Skyrim:Folgunthur

Nordic Ruin: Folgunthur (view on map)
# of Zones	2
Clearable	Yes
Dungeon	Yes
Respawn Time	10 days or 30 days
Level	Min: 6
Occupants
Draugr, Frostbite Spiders, Mikrul Gauldurson
Important Treasure
Fire and Darkness Gauldur Amulet Fragment Gauldur Blackblade Ivory Dragon Claw
Console Location Code(s)
Folgunthur02, Folgunthur01
Region
Hjaalmarch
Location
Southeast of Solitude West of the Abandoned Shack
Special Features
Word Wall	Frost Breath

Folgunthur

Folgunthur is a medium-sized Nordic ruin located southeast of Solitude. The ruins have two interior zones: Folgunthur and Folgunthur Crypt, which houses the tomb of Mikrul Gauldurson.

Daynas Valen's tent outside Folgunthur.

The deserted camp of Daynas Valen and his group is near the ruin entrance. There are some notes explaining his mission and several bed rolls are available for resting. There are also a couple of deathbell plants outside the ruin entrance.

Related Quests

• Forbidden Legend: Investigate the forgotten Gauldur Legend.

Notes

• Once you get back to the first room, near the entry, with the pillar puzzle already solved, insert the claw in the keyhole near the eastern wall. It opens a secret chamber with a locked chest.
• There is a small, unmarked camp 280 feet west-northwest of Folgunthur, containing a cooking spit and a copy of the Pickpocket skill book Purloined Shadows.

Walkthrough

Zone 1: Folgunthur

For a short while you are simply following in Daynas Valen's footsteps, encountering his colleagues' bodies and dead draugr on the way, and meeting no enemies almost until you find Daynas himself.

Eventually you will enter a main chamber with two levels. A copy of the One-handed skill book Fire and Darkness can be found to the left as you enter this chamber—it is on the floor next to a dead adventurer. A stairway leading up is found directly across the room, just after your first encounter with 4 draugrs in the first level. Be careful with the stairs leading up to the second level as they are rigged with a trap door which drops you into a water-filled spike pit. A coin purse can be found by swimming down towards the spikes. The pit may be difficult to climb out of, but the trap can be closed with the nearby lever (reachable from the water), thereby lifting you back out. However, followers may have trouble making it up the stairs. If that happens, you can always continue on and they will appear beside you at the beginning of the next save zone.

Climb the stairs and follow the passages to the body of Daynas Valen and a raised drawbridge. Take the Ivory Dragon Claw he carries and use it in the keyhole to lower the drawbridge. Keep the claw as it is required to unlock the Ivory Claw door further on. Daynas' notes provide some background on Gauldur and his sons (and advance the Forbidden Legend quest if you have it), but don't appear to be necessary to finish clearing the dungeon.

Cross the drawbridge, and don't miss the rigged chest down a dead end on the left. Continue through the passages, encountering more draugr along the way. Halfway through the area is a corridor blocked by a series of four metal gates preceded by four levers, two on each wall of the corridor. Each lever opens or closes one or more of the gates. To open all gates, pull the first left-hand and second right-hand levers (the puzzle is reset when all levers are pointing down). Proceed along the corridor and down a wide ruined staircase, avoiding a rockfall that starts from the top of the second half of the staircase as you head down. A draugr at the foot of the stairs may bear the brunt of the rocks.

Through the next door is a squarish room with two draugr on thrones facing a chain on the wall. In the center of the room is a locked circular grate in the floor, covering some stairs that lead further down. To the side of each throne is a door (one of which is open) and a lever. The levers close whichever door is open, and open the closed door. In the right-hand room (when facing the thrones) are three pillars showing three different symbols: snake, whale, and eagle, from left to right (counter-clockwise). The pillars in the left-hand room must be rotated so that they mirror the pillars in the right-hand room: eagle, whale, and snake, from left to right (counter-clockwise). When the correct sequence is shown, the chain in the throne room will open the grate in the floor; otherwise, the chain activates a dart trap above it.

After descending the stairway, and dispatching a few frostbite spiders, you will reach a double door, behind which is a wide corridor leading to the Ivory Claw door. After you pass through the double door it will close, and six draugr will emerge from the sarcophagi lining the walls. The Ivory Claw door is opened with the combination that appears on the claw itself: Hawk—Hawk—Dragon from outermost circle inwards. Beyond lies the exit to the next area.

Zone 2: Folgunthur Crypt

This level leads almost immediately to a large room containing the sarcophagus of Mikrul Gauldurson, who will arise as you approach, along with a number of draugr thralls. When Mikrul is defeated, any surviving thralls will die, and several unopened thrall sarcophagi will crack open, revealing their dead draugr occupants. Mikrul's corpse contains the Gauldur Blackblade, a Writ of Sealing, and a Gauldur Amulet Fragment (a quest item for Forbidden Legend).

At the rear of the crypt are two gates which are opened using the Ivory Dragon Claw. The gate to the left leads to a collapsed passageway, and only contains minor loot, but the gate to the right leads to a word wall which teaches part of the Frost Breath shout, in front of which is a table bearing some items and a chest containing leveled loot. A door back to the main entrance in Folgunthur, via an iron door, is located at the rear of the room.

Bugs

• Sometimes, you will be unable to get the Frost Breath word from the wall and the sound will loop repeatedly.
  • It may resolve itself if you return once everything has respawned.
• The last gate when exiting back into the entry area sometimes gets stuck and cannot be opened with the lever if it is closed. ^?
  • Turning the console off and reloading the game fixes this issue.

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