In The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, you can benefit from the heavy armor because of their heavy protection from physical attacks. You can also easily craft them and upgrade them in a workbench.
Ancient Nordic Armor is also one of the heavy armor that can be found during the Siege on the Dragon Cult quest. Read this guide to learn about every location of Ancient Nordic Armor in Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.
Ancient Nord Armor location in Skyrim
The first location where you can find the Ancient Nord Armor 00018388 is in the Forelhost, right behind Riften. At this location, you must start the Siege on the Dragon Cult quest that will unlock the locked castle doors at Forelhost.
Once you are inside the castle, you will find a bunch of ghost-like warriors named Dragon Cultist. Once killed, Dragon Cultist will drop a full set of Ancient Nordic Armor. The castle is filled with Dragon Cultists. Therefore, you can collect several Ancient Nordic Armor from them.
Kjenstag Ruins is the next place where you can find Ancient Nordic Armor. The armor will only be found in a certain time frame which is between 8 pm and 4 am at the night. If you arrived at any other time, you must wait outside the castle until the right time.
Once the time is right, you must go inside the caste to find a ghost. You must wait for the ghost to make his escape before you kill him.
For the next location, you must travel to Jorrvaskr. Aela the Huntress wears the full set of Ancient Nordic Armor. It can be obtained by either killing her or by shopping at her shop after marrying.
The last location to find the Ancient Nordic Armor is in the Southfringe Sanctum. Here, you can find a warrior named Bashnag that drops Ancient Nordic Armor once defeated. He is a little hard to defeat because of his frost and shock attacks.
Ancient Nord Armor visual glitch
Ancient Nord Armor has a special visual graphical glitch that occurs if the player wears it and draws the weapon. When the camera settings are in the first person, there are weird graphical lines that appear horizontally and diagonally on the screen.
The glitch only appears only in the first-person view. The armor from the third-person view looks just fine. The glitch happens with weapons drawn and it does not matter if the player has worn the gauntlet or not.
Stats
| Pieces | Armor | Rating | Gold | ID |
| Ancient Nord Armor | 27 | 28 | 125 | 00018388 |
| Ancient Nord Boots | 11 | 5 | 25 | 00056A9D |
| Ancient Nord Gauntlets | 11 | 4 | 25 | 00056B17 |
| Ancient Nord Helmet | 109 | 4 | 120 | 00056A9E |
| Ancient Nord Arrow | 10 | 0 | 1 | – |
| Ancient Nord Sword | 9 | 12 | 13 | – |
Ahzidral Armor
Ahzidral Armor is the variant of the Ancient Nord Armor. You can find it several times when you are doing the quest Unearthed. For this quest, you must have to go to the Kolbjorn Barrow which is an ancient tomb.
Enchantments
There are 4 pieces of relics of Ahzidral that includes Armor, Boots, Gauntlets, and a Helm. If you wear all four of the prices of the Ahzidral, you will be granted Ahzidral Genius enchantment.
The enchantment will not work if you wear more or less than four relics of Ahzidral Armor. You can also avail the benefits of the enhancement if you have only the 3 relics of Ahzidral Armor.
Just use the Dragon Priest Mask as one of the fourth relics of Ahzidral Amor. This armor gives us fortifying enchantment which means you can make strong enchanting potions with this.
Ahzidral Armor Stats
| Pieces | Armor | Rating | Gold | ID |
| Ahzidral’s Armor of Retribution | 40 | 38 | 2730 | XX01DB97 |
| Ahzidral’s Boots of Waterwalking | 14 | 9 | 1125 | XX01C655 |
| Ahzidral’s Gauntlets of Warding | 14 | 6 | 1750 | XX01DB99 |
| Ahzidral’s Helm of Vision | 19 | 6 | 1250 | XX01DB98 |
| Ahzidral’s Ring of Arcana | – | 0.3 | 1435 | XX01DB9B |
| Ahzidral’s Ring of Necromancy | – | 0.3 | 1110 | XX01DB9A |
Smithing Requirements
In Skyrim, you can craft the Ancient Nordic Armor in Skyforge. You can only access the forge once the Companion questline has been finished. Likewise, you will need Deadric Smithing Perk.
Crafting the Ancient Nord Armor will require the following material below, once you have completed all the smithing requirements:
- Iron Ingot
- Leather
- Leather Strips
- Steel Ingot
The next step after crafting is upgrading it. You can upgrade the level of the Ancient Nordic Armor once crafted with the help of Iron Ingot. This can be done at a workbench.
Ancient Nord Armor Mods
Skyrim offers a lot of mods to the weapons and armor that the players can add to change different aspects. Some mods are just visual, and some have performance-enhancing effects. Below are some of the mods of the Ancient Nordic Armor:
Ancient Nord Armo(u)ry EXTREME SE
This mod allows the players to divide the Ancient Nord Armor into the light and the heavy variants. The divided light and heavy variants are the same for the male and the female variants.
You can also be able to craft the iron equivalent version of the Ancient Nord Armor early in the levels. After completing the quest with these modded variants, you will be granted rewards that are equivalent to smithing perks.
You can then use the rewards to upgrade the Ancient Nord Armor without the Advance Armor perk. The light version, as well as the heavy version, have the same weight.
Ancient Nord Armor Replacer (Tsun Mashup)
This mod combines the two different armors into one mashup. It is combining the Ancient Nord Armor and Tsun’s Armor. The reason to combine both armors is to have the qualities of both light and heavy armors in one piece.
For now, this mod is only available for the male variant of the armor.
Light Ancient Nord Armor
The Ancient Nord Armor is heavy. But some players say that the stats of the Ancient Nord Armor indicates that it is light armor. Therefore, this mod allows you to have the light-modded version of the Ancient Nord Armor.
You can use this modded variant alongside the Ancient Nord Armor in the game. To craft this modded variant, you will need Advanced Armor Smithing Perk. The Stats of the modded version are as follows:
| Pieces | Armor | Weight |
| Light Boots | 10 | 3 |
| Light Cuirass | 35 | 5 |
| Light Gauntlets | 10 | 1 |
| Light Helmet | 14 | 2 |
