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Elder Scrolls

Ruunvald Excavation is a location in The Elder Scrolls V: Dawnguard. It is located southeast of Tolvald's Cave and directly east of Shor's Watchtower. Volk's Journal is just outside the entrance, in a tent.

Quests[]

Bolstering the Ranks[]

The cave is accessed during the quest, occupied by several Charmed Vigilants, the Vigilants of Stendarr who went missing. Inside the temple, Florentius Baenius can be found. He has been captured and held in a cage. He can be freed by taking the Ruunvald key off of Minorne's corpse.

Notable items[]

  • Volk's Journal - inside a tent to the left of the entrance.
  • Discovering Ruunvald, Vol I – just to the right of the tunnel leading out of the first chamber, on a wooden crate.
  • Discovering Ruunvald, Vol II – in the second chamber, next to a wooden lean-to, on top of some wooden crates.
  • Discovering Ruunvald, Vol III – in the largest chamber, as soon as the wooden walkway is descended on, it will be to the left, on a platform with some large yellow urns, on a desk.
  • Discovering Ruunvald, Vol IV – at the bottom of the final chamber to Ruunvald Excavation on a barrel, just before the door the Ruunvald Temple.
  • Minorne – when entering Ruunvald Temple on the left on a table along with three burial urns.
  • Staff of Ruunvald – can be looted from Minorne, along with Ruunvald Key.
  • Several malachite ore veins
    • At the bottom of the entrance. Another one is found once the first tunnel is entered, at a fork, with the ore vein to the right.
    • In a cart halfway through the tunnel after the entryway.
    • In the second chamber, at the bottom, in a well-lit area. There is also a chunk of malachite ore in a bin to the right of the vein.
    • After the chamber containing Discovering Ruunvald, Vol III, in the exiting tunnel, a vein is found to the right.
    • A piece of malachite ore is found in the final chamber, in the cart at the bottom of the scaffolding.

Trivia[]

  • Prior to the start of the related quest, discovering the location will not add the map marker to the player's map.
  • Ruunvald Excavation and any related doors will not appear in the world until the quest Bolstering the Ranks has been accepted. Before this, the old Nordic doorway exit will be missing, as will the campsite, and the entrance in the mountain will be sealed. Siding with the Volkihar clan during the Dawnguard questline, therefore, means the location never appears. It can be activated using the console commands "prid xx00d1fe" followed by "disable" where xx is the load order of the Dawnguard DLC, usually 02.
  • Sneaking through the excavation into the temple and killing Minorne (most easily accomplished with a simple stealth kill), all of the Charmed Vigilants will instantly die, only leaving the husky dogs that are not charmed. This grants an easier dungeon to walk back and loot their corpses.

Bugs[]

This section contains bugs related to Ruunvald Excavation. Before adding a bug to this list, consider the following:

  1. Please reload an old save to confirm if the bug is still happening.
  2. If the bug is still occurring, please post the bug report with the appropriate system template  360  /  XB1  ,  PS3  /  PS4  ,  PC  /  MAC  ,  NX  /  PS5  ,  XS  , depending on which platform(s) the bug has been encountered on.
  3. Be descriptive when listing the bug and fixes, but avoid having conversations in the description and/or using first-person anecdotes: such discussions belong on the appropriate forum board.
  • When entering the temple, the Dragonborn may find a large world hole which, if they fall into it, will bring them to a different area in the temple.
    •  360 (Fix)   Can be fixed by saving and then loading the save.
  • Discovering Ruunvald, Vol IV may not be visible on the barrel as its placing means it is obscured within the barrel itself. If careful scanning with the cursor does not detect the book you may be able to push it enough with a Fireball blast that the edge can be selected and the book picked up.
  • When activating the associated quest, the marker will appear above the undiscovered location on the map but the world compass will be directing the Dragonborn towards Riften instead. This is fixed by entering and exiting Riften.
  • When using Beast Form ability in the main excavation or entering the area transformed, the player might end up with the same red aura around the head as the charmed vigilantes. This effect seems to disappear when transforming back, but returns after switching to first-person view and remains active indefinitely.
    •  PC (Fix)   This can be solved by adding the effect manually via console command "player.addspell 02018c5d" (closing and reopening the console may be necessary) and subsequently removing it with "player.removespell 02018c5d."

Appearances[]

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