Skyrim: Blood Potion, Where To Buy It & How To Make It?

Dawnguard DLC added more depth to playing as a vampire in Skyrim. It added a new vampire form. The form was both an upgrade and an inconvenience at the same time, depending on how you look at it. It also added some new vampire-related items used to improve the quality of life for vampire characters. One of them is the so-called “Potion of Blood,” used to substitute feeding on humans. Due to the potion being incredibly useful, many players have been wondering where to buy blood potions in Skyrim and how to make them. 

What does the Potion of Blood do in Skyrim? 

Potion of Blood, in short, substitutes feeding on humans in Skyrim. The potion itself grants you several restorative effects. It restores health by 100 points and restores 380 points of Hunger. In short, after ingesting the Potion of Blood, you won’t have to feed on human blood, at least for some time. 

Of course, if you play as a non-vampire and drink the Potion of Blood, be it on purpose or by accident, it’s going to end up bad. 

If you drink the Potion of Blood as a non-vampire, a weird bug occurs that infects you with a bizarre version of vampirism. You suffer all the negative effects of being a vampire without any means to cure it. The only solution to this problem is to infect yourself with legitimate vampirism and then approach Fallion in Dawnstar again. The other solution involves using console commands. 

How do you get the Potion of Blood in Skyrim? 

Potion of Blood can be acquired in Volikhar Castle. The locations where the Potion of Blood can be found are as follows:

1. 2 x Potions of Blood can be found in Volkihar’s castle main hall. Those are the most conveniently accessible; the main hall is the large room you find yourself in as soon as you enter Volkihar Castle. 
2. 1x Potion can be found in Harkon’s study, on the table next to the glass case containing a leveled enchanted dagger.
3. 1x Can be found in Valerica’s study. The area becomes accessible after the “Chasing Echoes” quest. Keep in mind that the potion appears there only if you return to Valerica in Soul Cairn to inform her that Lord Harkon has been defeated after the quest “Kindred Judgement.” This will result in Valerica returning to Castle Volkihar and, consequently, a Potion of Blood appearing in her study. 
4. For owners of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Anniversary Edition, 3x potions are available to you in Bloodchill Manor
5. The vampire radiant quest can reward you with 3x potions upon completion. 

Do Potions of Blood respawn? 

Yes, Potions of Blood do respawn after several days have passed, which means that you have a constant supply of them, albeit a small one. This a good thing when it comes to the game’s balance, but a bad thing for characters that are in need of a more stable source of potions that they can control. 

How do you add Potion of Blood with console commands? 

Potion of Blood can be added with player.additem command. It works just like adding any other item. To add the potion, follow these steps. 

1. open console with ~
2. type player.additem xx018ef3 10 (replace the xx with the number Dawnguard expansion has in your load order. For example, my ItemID for the Potion of Blood would be 02018ef3 since Dawnguard is the second master file in my load order) 
3. Press enter
4. If you’ve done everything right, 10 Potions of Blood should appear in your inventory. You can replace the quantity with any number and potentially add hundreds of potions with a single command.

How to add Potion of Blood with mods? 

Several mods allow you to craft/loot or acquire Potions of Blood through other means. We will list just some of the mods since keeping track of all of them would be inconvenient.  

1. Craftable Blood Potions SSE – this is a small mod that allows you to craft Blood Potions with 1x human blood and 1x human flesh. 
2. Castle Volkihar Redux – adds new crafting stations in the game called “Blood Cauldrons” that allow you to craft Potions of Blood. 
3. Better Vampires – allows you to “extract” Potions of Blood from your sleeping victims while you are feeding them, this option is optional, and in order for it to work you need to enable it first. 
4. Sacrosanct – Vampires of Skyrim – Also allows you to craft the potions but adds several other related potions as well. 
5. Hunterborn – Animal Blood Potions for Vampires – If you by some chance want to play as a vampire “vegetarian,” the Hunterborn addon allows you to craft Blood Potions using animal remains. 

As you can see, while you cannot craft or buy Potions of Blood in the vanilla version of Skyrim, there are plenty of mods that allow it. Please keep in mind that some of those mods also drastically change vampire-related aspects of the game. 

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