Wabbajack (Skyrim)

"And as for you, my little mortal minion... Feel free to keep the Wabbajack. As a symbol of my... Oh, just take the damn thing."

- Sheogorath

The Wabbajack is a Daedric Artifact of Sheogorath in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. It is given to the Dragonborn during the quest The Mind of Madness. The mysterious staff casts an unpredictable spell that ranges from transforming enemies into other creatures or items to casting a random Destruction spell to even healing enemies. These abilities are able to completely alter the course of battle by transforming an enemy into a lesser creature, like a rabbit, or into a stronger being, such as a Dremora.

The Wabbajack is one of five Daedric Artifacts made by the Daedric Prince of Madness, Sheogorath. Its unpredictable nature is a reflection upon Sheogorath's own chaos, choosing at random to either help or hinder those he or it encounters.

Related quest
The Mind of Madness

Known Effects

 * Fireball
 * Thunderbolt
 * Frost Rune effect explosion
 * Heals
 * Disintegrate
 * Transformation effects
 * Effect canceled on hit: Chicken, Rabbit, Dremora Lord, s​ometimes random Draugr Ex. Jyrik Gauldurson, Goat, Spectral, Mud Crab,
 * Effects that eliminates target: Sweetroll, fountain of Septims, or random books spawn
 * Sheogorath may appear to sing and dance.
 * Invisibility on Target (Can turn transformed targets invisible).
 * Summoning Dremora to fight for target
 * Instant kill (ghostly remains after kill)
 * Ice Spike
 * Instant kill (without ghostly remains)
 * Instant kill (with no body)
 * Flee
 * Summon Effects: Mudcrab, Daedra, rabbit, chicken.
 * Drain Stamina
 * Paralyze
 * Can move enemy armor from equipped to inventory.
 * Absorb health
 * NPC explodes, turns into ghostly remains and scattered gold and pitchforks. Taking the gold counts as stealing.
 * Changes current armor
 * Does nothing
 * Instant kill (Turns target into a golden statue. Unmineable, unlootable and utterly unusable aside from decoration. Unable to redo the effect)
 * Can move the skeleton of a dead dragon
 * Reanimate targeted dead body (possibly no limits to level except bosses like Alduin) with double health. Fights the wielder. Dragons can be quite hard to fight when reanimated. Good for leveling up weapon and armor skills, as the reanimated body can take more damage and therefore also deal more. Do beware to not raise something too strong.

Follower level
Turning a Follower into a creature then letting them change back is currently the only way to force a Follower to level up to match the player's level on the PS3 and Xbox version of Skyrim. NPCs in Skyrim are otherwise permanently locked at the level in which they are first spawned (when the player first encounters them). This issue is also present in the PC version of the game, but on the PC it can be corrected with console commands. Does not work with Housecarls.

Trivia

 * In keeping with the Lewis Carroll theme of insanity and illusions to 'Alice in Wonderland', the name of the artifact could be seen as a pun on the title of the poem 'Jabberwocky ', also written by Lewis Carroll.
 * The head of the staff resembles three of Sheogorath's faces in differing moods that the Daedric lord tends to jump through during conversation, and life.
 * The head of the staff also resembles the faces of the Strange Door in Niben Bay, which led to the Shivering Isles.
 * If the staff's effect that transforms the target into a mud crab is cast on a mud crab, it will grow larger.
 * The character called Madwoman can appear at random locations chanting "Wabbajack Wabbajack Wabbajack Wabbajack" and may request ( If Wabbajack quest is completed) to be hit with a spell from the Wabbajack.
 * Wabbajack has a higher chance of instantly killing or turning Dwarven Centurions into sweetrolls.
 * Another copy obtained using the coc qasmoke console code has an enchantment described as "It's all you've got..." This version was probably intented for the Mind of Madness quest only, using it as you would the normal Wabbajack would not yield any transformation or destruction abilities.
 * If Sheogorath is summoned into Skyrim with console commands, he may use a variant of Wabbajack that looks the same, but casts Adept and Expert Destruction spells.

Bugs

 * Transformation effects on guards do not change them, but instead summons whatever they were supposed to change into next to them. However this often makes the guard stop attacking you. This is because the transformation effect normally works by de-spawning an NPC and spawning a generic creature in their place; for some reason, guards cannot be despawned even using the console.
 * When attacking a creature and it dies while the transformation is happening it may spawn that item.
 * Attacking a summoned Dremora Lord with Wabbajack may cause the game to crash.
 * When given to followers, it appears to only do the damage effect rather than the variety of transformation effects it was intended to do.
 * If a spawned Dremora Lord fades while decapitating sometimes they remain alive without a head, but when you speak to them their speech options don't work, rendering them useless.
 * The Wabbajack can disappear when placed in a weapon display case or rack.
 * Rarely when you use the Wabbajack on a creature or humanoid and it transforms the target it may never turn back and be stuck like that unable to be damaged. (Ex. Redguard transforms into Daedra, it cannot die, and will never turn back)
 * Sometimes, when trying to pick up a transformed item, The item will still be there, but cannot pick it up.
 * The Wabbajack will only do Frost Rune, Fireball, or, Lightning effects on non-killable characters such as children or quest characters. This is also true for the Dead Thralls.
 * Sometimes when you try to use it on a wild animal,the game will start running slowly,this mostly happens with damaged computers.

Behind the scenes

 * Unless otherwise stated, the information above was obtained from in-game play or from The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Creation Kit.