Mod overview: Tools of Kagrenac - Omni-guides/Tuxborn GitHub Wiki
This page covers various questions of interest pertaining to the mod The Tools of Kagrenac.
The Tools of Kagrenac is basically what it says on the tin: a mod oriented around an alternate path for you to acquire Sunder, Wraithguard, and Keening, the Tools in question. In vanilla Skyrim, Keening is available as part of Arniel Gane's side quest at the College of Winterhold. Sunder and Wraithguard are normally available via a quest included in the Anniversary Edition content.
Our load order will still expect you to run Arniel Gane's quest, but the Keening you get as a result of this is going to be a corrupted form. You will get the final form of the weapon by running Tools of Kagrenac.
Since our load order contains Legacy of the Dragonborn and the Tools of Kagrenac, and requires the Anniversary Edition, there is a three-way conflict pertaining to how to get Sunder and Wraithguard.
The Tools of Kagrenac takes precedence in this conflict. The AE quest "Legends Lost", which you would normally use to get these items, should be entirely disabled in our load order.
LOTD normally has its own versions of Sunder and Wraithguard. As with the AE's versions, LOTD's will be superseded by the Tools of Kagrenac.
The book "Auryen's Notes on the Tools of Kagrenac", which should eventually spawn on Auryen's desk in the office of the Hall of Heroes, should still work to give you an unmarked quest to find the tools.
However, please note: we have a known issue with this mod interacting with the quest "Auryen's Notes: The Tools of Kagrenac", which launches when you read the book in question. The quest does not properly resolve even if you finish the Tools of Kagrenac mod, and it expects you to still find Wraithguard. We expect a fix for this in the next Tuxborn build. See Known quest‐blocking bugs in Tuxborn for more details.
The mod's intended way to start the quest has the following requirements for the quest to start:
- You need to complete The Way of the Voice in the main quest (so yes, this is another mod that expects you to be the Dragonborn)
- You need to join the College of Winterhold and play through all of its questline, as you'll need to have completed The Eye of Magnus before you can unlock Part 3 of Arniel Gane's side quest.
- You also need to finish Arniel's side quest, "Arniel's Endeavor".
- Keening needs to be in your inventory, so that it can become a quest item. So once you finish "Arniel's Endeavor", do not leave Keening anywhere, keep it on you.
A couple of days in-game after finishing "Arniel's Endeavor", you should get a courier with a letter to kick off the quest.
On the MCM for this mod, you should be able to find an Alternate Start toggle which will allow you to bypass the starting requirements and kick off the quest immediately. Players who wish to avoid putting off the main quest as long as possible might want to consider this option, if nothing else to bypass the requirement to complete The Way of the Voice. If you toggle the alternate start on, as per the description given on the toggle, the quest will commence as soon as you pick up any item.
We have info on what to do if you can't kick off Tools of Kagrenac on the Known quest‐blocking bugs in Tuxborn page, too.
The mod has no specific level requirement. However, given that it does require you to finish the College of Winterhold and Arniel's Endeavor, and that it also requires you to visit Nchardak on Solstheim, we recommend level 30 or higher. This should give you plenty of time to meet the quest requirements, and also to be able to visit Solstheim reasonably safely.
See recommendations section below for additional suggestions re: timing of when to launch Tools of Kagrenac as a whole, and parts of it in particular.
In addition to the actual tools themselves, the mod includes a full set of Aetherial gear, including armor, jewelry, and one spell. A list of several items can be found in this article on Nexus.
All of the items listed in the linked article should also be displayable in the LOTD museum. However, only the following items are known to have replica recipes, so plan accordingly depending on which of the items you actually might want to use:
- Keening
- Ring of the Wind
- Sunder
- Wraithguard
In addition to these items, the following items also appear in the mod and are displayable at the museum:
- Ayleid Staff of Chain Lightning
Players should take note of the enchantments on the mod's items, to determine which of them you want to keep for active use vs. putting on display in the museum.
Normally, the Aetherial Amulet is supposed to have a buff on it that will boost your Smithing by 25% if you're wearing the full set of Aetherial armor. However, this buff is confirmed to not be present in our load order. Instead, the Amulet will boost your Armor Rating by 25.
This change is likely due to the Simonrim mod Thaumaturgy, which controls changes to Enchanting.
The description on the amulet has not been changed, which is misleading. But the amulet has not been directly edited by Simonrim. Rather, it is most likely using the vanilla Fortify Smithing enchantment, and since that is removed by Thaumaturgy, the Amulet is indirectly impacted. And since it's an indirect change, the description is not affected.
The following spells will make things a lot easier while you're looking for Sunder:
- Telekinesis
- Greater Healing or any other higher-tier Restoration spell that you can constantly cast on yourself
You may also wish to bring:
- A reliable constant light source, which will be helpful in Oio-Lalor
- The Locate Relic power from Legacy of the Dragonborn, which will help you find the reward items in Silent Halls
As per LOTD's wiki items on various gear pieces from this mod, loose aetherium ore pieces should be findable in Silent Halls in Blackreach.
Silent Halls is accessible via a portal in the Silent Ruins in Blackreach, while you are running this quest. You should be able to find a total of 12 pieces of ore, 10 in the same chest that contains the Aetherial armor set, and two more on the same table where you find the Aetherial Ring.
Smelting this ore into ingots should be done at the Aetherium Forge as well.
No other locations are known to have aetherium ore at this time, but we'll update this page if players report additional ones.
But in addition to the requirements listed above, players may wish to consider the following suggestions for how to time when you launch this quest, and when you do specific parts of it:
- If you have a chance to visit the Ruins of Bthalft beforehand, that can give you a fast travel marker to use during Tools of Kagrenac. Running Lost to the Ages which lets you help the ghost of Katria and find the Aetherium Forge, is one good way of going there. But if you just happen to be passing nearby the spot, you can run over there and mark the location for later reference.
- You may wish to overlap the part of Tools of Kagrenac that requires you to enter Blackreach with other quests that require this as well. Your options are:
- Running Raldbthar as part of Lost to the Ages
- The Elder Knowledge portion of the main quest, which sends you to Alftand
- Running the side quest to recover Grimserver for Mjoll the Lioness, which will send you to Mzinchaleft
- Since acquiring Wraithguard requires you to go to Nchardak on Solstheim, you may wish to overlap that with running Nchardak as part of the main Dragonborn quest.
The part of the mod that involves getting Sunder is the most difficult part of it, so we have several recommendations specific to that part of the mod.
The three biggest recommendations we have are;
- Temporarily turn off Shades of Mortality if you' re running it for your playthrough
- Make sure you have a current save before you try to solve the Sunder puzzle
- Get the Telekinesis spell before doing this puzzle
More details on all of these under the "How to solve the Rkulftzul puzzle" block.
How to get to Rkulftzul...
Rkulftzul, the location you need to reach to get Sunder, can be tricky to get to. The best possible access will be via Ironbind Overlook, which is only accessible by going through Ironbind Barrow. If you haven't visited Ironbind Barrow already by the time you run Tools of Kagrenac, this would be a good opportunity for you to do so.
Second best possible access will be going to Mount Anthor. There is no direct path from that dragon lair to the lift that goes down into Rkulftzul, but you'll be close enough that you can climb over a bit of mountain to get there.
How to solve the Rkulftzul puzzle...
Once you're inside Rkulftzul, you will find yourself at a walkway across a wide lava-filled chasm. At the end of the walkway you'll see a quest marker behind a forcefield, and three pillars in front of that. Go to those. You should find a skeleton lying nearby, a note, and a journal. Read the note and journal. They are intended to give you clues to solve the puzzle. But for our purposes, just read them to get the small XP boost off of them, and the mini-quest to find three objects called stanzas.
All three stanzas are within the same chamber and you should have quest markers for them. This is where Telekinesis comes in. Two of the stanzas are situated in spots that will be very difficult to reach if you're not good at jumping. And if you're not good at jumping, the risk of yeeting yourself straight into the lava is high.
If you are good at jumping, you can of course try to get to the stanzas that way. Whirlwind Sprint or the Shadow Step spell may also work here, but would require precise control to make sure you don't overshoot or undershoot the target spots.
Via whatever means works for you, get the stanzas. The third one should be back in the lift.
- If you are running Shades of Mortality for your playthrough, make sure that you are not currently afflicted by the Death's Grip nerf
- Save and exit the game
- Temporarily disable Shades of Mortality in MO2
- Relaunch
If you are not running Shades of Mortality for your playthrough, save anyway. Seriously, SAVE YOUR GAME.
Once you reload, you can proceed to solve the puzzle.
Here are the hints offered by the mod page, which recommends you try the hints in order and only proceed to the next one if you feel like you need it. Skip straight to hint #5 to bypass this entire process.
Hint #1...
Hint #1: Find the book at the end of the walkway by the three receptacles. There's a note inside. First, read the journal to start the miscellaneous quest, then read the note after you have placed the three Stanzas on the receptacles.
Hint #2...
Hint #2: The titles in the note correspond with the numbers 1, 13, and 29. These are not the numbers needed to unlock Sunder, but what do they mean? And what do the numbers behind each title mean?
Hint #3...
Hint #3: At the entrance to the Vault, you'll find multiple volumes of the Sermons of Vivec. What are the numbers of these volumes?
Hint #4...
Hint #4 Find numbers 1, 13, and 29 of the Sermons. Then look for the 349th word in the 1st Sermon, the 129th word in the 13th Sermon, and the 56th Word in the 29th Sermon.
If you want to actually follow the mod's intention, we do not recommend trying to count words in the books in-game. Instead, for better legibility, we suggest using the transcriptions of the Sermons you want to refer to on the UESP:
Hint #5...
Hint #5: You can obtain Sunder with the following combination: 348
The final hint provides the correct combination for you to use to solve the puzzle. You need to look at each of the three stanzas in sequence, and enter the corresponding digit in the combination.
This is the reason we recommend turning off Shades of Mortality for this puzzle, so that if you do enter the puzzle incorrectly, you will at least return to your last save. Which, if you followed the above recommendation, should be just after you retrieved the stanzas.
If you enter the puzzle wrong and the chamber fills with lava, you will have a couple of seconds before the chamber fills completely. You could maybe escape the chamber via any means of teleportation described on the Means of teleportation in Tuxborn page. However, even if you do that, there is no known way to actually reset the puzzle if you fail it. So even if you escape the chamber, you won't have a way to come back and re-do the puzzle. So the best strategy here is still to revert to previous save.
If Shades of Mortality is active and the chamber fills up with lava, you will be thrown into the ghost state with no way to get out of it. The ghost state will try to expire, but since you'll still be drowning in lava, you'll keep dying.
You can make it back to the lift, but it will be partially blocked with rubble at this point and you would have to clip through it. You can still use the lift as well, but even when you get back to the surface, the world will be lava-colored and you won't have a way to fix this. At which point you'd have to revert to a previous save anyway!
Before you exit the dungeon, if you didn't grab them already, check the copies of the Sermons of Vivec near the lift lever. Some of them may be displayable in your museum if you haven't acquired those specific volumes already.
Once you're safely out of Rkulftzul with Sunder, take another save. Then exit the game again so you can turn Shades of Mortality back on if you need to. Then you should be clear to proceed with the rest of the quest.
Once you get the Tools, you will also need to acquire three special stones that will allow you to return the Tools to their uncorrupted forms. Getting these stones will require you to visit three different Ayleid ruins: Aba-Malatar, Oio-Lalor, and Atalatar. All three of these ruins are along the bottom edge of the map, and Aba-Malatar and Oio-Lalor are the difficult ones.
We suggest you start with Aba-Malatar and work your way westward, since acquiring the three stones will then require you to go to Markarth to meet your original contact in the Silver-Blood Inn.
Aba-Malatar is located in the bottom right corner of the map, very near to Stendarr's Beacon, Fort Justice, and Heroes Rest Crypt. If you've found any of those three locations, you can use them as fast travel markers. If you're standing by Fort Justice, the ruin should be within easy visual range.
This ruin is basically a large sequence of traps you'll have to solve to make to the stone. Expect to do a lot of side corridors where you'll have to press various buttons to deactivate traps and/or bring down gates that block access to the next chamber you need to reach. There are also a couple of side corridors that may look impassable to you on first glance. You should however be able to find activators to duck under or squeeze past blockages.
Be warned that part of this dungeon will also require you to go through an area full of poison gas that will do constant damage to you. This part is where you need a reliable high-level means of constantly healing yourself until you deactivate the poison gas.
How to turn off the gas...
Down a side corridor in the area with the gas, you should see a pillar with a button, and an Ayleid skull on top of it. Take that skull off the pillar. This will deactivate the gas so you can go through the area freely.
The button is necessary to open up gates. You may need to hit the button multiple times, then go up the stairs back to where you previously were, to confirm which gates have been lowered so you can proceed.
This ruin is about midway along the bottom of the map, close to Englemann's Rest, the Thalmor Prison, and Pale Pass Cave. You'll visit Englemann's Rest as part of running the Legacy of the Dragonborn quest Shadows of One's Past.
Oio-Lalor is very dark, and here is where you'll want a good light source. If you have crafted lanterns, the Magic Lantern will probably work better here than the Iron Lantern. And if you have a Circlet of Light or Necklace of Light, that'll help as well.
Sands' Torch, available via Legacy of the Dragonborn, could also be a useful light source here since it never goes out. However, you'll have to always hold it, which might be a problem if you fight with two-handed weapons or bows.
This ruin is the easiest of the three, and you won't even have to go inside, as the stone is located at an Ayleid well accessible partway up a hill.
Atalatar is very near Halldir's Cairn and Cracked Tusk Keep.
Once you reach Silent Ruin in Blackreach, you'll find a portal there that will take you to the final phase of this quest. It will take you to a large outside area, Silent Passage, that leads you to Silent Halls.
This area contains mountain flowers, including Yellow Mountain Flowers. So if you enjoy alchemy, you might consider harvesting those while you're here.
You may also be attacked by a dragon while in this area, since it counts as outside. You'll also be attacked by assorted dwarven automatons en route.
Entering the final ruin will require you to jump into a chasm that'll land you in water. If you have followers with you, they should be able to jump down with you.
Once you enter the final ruin, this is the part where LOTD's Locate Relic power will come in handy, if you've unlocked it via LOTD's Archaeology system. Silent Halls is quite large, and if you have trouble navigating it, use the power to get quest markers to the items you'll want to find: the Aetherial armor set, the Aetherial Amulet, and the Aetherial Ring. Just remember that this power can be fired off only once per in-game day, so you may have to wait 24 hours in-game before you cast it again.
The armor set is in the large area prior to the final chamber. The ring and the amulet can be found in that final chamber.
Once you find everything, you can return to the Silent Ruin. The mod will provide you a portal to do so, and also a reminder to grab any loot or reward items you missed before you go. So be sure to do that.
Remember as well that Silent Ruin is the place you need to be to find the components for Delrune's Dwemer Compass. The portal you would have entered will have obscured your view of Delrune's skeleton, but once you're back out again, you'll be right on top of the skeleton and the other items. So be sure to nab those and Delrune's other items before you leave the ruin completely.
Shoutout to the following players on #txbn-general for contributing to this information:
- Kok0 for confirming info on aetherium ingots and armor
- Dinosaurusbaby for confirming the presence of the MCM toggle
- Mr. Beifersbééfh for reporting in on behavior of the Aetherial Amulet, and also on the Rkulftzul puzzle
- Danshov | Kida for additional confirmation on the Rkulftzul puzzle, as well as use of Telekinesis to get the stanzas