Alright, everyone in markarth wants to kill me for some reason, is this supposed to happen? how am i supposed to talk to raerek?

did you do any part of the quest involving the foresworn? I don't remember the name Raerek so I'm not recalling if he's part of the chain or not.

if you're too far into that chain you're going to have to go through it the rest of the way or never go back to Markarth because the guards are going to arrest you and put you in the cidna mine. it's a painless little chain, and for some people is really nothing they want anything to do with.

yea i already finished all the forsworn quests and i was just strolling happily through markarth before this Compelling Tribute stormcloak quest. Raerek is the steward by the way but i dont know how to talk to him cause everyone is hostile towards me.

Are you on the PC or Console? If you're on the PC, you can use a console command to fix this. From UESP:

"This can be fixed on PC by waiting for a guard to confront you, then opening the console and selecting the guard by clicking on them. With the guard selected type paycrimegold into the console."

looks like Avilyn found the same answer I did... wow, sorry it's crappy. hope that helps.

I'm on the X box :/ and i'm not sure if this is a bug or if they are supposed to be hostile towards me and that there really is some way to talk to raerek.

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How I fixed it on the xbox 360, patch 1.3, after doing the forsworn thing---


I found a post somewhere with a long, detailed drawn out thing to do that I did not understand. But I read the part where the guy said he zoned into the
temple of talos in Markarth, then basically what he did. This is what worked for me:


I had sneak going into markarth, then snuck to the temple of talos there.

A guard inside did the old guard thing they do, "Halt", then when I hit the option to pay bounty (or whatever, ) he ignored it. Then I sheathed my weapon again.

ANOTHER guard came in from outside then (which is part of what the post I found was talking about.)

THAT guard then has the halt thing to, with the option to pay the bounty (mine was up to 5,000 by then) THAT one really let me pay it. No more
trouble with markarth guards now.

So something about the temple of talos does seem to help, when the guard(s) inside is/are aggro and then another comes from outside.

i'll give it a try, i just wish there was a way where i didnt have to pay bounty. in fact, i dont have any bounty on my character and i'm not sure if this is a glitch or not; maybe the people of markarth are supposed to all be hostile, but if thats so, there has to be some way i can talk to raerek the steward

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oh WOOOOW sorry about your time guys, i just realized my vampirism was at 100% xD!!!! which is odd cause i swear i just fed but no matter now i know what the problem is

You can fix it by handing Markarth to the Stormcloaks during the Negotiation table part of the main quest or probably by siding with the Imperials during the civil war as well because both will replace the Jarl and Guard faction.
How I got round it purely by accident on the PC without resorting to mad plans or console commands.