'Questing heroes of all stripes seek after the fabled Daedric artifacts for their potent combat and magical benefits.' ―Haderus of Gottlesfont, from Modern Heretics src Of the seventeen Daedric Princes, sixteen have an artifact attributed to them in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Azura's Star or The Black Star. Visit the Shrine of Azura. Shrine of Azura, south of Winterhold, east.
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Last week we listed the top 10 artifacts scattered across Skyrim but here’s the thing. While yes finding those exclusive artifacts can be great, the daedric quests are a real highlight and there rewards are some of the best items in the game.
For this list I’m counting down all fifteen daedric artifacts and while yes I know there’s more than fifteen I’m only using one artifact per prince and which daedric princes your going to have to suck up to. I’m also not including the Skeleton Key from Noctural because a) it doesn’t count towards the ‘Oblivion Walker’ achievement/trophy and b) you need to give it back in order to the Thieves Guild questline.
- Sep 08, 2020 Daedric Artifacts are items enchanted by the Daedric Lords and passed on to mortals, usually their champions. They may be found all throughout Skyrim or given by a Daedric Prince himself.
- Oct 10, 2020 Few mortals worship Clavicus Vile, he is represented as two beings instead of one, and his influence is rather lacking in most Elder Scrolls titles. Clavicus Vile certainly has plenty of Daedric.
- A true revisit to the Daedric Artifacts guide I did so long ago, now condensed!SKYRIM GUIDES Full Playlist - Tip.
15) Masque of Clavicus Vile
In every entry in the series the Masque of Clavicus Vile has appeared and ever time it has always been enchanted in some way to improve your personality/speech. This by the way is a pretty useless enchantment in most causes. To get your own masque you’ll need to talk to the blacksmith in Falkreach once your level 10 or higher.
To be fair in Skyrim they added a 5% Magicka regeneration but that’s not exactly alot and since its a heavy helmet it will counteract the Mage Armour Alteration therefore limiting what builds can use it. On the plus side however if your trying to get the best deals for your goods the Masque is very useful since it increases both your persuasion and barter. your personality/speech. This by the way is a pretty useless enchantment in most causes. To get your own masque you’ll need to talk to the blacksmith in Falkreach once your level 10 or higher.
Also I do like the fact that the Masque is based off of Clavicus Viles own face which fits his personality perfectly but what happened to Umbra, that sword was badass and pretty easy to find in Oblivion.
14) Oghma Infinium
Wait a minute I hear you say how did a item that gives up a plus 5 increase to any set of skills in one of the three groups. This practically guarantees at least one level up and its a guarantee that your going to active this quest anyway during the main questline once you pick up the Elder Scroll.
Here’s the thing though for all the use that a level up and a perk can be, the book vanishes after you read it once and you’d think that you’d at least get something extra like a bonus effect. Sadly no which is a shame because the Oghma Infinium quest is one of the longest especially if you started the quest before needing the scrolls in either the main questline or Dawnguard.
Also while the book is nice a ring or necklace would have honestly been more useful at least in the long run. Oh and thanks for getting my hopes up Septimus, when I first started this quest I was kind of hoping for something linked to the Heart of Lorkhan from Morrowind.
13) Mace of Molag Bal
Ah the Mace of Molag Bal, your so overpowered at lower levels and its look badass to boot. The quest for the mace is available from the very start of the game after you enter Markarth for the second time as the first triggers a separate quest.
One of the reasons I placed the Mace at number 13 is because I find its enchantments a little weird. It’s enchantments means it causes damage to anyone you hits stamina and magicka as well as soul trapping. Something weird about the mace is that these enchantments are increased with the Augmented Flames perks despite it not having any fire damage.
You see the Mace of Molag Bal also goes by another name, the vampires mace. This is partly due to the fact that Molag Bal is the lord of vampires. For this reason I wish the mace had its absorb magicka ability from Morrowind or at least something fire related to make sense of the Augmented Flames thing.
While the mace itself has the standard damage output of a dwarven mace you’ll need a ebony ingot to temper it. Now as any Skyrim player knows by the time you start running into ebony ingots chances are your not using a dwarven weapon any more unless your role-playing of course. This means that by the time you can improve the mace your probably already using a better weapon.
Finally can I point out that it’s weird that despite being the vampire mace of Molag Bal Harkon doesn’t even react to the fact that you have it.
“That mace… get it away from me. Get it away…”
12) Wabbajack
Easily one of the most unperdicatable weapons in gaming the Wabbajack is easily one of the most fun if dangerous weapons to take for a test drive whenever your a little bored or in a bind. To get your hands on Wabbajack you need to complete ‘The Mind of Madness’ quest in Solitude available again from the start.
Wabbajack lives up to its unperdicatable nature because when its hits something, it can case any number of effects ranging from elemental explosions, instantly killing enemies or turning them into wine or coins. It can also turn them into a range of creatures ranging from rabbits, mudcrabs and a freaking Dremora or even heal whoever it hits.
Thankfully you can reverse these transformations by hitting them either with the staff or your fists though this is also a problem if say you turn a Dragon Priest into a rabbit which by the way is totally possible. Unfortunately its this unpredictable nature that sadly keeps it from being any higher, the other items are just more reliable.
11) Spellbreaker
At number 11 we have the Spellbreaker, a uniquely enchanted dwarven shield belonging to the Daedric Prince Peryite, who is one of the weaker Daedric Princes “despite being depicted as a dragon”. Thank you loading screens for that constant reminder.
For Spellbreaker you’ll need to find the shrine of Peryite, located near Markarth and don’t forget to bring some vampire dust, one silver ingot, a flawless ruby and a deathbell flower too. One hallucination and a wiped out cult later and Spellbreakers yours.
What sets Spellbreaker apart from the countless other shields of Skyrim is that comes with its own automatic warding spell when you block. By the way this ward works very well against dragons just saying.
Unfortunately if the ward breaks than your staggered and considering that it protects up to 50 damage, Adept level or higher spells are going to be a pain. Odd that the Daedric Prince of pestilence and diseases has a artifact that protects you from harm by the way.
10) Skull of Corruption
Out of all the daedric artifacts in Skyrim the Skull of Corruption has had one of the weirder changes in effects. I say this because till Skyrim the Skull of Corruption cloned however you hit with it. Now its powered by dreams and leaves nightmares in their place which honestly I think is better especially since you can now resurrect corpses.
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Like the Mace of Molag Bal before it the Skull of Corruption quest can be started at level 1 in Dawnstar by talking to the Jarl. Along with this however you need to kill Erandur at the end of the quest or he’ll destroy the artifact for redemption reasons and we don’t want that.
The Skull of Corruption does a base damage rating of just 20 points by itself. Going along with the whole stealing dreams thing that Varmenia the daedric prince of nightmares is known for the staff itself is actually powered by them. You can steal peoples dreams by casting it on someone sleeping and when you do so it boosts its power level up to 50.
The thing that bugs me however about the Skull of Corruption is that despite being powered by dreams you still need to recharge the damn thing. Don’t get me wrong it makes sense but still maybe the dreams could have helped charge it, maybe giving you 5 or 6 extra casts per dream. Still though the staff has a great design and it was hard putting it only at number 10.
“What a foul and unnatural weapon you wield. Never have I seen its like”
9) Ebony Mail
Now hitting single figures we have Boethiah’s Ebony Mail, one of only two Daedric armour as well as the highest level cap at 30 unless you walk off and find the shrine anyway.
In order to get your hands on the Ebony Mail you’ll need to sacrifice one of your followers at her shrine. This being said though you can just sacrifice some hired mercenary instead if your too attached to your followers. One battle royal with her cultists later and Boethiah will tell you to silently kill her previous champion which also serves as a nice reminder to players that Boethiah’s not to be messed with.Now while Boethiah claims that we have to kill her champion from behind which if your not a stealth character is a god send.
The Ebony Mail has two very useful enchantments applied to it. The first one is that the armour completely muffles your footsteps while your sneaking and it has the highest muffle effect in the game meaning you can save your other pieces of armour for other effects.
On top of this it also has a completely unique enchantment, the poison cloak which damages anyone stupid enough to stand next to the person covered in black/grean smoke. If the damage isn’t enough you can also throw a cloak spell on top to increase the damage done making this a very useful armour piece for tanking. Its also heavy armour to boot.
Unfortunately the poison cloak is also the armours greatest weakness as it only does 5 points of damage compared to the cloak spells 8. Adding to this it also works on NPC’s meaning you’ll need to unequip it every time you walk into town and that can get annoying quickly.
8) Ebony Blade
Found on level 20 and the artifact of Mephala we have the Ebony Blade, this health draining two handed katana that won’t take more than 15 minutes to grab.
To get this blade you’ll need to talk to Jarl Balgruuf the Greater in Whiterun about his kids. After you talk to his son Nelkir and either killing Farengar or stealing the key from him or Balgruuf open the door and take the sword. Unfortunately some selfish person sealed the swords true power so Mephala will ask you to kill your friends/ followers to do unlock its power. In order to get its full power kill 10 people and yes mercenaries do count.
For a sword that’s so easy to get its really powerful if your willing to kill those who trusted you, you monster (just kidding we’ve all probably used it at one point). At it’s weakest the Ebony Blade absorbs 10 points of health per hit but 10 kills later and your absorbing a pretty sizeable 30 points of health. Seriously fully empowered the Ebony Blade can let you tank nearly any type of dragon in vanilla Skyrim.
Speaking of charging the blade don’t let it get confiscated because this resets the blade and you’ll have to find another 10 people stupid enough to trust you. Oh you don’t need to power up the blade for the Oblivion Walker achievement/trophy in case your curious.
Unfortunately Bethesda had to balance the blade somehow so for starters you can’t improve it but unlike Wuuthrad at least they explain that “Not even the hottest fires of the Skyforge could melt it”. The biggest problems with it however is that it’s normal damage is effected by the One-Handed perks, not the Two Handed ones you’d expect with a large two handed katana but this does mean you can use one-handed enchantments to improve your damage for what its worth.
“At last, my blade is returned to its full glory. Now go forth, child. Continue your tiny subversions against the orders of trust and intimacy.
7) Ring of Namira
Feeling hunger because at number 7 we have a ring with a twist, the Ring of Namira and guess with Daedric Prince owns this artifact. The Ring of Namira is part of that exclusive group of artifacts obtainable at level 1 and out of all artifacts this is the one your most likely to accidentally run into.
The reason for this is because instead of looking for shrines or demonic doors (?) this quest starts with you doing a favour for a priest of Arkay. Listening to the women in the Hall of the Dead will start ‘The Taste of Death’ and after you finish eating the priest you talked to begin the quest, Namira will grant you her ring.
Because eating something often causes you to get a taste for it, wearing the Ring of Namira allows you to eat the corpses of any humanoid enemies. Do so gives you 50 bonus health and 50% extra health regeneration for five minutes. On top of this the ring also grants the wielder 50 bonus points in Stamina meaning that with the right build this ring can really increase your longevity.
To be honest there’s nothing wrong with the Ring of Namira expect that it won’t suit all play styles but besides that it just down to personal preferences as I never really find myself using this as much as the next artifacts.
“Ugh your breath is foul. What’ve you been eating?