I think that, even though you are presented with the illusion of choice, you don't really have a choice in whether the Dark Brotherhood survives or not.. you just have a choice in how it continues to survive.

If you help them out the way that they are, they will continue to thrive, although not following the 5 tenants they were founded under.

If you kill Astrid and the rest of the DB members in the Falkreath sanctuary, Cicero and Babette still survive, so it's very possible that they could reform the DB. I like this option better because Cicero is very strict about following the 5 tenants and only doing assassinations ordered by the Night Mother, not just any contract they can get. Perhaps the orphans will also help Cicero and Babette one day

I'm pretty sure that the DB will be back in future TES games, so it's very doubtful that the player choosing to "eliminate" them actually wipes them out completely.

Not true as if the player joins the DB he becomes the new listener and the five tenths return.


Here's the problem with that theory. Babette and Cicero never meet. Cicero won't move into Falkreath sanctuary with it destroyed he'd take her back to Dawnstar Sanctuary. Babette would return from her job and find everyone dead. She'd have no idea Cicero or the Dawnstar Sanctuary even existed. This leaves the insane Jester alone tending to the nightmother.

Furthermore with Astrid's chapter eliiminated no one could answer the Black Sacrament. The memory of the dark brotherhood would fade. As it stood Astrid would need to wait until she heard through word of mouth of someone performing the ritual and then send an agent to answer the call. Eventually people would stop performing it all together because there's no answer. No Black Sacrament no ability for the nightmother to rebuild. Its why killing the Emperor is so important in the DB questline it shows the world the dark brotherhood isn't gone.

The Morag Tong was eliminated why not the Dark Brotherhood?

But Cicero was on his way to the Falkreath Sanctuary, so unless he heard the news before he gets there, he might have run into Babette either when he arrived to the Sanctuary, or meeting her as she flees the ruins of it.

He was stuck with his broken wagon closer to dawnstar then to Falkreath.(or possibly arrested by a guard depending on the players actions when he meets them on the road). Its very likely he would hear the news the DB was destoryed long before he arrived. Big wagons like that are slower then walking. Babette was also much closer then Cicero. When you join the DB Babette is already there and Cicero arrives a quest later. So it stands to reason even if Cicero continued on towards Falkreath, Babette would be long gone before he got there.

I had the same issues about just walking in an killing an old maid. And despite her obvious need to removed from her mortal coils, there was still some trepedation. However, as the DB had overly annoyed me with contracts with my name on them, I had no choice if I wanted to end the blight of the DB on Skyrim. I Wabberjocked her, turned her into a crab and Meeko killed it.

I really think there should have been an intimidate, persuade, and bribe option. Surely for enough coin she could retire, and if she knew it was a life or death choice she'd choose wisely.

Not a great design.

They don't really return. Sure, you're appointed as the listener, but the DB doesn't only do Night Mother assassinations. If you didn't complete your assassinations that were given to you before becoming listener, they don't just go away, so the DB doesn't return to the 5 tenants. If you remember the DB from Oblivion, it was much, much more strict than the DB in Skyrim, even after Astrid is gone.

You're telling me that it's impossible for two people to meet in Skyrim at complete random? There are plenty of NPCs that adventure all around Skyrim and you meet them in many holds. What's to say that Cicero wouldn't go out looking for new DB members and meet Babette? Or Babette could hear about the black door in Dawnstar and go there to find out if there's another DB sanctuary. There are far too many possibilities for you to just say that they will never meet.

It's the start of a return to the Five Tenants. It's going to take some time to get things back to normal, with the Black Hand becoming whole again and all that. Remember, even if you spare Cicero you still only have 6 members for the Brotherhood (You, Cicero, Nazir, Babette, and two nameless initiates). You need to give the DB time to rebuild so that the Five Tenants can make a comeback. And echnically, are you even supposed to be fulfilling contracts as Listener? I thought that went Black Sacrament contacts Night Mother, who informs the Listener, who informs the Speaker, who sends the assassin.

This is my whole problem with letting the DB remain as it is. They're not in any sort of hurry to get back to the old ways under which they were founded; they didn't even care about it until Cicero brought the Night Mother to the sanctuary and she finally picked another listener. I don't like the idea of just letting it slide until someone fixes it. Lets say that the Dragonborn never joins the DB, but doesn't eliminate them either. How long do they go on killing random people without the Night Mother's blessing before she names a new listener?

The DB in Skyrim is pretty far gone from what they used to be. I'd rather eliminate them with the off chance that they could be reformed only following the 5 tenants (Cicero is in possession of the Night Mother and he believes very strongly in the 5 tenants) than let them continue under Astrid's leadership for even another minute. She is pretty much what's wrong with the DB in Skyrim. She doesn't even really know what the DB is, but she calls herself their leader? That just doesn't work for me.

The Dark Brotherhood had a stroke of bad luck, and it's very likely they would have been completely wiped out if Astrid hadn't done away with the tenants (Her Family would have split apart, and Cicero would have likely starved to death in the Dawnstar Sanctuary). The Night Mother doesn't just choose a Listener because the seat's available. If she did, they wouldn't be having the problem they are when the game starts out. I'm not saying she did the "right" thing, but I do think I would probably have done the same. Maybe not do away with the Five Tenants, but I would definitely listen for people performing the Black Sacrament and sending out people to do the job. It's important to keep up appearances sometimes. But it's also because if I was the head of a Sanctuary, it would fall to me to preserve the Family, and I'd do that anyway I could.

Destroying the Dark Brotherhood probably will mean the end of it for many years to come, but by becoming the Listener the DB has the best chance of survival. They can actually perform legitimate contracts again and start to get noticed once more. Most of the people who disobeyed the Five Tenants are dead at the end of the questline (even the ones who WANTED a return to them) meaning the new recruits are unlikely to not follow them as well. Nazir and Babette saw the woman who led them betray them, so I doubt they're going to line up to follow her example. Then you have Cicero, who as you said, is pretty adamant that the Old Ways be restored. This combined with the return of the Listener and close contact with the Night Mother ensures a return to normal workflow, which allows the Dark Brotherhood to function and grow under the Five Tenants once again.

Five tenths? Five tenants? It's the http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:The_Five_Tenets, sheesh.

Killing Astrid won't destroy the DB. They'll continue to function more-or-less as before. People will continue to perform the Black Sacrament, and by word of mouth the DB will learn of it, one way or another, as they have been. However, without Astrid, they'll have no focus or ambition. OTOH, if Astrid were to suffer some sort of "industrial accident" after you become the Listener, she won't be able let her paranoia get the better of her and plot your demise. I wonder if the whole Gourmet gambit could be avoided that way, and ultimately the reciprocal attack on the DB sanctuary in Falkreath. Unfortunately, not following through the quest chain to the end means you'll never get Hail Sithis! and Cicero, if you spared him, will never return. That's all moot anyway, as Astrid becomes essential and therefore unkillable if you do her bidding in the opening quest.


Babette already knows of the Dawnstar sanctuary. She says as much after you settle in there, something along the lines of, "I don't know why we ever left this place." She's 300 years old, after all. She's been around.

What Dark Brotherhood will learn of it? Are you forgetting that Astrid's chapter is the last of the dark brotherhood in all of Tamriel. You don't just kill Astrid you wipeout everyone in Falkreach Sanctuary except for Babette who isn't there if you take that questline and Cicero who hasn't arrived from Dawnstar.

That in no way implies she knew about it, it just says she likes it better. If she knew about the sanctuary or the password you wouldn't need to search through Cicero's journals for it.

It is not cold blooded when she is being cold blooded to the orphans, at least the person who takes her place actually cares about the kids (I.E she fears they might get hurt but Grelod is a different story).

Knowing of a place does not mean they have been there >.<

Yes it is cold-blooded.
You take it upon yourself to be judge, jury and executioner just because some warped kid wants an old woman dead.
Thats shes a nasty ole baggage is wholly irrelevant.
It goes against the principles of justice in any society to just kill her. She could be persuaded to retire, the authorities could be persuaded to take action, there are a million other possibilities to give the children a better life rather than just killing her.
It is never moral, or just, to take the law into your own hands like that.
Shes not agressive, and like the OP I dislike attacking people who are not actively trying to kill me.

That the only way to deal with the Dark Brotherhood is through a morally despicable act is simply ill thought out.

Just another example of where Beth should've employed the speech skill.

One could walk into the orphanage listen to the old hag talk and decide to dispose of her without ever visting Windhelm.

You don't play many fantasy RPG games do you?

Depends on your ethical basis.

Just because something is common does not make it right or moral.

Considering the fact that Dark Brotherhood Assassins come after you (quite frequently too), they could (and should) have made it sort of like Boethiah's Calling. You fight the assassin, defeat them, and look at the note on hand. You could inquire at a tavern about the DB, and they would tell you about the kid in Windhelm and Maro in Dragonbridge. The quest then tells you to visit either of them. If you go to Windhelm, you can start going down the path to join the Dark Brotherhood. If you go to Dragonsbridge, you can do a mission that leads to you destroying it instead.

You don't have to be a cold blooded murderer. You could just be checking out the circumstances that caused the little tyke to run away... Then you talk to the children at the orphanage and find out about "the room" where they are shackled in for days without food. That caused my very good-hearted character to lose it, kill Grelod, and then dismantle the DB.

It's not necessarily "cold blooded" per se. Cold blooded means, generally, that you premeditated it, planned it out, and felt nothing. You could RP it as a crime of rage (e.g. you see how horrible she is and kill her in a fit of rage). Murder? Yep. Cold blooded murder? You could argue it was hot blooded murder. I'm not saying it's right or good, mind you. Murder is murder, but the game doesn't hand you a lot of options. My character seems to murder an awful lot of people in cold, warm, tepid, and scalding blood. Adding an abusive crone to the list so I could destroy the DB didn't seem like a huge stretch.

'You can burn her with a spell using Destruction.
She dies, but didn't really kill her directly, did you?
She just dies from the burns made by fire.'

You getting what I'm trying to point out here?

You are still responsible for her death though, you murderer.

OT:
As far as I know, no, you can't.
It's a shame though.
It would be nice if there players could discover their sanctuary, report it to someone and then get the mission to destroy the DB.
DB is my favorite guild, but I'm always up for more good options!

To be fair as a Dark Brotherhood assassin you get to kill pirates and bandits too so . . .

You can't justify killing one good person by killing one bad person.
What kind of screwed logic is that?
In DB you kill and there are no limitations.
Only because you kill some bad people does not justify killings of those good ones.

Do you honestly think Grelod qualifies as a "good" person?

I don't agree with how you have to kill her to get the chance to destroy the DB either. That's why I said what I think would be a good alternative to it above.