How to Get Mehrunes' Razor in Skyrim: Pieces of the Past Walkthrough

Most weapons in Skyrim win fights by doing more damage. Mehrunes' Razor wins them by ending them. Every hit with this Daedric dagger has a small chance to kill the target outright, no matter how much health it has left. Stack that with a fast, stealthy dagger build and the odds add up quickly.

You get it from Pieces of the Past, the Daedric quest of Mehrunes Dagon. It sends you to four corners of the map to collect the broken blade, then ends with a choice at a mountain shrine. Here's the full route, plus the one decision you can't get wrong.

Quick Overview

Starting the Quest

Once you reach level 20, a courier eventually finds you with a Museum Pamphlet inviting you to the Museum of the Mythic Dawn in Dawnstar. You don't have to wait for him, though. At level 20 or higher you can simply travel to Dawnstar and talk to Silus Vesuius outside his house.

1. Talk to Silus in Dawnstar. He's obsessed with the Mythic Dawn, the cult that worshipped Mehrunes Dagon, and runs his house as a small museum of their relics.
2. Take the tour. He shows you his collection and explains that he wants to rebuild Mehrunes' Razor, which was broken into pieces scattered across Skyrim.
3. Accept the job. You'll get three objectives, one for each missing piece. They can be done in any order.

Tip: you can collect the pieces before the quest starts, but bringing one to Silus before the quest is active can leave an objective stuck. Talk to him first.

Piece 1: The Hilt (Morthal)

The easiest piece. The hilt sits in a locked chest inside Jorgen and Lami's House in Morthal.

1. Find Jorgen at the lumber mill on the northern edge of Morthal.
2. Get his key. Persuade, intimidate or bribe him for it. Pickpocketing works too.
3. Or skip him. Pick the lock on the house door and on the chest at the foot of the bed instead.
4. Grab the hilt from the chest.

Piece 2: The Blade Shards (Cracked Tusk Keep)

Cracked Tusk Keep lies west of Falkreath and is held by Orc bandits. This is the most combat-heavy stop.

1. Fight up through the keep to its leader, Ghunzul.
2. Take the Cracked Tusk Vault Key. Ghunzul carries it, so defeat him and loot it.
3. Head down to the vault on the lowest level and work through the double-lever gate.
4. Watch for traps. The final corridor has tripwires, and the shards rest on a stand with a pressure plate. Take them and back off quickly.

Piece 3: The Pommel Stone (Dead Crone Rock)

The pommel is the hardest piece to reach. It's held by the hagraven Drascua at Dead Crone Rock, southwest of Markarth in the Reach.

1. Enter through Hag Rock Redoubt, the fortified approach that leads up to the Rock.
2. Fight through the defenders and traps on the way to the top of the tower.
3. Kill Drascua and take the Pommel Stone from her body.
4. Look for the word wall. Dead Crone Rock also holds a word for the Dismay shout, so don't leave without it.

Rebuilding the Razor

With all three pieces, return to Silus in Dawnstar. He pays you for each piece (the amount scales with your level) and asks you to meet him at the Shrine of Mehrunes Dagon.

The shrine sits in the mountains of The Pale, southwest of Dawnstar and close to the Lord Stone.

1. Climb to the shrine and find Silus at the stone altar in front of a sealed door.
2. Let him try first. His ritual fails, so activate the altar yourself to reach Mehrunes Dagon.
3. Listen to Dagon's demand. He wants Silus dead.
4. Kill Silus. This is the only way to get the Razor. If you spare him, the quest ends without the dagger, and it also costs you the Oblivion Walker achievement/trophy for collecting the Daedric artifacts.
5. Activate the altar again. The pieces fuse and Mehrunes' Razor is yours.
6. Fight the two Dremora Dagon sends after you. Each carries a Key to Mehrunes' Shrine.

Use that key on the shrine door. Inside you'll find two more Dremora and a pile of loot, including chests, ebony and gold ingots, refined moonstone, enchanted gear and the book Catalogue of Armor Enchantments. The Dremora respawn roughly every 10 days, which makes the shrine a handy source of Daedra Hearts for Daedric smithing.

What Mehrunes' Razor Actually Does

On paper it's modest. The Razor hits for 11 base damage, the same as an unenchanted Daedric dagger, but weighs only 3. You can improve it at a grindstone with an Ebony Ingot.

The real draw is its enchantment: a chance to kill the target instantly. The script intends a 1% chance, but an oversight makes it just under 2% per hit. That sounds tiny, but daggers swing fast, and a dual-wielding character makes a lot of attacks. Over a long fight against a dragon or a giant, those odds add up, and the Razor can end things early. Essential characters can't be killed this way, and a couple of Dragonborn DLC bosses are specifically immune.

Two things worth knowing:

• Smithing perks don't help it. In the unpatched game, no Smithing perk boosts improvements. The community Unofficial Skyrim Special Edition Patch fixes this so it benefits from the Daedric Smithing perk.
• Guards notice. Carry it openly and some guards will ask who you killed to get that blade.

On the Anniversary Edition, the Myrwatch player home (one of the included Creations, east of Morthal) has a dedicated display holder for the Razor – a neat spot for it once you upgrade to a bigger weapon.

Common Mistakes

• Sparing Silus. It feels like the decent thing to do, but it locks you out of the Razor.
• Turning in pieces too early. Talk to Silus before handing anything over to avoid a stuck objective.
• Rushing the Cracked Tusk vault. The pressure plate and tripwires hurt at low health.
• Skipping the shrine. The Dremora keys open a room full of ingots and Daedra Hearts.

Pieces of the Past is a road trip more than a dungeon crawl, but the payoff is one of Skyrim's most satisfying weapons. Pair the Razor with a sneak build and backstab damage, and that small instant-kill chance turns every fight into a gamble you're happy to take.