The Alteration Ritual Spell is the master-level Alteration quest at the College of Winterhold in Winterhold. Tolfdir is trying to improve on Ebonyflesh and has run into a problem that only a dragon’s heart can solve. Your job is to recover an ancient sacrificial dagger, use it to carve heartscales from a dragon corpse, and bring them home. The reward is the most powerful defensive spell in the school.
How to start
- Requirement: Alteration skill of 90. Tolfdir only offers the task once you have reached it; your journal files it under the College of Winterhold quests.
- Talk to Tolfdir at the College and ask whether there is anything more you can learn about Alteration.
- He explains that his work on a stronger version of Ebonyflesh has stalled. Ordinary dragon scales are not potent enough, but old records mention dragon heartscales, and a dagger called Kahvozein’s Fang, supposedly sharp enough to slice individual scales from a dragon. Agree to fetch both.
- Ask about the dagger to learn its history: it was named after the dragon worshipped by a sect of the dragon cult, whose high priest kept it constantly sharpened for the next sacrifice.
Walkthrough
1. Find Kahvozein’s Fang
The dagger’s location is chosen by the radiant quest system, so it varies between playthroughs. It is usually placed in a Nordic tomb guarded by a Dragon Priest, for example Volskygge, Ragnvald, High Gate Ruins or Forelhost. Follow the quest marker and expect a tough fight at the end.
2. Harvest the heartscales
Equip Kahvozein’s Fang in your right hand; it does not work in the left. Then activate a dead dragon. It does not matter whether the dragon has just died or was killed long ago, and even a dragon reduced to ash will do. Searching the remains yields dragon heartscales. Tolfdir says a single heartscale is enough.
Some dragons do not work: the skeletal dragon during The Staff of Magnus, Krosulhah from the Dragonborn add-on, and Mirmulnir, the first dragon you kill.
3. Return to Tolfdir
Hand Tolfdir the heartscale. Delighted, he works out on the spot that the energies must be channelled through the nexus a second and third time, and gives you the first copy of the new tome.
Rewards
- Spell tome: Dragonhide, which lets you ignore 80% of all physical damage for 30 seconds
- The spell tome Mass Paralysis becomes available for purchase afterwards
Tips and notes
- You need a dragon to have died somewhere, which normally means progressing to Dragon Rising. You can pick up the quest earlier, but cannot finish it until dragons start appearing. One workaround is the dragon Vulthuryol in Blackreach.
- You can find the Fang and harvest heartscales before Tolfdir asks for them.
- Heartscales you collect after the quest are no longer quest items. They cannot be used for smithing, but merchants will buy them.
- Making Alteration legendary resets the skill below 90, and you will not be able to hand in the heartscales until you raise it back to 90.
- Starting the quest while Tolfdir is still outside Saarthal can make it count as an ordinary quest instead of a College quest.
- The other master spell quests in the same series are the Conjuration, Destruction, Illusion and Restoration ritual spells.
