Npcs

Nobody in Skyrim walks beside you for free. A mercenary wants 500 gold. A trainer wants gold for every skill point. A spouse wants a 200-gold amulet and a roof. An orphan wants a bed. A follower wants a favor done first, and the gods and dragon priests want a quest or a fight before they hand anything over. This guide sorts the folder's twelve character pages by that price, from the ones you pay in coin to the ones you pay in blood, because knowing the price up front is the difference between recruiting someone in a minute and discovering a questline you did not plan for.

Paid up front: seven hirelings at 500 gold

A hireling is the simplest company in the game: 500 gold in a tavern, and a sword or a spell follows you out. They level with you to a cap of 40, or 60 for the Solstheim mercenary, and dismissing one sends him back to the tavern where you found him, unless he has since married you, become your steward or joined the Blades. Rehiring costs another 500.

Paid per skill point: trainers

Every trainer sells skill levels for a fee, and the alchemy page spells out the ration: five skill levels per character level, and no further than 75 from a shop alchemist. A journeyman, expert and master exists for most of the eighteen skills, and the master is usually inside a faction, which is the hidden price.

Several trainers are also people you can hire or marry, which the page does not say but the other pages in this folder make plain: Farkas and Aela train and marry, Balimund trains and marries, Scouts-Many-Marshes trains and marries. What the eighteen skills do, and the cap the trainers are rationed against, is the subject of the skills guide.

Paid in favors: followers, and one horse

The followers page lists the companions who cost no gold but ask for something first. Sven and Faendal are a pair: deliver Sven's letter to Camilla and Sven follows you, expose Sven instead and Faendal does. Lydia comes with the thaneship after Dragon Rising. Uthgerd the Unbroken has to be beaten in a 100-gold brawl at the Bannered Mare. Illia joins after you help her against the hagravens of Darklight Tower southwest of Riften. Cicero follows if you spare him in Cure for Madness, J'zargo if you test his scrolls at Saarthal, Aela once the Companions questline is done, and Lucien Lachance arrives as the Spectral Assassin power from Bound Until Death. Barbas, the talking dog, stays with you for as long as you never finish his master's quest.

The strangest recruit is a horse. Arvak is a Dawnguard summon rather than a purchase: after Chasing Echoes, on the way back through the Soul Cairn, a soul calls his name and asks you to find him, and his skull sits on an altar east of the great castle among wraiths. Return it and the soul teaches a spell that needs 136 magicka to cast. Arvak cannot be called inside walled cities or the Forgotten Vale, but he works on Solstheim where no other horse can go, takes fall damage in your place, never counts as dead because he can be re-summoned mid-fight, and doubles with the Twin Souls perk. On paper his numbers are modest, a level-4 mount carrying 289 health and 106 stamina against Shadowmere's 1,637 and 198 and Frost's 562 and 148, and the page argues that infinite lives beat the numbers.

Paid with an amulet and a house: marriage

Marriage costs 200 gold for the Amulet of Mara from Maramal at the Temple of Mara in Riften, a house for the spouse to live in, and usually one favor. Our pages count 34 eligible men and 28 eligible women, note that some races and combinations are ruled out, and allow same-sex marriage; the mechanics of the ceremony are on the how to marry page. A spouse cooks, can run a shop that pays a daily cut, and can follow you. The husbands and wives pages rank them, and the table below keeps only what you have to do.

Paid with a bed: adoption

Adoption needs Hearthfire, a child's room with a bed and a dresser in a house you own, and the Dark Brotherhood quest Innocence Lost done first; no spouse is required and the limit is two children. The best kids page lists the benefits, a healing bonus called Father's or Mother's Love for sleeping under the same roof and a Gift of Charity bonus for allowances and presents, and ranks ten candidates with Britte, Sissel, Sofie and Alesan at the top. The adoptable children page splits the whole list in two. Nine are adoptable on sight: Alesan in Dawnstar, Blaise at Katla's Farm, Lucia in Whiterun, Sofie in Windhelm, and Dorthe, Francois Beaufort, Hroar, Runa Fair-Shield and Samuel at Honorhall Orphanage. Fourteen more only become orphans if their parents die, from the Rorikstead twins whose father Lemkil has to go, to Braith in Whiterun, Frodnar in Riverwood and Aeta in the Skaal village; a child whose parents die anywhere in Skyrim is sent to Honorhall and can be adopted there or on the spot. Which houses have room for a child's bedroom is in the locations guide.

Paid with a quest or a fight: princes and priests

The Daedric princes page ranks all seventeen and pairs each with the quest that reaches them: Molag Bal with The House of Horrors, Mehrunes Dagon with Pieces of the Past, Boethiah with Boethiah's Calling, Vaermina with Waking Nightmare, Namira with The Taste of Death, Sheogorath with The Mind of Madness, Hircine with Ill Met by Moonlight, Peryite with The Only Cure, Hermaeus Mora with Discerning the Transmundane, Sanguine with A Night to Remember, Clavicus Vile with A Daedra's Best Friend, Mephala with The Whispering Door, Meridia with The Break of Dawn, Malacath with The Cursed Tribe, Azura with The Black Star, Nocturnal with Darkness Returns, and Jyggalag, whose quest belongs to Oblivion's Shivering Isles. The page's summary and reward columns are being checked against the artifact list, so for what each prince actually hands over use the items guide, and for the weapons among them the weapons guide. You cannot become a prince without a mod.

Dragon priests charge a fight, usually at a word wall, and pay in masks. Eight base-game masks placed on the pedestals of the Bromjunaar Sanctuary in Labyrinthian, reached through the Wooden Mask on a skeleton by the broken shrine, reveal a ninth, Konahrik, which heals you and hurts nearby enemies when your health runs low. Dragonborn adds four more.

Paid in coin over a counter: vendors

The vendors page is the folder's phone book, listing by trade the apothecaries, bartenders, blacksmiths and the Imperial and Stormcloak quartermasters at every war camp, carriage drivers at the five stables, fences from Gulum-Ei in Solitude to Tonilia in the Ragged Flagon and the caravan Khajiit, fletchers, food stalls, general stores, innkeepers, the two jewelers, spell vendors at every court and the College, and the stablemasters. The alchemy shops page walks to eight of them door by door, because each also trains and has a lab you can use.

Character questions

Which hirelings will not marry?

By the hirelings page's own data blocks, Erik the Slayer, Vorstag and Teldryn Sero. The other four will, once hired.

Do I need to be married to adopt?

No. A house with a child's room and Innocence Lost are the only requirements, and the cap is two children however many homes you own.

Which followers cost nothing at all?

Lydia and the other housecarls, who come with a title, and Barbas, who comes with an unfinished quest. Everyone else asks a favor or a fee, and the archetype each one suits is matched in the builds guide; the whole cast is indexed on the Skyrim hub.