Glory of the Dead

"Glory of the Dead" is the final quest in the Companions' questline.

Overview

 * Prerequisite: Purity of Revenge
 * Quest Giver: Vilkas
 * Reward: Wuuthrad
 * Reputation Gain: title Harbinger of the Companions

Walkthrough
Attend Kodlak's funeral: Vilkas tells you to attend Kodlak's funeral together with the rest of the Companions. Find your way to the Skyforge where his funeral is held. All the members of the Companions and a few other Whiterun citizens are present. The circle members will begin prayers, after which Eorlund will ask you to pass him the fragments of Wuuthrad that you collected.

 Retrieve Kodlak's fragment:  After passing those fragments, Eorlund will ask you to retrieve the last shard of Wuuthrad from Kodlak's end drawer in his room.

Give the final fragment to Eorlund  Meet the Circle:  After you pass the fragment to Eorlund he will ask you to meet the other Circle members at the Underforge, which is beneath the Skyforge and you can access via the secret entrance Skjor showed you a few quests ago.

 Go to Ysgramor's Tomb with the Circle:  After you enter the underforge, a conversation about Kodlak ensues between the circle members. It ends with Eorlund coming in and passing you a completed Wuuthrad. You then have to meet the other circle members at Ysgramor's Tomb.

 Return Wuuthrad to Ysgramor:  Activate the statue of Ysgramor to place Wuuthrad into the statue. Doing so will open the pathway at the end of the hall that leads to the burial chamber. (Once you place it in the statue's hands, you can take it back without the passageway closing).

Get to the burial chamber: You will encounter several frostbite spiders, including one Giant Frostbite spider, but mostly you fight Companions' ghosts here.

 Speak to Kodlak   Put Head of Glenmoril Witch into the Fire and Defeat the Beast Spirit:  Activating the fire will automatically place one of the Witch Heads into it. Doing so will release the Kodlak's beast spirit and a battle will ensue. Defeat the beast spirit to free Kodlak's spirit. The beast spirit can be difficult to see at times, so an attack that leaves a lingering visual effect (such as Flames or Fire Breath) will highlight the spirit.

Speak to Kodlak: Upon the successful cure of Kodlak's spirit, you will be granted the title of Harbinger of the Companions, making you their first true leader since Ysgramor himself. Before leaving the burial chamber, be sure to acquire the Shield of Ysgramor from his chest. The Shield of Ysgramor is an incredibly useful shield for warrior-based classes.

OPTIONAL - Cure your Lycanthropy
If you wish to cure yourself of Lycanthropy you may do so at this point if you defeated and kept more than one of the Glenmoril Witches' heads during the Blood's Honor quest. If you did not, you can travel back to Glenmoril Coven to defeat another witch and take Her head.

Activate the fire again (which will remove a second Glenmoril Witch head from your inventory), this will release your Beast form and a battle will ensue. Defeating your Beast Spirit in combat will cure you of your Lycanthropy (you can still use your Beast form during the fight but will automatically transform back after defeating your Beast Spirit regardless of how long you have been transformed). The cure is permanent and you will no longer be able to contract Lycanthropy.

Notable Loot

 * The dead female Draugr, to your right as you head down the stairs in the second chamber inhabited by Companion Ghosts, holds some gold and a levelled item.
 * There is a chest tucked away to your left as you exit the final room (the one where you just slew the wolf spirit). It contains the Shield of Ysgramor, along with some valuable loot.

Bugs

 * If you attend Kodlak's funural late at night, it is possible that Eorlund won't be at the Skyforge when you return with the last shard (because people go to bed at night in Skyrim). Toggle the quest as active, and you'll probably see the quest marker pointing towards Grey-Mane's residence in Whiterun. If you pick the lock you'll probably be addressed by a guard for trespassing (not confirmed). The best thing is to just wait until daytime and Eorlund will be back at Skyforge, and you can continue the quest. (360)
 * If you have started the College of Winterhold or Dark Brotherhood questline, trying to cure yourself using the flame will not work. To be precise, the flame is unactivatable. Fix is to reload to a previous save before any of the DB line < Innocence Lost or later > is started or in progress. Another possible fix < Confirmed > is to complete the DB line before attempting.
 * A possible bug that could appear is that as soon as Vilkas tells you to attend Kodlak's funeral, there will be nobody present at the Skyforge, hence making it impossible to begin this quest. On the PC version you can solve this by killing and then resurrecting Eorlund ( of course he won't really die because he's an essential character) using console commands. On the PS3/Xbox 360 there has been, unfortunately, no way found to fix this bug


 * After the quest some of what the companions say will not be subtiteled if you have subtitles on.


 * The quest may not even trigger, even after you have completed the previous quest, Vilkas tells you to head to the funeral but no quest is given and no one is at the skyforge, not amount of time waited or extra companions quests done fixes this.
 * After you attended the funeral you are told to enter the Underforge. When you enter, dialogue starts. If you leave this discussion before it finishes and exit the Underforge through the rear exit tunnel, you can re-enter the Underforge but nothing happens. The other members of the Circle will just stand there and be "busy" when you try to activate them (is there a solution for this?)


 * If you have not gathered all of the Fragments of Wuuthrad for Aela, this questline stalls after being asked to enter the underforge. Gather all Fragments before going to kill the witches.
 * You can trigger this quest again after triggered the quest Purity from Vilkas and Farkas. However, even if you have defeated the your wolf spirit, the general statistics still continue to count your day as werewolf and you can no longer get "wellrested" bonus. The NPC will still mention "Fur from your ears". There is one partial way for fix this.


 * Use the following console command:




 * Will stop the counter for werewolf and allow the player to earn "Wellrested" bonus again. However, the NPC still note "Fur from your ears".