Skyrim Special Edition

About this mod

Over 50 new horse coat colors, 20 unique horses with special effects and optional ENB light, 21 unique ESO inspired horses, wild horse herds, and a zorse!

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WITCHER HORSE EXPANSION

Witcher Horse Expansion is a complete horse overhaul that introduces the horses from The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt into the world of Skyrim. There is a vast new variety of horse coat colors, converted from The Witcher 3, Fera's Roach and Horse Overhaul, and Fera's Tribute Horses. Nearly all horses are now unique in appearance. Additional horses have been added into the horse encounter leveled list to dynamically add new horses to come across during gameplay. Horses that previously were not unique in appearance (such as Cicero's horse) will now have distinct coats. There are new named horses that can be found throughout Skyrim and Solstheim, some with regular coats and some with mythical appearances and magical effects.



♘♞ Features ♞♘

  • 20 unique horses with special effects and optional ENB light that can found throughout Skyrim and Solstheim
  • 21 ESO inspired horses that can be found throughout Skyrim
  • 56 unique horse coats distributed throughout the horses of Skyrim
  • Zorse that accompanies M'aiq on his travels and that will appear alongside M'aiq during his roadside encounter
  • Karinda restored to the Whiterun Stables
  • Wild horse herds that roam the open plains and snowy mountainsides of Skyrim
  • Unicorns with 42 different wing options

♞♘ Unique Horses ♞♘







There are 20 unique horses with special effects and optional ENB light that can be found throughout Skyrim and Solstheim. They can be discovered in unique locations after finding and activating their summoning catalyst. The spell tomes to summon the unique horses have also been distributed in the merchant leveled lists with varying degrees of rarity and can be purchased from the Riverwood Trader or Phinis at the College of Winterhold. Alternatively, you can retrieve all the tomes from a chest in the QASmoke cell. The two unicorns can only be summoned unless you have the Wild Horses CC.

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Ember Heart
Location: Solstheim, in the field of burning craters near Tel Mithryn
Summons: Burning Crater

Ghost Horse
Location: Hamvir's Rest
Summons: Ghostly Cairn

Dwemer Horse
Location: Nchardak
Summons: Dwemer Pedestal

Thunder
Location: Above the entrance to Twilight Sepulcher
Summons: Storm Altar

Bronze Horse
Location: Outside Bronze Water Cave
Summons: Bronze Valve

Wraith
Location: Necromancer's Bluff
Summons: Horse's Skull

Despair
Location: Dead Men's Respite
Summons: Pale Light

Ruin
Location: Burnt carriage near Twilight Sepulcher
Summons: Burnt Body

Death
Location: Falkreath graveyard
Summons: Death's Grave

Deathcharger
Location: Ritual Stone
Summons: Horse's Skull

Plague
Location: Bthardamz
Summons: Diseased Pustule

Permafrost
Location: Frozen Lake in the Falmer Valley
Summons: Ice Spire

Nether
Location: Mzulft
Summons: Disused Astrolabe

Nightmare
Location: Nightcaller Temple
Summons: Gruesome Visage

Celestial Unicorn
Location: Statue of Meridia
Summons: Aetherial Projection

Kelpie
Location: Lake Ilinalta
Summons: Drowned Victim

Black Beauty
Location: Outside the Glenmoril Coven cavern
Summons: Demon Tree

♞♘ ESO Inspired Horses ♞♘





There are 21 horses with unique ESO inspired names that can found throughout Skyrim. They aren't strictly lore friendly but there were so many new horse coats to implement and I thought it would be fun to use some for ESO Easter eggs. 3 of the ESO horses are used as replacers for the Hearthfire horses.

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Buttercup
Location: Lakeview Manor

Matilda
Location: Heljarchen Hall

Fadeel
Location: Loreius Farm

Frolics-In-Rain
Location: Hlaalu Farm

Meteor
Location: Skaal Village

Peri
Location: Kynesgrove

Pivott
Location: Kynesgrove

Pom'el
Location: Kynesgrove

Shinkicker
Location: Brittleshin Pass

Slumgullion
Location: Markarth Stables

Snow
Location: Blackbriar Manor

Sojourn
Location: Winstad Manor

Sugarloaf
Location: Nightgate Inn

Triumph
Location: Wayward Pass

Truffles
Location: Mushroom Ring in Falkreath

Whinnie
Location: Honeystrand Cave

Windmane
Location: Darkwater Cavern

♞♘ Available Patches ♞♘

  • Immersive Horses
  • Kaidan
  • Convenient Horses
  • Craftable Saddles from TW3
  • Horse Armors for Skyrim
  • zzjay's Horse Overhaul
  • Craftable Horse Barding
  • Equestrian
  • Wild Herds of Skyrim
  • Horses Gone Wild
  • CC - Wild Horses
  • CC - Daedric Horse
  • CC - Horse Armor - Elven
  • CC - Horse Armor - Steel
  • Cutting Room Floor
  • ESO Imports
  • Aeonbarr
  • Aenbyr
  • Blaze of Eventide
  • Animated Carriage
  • SkyTEST
  • SkyTEST Redux
  • Simplest Horses

All patches are either mesh only patches or are plugins flagged as ESP-FE.

♞♘ Additional Community Patches ♞♘

♞♘ Compatibility ♞♘

  • Witcher Horse Expansion is natively compatible with both Special Edition and Anniversary Edition, as it uses the new mane partition system from AE. If you do still continue to have double mane, there is an optional file that applies a NULL texture to the vanilla mane, so that only the WHE mane shows.
  • Not compatible with mods that change the model or textures of horses
  • New saddle meshes will need to be refitted to the new model, but retextures will work fine
  • Load Witcher Horse Expansion below any mods that add new horses. 

♞♘ Future Plans ♞♘

  • Add special abilities to the unique horses (think Death decapitating Draugr or Thunder using shock spells)
  • Fluffy horses with shell meshes/textures
  • Replacer only version

♞♘ Credits ♞♘

  • CDProjektRed for providing permission to use the horse model and textures
  • Feradia for her Roach textures from Fera's Roach and Horse Overhaul and Fera's Tribute Horses
  • chakaru11 for their Roach Horse Resource Pack
  • RefurbSkyrim for their wings resource
  • PraedythXVI for his multiparallax and Arvak textures
  • Vindition for his frosted glass cubemap
  • DrJacopo and the Cathedral Concept for the otherwordly cubemap
  • zzjay for her horse mane mesh
  • jg1 for the stars and rainbow example fx included with VFX Editor, adapted for use for the unique horses
  • Pop000100 for extracting the wild horse textures from the texture cache from Fera's Roach and Horse Overhaul
  • substill for the SkyTEST Redux and Simplest Horses patches
  • Kynkaid and Tommas for the menu to apply wings to the unique horses
  • Rudy102 for the ENB glow texture
  • Pieter82 for the higher poly saddle models

♞♘ Tools Used ♞♘


♞♘ Thanks ♞♘

  • Second for inspiring me to start modding, always encouraging me, and being my favorite person
  • PraedythXVI for being my emotional support texture artist and a genuinely good friend
  • Mihail for advice on lore and implementation
  • zzjay for advice on extracting Witcher files
  • Skyking for advice on generating normal maps with Materialize
  • Kartoffel for ESRGAN upscale tutorials and advice on upscale models
  • Halls of Ysgramor Discord for being just a fun place to be

This mod is very special to me as it was the first big project I undertook. I started knowing nothing and learned so much while creating it. This mod stands on the shoulders of the entire modding community and would not be possible without the incredible ingenuity of the various mod tool developers, the generosity of mod authors willing to share their work, or the many knowledgeable individuals who share their knowledge with others. Thank you!