After being forced to kill most of the people of Riverwood in the beginning of the game, I've been avoiding all urban areas. However, I've finallly arrived in Whiterun (and after paying a fine,) I've been assailed by multiple suggestions to join the Companion. While I understand there are many perks to joining, are there any penalties that I should be aware of? I'm a sneaky alchemist, so I'm much more interested in the College of Winterhold, Thieves Guild or the Brotherhood. However the perks of acquiring trainers as companions, and thereby getting free training lessons in archery and one-hand, is a very attractive one. But I don't want it to either force me into situations where I'd have to take sides in the Civil War, or prevent me from joining any of the other Guilds. I also wonder what happens if I kill or am caught stealing from a guild member - would the outcome be any different if I was a guild member or not? The Companion's headquarters if packed full of rare ingredients!

Your character sounds pretty bloodthirsty, so you should go join the Dark Brotherhood, the Thieves Guild does not tolerate that kind of behavior but the main quest does have kill missions and lots of corruption.
The downside of the dark brotherhood is they make you kill defenseless civilians most of the time, and all the time in the radiant quests, which is pretty cowardly in my book and not challenging.

The companions talk tough, but there really just mercenaries that worship Ysgramor the Elf killer. If you have "self-respect" don't bother with those band of losers.

Possible Companions Spoiler


You're forced to become a Werewolf for the questline. It's not a long questline and you can cure yourself at the end.

Uh... why were you "forced" to kill everyone in Riverwood? Did you steal something?

Your not forced to do any such thing.
You are however givin a choice to be one of them.
You can decline,they even give you that option themselves.

But,if you decline the companions guild quest line stalls right there.

Can you keep doing the radiant quests after refusing the 'gift'?

Most of the Companion quests actually don't interest me. I'm interested in them only so far as they allow me to get competent Followers and use the free-trainer exploit. Though having a safe place to keep my stuff in Whiterun until I can afford to buy a home would also be nice. I don't know if I want to become a werewolf - Will I have to make that decison before I can acquire the Companions as Followers?

For the record, I was attacked by thugs hired by a villager I stole from. Defending myself from these thugs somehow caused the entire village to become hostile. I'm not inherently bloodthirsty, but I'm nost adverse to killing civilians if it enables me to acquire more ingredients or allow me to progress in my alchemy. The Dark Brotherhood interests me because they have the only Master trainer in Alchemy I'm aware of. From a cursory look at their questline, they also seem to provide a number of ways of acquiring alchemy levelling books and rare ingredients. If my character had a motto, it would probably be, "Everything in the name of science, Science before everything."