Where to find the best swords and daggers in Skyrim

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim has hundreds of weapons to locate and create, but there are a select few with their own special look and assets.
We show you how to find two of the best daggers and two of the most powerful swords in Skryim.

Chillrend
This icy blue sword can be found during the Thieves’ Guild quest ‘The Pursuit’. You’ll find it on a table upstairs in Mercer Frey’s house in Riften. It dishes out an extra 15 points of frost damage per swing and also has a chance to freeze your opponent for two seconds. The sword improves in attack power as you level up.
Nightingale’s Blade
You’ll get this dark sword for completing the Thieves’ Guild quest ‘Hard Answers’. It absorbs a certain amount of health and stamina from your enemy per second, depending on what level you were when you obtained it.
Mehrunes’ Razor
Once you reach level 20, head to Dawnstar. A courier should hand you a note advertising a new Daedric museum in the town. Head there and speak to Silus. You can start the ‘Pieces of the Past’ quest here, which will lead you on the path to finding the powerful Mehrunes’ Razor dagger. You’ll need to find three parts of the dagger and return to Silus before performing one last little quest to obtain the dagger.
Mehrunes’ Razor has a small chance to instantly kill a target.
Blade of Woe
Progress far down the Dark Brotherhood questline to get this deadly dagger, which absorbs ten points of health from an opponent when you attack them.
You can also get it by pickpocketing Astrid with the ‘Misdirection’ Pickpocket perk, or by killing her when you first meet her.
More info and links
To find out how to join the Thieves’ Guild or the Dark Brotherhood in Skyrim, read our guide, Skyrim: How to be a master thief.
To get the most damage out of your daggers, learn the perk in the Sneak tree which makes your sneak attacks with daggers 15 times their normal damage. Equip the Dark Brotherhood gloves and when you perform a sneak backstab you’ll do 30 times normal damage.
To recharge your special weapons, make sure you have a soul gem in your inventory. You can catch an enemy’s soul by using the Soul Trap spell or by killing them with a weapon that traps souls. Go into your inventory, select your weapon and hit the recharge button.

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Dom Sacco

Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.

As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.