's Gloves, and Morokei's Greaves²
• Arch-Mage's Robes
• The Focusing Crystal you find at the end of running Mzulft
• Kahvozein's Fang (from Tolfdir's quest for the Alteration Ritual spell)
• Keening
• Korthor, a dragon priest mask you can find on the College grounds
• Mage's Circlet
• Mystic Tuning Gloves (from Drevis' side quest)
• Ring of the Vipereye (by the door of the Atronach Forge, in a strongbox)
• Saarthal Amulet
• Savos Aren's Amulet
• Shalidor's Stone (not directly involved with the College, but findable if you run Shalidor's Maze in Labyrinthian)
• Sigil Stone (from Phinis' Conjuration Ritual spell quest)
• Spell Tome: Telekinesis Arrows (not directly related to the College, but only available in the Arcaeneum, so you have to access the college to get it)
• Staff of Magnus
• Tolfdir's Alembic (from Tolfdir's side quest for that)
• Torc of Labyrinthian

In addition to the above artifacts, various books displayable in the museum may be found in the Arch-Mage's quarters or in the Arcaeneum. Be cautious when trying to take these, as they may be marked Steal. Anything in the Arch-Mage's quarters should become free to take once you are Arch-Mage, however.

The Enchanted Rings you find as part of running the Saarthal portion of the College questline are displayable, but they do not count towards your display count, and you have to place them on display manually. So you'll be okay to skip these if you so wish.

Likewise, Tuxborn does not have anything in its load order to let you bail on being Arch-Mage, and we have no plans to add such a mod. So yes, you'll need to accept that position. If you're not trying to play a mage, as suggested above, we recommend RPing that this ties into your position as Thane of Winterhold, and just generally defending the place as Dragonborn.

Yes, a bunch. See the Spells available in Tuxborn page for details.

The Anniversary Edition brings in several options for robes for you to consider:

• Arcane Accessories
• Fishing (includes some Vagrant robes, hoods, and boots, both in unenchanted and enchanted forms, in a black and gold color scheme)
• Necromantic Grimoire (includes several types of necromancer robes)

And these mods are known to have robes (or robe-like Light Armor) available:

• Beyond Skyrim: Bruma (Nibenese mage attire)
• Carved Brink has the Ancient Falmer gear that looks like robes, see Mod overview: Carved Brink for more info³
• Glenmoril has a number of clothing items that might be of interest as alternates to mage robes, see Mod overview: Glenmoril for more info
• Project AHO and its Ancient Dwemer Robe, or its Telvanni Hybrid Armor³
• Legacy of the Dragonborn's Visage of the Dragonborn set can come in robe form for mages
• Wheels of Lull has Chronographer gear that looks like robes, see Mod overview: Wheels of Lull for more info³

Lastly, certain robes that appear only rarely in the vanilla game should be more common in our load order, so you may come across these at any time as loot:

• Green Robes
• Red Robes
• Telvanni Robes

There are five different Creations included in the Anniversary Edition that may be of interest to mages who want to fight with staves:

• Arms of Chaos
• Gallows Hall (includes Mannimarco's Staff of Worms, if you're playing a necromancer)
• Staff of Hasedoki
• Staff of Sheogorath
• Staves

Other than those, Tuxborn does not have any standalone staff mods, though we do have a mod that changes staff animations.

Several of the quest mods however have custom staves available. Legacy of the Dragonborn's wiki mentions several, but some of those require certain other mods to be present that may not be in Tuxborn's load order. So doublecheck any staves on LOTD's wiki to make sure whether they'll actually be in our modpack.

Glenmoril is also known to have a few staves available. See Mod overview: Glenmoril for further info.

Interesting NPCs adds three characters you may see around the College: Olivia, Eleanor, and Mugnor. Olivia is involved with two large quests from Interesting NPCs, so if you're inclined, you can get those quests by talking to her. Eleanor is a background NPC in the Arcaeneum. And Mugnor becomes relevant if you're running Rumarin (also from Interesting NPCs) as your follower.

The College does not, however, have any known new followers in Tuxborn's load order.

Yes, the Arcane Grotto. See Mod player homes available in Tuxborn for details.

There are two you'll want to know about:

1. Finding Velehk Sain overhauls the side quest where you need to acquire four rings to place onto the mysterious gauntlet in the Midden. It ties that quest in with the missing apprentices you hear about from Phinis, and as part of that, moves the four rings out of the Arcaeneum and places them at the four unmarked sites where the missing apprentices died.
2. The Tools of Kagrenac impacts the side quest Arniel's Endeavor. You'll still need to run that quest, but the final forms of Sunder, Keening, and Wraithguard will be achieved by running The Tools of Kagrenac.

Not really, aside from the changes to the Midden brought in by the Arcane Grotto mod. We are running Spaghetti's Faction Halls - College of Winterhold, which is a very lightweight tweak of clutter items viewable around the College grounds.

1. This is the part where, if you're playing an Argonian, you can go "LOL waterbreathing spell", and just dive.
2. In order for the gloves, greaves, and robe to be displayable, you will need to uncurse them. You can do so by creating a Scroll of Abjuration, which requires Dragon Priest Ashes and a piece of dragonhide. You'll probably get ashes directly off of Morokei when you kill him. And you can make the dragonhide at any tanning rack, using dragon scales. See the mod Konahrik's Accoutrements for more info.
3. Gear for these mods looks like robes, but is actually classed as Light Armor, not clothing. So this may not be as interesting to pure mage builds. If you're running a spellsword build, though, these are options to consider.