Top 5 Factions in Skyrim

Welcome back everybody to another of Fowl Play's Top 5 Blogs. For this list we're going to cover our favourite five join-able factions in the Elder Scrolls game: Skyrim. Whilst they're all plenty of fun, we could only choose five so we for each faction we looked at which had the best missions, rewards and characters to help us decide what guilds made the cut.

We hope you enjoy the read and let us know in the comments if you think one of the factions deserves to be higher or lower on the list. Thanks!

Lets kick things off with some spicy magic shall we?
The reasons we think the College of Winterhold deserves this spot is because the quest-line and rewards for completing it are just what you need to create a bad ass mage. Upon completion, your character can walk away with an all powerful staff known as the Staff of Magnus, a dragonpriest mask ideal for boosting the stats for any mage and J'zargo. That's right, the strongest companion in the base game of Skyrim. Worth it.

The College of Winterhold quest line even lets you explore that wonderful place we call the Labyrinthian, what more could you want after traversing through that dreamland? Your own chambers with plenty of alchemical ingredients and 'magical' junk for enchanting? Well you got it! Another great reward from the faction.
Only thing is, if your character isn't particularly magical based, then this faction doesn't really make sense for you even if you can complete the entirety of its story whilst only casting a few novice spells. At least J'zargo can be of great use to a phoney mage character.

On we move to the great warriors of Skyrim, The Companions. These guys are definitely deserving of their spot on this list due to the array of bad ass followers you can have on your side after joining the guild. If you ever wanted a true hardy Nord follower then this was the place for you, whether it be two handed melee, one handed melee, or ranged, they had it all with the greatest being Farkas, Vilkas and Aela. Though you weren't able to have Kodlak as a follower, he's still worth a mention because of his coolness and wisdom.

But lets not forget the greatest benefit from being a Companion: the awesome ability of being a Werewolf! Once you have the ability (combined with Hircine's ring) there is no limit to how much fun you can have running around the wilds of Skyrim whilst massacring anything unfortunate enough to cross paths with you. Overburdened? Just transform and get yourself near civilisation in no time, just dont get seen changing back. You've beaten the carry limit system, well done you magical beast.
It's just a shame the end reward of Wuuthrad isn't particularly amazing. Like it's cool and all but there's room for improvement for the War-axe that belonged to a legendary Companion leader.

Things take a dark turn now with the ominous band of assassins known as the Dark Brotherhood. Simply the fact that this faction is a bunch of unique and mysterious assassins puts them on this list. It brings a certain malice to the world of Skyrim that adds to its diversity and awesomeness.
Aside from being given a sweet set of assassin's attire, you're given a series of interesting and enjoyable quests revolving around a build up to the guild's biggest contract yet. The preparations and murders you commit through the quest line give this guild one of the best story line's out of the lot. In our opinion.
In your spare time, you're also able to complete a multiple contracts on real citizens throughout Skyrim, real as in they are named and not randomly generated. Those characters were probably people you've come across before on your travels but now you're returning under less than ideal circumstances. Think of it as if you're thinning out the herd of Skyrim's populace.

The only big disappointment with this faction was that the main named assassins such as Veezara and Arnbjorn could not be followers for the Dragonborn instead we were given 2 generic assassin followers referred to ass Dark Brotherhood Initiates. Although you do get Cicero as a follower if you spare him and he's quite entertaining bringing a form of joviality to murdering.
Another great reward from the Dark Brotherhood is the tank of a horse known as Shadowmere; the best horse you can find in the game due to his quicker health regen and higher stamina. Just another reason why you SHOULDN'T destroy the brotherhood.

Now there's plenty of great rewards to be found from being with the Thieves Guild and we're not talking about the stuff you just steal during the quests. No there's plenty of incredible rewards to be earned from sticking with the Guild and completing their quality story line - The story line of betrayal and riches. Amongst the many rewards is the stunning nightingale armour and weapons. The entire set can make your thief character really look the part of a nameless master thief dedicated to Nocturnal.
Though if you'd rather be a dishonest thief (ironic), you can also choose to betray the guild and keep Nocturnal's precious daedric artefact to yourself, an artefact that will TRULY make you into a master thief, rather than help your guild's fortunes.

Though you cant have any followers from this guild, there's plenty of people there willing to have interesting conversations with you and give you all the training and theft missions you would want. Another great feature of the Thieves Guild is that you have the ability to completely transform the run down ratway / ragged flagon by helping the guild's fortunes by spreading its influence throughout the Skyrim Holds. The end result is worthwhile as you now have a bustling marketplace within your thieve's den offering nearly all the goods you could want.

Finally we come to the repulsive vampire clan brought to us by the magnificent Dawnguard DLC. As if being able to be a part of a vampire cult wasn't cool enough for your sinister Dragonborn, you're given the top notch ability of becoming a Vampire Lord making you a 'wolf amongst sheep'. Being a werewolf is great but it simply doesn't hold a candle up against the Vampire Lord. You're able to fling your victims around with your immense magic abilities or super strength.
A shame the only hindrance is the light from the sun right? WRONG! By completing this quest line you're also given a solution to the pesky sun by blotting it out by corrupting the power of a God. If that doesn't sound like an interesting trail of events then we don't know what is.

Though we could go on and on about why we love the Vampire Lord ability, there are other reasons why we put this faction as our number one. One of them being the interesting characters that reside within the castle (much more interesting than those at Fort Dawnguard), the sinister politicking that goes on between the top members makes for a great game of thrones theme. It's just a shame there wasn't a quest where this all came to a head between Orthjolf and Vingalmo - two of the top Clan members.
Lets also not forget the swanky Castle you are given as your base of operations as a vampire. Beats any mediocre cave that lesser vampires chill in. As the Vampire leader, you're even able to reinstate the access to the Castle's courtyard and bring Valerica back to tend to the garden making a beneficial alchemy supply area. Again though, there is so much more potential with the castle like reopening more of the building to give you your own armoury, library and even a war room to plan your domination over Skyrim. To be honest, there's probably a mod out for this already.

Despite this faction sharing a majority of its story line with the alternative Dawnguard faction, it just feels better played out if you are a vampire because you spend so much of the time with Serana; a vampire and you even venture into an realm not meant for the living - The Soul Cairn. Nevertheless, the storyline for this faction / DLC was phenomenal and well worth the dragonborn's time.

And on that bombshell, we thank you for reading today's Top 5 blog, we hope you enjoyed it. Please up-vote if you did and let us know your opinions in the comments. Were you more of a Dawnguard fan over the Vampires? Do you think the Bard's College Faction should be number one? Please share your thoughts.
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We did not take any of the screen shots within this blog, credit goes to the people who took them though because they look on point.
Here, enjoy some artwork we liked the look of that relates to this blog.

See you next time.