While playing as a thief character I was able to amass an incredible fortune but didn't have a lot of options as far as how to send or invest it. Yeah sure I can buy all the houses in Skyrim but that really isn't very impressive. A Merchants Guild would fit I well with Skyrim since Nords are loosely based off of Norse/viking culture and one thing they have always been know for besides killing stuff was trading and being merchants take the Hanseatic League for example. I think a lot of players could get more gameplay out of their characters if they had more options on how to spend and invest their hard earned loot. Here are some ideas/wish list of things that could make the economy more interesting for the player.


Purchase a Business - This would be very expensive but it would give a player a goal and a small return and of course they would be run by NPC's. Types of business that could be purchasable options could include the following:

Lumber Mills
Tavern/Inns
Farms
Merchant Shops
Goldenglow Estates

You could create small monopolies, for example if you own all of the lumber mills in Skyrim you would get a small bump in profit since there is no competition! Lets not forget the merchant wars of trying to run other merchants out of business, sending assassins and hired thugs to send a message, and sabotaging business.

The Merchant Guild could offer tones of quest and investment opportunities, a banking system with the option to purchase gold and silver ingots. There could be a Merchant Guild vault where you could store coins, gold, and silver ingots and make a small profit in interest. There could be the option to invest in trading ventures high and low risk, obliviously high risk investments would have a higher profit but your chance to lose your investment would be higher. Maybe the option to buy your own trading/cargo ship! Imagine becoming the owner of East Empire Trading Company which could be the final quest for the Merchants Guild I mean somebody has to break up that monopoly and get a piece of that action! Lets not forget some more black market options like Balmora Blue and Skooma smuggling. I guess I can dream for a Merchant Guild dlc, it could even expand the Thieves Guild a bit by adding followers and hireable mercenaries. Anyways I was just thinking of how I would like to see gameplay improved for higher leveled characters with more economic options to spending all of that loot. What are you guys thoughts?

I like the idea of a merchants guild or something like it.
Sounds like a good way for speechcraft to have more impact.
Gold would have to be a little harder to come by though.

I like this idea a lot, somebody should make a mod for it. Maybe you could even buy out some of the other shops, for an extreme amount of gold.

Though I like the open approach and play how you want of TES series, at some level the game needs to establish itself in one genre. You can't have a political simulation, strategic wargame, social sim, resource management, economic simulation, adventure game and roleplaying game in one, without watering down all the elements to where none of them are very fun and engaging. Let's play Skyrim when we want to smash bandits and loot dungeons, and The Guild when we want to simulate medievial economy.

Sounds like a fantastic idea to me!

I smell a mod.

There's a mod for merchants guild already..

A merchant guild would be interesting. Personally I would like to join the local division of the East Empire Company.

I have to disagree but I respect your opinion, but TES has always been more then just smashing bandits and looting dungeons. Besides the whole point of this is to expand gameplay for higher level characters through a DLC/expansion which is optional. The lore already exist for the Merchant Guild faction, you can read some of it here-

http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/East_Empire_Trading_Company

Here is a little piece take from the link and could possibly be the goal of the Merchant guild quest line:

"Every company chapter is headed by a Factor who directs and controls the affairs of the company in his area of influence. As a high-ranking official of the company, he has the right to construct an estate on the company premises. For instance, there is a large Factor Estate adjacent to the company's ebony mine in Raven Rock."

Yes, but to make it interesting I would require competition, customer relations, resource operations, supplier negotiations, political lobbyism, bookkeeping and a lot of other mechanics that you can't include. It would just be another quest line where you go fight a bunch of people and/or fetch a bunch of stuff and then you are rewarded with being guildmaster, but you don't actually run your operation, just like the archmage position of the college doesn't let you actually run or influence the college in any way.

I've always thought that a good moneysink would be to tax your income if you own property within a city... but I guess not to many people would be thrilled at the game automatically deducting a portion of your wealth every so often.

I do agree to the idea of a Merchants Guild. That's not to shabby of a suggestion!

Of course it would be just another quest line but if it expands endgame gameplay anything will be a plus at this point, the last thief character I played had over 300k by the time I retired him and he owned 4 houses. The only reason I bought 4 houses was because I didn't have anything else to spend it on. Having a few economy/merchant guild options would have been ideal for that character.

Hi all,

if you think, as I do, that there`s too much easy money in Skyrim, use "Cutthroat Merchants" mod. Hard or very hard setting.
Probably you`ll never ever buy a house even if you save up the money as there will be more important uses for your paltry cash.
And there is T Kairas economy overhaul also.

Rgds, Haldir

Owning a business could be done without a new quest line or guild .You can already do things such as smith your own weapons and sell them. It would only be a small step to include an option to buy a forge and take on an apprentice to run it while you off adventuring. Of course it would need to be a bit more involved than that I see it possibly working like this. Buy a forge but workbench grind wheel and smelter would need to be bought separately. Take on an apprentice that you can train up to your own smithing level. Include a need to establish a supply of needed materials. That could be as simple as sending a courier with a letter to a mine owner and one to a hunter (you need pelts for leather). This format could be applied to other trades to.


Some attention to the economy from the devs wouldn't be a bad thing as it seems a bit tacked on rather than forming part of the game. Mine owners dont seem bothered when I do a spot of mining and take the ore plus gold seems to be worth less than its wight in well gold.