Soul Gems are miscellaneous items which can be used to trap the souls of dying creatures or NPCs. The resulting filled soul gems can be used as power sources for enchanted items, either when initially creating custom enchanted items or when recharging depleted enchanted weapons. Soul gems come in a range of capacities, from petty to grand, plus some special soul gems. Only black soul gems and the Black Star can be used to capture the soul of an NPC, which is always a grand soul in size. There are also soul gem fragments found in the game. These are classified as minor loot and are not actual soul gems.
Empty soul gems can also be harvested from geode veins, which are only found in Blackreach. Each mined vein will result in 2–3 soul gems of any size, including black soul gems. The mined soul gems are level-dependent; at level 16 grand and black soul gems will start to appear, and the probability for either will max out at level 31.
Types of Soul GemEdit
Standard Soul GemsEdit
| Name | Soul | ID | .png){kind=icon} |
 |
Capacity | Weapon Recharge | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
Petty Soul Gem | none | 0002e4e2 | 0.1 | 10 | 250 (Petty) | 500 |
| Petty | 0002e4e3 | 40 | |||||
 |
Lesser Soul Gem | none | 0002e4e4 | 0.2 | 25 | 500 (Lesser) | 750 |
| Lesser | 0002e4e5 | 80 | |||||
 |
Common Soul Gem | none | 0002e4e6 | 0.3 | 50 | 1000 (Common) | 1250 |
| Common | 0002e4f3 | 150 | |||||
 |
Greater Soul Gem | none | 0002e4f4 | 0.4 | 100 | 2000 (Greater) | 2250 |
| Greater | 0002e4fb | 350 | |||||
 |
Grand Soul Gem * | none | 0002e4fc | 0.5 | 200 | 3000 (Grand) | 6200 (caps at 3000) |
| Grand | 0002e4ff | 500 |
*If you get a message saying that you do not have a large enough soul gem to capture a soul, even though you have an empty grand soul gem in your inventory, it means that you are trying to catch a humanoid soul, which requires a black soul gem.
Special Soul GemsEdit
| Name | Soul | ID | |
|
Capacity | Weapon Recharge | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
Azura's Star | none | 00063b27 | 0 | 1000 | 3000 (Grand) | 6200 (caps at 3000) | Equivalent to a grand soul gem, but does not break on use. |
 |
Black Soul Gem | none | 0002e500 | 1 | 300 | 3000 (Grand) | 6200 (caps at 3000) | Special soul gems that can capture humanoid souls. Guaranteed samples can be found at any level in Broken Fang Cave, Ilinalta's Deep, Ironbind Barrow, Castle Volkihar, Apocrypha and the Soul Cairn. |
| Grand | 0002e504 | 750 | ||||||
 |
Flawed Varla Stone CC | none | FExxx801 | 0.3 | 1000 | 1000 (Common) | 1250 | Equivalent to a common soul gem, if you have Rare Curios CC installed, but does not break on use. |
 |
Soul Tomato CC | none | xx000804 | 0.5 | 250 | 3000 (Grand) | 6200 (caps at 3000) | Equivalent to a grand soul gem, if you have Saints and Seducers CC installed. Two respawning soul tomatoes can be found in Kinthal's camp (east of Karthwasten) on a stone table. These previously appeared in the Shivering Isles expansion for Oblivion. |
| Grand | xx137F40 | 600 | ||||||
 |
The Black Star | none | 00063b29 | 0 | 1000 | 3000 (Grand) | 6200 (caps at 3000) | Equivalent to a black soul gem, but does not break on use. |
| |
Treated Soul Gem | none | 00094e40 | 0.2 | 25 | 500 (Lesser) | 750 | Unobtainable. |
| |
Wylandriah's Soul Gem | none | 00043e26 | 0 | 0 | 3000 (Grand) | 6200 (caps at 3000) (see bugs) | Obtained during the Hunt and Gather quest. |
| |
Warped Soul Gem | none | 0006a106 0006a109 0006a107 0006a110 0006a108 0010e44b |
0.5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Received during Arniel's Endeavor. However, it cannot be used to trap souls. |
NotesEdit
- To use a soul gem to recharge a weapon, first select the weapon in your inventory and then:
-
press the Wait key, which is T by default
press R1
press RB
press R- A small menu will open where the description ordinarily is, and you can choose a soul gem to use.
- Soul gems are consumed upon being used to recharge a weapon. This is one reason why it is a good idea to fill your soul gems as efficiently as possible (e.g. grand soul gems for grand souls, common soul gems for common souls, etc.). A soul gem not being used to its fullest capacity could be considered a waste (losing a grand soul gem because you used the petty soul contained within to recharge a weapon, for example). However, you can simply drop a filled gem to empty it (note that this will empty all self-filled gems (see bugs)).
- Standard merchants do not sell black soul gems. To purchase one you must talk to either Enthir at the College of Winterhold while he is in his quarters, or Falion in Morthal.
- The quest Rising at Dawn requires you to fill a black soul gem to cure yourself of vampirism.
- If you have the Dawnguard add-on installed, grand or greater soul gems can be transformed into black soul gems by using the Lightning Attractor found in the Soul Cairn. The Lightning Attractor can only be used once.
- If you have the Dragonborn add-on installed, you can combine any soul gem (empty or filled) with an albino spider pod at the imbuing chamber in White Ridge Barrow to create a mind control spider.
- After a black soul gem is used, the soul it contained goes to the Soul Cairn.
- Humanoid souls captured by black soul gems and The Black Star will always be of grand value.
BugsEdit
- Soul gems that you filled yourself, with the exception of grand and black, do not change in value when filled. For example, a common soul gem (valued at 50 when empty), will not increase in value with a soul in it, even though a prefilled common soul gem is valued at 150. This also causes them to not stack properly in your inventory.
- The Unofficial Skyrim Patch fixes this bug.
- The soul gems will stack properly if you store multiple filled gems in a container, exit the interface, then come back some time later and take them back. This is not a definite fix and may require multiple attempts.
- Soul gems that you filled yourself may be emptied if dropped, or transferred to a follower or container.
- The Unofficial Skyrim Patch, version 1.0, addresses this issue. Only partially filled soul gems will be emptied, in order to allow you to fix any errors in filling them.
- Wylandriah's soul gem is fillable and can be used to recharge enchanted weapons, despite being a quest item. Recharging enchanted weapons or enchanting items with Wylandriah's gem will consume it and therefore break the quest.
- The Unofficial Skyrim Patch, version 1.0, fixes this bug.