Forbidden Legend

 is a quest available in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.

Overview
Prerequisites: Under Saarthal or explore Geirmund's Hall or Folgunthur
 * Quest Giver: The Gauldur Amulet Fragment in Saarthal- where you go to after talking to tolfoldir in the college of winterhold, or the book "Lost Legends", or Daynas Valen's journal or Writ of Sealing.
 * Reward: The Gauldur Amulet
 * Reputation Gain: N/A

Background
''"Long ago, the Archmage Gauldur was murdered by his three sons, who stole his amulet of power and divided it among themselves." ''Once the three sons divided the amulet among themselves they began on a rampage around Skyrim. This attracted the attention of the High King of Skyrim. So the king sent a group of battlemages to kill the three sons.

Quest

 * "In Geirmund's Hall/Folgunthur/Saarthal, I found a cryptic message on the body of a powerful Draugr, condemning him for his ancient crimes. What was his story? Why was he entombed with a broken amulet?"

Quest Progression
Objectives: Investigate the Gauldur legend.

Rewards

 * Gauldur Amulet Fragment - (Stamina): Increase your stamina by 30 points.
 * Gauldur Amulet Fragment - (Magicka): Increase your magicka by 30 points.
 * Gauldur Amulet Fragment - (Health): Increase your health by 30 points.

Walkthrough
There are multiple ways to begin this quest. First is by reading the book "Lost Legends" found throughout Skyrim. Here are a few of known, confirmed locations:

In the quest "Hail Sithis" go into the Emporer's bed room and on his end table there is a copy.
 * Katariah-Emporer's Room


 * Dark Brotherhood Sanctuary (Skyrim)
 * After completing the necessary initiation quest for the Dark Brotherhood, travel to and go through the Black Door to gain access to their inner sanctuary. Watch the right side of the path for a bookshelf that will contain a certain book laying on its back. Upon opening this book, you will begin the Forbidden Legend quest.


 * Cracked Tusk Keep
 * While doing the mission to acquire Mehrunes' Razor, you will travel here to acquire a piece of the dagger. Upon entering the Vault, there will be a room on your right that has spike bars preventing your entry. Look on the wall next to the door for a button to remove the bars. The book is on a bookshelf in the room.


 * Nightcaller Temple
 * There is a book on the bottom shelf of the podium in the very first chamber of the temple. It is unknown if you can access this without first starting the Waking Nighmare quest. In order to start this quest, simply go to the Inn in Dawnstar, watch the conversation between Erandur and the villagers, then talk to Erandur and offer to help him. He will guide you to the temple, which is on the hill overlooking the town.


 * Blue Palace
 * There is another copy of the Lost Legends book in Solitude. On the second level of the Blue Palace, there is a corridor leading away from the Jarl's greathall back and to the left; it terminates in Jarl Elisif's bedchamber (from which can be swiped a good amount of potions and ingredients if nobody's watching). All along this passage there are tables and bookcases with small food items and books. One of the books, either stacked on a bookshelf or laying on a table next to a plate and flagon, is Lost Legends. NOTE: Taking any of these items into your inventory constitutes stealing in full view of the Solitude guards. To avoid prosecution, you may want to simply pick up the book, read it, and place it back on the table or shelf where you found it.


 * Dragonsreach
 * There is a copy of Lost Legends in the room next the jarl`s room where he keeps his books

If you do not want, or are unable, to acquire the book at any of these locations for whatever reason, just follow the steps below to get into Saarthal instead. Alternately, one of the side-quests may have you enter Geirmund's Hall where you can obtain a Gauldur Amulet Fragment which will start this quest.
 * The College of Winterhold
 * In the Arcanaeum, in the large library in the section the the Right of the room on a desk. [Next to Fall from Glory]

Saarthal Excavation
In order to gain access to the excavation site, you must first begin the quest Under Saarthal. This quest is found in The College of Winterhold, but don't be discouraged if your character is not skilled in magic. You can easily enter the college after completing the very short quest First Lesson, regardless of magic skill, and then start Under Saarthal by speaking with Tolfdir after his magic demonstration. Defeat Jyrik in Saarthal, by the orb, and take his Writ of Sealing and his Gauldur Amulet Fragment. Read the writ to start the next quest point. Then, go to the Arcaenum and read the book Lost Legends (on a small table on the right hand side of the room, behind the pillars not in the middle, as you enter) to get the next clue about the origin of the Gauldur Amulet Fragment.

Folgunthur
Travel to Folgunthur and read the journal of Daynas Valen in the camp outside the cave. It will tell you about his travels with the Ivory Dragon Claw. He traveled to Folgunthur looking for the Amulet. Follow him inside, past the corpse of his compatriot. He will be lying on a Claw button next to a bridge. Take the Claw and his notes, read them, and activate the button to cross the bridge. Eventually you will come to a room with two thrones, facing a chain lever, and a grille in the floor covering a staircase. Upon entering the next room there is a pull chain by a grille and two doors with two levers, in each room you must get the turning stones to match and then pull the chain lever. Once the grille is open, you may move on. You will come to another puzzle, similar to Bleak Falls Barrow, you will have to use the Claw's closeup to determine the answer to the puzzle. Once inside, fight Mikrul Gauldurson, and take his Gauldur Amulet Fragment. After beating him, use the claw to gain access to the two rooms on the back wall. One has a shout, that can complete a miscellanious quest, and then proceed to leave by using exits blocked from the other side.

Geirmund's Hall
Geirmund's Hall is a dungeon close to Ivarstead, grave of the hero Geirmund. Travel there and upon entering the cave, you will come to a hole in the ground, drop through it. There is an underwater alcove, with a chest and a Potion of Waterbreathing. Climb up the steps and enter a room with a puzzle, the order of the stones starting from the first one is Eagle, Whale, Snake, Whale. Activate the lever by the door. The next room, after fighting a few Draugrs along the way you come to a large room and after climbing the steps, immediately to your right is an altar with the body of Geirmund holding a key. Take the door behind you, and follow the path to the left, you find a Drauger Deathlord after you kill him you reach a dead end and a lever on the ground; don't pull that lever as it's a trap but if you look directly behind it you will find another lever; pull that one instead and the drawbridge will drop. (optional: walk to the edge of the dead end and look to the right. There is a small ledge a bit lower, jump on it and open the door. Watch out because as soon as you open the door a fireball is shot at you. If you stand close enough to the wall it will not hit you. There's an expert chest inside).

Then face Sigdis Gauldurson, the hardest of the three sons. There are four sigils on the ground in the cave where you fight him. He will teleport to whichever three you are farthest away from and make two copies of himself. All three will attack you, including using Shouts like Unrelenting Force and, at higher levels, Disarm. If you attack one of the clones, it will dissipate after one hit, and after both clones have died Sigdis will teleport away again. It is possible to tell Sigdis apart from his clones because he is the only one with the true health amount (the clones will have full health), and also by the fact that his clones, being summoned, will be surrounded by a bluish glow. The easiest way to kill him is using a ranged attack and staying hidden until after he uses his shout, then popping out to attack. (Preferrably a ranged weapon like the Staff of Fireballs, which causes burning damage as well) After you have killed him, take the last Gauldur Amulet Fragment.

(SEE ALSO: Geirmund's Hall)

Gauldur's Grave
To complete the quest chain, go to Reachwater Rock, near Karthspire. Inside, you will find a dead Adventurer near the Emerald Dragon Claw, on a pedestal along with a note. (There is a chest at the bottom of the pool of water below the pedestal) Enter the claw door using the combination inscribed on the palm of the Emerald Claw. Inside will be yet another Claw door, this time using the Ivory Dragon Claw's combination. Placing the three amulet fragments on the pedestal will cause the ghosts of each son to appear, and you will have to fight each one in turn.

Sigdis will use the same tactics as before, disappearing and reappearing to shoot arrows at you, using four out of the six possible locations. Take advantage of his teleports to abuse the wait function, restoring your health and providing a handy autosave. A good tactic is hiding next to the doorway you came in, or next to the alter, and using your sneak and bow to do some ranged damage; if your sneak is high enough, he will not attack you at all. Furthermore, the real Sigdis has a slightly different helmet model (iron helmet) than his clones. This allows easy sneak-sniping without wasting time and arrows.

After Sigdis, Jyrik will appear and summon a Frost Atronach to help him, occasionally teleporting around the room.

Once all three sons have been defeated, they will reappear as ghosts above the pedestal, then vanish. Archmage Gauldur will appear and reforge the Gauldur Amulet Fragments into The Gauldur Amulet, a necklace that grants +30 to health, magicka, and stamina.

Don't forget to loot Gauldur's skeleton before you leave, as it holds a decent amount of money.

Bugs

 * Reading the note before you got the quest will make you unable to progress further, subsequently reading the Writ does nothing. The only known way to fix the quest (if you got it by killing Jyrik) is to obtain a copy of "Lost Legends" and read it. Then the quest will progress correctly.
 * If you enter and clear Geirmund's Hall before starting the quest, Sigdis' body and amulet fragment will disappear; a marker will hover where the body was when you defeated him. The trick is that you must do this at the location that you kill the boss. At the console:
 * prid a5e68
 * enable
 * Exit console mode and loot the body for the fragment. the journal will be updated, and you can complete the quest normally.
 * If you enter the lair with Mikrul Gauldurson already out of his tomb, there is a chance you can't loot his corpse after killing him. You may want to reload your last save, go back to his room, and if he is out of his tomb again, simply back out of the zone and re-enter. He should be in his tomb, where you can quickly kill him, and loot him after.
 * If the amulet in Saarthal is not picked up before the Eye of Magnus is moved there is a chance it will disappear along with the corpse of Jyrik.
 * At a high enough level Sigdis can use the "Disarm" shout to remove your equipped weapon, if you are standing in certain parts of the dungeon the weapon may be dropped outside the mapping making it impossible to retrieve.
 * Disintegrating any of the three bosses will prevent the triggering of the script which forges the amulet, trapping you in the room.
 * Killing the thralls while in the sarcophogi prevents them from spawning during the battle.
 * Killing or paralyzing Sigdis before he teleports for the first time, such as with a fatal sneak attack, the Paralyze spell or enchantment, or the Unrelenting Force shout, can cause him to fail to reappear or reappear paralyzed and unattackable, making it impossible to retrieve his Fragment.
 * Sigdis' Unrelenting Force attacks can push the player up onto the platform where Gauldur's body sits. Once up there, the player will not be able to come down again (they'll be stuck behind an invisible wall), and Sigdis will not be able to attack the player. You escape using the 'tcl' console command, or by reloading a previous save.
 * In case there are any problems in completing the quest, here is a list of the relevant items, for use with 'player.additem'.
 * Lost Legends: 000ED608
 * Sigdis's Gauldur Amulet Fragment: 0002D753
 * Mikrul's Gauldur Amulet Fragment: 000F1C17 (on french version: 0002D74F)
 * When the Amulet was reforged by Gauldur it failed to appear. Saving and reloading the save made the Reforged Amulet appear correctly.
 * Sigdis's shout is disarm, the fact that it blows the weapon away can make it impossible to find, and in some cases making the items go through walls.
 * Sometimes, the first door which requires the Emerald Dragon Claw, Won't open even if you have the combination right. And sometimes you can't even turn the rings, you can reload the save or load a previous save. If this doesn't work, then the quest is glitched and you can't proceed. (Confirmed on Xbox). One solution that has worked was to change all three symbols to incorrect ones, and then setting in the right symbols starting with the top.
 * If the symbols on the first puzzle door are "Owl, Bird, Bird", then the symbols won't change when you try to activate them. Reloading your last save usually resets the symbols and causes it to work.
 * After collecting all amulet fragments you might not get any other tasks to do, leaving you with the quest still unfinished and without the Gauldur amulet. Simply travel (or fast travel) to Reachwater Rock and place the amulets on their corresponding pedestals. This should make the quest progress to the final battle with the brothers.
 * It is possible to have Unrelenting Force used against you, launching you up to where the ghosts are standing and you will not be able to get out. You will have to load a save to get out.
 * sometimes in folgunthurs crypt the puzzle door will open by itself and when you go to fight the boss he will not have the fragment on him and you can't go any further just back to a save before you even got there
 * You can get glitched out of the area when you place the amulet's down, The enemy will use unrelenting force and there is no way to get back into the area, as far as i know.

Trivia

 * The battle with Sigdis and the way he fights is strikingly similar to the Wizzrobes of the Legend of Zelda series. Both enemies teleport around the room to designated spots, make clones of themselves(which can be picked out from the real one with a sharp eye) and shoot projectiles at the player.
 * Some players may think they have died when Unrelenting Force is used on them during the battle, as the animation looks very similar.