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The East Empire Company, a recurring monopolistic trading operation in the series since Morrowind's Bloodmoon expansion, is a deliberate stand-in for the real-world East India Company. Its Skyrim warehouse even hides various in-game drugs, echoing the East India Company's real history of smuggling.
The giant statues found in Sovngarde, the Nordic realm of the honored dead, will quietly rotate to face the player whenever they aren't being watched directly, a subtle detail that most players never catch happening in real time.
Skyrim guards mocking the player with 'let me guess, someone stole your sweetroll' is the punchline to a much older running gag. The sweetroll first appeared as a character-creation question in 1994's The Elder Scrolls: Arena, resurfaced in Daggerfall and Morrowind, and was even asked by Emperor Uriel Septim in Oblivion's tutorial moments before his assassination.
Hidden inside Ysgramor's Tomb, only accessible during a Companions questline, sits a helmet modeled after Darth Vader's iconic mask, one of two direct Star Wars references built into Skyrim.
Before becoming the undead lich-like bosses players fight in ancient tombs, the Dragon Priests were living members of the Dragon Cult who ruled over Nord society on behalf of the dragons during the Merethic Era, wielding power and knowledge granted directly by their draconic masters.
Alduin, the 'World-Eater' players fight throughout Skyrim's main quest, is a child of Akatosh, the God of Time, whose true purpose is to eventually devour the world so a new one can begin. His war against humanity stems from pride and a refusal to accept that duty rather than pure malice, and after his defeat, Arngeir suggests he may one day return to fulfil it.
Long before the Dragonborn of Skyrim, Miraak served as a Dragon Priest who was seduced by the Daedric Prince Hermaeus Mora with promises of forbidden knowledge and power. He began conspiring against his own dragon overlords, a betrayal explored fully in the Dragonborn expansion.
According to Dark Brotherhood lore, the Night Mother began as a nameless woman with five children who was approached by the Daedric Prince Sithis and offered a place at his side in exchange for killing her own children. She accepted, murdered them, and became the undead matron figure the Dark Brotherhood still worships in Skyrim.
M'aiq the Liar is a wandering Khajiit who appears somewhere in Skyrim, dispensing cryptic, often fourth-wall-breaking commentary on the game itself. He's a recurring series in-joke, having also turned up in Morrowind and Oblivion, always deliberately unreliable about what he tells the player.
Bethesda deliberately released Skyrim worldwide on November 11, 2011, exactly a year after announcing it at the 2010 Spike Video Game Awards on November 11, 2010, turning the memorable 11/11/11 date into part of the game's marketing and cultural identity.
