Skyrim – Finding the Dark Brotherhood & Its Secrets Revealed

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The Dark Brotherhood in Tamriel is a faction that specializes in getting a contract of assassinating a certain person. If you had a hard time getting into the Dark Brotherhood back in Cyrodiil, joining them in Skyrim is a lot easier.

At any time, you join the Dark Brotherhood and become the servant of the Night Mother. Here’s a guide on how to be part of the Dark Brotherhood Guild.

How to become a member of the Dark Brotherhood

Step 1

– Go to Windhelm and look for the boy named Aventus Aretino. His house is located on the northern side of town.
– You must lock pick his house to enter.
– Talk to him and you’ll do a quest called, Innocence Lost.
(When you enter the house, you’ll hear him chanting to summon a member of the Dark Brotherhood. When you approach him, he’ll thought that you’re from the Dark Brotherhood. To join, do his quest.)

Step 2

– Innocence Lost quest will require you to go to Riften’s Orphanage.
– Kill the old lady. The best way not to get attention is when she’s in her room. Either way, everyone on the orphange will scream once you kill her.

Step 3

– Report back to Aventus.

22 thoughts on “Skyrim – Finding the Dark Brotherhood & Its Secrets Revealed

  1. you do need a house. i used an in and it didn’t work. takes forever to get to the sanctuary though haha :P
    you buy a house by talking to a Jarl, getting their permission, then paying their steward 5000 gold

  2. Easier? You just had to murder someone in Oblivion. How is this easier? Sounds like a pain in the ass to me.

  3. You can kill Astrid in the shack before killing one of the three people and you will start an alternative quest….some like “down with the dar brotherhood”….but screw that i wanna be an assassin!

  4. do the college of winterhold quest line, u become the arch-mage and get his room and all his stuff lol. Free house in a castle

  5. you do NOT need a house. If you have a room by any of the guilds, companions, mages. I would assume an Inn would work too. Then sleep for 8+ hrs, and it will trigger. I just did it with the college, worked fine. Basically you just need a place to sleep. You must have done the one quest though, ‘saving’ the orphans and killed the old lady.

  6. Do you really need to wait until the campaign is complete? I loved the dark brotherhood quest line in Oblivion and want to get started now… thoughts?

  7. I was wondering the same as JGnuzz. What exactly does it do to you after killing someone and can I start it before finishing the campaign? A little anxious heh.

  8. do main quest first is NOT true. The devs even said it themselves that due to radiant story system if you kill a quest giver then it won’t break quests like it did in morrowind and oblivion.

    Also the npc’s marked usually only exist as marks for the brotherhood and it would be doubtful to make main quest giver a target unless it was relevant to storyline you chose (eg. kill astrid to start down with brotherhood etc etc)

  9. You don’t need a house, I selpt at an inn – but you do need to wait to recieve the letter with a black hand print on it saying “We Know” – Then sleep. Job done.

  10. I got all the way to the end and keep doing the same assassination quest from the Night Mother, is this supposed to happen? cause the easy 800 gold is nice but i want to be done with the brotherhood or at least progress further.

  11. That’s because the Dark Brotherhoods quests go in Acts. I.E Act 1, Act 2, etc. In order to progress further into the Dark Brotherhood you have to progress further with the main campaign, which also goes with Acts.

  12. kill a random person in the middle of nowhere ( so you dont get bounty) …wait a day or two..then sleep in an inn. Works everytime!

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