Dead Men’s Respite is an ancient Nordic tomb on a riverbank southwest of Morthal, and the final resting place of King Olaf One-Eye. Most players come here for the Bards College initiation, chasing a lost poem and the ghost of the bard who wrote it. Expect a proper dungeon crawl: draugr, spiders, pendulum blades, rotating doors and a king who very much objects to bad reviews.
What you’ll find
- A Ruby Dragon Claw on the table in the first room. Picking it up opens the door and releases four draugr – you can sneak-kill them in their sleep before taking the claw.
- A burial chamber with rotating doorways controlled by a pull chain; each pull opens some passages and closes others.
- A room where two frostbite spiders drop from the ceiling, with a floor grate leading to a watery passage.
- A cage door rigged with pendulum axes, an Arcane Enchanter and a magically sealed door.
- A leveled Draugr Warlord, a powerful draugr that may use the Disarm shout, and a room where about six Restless Draugr burst out of cages.
- The ghost of Svaknir beside his own body, and a Dragon Claw door leading to Olaf’s throne-lined burial hall.
- A Word Wall behind Olaf’s coffin, and a treasure room with a lever that unlocks a shortcut back to the first room.
Quests
Tending the Flames, the Bards College’s initiation quest, sends you here for King Olaf’s Verse: take the book from Svaknir’s corpse, follow his ghost, and defeat King Olaf One-Eye before leaving. The tomb can also be a target for Trouble in Skyrim, one of the repeatable jobs from Farkas of the Companions, for Azra’s Staffs from Neloth (Dragonborn), and for Find the Source of Power, the Word Wall quest started by a Letter from a Friend.
Notable items
- Ruby Dragon Claw
- Word Wall for Whirlwind Sprint
- The Buying Game – Speech skill book in the rotating-doors section, past a battering ram and two draugr.
- King Olaf can drop an Ebony Sword or Ebony War Axe from level 17.
- A Grand Soul Gem, a Common Soul Gem and scrolls in the Warlord’s room, plus a master-locked chest behind an expert-locked door.
Tips
Activate the pendulum cage door from its bottom right corner to stay clear of the axes, and pull the chain on the pillar once you are past to shut the trap off. The combination for the Dragon Claw door is Wolf, Hawk, Wolf.
Olaf and his friends wake in waves. The draugr on their thrones reportedly stay put until you fully enter the burial hall, so an archer or mage in the doorway can thin the crowd early. Olaf may also try to Disarm you, so keep your weapon grip firm and a spare blade handy.
Nearby
Closest places covered on TamrielSaga: Robber’s Gorge, Brood Cavern, Orotheim, Fort Snowhawk, Forebears’ Holdout.
Location data (hold, map position, editor ID) read from the Skyrim game files; details checked against community wiki articles and summarised in our own words.
