A bizarre mod that adds human poop to Skyrim led me on an enlightening journey into Viking sanitation: 'Your world will certainly be more immersive, but it will also certainly smell worse'

I've played a few Skyrim mods that stank in my time, but none quite like this. Everyone Poops­—Mihail's Shards of Immersion adds actual piles of excrement into Bethesda's perennial fantasy RPG.

"You can now find human feces near and inside some houses, forts and caves," writes Mihail Mods, the creator of Everyone Poops, which according to its NexusMods tags is "lore friendly" and "fair and balanced".

And when Mihail says everyone poops, he really does mean everyone. The mod is wholly dedicated to representing a broad spectrum of faecal matter. Alongside the biological leavings of humans, elves and beastmen, which Mihail says are all "greenish to brown in color", the mod includes the faeces of the Falmer, which have "some luminescence" due to the heavy presence of glowing mushrooms in their diet.

And yes, the mod also includes poop for giants, which Mihail says are "disgustingly gigantic", letting you embody the spirit of Jeff Goldblum in Jurassic Park as you wander around marvelling at their voluminous dung heaps. The mod draws the line at non-humanoid creatures, however, so don't expect to see any dragon droppings knocking about. This is probably a mercy, given dragons can fly.

The mod even sprinkles some light simulation onto its glistening dung pies. "All feces emit heat, except for those that are old and have lost their 'freshness'," Mihail writes, while "blowflies can be heard around most of them."

Mihail does not directly explain why they have opted to shovel shit into Skyrim, but implies it exists to improve immersion, presumably in the belief that no preindustrial society is complete without the reek of manure emanating from every corner. "Your world will certainly be more immersive, but it will also certainly smell worse."

This, however, got me thinking, should Skyrim's world be riddled with poop? I don't pose this as an ethical question, rather one of authenticity. Skyrim's representation of sanitation is highly inconsistent; you will often see empty buckets knocking around inside houses, which seem to be there for the purpose of NPC relief, though thankfully, the game doesn't simulate this. There is one slightly more elaborate toilet located in Embershard Mine, although even this is just a bucket over a pit. Finally, the town of Riften has a fairly well hidden sewer system, but no toilets or other means through which waste products could enter them.

Hence, judging Skyrim's world purely on its own fiction, it does indeed seem there should be a fair amount of excrement knocking about, and Mihail's mod dutifully fills many of those buckets with the expected droppings. However, is this accurate to the Norse society and culture that Skyrim is based on?

Until recently, it was thought that the Viking approach to waste management was fairly primitive, with substantial archaeological evidence of middens and waste pits in Viking settlements, but not much else. In 2017, however, Danish archaeologists discovered a purpose built Viking toilet, discovering a pit with two postholes above a layer of human waste, suggesting a standalone building. As reported by Atlas Obscura, "Dating the layer, the archaeologists found it was about 1,000 years old, which would make this the oldest known bathroom in Denmark."

While there is some contention around the nature of this find, it does seem at least plausible that there were some Viking toilets, and therefore, Skyrim's sanitation infrastructure could be more sophisticated than it is. Broadly though, Skyrim's world would probably be smellier than as originally portrayed by Bethesda.

If you feel so inclined, you can download Everyone Poops­—Mihail's Shards of Immersion for Skyrim Legendary Edition here, and for Skyrim Special and Anniversary editions here. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to wash my hands.