How to Join the Thieves Guild
Joining the Thieves Guild is relatively straight forward, and will require you to complete two small quests in Riften.
To begin, you’ll need to head to Riften and speak with Brynjolf. Brynjolf is a long-haired, redhead male Nord that spends his days at the Riften Marketplace, between 8am and 8pm. At night, he hands out in the Bee and Barb inn.
Once you come close to the Nord, he will automatically attempt to talk with you. Keep up the conversation until he asks you to do him a deed, in which you will need to steal and plant a ring on someone. Take Madesi’s Silver Ring from under his stall, then attempt to plant it on Brand-Shei, the stall owner.
Brynjolf will provide a distraction while you carry out the task, so make haste. A crowd will gather around him, and you can identify Brand-Shei as the sole male Dunmer in the crowd.
Whether you succeed or fail on the plant will depend on your pickpocketing skill level, but once you try, Brynjolf’s story will end and the crowd will disperse.
Even if you fail, Brynjolf will still say he believes in you, and will give you an opportunity to join the guild anyway. He will tell you to meet him in the Ragged Flagon in the Ratway to proceed with joining.
You can find the Ratway under the bazaar, and will need to fight some bandits inside. Proceed along until you reach the Ragged Flagon.
Find Brynjolf once again, and he will ask you to carry out yet another quest, this one being a bit more elaborate. This quest is called “Taking Care of Business” and will require you to collect the debt of three people: Keerava, Bersi Honey-Hand, and Haelga. This can be done by fighting them for it, or trying to negotiate, and they can be collected in any order.
Return to Brynjolf once the debts are collected and you will become a member of the Thieves Guild. With two of the main quests in the Thieves Guild questline already done, you will have ten more, though you can take unlimited small jobs.
Delvin Mallory and Vex offer randomly generated jobs in Riften, Whiterun, Windhelm, Solitude, and Markath for between 50 and 800 gold a pop, and you’ll earn occasional special jobs by carrying these out.
Joining the Thieves Guild in Skyrim opens the door to so many new opportunities and experiences in the game, and is a must for all players, new or returning. With the ten-year anniversary edition releasing so soon, joining this guild should absolutely make your bucket list for this incredible RPG. If you’re interested in learning more about Skyrim, consider checking out our other Skyrim guides!
