Hogwarts-style Skyrim mod finally makes magic learning streamlined

Out of the vast array of amazing Skyrim mods coming out recently, JaySerpa’s College of Winterhold - Quest Expansion — which originally came out on July 5 — is undoubtedly one of the best of the lot. Aiming to create a more grounded feel for the magic school experience of Skyrim, this mod introduces seven new starter magic lessons - almost making Skyrim feel like Hogwarts.

The College of Winterhold questline in vanilla Skyrim is widely considered lackluster. From the way it is structured, you get to be an arch-mage without barely having to use any magic at all. That’s not the best fit for roleplaying wizards, is it?

However, this new mod makes magic learning so much more streamlined. Players will learn one spell from each of the magic schools (Destruction, Restoration, Alteration, Illusion, and Conjuration) before venturing into Saarthal as part of the vanilla game College of Winterhold questline.

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College of Winterhold - Quest Expansion is a go-to Skyrim mod for mage playthroughs

JaySerpa, the author of College of Winterhold - Quest Expansion, has created a gamut of highly acclaimed quest expansion mods in the past. And just like in the previous mods, masterfully-crafted spliced dialogues are a feature of the new mod as well.

The features of the new mod, according to the description page, are as follows:

• Seven New Quests for the College of Winterhold.
• These quests are not your "save the world" epic questlines but basic entry-level College of Winterhold apprentice lessons.
• They all mostly follow the basic principle of talking to the magic professor, them lecturing you about their school of magic, teaching you a new spell, and providing you with a problem where you need to use the spell to succeed. Learn by doing!
• You must complete these seven quests to unlock the continuation of the vanilla College of Winterhold quest line (Going to Saarthal). This means when you first join the College, you will be "forced" to learn a bit about magic before being thrown into Saarthal.
• All new quests are fully voiced using spliced dialogue.
• There are no dead ends: Quests can be completed in any order, and there's always an objective marker guiding you towards what you need to do next. In some cases, you can opt out of some of these quests or take alternative paths resulting in different outcomes.
• Compatible with practically all college and spell mods; no patch needed.

Being the seasoned author that JaySerpa is, he made sure to make the new quest expansion compatible with all the popular College of Winterhold mods like Immersive College of Winterhold, Obscure's College of Winterhold, Ultimate College of Winterhold, Bibliophile's Arcanaeum, and a lot more.

While this mod is pretty minimalistic, meaning does not offer a large overhaul or anything of that sort, JaySerpa mentions that it is consciously made that way. It is designed to replicate the feel of wizard school without everything going wrong straight out of the gate.

For future projects, JaySerpa has replied to Redditor u/bgdice’s request that a combat surrender mod lies on the horizon after a secret mod they are working on next.