Boethiah's Calling

Boethiah's Calling
Quest Giver	Boethiah's Cultist or read Boethiah's Proving
Location	Sacellum of Boethiah
Prerequisite	Level 30
Reward	Ebony Mail
Type	Daedric Quest
Quest ID	DA02

Objectives

Upon reaching level 30, Boethiah's Proving will begin spawning in various locations. Once read, Boethiah's Calling will start. Alternatively, if a Boethiah follower is killed, there will be a print of Boethiah's Proving on the corpse. Another way to start the quest is to go straight to the shrine, bypassing the first objective of finding the shrine.

• Find the Shrine of Boethiah.
• Find the cult of Boethiah.
• Lead someone to become trapped by the shrine and slay them, or kill all the cultists.
• Speak to Boethiah's Conduit.
• Slay the other cultists, or lead someone to become trapped by the shrine and slay them.
• Speak to Boethiah's Conduit.
• Slay everyone at Knifepoint Ridge stealthily.
• Retrieve and equip the Ebony Mail.

Detailed walkthrough

This quest can begin once the Dragonborn is at least level 30. Upon reaching level 30, the book Boethiah's Proving will spawn in various locations:

• Septimus Signus's Outpost on the bookshelf (the location of Discerning the Transmundane).
• Found on hostile Boethiah Cultists during random encounters.
• Abandoned House in Markarth, on the floor under the bookshelf in the second room next to the door leading down the stairs.
• Found in Hob's Fall Cave.

After finding the book, reading it will activate the quest, and the location will appear on the map. The Dragonborn will then need to travel to the Sacellum of Boethiah. (this step can be easily bypassed simply by approaching the shrine once you have reached level 30. After reaching level 30, you may need to let a couple days pass, to ensure all the proper npcs spawn.)

After finding the Sacellum, one of Boethiah's followers (usually the priestess) will speak to the Dragonborn, asking to lead someone to sacrifice. At this time, the Blade of Sacrifice will be given to the Dragonborn. Any follower can be taken to the Pillar of Sacrifice to be killed except for essential characters. Any of the initiates from any guilds, excluding the Dark Brotherhood, as their initiates are essential, will also work. Creature followers, like the dogs or the Armored Trolls, don't work as the sacrifice needs to be a humanoid follower. The Dragonborn should bring the chosen victim to the Pillar and tell him or her to use it. The victim will become stuck to the pillar, allowing the Dragonborn to perform a sacrifice. The Blade of Sacrifice can be used, but any other weapon or means of attack will suffice.

Alternatively, one may kill all of the cultists. This will also cause Boethiah to appear, though with slightly different dialogue. If this option is taken, she still tells you to bring a thrall to the altar for sacrifice. If you go to Knifepoint Ridge without making a sacrifice, the lower portion of the mine will still be caved in. (So either way, someone has to be sacrificed to complete the mission)

Boethiah will use the sacrificed body as a conduit. The body will stand up after death and speak in Boethiah's voice. After listening to and following him downstairs (along with the rest of the cultists), the Dragonborn will be forced to fight each and every one of Boethiah's followers. However, they will also fight amongst each other, so waiting for them to kill each other and finishing the rest can reduce the difficulty of the fight; Otherwise, Boethiah's cultists are fairly difficult. After defeating them, Boethiah will use the last killed person as a conduit, saying she is bored of her current champion, who now runs his own gang at Knifepoint Ridge. She orders the Dragonborn to kill them all silently, without giving the current champion time to defend himself (it does not matter whether the Dragonborn does this silently or not).

Tips for killing the gang silently:

• Use a bow to kill at long range.
• Jump off the walkways and land behind them for a fast kill (easiest with the Assassin's Blade perk).
• Invisibility and Muffle can be used to approach the gang members while being hidden. Note that enemies will be alarmed if Invisibility is cast near them without the Quiet Casting perk.
• To defeat Boethiah's champion without being noticed, the Dragonborn can climb the boxes behind his house and fall through the hole in the roof.

The Champion of Boethiah is wearing Ebony Mail, a unique cuirass that excretes poison. The poison effect does not begin until the champion notices the Dragonborn. Once he is defeated, the Ebony Mail can be looted from his body and equipped. Boethiah will speak to the Dragonborn (as an indirect objective voice; the Dragonborn will not need to return to her Shrine for this to occur) one final time, and the quest will end.

Alternative methods

There are some alternatives to being forced to sacrifice a companion:

• Typing setstage da02 15 in the console will advance the quest without requiring any follower's death.

AFTER:setstage da02 20

• If a sacrificed companion is resurrected via the console, Boethiah will take over the body briefly to talk to the Dragonborn. Once Boethiah has vacated the body, the companion can be resurrected successfully, but talking to them will simply restart the conversation with Boethiah. Once the quest has been completed, the companion should be alive, normal, and waiting at their home or recruitment point. This does not work with any Housecarls.

Broken Objective

Upon going deeper into the game's files, one may find a broken or deleted quest objective which involves killing Jarl Elisif. This is rare, speaking with Sybille Stentor after sacrificing a follower will have her explain to you about the Jarl feeling paranoid, the Dragonborn will offer to bodyguard Jarl Elisif in her room. After that, no more interaction is available.

There was going to be another quest the Dragonborn could do for Boethiah after becoming her champion, called Boethiah's Bidding. It involved killing Jarl Elisif for the Daedric Prince. After she was killed the new Jarl of Solitude would've been Erikur. Solitude guard's dialogue support this. The quest however was unfinished, likely due to the conflict it would have with the Civil War questline.

Gallery

Ebony mail

The cult of Boethiah

Knifepoint Ridge.jpg

Knifepoint Ridge

The Pillar of Sacrifice glows as the Dragonborn approaches

A follower entrapped by the pillar

Trivia

• The spiral of Daedric script around the Pillar of Sacrifice is mirrored, but reads from edge to center: "I am alive because that one is dead I exist because I have the will to do so," as quoted in the book Boethiah's Proving.
• An easy way to find Boethiah's cultists is to wander around far away from cities.
• Many followers can be used as sacrifices, but essential NPCs won't be able to become sacrifices
• The cultists are relatively difficult opponents. An easy way to kill all cultists at the shrine is to wait for a dragon attack, and then lure the dragon towards the shrine (e.g. Dragonrend shout). Hide (sneak, find cover nearby and don't attack) and the cultists will prioritise the dragon as a target. Remain hiding until most of the cultists are killed or severely weakened by the dragon, then pick off the survivors and defeat the dragon (if it hasn't flown away). Note that Boethiah will still try to recruit you when the last cultist is killed at the shrine - there appears to be no way to clear the shrine without Boethiah or a cultist attempting to recruit you, and that will always add the Boethiah's Calling quest to your journal. This method can also be used to start the quest if the cult leader dies early.
• When sacrificing a follower their body can be looted twice. Once immediatly after you kill them on the Pillar of Sacrifice and again when Boethiah possesses their corpse all of their items (If their inventory is empty) respawn allowing them to looted again once Boethiah leaves their body.

Bugs

This section contains bugs related to Boethiah's Calling. Before adding a bug to this list, consider the following: Please reload an old save to confirm if the bug is still happening. If the bug is still occurring, please post the bug report with the appropriate system template  360  /  XB1  ,  PS3  /  PS4  ,  PC  /  MAC  ,  NX  /  PS5  ,  XS  , depending on which platform(s) the bug has been encountered on. Be descriptive when listing the bug and fixes, but avoid having conversations in the description and/or using first-person anecdotes: such discussions belong on the appropriate forum board.

Click to show

360  Sometimes after killing the follower on the pillar, Boethiah's conduit will not start the dialogue with the Dragonborn, making the quest impossible to continue. Reloading a previous save should fix this issue line.  PS3   If you try to get your follower to use the Pillar of Sacrifice, it will not work if your controls are not set to default. Otherwise, your follower will just keep asking what you want without activating the pillar.  360  Upon slaying all of the Cultists, as requested, Boethiah's conduit will not start the second set of dialogue with the Dragonborn, making the quest impossible to continue. Instead the map marker will display a random location and the objective will remain, "Kill all of the Cultists".  PC   360   PS3   Sometimes as the Dragonborn sneaks onto the walkway further in the cave, the champion will attack the bandits. This results in far less work to complete the task. If an enemy is lured to attack the cult of Boethiah, the cultists of Boethiah will not retaliate. The two fighters in the arena will become glitched and cannot be attacked or talked to. None of the cultists will attempt to kill the enemy, they will not retaliate when the Dragonborn attacks them, and they will not say anything. This will make the quest impossible to finish. If the Sacellum of Boethiah is discovered before level 30, the cultists will not appear, and the quest will be stuck on the objective "Discover the Shrine of Boethiah". The Dragonborn will still be able to sacrifice a follower and speak to Boethiah, but will be unable to complete the quest.  360   After completing the Boethia's Calling quest, if during the Companions quest Trouble in Skyrim the location to raid is Knifepoint Ridge, it will not be possible to progress further into the Companions quest line.  360    If Knifepoint Ridge has already been cleared, the path to the champion may be blocked. This makes the quest impossible to finish. Sometimes a chunk of iron ore in stone may appear to block the tunnel leading further into the mine. This can be solved by reloading a previous saved game. If you read Boethiah's Proving while it is still in the Cultist's inventory, the miscellaneous objective "Investigate the Boethiah cultist" will remain in your quest journal even after you finish the whole quest. If the sacrificed follower is looted before Boethiah revives it, when it is revived, its inventory will be reset. The same is true for the last Boethiah Cultist to be killed. This provides an additional Blade of Sacrifice.  PS3   PC   If all cultists are killed without making a sacrifice, the darkening of the screen and tunnel vision may be permanent. This will continue indefinitely and make the game extremely difficult to play.  360  Sometimes after killing the follower on the pillar, the Dragonborn will not receive a bounty.