The Temple of Miraak is the second main quest of the Dragonborn DLC. Strange things are happening on Solstheim: people wander about in a trance, building structures around the island’s Stones, and the name Miraak keeps coming up. At the ruined Temple of Miraak you meet Frea, a Skaal warrior who wants answers just as badly as you do, and together you descend into a dungeon packed with traps, draugr and cultists.
How to start
- The quest normally follows Dragonborn and begins when you reach the Temple of Miraak.
- It can also be started without finishing Dragonborn: free the Skaal working at the Stone nearest their village, then talk to Storn Crag-Strider in Skaal Village, who sends you to find his daughter Frea.
Walkthrough
Find Frea and talk to her
Dragon skeletons lie around the outskirts of the temple, and spellbound workers toil away rebuilding it. Frea is trying, without success, to snap one of them, Ysra, out of it. She explains that something has taken hold of most people on the island and is making them build structures that corrupt the Stones. Her father, the shaman Storn, believes Miraak has returned, though she thinks that impossible. She resists the effect thanks to an amulet she carved herself, and Storn shields the remaining Skaal in the village. Mention that Miraak tried to have you killed and she agrees you should find out what lies below. Two cultists interrupt the chat; deal with them, then follow Frea down the long ramp into the temple. Be warned that Draugr Deathlords and Death Overlords can appear here even at low level.
Explore the Temple: entrance halls
Frea suggests searching the four side rooms near the entrance. The first room on the left has a bowl of gems in an alcove; the second has potions and a chest. Where the corridor bends at the north end, a pressure plate fires poison darts, and two cultists plus two draugr from the side crypts attack. Go down the stairs to the west, past two more pressure plates in a narrow passage, and pull the chain beside a large gate.
The cage chamber
A big chamber with cages hanging from the ceiling follows, and Frea wonders aloud what was done to the prisoners. She points out an upper balcony whose stairs have collapsed. Circle the central pit to the northwest corner, where two sarcophagi burst open. From there you can hop onto a large diagonal beam, walk up it and drop onto the balcony, which holds a throne and a chest. Then descend into the pit, fight more cultists and open the gate with the handle on the left.
Traps and the blade corridor
The tunnels heading northeast hold more crypts and a swinging spike door, which charging draugr often trigger on themselves; a battering ram may also drop. Both the upper path (with a chest) and the lower path lead to a set of double doors guarded by a fire-jet pressure plate. Behind them are three rows of swinging axe blades. Frea wisely stays behind. Dodge through, or use Whirlwind Sprint or Become Ethereal, and pull the lever right of the gate to stop the blades. Fragments of a smashed dragon claw door on the floor suggest someone forced their way through long ago.
Continue west and south. Just past some rubble beyond the next doors, a chain opens a secret room with a chest and several soul gems, possibly including black ones. Follow the passage around to a handle you could see earlier through an iron grate; it raises a gate and drops a bridge to form a ramp, with a dart trap right at the bottom. Three more bridges fall to reveal two draugr and a boss-level cultist. Beat them and go through the double doors into the Temple of Miraak Sanctum.
Temple of Miraak Sanctum
A caged corridor leads west to six skeletons, followed by waking draugr and two battering rams. Where Frea notices a collapsed floor, drop down: a side room off this lower tunnel holds the spell tomes Reanimate Corpse and Magelight, soul gems and potions. Back up, pass two cultists beneath the cage corridor, cross the upper walkway along the east wall and take the stairs further down.
The Word Wall
A room lined with sarcophagi has a dragon skeleton hung from the ceiling like a trophy, and a Word Wall teaching a word of Dragon Aspect. Frea guesses this display is why the dragons razed the temple. Learning the word wakes the draugr; one of them, the Gatekeeper, carries the key to the iron door inside his own sarcophagus.
The hidden passage
Beyond lies a meeting room with long-dead occupants still seated, then a dining hall and a kitchen that looks like a dead end. In the kitchen’s southeast corner, next to an alchemy lab, a small tunnel leads to a handle that opens a secret passage in the dining hall. It runs south to a circular room. In a side room with three Lurker busts, Frea gladly leaves the handle in front of the statues’ mouths to you. It opens a floor gate; take the spiral stairs down, cross to a wooden spiral staircase, and pull another handle to reveal a hidden stairwell down to a wooden door.
Find the source of Miraak’s power
Through the door is a large hall with Nordic arches, more Lurker statues, draugr, skeletons and tripwire boulder traps. At its end stands a big statue of a crab-like creature with a master-level chest beneath it. Pull the chain behind the statue to open one more hidden door, then follow the tunnels to a round chamber that looks like nothing else in the temple. On a pedestal rests the Black Book Waking Dreams. Frea finds it unsettling, as if it is both here and somewhere else, and suspects it is what you came for.
Read the Black Book and approach Miraak
Opening the book summons a tentacle that grabs you and drags you into Apocrypha, the realm of Hermaeus Mora. You land on your knees in front of Miraak, who recognises you as a fellow Dragonborn but is not impressed. His jab depends on your record: fewer than ten dragons slain earns open contempt, ten to twenty-five gets grudging acknowledgement, more than twenty-five a little more respect, and if you have already beaten Alduin he claims he could have done it himself had he not chosen another path.
He then shows off all three words of Dragon Aspect, tells you that you have no power in this realm, and boasts that he already controls the minds of Solstheim’s people. Once they finish his temple, he says, he can return home. Then he orders two Seekers to send you back and flies off on his dragon, Sahrotaar.
Talk to Frea
The Seekers bombard you with magic until everything fades and you wake up back in the temple. Frea suggests returning to Skaal Village to consult her father, Storn. That ends the quest and starts The Fate of the Skaal.
Rewards
- Word of Power for Dragon Aspect
- Black Book: Waking Dreams
- Spell tomes for Reanimate Corpse and Magelight, a master-level chest, plus gems, soul gems and leveled loot along the way
Tips and notes
- Frea is a capable companion throughout but will not follow you through the blade corridor until the blades are stopped.
- Let draugr chase you into the spike door and blade traps; they happily hurt themselves.
- Miraak’s taunt changes with the number of dragons you have killed, so it is worth hearing on more than one character.
- Not to be confused with the location page for the Temple of Miraak itself.
