Skyrim Campaigns: The Thieves Guild

The Thieves guild was one of the better campaigns in Skyrim, it kinda made the Civil war stuff that I talked about in previous posts feel like garbage. There are basically two stages in the campaign which is nice because it offers a change of pace about half way through the quest-line. The first stage is just the basic thieving and stealth missions which are pretty fun if not just because Skyrim's typical style is to just absolutely eliminate everything in your way, so this offers a chance to play the game as you would a stealth game. You're essentially required to get into well guarded areas and steal or mess with various objectives and then escape without being noticed, if possible anyway. There are also an unlimited amount of side jobs you can do for quick gold (NOTE: These are not very hard to do and can be a great way to make money at a lower level.) there are also a total of like six types of side jobs including things like Burglary jobs, Heist jobs, Shill jobs, Numbers jobs, Sweep jobs, etc. =*SPOILER ALERT*= As you progress through the campaign you're eventually asked to accompany the guild master into a dungeon to help him hunt down a former member who had murdered the previous guild leader. So you trek through a ruin that is mostly the same as all the rest but with more traps than usual and when you finally get to the last room you're immediately shot with an arrow and you get to watch the scene unfold while on the ground. Then the guild master being the absolute dick that he is, walks over to helpless little you and stabs you. That concludes the first portion of this quest line.

You awaken in the woods with the person you were originally hunting for and she explains that the poison she hit you with earlier had slowed your heart rate enough so she could stop the bleeding before you kicked the bucket. Then you're brought in on the conspiracy that was set up by the current guild master in order to obtain something called the Skeleton Key, a mystical lockpick that is described as being able to open any door, including ones in your mind (woah?). Essentially its implied that you can use the pick to open up a person's hidden potential. You'll notice that prior to him stabbing you the guild master would pick through things like the claw puzzle doors, which is silly. So the consequence of this dude possessing this super lockpick is that it curses the thieves guild by limiting their "luck", or basically making really unfortunate things happen during the night (Like a pick breaking on an easy lock or a guard feels the need to go out of it's way to check those dark shadowy corners he usually neglects). So you begin the hunt for the guild master by translating the previous one's notebook in order to determine what happened that led to all this. Of course the previous guy was an absolute tool and wrote his journal in Falmer language. Yeah, those little blind bat people that live underground, their language. After a semi-difficult stealth mission through dwarven ruins in order to find a translation you're informed about something called the Nightingales.

The Nightingales are a group of three of the most skilled thieves who pledge their eternal souls to a mystical being called Noctournal, essentially the goddess of thieves. So you are offered the chance to become one of these Nightingales in order to stop Mercer (tired of typing "guildmaster"). Now before I talk about finishing this campaign I'd just like to point out that gear-wise this campaign is incredibly rewarding. Once you choose to become a Nightingale you're given a full set of armor that is probably the coolest looking set in the entire game and is incredibly beneficial for stealth players. You're also given a Nightingale blade and bow before the campaign ends, both of which are heavily enchanted and very useful in combat (even better if you have max smithing and can upgrade them). So once you have all the pieces in place you have to trek through another dwarven ruin knocking tons of falmer out of the way as you go and eventually you get to mercer and have a climactic clash. After the fight is over you receive the skeleton key. Okay now a bit of advice here, you now have about 90% of the rewards from the thieves guild quest-line and you have access to a lockpick that is unbreakable. You have no obligation to fork over the key right away and if you want to bolster your funds a bit then go on a crime spree or just raise your lockpicking stat to 100. Once you turn it in it is gone forever, so keep that in mind. After returning the key all is well in the thieving world and your final rewards are the aforementioned bow as well as one of three nightingale skills.

These skills are divided into three types:

1. Agent of Strife: This is my personal favorite since it essentially gives you a skill that fires a soul sucking wall of death at an enemy. This skill immediately absorbs 100 health from a target. Now, in Skyrim, at level 40, I have a little over 200 hp. So this skill instantly inflicts massive damage to a target and then heals half of my hp. Very useful.

2. Agent of Subterfuge: Basically this is just a very strong rage spell and allows you to royally piss someone off. Moderately useful.

3. Agent of Stealth: Probably the second best skill out of the three (in my opinion) it allows you to become completely invisible while in stealth for 120 seconds a day. Perfect for prolonged stealth missions and allows you to keep the Nightingale stuff on without taking any loss in terms of sneaking effectiveness over the Dark Brotherhood gear. Very useful.

The best part: You aren't locked into the skill once you choose one, you're allowed to switch it up once a day. So if you need to switch skills to suit your needs you're allowed to do so.

Last comments: This campaign was decently long and a whole lot of fun. It was about the same as the Dark Brotherhood in terms of length, rewards, and entertainment. Both the DB and TG campaigns give full gear sets and great weapons. I highly recommend this quest-line to anyone playing a thief!

Super long post, thanks for reading. Skyrim week is coming to a close and I'll be talking about the Companions and the main story line sometime in the next few days. Maybe the mages college if I ever get around to finishing my mage.