The Elder Scrolls Online: Black Sacrament Guide

In the Elder Scrolls Online, Black Sacraments are unique kill quests available to members of the Dark Brotherhood. To unlock the Black Sacraments, as well as the contracts, players will need to progress through the Dark Brotherhood questline. Specifically, members will be able to access the Black Sacrament missions after finishing the "A Lesson In Silence" quest.

In general, Sacrament objectives are more challenging than basic contract missions. Gamers will need to track down and assassinate targets under tight parameters. Unlike contracts, Sacraments can only be completed once per day. Dark Brotherhood members will find everything they need to know about the Sacraments below.

Updated on September 29, 2021 by Payton Lott: In addition to the Sacraments themselves, new Brotherhood members are likely confused about the reputation system and how to progress in the rankings. It turns out that Black Sacraments are actually the most efficient objectives when ranking up in the game. Each rewards a total of 10-20 reputation, which is a lot considering how quickly they can be completed. For more information on ranks and abilities, people can look to the end of this updated guide. With all rank 12 abilities, players will be able to assassinate any target.

Dark Brotherhood Black Sacraments

To begin one of the Black Sacraments, members will need to chat with Speaker Terenus in the Dark Brotherhood Sanctuary. Ask Terenus "Do you have anything for me today, Speaker?" He will then say that the Night Mother has an open petition. Follow the obvious dialogue path and fast travel to the recommended location. There, assassins will have to kill two targets while completing each of the challenges assigned by Terenus.

Rewards

On completion, Terenus will award scaled gold, as well as reputation and items, which will vary depending on how many challenges were completed. Sacraments provide more gold and reputation than contracts, but that is not the primary benefit of completing them.

Those that are able to finish all of the Sacraments will be awarded an achievement, and more importantly, the Shadow Rider skill. This ability will decrease the aggression of hostile enemies while mounted on horseback by 50%. Shadow Rider makes traveling through dangerous areas a lot more manageable. It will not be easy to get through all of the Sacraments, and the sections below will explain why.

The Curse Of RNG

The unfortunate reality is that these Black Sacraments rely completely on RNG. This means that from day to day, players will have no idea if they are partaking in a new Sacrament or one they have already finished. There are a total of three Black Sacrament locations for each member of the Brotherhood to complete. However, there are way more than three Sacraments in total.

Depending on the day, the Speaker will select two out of seven or eight possible targets. This means that each day, players will be able to complete two of the seven or eight Sacraments in each location. In reality, there is an exponentially large number of different Sacrament combinations across the three locations.

Finishing All Sacraments

Every player grinding through these objectives should keep a tally of each Sacrament they have completed. This will save some time down the line, as members can avoid the locations where all the targets have been defeated. It should be noted that to complete the achievement, the two targets must be marked targets for that day. The sections that follow list all of the targets in each location for people to reference.

Sewer Tenement

Alard Cerone
Andilo Andrano
Aojee-Ei
Dolwinora
Geon Alinie
Herminius Andus
Lamzakha
Talrahal

Smuggler's Den

Abizzaka
Borcholim
Brunka
Bur-Waska
Daynil Uveleth
Eslendore
Geon Alinie
Savilian Colus

Trader's Cove

Tebeba
Mabgrolabesh
Nalosi Orethi
Rinweril
Steidor
Geon Alinie
Monsashana

Eliminate Primary And Secondary Marks

In each of the three locations, assassins can decide to kill the secondary mark or destroy an item. Those that wish to finish all of the Sacraments should kill both targets every time. Because of the RNG aspect of the achievement, every gamer will have a chance to destroy the object at some point once all of the marked NPCs have been killed. Regardless, the achievement will likely take a while to finish, so it is best to get started as soon as possible. Even players that do the Sacraments every day may have to wait months or even more than a year to finish them all.

Bethesda really needs to make some changes to the Sacraments in order to make them more realistic for casual players. Missing just one day of running the missions could result in another month of waiting and searching for a few final targets. The community can deal with a few engagement-based activities, but many have waited two years for one of the Sacraments. Others lost interest along the way, as purchasing the Shadow Rider skill is always an option.

Elective Challenge

During each sacrament, players can decide to murder one of the targets with either of the two below methods:

Murder one's target with a poison equipped on the weapon slot active when the kill is made
Kill the target with the Blade of Woe.

It would have been nice to add some variation to the elective across the three locations, but having continuity does make completing each Black Sacrament more straightforward.

Dark Brotherhood Reputation and Passives

The Black Sacraments are in place to help members reach the max rank of 12. To reach the rank, gamers will need a total of 515 reputation. Unlike the other methods, Black Sacraments reward up to 20 reputation for one completed objective. That is, if the optional objectives are completed at the same time.

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For those reasons, they are a desirable way to stack reputation compared to Marked for Death Contracts (5 Rep) and Killing Spree Contracts (5 Rep). Completing a Black Sacrament is also much faster than a story mission, which only awards 10-20 reputation. Therefore, gamers will want to complete the Sacraments even if they do not desire the Shadow Rider skill.

Dark Brotherhood Passive Abilities

At higher ranks, new passive abilities become available to the members of the Dark Brotherhood. Each of these passives are beneficial for assassins. All six are listed below:

Blade of Woe: Delivers a killing blow to an enemy while hidden.
Scales of Pitiless Justice I-IV: Bounty and heat reduced by 20-50%.
Padomaic Sprint I-IV: Increases movement speed by 30% for 6-12 seconds.
Shadowy Supplier: Brotherhood contracts reward useful items once per day.
Shadow Rider: Aggression radius while mounted reduced by 50%.
Spectral Assassin: There is a 15% chance Blade of Woe will shroud the user.