A Skyrim player spots an incredible Septim detail almost 12 years after the initial release of the fifth mainline The Elder Scrolls game.
One The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim fan recently noticed an interesting detail about Septims that has seemingly eluded many a player. Their discovery subsequently made the rounds online, illustrating how Skyrim’s attention to detail continues to impress the fandom more than a decade since the game’s debut.
November 11 will mark the 12-year anniversary of Skyrim’s critically renowned release. And while Bethesda has yet to follow up on its 2011 RPG, Skyrim remains popular to this day, having clocked over 26,000 concurrent players on Steam alone at the beginning of October.
The game’s current player base also includes Reddit user Timely-Ad7086, who only recently realized that Septims in Skyrim are engraved with some powerful words from the kingdom that minted them. The coin’s obverse hence reads that “the empire is law” and “the law is sacred,” with those assertions sandwiching the head of Tiber Septim, one of the most important and interesting characters from The Elder Scrolls lore.
I never noticed that septims have words on them
byu/Timely-Ad7086 inskyrim
Meanwhile, the reverse side of the Septim features an exclamation of praise to “Akatosh and all the divines.” The engraving flanks a symbol depicting the said Dragon God of Time, whom the series’ lore positions as the leader of the Nine Divines. This side of the Septim hence highlights Akatosh’s importance to the Empire of Tamriel, which is also reflected in the fact that Bethesda used an alternate version of the same symbol for Skyrim’s logo.
With thousands of fans recently voting to send this observation to the front page of the Skyrim subreddit, it would appear that this design detail successfully eluded many players for the past 12 years. That notwithstanding, the most dedicated fans of the franchise might recognize that this rendition of the Septim predates the last mainline The Elder Scrolls game by quite a margin, as it actually originates from Morrowind. The 2002 RPG also introduced a lot of the lore surrounding Tamriel’s currency, including its colloquial name “drakes,” which was inspired by its signature Akatosh ornament.
Four years later, the design was reused for Oblivion—whose Collector’s Edition even came with a 1:1 replica of the Septim—before making its way to Skyrim in 2011. While The Elder Scrolls 6 only recently entered active production following the release of Starfield, it’s likely that the next entry in the long-running franchise will once again feature Septims as the go-to currency of whatever part of Tamriel it ends up featuring. The game itself isn’t expected to be released for at least another five years, with Xbox Head Phil Spencer saying as much back in June.
The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim is available on PC, PS3, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S.
