The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim/Nightmare Fuel


 * The introduction, where the Imperials force you to lay your head down for the axe and come face-to-face with a warm and fresh head that they couldn't bother to throw away.
 * The worst part is they didn't even make the effort to kick the guy's body away afterwards. You're basically on top of a headless corpse, preparing to be executed. You even may realize you were thought to be with the Stormcloaks for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
 * That scene alone is a good reason why this troper sided with the Stormcloaks instead of the Imperials.
 * This editor goes one better - due to that scene, I didn't even know it was an option to side with the Imperials until the message that I had disqualified myself by joining the Stormcloaks popped up. Because after that, who would want to fight for those heartless monsters who almost cut your head off for trying to cross a border?
 * Because as we all know, the Stormcloaks would never do that!
 * Well, they at least don't have torture chambers.
 * Yes, they do. At least to a degree; the prison in Windhelm Has torture devices in it.

""Their fires lit up the night. All across Lake Rumare, like stars come to earth. It was beautiful, really.""
 * "The House of Horrors" is a very aptly named quest. Let's just say that.
 * The Frostbite Spiders. Few things are more terrifying than entering a room covered in spider web, and having a truck-sized spider drop from the ceiling
 * In an early quest, you have to save a guy trapped in a web by one these spiders. If you run out of the room, the spider can't reach you, and goes for the trapped man. And you hear him screaming for help..
 * Redbelly Mine. The good news: The mine has three deposits where you can mine precious ebony. The bad news: A bunch of spiders have moved in and called the place home. And even though you clear them out in one mission, they respawn. Have fun.
 * Usually in spider nests you can find "Dessicated Corpses". Now you probably know how spiders feed, and the faces on the corpses imply they were still alive while this happened...
 * In the Dark Brotherhood quest "Whispers In The Dark",
 * If that's not enough,
 * This one's slightly meta, but no less creepy.
 * That is a common bug that happens during that quest. Scared the living daylights of me when that happened. This Troper played the 360 Version, tried pressing the Xbox Button, but even that crashed. Apparently the best way to avoid the crash in the 360 Version is to save before  and repeatedly press the Xbox Button over and over again after you enter. Even then it's not guaranteed to work 100% of the time, but it's the best solution...still rather creepy however.
 * SOUL GEMS. It's revealed during Azura's quest that the souls trapped in them are still conscious. Let that sink in for a second. That black soul gem you just filled? That bandit inside is screaming forever. Or at least until you take his still sentient soul and use it to recharge your staff...
 * More Azura's quest HONF: In the room where you find the Azura's Star, there is also  Check the shadows on the wall...
 * Frostflow Lighthouse. So, a corpse of an unfamiliar creature. It drops a chitin. Yawn, probably some lame mudcrab variation. I'll just walk in and wipe the floor with those bu-- *after a while* Damn, this is tough! Hmm, just what could be marked on the local map as a misc. objective? Eh, probably some boring quest tie-in ite--
 * Your "Reward" for slaying that beast? Habd's
 * If you've already encountered Chauruses (Chauri?) at this point, Frostflow is terrifying for another reason: Holy shit, they're coming to the surface.
 * Coming, nothing, they're already up there. You can find the occasional solitary Chaurus sometimes in Hjaalmarch and Haafingar, usually at night, ripping into the local wildlife. Possibly to take back to their nests...
 * And it doesn't help that the larger Chauruses look suspiciously like another kind of Reaper, only shrunk (barely) to melee-combat size.
 * The Charruses' masters, the Falmer, are basically fantasy-morlocks and fit the trope up to the story of their creation. Added to that, they hate every being living on the surface and want to wipe them out. Also, don't forget that those things were once mer...
 * And you know how they got that way? After trying and failing to wipe out the Nords, the humans turned things around and started to slay them to a man, woman and child. In desperation, the Falmer went to the xenophobic, supremacist Dwemer. At first, the Snow Elves and the Dwemer got along. But then the Dwemer suddenly pulled a Face Heel Turn and forced the Snow Elves into slavery. Left in pens, force-fed poisonous fungus and tortured and killed in truly diabolical ways. They rose up and were in the middle of fighting the Dwemer - perhaps winning - when the Dwemer vanished. A blind race of degenerate slaves defeated the most technologically advanced race in Tamriel's history. A CMOA for the Falmer...until they started to go after everyone else.
 * On one of the trade roads, you can find a wrecked cart and the corpse of its driver. Nothing new, right? After all, Skyrim's full of bandits and rebels and whatnot. Except what's sticking out of the driver is a Falmer Arrow. They're here, on the surface, hunting people. And if you've spent a lot of time in old Dwemer ruins and gotten a sense of just how enormous the underworld is, and how many Falmer could be lurking down there, breeding like roaches, the whole civil war consuming Skyrim starts to feel very irrelevant.
 * Black Soul Gems are needed to absorb the souls of sentient beings. Falmer souls do not need Black soul gems. These things literally are not sentient anymore. The Dwemer turned them into feral beasts, who possibly can never be reasoned with.
 * The entire backstory of the Thalmor, from their Nazi parallels to the fact that these people were somehow able to hunt down and sadistically murder EVERY SINGLE BLADE, which are made up of the best spies and assassins in Tamriel under employ of the Empire, in Valenwood and Alinor before using their heads as a warning to the Empire before royally kicking the Empire's ass in a devastating war sent shivers down this troper's spine as he read the books describing the Thalmor.
 * Reading the dossier on  in the Thalmor Embassy and realizing that   That he's exceeding their expectations, even to the point he's scaring them, could be either good or even worse.
 * Hagravens. Witches who, through some unexplained ritual, transformed themselves into half-woman/half-raven monstrosities who are as powerful as they are horrifying. Implied to be the witch-equivalent of lich-dom, to boot.
 * At one point in the Companions questline,  This Troper kept accidentally making himself jump when casually flicking through his inventory.
 * During the finale in I practically jumped out of my seat when that happened, and the worst part is, I don't know if that was scripted, or if I just happened to be particularly unlucky, but DAMN.
 * Happened to this troper as well, the second time he went through that area.
 * This troper had a weird experience there. Due to a graphics glitch apparently caused by a video capturing utility (to record videos for uploading into YouTube), the mist wasn't rendered, and I could see clearly in Sovrngarde all the way to the Hall of Valor. Following the path, I saw Alduin sitting there about a dozen paces from the dragone bone bridge, until I got close, and he took off. The frightening part?  No surprise you need help from the 3 heros to take him down later. The good news at least:.
 * The quest, The Taste of Death. It starts out innocent enough, the local priest of Arkay (read: undertaker priest) had to close down the Hall of the Dead in Markarth because it seems something has been eating the bodies. He hires you to go look into it. Once you go in you find it has been a woman named Eola. The woman says that you and her are the same and she hires you to clear out a shrine to Namira. You do so. Somewhat disturbing, but nothing scary, right? Well  Markarth just got a lot darker, all of a sudden.
 * Of course, once you realize what's going on, you can . If you do so, the person you saved will give you a nice monetary reward. It may not beat the daedric artifact you get otherwise, but at least you won't be
 * Of course playing as a beast race kind of makes this a little murky, but that's a different matter.
 * After doing that quest and feeling a bit sick about it, this troper decided to "punish" Eola by using her in the quest for  as the required sacrifice, an act which would have been nightmarish by itself (since you can sacrifice any follower), but done this way, it was kind of satisfying.
 * After doing this quest just to get the achievement, this troper decided they had to be stopped. So I killed Eola in sanctuary. The other cannibals attacked so I killed them too. Later, I sold the ring cause it literally made my stomach turn thinking about it. The bad part,
 * Speaking of Markarth, the whole situation with the Forsworn Conspiracy is horrifying. Especially Braig's story, which would terrify any parent. It made the Bounty-free rampage throughout Markarth later all the more statisfying, especially being able to kill Thonnar Silver-Blood.
 * The Ratway Warrens. Highlights include an insane deaf woman who sits in darkness endlessly repeating a list, a cannibal chef who wants to make a meal of you, and a PTSD suffering ex-Imperial Officer who mentions some horrors that the Thalmor did.
 * After doing this quest just to get the achievement, this troper decided they had to be stopped. So I killed Eola in sanctuary. The other cannibals attacked so I killed them too. Later, I sold the ring cause it literally made my stomach turn thinking about it. The bad part,
 * Speaking of Markarth, the whole situation with the Forsworn Conspiracy is horrifying. Especially Braig's story, which would terrify any parent. It made the Bounty-free rampage throughout Markarth later all the more statisfying, especially being able to kill Thonnar Silver-Blood.
 * The Ratway Warrens. Highlights include an insane deaf woman who sits in darkness endlessly repeating a list, a cannibal chef who wants to make a meal of you, and a PTSD suffering ex-Imperial Officer who mentions some horrors that the Thalmor did.

""No,you cant be here! You're all dead! I already killed you over and over!""
 * Made worse when the Thalmor show up in the Ratway and he absolutely freaks the fuck out at the sight of them.
 * Freaking out? Not from what this troper saw. That ex-Legionnaire charged in sword drawn, and unlike virtually every other non-guard/designated soldier NPC to previously get involved in a fight, he survived.
 * His dialogue when he sees them sounds like freaking out to me.


 * One that's thankfully easy to miss is found in one of the Dragon Priests' tombs. Said priest was a crazy bastard even by the standards of insane dragon worshippers. He had his followers commit mass suicide so their ghosts could continue to defend the place. The truly disturbing part? On the plus side, it makes killing this particular Dragon Priest that much more cathartic.
 * In that same tomb, you find a letter to one of the cultists from said priest. The cultist had an understandable problem with the aforementioned, and the priest had responded by saying that he would take her words into consideration and deliver a reply shortly. The letter is found in the hands of a skeleton, still sitting in a chair, with multiple arrows through the ribcage. The priest was apparently a Bad Boss in addition to being a Complete Monster.
 * The Silver Hand group that targets werewolves becomes a lot scarier when you notice the leather-making and tanning equipment in their base. Even worse
 * Every step in the murder mystery of Morthal. Especially the part when you play hide-and-seek with a child's ghost. The moment you find her she recoils in shock
 * The Dwemer Ruins, especially the one you visit as part of the main questline and if you never have run into the Falmer before. You go into it finding the remains of what was some sort of expedition investigating the ruin. The campsite is bloodied with a few bones and corpses about. The expedition members are all dead . As far as you know, these are just the consequences of running into Dwemer automatons unprepared. But as you get deeper, you start noticing things that are out of place. Then you find camps, with burning fires. It's then that I realized something else is here, and it's not mechanical. Then the Falmer show up. They seem to have been eating human flesh and torturing members of the expedition. But they stop showing up once you get in deeper. There is a reason for that. Twelve feet of cold, mechanical reason, blasting steam and swinging a hammer the size of an anvil.
 * The part with the is made worse since it's heavily implied that
 * A small stone platform, in the middle of an amphitheater. Rings set in the corners for attaching chains. A lever, activating a whirring blade that rips back and forth across the platform. This is how the Dwemer treated their kin. This is how the Dwemer entertained themselves.
 * The automatons the Dwemer used are also frightening. Not just for the mundane reason that they are scary to face. But the fact that they are seemingly powered by Soul Gems. As we all know, whatever is in a soul gem is implied to be self-aware until the gem is used. Bad enough when you are carried around in a pocket for a few days/months to be used in someone's enchanted weapon. But imagine, if you will, being trapped in a metal contraption, doing the same repetative task again and again for thousands of years. Said task may be killing people who get close to you. I really, really hope that powering an automaton used whatever soul was in there, like an enchanted weapon. Because if not...
 * Don't worry too much; Dwemer Automatons don't drop Black Soul Gems.
 * Not really much better when you realize that killing a Falmer won't fill a Black Soul Gem. The Dwemer turned a sentient race into animals in order to power their cool toys.
 * Dwemer Spiders are said to be built to repair other fallen Dwemer constructs, ranging from the mighty Centurion to other humble Spiders. This includes replacing their Soul Gems when a destroyed automaton is brought back. Not only did the Dwemer devolve a race just to power their toys, they've also invented a machine that can steal souls long after they themselves were extinct.
 * Alftand and Blackreach deserve a special mention. Seeing your standard hack-and-slash fantasy game turn into Survival Horror within minutes is a rather jarring experience. There are almost no potions and absolutely zero consumable food, so you're basically heading in with what you have. Both are populated with Dwarven Spiders, Dwarven Spheres, Falmer, chauri (in both regular and Reaper variants!), Dwarven Centurions, and the occasional insane explorer... all of which are highly, highly aggressive, deal massive damage for their size, and often poison you. But it's not the monsters that are scary. Fighting them is almost a relief, since you at least have a tangible foe to engage. It's the creeping through endless cobwebbed Dwemer ruins, seeing Chaurus eggs and human flesh on the ground, getting hit by traps that deal insane damage, hearing the distant clacking and roaring of machinery (you hope), knowing that ... yeah. Basically, it's Dead Space in Tamriel.
 * For this troper the worst moment in Alftand was finding the heavily mutilated corpse of a member of the doomed expedition lying on a slab beside a tanning rack. With two pieces of leather on the slab.
 * It gets to the point that you feel like you were playing Resident Evil. Low on supplies, stuff all over that can kill you in one hit, ancient ruins with deathtraps and monstrosities, as well as clever puzzles that can help you along (notice all those convenient oil slicks or the gate that you can close after opening it to trap the Centurion behind it and you safe from it?).
 * And to add to the horror, clearing Alftand can take upwards of five hours, even if you know what you're doing. Sticking around in Blackreach – basically an enormous dungeon half the size of a Hold with dozens of sublevels and buildings – will add another few hours onto that figure. It gets to the point where the "oh my gods am I ever going to get out of here" feeling that the Dovahkiin must surely be experiencing begins to affect you.
 * And don't forget one thing in Blackreach. That orange orb hanging high in the middle of the place? If your curiousity gets the better of you and you use a shout on it, out of nowhere comes a !
 * It is for this reason this troper decided to wait till his player character has levelled up high enough to become a walking tank with lots of skills and abilities learned and deep pockets for carrying lots of supplies and equipment before venturing into Dwemer ruins. That way I can almost shrug off anything there, including those Centurions.
 * One non-scripted one occurred for me near the end of "Diplomatic Immunity". I managed to keep Malborn alive the entire time. Just when it seemed like we were home free
 * Similarly, due to the coding on some Dragon Shrines, it's possible for their designated spawning dragon to appear alongside a randomly generated one. It's a case where you as a gamer will get this, especially if you're low level and have no follower with you, since two dragons can kill you almost instantaneously unless you're retardedly leveled in defense or healing. This is also different from casual multiple enemy-encounters, as dragons will actively team up to kill you. Woe befall you if you ran out of stamina and didn't save for a long time.
 * Slightly meta. Some bandits will collapse and ask mercy when down to low health. Critical hit animations cannot be interrupted once they start. It's entirely possible for the Dragonborn to grab a young woman, half naked women as she screams for mercy and brutally murder her while the player watches helplessly.
 * Of course the bandits never really mean it when they surrender...
 * However this can become nightmarish when fighting alongside friendlies, especially in large fights like during the Civil War questline - it's very easy to accidentally hit a friendly in the melee. This troper nearly puked when, while siding with the Empire, accidentally triggered a Critical Hit animation on a fellow Imperial instead of the Stormcloak he was gunning after because a whole bunch of friendlies and foes were fighting in close quarters. After it happened, another Imperial even expressed disbelief at the occurrance.
 * Remember the first time you entered Aventus's house in Windhelm, not knowing anything about his chanting and his Satanic-esque ritual to summon a member of the Dark Brotherhood ? Don't tell me you didn't get fucking shivers when you first walked in the door.
 * Well, it kinda helps if you learn about the Black Sacrament via the loading screen tips...
 * One of the earliest Companion quests is to sort out a trouble-causing Falmer group in Shimmermist Cave. So I got right to the end, and found the leader. He was in the middle of the room, so I decided to back him up into a corner by using Fus Ro Dah. He slammed into the dark wall...
 * Sometimes, while you're fighting them, draugr will laugh at you.
 * The Dovahkiin is, in his/her own way, pure nightmare fuel. Just imagine that you're sitting in your camp, on watch for a caravan or some roaming monster or a military patrol that might fall upon the home you've carved out. Its the dead of night. Then, coming up the trail, you see a single person, alone. They're wearing nice armor and a nice weapon, but they're by themselves. Easy prey for a dozen bandits, right? That armor and sword will make for a great haul! And even better, they're walking right toward your camp! You call your buddies, and they ready the ambush, and just as you leap out to strike, you hear "FUS RO DAH!" The next few minutes is a horrifying blur as you and your companions throw everything you have at this lone warrior, while lightning and fire and demonic beasts and even a freaking dragon comes swooping in and around you. You companions are being torn apart, blasted to ashes, or decapitated one by one, and this unstoppable warrior just keeps coming, periodically shouting at the top of his/her lungs and moving impossibly fast, striking with terrifying precision, hurling armored warriors through the air like feathers, or just making people keel over and die. And at the end of it all, your camp is in flames, everyone is dead, and this nameless avatar of mayhem is standing before you, and you know, deep in your heart, that you are going to die. That's what eventually happens to every bandit camp the Dragonborn raids.
 * It's even worse if the Dragonborn is using Black Soul Gems.
 * This troper has to share an experience he had, from the point of view of a bandit. Your friend, with whom you have been together for years and who got you into the whole banditing business, and you are in a cave. Outside are a few more pals of yours and you are just barely coming by while you are raiding those ancient dwemer ruins. Suddenly your friend hears a noise and goes off, leaving you alone at the fire. You wait for him. Ten minutes pass and you don't hear anything else.. suddenly your friend comes back, you are happy to see him but.. he looks wrong. Suddenly he lurches forwards and proceeds to stab you, repeatedly, while looking at you with lifeless blue eyes and groaning: "Sooooorrrry." As you collapse onto the ground a black robe wearing individual steps out of the shadows. The hands glowing blue as they charge a spell.. Finally everything turns black.. but then you are ripped back, everything is bright again. You can feel your body move, but you can't control it. Your friend is with you and the two of you proceed to stab and slaughter your former companions while the hooded person is watching silently from the shadows. In other words, the Hero raids some random Bandit camp and uses his conjuration Magic to raise the dead and let them slaughter the rest of the Camp.
 * That's nothing. If you're a PC gamer and choose to use certain mods, it gets even worse [for them]. Imagine that you are a stormcloak soldier, a true nord, fond of steel and iron and dismissive of such silly things such as "magic", charged with overseeing the defense an important fort of great strategical value to the war effort. You hear impossible reports and rumours about forts in the western borders falling one by one, through increasingly fantastical means, some besieged by legions of giant spiders, others destroyed by what seemed like skeletal dragons, all of them with barely any survivors, and the few that manage to escape and find their way back to Windhelm whisper in terrified voices about an "immortal terror from the Empire". Even though you dismiss such childish ideas, you get worried as you hear reports of an approaching Imperial attack on your position. Taking your position in the ranks, you feel safe and find comfort in the idea that this is possibly the best defended fort in all of Skyrim. The barricades are solid, the walls are fully manned, and there are regiments ready to counterattack any imperial dog that manage to pierce your defenses and enter the fort proper. Well, and look at that! This "dangerous Imperial attack force" is composed of little more than a handful of imperial soldiers, and they don't even bring any siege equipment! You sigh, relieved and with renewed confidence, until you see a strange and foreign-looking figure clad in white robes whose face you cannot see, approaching the gates alone. You laugh and order your archers to teach that foolish milk-drinker what it feels like a couple dozen arrows on your chest. As they fire their volley, however, your smile disappears immediately as the robed man, with a mere wave of his left hand, is instantly covered in some sort of green shield, which easily deflect your arrows. Then the pandemonium begins. The man, still walking calmly towards the gate, waves his hands again, and a horrifying, inhuman scream fills the air as, behind him, an entire LEGION of demonic-looking warriors in black and red armor appear from seemingly nowhere, and start charging toward the gates. Horrified, you order full volleys against the oncoming legion, and even manage to down a handful of them, but them with another wave of his hand a second legion of warriors appears, this time backed by what seems like floating women made of fire which start hurling fireballs against your archers. As your ranks start rapidly dwindling, you tell your archers to retreat to the keep wall, confident that the barricades will be able to stop the nightmares before you. That's when the white-clad man reaches the gate, and with nothing but a shout makes the wooden structures fly away, opening way for the demon warriors and himself. As the regiments advance and lock in combat against the demon soldiers, you see that fiendish figure shout yet again, and suddenly the skies darken and a heavy storm starts to fall, whose lightning bolts seem to always fall on the head of one of your soldiers. Now completely desperate, you order whatever reinforcements you keep inside the fort to abandon their posts and attack the mysterious figure, as a last desperate efforts. As your most loyal and experienced troops troops charge on him, their weapons raised, you feel a faint glint of hope inside you when you see the wizard stop. Said hope, however, immediately dissolves away as he raises one hand towards your soldiers, and all of them are immediately engulfed in an eldritch wall of fire while a gultural roar rises from everywhere around you. As all your friends and companions lie dead around you, you watch the robed man, clearly an avatar of Death Itself, wave both his hands around himself, and a purple light shine all around him. The corpses of your comrades are immediately lifted from the ground as if by a million invisible hands, and as their moans reach your ears and what you recognize as their undead corpses slowly claw their way up the stairs toward you, you know that all is lost. The Immortal Devil of the Empire has come for you.
 * Consider how traumatic it could be for the Nordic legionnaires on the Empire's side. Say that your Dragonborn is a Nordic warrior, now let us also say that he is Harbinger of the Companions of Ysgramor, and bears above his head Wuuthrad, the Thrice-Blessed Blade of the First King of Men. Both institution and weapon are revered with religious devotion in Skyrim. Consider that you're a Nord member of the Legion, you feel beholden to the Empire that Talos built and you sneer at the Stormcloaks as oath-breakers of the ninth degree, you've been assigned to a particular fortress and feel confident that those 'heathens' as Imperialists sometime refer to them are in no way likely to take the fortification. But then, you hear soldiers speaking in hushed tones, talking about a towering berserker wielding, to your amazement and skepticism, Wuuthrad and clad in Nordic armour in the manner of heroes of yore. You would scoff, a mere piece of psychological warfare from the Stormcloaks, after all, the Companions are forbidden from engaging in political warfare, are they not. Wrong. A guttural war-cry erupts from afar, a terrible scream unlike any other you've heard. But it is only one man, a fool no doubt, you order your men to open fire, but with a shout in a tongue you cannot comprehend, he disappears in a flash of light and reappears in the middle of the garrison, and begins to hew apart men like cattle. And you see in that instance, Wuuthrad is in his hand, as legend describes it. If this was not enough, the warrior also screams in this tongue that you only now recall as that of dragons and sends men flying with blasts of blue magic erupting from his throat, while also imbuing his blade with magic enough that he swings quick enough to kill 10 men in a single strike! He is the Dragonborn, a Chosen of Talos. In this instance, consider all the thoughts that must rage in the legionnaire's head as the Stormcloaks begin tearing through the hole in your defenses, screaming praises to Talos and Ulfric Stormcloak. You would realize that all you have ever held dear and all your rationalizing of the Empire has been for naught, for here stands an embodiment of Talos divine punishment on those who have renounced him, and also wielding and clad in artifacts of old times, as if to say to the legionnaire that even his ancestors stand against him. In this instance, how can it be denied that the Heroes of Old stand for the cause of the Stormcloaks? And what questions might this raise for the afterlife of this man? Will he not be sent out from Sovngarde for standing against his people, doomed to watch eternally as other partake of it's delights. I'm honestly surprised that any Nord legionnaire in game doesn't just lay down his sword and run when I appear on the field. That said, I never saw any of them when I reached Solitude, so maybe they defected.
 * All of these are made even more horrifying if you and your follower have a full set of daedric armor and weapons. These are so frightening they actually have the in-game ability of boosting your intimidate chance just by wearing them. Imagine in all those situations the individual is replaced by twins clad head to toe in the armor of fabled demons (that's what the daedra have been refered to in lore), their faces completely obscured by the demonic helmets they wear. One of them can fling warriors off of cliffs with a mere shout, and summon dragons to his aid. Depending on your follower, the second demon either hurls fireballs, ice bolts, or lightning strikes at you from a distance, or is a unstoppable glacier of hurt wielding a sword that can possibly suck out your soul. And both can summon legions of animals, mystic beings and even other demons to fight for them. The amount of pants shitting that the guards must feel must be astounding.
 * Dragonrend. You're essentially taking mortality, something dragons by their nature can't possibly understand and forcing them to comprehend it. For some perspective, imagine if some Eldritch Abomination forced you to experience the universe as it experiences it. Suddenly you're overwhelmed by sensations and concepts that are so alien to you that not only can you not describe it but your language completely lacks the words to describe it. Then, before you can make sense of what's happening, it's gone. That's what happens to a dragon when you use Dragonrend.
 * Oh, it's not over that quickly. Dragonrend is repeatable, which means you can use it over and over to keep a dragon pinned to the ground, essentially torturing it to death.
 * It isn't quite that bad: dragons do have words to describe the concepts of Dragonrend (both Alduin and Paarthurnax calls you Joor). What dragons can't do is understand the concepts to the point of being able to use it as a Shout, especially not as it applies to themselves. So they're still being forced to experience the universe as an Eldritch Abomination does, they can just recognise the words used to do so.
 * But remember: Alduin and Paarthurnax are both ancient, high-level dragons. They know the word. And yet they still can't fully comprehend it. Imagine being the rank-and-file dragon and suddenly having that shouted at you? Not to mention the historical connotations. This was the word that caused their mighty empire to call. This is the word most of these dragons heard last before they died. Now they are hearing it again.
 * Dragon Armor. No, seriously, think about it: Dragons are intelligent, sentient creatures, and are fully capable of feeling fear, disgust, and hatred. A dragon seeing you wearing that stuff would experience roughly the same kind of feelings that you would feel if you were confronted by a demon dressed head to toe in armor made from freshly killed PEOPLE. Wearing that stuff in front of a dragon is like someone wearing your best friend's face, that he ripped off after he killed him.
 * It gets a little less horrifying when most fantasy-type armors tend to have at least one variant where it's completely based on human skulls and bones, and they tend to be badass.
 * With regards to Dragon Armor being Nightmare Fuel to dragons, one who isn't fazed by it is Alduin, who simply remaks "The Dovah are weak!" when he sees you wearing it (Dragon Plate Armor, which requires both Dragon Scales and Dragon Bones) while you fight him at the Throat of the World. Apparently any dragon killed by mortals and turned into pieces of armor like that are deemed unworthy by Alduin.
 * I was walking towards Riften for a quest, when I randomly discovered a guard tower, with all the guards dead. There was no explanation, just a few dead guards and some blood. Their was a chest, but it was still locked, and had a couple of garnets in, so whoever killed them wasn't looking for their treasure, so it wasn't bandits. I never got an explanation, and I had to fast travel to Riften, just because I was a low-level character and was scared of whatever had killed them.
 * The note at the top of the tower implies that
 * The Maze of Shalidor. It is in an non-important place in the labyrinthian, and is not connected to any quests. It is basicly a maze where you have to perform one spell from each school of magic. And how's that scary?
 * It is explained in a book. Shalidor made it as a test for potential archmages. Thats why it requires knowledge of all spell schools and enough power to defeat a powerful Daedra to survive it.
 * Expanding upon earlier points, whats truly terrifying is what the Dragonborn must look like to the Dragons themselves! This nigh-unstoppable Humanoid Abomination travelling across the land, drenched in the blood of dozens of your fallen brethren who's skin they are now using as armour. They're as fast as you are, strong as you are and should you fall to their hand, your very soul itself will be devoured and consumed by this monster, who will become even stronger. And whats worse, is as far as you know, they are never going to stop until every last one of you is dead! Is it any wonder why the Dragons often attack you on sight?
 * Also, you essentially killed their god, and the only known person who could ressurect them if they were killed by non-Dovahkiin.
 * It must be even worse fo those among the Dragons who know about the Dovahkiin. Since the character has the soul of a dragon, what they see is one of their own hunting them down.
 * Listening to Ulfric Stormcloak talk about how he thinks Nords who served in the legions in the war against the Aldmeri Dominion are "strangers with familiar faces". Then he goes on about how Skyrim needs to be purged of those who became weak thanks to Imperial milk. This sounds eerily similar to rhetoric used by Kim Jong Il to justify the isolation of North Korea, as well as to rhetoric used by Adolf Hitler to explain the outcome of World War 1. And then you have to walk up to him and try to give him an axe, knowing that he can probably do FUS! at you.
 * Hermaeus Mora has always been really creepy, what with the way all of His artistic renditions have depicted Him as a formless Eldritch Abomination. But in Skyrim, you don't even get that when you meet Him face to face, as it were; what you get instead is this swirling black vortex that appears out of nowhere while you weren't looking, blocks your only exit, and speaks to you in an affable and beguiling voice. Mora's been watching you, and He intends on making you His new emissary, whether you want it or not.
 * While you may be expecting it, getting a visit from the courier after you and getting this...Yeah.
 * This troper soul nearly flipped over when she saw this note in game. It made things a lot worse when she went to lay down the night before her wedding and found herself in an abandoned shack at 4 pm the next day,
 * Going into Labyrinthian was extremely scary and slightly sad. Seeing what had happened  made this troper need to stop and take a break.
 * One of the very first things you encounter in the dungeon It just gets worse from there.
 * And don't forget the ultimate boss there,, one of the first of the 8 you will meet. And chances are you're still at a low level when you must fight him, meaning he can one-hit-kill you as soon as he sees you (considering his preferred attack is lightning, and he has the staff that can drain your magika to nothing). This troper took the sniper approach (i.e. sneaking while using arrows) to kill him, which was a long and tedious process, not to mention scary that each time I hit him with an arrow, he wonders who's there and takes a look around. I felt like holding my breath each time I retreated behind the door to his room after taking a shot at him and waited as he approached the door, then retreated. Then repeat and rinse until he's dead.
 * More on the Dovakhiin as HONF, when he's "the sneaky type". Picture this: you're a member of a brigand band, a mage group, or even a vampire coven. You've secured for you and your pals a safe place, an abandoned fortress from where you can truly feel safe from the war, the dragons and whatnot. It's nighttime, and you're having a nice dinner inside the fortress. Suddenly, one of your friends barge in, panicked: he says that the fortress is under attack: sentinels are not answering and he swears an arrow missed him as he was doing his watch. You follow him outside: no one. No arrows, no battalion of Stormcloaks or Imperials laying siege, just the fact that the sentinels do not answer your calls. But whatever, I mean, you're BANDITS, not exactly the most trustworthy kind: surely they've dozed off after boozing too much. You go back inside to get some sleep, while your friend -reassured by your advices- resumes his watch. Just as you close the door, a thundering noise erupts and when you open it again, your friend is flying down the cliff. You run inside the fortress and wake up everyone, saying that something's defenitively wrong. And the nightmare begins: members of your group starts dropping like flies everywhere. Some just disappear, some are found stabbed or decapitated, others are still sitting on their chairs, an arrow sticking out of their ear. And still no signs of the attacker. Each time someone hear a noise, he's the next to die. Nothing seems to stop him: locked doors, traps, guards... Even your boss is found dead, stripped from all his gear, three arrows to the head. As the bodycount rises, you're left with a handful of friends, and decide to make a run for it. That's when one of them is struck by an arrow. You flee, but no matter how well they hide or how far they run, the attacker seems to always find a way to track them down and kill them. Eventually, you're all alone, scared and possibly wounded, hiding in the most remote place of the fortress. Suddenly, you hear a childish insult just behind you: as soon as you've turned around, a gloved hand grabs your head and you feel a blade slitting your throat. You die after several hours of merciless manhunt, never knowing what was after you and why he did that.
 * at the end of "Death Incarnate"  and everyone, especially   knows that   committed and unforgivable sin (by Sithis's standards, at least) and   Alas Poor Villain, indeed.
 * This troper was on a late night breaking-and-entering spree in Windhelm when she stumbled across the Butcher's lair, starting the Blood on the Ice quest. She was planning to just sneak around town, gank some books and jewelry, maybe pickpocket a few sleeping NPCs, and then laugh her way to the bank. Instead she found a seemingly abandoned house practically painted in blood, and spent the next several minutes creeping around, wondering who the hell lived here and--oh god--what if they're in here with me right now and I just don't know it yet? Fun times.
 * And consider this: if and when you want to be come Thane of Windhelm, one of your requirements is to
 * Though once you go through and complete the Blood on Ice quest, the nightmarish information gets straightened out:.
 * One of the alchemical ingredients is Human Flesh. To identify the properties of ingredients, you have to eat them. Yeah.
 * More Fridge Horror comes up at a couple of unmarked sites on the map, one in the far south in Falkreath and another by a lake in the Reach, where you come across the corpses of women who have been bent over fallen tree trunks. In the former, blood is splattered around her feet, and a group of bandits are nearby. In the other, the naked body has been left there, with a note nearby from the girl in question saying she isn't worried about Forsworn in the area. Both sites are chilling because of the obvious implications.I only came across the former because I spotted a Thalmor Justicar killing the bandits, and I joined in with a couple of Soul Traps and Black Soul Gems. When I came across the latter, I concluded the only way to get justice would be to kill every single Forsworn in the Reach.
 * One day a messenger delivers to you a letter, which you casually open, only to see a large black handprint and two simple words: We Know.
 * Everything else aside, the most horrifying prospect for a Skyrim player? Overwriting your save file.
 * A meta example: one of the generic lines people can say to you is "Watch the skies, traveller". Of course, they're talking about dragons, but if you're a Creepypasta fan, well...
 * There's this little cottage that you can find up near a mountain. Outside of it are about 4 skeevers. This is a bit odd considering that skeevers are normally found in caves and other underground places. You head inside of the cottage and get attacked by 2-3 more skeevers. After dealing with them, you take a look around. One of the first things you should notice is that the corners are covered in webs, indicating that the place hasn't been attended to in a long time, which means that the skeevers could've came in later. There's not much in the place to take, other than some food and ingredients. You turn your attention to the bed ..
 * I assumed it was the Skeevers.
 * In the College of Winterhold, there's one mage named Arniel conducting his own secret research on the . Through the course of four quests you help him gather materials, including Finally, everything's prepared, and Arneil strikes the  with . Nothing happens. He applies a little more force in his next strike. Nothing. Fed up, he unleashes the full fury of a mage who thinks all his preparations are for naught. . But that's not the worst part.
 * Well, I guess that's not really any better.
 * Well, I guess that's not really any better.