Tear Jerker / The Elder Scrolls Online

Base Game

Across Alliances

Stories in the base-game that are common to all alliances.

• "Soul-Meld Mage" in Coldharbour: Two mages - the Dunmer Gadris and the Khajiit Zur - are in a state where both of their souls occupy one body, but they need your help to split them apart because it is killing them. In the end, you learn that the process will save only one of them, and you must decide. If you choose Gadris, he says that he feels empty now and grieves over the Khajiit he was once so annoyed by: "I'm not sure if I will ever be all right, but I live. I'm ashamed that I thought Zur was silly and scatterbrained. My time melded to him taught me so much. Zur had... a good soul."
• King Dynar's death at the end of the Coldharbor questline.
• There are quite a few during the Mage's Guild quest line. Most involve looking into Valaste's past and seeing the very lonely childhood she suffered and how she considered books to be her only friends. Then at the end of the quest, her state of mind when Sheogorath has driven her mad through the books she translated is just heartrending.
• One of the possible lines Molag Bal might tell you when you destroy a dark anchor, is that he will make sure nobody remembers you or your deeds when you are gone. It is not a significant threat compared to others, but then you save the world, or a town, and they promise you that your deeds shall be remembered for generations. Come the main series of ''The Elder Scrolls'', and nothing is mentioned about you. It could be that your stories faded through time, but the possibility that Molag Bal did something to remove people's memories of you when you died is also possible. People who simply want to celebrate a savior will forget, and you will disappear with no one to remember you.
• In Cyrodiil, northwest of Camala Outpost, there is a picnic with zombies. After killing them, you can read the note laying there: "Dearest, meet me in our usual spot. I have a bottle of your favorite wine and a very special question to ask you. Yours truly, M" It is not difficult to imagine what that important question was, nor what happened to them after.
• In 2020, The New Life Festival event introduced a recurring quest called the Old Life Observance, in which the player character can offer messages to the dead. When the player performs the ritual, the spirits of some characters who died in past quests will often be seen for a brief moment. The real tear jerker, however, is the quest giver's explanation, in which he says that we must never forget the dead and that the messages offer a chance to say things we wish we had said while they were still alive. In a year defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, it is a heartbreaking Reality Subtext.
• The end of Craglorn's "main quest" (aka the soloable, non-Trial or group based content) ends on a very bittersweet note, as you're forced to fight and kill your former allies Cassipia and Little Leaf after the former becomes a Well-Intentioned Extremist. To twist the knife further, its clear that Cassipia and Little Leaf genuinely loved each other, and Cassipia sounds completely horrified and heartbroken when Little Leaf falls. And as she finally dies, all she can do is lament about how she genuinely wanted to create a better world.

Ebonheart Pact

• The tragic tale of Aera Earth-Turner. Originally a simple farmer on Bleakrock Isle with her husband, son and daughter, she ends up losing her best friend and idol when the Daggerfall Covenant invade and take over the island. Then, in Bal Foyen, depending whether you choose to help Fort Zeren or the Docks, she either loses her daughter or her husband and son.
  • Despite her surviving family's best efforts, Aera only sinks further and further into depression, ultimately finding no joy in anything other than slaughtering the Covenant forces who destroyed her life. Finally, she is approached by Thallik Wormfather and manipulated into acting as the Worm Cult's mole in the Rift with the promise of being able to see her dead family one last time. Depending on your choice, she is ultimately either executed as a traitor, or exiled from Pact lands for the rest of her life.
• There is a quest in one of the Ebonheart areas where a young Dunmer woman asks you to find the tomb of the man she loved. When you do, you speak to his ghost - and his wife's ghost - and he reveals that he never really loved her; he was just having fun leading her on, and his wife found it amusing too. You have the option to tell her about it, and upon learning it, she will run off, upset. She appears in the area shortly afterward as a ghost - just to see her there, not part of any quest or anything - which implies that she committed suicide.
  • The worst part is, no matter what you tell her, she will die anyway.
• The events at Fort Virak and Kragenmoor are this in spades. From the moment General Serien kills Garyn Indoril, itself a notable tear-jerker due to how sudden it is and due to Garyn’s overall honor and kindness, his father Tanval’s actions are utterly tragic. To wit: he goes on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge against the Covenant, attempting to summon a Brother of Strife to avenge his only son and taking a young man hostage in the process while keeping a whole town in terror, realizing his mistake, and finally helping defeat said Brother of Strife—at the cost of his life. The final meeting with Tanval’s ghost, which also marks the end of the questline, stands a pretty high chance of leaving you in tears at the fate of the two of them—and quite possibly of the main branch of a House that once counted among its number Morrowind’s greatest hero. And Holgunn’s comments afterwards will, if possible, be even more heartbreaking. The only silver lining in this is likely that Holgunn and Tanval didn’t die as enemies and reconciled just in time.

Daggerfall Covenant

• Princess Lakana's murder, particularly because the one who murdered her was under strong hypnosis and manipulation. When you catch him, you are asked to decide his fate; kill him like her father, King Fahara'jad, wants even if he is technically innocent, or let him live and risk having the king withdraw Hammerfell from the Daggerfall Covenant. It is all a tragedy no matter what you do.
• High-King Emeric's nightmare in the Stormhaven arc. Though he can be stoic and a dismissive jerk at times, he hides a lot of insecurities and doubts he cannot show to anyone due to his position as an alliance leader.
• An early quest in the Daggerfall Covenant region of Glenumbra has the scion of a wealthy family trying to take back his ancestral estate. A spirit is preventing him from entering the ruins of the estate, and he wants you to get rid of it. As you advance in the quest, you learn that the spirit was a servant at the estate, and that she fell in love with the quest-giver's father. He claimed to love her too, and gave her an amulet his mother had given to him. When his mother found the amulet in the girl's possession, she assumed it was stolen and was ready to hack the girl to death with a battleaxe. The girl begged her lover to tell his mother how she felt, but he did not, resulting to her being locked in a tower. Then we find the saddest part: She was pregnant. She gave her child to a Daedric lord to protect him and get revenge on the family.
• The backstory of Baron Montclair, Arc Villain of Rivenspire. Unable to accept his severely ill wife Leila's impending death, Montclair drew on the power of an Ayleid relic in an attempt to cure her. However the relic was corrupted, and turned the entire Montclair family into vampires, with some becoming the zombie-like bloodfiends. Leila herself begged for a Mercy Kill, which Count Verandis provided — right before of Montclair's eyes.

Aldmeri Dominion

• The faction as a whole can be this for anyone who played Skyrim. Seeing Ayrenn and the Thalmor bring tolerance and unity to the three races hurts immensely when you know their successors ultimately become no better than the Veiled Heritance, reducing the Bosmer and Khajit to second-class citizens and becoming the biggest threat of the Fourth Era.
• Skywatch has a quest where a grieving elderly mother named Ancalin asks you to pray at the graves of her four children, who have all died. As if that were not sad enough, after you do so and return to her, she tells you that she can now be at peace. After the quest completes, she fades away into a spirit.
• In Grahtwood, you can come across a village currently under siege by enraged Spriggans and beasts after someone within the village violated the Green Pact by destroying a sacred plant. The Treethane asks you to determine the true culprit of three suspects: The village Spinner, his wife, and a shifty Khajit merchant. After gathering all the clues, it quickly becomes apparent that all of them shared a role in the disaster: The Spinner's wife was dying of a wasting disease, and the only cure could only be made from the sacred plant. Knowing that her husband would never violate the Green Pact, she bribed the merchant into cutting the plant and selling it to the Spinner, who used it to create the cure. In essence, you have to decide which of the three bears the most blame for the act, then personally escort them to be executed by a Strangler, all while they desperately beg for mercy or for this all to be a nightmare. As the Treethane himself says after the sordid affair is concluded, the Green Pact can be a heavy burden sometimes...
• The Wilderqueen's quest is sad. When growing up, Aranias did not have friends - only her emotionally abusive parents and her power to control the land, which she could not entirely control. It is no surprise that she clung to the Veiled Heritance, who valued her for her power. You help create false memories in her mind in which you were a friend there to support her through the rough times and convince her that the Heritance has darker motives. She then decides on her own to turn against them, and learns that she must take up the mantle of the Wilderqueen. She is terrified, partly because she will lose her memories - even if the only good ones are with you. It is heartbreaking to see, once she makes the transformation and gains acceptance of her new role, that her personality is draining away and her voice is becoming more mechanical. The still-lingering part is thankful for all that you have done for her, though.
  The Wilderqueen: "Aranias is slipping away. You are my friend, though, whoever I become."
• One quest in Greenshade, in which you navigate the Labyrinth to learn the origin of the quest-giver. While in context, it just seems like he was the Wilderking's friend when he was mortal, if you have helped a certain woman become the Wilderqueen, you realize that the role you played for her was the same the quest-giver played for the first Wilderking.
• In Greenshade, a Bosmer and his husband have come to this place at the end of their lives, only desiring to see the beautiful flowers before they pass on. Sadly, the flowers they remember aren't in the area, so you're tasked with retrieving the seeds so at least they can plant them. When you go to retrieve the seeds, you are treated to flashbacks of their life and love, and what the flowers mean to them. When you finally return to the couple, the ailing one has passed on, and the quest giver will soon follow due to how Bosmer marriages work. When you finish the quest and hear the few sweet words from the quest giver, the illusory flowers you saw during the quest appear, and remain for some time...
• The entirety of The Two Moons path, from start to finish it rips your heart out and stomps it into little pieces.

Downloadable Content

Standalone Content

Orsinium

• King Kurog's reaction when you kill Forge-Mother Alga. His rage makes it clear how much he loves and cares about her.
• The somber atmosphere during King Kurog's funeral. It is clear that he meant a lot to the orcs everywhere, and that people believed he could have brought the people glory had he not fallen.
• If you played Summerset and then play or replay Wrothgar's arc, Alinon the Alchemist's search for Darien Gautier, believing he is still alive and willing to travel all over Tamriel to look for him. If you played Orsinium first, this conversation might give you hope, which is later shattered. Worse, there has yet to be an opportunity to tell Alinon his fate.
• "A Khajiit's Tale": One of the Orc hunting party you are rescuing is a Khajiit named Zhasim, who was adopted by Orcs after being found out in the cold as an infant. He joins you to find his cat. While traveling with him, he mentions that as much as he feels at home in his Orc clan, he does sometimes long to know more about his Khajit heritage, occasionally mimicking the quirks of Khajiti dialect. Along the way, however, he finds shreds of paper with games and riddles on them from his mother, a travelling merchant who, along with Zhasim's father, perished in the cave you are exploring. Through these notes and games, Zhasim discovers his real name (Elzhar), learns of his heritage, and eventually decides that, while he is still an Orc, he would still like to embrace his heritage. He then decides to become an apprentice to a merchant before he hopefully heads to Khenarthi's Roost to learn more about his parents and their clan.
• Regardless of whether Talviah or Solgra dies, Eveli Sharp-Arrow goes through a major Break the Cutie arc that completely shatters her highly idealistic beliefs about being an adventurer and a hero. Even before the player has to chose who dies, Eveli is left shaken and furious after Solgra manipulated her and the player into rescuing Chief Bazrag, who at this point you both believed to be the Big Bad of the story. If Talviah dies, she's left furious at how the player, who she clearly idolized up to this point, would be willing to Shoot the Dog so "callously", and while she eventually understands why you did it and how it ultimately saved both her's and Solgra's lives in the end, the loss of her friend still pains her. By contrast, if Solgra dies, Eveli is left utterly heartbroken, turning down Bazrag's offer to make her captain of an archer unit because Wrothgar has brought her so much and pain and heartbreak that simply being in the region essentially becomes her Trigger.

Murkmire

• "Empty Nest": Haxara, the Bright-Throat egg-minder, desperately wants to be a mother, but is unable to and instead must watch over others' eggs and let some eggs rot and die because they were not meant to survive. Ree-Nakal, a member of the Ghost People tribe, takes advantage of this vulnerability by promising her children of her own, thus convincing her to steal non-viable eggs from the tribe's nesting beds. Thanks to a powerful performance by the voice actress, Haxara's lines are eloquent with grief and pain as she discovers what Ree-Nakal has really been doing with those eggs.

Daedric War Arc

Morrowind

• "Memory Stone": An elderly Dunmer, Gilan Lerano, requires your help in placing memory stones throughout nearby locations just outside of town. As you do, you see the day he proposed to his wife, the day she announced her pregnancy and the day that she died. He thanks you for your aid when you are done and asks that you speak with Mils and Neria, his children. After sending them your way, you go back, only for all of you to find him dead. On his corpse is one last memory stone, with him saying how proud he is of his children, that he loves them and asks for their forgiveness.

Clockwork City

• Proctor Luciana Pullo's backstory and relationship with Sotha Sil. She turned up in Clockwork City close to death centuries ago, but Sotha Sil saved both herself and her unborn son by turning her into a cyborg. Luciana and Sotha Sil remained friends for years. As an adult, Luciana's son turned deadly ill, but Sotha Sil told her bluntly that he had the power to save him, but would not. After his death, Luciana stayed in loyalty to the City, but her relationship with Sotha Sil was permanently broken after that.
• Sotha Sil's conversation with you at the end of the main quest indicates that he is fully aware of what his and Almalexia's final fates will be, but cannot do anything about it because You Can't Fight Fate.
  • In that same conversation, he somberly admits that, for all his divine power and authority, he still envies mortals like the Vestige because unlike him, who is cursed with the knowledge that his fate is set in stone, they are capable of forming their own paths and making their own fates.
  Sotha Sil: "Maybe"...that is a word only your kind has use for. A word I am barred from, despite my wishes otherwise. Hold on tight to that word. Never let it go.

Summerset

• The fact that Nocturnal herself is the main antagonist in the Clockwork City and Summerset expansions may be a tearjerker for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim's Thieves Guild fans who were fond of her. Here, she is a far cry from how she is there, being much more power-hungry, cruel and even sadistic.
• Darien Gautier's sacrifice. After being thought to be dead, he finally returns to the spotlight as the Golden Knight of Meridia, and you two catch up on old times during the main questline. During the final push against Nocturnal, he figures out who he is and sacrifices himself to reforge the Dawnbreaker to enable you to get past the last barrier before Nocturnal herself.
  • Ultimately, it turns out he is not dead, but he will be soon. At the very least, he will lose his memories of the player and his friends, Skordo and Gabrielle, as stated in his final words to you that you may find after the Council meeting.
• "His Final Gift": You find a letter by a corpse, and find out that the man was set to marry the love of his life when he contracted vampirism and accidentally killed her mother. Ashamed and fearful for his fiancée's safety, he ran away, though still thinking about the past and the future the couple could have had.
• "Bantering With Bandits": Tableau is a former artist from the House of Reveries who is about to enter the Summerset artist world, but her good friend, the outcast Manacar, cut all contact with her withut telling her why when she needs him the most. It turns out, he did this because he worries their friendship will sabotage her career. You can convince him to stay friends with Tableau as she needs him more than her career... or convince Tableau that Manacar is right to leave her. You feel for Manacar, having to let go of his only non-animal friend who treated him as an equal, for her own good, and for Tableau, whose friend suddenly cut connections with her when she entered a new, hectic life without telling her why.
• "Storming the Walls": An Altmer and a Maormer are in love, but their races are mortal enemies and they have to fight their own people to stop a major catastrophe. Depending on your choices, they might decide that they are not fated to be together, and the Maormer Castire leaves after a moment of hesitation as they say their goodbyes.
  Castire: The span between us may be as far as the sun and the sea, but you'll never be far from my thoughts.
  Pandermalion: The sun and the sea were never so lucky as to have crossed paths.
• "Murder in Lillandril": You investigate the murder of Haladan, an Altmer Sapiarch. His Breton lover Emile Oncent has confessed to the crime. It turns out that both were Restoration mages, engaged in illegal experiments in a desperate attempt to cure Haladan's childhood friend of a mysterious illness. Haladan was actually killed by another person driven mad by the disease. If these experiments were made public, Haladan would be disgraced and his existence would be stricken from history forever, so Emile begs you to cover up the truth and let him take the blame for Haladan's death. You are therefore faced with the Sadistic Choice of letting the innocent and grief-stricken Emile go to prison for the rest of his life, or destroying the legacy of the heroic and compassionate Haladan. Perhaps the biggest tearjerker is that as your investigation unfolds, it becomes clear that Haladan and Emile did deeply love each other, and met tragedy only because they were trying to save lives.
• "The Crystal Tower:" While in the Crystal Tower trying to stop Nocturnal, you come across a Sapiarch desperately clutching a relic: when Nocturnal attacked, she grabbed it to steady herself, and it kept her there while everyone else vanished around her. The staff's magic is fading, however, and she's scared and keeps saying that she doesn't want to die. All you can do is explain to her what's happening and tell her that you're sorry. As she begins to fade and finds it hard to concentrate, Leythen helps her focus her mind on her loved ones, so that her final moments are peaceful.
  • With the backstory of Leythen this becomes even more of a Fridge tearjerker: When Leythen and Valsirenn's daughter was dying, it was Leythen who remained at her bedside to comfort her while Valsirenn was away searching for a cure. While his daughter's death completely broke him and turned Leythen towards daedra worship, his interaction with the dying Sapiarch shows the kind of loving, compassionate father he once must have been.

Season of the Dragon Arc

Elsweyr

• "The Battle for Riverhold": You must help a family of farmers leave their home. The matriarch asks you to find her husband and brother, but it turns out the brother is already dead. When the quest is over, the family is supposed to pack their belongings, but if you follow the brother's wife upstairs, you see her stand in the middle of their old bedroom, grieving alone.
• Zamarak's backstory and reason for his exile. Even after revealing his past, whenever you talk to him about it, he always sounds defeated, like he has no belief he will ever find redemption for his mistakes. It is heartbreaking to listen to when you know what happened.
• Everything about Cadwell's death.
  • You begin the quest seeing Cadwell depowered and actually tired and serious, having lost his essense. Just how out of character he is, seriously apologizing for messing things up, is sad to see.
  • Then the quest gives you the impression that things will be all right, because you help him get back his essense by saving the other partymembers. It might have been a red herring.
  • And then, when Zumog Phoom does steal his essense, he sounds so weak with his last words, asking you to take care of Honor, his steed, before he slowly dissipates in black smoke. The slow and unique animation used for it really gives the idea that he truly is gone.
• "Ruddy Fang Retrieval": Its quest-giver is Elianna Pevengius, an Imperial looking for her late husband's belongings. For a simple quest to fetch an item, the backstory for the couple involved is sad to listen to.
  • The husband had to follow Euraxia Tharn to take over Rimmen, and when dragons appeared, he died protecting the Khajiit that Tharn mistreated. Then, Euraxia refused to send his remains back to his wife, heavily implied to use his body with necromancy. The wife had to travel all the way to Elsweyr, barely avoiding the Three-Banner War, just to get her husband's belongings.
  • You find her after her husband's belongings and her money were stolen by a band of thieves. She has been waiting day and night for an opportunity to get them back, and she is at wits end. She will give you any money she has, she only wants her husband's belongings. Even after getting them back, she still is not sure when she can return to her homeland, considering the battle between Khajiit and Euraxia Tharn, and the Three-Banner War. So she is stuck in a foreign country whose people are not fond of Imperials, especially not Imperial soldiers, because of Euraxia.
• The Ashen Scar quests tells the story of how a Khajiit monk in Azurah's service abandoned his friends when his sworn brother was given the honor of wielding the Moonlight Blade. Shando-ri, whe one chosen, asked upon death to reside in the Moonlight Blade until Arum-Khal was gone for good. This happened thousands of years ago. When speaking with Shando-ri, you can feel his pain as he speaks about his sworn brother's betrayal, and the voice actor really sells it as he admits he really tried to redeem his friend. In the end, even when he had the chance to get rid of Arum-Khal for good, he hesitated, still thinking he could be redeemed. Rather than see his good intentions, Arum-Khal instead takes Shando-ri prisoner in his dimension.
  • When Arum-Khal is defeated and Shando-ri finds a speck of the goodness still left in him after death, Arum-Khal sounds so confused and afraid. Shando-ri is rewarded for his faith in Arum-Khal, and consoles him as he leads their spirits away. Their mentor, Mazza-Mirri, sounds like she is close to tears knowing both her boys, lost in different ways, are on their way to meet her in the afterlife.
• Orcrest public delve has fallen to a plague, and the only people you find there are looters, cannibals and even Daedra. You find memoirs and diaries around, making it clear that, despite the city being thriving with thieves and corruption, the people living there experienced despair and hopelessness as they succumbed to the plague and cannibals.
  • The story of Mathoc the Immortal, because it shows what can happen to adventurers who do not have the benefit of Death Is a Slap on the Wrist; Mathoc lost his ability to speak or move his body properly due to the various adventures and enemies he met, many of the enemies being mobs you meet regularly as a player that barely bother you. Mathoc is in so much pain that the only way to briefly forget it is to fight others and see them in pain, making him infamous for stealing his enemies' souls for himself.
    Mathoc the Immortal kept fighting because Mathoc Risor was ready to die.
• During the battle for Rimmen, Khamira is hit with a one two punch of tragedy. First, Captain Nala-Do, her closest friend and companion, dies shielding her from Euraxia's magic. Then, to twist the knife further, Euraxia unleashes the zombified husks of Khamira's parents, all while viciously taunting her.

Dark Heart of Skyrim Arc

Greymoor

• The scene where Queen Gerhyld is murdered is both shocking and sad, especially watching the aftermath. Svana mourns hard and feels responsible for not listening more to her parents and taking her royal responsibilities seriously.
  • Lyris is being very gentle and patient about the situation, which makes sense when one remembers her own troubled background regarding her parents.
• If you do not talk with Svana to get the last story-quest, "Daughter of the Wolf", you might meet Maugh outside Solitude with the quest available. If you talk to him, he asks the player to speak with Svana, because he does not feel like he can help her anymore, as she is no longer the Svana he befriended.
  Maugh: Take good care of the princess. Jarl. Svana. Whoever she is now. If you need me, I'll be deep in a bottle.
  • After completing the last storyquest at the courtyard with all the citizens, the player might find Maugh far in the background, away from the crowd, watching his old friend's new self but not approaching. If you speak with him, he will tell you that he lost a friend, but gained a leader.
• Fate of the Frozen: Magreta escaped from her raider group, but her lover Nelfthea stayed behind. The player goes into the delve Frozen Coast to look for her, and finds out that the coast was attacked by giants, and Nelfthea gave her life to protect as many of her comrades as possible. Magreta is heartbroken to hear this.
  Magreta: I hadn't figured out what more I wanted than to be with her. Now I don't even have that.

Gates of Oblivion Arc

Blackwood

• While she tries her best not to let it show too much, if you've completed Orsinium beforehand its clear that Eveli is still deeply affected by the events of Wrothgar, especially if Solgra died.

Legacy of the Bretons Arc

Firesong

• A random encounter is an Altmer being sacrificed by a necromancer. You cannot save him, and his final words are "I hope someone feeds my dog!"

Shadow Over Morrowind Arc

Necrom

• After helping Nayru in Ald Isra, if you had previously completed Morrowind and Summerset you can find her in Necrom's inn and the two of you discuss the bull netch in the room: Veya's death. While she assures you she doesn't resent you for killing Veya, knowing you had no choice, its clear that she's deeply affected by how far her former friend had fallen, and blames herself for not having done more to help her when she had the chance.