Auriel's Bow

Auriel's Bow
Base Damage	13
Speed	1
Weight	11
Value	1000
Level	1+
Category	Bow
Class	Elven
Variants	-
Skill	Archery
Unique	Yes
Item ID	XX000800
Game/DLC	Dawnguard

Auriel's Bow is the bow of the elven god Auri-El, the holiest weapon of the Snow Elves. It is the prize at the heart of the Dawnguard story, and both sides of the war race to claim it. The bow is claimed in the Inner Sanctum of the Forgotten Vale at the end of Touching the Sky, the second to last quest of the Dawnguard main story.

Its base damage is modest, but it draws faster than nearly any other bow. Every arrow adds sun damage, and undead targets take three times as much. Two special arrows unlock its real power. Sunhallowed arrows turn the sun itself into a weapon, and Bloodcursed arrows blot the sun out of the sky.

Weapon Enchantment

Each arrow deals sun damage, and undead targets take triple damage. A Sunhallowed Elven Arrow shot at the sun calls down beams of sunlight on nearby enemies. Shot at an enemy, the same arrow bursts on impact. A Bloodcursed Elven Arrow shot at the sun blots it out for a day, so vampires can walk in daylight.

The Enchantment Effects page lists every weapon enchantment.

Enchantment
21 points of sun damage. Undead targets take triple damage

Auriel's Bow Map Location and Quest Guide

Auriel's Bow map location:

Auriel's Bow is claimed in the Inner Sanctum beyond the Forgotten Vale at the end of Touching the Sky.

1. Search for Auriel's Bow in the Forgotten Vale.
2. Speak to Gelebor.
3. Fill the Initiate's Ewer.
4. Kill Arch-Curate Vyrthur.
5. Retrieve Auriel's Bow.

Map credit by Map Genie.

Gameplay Tips and Tricks

• Temper it at a grindstone with Refined Moonstone. The Elven Smithing perk doubles the improvement.
• With a special arrow nocked, the screen flashes when the aim is on the sun, which helps on cloudy days.

Smithing Guide

Enchanted weapons require the Arcane Blacksmith Perk to upgrade.

Upgrades

Auriel's Bow is improved at a grindstone with one Refined Moonstone per improvement. The Elven Smithing perk doubles the improvement, so each quality tier needs less Smithing skill. An enchanted copy can only be improved with the Arcane Blacksmith perk.

Quality	Smithing	With Perk	Damage
Fine	14	14	+1
Superior	31	22	+3
Exquisite	65	40	+5
Flawless	100	57	+7
Epic	134	74	+8 to +9
Legendary	168	91	+10

Crafting Materials	Upgrade Materials	Smithing Level	Smithing Perk
Cannot be crafted	Refined Moonstone	-	Elven Smithing

Weapon Levels

Some weapons in Skyrim are Levelled. The power of a levelled weapon is based on your charcters level when you get them. Some get stronger in both physical and magical aspects, while others only improve their enchantments. These items don't get better as your character levels up.

Auriel's Bow has the same damage at every character level.

Level	Damage	Weight	Value	Enchantment	Level ID
1+	13	11	1000	21 points of sun damage. Undead targets take triple damage	XX000800

How It Plays

Auriel's Bow is a fast bow first and a strong bow second. Only Zephyr draws and fires faster. With the Quick Shot perk, a full draw takes less than a second. The bow suits an archer who wants to keep shooting rather than wait for one perfect shot.

The sun damage makes the bow deadly against the undead. Draugr and skeletons take the tripled damage. Vampires count as undead too, and they are also weak to fire. That makes the bow a natural weapon for the last part of the Dawnguard story.

A Sunhallowed Elven Arrow shot at the sun calls down beams of light on the enemies nearby. The effect works much like the Storm Call shout. The beams fall from wherever the sun stands in the sky. Early in the morning or late in the evening, the low sun lets enemies find cover more easily. The trick only works in daylight.

Bloodcursed Elven Arrows serve a vampire character. One shot at the sun darkens the sky until the next day. Vampires then walk without the penalties of daylight. The dark sky can also draw vampire attacks on towns, and townsfolk react to it in alarm. One of them asks, "Dragons weren't enough. Now we've lost the sun, too?"

Perks and Builds

Auriel's Bow fits a stealth archer or a vampire hunter build. In the Archery skill tree, Overdraw raises bow damage in five ranks. Quick Shot speeds up the draw even more. In the Sneak skill tree, Deadly Aim triples the damage of a sneak attack with a bow. A hidden shot at an undead target stacks both bonuses for up to nine times the sun damage.

Smithing helps as well. The Elven Smithing perk doubles each improvement at the grindstone, so the low base damage climbs quickly. Strong arrows matter too, since the arrow adds its own damage to every shot.

Gelebor blesses Sunhallowed arrows on request after the quest. Serana can turn the player's own Elven Arrows into Bloodcursed arrows. Keep a stock of Elven Arrows for both of them.

Compared with Other Bows

Zephyr is the only bow that shoots faster. Its speed comes from its enchantment, while Auriel's Bow draws fast on its own. Zephyr wins a straight fight on raw shots per second. Auriel's Bow wins against the undead because of its sun damage.

The Dwarven Black Bow of Fate is often named the strongest bow for its triple chance to drain Health, Magicka and Stamina. A Dragonbone Bow hits harder per arrow. Auriel's Bow sits between a Daedric Bow and a Dragonbone Bow in damage over time, thanks to its speed. Its sunlight powers have no equal on any other bow.

Quest Background

The Elder Scroll visions point the way to Darkfall Cave in the far northwest of Skyrim. The cave is dark and home to frostbite spiders and trolls. A collapsing bridge drops the Dragonborn and Serana into an underground river that carries them deep inside. There they meet Knight-Paladin Gelebor, one of the last two Snow Elves. He asks them to kill his brother, Arch-Curate Vyrthur, who he believes the Falmer have corrupted.

The road to Vyrthur follows the old path of the Chantry of Auri-El. Gelebor hands over the Initiate's Ewer, which must be filled at five wayshrines across the Forgotten Vale. They are the Wayshrines of Illumination, Sight, Learning, Resolution and Radiance. A word of the Drain Vitality shout waits on a rock in the frozen lake near the Wayshrine of Resolution. The last stretch runs through the Glacial Crevice, a maze of ice and rope bridges full of Falmer camps.

In the Inner Sanctum, Vyrthur wakes frozen Falmer and chaurus in waves to fight beside him. He also summons a Frost Atronach and casts ice magic, lightning and a draining spell. After the first fight he brings down the roof. He then reveals the truth. An initiate infected him with vampirism, and he believes Auri-El turned away from him. He wrote the Tyranny of the Sun prophecy himself, as revenge on his god. It needed the god's own bow and "the blood of a Daughter of Coldharbour." Once Vyrthur falls, Gelebor is glad to learn that the Falmer were not to blame. He names the Dragonborn a worthy champion, and the bow waits in a new wayshrine. Taking it also brings a stock of Sunhallowed arrows and starts Kindred Judgment at once.

The bow matters again in Kindred Judgment. Lord Harkon demands it before the final battle, and he attacks whether it is handed over or not. During the fight he hides behind a shield of blood magic. Any arrow from Auriel's Bow breaks that shield.

Lore

Gelebor tells the bow's story in a few words. "The bow was said to be carried by Auri-El himself into battle against the forces of Lorkhan in ancient and mythic times." He adds that "its craftsmanship has no equal anywhere within Tamriel."

The old myths go further. When Trinimac tore out the heart of Lorkhan, Auri-El tied it to an arrow and shot it far away. The heart fell to earth where Red Mountain later rose. The bow draws its power from Aetherius and channels it through the sun. Guide rankings of the artifacts often put it in the top tier, praising it against the undead and vampires.

Notes

Auriel's Bow also appeared in Arena, Daggerfall and Morrowind.

Ranged Weapon Categories

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• 

  Bows

• 

  Crossbows

All Unique Bows

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Name	Image	Damage	Speed	Weight	Value	Enchantment	Item ID	Level	Upgrade Material	Crafting Perk	Skill	DLC
Angi's Bow		7	0.937	7	50	Cannot be enchanted	000CC392	1+	Steel Ingot	Steel Smithing	Archery	Skyrim
Auriel's Bow		13	1	11	1000	21 points of sun damage. Undead targets take triple damage	XX000800	1+	Refined Moonstone	Elven Smithing	Archery	Dawnguard
Bow of the Hunt		10	0.937	7	434	Animals take 20 points of extra damage	000AB705	1+	Steel Ingot	Steel Smithing	Archery	Skyrim
Drainspell Bow		14	0.875	6	458	Absorb Magicka 15 points	000F82FC	1+	Cannot be Upgraded	None	Archery	Skyrim
Dravin's Bow		7	0.937	7	50	Cannot be enchanted	0006B9AD	1+	Leather Strips	Steel Smithing	Archery	Skyrim
Dwarven Black Bow of Fate		13	0.75	10	1446	50% chance for each attribute to absorb 25 pts. of Health, Stamina, and/or Magicka	XX02C01A	1+	Ebony Ingot	Dwarven Smithing	Archery	Dragonborn
Firiniel's End		13	0.687	12	785	Target takes 20 points of frost damage to Health and Stamina	00017059	1+	Refined Moonstone	Elven Smithing	Archery	Skyrim
Froki's Bow		6	1	5	307	Does 10 points of Stamina damage	000C0186	1+	Iron Ingot	None	Archery	Skyrim
Gauldur Blackbow		14	0.875	18	972	Absorb 30 points of magicka	000F5D22	36+	Steel Ingot	Dwarven Smithing	Archery	Skyrim
Glass Bow of the Stag Prince		16	0.625	14	375	Wielder receives an increasingly powerful blessing for every 20 animals killed by the bow	XX018ED5	1+	Refined Malachite	Glass Smithing	Archery	Dragonborn
Karliah's Bow		25	0.625	9	5	Cannot be enchanted	000DEED8	1+	Cannot be Upgraded	None	Archery	Skyrim
Nightingale Bow		19	0.5	18	3405	Freezes the target for 30 points and shocks the target for 15 points	000F652C	46+	Ebony Ingot	None	Archery	Skyrim
Zephyr		12	1	10	670	Fires 30% faster than a standard bow	XX00CFB6	1+	Dwarven Metal Ingot	Dwarven Smithing	Archery	Dawnguard
Bow of Shadows		19		18	2500	Weapon draw is 20% faster and casts invisibility for 30 seconds.	XX000807	1+	Ebony Ingot	Arcane Blacksmith	Archery	Creation Club
Ruin's Edge		12	0.875	7	750	Randomly applies one of these effects to the target: - Demoralize, 100 pts for 20 seconds - Drain Magicka, 1000 pts for 20 seconds - Frenzy, 100 pts for 20 seconds Frost Damage, 25 pts - Paralyze, for 15 seconds Paralyze, for 1 second	FEXXXD63	1+	Daedra Heart	Daedric Smithing	Archery	Creation Club