Berita
The most haunted places in all of Skyrim
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Brittany Alva
There are some seriously scary places in Skyrim. Here are the most haunted ones.
Dark Brotherhood Sanctuary
There are a lot of creepy things about the Dark Brotherhood, Skyrim’s infamous assassin’s guild. Between Aventus Aretino trying to summon an assassin with an effigy of human parts, the absolutely terrifying quest where you’re trapped in the Night Mother’s coffin, and Cicero’s entire character, there’s plenty to scare you in that guildhouse.
However, even if you choose not to join that family of assassins, they can still haunt you. The door to the Dark Brotherhood Sanctuary is an image of a skull with a red handprint on it, and you can stumble on smaller ones around Falkreath. It’s easy to see, and if you interact with it, it speaks to you in an unsettling voice.
Shrine to Boethiah
Beothiath’s shrine is too easy to stumble on for adventurers (who haven’t taken an arrow to the knee, of course). The shrine is seemingly abandoned when you come across it, so curious minds can easily go explore it. However, a gruesome sight lies at the top of the Sacellum of Boethiah.
Once you enter, you’ll see bodies and skulls stabbed through and suspended in the air with pikes. A giant statue of a man wrapped in tentacles holding a sword above his head lies in the center, and there are two massive fires raging beside the shrine. There’s also a pillar of sacrifice you can use that hints at what happened here.
Molag Bal’s Shrine in Markarth
The Daedra are some of the darkest parts of Skyrim lore, and interactions with them can chill your bones. Molag Bal is one of the creepier ones. The Daedric Lord of Domination is found in an abandoned home in Markarth, and even the quest to find him is terrifying. Essentially, you’re trapped in this abandoned home until you kill the man you came with. Once you do this, Molag Bal traps you until you agree to help him get revenge on Boethiah, another Daedric Lord.
The altar of Molag Bal features a rusted mace hovering over a pool of blood. The bloodbath is even creepier after you’ve been forced to kill someone and adventure through the old crypt found in the back of the house to get to him.
Oh, and there’s no escaping either. Once you’ve entered the home, you can’t leave until you visit Molag Bal and carry out his wishes; talk about terrifying!
Ilinalta’s Deep
Ilinalta’s Deep might not seem that scary if you’ve ever seen it—the sunken fort was actually pretty beautiful in the day, even if it is a bit haunting that it’s partially underwater.
However, once you go into Ilinalta’s Deep, you come face to face with a skeleton hanging by its wrists in an otherwise empty entryway. The deep continues to get creepier and creepier as you explore underwater caverns and fight necromancers, along with other foes.
Hjerim
If you travel to Windhelm enough, you’ll eventually find a guard and witnesses discussing the death of a young girl in the graveyard. You’ll be informed that there’s a serial killer on the loose, but the Windhelm Guard is spread too thin to deal with it.
Like the hero you are, you volunteer to help. This leads you to finding out that someone has been butchering people. You’ll end up searching the house of one of the killer's victims. It’s full of blood and notes that say "beware the butcher!" It also contains the butcher’s journal, where he wrote his plans for murdering the girl at the start of the quest.
Exploring the home further leads to a secret room filled with bloodied bones and an altar. Looking at all the information at the scene explains that the butcher—originally a scholarly mage from Winterhold—was looking for a new source of magic that required many different body parts.
Saarthal
If you join the College of Winterhold and train as a mage, you’ll quickly be tasked with carrying out a team excavation mission in Saarthal. Exploring the ruins and talking to your companions will teach you that it was once the capital of Skyrim, but it's a crypt now.
Some of your fellow scholars don’t agree with the team’s presence in the resting place of these Nords and their history. This gives everything an eerie feel early on, and magic trinkets, traps, and visions of ghosts take everything to a new level. Plus, the game puts you at the center of it—you end up trapped in the crypt, and an ancient order of mages tasks you with saving the world.
Shroud Hearth Barrow
Much of Skyrim has a dark or twisted vibe that can feel a bit scary, but a ghost warning you away from somewhere stands out—especially in the beginning of the game.
If you follow the main storyline, you’ll end up being summoned to High Hrothgar after discovering that you’re a Dragonborn. The easiest way to get there is to go through the town Ivarstead, which has ruins right beside it. There’s a lot of normal scary stuff, like open burial tombs and skeletons around, but it takes a more sinister turn once you get to a fork in the path.
A ghost named Wyndelius will tell you over and over again to leave. The first few warnings sound haunting, but the last warnings are downright bone-chilling.
This is by no means all of the creepy or eerie places in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. If you’d like to experience the adventure yourself, you can get the game here from the Epic Games Store.