Highlights
- The Elder Scrolls offers various transformative experiences, from being a magical cow in Skyrim to becoming a vampire in multiple games, each with its own advantages and disadvantages.
- The Bone Goliath in Elder Scrolls Online is a powerful but short-lived transformation that boosts offensive abilities or inflicts area-of-effect damage.
- The werewolf transformation in Daggerfall, Morrowind, Skyrim, and Online turns players into fierce killing machines, while the Vampire Lord form in Skyrim grants regal powers and the ability to switch between forms.
Love it or leave it, The Elder Scrolls has transformed the face of the video game culture with its “do anything, go anywhere” design philosophy. Every magical fantasy, from dragon slaying to ancient lore collecting, can be enjoyed somewhere in the series. Since real-life mythology is packed with examples of humans transforming into terrifying creatures and hefty monsters, it makes sense that one of the most extensive power fantasy sandboxes of the age should offer the same dark bargain.
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The Companions are an integral aspect to Skyrim, so it’s best that players get to know the faction that helped the rise of the Nords.
Gentle role-playing is all well and good, but sometimes a new playthrough calls for an obscenely powered monster form to help mix things up (those mixed-up things usually end up being a bandit’s internal organs). Each game offers at least one supernatural transformation for players to skinwalk into on their quest for darkly dreaming immersion. Since mortal players can only inhabit one form per save file, which night-blessed metamorphosis wins out over the others?
6 Magical Cow (Skyrim)
An Udderly Useless Transformation
- A one-use joke transformation
- Gained by agreeing to help Brelyna test a spell
Some magically inclined players may be familiar with this transformation. It can be achieved one time only by agreeing to help Brelyna Maryon in the College of Winterhold. The Dragonborn is unable to do much besides huff and wait for Brelyna to transform them back, but enduring the slightly humiliating makeover makes Brelyna available as a follower and marriage partner.
This is the rare case of the player character being transformed into another creature. Of course, with a certain mad Daedric artifact, the player will be able to transform their enemies into a random selection of creatures and objects. Unfortunately, Brelyna never formalizes the spell into something that the player could use, as a pair of functional horns would come in very handy when up against fearsome opponents (or in an uncharitable encounter with Nazeem).
5 Vampire (Daggerfall, Morrowind, Oblivion, Skyrim, Online)
A Powerful Lifestyle Trade-Off
- Gained by becoming infected with Sanguinus Vampiris
- A common supernatural transformation
Except for the first game, Arena, being able to contract Sanguinus Vampiris is common across all the Elder Scrolls titles. The transformation occurs after three days without treatment of the disease. While vampirism confers some serious benefits, it can make life (or undead) challenging. The main downsides include taking damage from sunlight (or in Skyrim, no health, magicka, or stamina regeneration) and being hated by the general population (especially by guards) when the vampire in question has gone a long time without feeding.
In Oblivion and Skyrim, a vampire’s powers increase in potency the longer the player abstains from drinking the blood of living sentient beings. After full hunger, vampires can turn invisible, magically charm, and see in the dark. Vampires have to spend most of their time hunting in the wilderness or through dungeons to obtain potions and items, especially in Morrowind, where shopkeepers will refuse to deal with them.
4 Bone Goliath (Online)
A Powerful Necromancy Ultimate Skill, But Too Short-Lived
- A 20-second transformation for master necromancers
- Saps enemy health or massively increases damage depending on the build
Exclusive to the bone tyrant, a necromancer class line in Elder Scrolls Online, the bone goliath warps the player into a mesh of sinew and leathery flesh, buffing their offensive stats or health-sapping area of effect damage, depending on the player’s choice of goliath, but the effect only lasts a maximum of 20 seconds. Boning out in public in such a manner slaps a bounty on the player if non-necromancer normies see them.
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Playing as a necromancer in video games can be a lot of fun. These examples offer the best experiences.
Although the Bone Colossus form is worthy of being an Ultimate and is one of the coolest and most necromantic transformations, at least visually speaking, with Argonians and Khajiit each getting a unique model while transformed, Online requires an element of balance, and therefore, the secret ingredient, being able to take a horribly broken overpowered build for a ride (which can be found in other occult transformations) is somewhat lost.
3 Wereboar (Daggerfall)
The Whole-Hog Alternative To A Classic Full-Moon Predator
- Shares most of its upsides and downsides with the werewolf
- A unique playable take on monstrous transformation mythology
Many Elder Scrolls fans will be familiar with the other were-type, but not this shrieking, tusk-mouthed monster. Wereboars are found exclusively in the Daggerfall region. The only way to obtain the dark power of the pig is to encounter a wereboar in the wilderness and survive the oinking onslaught. Doing so has a slight chance (0.6% per hit) of contracting the boar variant of lycanthropy. Like their wolf counterparts, wereboars are immune to iron and steel-quality weapons while running around in beast mode.
Wereboar players gain an increase in strength, endurance, speed, and agility attributes in mortal or lycanthrope form. Hircine’s less well-known hunting gift also grants a plethora of enhanced bestial abilities: swimming, hand-to-hand, running, jumping, stealth, swimming, and critical strikes. One downside to being a wereboar is that the player is required to kill townspeople or town guards every 15 days (not just bandits in dungeons). Otherwise, their maximum health will plummet over the month.
2 Werewolf (Daggerfall, Morrowind, Skyrim, Online)
The Ultimate Killing Machine
- While lycanthropy can come with downsides, it makes the player nigh-invincible
- Comes with hunting obligations in Morrowind and Daggerfall
Tooth and nail, the purest expression of anger and the most fun way to let out some steam after a particularly enervating or aggravating work week: the werewolf. Hircine’s ultimate gift to loyal hunters has the sentient races of Tamriel transform into anthropomorphic wolves, free to terrorize and hunt whomever they please. The gift can be gained in Daggerfall and Morrowind by being scratched by a werewolf, and in Online the same can be achieved through some special NPC werewolves or another wolfish player.
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The best werewolf experience can be found in Skyrim, by following the Companions questline. There’s nothing quite like slamming it across the tundra plains, rugged hills, and soft snowy cliffs of the northern province as a gigantic, lumbering knife monster, especially since the transformation is purely optional and does not require the regular killing of innocents as it does in Morrowind and Daggerfall.
1 Vampire Lord (Skyrim)
The Regal Supernatural State
- Levitates above the earth like a god!
- The “Vampirism Plus” package, with mist form, vampiric grip, and more
Honorable mention here to the Blood Scion seen in ESO, created by the first vampire, Lamae Bal, to rival the vampire lords created directly by Molag Bal. The vampire lord ability provides two supernatural states for the price of one, and the player can freely switch between regular and regal vampires at will. As with Skyrim‘s werewolf, the vampire lord comes with its own skill tree, which opens the way for even more evil power. Through blood magic or infected claw attacks, none can stand in its way in combat.
By hovering and flapping their demonic wings, or by transforming into bats for a quick burst forward, they can traverse the landscape quickly and easily. This, combined with their “unearthly reflexes” skill, makes outrunning vampire hunters a piece of blood pie. Taking the vampire option over the wolf is a no-brainer, except for those who particularly enjoy the idea of role-playing the aforementioned vampire hunter. Then again, if given the choice, they would probably stick exclusively to their precious human or elf skin.
