Platform:
PS3

Level:
10

Principle Affiliations of the Character:

• Thieves Guild
  
• Dark Brotherhood

Forward/Background:
I'm not sure where to put this, but I've searched around and can't find anything other than people talking about losing Faendal after he's been their companion, which is not my problem.

One of my family members said he was a nearby character that I could easily gain as a companion without much trouble, and was a fellow wood elf. He told me to look in Riverwood for the Love Triangle quest, so:

List of Problems:

• I went to Riverwood
  
• Found that while the bar tender would speak of this love triangle:
  
  • All context that would engage the quest with Sven was absent.
    
  • Speaking with Camilla doesn't open any dialogue menus.
    
  • Faendal was not at his home (inside or outside).
    
  • Faendal was not at the lumber mill.
    
  • Faendal was not at the Inn.

In fact, I've even taken to searching the streets all over Riverwood looking for his dead body just on the off chance that he was somehow mysteriously already dead and I have not found him anywhere.

It absolutely bothers me that a character such as this, that everyone else (that hasn't killed him as a companion or the like) is able to find easily, is missing entirely from my iteration of the game.

I do not have a save that is eligible to going backwards to prior to "finding" Riverwood.

Questions I do not know the answers to:

• Does Faendal ever travel anywhere other than Riverwood?
  
• Is it possible that my affiliations removed this Love Triangle and Faendal from my access in Riverwood?
  
• Could Faendal have been killed without me being present, nor having had ever met him?

Thank you to anyone that is able to offer any advice here on this quandary.
-Stumps

Unless you recruited him into The Blades (where he will reside at Sky Haven Temple for the rest of eternity), then there is no other place he should be than Riverwood. Well...except at 4am when he heads off into the mountains to hunt before his work schedule. He can also be found resting near the White River sometimes and in the Riverwood Trader, flirting with Camilla.

No, I've never even yet met him in the game so far.
I'll check the mountains at 4am and White River, but I've already checked the Riverwood Trader; he never shows up there.

That's odd...usually he's the first person you meet when entering Riverwood for the first time, that is assuming you went straight to Riverwood with Ralof/Hadvar and didn't deviate from the set course.

I would say you've either hit a glitch, or he's dead.
Woods can be dangerous, 'specially for in Skyrim. Likely ran into a pack of wolves, or maybe some bandits or a troll.
But it sounds to me like he's dead. When characters die, all dialogue involving them disappears, and is SOMETIMES replaced by dialogue about their death/them being dead, though with NPCs who don't have scripted or specific deaths, they're just gone.

Fun fact, if you kill Elisif on PC with the console, there will be remarks from guards and whatnot about her death. Likely, it was a scripted occurance as part of a quest, likely from the Civil War given the dialogue, that Elisif was killed, likely by the player character.

He's dead. Sven most likely killed him. Look around Sven's house and you might find the body.

If you got married he often shows up at your wedding, its possible he may have been killed on his way back to Riverwood from Riften.

I think you folks are right on this; I went to every instance listed on this wiki artcile, uesp/wiki/Skyrim:Faendal (*), and he was no where to be found.
I think the problem could possibly be that I did deviate immediately and ran off to Riften just because I wanted to go steal and it was far away from the place I started so I figured I wouldn't run into trouble as much if I was further away from wherever it was the scope typically expected me to be at during these early levels.
Imagine my surprise, then, when I bumped into both the Thieves Guild and the Dark Brotherhood in the very town I ran to at random picking for thievery.

Guess my luck had to catch up with me at some point, and it looks like this is part of the cost of this deviation.
Oh well, I'll look around for another fellow elf somewhere else when I can.

Thanks for all of the help everyone; really a great community of apt responsive players!

*Sorry, the link is formatted poorly because I'm not yet permitted to post links, so I've given the best that I can render.

Not at all related to Dragonborn but I think Faendal just randomly vanishes at the start of some games, I have read other threads where he or other characters were missing. Looking through the Skyrim, spoilers or help sections of the forum might find the other threads.

Why is this in the Dragonborn forum?

Yeah, why? This has nothing to do with a DLC currently only for XBOX