Compendium

A reference for how SkyrimScape works: character progression, combat, the interface and the rules the server enforces. If you find the game doing something this page does not describe, tell us in game: press O, open the Help tab and use Send feedback.

Your account

One account holds up to three characters on each realm. You make it on the registration page with an email address, a display name and a password, and the launcher signs in with it. Your characters belong to your account, so nobody can claim one by knowing its name.

Email activation

Registering sends an email to the account's address, with a link. Open the link within 24 hours and the account is active; until then it cannot sign in. If the email has not arrived, open "Did not get your activation link?" on the sign-in page and a new link is sent. An account that is not activated within 48 hours is removed, and its email address and its place in the round's count are free again. The Privacy Policy lists the email we send.

Accounts per round

The alpha admits a fixed number of accounts in each round of 28 days, first come first served: 100 in the first round and 200 in each round after it. Rounds are counted from 21 September 2026 at 01:00 UTC. The number left and a countdown to the end of the round, when the next batch opens, are shown at the top of the front page and on the registration page. When the round's count is used up, the registration page says so and the form is closed until the round ends. An account counts from the moment it is registered, activated or not; one that is never activated gives its place back when it is removed.

Characters

The launcher's Characters screen lists your characters and is where you make a new one or delete one. Deleting asks you to type DELETE and cannot be undone. Character names are unique within a realm. A character's level, skills, perks, spells, gold, inventory, appearance and position are stored on the server against your account, so signing in from another computer gives you the same characters.

Passwords and sessions

Passwords are stored salted, hashed and peppered; nobody can read them back. If you forget your password, ask for a reset link on the sign-in page or in the launcher: it is emailed to the address of the account, works once and for 1 hour, and lets you choose a new password. Changing the password signs out every launcher and browser signed in to the account; a game that is already connected to the realm is not disconnected. Your account page lists every signed-in launcher and browser and every live play session, and has a button that logs out everywhere at once.

Your character

A new character

A new character starts where Skyrim's opening ends: outside the cave that leads out of Helgen's keep. The opening itself, the cart ride to Helgen and the escape through the keep, is skipped. Skyrim's race menu opens where you stand, and you make your character in it. If you leave the game before closing the race menu, it opens again at your next login.

Your journal is set as if you had escaped Helgen with Hadvar and reached Riverwood, where his uncle Alvor asked you to take word of the dragon attack to the Jarl of Whiterun. "Unbound" is complete, "Before the Storm" asks you to talk to the Jarl of Whiterun, and Whiterun is marked on your map. Helgen, its keep and the ground outside the cave are a private copy for each player, so you meet other players once you walk on from the cave.

You start with an Iron Dagger and a Roughspun Tunic, and no gold. Starting items are bound to your character: they cannot be sold, traded, given, mailed, stocked in a stall, put in a guild bank or a chest, dropped, salvaged or disenchanted, and they are never left on your body for another player to loot. You can wear and use them, repair and enchant them, and keep them in your stash, which is the only place that takes them. Anything crafted or enchanted from a bound item is bound as well. Skyrim's inventory does not mark bound items; when one is refused, the chat says why.

Skyrim Special Edition with or without the Anniversary upgrade plays the same world, side by side. Anniversary items, people, places and quests appear for players whose game has that content. Without it, another player’s Anniversary armour and weapons show as the closest standard piece of the same kind, Anniversary places are shut for you with a line saying what they come from, and that content’s people cannot see you, speak to you or attack you. Items your character gets from it are kept: they are taken off at a login that cannot show them, they wait in a letter rather than being lost, they cannot be traded to a player whose game does not have them, and they appear again whenever you play on a PC that has that content. A chest, a merchant or a stall never lists something your game cannot show. The chat names what is missing when you log in, and the launcher says so before the game with the steps to download it. Survival Mode stays off: it does not ask, and it cannot be turned on while you play here.

Your appearance

The server keeps the appearance you made in the race menu, and your game puts it on your character at every login. Other players see your character as you made it: race and sex, the head, hair, beard, eyes, brows, scars and other head parts, the face sliders, hair colour, complexion, skin colour, war paint, dirt and weight, and what you are wearing.

To change your face, type /looks in chat, which opens the race menu, or open that menu with the console command showracemenu (the console opens with ~), set the face you want and close the menu, then press Save my appearance on the Sheet tab of the social window (O). The save replaces your appearance record, and players who can see you are shown the new face. Race and sex cannot be changed. You can save once a minute.

Paths

Once your character is made, a window asks you to choose a path, and it stays until you do. Skills of your path advance at the normal rate and their perk trees are open. Other skills advance at a quarter of the rate and their perk trees are closed in Skyrim's Skills screen.

You change path with the path buttons on a trainer's window. The first change costs 500 gold and each one after it doubles the price; the count behind the doubling drops by one every 30 days. Every perk you hold from the skill trees is returned as a perk point, which you spend again in the Skills screen on the trees of your new path.

The Standing Stones do nothing. Your path is your progression; activating a Standing Stone has no effect.

Levels, perks and spells

The level cap is 81. Levels, perks, spells and skill training all use Skyrim's own menus.

Experience toward the next level comes from skill ranks you use and from kills. Killing anything that is not a player gives experience: townsfolk, neutral creatures, animals and monsters, and kills made by your followers. A target above your level gives more, up to one and a half times the ordinary amount, and a target below your level gives less, down to a tenth. A unique gives three times the amount. A kill gives no perk points. Each skill rank and each kill adds experience toward the next level at five times the base rate. Perk points, attribute choices and trainer sessions come at Skyrim's own pace, so a level brings no more of them than it does in Skyrim.

Each level gives 1 perk point and 1 level-up choice. A choice adds 10 to Health, Magicka or Stamina, the same as a level-up in Skyrim, so a character reaching 81 has made 80 choices on top of what their race starts with. Open the Skills screen while a choice is waiting and the Level Up screen appears; make one choice per visit.

Everything you pick in one visit to the Skills screen counts when you close it. A pick that does not meet its requirements is taken off the tree, and one chat line names it and gives the reason. The point stays yours.

Making a skill Legendary works as in Skyrim: the skill goes back to 15 and every perk in its tree is returned as a perk point. Your level does not change.

Past the level cap, each level's worth of experience becomes a paragon point instead, up to 50. Each one adds 0.5% to the damage you deal and 0.5% to your armour against other players' weapon blows.

Trainers

Skyrim's own skill trainers train skills here. There are 53. 44 of them train from the start, for example Faendal in Riverwood, who trains Archery up to 50. The other 9 (Aela, Vilkas, Farkas, Athis, Njada, Eorlund Gray-Mane, Danica Pure-Spring, Hamal and Kuvar) train once the game's own quests have made them trainers; the first character whose quest does so makes them trainers for everyone. Each trainer teaches one skill, up to 50, 75 or 90, as in Skyrim.

Talk to a trainer and choose the Training topic. Skyrim's Training menu opens, and each session raises the skill by 1. You can train 5 times per level; the count starts again when your level rises, and past the level cap with each paragon point. The price depends on your skill before the session:

A session is refused when the person does not train that skill, the skill is at the trainer's limit, you have trained 5 times this level, or you do not have the gold: your skill and your gold go back to their values before the session, and a chat line gives the reason.

When you talk to a trainer, the conversation stays open and a Trainer services button appears beside it. The trainer's window holds only what Skyrim's own menus do not do:

Neither reset changes your skills, and the gold paid for a reset is not returned. The window shows each price, how long until a reset is available again and how many points or choices it would return, and asks you to confirm with the price on the button. The priests who keep the Halls of the Dead teach Resurrection on the same window (see Death).

A spell you know can be made into one of your own at a court wizard. There are eight, in five holds: Farengar in Whiterun, Sybille Stentor and Melaran in Solitude, Wuunferth in Windhelm, Dravynea in Kynesgrove, Calcelmo and Aicantar in Markarth, and Wylandriah in Riften. Talking to one puts a Spellmaking button beside the conversation, and it opens a window listing every spell you know that can serve as a template, with the range your skill in its school allows. You set a magnitude and a duration, name it and pay 5 gold for each point of magnitude above or below the spell's own and 2 gold for each second of duration, at least 20 gold. The magnitude can go from half the spell's own up to the spell's own multiplied by (1 + your skill / 50), and the duration up to 120 seconds. A character can make 10 spells in all. A made spell cannot be removed, and Resurrection does not count toward the 10.

Criticals

Weapon blows, damaging spells and heals can all be critical, by the same rule. Each weapon blow, each counted hit of a damaging spell and each healing cast rolls once against your critical chance; if the roll succeeds, the amount is multiplied by your critical power. Both are the sum of the rows below. The Sheet tab lists your rows for a blow with the weapon in your hands, a Destruction spell and a heal.

A power attack does double damage and does not change the critical roll. A weapon blow on an NPC or creature that is not fighting you also does double damage, and if it is critical as well, both multipliers apply. An enemy is fighting you once it has noticed you and comes after you. Blows on players never get this bonus.

In a fair duel, weapon blows are never critical. Spells and heals still can be.

Combat and healing

A weapon blow starts from the weapon's base damage in Skyrim's data. Your skill in the weapon adds up to 50% at skill 100, and perks, paragon points and potions add more; wear takes some away, down to half damage for a fully worn weapon. A damaging spell does its record's damage each time it hits, raised by paragon points and potions. Flames, Frostbite and Sparks give damage per second in their records, and each hit does that per-second figure. Your skill lowers a spell's cost, not its damage.

A weapon blow is reduced by the armour its target wears, by Skyrim's armour formula and by at most 80%, for your blows on players, NPCs and creatures and for theirs on you. Each piece counts with the wearer's armour skill and the perks that apply to that piece, such as Juggernaut on heavy pieces and Well Fitted on a matched set, and a player's paragon points add to it. A blow between two players is decided by the weapon, skill and perks of the one who strikes and the armour, block and perks of the one struck, as against an NPC. A healing spell you aim at another player heals them.

An arrow reaches as far as the game's own bows do. An arrow loosed from farther away does not hit.

A power attack costs twice 20 plus the weapon's weight in stamina, 58 with an iron sword. A bash does damage from your shield's armour or your weapon's damage and your Block skill, and costs 35 stamina; a power bash costs 55 and needs the Power Bash perk, and Deadly Bash makes it five times as strong. A block counts against enemies and players alike: a shield blocks more than a weapon, Block and its perks raise it, a power attack breaks through more of it, and a blocked blow costs stamina only when it would have hurt you. Fists hit as your race's do: 10 for a Khajiit or an Argonian, 4 for the other races.

Your race's abilities apply: a Breton resists a quarter of magic, a Dunmer half of fire, a Nord half of frost, a Redguard or a Bosmer half of poison, and an Altmer has 50 more magicka. Magic Resistance from your gear, potions and race lowers a hostile spell's damage, up to 85%. Enchanted gear that fortifies a skill works: a weapon skill's enchantment makes your blows harder, a school of magic's makes its spells cheaper, and Haggling gives better prices.

A ward you hold protects you from other players' spells. Lesser Ward has 40 points, Steadfast Ward 60 and Greater Ward 80, and each adds as much armour. A spell from the front that the points can hold is taken off them and does no damage. A spell stronger than what is left, or one from behind, breaks the ward and still does no damage; cast the ward again to raise a new one. With Ward Absorb, a quarter of each spell your ward stops comes back as magicka. A ward does not stop spells from creatures and NPCs, and its armour counts against them.

Enemies fight with the best weapon and shield they carry and choose among their own attacks: power attacks, forward lunges, combos, blocks and shield bashes. Their armour protects them from your blows. Enemy archers and mages fight in melee or with their fists. A fallen enemy lies in the same place for every player. Another player's attacks are shown on your screen with the weapon they were made with and the swing that was made, left hand and right. A fast combo can show a swing late or miss one out. Another player's equipped arrows are not shown.

In a dungeon copy on Hard or Elite, the damage you deal there and the damage enemies' blows do to you are multiplied as the difficulty table shows.

The Block tree's perks all work, on players and enemies alike. Shield Wall raises the share you block. Deflect Arrows stops an arrow outright while your shield is up. Elemental Protection halves fire, frost and shock damage while it is up. Power Bash lets you bash with a power attack, three times as strong as an ordinary one, and Deadly Bash multiplies a bash's damage further. Block Runner lets you move at full speed with your shield up. Shield Charge, sprinting with your shield up, knocks down everyone and everything you reach and takes 4 health and 10 stamina off each. Quick Reflexes does what the slowed time it describes is for in a shared world: a power attack still counts as blocked for a short time after you lower your guard. Disarming Bash has a 50% chance to take a weapon out of an opponent's hands on a power bash; nothing falls to the ground, so nothing can be lost or taken by anyone else, and a disarmed character fights unarmed for a time, with rules against disarming the same target again too soon or without pause.

Damage and healing numbers

A blow or a heal of 0.5 or more puts a number over the body it landed on, and the number follows that body as the camera moves. A blow that does nothing, such as one on a party member or on a player in a safe zone, shows no number. A heal shows the amount it actually restores, so a heal on someone already at full health shows none.

Combat log

Press Enter to open the chat window and select the Combat tab. It records every blow and heal of 0.5 or more that you deal or receive, and every kill in which you die or are the killer, up to the last 200 entries. Combat between other players is not recorded.

The Quest tab of the chat window lists what your party does to your quests: which quests are shown at the party's point, which do not count for you until the party catches up, which are yours alone, and the party leader's story choices. The tab is marked when a new line arrives.

The interface

Most things have a window or a menu.

Hold G at any time for a mouse cursor (another key can be set with a cursor_key = H line in Data/SKSE/Plugins/SkyrimScape.ini). Every window of SkyrimScape's takes the mouse while it is open, the windows a conversation's buttons open among them (Repairs and salvage, Trainer services, Spellmaking): the cursor moves and clicks in them, and Esc closes them. Only chat is typed; everything else is done in a window, a menu or by talking to someone (see Commands).

Character sheet

Press O and choose the Sheet tab. It shows your level, path and paragon points; your bounty with each hold; your three pools and any level-up choices waiting; your perk points; your critical chance and power for a weapon blow, a Destruction spell and a heal, with every contribution listed; all eighteen skill ranks; and the Save my appearance button.

Social window

Press O to open it; O or Esc closes it. It has ten tabs.

The player list, the guild's member list, the Instances tab's lockouts, the Board's Wanted, Contracts, Ladder and Guilds pages and the Write page's list of what you carry have a search box and a count. The heading and its search box stay in place while the rows scroll underneath.

Name plates

Names are coloured by what that body is to you.

A title appears after the name in square brackets, and a guild tag below it in angle brackets. A player's name turns pale green while they are speaking.

When a player, NPC or creature is hurt, a small health bar appears under the name and tracks every hit. It is always shown on your duel opponent and on anything with a light red name. Skyrim's enemy health bar does not track other players; the bar under their name does.

Interface and Skyrim's menus

Name plates, damage numbers, party frames and the chat log are hidden whenever one of Skyrim's menus is open. The trade window and a stall's shelf stay beside Skyrim's container menu, the cast bar stays so you can watch smithing, alchemy and enchanting progress inside the crafting menu, and friend notices still appear.

Fast travel from the world map goes to any place you have found, a town included. Fast travel is refused while you are in a fight, and works again once the fight is over.

Parties and guilds

Parties

Click a player's name, in the chat window or on the Players tab, and choose Invite to party. An invitation lasts one minute. A party holds up to five players, and party members cannot damage each other outside a duel between them. Every member is marked on the world map and the local map with their name, in blue, and the leader in green; a member inside a building or dungeon you are not in is marked at its door. Party frames at the left of the screen show each member's level, health and location. The leader sets the loot rule on the Party tab: Loot: free, where anyone takes from any body, or Loot: turns, where each body the party kills is one member's to loot first, in turn, starting with the leader. The others can take from it once that member has taken something, or after 60 seconds, and members far from the body when it dies are skipped. Chests are not part of the rule. How a party plays quests together is described under Quests in a party, and its dungeons, their difficulty and lockouts under Dungeons.

A party leader who owns a home can share its chests with the party: press O, open the Party tab, then its Home chests page, and press Share my home's chests with the party. While sharing is on, party members inside the leader's home can take from and put things in its chests, and nothing taken is theft. The same page shows the leader the last 20 items members took or put in, with who and how long ago. Sharing is off until the leader turns it on, and it turns off by itself when someone joins the party, when the leader changes and when the party ends; the party is told each time. The leader's stash is never shared.

Guilds

Founding a guild costs 500 gold: without a guild, the Guild tab has a form for a tag and a name, and a Found button. The tag is 2 to 5 letters or digits, shown in capitals below your name; the name is 3 to 24 characters. A guild holds up to 100 members, with the ranks leader, officer and member, a message of the day and a shared bank.

The leader buys a guild hall on the Guild tab's Hall and landmarks page, for 2,000 gold of their own: type the house's name (Breezehome, Honeyside, Vlindrel Hall, Hjerim or Proudspire Manor) and press Buy. A hall belongs to one guild at a time. Its chest is that guild's bank, and anyone else who goes in finds an empty copy of their own. Go to the hall, on the same page, takes a member to the hall, once an hour. The leader can also stand in a fort and press Claim this fort to hold it as a landmark for 1,000 gold; the guild bank then receives 50% of the stall tax paid in that hold. Upkeep comes out of the guild bank every week, 200 gold for a hall and 100 for a landmark. Unpaid for 7 days, the hall or landmark is lost.

You can also buy one of these houses for yourself, the way Skyrim sells it: from the hold's steward, once the game's own conditions are met (Breezehome is 5,000 gold from Proventus Avenicci in Dragonsreach; Honeyside and Vlindrel Hall 8,000, Hjerim 12,000, Proudspire Manor 25,000). The gold is taken, you get the key and the decorating guide, and inside it is your home: the chests keep what you put in them, and only you can open them. Your party can come in with you, and anyone else finds an empty copy of their own. If your guild holds the same house as its hall, you are in the guild's hall there instead.

Chat and voice

A line typed without a slash on the chat window's General tab goes to the players in your hold: the line where you type names it, for example General (Whiterun Hold), and the chat tells you when you cross into another hold. The Trade tab reaches every player in the realm and is for buying, selling and finding a group: type on it, or use /trade or /lfg, once every 10 seconds. On the Party or Guild tab a line goes to that channel. /p sends to your party, /g to your guild, and /tell <name> to one player.

Hold V to talk; the first press starts your game's voice audio. Players within 3,000 units whose game shows your character hear you, at full volume up to 300 units and fading to nothing at 3,000. Your party hears you at full volume at any distance. While a player talks, a speaker mark shows above their name; a player you muted shows none. You can mute any player from the name menu or with E on them. The mute is kept on the server and stops their general chat and their voice from reaching you. A moderator can mute a player for everyone for up to 7 days: nobody receives their chat, whispers, party and guild lines, letters or voice until it ends, and the player is told why and until when.

Dungeons

Your own copy

Your party gets its own copy of every dungeon interior, with its own creatures, chests and items. Alone, you get a copy of your own. A player outside your party who enters the same dungeon is in a different copy. Outdoor parts of a dungeon location, such as a bandit camp, are not copied: everyone shares them. Helgen is the exception: the ruined town, its keep, the houses around it and the ground outside the keep's cave, where new characters start, are a private copy for each player, party or not.

A dungeon does not reset while anyone in your group is inside it: what you kill stays dead in every part of it, including the parts behind a loading door that you have already left. Once nobody in your group has been inside the dungeon for a minute, it resets. Its enemies are back, apart from a boss that everyone entering is locked out of (see Lockouts), and your next entry makes a new copy at the difficulty chosen at that moment. Outdoors, a killed creature or bandit comes back ten minutes after its body is gone.

Difficulty

A dungeon copy has one of three difficulties: Normal, Hard or Elite. A player alone chooses it for themselves, and a party's leader chooses it for the party, on the Instances tab of the social window (O). The choice applies to the next dungeon copy you enter, and a copy keeps its difficulty for as long as anyone in your group is inside it. It cannot be changed while you or any member of your party is inside a dungeon. When the leader changes it, every member is told in chat. A character starts at Normal and keeps their choice between logins; a new party starts at its leader's own choice.

Each difficulty takes its damage numbers from one of Skyrim's own difficulty settings:

A second enemy is rolled from the same leveled list as the enemy it stands beside, so a draugr crypt gets more draugr. A boss never gets a second enemy. The added levels stay within the level range Skyrim gives the place, where it has one, so the same lists give their higher versions, such as a Bandit Marauder in place of a Bandit, and the loot those enemies carry comes from the same higher levels. One step higher on Skyrim's aggression scale means a creature that would otherwise leave you alone attacks. The pattern multiplier counts toward the same cap as the other multipliers in Boss finds.

Lockouts

Killing a boss in a dungeon locks you out of that boss, on that difficulty, for 720 game hours: 36 real hours, which is Skyrim's own time for a cleared place to come back. Everyone in your group who is inside the dungeon when the boss dies is locked out, and so is everyone who has landed a blow on it. While everyone entering is locked out, the boss stays dead in their copies at that difficulty, and the rest of the dungeon comes back as usual. If someone in your group is not locked out, the boss is there for the whole group; killing it again gives you no new boss find and starts your 36 hours again.

Lockouts are kept separately for each difficulty. A boss killed on Normal can still be fought on Hard the same day, and on Hard it gives a boss find of its own.

The Instances tab

Press O and open the Instances tab. At the top is the difficulty picker, with each difficulty's numbers. A player alone or a party's leader can use it outside dungeons. Otherwise it is greyed out, and a line under it gives the reason: the party leader chooses, you are inside a dungeon, or a named party member is inside one. The tab also names the dungeon you are in and its difficulty.

Below the picker are your lockouts, one row for each dungeon and difficulty: the dungeon's name, the difficulty, how many of its bosses you have killed out of its total, and the time until the lockout ends, counting down, with each boss's name and its own time. The lockouts of each member of your party follow, grouped by member. The list has a search box and a count.

Trading, stalls and mail

Player trading

Press E on a player, or click their name, and choose Trade. The trade opens when you stand close to each other, and it closes if you move apart. Each side offers up to 10 stacks of items and any amount of gold, then both accept; changing either offer clears both acceptances. The trade then completes as one transaction: every stack and both sides' gold cross together, or, if any part of it fails, nothing moves, the trade closes and everything goes back to whoever offered it. What you offer is set aside from the moment you offer it. If the trade is cancelled, or one of you walks away or disconnects, everything goes back to whoever offered it. Stolen goods and bound items cannot be traded.

Stalls

Stand at a merchant during their trading hours and open the Market tab. Buy the hold's trading licence there (500 gold, once per hold), then name your stall and press Open a stall here. A stall costs 10 gold a day from your purse and pays 5% of each sale as tax. Three unpaid days close it. Stock my stall opens the stall's inventory for you to put items in. To set prices, press Browse on your own stall: each row takes a price with Set, and Off takes it off sale; an item without a price is not for sale. What a closed stall still holds is yours: at that merchant, Take back my closed stall's goods opens it so you can take it back. Stalls go on selling while you are offline. Stolen goods and bound items cannot be stocked. The Market tab lists the stalls at the merchant you are standing at, and Browse opens one.

Mail

A letter carries up to 255 characters of text, gold and up to 8 stacks of items. A player can have 20 unread letters waiting, and a letter to someone who already has 20 is refused; a letter counts as read once its recipient opens the Mail tab or collects its parcel. Gold and items leave you as soon as you attach them, and the server holds them until the recipient collects them. On the Mail tab of the social window, the Write page lists what you carry with Attach buttons (not worn items, and not gold, which has its own field), and the Inbox has a Collect button on each letter carrying gold or items. Stolen goods and bound items cannot be sent.

Merchants

Every player shares one stock per merchant. What another player buys is gone for you too, and what they sell to the merchant is there for you to buy. If the merchant's list is open on your screen while someone else trades there, it updates. If another player buys an item a moment before you do, the chat tells you and the merchant's stock is shown again. Each item of a merchant's usual stock is filled back up to its usual number 12 hours after the merchant first runs short of it, or 24 hours for enchanted items and items worth 500 gold or more; the rest of the stock is not reset. A merchant's gold is your own: what you sell is paid from the gold that merchant has for you, what you pay goes into it, other players' sales do not spend it, and it is back to the merchant's full amount 48 game hours (2.4 real hours) after it was last full. Items players sell to a merchant stay for 48 hours if nobody buys them. A merchant's own stock never includes the finished pieces described under Glass, Ebony, Daedric and Dragon gear; one that a player sells to the merchant is on sale like any other item players sell. When a purchase or sale is refused, the chat says why: not enough gold, the merchant cannot afford it, the merchant does not buy that kind of item, stolen goods, a bound item, closed at this hour, or too far from the merchant.

Stash and guild bank

Every character has a stash of 20 slots, opened with Open my stash on the Guild tab. After you open it, the Stash line shows your slots and an Expand button that adds 10 slots for 500 gold the first time, 1,000 the second and so on, up to 100 slots. Nobody else can reach your stash, and it is the only place that takes bound items. A guild's bank has 100 slots and opens with the Guild bank button; by default only officers and the leader can take items out. Both open only indoors in a town or a city.

Loot

This section lists every rule of loot and every number behind it: what bodies, chests and merchants hold, and every boss find.

How a list is rolled

Bodies, chests and merchants' stock come from Skyrim's own leveled lists (4,095 item lists in the game's data), rolled the way the game rolls them.

Bodies

When an enemy or a creature dies, its body holds:

• what it carries: its record's inventory, with any lists rolled at its level;
• what it wears: the outfit rolled when it appears, which every player sees it wearing;
• its death item, rolled at its level: 2,826 of the game's 6,800 NPC records name one;
• an item a quest of the killer's story places on it, such as the Dragonstone carried by the boss of Bleak Falls Barrow.

The rule for Glass, Ebony, Daedric and Dragon gear is applied to all of it. Two realm settings can also thin a body's loot: loot density keeps only a share of its loose stacks (never its gold or what it wears), and material conversion turns a share of its loose finished weapons and armour into their forge materials. On this realm both are off: loot density is 100% and material conversion is 0%.

A body stays for 180 seconds (three minutes) after death, and whatever is left in it then goes with it. Inside a dungeon, only your group sees the bodies in its copy. Outdoors, anyone who can see a body can take from it, and the first to take an item has it, unless your party loots by turns (see Parties). A personal find, from a boss or from a looter's perks, is the exception: only its finder sees it or can take it.

Golden Touch, Imperial Luck, Prowler's Profit and Treasure Hunter add to what a body or a chest holds, as the finder's own find: only you see it and take it, and a find left in a body goes with the body. Golden Touch adds 2 to 10 gold to a bandit, draugr, Falmer, Forsworn, giant, dragon or riekling, and 2 to 10 or 20 to 100 to many chests. Imperial Luck adds 2 to 10 gold to the same bodies and to many chests, for every character once they have left Helgen, as in Skyrim. Prowler's Profit adds gems to a dragon, a giant, a wealthy townsperson and many chests. Treasure Hunter gives a treasure chest's special weapon or armour piece 15 times in 100 instead of 10. In a fight, the player who lands the killing blow gets what their perks add, and so does each member of their party who struck the enemy.

Chests

• A chest in the open world is your own copy, as in your own game: it is rolled for your level the first time you open it, and what another player takes from their copy is still in yours. The roll is kept on record, so a server restart does not change it.
• A chest that Skyrim marks as refilling is rolled again at the first opening 240 game hours (12 real hours) after its last roll, and whatever is still in it is removed then. A chest that is not marked as refilling keeps what is left in it.
• Inside a dungeon, each group has its own copy of every chest.

Chests: whose they are

No player ever owns a chest in the world, and nothing a player does to a chest, opening it, emptying it or filling it, makes taking from it theft. These are the chests that are yours or your guild's:

Every other chest belongs to the world:

A stolen item stays marked as stolen, whoever holds it and however often it is dropped and picked up. It cannot be sold to any merchant or fence, traded to another player, given with Give an item, sent by mail, stocked in a stall or put in the guild bank. You can keep it, wear it, fight with it, put it in your stash or in a chest in the world, and break it down for materials at a smith. It is confiscated when you are jailed or pay a fine.

Glass, Ebony, Daedric and Dragon gear

Finished weapons and armour made with the Glass Smithing, Ebony Smithing, Daedric Smithing or Dragon Armor perk never come out of a body or a chest whole, and are never made in a merchant's stock. The rule covers the pieces themselves, their enchanted versions (Skyrim's enchanted pieces are records of their own that point at the plain piece) and the copies some NPCs wear (records with the same name and no recipe of their own, such as a Dremora's Daedric armour).

Where Skyrim's lists would put one of these pieces in a body or a chest, its materials are there instead: half of each material in the piece's forge recipe, rounded down, the same share a smith's salvage gives. If every material rounds down to nothing, it gives one of the recipe's first material. An enchanted version or a copy gives its plain piece's materials. You can see an NPC wearing such a piece, but its body holds the materials.

The finished pieces enter the world only from a forge.

Boss finds

A boss is the enemy at a placement Skyrim marks as the boss of its location: the Boss marker, or the Dragonborn content's DLC2Boss1 (766 placements in the game's data). Bosses outdoors count as well; an outdoor boss always counts as Normal difficulty and sets no lockout.

When a boss dies, every character who has struck it, or healed someone who struck it, and is still there gets one roll of their own. Watching gives no roll. Each roll is separate, so a party of four makes four rolls, and each member can find something different or nothing.

The table below is for a boss whose place Skyrim gives no kind. Most bosses have one, and their own table: see What each kind of boss gives.

These are the chances before any multiplier. A boss's level is the level it appears at: the level of the highest-level character in the game at that moment, adjusted by the placement's own level modifier, held within the level range Skyrim gives the place where it has one, and raised by 10 on Hard and 20 on Elite within that range.

The pattern multiplier

Each of the two pattern chances is multiplied by its own m:

m = (1 + 0.1 × misses) × first × difficulty, and never more than 3.

The other outcomes keep their values, so the chance of a pattern tier is its value times its m, divided by the sum of the band's other values and each pattern value times its m.

• A level-31 boss on Normal that you have rolled on before, with 5 misses on each tier: m is 1.5 for both. Glass or Ebony 5 × 1.5 = 7.5; Daedric or Dragon 1 × 1.5 = 1.5; nothing and the materials 94; total 103. The chances are 7.3% for a Glass or Ebony pattern, 1.5% for a Daedric or Dragon pattern, 23.3% for a rare material and 68.0% for nothing.
• A level-22 boss on Hard that you have never rolled on: m = 2 × 1.5 = 3, the cap. Glass or Ebony 3 × 3 = 9 against 97 for the rest, total 106: 8.5% for a pattern, 20.8% for a rare material, 70.8% for nothing.
• A level-30 or higher boss with both tiers at the cap of 3: 13.4% for a Glass or Ebony pattern and 2.7% for a Daedric or Dragon pattern.

What you get, and how often

• A pattern outcome gives a pattern you do not know yet, picked at random among the pieces of that tier you do not know (30 Glass and Ebony pieces, 40 Daedric and Dragon pieces). You never get the same pattern twice. If you already know every piece of that tier, the roll gives the band's first rare material instead: 2 Refined Malachite at level 18 to 29, or 2 Ebony Ingots at level 30 and above.
• A pattern is a book, and a personal find like a rare material: it is put in the boss's body for you alone, and the chat names it ("You found a pattern: Daedric Armor."). Open it from your inventory to learn it: "You learned the pattern for Daedric Armor. You can make it at a forge now, with its perk and materials." Reading it uses it up.
• If you read a pattern you already know, you keep it: "You already know how to make Daedric Armor. The pattern is kept: you can sell it or trade it."
• You are never given a pattern you already know or already hold: in your inventory, your stash, your mail or your stall.
• A rare material is a personal find: it is put in the boss's body for you alone, and nobody else sees it or can take it. The chat names the material. If the body goes before you take it, the find is put in your inventory and the chat says so.
• One roll per boss: your roll on a boss stands for 720 game hours (36 real hours at the realm's timescale of 20) from the moment of the roll, for each difficulty. Killing the same boss again in that time, on the same difficulty, gives no new roll.
• Logging out, reconnecting or a server restart gives no second roll.
• A boss killed in a dungeon also locks you out of it on that difficulty for the same 36 hours (see Lockouts).
• The first character on the realm to read the pattern of a given Daedric or Dragon piece is a realm first: every player in the game is told in chat, and the Board's Firsts page lists it. Glass and Ebony patterns are not realm firsts.

What each kind of boss gives

A boss's kind is the kind of place Skyrim gives its location (a draugr crypt, a Dwemer ruin, a bandit camp), and for some bosses what they are (a Daedra, a dragon, the undead). Every boss in Apocrypha and the Soul Cairn is Daedric. Each kind has a table of its own, with the same share of nothing as the table above: 85% below level 18, 75% from 18 to 29, 70% from 30. An arcane boss's share of nothing is 70% from 18 to 29 and 64% from 30, because it can also teach an enchantment.

An enchantment a boss teaches is one you do not know yet, learned at once: the chat names it, and you can lay it on weapons and armour at an arcane enchanter as if you had disenchanted an item that carried it. If you already know every one, the roll gives the band's first rare material instead.

No boss drops a pattern for a set Skyrim unlocks through its own quests or books: the Skyforge's armour, Stalhrim, Sorine Jurard's crossbows. Those stay Skyrim's own (see Recipes Skyrim unlocks).

Other finds

A quest or a raid is never a first roll's double chance. The multipliers of a boss's roll apply to a dragon and to a boss's chest.

Patterns

Glass, Ebony, Daedric and Dragon weapons and armour need a pattern as well as their smithing perk and materials. There are 70 such pieces, and each has a pattern of its own: the pattern for Daedric Armor teaches Daedric Armor only.

The forge lists a piece once you have its perk. Without the pattern, making it is refused, and the chat says "You need the pattern for Daedric Armor to make it. Patterns are found by defeating bosses." Patterns come from boss finds and the other finds; no trainer or merchant stocks one. A pattern is a book you read to learn it. Before it is read it is an item like any other: it can be traded, sold, mailed, put in a stall or a stash, and stolen. A merchant pays for a pattern by the value of the piece it teaches (a Daedric Armor pattern is worth 3,200 gold, a Glass Sword pattern 410), within the gold the merchant has. On a stall, each pattern has a price of its own.

Recipes Skyrim unlocks

Some recipes are unlocked in Skyrim by reading a book or by a quest. These unlock for the character who reads the book or plays the quest, not for everyone:

Reading a copy that lies in the world counts as well as reading one you carry. When a book or a quest unlocks recipes for you, the chat says how many new things you can make at a forge.

Recipes that Skyrim unlocks in other ways, mostly through a line of dialogue, are open to every character: the Skyforge's Ancient Nord armour and Nord Hero weapons, Sorine Jurard's crossbows and bolts, Nordic arrows, the Remnant set, the Alik'ri, Argonian and Dwarven fishing rods, and the Irkngthand War Axe. They still need the perk and the materials their recipes ask for.

Unique items

Skyrim places some weapons and armour only once: the Bow of the Hunt in Clearspring Tarn, Goldbrand, Ahzidal's armour, the Shrouded armour in the Sanctuaries, a Daedric artifact lying in a dungeon, and about 120 more. When you pick one up, or take it from a chest or a body, it is bound to you, and each character can take each of them once. Every dungeon is your own copy (or your party's), so every member of a party who has not taken it yet can take their own. Coming back for a second one is refused, and the chat says so: "You have taken Bow of the Hunt before. Each character can take it once."

Merchants

• Every player shares one stock per merchant.
• Each item of a merchant's usual stock is filled back up to its usual number 12 real hours after the merchant first runs short of it, or 24 hours for an enchanted item or one worth 500 gold or more.
• A merchant's gold is your own, as in your own game: what you sell is paid from the gold that merchant has for you, what you pay goes into it, and other players' sales do not spend it. It is back to the merchant's full amount 48 game hours (2.4 real hours) after it was last full.
• Items players sell to a merchant stay for 48 hours if nobody buys them.
• The finished pieces in the table under Glass, Ebony, Daedric and Dragon gear are never made in a merchant's stock. One that a player sells to the merchant is on sale like any other item players sell.

Trades, bound items and stolen goods

• A trade between two players completes as one transaction: every stack and both sides' gold cross together, or nothing moves and everything goes back to whoever offered it.
• Bound items (a new character's starting items, and anything crafted or enchanted from them) cannot be traded, sold, given, mailed, stocked in a stall, put in a guild bank or a chest, dropped, salvaged or disenchanted.
• Stolen goods cannot be traded, given, mailed, stocked in a stall or put in a guild bank, and no merchant or fence buys them.
• A pattern is an item until it is read: it trades, sells, mails and goes in a stall like any other.
• An improved weapon or piece of armour keeps its tier in a trade, a sale, the mail and a stall.
• A Daedric artifact a quest gives you (Dawnbreaker, the Ebony Mail, Mehrunes' Razor, Volendrung and the rest of the 24) is bound to you, like a starting item.
• A unique weapon or piece of armour you take from the world is bound to you, and each character can take each one once (see Unique items).

Difficulty and loot

The added levels stay within the level range Skyrim gives the place. Each difficulty has its own boss rolls and its own lockouts, so the same boss can give you one roll on each difficulty within the same 36 hours. Outdoors, everything counts as Normal. The rest of what a difficulty changes is under Difficulty.

Crafting

Work that produces something takes time and shows a progress bar: smithing, brewing a potion, enchanting and disenchanting each take 1.5 seconds on this realm. Moving from the spot, taking a hit or pressing Esc breaks it, and then nothing is used up and nothing is made.

Items you ask for in Skyrim's crafting menu are made one after another, up to 25 waiting at a time. Breaking the work in hand drops the rest of the queue with it.

Glass, Ebony, Daedric and Dragon pieces also need a pattern, and some recipes need a book or a quest first: see Patterns and Recipes Skyrim unlocks.

Skills rise from what raises them in Skyrim. Smithing rises from what you make at a forge; cooking, smelting, tanning and building raise nothing, and a staff made at the staff enchanter raises Enchanting. Enchanting and disenchanting raise Enchanting as much as they do in Skyrim. A spell raises its school when it takes effect, and a healing spell by the health it restores, so none at full health. Every potion Skyrim hands out can be brewed, Cure Disease and Cure Poison among them. Repairs and salvage use the piece's own forge materials.

The skill bar a crafting station draws shows your level, the next level and your progress after every item made or improved, including the item that takes you to the next level, with the menu still open.

Any crafting station is yours to use whenever you reach it. A forge, anvil, grindstone, workbench, smelter, tanning rack, alchemy lab, enchanter or cooking pot opens for you even while a townsperson or another player is working at it, and other players see you working there. Being attacked or committing a crime closes the menu.

Improving weapons and armour

• Weapons are improved at a grindstone and armour at an armour table, in Skyrim's own menu, with the material the menu names. Improving takes the same 1.5 seconds as other smithing.
• How far a piece improves follows Skyrim's rules: your Smithing skill, the smithing perk of the piece's material (Steel Smithing for steel pieces, Glass Smithing for glass, and so on) doubles the improvement, and Fortify Smithing from a potion or an enchantment raises it. The tiers are Skyrim's: Fine, Superior, Exquisite, Flawless, Epic and Legendary.
• An enchanted weapon or piece of armour can be improved only with the Arcane Blacksmith perk.
• A piece is never made worse. When your skill cannot raise a piece any further, the menu refuses it.
• Improving one piece of a stack improves that one piece and leaves the rest as they were.
• An improved weapon deals more damage and improved armour gives more armour rating, as the menu shows. The piece keeps its tier when you log out, trade it, sell it, mail it or put it in your stash, and other players see its tier in a trade.
• Improving a piece raises Smithing, more for a piece worth more.

PvP, duels and crime

Towns and cities are safe zones; the rest of the world is not. In a safe zone players cannot hurt each other except in a duel, and dying there costs you nothing. Outside a safe zone players can fight and kill each other. A kill by another player takes nothing from you: your body holds no loot for them, no gold leaves your purse, and your gear takes no wear. A death to an enemy, a creature, a fall or a trap outside a safe zone adds 10% wear to every piece you are wearing, and leaves nothing on your body either; a blacksmith repairs the wear.

In a town or a party, a blow on another player does no damage, and it gives no experience and no skill rank. It does not count toward Sneak either.

Duels

Click a player's name, in the chat window or on the Players tab, and choose Duel, or Duel (fair) for the fair bracket; you must be near them. The challenge lasts 60 seconds, and they accept or decline at the prompt. A duel is one player against one, lasts 3 minutes and works inside towns and cities.

A player brought to zero health loses and stands up at 30% health; nobody dies and no items are lost. Leaving the realm loses too, and so does going more than 3,000 units from the duel's starting point, or through a door into another interior or worldspace (a city's gate counts). Yielding, with the Yield button or Y, gives the duel up. A duel still running after 3 minutes is a draw.

In a fair duel, a weapon blow does the weapon's base damage multiplied by 1.25, doubled for a power attack and halved when blocked, and both sides count as wearing 100 armour; skill, perks, wear, paragon points and criticals do not count. A weapon's enchantment still adds its damage, and spells and heals are not changed. Duel results feed the Ladder on the Board. When an admin closes a season, the player with the most wins in it gets the title Champion of that season.

Bounties and contracts

You can post a bounty on a player who has killed you or a member of your guild in the last 24 hours, with Post bounty on the name menu, which opens a small window for the gold. The least is 50 gold, and it leaves your purse when you post. Whoever kills the wanted player collects 50% of each bounty on them; the rest stays on the Board and loses 10% of the posted gold each day. Contracts are jobs offered to anyone on the Board's Contracts page: you post a fee of at least 20 gold, another player takes the contract, and the server holds the fee until you mark it Done, which pays the fee to them. Marking it Failed, or cancelling it, returns the fee to you.

Crime

Taking something that belongs to a person or a faction in Skyrim's data is theft; Chests: whose they are lists which chests count. A theft is reported when the owner, or someone of the owner's hold, sees or hears it; a stranger from another hold does not report it, and a sleeping townsperson sees nothing but can still hear you. Sneaking works as in Skyrim: light, distance, movement and your Sneak skill decide whether you are seen.

Using a weapon or a spell on a townsperson you are brawling with, or striking a guard who is arresting you or fighting you, is an assault, which they report themselves; killing a guard is a murder, reported if a townsperson sees it. A seen theft adds half the stolen items' value to your bounty, an assault 40 gold and a murder 1,000. The bounty is owed to the hold of the item's owner or of the person attacked, or failing that to the hold of the place. The Sheet tab of the social window shows yours, by hold.

A home is private while its owners are in it before they leave for work, and at night. If you are inside then, the owners tell you to leave and call for the guards; if you stay, you are warned once more 5 seconds later, and 5 seconds after that given a 5 gold bounty with that hold. Leaving before the last warning costs nothing, and inns never close.

A guard who sees you with a bounty comes for you and the game's own arrest dialogue opens: pay, go to jail, or resist. Resisting, or leaving the dialogue without an answer, is a fight that other guards near join and that every player near sees; once it is over, the next guard who sees you tries to arrest you again. With a bounty of 1,000 or more, the guards of a hold that attacks on sight fight you at once. Putting your weapon away for 1.5 seconds while guards fight you over a bounty is a yield, and they arrest you instead. A guard who beats you takes you to jail.

Paying takes the bounty from your gold; if you are short of it, the bounty stands. Jail is 5 minutes in the cell, and you are let out when the time is served. The jail bed cannot shorten it, and leaving through the door counts as an escape, which brings the bounty back with the hold's escape fine of 100 gold added. On record the sentence counts as one day per 100 gold of bounty, at least 1 and at most 30, and each day costs the progress toward your next rank in one skill (the ranks themselves stay). Stolen goods on record are confiscated when you are jailed or pay a fine. A bounty is cleared only by paying it or serving the sentence: dying, logging out and a server restart leave it, and a sentence counts down while you are logged out.

Death

When your health reaches zero you are down: your body lies where it fell and the death window opens. Your game does not load a save, and nothing raises you on a timer. You stay down until you release or accept a revive.

Release with the button in the death window or R, and you respawn at the graveyard nearest to your last position outdoors in this session: the Halls of the Dead in Whiterun, Solitude, Windhelm and Markarth, the Temple of Mara in Riften, Falkreath's graveyard, Morthal's burial plot, the doorsteps of the White Hall in Dawnstar and the Jarl's Longhouse in Winterhold, and on Solstheim the temple tomb in Raven Rock, the Skaal village and Tel Mithryn. If you have not been outdoors in this session, you respawn at the realm's spawn point in Riverwood. Logging out while you are down counts as a release, and you log back in at that graveyard.

Another player can revive you where you lie, by hand or with the Resurrection spell. The healer must be in the same copy of the place as your body, so a body inside another party's copy of a dungeon, or inside a guild hall, cannot be revived from outside it.

Both break if the healer moves from the spot, is hit or presses Esc. When a revive finishes, your death window shows who revived you and at what health, with Accept (Y) and Decline (N). You have 60 seconds to answer. Accept and you stand up where you lay. Decline and you stay down, and the healer is told. While an offer is waiting for your answer, nobody else can revive you.

Resurrection is a line on the trainer window of the priest who keeps a Hall of the Dead (talk to the priest, then Trainer services): Andurs in Whiterun, Styrr in Solitude, Helgird in Windhelm or Brother Verulus in Markarth. It needs 25 revives by hand (a revive counts only when it is accepted), Restoration 75 and 5,000 gold. The priest's window shows how far along you are.

Quests and your story

Skyrim's scripts run on the server. Of the game's 2,388 quests, 709 are kept for each character separately, as that character's story: the journal quests and the quests that belong to a dungeon, apart from the random encounters on the roads and in the wilds. How far each has gone, and what its scripts change for them, is saved with the character within a few seconds of any change. If your story cannot be read when you log in, the chat tells you, your quests wait until it has been read, and nothing is written over them. When the game's scripts are updated, your stages, objectives and quest targets are kept. The other 1,679 quests, the random encounters among them, are one copy for the whole realm. Quests that start when you enter a place start as they do in Skyrim. At every login your journal shows where your story has reached.

Your words of power, the shouts you unlock and your dragon souls are saved with your character; the souls of dragons that attack at random are not kept. The map markers a quest shows you stay on your map. A quest scene that was playing when you logged out plays again when you log in, and one that had finished does not. Riverwood has no Whiterun guards until you have spoken to Jarl Balgruuf: he sends them when you tell him about Helgen. The Dragonstone is never lost: if the Bleak Falls Barrow boss's body disappears before you take it, it is put in your inventory.

Some quests do not work as in Skyrim. Gold, items and spells that change hands in a conversation are put back: a reward handed to you vanishes, and gold a conversation takes comes back (Faralda's spell for the College of Winterhold's test, a carriage's fare and a guard's pardon for a Thane among them). Some guild and Daedric quests stop where a person has to go somewhere for the quest to move on. Winning a brawl pays no bet. Irileth does not lead the guards to the Western Watchtower, and "Dragon Rising" continues there without her. Radiant quests, such as a Jarl's bounty or a favour, cannot be finished. Some quest items are missing, such as the Shield of Ysgramor in Ysgramor's Tomb. Lycanthropy, vampirism and Hearthfire homesteads are not kept from one login to the next.

The people of Skyrim remember what you have talked about with them. An answer you have given, a line someone says only once and a friendship a conversation begins are kept with your character, and are the same the next time you play.

What your quests change

When your story shows or hides a placed object, such as a map laid on a table, your game shows it that way. A player whose story is at a different point sees that object as their own story has it; the rest of the place is the same for everyone. Players who see different objects in a room still see each other, and can still trade and fight.

SkyrimScape never unlocks Steam achievements: the quests you play here do not award them.

Quests in a party

A party plays each quest in one member's story, so everyone in the party sees the world at the same point of that quest. By default it is the story of the member who is furthest behind in it: a member who has not started the quest counts as furthest behind, then the member at the lowest stage, and a tie goes to the leader. When the party moves the quest on, every member at the same stage moves on with it and gets that stage's reward. A member further ahead keeps their own progress and earns nothing again until the party catches up; after leaving the party they are back in their own story.

Your journal shows each quest as the party plays it. A quest the party is playing together has (PARTY) after its name while it runs. A quest you have started that the party has not reached stays in your journal with (UNSYNCED) after its name; you can keep playing it, and what you do in it counts for you only. A quest you have already finished that cannot be taken back to the party's point shows (LOCKED): it stays as it is until the party reaches it, or until you play alone or log in again. A quest that your own actions start, such as a suspension for a crime, is always yours alone.

The party leader sets how the party plays the story on the Party tab (key O). Story sync is on by default; turned off, every member plays their own story while in the party. The leader can also choose one member's story for every quest (Their story beside a member's name), or go back to whoever is furthest behind in each quest. A choice can change once a minute, and every member is told. If the chosen member leaves the game, the party keeps playing their story for 10 minutes in case they come back, and then plays whoever is furthest behind until they return.

If your connection drops, the party's quests keep your place for 10 minutes, so they do not move while you reconnect.

When a quest item drops, such as the Dragonstone in Bleak Falls Barrow, the member who picks it up keeps it, and every other member whose own quest needs it gets their own copy at the same moment. A quest item cannot be dropped, sold, traded, stored, mailed, given, salvaged or disenchanted while a quest still needs it; once the quest is done with it, it is an ordinary item.

The world

NPCs

Skyrim's named NPCs and its guards are the game's characters, and they live their day by the game's own AI packages: they walk to the forge, bench, seat or bed their schedule names and say what the game gives them to say, and every player sees them do the same. They take the same steps at the same time and face the same way on every screen, and a townsperson looks at the same player on every screen: a shopkeeper who watches customers, such as Lucan Valerius in the Riverwood Trader, watches the first player who came in until that player leaves the shop. Conversations between townspeople start at the game's own chance, and everyone near hears them. Townspeople, guards, bandits and creatures treat every player as a solid body: they go around a player standing in their way, wait for one crossing in front of them, stop short of one standing where they are going, and step aside when a player walks into them. If you stand on the seat or workstation a townsperson is going to, they stop short and after 3 seconds choose another, and every player sees the same. Townspeople trade as they do in Skyrim, and guards respond to crime (see Crime).

Players cannot harm the named townspeople or the guards: weapons, spells and shouts pass through them, and they still talk, trade and stand in your way. They cannot harm you either. There are two exceptions, each between them and you alone: a guard who comes to arrest you or fights you over a bounty can be fought, and a townsperson who agrees to a brawl in their own dialogue fights you with fists. In a brawl, whoever falls loses and nobody dies; using a weapon or a spell ends it and counts as an assault. Bandit camps, creatures in fixed places and the unique enemies the game makes hostile are shared as well, so players together fight the same ones.

Each named NPC keeps a daily schedule, read from the AI packages in the game's data. Where is, on the Players tab of the social window, tells you where a named NPC's schedule puts them now, or at the hour you give (0 to 23): type their full name. Adrianne Avenicci, for example, sleeps until six, works her forge until five, is in Warmaiden's through the evening and walks Whiterun after eight.

A quest that asks you to kill a named townsperson, such as a Dark Brotherhood contract, puts that person in your game where the quest has them: you can harm them there, and for every other player they live on. An item a quest places for you, such as the piece a Thieves Guild job sends you to take, is in your game only. A guard killed in a fight over a bounty is dead for everyone for ten minutes, and alive again after that.

Dropped items

What you drop lies on the ground for any player to pick up for 4 real hours, and is then gone. In your own home it stays. The first player to pick an item up has it, and it is gone for everyone else at once. An item dropped in a dungeon copy lies in that copy only. At most 100 dropped items lie in one place; past that a drop is refused and the item stays in your pack.

Who attacks you

Bandits, the Forsworn, necromancers, draugr, most creatures and anyone Skyrim makes your enemy attack when they see you; wolves, bears and sabre cats attack when you come close. The Vigilants of Stendarr, hunters, travelling adventurers, the Dawnguard, the war camps' soldiers and sailors leave you alone and fight back if you attack them; some of them turn on you when your story makes you their enemy, as in Skyrim. The people Skyrim places dead, such as Ilas-Tei on the northern coast, the woodcutter by Pinewood Grove and the bodies in Alftand and the Twilight Sepulcher, are corpses where the game put them, for every player.

Enemies' levels

Bandits, creatures and draugr, and the townspeople and guards whose level grows with the player, are made for your level when you are alone, and for the highest level among the players there when several of you are near. A player elsewhere in the world changes nothing where you are. In a dungeon they are made for the highest level your group had when each of you first entered it. A place's own level range applies: Embershard Mine's enemies are made for level 6 to 10. An enemy keeps its level until it is made again.

Doors, gates and levers

Doors, gates, levers and bridges are the same for everyone. When a player opens a door or pulls a lever, every player nearby sees it move, and anyone who arrives later finds it that way until the place resets (ten in-game days, or when a dungeon copy resets). In a dungeon, your group's copy has its own doors, gates, levers and locks, and another group's copy is not changed by yours.

A closed door or gate stops blows and bodies: enemies cannot hit you through it or walk through it, and your blows do not pass through it either. People open unlocked doors to reach you, and locked ones only with the key; animals and most creatures cannot open doors. Whiterun's main gate opens when the guard outside it lets you in (give him the news from Helgen, persuade him or pay him), and stays open for every player once any guard has let someone in. High Hrothgar's doors open for you and your party when the Greybeards summon you, and Delphine's secret door in the Sleeping Giant Inn when she shows it to you in "A Blade in the Dark".

Followers

Hire a follower or take an animal companion the way you do in Skyrim, through their dialogue. They follow you with Skyrim's own behaviour, and you give them commands and trade items with them in dialogue as usual. Other players see them walking with you and cannot hurt them. A follower everyone knows from a town, such as Uthgerd or Aela, becomes your own copy: the town keeps its own, and another player can hire theirs. A housecarl your own story gives you, such as Lydia, is yours. Your follower comes back with you at your next login until you dismiss them. You can have one follower and one animal at a time, and a hireling's 500 gold comes out of your purse. Your follower's blows on enemies count, and what it kills counts as your kill. A follower only fights those who are fighting you. Enemies fight your follower too when it is clearly nearer to them than you are. A follower who runs out of health falls, gets up whole 20 seconds later, and never dies.

Random encounters

The encounters on Skyrim's roads and in the wilds, such as the thief who demands your gold, the soldiers escorting a prisoner and the hunters, are shared: every player nearby sees the same people. An encounter starts when a player comes near its spot; when everyone has left, it ends and its people are removed, and the same spot can start another 15 to 45 minutes later. Encounters that Skyrim runs only once, or ends for good when someone in them dies, come back as well. Random dragon attacks are on for every player from the start.

Items lying in the world

Ingots, ingredients, potions and the other items placed around Skyrim, the plants you can harvest and the ore veins are your own copy, as in your own game. When you pick one up, harvest it or mine a vein out, it is gone for you until the cell resets, 240 game hours later (10 game days; at the realm's timescale of 20, that is 12 real hours); other players find it there for them. Inside a dungeon, your group shares one copy. An ore vein gives what Skyrim's own vein gives, three pieces of ore for most.

What a player drops lies on the ground for anyone to pick up until the cell resets, 240 game hours after it was dropped, and is gone then; in your own home it stays. At most 100 dropped items lie in one place: past that, a drop is refused, the item stays in your pack and the chat says so.

An item that belongs to someone (an ingot at a smith's forge, food in a house, anything in someone's chest) is stolen goods if you take it, and if a witness sees the theft you get a bounty (see Crime). Items follow the same rules as chests (Chests: whose they are): nothing in a dungeon, nothing Skyrim gives the player, nothing of people who fight you outside the towns and cities and nothing of a faction you belong to is stolen. The item stays marked as stolen, including after it is dropped and picked up by another player. You cannot trade it, give it with Give an item, put it in a letter, stock it in your stall or put it in a guild bank, and no merchant or fence buys it. You can wear it, fight with it, keep it in your stash and break it down for materials at a smith.

Raids

When 15 or more living players stand outdoors in the same town (a town, not a city), bandits raid it: one bandit for each player and a Bandit Chief, drawn from Skyrim's leveled bandit lists up to the level of the highest-level player there. Each raider's health and damage are raised by 25% for every player beyond the first, and the chief has twice the health. The chief takes damage only when two different players hit it within 3 seconds of each other. If every raider is killed within 10 minutes, each player who hit one gets 50 gold; otherwise the raiders leave. A town is not raided again for 15 minutes after a raid begins.

Time, waiting and sleeping

The clock is the same for everyone. Game time runs 20 times as fast as real time, so a game day lasts 72 real minutes. Waiting and sleeping are switched off: T and beds do not let you wait or sleep, and the hour cannot be skipped any other way.

A bed rests you, with no time passing. Press E on a bed you may use for Skyrim's Rested (skills improve 5% faster for 8 hours), Well Rested in your own house (10%), or Lover's Comfort with your spouse in the same place (15%). The effect shows in your Active Effects and lasts through a logout until its 8 game hours are up. As in Skyrim you cannot use a bed someone else owns, while enemies are nearby, while guards are after you, or while trespassing. An inn's room cannot be rented, so an inn's beds do not rest you. Skyrim shows "You cannot sleep in this location." when you use a bed, and the rest is applied anyway: the chat line and your Active Effects show it.

Skyrim's menus do not pause the world

Other players and NPCs keep moving while you have the inventory, the journal, Tab, a container, barter, crafting or any other of Skyrim's menus open. The main menu, loading screens and the character creator pause your game, and so do the Skills screen with its level-up choice, lockpicking, reading a book and the world map: those need the game paused to draw. Only your own game pauses. Other players and the clock keep going, and your game catches up when you close the menu.

Being seen

Light, distance, movement and your Sneak skill decide whether an enemy, a guard or a townsperson sees you, as in Skyrim. An enemy that has not noticed you does not come for you; one that loses sight of you follows where you went for a while, searches the place it last saw you, and then gives up. A guard comes for your bounty once they notice you. The Sneak eye shows how close you are to being seen, and sneaking where someone could see you raises Sneak.

Enemies speak in a fight as they do in Skyrim: as they attack, block, take a hit, die, taunt or flee, when they spot you or lose you, while they search for you, and when one of their side falls. Every player near the fight hears the same line from the same enemy at the same moment. An owner who finds you in their house after they have locked it for the night tells you to leave in their own voice before they call the guards.

Pursuit

Creatures and bandits give up the chase once they are drawn far from where they started: they heal and walk home. Inside a dungeon they do not give up. A guard coming to arrest you can give up the chase; your bounty stays, and the next guard who sees you comes for you again.

Shards

The realm, Ember, is not split into shards: everyone online shares one open world, apart from Helgen and the copied dungeon interiors.

Commands

Everything you do in the game has a window, a menu or a person: O opens the social window, E on a player opens their menu, and talking to a trainer, a court wizard or a blacksmith puts their buttons beside the conversation. A command typed for something a window does is answered with the window's name, and nothing else happens. Only chat and a few questions are typed. /help in game lists them; the other spellings are /party for /p, /whisper, /w and /msg for /tell, and /commands for /help.