The Skyrim version of Dr. Frankenstein, the focus of this necromancer build is improving a reanimated corpse to create a truly monstrous minion.
-THE CHIRURGEON-
The Chirurgeon is a skilled alchemist and surgeon who is obsessed with anatomy and the mechanical workings of the body. He uses his scientific knowledge to reanimate the deceased and has even found ways of improving the internal workings of the body, albeit temporarily, through the use of various alchemical stimulants.
Race: Breton is the best fit for this build, with its boost in Conjuration and inherent magic resistance, but really any race would do.
Stone: The Lord Stone, we’ll need all the defense we can get.
Primary Skills: Alchemy.
Secondary Skills: Enchanting, Conjuration, and Restoration.
Stat Placement: M: 4 H: 0 S: 1 our main stat is Magicka but the extra stamina will be very useful when lugging around all our potions, poisons, and ingredients, and for fleeing in a panic when a saber tooth gets the drop on us.
Weapons: Knife, Reanimation Staves, Reanimated Corpses.
Apparel: The chef’s tunic or white blacksmith apron both fit the mad scientist vibe well, especially when blood spattered, hats, gloves, and boots. All self enchanted with fortify health on the chest, fortify magicka on the hands, fortify conjuration on the head, and fortify carry weight on the feet.
Gear: The Philosopher’s Stone, an amulet of magnificent power that allows the chirurgeon to create alchemical concoctions of unrivaled potency.
Perk Spread Level 30
Alchemy: The Chirurgeon is an alchemist first and foremost. This skill is required to create the powerful Philosopher’s Stone and is necessary for creating the necro stimulants for our reanimated minions.
Enchanting: This skill is useful for crafting fortify alchemy gear until we can create the Philosopher’s Stone. We’ll also use this to enchant an adventuring outfit that fortifies our health, magic, and carry weight.
Conjuration: We won’t need any of the cost reduction perks since we rarely hard cast any spells. We do want to go up the necromancy branch to improve our reanimated minions, and take the twin souls perk for double the fun.
Restoration: Of course a chirurgeon would have some experience with healing magic, and turn undead would be useful incase any of his experiments got out of hand. Avoid Death is also a great perk for such a fragile character.
The Beginning
An important part of any role-play is the origin story. You need to know how you got to Helgen in the first place. To that end I’ve crafted the below origin stories for the chirurgeon characters that I played.
The Legion Field Medic: The civil war has provided the perfect opportunity to practice your skills. You sign up with the legion as a field medic and are stationed with the forces occupying Helgen. While clearly a brilliant chirurgeon, you have become the focus of many complaints. Your patients consistently complain about unnecessary procedures. You soon develop a reputation as a sadist who takes pleasure in amputating limbs or cauterizing wounds, especially when the subject is still conscious. Your superiors feel that the axe is the most expedient solution to your transgressions.
The Hermit: You live in a shack just west of Riverwood and are thought of as a harmless if eccentric recluse. You are regularly visited by some of the locals who seek you out for curatives and medical treatment. However, you have also been smuggling bodies out of Helgen through the caves beneath the city on behalf of the torturer, something you see as a win/win situation. The torturer is able to quietly dispose of his victims and you gain an unmissed corpse to practice on. It was during one of these smuggling trips that you were caught by a Legion patrol, and accused of trying to infiltrate Helgen for the Stormcloaks. Deaf to your claims of innocence the Legion sends you to the block.
Tools of the Trade
The Philosopher’s Stone
The Philosopher’s Stone is a powerful trinket created by gifted alchemists which allows them to transcend the laws of the physical universe and create concoctions of unimaginable power. I’m sure most of you are familiar with the restoration potion exploit and how it affects enchanted gear. If not here is a quick refresher.
- Step One: Equip a full set of fortify alchemy gear.
- Step Two: Create a potion of fortify restoration.
- Step Three: Unequip the fortify alchemy gear.
- Step Four: Drink the potion of fortify restoration that you just created.
- Step Five: Reequip the fortify alchemy gear. You’ll notice that the enchantments power has increased.
- Step Six: Repeat steps two thru five until you create a super potion that makes your gear ridiculously over powered, i.e. fortify alchemy 100,000%
- This is the basic loop to create overpowered potions. To create the Stone we will have to go a few steps further.
- Step Seven: Create a super potion of fortify enchanting.
- Step Eight: Drink the potion of fortify enchanting then create a necklace of fortify alchemy.
If done correctly the necklace will be supercharged. Now any potion created while wearing the necklace will be overpowered and you will no longer have to perform the restoration loop. There are many uses for the Philosopher’s Stone however the main purpose in this build is the creation of fortify conjuration potions. These potions will mimic the Dead Thrall spell boosting the duration of any other reanimation spell almost limitlessly. This means that not only people but also animals and monsters can be reanimated for a nearly unlimited amount of time.
Alchemical Reagents
The chirurgeon is a skilled alchemist capable of creating a wide array of potent stimulants, anesthetics, and poisons. Below is a list of some of the potent concoctions the chirurgeon uses regularly.
Necrotic Plasma Infusion: Poison of Damage Magicka Regeneration and Fortify Health. This potent concoction drains mental acuity but boosts physical durability making it perfect for our undead minions who have little use for their brains anyway.
Ingredients: Hanging Moss and Blue Mountain Flower
Necrotic Adrenal Booster: Poison of Damage Magicka and Fortify Health Regeneration. This poison cuts off the victim’s connection to aetherius while also boosting physical vigor and vitality.
Ingredients: Namira’s Rot and Nordic Barnacle
Tranquilizer: Paralysis Poison. This potent poison instantly puts the victim to sleep allowing the chirurgeon to perform his experiments undisturbed.
Ingredients: Imp Stool and Swamp Fungal Pod
Embalming Fluid: Potion of Fortify Conjuration. The greatest bane to our undead constructs is the wear and tear of servitude. This compound helps alleviate that problem preserving the corpse for extended use.
Ingredients: Bone Meal and Lavender
Serum of Enlightenment: Potion of Fortify Restoration. This powerful hallucinogenic potion is derived from distilled fish toxins and unlocks the latent genius of the chirurgeon. Allowing him to see connections and patterns where others would see only chaos. It is through the liberal use of this substance that he is able to create the Philosopher’s Stone.
Ingredients: Abacean Longfin or Cyrodilic Spadetail and Salt Pile
Necro-Electric Rods
The Chirurgeon has discovered a way to create powered rods that can overcharge the synaptic system of a corpse, reanimating it in a rudimentary way. While not as powerful as magical forms of reanimation it does have some benefits, the primary being the preservation of the body. Most necromantic spells destroy the body once the spell has expired. This is not a problem with the necro-electric rod allowing multiple uses of the same corpse.
A staff of revenants can be found at level one in an unmarked Nordic ruins just southeast of Morthal, be sure to pick this up as soon as possible since it will lose some of its usefulness as the chirurgeon levels up. Staves have one major drawback to conventional necromancy; they cannot raise as powerful a corpse as the spell of the same name. Below is a breakdown of the staves capability verses that of the spell.
Staff of Zombies: max level 3 - Raise Zombie: max level 6
Staff of Reanimation: max level 6 - Reanimation: max level 13
Staff of Revenants: max level 9 - Revenant: max level 21
Staff of Dread Zombies: max level 12 - Dread Zombie: max level 30
The Monster
The result of all the chirurgeon’s blasphemous experiments is this abominable horror. Not just a mere zombie The Monster is augmented by chemical stimulants that the chirurgeon injects into its reanimated circulatory system. Creating an undead beast with unnatural regenerative properties, that’s able to shrug off the most devastating attacks. The Monster is an unstoppable killing machine that obeys every whim of its unhinged master.
The Skyrim version of Frankenstein’s Monster, the best choice for thematic and aesthetic purposes is the ubiquitous draugr. They are also one of my favorite enemies in the game and I was very disappointed when I discovered that the Dead Thrall spell didn’t work on them. Grab one early and upgrade as better versions appear. My personal favorite is Warlord Gathrik who can be found in Ironbind Barrow. He is a leveled opponent so grabbing him early is recommended so you can reanimate him with a staff of revenants or dread zombies. He is tough, with more health than other draugr of the same level, and he has access to the thu’um. However, his greatest feature is his size he is almost twice the size of a standard draugr and towers over the battle field. I picked him up at the very beginning of my play through (level 4 or 5) with the staff or revenants and was still using him when I finished the build at level 32.
House of Horrors
Every mad scientist needs a lab and the Chirurgeon is no different. The subject matter of our experiments means that we would want a place that is away from curious eyes and ears some place secluded or hidden. The early game provides us with a great hidden lab under Anise’s Cabin, which is already outfitted with an alchemy table and arcane enchanter as well as a table to lay out our cadavers. Later we can upgrade to Hjerim in Windhelm which has one of the best features of any house in the game, a secret lab hidden behind a false wardrobe.
The lab is the perfect place to train your magic skills as well as your alchemy and enchanting. Here are some great ways to power level while still maintaining your role play. Soul trapping a cadaver that is laid out on your operating table is a good role play way of experimenting on a dead body, which will invariably give you insight in how to better reanimate a dead body. Also, casting turn undead on a zombie in your lab is a good way to raise your restoration skill by experimenting on an animated corpse, improving your knowledge of zombie behavior and how to manipulate them.
Play Style
There are fragile builds and then there is the Chirurgeon. This character is very vulnerable and should stay away from all forms of combat. Zero armor and only 100 health mean everything can and will kill you, even skeevers are dangerous to this guy. Plan ahead and make sure you have plenty of potions and poisons to aid you and your zombie follower. Don’t forget to bring along a normal living follower and a pet as well. My choices were Eola who is already a grave robber so it makes sense that the two of you would join forces, and a reikling who I thought of as a lab assistant and all around whipping boy, I even starting calling him Igor.
This character plays a support role during combat. Pay attention to your allies and make sure you have a plasma infusion or adrenal booster ready to heal them. If the opportunity presents itself you can risk tranquilizing one of the enemies to help ease the burden on your team. Don’t forget that your beneficial poisons work just as well on the living as they do on the dead.
Suggested Quests
College of Winterhold: This quest line will provide you with useful trainers and a source for buying soul gems to recharge your staves. Also the more powerful reanimation spells can only be bought from Phinis Gestor.
Forbidden Legend: The Gauldur Amulet is probably the best necklace for this build in the game, aside from enchanting your own.
The White Phial: If you decide to become the Dragonborn then this is a thematic quest for any alchemist.
A Return to Your Roots: Another thematic quest for the alchemist.
Volkihar: Join the vampires to learn the rare heal undead spells.
The Chirurgeon’s main purpose for adventuring is acquiring alchemical ingredients and soul gems to power his undead servants. For this reason it makes sense that at some point he would want to explore a place like Black Reach, which is full of unique ingredients and a plethora of soul gems, as well as the ash wastes of Solstheim for its unique flora and fauna.
Conclusion
If you got this far than thank you for reading, I appreciate your interest and look forward to any comments you might have. I’d like to thank all the other creators on this site, your work has inspired me and inspired this build. Also a special thanks to Vazgen who provided the staff breakdown which really helped me iron out some kinks. Also check out the role play section for CR’s guide to roleplaying a necromancer a great read for anyone interested in playing as a necromancer in Skyrim.
Vargr-
The Skyrim version of Dr. Frankenstein, the focus of this necromancer build is improving a reanimated corpse to create a truly monstrous minion.
-THE CHIRURGEON-
The Chirurgeon is a skilled alchemist and surgeon who is obsessed with anatomy and the mechanical workings of the body. He uses his scientific knowledge to reanimate the deceased and has even found ways of improving the internal workings of the body, albeit temporarily, through the use of various alchemical stimulants.
Race: Breton is the best fit for this build, with its boost in Conjuration and inherent magic resistance, but really any race would do.
Stone: The Lord Stone, we’ll need all the defense we can get.
Primary Skills: Alchemy.
Secondary Skills: Enchanting, Conjuration, and Restoration.
Stat Placement: M: 4 H: 0 S: 1 our main stat is Magicka but the extra stamina will be very useful when lugging around all our potions, poisons, and ingredients, and for fleeing in a panic when a saber tooth gets the drop on us.
Weapons: Knife, Reanimation Staves, Reanimated Corpses.
Apparel: The chef’s tunic or white blacksmith apron both fit the mad scientist vibe well, especially when blood spattered, hats, gloves, and boots. All self enchanted with fortify health on the chest, fortify magicka on the hands, fortify conjuration on the head, and fortify carry weight on the feet.
Gear: The Philosopher’s Stone, an amulet of magnificent power that allows the chirurgeon to create alchemical concoctions of unrivaled potency.
Perk Spread Level 30
Alchemy: The Chirurgeon is an alchemist first and foremost. This skill is required to create the powerful Philosopher’s Stone and is necessary for creating the necro stimulants for our reanimated minions.
Enchanting: This skill is useful for crafting fortify alchemy gear until we can create the Philosopher’s Stone. We’ll also use this to enchant an adventuring outfit that fortifies our health, magic, and carry weight.
Conjuration: We won’t need any of the cost reduction perks since we rarely hard cast any spells. We do want to go up the necromancy branch to improve our reanimated minions, and take the twin souls perk for double the fun.
Restoration: Of course a chirurgeon would have some experience with healing magic, and turn undead would be useful incase any of his experiments got out of hand. Avoid Death is also a great perk for such a fragile character.
The Beginning
An important part of any role-play is the origin story. You need to know how you got to Helgen in the first place. To that end I’ve crafted the below origin stories for the chirurgeon characters that I played.
The Legion Field Medic: The civil war has provided the perfect opportunity to practice your skills. You sign up with the legion as a field medic and are stationed with the forces occupying Helgen. While clearly a brilliant chirurgeon, you have become the focus of many complaints. Your patients consistently complain about unnecessary procedures. You soon develop a reputation as a sadist who takes pleasure in amputating limbs or cauterizing wounds, especially when the subject is still conscious. Your superiors feel that the axe is the most expedient solution to your transgressions.
The Hermit: You live in a shack just west of Riverwood and are thought of as a harmless if eccentric recluse. You are regularly visited by some of the locals who seek you out for curatives and medical treatment. However, you have also been smuggling bodies out of Helgen through the caves beneath the city on behalf of the torturer, something you see as a win/win situation. The torturer is able to quietly dispose of his victims and you gain an unmissed corpse to practice on. It was during one of these smuggling trips that you were caught by a Legion patrol, and accused of trying to infiltrate Helgen for the Stormcloaks. Deaf to your claims of innocence the Legion sends you to the block.
Tools of the Trade
The Philosopher’s Stone
The Philosopher’s Stone is a powerful trinket created by gifted alchemists which allows them to transcend the laws of the physical universe and create concoctions of unimaginable power. I’m sure most of you are familiar with the restoration potion exploit and how it affects enchanted gear. If not here is a quick refresher.
- Step One: Equip a full set of fortify alchemy gear.
- Step Two: Create a potion of fortify restoration.
- Step Three: Unequip the fortify alchemy gear.
- Step Four: Drink the potion of fortify restoration that you just created.
- Step Five: Reequip the fortify alchemy gear. You’ll notice that the enchantments power has increased.
- Step Six: Repeat steps two thru five until you create a super potion that makes your gear ridiculously over powered, i.e. fortify alchemy 100,000%
- This is the basic loop to create overpowered potions. To create the Stone we will have to go a few steps further.
- Step Seven: Create a super potion of fortify enchanting.
- Step Eight: Drink the potion of fortify enchanting then create a necklace of fortify alchemy.
If done correctly the necklace will be supercharged. Now any potion created while wearing the necklace will be overpowered and you will no longer have to perform the restoration loop. There are many uses for the Philosopher’s Stone however the main purpose in this build is the creation of fortify conjuration potions. These potions will mimic the Dead Thrall spell boosting the duration of any other reanimation spell almost limitlessly. This means that not only people but also animals and monsters can be reanimated for a nearly unlimited amount of time.
Alchemical Reagents
The chirurgeon is a skilled alchemist capable of creating a wide array of potent stimulants, anesthetics, and poisons. Below is a list of some of the potent concoctions the chirurgeon uses regularly.
Necrotic Plasma Infusion: Poison of Damage Magicka Regeneration and Fortify Health. This potent concoction drains mental acuity but boosts physical durability making it perfect for our undead minions who have little use for their brains anyway.
Ingredients: Hanging Moss and Blue Mountain Flower
Necrotic Adrenal Booster: Poison of Damage Magicka and Fortify Health Regeneration. This poison cuts off the victim’s connection to aetherius while also boosting physical vigor and vitality.
Ingredients: Namira’s Rot and Nordic Barnacle
Tranquilizer: Paralysis Poison. This potent poison instantly puts the victim to sleep allowing the chirurgeon to perform his experiments undisturbed.
Ingredients: Imp Stool and Swamp Fungal Pod
Embalming Fluid: Potion of Fortify Conjuration. The greatest bane to our undead constructs is the wear and tear of servitude. This compound helps alleviate that problem preserving the corpse for extended use.
Ingredients: Bone Meal and Lavender
Serum of Enlightenment: Potion of Fortify Restoration. This powerful hallucinogenic potion is derived from distilled fish toxins and unlocks the latent genius of the chirurgeon. Allowing him to see connections and patterns where others would see only chaos. It is through the liberal use of this substance that he is able to create the Philosopher’s Stone.
Ingredients: Abacean Longfin or Cyrodilic Spadetail and Salt Pile
Necro-Electric Rods
The Chirurgeon has discovered a way to create powered rods that can overcharge the synaptic system of a corpse, reanimating it in a rudimentary way. While not as powerful as magical forms of reanimation it does have some benefits, the primary being the preservation of the body. Most necromantic spells destroy the body once the spell has expired. This is not a problem with the necro-electric rod allowing multiple uses of the same corpse.
A staff of revenants can be found at level one in an unmarked Nordic ruins just southeast of Morthal, be sure to pick this up as soon as possible since it will lose some of its usefulness as the chirurgeon levels up. Staves have one major drawback to conventional necromancy; they cannot raise as powerful a corpse as the spell of the same name. Below is a breakdown of the staves capability verses that of the spell.
Staff of Zombies: max level 3 - Raise Zombie: max level 6
Staff of Reanimation: max level 6 - Reanimation: max level 13
Staff of Revenants: max level 9 - Revenant: max level 21
Staff of Dread Zombies: max level 12 - Dread Zombie: max level 30
The Monster
The result of all the chirurgeon’s blasphemous experiments is this abominable horror. Not just a mere zombie The Monster is augmented by chemical stimulants that the chirurgeon injects into its reanimated circulatory system. Creating an undead beast with unnatural regenerative properties, that’s able to shrug off the most devastating attacks. The Monster is an unstoppable killing machine that obeys every whim of its unhinged master.
The Skyrim version of Frankenstein’s Monster, the best choice for thematic and aesthetic purposes is the ubiquitous draugr. They are also one of my favorite enemies in the game and I was very disappointed when I discovered that the Dead Thrall spell didn’t work on them. Grab one early and upgrade as better versions appear. My personal favorite is Warlord Gathrik who can be found in Ironbind Barrow. He is a leveled opponent so grabbing him early is recommended so you can reanimate him with a staff of revenants or dread zombies. He is tough, with more health than other draugr of the same level, and he has access to the thu’um. However, his greatest feature is his size he is almost twice the size of a standard draugr and towers over the battle field. I picked him up at the very beginning of my play through (level 4 or 5) with the staff or revenants and was still using him when I finished the build at level 32.
House of Horrors
Every mad scientist needs a lab and the Chirurgeon is no different. The subject matter of our experiments means that we would want a place that is away from curious eyes and ears some place secluded or hidden. The early game provides us with a great hidden lab under Anise’s Cabin, which is already outfitted with an alchemy table and arcane enchanter as well as a table to lay out our cadavers. Later we can upgrade to Hjerim in Windhelm which has one of the best features of any house in the game, a secret lab hidden behind a false wardrobe.
The lab is the perfect place to train your magic skills as well as your alchemy and enchanting. Here are some great ways to power level while still maintaining your role play. Soul trapping a cadaver that is laid out on your operating table is a good role play way of experimenting on a dead body, which will invariably give you insight in how to better reanimate a dead body. Also, casting turn undead on a zombie in your lab is a good way to raise your restoration skill by experimenting on an animated corpse, improving your knowledge of zombie behavior and how to manipulate them.
Play Style
There are fragile builds and then there is the Chirurgeon. This character is very vulnerable and should stay away from all forms of combat. Zero armor and only 100 health mean everything can and will kill you, even skeevers are dangerous to this guy. Plan ahead and make sure you have plenty of potions and poisons to aid you and your zombie follower. Don’t forget to bring along a normal living follower and a pet as well. My choices were Eola who is already a grave robber so it makes sense that the two of you would join forces, and a reikling who I thought of as a lab assistant and all around whipping boy, I even starting calling him Igor.
This character plays a support role during combat. Pay attention to your allies and make sure you have a plasma infusion or adrenal booster ready to heal them. If the opportunity presents itself you can risk tranquilizing one of the enemies to help ease the burden on your team. Don’t forget that your beneficial poisons work just as well on the living as they do on the dead.
Suggested Quests
College of Winterhold: This quest line will provide you with useful trainers and a source for buying soul gems to recharge your staves. Also the more powerful reanimation spells can only be bought from Phinis Gestor.
Forbidden Legend: The Gauldur Amulet is probably the best necklace for this build in the game, aside from enchanting your own.
The White Phial: If you decide to become the Dragonborn then this is a thematic quest for any alchemist.
A Return to Your Roots: Another thematic quest for the alchemist.
Volkihar: Join the vampires to learn the rare heal undead spells.
The Chirurgeon’s main purpose for adventuring is acquiring alchemical ingredients and soul gems to power his undead servants. For this reason it makes sense that at some point he would want to explore a place like Black Reach, which is full of unique ingredients and a plethora of soul gems, as well as the ash wastes of Solstheim for its unique flora and fauna.
Conclusion
If you got this far than thank you for reading, I appreciate your interest and look forward to any comments you might have. I’d like to thank all the other creators on this site, your work has inspired me and inspired this build. Also a special thanks to Vazgen who provided the staff breakdown which really helped me iron out some kinks. Also check out the role play section for CR’s guide to roleplaying a necromancer a great read for anyone interested in playing as a necromancer in Skyrim.
Vargr-
