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Malyn Varen was a Dunmer mage in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.
History
He was exiled from The College of Winterhold for pursuing questionable research with Soul Gems. Malyn's experiments were to find a way to prolong his life, and he believed that storing his soul in Azura's Star would prevent him from dying. The problem with this is that one of the properties of the star is that no black soul could enter.
According to Nelacar, the further Malyn progressed towards his goal, the more Azura cursed him. The Daedric artifact drove Malyn insane, causing him to "hear voices" that weren't there, see people that were not there, and eventually, to murder one of his students. He left the college, collected a band of followers, and continued his research at Ilinalta's Deep, an abandoned Imperial outpost that collapsed into the river due to earlier experiments by Malyn and his students.
There, he sought to capture his own soul in the Star to achieve a state of immortality. He achieved this goal to some extent, however he must continually be 'fed' souls from the outside world to continue his state of existance. This was the purpose of the necromancers stationed in the sunken outpost, and the appearance of so many skeletons within suggest they had been doing it for quite some time.
Interactions
The Dragonborn finds Azura's Star beside Mayln's skeleton at Ilinalta's Deep, and with the help of Azura, purifies it by entering it and killing Malyn's soul.
Alternatively, the Dragonborn may have brought the Star to Nelacar and had him perform the purification, which causes the Star to turn black and trap black souls within it, similar to a Black Soul Gem.
After his final death, an unknown adversary sends two apprentice necromancers to hunt down the Dragonborn and reclaim Azura's Star.
Battle
The staff and dagger Malyn wields are leveled and random. Occasionally throughout the fight, he switches to casting Oakflesh.
Fighting alongside him are three Dremora. Unless you use AOE spells such as Fireball, you have to get through the Dremora before you can do any serious damage to Malyn. If you are agressive at the start, Malyn will run away, leaving only the three Dremora to fight. While their fire spells do a lot of damage, and make them hard to see, they are not difficult to drain and kill if you get close to them. As long as you have good fire shielding and/or a lot of health potions, you can survive long enough to kill them.
The Dragonborn can collect three Daedra Hearts once the Dremora have been slain, but only if their corpses were not knocked off the edges of the crystalline floor during battle. They also carry leveled (possibly difficulty dependent if not random) one and two handed weaponry.
Malyn can be resurrected using the Dead Thrall Conjuration spell, however he will not follow you out of the Azura Star.
Quests
Appearances
Gallery
