Is it possible to RP a "good" character and join the Dark Brotherhood?

[Homer]

This question has been around for years and I have finally found an arc that allows me to play through the entire Dark Bortherhood storyline, along with the Thieves Guild, while RPing an overall 'good' character.

First off, the Dark Brotherhood is evil. Period. Any character that joins the DB is also evil, because they are willing to commit cold-blooded murder. The player has to kill Grelod the Kind, a hateful but defenseless old woman, just to get the opportunity to join the DB. Whether the other assassination targets are good or bad is irrelevent since the player is never told one way or the other. And killing Vittoria Vicci on her wedding day is simply a means to get the emperor to visit Skyrim. So, to be clear, the DB is an evil organization and anyone who joins is a cold-blooded murderer.

Likewise, there is nothing noble about the Thieves Guild in Riften. They are a ruthless and nihilistic gang of back-stabbing creeps who extort the poor citizens of Riften for their own personal gain. This does not change throughout their arc, and is only taken up a notch when the player is ultimately inducted into the Nightengales. Rumors that Maven Blackbriar has connections to the Dark Brotherhood pan out when the player learns that Delvin Mallory and Astrid have a working relationship, so the idea that the Thieves Guild is akin to the 'Merry Men of Sherwood Forest' is simply a delusion.

Nevertheless, a prospective 'good' character can join both of these corrupt factions and dilligently work through their entire questlines provided they join a third faction - the Companions - at roughly the same time they join the Theives Guild, and progress far enough to become a werewolf before joining the Dark Brotherhood. Also - and this is key - the player MUST AVOID learning they are the Dragonborn prior to completing all three faction storylines.

To illustrate how this works, allow me to briefly describe my character's RP experience. An Imperial ventured to Skyrim seeking fortune and glory. His initial encounter with Alduin left him terrfied of Dragons, so he stayed away from Bleak Falls Barrow despite being asked to retrieve the Dragonstone. Instead, he ventured to Riften, joined the Thieves Guild and began looting his way up the ladder. Though not a 'good' man at this point, he was not yet evil enough to begin murdering people. When life as a thief started to get a little boring, he decided to join the Companions to seek even more fortune and glory. Eventually he discovered the Circle were all werewolves and leapt at the opportunity to join them.

The beastblood turned our hitherto wayward adventurer into a bloodthirsty monster, for whom murdering innocents was not a problem. When the blood of silver hand bandits was not enough to sate his appetite, he began searching for an alternative means of acquiring two-legged snacks. Enter the Dark Brotherhood. The werewolf visited Aventus Aretino and played out the scenario that ended him up in the abandoned shack staring at a three-course meal. Thus, he was wlecomed into the DB with open arms and took to the bloodletting like a fish to water.

Fast forward to the end of all three questlines and our monstrous hero finds himself the head of the Theives Guild, the Companions, and the Dark Brotherhood. A rich and powerful man in Skyrim, he is nevertheless distraught by the fact that his soul is now claimed by three separate deities - Nocturnal, Hircine, and Sithis. Much like Kodlak Whitemane, he determines that he must find a way to save his soul. Remembering the dragon crisis - which has not amounted to much since his first encounter with Alduin at Helgen - he embarks on the quest to retrieve the Dragonstone and eventually discovers he is the Dragonborn.

This changes everything! Upon learning from the Greybeards that he has been chosen by Akatosh to destroy Alduin and save the world, our Imperial sees an opportunity for redemption. Long story short, he cures himself (and other Companions) of lycanthropy, leaves management of the Thieves Guild to Brynjolf, visits the Twilight Sepulcher one final time to choose and appropriate parting 'gift' from Nocturnal, and never returns to the Dawnguard sanctuary.

At this point in the story, our hero embarks on a quest to redeem himself from past sins by saving the world from dragons, dragon priests, vampires, and anything else that might seek to cause harm to the citizens of Skyrim and Solstheim. He is now a truly 'good' character in the sense that he has become more than simply a 'good Samaritan' drifting through the landscape. His actions are born out of deep introspection and a desire for atonement, and for this reason he can identify with Paarthurnax at the end of the main quest. He may also be drawn to aiding the Imperial Legion in the Civil War out of guilt for having assassinated their emperor and throwing their ranks into disarray, rather than some selfish, ideological bent for one side or the other.

To be clear, I was around lvl 12-15 when joining the Theives Guild, lvl 15-20 when I joined the Companions, and lvl 20-22 when I joined the DB. I was somewhere around lvl 34 when I completed the DB and started the main quest. For most players, myself included, this constitutes the first third of their play-though, leaving the final two-thirds of the game to RP as a truly 'good' character. Think of this as Acts I, II, and III in an epic story, with the character becomming 'good' at the end of Act I. I made sure I completed all of the Daedric quests I could find while my character was still a werewolf (i.e. evil) so as not to be tempted by them after he'd seen the light and changed his ways. I also tried to avoid as many 'good Samaritan' type quests as possible early on to give myself more opportunities to perform good deeds later in the game.

All in all, it was a satisfying play-through and one I would happily repeat. Content-wise, my character experienced pretty much everything Skyrim has to offer. I hope this will help someone if they are struggling to justify joining the DB with a 'good' character. I guess the main take-away from my experience would be this: a 'good' character would never join the Dark Brotherhood, but leaving the Dark Brotherhood can be the first step a 'bad' character takes toward becoming a 'good' character. Skyrim offers plenty of milestones on the road to redemption.

[smr1957]

There is also this mod:
Dark Brotherhood for Good Guys - https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/519

[Sevrojin]

if your rping a lawful good character then youd do the good thing and report the murderer to the authoritys.

if you commit murder you are not a good character

[Homer]

Originally posted by Sevrojin:

if your rping a lawful good character then youd do the good thing and report the murderer to the authoritys.

if you commit murder you are not a good character

I think you're missing the point. Maybe you didn't read the whole post, but the character isn't good until later in the game. And if you're talking about completing the "Destroy the Dark Brotherhood" questline, wherein you report killing Astrid to the Imperials at Dragonbridge, the 'good' character must have murdered Grelod already to get to that point.

And I'm not sure what 'lawful' good means.

[Homer]

Originally posted by smr1957:

There is also this mod:
Dark Brotherhood for Good Guys - https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/519

LOL... yeah, there's that, too. If you want to go the mod route, I suppose that's the way to do it. I chose a different path.

[♥ Barney ♥]

You could say your 'good' character was under some demonic influence and wasn't quite himself/herself, but other than that I just wouldn't have joined the dark brotherhood if I was rp'ing a 'good' character - the first time you meet Astrid in the abonandoned cabin, she would have had an arrow in the eyeball.

[Sevrojin]

considering how gelod was a child abuser that got kids killed... killing her isnt that bad of a thing. so lets take lawful out.

if your rping just make up your own excuse as to why you join if you really want too.

ps. most of the people that are murdered by the dark brotherhood are not paragons of virtue i mean you have to be a really crappy person for others to want to kill you.

[smr1957]

Oh, and Homer, that's a nice writeup you did.

[Homer]

Originally posted by smr1957:

Oh, and Homer, that's a nice writeup you did.

Thank you, sir. That's nice of you to say.

[Homer]

Originally posted by Sevrojin:

considering how gelod was a child abuser that got kids killed... killing her isnt that bad of a thing. so lets take lawful out.

How do you figure that? It's true that she is a mean and hateful person, as Arentino says, and she doesn't let the children get adopted. She also beats them regularly but how does she get them killed? Never heard any reference to that in the game.

Killing an old woman because she's mean to orphans, and beats them, is still murder. Not to mention, after killing Grelod the player can encounter Aventus Aretino on the road between Windhelm and Riften, and he'll inform the player that his/her killing Grelod has inspired him to become an assassin when he grows up.

That's pretty dark if you think about it, so it is a bad thing.

[Homer]

Originally posted by ♥ Barney ♥:

You could say your 'good' character was under some demonic influence and wasn't quite himself/herself

Again, my character wasn't 'good' to begin with. He was basically neutral, took a bad path that got darker and darker, then saw the light and became a 'good' character. It's a different take on the usual question.

[Sevrojin]

if i remember correctly theres a hidden torture room with a skeleton in it. she was a very evil old crone.

[Homer]

Originally posted by Sevrojin:

if your rping just make up your own excuse as to why you join if you really want too.

That's exactly what I did. That's what the post was about. I was attempting to answer a question that has been asked in several posts over the last four years by sharing my RP experience.

[Sevrojin]

ill add that killing things in tamriel is a common occurance.

you cannot really place our worlds moral standards on them.

[Homer]

Originally posted by Sevrojin:

if i remember correctly theres a hidden torture room with a skeleton in it. she was a very evil old crone.

Never heard of that. Never saw it.

[Sevrojin]

i think the torture rooms is a reference to the movie matilda hell gelod is a parody of the evil principal there