The rules

Terms of Service

Version 1.1, effective 14 September 2026

These are the terms under which Nineholds is offered to you. They are written to be read. If you play, you agree to them.

1. Who runs this

Nineholds is a fan project made and run by volunteer developers on the Nineholds team. In these terms, "we" and "the operator" mean the Nineholds team, and "the team" means the people the operator has asked to run and moderate the server.

2. Who can play

• You must be 18 years of age or older. There is no exception to this.
• You must own your own copy of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special Edition. Nineholds supplies none of the game and cannot be played without it.
• You need an invitation from the team and a place on the whitelist. The team may decline to add you, and may remove you, at its discretion.

3. Your Discord account is your login

You sign in to Nineholds with your Discord account, in your own web browser, and the server knows you by that account. You are responsible for what is done through it. If you believe somebody else has used it to play, tell the team.

4. What you agree not to do

• Cheat, or gain any advantage the game and the server do not intend you to have.
• Run a modified client, or any tool, that changes what the server sees about you, your character or your actions.
• Use a bug or an exploit, or keep one to yourself after finding it.
• Harass, threaten or abuse another player, in the game or in Discord.
• Impersonate a member of the team or of the operator.
• Do anything unlawful, or anything that would make the operator's position unlawful.

5. The launcher and what it may do

The launcher is the program that prepares your copy of Skyrim for this server. With your permission, and in this order, it:

• finds your Skyrim installation and checks it against what the server runs, and refuses to start the game if they do not match;
• fetches the server's list of files, installs Nineholds client files and configuration beside your game, and verifies every file after download; a partial install stops rather than starting the game;
• writes the plugin load order the server runs into Plugins.txt and reads it back;
• records the server files it installs so they can be removed later; local diagnostic logs are separate;
• starts the game through the script extender; the game then joins the server with the sign-in you completed in the launcher.

It does not read another multiplayer client's sign-in settings or delete mods you installed, and it never distributes a Bethesda file of any kind. It contacts only the server you are joining and Discord's own sign-in page, and it sends no report about you to anybody.

6. Characters, items and progress are permissions, not property

Your character, its inventory, its currency, its standing and everything else the server holds about it are kept at the operator's discretion. They may be reset, moved, altered or removed, for a wipe, a fix, a rule, or the end of the service. They have no cash value, you may not sell or trade them for anything outside the game, and you acquire no ownership in them.

7. Moderation, evidence and appeals

The server records what characters do. The team may act on what the server recorded and on what it saw, including by warning you, removing your character from a place, restricting what you can do, or removing you from the whitelist. If you think a decision was wrong, you can appeal it in the support channel on the Discord server, and the team will look at it again.

8. What you write and say

Chat is visible to other players and to the team. Do not put anything in it that you would not say in a room of strangers, and do not share another person's personal information, in the game or in Discord, whether or not it is already public somewhere.

9. No warranty, and a limit on liability

Nineholds is provided as it is, during an alpha, with no promise that it works, keeps working, or keeps anything. To the fullest extent the law allows, the operator is not liable to you for any loss or damage that comes from playing, from being unable to play, or from anything the launcher changed on your computer.

10. Ending

You can stop at any time. Remove Nineholds files, in the launcher's settings, takes out everything the launcher installed and forgets your sign-in; the Windows uninstaller then removes the launcher program itself. The operator can end your access at any time, with or without a reason, by removing your whitelist entry. The operator can also end the service itself.

11. Changes

These terms may change. When they do, the version and the date at the top change with them. Continuing to play after a change is acceptance of it.

12. Not affiliated

Nineholds is an independent project. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or associated with Bethesda Softworks or ZeniMax Media. The Elder Scrolls and Skyrim are trademarks of ZeniMax Media Inc.

13. Contact

The support channel on the Discord server, or contact@nineholds.com.