Skyrim Daedric Quest guide

Meridia – The Break of Dawn

Requirements: Level 12 or higher
Starting Location: Statue of Meridia

There are two ways that this quest will start – either you will find the shrine well ahead of time or you will randomly come across Meridia’s Beacon inside of a chest after reaching level 12. As soon as you pick this up the nagging begins… 

When you arrive at the shrine place the beacon in the slot pointed out to you. Meridia lifts you thousands of feet up into the sky to state your task – clear out the nearby Kilkreath Ruins and retrieve her weapon from deep within. To do this you’ll have to guide a beam of sunlight to the pedestal where Meridia’s artifact, Dawnbreaker, is located.

This dungeon is fairly straightforward and not particularly difficult. The only enemies inside of it are the Corrupted Shades, essentially powerful skeletons. But if you have any real combat skills then these guys will go down with little fuss. As always use fire attacks on the undead to make things easier. Other than that Malkoran is the only real threat thanks to him being a boss level Necromancer. While he doesn’t summon up undead, what with him being surrounded by a large amount of Corrupted Shades to begin with, he does use strong magical attacks to chop into your health surprisingly fast. When he dies he will emerge as a shade himself but this dies rapidly.

After one final trip into the sky with Meridia you now have Dawnbreaker, a very powerful blade with a nice fire enchantment. This thing makes mincemeat of undead so if you can grab this early on most of those pesky dungeons full of Draugr guarding Dragon Priests and Word Walls become incredibly easy to clear.

Molag Bal – House of Horrors

Starting Location: Markarth

In this city of death, lies and murder, of course one of the Daedric Lords has a presence. After you’ve wandered around town for a bit, not far from the entrance you will see a strangely garbed man standing outside of an abandoned home. One of the Vigilant of Stendaar, Vigilant Tyranus, will beseech your help in rooting out a Daedra worshipper inside this home. Sure, why not?! What could possibly go wrong?

Well now, wasn’t that an experience. We now need to find this follower of Boethiah, currently held prisoner at the Red Eagle Redoubt.

This place is a Forsworn encampment so you’re going to need to cut your way through a whole slew of these crazed lunatics. Generally speaking there aren’t too many high level Forsworn here but if you come here at a very high level this place can be incredibly tough. Coming here around level 12 or so is probably when this location is most easily cleared although even then this is going to take a while to clear. Let the priest free and no matter what you tell him he returns to the house as Molag Bal wishes of you.

Return to the abandoned home in Markarth and follow the priest inside. When he goes down to the shrine he will be imprisoned and it’s up to you to smack him around with a mace until Molag Bal gets what he wishes from the priest.

For your trouble you get one of the most useful Daedric Artifacts. The Mace of Molag Bal comes equipped with a soul trap ability as well as being a strong one handed weapon. This makes it quite easy to run around bashing faces in and filling up your soul gems. Pair it up with Azura’s Star and you will never run out of soul energy for your magic items.

Namira – The Taste of Death

Starting Location: Markarth

When you enter Understone Keep for the first time locals will be confronting Brother Verulus about him keeping the Halls of the Dead sealed. You’ll have to convince him either with words, intimidation or bribery to tell you what the problem is. It seems that something has been eating the dead bodies located within the catacombs so head on in to find out what the problem is. Apparently it’s a carrion eater / cannibal named Eola who figures that you are like her and tells you to meet her by Reachcliff Cave to clear out the Shrine to Namira.

Eola will meet you just outside of the cave. She joins up to help clear out the creatures infesting the cave and she helps out a good bit. Bringing along followers or summoned monsters will make this place almost ridiculously easy. Honestly if clearing out Draugr are a problem by the point you find yourself in this dungeon then there’s no help for you. Game over man. Oh and if you don’t want her in the way simply don’t ask for her assistance.

Once the place is cleared out speak with Eola again to find out what needs to be done next. She wishes for you to go get Brother Verulus from Markarth then bring him back here to be murdered. Uh, yeah… Gotta love these Daedric Worshippers. Can’t even trust cannibals these days. But if you want the artifact then that’s just what you’re going to have to do.

Head back to Markarth and ask him to follow you to the tomb. You’ll likely need to bribe him unless your speech is high enough that you can persuade him, he doesn’t seem to respond to intimidation at all. However you do it bring him back to the final room of Reachcliff Cave and go through with the ritual to get Namira’s Ring. This increases your stamina by 50 and grants you a bonus to health and stamina when you take a nibble on dead humanoids. Yum!

Jump to Section:

Azura
Boethiah
Clavicus Vile

Hermaeus Mora
Hircine
Malacath

Mehrunes Dagon
Mephala

Meridia
Molag Bol
Namira

Peryite
Sanguine
Sheogorath
Vaermina

Freelance Writer

Daniel is a freelance games journalist, but is also the Editor-in-Chief at Gaming Excellence.