Oblivion:Skull of Corruption

Daedric Artifact: Skull of Corruption (00027116) (lore page)
Type	Staff
Editor ID	DASkullCorruption
Statistics
Health	100
		Health	100
Weight	10	Value	1270
Enchantment
Corruption for 30 secs
Charge/Cost = Uses		3000/150=20

Skull of Corruption

The Daedric artifact Skull of Corruption is a staff given as a reward for completing Vaermina's Daedric quest. It creates an identical clone, including any equipment, of almost any NPC you hit with it.

The target NPC will usually be immediately hostile to their double. Firing the staff at a friendly NPC is considered an assault, even though it doesn't actually hurt the NPC; however, if the clone kills the NPC this will not count as a murder by you. What follows is the target NPC fighting with their clone, and maybe with you too. The clone then disappears after thirty seconds.

The staff can only be used on NPCs, not creatures. It will not work on anyone who is considered a guard, defined as those classes with the "guard" flag set: Dark04 Prison Guard, Guard, Guard Archer, and Guard Battlemage (also includes Dark Seducer and Golden Saint if Shivering Isles is installed).

Related Quests

• Vaermina: Retrieve the Orb of Vaermina from the wizard, Arkved.

Notes

• If used on an essential NPC, the clone created will also be considered essential and thus, cannot be killed. The clone will still disappear after thirty seconds.
• The clone will have duplicates of all of the target's equipment with only a few exceptions, namely the Skull of Corruption, Umbra, and Wabbajack. These three artifacts are explicitly removed from the clone's equipment.
• Items can be duplicated using the Skull.
• It is possible to clone yourself permanently using the Skull of Corruption.
• If the clone is summoned unarmed, any weapons it picks up from the ground will be gone for good when it disappears. Therefore, you should pick up any valuable weapons from the ground prior to summoning the clone.
• The spell is subject to both spell reflection and spell absorption. If the spell is reflected back on you, it does not create a clone of you. Therefore, it is safe to use the staff on NPCs that reflect spells (unless you accidentally drop it before it hits the target, in which case it will duplicate you).
• You cannot create a new clone until the last one is gone.
• The script for the skull's enchantment contains commented-out commands indicating that instead of duplicating the target, it was at one point intended to move an NPC called "Corrupted Clone" from the cell DaedricHoldingPen, based on the race and sex of the target, and give it all of the target's items (plus stage 4 vampirism if the target was a vampire), returning the clone to the Daedric Holding Pen at the end of the spell or if it died and removing all the target's items from it. The cell is an empty black void containing 20 "Corrupted Clone" NPCs, one for each playable race and sex, and Casta Flavus.