Skyrim:Clairvoyance (effect)

	Clairvoyance
School	Illusion
Type	Other

Shows the path to the current goal.

Clairvoyance draws a path, in the form of a magical blue line, leading to your current quest marker or objective.

Spells

Only one spell uses this effect, and the effect has no variants.

• Clairvoyance: Clairvoyance (0002113f; ClairvoyanceEffect)

Notes

• Clairvoyance can be used to navigate to a player-placed map marker.
• Both Clairvoyance and your compass's quest marker show you where to head. However, the quest marker only shows you the straight-line direction, whereas Clairvoyance shows you the route taking into account all twists and turns.
• Clairvoyance shows the path to the nearest way-point marker only—no preference is given for markers on final destinations (not leading to an area transition point). For this reason it is of no use in finding the nearest objective out of many quests. With several quests active, the most likely scenario is that Clairvoyance will direct you to a doorway or other transition point, then repeatedly direct you through that point from either side. As long as you have a quest objective on either side of the door, the door itself is the nearest quest marker, rendering Clairvoyance useless.
  • In other words, it runs pathfinding scripts, then overlays the blue trail along the determined path. Basically, it shows you the path an A.I. would take.
• Clairvoyance does not take into account doors you cannot open when showing you the shortest path.
• Clairvoyance can be used in some cases to finding hidden objective points. This most commonly works with search and collect style objectives that do not have an objective marker.
• On low settings for the PC, the Clairvoyance effect may not be rendered.
• The Clairvoyance spell only draws a blue line as far as you can see, in-game. So, if you use Fortify Illusion enchantments or large Fortify Magicka enchantments to be able to cast Clairvoyance indefinitely, or for a long period of time, you will eventually reach the end of the blue line, and have to re-cast the spell. For this reason, it is impossible - even in the Creation Kit - to create a permanent Clairvoyance ability or enchantment.

Bugs

• Clairvoyance can occasionally fail to work, creating a trail that when followed will eventually loop around and return to a location that had already been led to by the spell. This creates an endless loop. Alternatively, it will show the blue path only under where you stand, and can also lead to completely unrelated areas.
  • One such example is when using it to navigate to Northwatch Keep while doing the quest Missing In Action, it will lead instead to the entrance of Steepfall Burrow.