Hi.

It seems like my past has come back to haunt me.

I'll confess that when I did the Cidhna mine breakout quest I didn't really know what I was doing. In the end I thought that I had no choice but to escape with Madanach and his cronies and that this was a decent thing morally since I perceived them as being oppressed. The forsworn have since given me endless problems and changed my mind about them completely.

Playing yesterday I partied with a group of revellers on the road to Markarth. The next in-game day, setting out on the same road, I found them all dead, slaughtered by some Forsworn. The guilt set in. After taking out the raiding party, I wandered around looking for some Forsworn to kill, since I'd liked the drunks. By fluke I got a ghost quest to recover a sword from Old Holburn. This led me straight to Madanach and his gang, holed up in a cave. The quest was spooky, so to speak and so was the fact that it led me to them like it was fated. I shot the guard outside from the cliff above before he even noticed me and crept in. It was only then that I realised they were all friendly towards me and I remembered the jail quest. Feeling guilty as I did it, I proceeded to pick them off one at a time until I found that Madanach and one of the females was essential.

I then loaded a previous save and simply took the sword from a chest, leaving all but the first guard alive.

I regret not killing Madanach when I had the chance. Does anyone know of a quest that will let me do this now? I don't even want to make Madanach and his pal non-essential and kill them in case it causes glitches further down the line, even if it's possible (I know that some characters can't be made non-essential)

Any ideas? Your thoughts would be appreciated.

Not that I know of. I think you missed your chance. I always kill him straight away because I'm annoyed that I'm even involved with the mess. Somebody kills a lady in the market, and some stranger all of a sudden throws me a note. Now I've got guards acting weird around me, and I'm in jail. Oh yeah, he's dying.

I don't see it the same way. Yes, Madanach controls the Forsworn of Druadach Redoubt, but the rest of them are acting somewhat independently, or are guided by the local hagraven. I don't regard the Forsworn as a single faction, and Madanach's own dialog agrees: "It'll take years, but I'll organize the Forsworn again."

ghastly,

that's a fair point. If the others are acting independently, the forsworn could be brought into line by Madanach and fit in better with the rest of the citizens. Putting it that way makes sense. After all, the bandits can be from any race, Orcs, Nords, elves etc. I don't go around killing every Orc just because I got mugged by a few rogue Orcish bandits.

Maybe we'll see the Forsworn developed more in a future extension and Madanach can show me what he's really made of.

I'll just have to put up with the odd comment from Markarth citizens about me being seen with them when they escaped and leave the Forsworn boys and girls alone in their hidey-hole.

Madanach does warn you to "beware the Forsworn!" His group of followers if you find them later will be non-hostile towards you at least. Seems he doesn't have control over them all.

The Silverbloods are at least as bad and given the bad blood between both sides and the Forsworn hatred of Nords in general this kind of thing is hardly surprising in a war zone. At least the Forsworn fight for a cause and their homeland, the Silverbloods are only interested in greed and the native Reachmen who still live there treated little better than slaves.

Join the Forsworn in an effort to retake their homeland form the Silverbloods? I'm so up for that. Remember they're the ones who framed and tossed you in jail in the first place, not Madanach or the Forsworn. Infact without their help you'd still be rotting in that place.

Considering what most of them get up to in secret and behind closed doors I'll not be listening to any sermons from them.

It wasn't the Forsworn who threw my current character in Cidna Mine. It was Silverblood and his corrupt guards, so yes, he helped the Forsworn escape. Plus, most of them weren't Forsworn before they got thrown in there. They were regular people who got jailed for stupid reasons...except for perhaps that thief whom Madanach had you kill. The Forsworn helped them more than the Silverbloods ever did. We also made our escape at night so that only the corrupt guards would get killed. Not to mention my character, a Bosmer, has something in common with them. The Aldmeri Dominion took over his homeland. He's also a werewolf and has some affinity with Hircine, just like the Forsworn. He wears their armor and doesn't hold a grudge against the hostile Forsworn because they are hunters just as he is a hunter, and so they hunt each other. He hunts the Thalmor too.

Note that if you talk to some of the workers near the mine, they have a very different opinion of that event than you experience with the merchants.

Blackjack Davy, I laughed at the comment about Markarth citizens...

...I've just done the quest with Eola and ended up getting an archery skill boost by wiping out every last cannibal. I then got a load of slaver from the new shopkeeper in the general store about it, even though there were no witnesses to the deed: he still bought my stuff off me though, including his relative's personal belongings.

Beckilyn, it's funny you should point that out. I hadn't been near the mine for ages until last night and heard their opinions for the first time. I got to bully the overseer at the smelter into treating them better, too.

Thanks for all the comments. It's helped me to put it in perspective and my guilty conscience is now soothed!

That poor overseer....

My character bullied him too and then broke into his house and stole all his valuables for the thieves guild.

As for Eola, my character went along with the Namira thing due to daedric compulsion mixed with a bit of werewolf, but then later he sacrificed Eola to another daedra. It just seemed fitting. He'll have every daedra battling for his soul by the time he's done!

Aw crap, you can do that? I got as far as clearing all the Draughr out of the cave, and she told me to lure the priest back so there would be a feast. I thought to myself, "well I'm not going to lure an innocent priest to his death" so I just killed her before leaving the cave and broke the quest!

It never even occurred to me that I'd be able to set things right later.