Skyrim is easily one of my favourite games. When it came out, there was very little to compare with it in terms of size and scope. As an RPG experience, it united lore and presentation into a seemingly perfect marriage of aesthetics and longevity. It’s no wonder that nearly six years since its release, the game is still going strong.
Part of the game’s success is the huge amounts of areas the land of Skyrim has to offer. It seems like every nook and cranny hides a potential discovery for one to find. Many players spend dozens of hours scouring through the all the fields, forests, caves, castles, and dungeons of Skyrim. And every so often, they are rewarded with something particularly juicy.
Bethesda is known for hiding secrets in their games. The Fallout series is FULL of pop culture and historical references. Skyrim is no different, as the developers hid nods and references to many popular films, fairy tales, other video games, and novels. These can be found through questing, exploring, and just by keeping your eyes peeled.
This list was made to help navigate some of my favourite hidden messages and easter eggs in the world of Skyrim.
Let me know what your favourite references are, I know I couldn’t have gotten them all. I love finding out how little I actually know about the expansive game.
20 Pac-n-Cheese
This easter egg brings us back to the early years of gaming. This message can be found in Endon’s house, in the city of Markarth. Once you enter the house, head up stairs. On the left, you will see a cut goat cheese wheel, some garlic, and a bowl of Glowdust. This is a little diorama of Pac-Man.
The cheese is Pac-Man (complete with a slaughter fish for an eye), the garlic is the little Pac-dots, and the Glowdust is the Power Pellet that makes the ghosts blue.
The Glowdust is most interesting as it has a double meaning. As Glowdust can only be obtained from killing ghosts in Skyrim, it seems to be an allegory for the pursuit and eventual capture of the ghosts by Pac-Man.
19 Everyone’s A Star Wars Fanboy
If you’re into Empire Strikes Back, make your way Northeast to Bleakcoast Cave. Just like if you were on Hoth, you had better watch your back. A frost troll is waiting for you inside. Once you kill him, you will notice his lair has an inverted skeleton embedded into the ice on the ceiling.
This, my friends, is a reference to the Luke Skywalker after he was captured by the Wampa in Episode Five. The Wampa is played by the previously slain frost troll.
Similarly to the 300 scene, the skeleton was not as lucky as Luke. Instead of escaping, it looks like the frost troll had his way with this poor sap.
18 Super Secret Murder Storage Room
Now this next entry a little different. While not really an easter egg, this peyote fueled nightmare room certainly is… something.
As you decapitate your umpteenth bandit, or yet another random assassination mark, did you ever wonder where these people go? Well, they despawn after you leave the area, right? Wrong! Bethesda, the beautiful weirdos they are, made a place for them to go. And they call it the Dead Body Cleanup Room.
You heard right, a room that is filled with bodies of your victims, and only accessible by console command. Enter “coc WIDeadBodyCleanupCell,” and between a Wolfenstein level and a glow in the dark wizard painting! And the joint is filled with corpses… Naked corpses! Just piled on top of each other.
For being completely inaccessible, and almost not meant to be easily found, what is the hidden message?
Don’t do drugs kids.
17 Yup, That Looks Safe
There is a place in Skyrim known as the Bard’s Leap. It is located Northeast of Falkreath. The leap is a platform built on the precipice of a mountain summit. The huge plunge is meant to replicate the vertigo inducing “Leap of Faith” from the Assassin’s Creed series.
This is an action that has become iconic to Assassin’s Creed games. It’s cool to know that video game developers are gamers too. Though, the designers at Bethesda are not without their humour. Waiting at the bottom of the Skyrim’s leap is a shallow pool. A nice jab at the ever present pile of hay at the bottom of 400 ft. jumps in Assassin’s Creed.
You think it’s safe?
16 I Can Haz Potato PLZ?
In the Nordic temple of Skuldafn in Skyrim’s Eastmarch, there is a small room just after the word wall. If you look into the fireplace, you will see an odd looking potato sitting on to of the coals.
The potato in the fireplace has a boiled cream treat and charcoal arranged on it in a suspicious shape… Bizarre right? Well, this is an homage to GLaDOS from Portal 2.
This odd arrangement of dessert and carbon is meant to replicate the GLaDOS in her potato battery form. When GLaDOS was uploaded into a potato battery, the gaming community lovingly referred to her as PotatOS.
Another cool instance of subtle game fanboy-ism among game developers.
15 Why Is He Naked Anyways?
You will need to head South of the of Shrine of Peryite to find this easter egg. Here you will find a skeleton of some poor bastard. And if you look just beyond the skeleton, between a narrow pass in the mountain, you will see a dead saber cat with a sword in its head and arrows lodged in its body.
This is an homage to a scene from 300, where an adolescent King Leonidas fights a wolf, and kills it after it lodges itself in a narrow crack in a wall. However, the man in Skyrim did not fare as well as Leonidas…
Another element in this scene conveys the game designers sense of humour. If you look near the skeleton, you will find back pack containing the skeleton’s clothes. A not so subtle jab at the Leonidas fighting a wolf, in the winter, in his underwear!
14 Oh, What Could Have Been…
Back in 2011, Todd Howard, the mind behind Fallout and the Elder Scrolls series, revealed that Bethesda had been offered a chance to develop an open world Game of Thrones game. Unfortunately, that did not materialize, and the recent rumours of it happening again seem to be false as well. However, there is a subtle hidden message for those who pay attention.
During the quest “No One Escapes Cidhna Mine,” if you kill Madanach and all his forces, you will be met by Thonar Silver-Blood. Thonar will thank you and reward you with the SIlver-Blood Family Ring. He will also add that, “The Silver-Bloods pay their debts. You have my thanks.”
While not a carbon copy of the Lannister motto: “A Lannister always pays his debts,” it is certainly a nod to what could have been.
13 How Did This Even Get In Here…?
Like seriously… Why lodge a sword into a stone?! Anyways, this easter egg demonstrates Bethesda’s love for fables.
Head South to the Broken Tower Redoubt, to a place called the Rebel’s Cairn. Here you will find a sword in a stone. This is a clear reference to the King Arthur fable from English legends.
While the one who could remove the sword would be considered the rightful king of England, you’re the Dragonborn! You got no time for politicking! But, I’m sure you could get a couple of bucks from the Ye Olde Blacksmith for that baby.
Don’t judge me, a man’s gotta eat! Nobody is paying me to run around slaughtering all these winged murder bots!
12 Ya, I Hated Beauty And The Beast Too
The Dark Brotherhood Sanctuary is… well… a dark place. You got a sentient corpse that speaks. A random corpse pile. A pet spider named Lis. And a centuries old, vampire child. So a corpse of Disney character (sort of) is not too out of place.
In the pet spider’s pen, you can see a skeleton floating in the water. It belonged to a man named “Gaston Bellefort.” This name is a mashup of a few different characters from Beauty and the Beast. “Gaston” is the biggest d-bag antagonist of the film. “Belle” is the name of the young female lead. While “Fort” refers to Beast’s conductor who was transformed into a pipe organ. Thus, Gaston Bellefort.
In Skyrim, Bellefort is the author of a book called The Night Mother’s Truth. Evidently, the Dark Brotherhood didn’t like the attention of Bellefort, and he was fed to Lis.
I see what you did their Bethesda… It is a bad movie.
11 Bethesda Totally Digs Tim Burton
One of my favourite quests in Skyrim is entitled “The Mind of Madness.” You are made to wander the abandoned halls of the Blue Palace in Solitude, until the walls itself pull you into the demented mind of the long deceased Pelagius III.
Once here, you see a man sitting at a table set to serve, but no one is around. The man is Sheogorath, the Daedric Prince of Madness. The scene is clearly a reference to Lewis Carroll’s “Alice in Wonderland.” With the table and Sheogorath representing the Tea Party and its host, the Mad Hatter.
However, I think extra creepy nature of Sheogorath, his colourful costume, and dark vibe of the dreamscape, feels like the developers took a lot of inspiration from Tim Burton’s version of the fantasy.
10 Must… Keep… Digging…
Skyrim is a game that can certainly reinforce an obsessive behaviour. For instance, I’m a loot fiend, and cannot leave a dungeon without taking EVERYTHING! I think the game designers sympathize with this notion as they included an homage to one of the biggest hoarding titles around: Minecraft.
If you climb up to the top of the Throat of the World, and complete the quest of the same name, you will receive the “Notched Pickaxe” as a reward. This is the tool that is used to mine all the precious, minerals in Minecraft… oh so precioussssss. Not only is it a neat tribute to the game, but the pickaxe actually gives a bonus to smithing as well. Now you can haz all deh roks, and a nice hat to boot!
9 Even Rieklings Need Something To Believe In
It seems that Santa Claus’ dimension bending/time-traveling feat of delivering gifts to all of Earth’s little boys and girls includes Skyrim as well. At least the Rieklings.
In the Dragonborn DLC, you can find an homage to Saint Nick on Solstheim. If you travel through the cave of Frossel, you will come to a large clearing with a group of Rieklings worshiping what appears to be a sleigh. Upon closer inspection, these little guys were worshiping a cart, with a pile of snow shaped like a reindeer.
What happened here? Did Santa visit them people, and never returned? Are the Rieklings trying to appease Saint Nick with holy relics? Who knows. But it’s still a cute little tidbit to come across.
8 Let’s Get Pissed!
Everyone likes getting loose every now and then, and so do the denizens of Skyrim. To find out how just begin the quest called “A Night to Remember.”
After meeting with Sam Guevenne, you must compete in a drinking competition. Sam taps out after two drinks, you drink your third and win the day. But you pass out anyway.
As you come to, you find yourself in a temple, being scolded by a priestess. You check your quest log to find that you have awoken in the Temple of Dibella in Markarth. Sam and the staff he promised me have disappeared. I have no idea how I got here but a priestess has told me I trashed the Temple.”
As you retrace your steps, you find out about all the debauchery you got into the night before. A nice homage to The Hangover. Though I wonder who plays Mike Tyson?
7 “Wasn’t He Also Vigo The Butch?”
During the Dawnguard DLC, you can find a reference to the main villain from Ghostbusters 2: Vigo the Carpathian. Early in the film, Vigo is quoted as saying: “Death is but a door, time is but a window. I’ll be back.” It seems that he has indeed returned, as you can find him in the Soul Cairn. You can find a soul, sitting on a ledge, constantly repeating this threat.
While the Vigo reference is cool. I think there is a larger connection to the Ghostbusters lore in general. In the films and TV shows, the Ghostbusters locked into an “Ecto-Containment System.” What is a Soul Cairn? It is a plane of Oblivion inhabited by the souls of the dead. This cairn can only be accessed by power warlocks, in a similar way that the Containment Unit can only be accessed by train scientists.
Busting ghost seems to make Bethesda feel good.
6 Stop Planting Sacred Trees In Cities Alright!
The large tree in the middle of Whiterun, just below Dragonsreach is not just any old tree. It is a Gildergreen, which is descended from the Eldergleam Tree, which is a tree blessed by the Divine Kynareth. As this tree is sacred to the people of Skyrim, one can see the connection the White Tree of Gondor from the Lord of the Rings.
The latter tree grew in at the citadel of the city of Minas Tirith. The White Tree is attached to the bloodline of the Kings of Gondor. The tree stops blooming when the line of kings is broken. In a similar fashion, the Gildergreen is damaged in the attack on Whiterun. So one could say that they are similar, as they are both significant to their respective cultures, and are in a state of restoration.
Clearly, an urban environment is a poor space for important vegetation.
5 Goats Really Are Creepy
I was wondering across a bridge, on my way to Hag Rock Redoubt. Two goats were running across the bridge. As I followed them, while crossing the bridge, a third ran from under the bridge, joined the others and ran away. Now, as a veteran gamer, this event was more than just happenstance, something was afoot.
If you explore under the bridge where the third goat came from, you will find a dead troll! Clearly, Bethesda are fans of fairy tales, as this is a reference to the Three Billy Goats Gruff.
In the story, the goats come across a troll who lived under a bridge. The troll attempts to eat the goats, but they out smart him, and he falls into the stream and is carried off. But this is Skyrim, we got a body quota to keep. So that truly is straight up murdered by those goats… Brutal.
4 Fable In a Fable
This reference messed with my head a bit. While running around Whiterun at night, I often caught a spectral blue glow in the distance. When I caught up to it, I found out that it was the headless horseman! I was stoked on this reference because The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is one of my favourite Disney cartoons.
The horseman can be found near Hamvir’s Rest between the hours of 10 PM and 4 AM.
However, many players believe the horsemen is Ragnar the Red from an in-game song. “Oh, there once was a hero named Ragnar the Red, who came riding to Whiterun from ole Rorikstead… And the braggart named Ragnar was boastful no more, when his ugly red head rolled around on the floor!”
I really dig that an actual fable is used to tell an in-game story.
3 What’s Up With Dragons And Caves?
Obviously, dragons are all over Skyrim. They are a constant threat, always stalking you from the sky. This is why when I came across this easter egg in deep, deep depths of Blackreach, I was quite surprised
As you explore the ancient Dwemer city of Blackreach, you come across a giant yellow glowing orb, right about the Hall of Rumination. If you Fus-Ro-Dah that mother, a god-damn dragon appears! Vulthuryol is a level 50 menace, who spanked me a couple times before I got the best of him.
This is a clear reference to Smaug from The Hobbit. But seriously, what’s up with fantasy writers dropping flying dragons in caves? Are these hipster dragons? “Flying outside is so mainstream man…”
2 Y’all’s Relationship Is Kinda Messed Up…
It’s quite obvious that Skyrim is full of callbacks to fairy tales. I found this one to be unique.
Once again, we return to Blackreach. In a building known as the War Quarters, there is a room with seven small beds, all arranged around a lantern. Adjacent to that room is another bed, though this one is a full-sized bed. As the Dwemer built Blackreach, and the Dwemer are also known as dwarves, this is a clear reference to Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.
I always found the idea of seven grown-ass men living with a woman, and watching her sleep to be a kinda strange lifestyle. But the weird bed surrounding a beacon is odd as well. What does the light mean? Is it some type of control device? What does the large bed mean in lore? Were the Dwemer watching their captured Nords sleep? I guess we’ll never know.
1 Of Mammoth Proportions
This is my favourite easter egg because it attaches Skyrim to events in the real world. In 1997, scientists in Russia came across two massive tusks jutting out of the permafrost. A 23-tonne block of frozen earth was cut out around the tusks and flown to a large ice cave in Northern Russia. Here the process undertook that revealed a 47-year-old Mammoth, that lived 20,000 years ago. This came to be known as the Jarkov Mammoth.
While in Skyrim, you can find a similar mammoth to the east of Frostflow Lighthouse. This creature is frozen into the side of a glacier, complete with spears and arrows in its side. The arrows are dwarven (Dwemer). Seeing that the Dwemer are an ancient people in Elder Scrolls lore, this could also be a reference to the ancient peoples who slew the Jarkov Mammoth.
