Oblivion:Thieves Guild

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Contents 1 General Information/History 2 Joining 3 Advantages 3.1 Doyens 3.1.1 Fences 3.2 Removing Bounties 3.3 Equipment 4 Limitations 5 Quests 5.1 Armand Christophe's Quests 5.2 S'Krivva's Quests 5.3 Gray Fox's Quests 5.4 Other Quests 6 Advancements 7 Player Tips 8 Bugs 9 Members

[edit] General Information/History

The Thieves Guild is an organization for the gathering and training of those stealthy and shadowy in nature. Although criminal by its very definition, the local authorities often tolerate the existence of the guild as its presence often greatly decreases, if not eliminates, the more unstable or dangerous criminals.

Like any trade guild, the Thieves Guild is an organization of professionals, except that in this case the professionals are thieves, robbers, pickpockets, smugglers, and other enterprising operators. They don't have public guild halls, but in large towns they do tend to gather at a single location, such as a cornerclub, inn, or tradehouse.

The Thieves Guild in Cyrodiil, unlike the one in Morrowind, tends to be a much less overt organization. It is run by the mysterious Gray Fox, believed by some to be a supernatural being. In order to find it, you are either going to have to do some investigative work or spend some time in jail.

Unlike the other, "official" guilds, the Thieves Guild will only offer you special tasks (quests) based on how much stolen loot you've sold to a fence. This is pretty easy to achieve, with the first task becoming available after having fenced 50 gold, then 100, and so on. See more on Burglary.

[edit] Joining

See Finding the Thieves Guild.

[edit] Advantages

Being a member of the Thieves Guild provides you with a number of advantages and useful contacts.

[edit] Doyens

Members of the Thieves Guild are assisted by a designated handler called a Doyen. The two Doyens in the Thieves Guild are Armand Christophe, and S'Krivva. A Doyen is a lieutenant of the Thieves Guild who will:

• Allocate quests in the form of "special jobs".
• Promote your character after completing quests.
• Identify and enable access to fences.
• Remove any active bounty amounts for half the accrued price.

[edit] Fences

For information about the Thieves Guild Fence class, see NPC Classes.

The first and main advantage is access to fences for selling all your ill-gotten gains! Even if you're not really playing a thief, you'll gradually accumulate items that legitimate merchants won't buy. Fences will deal with all kinds of items as well, a bonus if your Mercantile skill is below 50. You will gain access to fences in a set order as you progress in rank within the Thieves Guild by completing "special jobs" offered to you by your Doyen. If you are not a member of the Thieves Guild, and select the barter option with a fence, they will claim that they do not buy, or sell items.

Fence	Location	Gold	Mercantile	Rank Required
Ongar the World-Weary	Bruma	600	60	Pickpocket
Dar Jee	Leyawiin	800	70	Bandit
Luciana Galena	Bravil	1000	80	Cat Burglar
Orrin	Anvil	1200	90	Shadowfoot
Fathis Ules	Imperial City/Chorrol	1500	100	Master Thief

[edit] Removing Bounties

As a Thieves Guild member you can get your bounty paid off for half price by your appropriate Doyen.

• For example, you have a current bounty of 100 gold; you can pay this off as 50 gold to your Doyen.

This will help you avoid attracting unwanted attention from guards, preventing you from having to go to jail, thereby losing any stolen items you have in your inventory.

Doyen	Location
Armand Christophe	Imperial City Waterfront
S'Krivva	Bravil

[edit] Equipment

All of the thieves guild fences have supplies of lockpicks that you can buy, making them one of the better places to stock up. In addition, there are several unique items that you can only acquire by completing Thieves Guild quests:

• Boots of Springheel Jak: after the quest Boots of Springheel Jak
• Gray Cowl of Nocturnal: after The Ultimate Heist

[edit] Limitations

• You cannot steal from or attack fellow thieves or anyone living in the Waterfront.
• You should not kill while doing a Thieves Guild quest. If anyone involved with the quest dies while a Thieves Guild quest is active (whether at your hands or someone else's), you will have to pay a "Blood Price" as punishment. There is typically a substantial list of NPCs who should not be killed for each quest (often including any guards in the city). Therefore it is advisable to never start a Thieves Guild quest until you are ready to actively work on it; do not get side-tracked by other missions in the area until you have reported back to your Doyen that the quest is complete. The Blood Price is 1000 septims for the death of each NPC on the list for a given quest.
• After completing the Sins of the Father quest, you can no longer use Fathis Ules as a fence. (There's a possible exception, but only when wearing the Gray Cowl of Nocturnal. You may need the "Fathis Ules fix" plugin if he doesn't respond differently when you wear it.)
• Joining and advancing ranks in the Thieves Guild gives you Infamy (+29 overall). The Gods and certain people will like you less as your Infamy grows.

[edit] Quests

Once you join the guild, the ongoing quest Independent Thievery will be added, which keeps track of the value of the stolen goods that you have fenced to date. Once you have fenced enough items, each of the "special jobs" will be triggered. The number after each of the following quests is the amount that must be fenced before it is triggered.

[edit] Armand Christophe's Quests

Finding the Thieves Guild: So you want to join the Thieves Guild? Don't you know it doesn't even exist?

May the Best Thief Win: You want to join, but are you a good enough thief?

Untaxing the Poor: Steal the tax records for the Waterfront residents. (50 gold fenced)

The Elven Maiden: Steal a statuette for a mystery buyer. (100 gold fenced)

[edit] S'Krivva's Quests

Ahdarji's Heirloom: Recover a ring stolen by a freelance thief. (200 gold fenced)

Misdirection: Help the Thieves Guild get the waterfront back to normal. (300 gold fenced)

Lost Histories: Finish a job from which a guildmate has not returned. (400 gold fenced)

Taking Care of Lex: Get Hieronymus Lex reassigned. (500 gold fenced)

[edit] Gray Fox's Quests

Turning a Blind Eye: Steal a stone for The Gray Fox. (600 gold fenced)

Arrow of Extrication: Steal an arrow for The Gray Fox. (700 gold fenced)

Boots of Springheel Jak: Find out where Springheel Jak is buried and retrieve a pair of magical boots for The Gray Fox. (800 gold fenced)

The Ultimate Heist: Steal an Elder Scroll for The Gray Fox, and for glory! (1000 gold fenced)

[edit] Other Quests

Cast out of the Thieves Guild: Regain your honor amongst thieves.

[edit] Advancements

	Rank	Completed quests or other requirements
	Pickpocket	Completed May The Best Thief Win
	Footpad	Completed Untaxing the Poor
	Bandit	Completed The Elven Maiden
	Prowler	Completed Ahdarji's Heirloom
	Cat Burglar	Completed Misdirection
	Shadowfoot	Completed Taking Care of Lex
	Master Thief	Completed Arrow of Extrication
	Gray Fox	Completed The Ultimate Heist

[edit] Player Tips

• The shrouded armor obtained from joining the Dark Brotherhood provides a +10 bonus to sneak. This may be useful to any thieves experiencing difficulty with the early Thieves Guild quests.

• There is a lot of lockpicking involved. The Skeleton Key or Open spells will decrease the difficulty of certain aspects of the Thieves Guild quests.

• When starting out, you only have access to one fence in Bruma. If you are inclined, subsequent Thieves Guild quests can be made a bit easier by maxing-out the fencing prerequisites there early on.
  • By starting in Bruma with the first fence, Ongar, try building up your Sneak while cleaning that city out, then sell most of the city back to him. Some particularly valuable items can be found in the display cases in the Castle.

• Even after you can access better fences, use the old ones for less expensive things. The "lower ranked" fences may have less gold, but they also have less Mercantile Skill, which makes it easier to get good deals for your loot. Investing in the lower ranked fences makes them much more useful.

• Good sources for stolen items include:
  • Stolen Skooma, for example from the skooma den in Bravil and its inhabitants.
  • The basement in Drakelowe contains over 1000 gold worth of potions and soul gems. (The entrance is hidden inside the fireplace.) It is advisable to avoid killing Drakelowe's lone resident, Melisande, as she is required in order to obtain a cure for vampirism.
  • The Castle Skingrad cellar has four racks of wine filled with many bottles, including valuable wines such as Surilie Brothers Vintage 399 and Tamika Vintage 399. (Note: you may want to keep one of each of the 399 vintages for the Alchemy Master Training quest.)
  • The Red Diamond Jewelry store in the Imperial City Market District, especially since the jewelry is light-weight.
  • If you are not a Mages Guild member, any Mages Guild Hall contains soul gems and alchemy tools that can be stolen.
  • Several non-random enchanted items are found in houses or stores and can therefore be stolen.
  • In Castle Chorrol you can steal a Varla Stone (base price 1000) fairly easily. The stone is located in a display case on a staircase in the audience room (the room with the thrones).

• You cannot fence items with no value, as they will never appear in the fence's inventory when sold.

• Some NPCs, whether they're members of the guild or not, will occasionally steal items. If they're caught and attract the guards' attention, don't help the guard by attacking the would-be thief or you'll get a bounty. Similarly, don't help the thief unless you enjoy killing—or more likely being killed by—guards.

[edit] Bugs

• (The reason for this bug has not yet been determined. Selling extra goods does not guarantee that this bug will appear. See discussion.) You will have an on-going quest called "Independent Thievery" that says you need to fence X amount of stolen goods before you can get a special job to advance in rank. The total amount will continue to increase as you go along. Resist the temptation to fence a lot of loot at once. If you do that, you will exceed the amount necessary to get the next several special jobs. When that happens, you will get those special job quests before you actually talk to the Doyen about them which may prevent you from completing those quests.
• Some players have found that the messengers for the Gray Fox's quests will not show up. Here is a list of possible workarounds:
  • Commit a crime in the Imperial City, let yourself be seen and get arrested by the guards, then pay the fine. When you respawn in the Imperial Prison district, Amusei or Methredhel will spawn right on top of you.
  • Go out and find the messenger and initiate conversation yourself; sometimes he/she will not be actively looking for you.
  • Wait or sleep in the Imperial City for 7-24 hours.
  • Leave the Imperial City altogether and go somewhere far away (like Anvil). Sleep 3+ days so that the cells have been reset. Head back to the Imperial City and try finding him/her again.
  • You can also use console commands to locate your contact, if all else fails.
• (Obsolete with the patch.) Anything you sell to a fence, whether stolen or not, counts as fenced goods for purposes of your total amount fenced. It seems that just dealing with the fence does the job, not the origin of the loot.
• If you hit your horse with a weapon or offensive spell, you will be expelled instantly.

Note: This has been corrected by the Oblivion 1.2 patch.

[edit] Members

• This is a complete list of all known Thieves Guild operatives.

Anvil Mandil Orrin The Gray Fox Bravil Dro'shanji Luciana Galena S'Krivva Varon Vamori Bruma Helvius Cecia Ongar the World-Weary Cheydinhal Ra'qanar Chorrol Glistel Malintus Ancrus

Imperial City Ancus Afranius Amusei* Armand Christophe Carwen Dynari Amnis Dovyn Aren Fathis Ules Hillod the Outlaw Isleif the Open Handed Jair J'baana Mandil Methredhel Myvryna Arano Othrelos Leyawiin Ahdarji Dar Jee Skingrad Othrelos Reman Broder

*Amusei joins the Thieves Guild after you complete the quest Lost Histories