When you think about Skyrim, there’s a lot that probably goes through your mind.
An incredible open world to explore.
The exhilarating rush of downing a dragon.
But Skyrim also has its share of dark and disturbing moments that you may have overlooked
while enjoying your high fantasy adventure.
This is James from Curse, and today we’re reliving some of the most deeply messed-up
moments in Skyrim, because that’s what kind of bright and cheerful people we are.
The Falmer are a blind, hideous race of elves that were poisoned by the Dwemer into submission
in ancient times.
Years of that poison and captivity have made their eyes useless and their backs hunched.
That’s why they’re no longer known as Snow Elves.
The Falmer mostly reside underground and there are a number of areas in Skyrim where they
come to the surface in search of victims.
The victims they find meet a bloody and gruesome end.
But one of the worst things to happen to the Falmer’s victims is what happens after they’ve
been killed.
In Raldbthar, you’ll find a number of areas overrun by Falmer.
In one of those areas, you’ll find tanning racks and some tables with leather on them.
Leather is certainly a useful thing to have in Skyrim, so you might not find that strange.
But those same tables also contain another useful item: Human Flesh.
So, did that leather come from cowhide?
Or from something else?
In the quest “The Taste of Death,” you’re asked by Brother Verulus to investigate the
Hall of the Dead in Markarth, because it appears something there has been eating the bodies.
Inside, you find a woman named Eola who asks you to clear out a shrine to Namira, the god
of decay.
She is the one who has been eating the bodies, and will ask you to lure Brother Verulus back
to the shrine so that he can “sanctify” it.
To complete the quest successfully, you have to not only deceitfully lure Verulus into
the trap, but also take the first bite from his breathing flesh.
It seems like most of the citizens of Markarth are there, including the butcher who proudly
advertises the “bloodiest beef in the Reach.”
Also present for the ritual is the widowed shopkeeper, who at one point seems genuinely
distressed about losing her husband.
But if you talk to her during the feast, she says, “Shame what happened to him.
He had such good taste.”
Skyrim’s Dawnguard DLC is simply full of nightmares just waiting to be had.
Your introduction to the Volkihar Clan is one of the moments you’ll remember best,
because it’s an absolute bloodbath.
The hall is covered in blood, bones, organs, and chunks of flesh.
Silver plates and goblets have blood spattered all over them.
Which is kind of a shame, because it’s otherwise a really nice hall.
But what really stands out in this feast is the Vampire Cattle.
The Vampire Cattle are laid out on the dining tables, but they aren’t some kind of bloodsucking
cows.
Vampire Cattle are people.
Live people, kept by the Volkihar as slaves, and as a food source.
So those are actually live people you’re seeing displayed on the tables, being fed
upon by a clan of vampires, then kept in cages until they’re needed again.
You can actually talk to them during the feast, though they don’t have much to say back.
They are just cattle, after all.
Cattle who can occasionally serve drinks.
This is the scene you’re met with, some time before you choose whether or not you’d
like to join up and become Vampire Lord Dovahkin.
At this point, the moral implications should be pretty clear.
The Thalmor are elven supremacists of the most extreme order.
They seek to eradicate the worship of Talos, basically by destroying anyone who supports
it.
In the “Diplomatic Immunity” quest, you get to witness the torture-slash interrogation
of prisoner Etienne Rarnis, who is apparently thought to have some connection to
the Blades.
Etienne has been held for an undetermined amount of time.
It seems that he’s locked in a constant cycle of telling the same story while he’s
beaten by a guard.
The words “again,” and “as usual” are used during the exchange, and Etienne
repeatedly explains that he’s already given all the information he has.
What he does have is vague and inconclusive.
Rulindil, who is running the interrogation, says “You know the rules,” like he’s
exasperated and bored.
Then, at the end of the exchange, Rulindil casually says “I continue to be disappointed
in your lack of cooperation.
I hope next time you will do better.”
There’s no telling how long Etienne has been captured, or if he actually knows more
than he lets on.
But it’s clearly not the first time, and there’s obviously going to be a “next
time.”
The world of Skyrim wouldn’t be complete without a crazed serial killer, right?
The man known only as the Butcher stalks the streets of Windhelm, and his journals give
some insight into his mindset.
He generally refers to his victims in terms of their body construction.
He writes about how the city is filled with good “sources of bone, flesh and blood.”
He targets his victim because her strong joints should contain “exquisite tendons.”
It sounds like the deranged ramblings of a gore-obsessed serial killer, and that’s
to be expected.
But once you discover the killer’s identity, it gets downright sad.
Calixto Corrium, owner of Calixto’s House of Curiosities, was driven mad by the death
of his sister, and keeps a set of embalming tools and necromancy rituals on hand in a
desperate attempt to bring her back from the dead.
The reason he is concerned about the specific body parts of his victims is because he’s
trying to reconstruct his sister’s body from scratch.
The whole sordid affair smacks of Full Metal Alchemist.
Mourning Never Comes is a Dark Brotherhood quest in which you effectively ruin a family.
Miuri grew up a close friend of the Shatter-Shield family, but found herself taken advantage
of by Alain Dufont.
Alain, a womanizer and con-man, used her connection to the family to rob the Shatter-Shield family.
Miuri was a victim, but found herself bearing the brunt of the blame for the robbery, and
the Shatter-Shield family effectively cut all ties and threw her out in the cold.
Miuri bitterly wants revenge against Alain, which is understandable.
But she also wants revenge against the Shatter-Shield family, and so a secondary goal of the quest
is to kill the only surviving daughter of the family, Nilsine.
If you do it, you’ll be paid well, and Miuri will be grateful.
But the Shatter-Shield family just lost a daughter to The Butcher.
What is killing their other daughter going to do to the family?
If you kill Nilsine, the next time you visit the Shatter-Shield household, you will not
meet Tova, the family matriarch.
You will instead be greeted with her suicide note, in which she says she simply cannot
find a reason to live having lost both of her daughters.
When you arrive at Frostflow Lighthouse, you’ll immediately notice something wrong.
This lighthouse was supposed to be home to a happy family of four, but all you can see
at first is a dead horse, a dead human, and the bloody remains of a chaurus.
The human is Ramati, the mother of the family that had fulfilled its their lifelong goal
of purchasing and living in this lighthouse.
You’ll also find a note from Habd, the father of the family, explaining the story of how
he bought the lighthouse, but his children complained of scratching sounds from the basement.
As you explore, you will find the remains of every other member of the family.
It turns out there are Falmer that live in the basement.
Ramati was killed with a Falmer axe, while Mani, the son, met his end to a Falmer sword.
Sudi, the family’s daughter, committed suicide with the dagger left to her by her father.
That leaves only Habd, the father himself.
Once you’ve gotten to the end of the Frostflow Abyss, you’ll find a massive chaurus reaper.
Kill it, and you’ll find Habd’s remains inside.
Festus Krex is an old mage who doesn’t much care for the new leadership of the Dark Brotherhood.
He does not approve of Astrid’s leadership, and revels in the image of being the “cranky
uncle” of the Dark Brotherhood.
He also claims to have killed his wife over a semantic difference in the temperature of
his bathwater.
But what really gets you is the way he meets his end.
You don’t see the death of Festus Krex, you find it and fill in the blanks.
Krex is found with his body pinned to a tree by what looks like hundreds of arrows.
It’s hard to even tell who it is, especially since his arms are up in front of his face
in a futile defense, but his distinct robes give him away.
Hopefully you can get used to the sight.
Krex’s arrow-riddled corpse will be up for display on that tree for the rest of the game.
Necromancers are generally not the nicest of people, but Arondil is particularly notable
as a guy to stay away from.
He once lived in Dawnstar, but was exiled when he was discovered to be performing experiments
on the dead.
They didn’t even know about his fantasies about the local girls.
When he moved to Yngvild, he was able to combine his love of necromancy with his sexual deviance.
He started by reanimating the dead draugr in Yngvild to be his unquestioning servants,
bending to his every whim.
And yes, it’s strongly implied that that indeed means literal bending to *every* whim.
Of course, he soon became bored with the already dead, and turned his attention to finding
fresh victims.
Now he kidnaps and kills whatever passing women he can find, purely to build a harem
and army of the undead.
It’s a different take on necrophilia, but it’s still necrophilia.
That’s all the messed-up stuff we have to report from the frozen north today, but
that certainly isn’t all there is.
Let us know your favorite disturbing story from Skyrim in the comments below, especially
if it’s one we missed.
And as always, enjoy the game
the game.