Dawnbreaker (Skyrim)

The Dawnbreaker is a Daedric Artifact given by Meridia. It can be obtained during the quest The Break of Dawn, started by visiting the Statue to Meridia or finding the radiant quest item Meridia's Beacon.

Characteristics
This sword sets undead on fire, and has a chance to make undead explode into blue flame upon death, which damages or turns other undead. It can be upgraded using 1 Ebony Ingot, provided that the player has the Arcane Blacksmith perk.

Obtaining
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 player to first find her beacon, which spawns randomly. Upon obtaining the beacon, Meridia speaks to the player, 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 player that there is a powerful necromancer defiling her temple, which the player 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.

Strategies
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.
 * Despite other swords having better damage, the special effect makes it very useful for dealing with high-level Draugr. High-level undead almost always come with other lower level ones that die in a few hits, and this almost always triggers the explosion (the chance of an explosion is about 50%). The explosion insta-kills the rest of the low level undead and 'Fears' the high-level ones for a fairly long time, and the effect continues even if the player is hitting them, so the player can take a lot of the undead's HP as they try to run away.

Trivia

 * In a way, it is similar to Sting, Frodo's sword from The Lord of the Rings, as Sting glows blue whenever Orcs are near, just how Dawnbreaker glows near undead.
 * Dawnbreaker bares a striking similarity to Dawnfang from The Elder Scrolls IV: Shivering Isles.

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. (PS3) It is possible to escape this glitch by running towards the water after the conversation with Meridia.
 * PS3- 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.

Appearances

 * The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Сияние Рассвета (Skyrim)