There's hole in the middle of the world like a bottomless pit and the depths of this pit is filled with shit and the vermin of the world inhabit it and they call it Windhelm
One thing you missed: The reason we don’t see blood on Calixto in the first scene is because you can actually find the clothing item blacksmith’s clothes. Here’s how it happened: Calixto at first stalks his victims to determine the quality of the parts he would need. In the case of Susanna, he needed tendons from her legs and arms, which are consistent with the wounds. He killed her on a specific time frame to line up with the ritual. Calixto then left the knife in her to prevent bleeding and carried the body back to Hjerem. He changed into the blacksmith’s clothes, recovered the samples he needed then changed back, then dragged the body to the square to be seen. He then screamed, getting the attention of Silda the Unseen. His ultimate goal is found thanks to ESO. He was creating a Flesh Golem that would have his sister’s soul in it. Problem is that this flesh golem would have killed him, as they are deadric abominations.
Huh, I never thought of it that way, but I suppose it would make sense, as the fact that he doesn’t have bloody clothes on and theres no real reason to suspect it is him due to him since semeingly, Sussana just cried out for help recently. Great explanation as to how it happened!
You know, I basically came to mostly the same conclusions. It doesn't make much sense, that there is such a blood trail to the House, when he just quickly cut her open, extracted her tendants, and left. Those wouldn't have enough blood on them for that kind of trail. Not to mention, I can't remember seeing her clothes anywhere on the crime scene. So if we'd go with the "official" Timeline, the butcher would have stabbed Susanna, prompting her to scream, which alerted the beggar woman, who says she ran to the crime scene the moment she heard the scream. Even if we place her the farthest away within hearing distance, the butcher would have to stab her, killing her immediately, strip her, cut her open *_with surgical precision_* to get the parts he needed, and then flee the scene. Unless there is time manipulation magic involved, I can't see all that activity cramped into such a short time frame. So my theory was pretty much identical to yours: stab her, drag her to the hideout, extract the needed parts, drag the body to the "crime scene", leaving that blood trail. He could also just have abducted her, only killing her in his hideout. But here is where my theory diverges a bit: from the diary and the fact that he wanted to bring his sister back, it's clear, that he's supposed to be at least somewhat knowledgable in magic. So why wouldn't he drag the body to the "crime scene", place it there, and then quickly cast a spell to clean himself up? I'm pretty sure, there are spells to do so, and I simply refuse to believe, that there wasn't some mage somewhere at some point, who invented a spell to help tidy up themself or their workshop. And just because the PC can't learn anything like that is no proof to me. I'd estimate, that probably about 90-95% of all spells you can learn are offensive in some way, with the rest being defensive, healing or for exploration. There's just no need for the PC to have such "daily convenience" spells, as they don't really have any purpose in your heroic, dragonslaying life. And there are spells only NPCs can use/that exist in the world, but you can't use. Flying or levitation magic, for example, for which the Lore reason is, that it's usage is prohibited outside of Morrowind.
Of all the many times replaying Skyrim, Windhelm is one of the few places that has actually made me feel uncomfortable. And not just because of this quest.
Weirdly, it was always and still is probably my favorite city. I spent plenty of time wandering around and making believe in Solitude and Riften when I was younger, but Windhelm will always have my heart. As bleak, freezing, and racist as it is
@@mamie8734 same here, i always make sure to play a khajiit married to either a dunmer or an argonian and to settle down in hjerim because there’s something really funny about literally the dragonborn looking at what is arguably the worst city to be in as one of the beast men/dunmer and going “i’m going to live here”
I never thought about it before, but you’re 100% right that the guards/Wildhelm nords immediately blaming the Dark Elves for “their” young women being killed is such a good place for them to go, as their prejudice has been well established and it would serve as a believable red herring. I’m now really disappointed thinking about how that could have been such an interesting angle to incorporate into the quest and what you could have done with it but what we gonna do? :/
If, you decided to give Viola Giordano’s ring back to her directly from that unrelated misc objective, she openly states she doesn’t trust the Dunmer herself & has some rather prejudiced things to say. I’m surprised Ms Neighbourhood Watch didn’t attempt to connect the Butcher to the Dark Elves. It was just a thought I couldn’t stop thinking, there’s room for a lot of racism in this quest that would be more thematically appropriate than a Jack the Ripper Easter egg mixed up into a necromancy plot
Considering this is one of if not the most broken quests in the game, I have a feeling the devs originally intended for there to be a lot more content in this quest that got cut last minute due to the rushed release date. If you don't do all the steps in a pretty specific order, a lot of times the next part of the quest just doesn't trigger at all and you'd have to reload an old save to start it all over again. It's almost as if the game is searching for flags in the code that once existed but is no longer there, or maybe eas never written in the first place. I know it won't happen but it'd be nice if Bethesda could release a "dev's cut" of the gane with all the scrapped content put back in.
The dunmer don't even have a reason to go after the ladies. If there is anyone they would take out, it's the guy who's entire life revolves around getting wasted at the in, and then spending all night being racist in the grey quarter. He is basically what he accuses the dunmer to be. A waste of breath. Meanwhile most of the dunmer are working stable jobs, being merchants, running a tavern, working the farms. But that guy is doing nothing but drinking and complaining.
Theres tons of those moments in Skyrim its a fantastic game no denying but there's so much more that can be there in 2050 when we get the next elder scrolls let's all just hope it's done 100% right but Bethesdas latest track record isn't looking great but we'll see. Well the ones that will be alive
Fun fact: if you manage to get your hands on the final butcher journal early and pick it up in front of Calixto, he will calmly take it off you and then sit back down as if nothing happened 😂 In TES lore as explained in the Dawnguard questline, those whose souls are captured canonically end up in the Soul Cairn. So by the end of this quest, I made sure to soul trap Calixto to ensure he never reunites with his sister in the afterlife and is instead eternally trapped in the Soul Cairn as punishment for his crimes. The worst thing about this quest is the fact that it doesn't earn you the privilege to own property in Windhelm. For any other city - even the Imperial stronghold of Solitude - you are named thane of the city and get to purchase a house in the city regardless of political affiliation. Yet Windhelm is the only city where Ulfric doesn't name you thane despite doing the city a huge favour, so the only way to be able to buy s house is by either becoming a Stormcloak or deposing Ulfric by the end of the civil war questline.
Eh personally I think reuniting with his sister will end up worse for him. I don't think she will have very nice things to say to the "butcher" and that would hurt worse than being eternally separated but still holding onto the fantasy.
I always wondered what may have happened had Calixto succeeded. I imagine at some point after the quest ended you could go back to his house, where you'd find his dead body, and that of a horrendous Frankenstein's monster-esque creature, implying either that the resurrection went wrong somehow, or that his sister was so disgusted with what he'd done that she killed him, and then herself. Or maybe when you arrive Calixto is dead but the Lucilla monster is still alive, standing over his body, and either she is crazed and attacks you too, or maybe she's fully aware and tells you everything Calixto did and why she had to kill him, the conversation ending either with her sneaking out of the city to live an isolated existence in the wild somewhere, or with her begging the Dragonborn to put her out of her misery.
Imagine if it goes even further, and we get something like with the Potema quest line. The necromanced creature escapes and causes havoc, and we are send to clean up the mess that we caused.
I think this quest needed more suspects or reasons to suspect multiple people. You’re only really given a reason to suspect Wuunferth, and while you don’t need to be a Sherlock level player to see Callixto is steering you the wrong way, I don’t think many first time players would twig it out either - I certainly didn’t when I first played it. 😅 A possible Dark Elf vengeful for how his people are treated, Imperials trying to weaken Clan Shatter Shield’s shipping to benefit the East Empire Company, people blaming Arventus Arentino for summoning the Dark Brotherhood, there’s a lot of different avenues and suspects you could have put into this quest to make it more of a compelling mystery and give the player more reason to think about who it could be, what they gave to gain and why. As it is, they spell it out pretty blatantly, so while Callixto is still a surprising twist when you find out it’s him either way, it doesn’t change the fact that the experience does feel kind of underwhelming in comparison to what it could have been.
Yep. That is why Skyrim is sometimes described as "wide as an ocean, but deep as a puddle." It's especially awkward when you join the Imperials as part of the civil war questline AFTER completing the Dark Brotherhood questline and having the emperor assassinated.
If you're not able to visit Collixto's Curiosities (half the time I play he won't run his shop but instead just stand around outside, most recently a gaurd posted there round the clock too) it is hard to place him as the killer - just a suspect of circumstance. If you break in it's easy to place him as the real murderer especially if you discover/open the chest. But taking the tour sure paints him as a fraud and establishes that he surprisingly HAS the embalming tools necessary to do these crimes.
@@GTAVictor9128 I usually stay away from the civil war quest, as it changes nothing about the world, besides who makes you thane. But in my most recent playthrough I'm planning to go with the imperial side (because Ulfric is short-sighted, despite being right) and I wonder if they would even let me in the city once I joined the legion. But then, I'm probably too just to consequences from New Vegas, and Skyrim will change nothing at all in how the guards treat me. On the other hand, if you put the wizard in jail and the butcher acts again, that should take the wizard off the hook. Or at least setting him free and shadowing him.
This quest drove me mad when I was fourteen and literally yelling at the TV that CALIXTO WHO OWNS EMBALMING TOOLS AND LITERALLY JUST THREATENED ME BY HANDING ME AN EMPTY BOOK AND SAYING "oh if it's blank you're gonna die soon". Not to mention he offered to "take the amulet off your hands" even knowing it was a piece of evidence, clearly displaying his interest in reacquiring it.
@shadenox8164 i don't think the book itself was a threat, it's just an empty book and curio museum people do that kinda thing all the time. I do however think that my guy made himself even more suspicious by saying "oooh if it's blank you're probably gonna die soon" bc I was just looking at him like "alright edgelord are you trying to say you're gonna kill me or is this the schpeal you give everyone?"
I did a shadowblade playthrough at point. Ignored the game and spent three months taking out guards in the backstreets of Windhelm and Riften, taking all their gear, and making a beeline for the nearest forge to destroy the evidence. It was so addicting I finally had to make a new character just to stop.
I learned I could pickpocket paralysis poisons onto guards then loot them down to their skivvies. didn’t even sneak, just ran up and started stealing pants. at some point it stopped being a crime and became a raid on the Stormcloaks’ pants supply.
My biggest issue with Wuunferth is he says "Necromancy? I am a member of the College of Winterhold, in good standing! They haven't allowed necromancy for hundreds of years!"... This actually doesn't add up if you actually visit the place, as the expert in Conjuration, Phinis Gestor, says if questioned about necromancy, "By Sheor, no. Those archaic policies died out with the Mages Guild, and were never enforced here. Necromancy, as any other type of magic, is a tool to be used. Of course, non-mages may not see it that way, so we don't go around flaunting it." One could see this as Wuunferth as lying, or an inconsistency in the world building... which the former is more likely as Wuunferth does mention about the rituals the killer is conducting, which are all based on necromancy. That said, it's possible Wuunferth is somehow involved, as all the victims before the Dragonborn's involvement are, apparently, all Nords. If you lock up or talk to Wuunferth before the next murder, the next victim (or would-be victim) is Arivanya, an Altmer. She doesn't add up when comparing to the other victims, as they were Nords. So, one could see it as Calixto becoming more desperate and having to expand to more than just Nords as this point, or because the one with actual Necromantic knowledge being locked up, Calixto with no actual knowledge is just picking anyone he can.
There's a fairly similar murder-mystery-leads-to-necromancers plot that spans two quests across two different acts of Dragon Age II...that one gets a *lot* more personal, though.
I don’t know if this quite counts as a bug, but it’s certainly an instance of Skyrim being Skyrim. At the end of the questline, I followed the guards to the Arch Mage’s chambers to arrest him, and decided to take the Stone of Barenziah on his desk. Instead of arresting the Butcher, every guard decided to attack me for theft instead.
I actually didn't listen to the caution and confronted the court wizard directly myself. Didn't realize that i had bypassed the entire wrongful accusation thing.
After a recent return to Assassin's Creed content, I wasn't really expecting something from The Elder Scrolls. Whatever it is, we can always trust in Fizhy for quality videos.
I never fully read the journal in Hjerim, so just now did I realize that Calixto used the words "flesh magic" rather than "necromancy". There is a difference between the two, which could be a clue as to what exactly he hoped to accomplish. As far as I know though flesh magic can't be used to "bring back" someone like necromancy kind of can, it's literally just crafting monsters with flesh. Perhaps he was intending to use a combination of flesh magic and necromancy to both give his sister a body and force her soul to inhabit it. Maybe that could lend credence to the theory that Wuunferth and Calixto were partnered with Wuunferth supplying the necromacy and Calixto supplying the flesh magic. However I get the impression that Calixto was inexperienced and merely dabbling with these dark magics and so didn't quite understand that flesh magic couldn't be used to bring someone back to life. Maybe he was content to create a creature that looked like his sister but wasn't actually because he was that demented.
I love how sassy Wuunferth is when you come back to him after another victim. "Oh, another dead, and I'm still here in the Bloodworks." Adore the sass.
Still love how this is like the only quest in skyrim you have to pay attention to, in order to get the right answer. Like every other quest competes when you've made the "right" choice this one, you made a choice good enough
Someone finally said it. You load up the game, mod the hell out of it, setup a dope character, play it nonstop for a couple of weeks, then repeat 2-4 years later.
You really have a knack at documenting in-game serial killers, this and your GTA Eddie Low one are my favorites so far. Really captured the true crime feel.
Hjerim is my favorite house in the game. I always bee line to get it first so that I can find out if the quest is going to bug out on me and prevent me from getting my home before I dump hours into a playthrough.
I beggg you do another video like this, going through the quest with the added commentary was really relaxing to listen to, a bonus with it being Skyrim content too😅
very nice video, i could never get the quest to work right and gave up so ik glad you made this video lol. hope to see more skyrim/elder scrolls stuffs from you :)
The one thing that made me very suspicious about Wuunferth the first time I played was that he said that necromancy is forbidden in the College of Winterhold when it clearly is not.
I’m playing Skyrim for the first time atm (ik I’m a bit late too it 😭) and this is how I found out that I did not complete the quest and captured the wrong man. I swear this game keeps on getting better and better.
I really love these Skyrim videos. And your sense of humor makes me chuckle a lot in general The bucket punishment gets me every time I watch the video 😂
My favourite quest. There are multiple paths to take and so many great small details. It's one of the quests in the game, as buggy as it can be, and the conclusion is so satisfying.
You basically summed up my feelings on Skyrim at the start. A cozy mess :P also this is one of my fave quests. Murder Mysteries in an open world fantasy game are often pretty fun quests (Witcher 3 has some fun stuff).
I did this quest a couple days ago with a friend watching. After talking with the priest lady, I had gotten lost in the hall of the dead and she just kept repeating "large cuts on left shoulder" over and over and I was going nuts! It was like 20 minutes of wandering in circles with this woman making me go crazy
the first time i tried this quest, the butcher killed my wife-to-be, which is doubly insulting because she was an argonian and her death had no purpose. of course, now i have mods that add additional options. like Deeja. you want knives? you want them in your belly? no? then you stop talking to deeja.
last time i played through this quest, i took a break from it partway through to start the dark brotherhood story. i never saw the fourth victim after jailing wuunferth, instead i had gone to talk to him in his prison after killing the orphanage owner and he said “the butcher is back at work” in reference to the murder at the orphanage. the quest carried on from there. it was pretty weird!
I really appreciate your hard work and your dedication making a video for us just to enjoy it. Thank you so much, and please don't stop making videos for this series. I will always be waiting for a new video.
Oh nice. I like this. Another dude dose something kinda like this and I really like his stuff so I hope ive found another sourse of content i can listen to while im chilling before bed 😅
Video intro reminds me of when you’re looking for a recipe for cookies and the author spends the first few paragraphs talking about how cookies changed her life instead of just getting to the recipe…
Windhelm isn't actually segregated to anyone but Argonians, and for good reason. The Grey Quarter is a naturally-formed slum as a result of the influx of Red Year refugees, and likely would've been the poor quarter prior to this given its density and proximity to the docks. Argonians are kept outside the walls a result of the Grey Quarter, given the Dunmer's and Argonian's natural and long-standing enmity. However, the biggest evidence against segregated Windhelm is simply that the other two residential quarters are both inhabited by High Elves; indeed, if you speak to some of them they basically call the Dunmer lazy bums responsible for their own troubles, confirming that they've faced no negative biases in Windhelm. In fact, Eastmarch is the most Dunmeric hold in Skyrim, and also the hold responsible for both the welcoming of the initial Dunmer refugees as well as the donation of Solstheim to Morrowind
Also worth noting, Wuunferth's prediction of the next murder makes a lot of sense in context to how Daedra summoning worked in Daggerfall. In DF, you'd commune with Daedra by going to specific members of a given guild or temple and paying them to do a ritual; which (d)aedra you'd get would be determined by the date and time of the ritual, hence Wuunferth's predictive ability. Given his possession of the Necromancer's Amulet, it stands to reason Calixto is attempting to commune with Mannimarco with his rituals
this quest was so buggy on one of my play throughs that i had to use three different mods just to complete it but it’s one of my favorites in the whole game
I’ve played the game a bunch of times, and I haven’t experienced any bugs or glitches like what you described when doing the Butcher case. However, there were some building or background glitches that kinda annoy me. Like the objects displayed on the shop stands near the blacksmith’s place are suspended in midair.
this quest is so buggy that I literally never completed it on any of my many playthroughs of Skyrim, including the one where my goal was to become a Thane in all nine holds, which of course I failed because I could not complete this quest in other words, thanks for the video, very cool I finally got to see the end of the quest
I have always wondered what the Butcher's magic was,I also wished Bethesda would explore a little about it.I can only imagine what we're missing out on...the lore I mean not the foul magic,at least I have no interest in the magic but I guess for some of us they lose more than the rest of us.
About brought up the matter of approaching wunfurth but then I realized I was jumping the gun as you also mentioned it. It does save one life more going to the wunfurth and you could argue its a good proof of innocense when calixto IS caught right in the act of trying to kill someone
When it wants to work; Blood on the Ice is quite possibly one of the best written quests in the game+ you get one of the best vanilla houses. It's a trash quest line because of how buggy it is.
I just found this quest today through the Stormcloak Rebellion quest line because I bought the house. I was immediately less than thrilled walking in to my new home to find that it was the lair of a serial killer.
Thank goodness the Dragonborn sorted this one out, or else Blood on the Ice surely would have become a
Cold case
So glad the Dragonborn was able to take this cold blooded killer off the streets.
It’s chilling to think what would have happened had the Dragonborn not intervened
(Insert CSI Miami "Yeah" sound here)
you could say they were…hot on the trail. _guitar riff_ 😎🤏
(Insert the YEAAAAAAH) from the "we won't get fooled again" song.
‘... and he also has a meat pie in his pocket’ absolutely sent me
I almost snorted my drink out of my nose
His dry quips are exactly what keeps me coming back. 😂
The dry quips are _chefs kiss_ and catch me off guard so many times, I just have to go back and be sure I heard him right. @@PaulRudd1941
There's hole in the middle of the world like a bottomless pit and the depths of this pit is filled with shit and the vermin of the world inhabit it and they call it Windhelm
One thing you missed:
The reason we don’t see blood on Calixto in the first scene is because you can actually find the clothing item blacksmith’s clothes. Here’s how it happened:
Calixto at first stalks his victims to determine the quality of the parts he would need. In the case of Susanna, he needed tendons from her legs and arms, which are consistent with the wounds. He killed her on a specific time frame to line up with the ritual. Calixto then left the knife in her to prevent bleeding and carried the body back to Hjerem. He changed into the blacksmith’s clothes, recovered the samples he needed then changed back, then dragged the body to the square to be seen. He then screamed, getting the attention of Silda the Unseen. His ultimate goal is found thanks to ESO. He was creating a Flesh Golem that would have his sister’s soul in it. Problem is that this flesh golem would have killed him, as they are deadric abominations.
Wow, never looked into this, that's really interesting
Huh, I never thought of it that way, but I suppose it would make sense, as the fact that he doesn’t have bloody clothes on and theres no real reason to suspect it is him due to him since semeingly, Sussana just cried out for help recently. Great explanation as to how it happened!
His journal explains his motive as well
Wait what
You know, I basically came to mostly the same conclusions.
It doesn't make much sense, that there is such a blood trail to the House, when he just quickly cut her open, extracted her tendants, and left. Those wouldn't have enough blood on them for that kind of trail. Not to mention, I can't remember seeing her clothes anywhere on the crime scene. So if we'd go with the "official" Timeline, the butcher would have stabbed Susanna, prompting her to scream, which alerted the beggar woman, who says she ran to the crime scene the moment she heard the scream. Even if we place her the farthest away within hearing distance, the butcher would have to stab her, killing her immediately, strip her, cut her open *_with surgical precision_* to get the parts he needed, and then flee the scene. Unless there is time manipulation magic involved, I can't see all that activity cramped into such a short time frame.
So my theory was pretty much identical to yours: stab her, drag her to the hideout, extract the needed parts, drag the body to the "crime scene", leaving that blood trail. He could also just have abducted her, only killing her in his hideout.
But here is where my theory diverges a bit: from the diary and the fact that he wanted to bring his sister back, it's clear, that he's supposed to be at least somewhat knowledgable in magic. So why wouldn't he drag the body to the "crime scene", place it there, and then quickly cast a spell to clean himself up? I'm pretty sure, there are spells to do so, and I simply refuse to believe, that there wasn't some mage somewhere at some point, who invented a spell to help tidy up themself or their workshop. And just because the PC can't learn anything like that is no proof to me. I'd estimate, that probably about 90-95% of all spells you can learn are offensive in some way, with the rest being defensive, healing or for exploration. There's just no need for the PC to have such "daily convenience" spells, as they don't really have any purpose in your heroic, dragonslaying life. And there are spells only NPCs can use/that exist in the world, but you can't use. Flying or levitation magic, for example, for which the Lore reason is, that it's usage is prohibited outside of Morrowind.
Of all the many times replaying Skyrim, Windhelm is one of the few places that has actually made me feel uncomfortable. And not just because of this quest.
Same. I could be the most OP character in the whole game but doing this quest I was still scared of accidentally running into the killer
Weirdly, it was always and still is probably my favorite city. I spent plenty of time wandering around and making believe in Solitude and Riften when I was younger, but Windhelm will always have my heart. As bleak, freezing, and racist as it is
@@mamie8734
same here, i always make sure to play a khajiit married to either a dunmer or an argonian and to settle down in hjerim because there’s something really funny about literally the dragonborn looking at what is arguably the worst city to be in as one of the beast men/dunmer and going “i’m going to live here”
Me too. The vibe of that city is just off.
It's because of those no good dirty rotten stormcloaks
A new era of Skyrim videos to sleep to.
His voice is so soothing i almost fall asleep but its interesting so I always gotta see whats next lol
My thoughts exactly
Not a single original experience, lol.
I know right!
I never thought about it before, but you’re 100% right that the guards/Wildhelm nords immediately blaming the Dark Elves for “their” young women being killed is such a good place for them to go, as their prejudice has been well established and it would serve as a believable red herring. I’m now really disappointed thinking about how that could have been such an interesting angle to incorporate into the quest and what you could have done with it but what we gonna do? :/
If, you decided to give Viola Giordano’s ring back to her directly from that unrelated misc objective, she openly states she doesn’t trust the Dunmer herself & has some rather prejudiced things to say. I’m surprised Ms Neighbourhood Watch didn’t attempt to connect the Butcher to the Dark Elves. It was just a thought I couldn’t stop thinking, there’s room for a lot of racism in this quest that would be more thematically appropriate than a Jack the Ripper Easter egg mixed up into a necromancy plot
Considering this is one of if not the most broken quests in the game, I have a feeling the devs originally intended for there to be a lot more content in this quest that got cut last minute due to the rushed release date. If you don't do all the steps in a pretty specific order, a lot of times the next part of the quest just doesn't trigger at all and you'd have to reload an old save to start it all over again. It's almost as if the game is searching for flags in the code that once existed but is no longer there, or maybe eas never written in the first place. I know it won't happen but it'd be nice if Bethesda could release a "dev's cut" of the gane with all the scrapped content put back in.
The dunmer don't even have a reason to go after the ladies. If there is anyone they would take out, it's the guy who's entire life revolves around getting wasted at the in, and then spending all night being racist in the grey quarter.
He is basically what he accuses the dunmer to be. A waste of breath. Meanwhile most of the dunmer are working stable jobs, being merchants, running a tavern, working the farms. But that guy is doing nothing but drinking and complaining.
Theres tons of those moments in Skyrim its a fantastic game no denying but there's so much more that can be there in 2050 when we get the next elder scrolls let's all just hope it's done 100% right but Bethesdas latest track record isn't looking great but we'll see. Well the ones that will be alive
Bro discovered racism
Fun fact: if you manage to get your hands on the final butcher journal early and pick it up in front of Calixto, he will calmly take it off you and then sit back down as if nothing happened 😂
In TES lore as explained in the Dawnguard questline, those whose souls are captured canonically end up in the Soul Cairn. So by the end of this quest, I made sure to soul trap Calixto to ensure he never reunites with his sister in the afterlife and is instead eternally trapped in the Soul Cairn as punishment for his crimes.
The worst thing about this quest is the fact that it doesn't earn you the privilege to own property in Windhelm. For any other city - even the Imperial stronghold of Solitude - you are named thane of the city and get to purchase a house in the city regardless of political affiliation.
Yet Windhelm is the only city where Ulfric doesn't name you thane despite doing the city a huge favour, so the only way to be able to buy s house is by either becoming a Stormcloak or deposing Ulfric by the end of the civil war questline.
It’s a bit of a farce to get ahold of Hjerim isn’t it
@@Fizhy
It's the best house.
And you need to finish the civil war quest too...
Eh personally I think reuniting with his sister will end up worse for him. I don't think she will have very nice things to say to the "butcher" and that would hurt worse than being eternally separated but still holding onto the fantasy.
And then there are the big brain Morrowind players who trap Vivec in Azura's Star.
The dude up in Dawnstar sells you a homestead for killing a giant.
I always wondered what may have happened had Calixto succeeded.
I imagine at some point after the quest ended you could go back to his house, where you'd find his dead body, and that of a horrendous Frankenstein's monster-esque creature, implying either that the resurrection went wrong somehow, or that his sister was so disgusted with what he'd done that she killed him, and then herself.
Or maybe when you arrive Calixto is dead but the Lucilla monster is still alive, standing over his body, and either she is crazed and attacks you too, or maybe she's fully aware and tells you everything Calixto did and why she had to kill him, the conversation ending either with her sneaking out of the city to live an isolated existence in the wild somewhere, or with her begging the Dragonborn to put her out of her misery.
Imagine this being the outcome of accusing court wizard.
Imagine if it goes even further, and we get something like with the Potema quest line.
The necromanced creature escapes and causes havoc, and we are send to clean up the mess that we caused.
My man’s going into Skyrim territory, bros continuously cooking up bangers🔥
Not so sure about that BUT it’s better than not doing anything!
@@Fizhythey’re bangers bro trust us
@@FizhyPlease do more content on Skyrim, I’d love to listen and watch any videos you make on it
Cooking so hard it’s gotta be vegetable soup!!!!
@@Fizhythese absolutely are bangers, better than 99% of content on TH-cam
I think this quest needed more suspects or reasons to suspect multiple people. You’re only really given a reason to suspect Wuunferth, and while you don’t need to be a Sherlock level player to see Callixto is steering you the wrong way, I don’t think many first time players would twig it out either - I certainly didn’t when I first played it. 😅
A possible Dark Elf vengeful for how his people are treated, Imperials trying to weaken Clan Shatter Shield’s shipping to benefit the East Empire Company, people blaming Arventus Arentino for summoning the Dark Brotherhood, there’s a lot of different avenues and suspects you could have put into this quest to make it more of a compelling mystery and give the player more reason to think about who it could be, what they gave to gain and why.
As it is, they spell it out pretty blatantly, so while Callixto is still a surprising twist when you find out it’s him either way, it doesn’t change the fact that the experience does feel kind of underwhelming in comparison to what it could have been.
Yep. That is why Skyrim is sometimes described as "wide as an ocean, but deep as a puddle."
It's especially awkward when you join the Imperials as part of the civil war questline AFTER completing the Dark Brotherhood questline and having the emperor assassinated.
If you're not able to visit Collixto's Curiosities (half the time I play he won't run his shop but instead just stand around outside, most recently a gaurd posted there round the clock too) it is hard to place him as the killer - just a suspect of circumstance.
If you break in it's easy to place him as the real murderer especially if you discover/open the chest. But taking the tour sure paints him as a fraud and establishes that he surprisingly HAS the embalming tools necessary to do these crimes.
@@GTAVictor9128 I usually stay away from the civil war quest, as it changes nothing about the world, besides who makes you thane.
But in my most recent playthrough I'm planning to go with the imperial side (because Ulfric is short-sighted, despite being right) and I wonder if they would even let me in the city once I joined the legion.
But then, I'm probably too just to consequences from New Vegas, and Skyrim will change nothing at all in how the guards treat me.
On the other hand, if you put the wizard in jail and the butcher acts again, that should take the wizard off the hook. Or at least setting him free and shadowing him.
This quest drove me mad when I was fourteen and literally yelling at the TV that CALIXTO WHO OWNS EMBALMING TOOLS AND LITERALLY JUST THREATENED ME BY HANDING ME AN EMPTY BOOK AND SAYING "oh if it's blank you're gonna die soon". Not to mention he offered to "take the amulet off your hands" even knowing it was a piece of evidence, clearly displaying his interest in reacquiring it.
The book wasn't a threat? It's just his hoaky curio museum shtick.
@shadenox8164 i don't think the book itself was a threat, it's just an empty book and curio museum people do that kinda thing all the time. I do however think that my guy made himself even more suspicious by saying "oooh if it's blank you're probably gonna die soon" bc I was just looking at him like "alright edgelord are you trying to say you're gonna kill me or is this the schpeal you give everyone?"
I did a shadowblade playthrough at point. Ignored the game and spent three months taking out guards in the backstreets of Windhelm and Riften, taking all their gear, and making a beeline for the nearest forge to destroy the evidence. It was so addicting I finally had to make a new character just to stop.
Oh that sounds fun. NEW PLAYTHROUGH IT IS!
@@Rocco049 Happy to help!
I learned I could pickpocket paralysis poisons onto guards then loot them down to their skivvies. didn’t even sneak, just ran up and started stealing pants. at some point it stopped being a crime and became a raid on the Stormcloaks’ pants supply.
@@oscaranderson5719 Nice
@@oscaranderson5719
You need help .. but I now know I want to strip guards to their grundies & run away
My biggest issue with Wuunferth is he says "Necromancy? I am a member of the College of Winterhold, in good standing! They haven't allowed necromancy for hundreds of years!"...
This actually doesn't add up if you actually visit the place, as the expert in Conjuration, Phinis Gestor, says if questioned about necromancy, "By Sheor, no. Those archaic policies died out with the Mages Guild, and were never enforced here. Necromancy, as any other type of magic, is a tool to be used. Of course, non-mages may not see it that way, so we don't go around flaunting it."
One could see this as Wuunferth as lying, or an inconsistency in the world building... which the former is more likely as Wuunferth does mention about the rituals the killer is conducting, which are all based on necromancy.
That said, it's possible Wuunferth is somehow involved, as all the victims before the Dragonborn's involvement are, apparently, all Nords. If you lock up or talk to Wuunferth before the next murder, the next victim (or would-be victim) is Arivanya, an Altmer. She doesn't add up when comparing to the other victims, as they were Nords. So, one could see it as Calixto becoming more desperate and having to expand to more than just Nords as this point, or because the one with actual Necromantic knowledge being locked up, Calixto with no actual knowledge is just picking anyone he can.
Came here to comment this and it seems someone else has already explained it better than I could. Cheers.
There's a fairly similar murder-mystery-leads-to-necromancers plot that spans two quests across two different acts of Dragon Age II...that one gets a *lot* more personal, though.
(Spoilers) I *hated* Leandra, and I still cried
At 19:28 the sound is clipped over itself and my brain couldn’t handle it 💀
Oh thank goodness I thought my phone was broken!
I don’t know if this quite counts as a bug, but it’s certainly an instance of Skyrim being Skyrim. At the end of the questline, I followed the guards to the Arch Mage’s chambers to arrest him, and decided to take the Stone of Barenziah on his desk. Instead of arresting the Butcher, every guard decided to attack me for theft instead.
you forgot to sneak before taking the stone.
its definitely a bug, the stones of barenziah are not marked as owned
What the hell? I just re-downloaded and modded up Skyrim and started playing again last night. Get out of my walls lmao
If you have Dead Thrall you can have Susanna’s corpse follow you round on the quest.
Now that's some true cursed pain for him
bonus points if you let her corpse get the killing blow
A forty minute video documentary 10 years after Skyrim came out? YES PLEASE
Not gonna lie I was half asleep around 19:24 because I love to fall asleep to these kind of vixens and I got confused as hell 💀
I have become your fever dream
I actually didn't listen to the caution and confronted the court wizard directly myself. Didn't realize that i had bypassed the entire wrongful accusation thing.
I did that too and the first dialogue option was "I heard you dabble in necromancy" 😂
That is the first hing to do. The easiest thing to do.
honestly same, since i always play a mage i was like "pff... i aint afraid of no wizard"
After a recent return to Assassin's Creed content, I wasn't really expecting something from The Elder Scrolls. Whatever it is, we can always trust in Fizhy for quality videos.
I never fully read the journal in Hjerim, so just now did I realize that Calixto used the words "flesh magic" rather than "necromancy". There is a difference between the two, which could be a clue as to what exactly he hoped to accomplish. As far as I know though flesh magic can't be used to "bring back" someone like necromancy kind of can, it's literally just crafting monsters with flesh. Perhaps he was intending to use a combination of flesh magic and necromancy to both give his sister a body and force her soul to inhabit it. Maybe that could lend credence to the theory that Wuunferth and Calixto were partnered with Wuunferth supplying the necromacy and Calixto supplying the flesh magic. However I get the impression that Calixto was inexperienced and merely dabbling with these dark magics and so didn't quite understand that flesh magic couldn't be used to bring someone back to life. Maybe he was content to create a creature that looked like his sister but wasn't actually because he was that demented.
I love how sassy Wuunferth is when you come back to him after another victim. "Oh, another dead, and I'm still here in the Bloodworks." Adore the sass.
Oh fizhy and Skyrim? I fw this big time.
Oh aye
No matter how many hundreds of hours I’ve spent in Skyrim since 2011, I still love finding new content. This is a great immersive walkthrough!
“Triggering the quest Blood on the Ice”
Maybe. If the game feels like it.
(Seriously though great video 🎉)
That first minute was a very well worded homage to the spirit of the game, in many people's eyes. Kudos.
Still love how this is like the only quest in skyrim you have to pay attention to, in order to get the right answer.
Like every other quest competes when you've made the "right" choice this one, you made a choice good enough
This quest broke for me in my first playthrough. The time it took me to realize it was fucked beyond repair was way too long
Someone finally said it. You load up the game, mod the hell out of it, setup a dope character, play it nonstop for a couple of weeks, then repeat 2-4 years later.
I love love love, that people still make videos about this game. everytime I think I've seen every good one, a new one pops up
Yes!! Fizhy skyrim content is just what I need. And a 40 minute one no less.
I came for the GTA Myths and Legends and will be continuing to stay for the Skyrim content too now!
Absolute legend
33:29. “Happens to the best of us” in regards to Calixto? A necromancy recognizing another?
“Happens to the best of us” is a more general phrase simply stating that Wuunferth isn’t judging Calixto for mis-identifying the amulet
@@Fizhy ah got ya
You really have a knack at documenting in-game serial killers, this and your GTA Eddie Low one are my favorites so far. Really captured the true crime feel.
I was having a terrible day, then the legend with the most calming and crisp voice came back. At least I shall sleep easy tonight.
I’ve come to bequeath unto you, Skyrim
@@Fizhy & I shall repay you back with a lovely message on the 12th of July my friend.
Skyrim lore outta nowhere? Nice!
I am a man of many thoughts
Hjerim is my favorite house in the game. I always bee line to get it first so that I can find out if the quest is going to bug out on me and prevent me from getting my home before I dump hours into a playthrough.
Understandable
As grim as the narrative is, the video still felt cozy. Loved the calm cinematic shots in between the cutscenes!
I beggg you do another video like this, going through the quest with the added commentary was really relaxing to listen to, a bonus with it being Skyrim content too😅
Fizhy uploaded Skyrim content?! Today is a good day! Please upload more in the future, loved revisiting this buggy as hell quest 😂
great to see you doing skyrim content! this is definitely my comfort game and i come back to it all the time
Skyrim was the first console game I played, it's special to me, I'm glad you are covering this game
very nice video, i could never get the quest to work right and gave up so ik glad you made this video lol. hope to see more skyrim/elder scrolls stuffs from you :)
19:20 has so many overlapping audio layers I completely lost track of what you were saying and how you got out of the soft lock.
Exactly the sort of concise, humorous, and well thought out investigation one would expect from Mr. Matthew Crawley. Well done 👏🏽👏🏽
Just started replaying Skyrim recently … awesome to have some fresh content from one of the best to do it 🍻
The one thing that made me very suspicious about Wuunferth the first time I played was that he said that necromancy is forbidden in the College of Winterhold when it clearly is not.
I’m playing Skyrim for the first time atm (ik I’m a bit late too it 😭) and this is how I found out that I did not complete the quest and captured the wrong man. I swear this game keeps on getting better and better.
I really love these Skyrim videos.
And your sense of humor makes me chuckle a lot in general
The bucket punishment gets me every time I watch the video 😂
My favourite quest. There are multiple paths to take and so many great small details. It's one of the quests in the game, as buggy as it can be, and the conclusion is so satisfying.
This quest is so buggy that in my play through Calixto attempted the Square murder during daytime 😂
You basically summed up my feelings on Skyrim at the start. A cozy mess :P also this is one of my fave quests. Murder Mysteries in an open world fantasy game are often pretty fun quests (Witcher 3 has some fun stuff).
I did this quest a couple days ago with a friend watching. After talking with the priest lady, I had gotten lost in the hall of the dead and she just kept repeating "large cuts on left shoulder" over and over and I was going nuts! It was like 20 minutes of wandering in circles with this woman making me go crazy
You should make more Skyrim videos. Would love to see your perspective on this wonderful universe 😁
I’m on it
Now you've done it. You've made me want to play Skyrim again.
To be honest, I could watch your videos no matter which game they're about. The narration is quite cozy.
Such a good premise. If only it wasn't bugged, it would be a great quest.
Wow Fizhy making Skyrim videos, such an amazing thing please consider doing series
@Fizhy Just letting you know that there’s audio overlap at around 19:22
that scared me lol
Big time. I'm very confused lol
the first time i tried this quest, the butcher killed my wife-to-be, which is doubly insulting because she was an argonian and her death had no purpose.
of course, now i have mods that add additional options. like Deeja. you want knives? you want them in your belly? no? then you stop talking to deeja.
"the game broke for but I managed to bypass this with a few console commands"
Todd howard - "it just works"
last time i played through this quest, i took a break from it partway through to start the dark brotherhood story. i never saw the fourth victim after jailing wuunferth, instead i had gone to talk to him in his prison after killing the orphanage owner and he said “the butcher is back at work” in reference to the murder at the orphanage. the quest carried on from there. it was pretty weird!
If you're looking for more ideas, a video on the dwarven airship in solstheim would be cool.
I'll put it on the list.
I love these type of Skyrim videos. I hope for 15 more.
Please make more Skyrim videos! I love your analysis videos and Skyrim has so much, I will watch this entire series. Amazing. Thank you
Thanks, will do!
Oh my God thank you. I have literally 3,700 hours in Skyrim and I still have yet to complete this quest.
This story is highly similar to the one in Dragon Age 2 where Hawke's mother is getting Necromancy flesh crafted to replace some psyco's wife.
I really appreciate your hard work and your dedication making a video for us just to enjoy it. Thank you so much, and please don't stop making videos for this series.
I will always be waiting for a new video.
Dude I LOVE seeing you post new stuff! I’d welcome more Skyrim stuff, especially
Every time you upload I am very happy
Having a meat pie in your back pocket is considered odd?
Good to know.
I have played skyrim about 50 times all the way through. And i NEVER KNEW IT HAD A SECOND PART
Oh nice. I like this. Another dude dose something kinda like this and I really like his stuff so I hope ive found another sourse of content i can listen to while im chilling before bed 😅
Fingers crossed
Im pretty sure he asks you to sell him the amulet because he needs it back from you and just blames the other mage to throw you off
Video intro reminds me of when you’re looking for a recipe for cookies and the author spends the first few paragraphs talking about how cookies changed her life instead of just getting to the recipe…
Skyrim was nostalgic in the late 2010s. Now it's historic.
Yes more of this content! *my humble contribution for the algorithm*
I cant believe Fizhy was the Bay Harbor Butcher
Dude
That quest could use a alternative route for usage of "Reanimate Corpse" spell.
Reanimated corpses cant speak
Nice 😎👍🏼 switchin’ it up.
It doesn’t matter the game, it just matters the narrative.
indeed
@@Fizhy
Narration might be the better word.
Thanks for the reply. 😎👍🏼 I’m a big fan.
Windhelm isn't actually segregated to anyone but Argonians, and for good reason. The Grey Quarter is a naturally-formed slum as a result of the influx of Red Year refugees, and likely would've been the poor quarter prior to this given its density and proximity to the docks. Argonians are kept outside the walls a result of the Grey Quarter, given the Dunmer's and Argonian's natural and long-standing enmity. However, the biggest evidence against segregated Windhelm is simply that the other two residential quarters are both inhabited by High Elves; indeed, if you speak to some of them they basically call the Dunmer lazy bums responsible for their own troubles, confirming that they've faced no negative biases in Windhelm. In fact, Eastmarch is the most Dunmeric hold in Skyrim, and also the hold responsible for both the welcoming of the initial Dunmer refugees as well as the donation of Solstheim to Morrowind
Also worth noting, Wuunferth's prediction of the next murder makes a lot of sense in context to how Daedra summoning worked in Daggerfall. In DF, you'd commune with Daedra by going to specific members of a given guild or temple and paying them to do a ritual; which (d)aedra you'd get would be determined by the date and time of the ritual, hence Wuunferth's predictive ability. Given his possession of the Necromancer's Amulet, it stands to reason Calixto is attempting to commune with Mannimarco with his rituals
Thank you for pointing this out!
this quest was so buggy on one of my play throughs that i had to use three different mods just to complete it but it’s one of my favorites in the whole game
Another Cinematic masterpiece to watch, Cheers mate
Can't believe Wuuntherth the Unliving was the Windhelm Harbor Butcher
This is great, I’d love to see more Skyrim stuff
You're in luck
I’ve played the game a bunch of times, and I haven’t experienced any bugs or glitches like what you described when doing the Butcher case. However, there were some building or background glitches that kinda annoy me. Like the objects displayed on the shop stands near the blacksmith’s place are suspended in midair.
Blood on the ice is one of those quests i HAD to make a new character for
this quest is so buggy that I literally never completed it on any of my many playthroughs of Skyrim, including the one where my goal was to become a Thane in all nine holds, which of course I failed because I could not complete this quest
in other words, thanks for the video, very cool I finally got to see the end of the quest
I have always wondered what the Butcher's magic was,I also wished Bethesda would explore a little about it.I can only imagine what we're missing out on...the lore I mean not the foul magic,at least I have no interest in the magic but I guess for some of us they lose more than the rest of us.
Everything I heard you saying "Wuunferth the Unliving" my brain was correcting it to "Mumm-Ra the Ever Living"....
About brought up the matter of approaching wunfurth but then I realized I was jumping the gun as you also mentioned it. It does save one life more going to the wunfurth and you could argue its a good proof of innocense when calixto IS caught right in the act of trying to kill someone
Loving the variety of content
When it wants to work; Blood on the Ice is quite possibly one of the best written quests in the game+ you get one of the best vanilla houses. It's a trash quest line because of how buggy it is.
This is a quest I haven't gone deeply into.. I just get my house and that's it. I'm enjoying this!
I hope to see more Skyrim videos from you! This one was super fun❤
Dude these are some cinema level shots
I just found this quest today through the Stormcloak Rebellion quest line because I bought the house. I was immediately less than thrilled walking in to my new home to find that it was the lair of a serial killer.