I'm currently doing research for a golem/atronach building mod that I want to create. Among the creatures able to be built will be ash golems/guardians, like in Skyrim: Dragonborn.

As is lore-correct, one of the necessary ingredients for building this golem is a heartstone, which I plan to place in the Red mountain area. I do not have the knowledge necessary to create a new type of resource node, but am considering putting hearstones in a special levelled list for the Red Mountain region.

Can someone give me a rough idea of how I'd go about doing this? I've never created a mod before so I'm completely clueless. Reviewing some intro guides on scripting now, but have the concept/story for the mod planned.

I have not yet played Dragonborn, but I've read it's some kind of an "ingredient", correct?

If you wan that ingredient to be picked like flowers or ores, you can't place them via levelled lists, every ingredient source in the game world has to be placed manually. You can still place Levelld Items list containing that item in any container (including ore veins).

If you want to place them in a creature's inventory, then it's same as above, eg. you need to place Levelled Item list containt that item in that creature's inventory.

Some more details would be helpful.

Checking on the http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Dragonborn:Miscellaneous_Items heartstone is mined from a http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Dragonborn:Heart_Stone_Deposit#Heart_Stone_Deposit.

Why not take the current ore rock models and reskin them? http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b350/Dragon_32/Morrowind/heartstone_ore.jpg is taken from Nich's UV-correct version of Craigor's Diverse Ore Veins (diamond ore, lava cave). I simply edited in NIFSkope so that "Tx_fire_salt_01.dds" replaced "tx_gem_diamond_01.tga"

Gives you an idea of what's possible with no mad modding skillz

Let's say I wanted to make it so that each ebony ore vein had a chance of having a Heartstone in it?

Good call...I will think about this