Wabbajack (Skyrim)

"The Wabbajack! Huh? Huh? Didn't see that coming, did you?"

- Sheogorath

The Wabbajack is the daedric artifact of Sheogorath. This 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 rogue nature is a reflection upon Sheogorath's own chaos, choosing at random to either help or hinder those he encounters.

Acquisition
The Wabbajack is given to the Dragonborn after the completion of Sheogorath's quest "The Mind of Madness".

Known effects

 * Fireball (Common)
 * Thunderbolt (Common
 * Frost Rune effect explosion (Common)
 * Heals
 * Disintegration
 * Transformation effects
 * Effect canceled on hit: chicken, rabbit, dremora lord, or a random draugr. Examples: Jyrik Gauldurson, goat. Spectral, mud crab
 * Effects that eliminates target: sweetroll, fountain of septims, or random books spawn
 * Leveled dremora (Common)
 * Casts Invisibility on target (Common)
 * Summoning dremora to fight for target
 * Ice Spike
 * Instant kill (ghostly remains after kill)
 * Instant kill (ghostly remains and a sweet roll after kill)
 * Instant kill (with normal remains)
 * Instant kill (with no body)
 * Fear
 * Summon effects: mudcrab, daedra, rabbit, chicken
 * Drain stamina
 * Paralyze
 * Unequip target's armor
 * Absorb health
 * Target explodes, turns into ghostly remains and scattered gold and pitchforks. Taking the gold counts as stealing
 * Changes target's armor
 * Decapitation
 * 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
 * No effect

Follower level
Transforming a follower with the Wabbajack and letting them change back is currently the only way to force a follower to level up to match the Dragonborn's level on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions of Skyrim. Characters in Skyrim are usually locked at the level at which they are first spawned (when they were first encountered). 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 allusions to Alice in Wonderland, the name of the artifact may be inspired by the title of Carroll's poem Jabberwocky, by Lewis Carroll.
 * The head of the staff resembles three of Sheogorath's faces in the differing moods that the daedric lord tends to alternate arbitrarily between.
 * The head of the staff also resembles the faces of the Strange Door in Niben Bay, which was also modeled on Sheogorath, and 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 staff seems to very regularly change mudcrabs into chickens.
 * The character called Madwoman can appear at random locations chanting "Wabbajack Wabbajack Wabbajack Wabbajack" and may request to be hit with a spell from the Wabbajack.
 * She uses the word Wabbajack as a verb, and the only Wabbajack effect is to transform her into a rabbit.
 * The Wabbajack has a higher chance of instantly killing or turning dwarven centurions into sweetrolls.
 * Another copy obtained using the  console code has an enchantment described as "It's all you've got..." This version was probably intended for the Mind of Madness quest only; using it like the normal Wabbajack does not yield any transformation or destruction abilities.
 * If Sheogorath is summoned into Skyrim with console commands, he may use a variant of the Wabbajack that looks the same, but casts adept and expert destruction spells.
 * All attacks made using this staff are from the destruction school so fortifying destruction to 100% will make the charge cost zero and allow infinite uses without need of recharging.
 * When the staff is used on a dragon or giant, it will always cast a Destruction spell.

Bugs

 * Transformation effects on guards do not change them, but instead summons whatever they were supposed to change into. However, this often makes the guard stop attacking the user. This is because the transformation effect normally works by de-spawning the target and spawning a generic creature in their place; for some reason, guards cannot be despawned even using the console.
 * If a target dies while being transformed, the transformation may be spawned.
 * Attacking a summoned dremora lord with the Wabbajack may cause the game to crash.
 * When given to followers, the Wabbajack only appears to use damage-dealing attacks.
 * If a spawned dremora lord fades while being decapitated, it may remain alive without a head, but their speech options don't work, rendering them useless.
 * The Wabbajack can disappear when placed in a weapon display case or rack.
 * Targets transformed by the Wabbajack may never turn back, and cannot be damaged.
 * Sometimes, a transformed item cannot be picked up.
 * The Wabbajack may only do frost rune, fireball or lightning effects on non-killable characters such as children or quest characters. This is also true for dead thralls.
 * Sometimes when used on a wild animal, the game will start running slowly.
 * Sometimes when the Wabbajack is given to Lydia or Faendal (not yet tested on other followers) it glitches in the follower's hand and disappears when unsheathing. Opening the follower's inventory shows no Wabbajack.

Behind the scenes

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