The Wanderers Fair

The Wanderer's Fair

Description

Skyrim has dragons, draugr and a civil war. What it doesn't have is somewhere to just enjoy an evening out. So I built it one.

I wanted somewhere in Skyrim that felt... alive. Somewhere the people who live there do something other than wander aimlessly around a town: they dance, they shop, they cheer the band, they queue for pies.

The idea that shaped it was simple: what if a UK Christmas market turned up in medieval Skyrim? The lanterns strung between the stalls, something warm to drink, the smell of roasting meat, music drifting over the crowd, and far too many stalls selling far too many things. Warm, handmade, a little chaotic, and busy in the best way.

So that's what I made: a travelling festival that has pitched its walls beside the road west of Whiterun, and grown into a little village of its own. There's a stage with a live band, a market of 33 stalls, an archery range, folk dancing on the green and fireworks over the walls. And there's a crowd of visitors who actually seem to be having a good time.

I wanted it to feel like a real place that happens to be having a very good week, not a theme park and not a parody. Most of all, I wanted somewhere you'd want to come back to: after a hard day's dragon-slaying, or just because you fancy a sweetroll and a song.

Oh, and there's a horse on the stage roof. Nobody knows how it got up there. The Fair Inspector is working on it.

Installation instructions

• []Download with Mod Organizer 2 or Vortex ("Mod Manager Download").[/]

  []Enable SkyrimFair.esp. It only needs Skyrim itself, so it can go anywhere in your load order.[/]

  []Head west out of Whiterun along the road towards the Western Watchtower. Look for the signpost, the banners and the braziers at the gate.[/]

  Using a grass cache (No Grass In Objects or Grass Cache Helper NG, as most big modlists do)? The fair's ground has no grass until you regenerate your cache with the fair installed. Nothing breaks without it, it's just less green.

  Using Maximum Destruction, Stealth Detection Fixes or Strange Runes? Please make the one-word edits in Compatibility, at the bottom of this page, or let the optional Compatibility download's patcher make them for you. Without them, the game freezes at the fair.

  Updating: some updates change the stage show, which your save remembers. If an update says so, visit from a new game, or from a save made before you first went to the fair.

  Main features

  A live stage show, with an original soundtrack

  • []Six songs written for the fair, from "The Wanderer's Fair" itself to "Raise Your Cups".[/]

    []A band and an orchestra, with three singers out front who can't stop cheering.[/]

    []The crowd dances, claps and cheers along, and every song ends in fireworks.[/]

    []Folk dancers on the green, with a dance made just for them.[/]

    []With Professional Dancer installed, the crowd dances with even more moves.[/]

    A market you can actually shop at

    • []33 stalls, each with its own trade and its own goods on display: fresh bread, roast meat, honey, cheese, mead, smoked fish, furs, pottery, toys, books, elven and Dwemer curios, Imperial and Stormcloak armour, a fortune teller, and a sweetroll stall doing suspiciously well.[/]

      []Every keeper runs a real shop. Chat to them, or just browse the counter.[/]

      []Festival prices: the armour and weapon stalls charge a premium (it's a fair, and the traders know it). Food, drink and everything else sell at normal prices.[/]

      Made for the fair

      • []Hand-made paper lanterns in twelve styles, glowing along every rope at night.[/]

        []Festival bunting in six colours: Whiterun, Saturalia, Riften, Windhelm, Imperial and Stormcloak.[/]

        []A timber palisade and gate, light towers, outhouses (it's a festival, after all), and the Fair Inspector's notices pinned around the walls.[/]

        []The fair's own gateway on the road, with braziers, banners and lanterns. You'll hear the music before you see it, and at night you'll see the fireworks over the walls.[/]

        Life at the fair

        []A crowd of fairgoers: families with children, people sat taking it all in, and dancers who can't keep still.[/]

        []Ten characters among them, each with their own voice, faces and clothes. Stop and talk to them, and they'll tell you what they make of the fair (and the horse). Try the two by the Mead & Ale stall.[/]