Skyrim Daedric Quest guide

Hermaeus Mora – Discerning the Transmundane

Requirement: Level 15
Starting Location: See below

Most of the other quests require that you seek out a particular location or at least visit one of the various towns. However this quest is started by simply following the main quest until you reach the Elder Knowledge quest. At this point Septimus will give you this quest upon chatting with him, tasking you with inscribing a Dwarven Lexicon for him. Since it is inscribed by doing exactly what you must do for the main storyline so this requires exactly zero effort on your part. As this is part of the main storyline it is not covered in this guide.

Return to him with the Lexicon to start up the next stage of this quest, that of gathering the blood of the various Elven races. Septimus gives you an extractor used to take the blood of those you come across to combine in an effort to open the way into the giant cube near him. You’ll need the blood of every type of Elf, including the Orcs, to open the way so it’s either time to go on a killing spree or simply hold onto it while completing the various quests to get this without undue bloodshed. A few bandit bases will give you that. Before you can leave to do this Hermaeus Mora himself will appear to offer you to become his emissary by replacing Septimus. Uh oh.

Bug Warning: If you speak to Septimus before you are level 15 there is a good chance that you will be locked out of this quest for good. He will simply never advance the conversation beyond asking you to power up the Lexicon.

When you have the elven blood return to Septimus. He opens the Dwemer artifact with the blood, opening the path to the item inside. Here you will acquire the Oghma Infinium, Hermaeus Mora’s artifact. When read, this will provide a bonus to either all of your warrior, thief or mage skills, increasing them by 5. It then disappears from your inventory altogether so don’t rely on this one to help you get the Achievement/Trophy.

Hircine – Ill Met by Moonlight

Starting Location: Falkreath

This town sure has a lot of Daedric stuff hanging around, doesn’t it? Starting this one up requires that you find your way down into the jail inside of the Falkreath Barracks. It seems that he is trying to find some way to free himself of the cursed ring he bears. If you want to help him you’re going to have to find the great animal, a White Elk, and kill it to appease Hircine. This will have to be done while you bear the cursed ring which can randomly cause you to change into a werewolf. Good times.

The best way to go about doing this is to accept the quest from Sindig and then immediately sprint out of town, heading to the east to reach the beast. Once you’re safely outside of town head full speed towards the animal’s location. As soon as you’re safely outside of town nobody important will see you change so if it happens just use the speed of a werewolf to sprint towards the beast at high speed. Kill it and a spirit will rise up from its corpse, speak to this spirit to have a chat with an Aspect of Hircine.

Now you have one of two options – either kill Sindig for one reward or help him survive those hunting him for another reward. Either way you’re going to have to head towards Bloated Man’s Grotto and make your decision.

From here you have to choose what you’re going to do, though it is quite possible to do both of these in the same run. Hircine doesn’t seem to care what you do but these are both Daedric Artifacts that count towards the Achievement/Trophy so that will make your life a good bit easier.

Malacath – The Cursed Tribe

Requirements: Level 9
Starting Location: Largashbur

To start this quest you must find Largashbur out in the wilderness to the west and a bit south of Riften. As you near the gates a giant and Orc can be seen fighting it out. It’s important that you help her survive this giant attack as if she dies the gates of the stronghold will stay closed to you. When the giant lays dead Atub, the shaman of this stronghold, will speak to you and ask for your aide with an issue facing the tribe – they are very weak and seemingly cursed which has left them vulnerable to attacks by the giants.

Atub tasks you with getting your hands on some troll fat and a daedra heart to start the ritual to commune with Malacath. This can be gotten pretty easily from the Companion’s hall in Whiterun inside of Kodlak Whitemane’s chambers. If you’ve already nipped those then check basically any alchemist’s store for the troll fat although the daedra hearts appear much less often. Once you’ve got those you can finally return to speak with Atub. She leads you to speak with Chieftain Yamarz and then into communion with Malacath.

The end result of this is that it’s up to you and the Chieftain to go into Fallowstone Cave with Yamarz and protect him. There is an issue with this quest where he may appear on an upper level where you can’t really get to him. Be sure to talk to him outside the cave, let him go in before you and then follow him in to avoid this glitch.

In this dungeon you and the “good” Chieftain can ignore and walk past all of the other giants as the only one you must kill is their leader. Just don’t get too close to any of them; he’s in his own little sub-area so that should pose no confusion. When you arrive at the location Yamarz will offer you gold to kill the giant leader for him. Don’t bother, Yamarz will attack you afterwards. It’s much funnier if you tell Yamarz to try fighting instead and watch him go splat before you kill the giant with ease. Just be sure to grab the hammer on the way out of here.

Now simply return to Largashbur to speak with Atub and commune with Malacath. He gifts you with the artifact Volendrung, a fairly powerful two-handed hammer. This weapon's very high absorb stamina effect lets you basically power attack non-stop, obliterating your foes.

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Azura
Boethiah
Clavicus Vile
Hermaeus Mora
Hircine
Malacath
Mehrunes Dagon
Mephala
Meridia
Molag Bol
Namira
Peryite
Sanguine
Sheogorath
Vaermina