I liked the Thieves Guild questline in vanilla Skyrim. I had been playing mostly as a bit of a boy scout, and it doing things that were slightly bad was a refreshing change of pace. But there were some annoyances, and a friendly modder has gone and done an overhaul on the entire Thieves Guild to make it more fun and less of a pain.
Thieves Guild Reborn adds a bunch of fun new dynamics to the Thieves Guild. Perhaps most notably, the guild will be in sorry shape when you first arrive – Modder SenterPat has added cobwebs, heaps of dirt, and a bunch more rats to the place in its initial state. What’s neat is that as you complete the guild’s radiant quests and bring in more loot, the guild itself will reflect its improving conditions. The layout changes, it gets tidied up, and you eventually have a chance at a daily reward. Once you’ve completed the first upgrade, a trapdoor will appear in Riften that takes you straight down to the Ragged Flagon, bypassing a couple loading screens.
You also get your own room to use, which initially just contains a bare bed, but which also improves as you complete more quests. If you’ve purchased Honeyside, you’ll eventually have direct access from your room at the guild to your house in Riften.
There’s even a set of passageways you can unlock so that you can travel from the Thieves Guild into the heart of any of Skyrim’s major cities, bypassing all the gate guards. You’ll have to find and clear them from the cities first, but once you do, you’ll be able to zip right back inside without alerting anyone.
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It’s an ambitious mod, and I’ve only touched on some of the top-level details. SenterPat has also reworked thief armor sets (thief sets all include gloves now, which makes a lot of sense) and Nightingale equipment – now, you’ll receive those pieces of gear without any enchantments, but unlock enchantments as you gain levels.
You can read the full list of additions and changes over at NexusMods, which is where you can download Thieves Guild Reborn as well. You will need to own all the DLC for the original PC version of Skyrim, and install the Unofficial Skyrim Legendary Edition Patch first.