How to join the Dark Brotherhood in The Elder Scrolls V Skyrim

As you journey through The Elder Scrolls V Skyrim, you can join many interesting factions. However, one of the most elusive and mysterious has to be the Dark Brotherhood. A guild of highly-trained assassins, they can be easily contacted should you want to sign a contract to eliminate someone. Joining their order, however, is an entirely different matter.

Worshippers of Sithis, the avatar of entropy and chaos, and the Night Mother, the Dark Brotherhood is a dark, powerful faction. If you’re looking to join their numbers and tackle missions in the name of the Night Mother in The Elder Scrolls V Skyrim, here’s what you need to know.

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How to join The Elder Scrolls V Skyrim’s Dark Brotherhood

One does not simply join the Dark Brotherhood in The Elder Scrolls V Skyrim; for those interested, head to an inn and seek the latest gossip. The hint you’re looking for is “Aventus Aretino is trying to perform the Black Sacrament in Windhelm.”

One can contact the Dark Brotherhood through the Black Sacrament to inquire about their services. However, there’s another route you can take. Go to Riften and head to the Honorhall Orphanage. The children there whisper about the attempts of a boy to summon the Dark Brotherhood. Whichever method you prefer, they both work.

You’ll meet Aventus at his parent’s home (Windhelm). Speak to him and begin the Innocence Lost quest. A simple enough task in The Elder Scrolls V Skyrim, you need to kill Grelod the Kind, headmistress of the Honorhall Orphanage. While her name might suggest she’s a kind woman, she’s anything but.

Thankfully, you don’t receive a bounty for killing her. Journey back to Honorhall Orphanage in The Elder Scrolls V Skyrim and dispatch her by any means, but she must die. The children will cheer, the quest will be completed, and you can return to your in-game tasks.

You will receive a letter via courier within 24 hours (in-game time). All it will say is “We know.”, with a black handprint featured above those words. To trigger the next event, go to sleep somewhere. You’ll wake up in an Abandoned Shack, kidnapped by the Dark Brotherhood.

At this point, you have two choices. You can join the Dark Brotherhood or try to destroy them. Speak to Astrid, who gives you the quest With Friends Like This …. In the shack with Astrid are three kidnapped people. All you have to do is kill any one of them.

Interestingly, Astrid wants you to kill Vasha the Khajit. He's committed many crimes, and she'll comment if you eliminate him. You can also kill all three, but that won’t do much. You can begin the Dark Brotherhood questline as long as one of them dies.

From there, you’ll take on the quest, Sanctuary, and journey to the guild’s home in The Elder Scrolls V Skyrim. Congratulations, you are now on the path to being a cold-blooded killer in service of the Night Mother. After this, you can no longer fight the Dark Brotherhood, except by using console commands.

To join the Dark Brotherhood in The Elder Scrolls V Skyrim, you don't have to be a stealth-based character. While your missions are undertaken with as much stealth as possible, there are ways to do this for other character archetypes. If you have Quiet Casting, for example, and a Destruction spell (Firebolt, Lightning Bolt, Ice Spike), you can safely cast and take down your targets.

From here, you’ll go on a long quest chain of contract killings within The Elder Scrolls V Skyrim. You can also move back and forth in the game, as players can complete other quests first before returning to the story quests.