Septimus Signus's entire questline is basically Lovecraft fanfiction and I'm here for it

[ScrollsOfTamriel]

The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced Discerning the Transmundane is doing something genuinely weird that the rest of Skyrim isn't really touching. Like, you're breaking into a Dwemer ruin to steal a Elder Scroll, then you're meeting this scholar who's been slowly losing his mind in an ice cave, and then you're literally told to go murder an entire family to appease an eldritch thing that exists outside normal reality. The Oghma Infinium reward is almost secondary to the fact that you've just participated in something that feels genuinely cosmic horror adjacent.

Compare that to most of the other Daedric quests where it's like, yeah, okay, I'm helping a Daedra do weird stuff and there's consequences. But Septimus is different. He's not making a deal. He's been studying something that shouldn't exist and it's rotted his brain. The Dwemer themselves disappeared trying to understand things they shouldn't have, and here's this one guy doing the exact same thing centuries later. And the game just lets you enable it.

I dunno, maybe I'm reading too much into it, but that questline has this unsettling vibe that sticks with me way more than something like A Daedra's Best Friend or The House of Horrors, and I think it's because it doesn't feel like you're being tested or tempted. You're just... complicit in something that's fundamentally wrong on a cosmic level. Hermaeus Mora doesn't even need to trick you. He just needs you to be curious.

Anyone else get that feeling from it or am I overthinking a fetch quest?

 

[EbonyWarrior]

you're not overthinking it at all. that questline actually does something most of skyrim's daedric quests don't - it treats the horror as inevitable rather than something you can refuse or learn from. like, with Molag Bal or Boethiah you're at least aware you're making a deal with something evil. but Septimus? dude's already doomed before you even show up. he's been corrupted by knowledge for years, and Hermaeus Mora's just... waiting. patient.

what gets me is that the Dwemer parallel is built right into the lore and the game doesn't need to spell it out. they tried to understand the Heart of Lorkhan and it obliterated them. Septimus is doing the exact same thing with an Elder Scroll, and you're the one handing it to him. the game's basically saying "yeah, some knowledge kills you" and then lets you participate anyway because you want the Oghma Infinium or you're just curious what happens.

i think that's why it lands different from the other daedric quests. A Daedra's Best Friend is creepy but it's got this dark humor to it - you're helping a Daedra get revenge on people who wronged her, and Sanguine's whole thing is kind of absurd. House of Horrors is genuinely disturbing but at least you can

Spoiler

refuse to kill the guy and smash the statue instead

. Discerning the Transmundane doesn't give you an out. you either help Septimus kill his family or you don't do the quest, and if you do help him, you've just enabled something cosmically wrong.

that's good writing honestly. most games would make it feel more like a choice.