History NightmareFuel / TheElderScrollsVSkyrim

*** Related to this, guards will often comment on the Mace of Molag Bal, and they're "terrified" at the sight of it:

** Also in blackreach, far in the southeast and away from any entrance to the ruin, there is a part where the ceiling comes down very low. There are Falmer camped there, and if you look around their camp, you find pickaxes by some ore veins where the ground rises to meet the ceiling. Not so scary, right? They're just mining, right? Then you check the world map: that part is almost under the walls of Whiterun. The ore veins lead upwards, and southwards, towards Whiterun. Even if the Falmer are just following the metal, they're digging up towards the center-most capital of Skyrim. Given time, they could dig right into the city. Pleasant dreams.

* [[EvilOrphanageLady Grelod the Kind]] is obviously an abusive monster to the children of Honorhall Orphanage. What makes it worse is the fact that there is a small room in the orphanage with ''shackles on the walls.'' The [[FromBadToWorse implications]] of this are absolutely horrifying, and make Grelod [[MoralEventHorizon even less sympathetic]]. You have to wonder just who it was who gave her the sobriquet of "the Kind" - and why. [Fun fact: In real-world Viking culture, nicknames were often meant to be ironic. A short man might be nicknamed 'the Tall' and so-on.]

** The worst part? She contacts by performing the Black Sacrament, to put a contract ''on herself'', by using ''herself'' as the effigy. Remember what must be done to the effigy for the ritual to carry through, with the candles and the Nightshade, and a dagger through a heart? Not to mention that her soul is to go to the Void for serving Sithis... not as his agent anymore, but as a target, a slave to him. [[RewardedAsATraitorDeserves A slave thrice damned]] for betraying the Five Tenets and for almost dooming the last hold her god had on the mortal plane! And she ''[[{{Determinator}} does]]'' it, nevertheless!

** However, the priest is not exactly innocent. Boethiah makes you '''sacrifice one of your followers''' for her artifact, so Molag Bal commanding you to kill her priest falls firmly into EvilVersusEvil. Besides, his dialogue seems to imply that he had intentionally sought Molag Bal's shrine and defiled it by using it to worship Boethiah instead. With that in mind, Molag Bal's enraged reaction is quite understandable; he does not want the priest`s death, per se. He wants his submission - which is entirely par for the course for the King of Rape.

** Dragonrend and Bend Will. The former is weaponized nightmare fuel for Dragons and the latter makes them slaves to your every whim. Are you still sure you're the hero and not the ''real'' monster of this story, Dovahkiin? Don't forget how they might seem if you leave the Civil War questline til last, after the DLC and decide not to hold back during the fort assaults. The soldiers fighting alongside the Dragonborn may as well not be there as they walk in; armoured in the bones and scales of dragons, wreathed in the spectral armour of the Dragon Aspect shout as a dragon roars overhead before swooping in to fight alongside them? Just seeing this person calmly walking up to the fort should have the whole place on the verge of surrender.
** The very concept of someone as powerful as the Dovahkiin existing is by itself horrifying if you're not on their side, but particularly consider the Slow Time shout for a moment. Time is the domain of Akatosh, considered to be the "boss" God of the Tamrielic pantheon. He is also, in a way, the Dovahkiin's creator, as he is the Father of Dragons. And time, his domain, bends to the Dovahkiin's will. Akatosh himself ''bows to the Dragonborn,'' if only for a moment. Imagine this person, this ''thing'', marching up to you and breaking all known rules of the universe and ripping control over the world out of the Gods' hands for a second, ''to kill you.''

* While it's only accessible via Console Commands, there's the [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Dead Body Clean Up Cell]]. You see, when the important [=NPCs=] die, their bodies don't just despawn, they're transported to this...place. [[https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/elderscrolls/images/b/b9/Dead_Body_Cleanup_Cell.png/revision/latest?cb=20141010224423 A purple and green hallway with two coffins]]. As named or important [=NPCs=] die, their naked bodies are just dumped in here. What's more surreal is a naked, but still alive version of Malborn just...standing there. This version of him exists even if his current self is still alive. The scary part is that this Malborn seems to exist for a single reason: to kill Roggvir if he survives his execution long enough to be taken to the Cleanup Cell, where the clone promptly beats him to death. The only way out is a door that leads straight into a dark abyss of nothingness. While solely there to handle a function and can only be found if the player is actively looking for it, Bethesda seems to have gone out of their way to make it like some nightmarish purgatory out of a creepypasta.

* [[UndergroundLevel Darkfall Cave]] - a completely pitch black cave full of trolls, the aforementioned Chaurus Hunters, and Frostbite Spiders. Early in your exploration of the cave, you come across a thin, rickety, falling apart RopeBridge spanning a ravine with a rushing water current at the bottom. The bridge creaks rather ominously as you pass over, but surprisingly nothing more. On the other side, you find very little and proceed back across... [[JumpScare only for the bridge to collapse and plunge you into the dark abyss.]] You're left at the mercy of the current as it sweeps you through narrow fissures and out into a large cave with just enough light to see several massive Frostbite Spiders falling from the ceiling. And you ''cannot avoid this'' if you want to continue the main quest. First-time players may well scramble for the strategy guide because they think they did something wrong.
** Darkfall Passage may be worse. The primary light sources through most of it are glowing pink flowers that retract when you come near, leaving you in darkness. In addition to the Falmer running around, you have Chauri, including several Hunters and Hunter fledglings, hidden in the carcasses of dead ones that you don't notice until you ''step on them and they burst out'' and you can barely see them in the dark as they're flying around you, so they're hard to hit. And then there's Darkfall Grotto, which gives us Feral Falmer - a naked, blood-splattered, more animalistic variant of Falmer that kills their own kind. On the upside, once you're done, you are rewarded with the (relatively) more serene, absolutely ''gorgeous'' Forgotten Vale, and never have to brave the cave to visit there again.

* The first encounter with [[TheOlderImmortal Miraak]] can be really disturbing. After going down to the depths of his tomb, which is ominous in itself with how large and deep it goes and the Lurker heads and Dragon skeletons along the walls, and you find a mysterious book. Upon reading the book, you are grabbed by tentacles and appear in a strange dimension where you are discovered by Miraak and a couple of Seekers who quickly incapacitate you, and after giving a speech he leaves on his dragon for the Seekers to "send you home" (which, in this world, is by virtually killing you).

* The fact that everything you do in the main story of the DLC in some way helps Hermaeus Mora makes you, depending on your character, anywhere between an UnwittingPawn and an AntiHero. How he kills Storn, the leader of the Skaal, and Miraak is also pretty horrifying, impaling them with his tentacles while giving them a ReasonYouSuckSpeech in a very guttural voice. It almost gives the feeling that no matter how powerful the Dragonborn has become, (s)he is still no more than a pawn to the Daedra.

* Note that Hermaeus Mora isn't necessarily in control of the Dragonborn by the end. Although you end up helping him/it in some ways, the Daedric Prince isn't as all-powerful as he'd like people to think, and is fully capable of misleading people. For one thing, in his Daedric quest in the main game, Mora implies that the Heart of Lorkhan is inside of the locked Dwemer room that Septimus wants to enter, but it really contains Mora's book of knowledge (the Oghma Infinium). On top of that, we have a supposedly all-knowing being needing your help to get knowledge from the Skaal, something that an omniscient entity should not have to do. Next, we have the fact that the Master Telvanni Wizard Neloth says that there's none of the documented signs of Daedric control present in the Dragonborn, such as black spots in the whites of one's eyes. Finally, the ''Elder Scrolls'' games as a whole have been mostly oriented against fate as being absolute and unavoidable. Examples of the series' emphasis on free will include the time the Hero of Kvatch was able to break the Greymarch (which was said to be preordained and repeating once every era); when the dragon Paarthurnax explained that prophecy is only what may be, not what must be; and the fact that Elder Scrolls themselves only become fixed in their writing after the event written on them has come to pass. The only two major sources that speak out in favor of fate as being absolute and preordained are Hermaeus Mora (who is misleading at best), and Azura (technically, a priestess of hers says this). So basically, while Mora might have been helped by the Dragonborn, it isn't clear that he's really pulling the strings.
* Interestingly enough, whether the Dragonborn is under Mora's control or has their soul pledged to him, Mora can never dictate the Dragonborn's fate, as part of the lore surrounding not just the Dragonborn, but any Hero, is that they are unbound from fate, Mora can no more dictate the Dragonborn's fate than he can make them a mere mortal.
* A little and horrible (but very easily missed) detail: The Words for any other shout are almost always carved on rock, as the Word has to actually be seen by the Dragonborn in order to learn it. Well, the third Word for the Bend Will Shout is acquired immediately after the Skaal leader dies and there is no Word visible at the time... or so would you think; the Word for it is carved ON THE DEAD LEADER'S CHEST, briefly giving off a faint green/orange/yellow aura, compared to the blue/white that normal words emanate.

* In the "Ghosts of the Tribunal" creation, something else besides Tribunal worshippers persists, namely Dagoth-Ur's mask containing some residual power, and a follower of his more than happy to use it. Meaning that some of his ash creatures are back aswell, caved in skulls and all, with the follower taking creepy delight in stitching their mouths into smiles.
* For any Arachnophobes, "The Contest" must have been quite shocking with the new Web Mother boss spider, with its grotesque design. Being covered in what seem to be eggs and having blood red mandibles.

* One of the earliest released screenshots for ''Dragonborn'' is... [[http://cdnstatic.bethsoft.com/akqacms/files/tes/screenshots/Seeker.jpg this.]] Ladies and gentlemen, the {{Eldritch Abomination}}s have arrived. Oh yeah, and you see those ''Morrowind'' examples above, about the ash creatures and the other horrific monsters in the game? Yeah, now they're back in full unholy HD.

* While it's only accessible bia Console Commands, there's the [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Dead Body Clean Up Cell]]. You see, when the important NPCs die, their bodies don't just despawn, they're transported to this...place. [[https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/elderscrolls/images/b/b9/Dead_Body_Cleanup_Cell.png/revision/latest?cb=20141010224423 A purple and green hallway with two coffins]]. As named or important NPCs die, their naked bodies are just dumped in here. What's more surreal is a naked, but still alive version of Malborn just...standing there. This version of him exists even if his current self is still alive. The scary part is that this Malborn seems to exist for a single reason: to kill Roggvir if he survives his execution long enough to be taken to the Cleanup Cell, where the clone promptly beats him to death. The only way out is a door that leads straight into a dark abyss of nothingness. While solely there to handle a function and can only be found if the player is actively looking for it, Bethesda seems to have gone out of their way to make it like some nightmarish purgatory out of a creepypasta.

* [[EvilOrphanageLady Grelod the Kind]] is obviously an abusive monster to the children of Honorhall Orphanage. What makes it worse is the fact that there is a small room in the orphanage with ''shackles on the walls.'' The [[FromBadToWorse implications]] of this are absolutely horrifying, and make Grelod [[MoralEventHorizon even less sympathetic]]. You have to wonder just who it was who gave her the sobriquet of "the Kind" - and why.

** Also in blackreach, far in the southeast and away from any entrance to the ruin, there is a part where the ceiling comes down very low. There are Falmer camped there, and if you look around their camp, you find pickaxes by some ore veins where the ground rises to meet the ceiling. Not so scary, right? They're just mining, right? Then you check the world map.
That part is almost under the walls of Whiterun. The ore veins lead upwards, and southwards, towards Whiterun. Even if the Falmer are just following the metal, they're digging up towards the center-most capital of Skyrim. Given time, they could dig right into the city. Pleasant dreams.

* While it's only accessible bia Console Commands, there's the [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Dead Body Clean Up Cell]]. You see, when the important NPCs die, their bodies don't just despawn, they're transported to this...place. [[https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/elderscrolls/images/b/b9/Dead_Body_Cleanup_Cell.png/revision/latest?cb=20141010224423 A purple and green hallway with two coffins]]. As named or important NPCs die, their naked bodies are just dumped in here. What's more surreal is a naked, but still alive version of Malborn just...standing there. This version of him exists even if his current self is still alive. The scary part is that this Malborn seems to exist for a single reason: to kill Roggvir if he survives his execution long enough to be taken to the Cleanup Cell, where the clone promptly beats him to death. The only way out is a door that leads straight into a dark abyss of nothingness. While solely there to handle a function and can only be found if the player is actively looking for it, Bethesda seems to have gone out of their way to make it as unnerving and nightmarish as physically possible.

** However, the priest is not exactly innocent. Boethiah makes you '''sacrifice one of your followers''' for her artifact, so Molag Bal commanding you to kill her priest falls firmly into EvilVersusEvil. Besides, his dialogue seems to imply that he had intentionally sought Molag Bal's shrine and defiled it by using it to worship Boethiah instead. With that in mind, Molag Bal's enraged reaction is quite understandable; he does not want priest`s death, per se. He wants his submission - which is entirely par for the course for the King of Rape.

* For any Arachnophobes, "The Contest" must have been quite shocking with the new Web Mother boss spider, with it being covered in what seem to eggs and having blood red mandibles.

* For any Arachnophobes, "The Cause" must have been quite shocking with the new Web Mother boss spider, with it being covered in what seem to eggs and having blood red mandibles.

* In the "Ghosts of the Tribunal" creation, something else besides Tribunal worshippers persists, namely Dagoth-Ur's mask containing some residual power. Meaning that some his ash creatures are back aswell, caved in faces and all.

* The entire backstory of the [[TheEmpire Thalmor]], from their Nazi parallels to the fact that these people were somehow able to hunt down and sadistically murder '' almost every single member of the Blades'' (a warrior guild made up of the best spies and assassins in Tamriel under employ of the Empire) in Valenwood and Alinor, before using their heads as a warning to the Empire, then proceeding to royally kick the Empire's ass in a devastating war.

* One that's thankfully easy to miss is found in one of the Dragon Priests' tombs. Said priest (Rahgot) was a crazy bastard even by the standards of insane dragon worshipers. He had his followers commit mass suicide so their ghosts could continue to defend the place. The truly disturbing part? He apparently [[WouldHurtAChild sacrificed]] ''[[WouldHurtAChild children]]'' to [[PoweredByAForsakenChild make this work. You can find an open grave full of small wrapped bodies in the tomb.]] On the plus side, it makes killing this particular Dragon Priest [[CatharsisFactor that much more cathartic]].

** Even if you're relatively immune to the spiders in the game, the Dwemer spider workers and sphere guardians are a cut above. They can suddenly pop out of vents without warning and leap at you, causing you to frantically try to find an attacker that literally could not have been there a second ago... and is too short to see until you actually look down, too, thanks to NoPeripheralVision common to video games. A small mercy is that they are not very deadly, and you eventually develop a ''very'' heightened awareness whenever near the valves.