Skyrim’s Standing Stones Give Powerful Perks

On your way out of Helgen, you may have found the three Guardian Stones along the path. These three stones and other standing stones around Skyrim will give you useful perks to power up your Dragonborn. Some stones will give you a special ability, while others speed up the rate you learn certain skills. Also, for achievement hunters, you’ll get the Blessed achievement for activating one stone. For finding all 13, you’ll get the Standing Stones achievement. This guide will help you find all of the standing stones and learn what they do.

The Thief Stone

The left stone in the Guardian Stone trio is the Thief Stone. With this stone active, you’ll level your stealth skills 20% faster. These include Sneak, Archery, Pickpocket, Alchemy, Lockpicking, Light Armor, and Speech. If you want to try the classic stealth archer build, this will help you the most when you’re starting out.

The Mage Stone

The center stone of the Guardians is the Mage Stone. This stone will help you level your mage skills 20% faster. These include Enchanting, Destruction, Restoration, Illusion, Conjuration, and Alteration. For those wanting to blast enemies and summon allies, this stone is great as your starting pick.

The Warrior Stone

The last stone in the Guardians is the Warrior Stone. This will help you level your combat skills 20% faster. These include One-Handed, Two-Handed, Smithing, Block, and Heavy Armor. For those who want to deal with their enemies in a more direct manner, here is your best starting option.

The Ritual Stone

The Ritual Stone is a good choice for those roleplaying a necromancer or specializing in conjuration. You can use its special power once a day. It will reanimate nearby corpses to fight for you, within 75 ft of your location. This costs 75 magicka and the summon lasts for 200 seconds.

This stone can be found in the mountains east of Whiterun, above Graywinter Watch. It’s useful for boss fights if you’ve killed the minions, or when you’re surrounded. There isn’t a limit to the number of corpses you can reanimate, so you could make an army if there are enough bodies. You can also raise things you can’t normally raise, like mammoths or giants.

The Lover Stone

The Lover Stone works like a jack-of-all-trades version of the Guardian Stones. It boosts all skill gains by 15%. However, you’ll lose the bonuses you get from resting, like Lover’s Comfort, so you can’t stack them. Since werewolves don’t get resting bonuses anyway, the Lover Stone is helpful for them.

To find the Lover Stone, head northeast from Markarth. You’ll find it on a cliff north of Kolskeggr Mine.

The Lord Stone

The Lord Stone is great for those who like to wander Skyrim with a little more protection. It boosts armor rating by 50 and gives you a 25% decrease to magic damage. Although the magic damage reduction is not as high as the Atronach Stone’s, there is no downside that comes with the Lord Stone. This is a good stone to pick when you know you’re going to fight a tough enemy.

The Lord Stone can be found in the mountain range east of Morthal. It’s probably easiest to reach by going to Fort Dunstad and heading up the mountain path to the west. Alternatively, climb down from the Shrine of Mehrunes Dagon and head northeast.

The Lady Stone

Say you’ve angered a bunch of guards, and they’re after you. With the power of the Lady Stone, you’re more likely to make it out alive. The Lady Stone helps you regenerate health and stamina faster, with a 25% boost. It’s helpful in and out of combat.

To find the Lady Stone, go to Falkreath, then head north to Lake Ilinalta. It’s sitting in the middle of the lake on an island. Be careful if you’re low level, the slaughterfish in the water will attack you.

The Shadow Stone

If you activate the Shadow Stone, you’ll gain the power to become invisible for 60 seconds once a day. Unlike the invisibility spell, this is instant with no casting time. This can be used to escape a dangerous situation or used to carry out a heist. Since this power is useful for thieves, naturally the stone is near Riften, the thieving capital of Skyrim. Go south of the city and you’ll find it near Nightingale Hall. Just be prepared for a fight, there’s usually a mage guarding the stone.

The Atronach Stone

The Atronach Stone is great for fighting mages as a non-magical character. It cuts incoming spell damage by 50% and gives you an extra 50 magicka, but your magicka regeneration is also 50% slower. Characters who don’t use magic often will get the spell damage reduction and won’t have to worry about the downsides.

This stone is in Eastmarch, northeast of Darkwater Crossing. It’s on the southern edge of the hot springs, to the northwest of Mistwatch but south of Bonestrewn Crest.

The Steed Stone

The Steed Stone is my personal favorite, as someone who loots everything that isn’t nailed down like a magpie on crack. It will give you an extra 100 carry weight (50 in survival mode). It will also make all armor weightless, removing the movement penalties from heavy armor. Haul more loot out of dungeons and do it in comfort!

The Steed Stone is tucked away in the mountain range northwest of Solitude. Walk east of Fort Hraggstad to have the easiest time getting to it.

The Apprentice Stone

With the Apprentice stone activated, you’ll recover magicka 100% faster, but you’ll take 100% more magicka damage. This stone is best used when you are planning to use magic against non-magical enemies. To find this stone, walk northwest of Morthal. You will see it on an island in the marsh just north of Fort Snowhawk.

The Tower Stone

One day, you decide to send Nazeem to the literal cloud district with a few arrows in broad daylight. Unfortunately, you’ve been caught and thrown in the Dragonsreach dungeon. If you grabbed the Tower Stone’s power before planning your assassination, you’ve got a good way to escape. The Tower Stone gives you a power that you can use once a day to instantly open an Expert-level lock. If you don’t have many levels in lockpicking yet, this will be very helpful. However, if your character has a high lockpicking level, it might be better to pick another stone.

This stone is halfway between Dawnstar and Winterhold, on a high cliff northwest of Saarthal. It’s overlooking some icy water to the west, so approach from the east.

The Serpent Stone

The Serpent Stone’s power is great for ambushing unsuspecting enemies. It allows you to use a ranged attack once a day that paralyzes an enemy for 5 seconds and does 25 points of poison damage. Stormcloaks will have already found this stone, since Galmar sends you to fight ice wraiths here when you sign up. For Imperials or neutral players, swim east of the College of Winterhold. You will find the island in the middle of the Sea of Ghosts, not far past the wreck of the Pride of Tel Vos.

The Aetherial Crown Lets You Use Multiple Standing Stones

In the Dawnguard DLC, there is a special craftable crown that lets you use two standing stone bonuses. You will have to get the quest “Lost to the Ages” by either reading a book called The Aetherium Wars or entering Arkngthamz, a Dwarven ruin halfway between Markarth and Falkreath.

In Arkngthamz, you’ll meet a ghost named Katria who will lead you to her bow, Zephyr. Archers will want to pick this up since it’s enchanted to have 30% faster draw speed. After this, keep following her through the ruins, solving puzzles and fighting until you find one of four shards. These shards make a key that unlocks the Aetherium Forge. Go to the other three dungeons, and then you’ll be able to combine the shards at the Ruins of Bthalft. Follow Katria through these ruins, and after you fight the Forgemaster you’ll have access to the Forge.

The Aetherium Forge can give you one of three possible artifacts, with the crown being one of them. You can also get the Aetherial Shield or Aetherial Staff if you like them more. The shield is a piece of heavy armor. It makes enemies unable to attack or be attacked for 15 seconds when you shield-bash them. The staff will summon either a Dwarven Spider or a Dwarven Sphere to fight for you for 60 seconds. If you want to use multiple standing stones, however, pick the crown.