Should I join or Destroy the dark brotherhood?

I am currently playing a sneak archer/dagger user. My RP is "Adventures with Faendal" and I use light armor, but I have RPed mainly "morally correct" but willing to do some immoral things when it gets the job done (I did the thieves guild up to the Skeleton Key).

My question is, should I join the dark brotherhood or destroy it? I always get mad that they kidnap me, but I'm not sure if I want to join this go around or not

Destroy:

Get a great dagger to partner Mehrunes Razor relatively easily, can go back to mainly doing sidequests as per my RP, get decent armor (that likely won't replace nightingale)

Join:

Get really good Ancient Shrouded Armor that is perfect for my build, but takes a while, and takes me off of side quests, and also looks kinda dumb (if it looks like regular shrouded), BUT would allow me to give my armor to Faendal

I like that the Ancient Shrouded gives one handed damage rather than strictly backstab damage, but I still don't know what to do. Advice?

"Morally correct but willing to do some immoral things": Destroy the Dark Brotherhood, kill Grelod the Kind to save Skyrim of these people and save countless innocent lives. You get the Blade of Woe and 3,000 septims, which is NOTHING compared to the monetary rewards you get from the DB, but looking at your roleplay I'd destroy it.

Destroy the Dark Bruvahud. Faendal will attack you if you Murder/Assault Friendly NPCs so if you join the DB then don't have Faendal with you.

I was leaning toward destroy... but dat ancient armor

If all you really want from the DB questline is the Ancient Shrouded Armour, then destroy the DB. You don't need to join to get that armour - there's a little exploit you can use to get the Ancient Shrouded Armour.

If you do not do the quest, the corpse with the armour is still in Hag's End, just that the chain to open the door does not exist. If you get the power from that stone which lets you animate corpses within a certain radius (Ritual Stone, I think), stand as close to the door as possible, and use the power - you will animate the dead DB chappie too although he's still trapped in his little room. You then just need to run to the exit, open the door and exit to Skyrim (or use any door which takes you to a new cell) and any animated corpse, including the DB chappie, will be there with you.. Then just wait for the effects of the stone to wear off and loot him.

Wow! I would have never have thought of that trick! Thanks for sharing.

I got it off these forums too - there's no way I could have thought of something like this either. But it worked like a charm