There is an extraordinarily well-hidden sword in the game named Eltonbrand that can be acquired if the player performs a certain set of actions. In order to acquire it, the player must have Goldbrand, the sword obtained by completing Boethiah's daedric quest. The player must then complete the vampire quest Shashev's Key, given by Sirilonwe in the Vivec Guild of Mages. Upon completing the quest, if the player has 11171 gold pieces in their inventory, they will get a unique dialogue option with Sirilonwe that says "Go to Hell, Carolina!" Clicking this option will trigger Goldbrand to be replaced with Eltonbrand, a vastly superior sword.

This Easter egg is a reference to Elton Brand, an NBA basketball player who once played for the Duke Blue Devils. Bethesda Designer Mark Nelson attended Duke college and was a renowned Duke University basketball fan, which was reflected by his username choice "BlueDev". Completing the quest triggers a script called "bluescript" that checks the player's inventory for the gold and Goldbrand, and creates the unique dialogue option if the conditions are met. Additionally, Eltonbrand's object ID is "katana_bluebrand_unique". The unique dialogue option references the North Carolina Tarheels, who are Duke's most hated rivals. The name of the quest itself, "Shashev's Key," is also a reference to the long-time coach of the Blue Devils, Mike Krzyzewski, whose last name is pronounced "shÉ™-SHEF-ski". Lastly, the 11171 gold pieces is a reference to Nelson's date of birth, the 1st of November 1971.