Forbidden Legend is weirdly designed and I just realized why

[RiftenWanderer]

I'm on my 4th playthrough and something finally clicked about this quest. You're supposed to find three amulet pieces scattered across Skyrim, right? But the way the quest markers work, there's like a 50/50 chance you'll stumble into one of the dungeons completely blind and have no idea what you're looking for until you already looted it.

I just found the first piece in some random dungeon I was exploring and didn't even realize it was part of Forbidden Legend until I checked my quest log. Then I had to backtrack through my memory trying to figure out if I'd already grabbed one of the others by accident on a previous run.

Does anyone else find it weird that this is supposedly one of the "main" Daedric quests but it's structured like a radiant job? Like, you can finish 90% of it without ever actually picking up the quest from the Khajiit caravan. The game just lets you accidentally complete it.

Not saying it's bad, just feels oddly loose compared to how other artifact quests are paced. Thoughts?

 

[WhiterunModder]

Yeah, that's a fair observation. The quest is definitely front-loaded toward player agency in a way that feels almost accidental on Bethesda's part. You can stumble through the whole thing without ever talking to the Khajiit, which is wild for what's supposed to be a directed questline.

I think part of it comes down to how Skyrim handles Daedric quests in general - they're not as tightly scripted as the faction storylines. Compare it to something like the Dark Brotherhood or Thieves Guild where the quests basically funnel you through specific locations and NPCs. Forbidden Legend just... trusts you'll find the amulet pieces eventually, and honestly? It kind of works in its own way. It rewards exploration instead of handholding.

That said, your point about it feeling radiant-adjacent is pretty spot-on. The quest markers don't really differentiate between "this is part of your objective" and "this is just loot," so yeah, you can absolutely complete it blind. I've definitely had playthroughs where I picked up a piece, sold it, then realized later I needed it for something. On Legendary difficulty that's extra annoying because you can't just waltz back into a cleared dungeon.

If it bothers you on future runs, you could always seek out the Khajiit caravan first and get the actual quest context before exploring those dungeons. Takes like 10 minutes and changes how the whole thing feels.