Mod overview: Warden of the Coast - Omni-guides/Tuxborn GitHub Wiki

Warden of the Coast introduces you to a character who claims to have a very close tie to you, and takes you on a quest with her to a remote island you'll have to save from Daedric invasion. It features nine total custom followers with their own backstories and a custom XP and regard system, and multiple endings to the main plot depending on your plot choices.

This is one of the mods that requires you to have finished The Way of the Voice, because its narrative very much depends upon your being known to be the Dragonborn.

Once you've cleared that quest, Warden of the Coast will auto-launch once you reach level 25. A trio of bounty hunters will intercept you upon your entry to any city, and accuse you of terrorizing the people of Dawnstar. Dispatching the bounty hunters will give you an objective to investigate what's going on in Dawnstar.

The mod's page says it should level with you from level 5 to level 50. So you should be fine starting it at any point past level 25. Past level 50, the mod page recommends adjusting your Difficulty if you want it to continue matching you.

The mod recommends no followers. And while it allows you to only run three of its own set of followers at a time, Warden does hand you nine different characters to choose from. Bringing in any other current followers of your own may make your group unmanageably large.

But that said, as with other mods that prefer you to play them alone, some of our custom followers may port into Warden's main playspace. And certainly, for some players, it may be narratively appropriate for them to come with you. Just be mindful that none of our custom followers have any commentary relevant to the Warden of the Coast plot.

And indeed, it may strike you as narratively weird to have any outside followers along with you, especially any followers that should have something to say about events in the mod. Example: Xelzaz, who is documentedly very hostile to all of the Daedric Princes, should in theory have a lot to say about what goes on in Warden of the Coast.

So in general, we recommend abiding by the mod's expectations. You may wish to dismiss any active followers of your own before launching the main part of this plot. Or, if their code allows for them to do so, ask them to relax in one of your player homes.

You will spend most of this mod's plot stranded on a remote island. As the plot plays out, you will wind up fighting a lot of large, hostile mobs. The amount of loot you'll get from this will very quickly overload you. You do, however, have options to manage your storage. See next section.

Due to the aforementioned mobs, the Slow Time Shout or the Time Break spell from Project AHO may be very helpful.

The Detect Life spell or the Aura Whisper Shout would be good, for reasons covered in the recommendations section below. Also the Detect Dead spell.

At the very end of the mod, the Whirlwind Sprint Shout will also be helpful. Make sure to have at least two words of it, and all three if possible.

Last but not least, fun fact: if you have Picky's Beacon, you can summon the Dev Aveza to the island. However, you still can't leave with it. There is no fast travel marker back to Skyrim, and since the airship relies on fast travel to work, you won't be able to escape that way, sorry! Summoning the airship to you would get you another guaranteed place to sleep and access to all its crafting stations and storage, so even if you can't use it to escape the island, you may still find it useful to have it around. If you like, work this into your personal narrative for what goes on during the plot.

If you do summon the Dev Aveza to the island, be mindful you'll have to summon it again to get it back to the main Skyrim worldspace. You should be able to either use the beacon again, or use the ship in a bottle on the hearth in the Safehouse to get it to come back to the museum.

Yes. There's a chest in your cabin on your ship, and all followers in your party will have access to that storage. So if you need to, you can unload excess loot onto them every so often. It'll get sent into that storage.

That said, you can also use whatever other means you have at your disposal to get at storage, of course. These include any or all of the following:

1. The Stash Supplies spell if you're using it
2. The relic container you can summon via the Summon Relic Container spell, if you want to separately store any relics you have for the museum
3. The Phantasmal Chest, if you've been lucky enough to find it during your playthrough
4. The Deep Storage spell, if you have that one and your Alteration is high enough to cast it

Yes. There's one in one of the villages, who will have a very generous allotment of gold, and he's the only person on the island who trades in septims. So you can sell unneeded items to him.

If you've already run Dragonborn and you took the Black Market Black Book power, regularly summoning the Dremora Merchant will help you out with getting rid of excess loot as well.

None known at this time. The aforementioned merchant may have displayable objects in his inventory, but there are none specific to the mod.

Also, you may find that Dremora you kill as part of this mod's plot will frequently have Fate Cards as loot. Sometimes one, maybe even two! So this mod may well be an excellent source of cards for you to build up your stock, and maybe even get a full deck or two.

None known at this time, as custom gear is not within the scope of what this mod wants to do.

Warden of the Coast does use several other mods to give gear sets to the follower NPCs. The author has said on Nexus that these gear sets are not acquirable by the player, as part of gaining permission to use those assets in the mod. However, the following are the known gear sets used, as cited in Warden of the Coast's official credits doc:

• Redguard Noble Armor SE: Worn by Tasius
• Elite Knight for SE: Worn by Roland
• Rogue Armor HD: Worn by Brynn
• Triss Armor Retextured (LE version), Triss Armor Retextured (SE version): Worn by Tia

So you can Rule 11 those into your Tuxborn playthrough if you wish, or use them in a personal load order of your own.

Not for the duration of the mod's plot. But the ship you use to reach the mod's main play space is still mostly inhabitable, and serves as your headquarters for the plot's duration. In addition to a chest being present for safe storage, you can sleep there, and certain objectives for side quests will need you to return to the ship periodically for plot purposes.

After the plot is over, the original location you visited at the beginning, Snowdrift Estate, becomes available to you. Whatever followers survived the plot will be headquartered there.

There are a total of nine followers in this mod, all of whom can act as your direct support through the course of its plot, but only in groups of three:

• Iriel, the main NPC, who claims to have a very personal connection with you
• Brynn, a half-Orc/half-Breton naturalist
• Haden, a Nord, and a former member of the Imperial legion
• Jade, a member of the Dark Brotherhood
• Katri, a Dunmer member of the Vigilants of Stendarr
• Roland, a knight of the Order of the Thorn
• Tasius, a priest of Arkay
• Tia, a writer
• Zavok, a Dremora

Each and every one of these characters will have a personal side quest you can run with them. We highly recommend that you take the time to run all of the follower side quests. Some of them will give you important details relevant to the mod's main plot. All of them will give you in-depth character background on all of these people, and they will further your relationships with the NPCs. It will all feed into what happens with the ending of the primary plot.

We also highly recommend talking with all followers to get their opinions on the conflicts between the villages. You should try to have your active follower party in accord with your decisions on those conflicts if you can, because these decisions can impact your regard status with those followers.

The mod will allow you to romance most of these NPCs. Early in the mod's quest line, you will get a prompt asking you to set your choice for how you want to handle this: to disable romance interactions completely, allow them only for male or female NPCs, or allow them for all.

Which followers are not romanceable...?

Iriel, for what will be generally obvious plot-related reasons, and Zavok. Which you may or may not find disappointing, depending on your preferences re: Dremora.

Important note about the fate of whoever you romance...

Whoever you choose to romance will survive the plot, regardless of whatever other choices you make to reach the ending. You will also be able to marry them via Skyrim's usual means, i.e., wearing an Amulet of Mara.

You will not be able to take all of the followers in this mod with you back to Skyrim (see below in the spoilers section for more on this). But those that do come with you should shift from Warden of the Coast's custom system to Skyrim's own vanilla follower code. At that point, you should be able to manage them via UMF.

Killing certain types of hostile creatures will drop custom ingredients. Some of these are useful to make defensive materials and weapons you'll need as part of the latter stages of the mod's main quest.

Several known ingredients from the main Skyrim worldspace grow on the island where most of this mod takes place, including Yellow Mountain Flowers. So if you find that particular ingredient useful, you might stock up.

If you choose to pursue romancing any of Warden of the Coast's followers, you will get an opportunity to acquire a custom outfit to go on dates. This outfit comes from the Ashara Romantic Outfit mod.

The island's inhabitants use seashells as currency. You can get seashells by killing village outcasts, or by running contracts for the villages. Seashells can be spent at merchant chests in the villages, or a similar chest in the hold of your ship. You can buy gift items with them, a "romantic outfit" if you choose to romance any of the mod's followers, or materials to make defensive structures, armor, or weapons.

See previous section re: side quests for all nine of the followers. Running these will bump up their regard for you.

There are also small bounty quests you can run for the four villages in the mod's main play space. It'll be a good idea to run these, as you'll amass some local currency that can be put to good use. (See previous.)

It is possible for the leader of the initial hired thugs to waylay you inside the Safehouse. This appears to repro if you fast travel straight to the Dragonborn Gallery, and enter the Safehouse from the exterior door. If he does spawn inside the Safehouse, you may find that his body keeps respawning in different rooms long after you kill him. You may need to hit the corpse with the disable command in the console to get rid of it, though of course you can loot everything off of it first.

When proceeding to Dawnstar to do the initial part of this plot, you will need to go to Snowdrift Estate, on an island roughly north-west-ish of Dawnstar. There is no known boat to take you to this island; you will have to swim or water-walk to get to it. If you swim, be careful of what route you take, because there are slaughterfish in the water.

You may find that some of the hostiles during your fights in this mod don't render properly, basically pitting you against invisible opponents. This is caused by Community Shaders. We do not yet have a fix for this yet, but one should happen in Tuxborn 1.2. Until we release that version, some workarounds you might try are:

1. Let your followers fight the opponents if possible. Augment your party with any summoned atronachs or undead you can call in, especially higher-tier summons like storm atronachs. Your followers and/or summons won't be affected by this problem, and if they kill the hostiles for you, you don't have to worry about not being able to see them.
2. The Detect Life spell or Aura Whisper Shout may help you find the opponents during combat.
3. Once combat is over, if you have the Detect Dead spell, you can use it to locate bodies to loot.

Last but not least, the mod author provides an official doc covering quest IDs and their various stages. If you run into issues with any of the quests in this mod, and you can't find a way to resolve it by waiting or taking any other action, refer to that doc for tips on how to find the correct quest ID and stage number to give to a setstage command.

We cover specific examples of this below, where known.

Players running this mod will likely have several large questions arise during the course of its plot. Here are some very short spoiler-y answers to those questions.

‼️ Repeat: these are spoilers. Click on each to expand and see the answer to each question, but do not do that if you want to go into this mod spoiler-free! ‼️

Does the prologue in Dawnstar have any connection to the rest of the plot...?

Sort of. That part is mostly there to introduce you to Iriel, Roland, and Haden. The incident is referenced later in the plot, but just enough for you to give a bit of pushback to certain NPCs that approach you when you conclude the quest Hero of the People.

What's the deal with Iriel...?

Many players may look at how Iriel claims to be connected with you and immediately go, "WTF, my backstory does not allow for this." Hang in there. The mod will start dropping hints about this partway through its main plot, as well as while you run Iriel's and Tasius' side plots, that you should pay attention to. Eventually, all will be revealed. This should hopefully alleviate any concern about conflict with whatever you've set up as your own backstory.

Can I help all four of the villages on the island...?

The Warden is going to ask you to help the people on the island you get stranded on, as a condition to help you leave. The problem with this is, the villages on this island hate each other. There are conflicts between two pairs of villages, and the only way to resolve these conflicts will result in your either having to kill a village elder or wipe out an entire village. There is no known way to resolve these conflicts peacefully.

So you're going to have to make a judgment call on how to handle this as best fits your character and their moral compass. You may find it beneficial to speak to all nine of your comrades to get their takes on the situation, and then decide which of them should be actively following you once you act on your decision.

Should I run the contract quests for the villages...?

Yes. Do at least one for all four villages, more if you have the time and inclination. Running those will get you a quick infusion of seashells, and will build up regard for you in all four villages. This will help considerably when the time comes for you to recruit fighters in the final phase of the plot.

What are the custom workbench and materials chest in the hold of the ship for...?

They are for making defensive materials, weapons, and armor for the villages on the island to better protect themselves from the Daedra. Making these items will require the custom ingredients dropped by killing random monsters on the island. You can also get those same ingredients by buying them out of the chest by the workbench in the ship's hold, or from similar chests located in the villages. You will need to spend seashells on those items.

Note that you will not actually need to do this until you reach the appropriate point in the plot to do so, where you need to rally all the villages against the Reaping. What defensive materials, armor, and weapons you create won't show up for the villages and villagers until you hit that point of the plot.

You will use the same workbench to repair your ship, once you finally reach the appropriate place in the plot to do so.

How do I find Zavok the Dremora...?

Zavok should spawn one hour, game time, after you assist the first village during the quest Hero of the People. There is not a specific location on the island where this happens, he'll come through a portal to find you.

Why can't I advance Tasius' personal quest...?

If you can't progress Tasius' quest past the point of his telling you he needs to get a torpor, then try proceeding on the quest Hero of the People and finishing with providing "assistance" to the island's villages. Shortly after that, you should see Tasius' quest advance and be able to get the necessary potion from him.

If you're familiar with the nightmares plot in Dawnstar, the torpor he gives you will be similar to that. And make sure Tasius is part of your active follower party before you drink it.

I'm stuck on visiting a crime scene in Roland's quest, how can I fix this...?

Roland's personal quest seems to bug out a bit if you take a dialogue option with him to investigate a crime scene first, before proceeding to the point of attacking a bandit encampment. The bug is that you cannot progress to the next stage of the quest.

The crime scene you investigate has the corpse of a Starving Naga Bandit, but nothing actually of note is carried on the corpse, and nothing happens when you loot it.

You will need to use this console command to advance the quest: setstage WCLQ06Roland 90

I can't get an objective to find the slaver camp in Roland's quest, how can I fix this...?

When you take Roland back to see Sir Aldus in his plot, you will find Aldus killed by slavers who proceed to attack you. You and your party will need to fight them, and there will be one survivor you can question. You get an option as to whether or not to spare the survivor's life. If you promise to let him live, Roland himself is supposed to kill him. It is apparently possible however to stop the fight (perhaps by sheathing your own weapon, which would make your followers all do so as well). This will block you from proceeding, since you can't get the necessary next dialogue option off of Roland.

If this happens, you can just kill the survivor yourself. He is non-hostile at this point, so you may need to kill him via the console if you'd like to avoid it counting as a murder.

I'm stuck in the middle of getting the sigil stone for the Jaws of Oblivion quest, what do I do...?

We have a known issue with this quest, where one of our other patches places a Daedric pillar in a problematic spot. This pillar blocks access to a necessary lever to lift a gate.

The chamber in question is one you enter by flipping a different lever to raise two other gates. It also has a pool of lava in the middle, and two large silos to either side of that. On either side of the chamber, there are passages leading up to spiral stairs, but those stairs don't lead anywhere immediately useful.

Once you enter, there will be an ambush by a couple of Xivilai up on platforms above you. You and your companions will need to fight through that ambush. When that's sorted, then you'll need to fix the problem with the gates. Steps as follows:

1. There should be two more gates leading out of the chamber. Position yourself so you're facing those.
2. Go to the left side of the gate on the left.
3. Open your console and click on the pillar immediately to the left of the gate.
4. Type disable in the console to disable the pillar.
5. You should now see a lever you can use to open the gates and proceed.

How do I escape Oblivion after putting back the sigil stone...?

In the Jaws of Oblivion quest, once Mehrunes Dagon goes HA HA FOOLISH MORTAL and you have no choice but to put the sigil stone back, you'll find you can't get out of the immediate area you're in because the bridge you used is now up.

Your only course of action is to go up a short ramp and jump off of it. You may wish to err on the side of caution and use the Become Ethereal Shout at this point, though you should safely land in a pool below, regardless. Then you can run back to the gate you used to get into this part of the plot to begin with.

Why can't I recruit from all four villages to build up an army...?

This is very much dependent upon how you chose the assist villages earlier. In particular, if you burn down the walls around Eliona, that village will be a lot less inclined to be helpful to you. Even if you did it while sneaking.

You may be able to counterbalance this by doing multiple contract quests for the villages (see above question on that), especially the villages you have to harm as a result of the earlier objective in the plot.

Will all of the followers in this mod survive the plot...?

Not so much. One person is guaranteed to die. We're not saying who, because major spoiler. Who else also dies will depend very much upon your plot choices, including whether you choose to romance anyone. So do not rush through those decisions.

When should I run Warden of the Coast in my playthrough...?

Because of the previous spoiler in this list, we recommend you run Warden of the Coast before you finish up the main Skyrim quest. Specifically, before you trap Odahviing in Dragonsreach and head to Skuldafn. Because once you do that, you're committed all the way through running Sovngarde. And if you've run Warden of the Coast before that point, Sovngarde will have a bit of extra content to make it more meaningful.

I'm stuck at the "Make it count" objective at the very end of the mod...!

In the big finale, right after Iriel Shouts you through the Oblivion gate back to the island, you'll find yourself in the Warden's lair in the depths of Mount Andor. You'll get an objective to "Make it count". And you'll also see that the volcano is starting to erupt.

Your objective is to now get out of the place as fast as possible. This is where the above recommendation to have the Whirlwind Sprint Shout comes in. A couple other things you may find helpful here, if you have them, are the Shadow Step spell available via the Abyss Darenii mod, or the Time Break spell from Project AHO.

When working through this, if at any point you screw up and fall into the lava, you will die and it'll instantly throw you back to your last save even if you have Shades of Mortality active. So you may need to invoke emergency saves at key points as you progress through this escape, just so you don't have to keep doing the same bits over and over again.

Facing away from the Warden's chair, look immediately down to your right. You should see a stretch of pathway leading up to where you are, still intact. Use Whirlwind Sprint to move yourself down there. This will get you past a couple of dremora who want to fight with you, and at this point, you need to fight as few dremora as possible.

The next immediate stretch of the path will be tricky, as it'll start crumbling, and if you don't time it right, you'll fall into the lava. But if you judge the angles correctly, you can jump up onto the next safe stretch of path.

This bit of path will get you a couple more dremora you'll have no choice but to fight. And once you're past those, there will be two more out on little rock islands in the lava. Use ranged attacks to take them out. DO NOT JUMP ONTO WHERE THEY WERE STANDING, you'll die from lava if you do.

Instead, focus a few more ranged attacks on a couple more dremora in the final spot you need to get to. Take them out. Then one more Whirlwind Sprint should get you over to where they were standing. Judging the angle here is critical, you need to aim yourself so you'll land correctly on solid ground and not in the lava. Once you make it there, you're good, you can hurry to the water and swim to the exit. Whichever surviving companions you had will spawn there with you once you're out.

At that point you should see that the island is on fire. Run like mad for the village of Wes. Your repaired ship will now be there rather than its previous location. Get onto the ship and you're home free.

Many thanks to the following players on #txbn-general who contributed into to this page:

• Mr. Beifersbééfh, for a great deal of info on various parts of playing this mod