This will contain numerous spoilers most likely.

I'll be as vague as possible so as not to spoil too much, but I just escaped the inescapable and seemed to have, at least slightly, allied myself with the Forsworn. During my investigation leading up to my wrongful incarceration and escape I used Persuade successfully every time it was offered, but, ultimately, still had to fight my way out. I'll answer questions if y'all ask for more info - I'm just trying to keep this as vague as possible for people who happen across this thread so the one's who've completed this will know about what I'm talking.

1) I didn't kill any guards during the escape (I let the Forsworn do it) - would those have counted as "Assaults"/"Murders" had I fought? None of the guards attacked me so I just hung back. XD

2) Is there any other outcome other than the leader escaping and killing the Jarl-esque guy (and the chick necromancing him - that was awesome BTW XD )? I know there's no Karma meter like in Fallout 3, but there are definitely degrees of rightness and wrongness so are there mulitiple paths to take in Markarth?

3) Am I allied with the Forsworn or were those just words when I was referred to as, "one of us"?

FWIW: I'm not going back to a previous Save on this character - I'll let my actions stand - I'm just curious for future playthroughs on future character-lesses.

1) I do believe it would be a crime to attack the guards.
2) you could have killed the leader of the forsworn.
3) No you're not.

Even though you helped them, all Forsworn will continue to attack you on sight.

Other options include killing the leader of the guys in the prison, or playing along with them til you escape... but then stabbing him in the back

Well when I played this through the first time I lost some quest-givers in the bloodbath.
I didn't like that, so I did reload and turned against the Forsworn as soon as possible.
I was able to save the townsfolk and I got a special reward from the rich guy who I was able to keep alive.
But some of the townsfolk still make suspicious statements to me about how I was with the Forsworn during the escape.

Actually that's an interesting quest from a moral point of view. Especially for a noble character. You can't get out of jail without murdering someone. So you either murder one guy for no other reason than that he's (like you) not part of the ruling gang, or you murder their "king" and slip away. If you do the former, Markath's streets are painted red, if you do the later, everyone else in the prison will be killed (not so tough all of a sudden?)

The guy loitering near the treasury perfectly sumarizes that quest: "Just turn around and leave the city, that's the smart move."

Ooooo, I'll try that on a future character. XD

When I escaped it was nighttime and I only saw guards on the streets (alive during and dead afterwards) so I got lucky maybe? :\
And I didn't care for Thonar so I'm glad he's dead...of course someone worse could always come along.

Yeah, I'm trying to be noble on this one. ...and when I refer to "Murder" I'm speaking for my Crime Stats not just killing of people who seem innocent. XD

I have 1 Murder in my stats and I honestly have no idea who it was. :\

That's good advice for the whole city, actually. XD Riften of the west!

i don't like the foresworn or madonach or whatever his name is, so as soon i seem, i kill him, right away, with frost storm spell and then i leave the mine and get my reward for killing the idiot...i live in markarth and its my favorite town so i ain't gonna be losing any important merchants or other people.

It is beautiful there.

I think I lucked out being nighttime when we escaped because I found all the Merchants where they were supposed to be after I "waited" until morning. I waited because my Amulet of Talos was missing so I was going to check the pawn shop and the jewelry merchant, but at some point it reappeared in my inventory when I awoke from my stroke-induced coma. XD

Edit: I was disappointed that I couldn't improve the Shivs at a grindstone. XD

Hmm, it's more complex than that. The leader is sending orders to his contacts outside the prison to murder innocent civilians on the basis that they are intruders on his forefathers ancestoral land 200 years hence. The silver-bloods have been using him to keep the forsworn in check but really his is simply biding his time to strike against them. What we have is a mafia-like family operation on one side, and a far right extremist on the other. At the silver-bloods might be terrible people, but releasing the forsworn's king will incite a war that will see hundreds, maybe thousands dead; most of them innocent civilians who's only crime is living in what was once forsworn land.

If this still seems fair, consider the timeframe; 200 years. This is equivalent to people of native American descent suddenly taking up arms and swearring to purge the land of European Americans... it's answering one injustice with another injustice too many years too late.

Their claim to their land dates back much longer. The Reachmen were in Tamriel long before Ysgramor arrived over 5000 years ago. Where the Bretons lived as second class citizens in the Elven society, the Reachmen lived a free yet simple life, and continued to do so when the Nords came in numbers and clubbed the Falmer into submission. Most were "civilized" since then, a few withdrew in inhospitable areas and were just known as the Witchmen of the Reach, until they saw their chance and seized Markath 30 years ago during the Empire-Aldmeri Dominion war. When Ulfric and his men came back, they gave them the short shrift, and showed little mercy, nobody even bothered to make up any tales about crimes commited by the Witchmen during their two years rule. They weren't Nords, and they were rebellious, that was reason enough to torture and execute them in numbers. Ever since then, the survivors call themselves the Forsworn and are a threat to everyone.

It's still hard to justify the civilian casualties they desire to inflict (let's be clear here this isn't a case of collateral damage, it's not even aimed at the nords who threw them out. They want all non-forsworn to get out "their lands" or die; no questions asked, no reperations, no discussion) on the basis they want back the lands they lost in a war long past. The civilians they are killing are not the ones who took their land, in many cases the civilians they are killing are not even the same species



Which always makes me smile when you think about it... if you cross the species border where do you draw the line?

An imperial? - A race of man
An elf? - Are least man-shaped
A khajiit? - Now we're stretching it...
A senche-raht khajiit? - If humanoid khajiit are fair game then so are the tigerlike senche-raht
A sabretooth tiger? - They look just like senche-raht...


...by the end of the slippery slope I imagine the Forsworn chasing the local mountain goats, cows, wolves all over the show, machete raised high in the air screaming "THE REACH FOR THE FORSWORN!"

Just because someone is a civilian doesn't make them a lamb. I'm sure this will blow into an all out political debate, but war is total. If a civilian works in a foundry that makes weapons are they "innocent"? If a farmer provides food for the armies are they "innocent"? War is ugly and must be total or you always have pockets of resistance for people to bemoan for centuries and eons.

Edited for spelling.

But this is how political motivated terrorism works in real life, like it or not, but most political factions are based on real life examples, just compare the irish war of independence during WW I with what the Forsworn tried in the Empire-Dominion war.

You coulda just have not joined in the fighting? Just sat back and had a little mead and enjoyed the sunshine for a few hours till the whole silly battle was over and done with?
They dont exactly sit around and shout at you if you dont put on the manky horrible armour they give you when you get out. It smells like ass anyway.

I'm going to be trying this option. This would be one of my favorite quests if it weren't for the glitched guards in the Shrine. I do hope Bethesda fixes that.

There's a book called This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen. It's a compilation of accounts and in one of them a priest did nothing and kept his head down. At some point in his story he says, "If you wait long enough eventually they will come for you, too.". It's been years since I read it so the quote probably isn't precise, but that's definitely the message.

First they came for the communists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew.

Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came%E2%80%A6

That's the one.

That's almost true. After helping the Foreswarn leader escape the mine, I had a subsequent quest to retrieve something from a dungeon. The dungeon was a Foreswarn hideout, and I had to fight those outdoors. Once I entered the cave, the first person I met was the Foreswarn leader, who greated me as a friend. All of the Foreswarn were friendly and I took advantage of their hospitality by using their smithing equipment. Later, I received a radiant quest to kill the Foreswarn leader in that same cave. I'll probably not do this one, as those Foreswarn are the only friendly ones in the game.

Do it sneaky like and no one need know who did it.

hah, that's beautifull.
But sorry, I'm not sticking up for a bunch of heathen dirty scum who wear smelly uniform and make their blades and armour out of what, it that anyway, string? Strips of string and ass?
I shall not be coerced into anything*, damnit! I'll be a solitary army of one if nescessary!


*that three way with some of the guards didnt count.

You can re-enter the cave after you got out and wait 2-3 hours so no guard will turn hostile against you. If you're quick enough, nobody in the streets will be killed. Of course the people in town will still comment on how bloody the escape was.

During the MQ I turned Markath to the Stormcloacks and then conquered it again in the civil war campaign. The silver blood guy who usurped the throne ended up in Windhelm along the other exiled Jarls but then they disappeared after the city fell. I presume their heads rolled along with Ulfric's and his supporters.

If you want to get rid of the Silver-Blood mafia family the only way (without getting a bounty) is to have one of the brothers killed is the escape and the other as a victim of the civil war.

Except for one cave, yes. There's a console command to make the Forsworn faction friendly or, at least, non-hostile (and some Hargravens, too! )