Skyrim Side Quests You Can Just Ignore

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is a video game brimming with adventure and danger, rich in lore and narrative, and seeded with compelling quests and characters. Some missions are tied to Skyrim’s greater story, some of them are hidden quests players often miss. Still, there are others that should be ignored completely. No one likes a quest that just sits at the bottom of the journal to gather dust, but frankly, that’s probably the best place for these.

By nature, side quests are not imperative to Skyrim’s major storylines. They won’t earn titles like Arch-Mage or Harbinger of the Companions, and they won’t put an end to the dragon threat or to Skyrim’s bloody civil war. Rather, these are intentional distractions that offer glimpses into the world of The Elder Scrolls or incentivize players to explore a cave, dungeon, or fort that’s off the beaten path.

These unrelated side quests serve to lengthen the Skyrim experience; provide additional loot, skills, and rewards; or even discover a more elusive Word Wall. Overall they can be a fun way to ignore the main quest after the Helgen opening and add some freshness and variety to a Skyrim playthrough. The problem is when they add little to the game’s overall world, take needlessly long to complete, or culminate in underwhelming rewards.

Running a bard class in an RPG can be a lot of fun: Music, mirth, magic, and mischief all rolled into one dazzlingly attractive package. Skyrim is not devoid of bards; instruments are often found as miscellaneous items, and minstrels roam the landscape. They frequent the province’s many inns and rest stops, singing about the coming Dragonborn, the fate of Ulfric Stormcloak, or poor Ragnar the Red. The Bards’ College in Solitude is a promising hub for aspiring musicians, and players might assume it would be the gateway location for unlocking a Bard class similar to Neverwinter’s Jewel of the North.

After a brief conversation with Viarmo, the head of the College, those expectations might start to sink. Rather than learn anything about music or how to play any of Skyrim’s instruments, the “Tending the Flames” quest sends the Dragonborn to retrieve King Olaf’s Verse, a missing chapter in the Poetic Edda. This begins a crawl through another cookie-cut Skyrim dungeon to retrieve the text. No instruments or music are required, nor are any given as a reward. Instead, it’s some leveled gold, a thumbs-up from Viarmo, and an evening festival with some food, making “Tending the Flames” not worth the effort.

Circuitous, trap-laden, and crawling with difficult enemies, Dwemer dungeons and Falmer caves are rarely the highlights of playing Skyrim. If that wasn’t bad enough, players cannot fast-travel when exploring them and are forced to navigate its long corridors and labyrinthian tunnels in order to progress in either direction. “The Lost Expedition” is an optional quest that the Dragonborn can pick up by reading the note on Alethius’ corpse in the Nchuand-Zel dig site in Markarth.

Since all parties involved in the quest are deceased, the only story presented to the player is done through forgettable journal entries. As is typical of Dwemer ruins, it’s easy to get turned around and lost when trying to complete “The Lost Expedition.” The quest itself involves finding the bodies of four explorers and bringing their journals to Calcelmo. The mage simply offers leveled gold as compensation for the traumatic experience.  Quest objectives are more harmful than helpful here as well, as entering and exiting the dungeon’s many sub-areas tends to just confuse which direction the game points in. Nchuand-Zel’s many hallways and dead ends make this a quest that’s best skipped.

Blackreach is a word that inspires dread in many a Skyrim player, and it’s not hard to see why. This massive underground cavern is beautiful to behold, but it suffers from the same frustrating caveats as Nchuand-Zel and any other large space. Objective markers become misleading, and the in-game map doesn’t provide enough detail to aid in traversal. Tack on some lengthy herb collecting in the near-darkness, and “A Return To Your Roots” is a recipe for disaster.

Alchemy in Skyrim isn’t worth it, so a quest that rewards players with a passive Alchemy bonus is lackluster to begin with. This quest grants the player Sinderion’s Serendipity, which occasionally duplicates brewed potions. Considering the amount of work that goes into finding these crimson nirnroots, though, they should be wholly avoided altogether. It’s a challenge finding twenty crimson nirnroots in the dark grotto of Blackreach, but finding the requisite thirty is an absolute chore. Careful not to mix any potions with a single one, either, since bringing any less than thirty to Avrusa Sarethi will not complete the “A Return To Your Roots” quest.

When it comes to fast-travel restrictions, illegible maps, difficult enemies, and repetitive environments, the Soul Cairn even has Blackreach beat. When vampires try to block out the sun in Skyrim’s Dawnguard DLC, the journey to stop them takes the Dragonborn and Serana through this haunting plane of Oblivion. The bleak terrain is prone to ambushes from the resident undead, and veering off the main path can quickly get players attacked or lost.

One soul, Jiub, tasks the Dragonborn with finding the ten missing pages of his opus for “Impatience of a Saint.” The pages are strewn all around the Soul Cairn, both out in the open, and hidden near chests in the realm’s scattered brick buildings. Locating them is arguably even harder than finding the crimson nirnroots, as they don’t glow or make any kind of noise. Capping off the arduous excursion are two of the worst quest rewards in the game: A moderately expensive book, and an amulet that fortifies stamina and carry weight. By the time players embark on the Dawnguard DLC, gold is hardly a problem, but the amulet is worse: Players can manually enchant their own with the exact same benefits.

It’s impossible to talk about Skyrim’s most underwhelming quests without mentioning “No Stone Unturned.” The granddaddy of all fetch quests, this scavenger hunt across the province has been acquired and ignored by many players since Skyrim’s earliest days. The quest triggers upon showing Vex an entrancing, unassuming little pink rock hovering in a jewelry box. She explains that it’s part of a set that once belonged to Queen Barenziah.

There are twenty-four of these gems in total, and they are located in the most obscure places. They range from Jarl’s palaces and NPC homes, to dungeon basements, coastal ships, and random caves. For the tremendous work required to find them all, the reward is sadly disappointing. Returning Barenziah’s Crown grants the player Prowler’s Profit, a passive ability that adds more gems to caches and chests that contain them. Gems have no worth in Skyrim other than to be sold for quick cash or to be forged into amulets that are then sold for quick cash. By the time any player has found all twenty-four gems, gold is likely to be of little consequence, making “No Stone Unturned” easily skippable.

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