Skyrim:Soul Trap (effect)

	Soul Trap
School	Conjuration
Type	Offensive
Effect ID	0004dba3
Base Cost	15
Enchanting
ID	0005b452
Base Cost	25
Items	Weapons
Availability (Click on any item for details)
Scrolls Spells Staves Weapons

Enchanting description: If target dies within <dur> seconds, fills a soul gem.
Soul Trap locks the soul of a given creature or NPC in an empty soul gem immediately after its death. The trapped soul can subsequently be used to create or recharge enchanted items.

Note that the spell doesn't automatically cause the soul to be captured. You must ensure that your victim dies before the Soul Trap effect runs out. In addition, you must also have an appropriate soul gem in which to store it. As such, weapons with soul trap can be very effective in making sure souls are captured.

If you enchant a physical weapon with the effect, it is better to use the 1 sec version of it, because attacking will renew the effect, and the killing blow will fill the gem. This will result in attacks requiring less charge.

Filling Soul Gems

In order to capture a soul, you need a Soul Gem. The gem size that is filled depends on what creature's soul is trapped. NPC souls can only be trapped in Black Soul Gems. Souls will always fill the smallest empty Soul Gem that can accommodate it. If no gem stones of the soul's level are available, it will look for progressively higher level gem stones until it finds an empty one to fill.

Now, all that is required is to find an enemy, cast Soul Trap, and kill it before the Soul Trap effect expires on the enemy. If you get the message, "There is no soul gem in your inventory capable of holding such a soul," then you don't have an empty soul gem big enough to hold it. There are no partial captures; it is all or nothing.

Once you use a filled Soul Gem it is gone. One notable exception to this is Azura's Star, which is the equivalent of one Grand Soul Gem but is reusable. Another exception are Flawed Varla Stones^CC, which are reusable equivalents of Common Soul Gems.

Azura's Star can also be turned into The Black Star, if you give the broken Azura's Star to Nelacar in the inn at Winterhold instead of Aranea Ienith. The Black Star acts as a Black Soul Gem that can be reused, unlike normal Black Soul Gems.

One of the easiest methods of soul trapping in large amounts is through the Soul Stealer perk with any bound weapon, as this never requires recharging and has considerable power in the early game. Mammoths provide an easy target and yield grand souls.

If an empty Soul Gem (listed on the top) is available in your inventory, then the soul will fit into the smallest Gem available in the following way:

	Petty Soul Gem	Lesser Soul Gem	Common Soul Gem	Greater Soul Gem	Grand Soul Gem	Black Soul Gem	Treated Soul Gem	Flawed Varla StoneCC	Soul TomatoCC	Wylandriah's Soul Gem	Azura's Star	The Black Star
Petty	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Lesser	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Common	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Greater	No	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Grand	No	No	No	No	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Black	No	No	No	No	No	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	Yes

Enchanting

The following items use this effect. You can learn how to enchant custom items with Soul Trap if you find one of the following items and disenchant it:

• All weapons of Animus
• All weapons of Binding
• All weapons of Damnation
• All weapons of Malediction
• All weapons of Soul Snares
• All weapons of Souls

Artifacts and unique items that use the effect but cannot be disenchanted include:

• Bloodthorn
• Mace of Molag Bal
• Halldir's Staff

Scrolls/Spells/Staves

The Soul Trap (0004dba3; SoulTrapFFActor) effect used on scrolls, spells, and staves differs from the one used for weapons. It is used for the following:

• Soul Trap scrolls
• Soul Trap spell
• Staff of Soul Trapping

Similar Effects

• Fiery Soul Trap

Notes

• Unlike previous versions of the Elder Scrolls games, it is impossible to soul trap summoned creatures via spells, spell effects, or perks. Atronachs that appear because of random encounters or already summoned ones in warlock lairs (but not any that the warlocks summon in battle) can be soul trapped, however.
• Whether a glitch or intentional, weapons with a soul trap effect will be resisted by corpses the player attacks.
• Dragons cannot be soul trapped, since instead dragon souls are absorbed automatically in your character.
• Enemies that are immune to magic (such as Orchendor) are also immune to all forms of Soul Trap.
• Although shorter effect time increases enchantment charge strength (such as a 1-second duration on the entity attacked), you might consider a 2- or 3-second enchantment strength instead, considering most "cinematic kill cameras" are slower than actual combat and if the entity dies during the beginning of the animation (but after the 1-second effect has worn off), you lose that soul. This can also apply if you have followers, who can kill the one attacked just as the 1-second effect has worn off, also losing that soul.

Bugs

• Followers using weapons enchanted with the soul trap effect may fill all of their soul gems of the type used by the trapped soul after only trapping one soul. (For instance, a follower killing a soul trapped Frost Troll while carrying 17 Common Soul Gems fills them all, instead of just one.)

See Also

• Enchanting: Details on using filled Soul Gems to create and recharge enchanted items
• Soul Gems: Available soul gems
• Souls: Soul strengths of various creatures
• The Black Star: The quest in order to obtain Azura's Star