The wild and untamed lands of Skyrim are teeming with adversaries, from the wretched to the powerful, and the monstrous to the meek. This chapter presents them alphabetized by type, so you can identify the foes you’re about to engage in battle. This allows you to identify weaknesses that you can exploit, bolster your defenses against the spells and abilities your enemies will use, and know what kind of loot to expect. Heed the following notes before exploring the Bestiary in detail.

Bestiary Advice

Enemies

Enemies that are members of one of the ten races that you can choose from have all the benefits of their race (which you can read about at the start of the Training chapter) in addition to any statistics indicated in the Bestiary below.

For example, a High Elf Warlock has a higher Magicka than indicated due to their Highborn Magicka racial ability. A Breton Warlock will be more resistant to spells because of their Magic Resistance ability. A Nord Warlock will shrug off frost spells (Frost Resistance), while a Dark Elf Warlock will be more resistant to fire (Fire Resistance).

As your level increases, the difficulty of the enemies you encounter will typically increase in stages. This is most visible when you read the name of your adversaries, which usually indicates their level. For example, a “Novice Necromancer” (Level 1) is noticeably weaker than an “Apprentice Necromancer” (Level 6) or a “Master Necromancer” (Level 36). A few characters (such as your Followers) work differently: Their level will gradually increase as your level does, though possibly at a slower rate.

Ordinary citizens of Skyrim and unique enemies for particular quests are not listed in this section. The vast majority of unique enemies borrow their statistics from a related creature that is on the chart, perhaps with a slight change to their weapons, armor, or spells. For example, all of the Civil War military camps have a commander with a unique name. However, these are simply named versions of the “Imperial Legate” or “Stormcloak Commander” characters in the Bestiary.

Items and Spells

(Parenthesis) indicate that an item may or may not be present—random chance per creature.

A / Slash indicates that one of the items will be present, the others will not.

[Brackets] indicate that the version of the item carried by the creature cannot be looted from their body. For example, most Skeleton armor can’t be taken from Skeletons.

Many creatures have some form of Loot Item (eg. Skeleton Loot). These are typically lists of small items (food, ingredients, etc.) that the creature may be carrying; a creature may have none, one, or several of these items on them when killed. For each creature type, we’ve provided a quick summary of the kinds of things they’re likely to be carrying.

The Bestiary Chart Legend