The Lover Stone is a standing stone east of Markarth, just north of Kolskeggr Mine. It doesn’t come with a dungeon, a boss or even a grumpy necromancer – just a simple, generous blessing: everything you do teaches you a little more. If you can’t decide whether you’re a warrior, a mage or a thief, this is the stone that says ‘why not all three?’
What you’ll find
- The Lover Stone itself. Activating it gives you 15% more experience in all skills, permanently, until you swap to another stone.
- No guardians or loot listed – it’s a quick stop on the road east out of Markarth, and an easy detour if you’re already visiting Kolskeggr Mine just to the south.
Who should use it
- Hybrid builds – Nightblades (stealth and magic), Rangers (stealth and combat) and Spellswords (magic and combat) all benefit, since the bonus spreads across every skill you touch.
- Werewolves – lycanthropes can’t get any rested bonus from sleeping, so a permanent learning boost is a handy substitute.
Tips
The stone’s effect is essentially a permanent version of the Lover’s Comfort bonus, so the two don’t stack – and the same goes for Well Rested. With the Aetherial Crown (Dawnguard), there’s a workaround: take the crown off before you sleep and put it back on afterwards, and you can enjoy the Rested, Well Rested and Lover’s Comfort bonuses alongside the stone. Fiddly, yes, but min-maxers rarely mind a little fiddling. If you plan to spread your points thinly anyway, picking this stone early in a playthrough gets the most mileage out of it.
Good to know
Compared to stones that give flashy once-a-day powers, the Lover Stone is quiet and unglamorous. It just keeps working in the background, every swing, spell and lockpick, for as long as you keep it – which over a long playthrough adds up to a lot.
Nearby
Closest places covered on TamrielSaga: Kolskeggr Mine, Blind Cliff Cave, Four Skull Lookout, Reach Imperial Camp, Shrine to Peryite.
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.