Disclaimer: The story of the Corvus Rem series that takes place in the Elder Scrolls world is not canon. The Dragonborn prophecy never happened, and Alduin never returned (or if you prefer, the Dragonborn never joined the Dark Brotherhood and the Thieves Guild). There will be many changes and deviation from the Elder Scrolls lore to fit the story and the new world building like the John Wick movie series. Also plot holes are bound to be found, as I will not be able to identify and meticulously check every detail on how this new story and world changes fit into the Elder Scrolls world. The planned series are pure fan fiction and these changes to the ES world are not permanent. This series was done out of my love for the Elder Scrolls series and the John Wick movie series. I hope you will find my stories as an enjoyable past time readings.
Introduction:
After at least one year after the main event of Skyrim, the Dark Brotherhood had a massive resurgence, and the Black Hand was reborn. Tamriel has learned to fear the Dark Brotherhood once again. The brotherhood worked actively to reopen Dark Brotherhood sanctuaries all over Tamriel and even created a few new ones in the province of Vvardenfell. Countless recruits are being recruited again thanks to the combined effort of the Black Hand and the Night Mother. One of the people who helped the rebirth of the Black Hand also proposed to semi merge the Thieves Guild and the Dark Brotherhood together into a combined criminal organization. After many consolidations with the guild masters and the members of the Dark Brotherhood, this led to the creation of The Shadow Continental. The formation of The Shadow Continental also led to the creation of several refuges all over Tamriel called Shadow Continental ground. These are places where members of the Dark Brotherhood and the Thieves Guild can gather to mingle, plan, rest, restock gears, fence stolen properties, clear bounties, train, bribing, and many other criminal benefits. Those refuges are often secret unknown to the general populace and are hidden within major cities or areas not far from major cities. Despite the semi-merging of the two organizations, businesses are still separately conducted to the respective organizations to avoid serious conflicts. If a form of conflict does occur through conflicting jobs from both organization, compensations and reprimands are made from one of the organizations. The Black Sacrament ritual is still required if one is to hire the Dark Brotherhood to assassinate someone and clients must contact Thieves Guild members separately if they want to arrange a job. Since the formation of The Shadow Continental, the combined organization has gained a powerful grips against a lot of rulers in major cities all over Tamriel. Usually, rulers and politicians turn a blind eye because they’re paid off, threatened, black mailed, or in some cases come to a mutual agreement. While the existence of The Shadow Continental remains largely a secret, employing the services of either organization have become more accessible.
The Shadow Continental Ground are primarily exclusive only to members of the Dark Brotherhood, the Thieves Guild, and people who have dealings with either organization (which may include crime lords and powerful influential individuals). Other freelance mercenaries, assassins, thieves, rogues, and other dubious individuals are welcome as well but will not receive significant benefits from the refuge. Freelance individuals will not know how to find those refuges whereas members of the Dark Brotherhood/Thieves Guild are given information of how to find these refuges. Very few exceptions from certain groups are not welcome such as Morag Tongs. The formation of The Shadow Continental Ground also led to the creation of two rules:
- No business is allowed in the Shadow Continental Grounds. This includes:
- Killing a member
- Thievery/Theft
- Blood Oath markers must be honored from both parties.
If anyone breaks any one of the rules, punishments usually result in death (doubly so for members of the Dark Brotherhood since The Five Tenets also applies to The Shadow Continental grounds). However in some cases, the person running the specific Shadow Continental Ground can pass "excommunicado", which bans the offender of accessing those refuges and services indefinitely (cannot be applied for Dark Brotherhood members if they also broke one of the tenets as they still have to face the Wrath of Sithis).
The Blood Oath markers (as mentioned above) is a new form services that can only be found in Shadow Continental. The markers can be used to gain favors from members within Shadow Continental or even powerful and influential people in Tamriel such as rulers, mages, generals, crime lords, and even politicians. The person can use a Blood Oath marker to gain a heavy favor and must imprint their blood print inside the marker. If the other party agrees to the blood oath, they must honor the first party’s favor. In return, the second party will ask the first party for a favor of equal value/price. If one party refuses to honor the blood oath after helping the other party, consequences are severe (in some cases, the second party can inflict the said consequences until the first party comply). Killing the bearer of the mark or avoidance without honoring the oath results in death as punishment. Once both parties have honored the oath, the marker is complete, and the transaction will be recorded among the ledgers in The Shadow Continental. Blood oath markers are extremely rare and extremely expensive as the value of favors gained through blood oath can often be high.
Replies
The Frozen Prince here, we met on the discord. Interesting premise you have here. Funnily enough I actually also came up with a Dark Brotherhood/Thieves Guild Merger back in my old fics. Prime helped me title it too: The Crimson Doves. Excited to see what you do with this idea!
Thanks! I came up with this idea in order to justify the stories about Corvus Rem and the timeline/settings he's in.