Skyrim / Tropes 0 to C

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0- 9

• 0% Approval Rating:
  • King Olaf. Solitude has a festival where he is burned in effigy. He seems to have had a better approval rating in the other Holds, but his reign was so long ago that it is hard to say for certain whether it was good or merely not bad enough to inspire annual effigy-burnings. He's also actually the same person as Olaf One-Eye, who has a 100% Heroism Rating, meaning he got both a Historical Villain Upgrade and a Historical Hero Upgrade at the same time.
  • Wolf Queen Potema. Unlike Olaf, however, there is absolutely zero dispute over how evil and how reviled she was. Apart from some crazy necromancers trying (foolishly) to bind and enslave her, and some vampires living in her catacombs, no one has anything positive to say about her. At all. Also unlike Olaf, her ghost is not found in Sovngarde, either before or after the two quests concerning her, so there truly is no silver lining with her. (However, that may be because she's an Imperial.)
  • The Emperor himself, Titus Mede II, though to a lesser degree than Olaf. While not the victim of a effigy-burning ritual like Olaf (possibly because he's still in power), very few people, if anyone at all, seems to have anything positive to say about the Emperor. Even those supposedly loyal to him are more loyal to the Empire as a whole than they are to him. The very one who hires the Dark Brotherhood to have the Emperor killed is a member of the Elder Council. The reason for this hatred is because he surrendered to the Thalmor, but when you meet him he comes across as a supremely Reasonable Authority Figure, as well as a perfect example of Face Death with Dignity, so the hatred seems somewhat undeserved.
  • The Thalmor, the fascist High Elf government. The number of non-Thalmor in Skyrim who support them can be counted on one hand, and even those seem mostly to be paid-off agents. There are quite a few High Elves who dislike them for their extreme ways. The only reason the Thalmor even came to power in the first place was due to the chaos caused by the Oblivion Crisis (and their successful lie in their home territory that it was them who resolved the crisis).
• 20 Bear Asses:
  • Temba Wide-Arm in Ivarstead goes halfway towards a literal example, asking you to bring her ten bear pelts.
  • Nearly half the quests in Riften are these, substituting "bear ass" with "ridiculously rare alchemy ingredient." Ingun Black-Briar is the worst, requiring a total of 60 individual samples of three different types of very expensive (and rare) poison ingredients. (Hearthfire mitigates the difficulty somewhat, since two of the three things she wants can be grown in gardens at the houses you build.)
• 24-Hour Armor: Not only is the player character free to wear the same set of heavy plate armour all day and every day, the guards of holds can be seen sleeping in their armour in the hold's barracks. They don't even take off their full-face helmets. (This is actually a game bug; all characters who have a "sleep" routine were given outfits to wear when sleeping, but the "lie down and sleep" part of the script doesn't call on them to change clothes.)

A

• Abandoned Mine:
  • There are a few, but like Morrowind, it makes it more reasonable by also having working and populated mines. The most straightforward is probably Redbelly Mine, which has been overrun by Frostbite Spiders. The lead miner, Filnjar, asks you to clear out the spiders so the mine won't have to be abandoned.
  • The main ebony mine in Raven Rock on Solstheim in the Dragonborn DLC was on the verge of becoming one, and its lower levels were already abandoned and sealed off, supposedly due to a lack of ore (really because they Dug Too Deep, found a tomb full of Draugr and a Dragon Priest, and covered it up. Once you clear the mine of Draugr, defeat the Dragon Priest, and recover evidence of the cover-up, it turns out there was more ebony in the deeper parts of the mine, making it viable once more. This has the effect of reversing the economic downturn the island had been suffering from for the past few decades.
• Abhorrent Admirer:
  • Apparently you and a hagraven named Moira spent a magical evening together while you were drunk. She doesn't handle rejection well.
  • In Windhelm, Captain Lonely-Gale and Viola Giordano. Viola frequently comes on to the Captain, and his thoughts on the matter, well...
    Elda Early-Dawn: So what's the news on the streets, Captain?
    Captain Lonely-Gale: The dark elves are uneasy. There's a killer on the loose. And Viola Giordano won't leave me alone.
    Elda Early-Dawn: Would you like a drink?
    Captain Lonely-Gale: Oh, very much so.
• Ability Required to Proceed: To access the summit of the Throat of the World, you need to learn a specific Shout in order to part the blizzard that will otherwise rapidly drain your health. Said Shout is only learned as part of the main questline, barring you from the area until you make a certain amount of progress.
• Aborted Arc: Numerous important plot threads and apparent quest hooks can seem to go nowhere.
  • If you speak to the Thieves' Guild member Rune, he will tell you his backstory and the reason for his peculiar name and you can offer to keep your eyes open in order to help him discover his origins. And then... nothing. It's never brought up again in the Thieves' Guild questline and there is no quest having anything to do with Rune's backstory.
  • There's Mjoll, a former adventurer trying to clean up the corruption in Riften. You never get a chance to help her deal with either the Thieves' Guild or Black-Briar family. This option was originally planned, but was cut for time during development.
  • It's mentioned when you talk to people in the College of Winterhold that the previous mage group before yours went missing. You can happen upon their bodies by chance, and pick up unique items of theirs, but you can't do anything for them, find out whether the deaths were connected, or bring anyone any closure. This is actually a glitch, as Phinis Gestor was supposed to offer you the quest, but never does. The "Cutting Room Floor" mod, which restores content that was removed from the final game, includes the meadery near Dragon Bridge that two of the missing apprentices were supposed to be running. This obviously conflicts with the unfinished quest in which you were supposed to find all four dead, so the meadery is run by two unrelated people now.
  • One quest has you tracking a man's wife who was kidnapped by bandits, but it turns out that she's taken over the band and enjoys her new life, so she asks you to lie about her fate to get rid of him. When you do, she says she owes you a debt and will see you again someday because she means to repay it. She doesn't; you two never meet again.
  • In Dawnguard, if you side with the vampires, it's a plot point that two of Harkon's top lieutenants are feuding, and both are plotting to overthrow Harkon. The end result of this is that each of them sends a guy to kill you during your first quest for Harkon. After this, the plot is never mentioned again, even after you kill Harkon and take over as lord/lady of the castle. Presumably you keep around two guys who are trying to kill one another, and really want your job.
  • One that was thankfully cut was that Mephala's quest would result in all of Jarl Balgruuf's children seeking him out and committing patricide. The scripts are completely finished and in game, but unused. It's probable that the testers felt this was an undignified end for the Jarl and would take away a major moral dilemma of the Civil War arc.
• Absurdly High Level Cap: Before patch 1.9, maxing all skills to 100 would get you to the level cap of 81. Patch 1.9, however, added the Legendary feature, which resets a skill from 100 to 15, returning any perk points spent on that skill in the process. Through this mechanic, there is no limit on level, though you'll have the points to unlock every single perk by 261.
• Absurdly Low Level Cap: While the game has the highest natural level cap in the series to day (81), some players still felt that reaching it was too easy. Bethesda responded by adding "legendary" skills via DLC, which allow you to reset maxed out skills in order to keep leveling up. Now there is no true level cap, although the game will crash if you have 255 unspent perk points.
• Absurdly Spacious Sewer: The Ratway. The Thieves Guild has set up their main base down there — said base covers maybe 10% of the total area. In fact, it's clear that it's too big for them to patrol on their own, as evidenced by the fact that the Thalmor get in there without much trouble during their hunt for Esbern.
• Abusive Parents:
  • Lemkil from Rorikstead. He beats his daughters Britte and Sissel, and loudly complains in public that his children are good for nothing but caterwauling and complaining. His abuse causes Britte to turn around and abuse Sissel as well, so poor Sissel has it doubly bad.
  • There's also an ambiguous example with Golldir, the Nord warrior found outside Hillgrund's Tomb with his own personal quest. According to Golldir, his father, whom he calls "Da", locked him in the tomb when he was young; but the note you can find from his Aunt Agna claims that it was his brother who locked him in there instead. Nothing in the game explains the discrepancy, so Golldir may or may not fall under this trope, although other comments he makes about his father seem to imply that he does.
  • Probably every other example in the game pales in comparison to Serana's family from Dawnguard. Her mother Valerica locked her away in a stasis-like sleep in a stone coffin for centuries. Before that happened, her father Harkon arranged for Molag Bal, the Daedric Prince of Domination (or if you prefer, the "King of Rape"), to bestow the "gift" of vampirism on himself, Valerica, and Serana. How this was given to Harkon is unclear, but Serana describes what she and her mother had to endure as "degrading," and refuses to go into further detail than that.
• Abusive Precursors:
  • Dwemer weren't well-liked by other races in the distant past, and we see a few good examples of why in this game. They twisted the Falmer (Snow Elves) into the morlock-like forms you see today and used them as slaves. Whatever the Dwemer did changed the very nature of their souls: Sentient creatures (like the various races of elves, humans, etc) have black souls. Subhuman creatures and beasts have white souls. Falmer souls are white, meaning that they fall into the second category. It's not really known for sure whether this is an intentional feature or not, though in Dawnguard, a non-corrupted Snow Elf mentions that the Falmer became what they are over centuries.
  • Dragons and the dragon cults worshiping them are another example. Alduin disregarded his divine mandate to serve as the World-Eater and established a vast theocratic dictatorship over early Nord society. The legacy is still felt in modern Skyrim with the Draugr ruins scattered across the landscape, as well as the dragon mounds where the bones of the old dragons are buried.
• Acceptable Breaks from Reality:
  • Death by exposure to the cold is non-existent, regardless of race or blood. Even swimming naked in freezing waters topped with ice floes off the northern shoreline has no ill effects. One dungeon requires you to explore and loot an underwater ship in just such conditions. The Nords that populate Skyrim do have a canonical inherent resistance to cold that protects them, but that's it. Ironically, the Khajiit, who are covered from head to tail in fur, are the only race to actually complain about the cold, though they have the excuse of being native to a desert region. Argonians are sometimes described by characters in the game as vulnerable to cold, but the race doesn't actually have a weakness to the element. It's also worth mentioning the extremely popular Frostfall Game Mod, which addresses this break from reality. There is also the "Survival Mode" available from the Creation Club that introduces the need to eat, sleep and keep warm, as well as disabling fast travel. Swimming in icy water damages health over time.
  • All currency, even that found in ancient Dwemer or Nordic ruins, is represented by septims to avoid inventory and exchange hassles.
  • All locks - whether they're on wooden doors or Chaurus Chitin chests - have the same metal-in-wood interface.
  • Individual septims, lockpicks, and arrows have no weight, leading to scenarios where you're potentially carrying around with you a million gold pieces, thousands of lockpicks, and a small army's worth of arrows. There's an achievement earned if you are able to carry 100,000 gold pieces on your person.
  • All potions in the game weigh half a unit, no matter the weight of the ingredients. Presumably, the alchemical reagents are distilled out of the ingredients and mixed with a solvent to produce the potion.
  • You don't need bottles when performing alchemy, and venom and essence looted from Frostbite Spiders and Ice Wraiths are conveniently stored in vials despite presumably being extracted from the corpses.
  • All tombs and caves have candles and torches burning to light the way. This one is actually explained by the in-game book Amongst the Draugr, which says they get up and clean the tombs occasionally.
  • You can consume food, no matter the amount, instantaneously, allowing you to regain health and regenerate stamina in the midst of battle and giving you at least some incentive to carry around 200 wheels of cheese.
• Achievements in Ignorance: The Dragonborn can admit to the leader of the Greybeards that they have no idea how they are able to use the Thu'um, they just do. Arngeir explains that Dragonborn are unique in that they can instantly learn new Words of Power, which would take normal people years or decades to master if they can even do so at all. It's around that point in the game that you stop gaining new Thu'um words easily and have to actually work for them.
• Action Bomb:
  • Summon your own with the "Flaming Familiar" conjuration spell.
  • Atronachs and some Dwarven Spiders have the explode-upon-death variant.
  • J'zargo's "Scroll of Flame Cloak" spell is designed to be extra effective on the undead. A pity they are also effective on the user...
  • There are also "small" spiders in the Dragonborn DLC that jump at the player to attack, exploding in the process. You can even find a machine to craft your own to throw at enemies (and they come in fire, ice, lightning, and poison varieties to boot).
  • Also introduced in Dragonborn is Ahzidal's Ring of Necromancy, which causes the wearer's reanimated undead to explode in a blast of frost the first time they take damage. If you have multiple undead, the explosion of one can trigger the others.
• Action Girl: A female Dragonborn and nearly all female followers. Delphine also qualifies, despite being in her fifties, as do the female housecarls standing guard over Jarl Balgruuf and Jarl Igmund. And of course, Gormlaith Golden-Hilt takes a close-up approach to dragonslaying.
• Adjective Animal Alehouse:
  • The Bannered Mare
  • The Winking Skeever
  • The Sleeping Giant
  • The Stumbling Sabrecat (a tiny one in Fort Dunstad)
  • Also, the tavern found in in the Dunmer port town of Raven Rock when visiting Solstheim with the Dragonborn DLC is called The Retching Netch. In the cases of The Retching Netch and The Winking Skeever, you can remark on the name to the owner and he will explain how he came up with it.
• A Dog Named "Perro": In "The Circle", senior members of the Companions are actually werewolves. Several of their names simply translate to "wolf" or "werewolf" in another language, doubling as a Bilingual Bonus. Kodlak comes from Vlkodlak, which is Czech for werewolf. The brothers Farkas and Vilkas names mean "wolf" in Hungarian and Lithuanian, respectively.
• Adoring the Pests: A thieves guild quest involves an insane mage who is building a rat army in the caves beneath a meadery.
• Adventure Archaeologist:
  • In addition to the Dragonborn themselves, there's Katria, from the quest "Lost to the Ages" in the Dawnguard expansion. Notably, the fact that she's dead and a ghost doesn't actually stop her from helping you through a Dwemer ruin and then helping you track down leads on various Aetherium Shards all over Skyrim before trying to locate the Aetherium Forge so she can complete her life's work and prove that her apprentice (who stole her theories on the Forge and appropriated them as his own) is a fraud.
  • There are plenty of other, more minor examples as well, most of whom have already fallen prey to the places they're exploring by the time you happen across their bodies.
• Aerith and Bob:
  • The members of Clan Battle-Born: Olfrid, Bergritte, Idolaf, Alfhild... and then Lars and Jon.
  • Character names run the gamut from the mundane (Lydia the Housecarl, Adrienne Avenicci the blacksmith) to the odd, archaic, or very Scandinavian (Ulfric, Avulstein, Ysolda) to the purely fantastical (Irileth, Belethor, Farengar). For some, it's justified, as each race has different naming conventions. Imperials are Latin/Italian, Bretons are French, elven races lean further towards fantasy etc.
• Aesop Amnesia: One of the quests for the Companions is to take Farkas to help you kill a dragon so he can see for himself that they are real. Farkas reacts with gratitude and amazement. However, this is one of the game's handful of repeatable quests and Farkas can be used as a follower during almost any part of the game, so Farkas may already have killed dozens of dragons with you. Doesn't matter. He's still just as amazed that dragons are real the seventeenth time you repeat the quest as he was the first time you did it.
• Affably Evil:
  • The Dark Brotherhood themselves are very much a family and treat each other with a great deal of respect and even friendship. They're so nice, in fact, that you might forget that they're all ruthless murderers.
  • Lord Harkon in Dawnguard is this, right up until you either refuse his offer to make you a vampire or turn against him.
  • The Daedric Prince Clavicus Vile is this due to being a Large Ham. The same goes for Sanguine, although he is more amoral than outright evil.
• After the End:
  • Of Morrowind, the eponymous setting of the third game, and by extension many parts of Solstheim. If you played Morrowind's expansion Bloodmoon, then exploring the island in Dragonborn can be very depressing indeed, since much of it has since been devastated by Red Mountain's eruptions; the Imperial Legion and most other non-Dunmer inhabitants packed up and ran off during the initial eruption two centuries before. You'll recognize quite a number of familiar locations - many of which are now crumbling and long abandoned ruins.
  • Tamriel as a whole is in this state as of the game's time-frame, since the continent has been hit by multiple disasters and devastating wars in the last two hundred years, including the Oblivion Crisis, the Red Year, the Great War, and the Umbriel Crisis. Cities that should be glorious and beautiful like Winterhold are husks of their former selves, and even the great trade cities like Whiterun are showing signs of breakdown and disrepair. The weakening of the Empire's power has left many Imperial fortresses as crumbling ruins inhabited by bandits, and the wilds are filled with outlaws and monsters. And then the dragons came.
• The Ageless:
  • Dragons by nature, and also vampires.
  • In Dawnguard you meet up with a Snow Elf named Gelebor. While his brother is explicitly a vampire, Gelebor is a normal Snow Elf. Considering the events and situation, this would make Gelebor older than Serana (who is already implied to be older than the current Empire). He still looks to be in his prime. Divine protection is implied to be responsible.
• Airborne Mook: Dragons. They can appear randomly at any time to attack you as a Boss in Mook Clothing. They spend most of the battle flying until you've chipped away about 2/3 of their health, which forces them to land. Thankfully, you learn a Shout ("Dragonrend") that acts like an Anti-Air Brown Note to them, forcing them to land. However, it's a late-game Shout you can only learn about 3/4 of the way through the main quest.
• Alas, Poor Villain: This can happen a few times, most notably with:
  • Astrid, at the end of the Dark Brotherhood quest. She just wanted her family to be happy. Too bad that family didn't include you.
  • Ulfric Stormcloak, if you join the Legion. He chooses to Face Death with Dignity, and then his head is sent to the Imperial City to be put on a spike as a warning to others who entertain the idea of secession. Then his soul goes to Sovngarde and he learns to his abject horror that all his rebellion accomplished was feeding the immortal souls of countless countrymen to Alduin!
  • Miraak in the Dragonborn DLC, due to how horrifying his death is.
• The Alcatraz:
  • Cidhna Mine in Markarth, owned by the Silver-Blood family; prisoners are used as slave labor in mining the silver.
  • Winterhold has "The Chill," which is their prison, but is really just a cave with some cells in it. However, it's far to the north, pushing up against the map boundaries, in the middle of the frozen sea, guarded by Frost Atronachs, and in a region home to bears and horkers.
• Alien Hair: The Argonians, the closest thing the game has to a playable alien race, can have feather-like hair, fins, crests, spikes and horns.
• Alien Sky:
  • Tamriel's skies have two moons, which are actually the rotting remains of the god who created the planet. The phases they go through are technically impossible, but the sky only looks that way because that's the only way mortal minds can interpret it. ^note The sun is actually a hole punched in the fabric of reality by Magnus to escape being bound to Nirn, and each star is a lesser hole created by those who followed Magnus (known as the Magna-Ge) escaping from being bound to the planet. The other eight planets in the sky are the planes occupied by the Aedra who chose to stay and remain bound to Nirn.
  • A more pronounced example would be Sovngarde. The sky there looks like a giant Boom Tube with nebula walls and unearthly lighting.
  • Dawnguard gives us the Soul Cairn, whose sky is dominated by an enormous whirlpool-like void.
  • You can be responsible for an Alien Sky yourself if you shoot the sun with Bloodcursed Arrows from Auriel's Bow. This turns the day into night, helpful if the Dragonborn is a vampire or a stealth user, but what it actually does is turn the sun into a creepy black and red hole in the sky which fills the land with an eerie blood-colored light.
  • In Dragonborn, there's also Apocrypha, whose sky is a sickly green with masses of floating tentacles... which are nothing less than good 'ol Hermaeus Mora himself.
  • The Special Edition updated Sanguine's "Misty Realm" to have this as well where the sky looks like the surface of water as seen from underneath and further changed Apocrypha, the Soul Cairn, and Sovngarde from the normal sky.
• Alliterative Name:
  • The Stumbling Sabrecat (tiny Adjective Animal Alehouse in Fort Dunstad)
  • The Pawned Prawn pawnshop in Riften. You can ask the proprietor where the name came from.^note He used to own a fishing boat called The Prawn, but pawned it to buy the shop.
• All-Natural Gem Polish: With the addition of mining for ores, the game allows the player to also occasionally find precious gems. Most of the time this trope is averted, with the gems being rough and flawed, but occasionally, the Dovakhiin can dig up a perfectly flawless, pre-cut gemstone. Out of an iron vein.
• All There in the Manual:
  • The official game guide contains a lot of information that isn't present in the game, particularly details about the various Non Player Characters. For example, Delvin Mallory's description claims that he was raised in Honorhall Orphanage and was later taken in by Gallus, and when he accidentally killed someone during a robbery, Gallus sent him to stay with the Dark Brotherhood for a year (where Delvin became Astrid's lover) until people forgot about it.
  • As an element of the backstory, the Thu'um and its connection to the Dragonborn Emperors seems to come out of nowhere... if you're not familiar with the Redguard manual's Pocket Guide to the Empire: 1st Edition from 1998 or the in-game book Children of the Sky, which appeared in Morrowind and Oblivion but was very rare in both. Both books discuss the Way of the Voice as a part of the Nords' martial traditions prior to the Second Era, and the Pocket Guide's "Skyrim" section references many specific lore details that were later incorporated into Skyrim, including High Hrothgar and the Greybeards.^note Oddly, none of this was included in the Pocket Guide's "Third Edition" that came with the Oblivion Collector's Edition.
• All Webbed Up: Skyrim's native giant spiders do this to their victims. In the first plot-relevant dungeon you explore as part of the main quest, you find a bandit leader still alive and webbed to the wall. He promises to hand over the item you are seeking if you cut him free. Of course, the instant you do so, he takes off running and calls you a fool. He will likely die a quick death to the dungeon's Draugr or death traps if you don't catch up and kill him first. One spider-filled cave even has the corpses of woolly mammoths webbed up this way.
• All Your Base Are Belong to Us: A few faction bases are assaulted by their nemeses during the associated questlines. Jorrvaskr is attacked during the Companion's questline and you in turn assault a couple of the main Silver Hand bases. In the Dark Brotherhood questline, either you destroy the sanctuary in Destroy the Dark Brotherhood or it gets assaulted by Penitus Oculatus agents and destroyed if you join the Dark Brotherhood. Playing as either Imperial or Stormcloak and you capture several forts and then Windhelm or Solitude, if playing as Imperial or Stormcloak, respectively. In Dawnguard, you assault Castle Volkihar in the climax if siding with the Dawnguard and you assault Fort Dawnguard after the main questline if siding with the vampires.
• Almighty Janitor: Liar's Retreat, a bandit hideout overrun by the Falmer, has a corpse in the very last room of a bandit named Rahd, with his weapon — The Longhammer, a modified Orcish warhammer that can be swung faster — by his side. There is also a dead Chaurus in that room, implicitly killed by Rahd. Unlike other bandits, Rahd wears work clothes instead of armor, and this is explained when, upon going back to the dungeon's entrance, the Dragonborn meets some bandits who ask that "Longhammer" fix them a drink. This guy, who owned a custom weapon that cannot be crafted by any means or found anywhere else in Skyrim, who managed to take down a Chaurus (a creature far more powerful than most common bandits) while wearing nothing but a set of common clothes, was just the bandits' bartender.
• Almost Dead Guy:
  • Gavros Plinius, in Mzulft. The only way to get into the ruin is using a key found on his body, and he only appears once you're far enough along in the College questline, at which point he dies immediately after you talk to him.
  • Kyr in Frostmere Crypt is similar. You can talk to him and he dies immediately.
  • J'Kier, whom you meet upon entering Bloated Man's Grotto during "Ill Met by Moonlight". His party tried to take down Sinding in werewolf form and failed miserably. After assuring you that more hunters will come, he instantly keels over.
• Aloof Leader, Affable Subordinate: General Tullius, the leader of the Imperial Legion, is a gruff and no-nonsense if well-meaning man with little patience for the Nords' Honor Before Reason tendencies. His second-in-command, Legate Rikke, is much more personable and, being a Nord herself, won't hesitate to correct him whenever his lack of knowledge on Nordic culture is made apparent.
• Already Undone for You: Some of the dungeons, partially.
  • Mzulft is scattered with destroyed automata and the dead wizards who tried to access it before you, and Avanchnzel similarly shows the handiwork of the team of adventurers who stole the Lexicon. Both allow you to follow and eavesdrop on the ghosts of the party who went before you as you venture deeper into the ruins. Labyrinthian has a similar ghost show going on as you make your way through it.
  • Folgunthur, under the giant rock arch that is Solitude (right under the Blue Palace in fact), has the remains of the warlock seeking the Gauldur Amulet part of the way in; you'll find a few dead bandits at the site of some traps, and a couple totem puzzles already completed.
  • Ustengrav has some evidence that Delphine somehow managed to pry the "back door" open to get at the Horn of Jurgen Windcaller: a few draugr inside the chamber with Windcaller's tomb already lie dead.
• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • An in-universe example crops up during the quest "In My Time of Need." Saadia claims that she spoke out against the Thalmor, and that the Alik'r are Thalmor mercenaries sent to kill her. Kematu, however, claims that Saadia sold out a powerful family in Hammerfell to the Thalmor, and the Alik'r are trying to take her back to Hammerfell alive so she can face justice. There is plenty of evidence for both claims, but you never learn who exactly is telling the truth. The only thing both sides agree on is that Saadia's real name is Iman.
  • King Olaf is revealed to be Olaf One-Eye, the creator of Dragonsreach. Even the head of the Bard's college is slightly aghast at this revelation since he himself couldn't believe that they were one and the same (King Olaf was apparently a tyrannical ruler, while Olaf One-Eye was a folk hero for capturing Numinex). This puts the last entry into King Olaf's Verse into question, since if the details revealed within it are true, it means a lot of historical records were wrong (such as who attacked whom). Nonetheless, the head of the Bard's college is a lot more eager to spin it against Olaf, since he needs to convince the Queen to keep up the effigy burning. When you do meet Olaf in Sovngarde, all that's confirmed was that he knew the poet that slandered him and thinks said poet is a worthy and honest opponent. Yet they were both allowed into Sovngarde.
• Alternate Identity Amnesia: To the Dragonborn, when they first turn into a werewolf.
• Always a Bigger Fish:
  • You barely avoid a beheading in the opener thanks to a dragon rampage. Ironically, the whole reason he showed up was to kill you.
  • It can happen in-game, too: dragons can randomly attack while the player is fighting off weaker enemies.
  • The Dragonborn themself is one. According to lore, Akatosh bestowed upon mortals the gift of Dragons-blood so that they may serve as guardians of mankind and as natural predators to Dragonkind. Indeed, part of what makes the Dragonborn so greatly feared is their ability to simply show up in the middle of a Dragon-attack, tear them apart, devour their very soul... and then promptly go on their way. There's a reason the Dragonborn is referred to in-universe as "The One They Fear".
• Always Chaotic Evil: The Falmer, who were twisted into hideous Morlock-like beings by centuries of enslavement and rendered blind by eating toxic fungi, are the only mortal humanoid race with no non-hostile members. Every single Falmer seen in-game is an evil monster who wants to kill and eat you. Dawnguard messes with this formula by introducing the single remaining uncorrupted Snow Elf, who is attempting (without apparent success) to redeem the race. However, it also switches things around with the introduction of another, more savage strain of Falmer, who are perfectly happy to kill everything - including their own kind. The uncorrupted Snow Elf does mention that, rather than being "evil", the Falmer seen in the game are more or less feral; he refers to them as "the Betrayed." According to him, they are slowly (over hundreds of years) regaining their sentience and may be able to communicate in several hundred more years.
• Always Check Behind the Chair:
  • Skyrim rewards the explorer who checks behind waterfalls, and pays attention to those little cracks where things can stick out or which might be a side-passage you just can't see properly unless you look from the right angle.
  • In many dungeons, the switch or pull chain to open a door or gate is often in plain sight. In other cases, though, they're very, very well hidden, and sometimes there's a trick switch that triggers a trap while the real one is hidden.
  • In most dungeons with Frostbite Spiders, there will be a wall of the thick, cut-able web. Behind that web is usually a chest.
  • There is a skeleton floating under the bridge leading to Dragonsreach in Whiterun, with a few septims in it.
  • For a literal example, there's a particular Nordic ruin (Ironbind Barrow) the Dragonborn can explore with two NPC adventurers looking for treasure. The dungeon's final boss — a leveled draugr — rises from his throne and attacks when his chamber is entered. Behind that throne, mounted to its backrest, hangs a battleaxe which bears the Fiery Soul Trap enchantment, the one and only item that's guaranteed to spawn with this very useful ability.
• Always Identical Twins: Sissel and Britte, the twin daughters of Lemkil in Rorikstead. They're a humorous example, though - since there are only two models (one boy and one girl) for all of the children in Skyrim, they have to be identical twins because all the children are identical. Averted with Farkas and Vilkas, the only other twins in the game, because they're adults and can have different models.
• Amazing Technicolor Battlefield: The final battle against Alduin takes place in Sovngarde (which is basically, in keeping with Skyrim's Horny Vikings motif, an expy of Valhalla), and boy is it heavily saturated with color, especially as you look up and see Alduin approaching.
• Amazon Brigade:
  • A female Dovahkiin with a female follower brought to Miraak's temple will have Frea join them and kick much ass.
  • If a female Dovahkiin has all women join the Blades, they can have up to four powerful women attack a dragon lair, and 5 if you have a female follower.
• Amazon Chaser:
  • According to the in-game book Of Holgeir and Fjori, Holgeir apparently fell in love with Fjori while fighting her.
  • A male Dovahkiin who marries a female follower can potentially be this, specially if it's Mjoll, Aela, Njada, Jenassa, or any of the female housecarls.
• Ambiguously Evil: The dragons, who are following Alduin's orders to wage war on humanity. While most dragons in the game are hostile, the devs have said that more than a few just want to be left alone. As you play through the main quest, you learn that dragon politics aren't nearly as cut-and-dried as you might have thought, and even dragons who follow Alduin generally don't seem to like him much. Indeed, you may now and then encounter a dragon that just flies about overhead, not antagonizing anyone, and then heads off. May also be a case of Blue-and-Orange Morality, since dragon culture and instinct is so heavily built around power and domination; to dragons, there is no distinction between being powerful and being right. Battles between dragons are actually deadly verbal debates in the dragon tongue, with the 'winner' of the debate the victor of the battle. Indeed, Arngeir seems to think that whilst all of the dragons (including the Greybeards' benevolent leader Paarthurnax) were Alduin's allies in the Dragon Wars, there was nothing else they could have been, since Alduin was the most powerful and therefore deemed morally just also.
• Ancient Conspiracy:
  • The Dragon Cults formed in ancient times in service and reverence of the dragons. After the ancient Nord heroes manged to banish the leader of the dragons, Alduin (using an Elder Scrolls to cast him out of the time stream), the remaining dragons were either slain or forced into hiding while the cultists and their Dragon Priest leaders were persecuted, executed, and entombed in Skyrim's many ancient barrows. With the return of Alduin during the events of the game, he is not only resurrecting the dragons, but the cultists as well.
  • The Thalmor are a fascistic Altmeri political party which dates back to the 1st Era. Originally formed to preserve the history and culture of the Altmer (High Elves), they grew into a powerful Altmer supremacist political party within the Aldmeri Dominion which eventually militarized. When Tiber Septim used the Numidium to decimate the Aldmeri armies and sack their capital city in less than an hour of fighting, the Thalmor retreated to the political shadows to wait out the Septim Empire. When the Oblivion Crisis struck, the Thalmor stole credit for ending it within their homeland, earning them populist support which allowed them to rise into the highest positions of the Altmeri government. They assassinated Potentate Ocato, who capably kept the Empire together for a decade after the crisis, severely destabilizing the Empire and sending it toward vestigial status. The Thalmor re-formed the Aldmeri Dominion of old, annexed neighboring Valenwood (homeland of the Bosmer (Wood Elves), and got Elsweyr (home of the Khajiit) to join as a client state. Over the next century, their power waxed while they also manipulated events throughout the rest of Tamriel to further weaken the Empire, ultimately culminating in the Great War. Though they were driven back by the forces of the Empire, they did manage to force an imposing treaty (the White-Gold Concordat) on the Empire which served to destabilize it further leading up to the events of the game.
• Ancient Tomb: The barrows are also mostly justified. Most were built as the tomb/prisons for the members of the ancient Dragon Cults, who were overthrown thousands of years prior to the events of the game. With the return of Alduin, who is resurrecting the dragons themselves, the members of the Dragon Cult are likewise returning to (un)life. All of those overly simplistic puzzles in the barrows, that can only be opened from the outside? They aren't there to keep enterprising adventurers out; they're there to seal the undead in.
• And I Must Scream:
  • One Dragon Priest is encountered by unlocking his sarcophagus with two keys shaped like skulls. Nothing suggests he was "dead" before the unlocking or even unconscious (Aura Whisper clearly shows him inside before the unlocking). He was most likely trapped in there since the last war against the dragons, which was a couple thousand years ago. Little wonder he is called Otar the Mad. The backstory found in various in-game sources reveals that Otar had gone insane before he was imprisoned, and the two draugr you have to kill to get the keys to release him were, in their day, heroes who managed to imprison him and were given the task of guarding his tomb so he wouldn't escape. Of course, they were only "heroes" from the perspective of the Dragon Cult, an unremittingly evil group in the first place.
  • The Dawnguard DLC takes it even further, having a sequence in the Soul Cairn, a bleak Spirit World ruled over by the Ideal Masters where soul-trapped sapient souls end up for eternity. You think that random bandit's soul you trapped is simply "used up" when you recharge your weapon? Think again. The moment you do so, the soul is sent straight to the Soul Cairn. Where they remain. For the rest of eternity. There is absolutely no hope of escape or rescue. Ever. Nobody can remove your soul from the Cairn, and since you exist as a pure soul, you cannot even hope for the sweet release of death. While you are there, you can expect to be hunted down by undead horrors and have your soul's power drained and utilized for any number of horrific purposes. Even those who manage to successfully hide speak of merely being there as hellish; they exist in a constant state of fear, paranoia, and spiritual exhaustion, sure that they are constantly being watched by... something. The truly unlucky are turned into servants of the "Ideal Masters", the rulers of the Soul Cairn. The masters view this as peaceful immortality, but the afflicted souls are left in a state of unending psychological torment, only able to forever curse the beings who have entrapped them so. (Legendary in the Sequel Morrowind character Jiub is one of the souls who ends up here.)
    Wrathman: "You have taken my life, and given me NOTHING! Eternal happiness? Life everlasting? No! Eternal nightmare! Death everlasting! Nothing now. Nothing forever more... What does it matter? It's not MY fault! You said I'd live forever. And this is LIFE? You CHEATED me! I HATE you!"
• And the Adventure Continues: The credits never roll. Instead, the main questlines for the story, the civil war, and the four guilds end this way, with everyone congratulating you... then getting back to work.
• And Then John Was a Zombie: the Dovahkiin meets the new Sheogorath, who has at this point has fully transformed and seems to be a shell of his former self, though he isn't complaining. This is a first and only for Bethesda in which you actually meet the hero from a previous game.
• And There Was Much Rejoicing:
  • When Alduin is dead, the dragons and the heroes of Sovngarde cheer the feat, and the Greybeards and Blades are happy as well.
  • Both sides of the Civil War engage in a bit of this when the faction they approve of takes over the Hold, or at least the faction they dislike is ousted by the other. In particular, at the end of the Imperial side of the quest when Ulfric is killed and Windhelm is turned over to Imperial control, the general reaction of the Dunmer in the city is "good riddance".
  • Grelod the Kind is anything but, and killing her in front of the orphans under her "care" leads to them celebrating the death of the wretched crone.
• And Your Reward Is Clothes:
  • Notable examples include the various pieces of the Armor of the Old Gods, each granting a different enchantment (the boots make sneaking easier, for example), and (on the flip side of useful) some random pieces of armor from the Jarl of Whiterun for completing the first few main quest missions. Luckily, if you don't like the enchanted clothing, you can destroy it to learn the enchantment and then slap it onto your favorite armor instead.
  • Defeating the assorted Dragon Priests entitles you to keep their masks, each of which confers a different ability. The seven masks in the main game can also be arranged on a special display which will unlock an eighth one which is otherwise unobtainable.
  • Some of the Daedric quests end with you receiving special items to wear, such as Clavicus Vile's mask or Namira's ring.
  • In the Dawnguard DLC, completing the lengthy quest "Lost to the Ages" enables the Dragonborn to craft the last known piece of aetherium into one of three different items. Two of these are wearable - the crown and the shield.
• And Your Reward Is Parenthood: Hearthfire adds in the option for you to adopt Heartwarming Orphans, which you can do whether or not you have a Love Interest. They live in your home and you can bring them souvenirs of your adventures.
• Angel Unaware:
  • A variation occurs where, right up until the moment they absorb Mirmulnir's soul and gain the ability to use the Thu'um, the Dragonborn spends most of their life believing themselves to be (and actually being) merely a normal person. Even afterwards, they are as much in the dark about their true nature as everyone else until the Greybeards explain it to them.
  • A sidequest has you go drinking with a random guy you meet in a pub... and then wake up on the other side of the map and spend several further sidequests finding out what happened on your epic bender with what turns out to be the Daedric Prince of revelry and debauchery.
• Animal Motifs: There are various factions with an associated animal:

  • The Stormcloaks have the bear.
  • The Skyrim branch of the Thieves' Guild have a minor rat motif to symbolize that the guild has fallen on hard times.
  • The Companions heavily associate themselves with wolves. Many of them are secretly werewolves.
  • The ancient order of the Greybeards has a dragon motif on the doors of their monastery at High Hrothgar. Their secret leader, Paarthurnax, is a dragon.
  • Several of the holds within Skyrim have animal motifs on their heraldry - horses for Whiterun, bears for Eastmarch, rams for Markarth, stags for Falkreath, and wolves for Haafingar.
  • The Thalmor, a Nazi-esque State Sec of the above-mentioned Aldmeri Dominion, have a more stylized eagle motif. The Eagle is aloof, proud, and looks down upon the world, much the way the Thalmor do to all other nations.

• Annoying Arrows:
  • Arrows visibly stick in a target for awhile after finding their mark, but unless the shot kills/slows/paralyzes or at least flinches the target, they are otherwise unhindered for it and can continue acting normally, despite the large missile lodged in their leg/arm/cranium/waist/knee/wherever. This applies regardless of whether it's a weak arrow from a low-level bandit (of which you can endure several, even without armor) or a deadly arrow from a master archer (which can potentially kill you in just one or two shots, even through heavy armor). Special mention regarding the latter goes to high-level Draugr Deathlords toting Ebony Bows and Ebony Arrows (one of the highest-grade materials).
  • Dwarven Ballistas (primarily seen in the Dragonborn add-on) are effectively walking crossbows, plus their large arrows can penetrate armor.
  • And then there's the city guards, every one of whom seems to have had an earlier adventuring career ruined by "an arrow in the knee"...
  • Zig-zagged when you get a kill-shot; the camera zooms in on the arrow as it strikes its target and he goes flying backwards, dead before he even hits the ground... but wait, wasn't he just hit in the upper arm? How did that kill him instantly?
• Antepiece: You're sent to Bleak Falls Barrow to recover an item early in the main quest (and may have completed it even earlier as a sidequest in the First Town sends you there). It has less-threatening, less-complex examples of the enemies (bandits, draugr that appear to be dead but then start to move when you get close, Giant Spiders dropping from the ceiling, etc.) and puzzles (traps, a Dragon Claw lock, a boss draugr who comes out of a stone sarcophagus, etc.) that you'll face in similar barrows throughout the rest of the game which are frequent quest destinations. (Every faction questline will send you into at least one, plus several more in the main quest, and countless more in sidequests.)
• Anthropomorphic Personification:
  • Alduin, Akatosh, and Auriel are all Dracomorphic personifications of different aspects of Time, although it's implied that Akatosh and Auriel may be different names for the same thing.
  • Daedra (particularly the Princes) are also all abstracts of various concepts, but have a much easier time rendering themselves into physical form (doing so inside the Mundus is a different matter), due to not having given parts or the whole of themselves over to creating the Mundus.
• Anti-Frustration Features:
  • There are two ways to get into the College of Winterhold legitimately: demonstrate a spell, which, for characters with low magicka, can be difficult to cast (or prohibitive to "no magic" playthroughs), or demonstrate you are Dragonborn, which is available to all player characters. Just pay a visit to the Greybeards, which you have to do anyway for the main story, and you're in.
  • Lockpicks, arrows, and money do not take up any of your carrying weight, which is fortunate for wealthy or archery-inclined players. Ingots and ore, while not weightless, conveniently take up one weight unit no matter what (even gold!), though items you forge with them will frequently be heavier than the total ingots used.
  • Once you get out of the cart in Helgen, the game creates an auto-save so that you can start a new character without having to sit through the opening cinematic again.
  • Items required for a quest are treated as having 0 carry weight no matter what their stats say, meaning that they won't weigh you down even though you can't actually get rid of them before completing the quest.
• Anti-Grinding: Skyrim does nothing to go out of its way to prevent the player from doing as they wish, even using exploits to get ahead, but there are a few measures in place. Scaling enemies, for example; those bandits will suddenly be boss level should Dragonborn be made strong enough. Perks can be kept for later use, but the player must upgrade one of their three primary stats if they choose to access the level-up screen, thus no keeping multiple restores on hand. And the player's equipment and abilities are taken into account and the game will react accordingly, even throwing out high level enemies earlier because the armor, weapons, etc. add up to Dovahkiin being strong enough even if they aren't level wise.
• Antiquated Linguistics:
  • Most residents of Sovngarde speak in a poetic manner more suited to a J. R. R. Tolkien soliloquy. Most noticeable are the three heroes who banished Alduin during the first dragon war.
  • This seems to be a condition of death, since you can meet people that died in-game who suddenly develop these characteristics when you meet them in Sovngarde. These may include Ulfric, Galmar, Kodlak, and Rikke. In addition, the three ancient heroes speak normally in the vision provided by the Elder Scroll, although it is unclear whether or not that was a case of Translation Convention being performed by the Scroll.
• Anti-Villain: Rikke seems to regard her old friend Ulfric Stormcloak as one of these, and some Imperial-aligned players likely will too. Others just loathe him. It goes without saying that for Stormcloak-aligned players, Ulfric is the Anti-Hero and the Empire is this.
• Apocalyptic Log:
  • Several dungeons, particularly Dwemer ruins, have the bodies and journals of previous adventuring parties scattered throughout them. Choice bits you're likely to read are tales of the group being unable to leave somehow, one or more of their group mysteriously going missing, and odd noises and shadows from the lowest depths they've explored so far. The location called Japhet's Folly has the eponymous man's desiccated corpse in its basement, along with a journal that tells about how he tried to create a fortress on the island. The cold and harsh weather drove away most of the people that came with him, and eventually he starved to death. The journal ends with the words "OH GODS HELP ME."
  • There is also the strange case of Arondil, who was a Necromancer working on experiments to enslave the dead in Dawnstar. After people noticed his experiments and realized he was a complete weirdo, they kicked him out of town and he found refuge in an ancient tomb... filled with female Draugr, whom he successfully enslaved and used as servants. His 4 journals describe in great, creepy detail how he is literally falling in love with a bunch of mummified, dried out corpses. In the latest entries, it's discovered that he murdered several women from Dawnstar as well to have additional ghost servants, and upon finishing the dungeon the player can find a pile of dead women near the exit. Although Arondil is still alive when the player finds the journals, he has lost his mind entirely and won't remain alive for long after meeting the Dragonborn.
  • North of a remote shipwreck on an otherwise unremarkable sandbar is an unmarked, deserted fisherman's camp. A logbook on a table nearby reveals that it had previously been inhabited by two fishermen, Advald and Skeggr. Advald, the writer, thought his buddy was an idiot for thinking they could catch anything of value and planned to leave the next day. A short distance away is a capsized rowboat with two skeletons floating beneath, surrounded by Slaughterfish. Most skeletons don't have any description beyond "Skeleton", but these two are named Skeggr and Advard.
  • A particularly tragic example is the family who moved into Frostflow Lighthouse. According to their journals and other notes, the parents thought it was their dream retirement home, but the kids were kind of bored. Gradually they began to notice strange sounds coming from their basement. Turns out that the underbelly of the lighthouse was a massive nest of Falmer and chaurus. The mother and son were brutally massacred; the father was eventually fed to the chaurus broodmother; and the daughter committed suicide in her prison cell to avoid the torment. Many players take a great deal of satisfaction in annihilating everything they find down there as revenge for the innocent.
• Apologetic Attacker:
  • Several ghosts in Rannveig's Fast dungeon, due to being enthralled by a necromancer. "Run! I don't want to kill you!"
  • One of the random lines the draugr occasionally say is "Unslaad Krosis", meaning "Eternal Sorrow". Dragons use "Krosis" as as an apology.
• Appeal to Tradition: Another common argument is that Talos was the founder of the Empire and would surely prefer to see it endure rather than crumble, even if he isn't worshipped as a god by its people anymore. Anyone who has beaten Morrowind might remember the old Imperial soldier named Wulf, who is heavily implied to be a mortal avatar of Talos - Wulf can be derived from one of his constituent personalities, Wulfharth, the legendary Nord king and mortal champion of Shor. When questioned on the topic, he more or less tells you that his Empire's time has come and gone and maybe it is for the best that something new takes its place, but what that "something new" is exactly he can't say. At best, it can be inferred that Talos is indifferent to the fate of his empire. That said, the Stormcloaks, being sticklers for Nord traditions, also fall victim to this fallacy often as well.
• Apple of Discord: The game allows you to use this on some enemies. Drop something valuable - like a gemstone - among a group of bandits without being spotted, and they will start fighting over it and end up killing each other. Also, if you manage to summon the Daedra Prince Boethiah, she will command all her faithful (including you) to fight each other to the death, with the promise of a special task for the last survivor.
• Appropriated Appellation: The Stormcloak faction was derisively referred to as such for following Ulfric Stormcloak's beliefs. They took that name in pride.
• Arbitrary Headcount Limit:
  • Played straight with NPC companions in that you can only have one companion at a time, with no explanation as to why. If you ask another to join you when you already have one, they'll just say "Looks like you already have someone following you."
  • Averted with non-NPC companions, however. If you randomly find and then adopt one of the wild dogs wandering Skyrim (or meet Meeko), you can expand your party to three. Additionally, with the proper Conjuration perks, you can revive up to two dead bodies (permanently in buggy cases) to expand your possible party to five.
  • You can also get around it during the Dawnguard DLC main quest. Serana will follow you until you complete her quest (which is a long one and which you are not forced to complete) while still allowing you to have a standard companion. After the quest, she can still follow you but occupies the standard companion slot.
• Arbitrary Mission Restriction: Brought back with the Dark Brotherhood quests; for example, a Frameup quest requires you to kill the victim in a major city so that the incriminating letter you plant on his corpse will be found in due time.
• Arbitrary Skepticism: One quest involves a talking dog. The player has the dialogue option to say, "A talking dog. Now I've seen everything." The dog in question proceeds to hang a lampshade by pointing out that compared to dragons and walking cat-people, talking dogs are not that weird. Of course, he's also not really a dog...
• Arc Number: In keeping with the series' association with number nine, there are 9 districts and principal cities in the provinces of Skyrim.
• Are These Wires Important?: You can pickpocket the Briar Heart out of a Briarheart Warrior, causing him to fall over dead.
• Armor and Magic Don't Mix: Played with. Spells work just as well with armor as without, but the Alteration skill tree has a perk, "Mage Armor," that adds a multiplier to protective spells like Stoneflesh if the caster is unarmored. This perk is typically seen by players as being one of the worst in the game: there is very little reason for a mage not to equip some sort of armor in the late game. The only downside is that it's extremely rare to find armor with enchantments that benefit mages unless you enchant it yourself, and it takes a long time to build up your Enchantment skill to be on level with the mage robes you find.
• Armor of Invincibility:
  • Though it keeps the same enchanting process of Oblivion, Skyrim heavily Nerfs its ability to result in game-breaking armors. Damage resistance is now capped at 85%, which is roughly a 560 armor rating. This can be achieved by a character skilled in Smithing and Heavy Armor with simple and easy-to-acquire Steel armor. Using enchanting, it is possible to get about 97% resistance to magic by combining a resist magic and a resist (fire/frost/lightning) enchantment. However, takes up a lot of enchantment slots (with a maxed out Enchanting skill, you can place two enchantments on a single piece of armor) leaving little to no room for other, more useful enchantments.
  • There are also racial bonuses that can actually stack on enchantments. For example, Nords get a bonus of 50% Resist Frost, meaning frost magic damage will be half as effective on you. If you equip armor that has been enchanted with the highest level Resist Frost enchantment, you'll be completely invulnerable to frost damage. However, you'll still get smoked by Fire and Lightning element magic.
    • Archers in Skyrim, however... will kill you just as easily as you level up. It doesn't matter if you are wearing the all-powerful custom armor or block with a shield; it's all the same to the archers (unless you've been increasing your shield proficiency as well or you avoid the arrows completely). Something to be said about your enemies getting stronger as you do.
• Armor Piercing: Perks available to maces and warhammers allow them to ignore a portion of an enemy's armor rating, making them more effective against heavy armor than other weapons. Dwarven Ballistas also fire powerful crossbow bolts that can bypass armor entirely (and the player is informed of this when taking such a hit), as do the crossbows you can acquire in Dawnguard.
• Armor-Piercing Question:
  • When the Blades "ask" you to kill Paarthurnax, he says that they are right in thinking that it is his nature to be evil, but he struggles daily to suppress it. He then finishes with one of these: "What is better - to be born good, or to overcome your evil nature through great effort?"
  • In the Dawnguard DLC, if you side with the eponymous vampire hunters, Harkon attempts this, but fails due to not understanding how relationships work: "And what happens when you've slain me? Is Valerica next? Is Serana?" The answer to this is, of course, no.
  • With Dragonborn, Miraak may show up and steal the soul of the dragon that you just killed, followed by a taunt. One of the taunts questions the morality of killing countless dragons just to get more power. "Do you ever wonder if it hurts? To have one's soul ripped out like that?" The answer to that is that it probably hurt more being repeatedly stabbed/bludgeoned/shot by arrows/hit by magic before having its soul ripped out.
• Arrow Cam: Landing a killshot with a bow often results in the camera chasing the arrow to its target in slow motion. Amusingly, this can happen even if something causes the shot to miss. Irritatingly, it can also cause the shot to miss by making it collide with an object when otherwise it would have gone straight past it.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking:
  • In the city of Markarth, you meet an Orc in the Cidhna Mines prison by the name of Borkul the Beast. When questioned about why he's in prison, he replies, "Murder, Banditry, Assault, Theft, and Lollygagging." This doubles as a riff on the town guards' random conversations, one of which is, "No lollygagging."
  • "Here's all you need to know: I'm a werewolf. I like killing things. I love Astrid. I hate annoying people. And the color blue gives me a headache."
  • According to Sheogorath, the Emperor Pelagius Septim hated and feared many things, including assassins, wild dogs, the undead, and pumpernickel.
  • The three keepers of the pieces of Mehrunes' Razor can be seen as this. First there's Drascua, a Hagraven who leads a group of Forsworn, then there's Ghunzul, an aging Orc so dedicated to protecting his piece of the razor he keeps it locked away in a vault full of traps, and finally there's Jorgen, a woodcutter living in Morthal.
• Artifact Collection Agency: The Synod, an order of mages from Cyrodiil. NPC dialogue and in the lorebooks suggests they might be doing it in preparation for the next war. There are several NPCs in the game (such as General Tullius, just to pick one) who mention point-of-fact bluntly that another "Great War" between the Aldmeri Dominion and the Empire is expected by both sides. And, both sides are doing what they can to strengthen themselves and weaken the other side in preparation for it. Thus, the Synod's actions in trying to gather powerful magic artifacts plays right into the notion of the Empire trying to prepare themselves for this war. They're also doing it to suck up to the Emperor.
• Artifact Title: Finally subverted, as it's the first time in the series that an Elder Scroll plays an important part of the main plot. Not only that, but Dawnguard, its first DLC, utilizes three Elder Scrolls in its main questline, including the one mentioned above.
• Artificial Atmospheric Actions: There are still some, but it's much better than in the previous games. It was mentioned that it's actually quite hard to make the AI act completely realistic, but they won't talk about nothing but mudcrabs this time. Still, like in Oblivion, you can play the AI for laughs.
  • If you pick up a goblet or sweetroll, they interpret it as "stealing". However, they may only say "Watch what you're doing!" if you jump up on their table and kick all their plates and goblets everywhere. This makes it quite funny if you trash the Jarl's dining hall and they still sit down at the table at a designated mealtime when all the plates and goblets are on the floor.
  • A glitch sometimes causes these, such as NPCs patrolling the swamp waters.
  • The 'cinematic kill' system means that sometimes, when killing an enemy (notably with a handheld weapon or your fists, although it happens with arrows and spells too), the camera will pan out and your character will perform a predefined animation to dispatch the enemy. However, any line of dialogue that a character has started will continue to play up until the end of the animation (when the character ragdolls and becomes lootable). This can result in some strange and amusing moments, such as characters mentioning that they're sure that they heard something as your dagger pierces their throat, or continuing to mock you even as you stab them through the chest.
  • All of the characters in Riften will riot if you drop items, from Daedric artifacts to a common sweetroll. This includes those who consider themselves to be above all this, like Mjoll the Lioness, who are more than happy to join in on the riots. If you return Mjoll's lost sword Grimsever, and then start committing crimes in front of her, like other residents of Skyrim she will attack until a guard comes by to talk to you - but she'll attack your attackers, not you.
  • In an improvement to the previous games, starting a dialogue doesn't stop time, allowing for a more fluid conversation. Unfortunately it doesn't stop certain important events such as dragon attacks taking place in the background, either. And the NPC just keeps on calmly talking as the village is being burned behind them. Makes for a Funny Background Event when they calmly talk about the rebellion... and the town guards are shouting "Slay the dragon!" in the background. This can be fatal when NPCs initiate a scripted conversation with you in the middle of combat.
  • If you have spells readied, you'll be told to "Go cast your fancy magic someplace else." The fact that there is a freshly-slain dragon burning up in front of you is irrelevant.
  • You'll get different greetings from guards depending on your status with a given faction. However, as you advance, you'll still hear the old greetings in addition to the new ones. So one guard will be saying what an honor it is to meet the Harbinger of the Companions while another asks if your job as newbie of the Companions is to fetch the mead. Likewise, guards can hail you as the Dragonborn, Harbinger, Archmage, etc., and then immediately tell you they're watching you because they know you're a thief.
  • The miscellaneous trader in Falkreath is pleasant and friendly. But he ends every single transaction by warning you that you'll regret it if you steal anything from his shop... even if you have the Investor perk and have contributed money to the shop, and are thus able to help yourself to almost anything there.
  • Sometimes the game loads dialogue meant for citizens onto enemies, resulting in you shooting a bandit in the face and killing them, only to have the corpse bark "watch it!" at you as it falls to the ground.
  • Guards will occasionally look at the body of another NPC who was killed by a dragon - often while they were present - and ask out loud who could have done such a thing.
  • Serana is the first follower to actively partake in various activities while idle, ranging from using the alchemy table to sitting down. However, while she is programmed to do activities, the devs never gave her a specific set. This results in her doing stuff she shouldn't be, like meditating with the Greybeards, performing the Black Sacrament at the Aretino residence, or working the Skyforge when it becomes Kodlak's funeral pyre.
  • Bryling and Falk Firebeard will often talk to each other about their affair and how they need to keep it a secret from Erikur... often right in front of Erikur (and the entire Blue Palace court). For an added layer, Sybille Stentor will pipe up about how obvious they're being... even while sleeping in the next room.
  • NPCs are coded to look at you when you're within a certain distance. This, however, gets a bit silly when either 1) they're enemies and are looking for you and their AI doesn't register that they've seen you (so they stand there gawking at you, despite still "looking" for you) or 2) when they're walking past you while you're supposed to be talking about something hush-hush. (A good example is in Haelga's Bunkhouse in Riften, where a sidequest has you go on a plot to humiliate her by grabbing incriminating evidence; she should have no idea you've been tasked with this, but can easily wander between you and the quest-giver during the conversation.)
  • While escaping from Helgen with either Hadvar or Ralof, you can murder either the torturers or the Stormcloaks right in front of Hadvar or Ralof respectively, and they won't even care. Subverted with Hadvar; right before going into the torture room, he lets you know that he doesn't have a high opinion of this particular room or its hosts. Sometimes upon killing them, he might even say, "These bastards call themselves Imperial Legionnaires..." Strangely, that still doesn't stop Hadvar from trying to save them from their impending deaths at the hands of the dragon or the Stormcloaks. Ralof of the Stormcloaks, on the other hand, plays the trope straight.
  • In marketplaces, NPCs wander around market stalls and sometimes stop in front of one, like they were shopping. They do this even if there's no merchant in said market stall.
  • Townspeople have a tendency to stop and stare at the skeleton of a recently defeated dragon. If you blow the skeleton away with a fireball staff while they're doing this, they'll all run after it.
• Artificial Brilliance:
  • If an enemy is being attacked by a foe they cannot reach or attack with ranged weaponry, they will run for cover until said foe can be attacked. Note that the same thing sometimes happens if your sneak skill is so high (and, sometimes, the lighting so dark) that they simply cannot find you, despite being right next to you. A lightly-wounded enemy in this position who simply can't find you sometimes loses their cool completely, screams "I cannot best you!", then runs away and hides for a while. It's particularly amusing when Draugr do it; their "fleeing shuffle" is hilarious yet surprisingly swift.
  • Steal that guy's stuff, and then get ambushed by thugs a few days later? Search the bodies, there's a connection. (Oddly, however, Artificial Stupidity can be at play at the same time, with the thugs being hired by someone who is dead.)
  • Arrows become Annoying Arrows in more ways than one. In the previous games, enemies would just dead-zone you or stand there and fire. If you try to shoot them with a bow (or magic) and they know you're there, they will strafe left or right so you'll miss. They will also pluck your arrows out of their own bodies and equip them, if they have bows.
  • It can be surprising when enemies block. It can be more surprising when an enemy shield bashes you right when you start a power attack, knocking you to your knees.
  • If you manage to jump up somewhere a melee equipped enemy can't reach, they will retreat behind cover. They are pretty good at it too; if you move a little bit so you can get a shot off, they will adjust their position to better conceal themselves.
  • Sneak into a room with bandits and drop something valuable on the floor, like a gemstone. The bandits will argue with each other over the object, and eventually attack each other.
  • Scare a vampire off by overwhelming force or magical fear effects? They might use an invisibility spell while retreating.
  • Preparing a powerful shout to launch at a high-level mage? When he hears the first word, he raises a magical shield to protect him from it. You can trick him... if you ONLY use the first word instead of adding the other two, his Shield won't be ready to intercept it, since it takes a bit of time.
  • With Dawnguard, enemies and allies are now much smarter. They'll grab better weapons if someone nearby drops them, including staves, and will set ambushes in mid-battle. Melee-armed enemies will actually retreat into cover and let archers/mages blast you, and then wait for you to get close before jumping out and attacking you in close-quarters.
  • With the addition of Hearthfire, you're welcome to wait inside a store until the storekeeper falls asleep; but you'll find that half of their stock sitting on the counter has gone with them. They now put their counter stock away when they close up shop, making it harder to steal.
  • Certain quests, most notably the Courier quest in the Civil War storyline, require you to find a traveling NPC. Savvy players might try to intercept the NPC by fast traveling to the nearest major location. However, when they do so, the quest marker will advance by an appropriate distance relative to how fast the NPC can move during that time. The only way to avoid this is to actually chase down the NPC on foot, as the game intended.
  • Try sneaking around an area with Frostbite spiders; if they have an inkling there's someone nearby or get agitated they'll rear up with their front legs acting as antennas, just like real spiders when they get disturbed or aggressive.
  • Instead of turning hostile, deer and elks flee if you shoot at them and miss.
• Artificial Stupidity:
  • Allied NPCs have no compunctions about wading into melee combat while you're swinging about a huge, slow warhammer, blasting the area with spells, or shooting at enemies with a bow. This frequently results in their death from accidental friendly fire.
  • When helping you battle Alduin, Paarthurnax will often fly a little too close to him when you're trying to bring him down with Dragonrend, resulting in him getting hit with it a few times.
  • Non-combat NPCs such as villagers will only run about in a panic when a Random Encounter is spawned near them, rather than seeking cover (or, even worse, go up to the enemy and attack them with an iron dagger). This includes dragon attacks, the "Winterhold Under Siege" phase of the college questline, and the vampire attacks from Dawnguard, leading to Permanently Missable Content if a quest giver or merchant NPC gets killed. This particular example is so egregious, one of the most popular mods changes the AI so that civilian characters will run to safety in a building instead of throwing their lives away.
  • You can steal anything by putting a cauldron or bucket on the owner's head. This is an especially effective technique to use on shopkeepers, since they often don't move at all behind the counter. Just put a bucket or cauldron on their head and you can loot everything in the store without the shopkeeper noticing. You can even murder other people in the store without him detecting it.
  • If you kill a member of a group without being detected, the other people in the group will "discover" the body and declare that they will find the killer.
  • Overall, most foes in Skyrim are quite inept against sneaking attackers. No matter how many times you shoot them and their allies in the face with a bow from the shadows, NPCs will typically not go any further than taking a quick look around before dismissing the threat with a "Must have scared 'em off" or "I guess it was just my imagination". Additionally, if your enemies are not too high level and it is not daytime, it is sometimes possible to stand crouching in full view of an enemy just a few steps away from you without having them detect you, even when they're looking your way and there's nothing to conceal you from their sight.
  • When going after the Eldergleam Sap, Maurice Jondrelle is smart enough to ask to go with you for protection to see the Eldergleam Sanctuary. He is not smart enough to avoid running up to any bear, bandit or dragon you stumble across on the way and flailing at it with his bare, unarmored hands. The only choice you have to have him survive is to find the sanctuary beforehand and then fast travel there with him.
  • Some followers will treat all people who draw their swords against you the same way. Good luck explaining to Balgruuf why a 25-septim bounty resulted in the deaths of half his town.
  • The traditional dragon greeting (as shown by Paarthurnax) is breathing fire on the other dragon. The traditional reaction of a follower is trying to kill the (very friendly) dragon.
  • Shouting enough in the back of a jail cell can result in a guard opening the cell door.
  • If you have a high enough pickpocket skill, you can steal an NPC's clothes. Said NPC will then just walk around in their underwear and go about their daily business as if nothing's different. No other NPC will comment on this, despite the fact that every NPC will comment if the player character is in a similar state of undress.
  • Your follower's greatest enemy is boulders; unless they're flagged essential, they can easily kill themselves by carelessly walking into fallen rocks and stubbing their toes on them.
  • When exploring small rooms, followers and summoned creatures/animal companions have a habit of standing right inside a doorway, preventing you from leaving until they back up. Sometimes they do it right away; other times they just stand there looking at you, and probably wondering why you're running into them. It makes shouting "Fus Ro Dah!" at them very tempting when they do this. A patch remedies this problem letting you push NPCs back a short distance by running into them.
  • Dragons, one of the most feared creatures in-universe, will sometimes disengage from fighting you, and fly off far away to engage a random mudcrab or goat. While hilarious at times, it can make killing them a chore if you don't have the Dragonrend shout (or forget to use it/miss) to keep them from flying off.
  • Guards really don't have a well-developed AI for prioritizing which enemy to kill first if they are fighting multiple targets. If you and a number of hold guards are engaged in a fierce battle with a dragon, for example, accidentally hitting a guard with an arrow results in an immediate bounty on your head and all guards will drop what they are doing and attack you, while the dragon gleefully flies around and attacks everyone.
  • If you join the Thieves' Guild or have the appropriate Speech perk, you can bribe guards to erase your bounty. Oddly, doing this also causes any NPCs who became hostile due to witnessing the crime to immediately become friendly again. A good example of this is the Dark Brotherhood quest "Bound Until Death", where you can incur the wrath of all the wedding guests of the bride you just murdered; but as soon as you successfully yield to a guard and bribe them, all the people who just witnessed you murder a woman in cold blood will sheathe their weapons and move along like nothing had happened.
  • Generally speaking, it's not a good idea to bring followers into Nordic tombs or Dwemer ruins. NPC pathfinding rarely, if ever, takes pressure plates and such into account, meaning they will inevitably set off every trap they come across. Hilariously, this also applies to the enemies that inhabit those places; in Bleak Falls Barrow, for instance, it's possible to bait the Draugr in the first burial chamber into the swinging spike wall on the far side, causing it to unceremoniously slap them across the room.
  • The Soul Cairn from Dawnguard is inhabited by little wisp things that are completely harmless and invulnerable. Unfortunately, the enemies there didn't get the memo and will attack them to absolutely no effect.
  • If there's a ledge on their way, your followers will never jump it, even if it's a non-lethal height. Instead, they will walk all the way around the ledge until they find a "safe" route to you. This can be extremely annoying on some occasions. It's not just ledges, either; some dungeons also give the AI fits. The Temple of Miraak in Dragonborn, for instance, often leads to followers disappearing for most of the dungeon because they decided the only way in is through the back door.
• Artistic License – Chemistry:
  • Steel in real life is an alloy of iron and usually carbon, though also occasionally using manganese, chromium, vanadium and tungsten. In Skyrim, it is an alloy of iron and corundum, which is an oxide of aluminum. Then again, corundum looks nothing like it does in real life (from its appearance and use, it's probably supposed to be copper), and the Non-Indicative Name is in full force in this setting; see below.
  • Also, Ebony is a wood, not an ore. However, this one has been in effect throughout the Elder Scrolls franchise.
  • "Quicksilver" is an alternative name for the element mercury, which is liquid at the conditions of pression and temperature you normally encounter in-game. Furthermore, while "natural" mercury can be extracted from metal ore veins, its liquid properties means that you won't earn nuggets of pure solid mercury ore after digging ore veins with a pickaxe.
  • In a cooking example, the Sunlight Souffle calls for a cupful of nutmeg, yet such an amount is lethal to normal humans (and given that the recipe never specifies how many portions you're supposed to make of it, nor states it's not for consumption by the races of men, it's likely as potent in-universe as it is in real life).
• Artistic License – Geography: Whiterun, Eastmarch, and territories north of these areas are described in-universe as being a tundra environment. However, the presence of trees, high grass, and good farming land in places like Rorikstead indicate the opposite. Permafrost would prevent the growth of trees and most tall plants and severely inhibit farming. In fact, the Pale is largely coniferous forest and Hjaalmarch is a tree-covered swamp, both of which don't occur beyond the tree line that marks where tundra begins. Most of the region would more accurately be described as taiga[1].
• Artistic License – Geology: A number of ores that can be mined have real-life names, but are actually fantastic metals that bear little resemblance to that which they were named after:
  • Corundum is depicted as a greenish ore that can be melted into opaque dark gold ingots. Real Life Corundum is a crystalline form of aluminum oxide best known as "Sapphire" and "Ruby" when they are gem-quality. If you were to melt it, it'd turn into alumina, which is white.
  • Ebony is depicted as a rough black ore which can be melted into dull, malleable ingots, which can in turn be crafted into either glassy black armor or dull grey-black weapons. In the lore, it's said to be a super-durable glassy substance with mystical and holy properties. Real life ebony is a type of wood.
  • Malachite in real life is a glassy greenish mineral, much closer to its appearance in Skyrim than the other examples listed here, and is actually an ore of copper. However, it's fairly certain that actual malachite armor wouldn't work very well.
  • Skyrim's moonstone is in a similar situation to the malachite — it is fairly close in appearance to the real-life counterpart (a gemstone), but is noticeably more useful for making practical armor.
  • As noted above, quicksilver is another name for mercury, which is a liquid at room temperature.
• Art-Shifted Sequel: Skyrim gave elves very deeply wrinkled and creased faces with ridged foreheads.
• Ascended Fanboy:
  • Erik the Slayer. He's a young farmer's son from a rural town that wants to be an adventurer just like yourself. You have the option to help him live his dream by paying for or talking his father into paying for a weapon and set of armor. You can then hire him one time to make him an adventuring companion.
  • The character is based on real life fan Erik West, known as Immok the Slayer online, who was immortalized in the game after sadly dying of cancer. That makes Erik the Slayer a product of Promoted Fanboy as well.
• Ascended Meme:
  • Sheogorath's line "Cheese for everyone!" from Shivering Isles is referenced during his quest.
  • On Xbox Live Arcade, one can get an "Arrow in the knee" accessory for your avatar, referencing the now memetic line "I used to be an adventurer like you, until I took an arrow in the knee."
  • The existence of Skyrim: Very Special Edition for the Amazon Alexa, along with its announcement trailer also claiming that Skyrim will be released on refrigerators and the Etch A Sketch, is a nod to the meme claiming that Bethesda only exists to rerelease Skyrim on every device to ever be built for the rest of time.
• Ashes to Ashes: Neloth and Talvas Fathryon, Neloth's apprentice, from the Dragonborn DLC. Both Dunmer conjurers, they are able to use their magic to conjure an Ash Guardian, among other powers, after studying the ash from the Red Mountain that reached Solstheim.
• Assassination Sidequest: The Dark Brotherhood offers you a series of sidequests that involves killing specific people. It isn't always necessary to kill stealthily, but in order to avoid incurring a bounty, it is recommended to eliminate your target through stealth. In some cases, bonuses are offered should your remain undetected and/or kill your target in a specific fashion (Make It Look Like an Accident, for example).
• Asshole Victim:
  • Most Dark Brotherhood targets, in contrast to some of the targets in Oblivion.
    • Grelod the Kind is a horrible, horrible woman who runs an orphanage. She treats the kids as slaves and tells them all to their faces that they're never going to be adopted because nobody wants them. Small wonder, then, that one of the kids is trying to contract the Dark Brotherhood to eliminate her (and you may feel very little heartache for doing her in). Not only will the children cheer for you upon discovering her corpse, you will receive no bounty for murdering her in plain sight.
    • All three of the hostages Astrid has in the cabin for your 'initiation' fall into this. Vasha is a self-confessed thief, murderer, and rapist, who is disappointed if a day goes by without the bounty on his head getting bigger. Alea is a Jerkass single mother of six children who freely admits that she's made her fair share of enemies due to her attitude and talks to you like dirt, even if you spare her. Fultheim the Fearless is a Nord mercenary who's killed many, yet turns into a blubbering mess when his own life is threatened.
    • Lurbuk is a Jerkass Dreadful Musician.
    • Ennodius Papius is a somewhat insane freak.
    • Beitild is a Jerkass foreman who apparently treats her workers like crap.
    • Vittoria Vici is not just quite a bitch herself, but even before her marriage, you can see she has been sleeping with someone else. She also is in league with Ja-ree and Deeja, though you won't know that if you don't have access to the creation kit..
    • Hern and Hert are vampires, who prey on travelers that visit their mill. (However, it is still possible for the player to feel bad for Hert, as outside of the Dark Brotherhood questline, she is Affably Evil.)
    • Safia is a pirate, who also smuggles Balmora Blue.
    • Alain Dufont is probably the worst of them — he seduced Muiri, whose friend is part of a prominent family who lost a daughter to Windhelm's resident Serial Killer. He then robbed said family blind and pinned the blame for the theft on Muiri to save his own worthless hide. There's a good chance you'll kill him outside the Dark Brotherhood questline; unlike most of the other targets, it's entirely possible to encounter and kill him without ever doing the DB questline, as he's part of a bandit crew.
    • Narfi is a subversion, since it is a Mercy Kill.
    • Astrid. She's technically not a target, and she asks you to kill her, but she's one of the last kills in the questline, and she did try to sell you out to the royal guard to save herself and her group...
    • Quests outside of the Dark Brotherhood questline make Clan Shatter-Shield very unsympathetic. They are a corrupt family that hires bloodthirsty pirates to harass their competition and treat their foreign workers as little more than slaves.
    • When you first join them, Babette (a child vampire) regales her friends with the tale of how she lured a creepy old man (who is all but stated to be a pedophile) into a dark alley and killed him horribly.
  • Everyone in the Markarth questline. You can side with the Forsworn, who are genocidal racists, or the Silver-Bloods, who are using petty criminals and political opposition as slave labor in their mines.
  • Every single Thalmor you kill. All of them. Even Bethesda says that those jerks deserve it, and the guards in the game agree.
  • Roggvir, the guard who opened Solitude's gates to help Ulfric escape and was beheaded for it, was this according to Sorex Vinius. Vinius claimed that as a child, Roggvir mocked him for liking a girl, and would humiliate him physically or verbally as much as possible, to the extent that Roggvir once put a beehive in his bed. As an adult, Vinius says, he never outgrew his immaturity, or his cruelty. That being said, others in Solitude, including the man who presided over his execution, consider him to have been an honorable man. And he certainly wasn't executed for an actual crime; Ulfric killed Torygg in a formal duel, meaning he wasn't escaping, just going home.
  • During the quest "The Forsworn Conspiracy," you'll run into Betrid Silver-Blood at the Treasury House. She is quickly established to be a stuck up, gold-digging asshole who shamelessly admits to the Dovahkiin that she only married her husband for his money and is perfectly fine with how the Silver-Blood family oppresses the native Reachmen. It's really hard to work up sympathy for her when a Forsworn kills her after you talk to Thonar.
  • The Imperial Captain from "Unbound" is either presumably killed by Alduin (if the player chooses to follow Hadvar) or definitely killed by Ralof and the Dragonborn (if the player chooses to follow Ralof). Considering she ordered the Dragonborn's execution despite their name not being on the list, it's hard to feel bad for her.^note This is not Legate Rikke. Some players think they are the same person due to similar design and having the same voice actress. Rikke is a much more sympathetic and kindly character; also, unlike the captain, she has a name given in the game.
  • The Silver Hand, the Big Bads of the Companions questline. Their atrocities against werewolves extend far beyond Van Helsing Hate Crimes; they brutally torture werewolves to the point where they lose their sanity and go feral. Furthermore, they're also glorified poachers, savagely mutilating captured wolves along with skinning both the wolves and werewolves alive. Suffice to say, one shouldn't feel sorry at all for them when you and the Companions eventually take them out.
• Asskicking Leads to Leadership:
  • Dragons strongly believe in this. So much so that, when you defeat Alduin once and force him to run away, the other dragons question his leadership, as a true dragon would either submit to the victor or fight to the death. One of them even answers your challenge, loses, and does a Heel–Face Turn to pledge his Undying Loyalty to you.
  • Ulfric attempted to bypass Skyrim's political system with this logic by killing High King Torygg, claiming that if Torygg couldn't protect himself, he couldn't protect Skyrim. Trial by combat is an honored Nord tradition, but the manner in which he did it created a schism that erupted into civil war.
• As You Know: Averted. The Dragonborn is a foreigner to Skyrim, even if they're a Nord (which is handwaved as them returning to their homeland under the worst possible circumstances after spending an extended period of time away), so they actually learn about the ongoing events (the Civil War, the Thalmor's influence, etc.) at the same pace as the player.
• Athens and Sparta: Solitude and Windhelm. Solitude is the capital of Skyrim and main base of the Imperial Legion dispatched to end the Skyrim Civil War. Its design is heavily influenced by the cities in Cyrodiil and as such it has a cheery look and feel. Oh, and when you arrive you see an execution, and the Legion serves an Empire which is corrupt and grows weaker everyday. Windhelm is the home of the Stormcloak rebellion against the aforementioned Empire. They are determined to prevent Skyrim from being dragged down with the rest of the Empire and continue their war against the fascistic Aldmeri Dominion which threatens all of humanity. Windhelm is also home to crumbling and misshapen architecture, a a mysterious killer, Dunmer who are forced to live in the poorest slums (one of whom is being berated by a pair of drunk Nords when you first arrive), and Argonians who live on the segregated docks.
• The Atoner:
  • One possible way to read Ulfric Stormcloak. He believes (falsely) that information he gave up under torture led directly to the capture of the Imperial City and (by extension) everything that happened afterwards, so it's heavily implied that guilt plays a significant role in his desire to overthrow the White-Gold Concordat and ensure that all the deaths during the Great War were not in vain.
  • Erandur. Once a priest of Vaermina, daedric prince of nightmares; now one of Mara, goddess of love and compassion.
  • Illia from the Darklight Tower who once worked for the hagravens and now wants to stop her mother becoming one.
  • Paarthurnax. At one time, he apparently served the Big Bad, and killed a bunch of people. Now, he wants to stop Alduin, and teach other dragons "The Way of the Voice."
  • This can be you, too, if you wrong one of the guilds. The Dark Brotherhood, Thieves' Guild and College of Winterhold have quests for making restitution if you wrong them. Of course, they're also the only ones that have legitimate things to do after their questline is over...
• Attack Animal:
  • The "Conjure Familiar" spell summons a magical wolf to attack enemies. Banning in Markarth also gives you the option to buy an attack dog.
  • The Dawnguard expansion adds Death Hounds, undead canines that accompany vampires. Joining Clan Volkihar lets you bring one along. Alternately, joining the Dawnguard instead gives you access to a pair of adorable battle hounds which look like huskies, and also armored attack trolls.
  • And in the Dragonborn expansion, you can craft elemental attack spiders (which appear as usable items in your Scrolls inventory) to use on enemies.
  • Progress far enough in the main questline and you can summon Odahviing, who will show up and put your enemies to the torch. Progress far enough in the Dawnguard questline, and you can call Durnehviir to do likewise. They're a different kind of attack animal, of course, but they still count.
• Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!:
  • Dragons seem to exhibit this. Due to their lofty view (and general tendency to constantly fly around while fighting), they tend to aggro (or get aggro'd by) everything, and get distracted from the walking divine intervention attempting to devour their soul to go attack a random mudcrab.
  • Some followers will draw attention to certain locations ("Looks like one of those Dwemer ruins") when you get near them... but it doesn't matter whether you're approaching them from outside or inside. Lydia wondering out loud what's inside that cave you just came out of is... slightly odd.
• Attack Speed Buff: The Elemental Fury and Battle Fury Shouts increase the attack speed of the player and their allies respectively.
• Automaton Horses:
  • Well, how's this for starters?◊ The only nods to reality are that the horses cannot gallop non-stop and may die if you ride them off cliffs.
  • The player can get an actual automaton horse from the Forgotten Seasons expansion in the Creation Club. You needs to explore the dungeon to retrieve its missing head and legs first, though.
• Autosave: The game has a variety of autosave options, all of them enabled by default (but you can switch them on or off as desired):
  • Saving any time you use the Wait/Rest command.
  • Saving after every Loading Screen between areas (this also starts to become Suspicious Videogame Generosity after a while, as many dungeons utilize a loading sequence just before you approach the boss room).
  • Saving at timed intervals (every 15/30 minutes, etc.), which includes time spent dying and reloading from the last autosave.
  • When you start a new game, the game makes an autosave to a specific save slot just before you design your character; this allows you to start a new character without having to sit through the entire opening sequence.
  • On rare occasions, the game may make an autosave right before approaching a boss battle, even if there's no loading screen (or other autosave) taking effect.
• Awesome, but Impractical:
  • The world map is very beautiful, but not very helpful as a road map since it shows no roads, and if you mess too much with your analog while on the map screen, the orientation can be completely screwed up, making it hell to find the desired location on the map. Two popular mods add the roads to the map or make it into a standard topographical map to more accurately terrain features.
  • Smithing. Depending on how fast you can manage to level it, you can get some of the best armor in the game well before it starts turning up as random drops, as well as improve your equipment to outperform standard issue gear that should be superior (and that's not even getting into the enchanting exploits). Unfortunately, the resource cost to level it that high is enormous, and the only alternative is spending a lot of money to train it up. Further, none of the perks affect your combat skills directly. Lastly, with armor in particular, it's fairly easy to reach the hard cap for damage reduction, meaning that all the effort you put into tempering it is largely wasted. Weapons, however, have no such cap, so if you're playing on Legendary and at high levels, maxed-out Smithing is a requirement if you want to be able to so much as scratch dragons and other powerful foes.
  • Alchemy has a similar problem. In addition to the large amount of necessary resources, you have to figure out which combinations do what, which takes time and testing (a strategy guide). If you can manage to get it up to full, though, you can use it to concoct potions to enhance your smithing and enchanting (and the latter can in turn be used to boost your alchemy skills).
  • Enchanting requires you to A) destroy enchanted items you could otherwise have sold or used in order to learn their enchantments, B) have a massive supply of Soul Gems, which takes either a lot of searching or a lot of money, and C) killing a lot of creatures with the appropriate soul size to fill these gems. Unlike smithing or alchemy, the amount of experience you gain by enchanting is not really affected by the power and value of the item you create, so you don't really need to bother with the wildly expensive Grand Soul Gems until you start creating items for yourself, but it also means there's no fast track to leveling either.
  • Speech. Sure, it's nice to be able to talk down some people, but there simply aren't that many of them and without investing in the perks for it, you are likely to fail many such examples before speech gets up to a respectable level. The only other reliable way to increase it is to sell things, which is extremely difficult because merchants carry very little money in comparison to the amount you need to sell to level up. This skill and the above two are prime examples for why skill trainers are in the game; it's simply much more efficient to pay these guys to teach you rather than try to upgrade it yourself.
  • Any good weapon which lies outside your skill set counts as this. That Volendrung is pretty slick looking; too bad you only took one-handed and not two-handed, meaning that even weak one-handed weapons are more powerful in your hands than it would be.
  • The master-level spells have numerous drawbacks. They cost more magicka to cast than most characters will likely have, requiring gear to be equipped that reduces the cost. They can't be cast while moving, require both hands (meaning you can't equip a shield to block with while casting) and have a very long animation. In some cases, this can be somewhat countered by the shout Become Ethereal or an invisibility spell.
    • The Destruction spells have it particularly bad. Blizzard deals paltry damage even compared to the Expert-level elemental walls and uses the element resisted by most enemies in the game. Fire Storm is a short-range area-effect, meaning you have to get in melee range to use it, and most armed humanoid enemies are likely to bash you and interrupt your charge while you're trying to cast it, making it mostly just a cool way to blow up some wolves. On top of that, it's likely to kill your follower. Lightning Storm is the most useful of them all, boasting a massive range (which somewhat mitigates the cast time problem) and okay-ish damage, but even then you can deal more damage just by spamming a dual-cast Thunderbolt (which also comes with the ability to endlessly stun-lock opponents if the perk is taken, since each shot staggers the enemy). The problem with Thunderbolt is its heavy Magicka cost, which makes Lightning Storm slightly more practical if only due to the cost factor. When you reach 100% Reduce Magicka Cost on your clothes/armor these is no reason for you to use Lightning Storm because Thunderbolt does more damage, can be cast faster, and abuses the Impact perk. Lastly, there's Chain Lightning, which randomly bounces off to any other nearby individual outside the caster's target, regardless of alignment. Expect nearby allies to start taking damage once this spell is cast, usually resulting in them either getting aggroed or dying from it.
    • Mass Paralysis, a Master Alteration spell, falls into the same trap as Fire Storm. Downplayed a bit with Dragonhide, which can be quite useful if cast before a combat you initiate (provided you have the necessary perks to extend its duration past the base 30 seconds), but worthless if the enemy attacks you before you can cast it due to the long cast time. Meanwhile, the Restoration spells are mostly only useful against the undead. Fortunately, the Illusion Master spells have a massive range while the Conjuration-level Master spells summon permanent servants, so the cast time for those is not really a problem at all.
  • Sadly, and related to the above, the entire Destruction and Alteration schools fall under this category once the high-level enemies begin to spawn. Neither the damage output of the former nor the damage mitigation of the latter scales with the Dragonborn's level, which means as soon as you've acquired the top-tier spells, you're basically stuck while the enemies only continue to grow tougher and meaner. Even the most powerful Destruction spells do pitiful damage against the likes of Draugr Deathlords or Ancient Dragons, whereas a properly upgraded bow or melee weapon can shred these monsters in just a few hits (with the added benefit of weapon-centric builds being a lot tougher than mages thanks to their armor and much higher health). There are a couple of mods available that try to balance things out by attaching noticeable buffs to the novice, apprentice and so on perks of all magic schools, but even with them, mages will never be able to match the ungodly amounts of damage that warriors and especially sneak builds can dish out.
  • In some cases, followers. They tend to get in the way, get hit by your area-affect spells, make stealth harder by alerting nearby enemies, get themselves killed, and can make it much more difficult to progress through trap-filled tombs and tight-spaced caves because they're too stupid to avoid the traps you tried so hard to evade or are too slow to get out of your way. This extends to Thralls, too; Thrall summons have no time limit, which makes them basically another follower. It gets worse if you also have the Twin Souls perk, which means you're bringing a small army of Leeroys with you and making friendly-fire an inevitability.
  • Flame Atronachs explode upon death. Unfortunately, they attack at a distance, and the explosive damage counts as having originated from you. This means that if one dies, anything around it will suddenly think you've just attacked them, and promptly turn hostile (if they weren't already). This can cause you to lose followers mid-combat, aggro nearby friendly NPCs, get bounties placed on your head, and other shenanigans. It doesn't help that they're Leeroys as well. And to top it all off, the explosion damage itself is minuscule, barely enough to kill a mudcrab if that even.
  • Certain traps are placed ahead of their triggers so you could not simply outrun them. Unfortunately if you happen to wait at a certain point for your follower to catch up, they would trigger the trap, and you'd be the one ending up kissing a spiked wall at Mach 2.
  • Being a werewolf was this for a while, due to a bug that removed nearly all of your damage protection while transformed. Fortunately, said bug was patched, and Dawnguard's perks tree skews it the other way; now, your biggest issue will be where to wait out all that extra time you got from one-shotting everyone and eating them.
  • Being a Werewolf or (with the Dawnguard DLC) a Vampire Lord can be this outside of combat, since people are instantly hostile to you and you can't pick anything up without mods. The Vampire Lord is slightly better than the Werewolf in this regard, since you can switch in and out of it at will instead of only being able to use it once a day and having to wait out the transformation to change back. Both forms fall into Clipped-Wing Angel on a high level character. The Vampire Lord's main spell never deals over 150 damage (and cannot be dual-cast), while with smithing, alchemy, weapon skills and enchanting, you can hit for over 1000 damage with a weapon, plus hundreds more with a Chaos enchant and relevant perks for it. But if you want to off someone in plain sight without getting the blame for it...
  • Many Shouts fall under this, but Storm Call is probably the most notable. Acquiring all three words is made particularly difficult by the fact that all three of them are guarded by powerful Dragon Priests and one is in an area that's unreachable after clearing the main quest. Your reward for collecting all three is a terrifically powerful Shout that can and will kill almost anything around you... including any followers, friendly NPCs, or random villagers. It can only be used outside, and boasts the longest recharge of any Shout at ten minutes (though at least you can improve that part with an Amulet of Talos and, if you have the Unofficial Patch, the Morokei mask).
  • Dismay and Disarm don't fare much better. The two shouts only affect enemies that are below a certain level (the exact level depending on how many words are used), and while the stronger versions of the Shouts can be useful at lower levels, they aren't much help after level 30 or so; most enemies at that point are too strong for the Shouts to affect or weak enough that it isn't worth disarming or fearing them. Dismay becomes even more impractical for those who choose to invest in Illusion magic, as the fear spells of that school can end up becoming stronger than the Shout depending on the Dragonborn's perk choices.
  • Specialized arrows (Daedric, Dragonbone, etc.) are a huge improvement over generic arrows, doing three times the damage, but this is on the scale of single to double digits. With enough smithing skill, your bows can do three digit damage, rendering that little bit extra completely pointless. If you haven't gotten to that point, however, it can be worth the investment if you know the trick to duplicate them for free. After Dawnguard is installed, arrows are craftable and can be easily produced in large numbers (except maybe Daedric Arrows, which require a Daedra heart).
  • The armor that the Dragonborn wears in the trailer also counts, in a meta sense. Armor fits into one of three classes: clothing, light, and heavy. Light and heavy armor each have associated perks which are designed to award benefits for sticking to one category. The Dragonborn in the trailer is wearing a combination of light studded armor and heavy iron armor, which looks cool but would be impractical in gameplay.
  • It's possible to craft the Ancient Nord Armor worn by Draugr Deathlords after completing the Companions' questline. On the one hand, it looks pretty cool and is appropriately Viking-esque. On the other hand, the armor is little better than standard Iron Armor, the weakest armor in the game, and for whatever reason benefits from the Daedric Smithing perk for improvements; by the time you get that perk, you're better off just crafting Daedric armor rather than bringing the Ancient Nord stuff to a work bench. To top it off, the version of the helmet with the upwards pointed horns are not available as a craftable piece; it's only available as a named helmet as a piece of loot in an out of way place, with a pitiful 10% frost resistance bonus and does not count as a piece of the armor set (robbing you of any set bonuses).
  • Most Daedric artifacts have no smithing perks that apply to them, which effectively means they can only be upgraded half as much as most items. This makes them fall behind pretty quickly, even the ones that do have useful enchantments.
  • The entire lockpicking perk tree falls victim to this. The mastery perks are useless because lockpicks weigh nothing and cost practically nothing, so it's trivially easy to amass hundreds and brute-force any lock in the game. This also makes having unbreakable picks a novelty at best. The silent lockpicking perk is useless because sneaking has the same effect, and there are very few occasions where you can't get away with sneaking to pick a lock, even if your Sneak skill is abysmal. Wax Key creates a key to a lock if it has one, but if you can pick the lock in the first place then it's irrelevant (and wasteful, if you want to grind the skill on locked doors in a city). Finally, the Golden Touch and Treasure Hunter perks increase the chance of finding gold/rare loot, which is nice, but gold is easily earned through other skills (like alchemy or enchanting) and whatever extra loot you do get is likely going to be inferior to what you're using by the time you've earned enough points to get the perk in the first place.
  • Pickpocketing is just a novelty, as you'll quickly get far superior loot through dungeon exploration than through stealing them off unsuspecting, non-hostile NPCs. Furthermore, things you get from pickpocketing are marked as stolen while ones looted off slain enemies and containers are not, limiting your possibility for selling them, and quests that specifically require you to pick pockets can be counted on the fingers of one hand (and, like lockpicking, can be brute forced, namely by Save Scumming). While pickpocketing at higher levels does have combat utility by letting you steal armor and weapons off enemies, it specifically only works on human enemies, and if your Sneak skill is good enough to get you within pickpocketing distance of an enemy, you're probably better off just stabbing them instead.
• Awesome, but Temporary:
  • Clavicus Vile asks you to retrieve a powerful axe and you are again forced to choose between said axe and his fancy mask. Subverted though since this time the axe isn't really that great (its damage is average, and it's a two-handed weapon so it's rather pointless to anyone not going with two-handed combat.)
  • The Thieves' Guild gives you the Skeleton Key, an unbreakable lockpick, upon beating the final boss of the questline. The very next quest has you get rid of it in exchange for one of three mediocre in comparison rewards, though you at least aren't forced to do this right away.
• Awesome Moment of Crowning:
  • If you complete the main questline and let Paarthurnax live, you will return to the top of the Throat of the World to witness dozens of roaring and Shouting dragons who are acknowledging Paarthurnax as their new leader.
  • The formal recognition of the Dragonborn by the Greybeards counts. They basically say you now have rights to two names used by a previous legendary Dragonborn, the illustrious Tiber Septim: "Stormcrown" and "Ysmir, Dragon of The North". And they do it by blasting you with the ritual words of recognition in the dragon tongue, making the ground quake as they do it.

B

• Back from the Dead: The Big Bad draconic Beast of the Apocalypse Alduin is resurrecting dragons who were slain in the past. While anyone of sufficient ability can slay the physical form of a dragon, dragons, being Ageless beings with immortal Aedric souls, cannot truly be killed except by another dragon or Dragonborn, who absorbs its soul upon death. As such, dragons can be actively harmed by forcing them to actually experience mortality.
• Back Stab: Both thieves and assassins do their best damage from the shadows, and getting the Assassin's Blade perk allows you to do 15x damage with a dagger sneak-attack. Slightly subverted in that you don't actually need to be behind your target - either Invisibility or the Shadow Warrior perk can allow you to "backstab" foes right in the face. Couple that with the shrouded gloves you get, which doubles that, and you can one-shot most enemies in the game. A vampire wearing muffled boots with either the invisibility spell or the invisibility power can slay almost any enemy in the game in one hit. The lone exception is Alduin, who will always see you when you approach.
• Back-to-Back Badasses:
  • You and the Heroes of Sovngarde against Alduin.
  • You can also invoke this with other followers when faced with superior numbers throughout the game.
  • In Dawnguard, you and Serana against the army of Frozen Falmer in Auriel's Chapel.
• Badass Bookworm: Urag gro-Shub, the Orc librarian at the College of Winterhold. Don't mess with the Arcanaeum; it's his Berserk Button. On the other hand, give him the Elder Scroll from the main quest after finishing it, and you can hear an orc Squee for the first time in TES history. (Or probably any Orc in anything period!)
• Badass Bystander:
  • Random travelers on the roads may occasionally come to your aid against the wolves, bandits, bears, or trolls that populate the wilderness. Some of them are surprisingly tough (Talsgar the Wanderer is a notable example, at least at low-to-mid player level).
  • During the final battle in the afterlife, some of the Honored Dead, such as Ulfric Stormcloak or Legate Rikke (if they died during the game), may randomly wander into the battle and help you fight the final boss.
  • During dragon attacks, some civilians will run around screaming, but others will join in the fight (as will guardsmen), even if they haven't got the slightest hope of defeating it. Parodied in this strip. Possibly a case of Better to Die than Be Killed.
• Badass Cape: The Nightingale armour from late in the Thieves' Guild questline has one. It's also the only cape in the game.
• Badass Crew: The Dovahkiin and about any group they chose to join can end up being this.
• Badass Longcoat:
  • Invoked with the Thalmor mage uniforms. They look more like a standard longcoat than a robe, which makes sense given the very obvious Gestapo parallels. Their design makes it impossible to close the robe's front, meaning this trope is always in effect.
  • The robes of the Psijic monks follow the same open-front design, but rather than the Thalmor's imposing black and gold, they use vivid, ornate primary colors. Given that the Psijic Order was founded long before the Thalmor's emergence, this implies that the Thalmor used the Psijic design for inspiration.
  • The various Fine Clothes, as well, can serve as more noble-looking longcoats, especially the ones blinged-out with fur around the collar.
  • Ulfric Stormcloak's clothing includes one of these made of chainmail worn under an animal pelt cloak. Despite this and the breastplate the clothing seems to include, it only counts as normal clothing if you get your hands on it, even though it looks like it should be light armour.
• Badass Preacher: A few examples are shown; interestingly enough, the player can become one themselves by working for any of the Temples.
  • Frea, after her father Storn is killed, becomes shaman of her village in Dragonborn. She has no level cap, and prefers Dual Wielding War Axes.
  • Erandur was raised worshiping Vaermina. Then he was forced without a choice to kill his fellow cult members, after which he abandoned his worship of her to worship Mara instead. Why he is badass? Because he outright defied Vaermina, the daedric prince who once trapped a wizard in hellish nightmares for all eternity because he stole one thing from her. He's also basically a D&D Cleric, wielding a mace and healing magic.
  • Florentius, in Dawnguard if you join that faction, proves himself to be this. Sure, he's a bit cuckoo and insists that he hears Arkay inside his head; however, he more than holds his own during the siege on Castle Volkihar.
  • Also in Dawnguard, Knight-Paladin Gelebor counts as this, being utterly devoted in his service to Auri-El and completely unkillable. We never see him do any badass fighting, but his rank would suggest that he's more than capable.
• Bad Guy Bar: The Ragged Flagon, although since the player can join the Thieves' Guild, it's more of a Villain Protagonist Bar.
• The Bad Guy Wins: In Dragonborn, Hermaeus Mora gets everything he wants in the end.
• Bad Moon Rising:
  • The Bloodmoon returns for Hircine's Daedric quest. Why is a bit uncertain, since in Bloodmoon it was a prophetic sign, while in Skyrim you just randomly see it while in a specific location during Hircine's quest.
  • The player character him/herself can create a similar phenomenon in the Dawnguard DLC - but with the sun rather than the moon. By using Auriel's Bow to fire a bloodcursed arrow at the sun, they can turn the sun to blood and cause the entire landscape to be washed in shades of red and black.
• Bad with the Bone: With the Dawnguard expansion, it's possible to create Dragonbone Weapons, which happen to be even more powerful than Daedric weapons. The dragonbone warhammer, which has the highest base damage of any weapon available in the game, is essentially a dragon's femur with a long decorative handle.
• Bag of Holding: All the containers in the game can hold far more than any container ought to be able to, including objects that should be too large even alone. You can fill one chest with more items than should be able to fit in an entire house.
• Bag of Spilling: Some of the containers can also be this. Leave certain things in them for too long and they will cease to exist; most notably, the Dragon Priest masks are prone to vanishing if left in a chest for an extended period of time. It's for this reason that most of the houses available in Creation Club include special busts where they can be displayed safely.
• Balking Summoned Spirit: In order to complete the "Conjuration Master" sidequest, the Dovahkiin is tasked with acquiring a sigil stone from the realm of Mehrunes Dagon. The only way to acquire the stone is to get one of Mehrunes' servants, the Dremora to steal it for you - and since the Dremora absolutely loathe being made to serve mortals, you have to kill the Dremora you summon and resummon it multiple times until it gives up and submits to your authority.
• Banishing Ritual:
  • In the backstory, a group of heroes were trying to wage war against Alduin, but they didn't have the assistance of a Dragonborn, the only mortal who would stand a chance of defeating him. So they used an Elder Scroll to banish Alduin in the hopes he'd be lost forever in the flow of time. Unfortunately, it didn't work and Alduin reappeared, setting off the events of the game.
  • In gameplay, there are banishing spells that can be used to banish summoned creatures back to Oblivion. The player can also find and use this enchantment for weapons as well.
• Bar Brawl: You can "persuade" some NPC characters by brawling with them rather than intimidating or negotiating. Not surprisingly, a lot of these take place in taverns. You even get the option to just fight some patrons for coin. At the extreme, you can marry the woman or man after you brawl with them and win.
• Barbarian Hero: Not in the traditional sense, but aesthetically speaking, the land of Skyrim runs in this direction, what with the primary inhabitants being an homage of real life Horny Vikings. Contrast the Knight in Shining Armor aesthetic that was prevalent in Oblivion just prior.
• Bare-Fisted Monk: It is entirely possible and viable to play through the game with just your fists, as demonstrated here and here. Unlike previous Elder Scrolls games, however, there is no "Unarmed" skill - the trick is to train up your Heavy Armor stat and unlock the "Fists of Steel" perk. Khajiit are particularly suited for this; all told, the cats do 22 damage per punch. There is also a "Fortify Unarmed" enchantment obtainable in the Ratways of Riften, which can be disenchanted and applied to gauntlets and rings.^note Fortify Unarmed maxes out at +14 damage, times two for ring and gauntlet enchantment. Fists of Steel takes the base armor rating and adds it to Fortify Unarmed; the best gauntlets in the game, Daedric, have 18 base armor. That totals 50 for any human or elf, 56 for an Argonian, and a whopping 68 for a Khajiit. Unfortunately, such a powerful offensive with insane swing speed and maneuverability lacks a ranged option (but then, that's what bows are for), can't block blows, and can't use weapon enchantments.
• Barrier Change Boss: The first boss you fight in the Mage College quest line is a powerful Draugr that keeps shifting between frosty, electrical and fiery forms, and he's pretty resistant to physical attacks, so you'd better make sure you know at least one damage spell of each type when you face him.
• The Bartender: Each tavern and inn has a non-generic NPC filling this role. Beside selling food and drinks, they can be asked for rumors (sometimes related to local quests) and work (official bounty hunting quest).
• Bat Scare: Flocks of bats are startled into flight by certain trigger-events such as when they enter the final chamber of Bleak Falls Barrow.
• Battle Butler: Any of your housecarls, should you choose to take them on your quests.
• Battle Couple: The Dragonborn is capable of marrying one of their traveling companions and going on adventures with them.
• Battle in the Center of the Mind: Sheogorath takes you to his personal vacation spot: the mind of Pelagius the Mad and will only agree to leave if you humor him and combat Pelagius' various psychoses with the help of his artifact, the Wabbajack.
• Battle in the Rain:The "Storm Call" shout causes the skies to rapidly turn grey and cloudy before unleashing a torrential downpour of rain and lightning that targets your enemies. Your own personal Battle in the Rain!
• Battle Theme Music: Signs you are about to fight a dragon include a rushing sound of huge wings, a deep roar, and music that changes to a choir chanting your praises in Dovahzul.
• Bears Are Bad News: Skyrim is home to many wild bears, and you'll come across a fair few of them in your travels, the first of which will be in Helgen Cave. While that one's a pushover if you choose to fight it, it doesn't reflect on the rest of the species - they're fast, beefy, and hit fairly hard, making them quite dangerous at low levels. Getting mauled by a bear on the way to Ivarstead is practically a rite of passage for new characters.
• A Beast in Name and Nature: During the quest "No One Escapes Cidhna Mine," Madanach's cell is guarded by an orc named Borkul the Beast, who once ripped a man's arm off and beat him to death with it.
• Beast in the Building: If you live in a Hearthfire house, your spouse sometimes tells they heard strange noises coming from the basement. If you go down to investigate, you'll find hostile skeevers which somehow managed to sneak inside.
• Beastly Bloodsports: Never witnessed firsthand but heavily implied to have been carried out in a skooma den the player visits during the "Thane of Riften" questline. Several iron cages (some still containing pit wolves) can be found throughout the area and a lone dead pit wolf appears inside a makeshift arena.
• Beat Still, My Heart:
  • In a case of Developer's Foresight, if you pickpocket a briarheart from a Forsworn Briarheart, they instantly die and a gaping hole appears in their chests. This is because Forsworn Briarhearts have had their real hearts replaced with the briarheart you have just ripped from their bodies.
  • In one of the most brutal scenes of the expansion Dragonborn, the climax of the "Old Friends" quest has you killing Ildari Sarothril by ripping out the Heart Stone that she's been using to keep herself alive.
• Beat Them at Their Own Game: Dragons have the natural ability to use "shouts". When humanity learned how to use shouts (which the dragonborn can do as easily as a dragon) from the dragon Paarthurnax they developed a shout called "dragonrend", which was basically made of the draconic words for "mortal", "finite" and "temporary". As they were basically a race of Time Abyss near-gods, the mere concept of relative time (particularly something ending) screwed with them so much it could be weaponised against them.
• Becoming the Mask: A wizard sets up a "Scooby-Doo" Hoax, masquerading as the guardian spirit of a Nordic burial ground to scare away people from the nearby village while he loots the place clean. When he comes across a locked door, he spends over six months scouring the whole tomb looking for the key but can't find it. His failure (combined with the potion he was using to make himself look ethereal) drives him insane and he becomes convinced that he really is the guardian spirit of the tomb. The innkeeper in the village had the key all along, and he happily gives it to you as a reward for dealing with that pesky spirit that's been scaring everyone.
• Beef Gate: There are several placed encounters that are designed to force the player to be sufficiently leveled and geared to overcome them. These include several early dungeon bosses and, most notably, a Frost Troll on the path to High Hrothgar. Unlike other games, however, you can just go around the troll or run past it and get the Greybeards to deal with it for you.
• Being Good Sucks: In full force. Playing a moral Dragonborn will result in missing out on a lot of rewards.
  • Choosing to destroy the Dark Brotherhood awards only a bit of gold, while joining offers a plethora of rewards, including a recurring radiant assassination quest that yields 1000 septims for each contract. There is not even a quest to destroy the Thieves' Guild at all (although one was originally planned).
  • You will miss out on any Daedric artifact that requires you to kill innocents, which is a lot of them. Vaermina, Namira, Mehrunes Dagon, and Boethiah all require innocent deaths if you want their favor and accompanying artifact. Clavicus Vile does not - but he'll try to make you think that he does.
  • Being good also sucks on a meta level, as there are several achievements/trophies which can only be unlocked by joining the Thieves' Guild and Dark Brotherhood, and a number of others for being a werewolf or vampire. The worst is "Oblivion Walker," which requires the collection of fifteen Daedric artifacts; as noted above, some of these require outright murder (and worse). Bonus suck points if you force yourself to do the evil things you don't want to do in order to get the achievements, only to have one or more of them glitch and fail to unlock. Good-aligned players who are also Hundred Percent Completionists will find themselves very frustrated.
  • Dawnguard averts it for the most part, as joining either the Volkihar vampires or the Dawnguard will result in unique and useful rewards, and all of the achievements for the DLC can be unlocked through either path. You can even become a Vampire Lord through both paths, though it's only mandatory for the former and will lock you out of the latter's quests until you get it cured.
• Belligerent Sexual Tension: Some of your possible spouses are downright rude to you.
  • Most noteworthy is probably Njada Stonearm of the Companions - she even complains when you heal her ("You think you're better than me because you can do this?!"). Should you marry her, however, she is all honey talk.
  • Some of them want to marry you after you've beaten them in a brawl. Of course, this is Nord culture.
• Beneath the Earth: The derelict dwarven city of Blackreach, which houses tribes of Falmer, giant glowing mushrooms, still-functioning lifts to the surface and other contraptions, a dragon and an Elder Scroll. And the Crimson Nirnroot is found there.
• Benevolent Boss: A book written by one of Azura's followers notes that she very much wants the love of her followers. Regardless of the interpretation of her actions, she is this toward the Nerevarine in Morrowind, being nothing but pleasant towards and protective of the Nerevarine, just as she was to the original Nerevar thousands of years before.
• Berserk Button:
  • Keeping secrets from Hermaeus Mora is not a good idea. Nor is betraying him.
  • Calling a Nord a "milk-drinker" is something not recommended unless you want a fight.
  • The outlawing of the worship of Talos has a lot of Skyrim's people up in arms, especially given the Thalmor's penchant for dragging people off in the middle of the night just for doing this.
  • Messing with the Arcaneum is not recommended unless you want to bring down the wrath of Urag gro-Shub on your head.
  • Getting too close to a giant or messing with one of his mammoths is a very good way to get sent into low orbit.
  • Ulfric utterly loses it when Elenwen, ambassador of the Thalmor, crashes the peace talks during the "Season Unending" quest.
• Best Her to Bed Her: Uthgerd the Unbroken will only marry you if you can defeat her in a brawl. Goes hand in hand with Defeat Means Friendship, since brawling with her is also the only way to make her your follower.
• Bestiality Is Depraved: In a conversation between Cynric Endell and Thrynn, Cynric asks Thrynn if it's true that bandits get real... friendly with the wildlife. Thrynn calls him an idiot.
• Best Known for the Fanservice: In-Universe: A new book in Skyrim is one of the few in Elder Scrolls history to be a sequel to a book from another game. It has survived both the Oblivion Crisis and the destruction of Vvardenfell. That book is The Lusty Argonian Maid. And as of Dawnguard, it has a spinoff: The Sultry Argonian Bard.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Hermaeus Mora's voice makes him sound grandfatherly, and his behavior to you is friendly and respectful (as long as you don't say anything to provoke or antagonize him), and he will keep his bargains with you; but anyone who crosses him learns a very painful lesson about how bad an idea that is. This generally pleasant demeanor is sharply contrasted with his chosen appearance both on Mundus and in his realm of Apocrypha - that of a giant mass of pulsating, duplicating eyeballs and black, slick tentacles.
• Beware the Silly Ones:
  • Near one of the first towns you can find a jester who seems to be a textbook Cloudcuckoolander who needs help getting his wagon fixed. Turns out he's the Keeper for the Dark Brotherhood. The Night Mother herself is in the wagon. If you take the farmer's advice and slander him to get him dragged off by a guard, you'll find said farmer and his wife dead later.
  • Sheogorath also certainly counts. His behavior is jovial and frivolous, but like all Daedric Princes, he's not opposed to a little random mortal-slaying, so long as it's all in good fun.
• BFG: The robotic Dwarven Ballistas fire huge bolts that can ignore your armor.
• BFS: The greatswords. Of special note is the Stahlrim greatsword, which is taller than your character.
• Big Bad:
  • Alduin, the first offspring of Akatosh.
  • For the civil war subplot, either General Tullius (if you're a Stormcloak) or Ulfric Stormcloak (if you're a Legionnaire).
  • Also the Silver Hand for the Companions, Mercer Frey for the Thieves' Guild, Ancano for the College of Winterhold, and Commander Maro for the Dark Brotherhood.
  • Lord Harkon for Dawnguard regardless of whether you side with the Vampires or the Dawnguard.
  • Miraak for Dragonborn but his master Hermaeus Mora twists Miraak's plans to his advantage.
• Big Creepy-Crawlies: Chaurus are large, corrosive acid spitting, subterranean insects often found domesticated by the Falmer, who use Chaurus chitin to craft weapons and armor. Like a cicada, when a Chaurus reaches the end of its life cycle, its body gives birth to a Chaurus Hunter, which is a more dangerous winged variety.
• Big Fancy House: Proudspire Manor is the largest and most expensive of the in-city homes the player can buy. Assuming you have a spouse and kids, it's also the only one about which none of the three will have any complaint. With Hearthfire installed, the player can build three of their own. These are bigger and potentially even fancier than Proudspire, and come with a lot of benefits, but may not be universally liked by your family members.^note It partly depends on who you marry and what their general personality is. Some spouses will express contentment in almost every residence, while others are much pickier.
• Bigfoot, Sasquatch, and Yeti: Normal Trolls resemble Bigfoot, while Frost Trolls resemble Yetis.
• Big Friendly Dog:
  • Being the external representation of a Daedric Prince's conscience, the talking dog Barbas is naturally this.
  • Skyrim is inhabited by big Irish Wolfhound looking dogs, and most of them are nice towards you, save a few trained by bandits. In particular, Meeko and Vigilance can follow and help the player in a manner similar to Dogmeat in Fallout 3.
  • If you pick the Vampire path in Dawnguard, you can take a Death Hound with you, although the "friendly" in this case applies only to you. Similarly, the Dawnguard path lets you take an armored dog companion.
• Bigger on the Inside:
  • The Dwemer Lockbox in Septimus' Outpost is this. The inside of the cube is at least twice as big as the outside. Even the tunnel leading into the cube is longer than the cube itself! Justified because it houses Hermaeus Mora's Oghma Infinium, and as such is an Eldritch Location.
  • The Hearthfire DLC averts this with the houses you can build. You build a house one section at a time, and each section stage by stage (foundation, flooring, frame, walls, roof), and only after the section you're building is completely walled off does it become a separate "cell" which you can only access through a door and a loading screen. Once you go through that door, though, the inside is exactly as big as it looked from the outside while you were building it.
• Bilingual Bonus:
  • Many of the Companions have names that, in Eastern European languages, translate to "wolf" or "werewolf". This includes Vilkas (Lithuanian), Farkas (Hungarian), and Kodlak (Serbian/Slovakian).
  • Faendal. In Norwegian, "faen"^note Not literally, but it carries the same meaning as a swear word means fuck and "dal" means valley.
  • Jarl is the Old Norse word for "chieftain" and the root of the English word "earl".
  • Heimskr means "stupid" in Old Norse.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Saadia, according to the Alik'r.
• Bittersweet Ending:
  • Skyrim: Alduin has been defeated, Sovngarde is safe, and most of the remaining dragons now recognize Paarthurnax's authority. However, Alduin's soul isn't absorbed, meaning that it's only a matter of time until he comes back again; it's just that now he'll come back when Akatosh intends it, and no one has any idea when that will be.
  • The Civil War sidequest ends like this either way. The Thalmor are still in power, and Skyrim's only hope to repel them is either a powerless empire or some upstart rebels. On the plus side, said empire or rebels now have a walking Divine Intervention among their ranks, so it's not as bad as it could be.
  • Dawnguard: Lord Harkon has been killed, the sun is still shining, and it seems the Falmer are actually becoming more sapient. However, they're still a far way off from returning to their former glory, and one of the only two non-regressed Falmer has been killed, leaving one left (as far as we know, anyway).
  • Dragonborn: Miraak has been stopped, Solstheim is safe, and Hermaeus Mora is finally leaving the Skaal alone. However, the leader of the Skaal is dead, Hermaeus finally got what he wanted, and it's implied that the Last Dragonborn will simply become another pawn in his schemes.
• Black Comedy: Some dialogues from quests and NPCs may come off with this, but the most notable case is the introduction where an unfortunate Stormcloak delivers this line to the Headsman before his execution:
  Stormcloak Soldier: My ancestors are smiling at me. Can you say the same? [chop]
• Blackout Basement: Played with. The player's eyes will realistically adjust to dark areas. You do have the option of using light spells or torches, but they're almost never necessary.
• Blatant Lies: When you first arrive at Markarth, one of the Guards outside will tell you that this is the safest city in The Reach. However, when you enter the city, you will witness a public murder with the guards trying to cover it up.
• Blessed with Suck:
  • The Greybeards. On one hand, they're masters of an ancient and powerful magic art that takes most people years to study. On the other hand, they're forced to take a vow of silence because of it, or they risk accidentally killing outsiders with a single word.
  • Vampirism. You get cool powers like night vision, invisibility, life drain, and bonuses to stealth and illusion; but your stats are lower during the daytime, and to get the really cool powers you have to go days without feeding, which breaks your Masquerade and provokes attacks. To keep it under control, you have feed on people in their sleep, which diminishes the powers and the drawbacks but also has a chance of getting you caught. Dawnguard tweaks it a bit by adding an entirely new transformation mechanic, alternate ways to feed, making villagers no longer break out the torches and pitchforks, and the ability to put out the sun.
  • Being a werewolf is considered this In-Universe by Kodlak Whitemane, who would prefer to go to Sovngarde upon his death, but is bound by his curse to spend eternity in Hircine's hunting grounds instead. A quest involves breaking the curse for him — and you can later do it for yourself and two of the other remaining members of the Circle.
• "Blind Idiot" Translation: The French translation of the game is fairly decent, but contains a few egregious mistakes. For example, when one of your Dark Brotherhood fellow assassin tells you that Commander Maro was asked to "leave the Brotherhood alone", the French translation is completely litteral and makes it that he was asked to "quit the Brotherhood on his own" instead. A complete headache, given that Commander Maro is a sworn enemy of the Brotherhood and was never part of it to begin with.
• Blind Weaponmaster: Dexion, in Dawnguard, can sometimes be found at a blacksmith forge even after he's lost his sight.
• Bling of War: this is present to a degree with the two sides of the Civil War. The standard Imperial Legion armor is back to its Roman roots, while the Stormcloak basic armor has a ragged leather/cloth/chain appearance. However, the leadership is outfitted in armor with plenty of bling. Generall Tullius◊ of the Legion goes the full "bling" route while Ulfric Stormcloak◊ wears a slick Badass Longcoat/Pelts of the Barbarian combo.
• Blocking Stops All Damage: Blocking reduces damage, but doesn't fully negate it, so you can batter a shield-bearing enemy to death with Scratch Damage, or stagger them with power attack and press the advantage while they're stunned. The right armor enchantments, skill increases, or Blocking perks increase the effectiveness of a character's blocking, and can even unlock exotic effects like negating damage from Annoying Arrows while your shield is up, or even reducing damage from magical attacks.
• Blood Magic:
  • The blood of a Dragonborn is necessary to open the entrance to Sky Haven Temple, the home base of the Blades in Skyrim.
  • In the Dawnguard DLC, this happens a few times:
    • A little blood is required to release Serana when you first find her.
    • Vyrthur specifically needs the blood of "a daughter of Coldharbour" in order to fulfill his plans.
    • If you have Auriel's Bow, you can blot out the sun for a day using arrows that have been dipped in Serana's blood.
• Bloodstained Letter:
  • A letter smeared with blood is found near the corpse of a woman whose family was captured and killed by Falmer. Bloodstained diary entries are found near her daughter's body.
  • Another one is found in the Dragonborn DLC near the body of a man who was killed in his lover's house.
• Blown Across the Room:
  • Similarly to Oblivion, gravity seems to have less effect on dead bodies than on living ones, meaning the kill shot of a bow or spell will shoot the target backwards 5 to 15 feet. The reason for this is that when a killing blow is delivered (and one of the finishing move animations doesn't kick in) the excess damage (i.e. anything that would reduce the target's health below 0) is converted into momentum in the game's physics engine. So if an NPC with 10 HP left is hit by an arrow which deals 50 points of damage, then the first 10 points of that damage would reduce them to 0 HP, killing them, and the remaining 40 would be converted into 40 points' worth of momentum to knock back their ragdoll. This is also the reason for the giants' Megaton Punch (see below).
  • You can invoke this trope with the Unrelenting Force shout at full power. So can higher-level draugr.
  • Likewise, the Vampire Lord spell Vampiric Grip will allow you to grab an enemy from a distance and choke him very slowly, but the true power is when you release, and he is flung violently away with tremendous force. Launching enemies straight upward will send them far enough up that the fall is, if not fatal, then at least severely damaging.
  • Sword and shield fighters can do it with Auriel's Shield from Dawnguard. Block 15 blows with it, and then you can blast someone right off their feet with a Shield Bash.
• Boats into Buildings: Jorrvaskr, home of the mercenary company The Companions, was built out of the Atmoran longboat of the same name.
• Body Bridge: The Nords' afterlife, Sovngarde, contains a chasm bridged by a whale's skeleton. Those wishing to cross it and enter the Hall of Valor on the other side must defeat the guardian Tsun in battle.
• Bodyguard Crush: You can invoke this by marrying your housecarl after you become a thane.
• Bodyguarding a Badass: When you become a Thane in some of the holds, you're given a housecarl. What you had to do to earn the title sometimes makes it a clear case of this trope. In fact, unless you deliberately avoid going to Whiterun for a while, Lydia is likely to be your first Housecarl; she's part of the package for becoming Thane of Whiterun - a title you earn for killing your first dragon, learning the first word of your first shout, and being revealed to the world as a Dragonborn. If that's not ascent to badass, nothing is.
• Body Horror:
  • What happens to Astrid. It seems that having the player's Dark Brotherhood mentor die with a mundane form of this is a series tradition.
  • Also present for some monsters, the most prominent being the Falmer, who were Snow Elves once. In their original forms, they did possess eyes and had no fangs or claws... these days, not so much.
• Bolt of Divine Retribution: The Storm Call Shout summons a thunderstorm that causes lightning to strike in a wide area, dealing a significant amount of damage but potentially striking allied and neutral characters.
• Book Ends: The first and final acts of the Dark Brotherhood storyline begin with a Black Sacrament being performed.
• Boomerang Bigot: Sybille Stentor, the Court Wizard for the Jarl of Solitude. She sends you on a quest to destroy a "disgusting" nest of vampires, but detect life/detect death and a quick peek at the faction code shows she's actually a vampire herself. Speaking with Melaran at the Palace entrance implies that her condition is a well-kept secret in the palace, and she gets most of her nourishment dealing with the more "troublesome" prisoners kept in the dungeons. It seems her disgust is for their living conditions, not their vampirism, especially considering the reward she gives you.
• Boring, but Practical:
  • The Transmute spell means you'll never need to search for gold ever again. You can take the plentiful and cheap iron ore, turn it into silver or gold, smelt the results into ingots, then craft jewelry over and over, providing easy Smithing levels and tons of treasure.
  • The Enchanting skill similarly takes time and patience to level, but unlike Smithing, all you need is Soul Gems to enchant with and a Soul Trap-enchanted weapon to fill them (or the spell Soul Trap). They don't even need to be powerful souls for the purpose of leveling. Just run out shanking all the critters wandering around Whiterun and you'll gather dozens of weak souls per hour. Soul gems, especially the smaller ones, are extremely common and dirt cheap to buy. As for the equipment that you're enchanting, you can easily get that from all the excess you have leveling up Smithing, or by just enchanting all the garbage you loot from the bandits that are absolutely everywhere, since experience is gained at a constant rate regardless of what it is or is used on. Once you've got it to 100, you can craft gear that is far more powerful than the best equipment available elsewhere in the game. You can also make powerful fortify enchantments for other skills that let you overcome the initial low skill problems.
  • Simple, brute melee combat is more than enough to overcome any non-scripted challenge the game has to offer, once you max your skills. Only a very few quests require you to be sneaky or use magic. It's especially deadly when mixed with a good Enchanting skill; siphoning life is a popular choice.
  • Blocking. With a weapon in one hand, you can choose to put another weapon in the other, or a magic spell. Or a shield. When your enemies start battering you to death with power attacks, you might come to reconsider that shield. The Block tree even features a perk as low as level 30 that gives you Bullet Time when blocking during enemy power attacks, allowing you to Shield Bash them to interrupt said attack or duck out of the way. This even works when blocking with two-handed weapons, so you're not screwed over for using those.
  • Marked For Death. Other shouts create fire, throw enemies through the air, call down lightning storms, or slow down time. KRII LUN AUS, however, just hits the enemy with a shimmering wave of energy that otherwise has no visible effect, but in fact drains their life and reduces armor to the point that a couple hits with a warhammer will drop nearly any boss.
  • Look at all those unique racial traits! Dark Elves can cloak themselves in fire for a cool effect, Bretons can give themselves dragonskin, Nords can shout and make their enemies flee before them... and High Elves get 50 permanent extra magicka. Boring, but this trait alone makes High Elves excellent candidates for any build that plans to actually use magic, whether a spellsword (wards and destruction spells can be costly), an assassin (muffle and invisibility increase stealthiness exponentially and are appropriately costly to cast), or any variety of mage. (That said, High Elves also do get an active, pretty cool ability - Highborn, which increases magicka regeneration).
  • Bretons get 25% magic resistance. This applies to all magic effects: Dragon Shouts, Spells, Vampiric powers, etc... And it's always on. In fact, for a Breton, it's possible to reach the cap for magic resistance (85%) without using any enchanted items.
  • The most valuable skill or ability for a stealthy spell-slinger (or a spell-slinging stealthmaster)? It's not the illusion magic that makes them undetectable. It's not the rune traps, or summoned allies. It's not the damage multipliers, even. It's the Illusion 50 perk, Quiet Casting. All it does is keep your spells from breaking your stealth... on a character likely specced to live or die based on whether enemies ever detect them. It veers into Required Secondary Powers territory since it's so indispensable.
  • It's very tempting to spend those lovely perk points you've just acquired on a cool new ability, next to which all the "Skill X is Y% more effective" and "Spell A costs B% less magicka" options look rather dreary. But ignore them and your leveling enemies will soon start curb-stomping you with impunity.
  • Horses. They may not look flashy (well, except one) and they usually can't take much punishment, but they are a godsend for any dungeon crawler. Since horses don't obey the same physics rules you do, they allow you to bypass tedious winding roads to discover or reach new locations simply by climbing the mountains in the way. After you've looted the dungeon and come out weighed down five times past your max carry weight, you can climb up and use the horse to bypass the fast travel restriction normally applied to overencumbered players, meaning you only have to take one trip instead of five (assuming you're willing to walk out of the dungeon at a snail's pace).
  • Become Ethereal. All it does is make you ethereal, and thus render you completely untouchable. It's the Shout for when you're getting attacked and need to buy a bit of breathing room. Dragons, bandit chiefs, bears, wizards, it doesn't matter. Shout those words and they can't touch you, letting you either escape, wait for backup, run through their companions to the enemy you need to take out, or get ready to chop them with a power attack or ready a powerful spell in peace. With the Blessing of Talos and a Talos Amulet (let alone Fortify Restoration), the basic version of this shout will almost recharge before you're done being ethereal in the first place. And since it nullifies Falling Damage, you can also use it to jump off of high places instead of climbing down them.
  • Whirlwind Sprint. It allows you to bypass the maddeningly slow pace you get stuck with when overencumbered, is great for traveling cross-country or moving quickly through dungeons or barrows where your horse can't follow, and can be used to cross gaps or jump rivers in a single shot (with all three words). Melee-focused characters can also use it to close on enemies in a big hurry.
  • There are many Daedric artifacts scattered across Skyrim. Among them are things like a skull staff that eats dreams to power itself up, another staff that can do anything (at random), a ring that lets its wearer devour the dead, a dark katana that steals life and feeds on the blood of your friends, a shield that generates a magical ward when raised, and a mace that would not look out of place in Sauron's hand and which steals its victims' souls. So, which Daedric artifact is usually considered as the most valuable? The Black Star. With a name like that, it must have power of apocalyptic proportions! Nope, it's just a reusable Black Soul Gem for enchanting. Black Soul Gems function like normal Grand Soul Gems, but while Grand Soul Gems can only hold animalistic souls (and Grand animalistic souls are only found on bosses and mammoths), Black Soul Gems can hold humanoid souls - which are automatically Grand quality, so any old bandit will do. The thing is, Grand Soul Gems can be purchased easily and are relatively common, while Black Soul Gems are incredibly rare, so having one on hand at all times is extremely valuable. Not helping is the fact that many Daedric weapons are for some reason relatively weak despite their cool-sounding effects, and can be rendered obsolete very fast by better weapons. The Black Star, on the other hand, is here to stay, whether you are level 1 or 100.
  • On the topic of Daedric artifacts, the Oghma Infinium also counts. It's a book that grants you 5 skill points in each skill tree of your chosen path (Mage, Warrior or Thief) before vanishing. Not particularly flashy, but it comes down to a total of 30 skill points earned in one go (a normal skill book gives one), and you are nearly guaranteed a level up or several from reading it unless very overleveled. In addition, the book was once involved in a duplicating bug that allowed gaining infinite levels, though this has since been patched.
  • Skyforge Steel weapons are this combined with Disc-One Nuke. They look just like and weigh just as much as the bog-standard steel weapons, but they have the same damage potential as the heavier Elven-tier weapons three tiers higher than Steel. Because they rely on the Steel smithing perk, you don't need to invest in more smithing perks to improve them. Oh, and all you need to do to get them is become a regular (not just probationary) member of the Companions. You get one freebie right off the bat from Eorlund Grey-mane (the Ultimate Blacksmith who makes them) once you're vetted, and can buy more for a song from him afterwards. Many players tend to hang on to their trusty Skyforge weapons for quite some time, even when "higher tier" weapons are readily available.
    Eorlund Grey-mane: Skyforge Steel is all the Companions will use, for good reason.
  • Aura Whisper does absolutely nothing in combat, but it makes an excellent scouting utility in dungeons. Not only can you use it to find out if there's a dozen mobs awaiting you in the next room, it can be used to instantly reveal potential ambushes - if there's a Draugr lying in wait inside a coffin, Falmer waiting to pop out from the chitin tubes, or Dwarven automatons about to crawl from the vents, Aura Whisper will reveal them.
  • The Restoration school of magic^* which is indeed a perfectly valid school of magic, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise!. The most basic part, healing spells, are incredibly useful in the early-to-mid game, and with the appropriate perks, can basically function as a full restoration of all reserves (sans magicka) on demand. A skilled enough healer is essentially invincible against anything that can't one-shot you, and if you find yourself relying on this, the Restoration skill will go up very quickly. Additionally, wards are useful anti-mage tools, and while Turn Undead isn't too useful against any major threat, there always seem to be a few mooks it'll work on nearby.
  • The Speech perk Merchant, obtainable at 50, simply allows you to sell anything to any vendor, regardless of what they would normally traffic in (court wizards don't buy armor, smiths don't buy potions, etc.). This lets you dump all the garbage equipment and potions you craft onto any vendor you want, not only making back any money you spend but getting rid of the excess in the process, allowing you to level Speech a lot faster. Speech is one of the more difficult skills to level, but if you've been selling all that junk anyway, you should get there eventually.
  • Dragonborn allows werewolf players to purchase magic rings that power up their beast form: one increases the damage you both deal and take, one makes your Howls last longer, one allows you to slow time upon transforming... and one gives you Regenerating Health when in Beast Form. It's the least flashy of the bunch, but it allows werewolves to no longer be dependent on eating corpses to restore health and allows them to restore health when fighting against enemies that can't be fed on, like undead and non-humanoid enemies prior to unlocking Savage Feeding.
• Boring Return Journey: Like Oblivion, the game almost always provide you with a shortcut back to the entrance of the dungeon or a quick secret exit out the back.
• Borrowing from the Sister Series: After the previous four games in the main series featured a Class and Level System, Bethesda brought in a Skill Scores and Perks system for Skyrim, similar to what Bethesda's acquired Fallout series has featured since its inception.
• Boss-Altering Consequence: In the Dawnguard DLC, during the final battle with Lord Harkon, you are given the option of handing Auriel's Bow over to him when he demands it. Naturally, he has no intention of actually sparing you, even if you comply, and the battle proceeds as usual, but it becomes more difficult and drawn-out, as the Bow is required to interrupt his healing.
• Boss in Mook Clothing: Several examples.
  • At higher levels, Draugr Deathlords, normally boss-level draugr, are now part of the rank and file. And they've lost none of their stats; Shouts, hard-hitting weapons, damage sponge-level health. Taking over for them in some dungeons (in the absence of Dragon Priests) are their new bosses, the Draugr Death Overlords.
  • Bears. No matter what level you are, they will always be a threat if you don't have good enough armour. Some of the fandom consider them stronger than dragons!
  • Trolls, especially of the Frost variety, may be even worse than bears. Not only are they fast and hit like a truck, they have moderate health regeneration.
  • Giants and mammoths. Sure, they look intimidating, but they're also everywhere all around Whiterun (which you're likely to reach pretty quickly). How tough can they be? Well... giants will kill you in one hit unless you have a ton of armor and health, while mammoths hit somewhat less hard, but are even deadlier, because they move faster and their attacks are not incredibly telegraphed.
  • The Silver Hand, unique bandits encountered in the Companions questline. They wield silver weapons that deal bonus damage to werewolves (and becoming a werewolf is not optional if you want to progress this questline), they level-scale more harshly than most other dungeon enemies, and they are among the few enemies that are not Tiered by Name, making it impossible to tell whether the guy attacking you has the stats of a regular Bandit that dies in two hits or a Bandit Marauder that kills you in two hits.
• Boss Remix: One of the dragon battle themes is an intense version of the "Dovahkiin" theme heard in the title screen (which is in turn a variation on the main theme of the series.)
• Boss Rush: At the end of the Forbidden Legend questline in the tomb of Archmage Gauldur, his three patricidal sons will rush you, each fighting in the same manner as before: Mikrul, Jyrik, and Sigdis. After you defeat them all again, they attempt to attack you at once, only for the vengeful ghost of their father to rise up and strike them down.
• Both Sides Have a Point:
  • The civil war subplot in Skyrim is rife with this, as well as plenty of Grey-and-Gray Morality. It revolves around the Civil War raging in Skyrim between the Imperial forces and the Stormcloak rebels (with the Aldmeri Dominion looming in the background) Numerous characters mention the validity of the other side's points throughout the game, but the war remains.
    • The Stormcloaks, Nord secessionists, (rightfully) criticize the Empire for not understanding the people of Skyrim or their culture/religion (agreeing to the ban on Talos worship in the White-Gold Concordant with the Dominion to end the first Great War was the final straw for many Nords). They follow Ulfric Stormcloak, a man of great courage and loyalty to his allies (which his enemies acknowledge) and is a paragon of traditional Nord values. They (justifiably) feel that the Empire caved-in to end the Great War (in which thousands of Nords gave their lives fighting for the Empire), and that it's become a decrepit, obstructive entity with weak leadership that has given their enemies huge amounts of power in Skyrim without the Nords' consent. Also, a few characters mention that the Empire has been putting high taxes on Skyrim after the war, limiting the citizens' financial well-being.
    • The Empire is trying to hold onto Skyrim because it needs both the resources and the manpower, especially since they expect a full-scale second "Great War" with the Aldmeri Dominion (see below) in the near future. Even many Nords continue to support the Empire, realizing that united Skyrim backing the Empire has the best chance to defeat the Dominion in the inevitable second Great War. Despite their success in retaking the Imperial City during the Great War, it came at great cost and the leadership of the Empire realized that agreeing to the White-Gold Concordat would buy them some much-needed time to recover. They also don't really bother to even enforce some of the more-hated terms of the Concordat, such as the ban on Talos worship. Additionally, Skyrim has historically been one of the Empire's (which was founded by Talos) greatest supporters, and that the all-important Nord honor demands that they support their long-time ally. They (rightfully) believe that Ulfric and the Stormcloaks are putting Honor Before Reason, and that their rebellion is extremely short-sighted. (Both sides agree that the Dominion is irredeemably evil, with open intentions of dominating and oppressing the world in any way they can.) Further, Ulfric and the Stormcloacks have displayed significant Fantastically Racist tendencies^note  their primary hold of Windhelm is racially segregated by Ulfric's decree, relegating Dunmer and Argonian residents to the hold's slums and docks respectively. The Stormcloaks refuse to help either group in any way because they're not Nords, barely tolerating their presence at the best of times and Ulfric himself used a traditional Nordic challenge as an excuse to effortlessly kill the previous King of Skyrim with the Voice (albeit with the victim accepting his challenge), despite said King having been known to support Ulfric's views up until being challenged. Also, some characters reveal that the unity of the Empire allows for prosperous trade and surplus of food, and Skyrim's independence will damage this trade.
    • Behind it all lies the Aldmeri Dominion, led by the extremist Thalmor, who are pulling the strings behind the scenes and may have even been responsible for instigating the civil war. They hope to weaken the Empire by depriving it of its strongest remaining province while bleeding both sides dry for an eventual Dominion takeover. There is even evidence that they tortured and brainwashed Ulfric Stormcloak as a prisoner in the waning days of the Great War and then unleashed him to accomplish exactly this task. (However, they may have underestimated Ulfric's leadership and inspirational abilities, as he quickly proved to be more effective than intended...) Both sides of the civil war agree that the Dominion is the greater threat, but are at odds over the best way to deal with them.
  • It even branches off into the main quest. The Blades don't like the Greybeards because they'd rather the Dragonborn focus on learning to control their Thu'um, and because they refuse to intervene in Tamriel's ongoing crises. Conversely, the Greybeards don't like the Blades because they constantly meddle in affairs they don't understand and wish to use the Dragonborn as a soldier exclusively at their beck and call. Of course, because Alduin has emerged, and threatens Tamriel with immediate destruction, the Dragonborn doesn't have time to properly meditate on the Voice, but to simply charge in with blades drawn is a fool's venture.
  • Ultimately, the Blades' argument runs a bit shallow when Master Arngeir points out that while the Greybeards prefer that the Dragonborn learns the Way of the Voice, they are ultimately a free spirit, unbound by any rules or places. The Dragonborn has the right to choose for themselves, and the Greybeards respect that regardless.
• Bottomless Magazines: NPCs get an infinite supply of arrows (although you can only loot a finite number of arrows from corpses). Combine this with the fact that arrows which get stuck in someone will then be usable by that someone, and it means that hitting a bandit with a good arrow and failing to kill him will result in him returning the favor several times over (yet another reason Daedric arrows are Too Awesome to Use). Fortunately, this also applies to your followers, meaning that you won't have to constantly resupply them with arrows.
• Bragging Rights Reward:
  • The Dragon Priest Masks. There are eight undead Dragon Priests scattered around the country. Each one is a powerful and tough spellcaster. For each one you destroy, you get his unique enchanted mask. If you collect all eight masks and place them on the special altar in Labyrinthian, you get the golden mask, Konahrik. Konahrik heals you when you're badly injured and has a chance of damaging nearby enemies, an enchantment that's not as powerful as some of the others, and not very useful for somebody strong enough to obtain it. Further making it useless, one of the masks is obtained from a Dragon Priest in the final dungeon of the main story that you're unable to return to, making it potentially Permanently Missable.
  • Prior to the update that lets you raise your level above 81, the Ebony Warrior was this. He will only show up once you've hit level 81 and is armed to the teeth with powerful enchanted armor and weapons, and has access to Thuums as well (he has Fus Ro Dah, and you meet him on a cliff...). He will be guaranteed to be stronger than any other enemy you face and you can loot his incredible gear afterwards. But to have reached that level, you would have had to grinded all of your skills to maximum. While it's not required to do everything in the game to get there, you have to if you don't want to spend hours grinding away. And even then it could take some time. Unless you intentionally try to summon him before everything else, you will probably not have much to do with that fantastic gear after you beat him (other than some random Radiant Quests).
• Bragging Theme Tune: The Skyrim theme song is this towards the Dragonborn. In a Conlang.
  Dragonborn, Dragonborn
  By his honor is sworn
  To keep evil forever at bay!
  And the fiercest foes rout
  When they hear triumph's shout
  Dragonborn, for your blessing we pray!
• Braids of Barbarism: Nords do like their braids. Almost as much as their beards.
• Bratty Half-Pint:

A lot of Skyrim's children are obnoxiously rude to you. Special mention goes to Braith of Whiterun, who tries to pick a fight with you even if you're wearing armor made of dragonskin and covered with the blood of your enemies, and Nelkir in Dragonsreach, who sneers that you're likely there to suck up to his father.^note In Nelkir's case, though, it might be due to his being manipulated by a Daedric artifact. Braith, with the addition of Hearthfire, can be hit. She will huff and exclaim she never thought you had it in you.

• Brawn Hilda:
  • The follower Uthgerd The Unbroken is a female Nord warrior with rough facial features, whose starting gear includes a bulky armor, and who can only be hired after being defeated in a fist fight.
  • According to In-Universe documents lying in her hideout, the unique female bandit Rigel Strong-Arm (leader of the Pinewatch bandits) is ugly (to the point renounced to search for a husband for her), hairy, very muscular, and good for little else other than fighting.
• Bread, Eggs, Breaded Eggs: Gabriella of the Dark Brotherhood enjoys "moonlit nights, taking long walks on the beach, knitting, and unicorns." She then notes that she "once took a seaside stroll, on a moonlit night, and discovered a unicorn... which [she] proceeded to stab in the throat with a crochet needle."
• Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick:
  • Mercer Frey of the Thieves' Guild has a shopping list in his house: milk, goat cheese, turnips, eggs, flour, cheese, and cauterizing agent.
  • A fortune teller in one town says she might tell your fortune by several standard methods (Horoscopes, card readings) and then chuckles and mentions Trepanning.
• Breaking and Bloodsucking: Similarly to Oblivion, once you've contracted vampirism, you can only feed on sleeping people, though in Skyrim it's much easier. Vampires in this game have a +25% bonus to both stealth and illusion magic, including invisibility, and vampiric feeding is one of a very, very few actions that a PC can perform while invisible that won't break invisibility. Sufficiently sneaky vampires can turn themselves invisible and feed off of a sleeping NPC in a crowded room with no one the wiser.
• Brick Joke:
  • After hours of hearing guards tell you "No lollygagging", should you follow the quest which lands you in Cidhna Mine, you'll meet Borkul the Beast, who is in prison for "Murder, banditry, assault, theft, and lollygagging."
  • In White River Watch, one of the first dungeons you're likely to come across, you can find a few notes talking about a group of bandits who were kicked out of their clan due to a "conflict of interest". Three of those bandits ended up getting brainwashed by a Draugr mage and sacrificed themselves to him. The fourth escaped to join another bandit clan, only to get kicked out of that one after desecrating the Pale Lady's tomb.
• Broken Bridge: Thanks to the open-world nature of the game, you can visit several locations that are important to quests without actually having taken the quest. While some just let you run through and trigger the quest when you pick up the relevant item (or at least force you to keep the quest item until you learn what it's for), others solve the problem by blocking off access to the relevant section, if not the entire dungeon, until you find the quest. This is particularly annoying when doing the Gauldur amulet quest, one-third of which is locked in a quest-specific dungeon with literally zero hint as to where the quest-giver is. (The site is being excavated by the College of Winterhold, and you can only get to it by joining the College and starting their questline.)
• Brown Note: In an interesting twist, the brown note in question is harmful to Eldritch beings while harmless to mere mortals. It's the Dragon Shout "Mortal, Finite, Temporary"; since dragons are effectively demigods of Time, they literally cannot comprehend these concepts and the shout more or less stuns them. Humans are naturally mortal, and thus unaffected.
• Bullet Time:
  • The "Steady Hand" Archery perks, which slow time by 25-50% (depending on what rank the perk is at) when using the bow's zoom feature.
  • You can also invoke bullet time with a block perk: if you have your guard up, and the enemy performs a power attack they slow down temporarily, allowing you, if you time it right, an excellent opening to slash them into ribbons. You can also use the opportunity to shield-bash, interrupting the pending power attack, or simply jump out of the way, if you don't think you could kill them before their attack goes through.
  • Vampire Lords in Dawnguard can learn a spell that does this too.
  • The "Slow Time" shout is halfway between this and Time Stands Still. While you are also slowed down by the shout, you are much faster than everyone else, meaning you can shred your foes as if you were using an actual timestop.
• Bullying a Dragon:
  • It doesn't matter if you're clad in full Daedric armor with a bloodstained Daedric war axe in one hand and the gleam of a lethal fire spell in the other and a storm atronach following you around, Braith will still petulantly cry that she's not afraid of you.
  Random guard: Let me guess, somebody stole your sweetroll?
  • A bottom-tier bandit wearing little more than a Fur Bikini and wielding Iron weaponry (the weakest in the game) will saunter right up to you in werewolf form and demand a 40 gold toll to pass.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Wylandriah, the Jarl's mage in Riften, is so completely wrapped up in her own experiments that she fails to realize that none of what she's saying about them makes sense to anyone else.
• Burning the Flag: One of the Thieves' Guild quests has you assassinating the leader of a rival guild, the Summerset Shadows. You're given the option to set fire to a banner while in the Shadows' headquarters; if you do so, the quest giver will compliment you for sending a message that the guild won't be trifled with.
• Bury Your Gays: Dragonborn gives us Hrodulf, who became fascinated with the Dwemer ruins under his house despite his lover Bjornolfr's warnings, and got killed as a result. He had sent Bjornolfr a letter warning him to stay away from the ruins. Bjornolfr ignored the warning, rushed to the house in an attempt to save Hrodulf, and got himself killed too. This coming in the third DLC is the only evidence of a non-heterosexual NPC couple in the game.
• But for Me, It Was Tuesday: The Last Dragonborn can pull this on dragonslaying. Miraak may call them out on this, saying ,"Do you think it hurts to have their souls ripped out?"
• But Thou Must!: Both played straight and averted. The player usually must follow the quest objectives to the letter, regardless of any possible alternatives. However, the player never has to do any quest, so if they feel like doing something else they can just put it off, or never complete the objective.
  • Played with near the end of the Thieves Guild questline when you're required to become a Nightingale and commit to spending time (in life and in death) to serving Nocturnal. On one hand, it isn't really necessary because Mercer Frey can be defeated without using the armor or powers you acquire. However, on the other hand, the final battle with him takes place in a chamber beneath a lake and his actions cause that chamber to flood after the battle. Luckily, part of the ceiling breaks away allowing you and the other Nightingales to escape. If one looks at becoming a Nightingale as receiving Nocturnal's blessing, and her sphere including the idea of "luck," this one can be considered justified.
  • The Dark Brotherhood questline, so, so much - when they decide someone has to die, they have to die. All you get to choose is how it's done for optional objectives. You're never given the choice of siding with Astrid and agreeing with her decision to lead the Brotherhood away from the Night Mother, and when the time comes to kill Astrid, you have to do it; even if you try to heal her, it will kill her.
  • The Forsworn Conspiracy is one of the worst examples of But Thou Must! in the game, with nearly every last objective being arbitrary and done because, well, But Thou Must!. But the particularly egregious part is that in order to move the questline forward, you have no option but to be framed for murder by the Markarth guards and be sent to Cidhna Mine. Killing them doesn't help - no matter what, you still have to be framed by them, and then you'll finish the quest only to be greeted with a several-thousand-septim bounty for all of the murders.
  • In a variation, when speaking to the Thalmor you can run into around the world, you basically get asked if you worship Talos. You get three options of response, and the closest one to saying you don't worship Talos is silence - and no matter which response you give, the Thalmor turn hostile.
  • At the end of the main questline, you must capture and then release Odahviing in order to reach Skuldafn, the final dungeon. The game forces you to do this because you need to fly in order to get there... except that there is no reason given why Paarthurnax couldn't take you there. This gets even worse if you complete the Dragonborn DLC questlines before getting to this point in the main game; having learned the appropriate Shout, you can literally command any dragon you find to land and let you ride it, and be able to summon a dragon anywhere you like who could also fly you there. Odahviing himself lampshades this in dialogue, saying, "It is wise to recognize when you only have one choice." Even though realistically you could ask Paarthurnax to do it, "But Thou Must" - the game only permits this course of action.
  • In the Dawnguard expansion, you join an order of vampire hunters, walk into a crypt killing vampires left and right, open up an ancient casket to reveal another vampire, and... escort her home after some polite conversation? In most other questlines, you can somewhat avert But Thou Must! by simply refusing to continue the required course of action; for example, you can stop doing the Companions' quests if you're not interested in becoming a werewolf. Serana, however, is a walking case of But Thou Must!. You can't kill her (she's flagged Essential), you can't tell her you'd like to part ways (well, you can, but she replies "I disagree"), and you can't ignore her request to take her home because she will follow you around and complain about the sunlight until you do what she wants.
• Butt-Monkey:
  • The Orcs as a whole. Not even a decade into the Fourth Era, they were forced at swordpoint by the Bretons to officially renounce Orsinium as a province and allow themselves to be assimilated into High Rock. By the time of Skyrim, most Orcs are little more than indentured servants to the Bretons, and those that aren't are forced to live in "strongholds" that are almost universally rundown, destitute, and scorned by all.
  • The Dunmer. The combination of Red Mountain erupting, Vvardenfell's destruction, and Morrowind being sacked by Black Marsh have left the province in ruins, even years later, leading to a mass exodus of Dunmer away from their home province. The ones who settled in Windhelm are stuck as second-class citizens, and only one supplicant remains at the Shrine of Azura they constructed after their exodus. Hadvar even notes, should you play a Dunmer character at Helgen, that the gods really have abandoned your people. ^note  That line is a Call-Back to Morrowind where the Nerevarine killed one of the Dunmer gods and found another dead by the hand of the first.
  • For a sect devoted to fighting Daedra and their influence, the Vigilants of Stendarr are really bad at it. As of the Dawnguard DLC, all of their expeditions you see end in miserable failure: the Ruunvald excavation gets mind-controlled, the guy who meets you at Dimhollow Crypt is dead by the time you get there, the guy investigating the Abandoned House gets turned against (and inevitably killed by) the player courtesy of Molag Bal, and the Hall of the Vigilant gets destroyed by vampires. In general, every named Vigilant you come across will inevitably end up dead. There's even a random encounter with a bunch of vampires dressed as Vigilants, standing over the naked corpses of the same Vigilants they killed for their disguises.
• Buy or Get Lost: The innkeeper and the light armor saleswoman of Riften tend to be rude assholes who straight-up tell you to do business or fuck off.

C

• Cain and Abel: Alduin, Firstborn of Akatosh and the game’s Big Bad and his younger brother Paarthurnax, leader of the Greybeards and one of the Dragonborn’s allies.
• Call a Rabbit a "Smeerp":
  • Skeevers are giant rats. The odd thing is... Giant Rats did exist in all previous The Elder Scrolls games (and in fact were part of a running joke involving the Fighters' Guild), and were called such.
  • Skyrim is inconsistent by itself: you can catch dragonflies for use in alchemy, but they're listed as "dartwings" in the menu screen. Similarly, Dragonborn has "bristlebacks," but the loading screen calls them boars and they drop Boar Tusks.
  • Many monsters in Skyrim are replacements for monsters from the previous games. Skeevers—Giant rats, Falmer—Goblins, Draugr—Zombies, Hagravens—Harpies.
• Call a Smeerp a "Rabbit": And yet, the four-tusked mammoths are still just called "mammoths".
• Call-Back:
  • The mural for the game depicts several key happenings from the prior games, all of which are explained as having been part of the prophecy of to Alduin's return; the in-game book The Book of the Dragonborn spells out the prophecy which references all of these:
    • The Staff of Chaos being shattered.
    • The reassembling of Numidium, and the resulting Warp in the West.
    • The Red Mountain where Dagoth Ur made base.
    • A gate to Oblivion, the reason for the weakening of the Empire.
  • As with most Elder Scrolls games, the player starts as a prisoner and/or going through a starter dungeon. However, this game ups the ante by leading players to their execution, right up to having their head on the chopping block.
  • During the Thieves' Guild's missions, you can come across a bust of the Grey Fox.
  • The Dark Brotherhood questline has several of these:
    • A power you gain during the questline is the ability to summon Lucien LaChance's ghost. You also acquire several artifacts associated with him from his previous appearance, including his horse.
    • You may recognize the blade Astrid has. It's the one the Night Mother enhanced for you at the end of the Dark Brotherood quest in Oblivion.
    • The quest to decorate the new sanctuary is titled "Where You Hang Your Enemy's Head..."; in Oblivion, the orc assassin described "home" that way.
    • The scene wherein you kill the Emperor is highly reminiscent of Uriel Septim VII's acceptance of his imminent death in Oblivion.
  • Emperor Titus Mede II's attire resembles that of Uriel Septim VII from Oblivion (purplish blue with red and gold down the front, white fur on the shoulders and at the end of the sleeves). Apparently, this is centuries-long high fashion, because King Helseth in the expansion for Morrowind also wore similar robes.
  • Sinderion (the Nirnroot guy from Oblivion) makes a posthumous appearance during your search for the Elder Scroll.
  • A comment by the Alchemist Elgrim suggests that Rythe Lathandas, a painter encountered in Oblivion, is still alive and producing Painted Troll Fat (an alchemy ingredient that could only be acquired during the quest related to him).
  • Discussing the Elder Scrolls themselves: "The greatest thief in the world couldn't lay a finger on them!" The fact that nobody would know of the theft of an Elder Scroll is a consequence of the Cowl of the Gray Fox. It was stolen by someone not wearing the Cowl. Then, the owner of the Cowl read the scroll to reveal his own identity, creating a paradox that would allow him to transfer ownership to the person who did steal the scroll, and... well... it gets complicated.
  • One of the random bard instrumentals is a slower, softer version of Daggerfall's shop music.* With the Dragonborn DLC installed, seven of the random background songs on Solstheim are tracks taken directly from Morrowind.
  • Another reference to Daggerfall are the three guardian nebulae, which made their first appearance during Daggerfall's character creation. Their shapes have remained unchanged.
  • The Imperial Shield and the Imperial Light Shield look very much like the Shield of the Crusader and the shield of the Knights of the Nine, respectively.
  • You can find what appears to be the final stand of the Knights of the Nine off the coast of Haafingar.
  • The Imperial Legion armors resemble Roman armor, just as it did back in Morrowind.
  • Ulfgar the Unending, from Bloodmoon, makes an appearance in Sovngarde.
  • You get to kill another Uderfrykte.
  • The final contract for the Dark Brotherhood requires you to sneak into a boat, and make your way from the cargo hull all the way up to the main cabin to assassinate someone there. Just like the very first contract of the Dark Brotherhood in Oblivion.
  • When starting the game as a Breton, Hadvar will guess the player is from Daggerfall (which is only one of High Rock's five kingdoms) and how it is rife with political intrigue. Daggerfall, is of course, the primary setting of The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall, and much of the plot is spent dealing with and untangling the various court intrigues behind the death of King Lysandus of Daggerfall.
  • Sheogorath is loaded with callbacks:
    • When guessing who sent the player, Sheogorath mentions King Lysandus from The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall and Passwall from Shivering Isles. Passwall was originally a spell from The Elder Scrolls: Arena, so basically it's a callback to a town which in turn is already a callback.
    • Sheogorath makes a comment or two implying that he's the Champion of Cyrodiil, since the player becomes him at the end of the main quest of Shivering Isles.
    • He tells the player that he shouldn't have left Haskill (his long-suffering Servile Snarker Chamberlain from Shivering Isles) in charge of his realm for as long as he has, and should they ever find themselves in New Sheoth, they're free to pop round to the palace.
    • He's still threatening to use mortal entrails as a skipping rope, and going on about cheese.
    • The guy who starts Sheogorath's quest is a Bosmer called Dervenin, much like the High Priest of Mania, and the two may or may not actually be the same character.
  • An artifact from the main quest of Morrowind figures into a sidequest of the Winterhold College and can be acquired by the player. Unlike in Morrowind, it can be held without its counterpart, which is not in the game, with no ill effects. Interestingly enough, it still gives a message about you receiving a mortal wound when you first hold it; it just doesn't actually do anything.
  • College of Winterhold players get to visit Labyrinthian during that faction's finale. Labyrinthian was the dungeon in Skyrim where a piece of the Staff of Chaos was held waaaaaay back in Arena. In even more of a Call Back, you go there to find yet another incredibly powerful magical staff, this one intact - and in both cases, a visit to Winterhold's mage guild prompts you to go to Labyrinthian.
  • The smuggler ship Red Wave in Solitude shares its name with a magical Cutlass (Redwave) found on another ship in Oblivion (The Serpent's Wake). Coincidentally, the Dark Brotherhood is involved with both the Red Wave and the Serpent's Wake. You have to kill the captain of the former, while a Dark Brotherhood Assassin murdered everyone on the latter.
  • Cicero's journals mention that he once posed as an obnoxious fan to murder the Arena Champion back in Cyrodiil. Does this remind you of anyone?
  • Remember Immortal Blood and how it ended? Remember Movarth, the vampire hunter? The book was non-fiction, Movarth existed, and he's still around. But he's not a vampire hunter any more.
  • One of the books Esbern wants to take with him is the Annotated Anuad, which first appeared in Morrowind.
  • One Dark Brotherhood client is named Amaund Motierre. He's a relative, possibly a direct descendant, of François Motierre, a client in Oblivion.
  • The quest to find Mehrunes' Razor involves working with and killing a descendant and enthusiast of the Mythic Dawn, the cult which served as the primary antagonist of Oblivion. He keeps a museum of Mythic Dawn memorabilia, including the Commentaries' one and only surviving page of the Mysterium Xarxes, and his notes on the bloodlines holding the pieces of the Razor note that none of the parties involved were involved with the failed expedition that the Champion of Cyrodiil stumbled upon in the Oblivion DLC quest in which said artifact appeared.
  • There is a book giving advice on being a better thief that seems to have been written by the player character from Oblivion. Actually, the Elder Scrolls Wiki prefers to suggest that the writer (named Wulfmare) is a liar who stole credit from The Hero of Kvatch. He IS a thief after all.
  • The location where the main character was captured by the Imperials while crossing the border into Skyrim is likely Pale Pass, which is a pass through the Jerall Mountains between Cyrodiil and Skyrim (this isn't explicitly confirmed in the game, but it makes sense given its proximity to Helgen). The Cyrodiil side of the Pale Pass could be visited during a side quest in Oblivion, which tied heavily into how the Second Empire defeated the first Akaviri invasion and the Akaviri pledged their loyalty to Reman Cyrodiil and his descendants. The follow up to those events (Sky Haven Temple, Alduin's Wall, the Blades) factors greatly into the adventure of the Skyrim PC.
  • There are many references to Queen Barenziah, an NPC appearing in Daggerfall and Tribunal, featured in the Thieves' Guild. Barenziah's crown is the object of a long, long quest chain. The term "Nightingale" in conjunction with Queen Barenziah dates to the events of Arena, where a bard under that name gets the location of the Staff of Chaos by seducing her. The Nightingales Vol. 2 reveals that this was not Jagar Tharn as previously thought, but one of Nocturnal's Nightingales, and that current Nightingale Karliah is Barenziah's granddaughter through this union.
  • In Dawnguard, you can meet Jiub, the first NPC the player meets in Morrowind. He prefers to be called "Saint Jiub, the Eradicator of the Winged Menace", referencing the rumor in Oblivion he was given a sainthood for destroying the Cliff Racers.
  • In Dragonborn, the Dragonborn travels to the island of Solstheim from the Bloodmoon expansion of Morrowind, and encounters a massive swarm of nods to that expansion. The player can visit Raven Rock and enter the mine (and find the Bloodskaal Blade again too), Stalhrim equipment is back, Fort Frostmoth and Skaal Village can be visited, and even a couple characters return.
    • Dragonborn also contains a very random, rather odd Call-Back to Morrowind in the form of the Wizard, who has no other name. He can be randomly encountered muttering about how he can "touch the sky like a dragon," and as you approach, he suddenly activates a levitation spell which launches him into the sky. According to the Elder Scrolls Wiki, he's a Call-Back to the Morrowind character Tarhiel, who had similar notions. Sadly, neither character put much thought into how to land, with the expected lethal results. It is possible to cushion his fall with Unrelenting Force, and despite him becoming hostile, he does nothing besides flinching when attacked.
    • One of the quests on Solstheim tasks you with locating Torkild, a lost Skaal hunter who has become a werebear. When you find him, it turns out his condition has taken a toll on his mind and he only speaks gibberish before attacking you. This is a reference to how generic werewolf NPCs in Bloodmoon were likewise mentally unstable and had names like "Gibbering Lunatic" and "Insane Wanderer".
  • In Dawnguard, the three common types of skeletal foes in the Soul Cairn are the Boneman, Mistman, and Wrathman... just as they were named in Battlespire.
• Calling Your Attacks: Justified when it comes to the Dragon Shout powers — the dragons aren't using traditional Breath Weapons, they are using the "Thu'um" to call elemental attacks into being. So they don't just breath fire and ice, they shout words relating to fire and ice and will them to manifest as attacks. The player's Thu'ums likewise require them to call out the words of a Thu'um to call on its powers. As stated by the game's own lore: "A battle between two dragons is actually a deadly verbal debate."
• Call on Me: The Dragonborn learns this from the dragon Odahviing near the end of the main quest, and in the Dawnguard DLC you learn another, Durnehviir.
• The Cameo: Thanks to collaborative DLC from Valve and Bethesda, the Space Core from Portal 2 can be picked up as an item just outside of Whiterun. You can also spot Wheatley from the same game floating about in the Skills Menu.
• Cannibalism Superpower:
  • Werewolf perks are unlocked by eating the hearts of the humans you kill. Taking the Savage Feeding perk extends this to animals. Feeding also heals you, since werewolves don't regenerate HP, and extends the duration of the transformation by 30 seconds.
  • The Ring of Namira also allows the wearer to feed on corpses to obtain a bonus to health and regeneration thereof.
• Canon Immigrant: Many concepts in the "Obscure Texts," which were originally posted on the message boards by Michael Kirkbride and others, made it into the game:
  • The idea that the current timeline is but one "kalpa" brought about after the previous one was eaten by a world-eater.
  • Ysgramor and his 500 companions.
  • The concept of "towers" and their effect on the stability of the world.
  • The Dwemer were very much into music and tuning reality.
  • Heimskr recites part of the Obscure Text describing how Talos transformed Cyrodiil from a jungle to a forest.
  • Not outright stated, but the Thalmor's actions fit all too well into the goals laid out in an "Altmeri Commentary on Talos".
• Can't Catch Up:
  • Most followers are level capped somewhere, meaning that regardless of how far you level up, eventually they'll stop growing along with you, making them cannon fodder. Most also level up more slowly than you do. You can change the code to raise their Cap, and even remove it altogether.
  • Spells, of all things, fall into this. Warriors have a steady gain of strength where wizards spike in power and then plateau, then spike again until they reach master-level spells. Spells don't level with the player the way everything else does. This means that your spells eventually stop being useful even when you have perks to boost their damage by a quarter/a half as everyone else has pools of hitpoints that let them shrug off a blast. Frost spells are hurt the most because you'll be facing a lot of Nords, undead, and mages (as well as Bretons in the Reach) throughout the game, all of whom have resistance or ways to resist the spells.
  • Conjuration spells last longer than other Schools because you can summon two Daedra warriors or Storm Atronachs for as long as you want, but they too are stuck at a set damage.
  • Bound weapons, a sub-set of Conjuration, are very strong (they are Daedric weapons, after all), but since you're "borrowing" them they can't be upgraded or enchanted, meaning they are stuck at their set damage.
• Cap: All skills are capped at 100, although they can be fortified with equipment or potions above this.
  • The skill cap initially created a level cap of 81. The level cap was removed with the ability to mark a skill as legendary (resetting it to the base of 15 and refunded your perks) allowing you to progress further and eventually claim every single perk.
  • The physical damage reduction cap for armour is 80%, or 567 armor rating. Going above this cap has no more effect on damage reduction, although higher armor ratings will still display as if they were actually doing something.
• Career-Ending Injury:
  • The infamous "arrow in the knee" incidents, to the guards. They all share a pool of random sentences, which any of them can say. One of those is the page quote, making it sound like this is the backstory for every single guard. An alternate line spoken by a Stormcloak soldier is that he took a sword to the chest which forced an end to his adventuring career. Parodied in the Dragonborn DLC, where a Khajiit NPC will mention he also used to be an adventurer...until he found a ball of yarn.
  • There's also Angrenor Once-Honored, who used to be a Stormcloak soldier before getting stabbed through the chest by an Imperial soldier.
• Carnivorous Healing Factor:
  • When you are in werewolf form, you can eat bodies, which fills up some of your health bar and lets you stay in werewolf form longer.
  • The Ring of Namira allows its wearer to eat from corpses, increasing their health and health regeneration for a period of time.
• The Casanova: Mikael in Whiterun. He's apparently generally successful but has set his latest sight on a widowed single mom raising her daughter, who very much wants him to leave her the hell alone. You can offer to make him back off, which can be done by beating him senseless or persuading him. He'll offer the PC some relationship advice (women love sonnets). He's even written a book, A Gentleman's Guide to Whiterun, which mostly goes on about the women that live there and whether they are available or not, how to court them, et cetera. The book even makes special mention of said widowed single mother, requesting that the reader not approach her because he wants her for himself!
• Cash Gate:
  • Several bandits try to invoke this on you with a "user's tax". You can either pay the "tax" or smash their heads in.
  • Several of the quests in Skyrim can only progress if you fork over a considerable sum of money. Sold the scroll to Urag at the end of the main quest? Gotta pay up almost 50% more than what he gave you to get it back for Dawnguard.^note If you are Arch-Mage, however, you can insist that he sell it back for the same amount. Want the title of Thane? Gotta buy some property (usually starting in the thousands). The side quest ones will likely hinder you for the majority of the game, but once you've reached a high enough level, flawless gems and dragon bones will pave your way, since they sell for thousands and are very common at higher levels.
  • In the Dragonborn add-on, the quest "Unearthed" is essentially a series of these under the guise of funding the excavation of a Nordic crypt. Finance the dig, kill the Draugr that the miners have disturbed, and repeat about 3 or 4 times, with each required sum of gold being somewhat more costly than the last.
  • If the player wishes to become Thane of The Rift, Eastmarch, Haafinger, or The Reach, they must buy the property for sale in the capital of said hold - not so bad in the case of The Rift^note Honeyside, available for 5000 Septims, a bit challenging in the cases of The Reach^note Vlindrel Hall, available for 8000 Septims and Eastmarch^note Hjerim, available for 9000 Septims, but very hard for Haafinger^note Proudspire Manor, available for 25000 Septims, the most expensive house in the base game.
• Cassandra Truth: One of M'aiq the Liar's comments is a thinly-veiled complaint about this. Made more funny when you realize he actually is (semi-)right about some things he says (like some of the dragons just hiding, as documents from the Blades reveal).
• Cast from Hit Points: 'Equilibrium' is a hard-to-find Alteration spell that converts Health into Magicka. Its description openly warns that casting it from low HP can kill you, but there are a few ways to mitigate its health drain (such as the Argonians' racial power Histskin, the Avoid Death perk, or simultaneously casting a healing spell).
• Catch and Return: Theoretically possible, as arrows in flight can be interacted with and picked up, but to do so would require inhuman reflexes. Or you can use the slow time shout. Also both you and your enemies are capable of using arrows that have actually struck (some of the time).
• Cats Are Mean: The game features Sabre Cats (essentially Sabre-toothed tigers), quite possibly some of the meanest cats in video gaming outside of Red Dead Redemption. They're large, quick, powerful enough to take you down in a flash at low levels, and they still prove to be a challenge once you've grown your character. Occasionally they team up with said bears.
• Centipede's Dilemma: The in-game book Death Blow of Abernanit^note With Explains by the Sage Geocrates Varnus details the siege of the fortress of Abernanit and how its commander, Dagoth Thras, slew near an entire army by blocking every single blow that came at him and then killing his foes when they grew tired. The leader of the attackers, Rangidil Ketil, upon realizing that his death was imminent, asked Thras as a last request to explain how he could so perfectly predict every incoming blow. Thras chose to oblige, but upon opening his mouth to explain, realized he didn't know. Upon this realization, Rangidil was able to slay him easily.
• Central Theme: Skyrim actually has quite a few.
  • For the base game:
    • For the main plot of the game itself, there's the inevitability of the past and how it always comes back to loom over the present. Furthermore, there's questioning if the world is actually worth fighting for.
    • Within the Civil War subplot, there's the concept of faith, whether it be religious faith, faith in one's countrymen or nation, or faith in greater principles like freedom or security. What makes a nation or culture what it is, and who gets to decide? When you have two sides in a conflict with legitimate grievances against each other, how do you decide which one to support, and is supporting neither an ethical choice?
    • The overarching theme of the numerous small subnarratives of the game is "What does it take to persevere in the Grim Up North that is Skyrim?"
  • For the Dawnguard DLC, there's the concept of family, though this theme can also be seen in the base game to a lesser extent with the Dark Brotherhood and Companions questlines. Serana's Big, Screwed-Up Family basically self-destructed^note with Lord Harkon becoming Serana's Archnemesis Dad due to his ambition blinding him from his original concern for his family, and Serana's mother Valencia still loving her daughter but refusing to treat her like anything above a pawn to be used against her husband until Serana calls her out on it and a large part of the DLC's story is dedicated to her trying to rebuild her life by in-part forming a Heterosexual Life-Partners-style dynamic with the Dragonborn to replace that resulting void in her life. Similarly, virtually all of the main characters/factions in the DLC have severe issues related to their families, such as the court of Volkihar Castle being full of backstabbing Vampire Monarchs who view each other as an extended family, the Dawnguard being set up as a makeshift family for the Ragtag Bunch of Misfits that fill its ranks, and the Falmer subplot being largely rooted in a one-sided Sibling Rivalry between Arch-Curate Vyrthur and Knight-Paladin Gelebor.
  • And for the Dragonborn DLC, there's Pride. Or, to be more specific, how pride influences people in regards to their enemies and thirst for power, and ultimately whether or not they can look past that. The Last Dragonborn is attacked and further insulted by people who claim they are not the "true" Dragonborn, and is later forced to recognize that they need Hermaeus Mora's help to defeat Miraak. Furthermore, Bujold is reluctant to acknowledge her own shortcomings and weaknesses, whereas the Riekling Chief isn't and both supplicates the Dovahkiin and considers them a threat; and Storn is willing to look past his pride as a Skaal (who have resisted Hermaeus Mora for eons) for the greater good. On the villainous end, Miraak shows more arrogance and hubris than possibly any other character in Skyrim, simultaneously plying the Dragons and then Hermaeus Mora for power, only to immediately thereafter act as if the alliance is beneath him and that he shouldn't need to honor it. He even claims that Alduin is nothing more than an annoyance to him, in spite of it being extremely unlikely he knows how strike at Alduin, and his Evil Plan essentially amounts to escaping to Solstheim so that he can use Mass Hypnosis on first the island's residents and then the rest of Tamriel so as to create an Egopolis befitting his monumental arrogance. On the other hand, Hermaeus Mora shows himself to be extremely humble, giving the Dovahkiin amazing rewards in exchange for their efforts, encouraging them to search his realm for tomes of power and later, in spite of Miraak's treachery, displaying a willingness to work with whichever Dovahkiin comes out alive and, in this conversation at least, barely even taking notice of Miraak's loathing for his present situation.
• Chain Lightning: The middle level lightning destruction spell, which will bounce off the target to other nearby targets (which unfortunately includes any followers you may have). It can also bounce off walls onto enemies, which is a good way to deal with enemies blocking your spells with wards, or who just won't hold still.
• Chain Mail Bikini:
  • Some types of Light Armor act as this, especially the female Forsworn Armor. The skimpiest of the four Fur Armor models would count too — literally giving women a fur bikini top, but only because women can't go around walking shirtless like the men do in the same piece of armor.
  • Falmer armor (a Heavy variety) does this as well... a "chitin-mail" bikini, if you will.
  • Heavy armor zigzags it. While almost every suit of armor completely covers the skin, some suits of armor do have very prominent boob-curves, such as Steel Plate armor, while other suits have them but they're not very noticeable, such as with Iron armor and Daedric armor. Steel and especially Dwarven armor completely avert it, by giving women the same armor models as the men have, only smaller to make them form-fitting (which isn't saying much in the case of Dwarven armor—form-fitting or not, you still walk around in a suit of armor the Brotherhood of Steel would be proud of).
  • The armor that's most played straight with the trope is Ancient Nord Armor. The armor for men consists of heavy steel or iron plates around the torso with a fur under layer. The gauntlets, helmet and boots look similar for women, but the chest piece consists mostly tight leather, with a few much smaller steel plates protecting the shoulders and crotch. There is no back of the armor, either, and you can tell that their bra must have been removed when they put the armor on. It also includes Navel-Deep Neckline, Side Boob, and a miniskirt.
• Chain of Deals: A few times. Especially funny in Cidhna Mine where the final deal can be trading your shiv to the guard rather than killing him with it.
• Changing Clothes Is a Free Action: Since accessing your menu pauses the action, you can change your armor on a moment's notice, even in between enemy weapon swings.
• Changing Gameplay Priorities: Early on, players are likely to spend lots of money grinding and doing menial tasks to acquire potions that restore stamina, magic, and health. That's because at those levels, you'll likely be doing a lot of fighting and find it hard to survive against swarms of enemies without being prepared. Later, priorities will shift into spells and gear that can help you carry a greater load; that's because once you start finding good weapons/armor/valuables, you're going to want to bring everything out of the dungeon with you so that you can sell it or use it for crafting.
• Chaos Architecture: In the Dragonborn DLC, Solstheim is visited once again (200 years later in-universe). There are significant differences in the architecture of the Nordic barrows (which were largely simple stone caves with exteriors composed of megaliths in Bloodmoon), the terrain has become much different (in ways that can't simply be explained by the eruption of Red Mountain and glaciers), and the Thirsk mead hall has completely lost its second floor.
• Character Customization: Choose between ten races, two sexes, and numerous facial biometric options to customize your look, and you're ready to go. Oh, and if you want to change it later, you'll need the Dawnguard expansion, which adds an NPC in Riften who can offer you the service (for 1000G, and not if you're a vampire).
• Charged Attack:
  • The difference between "Fus!" and "FUS RO DAH!" Every shout has three words, and speaking only one word has a minimal effect, with correspondingly short cooldown time, but speaking all three words has a massive, dramatic effect.
  • "Power Attacks" are melee attacks that occur when you hold down the attack button. They tend to do more damage and can break through an opponent who's blocking, but it burns up your Stamina meter.
  • Archery is influenced by how long you hold down the trigger when nocking an arrow. Quickly firing arrows before fully drawing the bow back will not be as powerful or have as much range.
  • Most spells need to be charged briefly before releasing. Once the dual casting perk is unlocked, charging the same spell in both hands results in a massive boost to the individual spell's power (though it comes with a boost to the spell cost as well).
• Charles Atlas Superpower:
  • Theoretically, anyone can use the Thu'um; they just need to be trained by the Greybeards, as Ulfric Stormcloak was. What makes the Dragonborn so special is not merely that they can do it, but that they can do it instinctively, without (years of) training.
  • There are also perks in the warrior and thief skill trees that allow you to do things that shouldn't be possible, like block destructive magic with your shield, steal peoples' clothes while they are wearing them, ignore or reflect damage, vanish in plain view, slow down time when aiming and so on. None of these things are explicitly referred to as magic.
• Chekhov's Boomerang: The game requires you to use an Elder Scroll to learn the one Shout that will allow you to defeat Alduin by time-traveling back to when the Shout in question was invented. Once you're done with it, you can (optionally) haul it up to the College of Winterhold and sell it to Urag gro-Shub for a nice price. Then the Dawnguard DLC comes around, and have fun trying to get your Elder Scroll back...
• Chekhov's Gunman:
  • The first dragon that you see (the one who attacks Helgen) is in fact Alduin himself, there to assassinate you before you gain the power to fight him and his minions.
  • If you travel on the road from Whiterun to Winterhold, you may come across a jester named Cicero whose carriage has broken down, leaving him stuck in the middle of nowhere with the coffin of his mother. This leads to a quick quest where you can either get a nearby farmer to fix his carriage or get Cicero arrested for possibly transporting something illegal. It turns out that Cicero is a member of the Dark Brotherhood and his "dead mother" is the Night Mother, a major figure in the lore of the Dark Brotherhood. This can be subverted by never meeting him before joining the Dark Brotherhood, by never joining the Dark Brotherhood, or by destroying the Dark Brotherhood.
• Chekhov's Skill: At roughly the midpoint of the main quest, you learn the Thu'um Clear Skies, which you use to reach Paarthurnax by clearing away the freezing mist on the Throat of the World. This Shout gets used again in Sovngarde, to clear the Mysterious Mist Alduin has shrouded the place with and provoke him to battle.
• Cherry Tapping:
  • The Hearthfire DLC gives you opportunities for this. You can pick up a low-damage table knife or fork (or both and then dual wield them) or fight with a wooden sword intended to be used as a gift for your children. It can be incredibly satisfying to slay a tough foe with what amounts to a toy sword.
  • Grelod the Kind from the first Dark Brotherhood literally has a single point of HP. She can be killed by throwing something at her, shouting at her, hitting her with a wooden sword or stabbing her with a fork, or punching her once. Bonus points for killing her because it nearly always results in an unarmed finishing move, resulting in the hilarious potential sight of a tiny Breton mage suddenly killing an old woman (possibly mid-speech) with a body slam or a German suplex.
  • In the 'Dawnguard' DLC the player must defeat the seconds antagonist on a balcony. It's meant to be a climactic battle against a formidable opponent — in reality, the duel can be finished in seconds by using the Unrelenting Force shout to knock him off of the balcony.
• The Chessmaster: Hermaeus Mora. The Daedric Prince of secrets and forbidden knowledge manipulates both Miraak and the player character, so that he can finally gain the secrets of the Skaal, something that was kept from him for ages, and determine which of the two Dragonborn is more worthy to be his champion. And he does all of this with just a few brief conversations and two well-executed tentacle attacks.
• Chest Monster: Sleeping Chaurus Reapers curl up in a shape similar to that of a Falmer Chest and can be accidentally mistaken for such.
• Chewing the Scenery: The infamous Heimskr is a priest of Talos who preaches in Whiterun's Wind district. His repeating spiel has been a source of amusement and annoyance for players since day one.

  Heimskr: "We are but MAGGOTS, WRIIITHING in the FILTH of our own CORRUPTION! While you have ascended from the DUNG of mortality, and now walk among the STARS!"

• Chill of Undeath:
  • All undead enemies resist ice magic, some have a weakness to fire, and almost all of them besides the most basic mooks can use ice magic against the player very well. This also extends to the player should they contract vampirism.
  • In addition, Ahzidal's Ring of Necromancy gives the player’s undead summons an additional quality: upon taking damage, the undead creature explodes causing ice damage to whatever is caught in their explosion.
• The Chosen One: The last known Dovahkiin is set to turn the tide against the evil enveloping Skyrim. You are playing as this fabled hero, by the way.
  • The Cyrodiilic word for the Dovahkiin, "Dragonborn," was used in reference to previous agents of massive change in the past: Saint Alessia, the slave queen who led the revolt against the Ayleids; Reman Cyrodiil, the first real "Emperor" of Tamriel; and then later Tiber Septim, the one who managed to unite Tamriel under one banner again after a dark age since Reman's empire. Additionally, Jauffre referred to Martin Septim as "the Dragonborn" after the defeat/banishment of Dagon; it is, though, unclear whether this became widespread. The PC of Morrowind might also have been Dragonborn, if you trust Azura's word on the matter.
  • Exaggerated if you do enough different sidequests. You will learn that no matter which group it is, or what the requirements are, your character is destined to be their new Chosen One. (Examples: Harbinger of the Companions, Arch-Mage of the College of Winterhold, Champion of every single Daedric Prince, Nightingale/Guild Master of the Thieves' Guild, Listener of the Dark Brotherhood.) You don't even have to be very good at their respective disciplines (like you did in Morrowind) - just good enough to survive whatever quests they give you.
• Chromatic Arrangement: The constellation perks reside in color-coded nebulae. Warriors are Red, Mages are Blue, and Thieves are Green. This matches the color-coding of your health, magicka and stamina.
• Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Likely the player character, especially if they do any Daedric quest. In particular, you'll need to do a lot of it if you want to power up Mephala's evil katana.
• Chunky Salsa Rule: Reanimation spells (Raise Zombie, Reanimate Corpse, Revenant, Dread Zombie, and Dead Thrall specifically) will not work on decapitated targets, no matter how powerful the spell is.
• Citadel City: The game carries of the tradition of walled cities from Oblivion. Not all the walls are in top condition — Whiterun's outer defenses are crumbling and neglected — but if you get involved in the civil war that's gripped the province, you'll find yourself testing multiple cities' defenses.
• City Guards: As per Elder Scrolls game tradition. Their AI has improved further over Oblivion's dull-witted guards, but they're still prone to some ludicrous behavior...
• City Noir:
  • Windhelm has the imagery of the setting down. The city is a maze of streets, Fantastic Racism is allegedly official government policy, and there's a Serial Killer on the loose. Banditry is apparently common in the countryside, and unless the victims are Nords, Ulfric allegedly refuses to assist (although banditry is fairly common problem throughout Skyrim, so Eastmarch isn't singled out or anything). Brunwulf Free-winter is one of the only men around looking for ways to change the city for the better. Also, while commerce is still existent in Windhelm's Merchant Quarter, Free-winter (upon becoming Jarl if Ulfric is killed) states that the coffers are short on funds, implying that, for Ulfric, the war against the Empire previously took precedence over the proper administration of the hold.
  • Markarth. You walk in and witness a murder (or take action and thwart it), right next to a guy selling dogs for fights, and another guy who is selling very suspicious meat. It is revealed to be a broken society in which an urban underclass is brutally oppressed by a corrupt elite, the architecture is virtual art deco, and there are oh so many dark secrets lurking within its walls.
  • Then there's Riften, a perpetually foggy city of canals whose seedy underbelly houses its most thriving industry. You drop even the cheapest of items - a cabbage, for instance - and it causes a riot. Thieves roam the streets, and all of the street merchants can be killed. On top of it all, the person who is tasked with fixing this madness, Maven Black-Briar, is in with the Guild, and has the Jarl (if she herself is not the Jarl, which may happen at the end of the war) wrapped around her finger by pretending she is working on taking down the Thieves' Guild. If you hang around Laila long enough while she is still Jarl, you can see Maven threaten to take her Meadery, Riften's biggest 'legit' business, elsewhere if Riften doesn't pay up.
• Civil War: One of the central plot points, between the Stormcloaks and the Empire. Before the events of the game, Ulfric Stormcloak the Jarl of Eastmarch invoked an ancient Nordic custom to challenge High King Torygg (who Ulfric saw as an ineffectual puppet) in a Duel to the Death, and won. The "Old Holds" in eastern Skyrim (Eastmarch, the Rift, the Pale and Winterhold) where Nord values still hold much sway by and large supported Ulfric, whereas the civilized and Imperialized holds in western Skyrim (Haafingar, Falkreath, Whiterun, the Reach and Hjaalmarch) do not recognize Ulfric's legitimacy and see him as a criminal; Torygg's wife Elisif is the replacement Jarl of Haafingar supported by the Imperial authorities and thus technically High Queen of Skyrim. The player may at any point in the story side with either the Empire or the Stormcloaks to (respectively) bring Ulfric to justice and restore Imperial control or to win Skyrim's independence and install Ulfric as king, and Both Sides Have a Point.
• Civil War vs. Armageddon: The Civil War between the separatist and xenophobic Stormcloaks and the decaying Septim Empire plays an important part in shaping the game's story and atmosphere. However, the main plot line focuses on stopping a Dragon God who is trying to devour the entire world.
• Clairvoyant Security Force: The game tracks each hold's bounties separately, and unless it's really high (say, 1000) the guards within a hold won't immediately arrest you. They will, however, mutter that they recognize you from somewhere, then remember it was a wanted poster if you talk to them. This trope causes a lot of problems when the player is tasked with assassinating targets, for instance during the Dark Brotherhood quests. Unless the player has a high sneak skill and the ability to perform a One-Hit Kill with a bow it is very hard to kill a town dweller without being seen. Sometimes the guards will still turn hostile even if you aren't seen, although you will have no bounty if you can manage to run away without killing them. And as some kind of insult, being detected by your HORSE counts as being caught red handed!
• Clean Dub Name: In the Russian translation of the DLC Dawnguard, Durak's name was changed to Dorak because "durak" means "fool" in Russian.
• Clear My Name: There's a questline in which corrupt guards frame you for murder. You can go to jail and then help the Forsworn natives, creating a distraction so everybody will forget your name or just kill every guard in the city. You'll eventually have to go through the Prison Episode if you ever want to set foot in the Reach again though.
• Climax Boss:
  • Alduin serves as one of these not only for this game, but for the entire Elder Scrolls Series up to this point. As Alduin's wall in Sky Haven Temple shows, the events of the four chronological games behind it (excluding The Elder Scrolls Online as it hadn't been released yet) were all precursors to the return of the dragons, the Skyrim Civil War, and the coming of the Last Dragonborn. The events detailed on the Wall are:
  • The eight broken segments of the Staff Of Chaos that Jagar Tharn used to imprison Uriel Septim VII In Oblivion (The Elder Scrolls: Arena)
  • The Warp In The West and the activation of the Numidium (The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall)
  • The Severing of the Tribunal from the Heart of Lorkhan and the subsequent Eruption of Red Mountain following the descent of the Ministry of Truth (The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind)
  • The Oblivion Crisis, the attempt by Mehrunes Dagon to conquer Nirn (The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion)
• Clipped-Wing Angel:
  • Both the Vampire Lord and Werewolf forms become all but obsolete once you max out your alchemy, smithing and enchanting, as you can make weapons hit for hundreds of damage. Without exploits, you can have a weapon with over 1000 damage, plus from 0 to about 1400 damage from a Chaos enchant.
  • A high-level Player Character can end up doing this by going into Werewolf or Vampire Lord form. While both of these are Disc One Nukes, they cannot use equipment or use weapons and scale poorly with level. For this reason, they can lose a lot of steam at high levels when items created by the Dragonborn using the crafting professions start outshining their capabilities by a long stretch.
• Clockwork Creature: The Dwemer ruins feature numerous clockwork denizens, including spiders and humanoid robots. Their bodies even sometimes yield cogs or gears.
• Coffin Contraband: Discussed. Cicero is trying to transport a coffin containing the remains of 'his mother' to a new crypt, but the wagon loses a wheel outside Loreius' farm. Loreius refuses to help Cicero repair the wagon, citing as one of the reasons that he thinks Cicero could be using the coffin to smuggle weapons and skooma. Cicero is being honest; it's carrying the Night Mother.
• Collection Sidequest: The "No Stone Unturned" quest, in which you must find 24 Stones of Barenziah to turn in to a Thieves' Guild NPC, after which you go to a dungeon to find the crown from which the Stones were originally from. Your reward is a perk that raises the probability of finding gems in treasure chests.
• Collector of the Strange: In the Dragonborn DLC, the Telvanni Mage-Lord and legendary enchanter Master Neloth collects the staffs of Azra Nightwielder, a legendary master of "Shadow Magic".
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience:
  • Imperial soldiers dress in red and Stormcloak soldiers dress in blue.
  • Dragons are different colors based on how powerful they are. Additionally, the "good" dragon, Paarthurnax, is whitish-grey, whereas Alduin the World-Eater is jet black with red eyes.
  • Deep in a Dwemer ruin? Anxious to know what's going to try and kill you next? Look at the lighting: areas that are better-lit with warm-toned (yellow or orange) light will have automatons dominate. Poorly-lit areas with cool tones (bluish-greenish-greyish) are the lairs of Falmer and chaurus.
  • The three girls walking the streets of Whiterun (two without Hearthfire installed) wear blue (Mila Valentia), red (Braith), and green (Lucia) clothes, as an easy way to tell them apart since children in Skyrim tend to all look the same.
• Combat Tentacles:
  • Hermaeus Mora appears in the Dragonborn DLC to personally kill two people with his tentacles, using the Impaled with Extreme Prejudice method.
  • Dragonborn Big Bad Miraak wields a staff that summons tentacles from the ground, wields a sword that turns into a tentacle when he swings it, and randomly sprouts tentacles around him when he is attacked. Appropriate, given that he is a servant of Hermaeus Mora.
  • Lurkers are a fish-like form of lesser Daedra that serve Hermaeus Mora. They have these both in the form of a stream of tentacles coming from their mouths and a stomp that causes poisonous tentacles to appear.
• Comically Small Bribe:
  • It quite easy to get away with killing Thalmor solely provided you can pay a measly forty gold fine (for littering no less). This is an in-universe insult to the Thalmor more than anything. Murdering other people comes at a much higher price.
  • If you get caught committing a petty crime in a city where the Thieves' Guild's influence is high, you can pay half the fine for guards to go away. Meaning it's possible to get away with picking a lock by paying two gold or get away with being seen picking a lock (and failing) with nothing but your winning smile.
• Commonplace Rare: All over the place with Alchemy ingredients, several of which are far rarer than they should be.
  • With how many random bandits the player kills, Human Flesh and Human Hearts should be in abundance. They're actually quite rare since no merchant sells them, leaving random loot to find more. In addition, you cannot harvest them from human corpses, even ones that you've killed. Possibly Justified if we assume that the player character doesn't have the guts to butcher another sentient being. Skulls can't be looted from dead humanoids either, though that's less annoying since skulls are useless unless you want to decorate your house.
  • Powdered Mammoth Tusk is very rarely sold by merchants. With all the mammoths in the game, you can collect dozens of tusks, but there's no option to grind them down into the alchemy ingredients. This one, however, is explained during The White Phial sidequest: apparently the tusks are so hard that only giants are able to grind them down.
  • Sabre cats are a common enemy type and are a source for finding their teeths and their eyes as an Alchemy ingredient. Instead of looting four teeths and two eyes for a single dead sabre cat, you only find a single one (one eye or one tooth). Sabre Cat Teeth isn't sold by alchemy merchants until you get the Merchant perk (which requires to train Speech to 50).
  • Corundum ore is only found in a handful of dedicated mines, and very rarely out in the world. It's required to make Steel Ingots, making steel literally rarer than gold. No surprise a very common element in crafting mods is alternate ways to turn iron into steel (usually involving charcoal).
  • Only two samples of Spiced Beef can be found in the game; this item cannot be crafted using the cooking mechanic despite both beef and spices being commonplace.
  • Firewood, required to craft ammunition, can be infuriatingly hard to obtain when you need it. It is not sold by merchants, and the large stacks of it you find around the gameworld are mere decorations that you can't take. Instead, you must chop it yourself using a Woodcutter's Axe (axe-type weapons will not work), which isn't sold by merchants either and must be carried around if you intend to chop wood regularly, as many wood-chopping blocks don't have them on hand. The weight of firewood makes carrying a large stockpile of it impractical, and to top it all off, some of the wood-chopping blocks are only decorative and can't actually be used. NPCs, of course, can pull a Woodcutter's Axe or any other required tool out of hammerspace when they need to gather a resource.
• The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard:
  • Sometimes the enemy can sidestep pretty quickly to dodge your arrow (or spell) when you fire one at them. Even if they haven't detected you first.
  • The pitch darkness in the Falmer caves of Dawnguard cannot be penetrated by night vision or light spells, even if you have them.
• The Computer Is a Lying Bastard:
  • The loading screens occasionally mention that bears are docile, and will not attack unless provoked. This is completely untrue, as bears are not only hostile on sight, they will often chase you down before you even see them.
  • In a good way here. You are told that the Black Star (obtained by giving the Broken Azura's Star to Nelacar instead of to Azura) can only absorb black^note Sentient humanoid creatures souls, but it can actually absorb white^note animals and certain lesser Daedra souls as well.
  • The in-game book Notes on the Lunar Forge hints that weapons with the Lunar enchantment can be made at the titular Lunar Forge if the moons' phases are right. However, the Lunar Forge is mechanically identical to every other common forge in the game, and the only way to make weapons with the Lunar enchantment is to disenchant one of the Lunar weapons found around the Forge and then placing the enchantment on ready-made weapons. Not only that, but the enchantment itself is bugged without unofficial patches and doesn't actually increase the weapon's damage output as it should.
• Conlang: The Dragon language is a Re Lex of English.
• Conspicuously Public Assassination: Many of the Dark Brotherhood quests expects you to do this (one of your Brothers actually recommends this as a tactic), particularly if you want the bonus. Executing the Emperor's cousin during her wedding is best done while she's addressing the crowd, and can be done in a number of ways that will ensure you're seen, including stabbing, fireballs, sniping her from across the yard, or dropping a stone gargoyle on her.
• Conspiracy Placement: The Thieves' Guild uses "shadowmarks": glyphs inscribed in various places all over the map to indicate things like safe houses, escape routes, places with abundant loot, etc.
• Context-Sensitive Button: The control to place an item in a container is the same as to pick up EVERYTHING in the container, depending on whether your are taking or adding things.
• Continue Your Mission, Dammit!: Prior to the game's v1.6 update, after picking up Meridia's Beacon, she would give the player daily reminders to go take it to her shrine at Mount Kilkreath.
• Continuity Nod:
  • The song "Ragnar the Red" has a verse in which a shieldmaiden says, "...I think it's high time you lie down and bleed!" before chopping off the titular character's head. The verse makes fun of the line "This Is the Part Where... you fall down and bleeeed to death!" often used by NPCs in combat of the series' previous entry, Oblivion.
  • Sometimes, in combat, Sven (one of the companions you can hire) shouts "This is the part where you fall down and bleed to death!" Erik the Slayer shouts it as well.
  • The Blades play a big part in the story and the Thalmor want them dead. As Cloud Ruler was the main base of the Blades, it gets a mention as having been almost completely destroyed giving that little sub-plot a Downer Ending.
• Contract on the Hitman: Emperor Titus gets posthumous revenge, not by having his assassin killed, but by asking his assassin to kill the man who wanted him dead.
• Contractual Boss Immunity:
  • Tsun, the old Nordic god of "trials against adversity" and shield-thane of Shor, must be fought in Sovngarde to prove one's worthiness to enter Shor's Hall of Valor. He is completely immune to any stagger, knockdown, paralysis, or disarm attacks. If he falls into the chasm beneath the Whalebone Bridge, he'll reappear and exit from the Hall of Valor to continue the fight.
  • Mehrunes' Razor has a small chance of insta-killing an opponent with any given strike, up to and including even Alduin and the Ebony Warrior. However, Miraak, the Evil Counterpart Big Bad of the Dragonborn expansion, and Karstaag, the spirit of the Giant Space Flea from Nowhere from Morrowind's Bloodmoon expansion who can be fought as the Optional Boss of an unmarked quest, are both immune to the insta-kill chance of the Razor.
• Convection, Schmonvection: In the Dawnguard DLC, this is averted to a degree. The DLC adds a quest chain that eventually leads the Dragonborn to the mythical Aetherium Forge, half of which is flooded with lava. Standing near it is harmless, swimming in it predictably deals massive amounts of fire damage, but hovering over it (possible with the Vampire Lord form or certain items) will also kill any character without very high fire resistance in short order. The dungeon's Final Boss, a unique Dwemer Centurion, emerges from this lava sea, something that's actually justified by the thing being the only one of its kind to be immune to fire damage; it's even visually distinct for a short time because it looks like its metal shell is glowing with heat.
• Convenient Weakness Placement: The penultimate boss in the Dawnguard DLC is fought at the top of a high balcony, and the battle starts with him right up against the railing. Considering the first Thu'um you unlock is Unrelenting Force and it requires only meagre progression into the main storyline... well, you do the math.
• Cooking Mechanics: For the first time in the series, food is different from alchemical ingredients and can have a plethora of effects, from Health Food to "poor man's" potions with various other effects, depending on the item in question. There are several mods available for each game that add in additional recipes for the player to cook, and to make any attempt of cooking adding a bit to Alchemy experience.
• Cool Horse:
  • A certain horse from a certain previous entry (Shadowmere) makes a comeback, complete with an awesome introduction.
  • Frost, the only other horse obtained from questing, is not invincible; but he's stronger and even more aggressive than regular horses, and won't hesitate to charge enemies. His grandsire is named Sleipnir, the name of the eight-legged steed of the Norse god Odin, and his sire is Grane, the offspring of Sleipnir and the horse of Sigurd, the legendary dragon slayer of the Poetic Edda and The Saga of the Volsungs.
  • Arvak, the purple flamed black skeletal horse from the Dawnguard expansion. He's not invincible either, but since he's a summoned creature instead of a regular mount, you can just conjure him right up again.
• Cool Old Guy: The Greybeards, Esbern, and Felldir the Old.
  • Special mention must be given to the leader of the Greybeards, Paarthurnax: he's old even by dragon standards, and doesn't even hesitate to try and buy you some time by taking on Alduin himself. In single combat.
  • Although he's not as old as the above examples, Brunwulf Free-Winter is an aging, wary war veteran who happens to be the nicest guy in Windhelm. He ultimately becomes its Jarl should you choose to side with the Empire against the Stormcloaks; even while not Jarl, he's actively (though quietly) trying to improve things for the disenfranchised minority races in the hold.
  • Vignar Gray-Mane is a former Companion, was a commander in the Imperial Legion for thirty years. If the Stormcloaks take over Whiterun, he becomes the new Jarl and he rules quite competently and with the wellbeing of his citizens in mind. Even though he looks in his late sixties, he looks like he could still pick you apart in a sword fight.
  • Even Emperor Titus turns out to be pretty cool. Even if you disagree with the way he runs his empire he does turn out to be the one person in the world who isn't scared of the Dark Brotherhood. That's not to say that he doesn't respect them... in fact, he knows better than his advisors that once the Brotherhood accepts a contract, there's no hiding from them.
  • Kodlak Whitemane, Harbinger of the Companions, is also rather cool. He takes the Dragonborn under his wing almost immediately and offers heartfelt advice and words of encouragement.
  • Galmar Stone-Fist may be an old man, but he'll kick down those damn walls of Whiterun's with his bare feet anyway. He's also the one of the best warriors in the Stormcloak army aside from a Stormcloak Dragonborn and Ulfric.
  • Tolfdir, though very forgetful, is among the friendlier members of the College of Winterhold, constantly showing you respect and support.
  • Calcelmo, in Markarth, is about as forgetful as Tolfdir, but nevertheless a nice guy and appreciative of your efforts - especially if you help him with his secret love for Faleen the housecarl.
• Cool Versus Awesome:
  • Yes, you can become a werewolf, and yes, you can kill a dragon in wolf form. Have fun!
  • The Civil War is essentially The Roman Empire versus Horny Vikings.
  • Once in a rare while you may encounter a dragon fighting a giant. At lower levels, dragons will typically lose^note Giant level range is set at 32, while dragons level up with you. But at higher levels, typically 35+, they will generally make mincemeat out of giants unless they get repeatedly distracted fighting mudcrabs. In any case, it's usually a good idea to take potshots at them and finish off the winner shortly after they defeat their opponent.
  • Even better than killing a dragon as a werewolf: join the Dawnguard as a werewolf and then you can get Werewolves vs. Vampires!
  • In Blackreach, a Giant patrols near a Dwarven centurion in it's cradle. Sneak release the centurion, and inevitably, they'll clash.
  • Also in Blackreach, you can release a centurion and then a dragon, Vulthuryol, nearby. Have fun!
• Copy-and-Paste Environments: While it's mostly averted, the inns in the smaller villages generally look exactly the same, save for placement of tables.
• Cosmic Keystone: According to ancient Aldmeri religious beliefs, Mundus (the mortal plane) is a prison for their souls. Several prominent landmarks in the series, the Crystal Tower, the White-Gold Tower, and Red Mountain, were part of a series of things holding it all together. The reason that the Thalmor (the fascist High Elf political group that rules the new Aldmeri Dominion) forced the Empire to ban Talos worship is because they believe that he is the only thing keeping humanity existent and Mundus from collapsing.
• "Could Have Avoided This!" Plot:
  • According to characters in Solitude, Ulfric's killing of Torygg was unnecessary, considering that Torygg looked up to Ulfric and would have been willing to declare independence had Ulfric simply encouraged him. Of course, from Ulfric's point of view, he needed to send a message to the other Jarls.
  • It gets worse with the knowledge that the main reason for the rebellion, the Talos ban, is poorly enforced at best by the Empire, and in fact the only "enforcement" is that the Empire has no power to stop the Thalmor from doing anything. Jarl Elisif, whom the Stormcloaks consider an Imperial puppet, asks the player to take a memento of her husband to an altar of Talos as part of his burial. Whiterun, a city with a Jarl who is staunchly pro-Empire, has a shrine to Talos in its park with a preacher who openly evangelizes all day long without a single comment from the guards. Even the Empire looks the other way if you dispatch a Thalmor right in front of an Imperial Legion soldier, only slapping you with a paltry 40 gold fine.
  • Miraak sending assassins after the Dragonborn before he had truly escaped to the Mundus could be construed as this. He does make a comment about absorbing the PC's soul, which suggests it might have been a requirement for escaping, so....
  • Delphine interrupting the Dragonborn's Fetch Quest for the Greybeards and asking that they accompany her to slay the Dragon about to be resurrected in Kynesgrove, before she will properly introduce herself and explain precisely what she wants from them. She does, however, justify this by admitting she was afraid that the Thalmor were using the rumor of a Dragonborn as Schmuck Bait to lure any ex-Blades from hiding. For her own protection, she conspired to steal the Horn of Jurgen Windcaller, knowing that the Greybeards would send the Dragonborn to retrieve it, and she needed to witness the Dragonborn actually slaying and absorbing the soul of a Dragon before she knew she could trust them.
  • On the flipside of the Civil War, if the Imperial Captain at the start of the game had Ulfric be the first person executed (or at the very least, had arranged for him to be executed before the player), the Civil War would've been resolved right there.
• Coup de Grâce Cutscene:
  • If you have the perks for it. Also, finishing moves which randomly trigger.
  • Special mention goes to one-hit stealth kills. Against a humanoid enemy who's not doing anything special (sitting, doing alchemy, etc), backstabs, at least with a bladed weapon, will reliably trigger the player reaching up from behind, covering the victim's mouth and slicing said victim's throat. Somehow, this works even with a giant shield on one hand and a big glowing Bound Sword in the other.
  • In the Dragonborn DLC, you end up having to dispose of Master Neloth's previous apprentice, whose heart he replaced with a Heartstone. It drove her mad and she has it out for Neloth now. When you kill her, you get a surprising killcam animation of ripping her Heartstone out.
• Cowardly Boss: The first time the player goes to the ruin known as Hag’s End, they will encounter a hagraven. Every time the hagraven loses a quarter of her health, she will teleport herself deeper into the dungeon until she gets to the end with a quarter of her health left, at which point she can be killed.
• Cowardly Mooks: Human enemies such as bandits will sometimes get scared of you and run away if you inflict enough damage.
• Crapsack World:
  • Two centuries later, Tamriel has still not recovered from the Oblivion Crisis. The Empire is falling apart, the Nords are in civil war, Elsweyr and Black Marsh have seceded, and what parts of Morrowind that weren't destroyed following the eruption of Red Mountain and the fall of the Ministry onto Vivec have been invaded by the Argonians. The Dark Brotherhood and the Thieves' Guild pervade Skyrim to the point of being the de facto government in some cases, and it should be pointed out that both organizations are suffering from a slow decline. Oh, and the world's about to be eaten by dragons.
  • In the game itself, you'll run into multiple situations which show you Skyrim is no fun place to live. Many of the cities you visit either have an incompetent or, even worse, corrupt ruler. As a result, more than a few cities are Wretched Hives plagued by large amounts of crime, Fantastic Racism, and in some cases even government conspiracies. To make matters worse, in many of these cases, there is nothing you (the player) can do about this. Also, many people like to remind you that the civil war is ruining their lives in at least some way.
• Crate Expectations:
  • Every building seems to have a basement filled to the brim with crates and barrels full of vegetables. Inverted during a certain Thieves' Guild quest, when you get to kill someone by placing poisoned fruit in a barrel.
  • There is a mod that allows you to assemble simple chests, ornate chests, drawers, closets, barrels, safes... And crates. While all of these allow you to store items, crates can be stacked and then used as makeshift stairways.
• Crazy-Prepared: The Dragonborn is suited to be like this. While nearly all means of survival can be replicated with spells, hoarding potions is a great way to survive. Low on health or magicka? Chug some potions. Diseased? Chug potions. Water breathing? There's a potion for that. Need to be more liked by people? Potion for that. Need help in a fight? Slight twist here: there's a scroll for that. Need someone to start the fight instead of you? Again, scroll. Need to carry more loot? Potions and scrolls. And this isn't even bringing enchantments into play.
• Create Your Own Villain: With a touch of Laser-Guided Karma for good measure. Beneath the earth of Skyrim dwell a race of hideous monstrosities, the Falmer, who grow bolder and more dangerous; experts in-game fear they are massing to attack the Nords - the surface dwellers of Skyrim - in genocidal hatred. Where did they come from? They're the devolved, degenerate Slave Race of the extinct Dwemer, once a thriving elven civilization on the surface. How did they become slaves of the Dwemer? They all fled to the Dwemer... after the ancient Nords began slaughtering them all. (There's plenty of in-universe controversy and mystery surrounding whose "fault" it is that the ancient Falmer and Nords were at war with each other in the first place, but that the Nords won and forced them to turn to the Dwemer is firmly established.)
• Creature-Hunter Organization:
  • The Dawnguard, in the DLC Dawnguard, is an organization of Vampire Hunters.
  • In the main game, the Silver Hand are a mercenary company dedicated to wiping out werewolves in Skyrim. Unfortunately, they use ruthlessly inhumane tactics, turning what might have initially been a well-intended purpose into a virtual bloodbath. They will notably attack the Dragonborn whether or not they're a werewolf, so it appears that whatever its purpose might have once been, the group is now little more than a bunch of bandits who just have a predilection for hunting down werewolves (or that they have grown so paranoid that they will attack anyone on the mere shadow of a suspicion that the person may be a werewolf).
  • Also in the main game, the Vigilants of Stendarr count, since they hunt everything related to daedra. In addition to dremora, atronachs, witches, and various other cultists, this notably includes both vampires (the spawn of Daedric Prince Molag Bal) and werewolves (created by Daedric Prince Hircine), so there is overlap with the former two organizations. Sadly, they are woefully unprepared to fight vampires, as shown when their Hall is razed by the Volkihar. Additionally, if the player is a vampire, they will not recognize that, while the Dawnguard will. (They will also not attack a player for being a werewolf, unless they witness the player transforming, while the Silver Hand will; but since the Silver Hand will also attack a player who is not a werewolf at all, it's hard to give them any credit there.)
• Creepy Camel Spider: The frostbite spiders are clearly modeled on camel spiders, but appearance is as far as the resemblance goes as, unlike camel spiders, frostbite spiders are venomous — they can spit their venom, for that matter — and spin webs. They also tend to jump on top of the player to attack them and are often found alongside the desiccated corpses of their victims.
• Creepy Child:
  • Babette, a cheerful, joke-telling little waif who has the most adorable lisp... because she's a vampire. Oh, and she's a member of the Dark Brotherhood. She even jokes about how her appearance helps her. The first time you enter the Sanctuary after joining the Brotherhood, she's telling a story about how she led a creepy old man into an alley for dinner.
  • Aventus Aretino. Though his tone is a perhaps a little too whiny, the fact that he's going through with the Black Sacrament (using his mother's flesh) speaks for itself. The way that the rest of the kids from the Honorhall Orphanage cheer on the Dark Brotherhood following their headmistress's assassination might make them all qualify for this, except that Grelod is undoubtedly an Asshole Victim and the kids are justifiably relieved to be free from her abuse and cruelty.
  • Nelkir, Jarl Balgruuf's son, at first simply seems to be a little moody or angsty, behaviors one might consider somewhat normal in a child. You later discover, however, that he's like that because he's discovered personal, corrupting secrets floating around Dragonsreach. It all being Mephala's doing sums it all up.
• Creepy Uncle: Astrid of the Dark Brotherhood had one of these, who made certain "unwanted advances" toward her. He became her first kill.
• Crime of Self-Defense: If you're a member of The Dark Brotherhood (a cult of assassins) and on assignment, you can confront your mark and threaten them, which sometimes prompts them to attack you in defense. If any guards are around, they will attack this person who's obviously the instigator, and won't trouble you if you fight back. It's all a matter of who attacks first.
• Critical Existence Failure: Some enemies will stop and kneel down when at low health, but otherwise enemies will continue acting as normal until their health hits zero, at which point they stagger away and collapse in a heap. This can be particularly amusing in a handful of scripted events where enemies are attacked and killed; the first such instance is in Bleak Falls Barrow, where a bandit triggering a trap will flick the switch, stand up and hold still as arrows rain down on him, then suddenly fall over when they kill him.
• Critical Hit: Perks available to bows, swords/greatswords, and daggers (as well as certain items in specific) have chances of doing bonus damage — and their effects generally stack. A "critical strike" message will appear any time one happens in combat. With a very specific combination of the Shrouded Gloves, equipped daggers, stealth perks, and the Critical Charge perk, it's possible for a critical stealth attack to do up to 60x the damage of a simple swipe.
• Crosshair Aware: Enemies both human and animal are quite aware in this regard. Wild animals like deer and elk will zigzag as they run away to avoid arrows and spells, and enemy archers will move back and forth between shots to dodge return fire. It's also not uncommon for an enemy to suddenly FlashStep as you fire a spell or an arrow, moving to the side in a split second to avoid your attack. This can happen even if you're in Sneak and the opponent hasn't spotted you.
• Crossover:
  • For the opening of the Skyrim Steam Workshop, Valve released a mod featuring the Portal 2 Space Core.
    "Archery, hmhmm. Smithing, hmm. Don't need 'em, yep, yep. Go to space. Space. Only skill you need."
  • The Nintendo Switch version of Skyrim allows players to obtain items from The Legend of Zelda series using that line of amiibo figures. They can still be found elsewhere in the game, though.
• Crown of Power:
  • Downplayed with the Aetherial Crown, which allows the Dragonborn to have permanent access to the passive abilities granted by two Power Stones (as opposed to just one), which gets significantly enhanced if the Dragonborn is vampire with the Necromage perk.
  • Also downplayed with the fully assembled Crown of Barenziah. Once activated (it cannot be worn), it merely influences the Dragonborn's luck by increasing the chances of them finding valuable gems in any container, including Draugr corpses, bizarrely.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: Lord Naarifin, the Thalmor general who occupied the Imperial City, was apparently kept alive for thirty-three days, hanging from the White-Gold Tower.
• Cruelty Is the Only Option: In short, the game is so structured that while excessive cruelty is not really required to beat the main quest, the main quest is itself a very small part of the game as a whole, and the player is practically stuck with only half a game if they choose to play a Dragonborn who's actually a decent person.
  • The more vicious Daedric Princes order you to do horrible things for their artifacts (and you need to get all of them for an achievement). They usually involve betraying a companion or leading a good person to a horrible death. The less said about the things Namira, Molag Bal, Boethiah, and Vaermina demand of you, the better. That said, all of those are sidequests, and therefore don't have to be completed by the player unless you really want the rewards... although, the in-game rewards for these quests are good. Really damn good. Namira and Vaermina's quests, at least, can be intentionally "failed" if you're not quite ready to step over the Moral Event Horizon. In Vaermina's quest in particular, many players have flat out found themselves unable to complete it and therefore miss out on the "Oblivion Walker" achievement because it involves betraying the very likable Erandur.
  • Thieves Guild: There are three achievements tied to completing the guild questline. By the time the guild questline has finished, the player will have robbed at least dozens of innocent people of items and money worth thousands and thousands of gold. It's not killing people, but it's still loathsome. Furthermore, the way the game works encourages the player to rob people blind, as theft is by far the simplest and easiest way to get material goods you want or need.
  • The Civil War Questline, another three trophies. While plenty of people have no qualms about supporting one side or the other after looking at the situation fully, others see a situation with no good choices, only "less horrible" ones. Much like real wars in that respect, yes, but still depressing.
  • The Dark Brotherhood questline has another three achievements. And the Dark Brotherhood is, not to put too fine of a point on it, a quasi-cult that listens to a mummified corpse of the bride of the void god Sithis, who tells them which people to kill. The player's kills, if they follow this questline, include a man driven to insanity from his sister's death and a bride on her wedding day, among others. The player character is encouraged further to do these despicable things by great in-game rewards, such as access to Shadowmere. This one at least has a slightly non-evil ending available; if you kill the member of the Brotherhood who kidnapped you at first (yes, still killing, but she's an unrepentant assassin trying to force the player to kill one of three people, two of which are totally innocent, and she doesn't care about the choice so much as the murder), you instead get a quest to wipe out the Dark Brotherhood — still violent, but probably for the good of the world.
  • There's an achievement for having a bounty of at least 1000 gold in all nine holds simultaneously, for which the player must get caught doing horrible things — for example, killing people. And then there's an achievement for escaping from jail, which of course requires going there in the first place. These, at least, can be acquired by — just as an option — assaulting chickens rather than actually hurting people. Or for the jail one, you can simply try to pick a lock when a guard's nearby, for a 5-gold bounty.
• Crutch Character:
  • The game allows you to make your main character into one: The Khajiit race has claws which give them a sizable hand-to-hand damage bonus that make mincemeat out of any enemy you'll encounter in the early game. They are stronger than any sword available at low levels and strike quite quickly as well. However, they have two drawbacks: Firstly, there are very few ways to upgrade their damage with more gear, with only a particular set of gloves found during a particular quest providing any boost at all. Secondly, unlike previous games in the series, there is no Unarmed skill. Thus, the claws stay at exactly the same power they started with, the skill XP you would have gotten drains into a black hole, and when you finally switch over to another weapon, you have to train it up from the starting level. Ouch.
  • Faendal is a potential follower you encounter in Riverwood and can recruit after completing his simple Romance Sidequest. He's an adept level archer who can shoot down low-level bandits and draugr with ease, making the nearby Bleak Falls Barrow dungeon much easier as well as the trip to Whiterun. As a bonus, he can train you in Archery. As long as you can cover the initial cost, you can pay him for training and then access his follower inventory to recover your gold, making him a very easy way to boost your Archery skill and gain quick level-ups at practically no cost. Unfortunately, he falls behind on the power curve quickly and is easily replaced by other followers readily available soon after like Lydia and the Companions.
• Cruelty-Rich Leather: Forsworn are suspected to craft things out of the bones and skin of their victims. Also, a book seen in the Dawnguard DLC, Confessions of a Khajiit Fur Trader, details the life of one who made a shiny septim off a business of it.
• Cthulhumanoid: Dragonborn adds the Lurkers, which look like ten-foot-tall Deep Ones, and Seekers, which look like miniature (but still bigger than the player) floating Cthulhus. Miraak's mask is also shaped to look like it has tentacles.
• Culture Chop Suey:
  • The Nords are primarily based on the Old Norse, but they have sprinklings of other cultures here and there: their burial rites are reminiscent of Egyptian mummification, their warriors go into battle with Celtic-looking face painting, and their ancient religion (correctly) posits that time goes in cycles like real life Hinduism.
  • Redguards are based heavily on the Arabs and the Moors, down to their dress and their curved scimitars^note CURVED! SWORDS! but they have African-American accents and some Redguards also have western names. As their culture is built around a warrior noble class that values skill with the sword, it can also be argued that they also have elements of Japanese samurai as well.
  • Bretons are a mishmash of medieval France and England, with some elements of Renaissance Italy - they have vaguely French names and it is said that High Rock is a hotbed of cutthroat medieval politics and ceaseless warring between noble houses (which would explain why it is the Wild Card province of the Empire, only tangentially aligned with them at the very best of times).
  • The Blades armor set is a mishmash of Japanese lamellar and Roman lorica segmentata. The helmet especially illustrates this: the front looks more like a Legionnaire's helmet while the back cowl evokes something like a Japanese samurai's. This is quite likely an in-universe example — the Blades are descended from an Akaviri (i.e., superficially Japanese-ish) group based in Cyrodiil (i.e., the heart of the Empire, with a centuries-long history of being Roman-ish). Of course their armour would have influences from both cultures.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Due to the way the game's Level Scaling works, the enemies in an area will be scaled to the level you were when you first visited that location. Returning to one of these areas at a much higher level means you can run around killing the now-laughably-easy enemies in this fashion. It can be incredibly cathartic to One-Hit KO a bunch of weak foes after spending hours battling much more difficult enemies. This can also serve a practical purpose if you are trying to increase weak combat skills.
• Cursed with Awesome: There is one — one — statistical downside to being a werewolf: you can't get the minor "rested" bonus to skill progression by sleeping in a bed. That's it. Immunity to disease and the ability to turn into a 300-pound killing machine are pretty nice benefits for such a downside. The fact that Hircine has claim on your soul after you die helps explain why it is still a curse, although since those thus claimed become his chosen servants and hunting companions, it's a matter of opinion more than anything. There's also reason to believe that the Dragonborn's soul cannot be claimed by any of the (d)aedra but Akatosh. And at the end of the main quest, whether you're a werewolf or not, Tsun himself says the Dragonborn will be spending eternity in Shor's Hall. So it remains to be seen.
• Custom-Built Host: In the quest "Blood on the Ice" Calixto Corrium was using the flesh of the women he murdered to make a new body to house his dead sister's soul.
• Cut and Paste Environments: The game skews away from it, going back to a mostly hand-built world with hand-built (though not necessarily unique) dungeons, much like Morrowind before it. For example, once you've visited one Nordic ruin, you've visited them all. Only the layout really changes.
• Cute and Psycho: Muiri, a Breton living in Markarth and working as an assistant at The Hag's Cure, turns out to be this in an early Dark Brotherhood quest. She asks the Dragonborn to kill a bandit leader who took advantage of her to rob Clan Shatter-Shield in Windhelm, as Muiri was close to the family until Alain used her and they cut off all ties with her and cast her out of Windhelm. In addition to wanting revenge on the bandit leader, she also tasks the Dragonborn with the optional assignment of killing Nilsine Shatter-Shield as well, partly out of revenge for the Shatter-Shields turning their backs on her, and in the hope that maybe this will cause the family matriarch Tova to bring Muiri back after both of her real daughters are dead. If you kill Nilsine, Tova commits suicide instead, but Muiri doesn't actually seem to have a problem with this, as making Tova suffer is just as good. She also becomes eligible for marriage this way, so she must REALLY appreciate the Dragonborn's efforts.
• Cut Lex Luthor a Check:
  • The bandits at Halted Springs Camp are trying to use magic to make money. The camp is an iron ore mine, in the mine you find one of their numbers is a mage, and on the nearby table is a Transmute Ore tome (turns iron ore into silver and then silver into gold) lying next to a piece of iron ore and a piece of silver ore.
  • In Ansilvund, a group of necromancers have taken over, and their leader's journal notes they raised the draugr they found earlier to excavate deeper into the ruins. The journal further comments that if the Stormcloaks had the sense to use draugr to fight, they'd have an army plenty large enough to kick the Empire and Thalmor out of Skyrim. Considering you can't swing a battleaxe in the game without hitting some ancient tomb infested with the beings, not a bad idea, the ethics of such aside.
  • In Ustengrav, another group of necromancers have killed a gang of bandits and are resurrecting their corpses over and over to have them excavate the ruin.
• Cutscene Power to the Max: At least one instance when Karliah takes you down. You could be maxed out in console with God Mode enabled but she's going to take you down for plot purposes.
• Cutting Off the Branches:
  • Sheogorath's dialogue implies that he is the Champion of Cyrodiil, so Shivering Isles was canonically completed. Some of his other pieces of dialogue imply that he became both the Gray Fox (completed the Thieves' Guild chain) and the Listener (completed the Dark Brotherhood quest chain).
  • The player found 100 nirnroots for Sinderion, according to the journal you find on his corpse.
  • Given that Clavicus Vile is in a weakened state at the time of the game, it can be inferred that the Champion of Cyrodiil ignored Barbas' warnings and gave Umbra to Clavicus in exchange for the Masque.
• Cutting the Knot: Some of the Apocrypha realms in the Dragonborn DLC have darkness regions that will slowly sap your health. Eldritch light fixtures offer refuge from the darkness... or you can cast a simple Novice-level Alteration spell, Candlelight, and have your own little floating ball of light next to you.
• Cycle of Hurting:
  • Staggerlocks, in melee or magic (with the Destruction perk Impact), will allow the Dovahkiin to inflict the cycle on their enemies.
  • Skuldafn can throw several high-level Draugr at you all armed with full-power FUS RO DAH. If there are others with bows and arrows, you can find yourself being endlessly thrown around like a ragdoll and turned into a pincushion as you try to get up. Your best bet is to try to aim your helplessly flying corpse in a direction away from the shouters, and attempt to flank them.
  • The apogee of locked-into-damage sadism comes with Dragonborn and the Ash Rune spell. It's the only guaranteed paralysis effect in the game - no RNG or magic resist checks, so as long as the enemy type is not immune to paralysis, they're going down. To keep this from being too broken, the enemy cannot be harmed until the effect wears off—but this can still be bypassed: Cast the Ash Rune at the enemy's feet, so they trigger it instantly, then cast another straight-damage rune trap under the enemy's immobilized body. They won't trigger the spell until the paralysis wears off - and once they do, and take the damage, immediately cast Ash Rune as they're getting to their feet, where they will immediately trigger it again. Rinse and repeat until dead. It will take a very long time to kill higher-level opponents this way... but that's part of the fun.
  • Because Dragonrend has such a short cooldown timer even for the full three-word Shout, using just one word can stunlock dragons. They can't take off, keeping them on the ground and within reach of melee weapons, and every blast sends them reeling in a stagger, disrupting any of their own Shouts that they may be in the midst of bellowing.
• Cypher Language: Most of the fantasy languages in written form are this. The text itself is in English, only substituting appropriate characters for the English letters. Justified to an extent, as all books/notes use individual fonts for each style/language.