Exactly what the title says. Farengar is a court wizard who has spent his LIFE’S RESEARCH ON DRAGONS, and yet once dragons return after thousands of years and the Dragonborn literally turns up ON HIS DOORSTEP, you can’t sell dragon bones to him? And yet you can sell any dwarven junk you find lying around to Calcelmo for extra coin? Makes absolutely no sense🥲
I agree. It is weird that you can only sell them at the apothecary or general store, I would think smiths and court wizards both have good reasons to want them. Smiths actually use them, and apothecaries don’t, for starters.
Exactly! It’s not even Farengar specifically, although he would have a personal reason to want them. Pretty much any court wizard in Skyrim would probably want to pour everything they have into researching the dragons and finding a way to stop them
at speech level 50 there is a perk that allows you to sell any item to any merchant.
but lorewise they are just as likely to take any random garbage and things of no use to them
Right? Even if they level locked it to where only certain smiths would accept the hones would be better than almost no one wanting these valuable, heavy bitches.
The citizens of Skyrim just don't appreciate how much weight my milk drinker ass is constantly hauling around.
let me guess? you bugged her inventory? or gave her a ton of armour with weight limit increase
The first time i saw you could sell them to an apothecary, i expected their inventory to show up with dragon bone dust or something like that tbh.
In-game, didn’t dragons just come back after being absent for a long time?
I would imagine smiths literally wouldn’t know what to do with dragon bones.
Yes, the player can smith with them at the top of the skill tree, sure. But I don’t know if your garden variety blacksmith would want them.
If they can make weapons and armor out of glass then surely they could handle a few bones.
Considering there are plenty of groups using chitin armor, which is just exoskeleton, it seems reasonable that people could learn to use dragon bones.
You need to be a legendary level smith, and havr mastered 'lesser' materials that are also exotic, to be able to do it. Its a pretty high bar to reach.
Daedric gear requires access to, well, deadra to even start to craft and thats already super rare.
The fact there is a dragon invasion happening right now makes the the bones relatively common, but you need to learn how to use stupidly rare stuff before a random smith could consistently make dragonbone gear.
How?
I doubt dragon slaying is a common enough niche for mercenaries in skyrim unless these mercenaries are as chad as the Dragonborn to killl them in the first place to be able to harvest the bones.
Mastering smithing takes like an hour, I'm sure the NPC smiths can figure it out
This.
Also, a painter buys paint at the art supply shop, and the people who work there might not be as capable of painters as the painter is… but they still sell the materials. The only practical use for dragon bones etc aside from plainly selling them is to use them as a smithing material.
NPCs can't power level unfortunately
with special forges and there should be at least one master level smithing npc, there should be smithers that can make dragonbone gear. its just an overlook of the game devs id say
There is one that matches lore wise, Eorlund Gray-Mane. Having him sell dragonbone gear would be the way.
Dang why didn't I think of that before I made a silly
Court wizards in general should buy more types of stuff. You're the all-purpose magical advisor for a whole hold! You have an alchemy table right there. Why don't you want my ridiculously overpriced potions of limited utility?
Just found these flawless gems in a mine owned by your Jarl, do you want them? No? Literal crown jewels right here...
Ok, how about this enchanted ancient Nordic weapon? It's better than the weapon you give to your thanes, and it actually came from an ancient city right down the road from you. No? Alright, I guess Belethor will do something with it.
The fucking street cat outside your city is literally buying priceless artifacts from me that could be given to any skooma addicted gecko that now calls themselves the Bandit King, are you absolutely sure you don’t want this Dragonbone Greatsword that ravages magika and stamina? It literally yoinks internal energy from whoever it slashes and looks like THE weapon of the high king of Skyrim! No? Okay to the cat to sell to the gecko man it goes then…
Lore-wise, absolutely. Weird that he doesn't have a radiant quest to bring him dragon bones and scales.
Gameplay-wise. ;) Merchant Perk!
My thoughts exactly! I used to not be crazy about that perk (immersion/balance) but the fact that it unlocks better ingredients at alchemy shops is enough for me to get it on every character
Yeah the radiant quest idea is solid. Bring him 5 bones and scales, get some gold and maybe a minor enchanted item. Would actually give you a reason to visit him after Bleak Falls Barrow.
The merchant perk feels like a workaround for missing NPC logic tbh
The merchant perk is the only reason I'm able to offload thousands of gold worth of potions, jewelry, and weapons and armor. Crafting is fun, but then there are too few people to buy what you're selling
Edit: plus investor perk and rich merchants mod
There’s an entire damn dragon skeleton at the western watchtower.
How many more bones and skeletons exactly do you think he needs?
“I know there’s a whole intact skeleton right over there to study, but here’s some broken fragments and pieces that I hacked up and stuffed in my backpack…”
Bones yes, but the scales? They haven't been around until Alduin started resurrecting dragons. Also, fresh bones would likely reveal more than ancient ones would.
You are totally incorrect about dragon scales, one does exist before Alduin ever returns.
Are you referring to Partysnax? Because if you are, there are a grand total of 6 people in all of Skyrim (7 if you include LDB) that know of his existence, and none of them are Farengar.
No, I was making the reference to just east of Rorikstead, on the hill.
It’s not like that skeleton is reserved for the use of the court wizard. That logic doesn’t hold up for as long as dragon bits are on anyone’s whitelist to buy.
I mean each dragon has six and only six so...
Just like how each giant only has one toe, lol
Maybe it’s not really a toe…
It’s the lower horn
haha yep
Speak for yourself. All that remains there is a bunch of ashes since the Dragon disintegrated after dying by my Shock Magic. /s
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The mod absolutely does exist. Dragon Hunting
And it's probably a good idea to have the companion mod Quantity Trade, otherwise you have to sell them to Farengar one at a time.
Excellent mod, makes dragon loot much more interesting
Oooh, make a little quest that gets you increasingly good gear out of the leftover bones or something that he makes for you as payment
There totally is a mod for that, but I can't remember it rn
I think it's called dragon hunting
Could mod your speech to 100 and get the perk where you can sell anything to anyone
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Insta-download
I’m………. I’m mad I’ve never thought of this before.
My Skyrim modding days are over but this shouldn’t be that hard to pull off.
Apparently the creator of the "Dragon Hunting" mod agreed way back in 2023, 100 years ago.
During The Fallen, Farengar tells Odahviing that he won't miss a few scales or a small amount of blood.
Doesn't sound like he needs bones for his research or experiments.
That said, the player should be able to sell anything to him (including Dragonbones) having the Speechcraft 50 perk Merchant .
That scene cracked me up so much. (I’m relatively new to the game.)
“Don’t worry, my tests should hardly hurt at all to such a large dragon as yourself.”
“What are you doing back there?!”
That’s true but I doubt he would take bone from a living dragon, even if he needed it for his experiments it would be far more useful to have a dragon alive and not dismembered😅
Huh great idea. Honestly miss that old school rpg style. Where yeah you can sell items to people but some might actually sell you certain ideas cheaper and other will buy certain items at a higher price or lower price, requiring you to find out by selling or buying and going wait... the last store sold health potions for 100 and this guys sells them for 110?? So having him be farther away from the rest of the commercial area BUT the bright side that he would be buying bones at a certain % higher is a great idea, or just a pure flat rate so you can earn money early and then sell them to other merchants with your forked tongue I mean silver tongue.
Smiths can’t even use dragon bones anyway according to lore. But level 50 speech perk is essential for most plays so there is that.
I got confused for a second and thought you were complaining about Belethor. “What, you can absolutely sell them to the general store… OH the court wizard douche.” 😅
Lore wise you are correct... infact he should have a scavenger hunt style quest like the fire salts for the blacksmith in Riften, or the bear pelts in Iverstead, or the Fallout 3 style scavenger hunt. Where he pays a premium.
On the other hand if Bethesda did that and you sold all your dragon bones to Farengar, then later in the game when it comes time to craft top tier gear you don't have any dragon stuff
Do you have the perk that lets you sell anything to anyone? I always get that one.
There's a perk in the speech skill tree Iirc that allows you to sell anything to anyone.
i just know my boy would drop everything to buy some dragon bones and scales! it really doesn’t make sense that you can’t sell them to him, but you can to Arcadia
Yes this and 21,504 other issues. God I live Skyrim, but I sometimes wonder if draugrs designed the game bc sometimes it does feel that mindless.
I have a mod that adds a bunch of extra merchants and other nameless NPC's. Ive had it for so long that I forget what's in the mod and what's not, but one of the ones I think come from the mod is the dragon hunter. He never hunts any dragons, but he does give you 1 quest at a time telling you where a dragon is, and will also buy dragon bones and scales for a much higher price than the shops.
Only problem is that he only shows up at 4 towns and cycles through them seemingly at random. so if im trying to avoid fast travelling, i'll often need to keep several dragons worth of bones and scales on me whilst I waddle my ass from shorts stone to Karthwasten or whatever, but he 4 towns he travels between are always the same so I suppose it's not too bad for the money and quests he gives.
here's the thing though, for the longest time, assuming he's found some burial mounds, all he's had is probably bones. If dinosaurs suddenly came alive today, would you walk up to a paleontologist with a triceratops femur and be like "hey, buy this" while he's looking at live specimen?
But we can never find any opened burial mounds in skyrim; they’re all sealed until Alduin resurrects the dragon inside. If he did somehow get his hands on dragon bones he would have had to get them through those mounds before the Dragonborn shows ups and starts killing dragons
i hoarded so many for no fucking reason i thought they would be imortant
Ooh, I smell a mod about to be created by someone...
I always make a giant pile of dragon bones in my firepit at Breezehome
And then you can get the merchant perk and sell whatever to everybody lol Oh you sell meat from your farm? How about these dragon bones? Are you interested?
Do the bones and scales have any other use besides being sold? I haven't sold most of mine yet, but I am curious
They're used to make some of the best armor and weapons in the game, but you need a smithing skill of 100 first, so if you're just starting out it's better to sell them. They're valuable and you will be drowning in bones and scales by the time you are actually able to craft with them.
Thank you!
Were I adept at modding and creating assets, I'd make it so that blacksmiths make/stock items consistent with the raw materials they have available locally or that you sell to them (including accepting dragon scales and bones), and I'd add way more assets so that each blacksmith makes their own variation of each armour style. Small changes that I think would be really cool.
Sounds like a quick mod!