Werewolves are one of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim's coolest creatures, and they're an intimate part of the history of the Five Hundred Companions that predate Skyrim's modern Companions in Elder Scrolls lore. But while players can join with the modern group, they may not understand just how far back the group's history truly goes - all the way to Ysgramor, thousands of years in Tamriel's past.

The Companions are part of a Skyrim quest line that gives every player with a wild side the opportunity to live out their fantasy as a savage lupine warrior. Players will undoubtedly remember their first official mission as a member of the Companions, but even more unforgettable is likely the moment they learned that the senior members of this close-knit group of warriors are all werewolves. The details as to how they came to be lycanthropes are nowhere in the Junior Companion handbook, however, and one must look elsewhere to find this part of history.

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For those interested in learning more about the Companions, many of Skyrim's monuments, loading screen tips, and NPCs mention the legendary warrior Ysgramor and his original Five Hundred Companions. The player can deduce that the Companions in Whiterun are a remnant of this group, which is indeed the case. The history of this clan is a long and bloody one that stretches back to a time when humans first set foot in Tamriel's timeline, long before the Elder Scrolls Empire.

Tamriel's First Humans Were Companions Of Skyrim's Ysgramor

It is believed by many that human beings originated from the Throat of The World, the highest peak in Skyrim and the entire world of Nirn, but if true, they must have decided to head north and instead settle on the continent of Atmora. This suited them well for a long time, but as is ever the case with humans, they eventually got sick of one another and civil wars began to break out. Ysgramor, Tamriel's first human and a renowned warrior and leader, decided he'd had enough and wanted to leave Atmora to its own squabbling. He gathered up all the men and women who felt the same way and sailed across the Sea of Ghosts for the northern tip of Tamriel, founding a city called Saarthal.

Life was good for Ysgramor and his people. There were no other humans in Skyrim at the time, but there were loads of elves, specifically the snow elves. The two peoples were initially friendly, but soon the snow elves saw how quickly the humans were multiplying and they decided that Saarthal had to be destroyed, along with every one of its inhabitants. The slaughter that ensued is difficult to imagine, but suffice to say, Ysgramor and his two sons were the only survivors. Following this "Night of Tears," as it was called, he fled north back to Atmora, swearing revenge.

Ysgramor Returned To Skyrim With His 500 Companions

A female player holding the Drainblood Axe in Skyrim against a stormy grey sky.

Ysgramor kept his promise. He returned with five hundred of Atmora's best warriors and did to the elves what they had tried to do to humanity in a genocide known as 'The Return'. The snow elves that survived fled underground where they eventually devolved into the blind Falmer elves of The Elder Scrolls, a mere shadow of the civilization they once were. As for Ysgramor, when he finally passed away, it's said that his final breath coalesced in a great storm that swept across the land, causing every one of his warriors to lay down their weapons in grief. The hunt for revenge had ended, and thus the five hundred Atmoran warriors settled, founding many of the cities that Skyrim players can visit in their travels.

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After the death of Ysgramor, the Five Hundred Companions lost their interest in conquest and instead formed small warrior clans, functioning mainly as mercenaries. Roughly five thousand years later, the Fighters Guild (which no longer has any presence in Skyrim) and Whiterun's Companions are the only inheritors of this way of life. Since the Atmorans' descendants became the Nords, Imperials, and Bretons, the Companions were, for a long time, very picky about which of Skyrim's diverse society of races joined their ranks. Only in recent generations has the clan opened up to all kinds of people, believing that honor and prowess should belong to everyone with a warrior's heart. Coinciding with this more tolerant attitude towards differences, lycanthropy has also only been synonymous with the Companions for a few hundred years.

Skyrim's Companions Succumbed To Hircine's Gift (Or Curse)

Skyrim's Ill Met By Moonlight Daedric Quest In Bloated Man's Grotto

A few centuries prior to the events of Skyrim, a coven of witches known as the Glenmoril Wyrd made a pact with the Companions that would bestow the powers of lycanthropy upon its senior members. These particular witches held a deep connection with nature and had a direct line to many of the Elder Scrolls' Daedric Princes, most notably Hircine. It is not known exactly why this agreement was struck, but Hircine's gift was embedded within the Companions forever more, and this guarded secret never became public knowledge. Many Companions relished their existence as werewolves, able to keep their bloodlust in check and live full lives as wild-hearted warriors, ready to spend an eternity of glorious freedom within Hircine's eternal Hunting Grounds when they eventually died. But not all were satisfied with their beast blood.

The burden of lycanthropy came with an added drawback, particularly for Skyrim's Nords. Even if one were happy with the fact that they turned into bloodthirsty wolf-monsters that were hated and reviled by all of society, the biggest problem was the matter of the afterlife. It is well-established with Skyrim's lore that when people die, their souls pass on to their respective afterlives depending on who or what they were in life. Nords hold the sacred belief that any true warrior will end up in Skyrim's Nordic afterlife of Sovngarde, their version of heaven for those who died in glorious battle. Werewolves, however, have their souls claimed by Hircine, and will never make it to Sovngarde no matter how worthy they might have been. One of the Companions' chief members, Kodlak Whitemane, requires the Dragonborn's help to solve this problem. The player has to seek out the witches of Glenmoril and use their severed heads in a ritual to cleanse Kodlak's soul so he may ascend to Sovngarde.

Many members of the Circle agreed to give up being werewolves as well when the cure for Skyrim's lycanthropy was also extended to them. Regardless of their choice, all still serve as Companions, so being a werewolf is no longer a requirement once the player has completed the relevant quests. Thus, the Companions of today have freed themselves from this intense obligation, and although lycanthropy is not looked down upon within their ranks, Jorrvaskr's warriors are free to determine their own destinies, as has ever been their fondest belief.

Next: Skyrim: How to Become a Vampire-Werewolf Hybrid