History NightmareFuel / TheElderScrolls

* You know, as terrifying and icky and creepy as the chaurus are, you've at least got the reassurance that you can outmaneuver them and keep out of range of their horrifically-powerful bites. ''Noooooooooope.'' Not with ''Dawnguard''! Now you have to deal with ''Chaurus Hunters''. The Chaurus Reapers? Those were the ''larval form''. The Hunters are massive, winged, mantis-like creatures. It's basically a Chaurus Reaper except even tougher, and '''''it can fly'''''.

* The Dovahkiin is, in his/her own way, pure nightmare fuel. Just imagine that you're sitting in your camp, on watch for a caravan or some roaming monster or a military patrol that might fall upon the home you've carved out. Its the dead of night. Then, coming up the trail, you see a single person, alone. They're wearing nice armor and a nice weapon, but they're by themselves. Easy prey for a dozen bandits, right? That armor and sword will make for a great haul! And even better, they're walking right toward your camp! You call your buddies, and they ready the ambush, and just as you leap out to strike, you hear '''"FUS RO DAH!"''' The next few minutes is a horrifying blur as you and your companions throw everything you have at this lone warrior, while lightning and fire and demonic beasts and even a freaking ''dragon'' comes swooping in and around you. You companions are being torn apart, blasted to ashes, or decapitated one by one, and this unstoppable warrior just keeps coming, periodically shouting at the top of his/her lungs and moving impossibly fast, striking with terrifying precision, hurling armored warriors through the air like feathers, or just making people keel over and ''die''. And at the end of it all, your camp is in flames, everyone is dead, and this nameless avatar of mayhem is standing before you, and you know, deep in your heart, that ''you are going to die.'' That's what eventually happens to every bandit camp the Dragonborn raids.

* The Maze of Shalidor. It is in an non-important place in the labyrinthian, and is not connected to any quests. It is basicly a maze where you have to perform one spell from each school of magic. And how's that scary? [[spoiler: Well, when you have made all spells, the underground cave, and there is a portal. You step into portal, and are transported to a weird purple circle, where you have to fight a dremora. It is explained in a book that Shalidor made it as a test for potential archmages. Thats why it requires knowledge of all spell schools and enough power to defeat a powerful Daedra to survive it.

* The quest [[ImAHumanitarian The Taste of Death]]. It starts out innocent enough, the local priest of Arkay (read: undertaker priest) had to close down the Hall of the Dead in Markarth because it seems something has been eating the bodies. He hires you to go look into it. Once you go in you find it has been a woman named Eola. The woman says that you and her are the same and she hires you to clear out a shrine to Namira. You do so. Somewhat disturbing, but nothing ''scary'', right? Well [[spoiler: she then tells you to go get the priest who hired you before and bring him back to "sanctify" the shrine. You get him to follow you back and it seems a bunch of other people have shown up, and they seem to be HALF THE POPULATION OF MARKARTH. Some of them you may have even helped out! The shopkeeper who took over her husband's shop? The local butcher? Yep. Cannibals. Then the woman hypnotizes the priest and has you kill him and take the first bite. So, let's see, you killed a priest, became a cannibal, ate the priest, and found out some of the friendly citizens you've been doing quests for are cannibals as well.]] Markarth just got a lot darker, all of a sudden.

* [[spoiler: Astrid's body]] at the end of "Death Incarnate". [[spoiler: She's burned all over and practically skeletal,]] and everyone, especially [[spoiler: she,]] knows that [[spoiler: she's]] committed and unforgivable sin (by Sithis's standards, at least) and [[spoiler: she has only seconds to live.]] AlasPoorVillain, indeed.

* [[spoiler: Astrid's body]] at the end of "Death Incarnate" [[spoiler: She's burned all over and practically skeletal,]] and everyone, especially [[spoiler: she,]] knows that [[spoiler: she's]] committed and unforgivable sin (by Sithis's standards, at least) and [[spoiler: she has only seconds to live.]] AlasPoorVillain, indeed.

* The entire backstory of the Thalmor, from their Nazi parallels to the fact that these people were somehow able to hunt down and sadistically murder EVERY SINGLE BLADE, which are made up of the best spies and assassins in Tamriel under employ of the Empire, in Valenwood and Alinor before using their heads as a warning to the Empire before royally kicking the Empire's ass in a devastating war sent shivers down this troper's spine as he read the books describing the Thalmor.

* The quest, [[ImAHumanitarian The Taste of Death]]. It starts out innocent enough, the local priest of Arkay (read: undertaker priest) had to close down the Hall of the Dead in Markarth because it seems something has been eating the bodies. He hires you to go look into it. Once you go in you find it has been a woman named Eola. The woman says that you and her are the same and she hires you to clear out a shrine to Namira. You do so. Somewhat disturbing, but nothing ''scary'', right? Well [[spoiler: she then tells you to go get the priest who hired you before and bring him back to "sanctify" the shrine. You get him to follow you back and it seems a bunch of other people have shown up, and they seem to be HALF THE POPULATION OF MARKARTH. Some of them you may have even helped out! The shopkeeper who took over her husband's shop? The local butcher? Yep. Cannibals. Then the woman hypnotizes the priest and has you kill him and take the first bite. So, let's see, you killed a priest, became a cannibal, ate the priest, and found out some of the friendly citizens you've been doing quests for are cannibals as well.]] Markarth just got a lot darker, all of a sudden.

* The Black Star. Both the item and the related quest. In Azura's quest, you can get the Azura's Star we all know and love... or an utterly corrupted version, that works on Black Souls, and ONLY Black Souls. Having this sheer unholy power is a bit on the creepy side... But the quest for it. You actually get to see INSIDE AZURA'S STAR, and meet a demented mage who's been cannibalising souls. And yes - It COMPLETELY confirms that yes - People are still aware of whats going on in there.

* The Black Star. Both the item and the related quest. In Azura's quest, you can get the Azura's Star we all know and love...or an utterly corrupted version, that works on Black Souls, and ONLY Black Souls. Having this sheer unholy power is a bit on the creepy side...But the quest for it. You actually get to see INSIDE AZURA'S STAR, and meet a demented mage who's been cannibalising souls. And yes - It COMPLETELY confirms that yes - People are still aware of whats going on in there.]]

* In the shivering isles expansion, north of New Sheoth, there's a zealot stronghold on a tall hill, inside, you go about your business mutilating them all as usual, then you find a book, detailing that people (it never clarified if they were innocent travelers or other zealots) are thrown into a very deep pit in the center of the ruins to be sacrificed to what you can only imagine to be some kind of eldritch horror, thankfully ([[{{Nothing is scarier}} or perhaps not]]), [[spoiler: the only thing down there are a few bollywogs, so either they're the things they worship, or the {{Eldritch Abomination}} is out elsewhere.]]

* If you become a vampire and you're playing a Khajiit or Argonian...there were no vampire eye textures created for the beast races, so you get the default vamp eyes. One of the creepiest things found in the game is the sight of those pale-pink ''human'' eyes in an animal face. It's remarkably unsettling.

** Someone from every race in Tamriel murdered because Hermaeus Mora needed their souls to divine...something.

* Special mention goes to the [[GiantSpider frostbite spiders]]. [[AllTrollsAreDifferent Trolls]]? Tough but fine. Nord zombies? Killed zombies before, no big. [[OurDragonsAreDifferent Dragons]]? Hell, those are fun to take down. Giant spider? '''Run. Run as fast as you can.'''
** There's even a specific "No Spiders" mod for Skyrim that just turns them into bears.

* The ash creatures. They are ''all'' creepy, but the fact that they all used to be human as well just pushes it beyond creepy and full-on into NightmareFuel.

* Literal NightmareFuel in the form of the Vaermina Daedric Lord quest. A wizard has turned his fortress into a literal nightmare world, filled with upside-down rooms, dark abysses, and lots and lots of detour horror rooms, particularly one that has you standing on a pillar in the middle of a vast black space filled with caged corpses and horrible screams. Trying to leave the dungeon via the wrong exit shows it situated in the middle of what looks like Hell. After trekking through this waking nightmare, you finally come to Arkved (the wizard) lying asleep on his bed near the artifact he stole from Vaermina. There are notes scattered about that imply he was at first eager and excited to explore her realm, but the last one merely reads 'I shall lie here in the dark waiting for death.' Vaermina says when you return to her shrine that Arkved 'will live out the rest of his days in nightmare' EVEN IF you killed him. Which essentially means you've killed Arkved's physical body, but Vaermina still has his ''soul''.

* The developers of ''Skyrim'' have been critically lauded for building one of the most beautiful, interactive, vast worlds ever seen in video gaming, and rightly so. On another level however, the world of ''Skyrim'' can truly be quite nightmarish and dangerous, whether it be on the lonely northern snowfields or in a supposedly abandoned shack by the river. In its environment the game regularly generates and contrasts NothingIsScarier, [[JumpScare Jump Scares]], HellIsThatNoise, and many more tropes. It's all NightmareFuel.

* The Falmer. They look creepy enough, but add to that the fact that they blend in with the shadows, and that odd chattering noise they make, and you've got yourself some Grade-A Nightmare Fuel.

** You are told to hunt down a traitor to the brotherhood. First of all, you'll find that the traitor, in what seems to be a homage to Alfred Hitchcock's ''{{Psycho}}'', keeps the severed head of his mother in his basement. Once found, you're told to return to the quest-giver, Lucien Lachance. However, [[spoiler:by the time you return to him, your bosses (including the traitor) have ''killed him, skinned him, and hung him from the ceiling.'' Granted, you've seen rotting corpses in the game plenty of times. What makes this so unsettling is that you actually ''knew'' the deceased. This is made even worse by the fact that this was done by your ''allies.'' Who go on to talk about how fun it was.]]

* Special mention goes to the [[GiantSpider frostbite spiders]]. [[AllTrollsAreDifferent Trolls]]? Tough but fine. Nord zombies? Killed zombies before, no big. [[OurDragonsAreDifferent Dragons]]? Hell, those are fun to take down. Giant spider?

* From ''[[TheElderScrollsFourOblivion Oblivion]]'', the titular dimension. A simpler name for it? Hell.
* Also from Oblivion, zombies and corpses are always intensely disturbing.

* Corpus, in Morrowind. A hideous disease that [[MindRape burns out your mind]] and [[BodyHorror twists your flesh]], leaving you nothing but a gibbering horror? {{Squick}}, once again.
** [[SarcasmMode Even better]], those infected with Corpus become immune to disease, and no longer age. Meaning there's [[WhoWantstoLiveForever no]] [[AndIMustScream way]] [[ImmortalityHurts out]], save by a violent death.
*** It's also implied in the game that flesh cut off a corprus sufferer ''[[HealingFactor grows back]]'', so even a violent death would really take an effort.
* The vampire dreams in Elder Scrolls Oblivion are creepy, and a big reason why you rarely see sleeping vampires...let's see, a normal looking women with a child turns out to be a corpse mother, and a plague bloated child, or your flesh bubbling and falling from you...or...eating at a normal banquet that turns out to be filled with larvae, which eat through your stomach, necromancers dissecting your body with scalpels, being buried alive, death by sneezing, and having your mouth sewn shut as you try to drink from a pool of blood...creepy.
** And this is just text. Imagine if Bethesda actually decided to show the imagery being described...
** The penultimate quest for [[MurderInc the Dark Brotherhood]], "Following a Lead," in ''TheElderScrolls IV: Oblivion'' is by all means disturbing. You are told to hunt down a traitor to the brotherhood. First of all, you'll find that the traitor, in what seems to be a homage to Alfred Hitchcock's ''Psycho'', keeps the severed head of his mother in his basement. Once found, you're told to return to the quest-giver, Lucien Lachance. However, [[spoiler:by the time you return to him, your bosses (including the traitor) have ''killed him, skinned him, and hung him from the ceiling.'' Granted, you've seen rotting corpses in the game plenty of times. What makes this so unsettling is that you actually ''knew'' the deceased. This is made even worse by the fact that this was done by your ''allies.'' Who go on to talk about how fun it was.]]
*** And of course, the quest directly following that takes place in the only area in the game with infant skeletons on the ground. (As opposed to normal skeletons, which are everywhere)
*** The actual basement. Everything from the lighthouse keeper's reaction when you get the key to the moment you decide to leave that pit of Hell is horrifying. Part of it's the rotting, mutilated corpses--animal and human--littering the basement. There is not a square yard of space that doesn't have something grisly in it. But mostly, it's the diary you find by the desiccated and mummified head...here, read a snippet:
--> father prayed and guess who came the hooded man in Sithis' name who left but then he came once more to pass through window wall and door I lie in fear my mouth agape as wicked blade did cleave your nape for I was watching 'neath the bed to see the falling of your head and when your face lie on the floor our loving eyes did meet once more and so I pledged to you that day the Brotherhood would dearly pay and just as they took me from you I'd find and kill their mother too but there's someplace I need to start and that's with father's beating heart and when that's done I'll sing and dance to celebrate a dead LaChance
*** The diary switches between somewhat rational plotting, eerily skilled rhyming, and complete nonsense, every bit of which is NightmareFuel.
** Also in Oblivion we have the clear Lovecraft homage quest "A Shadow over Hackdirt"
** Literal NightmareFuel in the form of the Vaermina Daedric Lord quest. A wizard has turned his fortress into a literal nightmare world, filled with upside-down rooms, dark abysses, and lots and lots of detour horror rooms, particularly one that has you standing on a pillar in the middle of a vast black space filled with caged corpses and horrible screams. Trying to leave the dungeon via the wrong exit shows it situated in the middle of what looks like Hell.
*** After trekking through this waking nightmare, you finally come to Arkved (the wizard) lying asleep on his bed near the artifact he stole from Vaermina. There are notes scattered about that imply he was at first eager and excited to explore her realm, but the last one merely reads 'I shall lie here in the dark waiting for death.' Vaermina says when you return to her shrine that Arkved 'will live out the rest of his days in nightmare' EVEN IF you killed him. Which essentially means you've killed Arkved's physical body, but Vaermina still has his ''soul''.
** King Lysandus' ghost from Daggerfall. [[YouTube: Daggerfall - Ghost of King Lysandus VENGEEEEEAAAAANCE!]] Or, in general, all dungeons from Arena and Daggerfall.
*** Dungeons in Daggerfall are worse than all the Sixth House Bases Morrowind could throw at you. You're completely lost. It's past the deadline for whatever quest you went there to do. You never did find that quest item you went there to find. All you want is to find something that looks familiar and hopefully get out this damn maze. Every single door you open creaks, and all you can hear are the screams of a very angry undead thing echoing through the cavern.
**** Lysandus was the king of Daggerfall, murdered by Lord Woodborne, Daggerfall's Big Bad. The Underking was Zurin Arctus, the first Imperial Battlemage.
*** What was worse was all the undead in the capital. They weren't scary looking, but their color made them almost impossible to see at night, when they came out. So you would begin taking damage and not know what it was. Add that to the ghost crying out and you have one scared troper.
**** Incidentally, if you played Oblivion on the PC and were deeply disappointed by the version of Mannimarco you meet there, a mod called "Mannimarco Revisited" is for you. With it, ol' King of Worms is back to being a scary bastard, instead of a whiny-voiced necromancer.
** Playing without any background music can not only enhance immersive gameplay, it can set the player up for some good ol' fashioned jump-scares. One minute you're walking through that dark forest, the next you're spilling your coffee because a goblin or land dreugh ambushed you.
*** To elaborate for those who haven't played with the mod: Ghostly Apparitions are light blue translucent wraiths. They have no real attacks, but what they ''do'' have is enough to give any player the creeps: they rush at you making a horrible ear-piercing shriek, until they run into your character, paralyzing them and leaving them open for attacks from other enemies. The message you get when this happens, "Ghostly Apparition paralyzes you in fear!" is probably true for the player as well as the character.
*** Also from MMM is the undead resurrection effect, which is to say the possibility of just about any undead monster to rise from the dead after being apparently killed without warning, and for apparently inert corpses and skeletons to come to life and attack. Good luck going through an undead dungeon without looking behind you every few seconds.
** On the east coast of Niben Bay, there's a location called the Cadlew Chapel which looks like any normal chapel out of town. The chapel [[spoiler:has been raided by four necromancers. There's recently chopped off body parts on the altar of the chapel along with a recently dead adventurer on a bloody table. What tops that though is the decaying corpse (presumably the chapel's priest) hanging from the ceiling, over the altar. ]]

* There is also a quest in Oblivion that requires you to go on a haunted ship to release a spirit. The ship isn't so scary as it is only filled with ghosts but when you reach the end of the ship, you face a wraith as a boss which keeps wailing creepily. Since the wraith was now dead, you think nothing else scary would pop up but after you release the spirit in the back room, when it vanishes, it does a noise ressembling a sudden, loud, ghastly scream.
* The ash creatures from ''Morrowind''. They are ''all'' creepy, but the fact that they all used to be human as well just pushes it beyond creepy and full-on into NightmareFuel.
* And again from ''Morrowind'', the castle Tel Vos. Normally, it's not that creepy, but when you explore the depths you find that it's (almost) entirely abandoned and overrun with giant plants. The part that drives it home is how you keep finding diary entries from those who worked in the castle as everything went to hell.

* That house opposite of the player's Skingrad mansion. Yeah, you're going around at night, breaking into some houses, stealing this and that? Well, you might want to skip said house, because it's full of ghosts and zombies. Who the hell would expect that?! It's in the middle of ''a freaking town''! And worst, it is never explained why those damn undead actually are there.
** If you're the right level, one of the enemies is there is a lich, it's easily assumed the resident was a necromancer who achieved lich-dom.
* Morrowind's dungeons often entertained Daedric shrines, which invariably had offerings laid out in front of them. These were always valuable objects, precious stones, weapons and such. But there is a catch: The Daedra the shrine belongs to views those objects as its own, and evidently does ''not'' take kindly to you thieving them. One of the offerings- just one- will if you touch it immediately summon something very nasty behind you.
** A similar example happens in a Dunmer ancestral tomb. When exploring such tombs, at times you will come across an intact skeleton, laid to rest. Nothing unusual, these are tombs, after all. In one such tomb however, after picking some loot, one of the skeletons is awakened and attacks you. It's a little unsettling in that the skeleton is in a different room when this happens, so you'll be treated to the combat music without an enemy in sight, only to walk out of the room and find that the skeleton you just walked past have been reanimated. It kind of gets you thinking; [[ParanoiaFuel What other skeletons might lie in wait and rise to kill me when I least expect it?]]
* Sheogorath's [[spoiler: transformation in Jyggalag. After saving the lives of either the Golden Saints or the Dark Seducers, you return to Sheogorath's palace triumphant and ready for more orders. But something is wrong. The normally jovial Sheogorath is suddenly downtrodden and solemn. When you talk to him, he has a chilling monologue about the concept of time, and reveals that he will transform any moment. Despite your pleas, he remains convinced that all is lost, and pleads with you to flee back to Cyrodiil. Just then, he ''doubles over and starts screeching in one of the shrillest, most terrifying voices ever'', and begins bellowing in a deep, demonic voice that Jyggalag has returned. He then ''catches fire'' and starts growing taller and taller, finally disappearing in a burst of hellfire.]] Even ''[[TheStoic Haskill]]'' is freaked out by it. [[YouTube: Let's Play TES4: The Shivering Isles 30 - The Greymarch Video here]]

* The Oblivion Thieves' Guild quest "Ahdarji's Heirloom" has your character infiltrating Castle Leyawiin to steal the Countess' ring. During the information gathering stage of this quest, it's possible to have other characters tell you about the Countess' "secret torture chamber." Turns out? Those rumors are all true. As you make your way through the dungeon, you encounter [[http://www.uesp.net/wiki/File:OB-place-Leyawiin_Castle-Secret_Room.jpg this room,]] which is strewn with forks, sickles, and a warhammer. But [[ItGotWorse it gets worse]]: this isn't some Necromancer layer in the middle of nowhere; this is the Countess of Leyawiin doing this in her own castle! And even worse, it's implied that the only reason this room exists is because [[FantasticRacism she doesn't like Argonians.]]
* There's a very convincing and canon supported [[http://forums.bethsoft.com/index.php?/topic/855475-when-dead-gods-dream fan theory]] that the ''Morrowind'' [[BigBad Big Bad]] Dagoth Ur has been dead for several thousand years, ''is awake in the very place where souls are asleep until their next reincarnation'', and you are actually fighting his projected [[EldritchAbomination dream self]] until you destroy the Heart, his means of rapid projection.
* First, read ''Infernal City''. Next, pop in your copy of Morrowind and walk around the area, surveying the scenery until it hits you like a sledge hammer. [[spoiler: In less than a century, everything you're seeing will be destroyed when Red Mountain erupts.]]
* In ''Oblivion'', if you become a vampire and you're playing a Khajiit or Argonian (which I've only ever done through cheating, not normal play)...there were no vampire eye textures created for the beast races, so you get the default vamp eyes. One of the creepiest things I've found in the game is the sight of those pale-pink ''human'' eyes in an animal face. It's remarkably unsettling.

*** But perhaps what's scariest of all is that all this happened because of YOU. You willingly acted as the instrument of the Daedra Lords...just so you could get their magic items, some of which you are GUARANTEED not to need. [[WhatTheHellHero What the Hell, Hero?]]
* Soul Gems. Binding a beings soul to a gem and then using that gem to drain their spiritual energy to make an enchanted item. The concept of having your soul ripped from your body and transferred to a gem, then to a weapon where your existence presumable dissolves as you power the item with your existence is bad enough. But then imagine those who don't suffer this fate and are [[AndIMustScream trapped in a soul gem forever]].
** And in ''Oblivion'', there's a book about soul gems which says that if the caster of the soul-trap spell handles the soul gem too much, bits of his ''own'' soul will leak into the gem.

** Also related to the Dark Brotherhood storyline in ''{{Skyrim}}'' is [[TheRenfield Cicero]]. At first he might seem a little ''too'' eccentric and more of an annoyance than a danger. Later however, you come across his journals, written largely when he was more mentally stable back in Cyrodiil. [[spoiler: You track his frightening descent into madness, exaggerated by the decrepit state of the Brotherhood he held so dear, his obsession over being appointed Keeper, and eternally being haunted by his final kill: a jester]].

** Special mention goes to the [[GiantSpider frostbite spiders]]. [[AllTrollsAreDifferent Trolls]]? Tough but fine. Nord zombies? I've killed zombies before, no big. [[OurDragonsAreDifferent Dragons]]? Hell, those are fun to take down. Giant spider?

** Don't worry, it can still absorb white souls, because of a bug... Which won't stop you from only using it on sentient beings.
* [[AbusivePrecursors The Dwemer.]] They may be gone now , but when they were still alive, they were most certainly NOT very nice: They were a whole race of {{Mad Scientist}}s who enslaved another race of fellow elves and turned them into the Falmer we know now, experimented on other races ForScience, were entirely capable of [[CurbStompBattle curbstomping anything the other races could throw at them with their]] MechaMooks and superior metalworking, [[RealityWarper modified the laws of physics to fit their whims]], and tried to make [[DeusExHomine their own god]], an attempt that wiped them off the face of Tamriel (this could qualify for nightmare fuel on its own, since NO ONE knows what happened to them, and one of the theories is that they were punished by the gods for their arrogance, possibly with a FateWorseThanDeath, and, [[WildMassGuessing since they were fond of warping reality with their technology, there's nothing that assures us that they won't find their way back]]).
* In Skyrim's second Dark Brotherhood quest, "With Friends Like These...", you are abducted in your sleep and taken to an unknown location. You are then forced to kill one of three people (or all three) in order to be initiated into the Brotherhood. Exiting the shack, you find that it's a run-down, abandoned rat hole of a building that's literally in the middle of nowhere. For some reason the prospect of those people being kidnapped and dragged to a place like this where nobody can hear you scream or call for help is extremely unsettling.
** Not to mention that a couple of in-game books hint that this is the haunted location of a brutal murder.
* The Falmer. Good GOD the Falmer. They look creepy enough, but add to that the fact that they blend in with the shadows, and that odd chattering noise they make, and you've got yourself some Grade-A Nightmare Fuel.
* In morrowind, in the blight storms near ghostfence, you can occasionally hear a goat bleating. There are NO goats in the game. This is disturbing. And that noise the Dreugh Make, always...And then theres the abandoned shack, no note, no explanation, everything trashed, in the middle of the bitter coast, and always seems to be found at night in a storm. And then there are the Daedric Ruins...
* In-Game book Chance's Folly. The insane warrior's vicious betrayal of the young thief is quite disturbing, as she is sealed for the rest of her life in room with no way out. And to top it off? It's not fiction, either. Try dropping in to one of the ancestral tombs in Morrowind...

*** Let's not forget that if you talk to Arquen, or whatever her name was, she talks about eating Lachance's intestines.
**** Not his intestines, no... It is heavily implied that she ate something a little more... Private...
*** Just try picking up the traitor's mother's head, and dropping it somewhere in the room. His reaction is ''priceless''. The creepy part? This Troper ''enjoyed'' carrying that head back, and scaring him with it.
*** Tsk, the actual basement has been glanced over. Everything from the lighthouse keeper's reaction when you get the key to the moment you decide to leave that pit of Hell is horrifying. Part of it's the rotting, mutilated corpses--animal and human--littering the basement. There is not a square yard of space that doesn't have something grisly in it. But mostly, it's the diary you find by the desiccated and mummified head...here, read a snippet:

** Also in Oblivion we have the clear Lovecraft homage quest "A Shadow over Hackdirt", which this troper found very creepy despite the lack of [[CosmicHorror cosmic horrors]].
*** "The lack of"? Oh, no, my friend. They're there...you just can't see them. ''Listen'' very carefully...
*** But the quest is a lot less scary when you're a living god decked out in demonic armor and carrying a blade that rips out souls, while your opponents are bashing you with mediocre clubs. Plus, you can get the drop on almost all of them, leading to a short and messy fight.
**** Heh, that's all you know. I went there, killed them, had an evil idea, reloaded. Killed one, ran to the top of the church, and shield-pushed everyone off. Then I jumped up onto the steeple and...WHAT THE HELL IS WITH THE TOWN LAYOUT! (hint, if you have max jump, and are on the steeple, then jump up, and look down on the town. And then compare it to the "Cthulhu-Bible" you took from the church.) Yargh!

*** One thing about the Vaermina quest really got me; after trekking through this waking nightmare, you finally come to Arkved (the wizard) lying asleep on his bed near the artifact he stole from Vaermina. There are notes scattered about that imply he was at first eager and excited to explore her realm, but the last one merely reads 'I shall lie here in the dark waiting for death'. I felt so sorry for the poor guy, I killed him, hoping that would end his torment. But Vaermina says when you return to her shrine that Arkved 'will live out the rest of his days in nightmare' EVEN IF you killed him. Which essentially means you've killed Arkved's physical body, but Vaermina still has his ''soul''.

***** It's implied the necromancer just took the name (either by delusion or [[RuleOfCool taste]]), and isn't the real King of Worms.
****** Which opens up a whole new can of FridgeHorror. A simple imposter was able to gather enough power to nearly topple the Mages Guild and turn Arkay-knows-how-many people into Worm Thralls. Even armed with [[spoiler: the willing soul of Archmage Traven]], your character was barely able to stop him. What would happen if the ''real'' Mannimarco made his reappearance in Tamriel? Something to look forward to in Skyrim, perhaps?
*** Then there's the ruins in the Shivering Isles, where it's possible to wade through a tunnel full of discarded bodies, some of which aren't necessarily dead yet.

** Also, those who have played ''Oblivion'' with the popular "Martigen's Monster Mod" GameMod will know what I mean when I say these words: Ghostly Apparitions. That is all.

*** For those who suffer from arachnophobia (like [[MonsterDog this troper]]), let me say that there is a VERY GOOD REASON why Martigen helpfully included a "no spiders" sub-mod. [[TheWeddingSinger This could have been brought to my attention YESTERDAY!]]
** Personally, this troper was always freaked out by the shrine to Sithis located in Deepscorn Hollow. Avoided going into that place as much as possible.
*** Agreed. The odd shape of the cavern, the twisted staircase, the [[spoiler:petrified figures and gigantic skeletal claws embedded in the walls, all desperately reaching towards the gigantic hooded statue illuminated by a red glow...]]brrr.
** On the east coast of Niben Bay, there's a location called the Cadlew Chapel which looks like any normal chapel out of town. This troper only wanted to get rid of some stats change, only to find out the chapel [[spoiler:has been raided by four necromancers. There's recently chopped off body parts on the altar of the chapel along with a recently dead adventurer on a bloody table. What tops that though is the decaying corpse (presumably the chapel's priest) hanging from the ceiling, over the altar. ]]
* The one Thieves' Guild quest where the player had to infiltrate a certain stronghold had him or her walk through a small tunnel with the floor flooded with water. This flooded area is revealed to be a deep pit. Now, this troper's fear of deep water didn't actually kick in until he reached the bottom, where there was a small hole opening up into a bigger chamber, the inside of which was obscured by the water's murkiness. It seemed empty until the GIANT FUCKING SLAUGHTERFISH inside did the 'spin around' idle animation and briefly zoomed past the hole. I had to get my roomate to go in there and stab it for me.
** [[{{Panthalassa}} This troper]] isn't bothered nearly as much by the giant slaughterfish as by the giant mudcrab in Greenmead Cave. It triggers my OMG GIANT SPIDER RUN AWAAAAAAAY instinct every time, even if I've got [[GameBreaker 100% Chameleon]] and know it can't see me. Even the [[OurCentaursAreDifferent Spider Daedra]] don't freak me out like that one mudcrab.
** There is just ''something'' about the water in ''Oblivion'' that makes [[{{Muselette}} this troper]] freak the fuck out. She almost couldn't force herself to complete the above quest or any others that required her to be completely underwater for reasons that had nothing to with slaughterfish. However, she has no problem with swimming in any of the other games.
*** [[ItGotWorse It gets oh so much worse]] with [[GameMod mods]]. Better Cities, at least, adds a plethora of Slaughterfish SHARKS to the ocean outside Anvil, including one called "The Deep One" that's as big as a ship and looks like [[EldritchAbomination it came right out of a Lovecraft novel.]]
*** Even the ''musical cue'' is enough to freak you out. I had just started playing and gotten out of the sewers. I decided to explore the ruin on the other side of the lake and started swimming. All of a sudden, the music began to pick up and got a lot more sinister. I actually started thinking "Ohmygodwhatisthatswimfaster''swimfasterSWIMFASTER!''"
* There is also a quest in Oblivion that requires you to go on a haunted ship to release a spirit. The ship isn't so scary as it is only filled with ghosts but when you reach the end of the ship, you face a wraith as a boss which keeps wailing creepily. Since the wraith was now dead, you think nothing else scary would pop up but after you release the spirit in the back room, when it vanishes, it does a noise ressembling a sudden, loud, ghastly scream. This troper is now afraid of doing affairs with ghosts of any sort.
* There are plenty of creatures from any of the games that deserve mention (the Daedra especially), but for this troper, the ones that rise to the top of his nightmares are the ash creatures from ''Morrowind''. They are ''all'' creepy, but the fact that they all used to be human as well just pushes it beyond creepy and full-on into NightmareFuel. Ascended sleepers... Oh god, ascended sleepers....
* And again from ''Morrowind'', the castle Tel Vos. Normally, it's not that creepy, but when you explore the depths you find that it's (almost) entirely abandoned and overrun with giant plants. The part that drives it home is how you keep finding diary entries from those who worked in the castle as everything went to hell. For this troper, the creepiest thing of all is that it's [[NothingIsScarier never clearly explained what actually happened]]. To this day, this troper gets chills exploring that castle...
** This troper, who only explored Tel Vos minimally (because he ran the fuck away with his low-level character at the sight of a flame atronach) considers it to be another Lovecraft homage, what with the scattered journal entries describing vague and nameless horrors...
** Add the fact that the Telvanni Wizard that the town was made for is probably the ''nicest Telvanni member there is'', minus the Blades spy.
** This troper found plenty of NightmareFuel located in several Oblivion mods. Examples include a room of monks with glowing eyes following an orb in the second Cybiades quest, as well as the entirety of the Gate of Aesgaard series.
* Anything and everything behind the Oblivion Gates. Particular mention goes to the "containers" used in place of standard treasure chests: mutilated torsos that, when you check them for items, make the same sound as when you remove meat from a roasted rat. They're labeled in-game as "The Punished." This Troper is almost completely immune to nightmare fuel, and still couldn't keep taking the loot from those things.
** Actually, they're more like advanced treasure chests, usually containing significantly better loot than the "Fleshy Pod" containers found outside of the central tower. This of course makes perfect sense; the tower has better loot and scarier creatures guarding it, so of course the containers themselves must also be creepier. Yetch. Oh, and did you notice that if you just stand there watching the things, THEY MOVE?!?!?

* While [[AgentCH this troper]] can shrug off the zombies and ghosts in Oblivion, the ragdolling of dead creatures creeps me out. No, ragdolling isn't the right word. [=NPCs=] ragdoll. Creatures, upon death, turn into rubber that bounces, wobbles, and flails a lot more than a dead body should. And it doesn't end when their body finally comes to a complete stop. Near the beginning of the game, I gave a dead goblin a smack with my sword and the hit caused it to flail around like it was ''coming back to life''. I fucking ''booked'' as fast as my Athletics stat would let me.
** Additionally, some of the enemies in the Shivering Isles expansion make ''me'' shiver. In particular the Skinned Hounds, which are just what they sound like. Also, the Gnarls (tree monsters), at least regarding the aforementioned rubber corpse deal.
** You can get a skinned hound as a pet in the shivering isles as a reward for a quest your told that the quest giver will give you one of his FORMER pets, it even mentions in the quest diary how odd the way he phrased the sentence was.
* Morrowind's dungeons often entertained Daedric shrines, which invariably had offerings laid out in front of them. These were always valuable objects, precious stones, weapons and such. But there is a catch: The Daedra the shrine belongs to views those objects as its own, and evidently does ''not'' take kindly to you thieving them. One of the offerings- just one- will if you touch it immediately summon something very nasty behind you. It was the randomness of this which got to this Troper. So much so that he eventually left Daedric shrines themselves alone, even after he'd cleared them out.

* Throughout Morrowind and Oblivion can be found entire libraries of books, which this Troper found utterly absorbing, to the point where he would find a book in a dungeon, start reading it, and then completely forget about what he was actually doing. Many of these stories- being accounts of historical happenings in Tamriel- were incredibly bloody and often quite horrible. One in particular sticks in memory: A two parter entitled "Bone", which describes how Bonemold Armor was invented. I can't really give it justice, so if you fancy reading it [[http://www.imperial-library.info/mwbooks/bone.shtml here it is.]]

* The ship in Anvil, the one with the murdered crew. This troper wanted to kill the person that gave me that quest because of that. I knew what to expect (I have the strategy guide) but it was still really creepy, especially since ''I didn't have any silver weaponry besides my bow and no enchanted weapons at all''. I literally had to run from one floor to the other, try to avoid the ghosts, grab the heirloom, and get out. And on the way out, I got trapped between two of them. The Shivering Isles also scare me, partly because of all of the weirder monsters (Flesh Atronachs and Hungers, anyone?) but also because it's so ''freaky!'' It's like a more sinister version of American [=McGee=]'s version of Wonderland!

** [[spoiler: Way less than a century; if I remember correctly, the eruption happens the year after the Oblivion crisis, 39 years before the start of the novel.]]

*** No no no. While that ''is'' scary, that's not what's the most scary about it. No, what's most scary about it is that literally every single Daedric Prince quest, aside from that Prince's artifact, is a ''fame increase''. For those that don't know, the fame counter shows how much of a hero the world considers you to be. The higher your fame, the more people like you, praise your name, etc. And again, every Daedra quest grants a fame increase. ''The world considers you to be more of a hero for lying, manipulating and outright murdering other people on the whims of {{Eldritch Abomination}}s.''
*** Because you have the gall to honor the EldritchAbominations, sure heroic tasks are remembered but to speak to these mortal gods and complete these tasks for them is something the Daedric followers will look highly upon. So this fame is about pleasing those crazy cultists
* How has the subject of soul gems not come up yet? Binding a beings soul to a gem and then using that gem to drain their spiritual energy to make an enchanted item. The concept of having your soul ripped from your body and transferred to a gem, then to a weapon where your existence presumable dissolves as you power the item with your existence is bad enough. But then imagine those who don't suffer this fate and are [[AndIMustScream trapped in a soul gem forever]].

* [[spoiler: The Night Mother]] in Skyrim. [[spoiler: She talks through a ''mummified corpse.'']]
** That's not the worst part. [[spoiler: The first time you hear her speak you are shut up in her dark coffin, next to her body.]]

** Special mention goes to the [[GiantSpider frostbite spiders]]. [[AllTrollsAreDifferent Trolls]]? Tough but fine. Nord zombies? I've killed zombies before, no big. [[OurDragonsAreDifferent Dragons]]? Hell, those are fun to take down. Giant spider? This troper is fighting every instinct to turn around and run like hell. And guess what? Early on, [[spoiler: you get to fight an even more giant one.]]
*** This troper agrees, gameplay wise the spiders are very easy to kill, one or two hits and they are dead, but they are a so realistic and repulsive depiction of a giant spider, they even fall from the ceiling of the caves as real spiders do, that this troper hates to fight against them.
* The Black Star. Both the item and the related quest. In Azura's quest, due to a choice I won't spoil, You can get the Azura's Star we all know and love...or an utterly corrupted version, that works on Black Souls, and ONLY Black Souls. Having this sheer unholy power is a bit on the creepy side...But the quest for it. Oh man. [[spoiler: Much like the final raid in [[WorldOfWarcraft Wrath of the Lich King where you get sucked into Frostmourne]], You actually get to see INSIDE AZURA'S STAR, and meet a demented mage who's been cannibalising souls. And yes - It COMPLETELY confirms that yes - People are still aware of whats going on in there.]]

** This Troper developed hydrophobia as a result of them. I would shut my game down rather than fall in water, and eventually edited the water to be clear.

* In-Game book Chance's Folly always creeped this Troper out. The insane warrior's vicious betrayal of the young thief is quite disturbing, as she is sealed for the rest of her life in room with no way out. And to top it off? It's not fiction, either. Try dropping in to one of the ancestral tombs in Morrowind...