Thieves Guild

Membership in the Thieves Guild is by invitation only. The invitation to join will be issued when you pickpocket 10 or more times in a 3-day period or successfully break into a store without using an “Open” spell on the door. They’ll contact you about a week later with instructions on what to do. Complete the quest to join the guild. Although the Guild makes veiled threats about the consequences of failing to complete their initiation quest, I’ve run several months past their deadline and not seen any form of retaliation other than negative reputation. But if you blow the quest, you’ll never get to join the Guild. Only one invitation will be issued.

Required Skills: Backstabbing, Climbing, Lockpicking, Pickpocket, Short Blade, Stealth, Streetwise

Training Offered: Guild Skills plus Blunt Weapon, Dodging, Jumping, and Swimming

Benefits of Membership:

• Chance of bribing the judge when you’re accused of theft crimes (chance increases with your rank in the guild)

• Dungeon locations at rank 0, 6 and 8

• Fencing stolen goods for 50% of base price at rank 2 (finding the fence is another matter, but you can unload magic items if you want. Personally, I get better money selling to merchants.)

• Access to the Spymaster at rank 4 (always good for rumors and doesn’t clam up if you ask about more than one thing)

• (most important benefit) Thieves Guilds are automatically marked on your town map when you enter a town

Thieves Guild quests tend to run along the lines of moving stolen property from place to place, occasionally you get one to break into a building and steal an object. Very little dungeon crawling involved in this Guild. Another great benefit is that the Thieves Guild is a 24/7 operation. They're always there when you need them.

Mages Guild

The Mages Guild is perhaps the handiest guild in the whole game. Some of their services (identifying magic items and selling pre-made spells) are available to non-members. Every player who can join the Mages Guild should do so, if for no other reason than gaining access to the spell-maker.

Required Skills: Alteration, Destruction, Illusion, Mysticism, Restoration, Thaumaturgy

Training Offered: Guild skills plus Daedric, Dragonish, Harpy, Impish, Orcish, Spriggan

Benefits of Membership:

• Access to spellmaker at rank 0

• Access to library at rank 2 (not implemented)

• Buy magic items at rank 3

• Buy Soul Gems at rank 4

• Access to item maker at rank 5

• Access to Daedra summoning at rank 6 (caution -- summonings only performed on specific days) and Guildhalls become 24/7 operations

• Access to teleporter at rank 8

Mages Guild quests tend to fall into a few general varieties: stand guard for 3 hours (you get to fight thieves and assassins), fetch research papers, kill imps, kill runaway lab experiments, fetch spell components, kill rogue wizards. The last ones involve dungeon crawling, but the rest are pretty straightforward.

Dark Brotherhood

Membership in the Dark Brotherhood is by invitation only. The invitation to join will be issued when you kill three townspeople (or a lot of guards) within a 3-day period. Complete their quest to gain membership. The guild makes not-so-veiled threats about what will happen to you if you don't join, but nothing has ever materialized for me aside from a severely negative rep (-25 points) with the DB. The quest can be a bit buggy with the letter containing your instructions appearing and then suddenly disappearing. When you get the letter, save the game immediately so you'll have something to go back to.

Required Skills: Archery, Backstabbing, Climbing, Critical Strike, Daedric, Destruction, Short Blade, Stealth, Streetwise

Training Offered: Guild skills plus Dodging, Running, Swimming

Benefits of Membership:

• Guild operations are 24/7 (they don't even close for Christmas)

• Chance of bribing the judge when you’re charged with murder (chance increases with your rank in the guild)

• A new graveyard revealed on your map at each rank

• Access to the Potion-maker at rank 3 (lower than any other guild)

• Buy Soul Gems at rank 5 (have to join Julianos and/or Mages Guild to use them, though)

• Access to the Spymaster at rank 7

Dark Brotherhood quests all seem to involve finding some bozo at the bottom of a dungeon and offing him. The pay is so-so (non-existent in some cases) and the access to the potion maker at rank 3 and Spymaster at rank 7 are about the only real benefits to joining unless you get your jollies out of dungeon-crawling (which can be a very profitable enterprise) and bopping townspeople (who die if you sneeze at them).

A final comment: at the time of your promotion to rank 5, it is stated that you can sell soul gems. This is not true. I have not been able to find any place in the game where you can sell a soul gem.

Knightly Orders

The Knights Guilds are the protectors of each province. Their influence seldom extends beyond the borders of their provinces. Membership is not de rigueur, but it can be handy at times.

Required Skills: Archery, Critical Strike, Dragonish, Etiquette, Giantish, Long Blade, Medical

Training Offered: None (not even in their required skills)

Benefits of Membership:

• No charge for staying at inns in regions where the order is present

• Free (random) non-magical armor piece at each promotion*

• No charge for staying at inns anywhere starting at rank 4

• No charge for traveling by ship at rank 6

• Free house in that order’s region at rank 9 (finding it is another matter)**

*There seems to be a lot of confusion about the free armor. The type of armor you receive (mithril, elven, dwarven, etc.) is not dependent upon your rank, but upon how many times you have been promoted. You go one step up with each promotion. So, if you want to get that free daedric armor, you'd better be sure that you get promoted at each opportunity and don't skip any ranks.

**Your house will be located in the town where you received the promotion to rank 9. Since there is a bug that makes it almost impossible to locate your house, the easiest solution is to get the promotion in a town where you don’t want a house, sell it, then go to the town where you do want a house and buy one.

Knightly Orders that you cannot join:

• Knights of the Moon (Sentinel)

• Host of the True Horn (Lord Kain)

• Knights of the Cup (Lord Plessington)

• Knights of the Lamp (Mages Guild)

Knightly Orders that you can join:

• Knights of the Dragon (Daggerfall)

• Knights of the Candle (Sentinel)

• Knights of the White Rose (Wayrest)

• Knights of the Flame (Anticlere)

• Knights of the Horn (Lainlyn)

• Knights of the Owl (Glenpoint)

• Knights of the Raven (Dwynnen)

• Knights of the Wheel (Abibon-Gora)

• Knights of the Scarab (Totambu)

• Knights of the Hawk (Santaki)

Temple Knights (you may join them, but they count as temples, not knights):

• Order of the Hour (Akatosh)

• Knights of the Circle (Arkay)

• Order of the Lily (Dibella)

• Knights Mentor (Julianos)

• Kynaran Order (Kynareth)

• Maran Knights (Mara)

• The Crusaders (Stendarr)

• Knights of Iron (Zenithar)

Like temples, you may only join one Knightly Order.

Knightly Order quests tend to involve a bit of dungeon crawling and you don’t get paid for it. You’re a goody-goody knight, remember? Knights do good deeds and don’t expect anything for them. The Knightly Orders are also your only source (besides Daedra summoning) for quests to artifacts and the quest to slay a Dragonling is the only time you can soul trap a Dragonling that will work in the item-maker. Some of the Knights Guild quests will increase your rep with the general populace and/or nobility. Handy if you're looking to do a little sucking-up.