The Elder Scrolls: 7 Weirdest Skyrim Enemies (And What They Represent)

The Elder Scrolls has spent years establishing a deeply strange magical world from the ground up - curating a host of cannibalistic NPCs, vampire covens and inter-dimensional planes packed with demonic entities, all for players to smack around for over 25 years.

From sweet rolls to Sabrecats, the games have everything a budding adventurer could ever want - and that obviously includes a varied population of freakish monsters to be slaying for when smithing daggers loses its shine.

And of course, it's Skyrim that manages to hone Bethesda's take on a classic fantasy into something uniquely Elder Scrolls. Whilst it's decked out with your bog-standard dragons and boring old mages, there are all sorts of weird and wonderful beasties lurking in the shadows if you know where to go.

With everything from ebony-armoured foes to tentacle-faced horrors, it's easy to get lost in the fascinating lore of these monsters, but what real-world inspiration conjured up their in-game appearances?

Looking at the conceptual side of Skyrim, let's crack open this particular Monster Manual and take a read of how the hell the strangest inhabitants were brought to life.

Creepy folklore, legendary tales, and all too real terrors lie in wait...

A collective group of wild people that roam The Reach proclaiming their rights to the land, the Forsworn are the barbarians of Skyrim. Dressed in skins and leather, wielding crude, savage weapons, often they will be wearing a headdress comprised of feathers or a deer skull, depending on their gender.

Followers of Hircine, the God of the Hunt, the Forsworn dress is inspired by the Daedra's own deer head protruding from his human body, with the Forsworn replicating this aesthetic as best they can through handcrafted garments.

Hircine himself is arguably inspired by Cernunnos of Celtic mythology; the horned god that's related back to witchcraft. He represents wilderness, sexuality, and the life cycle, which seems a fair description of Hircine across The Elder Scrolls games, too.

Whilst the whole 'man with antlers' deal is replicated across many ideologies the world over, Hircine's constant reverence of 'the hunt' makes it fair game for the Daedra to take on the form of a creature so closely associated with this chase.

The Wild Hunt itself from European folklore also ties into his mythology. A pack of spectral divine hunters that rule the skies in a perpetual, endless hunt, bringing bad omens in their wake.

Since Hircine is the ruler of the hyper aggressive Forsworn and of course, lycanthropes, their unpredictable, savage transformations would link nicely to the Wild Hunt, especially its phenomenon of stealing souls of the deceased, indoctrinating them into a never-ending war.