Click here for more Skyrim GuidesExploring Skyrim might take you a long while as the place is huge and one of the ways to make exploring easier is to obtain a horse. While horses in Skyrim have different traits and abilities, some are useless as they have lower stamina or health. This can quickly lead to many dead horses.
If you wish to have the best horse in Skyrim, there’s only one way to get it and that’s if you join the Dark Brotherhood. By completing the quest, ‘The Cure of Madness’, Astrid (Dark Brotherhood leader) will summon Shadowmere your reward for completing this mission.
Shadowmere is a unique horse because there are some traits and abilities that set him apart. The following are just some of his special qualities:
– Twice the average stamina, meaning Shadowmere can run faster for longer.
– Shadowmere has three times the health of the average horse.
Given the fact that Skyrim was meant to be, in some degrees, a much more realistic game when compared to Oblivion, I can understand how Bethesda decided to underpower Shadowmere when compared to Oblivion’s black steed.
Oblivion’s version has almost infinite health and kicked the crap out of anyone who laid a hand on you. In Skyrim, it does in fact have a specific health limit, and I dont know about the rest of you, but I haven’t been able to get Shadowmere to attack so much as a freaking mudcrab.
Overall, however, if you intend to be a map completionist, by that I mean go EVERYWHERE, you will need a good steed to ride, and Shadowmere fits the bill in spades. Also, the Dark Brotherhood questline in epic. :)
I really do love the Shadowmere. I don’t really need a horse unless i am going up a mountain or to an area I have never been to. I only owned one horse before and it died withing a day from an easy-kill-wolf… But this one is epic. It never died on me, it kills anyone that lays a hand one me and i agree with KiRaRoth, the Dark Brotherhood questline is epic. This is the best ride in Skyrim, plus, a shadow horse? Sweet.