Master Architect Trophy in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

  • Master Architect

     

    Build three houses

    How to unlock Master Architect

    [MISSABLE] This trophy is the main body of the DLC and will be what you spend most of your time on. Note that this trophy is missable for the same reason as Land Baron; if you are unable to obtain the Falkreath plot of land, you will obviously be unable to build a house on it. See that trophy's description for more details.

    There are two ways to go about it: The quicker/more expensive way, or the longer/cheaper way. The expensive way will set you back around 40,000 Gold (on top of the 15,000 spent on buying the three plots of land), whereas the cheaper way will cost you almost nothing but will add a minimum of two hours to your playtime. The expense refers to buying materials required to build your house, which you can buy yourself or get your Steward to order for you. Alternatively you can obtain all the materials yourself by mining/smelting/sawing but be warned that you will need a lot of materials, which will take a considerable amount of time to obtain. This guide will assume you are following the quicker/more expensive way but if you wish to obtain the materials yourself, you may do so.

    1. Preparation - building a Small House:

    Before you can mould your house into how you want it, you will need to build a "Small House". Once you reach your plot of land, you will see four usable objects next to each other. From left to right these are:

    • Drafting Table - Here is where you choose what type of building room you wish to build. At this stage, only "Small House" will be available. Select an option creates a roped outline on the ground in your plot.
    • Chest - Here is where your building materials are deposited when you order them from your Steward. There are also some materials in here when you first buy your house to start you off. It acts just like any other chest, which means if you are over-encumbered you can place materials in here to use later.
    • Carpenter's Workbench - This is where you build the various sections of your house once you have selected a blueprint at the Drafting Table. The amount of materials you need to build each section is listed at the bottom.
    • Anvil - This is exactly the same as the other anvils in Skyrim that you use for smithing. With the addition of the DLC a new tab called "Building Materials" will have been added, here you can smith iron fittings, locks, hinges and nails.

    First of all go to the Drafting Table and select "Small House Layout". Then go to your chest and collect the materials in there. Luckily, the game gives you enough to completely build your Small House. However, you will still need to go to the anvil and smith 20 nails, 1 iron fitting, 1 lock and 2 hinges. When this is done, go to the Carpenter’s Workbench and build the different sections of the Small House.

    2. Finding a Steward and accumulating materials:

    If you want to finish building your houses quickly, assigning a Steward to your house is an absolute priority. To assign a Steward to your house, you must first have a Small House fully built on your plot of land. Then you need to find a follower and then take them to your plot of land. If they are suitable for the job, there will be a dialogue option to ask them to be a steward. For a list of all suitable followers please see this list.

    Stewards provide a variety of services in your house, but the one strictly relevant to this trophy is that they can order building materials for you. These are as follows:

    • Clay - 20 bricks for 20 Gold
    • Quarried stone - 20 stones for 100 Gold
    • Sawn logs - 20 logs for 200 Gold

    Once ordered, these materials will be automatically added your chest (with the exception of sawn logs, which will be added to the pile of logs near to the crafting area). Again, if you don’t want to hire a Steward, you can mine as much clay and quarried stone as you want from the deposits located on your plot of land, and you can saw logs from the various mills around Skyrim.

    The only relevant materials that can’t be ordered from your Steward are Iron and Corundum Ingots. You will need around 150-200 Iron Ingots and 50 Corundum Ingots to fully build all three houses. You can either buy these from various blacksmiths around Skyrim or mine Iron and Corundum Ores and smelt them into ingots. Smelting is done by visiting any of the blacksmith shops around Skyrim (such as Warmaiden's in Whiterun) and using the smelter located next to the forge. Buying all the Ingots and materials from your Steward is what the 40,000 Gold was for, but you can take the time-consuming option if you want to save your money for other reasons. The best place to buy the ingots required is in the Ragged Flagon in Riften (provided you have earned the main game trophy titled One With The Shadows), as there are four merchants next to each other who will sell them. Thanks Bounty V for the tip.

    Once a Steward is assigned to your house, they cannot be dismissed. The only way to transfer one to another house is to ask them to be your follower, and then go to another plot of land and ask them to become a Steward again. If you so wish, you can assign three different Stewards to your three different houses.

    3. Building the Main Hall:

    The next step towards building your house is to construct the Main Hall. Again, go to the Drafting Table and select the layout for it then go to the Carpenter’s Workbench to begin construction. This is much larger than the Small House so naturally will require a lot more building materials. Each individual section of the Main Hall will be listed on the Workbench, with the amount of materials needed for each. If you need more materials, ask your Steward to order more and craft the iron things at the anvil.

    4. Building the three Wings:

    Finally you have to craft three Wings: the North, East and West Wing. Each Wing has a choice of three different buildings:

    • East Wing - Library, Armoury or Kitchen
    • North Wing - Alchemy Laboratory, Storage Room or Trophy Room
    • West Wing - Enchanter’s Tower, Bedrooms or Greenhouse

    The same process as always applies: Choose the outline of the Wing you wish to construct at the Drafting Table, accumulate the materials necessary, and then build the Wing at the Carpenter’s Workbench. If you do not care about which buildings go on your house or what it looks like, I would recommend building the Kitchen, Trophy Room and Greenhouse combination as these require the fewest materials to build.

    Do this for all three Wings and you will earn the trophy for Architect. Do this for all three plots of land and you will earn Master Architect. Note that you don't have to furnish any of your rooms or build any exterior buildings for these trophies; it is solely the Small House, Main Hall and three Wings that are required.

    *Important Note*: Once you have built a Wing on your house, there is no way to demolish it or swap it for another Wing. Therefore make sure you choose carefully. Again, if you want to quickly earn the trophies but want to come back later and mould the house exactly to your liking, make a save and build the three Wings mentioned above. Then reload your save and build whichever combination you desire.

    Further notes (thanks to Terminator):

    You need to be at Lv20 or higher before you can get the mission to kill a Giant for the Jarl and thus are able buy land in Dawnstar.

    Don't accept or complete any part of the Rare Gifts quest before entering Falkreath, this will prevent most of the issues with trying to buy land and/or becoming Thane.

    With Falkreath being so buggy, it is suggested that you head straight there after getting the note at Lv9 or 10 saying the Jarl wants to see you, don't dawdle or get side tracked as this could prove costly later on.

    It's possible for a Homestead to glitch and not count towards the trophy. If this happens then revisit all 3 Homesteads and check that they each have 3 wings built, if they haven't then go to the Drafting Board of the glitched Homestead(s) and choose the "Convert into Entry Way" option. Choosing this option will clear the glitch and let you finish building whatever it was that glitched and on completion of that Wing, the trophy will pop.

    The Jarl of Falkreath also changes depending on what happens during the Civil War storyline.

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Comments
  • I built 3 house and no trophy popped so I fast traveled to all 3 of my house and the trophy popped, FYI
  • And how did you buy the plot land in Falkreath?
  • Also FYI, you need to build 3 wings for each house, so you'll be building and using a lot of materials for this trophy. And be sure to build a "residencial" one, oriented to adopting the child.
  • Got all three houses but it didnt pop what???
  • This trophy was a pain until I realized that I needed all three wings on each house.

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