10 Darkest Quests In Elder Scrolls History

1. Frostflow Abyss - The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

A lot of these quests follow patterns you’d expect. Doing a Daedric Prince’s evil bidding, encountering cannibals, cults, you get it. Well, this one is quite a bit different and that makes it one of the most upsetting quests in an Elder Scrolls game.

Many players claim this quest tops their list of darkest quests because it’s just so unexpected and every new piece of the puzzle is horrific.

As I said earlier, not every dark quest in Elder Scrolls is that way because you have to do something awful. Sometimes you’re just encountering the awful that’s already happened. In Frostflow Abyss you come across a lighthouse with a dead body in the central living area. A couple, Habd and Ramati moved from Hammerfell with their children and took up residence in Skyrim at the lighthouse.

Unluckily for them, beneath the lighthouse there is a chaurus-infested cellar and tunnels dotted with chaurus and Falmer. On the body, who you discover to be the mother, Ramati, you’ll find a diary that leads you down a rabbit hole of the nasty events that befell the family.

Beneath the lighthouse you discover the bodies of Habd and Ramati’s children who had been dragged into the lair. You discover Habd chased after his son and daughter but failed to rescue them and contracted a fever after being poisoned. In his addled state he left a dagger behind which his daughter used to kill herself. The quest ends with you lighting a fire at the top of the lighthouse at which point you no longer hold Habd’s remains. This one is so impactful because it’s a completely unexpected encounter that tells the relatively insignificant story of one family’s horrible tragedy.