| 1 | [[quoteright:294:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/stat_9863.png]] |
| 2 | [[caption-width-right:294:[[SarcasmMode Look how happy he is to see you!]] ]] |
| 3 | |
| 4 | The developers of ''Skyrim'' have been critically lauded for building one of the most beautiful, interactive, vast worlds ever seen in video gaming, and rightly so. On another level, however, the world of ''Skyrim'' can truly be quite nightmarish and dangerous, whether it be on the lonely northern snowfields or in a supposedly abandoned shack by the river. In its environment the game regularly generates and contrasts NothingIsScarier, {{Jump Scare}}s, and many more tropes. |
| 5 | |
| 6 | As a moments page, '''all spoilers are unmarked as per [[Administrivia/SpoilersOff site policy]]'''. |
| 7 | |
| 8 | [[foldercontrol]] |
| 9 | |
| 10 | [[folder:Main Game]] |
| 11 | !!Skyrim Main Quest |
| 12 | * The introduction, where the Imperials force you to lay your head down for the axe and come face-to-face with a warm and fresh head that they couldn't bother to throw away. |
| 13 | * The entire backstory of the [[TheSocialDarwinist Thalmor]], from their imperialistic, fascistic attitude 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. |
| 14 | -->'''Delphine:''' Do you ever think about them, Esbern? The others? |
| 15 | -->'''Esbern:''' The other Blades? No. Best not to think what the Thalmor do to their victims, my dear. |
| 16 | ** A couple of quests make it very clear [[ColdBloodedTorture exactly what]] the Thalmor do to Talos-worshiping citizens (and more or less anyone else they don't like). However, the really nightmarish bit comes during "Diplomatic Immunity," when you get to witness it firsthand. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyvK9KTr-s8 See for yourself]] (though beware of spoilers). |
| 17 | ** On a related note, what the Thalmor did to Ulfric Stormcloak. Torture is dehumanizing enough, but believing the information you gave up lost the war and rendered all your comrades' sacrifices moot? The guilt would be off the charts. Worst of all, [[ManipulativeBastard it isn't even true]] - it's just MindRape all the more brutal for its simplicity, and all the more disturbing because it's the sort of thing that can happen in real life. |
| 18 | * High King Torygg's death. When the guards say that Ulfric "shouted him to pieces", a normal person might be skeptical (and Ulfric himself will admit that he actually killed Torygg with a sword). However, a reader of the in-game book ''The Arcturian Heresy'' will know that it's very probable that this is true. When Sybille Stentor (who's famous for torturing people in the castle dungeons) and Jarl Elisif describe his death, they make it sound like it's the most gruesome way a human could dispatch another person. If you visit the Palace of Kings in Windhelm before starting the Civil War questline, you can hear Ulfric debating whether he should do the same to ''Jarl Balgruuf''. |
| 19 | ** With the ''Dragonborn'' DLC, the protagonist can receive a perk that will make their Unrelenting Force shout more powerful, and has a chance to disintegrate enemies when they are low on health, making the legend into a canon power for the Dragonborn. |
| 20 | * Your first dragon fight: |
| 21 | ** Remember what happened to that poor guard that was in Odahviing's sights? That can happen to '''you''' too, [[TooDumbToLive if you're out in the open on flat terrain]]. |
| 22 | ** The fact that you have to fight ''dragons''. These things only land when they want to; no cutscene power is going to save you here. All you got is a sword, maybe a shield, and a bow, and you have to fight the medieval equivallent of a gunship strafing you. This is also likely before you got any spells with range or skill points in the bow, and Hitscan is ''not'' a thing here. Good Luck. |
| 23 | * Imagine being a soldier, blacksmith, leader, etc. of Nord origin whose main goal after death is going to Sovngarde, the Tamriel counterpart of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valhalla Valhalla]], to enjoy an eternal banquet and fun in the afterlife with fallen family members, friends, and legendary heroes... but it is all interrupted, because a gigantic black dragon is using a mist spell to toy with his prey by getting them lost and frightened and trying to devour you unexpectedly. The soul is not eternal when Alduin is near; the soul is fuel for him. And that's why the Dragonborn has to stop him. |
| 24 | ** And the inversion of that for the dragons. Dragons are eternal, immortal, unchanging... and here comes this puny mortal who uses your own language against you, scrambling your mind so you can't even escape. You fight back, but for naught; something happens to you that has ''never'' happened to dragonkind before. You die. And then it gets ''worse''. '''They eat your soul.''' |
| 25 | * The statues in Sovngarde move to follow the player, [[ParanoiaFuel but only when the player isn't watching.]] |
| 26 | ** Having a monitor with a wide enough aspect ratio will show that they don't actually follow your movements. They just snap into place when the camera is centered far enough away from them. |
| 27 | |
| 28 | * Hired Thugs |
| 29 | ** The hired thugs can be this in first (and other) encounters, and they can appear anywhere at any time. Imagine sitting in your camp on a beautiful spot surrounded by beautiful and peaceful nature. You are feeling safe here. Then come along a few or more thugs, and they are calmly walking toward your camp, toward '''you.''' They will say that they are there to "teach you a lesson", before attacking the player. Reason? Because someone has decided to hire them to hunt you down. Trying to escape, won't help, as they are willing to go as far as they need to get to you. You thought you were safe going to an inn in a village or town? Wrong. They can stand outside the door waiting for you as you are leaving the inn, giving you a nasty surprise if you're not expecting it. If you try to get back inside, they will be there too, and you will be forced to kill them, as they will attack. One of them (could be the leader of the gang) has a contract that you can take from them after they have been killed, telling them to "teach" said player a lesson, it could be for theft, repeated tresspasses, or murder. But whoever wrote the contract, openly admits that s/he has no qualm about letting the thugs kill the Dragonborn, even for the smallest of theft. The thugs will try to kill the player anyway, though it's stated that they don't have to. After an encounter with the thugs, no one will blame you for nerveously looking around the next time you sit in your camp, where they appeared. |
| 30 | *** That contract can even be from someone the Dragonborn hasn't even met. If it's a bug, it's still quite disturbing to think about. Someone you have never even seen or met in person, hires vile thugs to get you. |
| 31 | |
| 32 | !!Skyrim Lore and Sidequests |
| 33 | * Special mention goes to the [[GiantSpider Frostbite Spiders]]. [[AllTrollsAreDifferent Trolls]]? Tough, but fine. Nord zombies? Killed zombies before, no big. [[OurDragonsAreDifferent Dragons]]? Hell, those are ''fun'' to take down! But a giant spider? '''Run. Run as fast as you can.''' There's even a specific "No Spiders" mod for ''Skyrim'' that just turns them into bears... and it was one of the first mods ever released for the game, before the Creation Kit was even released. |
| 34 | ** The first time you're exploring a cave and suddenly a giant frostbite spider descends upon you from the ceiling, you might need a change of pants. |
| 35 | ** And then the ''Dragonborn'' DLC introduces albino spiders, which are much smaller and more frail than frostbite spiders, but they also appear more realistic. And while frostbite spiders attack by spitting webbing and kicking with their four forelegs, albino spiders prefer to get up close and personal by leaping straight for your face. |
| 36 | ** Just north of Helgen is a place called Skybound Watch Pass. Upon entering the place, it's guarded by typical bandits, easily killed. But going just a bit further leads you to a set of iron doors. As soon as you open the doors, a giant frostbite spider awaits you, looking directly at you without any warning of its presence whatsoever. It proceeds to charge in your direction. You're also in a narrow cave, meaning you can only go forward or retreat and close the doors again until you go back and kill it. |
| 37 | ** There's a place just northeast of Markarth called Harmugstahl, where a mage has been enchanting the spiders. And combining the previous two entries, there's a Nordic ruin on Solstheim called White Ridge Barrow. It's infested with albino spiders and strange, pulsating pods that, when approached or attacked, explode to release ''flaming'' albino spiders. There are also reavers (the Solstheim equivalent of bandits) throughout the dungeons... but they look like ''[[http://i.imgur.com/eHdaexJ.png this]]''. Clearing the dungeon leads you to an "Imbuing Chamber" which uses gemstones and spider body parts to create spiders imbued with flame, poison, electricity, and frost... and also ''[[http://i.imgur.com/hPFhivM.png mind control spiders]]''. It's as horrifying as it sounds. Oh, and there's one of the below-mentioned Black Books in the barrow, suggesting that Hermaeus Mora may have been involved in the project somehow. |
| 38 | *** Making the enchanted spiders even worse? There's a [[GameBreakingBug glitch with them that freezes and crashes]] the UsefulNotes/NintendoSwitch version. So when one is right up in your face, there's a reasonable chance it will ''stay'' up in your face, while you're powerless to do anything, [[TheFourthWallWillNotProtectYou even turn off the system]], while the BIOS scrambles to try to figure out how to kill the unresponsive game and get you back to the Home menu. |
| 39 | ** There's a spider's nest in Crovangr Cave and when you look inside, you can see that they are capable of hunting mammoths. Jordis speaks for all arachnophobes. |
| 40 | --->[[ThisIsGonnaSuck I don't like where this is going.]] |
| 41 | ** Spiders in Skyrim are so bad that Farkas - longtime member of the [[AdventureGuild Companions]], [[BarbarianHero Barbarian Hero]], and badass werewolf - [[WhyDidItHaveToBeSnakes refuses to go further into Ysgramor's tomb because of the spiders there]]: "Ever since Dustman’s Cairn, the big crawly ones have been too much for me. Everyone has his weakness, and this one is mine." |
| 42 | ** There's a book that tells you about Frostbite Spider habits. It even has a nice little illustration that shows you what they do to explorers who don't pay attention to their surroundings. |
| 43 | ** Anyone even slightly afraid of spiders will be cringing every time the game loads, as it tosses up an image of something in the game... whether it be a [[Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer Willow]]-looking witch, a giant Skeever hissing at you, or, yes, a giant Frostbite completely filling the screen. |
| 44 | * [[AbusivePrecursors The Dwemer.]] They may be gone now, but when they were still alive, they were most certainly ''not'' very nice: they were a whole race of {{Mad Scientist}}s who enslaved another race of fellow elves and turned them into the Falmer we know now. They also experimented on other races ForScience, were entirely capable of [[CurbStompBattle curbstomping anything the other races could throw at them with their]] MechaMooks and superior metalworking, [[RealityWarper modified the laws of physics to fit their whims]], and tried to [[DeityOfHumanOrigin make their own god]], an attempt that wiped them off the face of Tamriel. |
| 45 | ** They didn't just stop at ''physically ''deforming the Falmer; the Dwemer did something to them that [[MindRape changed their souls from black (sapient) to white (animalistic).]] Even worse, Dwemer society was very big on enchanting, and white soul gems are much more common than black ones. They were literally using the Falmer as ''fuel''. |
| 46 | ** 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. Also helping is that, if you're stealthy enough, you might catch them doing things like maintenance tasks or even playing, a sight that [[NightmareRetardant can be oddly adorable]]. Until they spot you, anyway. |
| 47 | ** In the Dwemer ruin of Alftand (one of three cities that can be used to access Blackreach and the one you are specifically pointed towards when you need to visit Blackreach yourself), you may stumble upon leftovers of an expedition that tried to explore it (not long) before you. Outside the actual ruin, the remains of a campsite contain the expedition leader's log, detailing those involved[[note]]The leader, an eager scientist-explorer; a warrior tasked with defending the group; a mage; a sorcerer; a female Orc overseer, two Khajiit brothers as manual labour, and a few others not detailed further[[/note]] and the events of their first few days, including a snowstorm that forced the group to retreat into the ruins. As you wander in yourself, their grueling story unfolds: The ongoing storm traps them inside, supplies run low, they happen upon their first Dwemer machines. A drug addiction one of the Khajiit was attempting to hide drives him mad; you find him standing over the corpse of his brother, and he attacks you on sight. Apparently, he also slaughtered various members of the team beforehand. The sorcerer and overseer were captured by Falmer deeper down; they managed to escape, but the sorcerer was killed by Dwemer mechs and the overseer fell to the pursuing Falmer. The mage is found dead, strapped to one of their torture racks. After you've combed through the entire place and defeated the Centurion at its end, the leader and warrior emerge and will, if they don't spot you, get into an argument over whether to keep exploring or leave this forsaken place forever, eventually starting a fight to the death. This alone would be enough for a decent horror movie... |
| 48 | *** Since getting to Blackreach and retrieving the Elder Scroll is essential for the main quest, this might be a player's first encounter with the Falmer and good Lord does the game do a good job establishing the tension. As you move through the ruin you start to see more and more black structures and weird tribal weapons that don't fit in with the Dwarven aesthetic until finally you start getting attacked by the creatures themselves. Falmer are pretty unique in Skyrim in that not everyone is aware of their existence, in fact it seems that most people have no idea there are thousands of pissed off Elvish mutants hanging out underground and occasionally making trips to the surface to attack remote settlements. As you enter Alftand and start reading notes, you learn that the doomed expedition was attacked by these unidentified creatures at some point. So the explorers had no idea what was attacking them and carrying off their members until it's far too late. By the time the Dragonborn arrives, all that's left is the aftermath of some serious struggle. |
| 49 | ** And while the Dwemer may not be ''here'', there is nothing to say that the Dwemer are ''gone''. The entire affair is very vague on the details, so there is nothing saying that this incredibly advanced, astoundingly powerful, and thoroughly amoral race couldn't in some way come back. After all, everyone thought that the Dragons were gone forever, too. Adding to this is Falion's assertion that he's encountered them himself, and, of course, the bloated Dwemer seen way back in ''Morrowind'' as well. |
| 50 | ** Most Dwemer ruins are generally fun to explore and not ''too'' scary. Then there's Kagrenzel, an out-of-the-way ruin in the eastern mountains. When you step through the front door of the place, you find yourself in a dark room; take a step forward, and a mysterious glowy orb will light up in the center of the room, on a pedestal surrounded by a couple of dead bandits. Approaching the orb [[SchmuckBait gives the prompt to touch it]]. You'd expect it to trigger some automatons or an easily avoided DeathTrap, right? ''Wrong''. Touching the orb will cause walls to pop up all around you, trapping you completely, while the orb starts floating around the room emitting a [[HellIsThatNoise horrific screeching noise]]. After a few tense moments, the room goes dark completely... and then '''the floor flips over, dropping you down a hundred-foot shaft in the ground.''' Fortunately, there's SoftWater below to break your fall; unfortunately, there are protruding ledges that may very well kill you instantly on the way down. And even if you do survive, you're now trapped in a cave full of Falmer... It's almost like something that made its way out of a survival horror game and wound up in ''Skyrim''. Which, in turn, brings up another question that might better go unanswered: ''why did the Dwemer even have that?'' |
| 51 | *** [[WesternAnimation/TheEmperorsNewGroove "Touch the orb, Athazdir!... WRONG OOOOOoooooorrrrrrrrrrrrbbbbbbbb!"]] |
| 52 | * [[TheMorlocks The Falmer]]. They look creepy enough, but add to that the fact that they blend in with the shadows, and that odd chattering noise they make, and you've got yourself some Grade-A horror. Worse, they often appear with Chaurus, utterly nasty insectoid horrors which are tough to kill, deal ugly damage with their bites, and use health draining poison that will often kill in seconds, especially if you're foolish enough to get into melee with them and ''especially'' at lower levels. |
| 53 | ** Better, there's a few areas where the Falmer are rising to the surface and have been kidnapping and torturing people. Not even above ground is safe. Add into that their tragic backstory at the hands of the Dwemer (see above) and what else you learn about them through the main storyline of the ''Dawnguard'' DLC, and... yeah. Sweet dreams. |
| 54 | ** On top of all that, they're damn near silent. You can be simply exploring a cave, which is dark save for the light of some translucent mushrooms, and - even if you're being vigilant - a Falmer can sneak up behind you, or worse, pop out right on top of you. |
| 55 | ** In Raldbthar and possibly other Falmer areas, you may find tanning racks and tables with leather on them. Nothing too unusual, right? Except that the kicker is that you may also find Human Flesh on those same tables. The implications are... [[FlayingAlive unple]][[GenuineHumanHide asant]]. The Raldbthar Deep Market, in the near-right corner of the first big room, has such a tanning rack set up. There's a Nord woman's corpse next to it. The Falmer have been very busy. |
| 56 | ** There is actually a disturbing amount of evidence that the Falmer are working their way towards a major offensive against the surface world. Every now and again you'll find a cave absolutely teeming with them disturbingly close to major population centers like Whiterun, almost like a damn staging area. Markath is probably in the most immediate danger since it's surrounded by Dwemer ruins that usually have Falmer denizens inside of them. |
| 57 | * [[WickedWitch Hagravens]]. Witches who, through some unexplained ritual, transformed themselves into half-woman/half-raven monstrosities who are as powerful as they are horrifying, and implied to be the witch-equivalent of lich-dom, to boot. At one point in the Companions questline, you venture into a small cave populated with a few Hagravens called the Glenmoril Witches, so you can remove the ''head'' of one (or the entire coven, if you wish) and take it with you in order to cure the lycanthropy of the Circle. For massive nightmare fuel: When you take their heads, [[http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Glenmoril_Witch_Head this is what you see in your inventory]]. |
| 58 | * You know, as terrifying and icky and creepy as the [[BigCreepyCrawlies chaurus]] are, you've at least got the reassurance that you can outmaneuver them and keep out of range of their horrifically-powerful bites. ''Noooooooooope.'' Shellbugs are harmless, but they can take a player completely by surprise. What may look like a giant boulder or even a tent quickly turns out to be a pill bug-like insect roughly the size of a flatbed truck. |
| 59 | * 90% of the time, killing a zombie results in a simple grunt as it dissolves to ashes. The [[FateWorseThanDeath other 10%?]] The zombie will let out a pained [[DyingAsYourself "Thank...you..."]] before crumbling to ash. |
| 60 | * Though eventually you can get desensitized to it, the first few times you raid a bandit camp/fort can be this when you see what they've done to the people they've captured. It's not uncommon to find bodies in locked cells, or in a few cases you can find bodies on tables where they were cut open and tortured. It just makes slaughtering said bandits [[CatharsisFactor all the more satisfying]] when you finally get to do it. |
| 61 | ** In Fort Greymoor, you find an old woman who's not hostile to you and just states that she just cooks and cleans and does whatever the current occupiers ask her to do. Some of her lines are downright chilling when you think about the things this woman must've seen. However, going by her other dialogue, this isn't them forcing ''her'', but her forcing ''them'' to let her stay. She comes with the fort apparently, and bandits, vampires, orcs and anyone else is all cool with it and her. Basically, she plays grandma to all of them, which is just adorable. Imagine her serving up some warmed-up cups of blood to tired vampires, or her being the human grandma to a bunch of orcs. |
| 62 | --->"I remember one morning long time ago, I woke up and the place was run by some Orcs. Went to bed that night, it was all vampires. Don't matter to me." |
| 63 | * [[{{Necromancer}} Necromancers]] themselves and their hideouts. They often contain desiccated corpses, often in pieces! In two major dungeons, you encounter some really nasty pieces of work who have found a way to enslave ghosts. |
| 64 | ** Rannveig's Fast is home to Sild the Warlock, a necromancer who has taken to luring adventurers to the ruin so that he can kill them and enslave their ghosts to his will. You encounter these ghosts as you're heading through the Fast, and when they sight you, they will attack you, but their dialogue as they do so makes it very clear that they are being forced to do this against their will, suggesting that they are fully aware of what is being done to them. |
| 65 | ** Yngvild is home to Arondil, an elven necromancer with a lustful obsession with the women of Dawnstar. Like Sild, he has found a way to enslave ghosts to his will; but unlike him, he prefers to create these ghosts from the women he covets, whom he has his draugr bring to him, so that he can basically turn them into unliving {{Sex Slave}}s, with all the disturbing undertones one can expect. And that's not even mentioning what he did to the draugr (who in this particular ruin were all female) after first creating them. Sneaky players can steal the soul gem he uses to maintain his control over the ghosts for a ''very'' KarmicDeath. |
| 66 | *** If the player character is female, a line of dialogue from Arondil implies he plans on doing the same thing to the Dragonborn once she's dead! YIKES. |
| 67 | ---> '''Arondil:''' Ah, another plaything for my collection. |
| 68 | ** One scary thing about Necromancer's is that they are deceptively strong. You can be having fun exploring a cave, knocking around some skeletons and basically just be breezing through. But then stumble upon the big boss and he is ''pissed'' to see you, immediately letting loose with some of the most advanced Destruction Spells in the game. One thing about Skyrim's magical bosses is that their attacks '''will''' one shot you if you're unprepared. So that's a whole extra layer of fear on top of the creepy necromancer aesthetics you run into. |
| 69 | * [[WildMan The Forsworn]]. While they may have some legitimate grievances against the Nords of The Reach, they are still very much the brutal savages that the residents of Markarth make them out to be. They worship Hagravens, who return the favor by ripping out the hearts of chosen Forsworn to turn them into quasi-undead Briarhearts through a dark ritual. At one point, at one of their hideouts, a Forsworn can be seen at a sharpening table with the corpse of a Nord nearby, happily commenting that he's going to turn the Nord's skull into an axe head. |
| 70 | ** Forsworn Briarhearts deserve a special mention. Through a gruesome ritual, they replace their [[BeatStillMyHeart still beating hearts]] with the eponymous Briar Hearts, granting them both physical and magical power. If the concept isn't quite creepy enough on its own, they also have gaping holes in their chests through which you can see their ribs and new "hearts". |
| 71 | *** You can also sneak up on them and "pickpocket" their briar hearts while they are still alive, [[AndShowItToYou with predictable results]]. |
| 72 | * Every step in the murder mystery of Morthal is nightmare fuel, but especially the part when you play hide-and-seek with a child's ghost. The moment you find her at her grave, she recoils in shock because a freaking vampire lady shows up right behind you. |
| 73 | * [[TunnelNetwork The Ratway Warrens]]. Highlights include an insane deaf woman who sits in darkness [[MadnessMantra endlessly repeating a list]], a cannibal chef who wants to make a meal of you, and an ex-Imperial Officer suffering from PTSD, who mentions some horrors that the Thalmor did. |
| 74 | --> ''"Their fires lit up the night. All across Lake Rumare, like stars come to earth. It was beautiful, really."'' |
| 75 | * 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.]] Even some of his devoted followers [[EvenEvilHasStandards objected to the plan]], but this had a [[YouHaveFailedMe predictable outcome for them]]. On the plus side, all of this makes killing this particular Dragon Priest [[CatharsisFactor that much more cathartic]]. |
| 76 | * [[TheMaze The Maze of Shalidor]]. It's in a non-important place in the Labyrinthian region, and is not connected to any quests; it's basically a completely optional maze where you have to perform one spell from each school of magic. And how's that scary? Well, when you have cast all spells, the underground cave opens, and there is a portal. You step into the portal, and are transported to a weird purple circle, where you have to fight a dremora. It is explained in a book that Shalidor made it as a test for potential archmages. That's why it requires knowledge of all spell schools and enough power to defeat a powerful Daedra to survive it. |
| 77 | ** A glitch can make this place even more terrifying: if you kill the dremora in a single hit, it may not be able to teleport itself and you out of the arena. Since there's no exit and you can't fast-travel out of the location, [[GameBreakingBug you're stuck]]. Sometimes whacking the corpse with a melee weapon might warp you out, but if that doesn't work... you're locked in there, [[SealedGoodInACan forever trapped]] in a tiny, featureless pocket dimension in the middle of Akatosh knows where. |
| 78 | * In one quest where you help out a struggling shipping company against pirate raids, you must storm the pirates' fortress, Japhet's Folly. If you explore a bit, you find a locked room in which you find the corpse of Japhet himself, along with his journal. Reading it, you learn the history of this place. Japhet writes of leaving Dawnstar with a crew to build the tower, but his crew left one by one, convinced that the place was haunted. Soon, Japhet was left all alone. He eventually became convinced that the ghost stories were true, as he heard them speaking to him. A little creepy, but nothing too severe. What clinches it is that Japhet seems like a fairly normal, stable person, until you turn to the last page, which simply says... OH GODS HELP ME |
| 79 | * The quest in [[LighthousePoint Frostflow Lighthouse]]. If the dead horse outside doesn't tip you off that something's not right here, you enter the lighthouse to find furniture overturned, with blood everywhere and a dead body. Your quest message flashes across the screen: find the murderer. By reading the journals, you find that it was the couple's dream to retire to a lighthouse, even though their nearly-adult children didn't like the idea much. They've been hearing noises in the cellars, and assumed it was just skeevers. Then the husband comes home from a shopping trip to find his wife dead and children missing, and locks himself in the basement to either kill whatever did this or die trying. Turns out the cellar opened up into a large ice cave swarming with Falmer and Chaurus. Along the way, you find the rest of the family members' bodies - the son being the first body you find, the daughter having ''[[BetterToDieThanBeKilled killed herself]]'' to escape the horrible things the Falmer did to her father and others they dragged down there, and the father's remains being ''inside the biggest Chaurus Reaper ever''. For bonus points, the cavern beneath the lighthouse is literally the largest Chaurus nest ''in the game'', containing over 500 egg sacs. This one cavern somehow manages to house almost a ''third'' of all the Chaurus egg sacs in the base game. |
| 80 | * East of Riften lies the Lost Prospect Mine, where a journal found in the entryway details how a couple of miners had tried refreshing it, but it seemed to be tapped out. The author of the journal went to Riften to get supplies and cool his head, and when he returned, his partner was nowhere to be found. If the Dragonborn uses Whirlwind Sprint, the skeletal corpse of the other miner can be found buried hip-deep in a landslide... meaning that he'd died of thirst, starvation, or compression, rather than a quick death. |
| 81 | * Broken Helm Hollow, a cave east of Riften, is a very small lair with only a few bandits around. However, it's less of a bandit lair and more of a ''[[VideoGame/{{Fallout 3}} Raider]]'' lair -- you find a pull chain that leads to what can only be described as a torture chamber, with a bloody chopping block with an axe buried in it, a Flame or Sparks spell tome on the cabinet, a weapons rack, and a corpse lying on the ground. Oh, and the chief of the cave has a bucket of human skulls in the corner and more skulls on display on his dress. The bandits aren't simply killing people they attack, they're dragging them back here to torture them, and then the leader keeps the skulls as trophies. [[IAmAHumanitarian The possibility of cannibalism only makes it worse]]. |
| 82 | * This one is very easy to miss unless you do a lot of poking around in the southernmost mountains near Falkreath. You find an extremely out-of-the-way castle called Bloodlet Throne - why, it's just begging to be explored with a name like that, isn't it? Sure enough, it's populated with vampires. If you're a higher level, they're not too hard to dispatch, though all the bloodied bones scattered everywhere don't make you feel exactly comfortable, and periodically the silence is broken by wolf howls. Eventually you make your way to the penultimate confrontation. You emerge into an underground ''arena'', where dead bandits lie in pools of their own blood and a ''Volkihar vampire lord'' sits on a throne overlooking the scene. He opens the gates, and you're instantly swarmed by a pack of wolves. The vampires have been capturing victims and throwing them into the pit to fight for their lives - as a spectator sport. Also, this location and its denizens are part of the ''vanilla'' game, so the fact that the dungeon's FinalBoss is a Volkihar vampire can be a little unsettling if you don't have ''Dawnguard'' installed and aren't expecting to meet one of those. |
| 83 | ** As it turns out, the location of Bloodlet Throne is in fact part of a side quest which you can potentially receive from Dengeir, Jarl Siddgeir's uncle in Falkreath. It seems that a ''relative'' of Dengeir's was sealed in his tomb generations ago because he was a powerful vampire, but he was recently released thanks to some unwitting grave robbers. If you visit Bloodlet Throne in the course of the quest, the vampire at the end will be named accordingly - if you stumble across it on your own, however, you'll have the experience outlined above... meaning that Dengeir and, presumably, Siddgeir are ''distantly related to a Volkihar vampire''. YMMV as to whether this makes the whole thing more or less horrifying. |
| 84 | * Tolvald's Cave, if only because of how unexpectedly ''massive'' it is. What initially seems like a small, simple beast den turns out to be a sprawling tunnel network with ''three'' different subzones, [[FromBadToWorse and it's absolutely crawling with Falmer.]] If the fact that [[MarathonLevel there seems to be no end in sight to either the claustrophobic tunnels or the Falmer]] doesn't start getting to you, the bodies and ApocalypticLogs of the cave's past victims probably will. |
| 85 | ** The horror of Tolvald's cave is apparent right from the start when you first come in and see that it appears to be a normal cave, almost comfy in how small and normal it is. The hunters and travelers who set up camp fairly recently certainly thought it was. Then you go a little further and find some trolls, still nothing to freak out about, trolls in caves are a normal occurrence in Skyrim. Then you go just a bit further and find the Dwarven ruins, and then the Falmer start pouring in. Turns out this cute little cave is built on top of a massive Falmer nest. Considering that they have hidden paths that connect from the bowls of their village all the way to the very start of the cave, ''this was all an elaborate trap.'' The Falmer planned [[ItCanThink all of it]]. |
| 86 | * [[http://www.cracked.com/article_20699_the-6-creepiest-easter-eggs-hidden-in-video-games-part-2.html The secret death room.]] Just imagine ending up in a place like this one day by accident and realizing you're completely trapped. The entire "room" is just four tiny hallways connected to doors that wrap around to each other, so there is no escape and you're stuck there. Forever. The whole place really, REALLY manages to combine the SealedRoomInTheMiddleOfNowhere, FateWorseThanDeath, and EldritchLocation tropes all too well... Not to mention the fact that, occasionally, the bodies will walk around the room. |
| 87 | * One [[AnimateDead Conjuration Spell]], Dead Thrall, is a pure horror for NPC. Its function is resurrect any NPC for 60 days in-game with the equipment and weapon the NPC had when they died. Imagine you are a bandit in a camp or soldier in a fort and you see the Dragonborn, their housecarl, and their undead legion (usually wearing steel armor or better) march to your position, slaughter your band, and revive you as their [[ShapedLikeItself Dead Thrall]]. |
| 88 | ** The raise dead spells are unpleasant in general. If you listen, humanoid thralls periodically moan in pain when not in combat. When killed, they sometimes whisper "Free... again" before disintegrating. Seems those reanimation spells do just that. And only that. With no mention of healing the injuries that killed them in the first place. [[AFateWorseThanDeath And they're aware of it the whole time.]] |
| 89 | * An in-game book, ''Physicalities of Werewolves'', deals with a researcher's morbid study on live werewolves. It describes the experiments on two subjects, A and B. They force Subject A to transform over and over again until he dies. (The book sheds some light on [[PainfulTransformation why the transformation process is so painful]]: according to the author's discoveries, the lycanthrope's heart enlarges before the rest of the body, [[BodyHorror leading to severe chest pains as their heart quite literally feels like it's about to burst out of their chests.]]) With Subject B, as the researcher performs vivisection on her. In other words, he cut her open while she was still alive and then forced her to transform so he could study the effect the transformation had on her organs and muscles. The subject was still very much alive during all this and before she could succumb to her wounds, the researcher applied "remedies" for the disease directly to the internal organs. The Wolfsbane rendered the subject's bones brittle ("the rib cage nearly collapsed at the touch"), while some sort of berry juice was pressed directly into the veins, which caused them to "shrivel behind the flow as it moved through the system. Upon reaching the heart, the major vessels pulled away completely, and the subject expired within minutes." Holy fuck. You can find this book on some members of the Silver Hand, which pretty much adds to their general unpleasantness due to their penchant for torturing any wolves or werewolves that they get their hands on. And what's more? This is the most common book to find on a dead vigilant of Stendarr. Yeah. "Stendarr's mercy upon you for the vigil shall have none" is less than an idle greeting. |
| 90 | * The book ''Confessions of a Khajiit Fur Trader''. After a heist gone wrong gets his brother killed, a Khajiit realizes how much the pelts of the intelligent races are worth. So he embarks on a murderous spree, killing Khajiit and Argonians for their skins, until he is caught. The jailer allows him to write this story on the night before his execution. He has a lockpick and he knows how to use it and get out of the city. His head will not roll in the morning. The nightmare fuel gets doubled or even tripled if you're a Khajiit or Argonian with this psycho out for your potential pelt. It also becomes NauseaFuel for the former. |
| 91 | * The in-game book ''Palla.'' An apprentice mage develops an obsessive love for the deceased mother of a young Redguard woman, who perished while slaying a terrible beast. He dabbles in necromancy in an effort to bring back the woman he believes is named "Palla," eventually devoting every moment of his life to the cause, with little success other than sensing the beast. One day, the item he's using to try to resurrect her breaks, and he admits his plot to the Redguard woman, who becomes horrified... especially when she informs him that Palla is the name of the ''monster,'' not her mother, and the mage had mistakenly attributed the name to her instead. After being thrown out of the woman's house, the mage encounters the resurrected Palla, who bids that the mage kiss it... and the mage, now lovestruck by the monster, complies. The volumes raise Illusion and Enchantment skills, which the mage had been studying, in case the Dragonborn [[SarcasmMode needs ideas for a spouse]]. |
| 92 | * ''The Horrors of Castle Xyr'' is an in-game book, written in style of a play, about two Imperial Officers investigating the eponymous castle and its master due to some unpleasant rumors, and they seem to have found what they were looking for when they discover that the basement is full of dead bodies and they conclude that Xyr is a necromancer. Then, an Argonian delivery girl arrives with a letter and a package addressed to Xyr, which the officers take, and it turns out that Xyr isn't a necromancer: he's a Destruction mage with a fascination of using his craft to inflict CruelAndUnusualDeath on anyone he gets his hands on. The book then details some of said deaths, which include burning someone alive, dousing someone in acid over extended periods of time, and slowly killing someone by inflicting numerous frostbites on them. [[FromBadToWorse Worse yet,]] Xyr is basically pen pals with a wizard from the Mages' College who sends him suggestions for his "experiments", and even subjects, as the Argonian female was supposed to be a new victim for Xyr. ''Then'' [[PlotTwist it turns out]] that the woman who was supposed to be Xyr's maid ''was'' Xyr, who then puts out all the lights and starts throwing lightning bolts at the heroes with the intent of using them as her newest victims. [[AmbiguousEnding The book/play ends there.]] |
| 93 | ** For major FridgeHorror (or BlackComedy, depending on your sense of humor), reading the book increases your Destruction skill. Going through the grisly details apparently ''gives you ideas'' about things to do to your enemies. |
| 94 | * Similarly, ''Legend of Krately House'' is a play in which two robbers are clearing out a supposedly haunted house. It isn't long before they encounter the ghosts of the family who lived in it; but the ghosts don't even notice them, merely going about their lives as they had been at the time they died. We learn from one of the thieves that the whole family died on the same night; that the wife was a witch whose coven didn't take too kindly to her leaving. They find her, and send... ''something'' after her — and that something brutally slaughtered her, her husband, and their two children. Then one of the ghosts touches a thief, and as he suddenly begins to fret about it, we're treated to the ghosts of the family meeting the monster, with their torches winking out one by one. Then, there's a heavy, clawed step. Then another. And another. And it's at that moment, that the two robbers realize that not only are the ghosts still inside the house, ''but so is the monster that killed them''. The story ends there, [[NothingIsScarier without even a hint]] as to the monster's appearance but a "horrible, horrible HOWL". |
| 95 | ** By the way, the house itself completely matches the description of a place in ''Oblivion.'' It's an abandoned house in Cheydinhal...and that house just happens to contain the local Dark Brotherhood Sanctuary. |
| 96 | * Pilgrim’s Trench is a bane to thalassophobes[[note]]people who are afraid of the sea[[/note]]. When the water is modded to not be as muddy, it’s less scary to navigate water of any kind; but in the base game, this location has loads of FridgeHorror, considering that it is made of four shipwrecks. The first thing to be aware of is that this location is not marked on your map ''until you dive down and find the first shipwreck''. It should be mentioned that since this is a trench, the ship that marks the location is the one that is closest to the surface. The second thing is that you can’t see the bottom of the trench without mods. In fact, ''you will have to search around underwater until you find the next wreck''. Third, there was going to be a quest where you’d have to retrieve a jewelry box from the bottom of the trench for a dead person so that he may rest in peace. There are traces of this quest left in the game, but it was never implemented. Last, this place is so damn scary that not even the ''Slaughterfish'' wanna go there. |
| 97 | * In Blackreach, there is a small Dwemer building known only as the "Silent Ruin". It contains almost nothing except a stone throne with a pressure plate directly beneath it. There is no way to sit upon this throne without triggering the pressure plate, which causes a spinning blade trap to trigger and tear the seated person to pieces. There is something really eerie and disturbing about this location. This "trap" doesn't seem like it's meant to repel intruders, rather, it almost seems ceremonial in purpose. It's very likely that this seat is meant to be an execution device - maybe the Dwemer equivalent of the electric chair. |
| 98 | ** 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. |
| 99 | |
| 100 | !!Faction Quests |
| 101 | * One of the earliest Companion quests may be to sort out a trouble-causing Falmer group in Shimmermist Cave. In the end, you find the leader. He's in the middle of the room, so you can back him up into a corner by using Fus Ro Dah. He slams into the dark wall... only for the wall to walk forward and reveal itself to be a ''huge Dwemer centurion''. Since it's entirely possible to take on this quest at very low levels, this may be the first time you ever see one of these in the game. And if you're used to watching Dwemer centurions [[CurbStompBattle wipe the floor with Falmer]]? [[OhCrap Not]] [[VillainTeamUp this time!]] |
| 102 | * During the Dark Brotherhood storyline, the Night Mother talks through a ''mummified corpse.'' The first time you hear her speak, you are shut up in her dark coffin, next to her body. If you're not expecting it, this is one instance that may necessitate [[BringMyBrownPants a change of pants]]. |
| 103 | ** Also related to the Dark Brotherhood storyline is [[SycophanticServant Cicero]]. At first he might seem a little ''too'' eccentric and more of an annoyance than a danger. Later however, you come across his journals, written largely when he was more mentally stable back in Cyrodiil. You track his frightening descent into madness, exaggerated by the decrepit state of the Brotherhood he held so dear, his obsession over being appointed Keeper, and eternally being haunted by his final kill: a jester. Also, prior to starting the Dark Brotherhood questline, you can find him near the Loreius Farm, next to a broken cart with his "mother's" coffin on board. If you talk to him, he'll ask you to help him convince the farmer Vantus Loreius to fix the cart, which you can do. However, if you agree with Vantus that there's something fishy about Cicero, you can sic the nearby guard on him by claiming that he's smuggling contraband in his cart, which the guard believes and, after briefly confronting Cicero, he leaves to get reinforcements. Regardless of how you feel about Cicero, convincing Vantus to help him is actually the better choice; if you side with Vantus, then leave and come back later, you'll discover that Cicero [[NotSoHarmlessVillain brutally murdered both him and his wife]] for framing him. |
| 104 | * [[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.] |
| 105 | * After you kill Greold and essentially steal the contract that was intended for the Brotherhood, you'll get a letter shortly after that only has a handprint and the words "WE KNOW" with no further explanation or signature. ''Spooky.'' |
| 106 | * In the second Dark Brotherhood quest, "With Friends Like These...", you are abducted in your sleep and taken to an unknown location. You are then forced to kill one of three people (or two, or all three) in order to be initiated into the Brotherhood. Exiting the shack, you find that it's a run-down, abandoned rat hole of a building that's literally in the middle of nowhere. For some reason, the prospect of those people being kidnapped and dragged to a place like this where nobody can hear you scream or call for help is extremely unsettling. |
| 107 | ** The ''Hearthfire'' DLC adds additional fuel, because this shack is located just a stone's throw away from one of the three locations where you can build one of the custom homes. That's right - the Dark Brotherhood is active right near the house where your loving spouse, two children, and loyal canine companion Meeko could be living. Your daughter tells you that she's scared, that she thinks there are monsters in the swamp; you kiss her forehead and tell her not to be afraid because you'd fight every dragon in the world and win to keep her safe. But she's right - there ''are'' monsters in the swamp. Monsters that can sneak into your home and abduct you right out of your bed without alerting your family... monsters that could have easily killed your family as you slept and let you live because it would be crueler that way. |
| 108 | ** Two words: "We know." This, along with a black handprint, is the entirety of the letter you receive from the Dark Brotherhood after killing Grelod the Kind. Sleep tight! ...or better yet, ''[[NeverSleepAgain don't]]''! [[ParanoiaFuel That's how they get you!]] |
| 109 | ** Turned into further NightmareFuel for [[TheBaroness Astrid]]. If you play it right, you - the one she went to trouble to kidnap all the way from halfway across the continent - are not only the Dragonborn, but also could be Nightingale of the Thieves' Guild, Arch-Mage of the College of Winterhold, possible Thane to most if not all of Skyrim's Holds, the one who single-handedly cleared ''lots'' of raiders and bandit caves, and if you finish the main storyline, the defeater of the '''the dragon heralding the World's End itself'''. The Dragonborn can have magic and shouts powerful enough to kill Astrid a hundred times over. Not only that, this 'victim' can also summon atronachs, wraiths, and freaking '''[[PhysicalGod Daedras and Dragon Priests]]'''. It is not yet clear to Astrid, but is very clear to ''you'' that you are not trapped by Astrid with the three would-be victims, but [[RussianReversal she has trapped]] ''[[MuggingTheMonster herself]]'' [[MuggingTheMonster with]] '''[[MuggingTheMonster you]]'''. Should the player decide, all hell can and ''will'' break loose on the Dark Brotherhood - that's why the much-understated [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome 'Destroy the Dark Brotherhood' quest is immediately started once you show Astrid her folly]]. The Dragonborn outright ''annihilates'' the centuries-old guild for good with merely ''two'' survivors, who only escaped death because they weren't there at the time (Cicero because he was stuck on the road, and Babette because she's technically a child, and killing children is impossible without mods). On the other hand, if the player accepts Astrid's offer, then she slowly realizes it herself just ''whom'' she made [[OhCrap the latest Dark Brotherhood recruit]], which is why she tries to have the Dragonborn killed once they become too useful, but to no avail. |
| 110 | * Astrid's body at the end of "Death Incarnate" in the Dark Brotherhood line. She's burned all over and practically skeletal, and everyone, especially Astrid herself, knows that she's committed an unforgivable sin (by Sithis's standards, at least) and she has only seconds to live. AlasPoorVillain, indeed. |
| 111 | ** The worst part? She contacts you 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! |
| 112 | |
| 113 | !!Daedric Quests |
| 114 | * [[HauntedHouse "The House of Horrors"]] is a ''very'' aptly named quest. Let's just say that Molag Bal has gone from being a {{Jerkass}} in ''Oblivion'' and '''[[TookALevelInJerkass really]]''' stepped up as "Lord of Domination". Even scarier is that you are forced to kill a priest of a rival Daedric Prince in Molag Bal's name (if you want all the Daedric Artifacts) by cudgeling him with a rusty mace over and over, while he's bound and continually begging you to stop, until he finally submits. The Priest's soul is then sent to Molag Bal, presumably for eternal torture. Remember the Wizard and Vaermina from ''[[NightmareFuel/TheElderScrollsIVOblivion Oblivion]]''? This is probably even worse, because not only is an innocent priest doomed for a similar fate, but you're the one who carries it out. College Humour said it best: "RPG heroes are jerks". |
| 115 | ** 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. |
| 116 | ** If you bring Serana with you on this quest, she ''freaks out''. This situation is nightmare fuel for ''her'' - being trapped in a house controlled by her god-powered ''rapist''. |
| 117 | * [[SoulJar The Black Star]], both the item and the related quest. In Azura's quest, you can get the Azura's Star that longtime ''Elder Scrolls'' fans all know and love... or an utterly corrupted version, which works on Black Souls (as well as white due to a bug). Having this sheer unholy power is a bit on the creepy side... but the quest for it is much worse. You actually go '''inside Azura's star''', and meet a demented mage who's been cannibalising souls. And yes - it confirms that people are still aware of what's going on in there. |
| 118 | * The quest "[[ImAHumanitarian The Taste of Death]]." It starts out innocently enough; the local priest of Arkay (read: undertaker priest) had to close down the Hall of the Dead in Markarth because it seems something has been eating the bodies. He hires you to go look into it. Once you go in, you find the culprit, a woman named Eola. She believes you to be a fellow cannibal (it's open to the player whether or not she's right), and she hires you to clear out a shrine to Namira. You do so. Somewhat disturbing, but nothing ''scary'', right? Well, she then tells you to go get the priest who hired you before and bring him back to "sanctify" the shrine. You get him to follow you back and it seems a bunch of other people have shown up, and they seem to be '''half the population of Markarth'''. Some of them you may have even helped out! The shopkeeper who took over her husband's shop? The local butcher? Yep. Cannibals. Then the woman hypnotizes the priest and has you kill him and take the first bite. So, let's see, you killed a priest, became a cannibal, ate the priest, and found out some of the friendly citizens you've been doing quests for are cannibals as well. Markarth just got a lot darker, all of a sudden. |
| 119 | ** What makes it worse is that the butcher in Markarth advertises the "bloodiest beef in the Reach." Why is this bad? Take a look at raw beef. Then take a look at human flesh and try not to wonder if that's really beef... And if you talk to him in the shrine, he exclaims "[[IronicEcho The bloodiest beef in the Reach!]]" followed by [[EvilLaugh an incredibly demented giggle]], as if to confirm that suspicion. |
| 120 | ** That shopkeeper who took over when her husband died? She says this when you talk to her during the, eh, meal: "One of my customers? Did you know I inherited the store from my late husband? Shame what happened to him. He had such good taste." Either she has a very [[BlackComedy dark sense of humor]], or her husband was a cannibal as well, ''or she ate her husband''. Or perhaps all three are true. It gets even worse if you've talked to her beforehand and done a quest for her; at the time, she seemed genuinely sad that she lost her husband, which just makes the entire ordeal that much more disturbing. |
| 121 | ** Banning, the guy who trains dogs for the Jarl, and gives you special 'spiced beef' for the pups, is also a member of the cult. Makes you wonder just what kind of treat he had you deliver... |
| 122 | *** Even worse is when you know what happens to dogs who are raised eating that kind of meat - they tend to become highly unstable, and very vicious. If you thought CarnivoreConfusion was bad in most fictitious settings, imagine taking commands from a person who smells like your favorite snack. If you chat with him in the feast chamber, he even tells you that there's a reason his dogs are all too willing to bite people! |
| 123 | *** In real life, this is fortunately just a myth. In Tamriel, not so much. |
| 124 | *** If you adopt a daughter and have her live in Markarth, she'll sometimes say that Banning told her she could play with his dogs. Does he genuinely like kids, or is he just looking for a [[WouldHurtAChild cheap way to feed his dogs?]] |
| 125 | * In one quest, [[GreatGazoo Sanguine]] gets you drunk, and you proceed to do a lot of crazy things during the night, like stealing a goat, making out with a statue, and proposing marriage to a Hagraven - who accepted, regardless of your gender. When you meet up with her, she is very happy to see you, calling you "My love"; usually Hagravens are always hostile and as far as anyone is concerned, incapable of love or any pleasantries at all. The game doesn't tell you what you might have done that night to gain her approval, so don't think about it too hard. Please. |
| 126 | ** When you reach the final location in the questline, Morvunskar, you find a group of hostile mages who are nonetheless in the midst of drunken revelry, as befitting a gaggle of Sanguine worshipers. But delve deeper into the fortress and you'll find a room filled with the scorched and burnt corpses of captives, who were murdered by a psychotic mage named Naris who was indulging in ''his'' darker desires. And just up the hallway from this sadistic mage is another room, with a shrine to Dibella (whose temples and shrines Sanguine worshipers love to defile) alongside potions of paralysis, invisibility, and leather strips. It's not hard to figure out what other depravity these daedra worshipers were engaging in with their prisoners, and why Sanguine ''isn't'' all fun and games. |
| 127 | * The moment when you find Meridia's Beacon. So you stumble across a chest and find some goodies as well as some weird prism. "Hmm? Never seen anything like this before..." You take it out, close the chest, and are immediately treated to one HELL of a JumpScare by this otherworldly voice commanding you to return the beacon to her statue. Mercifully, Meridia is bar none the ''nicest'' of the Daedric Princes, but she's still downright terrifying when she wants something from you. You might be surprised that [[VideoGame/DragonAgeII Knight-Commander Meredith]] has suddenly started demanding something of you in a totally different game universe; no one will blame you for freaking out. |
| 128 | ** And then you finally make your way to her shrine and ''at last'' get the blasted thing out of your inventory. How does Meridia thank you? By hoisting you several hundred feet into the air and explaining that she now needs you to go through her shrine and put things back the way they should be, since a necromancer has set up shop in there. Meridia ''hates'' necromancers and the undead, so this is a personal affront and you can't blame her for being mad. You can, however, point out that she's not giving you a whole lot of choice in the matter, seeing as how she's literally holding your life in her hands. Whatever you do, don't look down! |
| 129 | ** The Undead she asks you to go and exterminate are much creepier than usual. Instead of Draugr, they're pitch-black skeletons wreathed in pure darkness with burning red eyes. Their master is a particularly strong sorcerer who, when killed, immediately converts himself into a lich which is quite the scary sight. |
| 130 | * In the city of Falkreath, you will meet parents mourning their deceased little daughter in the cemetery. Speaking with them will allow you to initiate the "Ill Met by Moonlight" quest, in which you will meet the girl's murderer, Sinding. When talking to him, he will tell you, full of remorse, that he indeed killed the girl: he is a lycanthrope, and is under a curse from the ring he possesses which turns him into a werewolf at random. He explains that he was unable to control himself and his impulses, leading him to find the ring which was supposed to help him control his inner beast, but it only made the situation worse. He needed to hunt, and the frail little girl was the perfect prey. His story is spine-chilling, to say the least. In the end, you will be given by Hircine, the Daedric Lord of the Hunt, the choice to spare him or to kill him, but even if you decide to spare him, and despite his promises to stay away from civilization, he will appear once again randomly in cleared bandit camps, feeding on corpses, or fighting a guard from the local hold. In the end, he will never be able to control his beastblood, and [[DownerEnding the player will have no choice but to put him down before he kills another human being.]] |
| 131 | ** "Ill Met By Moonlight" deserves some more elaboration. The second half takes place in Bloated Man's Grotto ([[SarcasmMode charming name]]), which normally is a relatively well-lit, open-topped cave that's a bit maze-like, a possible site of a Blade's last stand against the Thalmor, and home to a frankly unhealthy amount of bears and Spriggans. All in all, not too frightening, especially during the day when everything’s bright and green and colourful. All of that changes during Hircine’s quest. When you visit the grotto as part of the quest, the in-game clock automatically jumps to nighttime, and the sky turns blood-red with a [[BadMoonRising huge moon]] hanging low over the environment, making everything much, much darker and harder to make out. You pass by a group of grievously wounded hunters, clinging to life and barely able to tell you that they were no match for the werewolf they were chasing. So you carry on, into the red shadows, [[NothingIsScarier not a spark of life around you]], until eventually you come to a tiny clearing. And there it is – silhouetted against the Bloodmoon on an outcropping high above you, the werewolf sits, waiting. And then it speaks. [[DissonantSerenity Its voice is not too deep, not too loud, and terrifyingly human]]. |
| 132 | --->'''Sinding:''' Never thought I'd see you again. |
| 133 | ** The kicker? Due to a bug, even if you ''do'' kill Sinding, ''he will respawn, sometimes immediately''! Whether he just reappears in front of you ''even as his freshly skinned body is still lying at your feet'', or pops out of nowhere right next to you with the typical "post-transformation werewolf howl" should you decide to wait inside the grotto, you're in for a nasty JumpScare. Thankfully, he won't be hostile, but still... |
| 134 | * Hermaeus Mora has always been really creepy, what with the way all of his artistic renditions have depicted him as a formless EldritchAbomination. But in ''Skyrim'', you don't even get that when you meet him face to face, as it were; what you get instead (if you don't have ''Dragonborn'') is this [[NothingIsScarier swirling black vortex]] ''that appears out of nowhere'' while you weren't looking, blocks your only exit, and speaks to you in [[AffablyEvil an affable and beguiling voice]]. [[ParanoiaFuel Mora's been watching you]], and he intends on making you his new emissary, whether you want it or not. For more scary stuff about this MagnificentBastard check out the ''Dragonborn'' section. |
| 135 | * There are multiple Daedric quests that require you to turn on former allies in order to obtain the Daedra's blessing, with "Boethiah's Calling" probably being the most terrifying. In it, you must bring a follower to Boethiah's sacrificial pillar, command them to touch it (whereupon they are bound to the pillar and immobilized, facing you), and then kill them. You can do this with any follower, so if you wish to, you can simply hire some random merc and throw them under the bus to lessen the horror factor, but there's nothing stopping you from doing this to someone whose favor you won through a quest. Someone who was willing to follow you to the ends of the world for your kindness, if need be. Whose last sight in life will be the Last Dragonborn, [[EvilVersusOblivion Hero]] [[VillainWithGoodPublicity of Skyrim]], their [[ManipulativeBastard trusted]] [[FalseFriend friend]], spilling their guts all over the ground. [[VideoGameCrueltyPotential All because you wanted a fancy new set of armor.]] |
| 136 | |
| 137 | !!The Dovahkiin |
| 138 | * [[PlayerCharacter The Dovahkiin]] is, in their own way, a walking MookHorrorShow just waiting to happen. Just imagine that you're sitting in your camp, on watch for a caravan or some roaming monster or a military patrol that might fall upon the home you've carved out. It's the dead of night. Then, coming up the trail, you see a single person, alone. They're wearing nice armor and wielding a nice weapon, but they're by themselves. Easy prey for a dozen bandits, right? That armor and sword will make for a great haul! And even better, they're walking right toward your camp! You call your buddies, and they ready the ambush, and just as you leap out to strike, you hear '''"FUS RO DAH!"''' The next few minutes is a horrifying blur as you and your companions throw everything you have at this lone warrior, while lightning and fire and demonic beasts and even a freaking ''dragon'' comes swooping in and around you. You companions are being torn apart, blasted to ashes, or decapitated one by one, and this unstoppable warrior just keeps coming, periodically shouting out blast waves at the top of their lungs and moving impossibly fast, striking with terrifying precision, hurling armored warriors through the air like feathers, or just making people keel over and ''die''. |
| 139 | ** A [[OurWerewolvesAreDifferent werewolf]] Dovahkiin is nothing to brush off. While people will go after you if they see you transforming, as with the Vampire Lord above they won't if they don't know the werewolf who torn apart an entire town yesterday was actually [[VideoGameCrueltyPotential you.]] The Dovahkiin sure looks weird today, don't they? Jumpy and easy to anger, and you could swear you heard them ''growling'' at Nazeem as they walked past him. But hey, it's nothing to worry about, right? This is the Dovahkiin, they saved the world. You decide to go to the Bannered Mare to grab yourself a drink and inside you find the Dovahkiin... eating... raw meat. Hmmm. Weird, but to each their own, you guess. You realize the Dovahkiin must be having a bad day from the way they've secluded themself in the corner. You try to ignore the fact that the way they're looking at everyone is giving you the creeps and decide to drink your mead instead, cheerfully talking to Hulda. You hear the Dovahkiin get up and walk past you, and you could swear they smell like a wet dog, but again, you choose to ignore it. You finish your drink and go home. [[NightmareFuel That same night you're awoken by screaming and howling outside.]] You get up and go to your window to take a peek, keeping every candle unlit as to not reveal yourself to... whatever it is that's causing the commotion, and you can only catch glimpses of some sort of furry beast who moves like lightning tearing at the guards who desperately try to stop it. Not just the guards, but anyone who seems to be unlucky enough to be outside at the time. It doesn't seem to care if some of the people are trying to run away, as it just cuts them down without a care as well. Nothing the guards throw at it seems to even stall it. You just keep hidden, watching the massacre outside, too horrified to move, praying to the Eight and Talos and even the Daedra that that thing outside doesn't decide to start barging into houses, until the beast's killed everyone in the streets, lets out a blood-chilling howl and climbs over the wall of the city, running away. You can't go back to sleep that night. You get outside the next day, and decide to help the surviving villagers and the remaining guards to try and clean the mess from the previous night, as well as count the losses (and you get sick when you actually get to ''see'' the damage done) when the Dovahkiin walks in from the main gate. There are bags under their eyes, their clothes seem a little crumpled, their armor a bit askew. [[NightmareFuel They seem tired.]] |
| 140 | *** Even if the player is completely benevolent and never hurts an innocent person, they can still be completely terrifying. Rampaging through a dungeon, mauling bandits, necromancers, and other evildoers to death and eating them is practically becoming a horror movie monster. The brutal finishers also stand out, including pinning someone down and slashing them with your claws, ripping their throat out with your fangs, or just grabbing them by the head, ragdolling them, and then crushing their skull. |
| 141 | ** Something that [[OneHitKill kills instantly]] [[YourSoulIsMine by ripping off/destroying the target's soul,]] [[UnblockableAttack giving them no chance to fight back?]] Hm, [[Franchise/HarryPotter where have we seen this before?]] That's right, [[FridgeHorror Soul Tear is basically a 2.0 version of]] [[OneHitKill Avada]] [[MoralEventHorizon Kedavra.]] One could argue Shouts aren't ''really'' [[UnblockableAttack unblockable]] since [[DeflectorShields Wards]] will block them, but only Mages use Wards, meaning your run-of-the-mill melee fighter is utterly [[PrecisionFStrike fucked]] if they go up against the [[MookHorrorShow Dragonborn.]] |
| 142 | ** And all of this is just peaches compared to how the dragons themselves see the Dragonborn. This is a mortal with the ability to take the souls of any dragon he or she kills, using them to unlock dragon shouts and new ways to bring utter pain upon them, before stripping the very bones from their corpses and forging them into [[BadWithTheBone weapons]] and [[SkeletonsInTheCoatCloset armour]] with which to further mock their kind. |
| 143 | ** Mirmulnir's last words definitely sum up the horror a Dragon must feel when encountering the Dragonborn. For most of the entire battle he's incredibly confident, as with Alduin back, not even ''[[DeathIsCheap death]]'' could stop him for very long. But then you see that sense of smugness quickly dissolve into unbridled terror as he realizes far too late just ''[[TheDreaded who]]'' the person standing in front of him is. Imagine spending your last few seconds feeling your skin begin to catch fire and your soul rip itself away from you. No wonder he screams. |
| 144 | ---> '''Mirmulnir''': [[OhCrap Dovahkiin?!]] ''[[BigNo Niid!]]'' |
| 145 | *** And ''[[EvilCounterpart Miraak]],'' of all people, even lampshades this; |
| 146 | ----> '''Miraak''': Do you ever wonder if it ''[[YouBastard hurts]]'', having your soul ripped out like that? |
| 147 | ** 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 for 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. |
| 148 | ** 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.'' |
| 149 | ** The Dragonborn can be just as, if not more, terrifying for taking a [[NothingIsScarier subtler]] approach. For instance, the ever-popular, {{memetic|Mutation}}, GameBreaker "stealth archer" playstyle is terrifying from the perspective of your average {{Mook}}; imagine just sitting in your camp, maybe trying to sleep, maybe talking it up with your companions, when suddenly, one of the sentries lets out a pained cry and falls off the wall, an arrow sticking out of them. You and your companions draw your weapons and get ready to fight, only to have your numbers picked off one by one as arrows mysteriously seem to appear from nowhere, each of them taking down another person, before finally, it's your turn. |
| 150 | ** A Dragonborn who puts a lot of effort into the Illusion school effectively weaponizes MindRape through use of the FuryFrenzyMayhem and FearRoutHysteria spells. For that matter, the Master-level Illusion spells have a surprisingly vast range... standing in the right spot can have you use them on the entire citizenry of Whiterun, for instance. |
| 151 | ** And let's not forget that the Dragonborn can have access to multiple of the Daedric Princes' unholy artifacts. Imagine the thoughts going through the minds of your foes when you swing those weapons at them. Seeing the Razor of Mehrunes Dagon in your hands, for example, begs the question of whether the two Dremora at your side were bound by magic or are in fact willing allies who JumpedAtTheCall to aid their master's champion. |
| 152 | *** Related to this, guards will often comment on the Mace of Molag Bal, and they're ''terrified'' at the sight of it: |
| 153 | ---->'''Guard''': That mace... get it away from me. Get it ''away...'' |
| 154 | !!Miscellaneous |
| 155 | * While most are [[GoodBadBugs amusing]], some of the glitches can be scary. Some of these include: |
| 156 | ** Sometimes when a Khajiit or Argonian character dies, their tail will still be moving/twitching on their limp body. Similarly, sometimes if a corpse or other ragdolling object gets stuck in the ground or walls, it will [[{{Undercrank}} spasm uncontrollably]]. |
| 157 | ** Occasionally there is a bug which causes some of the mannequins to be animated and/or move around with basic NPC AI. Even worse, sometimes they will move off-screen and [[ParanoiaFuel freeze when their model is rendered]]. Sometimes they disappear, and when you turn back around, they're sort of wobbling back into place like they just sneaked away for a moment. |
| 158 | ** One quest gives you a spell called "Vision of the Tenth Eye", which allows you to "see what others cannot" and is used to find {{Plot Coupon}}s. However, to quote the wiki: "[[ParanoiaFuel Occasionally dragons may spawn while this spell is active that will despawn upon the spell ending]]." |
| 159 | ** One unpredictable bug is both humorous and horrifying: it causes a dragon skeleton to basically ''follow you around Skyrim''. It shows up randomly in places - outside the blacksmith's shop in Markarth, in front of your home at Lakeview Manor, and so forth. Occasionally the skeleton groans and rolls over. It's almost like you're being haunted by one of the dragons you killed. |
| 160 | * The [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1AenlOEXao live-action trailer]] could very well be a {{Deconstruction}} of the game's plot by showing just how terrifying a dragon attack would actually be and how powerless everyone would be to stop them. You watch civilians and even guards fleeing in utter panic. Thankfully it ends on an [[SugarWiki/AwesomeMoments awesome]] note when the Dragonborn is there to kick dragon ass. |
| 161 | * 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 it's 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. |
| 162 | * Caves in Skyrim are just...not safe. Most explorable caves are strewn with dead bodies from unsuspecting hunters or [[AssholeVictim bandits]] that got attacked by ''something'' while they were sleeping. Best case scenario, they shacked up inside of a wolf den and got attacked by the animals coming back. Other times, they apparently were invaded by trolls and got wiped out in a much more violent fashion. The very worst is when caves lead into Falmer hives or Ancient Nordic Tombs. The only group of humans that don't seem to have this problem are [[MagicKnight The]] [[TheRevolutionWillNotBeCivilized Forsworn]], who are pretty terrifying themselves. |
| 163 | [[/folder]] |
| 164 | |
| 165 | [[folder:''Dawnguard'']] |
| 166 | * ''Dawnguard'' is just a treasure trove of nightmare fuel. The first time you walk into Castle Volkihar deserves mention: the vampires are in the middle of a feast, with bones, gore, and spattered blood contrasting with the otherwise luxurious surrounding. There are even human corpses laid out on the tables, and a few of the vampires are chin-deep in their entrails like children in their first birthday cake. Imagine literally walking into the middle of that, completely surrounded, the only living creature present. Oh, wait. Those corpses on the tables? '''[[AndIMustScream THEY'RE STILL ALIVE]]'''. On the plus side, science has proven that this makes it at least 100% more satisfying to storm the castle and give the vampires a right proper pounding with a big ole' axe. |
| 167 | * If joining the [[CouncilOfVampires Volkihar Vampires]], you may be sent on a quest to recover a petrified ancient vampire's ''head''! |
| 168 | * ''Dawnguard'' potentially makes the Bloodlet Throne dungeon (mentioned above) even worse, as the wolves in the pit are replaced with the even scarier death hounds. |
| 169 | * The Falmer's Chaurus are given a new update and it is not pretty! Now you have to deal with ''[[FliesEqualsEvil Chaurus Hunters]]''. The Chaurus Reapers? Those were the ''larval form''. The Hunters are massive, winged, mantis-like creatures with stingers. It's basically a Chaurus Reaper except even tougher, and '''''it can fly'''''. They don't simply hatch from cocoons like butterflies. Instead, the normal Chauri ''are'' the cocoon, and the hunters burst out of them [[Film/{{Aliens}} chestburster-style]]. It does not help that Chauri look suspiciously like [[Franchise/MassEffect another kind of Reaper]], only (barely) shrunk down to melee combat size. |
| 170 | ** Also, look at some construction materials of the Falmer huts. They get bigger... |
| 171 | * The [[EldritchLocation Soul Cairn]], a plane of Oblivion to which human souls that have been captured in Black Soul Gems are sent after the soul gems are used up. The piles of bones everywhere are to be expected of what is essentially a graveyard dimension, but the true horror is the fact that all of these souls are in a permanent AndIMustScream state. If you talk to any of the unnamed souls, they will occasionally say that they feel like they are constantly being drawn and quartered... On the other hand, if you soul trapped Grelod the Kind, Mercer Frey, [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking Nazeem]], or any other asshole character, you might take comfort in the fact that they didn't get out of punishment that easily. |
| 172 | * The [[HauntedCastle Castle Volkihar]] tower leading to the Soul Cairn, at which point the game essentially becomes ''VideoGame/DarkSouls'' Lite. You're making your way up the dark tower, which only has about three healing potions in it, fighting very high level skeletons, in addition to a few death hounds. But the worst part is when [[NothingisScarier there are no skeletons]], and you're wandering around the shadows, wondering which of these gargoyles is going to [[JumpScare come to life]]... |
| 173 | * [[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 [=DLC's=] main quest. First-time players may well scramble for the strategy guide because they think they did something wrong. |
| 174 | ** 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 you never have to brave the cave to visit there again. |
| 175 | * Bringing Serana to the beginning of the "House of Horrors" Daedric quest is VideoGameCrueltyPotential at its finest. The FridgeHorror and [[RapeAsBackstory her horrifying backstory with Molag Bal]] are bad enough, but she will, like the Dragonborn inside Molag's cage, [[BreakTheCutie crouch and place her hands on her head while the Daedra speaks]]. |
| 176 | * On the Dawnguard side, there will come a point where you head back to Fort Dawnguard to check in - maybe turn in some new Dwemer schematics you found for Sorine, or check with Isran about any vampire sightings. Lo and behold, the castle is being besieged by vampires! If you're playing the questline for the first time, this can be the large-scale equivalent of a JumpScare. |
| 177 | * ''Dawnguard'' creates some possibility for horror with the ability for the Dragonborn to shout and rip out a person's soul and raise them as an undead thrall. The shout in question, Soul Tear, is quite possibly the single most powerful in the entire game. To elaborate, it deals around 300 damage, which means a human opponent is pretty much [[OneHitKill instantly dead when you]] [[UnblockableAttack use it on them.]] If the enemy dies by the Shout, [[YourSoulIsMine their soul is trapped]] ''and'' they are instantly [[BackFromTheDead revived]] as [[OurZombiesAreDifferent zombies]] to [[BrainwashedAndCrazy fight for you,]] [[NoBodyLeftBehind becoming ash piles once the effect is over.]] To a player, [[ButForMeItWasTuesday it might be nothing more than a tool,]] but imagine how horrifying it must be to an enemy. Let's take as an example soldiers from the opposing faction, who generally don't attack unless provoked, unlike bandits. They may be not only be killed by the Dragonborn's shout, but also by their reanimated allies, in spite of not provoking the sudden attack. |
| 178 | * While the werewolf form attacks are brutal, the [[SuperForm Vampire Lord]] form is pure nightmare fuel. Around 8 feet tall, built almost as sturdy as a troll, the Vampire Lord simply glides around while either draining your very life essence or raising your buddy as an undead thrall. Oh, and if you survive his magical onslaught? He lands and proceeds to introduce you firsthand to his claws which are every bit as brutal as a werewolf's. There's another thing that makes a Vampire Lord Dovahkiin all the more terrifying - nobody can recognize you while in Vampire Lord form, assuming they have not seen you transform, which means you can kill as many people as you want and not get any bounty on your head unless you're seen changing into or out of human form. This opens up a whole new array of possibilities for an [[VideoGameCrueltyPotential evil-inclined,]] [[AxCrazy murderous]] Dovahkiin, and a whole new source of ParanoiaFuel. One night a terrifying bat-beast can glide silently into your city, mercilessly slaughtering anyone in its way, draining them dry of blood, raising corpses to fight by its side, and summoning nightmarish gargoyles. Eventually it mercifully escapes into the night. The next day, the legendary Dragonborn walks into town, receiving greetings fit for a hero. Sure, there is something ''off'' about him... a sort of paleness, an eerie light in his eyes [[note]] the eerie light is allowed for the Dragonborn only, no other non-vampire NPC can detect any other vampire[[/note]] ... but this is the Dragonborn, savior of Skyrim, vanquisher of dragons! [[BlueAndOrangeMorality Surely someone so virtuous cannot have evil intentions deep within, right?]] '''Right?''' |
| 179 | * If that isn't enough, you can also summon an undead dragon for fun... and unlike Odahviing, you can summon him ''indoors'' if you have enough room. A dragon materializing out of nowhere inside a space barely big enough for it means a hell of a lot of trauma for anyone in there with it. |
| 180 | * The beginning of the quest "Lost to the Ages" is a blending of NightmareFuel and ParanoiaFuel. You enter a Dwemer ruin, and since it's probably not your first, you know that the place is likely to be crawling with vicious automatons and quite possibly Falmer. You therefore move in stealth mode, weapon at the ready, but nothing appears. Occasionally, for no immediately clear reason, the ground shakes; red-tinted clouds of dust rise from the ground and settle again. And then, when you reach a certain point, you suddenly hear the unfamiliar disembodied voice of a soft-spoken woman. Thankfully, she's completely benevolent and actively helps you complete the quest, but it's still terrifying the first time you hear it. |
| 181 | -->'''Turn back.''' |
| 182 | * Traveling at night because much more dangerous in Dawnguard thanks to the increased presence of vampires, and now ''Gargoyles'' roaming the countryside. Just imagine it; there you are minding your business, exiting a cave or tomb, and all of the sudden you're set upon by two screaming ''monsters'' that you have never seen before moving in a way you've never seen before. While they aren't terribly hard to put down, it doesn't help that they hit like trucks. |
| 183 | [[/folder]] |
| 184 | |
| 185 | [[folder:''Dragonborn'']] |
| 186 | * 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. |
| 187 | * 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 is 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). |
| 188 | * Encountering a [[GiantMook Lurker]] can be really damn horrifying your first time. You will usually either encounter them in Apocrypha where they rise from a pond of black liquid, when you use the Bend Will shout on the stones, releasing them, or just along the shores of the island where they can appear out of nowhere. They are nearly as tall as giants, and hit nearly as hard. All of their melee attacks can stagger you, and even at a distance they can still hurt you by throwing balls of tentacles. Not to mention they are [[{{Lightning Bruiser}} fast for their size]]. And may the All-Maker help you if you encounter more than one at the same time. |
| 189 | * The Stones themselves before being cleansed can be pretty ominous, with a group of people working on some kind of structure while reciting a strange mantra. And if you touch the uncleansed stone or sleep, you wake up to find yourself working on the stone, while Miraak ominously calls out to you. |
| 190 | * In ''Dragonborn'', you get to know more about [[GreaterScopeVillain Hermaeus Mora]] and go to his realm, Apocrypha, filled with all sorts of Lovecraftian horrors. Not only that, but his appearance changes to a series of voids that have tentacles coming out of them and eyes that appear and disappear. It gets worse. That series of voids with tentacles emerging from the depths and eyes phasing in and out of Nirn are rendered as two-dimensional objects, much like death sprites in ''Doom'', an effect which causes the image to shift its orientation whenever the camera moves about. That's right. Hermaeus Mora isn't interested in the Dragonborn, he's interested in ''[[TheFourthWallWillNotProtectYou you]]''. |
| 191 | * 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. |
| 192 | ** Oh, it gets worse than that. To elaborate, Hermaeus Mora spears the Skaal leader through with several tentacles, including one ''through his brain'' (honoring his title as the Daedric Prince of Knowledge), and proceeds to have a cruel conversation with the horribly suffering and very much conscious man. And then, when he has what he wants, Mora just shakes the man off the tentacles and disappears, leaving the man's daughter to exclaim in horror over her father's dead body. Yep, [[ForcedToWatch she was watching the whole thing]]. Imagine seeing that happen to ''your'' father. |
| 193 | * 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. |
| 194 | * 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. |
| 195 | * 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. Turns out 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. |
| 196 | * It's safe to say that the entirety of ''Dragonborn'''s main story is like ''The Elder Scrolls'' meets Creator/HPLovecraft. Since Bethesda has done this before in ''Oblivion'' (A Shadow Over Hackdirt) and ''Fallout 3'' (The Dunwich Building), we can easily say Bethesda really, ''really'' loves Lovecraft.[[note]]They're also the publishers of ''VideoGame/CallOfCthulhuDarkCornersOfTheEarth'', an official adaptation of the Cthulhu Mythos...[[/note]] |
| 197 | * After you read a Black Book and return to the overworld, you might get a glitch(?) where the normal skybox is replaced by the SicklyGreenGlow and swirls of Apocrypha, almost as if Hermaeus Mora's influence is following you out. Seeing an AlienSky over a mundane landscape is more than a little unsettling. |
| 198 | * In White Ridge Barrow, you will encounter bandits who are being controlled by an Albino Spider variant that ''adheres to their necks'' and covers their skin in some glowing light green web. One might be reminded of [[Franchise/{{Halo}} the Flood]]. |
| 199 | [[/folder]] |
| 200 | |
| 201 | [[folder:Creation Club]] |
| 202 | * 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. This means that some of his ash creatures are back as well, caved-in skulls and all, with the follower taking creepy delight in stitching their mouths into smiles. |
| 203 | * For any Arachnophobes, "The Contest" must have been quite shocking with the new Web Mother boss spider, with its grotesque design. Seeing the thing covered in what seem to be eggs and having blood red mandibles makes the already distressing spider design ''even worse''. |
| 204 | [[/folder]] |
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