Skyrim:Shroud Hearth Barrow

Nordic Ruin: Shroud Hearth Barrow (view on map)
# of Zones	2
Clearable	Yes
Dungeon	Yes
Respawn Time	10 days or 30 days
Level	Min: 6
Occupants
Draugr, Skeletons, Wyndelius Gatharian
Console Location Code(s)
ShroudHearthBarrowExterior, ShroudHearthBarrow01, ShroudHearthBarrow02
Region
The Rift
Location
Just east of Ivarstead
Special Features
Word Wall	Kyne's Peace
# of Alchemy Labs	1

Shroud Hearth Barrow

Shroud Hearth Barrow is an ancient Nordic ruin located just northeast of Ivarstead. It has two interior zones: Shroud Hearth Barrow and Shroud Hearth Depths.

The residents of Ivarstead believe the barrow is haunted. Wilhelm, the local innkeeper, will provide you with the most information about it, citing the example of Wyndelius Gatharian, an adventurer who tried exploring the barrow a year earlier but never returned.

Related Quests

• Lifting the Shroud: Investigate the haunted barrow outside of Ivarstead.

Notes

• A copy of the Illusion skill book Before the Ages of Man can be found on a stone altar near the entrance.

Walkthrough

Zone 1: Shroud Hearth Barrow

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Heading through the booby-trapped door, you will find a typical puzzle door to use the Sapphire Dragon Claw on. The combination is located on the Claw: Moth—Owl—Wolf. Once open it leads to a hall containing five stone caskets with draugr. When moving ahead, a metal gate will automatically open and the five draugr will attack. Once dispatched, you can use the lever behind the opened gate to open the next door which leads to a stair leading up. On the ground floor is a grate, which will open when stepped on causing you to fall in the water. Inside this water pit are several items and one handle. If this handle is activated, the grate will close, leaving no way out until it is pulled a second time.

When going up the stairs, there are two doors, one of which a master locked door behind which is an Expert locked chest with very decent loot. The other leads to a room leading down some stairs. In this room there are an arrow trap, a skeleton archer and a second trap. Moving slowly will make sure no one gets hurt. Immediately after the door to the right is a chest visible through a hole on the wall. Retrieve the chest, a leveled sword and some potions by activating the handle that is to the left and just above eye level. Moving onward, the next room has five skeleton archers in it, all standing in flammable substance. Either use fire magic, or shoot down one of the lights above it to light it up and dispatch these enemies before they move out of the central pit. Before you head downstairs, you may notice a side room with no apparent access; activate a handle on the wall where the stairs are to open the passage. Also, on the left side as you just entered there are two more coffins that can be opened by activating a handle located on the wall next to each one of these coffins; one of them has a draugr that you must fight, and the other one a skeleton. Once you cross the pit and head up the stairs in the opposite direction, three draugr will awaken.

In the next room is a tripwire that activates a pendulum trap. It can be used to kill one of the draugr, or jump over it to avoid the hassle of running through the trap. A chain at the entrance of the next room can be activated to stop the swinging blades. This room holds a few draugr and another pressure plate triggering a swinging door with spikes. One of the draugr in this room will have a Shroud Hearth Barrow key for you to pick up.

The next hall contains a bridge in the raised position, a pressure plate and four pillars. Before heading up drop into the shallow water to your left and activate the chain, which raises a gate. A coin purse and draugr body are there to loot. Also, behind the waterfall at the far end of the room is a weapon. Next head up the stairs and open the door on the other side of the pressure plate. Behind it is a second pressure plate, four alcoves, and a tougher draugr. Kill the draugr and step on the pressure plate to make make a mechanism move. The mechanism will rotate stone walls in the alcoves so that you can see a statue behind each at any given time. Keep track of the symbol on each statue behind these rotating walls because they represent the correct combination needed for the pillars outside of this room.

Back to the room with the bridge, activate the pillars to the proper combination (left-to-right while looking towards the inner room with the rotating stones, this should be: Whale, Eagle, Snake, Whale). Once the pillars are in place, step on the pressure plate in front of the bridge to have the bridge lower and the gate beyond it open.

Directly behind this doorway is another pressure plate that activates a trap, but moving slowly over it will once again leave you unharmed. To the right is an apprentice locked door leading to a room with a gold ingot in it, laying on a reverse pressure plate which activates a fire trap when removed. If you are quick enough, you can get out of the danger area before it activates, or shoot the ingot off of the pedestal and wait for the trap to stop.

The last trap in this zone is a rockfall trap set off with a tripwire. Jumping over it, or activating it and backing off will leave you unharmed. Further down the way is the entrance to Shroud Hearth Depths.

Zone 2: Shroud Hearth Depths

The word wall at the end of the barrow

The first hall in this next zone has thirteen stone coffins in it. The moment you enter too far, a metal gate will close the way back and enemies will start waking from their resting places. There are six skeletons and seven draugr, of which one is boss level. A nice easy way to reduce this is to use a rune and cast it at the coffins, causing them to wake up/die depending on rune damage and can easily reduce the number to five or so if you have the Rune Master perk. The enemies will wake up as they are killed, and once all are dead, both the way back and the way forward will be opened.

A combination of stealth and archery is another easy way to win this fight - simply crouch by the entrance and pick off the enemies as they rise. It is possible to clear the room without being touched if your skills are high enough (may require a point in the archery perk Steady Hand).

The last area contains a novice-level booby-trapped chest with a word wall containing part of the Kyne's Peace shout. There is an adept-level chest underneath the wood bridge in the northern part of the water. To the left of the wall, there is a broken bridge that leads to several items. Use the Whirlwind Sprint shout to reach it. Once you have the shout from the wall, you can exit through a bridge on the right of the word wall.

Bugs

• If the dragon claw door does not work, check here for possible fixes.
• The word wall may not glow, rendering you unable to learn part of the Kyne's Peace shout. ^?