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Elder Scrolls

For other uses, see Wabbajack.

Wabbajack is the Daedric artifact of Sheogorath, a mysterious staff that casts random spells ranging in effect from the complete disintegration, to the transformation, or even empowerment of the target. These abilities are able to completely alter the course of battle in one of any number of ways.

"And as for you, my little mortal minion... feel free to keep the Wabbajack. As a symbol of my... Oh, just take the damn thing."
Sheogorath[src]

The Wabbajack is one of five Daedric artifacts made by the Daedric Prince of Madness, Sheogorath. Its rogue nature is a reflection upon Sheogorath's own chaos, choosing at random to either help or hinder those he encounters, unless it is used against massive targets like dragons, giants or mammoths, in which cases it is predictable, resulting in an explosion which inflicts damage.

Acquisition[]

The Wabbajack is given to the Dragonborn after the completion of Sheogorath's quest "The Mind of Madness."

Effects[]

  • Fireball
  • Thunderbolt
  • Frost Rune
  • Heal Other
  • Disintegration
  • Transformation
    • Summon effects: mudcrab, daedra, rabbit, chicken, chicken that explodes after 20 seconds and transforms back.
    • Effect canceled on hit: chicken, rabbit, dremora lord, or a random draugr. Examples: draugr, goat, spectral, mudcrab
    • Effects that eliminates target: sweetroll, fountain of septims or random books spawn.
    • Leveled Dremora (common).
    • May spawn a rabbit behind target, which target will see as an enemy. Upon said rabbit de-spawning, the target will teleport to where the rabbit last was.confirmation needed
  • Invisibility
  • Summon enemy dremora to attack them.
  • Ice Spike
  • Instant kill (ghostly remains; ghostly remains with sweetroll; normal remains; no body)
  • Fury
  • Fear
  • Drain stamina
  • Paralyze
  • Absorb health
  • Target explodes, turns into ghostly remains and scattered gold and pitchforks. Taking the gold counts as stealing
  • No effect
  • Replace enemies with random amounts of cheese.
  • Unspecified damage (no hit shader/FX)
  • Causes an explosion, which is a unique destruction spell. This only damages the target, unlike other exploding spells.

Follower level[]

Transforming a follower with the Wabbajack and letting them change back is currently the only way to force a follower to level up to match the Dragonborn's level on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions of Skyrim. Characters in Skyrim are usually locked at the level at which they are first spawned (when they were first encountered). On the PC it can be corrected with console commands. This method does not work with housecarls, however.

Note: if patch 1.6 (or higher) is installed, then this is no longer an issue for any of the versions of Skyrim (Xbox, PS3, or PC).

Trivia[]

  • The head of the staff resembles three of Sheogorath's faces in the differing moods that the daedric lord tends to alternate arbitrarily between.
  • If the staff's effect that transforms the target into a mudcrab is cast on a mudcrab, it will grow larger.[source?]
  • The staff seems to very regularly change mudcrabs into chickens.
  • The character called "Madwoman" can appear at random locations chanting, "Wabbajack, Wabbajack, Wabbajack, Wabbajack," and may request to be hit with a spell from the Wabbajack. If you have completed "The Mind of Madness," she will know that you have acquired the Wabbajack, even if it is not in your inventory when you encounter her. She uses the word Wabbajack as a verb, and the only Wabbajack effect is to transform her into a rabbit. If you use it on her, you will gain a bounty of 40 Gold, only to be removed immediately after the transformation effect expires.
  • The Wabbajack has a higher chance of instantly killing dwarven centurions or turning them into sweetrolls.
  • The Wabbajack can also be used to set off various traps, such as oil lamps and pressure plates.
  • Another copy obtained using the coc qasmoke console code has an enchantment described as "It's all you've got..." This version is only used in the Mind of Madness quest; using it like the normal Wabbajack does not yield any transformation or destruction abilities.
  • If Sheogorath is summoned into Skyrim with console commands, he may use a variant of the Wabbajack that looks the same, but casts adept and expert Destruction spells.
  • All attacks made using this staff are from the Destruction school, so fortifying Destruction to 100% will make the charge cost zero and allow infinite uses without the need of recharging.
  • When the staff is used on a dragon, essential character, dead thrall or giant, it will always cast an exploding Destruction spell, such as fireball. In the case of giants and dragons, it is not fireball but a unique exploding spell, and unlike fireball, does not affect everything else—only the target is damaged.
  • If used to turn a victim in the Abandoned Shack into an animal, it will count as killing them, even before the effect wears off. When the effect does wear off, the victim will be dead.
  • The staff has an innate damage stat on it, however, this cannot be accessed, as the staff cannot be used as a melee weapon.
  • If the Wabbajack causes a target to turn into an item of food or other item, this effect, unlike the effect that turns enemies into animals, is permanent, meaning that characters and enemies cannot transform back to their original self if they were turned into, for example, a sweet roll.
  • If using this on followers to level them up, it should be noted that if they are turned into a mudcrab or Daedra they will be hostile in that form, so it is best to evade the attacks until the follower changes back, when all hostilities will cease, or simply hold up your shield to level the Block skill.
  • Certain creatures and characters will have their inventory reset (i.e., a Draugr Deathlord with an Ebony Greatsword may then have an Ebony Battleaxe or Warhammer) after being transformed by the Wabbajack; this includes Draugr, Vampires, and Falmer.
  • The name "Wabbajack" is similar to the name "Jabberwock," a mystical, nonsensical creature from the Lewis Carroll poem Jabberwocky. Both the creator of the Wabbajack, Sheogorath, and the creator of the Jabberwock, Lewis Carroll, are associated with the theme of madness.

Bugs[]

This section contains bugs related to Wabbajack (Skyrim). 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.
  •  PC   360   PS3   Transformation effects on guards do not change them, but instead summons whatever they were supposed to change into. However, this often makes the guard stop attacking the user. This is because the transformation effect normally works by de-spawning the target and spawning a generic creature in their place; for some reason, guards cannot be despawned even using the console.
    • This sometimes also occurs for bandits and draugr.
  • If a target dies while being transformed, the transformation may be spawned.
  •  PC   Attacking a summoned dremora lord with the Wabbajack may cause the game to crash.
  • When given to followers, the Wabbajack only appears to use damage-dealing attacks.
  • The Wabbajack can disappear when placed in a weapon display case or rack.
  • Targets transformed by the Wabbajack may never turn back, and cannot be damaged.
  • Sometimes, a transformed item cannot be picked up.
  • Sometimes when used on a wild animal, the game will start running slowly.
  • Sometimes when the Wabbajack is given to Lydia or Faendal (not yet tested on other followers) it glitches in the follower's hand and disappears when unsheathing. Opening the follower's inventory shows no Wabbajack.
  • Sometimes disappears randomly from inventory.
  •  PS5   During quest "The Wolf Queen Awakened," attacking the Nightlord Vampire causes the game to freeze.

Appearances[]

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