Dawnbreaker (Skyrim)

Dawnbreaker is a One-Handed Daedric artifact found in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.

Enchantment
Dawnbreaker has a unique enchantment called "Meridia's Retribution" that deals 10 points of fire damage on impact, and has a 25% chance to make undead explode in a fiery blast upon death.

This blast will damage any nearby undead and can cause any survivors to flee for a short time. Undead killed in the blast will crumble into ash piles.

It is not actually necessary for the killing blow that triggers the explosion to be dealt with Dawnbreaker. The enchantment works similar to soul trap in that each hit infects the target for 10 seconds and if the target is killed within that time it may explode.

Acquisition
It is a Daedric Artifact granted by Meridia upon completion of the quest The Break of Dawn, started by visiting the Statue to Meridia or finding the radiant quest item Meridia's Beacon. Once the quest has begun, Meridia will ask the Dragonborn to become her champion and restore her influence over Skyrim by restoring her temple, which has been corrupted by a necromancer. She commands the Dragonborn to first find her beacon, which spawns randomly in nearly any of the chests in the game, which could make getting the beacon very easy, or very hard.

Upon obtaining the beacon, Meridia speaks to the Dragonborn, commanding them to take the stone to her shrine, which is located west of Solitude, almost directly south of Wolfskull Cave. Once there, Meridia will tell the Dragonborn that there is a powerful necromancer named Malkoran defiling her temple, which the Dragonborn must navigate through and kill.

Alternate methods
Alternatively if the beacon is obtained before visiting Meridia's shrine, Meridia will speak, commanding that it be returned to her shrine.

Smithing
Dawnbreaker can be upgraded using an Ebony Ingot, provided that the Arcane Blacksmith perk has been unlocked.

Usefulness
Despite other swords having higher damage, the special enchantment makes Dawnbreaker very useful for dealing with several Draugr at once. High-level Draugr such as a Draugr Deathlord almost always attack alongside several lower leveled ones that can be killed in a few hits. The resulting explosion instantly kills low level undead and causes the high-level Draugr to flee.

Trivia

 * Dawnbreaker is an effective weapon against vampires. On top of being very vulnerable to fire, they are also considered undead, therefore they are affected by the fiery explosion. However, if the Dragonborn is a vampire, the resulting explosion will affect them too.
 * The fiery explosion has the same visual effect and functions the same way as the Bane of the Undead spell.
 * Dawnbreaker does not benefit from any of the material-specific smithing perks, so to reach "Legendary" quality, the Dragonborn's Smithing skill must be well over 100.
 * This weapon has a very high number of charges, much higher than most other enchanted weapons. Since soul gems restore a percentage of charges, this weapon provides a lot more uses per soul gem than most other weapons.

Bugs

 * Does not get recharged by the perk Soul Siphon.
 * There is a glitch in which two copies of the Dawnbreaker sword can be obtained. When entering the chamber to fight the necromancer, cast a powerful Firestorm scroll. A Blizzard scroll works just as well. This will cause a copy of Dawnbreaker to go flying across the room, while the original still stays where it is. Pick up the copy before obtaining the original because this ends the quest. The best way to do this is to cast the spell after defeating the necromancer and his shades. Stand in front of the altar and cast the spell, the sword should be somewhere on the ground.
 * This weapon seems to be able to accidentally equip itself to the same hand as another weapon at the same time. This may be due to using the item duplication glitch above.
 * The in-game description of the weapon's effect contains a spelling error, describing the damage bonus as a "firey" explosion. The correct spelling of this word is "fiery."
 * If equipped with a weapon of a different kind in the left hand, Dawnbreaker may take the form of the weapon in the left. Confirmed with Daedric Long Sword. To fix simply un-equip and then re-equip Dawnbreaker, the weapon should now be displayed properly.
 * Save before collecting the sword, after told to do so. Sometimes when the player is dropped back down to land by Meridia, after being summoned, the player will fall all the way to the ground. On PC, ~ then TCL can prevent this but only if you know it is coming.
 * Solution: It is possible to escape this glitch by running towards the water after the conversation with Meridia. Also try restarting the PS3 and attempting again, it's a matter of loading you out of falling before you hit the ground, if the load is too slow or the player is positioned too far uphill the player hits the ground and dies. Keep in mind that running forward too wouldn't hurt.
 * When summoned to the sky a dragon will follow and attack while conversing with Meridia making returning to the ground impossible. Reloading and killing the dragon before placing the beacon will work.
 * As will backing away from the conflict in the sky and Waiting for several hours, the dragon will disappear and conversation with Meridia will resume.
 * When a second copy is made, (glitch above) the copy may not shine at all, the real one will. reloading the save or using a console command will fix the broken blade.
 * If you look at the weapon through your inventory it will sometimes be shown to be a light in the form of a sword.
 * Even if the player has been cured of vampirism, they may still be effected by Dawnbreaker's enchantment upon killing any form of undead.

Appearances

 * The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Сияние Рассвета (Skyrim)