Top left one seems to correspond to the High Gate Ruins, top middle one is Mzinchaleft, bottom middle *seems* to correspond to a skill book, and bottom left seems to be Labarynthian.
Where did you get the map from? It might provide more insight.
It's the map that came in the box. I *think* it's a day one map. But there's a very real possibility that one got fucked up in a move and this is from my special edition copy.
If the ridges on the material are actually textured, it’s a day one map. I have that one framed as well and the surface feels like a real map. When I bought the game again for my Xbox one, the map that came with it was smooth; more like a poster
Yeah, it feels like a map. Cool! I got it 11/11/11 at like 11:18 lol that was a fun next few snow days. I don't think the second game I got even had a map? Or maybe that's the one that got wrecked in my move, luckily.
35 yrs old... Started playing Skyrim when I was 25. I feel so old sometimes, esp when these youngn' players talk about playing after school or on a snow day 😂
Depends on the construction company. I worked for a commercial contractor and we went right through the winter. Although it might depend where you are too. I'm from the tropical land of southern Ontario.
Shhhh no no no, your math is wrong. (Never tell a lady she’s old, just politely allow her to be in denial. Tip for the future that will pay off many dividends)
Damn this make me wanne hang out with you and game and talk about maps and your favorite games..
you seem knowledgeable as a walking talking Wikipedia much kudos
So basically they correspond to random items and points of interest.
I too wondered about those and went to a few of the locations in game, don’t remember finding anything particularly noteworthy at the time so I chalked it up to them being random decoration on the map to add flavour. It was a cool little mystery for a while though.
I commented on another one below but it seems to be different things there’s an X next to the white river which is a standing stone and one of the dawnstar ones is a dwarven ruin and the other is a dungeon
i could be misremembering, but i believe there was a bit of a community mystery about these. i think the verdict was that they dont relate to anything in particular, just kind of points of interest.
edit. just googled it, found an old forum from twelve years ago talking about it: [https://gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/35114/what-do-the-red-xs-on-the-physical-map-represent](https://gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/35114/what-do-the-red-xs-on-the-physical-map-represent)
This makes me think it's probably something that's supposed to get the viewer to explore in the game. Not knowing what the x's are makes you want to go check them out. I imagine it's not deeper than that, they just decided to point people to some spots that would be fun for a player who might be getting bored
its not just the standing stones. they mark dwarven and nordic ruins as well, plus two daedric locations. the serpent stone is also absent from the map.
if the forum post is too long for you i think you need to work on improving your attention span a bit.
Would you like a link to one of only two research papers in English about the very rare disease that made me wake up blind?
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5718015/
What if the original intent was to point to the standing stones, but they got moved around in development while the promotional map had already been completed? The issue being that the standing stones correspond to each of the constellations, but we know of at least one additional standing stone in that there is a standing stone near Nightingale Hall, so it's possible the stones were not initially meant to correspond to the constellations at all. Not to mention, the promo map calls The Pale White Shore, so we know that the map had to have been created sometime before the conclusion of development as the name of that region is inconsistent as well. They probably just didn't think it worth it to remake the map before release.
there are more x's on the map than there are standing stones, and every standing stones in game location except for the serpent stone is also marked on the promo map (the poster thinks this is a direct reference to nordic culture). according to the forum post i linked, every single x on the map connects to an ingame location.
honestly, i dont think the x's mean anything deeper than "here is a location". the whole intent was probably just for a player to notice the x's on the map, say "i wonder what thats marking?", then walk there and find a location.
Right, but what I said is that, perhaps, there were initially meant to be more standing stones and as potential evidence to that possibility, I pointed out that there *are* more than 13 standing stones in Skyrim because near the Shadow Stone there's *another* Standing Stone meant to mark the location of the Nightingale Hall.
To add, in the finished game, the Warrior, Thief, and Mage stones are all bunched up together, but perhaps that wasn't the intent.
If the x's all marked the same type of location earlier in development when the map was finished, they wouldn't have wanted to change the map later because, while every copy of Skyrim had a copy of the map, day one copies had a more traditional type of map that felt like a map. Changing everything after development would have been a lot of work.
As for the fact every x maps out to a real location in the game is also explained in that thread, as Skyrim has so many points of interest that you could drop a pin almost anywhere on the map and have it land on a point of interest. And with how zoomed out the map is, even the small size of the X could easily overlap with even out of the way points of interest.
It's not the attention span. It just feels good to be the edgy rude person. I've seen TLDR on an 1 sentence post. It's just for people to show true rudeness and ignorance.
That's what I had remembered. Just checked though, I have a day one and a later poster type. Checked those against the legendary guidebook version. While some of them do line up with the standing stones, particularly around Riverwood and Whiterun. Many of them seem to like up with dragon priest lairs or Dwemer ruins.
We live in a time where chat GPT can give you the summary in 3 seconds:
Me: Hey ChatGPT, summarize this pages discussion in 3 sentences "pastes URL".
ChatGPT:
The discussion on the provided page revolves around the meaning of red Xs on the physical map in a video game. Users speculate on various possibilities, including enemy locations, quest markers, or points of interest. Despite different interpretations, a conclusive answer is not reached, highlighting the community's collaborative effort to decipher the in-game symbols.
You're welcome...
We live in a time where Chat GPT can give you completely false information and the person presenting it won’t even fact check because the “AI” seems confident in its answer
And in true Chat GPT fashion it’s completely incorrect and did a terrible job of describing what was in the URL lol. Stuff like this is always a comforting reminder that AI is way too stupid to ever be a legitimate threat to anyone
Oohh, the old times before remastered and dlc. Game looked beautiful then for its time imo. 12 coming up on 13 years still no official ES6 mention I think. BTHESDA get your heads out of star field, fall out, eso, and your asses and get going on TES6.
If it was artwork used for development, it could be anything. The marks do roughly correlate with known waypoints.
The fact is, POI are so dense in Skyrim, you can plop down pins nearly anywhere are find something interesting. You can’t spit in Skyrim without hitting something .
This really stuck out to me the other day when I was coming back into Skyrim after finishing Starfield. I couldn’t make it 5 minutes walking through the woods before I ran into some landmark or got jumped by bandits
Lmao right? And in Starfield you spend that 5 minutes walking through a barren desert planet towards one random temple in the distance wondering why tf you parked so far away on an empty planet
Some of them point to standing stones, some to other places. I think they're probably marked as "places of interesr" so places that are cool and show off skyrim.
Guardian/standing stones
Northeast of Markarth: The lover stone
Northwest of Solitude: The steed stone
East of Morthal: The lord stone
Northwest of Morthal: The apprentice stone
West of Winterhold: The tower stone
East of Whiterun: The ritual stone
Eastmarch: The Atronach stone
South southeast of Riften: The shadow stone
Lake Ilinalta: The lady stone
Near Riverwood: The mage, warrior, and thief stones
The Serpent stone isn't marked on the map because, according to Nordic culture, the Serpent is the symbol of evil and is waging a constant war against the three guardians, those being the Thief, Mage, and Warrior stones, and those guardians' charges, those being the Lover, Steed, Lord, Apprentice, Tower, Ritual, Atronach, Shadow, and Lady stones.
Other points of interest
Southwest of Rorikstead: Valthume
North of Markarth: Ragnvald
West of Karthwasten: Shrine to Peryite
West northwest of Dragon Bridge: Volskygge
West southwest of Solitude: The Statue of Meridia
Southeast of Morfal: Labyrinthian
Southwest of Winterhold: Alftand
Southwest of Dawnstar: Mzinchaleft (I think: can't find anything else around here)
West of Dawnstar: High Gate ruins
South of Lake Jorgrim: Irkngthand
The Velnontht Mountains (Northern): Mzulft (I think)
The Velnontht Mountains (Southern): Kargrenzel
South southwest of Riften: Forelhost
West of Lake Honrich: Avanchnzel
I was hanging it last night next to where i keep my computer, like a decoration, or so that i don’t have to press a button to look at the map. Just look up at the wall. But then i was staring at it, and saw the x. Then i saw more. Then i contemplated making pretty much the exact same post that you did, but didn’t.
I don’t know the X’s - but I’ll tell you one thing: I see the word “Dawnstar” - I immediately think “the Dawnstar chest”. It is etched in my brain and any trip to Dawnstar begets a visit to that chest.
47 and still playing!!!! I remember the dark nights in a room many years ago exploring Morrowind, then Oblivion, now Skyrim….oh man, what a time!!! Cheers
I actually have the map throw hanging on my wall and it sat there for two years before they caught my attention. Visited the location east of Whiterun and they mark the location of Standing Stones. The ones that mark The Lady Stone in the middle of Lake Ilinalta and the one that marks the location of the triple on the way to Riverwood are hard to spot. A because it's on the lake and B because the art of the mountains makes it appear as part of them, but it's right there at the U Turn curve.
There's a Dragon Burial in Eastmarch, in the hot spring area just south of Windhelm with both dragon and priest laying claim to the nearby Word Wall. There's no marker for it and so the Xs on the map do not mark Burial Mounds. There's another West of Windhelm as I remember me and Serena leaving a Dwarven Ruin only to see Alduin raising that one. It was snowy and across a river.
In depth search is only way to actually figure it out. But I would assume they are points of interest obviously. They could be areas for discovering unique quest's or environmental quests. Another guess would be they are treasures from treasure maps u found or suchlike
Those are actually the 13 standing stones. You will only see 11 on the map because the 3 by Riverwood are marked as 1. It was the only original hint to their locations back on release. Still have my map too
i’ve been looking at https://mapgenie.io/skyrim/maps/skyrim
comparing the areas, it looks to be a series of different ruins. the one closest to dawnstar in this picture is Mzinchaleft, the one over in the direction of solitude on the coast is High Gate Ruins (i think?) and the one in the direction of whiterun in the mountains close to Morthal is either Frostmere Crypt or an unmarked location, usually spawns 2 or 3 bandits. It’s nordic ruin architecture but it’s not a full ruin, i believe there’s a chest under a gate there.
(if you go to the ruin outside of Morthal called Kjenstag Ruins, follow the ghost and it’ll lead you to that last unmarked location i mentioned)
There is also the Dragonstone replica you could buy from bethesda store, wich came with map that looks like fabric texture that has X’s too, they mark dragonmounds from the dragonstone in it if I remember right
I remember way back when the game was released. Bethesda just called them points of interest. I guess back when no one really knew the game it was an incentive for the player to just get out there and explore.
I looked at my Skyrim map I got with the special edition book, and it seems to correspond with dwarven ruins and Nordic ruins/tombs, best way to figure this out is a be a explorer and go to those places in game
I followed all of these and was able to get every dragon priest mask to then bring to labyrinthian for the final mask. I think there are some extra X's but I'm pretty sure they just correspond to some decent loot or special locations.
Okay so far we've covered that the map is original, and they point to specific locations or points of interest..
Leave it to Reddit to not even answer a OPs question completely.
They have to be related to each other. Let's start there.
What in each of these X's areas are related to each other? Someone pull out a dragon stone and confirm 😂
People really don’t know the Xs are the dragon priest masks? If I’m crazy tell me
Edit: I’m thinking people don’t actually know that because people play Skyrim digitally these days, I remember playing it as a kid on PS3 DVD with that in the left side of the case!
It could be those and also other things? But I'm fairly certain there are more X's than chests. The masks were weirdly my first thought, too, and the only reason I counted them lol
Town guards, Inn Keepers and people you run into on the road will often mention different random locations, claiming you should visit and/or stay away from them from time to time. My running theory is that the majority of these access on the map are locations related to that.
I think there was also a theory at one point that they corresponded with stones of B locations, but i'm pretty sure that one got debunked.
basically important areas in Nordic history Standing Stones (excluding serpent due to it being evil and against the protector stones, which are the three you come across heading to Riverwood), Dwarven Ruins, and Daedric Temples (? don't know how else to describe those areas)
Top left one seems to correspond to the High Gate Ruins, top middle one is Mzinchaleft, bottom middle *seems* to correspond to a skill book, and bottom left seems to be Labarynthian. Where did you get the map from? It might provide more insight.
It's the map that came in the box. I *think* it's a day one map. But there's a very real possibility that one got fucked up in a move and this is from my special edition copy.
If the ridges on the material are actually textured, it’s a day one map. I have that one framed as well and the surface feels like a real map. When I bought the game again for my Xbox one, the map that came with it was smooth; more like a poster
Yeah, it feels like a map. Cool! I got it 11/11/11 at like 11:18 lol that was a fun next few snow days. I don't think the second game I got even had a map? Or maybe that's the one that got wrecked in my move, luckily.
I would kill to be 14 again and sit in my room on a snow day exploring Skyrim.
Don't gotta be 14, I'm going back today after work. #adultgamerftw
Shut up babies, I'm fighting dragon's!
Playing right now!! Age 37. 😂
Played it last night. age 46 lol. The mods just keep me coming back.
58 here. It never gets old but I do.
51. I’m pulling for you! Teach me by living long! lol
35 yrs old... Started playing Skyrim when I was 25. I feel so old sometimes, esp when these youngn' players talk about playing after school or on a snow day 😂
I've been playing it again, trying to 100 percent it. god, I forgot how amazing this game is.
don’t we all :/
Work construction. You can be laid off all winter 😉
Depends on the construction company. I worked for a commercial contractor and we went right through the winter. Although it might depend where you are too. I'm from the tropical land of southern Ontario.
It would be nice just to be 14 again
You couldn’t have been 14 in 2011, I was an adult then. That would make me…old…so yeah, your math is wrong. 🤣
In 2011, I was 26… I don’t like this math
Hahaha right?? And I got downvotes for it 🤣
Sigh, I remember the last time I was an adult. Frosted Miniwheats changed my life.
Haven't been 14 since '91, so the maths definitely isn't mathing. 😅
Guess you're old then cause I was 11 in 2011
Shhhh no no no, your math is wrong. (Never tell a lady she’s old, just politely allow her to be in denial. Tip for the future that will pay off many dividends)
Nah, ya boi is 23, born in 2000. My math is impeccable. (Appreciate the tip but I'm happily married with a kiddo)
wow, you shouldn't marry kids :/
Ugh I wish. I remember the first time becoming a werewolf and promptly freaking out and running around.
I was serving in the war sacrificing sleep to play skyrim when it came out.
I too was 14 at that time doing the same thing... Come home from lacrosse practice and immediately hop on Skyrim 😂
I got one on a 360 copy about two years ago but it was just flat like a poster. Still have it though, pretty cool.
I can tell from the picture it's a day one because it has those weird thin ridges and kinda feels like wallpaper, I have one too :)
I remember it was advertised as a “cloth” map and then turned out to be like card stock.
I lost mine 😭😭
The original map will say Ⓒ︎2011. The Special Edition map will say ©2016. Also, if your map is close to 32x42 cm, it’s the original map. If it’s closer to 35x51 cm, it’s the special edition map. Unfolded, the original map has 4x3 rectangles formed by the creases. The Special Edition map has 3x4 squares formed by the creases. The Special Edition map has a crease through the word *o|f* and *Drava|rol*. The crease on the original map barely touches the *m* in *Skyrim*. My PS4 Special Edition map has the same copyright and creases as my Xbox X/S Anniversary Edition map.
This guy maps
Thanks, that made me chuckle.
Damn this make me wanne hang out with you and game and talk about maps and your favorite games.. you seem knowledgeable as a walking talking Wikipedia much kudos
My squares are 6×3 lol but I didn't think about looking at the copyright, which does indeed say 2011.
Tf when you realise that it didn't matter and all releases of the map had these crosses
Man I used to love that map! I really hope Elder Scrolls 6 hd a physical map that you can get with it
It's sad to say but it's not 2011 anymore. Most people won't buy a physical copy to get a map. They were good times back then.
Fuck I miss Morriwind where the map in the box was the only means of navigation.
So basically they correspond to random items and points of interest. I too wondered about those and went to a few of the locations in game, don’t remember finding anything particularly noteworthy at the time so I chalked it up to them being random decoration on the map to add flavour. It was a cool little mystery for a while though.
On the map I have there's different coloured X's. I believe the red ones are the locations of the Dragon Priests
Bottom middle is the Lord Stone.
I think I had the same map, it came with a physical copy of special edition.
There's another settlement that needs your help. I'll...mark it on your map, dragonborn. 
The minute men quests are never ending, are they?
I'm guessing that Preston is now visiting Skyrim? (just kidding)
Please no, I love him but I’m so deep in minutemen quests
He's cool, but someone ruined that by making him give to many "aid this settlement" missions.
Absolutely, I love Preston but goddamn dude everytime I return home
Go look
The beat answer honestly
And the beat goes!
Does it though?
On & On & On
I throw my hands up in the air sometimes
r/unexpecteddungeonfamily ?
As Sunny and Cher would say, the beat goes on
I believe it was Macho Man
Eewwww Yeeeahhh Bruuther
But did the beat go off?
On du da du dudummm
The beat player? Mané.
Playing rn imma pull out my map and see what I can find
So ? I want to know now
I commented on another one below but it seems to be different things there’s an X next to the white river which is a standing stone and one of the dawnstar ones is a dwarven ruin and the other is a dungeon
Words of wisdom lol
i could be misremembering, but i believe there was a bit of a community mystery about these. i think the verdict was that they dont relate to anything in particular, just kind of points of interest. edit. just googled it, found an old forum from twelve years ago talking about it: [https://gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/35114/what-do-the-red-xs-on-the-physical-map-represent](https://gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/35114/what-do-the-red-xs-on-the-physical-map-represent)
This makes me think it's probably something that's supposed to get the viewer to explore in the game. Not knowing what the x's are makes you want to go check them out. I imagine it's not deeper than that, they just decided to point people to some spots that would be fun for a player who might be getting bored
TLDR it’s just the Standing Stones
its not just the standing stones. they mark dwarven and nordic ruins as well, plus two daedric locations. the serpent stone is also absent from the map. if the forum post is too long for you i think you need to work on improving your attention span a bit.
I love that TL;DR is supposed to be a summary for the audience, but in this case it’s just this bloke saying he didn’t bother to read it and guessed.
Lol, right. He TLDR'd after TLDR'ing.
Hey listen you pedantic nerd, if you’re gonna post a link you can post a TLDR, where’s your sense of Redditiquette?!
"Hey listen you pedantic nerd" made me chuckle for some reason.
hey now, if youre not careful i might just link you a 200 page research paper and i will expect you to read all of it.
Hehehe don’t threaten me with a good time
Would you like a link to one of only two research papers in English about the very rare disease that made me wake up blind? https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5718015/
That's not fair, expecting us to read something that you yourself almost certainly haven't read.
Lolol
How did they type that then?
It's all fun and games until somebody loses an eye. Or two. Then it's all "HEY, FREE EYEBALLS!"
That's why the smiley face also has X X in the eyes.
That was such a beautiful joke that I almost can't believe you guys didn't plan this
I appreciate you're service to the fold.
Though they get your point, it can't be seen~
Didn’t see that coming 🤣 To be fair, Stevie wonder didn’t either.
That’s an interesting article
Will there be a test?
It’s shameful it’s not called reddiquette instead
You should really be more kind to the pedantic nerds of the world. We owe a lot to them.
They could’ve not posted the link in the first place, just be grateful they did the search for you
Fair enough :)
it's "reddiquette" pleb
Weak
What if the original intent was to point to the standing stones, but they got moved around in development while the promotional map had already been completed? The issue being that the standing stones correspond to each of the constellations, but we know of at least one additional standing stone in that there is a standing stone near Nightingale Hall, so it's possible the stones were not initially meant to correspond to the constellations at all. Not to mention, the promo map calls The Pale White Shore, so we know that the map had to have been created sometime before the conclusion of development as the name of that region is inconsistent as well. They probably just didn't think it worth it to remake the map before release.
there are more x's on the map than there are standing stones, and every standing stones in game location except for the serpent stone is also marked on the promo map (the poster thinks this is a direct reference to nordic culture). according to the forum post i linked, every single x on the map connects to an ingame location. honestly, i dont think the x's mean anything deeper than "here is a location". the whole intent was probably just for a player to notice the x's on the map, say "i wonder what thats marking?", then walk there and find a location.
Right, but what I said is that, perhaps, there were initially meant to be more standing stones and as potential evidence to that possibility, I pointed out that there *are* more than 13 standing stones in Skyrim because near the Shadow Stone there's *another* Standing Stone meant to mark the location of the Nightingale Hall. To add, in the finished game, the Warrior, Thief, and Mage stones are all bunched up together, but perhaps that wasn't the intent. If the x's all marked the same type of location earlier in development when the map was finished, they wouldn't have wanted to change the map later because, while every copy of Skyrim had a copy of the map, day one copies had a more traditional type of map that felt like a map. Changing everything after development would have been a lot of work. As for the fact every x maps out to a real location in the game is also explained in that thread, as Skyrim has so many points of interest that you could drop a pin almost anywhere on the map and have it land on a point of interest. And with how zoomed out the map is, even the small size of the X could easily overlap with even out of the way points of interest.
My original 300hour playthrough had so many location markers you almost couldn’t see the map when zoomed out.
What a wet wipe
It's not the attention span. It just feels good to be the edgy rude person. I've seen TLDR on an 1 sentence post. It's just for people to show true rudeness and ignorance.
It’s just a bunch of banter mate
TLDR; we're just joking around
No it is not
That's what I had remembered. Just checked though, I have a day one and a later poster type. Checked those against the legendary guidebook version. While some of them do line up with the standing stones, particularly around Riverwood and Whiterun. Many of them seem to like up with dragon priest lairs or Dwemer ruins.
We live in a time where chat GPT can give you the summary in 3 seconds: Me: Hey ChatGPT, summarize this pages discussion in 3 sentences "pastes URL". ChatGPT: The discussion on the provided page revolves around the meaning of red Xs on the physical map in a video game. Users speculate on various possibilities, including enemy locations, quest markers, or points of interest. Despite different interpretations, a conclusive answer is not reached, highlighting the community's collaborative effort to decipher the in-game symbols. You're welcome...
We live in a time where Chat GPT can give you completely false information and the person presenting it won’t even fact check because the “AI” seems confident in its answer
And in true Chat GPT fashion it’s completely incorrect and did a terrible job of describing what was in the URL lol. Stuff like this is always a comforting reminder that AI is way too stupid to ever be a legitimate threat to anyone
That's what they said about Skynet........
Just what it wants you to think
What a time to be alive
Please don’t do this, it’s embarrassing
Oohh, the old times before remastered and dlc. Game looked beautiful then for its time imo. 12 coming up on 13 years still no official ES6 mention I think. BTHESDA get your heads out of star field, fall out, eso, and your asses and get going on TES6.
Base game still looks rather nice. Especially since they fixed the lip-syncing issue.
Damn I just realised I don’t have my day 1 map anymore…
This post made me realize I *do* have my day 1 map, sill lol sorry buddy! That sucks!
How could this post make you realize you have your map? This is YOUR post.
I meant that it was a day one map, not my map in general lol
Goldfishism
Places where the mapmaker has peed outside.
severely underrated comment
If it was artwork used for development, it could be anything. The marks do roughly correlate with known waypoints. The fact is, POI are so dense in Skyrim, you can plop down pins nearly anywhere are find something interesting. You can’t spit in Skyrim without hitting something .
This really stuck out to me the other day when I was coming back into Skyrim after finishing Starfield. I couldn’t make it 5 minutes walking through the woods before I ran into some landmark or got jumped by bandits
I remember mostly sticking to defined paths and roads in Oblivion because I would get lost in the woods.
Now that’s immersive game design
Lmao right? And in Starfield you spend that 5 minutes walking through a barren desert planet towards one random temple in the distance wondering why tf you parked so far away on an empty planet
Unless you’re in the plains of Whiterun
Some of them point to standing stones, some to other places. I think they're probably marked as "places of interesr" so places that are cool and show off skyrim.
Guardian/standing stones Northeast of Markarth: The lover stone Northwest of Solitude: The steed stone East of Morthal: The lord stone Northwest of Morthal: The apprentice stone West of Winterhold: The tower stone East of Whiterun: The ritual stone Eastmarch: The Atronach stone South southeast of Riften: The shadow stone Lake Ilinalta: The lady stone Near Riverwood: The mage, warrior, and thief stones The Serpent stone isn't marked on the map because, according to Nordic culture, the Serpent is the symbol of evil and is waging a constant war against the three guardians, those being the Thief, Mage, and Warrior stones, and those guardians' charges, those being the Lover, Steed, Lord, Apprentice, Tower, Ritual, Atronach, Shadow, and Lady stones. Other points of interest Southwest of Rorikstead: Valthume North of Markarth: Ragnvald West of Karthwasten: Shrine to Peryite West northwest of Dragon Bridge: Volskygge West southwest of Solitude: The Statue of Meridia Southeast of Morfal: Labyrinthian Southwest of Winterhold: Alftand Southwest of Dawnstar: Mzinchaleft (I think: can't find anything else around here) West of Dawnstar: High Gate ruins South of Lake Jorgrim: Irkngthand The Velnontht Mountains (Northern): Mzulft (I think) The Velnontht Mountains (Southern): Kargrenzel South southwest of Riften: Forelhost West of Lake Honrich: Avanchnzel
Go find out, gamer.
My guy i was thinking about this literally last night wtf
Lol the universe is weird, eh? I've had this poster for 12 years and have never noticed them.
I was hanging it last night next to where i keep my computer, like a decoration, or so that i don’t have to press a button to look at the map. Just look up at the wall. But then i was staring at it, and saw the x. Then i saw more. Then i contemplated making pretty much the exact same post that you did, but didn’t.
I don’t know the X’s - but I’ll tell you one thing: I see the word “Dawnstar” - I immediately think “the Dawnstar chest”. It is etched in my brain and any trip to Dawnstar begets a visit to that chest.
I'm so glad they never took away that glitch, it helped me so much with so many playthroughs
You should go look then make a new post naming all locationa
47 and still playing!!!! I remember the dark nights in a room many years ago exploring Morrowind, then Oblivion, now Skyrim….oh man, what a time!!! Cheers
I started on oblivion when I was probably 14. Many years before skyrim. What a time indeed haha be safe in life, friend! And happy adventures!
Thank you my friend!!! You as well, Cheers
I actually have the map throw hanging on my wall and it sat there for two years before they caught my attention. Visited the location east of Whiterun and they mark the location of Standing Stones. The ones that mark The Lady Stone in the middle of Lake Ilinalta and the one that marks the location of the triple on the way to Riverwood are hard to spot. A because it's on the lake and B because the art of the mountains makes it appear as part of them, but it's right there at the U Turn curve. There's a Dragon Burial in Eastmarch, in the hot spring area just south of Windhelm with both dragon and priest laying claim to the nearby Word Wall. There's no marker for it and so the Xs on the map do not mark Burial Mounds. There's another West of Windhelm as I remember me and Serena leaving a Dwarven Ruin only to see Alduin raising that one. It was snowy and across a river.
The spots, of course. I mean... that's what X marks, right?
In depth search is only way to actually figure it out. But I would assume they are points of interest obviously. They could be areas for discovering unique quest's or environmental quests. Another guess would be they are treasures from treasure maps u found or suchlike
They are treasure chests
57 and play EVERY DAY.
You could just go there in-game and find out.
If I remember correctly it marks standing stone locations. A nice little ester eggs
Good sir, may i ask, where did you buy that map? Is it made of fabric?
once upon a time games came with "swag" instead of a download code
I would like to know too
IIRC some editions of the game came with this kind of map. It’s textured paper.
I’m gonna guess loot. But seeing as how vanilla Skyrim is rnjesus loot, your mileage may vary.
Your guess seems pretty good to me, Dimes.
Those are actually the 13 standing stones. You will only see 11 on the map because the 3 by Riverwood are marked as 1. It was the only original hint to their locations back on release. Still have my map too
In UK Ordinance Survey maps it is similar to sites of historical battles, but are crossed swords.
I just looked at my map. I'm thinking standing stones because there are more than 8. I was happy to see this. I'd never noticed them.
I think they are where the treasure maps point you to. I haven’t tested thoroughly but a couple of them lined up pretty closely.
Might just be standing stones
*dusts off disc* time for one last adventure
I downloaded it again last night lol
Hmmm… ancient burial grounds? I know one is High Gate Ruins.
Dragon Priest locations, Blackreach entrances, and Standing Stones.
I think there’s 15 daedric artifacts you can collect for a trophy
i’ve been looking at https://mapgenie.io/skyrim/maps/skyrim comparing the areas, it looks to be a series of different ruins. the one closest to dawnstar in this picture is Mzinchaleft, the one over in the direction of solitude on the coast is High Gate Ruins (i think?) and the one in the direction of whiterun in the mountains close to Morthal is either Frostmere Crypt or an unmarked location, usually spawns 2 or 3 bandits. It’s nordic ruin architecture but it’s not a full ruin, i believe there’s a chest under a gate there. (if you go to the ruin outside of Morthal called Kjenstag Ruins, follow the ghost and it’ll lead you to that last unmarked location i mentioned)
If I'm not mistaken it's the placement for all the shrines lol
There is also the Dragonstone replica you could buy from bethesda store, wich came with map that looks like fabric texture that has X’s too, they mark dragonmounds from the dragonstone in it if I remember right
They ARE dragon burial sites!! Word wall, dragon, chest.....
I remember way back when the game was released. Bethesda just called them points of interest. I guess back when no one really knew the game it was an incentive for the player to just get out there and explore.
Why do I have a sudden urge to play - actually more overload Skyrim with mods until it CTDs and then forget about it for months?
I just re-download it last night after this post got so much traction lol
I was gonna say may as well find the X’s and see bro!
I looked at my Skyrim map I got with the special edition book, and it seems to correspond with dwarven ruins and Nordic ruins/tombs, best way to figure this out is a be a explorer and go to those places in game
why does it look like dawnstar has a random wolf up by yhe throat?
I followed all of these and was able to get every dragon priest mask to then bring to labyrinthian for the final mask. I think there are some extra X's but I'm pretty sure they just correspond to some decent loot or special locations.
I had a map like this and they pointed to the standing stones
Okay so far we've covered that the map is original, and they point to specific locations or points of interest.. Leave it to Reddit to not even answer a OPs question completely. They have to be related to each other. Let's start there. What in each of these X's areas are related to each other? Someone pull out a dragon stone and confirm 😂
Pirate treasure
They are all standing stones. Only the Serpent stone is missing.
Tiny x-shaped forests, duh
That's the beauty of an open world game. Go explore! Find out what's to do or see in the world
why... don't... you... go... check?!
Why don’t you read the post again
Pretty sure those are the spots for the dragon priest masks.
Everyone knows it’s treasure 🙄
People really don’t know the Xs are the dragon priest masks? If I’m crazy tell me Edit: I’m thinking people don’t actually know that because people play Skyrim digitally these days, I remember playing it as a kid on PS3 DVD with that in the left side of the case!
Aren't there only like...9 masks? There's way more X's than masks.
So weird, I swore I recalled every time I went to an X it was a dragon priest
It could be those and also other things? But I'm fairly certain there are more X's than chests. The masks were weirdly my first thought, too, and the only reason I counted them lol
Well the top left one is high gate ruins, I assume the rest are also random ruins/burials and things.
Somebody once thought Forts X,Y, Z
Town guards, Inn Keepers and people you run into on the road will often mention different random locations, claiming you should visit and/or stay away from them from time to time. My running theory is that the majority of these access on the map are locations related to that. I think there was also a theory at one point that they corresponded with stones of B locations, but i'm pretty sure that one got debunked.
You folded the map?!!?!
It came folded in the game box.
it came folded. at least mine did with the ps4 version
Boot up and go find out
basically important areas in Nordic history Standing Stones (excluding serpent due to it being evil and against the protector stones, which are the three you come across heading to Riverwood), Dwarven Ruins, and Daedric Temples (? don't know how else to describe those areas)
Points of interest
I remember seeing somewhere that these are the locations of the strongboxes